Movie Review - The Deaths of Ian Stone

The Deaths of Ian Stone


I really wanted to like The Deaths of Ian Stone. With a character who can never die, so much could have been done with his ability to shift to different lifestyles - and for part of the film, director Dario Piana did just that remarkably well. But as the film grows, it breaks away from its original, more interesting topic to focus on a dorky plot about phantom demons called Harvesters that feed on human fear.

Ian Stone (played rather well by an emotional Mike Vogel) is attacked by these Harvesters one night after a hockey game, transforming his life into something more chaotic than a college student is used to. These Harvesters, wispy demons with growly faces who can transform into the people Stone knows, keep hunting Stone, but instead of killing him, Stone is transported to a new life, only to find that his memory is altered to forget the past life. After being confronted by a mysterious stranger (Michael Feast), Stone begins to remember what is happening to him, and how to survive - the power of love between him and his girlfriend Jenny (Christina Cole).

Yes, yes, what you're thinking is true: Ian Stone does rip off of films like Groundhog Day or The Butterfly Effect a lot, but it's not so bad. Stone doesn't actually repeat days or anything like that; he actually lives a different life each time he dies, and it shows a lot about his character and adds more interest to the film. If Stone's deaths were purely accidental each time, the film could have progressed nicely without having to resort to monsters. It could have been so much stronger if Stone had to keep avoiding death to stay with his beloved, adding a suspense and depth that no demon's pursuance can. But I'm left with all of these "could have beens" instead of the reality of the film - a strong and personal first half with a dimwitted and strangely confused second half that explains little, attempts a lot, and ultimately fails at delivering its empathically-charged message.

Part of the reason has to do with the monsters, or Harvesters, or whatever they are. When they're in demon form, they're embarrasingly hokey; anyone ever hear of the Dementors from Harry Potter? They also feed on fear and apparate with fog. The CGI is just too noticeable and the Harvesters probably would have been more effective as heavily costumed actors; as they are, they remain unscary throughout the entirety of the film, and I found it hard to get into the terror of their presence because of their appearance. But even when they're not in demon form, they are regular humans who sometimes appear to be dressed straight out of The Matrix with tight spandex suits.

When the really, really, really corny subject of love came into play, I lost all interest in Stone and his fight for survival. Honestly, with a character who can't die, he doesn't have to worry about much - he could just let the Harvesters keep killing him without any problems. It's his own fault that he brings his girlfriend into the situation instead of ignoring her as if she didn't exist so the Harvesters can't find her. He draws attention to her, and yet the Harvesters neglect to kill her, which I found odd; they could hit Stone where it counts, but they decide to just torment him until he tells them how he killed one of their own Harvesters. In the end, does this all really matter? Stone has forgotten everything about his existence before his human form. He no longer needs fear to survive on as a Harvester, and he no longer possesses the knowledge of how to kill a Harvester. So why must they pursue him? The story neglects the fact that we really don't know why Stone killed a Harvester in the first place, and to be truthful, at this point in the film, I could really care less about Stone's motives.

And so Ian Stone loses the viewer in its attempts to wax philosophical on the powers of love against evil. Should it have stuck with its original template, the film could have been a great addition to the repetitive movies mentioned above, with a battle between Death as a form of natural power which Stone has to battle with endlessly, emphasizing the fact that immortality isn't always a blessing. What we get, though, is some sort of superhero story of Stone battling Harvesters as a Fabio-haired Harvester (no, I'm not joking; somehow Stone grows long blonde hair after transformation for added intensity) with Buffy the Vampire Slayer - style fighting sequences that are low on scares and high on comedic genius - but I have a feeling that's not what Piana and crew were looking for from the audience.

The Deaths of Ian Stone on Rotten Tomatoes

Book Review - The Beach House by James Patterson & Peter De Jonge

The Beach House


I'm going to get right into it, without any skirting around - if you've never read a James Patterson novel, here's a great place to start. I've only read one other book by him, but The Beach House impressed me so much that it gets an ultimate recommendation.

