After Hours (1985)

Title: After Hours (1985)

Director: Martin Scorcese

Cast: Griffin Dunne, Rosanna Arquette, Verna Bloom, Linda Fiorentino, Teri Garr, Catherine O’Hara, John Heard, Dick Miller, Bronson Pinchot, Cheech Marin, Tommy Chong

Review:

Every once in a while a director will take a project that could have otherwise turned out to be bland or formulaic and elevates it, makes it better then it has any right to be. I think this was the case with After Hours. You kind of get the feeling that had this comedy been under the command of a lesser director, it simply would not have been as good as it is. Had legendary American filmmaker Martin Scorcese not been behind the camera, it could have ended as just another romantic comedy, lost in the shuffle and forgotten in time. But in the hands of Scorcese, this dark comedy is a superior form of comedy film in my book and I might add, criminally underrated.

After Hours tells the story of Paul Hackett, a New York City computer programmer who’s fed up with his life. He’s got a boring job, doing the same thing over and over again; when he goes back home, it’s to watch the same boring channels on television and judging by Hackett’s one tone face, there’s nothing unique or interesting on it;  he surfs through the channels with a blank stare on his face. So after a while he decides to  go out and venture to the outside world, searching for human contact, searching for something other then the numbing loneliness he lives in. The streets he ventures to are the perilous streets of the big apple, circa mid-eighties, which means dark, dangerous and manic. He stops at a coffee shop to read his favorite novel and stumbles upon a beautiful girl whom he apparently has a couple of things in common with. They exchange phone numbers and part ways, but Paul's loneliness gets the better of him and so he ends up calling her up on that very same night! They meet again at her apartment and Paul seems to think he’s going to be getting lucky, for what is wrong with casual sex? A random night of passion? Absolutely nothing! Unfortunately for Hackett, Marcy ends up being a true wacko! He sees the signs and decides to abort mission, but as Hackett will soon find out, going back home is not going to be an easy task.  

Many things make After Hours a good film, not just the fact that Scorcese directed it, though that is the big bonus in my book. Actually a lot of good things came together to make this as special a film; for example, the cast is amazing! The film is mostly centered on Griffin Dunne’s character Paul Hackett, he plays the every man. A blue collar worker type that’s fed up, he wants human contact, he wants something more then just his own self to talk to at night. Unfortunately, the universe seems to be conspiring against him on this night, this is one of those movies where everything goes wrong for the main character. He runs out of money, gets mixed up in all sorts of trouble and meets the craziest people! True blue New York people who live jaded lives in a jaded city. To you or I these characters that Hackett meets through out the course of the evening might seem nuts, or too crazy for real life, but to a New Yorker, this film is merely an exaggeration of every day New York life. Every character is brought to life by a gifted actor. Terry Gar for example, whom I always remember as Inga from Mel Brook’s Young Frankenstein (1974), is hilarious on this one as a waitress who’s a lonely desperate woman, looking for the right man to snatch up and devour! Catherine O’Hara plays this psychotic woman who has her own Mister Softee Ice Cream truck, her character is hilariously jaded out of her mind.  I mean we even get freaking Cheech and Chong on this film! The cast is very well rounded out, it makes watching the film a pleasure.

But of course, the big draw here for me is that Scorcese directed the film. What I’ve always loved about Scorcese is how very New York he is. He is enamored with the city, same as Woody Allen is, can’t say I blame ‘em, the place can be rather magical, vibrant, alive. It is a beautiful city and a dark city; it can be the stuff of dreams or nightmares depending which corner you turn on. New York City's ambiguity is what  shines through so well in After Hours. You can meet a beautiful girl in a coffee shop in the middle of the night, but said girl can turn out to be a total head case. It’s these little details that the film has that make it such a New York film, the crazy taxi driver, the cold crazy people, the dark haunting city streets, the bums, the punks, the night clubs, the gay bars, the unexpectedly friendly people, the film effectively captures the dark beauty that was New York of the 80’s, I loved that about it, so my hats down to Scorcese for capturing New York City life so well, it’s something he’s gotten very good at through out his career. I mean, this is the director who made New York, New York (1977), Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980) and Mean Streets (1973) all of which take place in the big apple. Scorcese is without a doubt a director that displays his love for the city that never sleeps; he’s the most ‘New York’ director of all. The fact that the entire film was shot in New York City streets and entirely at night is what gives After Hours its unique look.

