-10 Cloverfield Lane (2016): 8/10



White-knuckle thriller about a young woman named Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) who -- in the midst of walking out on a soured relationship -- is in a horrible car crash. She later wakes up in a sterile concrete room, with an IV needle in her arm, a brace on her leg...and a pair of handcuffs securing said leg brace to the wall. Her "captor", a man named Howard (John Goodman), claims he came across her wreck and brought her down into his self-made fallout shelter both to recover, and to save her from some sort of nationwide calamity that has occurred aboveground. What has happened? A nuclear strike? A form of biological warfare? An invasion by a foreign power? Or is there actually nothing wrong outside, and is it all in the head of the easily-agitated Howard? Like a lot of projects from exec producer J.J. Abrams, 10 Cloverfield Lane likes to stretch and tease the answers out, in keeping with Abrams' pet "Mystery Box" theory (ruminating on what's in the box is inevitably more satisfying than actually finding out), and as such when the answers are revealed, it will be a polarizing denouement for many. Personally, I enjoyed the Outta-the-frying-pan-&-into-the-fire craziness of the ultimate reveal (which actually is set up, if you pay close enough attention, or else are on your second viewing as I was), but no matter your reaction to the concluding scene, the setup is tense and rife with uneasy comedy, and both Goodman (the rare actor who can swing from amiable good humor to pants-pooping menace at the drop of a hat and make it look effortless) and Winstead (her remarkable eyes facilitating between wary unease and a swelling self-confidence) make for a well-matched pair. Maybe not "horror" in the strictest sense, but still one of the more tense movies I have seen this year, and Goodman, in particular, is worthy of awards-season consideration.

WAXWORK
7/10

WAXWORK 2: LOST IN TIME
6/10



Director Anthony Hickox was a relatively hot commodity for a short while on the horror genre front in the late ‘80s, thanks to a pair of highly enjoyable outings: WAXWORK and the even more playful WAXWORK 2: LOST IN TIME, both of which debut on Blu-Ray as part of Lionsgate’s new limited-edition “Vestron Video Collector’s Series.” The original 1988 "Waxwork" stars Zach Galligan ("Gremlins") and Deborah Foreman ("Valley Girl") as college students who become lost in David Warner's wax museum, where the various set pieces come to life, claiming unsuspecting victims who become part of “the show.”

This means co-star Dana Ashbrook ends up being stalked by the Wolfman; the lovely Michelle Johnson (“Blame It On Rio”) is consumed by Dracula (Miles O’Keefe); and Galligan ends up in a “Night of the Living Dead” nightmare. Hickox’s formula is simple but it makes for a highly entertaining movie that has aged extremely well – the top notch make-up effects might be enjoyably gory (and are seen here in their full unrated form), but the film’s sense of humor is effective without being overly silly. Production values – including Roger Bellon’s still-unreleased score – are high for a Vestron production that became a big hit on home video, especially for those of us in middle and high school who became huge fans of the movie in the heyday of VHS.

So popular did the film become that a surprise sequel was produced several years later. Zach Galligan returns in “Waxwork II” though Deborah Foreman was replaced by supermodel Monica Schnarre, apparently due to Foreman clashing with director Hickox. That’s not the only thing that’s changed: this freewheeling sequel abandons the concepts of waxworks altogether as it pieces together a story wherein Schnarre’s heroine is accused of murder, and has to head back into the “alternate universes” along with Galligan to find evidence that she’s not the one responsible.

This enables Hickox to once again offer up a series of film parodies that range from quite effective – a B&W send-up of “The Haunting” with cameos from Bruce Campbell, Marina Sirtis and Sophie Ward – to lame (a hackneyed riff on “Alien”). The worst section of the film sends Schnarre off to a medieval kingdom where she becomes the prisoner of the evil Lord Scarabis (Alexander Godonov), who’s plotting to take over the kingdom from an aging king (John Ireland).

Bob Keen returned to produce the make-up effects for “Waxwork II,” which went into production after Hickox’s superior vampire-western “Sundown” became a victim of Vestron’s financial woes. However, the sequel was produced on literally a fraction of its predecessor’s budget – Hickox says roughly 25% in his commentary – and it shows: everything from the creatures to the music (Bellon’s orchestral score was replaced with a poky electronic soundtrack by Steve Schiff) were impacted by the threadbare production. Hickox’s script doesn’t even match up with the original in terms of characterizations, as Galligan seems to be playing Billy Peltzer from “Gremlins” and not the stuck-up rich boy of the original (to say nothing of Schnarre, who doesn’t resemble Deborah Foreman in looks or personality). The slack pacing doesn’t help, either, as a good 10-20 minutes could have been jettisoned, especially from the drab “medieval” section of the movie.