It's not that Patterson's thriller breaks a lot of ground in the suspense/thriller literary genre, in fact opting for a simple storyline touching on themes of money as power and the ease the rich have in covering up their dirty deeds. After his brother is murdered by a rich and powerful family, main character James sets out to get revenge and uncover the truth after the family is able to convince the police that the death was a suicide. It's a fairly straight-forward detective case for most of the novel, until a few twists in the plot push the intensity and mystery higher.

But what stands out as a great achievement, and factors into an extremely pleasurable read, is the voice of James. As he narrates, the reader grows closer and closer to him, almost to the point where we're so associated with James that we are as hard-pressed to uncover the truth as the characters in the story are. Patterson paints a vivid picture of each character, especially the rich family's history that leads to the reader's constant emotional attachment to James and his brother. Effectively moving and comedic at the same time, Patterson's main character gives The Beach House a much more invigorating tale.

And as we work our way into James' revenge, the plot escalates so well that it's a relief when we finally learn how James will uncover what he knows is true. It's not much of a surprise, but the elaborate and believable setup that Patterson stages is suspenseful enough to keep the reader flipping every page until they finally get to the inevitable conclusion.

Patterson does sometimes switch from James' narration to a third-person perspective, though, and it diverts our attention from James enough to be a bit bothersome. Towards the end, we find that the character that we follow in these third-person parts is actually a pretty minor character, adding a bit of frustration to those of us who want to read more of James' thoughts (or was I the only one in love with his personality?)

But that's only a minor quibble. The fact of the matter is, The Beach House is an excellent novel full of intrigue, emotion, and mystery. It may be formulaic, but the perspective from which it's told held my attention so raptly that I couldn't put the book down. And even though the "whodunnit" part of the novel is solved early on, James' solution is much more entertaining. A great book for those of you with an insatiable appetite for crime drama, with a good, if a bit trite, critique on the power of the rich.

Special Movie Review - Atonement (2007)

Atonement (2007)


Atonement is based on the novel of the same name by Ian McEwan. With the success of the book, it was no surprise it became a novel. With the adaptation came great rewards for the film as well, gaining a lot of critical praise and being nominated for an Oscar.

But to me, the film doesn't have that draw that the critics think that it has. The film starts off very slow, introducing the audience to the characters piecemeal. We meet Briony (Saoirse Ronan, Romola Garai, and Vanessa Redgrave through the years), a young author writing a play for her crush, handsome and good-natured Robbie (James McAvoy). Robbie is smitten with Briony's older sister, Cecilia (Keira Knightley), and gives her a letter that is naughtily worded. Turns out that Cecilia feels the same way about Robbie, and they get frisky in the library, but Briony walks in, misunderstands what is happening, and immediately thinks Robbie is a sex fiend. Briony then comes across a rape, which she blames on Robbie without fully knowing it was him, and he is sent off to jail just after he and Cecilia had just hit it off.

From the getgo, I found Atonement slow and hard to get into. Most of the opening scenes have almost glacial pacing and aren't entirely interesting, and at first seem slightly unimportant to the plot. As we work our way towards Briony's accusation, though, things pick up more and the opening scenes become clearer in meaning. The mystery scenes are more entertaining and brought back my interest, and the intensity of this part of the plot is done very well. But that doesn't discount the fact that for the first half hour, Atonement feels stagnant and meandering.

After Robbie is sent to jail, he takes up a post in the Army, fighting in World War II. The audience takes the trip with him as he sees the horror of war and what Briony's false accusation put him through, but again, the movie seems to drop into a lull here. Its depiction of war is brutal and heartwrenching, but its pacing is too slow to provide a strong emotional reaction.

We move on to Briony's point of view as a nurse healing the wounded from the war, and again, the ravaged bodies of the wounded are disturbing and gory, but here the physical and emotional strain of the war is put to greater use than with Robbie's point of view. Briony finally understands how her false accusation affected Robbie and goes back to apologize for it. And then we move on to Briony as an old woman, who has written a book about the all of the events of her past. Here lies the twist of the film - Briony has rewritten all of the parts in the book to give everything a happier ending. She didn't go to see Robbie or Cecilia because they had already died. By writing the book, she was atoning for what she did to their lives.