But aside from that, the film has these amazing camera shots, which is really what let’s us know there’s a master filmmaker behind the cameras, it’s little details, like when we follow these keys that someone throws from a building, or when Hackett’s twenty dollar bill flies out the taxi cabs window and the camera follows it. My favorite shot is the one with which the film ends, the camera simply sweeps through an office building filled with desks and computers and telephones…loved that. This is the camera work and direction that brings After Hours up for me, it elevates the film. So as you can see my friends, many things make this one special. After Hours is without a doubt an extremely underrated Scorcese film! Same as with Scorcese’s Bringing Out the Dead (1999), this is a film from Scorcese’s repertoire that many seems to be missing out on, but should definitely be seeing. Scorcese made After Hours in order to regain his love for filmmaking, you see, before making After Hours Scorcese had been trying to get The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) going, but had an incredibly hard time making it happen, until finally he let it go. He ended up making it anyways a few years later, but at the time, he was incredibly frustrated at the fact that apparently The Last Temptation of Christ was not going to happen. So he went on and made After Hours, to regain his love for making movies. His love and passion for the medium shows through in the film, this is a master storyteller giving it his best to make us laugh and achieving it, in a very artful stylish way. This is a wonderfully dark comedy.

Highly recommend it if you want to see one of these films that’s very paranoid, and fast, the film moves at a frenetic pace. It’s the kind of film that takes places during the small hours of the night, in these seedy places that are open when most of humanity is sound asleep. It’s a film that shows us that the freaks most certainly come out at night. Which is probably why Hackett is always shown running from someone, which was a nice motif I picked up while watching the film; that image of Hackett just running,  running from the freaks, from the crazies, from scary life. Paul Hackett is a character that just wants to ‘get home’ which reminds me that in some ways, this is a dark version of the Wizard of Oz, with it’s main character trying to get away from all the craziness and back to the comfort and warmth of home. By the way, the films connection to The Wizard of Oz is alluded to at one point in the film. But aside from wanting to get home, Hackett just wants to live, which I think is an awesome message in the film. He wants more out of life, can’t say I blame him for going after it even if it means going through hell.

Rating: 5 out of 5 

  

The Toxic Avenger Part II and III (1989)

Title: The Toxic Avenger Part II (1989) and The Toxic Avenger Part III: The Last Temptation of Toxie (1989)

Directors: Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz

Cast: John Altamura, Ron Fazio, Phoebe Legere, Rick Collins

Today I’ll be reviewing both of these Toxic Avenger movies together because the ‘plot’ of both films is interconnected and they where both filmed back to back with a budget of 2.3 million dollars, which by the way is a lot when talking about Troma Films. So watching both of these movies back to back (which I’ve just done) is sort of like watching one gigantic Toxic Avenger Epic. For all intents and purposes, Troma fans should love both of these films, yet, there seems to be some disdain for both of these movies, even from the perspective of Troma fans and the filmmakers behind these films themselves! For example, CitizenToxie: Toxic Avenger IV (2000) starts out by giving us a summary of Toxic Avenger’s origin then they warn us “then came two shitty sequels, sorry about that. This is the real sequel!” This is something that I cannot understand because Toxic Avenger II and III are in my book, same as most (if not all) Trauma movies,  they are really no different in terms of content and style than parts I or IV, so why the hatred? The Toxic Avenger II and III have everything a Troma film should have; they are purposely imperfect, as if they revere the fact that they are cheap. These films are loud, incoherent, perverse, childish, cartoonish, and offensive to the max. They are also grotesque, gory, violent, and nonsensical with tons of bad taste to spare; but thankfully they can also be fun. When you pay for a Troma film, this is what you are going to get! In my book, both Toxic Avengers II and III are exactly what Troma films are all about.