That said, “Waxwork II” is still fun if expectations are dialed back, with Hickox throwing in “the kitchen sink” in an effort to make the slender budget appealing – there’s even a rap video with the cast and crew over the end credits!

Both movies were hot rentals for those of us in high school back in the day, and Lionsgate’s Blu-Ray treats both films to their first-ever widescreen presentations on home video. The remastered 1080p (1.85) transfers are, predictably, massive upgrades on their VHS and full-frame DVD editions, with strong color and detail present. The original “Waxwork” fares better than the sequel, which offers a comparatively drab appearance in keeping with its slender budget. 2.0 DTS MA soundtracks, meanwhile, preserve the original stereo soundtracks for both pictures.

Extras in the double-disc Blu-Ray include a full documentary on the production of both movies, including comments from Hickox and Galligan, who also provide humorous commentaries on each platter. Trailers and vintage EPK materials, including a half-hour on-set documentary, complete the most satisfying Vestron Blu-Ray yet from Lionsgate. The label would be wise to target Hickox’s “Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat” – with its widescreen lensing, attractive cast and great Richard Stone score – as a possible candidate down the road as well.

-War Of The Worlds (2005): 8.5/10



10 Cloverfield Lane's controversial "out-of-nowhere" ending was supposed to be a vague connection to a larger "universe" of films that began with 2008's virtually unrelated found-footage monster romp Cloverfield, but the movie it reminded me of the most was Steven Spielberg's spectacular, highly underrated version of the classic H.G. Wells novel (previously adapted -- famously -- as a notorious 1938 radio play by Orson Welles so convincing that it panicked the nation, as well as a fine 1953 George Pal production with Oscar-winning visual effects). Tom Cruise plays Ray Ferrier, a blue-collar dock New Jersey dock worker taking care of his children, Robbie (Justin Chatwin) and Rachel (Dakota Fanning, still in adorable/creepy kid mode) for the weekend after they're dropped off by his ex-wife (Miranda Otto) and her second husband. Ray is a quintessential Spielbergian Bad Dad, ill-prepared to interact with the teenage son who casually despises him and the daughter looking for affection and all too often left wanting. But then Ray has far more to worry about than strained family relationships...a powerful and baffling electric storm batters the neighborhood, knocking out the power and causing ominous holes in the pavement from repeated lightning strikes. Soon, the holes birth monstrous machines that trundle about on spindly legs as they spew energy beams that reduce the screaming, scrambling human populace below into ash. Terrified to the core, barely thinking, Ray bundles his equally distraught kids into the only working car in sight and just drives like a bat out of literal hell, the neighborhood reduced to firey splinters in the rear view mirror. But nowhere is really safe, and the family unit finds themselves on a cross-country journey, only thinking of meeting up with Ray's ex-wife in Boston, as they encounter one increasingly alarming danger after another (there's a frightening sequence where a mob of demanding people swarm their car in an attempt to take the only working transportation in miles, which Spielberg depicts with an ugly, clawing desperation).

This is a film that received mixed reviews at the time, some pillorying Spielberg for some heavy-handed post-9/11 political allusions ("Is it the terrorists...?") and other piling onto Cruise's off-screen tabloid couch-jumping shenanigans (which is the pettiest thing any professional film critic can do), but a decade after the fact, it holds up far better than you'd think. There are sequences here than can stand with Spielberg's best...the appearance of the first alien Tripod, as it stands revealed in a Jersey street before emitting its terrifying foghorn howl (a brilliant sound effect so iconic and doom-laden that it's been modified to appear in every movie trailer produced in the last six or so years), is a classic Spielberg Striptease setpiece, and a scene where Ray and Rachel, hiding out in the basement of a crazed survivalist (a great turn by Tim Robbins) evade detection by an alien probe is one of the director's patented Cat & Mouse suspense sequences. Cruise is flat-out great in the film...in a canny reversal of audience expectations, he starts off the film in his autopilot, cocksure ain't-I-charming? mode that quickly dissipates as the danger around him erupts and he's reduced to a shell-shocked survivor, trying desperately to do right by the kids who he barely seems to know anymore ("How long have you been allergic to peanut butter?" ~ "Birth"). There's a wrenching moment where Ray, trying to soothe his daughter to sleep but not knowing any of her favorite lullabies, ends up serenading her with a soft, hoarse rendition of "Little Deuce Coupe". And for those whining that "Dakota Fanning's screaming was annoying!" and "The son should have died!"...could you imagine ANY ten-year-old child who could have gone through even half of the experiences Rachel does in this film without being deeply traumatized and screaming their head off? And as for the much-despised "happy" conclusion, it makes perfect sense to me...so long as you subscribe to my pet theory that most of the movie is actually a dream (or, more accurately, nightmare) being experienced by Ray. We witness Cruise go so sleep early in the film, and it's only after he "wakes up" that bad things really start to go down, ones that echo visual images and shot choices that litter the first fifteen minutes of the film (which is how most dreams function). It's a deviously clever conceit by screenwriters David Koepp and Josh Freeman (if it were intended, and I prefer to think so). Scary, intense and brimming with memorably surreal imagery (the passenger train shooting through a crossing on fire seems like a nod to the flaming herd of cattle in Tim Burton's Mars Attacks!), War Of The Worlds is a film that deserves a second look.

