Wrong Turn 2: Dead End

This is so disgusting. There is, however, one reason to watch this (well, at least reason enough for me) and that is: Henry Rollins!

The premise is a reality TV show. Because, of course it is. The goal is to be the last man/woman standing after five days in a post apocalyptic world and most of it is scripted. So much for the 'reality' part. The contestants are an assortment of failures: a would-be athletes, 'actresses', an idiot skateboarder named Jonesy and a woman with military education. She, of course, is a tough lesbian. Because cliché. Not that it is going to help her any in the long run.

How this Jonesy character made it for as long as he did is beyond me. He should have been killed off much earlier than he was, for being annoying if not for anything else.

So, the cast and crew get killed and possibly eaten one by one. That is the plot.

The difference to part one is that we get to really take a close look at the deformed killers. We even witness one of them give birth. Also, we see two of them having sex (as if anybody needed to see that).

The baddies do get killed more efficiently here, thanks to a stack of dynamite that Henry Rollins chances upon. Since flying meat and spraying blood is not gross enough, however, the last two remaining get hacked to pieces by a machine that can handily dub as a meat grinder.

Did I say last two? I meant of course the last two to tie up the story nicely, before we get the final horror film classic open end shot of someone (something) giving the deformed newborn a cut-off finger to suck on.

As for Henry Rollins...Henry Rollins is a fucking one man army! Bad ass until the end. His end, that is. So much blood. So much blood.

3/10

Wrong Turn

I have so many questions.

Like, why would you linger in a house that is clearly inhabited by, at the very least, serial killers? Get the hell out of there!

Why don't you hide in the vast woods all around you (for miles and miles and miles) but chose to stay in plain sight for as long as possible?

How does anybody find anyone in those big ass woods? Ever?

Where do I know this Carly from? (The Mentalist. I looked it up.)

How did Desmond Harrington end up in this?

The story is as obvious as can be in a mediocre horror film. Young, attractive people stuck in the middle of the West Virginia woods. They chance upon a cabin (imagine!), where they find a number of very disturbing pieces of body parts, collected in various jars. They hide under beds, in store rooms, etc. and have to fight to keep quiet while witnessing their friend getting cut into pieces by inbred hillbillies. They flee (but not into the woods, mind you) and the villains catch up with them again and again, while the young, attractive people get killed one by one. Jeremy Sisto actually gets a nice Boromir send-off.

The prettiest boy and girl of the bunch eventually make it out alive after killing the baddies repeatedly. These here even exceed the mere standard two lives the bad guys in these types of films usually have.

Yeah, it's bad. Almost in a good way.

Almost.

3/10

Doctor Who: The Edge of Destruction

The Edge of Destruction/The Brink of Disaster

This feels like a filler. In the first part of the two-part serial next to nothing happens. The group comes to after the explosion that shook them at the end of The Daleks. They barely remember who they are at first and they turn on each other - or, it is the Doctor and Susan v. Barbara and Ian.

The Doctor is being his usual pompous self, only now with his had bandaged up because he cracked it open. The doors of the Tardis appear to open by them selves, which is of course impossible (!) and everyone accuses everyone else of tampering with the ship. Not sure how the two teachers would even attempt to do such a thing, considering that they are fairly new to this and don't really know how anything works, but whatever.

And...they magically change costumes. Or they do it off-screen within the matter of minutes.

In the second part, the Doctor wants the teacher off the ship. Little sentimental Susan, of course, goes all sappy and implores him to rethink. Then he suddenly realizes that they are in grave danger and he forgets all about throwing them out. Ian does a lot of fainting.

Eventually, the realize what is wrong with the ship. The Tardis has been trying to warn them of a problem all along (apparently, it is not sophisticated enough to communicate properly). The only problem is some switch and they fix it just before time is running out ("We have 10 minutes to survive!" - "10 minutes? As little as that?" - "Maybe less."). Aaaaaaah!!! So close!

In the end, the Doctor suddenly realizes the worth of the school teachers. Well, one, at least.

The set-up for the next serial is a huge footprint in the snow.