The film uses an interesting way of uncovering previous scenes by skipping back in time, as if Briony is rewriting the scene or adding it into the book. It reminded me of Memento, and at first was a bit confusing but after a time fit right in with the rest of the movie. One of the things that bothered me was that I had a hunch that the twist at the end of the film might be something about Briony's rewriting skills, and it didn't surprise me much at the end.

As you can see, though, I'm having a hard time really summing up how I felt about the film. To put it simply, the good was good and the bad was pretty bad. A lot of the film was really emotionally gripping, especially Briony's reminscences of Robbie and Cecilia's deaths. But the lengthy parts in between stripped my interest in the film down so much that it detracted from my emotional reaction. The love story is well done for the most part, which is surprising because I mainly find love stories to be corny or overdone. Here, McAvoy and Knightley are realistic, three-dimensional people whose love is conflicted by long distances and the brink of war. But Briony stands out the most; she's annoying as hell, but her character delivers the most interesting parts of the narrative in the lulls in the story.

Atonement is a good story, and I imagine it makes a far better book than film. Here, psychological explorations of the characters aren't realized enough to create a more moving picture, and what we're left with is a mixed bag of sorts, never knowing if the next scene will be great filmmaking or dry, drawn-out cinema.

Atonement on Rotten Tomatoes

Book Review - Cursed by Carol Higgins Clark

Cursed


My mom loves mystery books, and she's gotten me into some of her favorite authors. Here, we had a new Carol Higgins Clark book lying around and I thought I'd pick it up and have a nice read. I had read her Christmas novel with Mary Higgins Clark, so I wanted to give her solo stuff a go.

Abigail feels she's cursed - born on a Friday the 13th, she's had a string of bad luck from her birth, and now she's gone and lent $100,000 dollars to her boyfriend who ran off with it to make a movie. She calls up her friend Regan Reilly, Clark's recurring privite investigator, to find the scumbag who took it before Abigail's grandmother shows up to use the money to buy her granddaughter a new house in California. Reilly's got to track down the guy, plus maneuver around a recent murder in the area who Abigail had been an aquaintance of.

The storyline sounds complex written out in summary like that, but it's really not. In fact, the book's plot seems a little thin as a mystery novel because Reilly is not on a giant, earth-shattering case. She's only trying to find some missing money, forcing Clark to bring in extra characters to lengthen the drama unfolding. The side story about a death in California really shouldn't be too big of a deal; it's only there to halt the progress of Reilly and Abigail in finding the money and to create some much-needed action to the story.

The pacing is fairly even though, even if not much actually happens between Reilly and her investigation. Instead of seeming like a prestigious private eye, Reilly actually resembles Encyclopedia Brown trying to track down a missing wallet, mainly because her skills aren't put to good use in Cursed. She barely tracks down the money, owing most of the work to the police force rather than her own detective work.

It's not that big of a deal, though, that the story is rather shallow. Clark uses short chapters to her advantage, which allow her to explore other characters at each break. On the other hand, some characters seem unimportant to the novel and their narratives are more filler to add complexity to the plot. One may think that Cursed could have succeeded better as a Regan Reilly short story instead of a novel.

But I'm focusing too much on my dislike of the plot. Cursed is well-written, engaging, and fast-paced because of the short chapters and likable characters. However, the characters seem a bit too likable and perfect. Reilly has a magnificent life, it seems, with a wonderful husband. The latter she talks about like he's some sort of superhero hubby, because she comes off as a bit too enthralled with him. Even the characters with flaws seem like they are perfectly flawed. For a mystery, everyone is a bit overly nice, and it may be a positive outlook on the population but it sure as hell ain't a realistic one.

I'm not writing the book off, though - it's an entertaining read, and I can't think of anyone who wouldn't like it, unless one is sick of bestseller-list mysteries. Take it for what it is, and you can't go wrong with the book in one hand, an iced tea in the other, and the sun slowly frying your skin like a chicken breast.