The Toxic Avenger II starts out by showing us how The Toxic Avenger has successfully eradicated evil from Tromaville, he’s done such a good job that he has no villains to fight. People are so happy in Tromaville that they literally dance in the streets all the time! Out of happiness! The way The Toxic Avenger’s body works is, he has these cells called “Tromatons” and they start acting up whenever evil is near. As soon as these Tromatons detect evil, Toxie can’t control it; he simply goes on a destruction binge until said evil is destroyed. And said evil is a corporation known as Apocalypse Inc., a corporation that tries to take over Tromaville. But thanks to the protection of Toxie, Apocalypse Inc. is effectively kicked out of Tromaville, or so he thinks. For a moment there, at least in the Toxic Avengers eyes Tromaville is safe. Problem is that since there’s no evil for him to fight, Toxie feels as if his life has lost all sense of direction. He is so depressed and bored that he ends up visiting his shrink, who suggests that Toxie should try and find his long lost father, who apparently calls himself ‘Big Mac’ and resides in Japan. So off goes Toxie to Japan! Will he find his father? Will Apocalypse Inc. make a come back and try and take over Tromaville?

The Toxic Avenger Part II is in my book a fun sequel; it has all the zaniness and nuttiness one could want from a Troma movie. Have you ever seen The Toxic Avenger turn an evil black midget into a basket ball? And then slam dunk said midget? This happens on this film, and it is not the craziest of ideas you will see in this movie! In the huge action sequence that opens the film (well huge for Troma standards) Apocalypse Inc.’s evil minions attack a home for the blind! And blow it up! If you know anything about these movies, then you know that blowing up a home for the blind is just a way of getting warmed up. Both of these Toxic Avenger movies are a barrage of gags and ideas that never stop. Like a Sam Raimi Evil Dead movie, these Toxic Avengers never give you a break, the gags just keep coming and coming!

The problem for me with The Toxic Avenger Part II is when Toxie goes to Japan. Now, here’s a cool idea, send Toxic Avenger to Japan! The idea alone makes you think that you’re going to be seeing something totally different. And you do, it’s kind of funny seeing this monstrous deformity known as The Toxic Avenger roaming the streets of Japan as Japanese people freak out and run the other way. For a whole segment of the film, we simply see Toxie walking around all these Japanese landmarks, posing, as if someone was taking a Polaroid of him. Unfortunately, after a while you realize that the film sort of looses its steam. Where in its first half we get an avalanche of non stop craziness, once Toxie reaches Japan the film kind of comes to a complete halt. There is a moment in which Toxie fights some Japanese goons, but it comes so late in the Japan segment that by that time you feel bored. It’s not until Toxie returns to Tromaville that the film picks up its previous frenetic, coked up pace. This in my book is the films only true fault, the Japanese segment is sort of a let down, it’s kind of boring, if you ask me, it should have been crazier.  But fear not my friends, once Toxie gets back to Tromaville things get nuts again! The whole film ends on a high note for me, with this nonsensical car chase in which Toxic Avenger commandeers a taxi driven by a latino, so he can chase down one of Apocalypse Inc.s minions. The whole thing is made even more hilarious because a pair of old timers are riding in the back seat of the car, screaming their heads off! This was a very fun way to end the movie.   

The Toxic Avenger Part III: The Last Temptation of Toxie is a better film in my book. It never leaves Tromaville, the town where people never stop dancing in the streets! Once again Tromaville is at peace. There’s no evil to eradicate and again, Melvin Junko a.k.a. The Toxic Avenger falls into a depression. Things are so happy in Tromaville that all Toxic Avenger ends up fighting is an old lady who is cheating in a card game and making sure a baby eats his veggies. With no true evil to fight, The Toxic Avenger gets depressed, unfortunately, Melvin is also unemployed! He has no income! But wait, here comes a letter offering The Toxic Avenger a job at Apocalypse Inc! In order to help his girlfriend (who is blind!) regain her eyesight, he decides to take the job so he can pay for her eye operation. Unfortunately, this means that now Melvin will be working for Apocalypse Inc. Will his soul become corrupted? Will greed take over The Toxic Avenger? Yes my friends, this is yet another film that hates Big Business, huge corporations hell bent on taking over the world. At one point when Melvin is offered the job at Apocalypse Inc. the chairman of said company offers it all to him as if it was Satan, offering Jesus the kingdoms of the world. But unlike Jesus, who refuses Satan’s offerings, Melvin takes the job and so unknowingly sells his soul to the devil.

