Sunday, January 17, 2016

Howl (2015)

A werewolf movie from the guy who did "The Seasoning House" (as well as make-up FX for a bunch of films, like "The Descent"...). While being nowhere near as memorable as those flicks, "Howl" is decent enough, though I'm not without my gripes...

A train stalls out on the track in the middle of a British forest where the passengers are forced to defend themselves against a herd of werewolves lurking in the foggy darkness.

Obviously, "Howl" goes about in the traditional "Night of the Living Dead" recipe of a stranded faction of strangers fighting for survival, so don't expect anything new, plot wise. As far as effects - exteriors are predominantly comprised of CGI backdrops on a sound stage which is actually done fairly well, I thought, while the CGI creatures are significantly less convincing. For certain types of scenes, the werewolves are half composed of digital elements - mainly the legs and some facial features - which may have been alright if I wasn't so annoyed with the overall design of these things. Director Paul Hyett opted for mostly hairless werewolves clearly to cut costs, so they ended up looking like something from "Lord of the Rings" from the waist up and a kangaroo from the ass down. Furry lycanthropes are eminently cooler. It's common fucking knowledge.

Despite these flaws and certain points where the movie tends to drag quite a bit - like after they kill one of the wolves, leaving us waiting for another one to strike, which takes WAY too long to happen - "Howl" is watchable, at least. It adds nothing new to the werewolf genre, but it's a worthy way of killing 90 minutes.

Thursday, January 14, 2016

Queen Crab (2013)

"Queen Crab" isn't the worst thing I've seen, but is definitely a far cry from anything great. It's a pretty basic monster movie formula that's main 'draw' (for what it's worth...) is that it attempts to revive the old-school stop-motion FX style. I'll concede that it's moderately refreshing but ultimately pointless, seeing as how the movie, itself, is boring and poorly executed.

A small farm town - ironically named Crabbe Creek - becomes infested with big baby crabs that are birthed from an even bigger crab that has been hiding in a lake for 20-years. When the local sheriff and his deputy begin investigating crab tracks and egg sacks around the rural locale, the townsfolk become aware, killing the crab babies and going to war with mama crab...

Again, it's nice to see stop-motion work in a monster movie throwback, however, the novelty of it doesn't do much for the film, as it really just looks like your standard, cheap Syfy channel shitfest. Needed more crab attacks and less character cliches and corny dialog. Overall, "Queen Crab" could've been worse - it just needed more action.

Sunday, January 3, 2016

The Act of Seeing with One's Own Eyes (1971)

There's not really a whole lot to talk about with this one. "The Act of Seeing with One's Own Eyes" is a 30-minute experimental film, showcasing an autopsy in close-up detail. There's absolutely no sound accompanying the 16mm footage of a cadaver being taken apart at this particular Pittsburgh morgue...

It's about as interesting as autopsy footage can be. I've seen my fair share of this kind of thing so, personally, I didn't find anything too stand-out about it. If you're really into postmortem gore with an 'experimental' angle than this will probably be more up your alley.