Movie Review - Crazy Eights

Crazy Eights

All kids have secrets, but not as deep and dark as the characters of Crazy Eights, a film that was part of the Afterdark Horrorfest series. After one of their friends dies, a group of eight adults go to a house in the woods where a chest was hidden. Inside, they find some memories from their childhood - and a skeleton. After trying to get away from the place, they end up traveling in circles, and after following a mysterious girl into a condemned house in the middle of nowhere, find themselves locked in with the dead girl of their past. As they try to unravel the mystery of their connection, they are pursued by the ghost of the dead girl that they cannot remember besides her presence in a photograph.

You might see a few familiar faces here, what with Saw alum Dina Meyer playing lead female Jennifer and Traci Lords as Gina. But names can't save Crazy Eights from its confusing, unconnected plot. From the very beginning, ambiguous flashes of scenes and people pass before our eyes without explanation, hinting at the makings of some sort of character exposition of the "Crazy Eight," until we find that we only see a couple of the characters before we are led right to the main conflict.

The problem is not so much that the movie shifts too quickly in the beginning, because that should be able to be explained away in the conclusion of the movie, but that the audience is left with no character to connect with. For a film that's supposed to be so centered on eight individuals with a dark past, it does very little to actually develop their significant personalities, other than Brent (Frank Whaley), who is very quickly categorized as an over-the-top asshole and then ignored. Mainly, it's a struggle to comprehend how these people know each other, let alone why they call themselves "crazy." Plus, a further mystery is why they have a picture of each other together when they were younger - they can't remember that they had lived together in some experimental orphanage but they can look at a photo of them in their younger years and not wonder where it came from?

But these aren't the only plot points to remain unsolved. The movie seems more content with getting us to the actual scares than divulging the reasons for what the characters do. In one scene, Wayne (Dan DeLuca) steps into a dark basement and immediately breaks his ankle, and quite violently as well. There's no reasonable action to warrant this; it's just a pleasant happenstance that allows the filmmakers to go on their merry way and get to the killins'. And unfortunately, the film rarely comes out of its ambiguous coma. There's not really a rhyme or reason to the ghost girl (if that's what she really is, because there's never a great glimpse of her), especially after the remaining survivors understand why she's pursuing them. They remember accidentally killing her when they were younger and running away from the experimental orphanage, but the revenge doesn't stop. And their logic for combatting the ghost is also strangely skewed. Instead of wanting to remember, they try to burn all the memories of her, as if that will make her happy and go away. If I were getting my revenge on the people that killed me, I'd sure want them to feel guilty.

Even with the urgency to get to the scary stuff, there's not a lot of it. It's disappointing, too, because Crazy Eights has a lot of suspenseful buildups that just do not pay off in the end. One can sense a feeling that director James K. Jones was going for the thought that imagination is scarier than what the camera shows you. He builds a scene up with scary (albeit overdone) situations, only to cut away at the most frightening or violent. Instead of terrifying, it drops off into a series of clips that feature dying people who we really don't know at all. There are scenes that could have been really effective - a scene where the dead girl pulls open Beth's (Gabrielle Anwar) mouth - but they are snuffed out by quick cutaways.

And in the end, the movie concludes in pointless fashion, where everyone dies and Jennifer feels the only way to stop the dead girl is to kill herself. Of course this would be the best way to stop her, since she's trying to kill Jen anyway. As the movie fades out, we're treated to yet another ambiguous clip of the past that acts as though it's explaining everything, when in reality it adds nothing but more confusion to the mix of a movie that had a hard time figuring out what it wanted to do in the first place. We don't know why they were crazy, there's not even eight people in the movie, and the plot drops a big pile of bullcrap all over the place as if we're expected to just accept it, and what are we left with? A conclusion that seems like it could have been finished before the movie even started, as Jen offs herself instead of letting the dead girl do it. There's no satisfaction here - she didn't fight back and we didn't learn what the dead girl's motives were, just like we barely know anything about the other eight. I guess the secret lives on.

