The Ward

Posted on December 19, 2011 by Craig Micklewright

Viewed – 18 December 2011 Blu-ray

At one time, the name John Carpenter was a seal of quality. During the late seventies and much of the eighties, the acclaimed director was responsible for some of the most enjoyable and well-crafted movies out there, including gems like Halloween, The Thing, Escape From New York and Big Trouble In Little China. I’ll even add the much underrated In The Mouth Of Madness to that list. Seriously, he barely put a foot wrong. Then with the dawn of the nineties, his output began to get much less critical and commercial acclaim … and ever since, the director has struggled to get his mojo back.

So this recent directorial outing caught my eye, and has been hyped in some quarters as Carpenter’s big come back. Telling the tale of Kristen (the increasingly likable Amber Heard), who following the burning down of a house, is committed to a psychiatric hospital. There she meets a group of girls all with their own problems. Yet along with the oppressive nurses, orderlies and a nice but creepy doctor, there is a malevolent spirit lurking in the corridors, who begins to kill off the girls one by one.

This is very clichéd material, but is shot with a degree of style and foreboding atmosphere. Carpenter still knows how to crank up the tension and deliver some well timed jump-scares, but with a female, living-dead villain and personality-free characters this offers very little that hasn’t been done before – and better. The movie does improve during the closing moments and offers up some good ideas, but by then it feels like the director or scriptwriter suddenly realised how unimaginative their movie was, and quickly tacked on a ‘look how clever we are’ ending – which in fact, isn’t all that clever, and I’m sure has been done before.

On its own merits, its entertaining and at a mere 88 minutes, doesn’t exactly out-stay it’s welcome. But for a movie by John Carpenter, this is woefully inadequate and painfully formulaic. He used to be ‘the man’. Now it’s obvious, he’s become just another has-been. Very sad.

Verdict: 2.5 /5

DVD Review: John Carpenter’s The Ward (filmophilia.com)
John Carpenter’s ‘The Ward’ Fails to Live Up to the Horror Legend’s Legacy (selfproclaimedmegalomaniac.wordpress.com)
At Last, The Thing Gets Its Prequel (wired.com)

The Thing

Posted on December 15, 2011 by Craig Micklewright

Viewed – 14 December 2011 Cinema

When I first heard about this, I as many I presume, was up in arms. John Carpenter’s 1982 classic was one of the defining horror movies of the 80s and along with assured acting chops from Kurt Russell and brilliantly freaky make-up effects from Rob Bottin, surely revisiting such a movie should be considered unthinkable? Well in the current vogue of remaking everything (big breath … Halloween, A Nightmare On Elm Street, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday The 13th, Prom Night) it is clear to me Hollywood is feeling a little dry on the new ideas-front. Yet wait! This one isn’t a remake … it’s a prequel. So erm, that’s alright then, yeah?

Mary Elizabeth Winstead, yes that foxy chick from Scott Pilgrim Vs The World plays a Paleontologist recruited by a Russian research team following the discovery of an alien space craft buried under the Antarctic Ice. Yet no sooner do they dig up a large creature buried near by, all hell breaks loose. Yet this creature is no brainless, salivating monster, but is able to take on the appearance of anyone it kills – leading to the terrified crew looking at each other to figure out who just might be ‘the thing’. This is very competently acted and atmospheric stuff, with a solid turn from Winstead as well as her older co-stars. Comparing it to Carpenter’s movie, which is inevitable as setting, mood and much of the action is deja-vu similar, this has some great moments, mostly down to some gooey and bonkers effects work (mostly CGI sadly) which are done well, if somewhat lacking in the blood & guts department. Also the gradual build up of tension as the finger is pointed in a number of directions, is handled admirably.

