Hola all. Massawyrm here.
You know, in the hundreds of reviews I’ve written, I’ve never even once rescinded one. While the rare film would occasionally crop up that my opinion changed on over time and multiple viewings, it was always something like Oceans Eleven (which went from me thinking it was fun fluff I’d never watch again to a film I’ve watched dozens of times and love keeping on in the background while I paint, work or clean) or The Hulk (which I loved the first time but found in subsequent viewings to fall flat and justly equal the criticism.) Never has my opinion on a film changed so drastically, and so rapidly, that it demanded an entirely different review. But this one does. I take it back…I take most of it back.
Man, was I snowed.
I’ll admit it – I was totally punk’d. When I watched Horrors of War I was floored. No one, I mean no one, makes a movie this cheesy this seriously. Not anymore at least. Sure, back in the 50’s movies like this were a staple. Roger Corman made a career out of pumping these out in under two weeks. Get in, get the shot and get out – because we’re filming another one next week. The kids will love it as long as it has a monster – who cares what it looks like? And that kind of film making still exists today as the Direct to Video market has created company after company that doesn’t give two shits about the quality as long as there’s a rapper or a monster on the box cover. But nobody spends the amount of time and effort on these films like someone obviously put into Horrors of War or like Val Lewton put into his old school low budget classics, or even misguidedly so like the infamous Ed Wood. These guys all wanted desperately to make a good movie. Didn’t they?
For those that initially read my review here I was obviously very conflicted and still unsure of the films intent. All I knew was that it was a bad movie, but one I enjoyed watching. Twice. So despite my longstanding rule of not beating up on bad undistributed indies, I had to break my own caveat and get the word out for my fellow brethren out there that love a good bad movie. I mean, this film reminded me of such classic gems as ‘Fiend without a Face’, ‘They Saved Hitler’s Brain’ and ‘THEM!’ But WTF? Those movies are 50 years old. These guys aren’t using any of the original techniques, they’re not shooting on Black & White, and unlike the brilliantly hilarious ‘Destination Mars’, they aren’t making deliberate mistake after deliberate mistake. But it was possible. I mean – it sure FELT like an old school monster movie, but it was filmed to the brim with modern filmmaking styles and tricks. This HAD to be a mistake. I didn’t want it to be, but if it wasn’t a mistake, it showed a tremendous amount of restraint by never allowing itself for one moment to wink at the camera. And if they were trying to make that film, why the hell didn’t their website or press materials even hint at that? Why was it taking it so seriously?
Well, immediately after my bi-polar “I fucking hate it/I fucking love because I hate it” review was posted this morning I received an e-mail containing this passage:
”Hey Massawyrm,
Thanks for the review, and for mentioning this week's screenings. You
get it. The film is an homage to all those 40s & 50s B-movies and war
films we grew up watching on weekend scifi/horror host shows like
SuperHost (Cleveland channel 43).”
Once again I was stunned. Huh? I mean, seriously? This is what I’d hoped the movie was, but despite watching it twice, despite reading all of the press materials and watching interviews on the website, I hadn’t found a single stitch of information leaning this way. Everything seemed to be screaming ‘We were dead serious making this.’ So I sat down immediately to watch it a third time. Now, this is a common practice for me. Whenever there’s a movie I hate or find myself extremely disappointed in, but others seem to love, I always sit down to watch it again. The way you watch a movie, what you bring in with you or the setting you see it in, often has a huge effect on how you perceive it. So with homage in mind I sat down to watch it again and found it…perfect.
Horrors of War hits every note almost perfectly. It’s supposed to be bad. But as I said in the initial review, they never half ass it. They treat the material just as seriously as any of the truly inspired but under-funded filmmakers of old did. But in making an homage, rather than simply goofing on it, their level of homage goes right into the realm of “Homage by emulation” rather than “Homage by parody.” There are no deliberate mistakes – only deliberate cliché’s, deliberately stilted dialog and absolutely deliberately cheesy monsters. If the filmmakers made one mistake, one critical error in judgment, it was that they never let on outside of the movie what it was meant to be. To the casual observer, hell, to the well-trained observer, this looks like a bad film. But when watched with the right mindset, one that knows exactly what they’re going for, well – rather than missing the mark, it scores a bulls eye, making a perfect emulation of those old school films that aimed high and missed.
When I said this film had a lot of heart, I meant it. I just didn’t realize how much. These guys LOVE old school monster movies. So much so that by making one themselves, they didn’t just want to openly poke fun at it – they wanted to quietly giggle along with us. I stand by my early statements: It’s a bad movie. But one that is finely crafted to be so. It’s fun, funny and campy in all the right ways. I still highly recommend this to anyone who loves bad movies, but now I also highly recommend it to those who love a good homage or those people, like myself, who love to sit down for an afternoon of Val Lewton movies (which, fuck it, I’m going to do today. An “I Walked with a Zombie” and “Cat People” double feature sounds perfect right about now. Now there’s a guy who knew how to make a fucking no budget monster movie!)
For those that missed the first review, or wrote it off, let me reiterate. If you live in Indianapolis, it’s playing Tuesday May 9th at the Keystone Theatre at 7PM…but for us Austinites, it’s playing this Thursday, May 11th at 7PM at the Dobie. Knowing that bad horror movies have a hard time getting picked up outside of DtV – and that homage films have an even harder time, this may be your one chance to check out and support this love letter to the genre.
But before I go, here’s a few notes and corrections about my previous review:
On the statement: "...from artificial grain added to video footage ..." Producer Phil Garrett had this to say: “Just wanted to let you know that there is no video footage in the film. Ninety-five+ percent was shot on Super 16, with some of the flashbacks and battle footage shot on 35. If you watched it via digital projection, I can understand why you might think it was a grain-over-video trick.” I did watch it that way and that’s exactly what it looked like. My apologies to the crew.
Lastly, it’s been brought to my attention that my mention of ‘$40,000 Star wars style epics’ might lead some to believe that this was the budget of the film. It wasn’t. While I am unaware of the actual budget, this number was a reference to a vast number of films that came to the Casa de la Wyrm in that budget range and were all “The first in an epic trilogy.” I meant in no way to infer that’s how much was spent on this film.
Until next time friends, smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em. I know I will.
Massawyrm
Yup, I was wrong. Feel free to gloat here, trollboys.