I was really pulling for Crazy Eights - it had a cool premise but it just wasn't fleshed out enough to go anywhere. With a stronger, more conclusive story, the movie might have been able to get by as a mediocre romp through a haunted house. Props to the film's location, too, because it sure is one creepy building. Besides a few tense moments, though, the movie loses focus and unravels quickly after it starts into monotonous scenes of wandering characters who find themselves confronted by the girl. The formula is so basic, it's easy to see what's coming before the scare pops out - or in this case, doesn't pop out before the camera cuts away.

Crazy Eights on Rotten Tomatoes

Book Review - Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight by Randall Boyll

Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight


The town of Wormwood is in for a worse dilemma than its questionable name or near-ghost town population - to be more specific, the Mission Inn is in for a hell of a time, thanks to man-on-the-run Brayker and his green, glowy tattoo hand. A chase between Brayker, who holds a magic blood-filled key, and a demon called the Salesman, who wants to gain seven keys that harness a great power, brings them both to the unfortunately named town, and Brayker shacks up at the inn with a bunch of hodgepodge lodgers (like those rhymes?) who both help and hinder Brayker's attempts to keep the key out of the bony, fiery clutches of the Salesman and his arsenal of undead spawn.

This is a novelization of the film of the same name, which was, of course, based off of the television series on HBO. Normally, I'm not into novelizations of movies and TV; most of the time, they're poorly written, follow-the-film garbage that can only state in bland vocabulary what the film already did in live action. But TftC:DK differs in writing style and intelligence level - it doesn't feel like some half-baked, lazily written scam for money to bank off of the film's popularity. It's got a witty narrator that makes reading the book a whole lot more fun and that carries that brand of saracasm that the Tales from the Crypt series is known for.

But there are still some problems, like the fact that the story is lacking in substance. That's not to say that the author, Randall Boyll, is at fault for this. It's the original script that drags this aspect of the book down; the plot happens all in one night and the backstory about the keys and the Salesman is too cut-and-paste to be of any substance. But it makes sense, at least in the realm of a B-movie Tales from the Crypt story, and the book has enough depictions of blood and guts and at least a hint at sex that keeps the entertainment value notched to high.

The voices of the characters are all diverse enough too, and it's great to see Boyll shift from each character and bring them together in the Mission Inn. But at some point in the story, I couldn't help but feel that each character was an intricately designed stereotype of all the main horror archetypes: the drunk, the slut, the normal girl, the nerd, the junkie, and the hero. Sure, they were fleshed out and the audience could associate pretty easily with each of them, but in the end they kind of faded back into their old stereotypes as they died and it was easy to forget that they had ever encompassed anything more than their two-dimensional personalities.

But what's to complain about! Demon Knight is a book you can pick up, read quick, and leave forever as a book that was a pleasant distraction. It's not a masterpiece, and not meant to be, but it's a decent diversion, and it's actually not a terrible novelization. It would be interesting to see what Randall Boyll could do on his own, without a pre-written, over-the-top outline of a story. But as it stands, you could do worse than Demon Knight. It's probably better to read than the movie is to watch.

Special Movie Review - Land of the Lost

Land of the Lost


A long, long time ago, I faintly remember viewing a smidgen of a Land of the Lost episode. I can't recall anything from it, but that doesn't mean I didn't like it. My parents tell me I was scared of it, but even if I did suffer from some sort of trauma at the hands of the original series, that didn't stop me from seeing this reimagining.

Will Ferrell plays Dr. Rick Marshall, a scientist who believes he can harness the power of tachyons to open portals in order to travel through space and time. Holly (Anna Friel), a fellow studier of tachyons and time travel, encourages Marshall to work on his tachyon machine, which he does with surprising results that could change all of science. They both set out to try to open a portal, and after getting sucked into a vortex with a beer-bellied guy named Will (Danny McBride), find themselve stuck in a land of dinosaurs, large bugs, and green alien-like peoples called the Sleestacks, who are led by Enik (John Boylan), who wants to open up a portal to our world. Marshall and company are joined by primitive ape Cha-Ka (Jorma Taccone), and they set out on a search for Marshall's lost tachyon machine for Enik, but soon find that the adventure is more than they bargained for, especially after they find that Enik is not who they think he is.

