The Dark Half (1993)

Title: The Dark Half (1993)

Director: George Romero

Writer: George Romero (based on the novel by Stephen King)

Cast: Timothy Hutton, Amy Madigan, Michael Rooker

Review:

So The Dark Half is one of those George Romero movies that doesn’t get talked about much. Like Monkey Shines (1988) and Martin (1977), The Dark Half tends to get overshadowed (as most Romero films that don’t deal with zombies do) by Romero’s living dead films. But in all honesty, I think this movie deserves a whole lot more attention then it gets, simply because it’s not a film one can easily lump amongst Romero’s bad films, like Bruiser (2000) or Season of the Witch (1972) for example.

Hey, Thad just so happens to be giving a class on the films theme! What a coincidense!

The Dark Half tells the tale of Thad Beaumont, a writer who has been working under the pseudonym George Stark so that he can sell books and make a living. You see, he writes trashy violence filled novels under this name so that his real name isn’t tarnished. Kind of like the same way that Stephen King would write under the name Richard Bachman, but more on that later. So anyhow, Thad decides to kill off his pseudonym and tell the world that George Star and Thad Beaumont are one and the same. Problem is, when he does this, George Stark, basically Thad’s alter ego comes alive and starts killing off people. Everyone thinks that it’s Thad doing the killing, when in fact it is his alter ego/persona George Stark. Will Thad be able to stop Stark? Will he ever confront his dark side and win?

This film marks one of many collaborations between Stephen King and George Romero. Their first collaboration was Creepshow (1982). They worked together yet again on Creepshow 2 (1987). The Dark Half is an interesting picture because it mixes the best of both of these brilliant horror oriented masterminds. On The Dark Half, we get a lot of the themes that we can come to expect from a Stephen King novel/film. If you notice, a lot of Stephen King stories revolve around the life of a writer, in this way, King mirrors his own life in his work. Misery, Desperation and even IT all have writers in them. And in many of these stories, the writer is always confronted with the fear of someone hounding him, like in Misery (1990) for example where the writer is assaulted and kidnapped by one of his own rabid fans, forcing him to write the story she wants to see.

The film was based on the Stephen King novel of the same name

On The Dark Half, Thad Beaumont is the writer. And he writes these violent novels by using the pseudonym George Starks. In a way, Thad uses Stark and these violent novels in a cathartic manner, exorcising his inner demons, his dark violent side. The film explains we all have this dark side, the side we don’t show to everybody. Thad is also a university teacher, and on his classes he explains that a writer needs to let their super-ego, the dark secret self out when they write. A writer’s job is to set this inner persona loose and let it go wild and free. And of course this is all true. A writer does need to let go of inhibitions when he or she writes. On The Dark Half, this secret persona becomes real when Thad decides to eliminate him. So suddenly we are in a story where Thad has an evil version of himself doing all sorts of twisted and perverted deeds. Problem is, all these evil deeds are blamed on Thad.

George Stark's one evil S.O.B!

I actually enjoy it when he does something other then zombie films. I’m a fan of Monkey Shines, I love Martin. And I love The Dark Half. It stars Timothy Hutton as Thad Beaumont, and it’s a good Timothy Hutton performance. He plays a double role, the good side of Thad and his dark half, George Stark. It is said that Timothy Hutton was not easy to work with during this production, that he and George had differences. Hutton even quit the film for a few days during the middle of the film! But whatever, I say that this all translated rather well on film. Hutton seems intense and evil when he is playing Stark, who by the way has a little bit of Elvis Presley in him as well. He constantly hums Elvis’s “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” all through out the film, another sign that Stephen King is mirroring himself with this story. Stephen Kings affection for the King is well known. By the way, King himself says that this story is semi-autobiographical because it has to do with a story that forced him to reveal his Richard Bachman pseudonym to the world. When King wrote under the Bachman pseudonym, his novels were darker and violent, and that’s because no one knew he was Bachman as well. As a writer, he would go nuts! Until he was forced to come out to the world and say the truth: that King and Bachman were the same guy. After that, he wrote The Dark Half. I will say this about The Dark Half, it has more King then Romero in it that’s for sure. So maybe that’s what some critics mean when they say this isn’t so much a Romero film.