Basically Toxic Avenger III: The Last Temptation of Toxie turns Toxie into a Yuppie, which at first Toxie thinks is totally okay because he’s making some money, but then realizes is a mistake, because he is now a slave to an evil corporation that wants to enslave the citizens of Tromaville. The only reason why Toxie agrees to work for Apocalypse Inc. is because he wants to make enough money so that his blind girlfriend Claire can get an operation that will restore her eyesight. It’s kind of funny seeing Toxie walking around, dressing up like a yuppie, jogging while listening to his walkman, using a suit and a tie, reading The Wall Street Journal and talking the yuppie lingo.

Toxie's girl, Claire

Something I’ve always enjoyed about the Toxic Avenger films is that they have this “made by the people for the people” feel to them. Aside from the fact that the production of these film itself involves a lot of “real people” and not Hollywood robots, in these films, The Toxic Avenger is always going after some evil corporation that either wants to turn everyone into slaves, or wants to privatize everything. Toxie is there to protect the people against these evils, which is funny because ‘the people’ always end up becoming a part of the action. Both of these Toxic Avenger movies start and end with the whole town present, standing up against the evil, right next to The Toxic Avenger and we always get to see their facial reactions to the gruesome ways in which The Toxic Avenger takes care of business. So these films are cool in that way, ‘the people’ always stand up for themselves as well. Another element that sets The Toxic Avenger Part III apart is that Toxie ends up fighting against Satan himself! When Satan decides to finally fight against The Toxic Avenger himself, ‘mano a mano’ as they say, he chooses to do so as if he was in a videogame. You see, old Beelzebub knows that Toxie likes playing a video game called “The Five Levels of Doom” so Satan decides that he’ll go up against Toxie as if they were in this video game, each level a bit different then the next. Nifty idea!

There’s something to be said about The Toxic Avenger himself. Here’s a guy who used to be a nerd of gargantuan proportions, he got dumped into a vat of toxic waste and now he is hideously deformed, yet has gained super strength! It's one of those the worm turns sort of stories, where the one who used to  get picked on, now gets to pick back! His new found powers enable him to fight evil! It is a very strange character because even though he takes bad guys and rips them apart (literally!) he has a certain nobility to him. He isn’t a complete ass, in many ways he is in fact a good guy. He protects the people, even if he does go to extreme measures to do it. In fact, Toxic Avenger fits the description of a rebel, a true rebel. A person who hates those that abuse humanity, and takes manners into his own hands to protect the innocent, he is a rebellious leader, no doubts about it. He’s methods are just a tad too extreme, but sometimes that’s what it takes.

So that’s my take on these two Toxic Avenger movies. In my book, they are both fun times and on a technical level they are superior then the sequel that followed Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV (2000) which somehow manages to look even cheaper then these two films. In fact, if I am not mistaken,  The Toxic Avenger II and III are the most expensive Toxic Avenger films Troma ever produced! All other Toxic Avenger films cost less than 500,000, including the latest one! And to be honest, you can tell they had more money. There’s more explosions, more stunts, more gore, more make up effects. All in all, these are a fun pair of films, I mean, they aren’t Shakespeare (that would be Tromeo and Juliet!) but they sure are fun to watch. You have to get into a certain ‘low budget’ mindset to watch these films. If you don’t like excessive violence, b-movies, foul language, nudity, sex, gore, vomit (and other bodily fluids) decapitations or cheap production values in your movies…then don’t bother with these, but if in the other hand you are easily amused and enjoy, silly movies that don’t take themselves to seriously, then indulge! A dip in Tromaville’s pool of cinematic toxic waste is fun every once in a while.