I consider War of the Worlds the best film I ever hated.

It is rife with strengths -- I agree Cruise is excellent (as is Fanning), and there are some powerful moments and an effective -- and believable -- pall of doom enshrouds the film. It exceptionally well-directed, and the effects are top-notch.

But I never liked it. For starters, it is just too grim for me. The whole film is smothered in air of hopelessness, as the Martians advance and roll over every human unfortunate enough to get in their path. As hokey as Independence Day was, it at least gave the viewer something to hope in, and root for, when Jeff Goldblum (however implausibly) discovers an Achilles heel in the alien invaders. War of the Worlds is nothing but two hours of "the end is nigh", and it gets a bit old.

But even Jeff Goldblum's computer virus was more plausible than the Martians conveniently (and anticlimactically) dying of disease in WOTW. This may have gone over when Wells wrote the original story (and maybe even in the George Pal film), but seriously -- a civilization with that level of technology has no concept of microbiology, and doesn't take the necessary precautions to guard themselves again infection and disease?

Then of course there are such eyebrow raisers as the camcorder which remains operational even after the EMP has disabled all electronics, the fact that the stalled traffic has all conveniently moved to either side of the motorway giving Cruise plenty of room to get away, the fact that Cruise doesn't succumb to hyperthermia after being in freezing water during a New England November...

Paul MacLean wrote: But I never liked it. For starters, it is just too grim for me. The whole film is smothered in air of hopelessness, as the Martians advance and roll over every human unfortunate enough to get in their path. As hokey as Independence Day was, it at least gave the viewer something to hope in, and root for, when Jeff Goldblum (however implausibly) discovers an Achilles heel in the alien invaders. War of the Worlds is nothing but two hours of "the end is nigh", and it gets a bit old.

The Nostalgia Chick did a fairly interesting dissection and comparison of both Independence Day and War Of The Worlds a few years back, and how the Hollywood of the mid-90's differed wildly from the mid-00's.





Essentially, the 90's was the last time you could have a "Funpocalypse!" blockbuster like ID-4 destroying half the planet and still have room for goofy humor and one-liners. Spielberg's post-9/11 take on an alien invasion is obviously grimmer, but isn't that the point? ID-4 is as disposable as blockbuster filmmaking gets (seriously...when was the last time you sat down and watched it?), while WOTW has only gotten better in my estimation. Not every movie has to paint a happy vision of humanity at its finest. It's probably the reason why The Mist is a film so unfairly despised by a lot of people...it's bleak, it's staggeringly "unfair", but sometimes, that's just how it is.

Didn't work for me either. A few effective set pieces lost in an unsatisfying adaptation with some of Janusz Kaminski's ugliest cinematography and Williams' most forgettable scores. It fact it may be the singular most unremarkable score he ever wrote for a Spielberg film.

I remember talking with John Landis right afterwards and he agreed how disappointing the film was. Though I still laugh whenever I think of how the audience started chuckling when Tim Robbins showed up...."where has Andy Dufrense been and why has he been eating so many donuts" lol

As for THE MIST that ending is one of the most inexplicable pieces of garbage ever put onscreen. Movies where parents kill their chidren? Yeah no thanks. Life isnt "that unfair" that you'd put a gun to your kids head and pull the trigger....an unfathomable ending that rightly seemed to ruin Darabonts entire career to some degree. I still can't believe they let the film out like that...repellent in every aspect.