3/10

Doctor Who: The Daleks

The Dead Planet/The Survivors/The Escape/The Ambush/The Expedition/The Ordeal/The Rescue

The Daleks are awesome. They are cute and surprisingly cuddly for evil robots. They attack you with plungers (how great is that?!) and you can fool them by simply hiding inside one and pretend to be one of them.

Serial 2 of Doctor Who establishes the big nemesis of the Doctor(s) for years - decades, even! - to come. And a good thing, too.

The unlikely travel companions have to stick together to overcome a dire situation and save themselves from the evil Daleks. I still don't care for any of them but it's good to see them pull together and set their collective minds to work. Not that their togetherness seems to last very long (they forget they ever knew each other in the very next serial).

Not only do they have to fight off the Daleks, but also radiation (gasp!), thankfully they have been given vials of anti-radiation drugs just outside the Tardis by the Thals (not important). Phew!

This has cliffhangers! Firstly, the Dalek arm reaching out for Barbara (the female school teacher), and in the end AN EXPLOSION!

7/10

Doctor Who: An Unearthly Child

An Unearthly Child/The Cave of Skulls/The Forest of Fear/The Firemaker

I started watching Doctor Who not too long ago (yes, yes, late to the party). Actually, I went all the way back to the very beginning. The reason I finally did succumb to watching it is because I adore Peter Capaldi. Sure, I could've just jumped in with his incarnation of the Doctor, but where is the fun in that.

So, An Unearthly Child it is.

Here's a question: are we supposed to like the First Doctor? Because I really don't. Nor do I care much for his shrieky granddaughter Susan. The school teachers that come along for the ride are sort of bland, too. Not the best start, but this was made in a much more innocent time and the lasted, even though the timing for their first episode couldn't have been worse (aired the day after JFK was killed), so there must have been something out it. I feel that time has not been kind to the early days of the show.

The first adventure jumps all the way back to the days of the cavemen (or a planet with cavemen and their enemies). They really jumped in with both feet and one has to admire that. The story is, you know, strange and not very scary (remember: innocent times).

This all coming from someone that is probably slightly jaded from watching tons of mysteries and horror stories and the like.

Serial 2 then went on to introduce the Daleks! There's something to stick around for!

5/10

The Thing

An alien taking over bodies of living beings (a dog to begin with, whoever is available after) to 'imitate' the host ends up in an American station in Antarctica. Scientifically, this is new and exciting and horrifying. Definitely something the scientists and/or doctor at the station should probably try to figure out. Stat. So....

Let's put the helicopter pilot in charge!

Never mind that he drinks way more than he probably should (and why is there so much alcohol available in the middle of nowhere, anyway?) and doesn't know the difference between Swedes and Norwegians (and, boy, does that joke get old quickly!). He is Kurt Russel so to him we shall listen.

What he has going for him is clearly being the inspiration for Pharrell's ever present hat! Behold!

 

If we chose to overlook the implausibility of the worker bee running the show (and we do chose that) than we can appreciate the dark atmosphere in this and, indeed, many other of John Carpenter's films. Sadly, he seems to have lost his touch as of late, painfully obvious in his latest film, The Ward.

But The Thing was made in his heyday, when the special effects could still gross you out. The dog splits open, for Christ's sake! And a head grows legs and turns into a giant spider thingy. Awesome!

If this film were made today, however, the first Norwegian on the scene might still have been shot (in that all-American Shoot First, Ask Questions Later! attitude) but the main objective of the team of scientists (and the trigger-happy, rough guy pilot, obviously) would be to isolate the dog or anyone suspected of being an imitation to see if this cannot be used in warfare somehow.

So a lot could have been handled better if, I dunno, the guy that figured out that one or more of the team may have been infected/imitated said something to his colleagues about it. They might have had some valuable input. As it happens, when something needs to be told they tell it to the pilot first. Why? Because he is Kurt Russell.

And a good thing too, because he does have a theory on how to test who of their group is/are affected. He knows science and medicine now! He has theories! If this were indeed made today, he probably would have been a scientist because at some point it became okay for them to be tough and sexy and bad-ass. The are also allowed to be women now! Imagine the possiblities.

I don't mean to sound like I didn't like The Thing. It did what it set out to do, which is entertain and gross out.

A friend pointed out this story to me, which tells the story from the thing's perspective.