Rating Toxic Avenger Part II: 2 out of 5

Rating Toxic Avenger Part III: The Last Temptation of Toxie: 2 ½ out of 5  

The Campaign (2012)

Title: The Campaign (2012)

Director: Jay Roach

Cast: Will Farrell, Zack Galifianakis, Dan Aykroyd, John Lithgow, Dylan McDermott, Brian Cox

Are you a Republican or a Democrat? Do you believe in a form of government that works for its people? Do you hate the savage way in which political parties throw dirt at each other all over the media? These are the questions you gotta keep in mind when watching The Campaign. I live on the island of Puerto Rico, and boy, political parties here tear each other apart in the media, election time in my country is not not that different from what we portrayed in this new Will Ferrell/Zack Galifianakis/Jay Roach comedy ‘The Campaign’. This film is a sincere and savage satire at the way the political game is played and how dirty it can get. It’s the kind of film that politicians don’t want you to watch because it exposes them for what they truly are: showmen looking to sell you an empty spectacle.

   

Ferrell plays the well oiled politician known as Cam Brady. He’s obviously The Republican candidate who’s the ‘All American Man’ he goes to church, he believes in his country and in supporting this nations troops, he’s a family man with a beautiful wife, and two kids! He also has a mistress on the side, and one night, when he decides to call her up and get kinky with her, he mistakenly ends up calling a Christian’s family’s home and leaves them a particularly nasty sexually charged message on their answering machine. This embarrassing turn of events causes a new candidate to move forward in the political race, his name is ‘Marty Huggins’ played by Zack Galifianakis. Huggins is a leader of the people, a person truly interested in doing something for his town. He tells the people to bring their brooms with him to Washington because, “It’s a mess!” Who will win this battle; the evil , selfish politician or the one who cares for the interests of the people? 

In my opinion, all the greatest comedies succeed because of the cast. Special effects movies, action movies, they can get away with having mediocre actors because there’s the action, and there are the effects to keep you interested. But in a comedy you can’t risk having bad actors. You have to get truly funny people in there or your reason for being is dead. In order to make your audience laugh, you need good comedians. Ghostbusters (1984), The Blues Brothers (1980), Coming to America (1988), Young Frankenstein (1974), all these super comedies worked because the cast is freaking amazing. Of course, great comedy directors where behind them as well, and it’s the combination of these two elements that make a great comedy. I think this was the case with The Campaign, a film made by some truly funny people and a trusted comedy director: Jay Roach.  

Director Jay Roach 

Ferrell, when he’s good he’s good and on this film he is truly on. I mean the guy is dead funny. I always enjoyed Will Ferrell’s take on president George W. Bush, he was so dead on with his Saturday Night Live sketches; it was always truly funny stuff in my book. The Campaign takes all those satirical sketches that Ferrell did on Saturday Night Live and takes them up to a hundred. Zack Galifianakis, I'm so glad he is on this one playing off of Will Ferrell's character, they are perfect for each other because they are both comedians that are very extreme, they'll go the lengths necessary to make us laugh, so this two explosively funny comedians on the screen is a match made in heaven as far as I'm concerned, I hope this film serves to push Galifianakis's career even further. There’s no mercy for politicians on this movie! I loved that about it, because come one, let’s face it, these political campaigns can get vicious and it’s that viciousness that works like magic on this movie. As it is in the real world, these guys really have no mercy for each other. And for those of you who think this film is only for liberals, well, I’m here to tell you that you’re wrong because both parties are made fun off, but its primordially the rich republicans who get the heat. In this films eyes, Big Money and the politicians who play their evil game are the true villain. In The Campaign big business only cares about financially backing up a politician that they can easily manipulate. Sadly, same as in the real world, there are always politicians more then willing to play along.  These millionaires with huge businesses are the ones who could turn this world around because they have the money to do it, but instead they choose child slavery as an option. They choose to buy the elections, play dirty, keep slavery going in the world, only now they call it ‘less than minimum wage’. So these are the guys that The Campaign aims its guns at, which is actually perfectly alright by me. I think the film has every right to say that Washington is “a mess!”