Director Brad Silberling and his crew have done a great job with set design and costumes, making the whole film seem very hokey on purpose, a throwback to both 50s monster movies and the original series' comedic satire. Here, the soundtrack and opening title sequence remind of classic B-movie goodness, but what seemed out of place was the use of so much CGI, especially for the dinosaurs. I'd rather see good old dinosaur costumes rather than a fully animated dinosaur to fit the movie's intentional homage to tacky props and gimmicks.

Land of the Lost's story is actually quite entertaining, but it's hampered by its ability to easily explain the opening plot. The business with the tachyons gets confusing with its scientific definition and Holly seems to come out of nowhere as Marshall's partner. Also, add in the fact that Marshall mysteriously finishes his tachyon machine in one night when he's been working on it for years, and the setup of the film leaves a lot to be desired. It's appreciable that the writers wanted to jump right into the action, but a little more backstory could have gone a long ways here.

But those seeing a movie such as LotL probably don't require a lot of plot or seriousness in their movies. They'll most likely be rewarded by the film's jokes - combining Ferrell's quirky antics with McBride's more stereotypical bum persona is a ride down a strange and funny path. Coupled with Friel's more laid-back, serious approach, each actor complements the other well. I think, too, that they work together to hold Farrell's more energetic and raucous side back, which benefits both his role as Marshall and the movie more. I really went into the film expecting Ferrell to play the same character as all of his other movies but was pleasantly surprised when he was able to get across a more serious tone without becoming too manic. He's perfect as the scientist, switching from reserved to uproarious nicely, but there are times when he slips back into his immature characters. It's the times when Ferrell is able to generate laughs without his old bag of tricks that really stand out.

There's a lot of sight gags here though, folks, and for those who don't like what I like to term "stupid humor," or even jokes that don't necessarily pertain to the plot at all, it might be best to skip out on this. The humor is low-brow and exaggerated, and for the most part it remains consistently funny throughout, but there are more than one occasion where some of the scenes feel thrown into the film to get some laughs during downtime, particularly a scene where Marshall, Will, and Cha-Ka get drunk on some new fruit drink.

Even though the film gives some laughs, it feels dragged out a bit too long on a simple plot of "find-the-treasure." Boiled down to its most basic story, there's not much different here from anything else we've seen. It's a bit too risque to take the kids to as well, and there's a handful of slightly offensive jokes that seem randomly thrown in. LotL seems confused as to what its audience is consisting of: there's slapstick humor and dinosaurs that appeal to little kids, but violence, sexual dialogue, and an advanced story that kind of leaves the children out. Unfortunately, without all of its mature material, the film probably wouldn't be quite so funny and, ergo, not as good. But if you can overlook these flaws, the movie's actually not that bad; just don't expect anything mind-blowing - then again, you probably didn't anyway.

Land of the Lost on Rotten Tomatoes

Movie Review - Experiments in Terror 3

Experiments in Terror 3


I was sent to review Experiments in Terror 3, a new collection of horror shorts with an emphasis on surreal, experimental techniques that differ from normal conventions. Avant garde art is always interesting to me; I'm the type of guy who can't stick to one thing for very long, so a change of pace for the horror genre really grabs me.

The term "terror," though, should be taken a bit loosely when considering the film, as I didn't find much of what was presented scary. It's surreal, a little bloody, and sometimes suspenseful, but there's more comedic portrayals of horror than there are actual frightfests.

The compilation begins with "The Psychotic Odyssey of Richard Chase," a short exploration of the life of cannibalistic serial killer Richard Chase through the use of dolls. Think of it as a Robot Chicken sketch with more violence and a slightly more serious tone - and this was done long before Robot Chicken had even been thought of. At first, I felt like the use of dolls and exaggerated scenes was somewhat mocking of the serial killer and the victims that he murdered, but as I thought about it more and was sucked into the film, I realized that the dolls represent the child-like thought processes that Richard Chase had as he went on his killing spree. Also, the animation takes a bit of reality out of the short, giving the audience a taste of psychosis and the loss of a sense of reality. More and more, the film appealed to me, and when it ended at its 6 minute runtime I was both fascinated and wanting more from the creators. Even with the animation, there's a grotesque and morbid tone to the film that emphasizes the story that it tells and made this one of my favorites on the disc.