The film was plagued with production woes. Aside from the differences between Romero and Hutton, Orion Pictures was going bankrupt, and so the film was stuck in limbo for well over two years after completion. It didn’t really make its money back at the box office, making only 10 million vs. its 15 million budget. But I’m sure the films failure at the box office had more to do with the way it was marketed, then the film itself. I recently saw it and didn’t find many faults in it. I mean, the only negative side to the whole thing is how to explain George Stark manifesting himself in the real world. I mean, okay, Thad Beaumont had an unborn twin brother lodged inside his brain when he was a kid, but it was surgically removed. My only question for King and Romero is how do they explain a fictional character manifesting in the real world like that? How did George Stark come to be? I mean, Stark was simply a pseudonym, a name. That’s all. Stark was really Thad all along. Is Stark some sort of dark spirit? What exactly is Stark? It is never explained. But I let that go because within the fantasy of the film it works. I mean, I get the symbolisms and what the story is trying to say; it’s just that when it comes down to logic, there really isn’t any there. That’s about as negative as I can get about this movie.

Nightmares can be a bitch in a George Romero film!

This is not really a whodunit, because pretty early on we know its not Stark doing the killing, we know about Thad’s dark side pretty early on. If anything, some might think that it isn’t that fun learning the films “twist” so early in the film, but that’s just fine with me. The Dark Half isn’t a Shyamalan film, wanting to wow you with a twist ending. Romero isn’t concerned with that. This film isn’t even a gore fest like many of Romero’s zombie films, the blood letting and gore on this film is suggested and happens off-screen most of the time. No my friends, The Dark Half is more of a psychological film, a symbolic film. It asks us to deal with our dark side, confront it, and eliminate it if need be. It’s interesting that Thad decides to do this so he can protect his family from harm, in this way, revealing to us its ultimate message.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Survival of the Dead (2010)

Title: Survival of the Dead (2010)

Director/Writer: George A. Romero

Cast: Alan Van Sprang, Kenneth Welsh, Kathleen Munroe, Richard Fitzpatrick

Review:

I’m always looking forward to whatever George Romero is working on because he is one of my favorite filmmakers. What I enjoy about his films is that they always had that rebellious air to them. It is no secret that his films are always laced somehow with the proverbial “social commentary”, they always got something to say. Some people don’t like this aspect of Romero’s films because they feel that they are being preached at by Romero and his world view, others say “bring it on Romero!” and love the social issues he addresses in his films. I say every and any filmmaker is supposed to show us his or her world view through their films, asking a filmmaker not to do that is like asking a writer not to give his own personal take on things in his latest novel. So, with that in mind: what issues was Romero addressing in Survival of the Dead? And was it a good zombie film?

Survival of the Dead is about two families, the Muldoon’s and the O’Flynn’s. Both families are constantly fighting for their beliefs. They both live in Plump Island on a constant feud. What are they fighting for? The Muldoon’s believe that zombies don’t need to be destroyed. They believe that zombies simply need to be taught to eat something else other than human flesh. The Muldoon’s kind of revere the living dead in a way, because all the zombies that are on the island used to be family members, so, since they are family, they are their blood and lineage, they don’t want to ‘kill’ them. On the other hand the O’Flynn’s believe that all zombies need to be eradicated, and that we simply need to start things anew, new rules, new society, because the old world rules simply don’t work. Which side will win this debate, and will the feuding between both families ever stop? Who will take control over Plump Island?

The leader of the O'Flynn's

Keeping in line with the rest of Romero’s body of work, Survival of the Dead is chuck full of social commentary. Hell, the social commentary is kind of hard to avoid no this one, it’s pretty much in your face. I would have to say that this is Romero’s most blunt film in terms of the message it’s trying to put across. Now if you are one of those people who doesn’t like this aspect of George Romero films, then by all means skip this one because this one is heavy on themes. But you guys know me, I LOVE themes! So though I didn’t entirely love this George Romero film because it has many faults to it, I did like the message it was trying to put across.

