The Reaping (2007)

Title: The Reaping (2007)

Director: Stephen Hopkins

Cast: Hilary Swank, Idris Alba, Stephen Rea, Anna Sophia Robb, William Ragsdale, David Morissey

Review:

So this is another film I’d completely ignored thinking it was going to be total boloney. Turns out it wasn’t; turns out The Reaping was actually quite the experience to watch! This is the kind of film in which bible prophecies start to turn true and characters that are unbelievers begin to question their beliefs. Is there a God? Is there a Satan? Or is it just a bunch of boloney and everyone is going nuts?

 Story revolves around Katherine Winters (Hilary Swank) a woman whose main purpose in life is going around the world proving how certain “miracles” are actually hoaxes, and how people’s religious beliefs can make them see things that have a perfectly plausible scientific explanation to them. She says that the only real miracle is that people still believe. One fine day Katherine meets Doug, a representative of the people of the small Bible belt town of ‘Haven’. He tells Katherine that a child in the town has been murdered and that the one responsible for this death is an evil Satan worshipping child who lives out in the swamps. You see, this is a town of god fearing religious folk and they all think the little girl is a heathen, a Satan worshipper who’s bringing forth all the death and destruction. Also, a nearby lake has turned into blood! Could it be the work of the little girl? Are the ten biblical plagues of the book of Exodus coming true? Katherine and her unbelieving ass head on down to the town of Haven to investigate.

Water turning into blood, not a good sing!

 This movie started off on the right foot for me because the opening sequence was shot in my country, Puerto Rico. They shot in the exact same place that Rob Marshall shot a small sequence for Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011), the fort of San Cristobal, which is a Spanish fort that the Spaniards built more than 500 years ago when the Spaniards came to colonize our island. Only thing is that in The Reaping, they made it look as if it was Chile. So anyways, this is where we first meet Katherine Winters: the unbeliever. She is there trying to prove that a certain “miracle” really isn’t one. This is a very a-typical kind of character that we often times find in films dealing with the supernatural; the proverbial unbeliever. And as in many, dare I say all films of this nature; the unbeliever will be taught a lesson! Unbelievers always end up realizing they were ‘so wrong’, which is something I don’t agree with of course cause unbelievers usually stay that way through out all their lives because they never see or hear anything that will make them believe in the supernatural. To me, the only place the supernatural becomes real is in films; and I enjoy films that deal with the supernatural precisely for this reason.

 In The Reaping, the supernatural events that come to life have to do with the ten biblical plagues of the book of Exodus. For those of you not in the know, the ten biblical plagues of Exodus where these ten supernatural events that God made happen so that the Pharaoh would let the  Hebrews go free (they were slaves to the Egyptians) so that they could go and worship their God in the dessert. But Pharaoh was such a staunch unbeliever that to him his gods were more powerful then the god of the Hebrews. To him, the God of the Hebrews was an unknown deity, for all intents and purposes, the God of the Hebrews did not exist. So he was all haughty, and he was like “I don’t know who this God of yours is and I’m not letting your people go!” So God decided to teach this Pharaoh a lesson in humility and sends the Egyptians these ten plagues. The ten plagues consisted of:

1-     Water turning into blood

2-     Frogs

3-     Swarms of Mosquitoes

4-     Lice

5-     Death of Livestock

6-      Boils on the skin

7-     Hail and Thunder

8-     Swarms of Locusts

9-     Total Darkness

10- Death of the Firstborns

 Of course, the cool thing about this movie is watching these ten biblical plagues come to life. My personal favorite was the swarm of locusts! If you don’t like bugs you’ll probably have a hard time watching those scenes! To me they were very well achieved. By the way, the filmmakers behind this film are firm believers in “blowing the audience away in the end”, because the ending is all kinds of spectacular. Lots of visual effects were involved in the making of this film, director Stephen Hopkins has always been a very kinetic type of filmmaker. I remember I always enjoyed his films because he played with angles and colors a lot. Examples of this are films like Predator 2 (1990) and A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child (1989), both films that are very strong on style and visuals. On The Reaping, the filmmakers used many computer effects to tell their story and enhance mood. For example, in this film, shadows move, the skies look stormy and unnatural, colors change. Director Stephen Hopkins used computer effects to alter mood and feel very effectively on this one. Something I enjoyed about this film is that the effects didn’t make the film; they are not the stars of the show. The film is not shallow in that sense. Rather, the effects help the story move forward, which I thought was awesome. Stick all the way to the end for an awesome visual effects show!