Next up is "Satan Claus," another short film that feels like an acid trip that's gone down the bad path. The story's very loose, but judging from the dialogue screens, it involves a little boy on Christmas Eve that is left alone in his house by his neglectful parents, so he summons Satan Claus to wreak havoc. The film is really short and has a very home-made quality to it, mostly due to the scratchy video and audio quality. What I liked most about the film was the first half: there's a really creepy rendition of a Christmas theme that sets an ominous tone, along with the scratchy video that gives a thick, gloomy atmosphere. As the film progresses, though, a hard rock anthem sets in and a guy in a red suit and devil horns appears in a fog; most of the video becomes hard to follow after that. Reading the film's background, however, puts it in a different context and one can appreciate it more as a practical joke than a film to be taken seriously.

"Loma Lynda: The Red Door" is up next, which is an excerpt from a longer movie. It starts out promising, with a red-tinged, dark room and a man and a woman. The woman is tied up and looks as if she is being raped, and as the short progresses we see that this is exactly the case. The atmosphere is pretty heavy, and the camera and lighting is just obscure enough so we can only get a glimpse of the violence that's happening. But we hear a whole lot of it, and the man's gruff grunts are disgustingly upsetting. Yet after the man is done with his molestation of the woman, the excerpt slumps off a little, settling for ambiguous shots of the two and an awkward monologue from the rapist. At first, his speech is creepy, but as he slurs on, it begins to taper off into random expletives and something to do with "fucking his daughter" that feels both exploitative and unnecessary. We get five minutes of credits before the excerpt ends, and the shots accompanying these detract from the whole experience, confusing the viewer with a second girl dancing around as they kill the rapist. I understand that this is just an excerpt from the entirety of the film, but as a stand-alone short to generate interest in the film, it actually turned me off from seeing the movie. Some of the shots were too shaky and quickly cut away from the focus, and the story was almost non-existent. The only reason I got a shallow understanding of what was going on was because I read the blurb that accompanied the disc. To me, this was the least effective of the 6 shorts.

Now for the best film on the collection: "Terror!," a 24 minute montage of clips from horror movies of the past which emphasizes the formula that most horror films follow. Though there's no continuity between characters, it is expertly edited to create a cohesive, terrifying experience that brings together horror clips from across the decades. The most interesting aspect of the film is that one never knows what to expect; the cuts are varied and extend the final meeting of the "monster" each time they present a new direction for the film, giving everything a suspense-filled vibe and setting the viewer on edge. It's difficult to get into at first, especially since it's hard to tell where the movie is going, but once realization sets in it's almost impossible to pull away from. Best experienced in the dark, "Terror!" takes familiar scenes, familiar genre tactics, and makes them fresh, combining them together into a homogenous mixture that results in a spectacular and gruesome conclusion that alone makes the viewing of Experiments in Terror 3 worth it.

An older short, "Born of the Wind" from 1961, is on deck. Incorporating various aspects of films like The Mummy, Frankenstein, and even classic mad scientist horror, this short follows a very linear path to its finish with not too much in the way of surprise. Its story, about a scientist who brings a 2000 year old princess back to life by way of blood, isn't original, but it has an attraction that draws the viewer in without needing any more plot. Though it's not memorable, it does have its moments; however, it feels too stretched out to amount to much more than filler after the excellent "Terror!".

Drawing the compilation to a close is "Manuelle Labor," a quirky comedy shot in black-and-white about a sister with mysterious pains in her stomach who finally gives birth to a body-less hand. It's fun and absolutely ridiculous, and yet it doesn't need an explanation. I was fine with going along with the whole shebang, even though I didn't understand the five brothers who were watching the whole ordeal and why they were there in the first place. We don't learn much by the end of the story except that the surreal aspect of the film surely outweighs the reality, but it seems like a great way to end a collection of films emphasizing avant garde film making - the short doesn't make a whole hell of a lot of sense, but it was a damn good time and one can appreciate the weird imagination of the filmmakers.