To kill a zombie or not to kill a zombie, that is the question!

The main theme is, liberals vs. conservatives. The rich vs. the poor. The religious vs. the unbelieving, the guys who play by the rules vs. the rebels who want to change it all. The Muldoon’s are a family who lives by the rules, they believe in god, they believe in heritage and the old traditions. They respect and revere the beliefs of their ancestors almost to a blinding degree. They will live and die by their self righteous ideals. On the other hand, The O’Flynn’s want to shake things up, they don’t revere the living dead, they want to destroy them. They know that once their family members turn into a zombie, they are no longer the family members that they knew and loved, so they have no problems in shooting them right in the head and ending their miserable undead existence. The O’Flynn’s want to move on, they want to change things. They don’t want to live with the ideals of the past; they want to set new ideals. Now, the question that Romero brings up with the film is, which side is right? In the never ending struggle between these two ways of thinking (same as it is in the real world we live in) is either side right? Both sides resort to violence when it comes down to it, they both kill people for what they believe in, so is either one right?

Romero has a younger kid in the film who is kind of living in limbo, he isn’t really part of either group. I saw this kid as the representation of the new generation that’s coming up, with new ideas. Because let’s face it, when we are born into this crazy world we live in things have already been messed up for generations and generations before we even got here. We arrive into this world where insanity is currently in progress. Do we play along with the way things are, or do we point a finger and say “you guys are freaking nuts!”? Often times, rebellions start in college campuses, with the younger generations basically telling the world how wrong they are. How they don’t like the world they are living it and want to change it, so I guess this is why on Survival of the Dead we see this young guy kind of living amongst the rebels but ultimately going out on his own, finding his own way of doing things, hoping for new horizons.

But what is all this social commentary good for if to have it we must sacrifice getting a good zombie movie? Here is where the film kind of looses its strength for me because it fails in certain aspects to be a good zombie movie, to entertain. It has its moments, it has the traditional zombies ripping a body apart sequence and there is some gory fun to be had, but ultimately the film feels flat. And here’s another weird thing about Survival of the Dead: Romero was trying to infuse the film with comedic elements. This is something that I don’t think Romero had ever tried before. Sure there was a Hare-Krishna zombie in Dawn of the Dead, and a zombie clown in Day of the Dead, but that’s about as funny as Romero got. On Survival of the Dead Romero is purposely trying to be funny, problem is I’m not entirely sure it worked. I mean, in my opinion, the film wasn’t funny enough. If funny is what Romero wanted to be, he had to really go for it. Unfortunately he didn’t go all the way with it; instead, he chose to simply kill zombies in ‘funny’ ways. Practically every single zombie death in the film is an attempt of Romero at comedy. One zombie gets killed by a fork with a hot god on it; one zombie gets the contents of a fire extinguisher shoved up into his brains and come out of his eyes. One guy is fishing and he fishes a zombie! Now, I’m all for funny zombie deaths, and comedy in zombie films, Zombieland and Shaun of the Dead are two good examples. But if you’re going to go funny, you really have to go at it. And Romero simply half assed it. As a result, we have an uneven film that comes off as trying to be funny, but never fully achieving it.

On the dvd features, they ask George Romero about the use of CGI on his modern day zombie films as opposed to using practical effects the way he used to back in the day. He goes on to explain that he wants to remain competitive in today’s modern filmmaking world. He also goes on about how it’s faster to shoot a film when you fix everything in post production because while you are shooting the film, you don’t have to worry about timing the squib explosion with the blood squirting on the wall. Everything Romero was saying on this interview sounded exactly like what I have always thought about excessive use of CGI, it can lend itself for lazy filmmaking! I mean, he did these effects practically in the past on so many films before, so what is the problem with doing it that way now? He wants to shoot faster, get the scenes out of the way and go to the next scene. Can’t blame him for wanting to shoot faster, but does that mean you have to sacrifice realism? Let’s face it, CGI blood does not look real, I can spot it every time and it takes you out of the film. I’m sad to say that Survival of the Dead has tons of bad CGI effects. One particular scene has a bunch of decapitated zombie hands stuck on these poles; they look as if they were copy pasted onto the scene! Freaking horrible! Want to be competitive Romero? Stick to real blood, stick to practical effects and stop doing these copy pasted CGI effects because they only bring down your work! I understand you have you to bring a movie in on time, and you have to work with a small budget, but my advice? Do not sacrifice the quality of your film! It’s not worth it in the end.

