Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. I stupidly planned two overseas trips in September and, of course, both of them conflicted with Fantastic Fest. I flew back to Austin for 2 days before flying right back out again and in those 2 days I saw 6 films at the fest. Pretty decent crop of horror flicks, I must say. I'll write up three here and three in a separate article, mini-review style!
SIMON SAYS
This movie is not well made. In fact, it's downright crappy. But it's also one of the funniest films I've ever seen. Crispin Glover plays one of a set of twins. You come to find that he killed his family, starting with his retarded twin brother, as a teen and now he's got this split personality thing where his docile retarded brother comes out at times and his murderous, evil bastard self pops up the rest of the time.
This film was directed by William Dear who directed the great '80s kid's flick, HARRY AND THE HENDERSONS. He was at the screening and said he wanted to make a movie like SIMON SAYS because people told him his demo reel was too soft. You can tell this is the movie made by someone who doesn't really know the language of horror cinema. Kind of like Dr. Boll's movies, but he doesn't know the language of any cinema, just the language of giant douche. At least Dear knows how to put a film together, he just, unfortunately, cobbled together a string of surface-level horror cliches and thought that'd be enough.
And maybe it is. I laughed harder at this good bad movie than I have at any movie in a long while (the Old Man's Balls segment of JACKASS 2 not withstanding). It's a great comedy, but a piss poor horror movie. He actually strikes that entertainment level of badness that some delusional people tell me Dr. Boll's film attain. I was bored out of my mind when I watched HOUSE OF THE DEAD, BLOODRAYNE and ALONE IN THE DARK. They're not entertainingly bad. They're bad bad.
A lot of that has to do with the casting of Crispin Glover, who I thanked my lucky stars was actually in the movie, not just one of those Christopher Walken roles where he pops up every act for 3 minutes and then disappears again. This is Crispin being the crazy slasher and he's so radically over the top that it circles past an awful performance and might enter into the genius realm. He makes this movie. This ridiculous, ridiculous movie. To give you an idea of how ridiculous, he has a machine set up in the woods that can launch pick-axes at the pull of a lever. He nails a girl with it early in the film, then when we have the two survivors, all of a sudden Crispin is launching pick-axes from 2 dozen machines, sending them flying like they were tracer rounds at Normandy. At least 60 of these fuckers go flying. Absolutely ludicrous.
I lost a tad bit of respect from the film when the director said afterwards that he was surprised at the laughs the first time he screened the movie as he intended it to be a very gruesome, serious movie. If that's the case, he accidentally made a comedy. If he intended to do it, then he's allowed to take credit for it. But whatever. At the end of the day, I got my enjoyment out of it. I'll be quoting Crispin Glover with my friends for at least a year, him and his comically thick Southern (think Foghorn Leghorn) accent. "Ah... ayum... nawwwwt... reeetawwdddeeeddd!" Bliss!
BUG
I was really excited to see the new William Friedkin horror flick, especially after hearing such good word about it coming from other festivals. If SIMON SAYS was a bad movie that was very entertaining, then BUG is a good movie that moved as slow as a stoned snail. The performances are fantastic, the story is trippy, but it took a good 40 minutes for it to find a pacing that was able to keep my mind from wandering.
The flick is about a very lonely woman (played by Ashley Judd) who has seen a lot of sorrow in her life. She's kind of experimenting with her lesbian co-worker in a small town dive located somewhere in Oklahoma. Her abusive ex-husband, played terrifically by Harry Connick Jr., has just been released from prison, she's still grieving for her son who disappeared from her care at a supermarket 10 years prior, and she's living at this rundown motel. She's leading a very miserable life.
In comes a stranger, Peter (played by Michael Shannon), who is odd, but somehow fills the gaping hole in her life. Too bad he's batshit insane and apparently he's contagious as he starts convincing Judd that the little self inflicted sores he has are from blood-sucking aphids that live in her bed.
The whole movie is like a descent into madness and is very stagey as it comes from a play. The performances are top notch all around. Everybody does stellar work. My only problem was the pacing.
Definitely worth seeing if only for the chemistry between the leads.
INSIDE
In the interest of full disclosure, I've been acquainted with Jeff Mahler, the director of INSIDE, for years. We never really hung out as he was part of another circle that had some common friends, but I've always had fun busting his chops. He is a small man and has spoiled a few TEEN WOLF posters, which is always fun to bring up.
Believe you me, I fully expected him to have gotten into Fantastic Fest line-up on a "friend of Harry Knowles" pass, so I was just as surprised as anyone that his movie turned out to not suck. The flick is about a kind of creepy young man who likes to watch people. He watches a sad couple from his position working at a library, somewhat obsessed with finding out what makes them so sad. He ends up going to their place and... things happen.
It's obvious that films like MISERY inspired this twisted tale and when it gets going, it's great. There are some pacing issues... namely the story takes about one act too long to actually get going and there's too much gray area between the very first interaction with the grieving family and what they end up ultimately doing with the young man. But once the creepy element comes in, the movie really has you.
I was most impressed with the cast. Mahler got some great actors, including a new love of my life, little miss Leighton Meester, who plays a foul-mouthed kind of loopy girl with the stickiest of fingers. Think of someone that's kind of a kindred spirit with Natalie Portman's character from GARDEN STATE, but more fucked up. She shoulda starred in this thing. I want a sequel just about her... and me. Getting married.
Nicholas D'Agosto stars as the watcher kid and turns in a very likable and natural performance. Although he reminded me of Mahler personally. Guess it's all the times I catch Mahler starring at me with those black eyes of his. Cheryl White and Kevin Kilner play the grieving couple and they're both great. Kilner's character especially was really layered. There's a struggle with this character as his wife slowly goes mad. He wants to go with her, but unlike his wife, he still has a foot in the sane world. Really good, subtle stuff here. Cheryl White... well, let's just say I don't want her mistaking me for her son anytime soon.
Mahler makes a solid debut with this flick. Good job, Jeff.
That's it for this one. I have my opinion on UNREST, HATCHET and HOST coming soon. Right now I have to board my plane from Atlanta to Barcelona where I'll go play some, hopefully, cool-ass video games! Be back soon!
-Quint quint@aintitcool.com