Jay Roach is a director who has made many a fine comedy, in my book all three of the Austin Powers movies rocked; these are the kinds of comedies I like to watch over and over again. Meet the Parents (2000) and Meet the Fockers (2004), both hilarious in my book. It’s safe to say that Jay Roach has turned into one of those great comedy directors; it seems like Roach will be a mainstay in Hollywood; his comedies are hugely successful most of the time. Ultimately, what I loved most about the film is how it comments on the fakeness of politics, on how it manipulates the masses to think a certain way. The political game portrayed on this film and the one we see in real life are both one big circus attraction, one big show that tries to attract as many zombies as it can with its bright colorful lights, loud music and it’s confetti. They are simply trying to sell you a product that you will ultimately be disappointed by. Wouldn’t it be great if for once they would try to sell us a politician that wouldn’t disappoint?  One that would be worth a damn? The Campaign is well worth the watch, funny every step of the way and unafraid to sshow things the way they are, it gets a couple of extra points simply for that in my book!

Rating: 4 out of 5 

Chernobyl Diaries (2012)

Title: Chernobyl Diaries (2012)

Director: Bradley Parker

Cast: Jonathan Sadowski, Nathan Phillips, Jesse McCartney, Devin Kelley, Olivia Dudley, Dimitri Diatchenko, Ingrid Bolso Berdal

Review:

Chernobyl Diaries comes to us from producer Oren Peli, the guy who burst into the cinematic scene with Paranormal Activity (2007), one of the most profitable independent films ever. It stands proudly next to similarly produced films like Halloween (1978) and The Blair Witch Project (1999), you know, films made with very little money, but that made huge amounts of cash at the box office. It seems to me that Oren Peli is now Hollywood’s go to guy for producing films of this nature, and of course Hollywood is loving every second of it. It means they don’t have to spend obscene amounts of money producing a film and they still fill up their bank accounts. Case in point, Chernobyl Diaries, the latest of these ‘cheaply’ produced films only cost 1 million dollars to make, that's pocket change when it comes to hollywood, but hear this, the film has already gone on to make more than 18 million dollars at the box office! Talk about a win-win situation! But production stories aside, was the film worth a damn?

Say "Nuclear Fall Out!"

Story is all about these American tourists who in search of kicks during their visit to Ukraine, agree to go on an ‘extreme tour’ which means they’ll pay an ex-military dude to take them deep into the city of Pripyat, the city where the families who worked at the Chernobyl Power plant used to live in.  After the 1986 Chernobyl Nuclear Power plant disaster; the whole city became one big deserted place. The families who lived there were all forced to abandon the city in less then 24 hours! The buildings they used to live in stand their, like giant silent witnesses to these horrible events that occurred some 25 years ago. Still, the four Americans think going into this ghost town will be a spooky adventure. Never mind that radiation levels are still present and could potentially kill them, their logic is they will be in and out of this place before the radiation can harm them. Still, this being a horror film, well, the question inevitably arises: will they ever return?

Chernobyl Diaries attempts to be an exercise in suspense, but does it succeed? Well, the film is all about things moving in the shadows, villains we can never quite place, but know are there, people running from deadly not yet seen..things. Yup, Oren Peli is up to his old tricks again. He enjoys scaring his audience without really showing them anything. This film is similar in that way to Peli’s own Paranormal Activity, a film that can also creep you out, simply because it messes with your mind. The villains in Chernobyl Diaries are kept in a shroud of mystery; obviously Peli knows our minds will fill the blanks with something maybe even more awful. Maybe this is a way to save some money, but I guess their logic is that our imaginations will put in the special effects. Cheap, yeah, but you have to admit, it’s an effective technique that when it works, it works. Your mind does fill in the blanks with something perhaps even more sinister then what they could actually end up showing you. And though Peli didn’t personally direct this film, you could feel that Chernobyl Diaries is structured and produced in an Oren Peli sort of way. There’s lots of mystery, lots of suspense, lot's of unanswered questions. This film keeps you guessing to the very end, which of course I enjoyed.