The man, the myth, the legend, George A. Romero

So what we have here ladies and gentlemen is a film that has some interesting themes to it. I love Romero’s social commentary on the way things are in the world. Always have always will. What I didn’t like was the uneven tone the film has. It was trying to be funny but never really achieved it. And then there is the lazy filmmaking. I mean, hearing Romero talking about how much easier it is to film a zombie scene by using CGI effects made me a little sadder inside as a horror fan. I mean hearing filmmaker like Romero, a horror master saying “I want to take the easy road” wasn’t exactly what I was expecting to hear from the legendary filmmaker, specially after all the great horror films he has made in his lifetime. I hope Romero sees the final result and realizes it wasn’t worth it. Still, I am hopeful that Romero has one more great zombie film in him.

Rating: 2 out of 5

 

 

Two Evil Eyes (1991)

                         

Title: Two Evil Eyes (1991)

Directors: George Romero, Dario Argento

Cast: Harvey Keitel, Adrienne Barbeau, Tom Atkins

Review:

Two great horror masters Dario Argento and George Romero unite their creative efforts to create a homage to the stories of Edgar Allan Poe. Ive been a fan of both of these directors for some time now. When I found out that they worked together on this film I knew sooner or later it would have to form part of my DVD collection. I mean two of the greats! Romeros Dead Quadrilogy and his other fine films such as Martin, Monkey Shines and The Dark Half, among others have made him one of horrordoms most beloved directors, and his still working today. Still making zombie movies, a die hard horror director till the very end! His films are always infused with an air of rebellion to them. Things are not preatty in Romeros films...humans are often times the real enemy!

Dario Argento the grand guignol master of stylish Italian giallos. The man can orchestrate a murder sequence and make it look like a work of art. A director who doesnt let his camara shy away from a knife slashing the throat of its victim. We know him from his previous masterpieces Suspiria, Opera, Inferno, Deep Red and countless others wich he has made across the years. Not only a fine artiste but also a true lover of horror and the occult. Though I will have to admit, Argento's recent work has been on the dissapointing side. His true classics reside in his earlier work. I dont think any of Argento's recent work is of worthy of a "masterpiece" status like his older films. I am of the mind that his last great film came in 1987 with Opera. Still, I cant say Im completely informed. Ive yet to see more of the films he made in the 90's. But his most recent films like Mother of Tears was just cringe inducing.

What's great about a project like Two Evil Eyes is that it brought together these two legendary horror directors in one film. Both of them bring their own style and fashion in Two Evil Eyes, both of them have their moments to shine. Each of the two stories lasts about an hour each, so its almost like getting two movies in one. How can we go wrong with this one?

First of, we have George Romeros The Facts of the Case of M. Valdermar. In it Adrienne Barbeau and her lover hypnotize her old rich husband and make him sign over his fortune to them against his will. Then all they have to do is let him die and all the money goes to them. Problem is, this old man wont stay dead! A very cool story, its the kind of story that Romero loves to do. You mess with the dead, you die like the rest. He did it in Creepshow in which we get the story of a vengeful dead father who comes back for his "Fathers Day" cake Killing all his greedy sons and daughters who only care about the money he left them. And in the same movie we have two lovers who are drowned by the jealous husband only to have them come back from the dead to kill him. But what makes the zombie story in Two Evil Eyes interesting is the brilliant idea of adding the hypnosis angle to it.