For me, WOTW's strength is in the journey of the male Spielbergian protagonist - from selfish, irresponsible adult-child to responsible adult who learns the value of family and kids. Cruise's character is a distant relative of people like Indiana Jones, HOOK's Peter Banning, and Alan Grant. That journey is a major theme in several films, and when I watch WOTW and focus on that aspect of the film, it works well for me. Tom Cruise plays the part well, and I can look past some of the flaws of the film because the protagonist's journey is compelling.

What I did not like about the film was how artificial it looked in appearance. It looked too much like a soundstage film; the set pieces look too unrealistic. Williams' score is not very good either. I hated Tim Robbins' character and felt he overacted horribly. Despite all that, some of the special effects are good, and I don't mind that it was faithful to the book in the way the aliens died; maybe the alien force, thinking they are so advanced and superior, arrogantly overlooked the harm foreign bacteria and viruses could cause. It's legit to me, especially as I work in health care and see the horror these bacteria cause to people. It is unbelieveable that something so small can do so much damage.

-Dead And Buried (1981): 8/10



Unusual, clever horror film from Alien co-screenwriters Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett about a wave of inexplicable murders sweeping the small New England town of Potter's Bluff, which leaves the local sheriff James Farentino) baffled and the local mortician (Jack Albertson) with a heavy workload. Everyone in town seems to be in on it, but to what end? Essentially a Twilight Zone shaggy-dog joke expanded to feature length, it boasts fine makeup effects by the great Stan Winston and one inexplicable whopper of an opening sequence. Look for a pre-Freddy Robert Englund as one of the sinister townsfolk.

-Brides Of Dracula (1960): 8/10



One of the only Hammer Dracula pictures not to feature Christopher Lee as the Count, but series mainstay Peter Cushing is still on hand as his foe, Dr. Van Helsing, looking to put an end to the rein of terror created by his nubile disciples. Despite Lee's absence, this is one of the better films in the Hammer Dracula cycle, with gorgeous photography and sets (and plunging necklines aplenty).

Monterey Jack wrote:
The Nostalgia Chick did a fairly interesting dissection and comparison of both Independence Day and War Of The Worlds a few years back, and how the Hollywood of the mid-90's differed wildly from the mid-00's.

I tried watching. But she is so annoying I gave up.

Paul MacLean wrote:
I tried watching. But she is so annoying I gave up.

YOU TAKE THAT BACK...!!!

-The Curse Of The Werewolf (1961):



Fine Hammer take on the werewolf myth takes an unusual "origin" to the onset of lycanthropy, when a humble beggar (Richard Wordsworth) in 18th century Spain is thrown into the dungeon of a cruel marquis (Anthony Dawson, from Dr. No). Devolving into a feral state as the years pass by, he ends up sexually assaulting a mute servant girl (Yvonne Romaine), who escapes and eventually gives birth to a child on Christmas day. In the fullness of time the child grows into manhood (now played by a young Oliver Reed), but he carries the burden of a terrible curse, one that manifests itself when the full moon rises...

While, like a lot of Hammer films, this offers up a slow burn before we get to the "good parts", it's nevertheless a well-acted and compelling film, with that distinctive Hammer atmosphere and a memorable werewolf design (one that scared the crap out of me when I saw a picture of it in a book about classic movie monsters back in middle school). Look fast for 007 veteran Desmond "Q" Llewelyn as a doorman

-The House That Dripped Blood (1971): 4/10



Highly unremarkable (and overlong) Amicus horror anthology, with a quintet of mediocre terror tales linked to the unfortunate souls who rent out the titular sanguinary abode over the years. A waste of a terrific cast (including Hammer vets Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and the voluptuous Ingrid Pitt) and screenwriter (Robert Bloch, author of Psycho), most of what this house drips is boredom.

Monterey Jack wrote:-The House That Dripped Blood (1971): 4/10

I've actually always wanted to see this, as I understand it also starred Jon Pertwee (of Doctor Who fame).

Paul MacLean wrote:

Monterey Jack wrote:-The House That Dripped Blood (1971): 4/10

I've actually always wanted to see this, as I understand it also starred Jon Pertwee (of Doctor Who fame).

It does, in the final segment. There are also appearances by Denholm "Marcus Brody" Elliott and Joss "Diplomatic Immunity...!" Ackland. It's still not very good, though.

I second BRIDES OF DRACULA, one of the best Hammer movies, and much better than any of the sequels Christopher Lee actually appeared in.