This is director Bradley Parker’s first film, he’s worked on films before but on the visual effects department and computer animation which usually spells disaster for a film in my book. Virus (1999)  and Spawn (1997) are examples of two films directed by visual effects artists who had the opportunity to make  full length feature films. As you can see, the results are usually either empty fx spectacles or simply mediocre films. Sometimes handing a movie to an effects whiz isnt always great because they tend to focus on effects alone and forget about telling a good story.  Sometimes their films don't work,  and sometimes it's magic, like in the case of James Cameron, who started his career doing effects work on Roger Corman movies and has ended up directing some of the biggest blockbusters ever conceived. So you see, there are exceptions and I’d say that Bradley Parker is one of them. Considering his background in computer effects, I’m amazed he turned in a film whose focuse isn’t in wowing us with them. This films main attempt is to scare us and keep us in suspense and I think in that sense it worked. Visually speaking, thanks to Parker's experience with effects  work , this film looks great. In the film, Parker mixes a bit of that shaky cam technique, but at the same time, has some  good looking still shots, so I'd say he did a great balancing act there. Nothing worse than an overdose of shaky cam.  Interesting how Parker’s first film has sparked some controversy, some groups consider the film offensive because it portrays kids going on vacation to Chernobyl, where so many human lives where lost. They also criticize the films tag line “Experience The Fall Out” because they say its "making fun" of the horrors of real nuclear fall out. I say baloney, in any case, the film actually shows us what real fall out can do to you. And as for the disrespectful angle, these kids go in there, not to be disrespectful, in fact, their attitude is mournful. They stand in awe of this place. If you ask me, the ‘controversy’ behind this is stupid, but on the other hand, it should work in the films favor at the box office.

  

What works so well for this movie is the unique locations in which they shot the film. We get isolated abandoned buildings, old factories, a ghost city with shadows creeping in its backgrounds. The whole story behind the Chernobyl disaster makes everything all the more sinister, the idea that these kids are venturing deeper and deeper into this ghost town, that’s so close to an abandoned nuclear reactor is very eerie, the visuals are extremely atmospheric and I enjoyed that about it. My problem with the film was that somewhere around its middle part it turns into the kids running away from something they can’t see, and it turns into that kind of a movie where they never show you what it is that’s chasing these kids, which is probably a way of trying to augment the suspense. It might unnerve some, and piss off others who want to see their creatures. It worked well in my book because usually, these types of films have a good pay off in the end and in my book, Chernobyl Diaries does have a good ending. Ultimately, Chernobyl Diaries has suspenseful moments, lot’s of jump scares and an extremely eerie location and premise. It might not offer up a lot in the originality department because it simply deludes into a monster movie, but if you ask me, even though the film doesn’t break any new ground in horror, it entertained me. It’s a horror film with an interesting setting and an eerie premise, what’s not to like?

Rating: 3 ½ out of 5  

Slugs (1988)

Title: Slugs (1988)

Director: J.P. Simon

Cast: Michael Garfield, Kim Terry 

Review:

J.P. Simon is a Spanish director who has made some of the worst films to ever be committed to celluloid. If you ask me, he is Spain’s own Uwe Boll; and in case you don’t know who Uwe Boll is, then check out his filmography, I’m sure you’ll agree that most of his films (if not all) are some of the worst you’ve seen in your life. With directors such as these, I always wonder:  how do they do it? How do they convince a producer to give them cash to make these crappy movies? And they keep making movies too, they don’t stop! For example, Uwe Boll has made 28 films so far; and I’m sure he’ll keep making more. I guess as long as video clubs keep buying and renting his films, he’ll keep turning in a profit…and he’ll keep coming back; same thing with J.P. Simon. Mr. Simon is a director who’s pretty much kept his career in Spain; but at various points in his career, he’s attempted to make films that he could sell to American distributors. If you’re a slasher film fan, then I’m sure you’ve seen J.P. Simon’s Pieces (1982); not a bad little slasher if you ask me. It gets pretty gory at times; but it is not without its nonsensical moments.