I have to admit that Romeros half of Two Evil Eyes feels redundant at times. It has a "been there done that" feel to it. You defenetly feel like Romero is walking on familiar ground with this zombie/revenge story. If you have already seen most of Romero's zombie films, you'll feel like that. Still, the story does have a few twists that make it new enough for you not to loose interest. I loved how the zombie can talk "from beyond" and talk about what he is seeing on the other side. Really eerie moments there. The whole angle of hypnotism and the final effects of using it! Wow! What a scene! It was perfectly spooky at times....all leading to a really cool zombie filled conclusion.

The cast includes horror film regulars. We get Adrianne Barbeau who'd worked before with Argento on Creepshow. On this flick she plays a similar character, a selfish drunkard heartless bitch. Tom Atkins a horror film veteran (Night of the Creeps, The Fog, Halloween III to name a few) appears on this one once again, playing a (wait for it) cigar chomping detective! Tom Atkins is so type casted all the time it isnt even funny! They guy always plays a variation of a cigar chomping detective on practically every movie he is on!

The make up effects are great on both stories since they were handled by another master of disaster, the one and only Tom Savini. The zombie make up is excellent! I was also impressed with how much style Romero infused his short film with. Normally Romero doesnt concern himself with style. His main focus is to just tell the story with his camera. Yet on Two Evil Eyes, there are little shots here and there that I was really amazed with....specially towards the end. Romero using visual effects? Unheard off! Yet here they are and done in a perfectly eerie and subtle fashion. Maybe there was a little bit of healthy competition going on between Romero and Dario? Both trying to out do each other? Another positive aspect of this type of film. Because there are certain moments in Argento's half that were pretty shocking!

Dario's spooky tale The Black Cat, had all the things we come to expect from an Argento tale. The first shots in Dario's film show us of the gruesome remains of a Pendulum slicing a woman in half. You see in this film, Harvey Keitel is a photographer and he takes pictures of dead people at crime scenes. We meet him taking pictures of this gruesome site and you feel like you just walked into the middle of a movie you wished you had seen. I mean just the set alone with that huge Pendulum was awesome! And to top it all off in typical Argento style, he puts the camera on the Pendulum giving us a Pendulums eye view as it slashes back and forth on the dead body. Awesome shot! Right away I knew I was going to love this film.

Harvey Keitel always wants to get the most graphic and shocking images for this new book he is doing. So one day, after being particularly fed up with his girlfriends cat desides to kill the cat, and photograph it. Unfortunately, this isnt just any old cat. This is one of those magical vengeful black cats who wont go out without a fight.

Argento does his usual exploration of ancient myths and legends giving us a little insight as to why Black Cats are considered bad luck and why they burned witches in the past. I was like "this is just like Argento to teach us a little something before blowing our brains out with the gore!" And right I was! Theres plenty of gory goodies in this story once it gets going. It has little homages to many of Poes short stories like "The Pit and the Pendulum" "The Black Cat" and "The Cask of Amontillado". It seems like Argento is the most enamored with Poe of the two directors. Argentos short film is infused with all the style, gore and story that were used to get from Argento but in short controlled bursts. I like the fact that these two short films are fast paced due to the time constraint. It forced Argento to show us strictly what was needed to make the story move along and he doesnt play around with unnecesary plot lines like in some of his other Italian films. Here its just wham! Bam! Lets go! Not only that but we get a great performance from Keitel, very intense, very violent. The man is pure evil in this film!

There was only one thing I didnt like in Darios half. Theres this scene in wich a body is hanging from a rope and for some reason wich I cannot comprehend Dario decided to use reverse photography to make it look like the body was moving back and forth as it hanged. It just came off as sloppy or maybe even lazy filmmaking. But thats really the only negative thing I can say about this great flick.

As  you can see from most of my review I was greatly pleased with this film and cant recommend it enough to Romero/Argento lovers out there. It was a once in a life time type of deal and the fruits of their labor paid off. Great work guys! The extras on this special edition double disc DVD are really great! Theres a tour through Tom Savinis mask infested home with hundreads of masks and props from all the movies that he has worked on! Interviews with Argento, Romero and Asia. Great stuff. Worth the money.

Rating: 4 out of 5