8/10

The Theory of Everything

Bring your tissues!

If you approach the film without expecting to learn anything about how time works and what theories Prof. Hawking has given the world, you'll be just fine. As romances go, it is rather special. Of course it is. Nothing like a hardship shared with a loved one and the deterioration of a brilliant man, who nonetheless defies the odds given him to make you ball your eyes out.

Eddie Redmayne is brilliant. Oscar-worthy? Absolutely.

My heart goes out the the equally brilliant Michael Keaton in Birdman. He pulled off quite the astonishing feat himself, but (alas!) what chance can he possibly have against someone portraying a real live person of high standing that has a disability to boot. Now that is a role to sink your teeth in and however great you are in any fiction film, you should have picked a different year to be great in.

As for the film itself, well it is quite the kitsch fest and can't hold a candle to some of the Oscar nominated films it is up against, BAFTA for best British film of the year or no (not that The Imitation Game is that much better). But I am sure there is an audience for it. Granted, I'm not it.

My overall score takes into account the sheer greatness of Eddie Redmayne's performance.

6/10

Which brings me to my overview of this year's Oscar crop. At this point I have watched all but one of the best picture nominees and the one missing is American Sniper, which I have currently no interest in watching at all (I may yet, but....). I will probably get to the others in this here blog, eventually, and give a more detailed reasoning. (Yes, I am fully aware of what the rest of the world thinks of Boyhood. I simply believe people are blinded by the effort and time that went into it and want to like it much more than they would if they were to ignore that. And there are other, better films about 'ordinary life' that did not get the attention, because they were made more conventionally.) Anyway, here is my list of favorite to least favorite...

Whiplash
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Birdman
Selma
The Imitation Game
The Theory of Everything
Boyhood

See, Boyhood is not a bad film per se, it is just that I liked the others better.

The Dead Zone

Did you miss me? For a while, I wasn't sure whether or not to continue writing this blog. Turns out, I have to record my thoughts on films somewhere. So I am back, if only for my own amusement.

I return with The Dead Zone, a David Cronenberg film based on the book of the same name by Stephen King, which I recently re-read. And I have to say, as films based on King's books go, this is actually pretty good. There have, of course, been some disastrous results (Dreamcatcher comes to mind, also The Shining for reasons that would have to be explained in a separate blog entry and probably will be in the future.

Here we have Johnny Smith (played by Christopher Walken, includes no dancing), who develops psychic abilities. How he comes by this new gift remains a mystery. In the book, there was a childhood incident that started it all and the car accident coma that shook everything loose. In the film, we go straight from a headache on the roller coaster to a bad car accident to a five-year coma.

Apart from the jump right into adulthood, the changes made to the source material are not significant. There are two omissions I do miss, however. Firstly, the Wheel of Fortune episode, that gives a glimpse of Johnny's abilities does not happen in the book. It was exciting to read but not essential for the story line, I guess. Secondly, I would have wanted to see so much more of Johnny's mother. In the book, she is this really interesting Christian nut that makes life very trying for the elder Mr. Smith and Johnny himself, presenting ready explanations for Johnny's waking up from the coma and his new prophetic second sight to pretty much everything else. Alas, here we only meet her for a very short time.

After the two big revelations Johnny has and shares (among several minor ones) - the accident that is to befall his pupil Chris (also adapted from the book story and the book version of Chris) and the unmasking of the serial killer (as dramatic in film as is in book) - we come to the major event that is Greg Stillson, played by the always wonderful Martin Sheen. I will go as far as calling him the best actor of his generation.

To think that this Stillson will go on to become Jed Bartlett, a very different kind of politician altogether!

The question on whether or not one should take action to change a future outcome has been addressed repeatedly (more then once by Stephen King himself) and always seems to boil down to one of two questions.

1. If you could go back in time to kill Hitler, would you do it?
2. If you could go back in time to prevent Kennedy's assassination, would you do it?

Here, Johnny's attempt to kill the potentially evil Stillson does sort of fail but not really. Even though Johnny does not manage to shoot Stillson and dies while trying to, the incident reveals that Stillson is really just a petty coward, using a small child to shield himself from a would-be assassin.

Mission complete.

7/10