Another one of J.P. Simon’s attempts at making a film aimed at an American audience was Cthulhu Mansion (1992); a film that in spite of having Lovecraft’s name plastered all over it’s poster, has absolutely nothing to do with Lovecraft or his stories! It is terribly acted, cheesy as hell and horribly edited, but it’s a fun movie to watch because of this. After seeing Cthulhu Mansion I was convinced I had seen one of the worst films ever made; I laughed my ass off no doubt. But a good movie it wasn’t! So it was with great curiosity that I decided to finally watch Slugs, J.P. Simon’s killer slugs movie. I kept hearing that it was gruesome and gory, so I decided to finally give it a chance, you know,  out of morbid curiosity. Call me crazy, but I like seeing a lot of these ‘bad movies’, they make me laugh and lighten up my nights. With Slugs, I knew I would probably be in for a goofy ‘so bad it’s good movie’, so I was prepared for that this time around. Turns out, I was right! This is yet another terrible yet fun film from director J.P. Simon.

Story goes something like this: mutant killer slugs (with teeth!) are procreating in the sewer system of the small town known as Merton. Mike Brady, the towns health inspector knows this and is trying to get someone to hear him out, but you know how horror films go, no one believes Mikes mutant slugs story. Hell, I wouldn’t either! Unless I was in a cheesy horror movie like this one that is! So anyhow, dead people start piling up and only then do the authorities believe Mike. Can Mike whip up a way to kill the slugs before they eat their way through the town?  

Choking on a Slug! 

 So yeah, this is the kind of movie where only one person knows what’s really going on and nobody in town wants to believe him. Mike goes around telling people that there are killer slugs in the sewer but everyone reacts the same way “your crazy! Go to hell!” This movie is so nonsensical, that even when people have actually seen someone choke on slugs and even seen a persons head explode with slugs, they still don’t believe Mike’s killer slugs story! I mean, people, didn’t you just see someone’s head explode as slugs and worms came out of it? Helloooo! Wake up! The people in this movie are so dumb that even when they know their town was a toxic waste dump a few years ago they don’t believe! If we’re going to talk about this films negative traits, then by far, the worst thing this film has is it’s dialog and acting. The actors say their lines fast, just to get them out of the way in an extremely robotic fashion, they speak simply to expose plot points. For example, they'll say things like “Now maybe, just maybe, we might be dealing with a mutant form of slug here, a kind that eats meat!” This film has porn movie dialog and actors, no doubts about it. To make matters worse, most of the dialog is dubbed because J.P. Simon filmed most of the movie in Spain, with Spanish actors. But the main attraction on this kind of film are the monsters and the deaths they cause and in that respect, Slugs delivers. 

On the positive side of the spectrum, same as with J.P. Simon’s Pieces, the film is extremely gory; and this is something that J.P. Simon is known for. He might be a terrible filmmaker, but he sure knows how to cook up a gruesome death! On this one we have naked people being attacked by slugs and people’s heads bursting with slugs! Slugs eat the hand of an old man, after which he chops it off! The deaths get ugly on this one. The effects are interesting too; at one point we get a close up of a slug that shows us it’s teeth and bites Mike’s finger! It looks hilarious! You will have a fun time listening to the inane dialog, and watching these actors dig themselves deeper into their acting career graves, but overall, Slugs is simply a bad movie with some decent gore effects. It’s a series of gory deaths strung together by a paper thin plot, but then again, that’s what b-movies are all about, so b-movie lovers just might find some enjoyment with this one, I know I did. For other killer slug movies, I’d recommend checking out Squirm (1976), Night of the Creeps (1986) or Slither (2006), all of which are all infinitely better killer slug films then this one. 

Rating: 2 ½ out of 5   

 Slugs is based on a novel of the same name by author Shaun Hutson