And, I think, that expresses the majority of my thoughts on the entirety of Experiments in Terror 3. It's an odd batch of hit-and-miss shorts that kept me interested throughout, but I can see why they're staying hidden in a world full of generic horror schlock. People just aren't ready to see random hands coming out of wombs or 24 minute montages, but people like the makers of Experiments in Terror 3 are working hard to get these rare diamonds in the rough out to others who enjoy it. Pick this up and support imaginative film makers - not all of the films are winners, but they're working towards a different and varied look at the horror genre.

Book Review - The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray


Oscar Wilde is known for his work in the literary style termed aestheticism, and it's easy to see why with a book like The Picture of Dorian Gray. Peppered throughout are bouts of detailed imagery, rife with literary and art allusions and Wilde's witty banter. But there's also a look at the human psyche, with emphasis on morality and human conscience, that lifts Wilde's book out of the rut of the purely detail-oriented.

For those wondering why I am including the book on this site, the horror of Dorian Gray pokes its head out slightly through most of the novel. This is no monster/slasher horror, of course, and action is minimal at best - but there is an omnipresent tenseness of character, especially between Dorian Gray and his close friend Basil, that elevates the book from becoming a rather bland character study of a man turned evil.

In the novel, the title character wishes to have a magnificent portrait of himself age while his physical body shows no sign of growing old. This in fact happens to Dorian, who quite suddenly begins to sin after he causes his beau to commit suicide. Dorian's good friend Lord Henry has a lot to do with this, as he fills Dorian's head with a bunch of mumbo-jumbo about life that leads Dorian astray, especially after Dorian reads a rather immoral book. As Dorian's life spirals out of control, he murders his friend Basil in a rage and becomes paranoid that everyone will see his portrait and realize his true self. Towards the end of his life, however, Dorian attempts to make a change in order to amend his portrait, and more importantly, his sins, but realizes that it is his vanity that urges him on.

Wilde's writing style is elegant and prosaic, but he falls into a pattern of long, monotonous sentences that seem decadent at first but, in reality, say very little. It seems that it is Wilde's focus on art and aestheticism that leads him down this path, as he tries to describe every scene in as much wordy and flowery language as possible. A good wordsmith he is, but Wilde's ability to keep the reader focused is faulty and one must skim through his prose to uncover what he's trying to say. At certain points, Wilde slips into garrulous written diarrhea, dropping allusions to Shakespeare or his idol, Théophile Gautier, into whatever he can relate them to. It's interesting at first, but then Wilde devotes a whole chapter to explaining Dorian's change in tastes, and it becomes difficult to wade through unnecessary quotations and descriptions.

Yet Wilde crafts some varied characters, mostly due to the fact that there's only three or four main ones in the book. Lord Henry is despicable and becomes almost more hated than Dorian, as he is the most significant cause of Dorian's change from good-natured young man to sinful murderer. In fact, Dorian is less a villain and more a tragic hero; his redemption comes from his own conscience poking through the gloom of his persona. Basil is the favorite of the story, and it comes as a shock when he is murdered - it's obvious that Dorian will have the urge to murder him, but it still surprises one that Wilde kills off one of the kindest characters.

And even though there is a very loose plot, Dorian Gray remains interesting because of Wilde's minor subplots. There's very little in the way of a main conflict; instead, Wilde chooses to develop the widening rift between Dorian's moral thoughts and his more harmful choices. The novel is almost like a fable: it sets up a few characters, lets them make a choice, and then presents a moral at the end.

Dorian Gray was first thought to be violent, mindless, and most of all amoral. It was criticized for its acceptance of sinful actions and blasphemous depictions. Yet the novel seems more a critique on the human conscience, showing the failings of a man who accepted beauty over goodness and the consequences of ignoring the conscience. Instead of praising sin, it denounces it through the deaths of the only good characters - the horror lies in the killer remaining alive and well, until the fatal and sudden conclusion of the book, where Dorian finally gets what he, and his soul, deserved all along.