In the movie’s attempts to try something new and not just be a shot-for-shot remake, it lets itself down a touch by not being quite as clever as before (dental fillings?? Really?) and the ending gets a tad confusing, mostly down to the chaos of proceedings and the fact many of the supporting cast look a bit too similar to one another (hairy men alert!). Yet this ties itself in nicely with the first movie to make an enticing double-bill prospect, and as a remake / prequel the movie honors what has gone before, whilst delivering enough thrills and freakiness to make for a worthy tribute.

Verdict: 3.5 /5

The problem with remakes

Posted on August 28, 2010 by Craig Micklewright

Not all horror remakes are bad, and some can bring a lot to an old concept, ultimately improving upon it … yet last night I sat down and watched on television the remake of Japanese cult horror The Ring. Ok, it starred Naomi Watts, had a decent director (Gore Verbinski) and was fairly well put together on a technical basis. Much like the original too, the use of a creepy videotape and hallucinations helped build an unnerving atmosphere. Yet then the movie does the unthinkable, and humanizes the character of the evil girl, this time named Samara, by showing footage of her time in a psychiatric hospital, and instead of the horrible vision of a small figure with hair over their face, we see it’s actually just a very troubled child. Naomi Watts over-acts somewhat from the very beginning and frankly her young son is creepier than Samara, which just baffles me. Now looking back at the original ‘Ring’, I recall only glimpses of the girl, Sadako, a flash of a hand with no fingernails, the same creepy atmosphere, but very little humanization – and you never saw her face. This then makes the ending something of horror legend, copied in the remake, much more terrifying as what crawls out of that TV and stands up to scare its victim to death, is not human, but pure evil – and just a close up of a blood-shot eyeball is all the viewer gets. In the remake we see the girl, albiet zombiefied, but still a girl, with a stern pissed off look, and guess what – it’s not scary. Well done remake. You just killed the money shot! Continue reading →

Halloween

Posted on October 5, 2007 by Craig Micklewright

Viewed – 04 October 2007 Cinema

The original 1978 stalk and slash horror is probably one of the most influential films in the genre after Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho and equally as iconic. John Carpenter’s take on the man in a mask psychopath created many of the clichés that have now been done to death – the horny teens getting killed, the virginal baby sitter who becomes the reluctant hero, the nerve-shredding music, and oodles of suspense.

New-wave rocker-turned director Rob Zombie has stepped up to the sizeable task of remaking a classic, and it has to be said I was very dubious about one of my favourite films being ‘murdered’ by a wannabe. Yet really it seems we were in safe hands this time thanks to a director who really knows how to get the feel of the genre’s more nastier entries, and deliver a true ‘video nasty’ experience. Here he gives us more of an ‘origins’ take on the story of nut job Michael Myers, showing him as a child and what leads up to his eventual incarceration. I wasn’t entirely convinced that enough was shown to really explain why he was the way he was – yes his mother is a stripper, his step dad is a loud mouth oaf, and his big sister shags around…oooh, what a terrible influence!! Even the school bullies don’t seem bad enough – maybe young Michael was just born ‘tapped’.

Yet after this interesting introduction, we’re soon back to Haddonfield and it’s a straight remake, with a surprisingly poor Malcolm McDowell as Dr Loomis (originally played brilliantly by Donald Pleasance), and some pretty teen as Laurie Strode, delivering nothing to diminish the performance of Jamie Lee Curtis way back when. So the casting fails…but Rob Zombie does deliver in plenty of violence, gore and a much more ferocious Michael Myers…and a bit scarier he is too.

So to close this still works as a remake and gives us more of an insight, but answers nothing and even ruins some classic moments. A good ‘tribute’ then but it can’t touch the original.

Verdict: 3 /5

Can Halloween reclaim its crown?

Posted on September 27, 2007 by Craig Micklewright

While I await eagerly the release of Rob Zombie’s re-imagining of the classic 1970s stalk & slash original, I can’t help but look to the countless sequels that just never did the first film justice. Can a former rock musician turned freaky director (and responsible for House of 1000 Corpses & The Devil’s Rejects) really triumph where so many have failed?

Either way this trailer looks promising – and thankfully that iconic muisc is intact.