Finally, I ended up enjoying this movie a hell of a lot more than I expected. Aside from the fact that it’s a movie meant to enhance your belief in God and all that (not something I’m all about) it also addresses the issues of evil religious leaders which is a favorite theme of mine in movies. Far too many evil religious leaders have been responsible for the death of their followers, and I think it is an evil that needs to be mentioned and discussed, as a way to warn people against the dangers of following some power hungry mad man. This movie conveyed all these themes effectively, while at the same time managing to make God and all his supernatural powers real. And it’s even an effective horror film. So it’s a movie that can please both the believer and the unbeliever, which is a plus in this kind of film for me. I hate preachy movies, and this is not one of them.

 This film was released during holy week of 2007, I guess to capitalize on all the god fearing Christians going to the movies on that week, searching for a film that would bring their beliefs to life. And they found it with The Reaping, the movie made a profit. I only wish we could have seen the sequel, the ending leaves everything open for another film. The cast is amazing, Hilary Swank is looking all sorts of beautiful on this one! We get an awesome supporting cast, Stephen Rea plays a priest who knows all about the plagues, Anna Sophia Robb plays the mysterious little girl quite effectively. We even get William Ragsdale (Charlie from Fright Night) playing the sheriff of the town! Though I didn’t recognize him at all, the guy has changed so much since his Fright Night days! So we got a solid cast to round things out. The film went through a tough time during it's production because right smack int he middle of filming, hurricane Katrina hit, which stopped the production for a week. Filmmakers considered filming in another state, but decided the residents of Louisiana would need the income the film would generate, so they stayed. The Reaping is a great slice of supernatural cinema, recommend it if you enjoy this kind of film.

Rating: 4 out of 5 

Hilary Swank next to the director of the picture, Stephen Hopkins

The Rite (2011)

Title: The Rite (2011)

Director: Mikael Hafstrom

Cast: Anthony Hopkins, Rutger Hauer, Alice Braga, Colin O’Donoghue

Review:

The Rite is a film that wants to remind you that faith is important, and that you should never loose it. It wants to let you know that “not believing in the devil does not protect you from him”. Barf; whatever! Spread that fear why don’t you! In yet another attempt at addressing the issue of exorcisms, once again, they’ve gone and made this film that, though well made, feels like an onslaught of clichés seen in other exorcism films. And speaking of films about exorcisms, there’s been a lot of them! Though most of them are hardly convincing, yet they keep getting made. And they keep hitting us with cliché after cliché. For example: is it just me or is every single priest on these films always loosing his faith? Is it me or is the ‘possesed’ person always bed ridden? And does the final exorcism in the film always take place with the possessed tied to a bed or something? Like I said, clichés. So here comes yet another entry into the exorcism films sub-genre, how was it?

It wasn’t all that bad. First off, the film is very well shot and directed, technically speaking, it’s a solid film. Its tone is a deadly serious one, it doesn’t come off as goofy or anything like some exorcism films do. On this one we meet young Michael Kovak the son of a mortician, who by the way is played by Rutger Hauer. A bit underused if you ask me, but hey it's always a pleasure to see Mr. Hauer on screen! Will somebody give Hauer more roles that are worth a damn? Pretty please with vanilla on top? So anyways, on this family you are either a mortician or a priest, and so young Michael Kovak has decided to become a priest. Though to be honest, he really doesn’t seem to be the priest type. You see, Michael Kovak is a young man with very little to no faith at all. But he goes to priest school none the less and becomes a priest. Weird thing is that just as he is about to send an e-mail saying he doesn’t want to be a priest and that he is giving up on the whole thing, a priest decides to send Michael to Rome to train himself in the ways of  exorcism. Michael accepts the offer, willingly giving the whole faith thing one more try. Will Michael see anything that will convince him of the existence of the supernatural? Will Michael’s faith ever return?

The Rite is very similar to The Last Exorcism (2010) because it is also about a faithless priest who doesn’t believe in the supernatural. He thinks that possessed people are very disturbed people whose perception of things have been altered by all their religious beliefs. I enjoyed that about the film, how the character Michael Kovak serves as a means to voice the plea of the Unbeliever, same as the priest character in The Last Exorcism. For most of the film you’ll find Michael Kovak saying things like “It gets complicated when proof of the devil is no proof of the devil” Right on brother! He hit the nail on the head as far as faith goes; at the root of the matter is believing in things that you cant proof or see.  

My take on these kinds of films is that they are no longer scary, audiences just don’t get as spooked as they used to by these films. It could be the ever growing number of non-believers out there; it could be that people know too much about how films are made and nothing amazes them anymore, so the illusion and magic behind the whole thing is no longer there. We got dvd special features to thank for that. The Last Exorcism for example was a successful film, but only because it cost about 2 million dollars to make. Had it cost more, it might have flopped. Case in point: The Rite which cost 37 million dollars but only made 33 million in the U.S. It came and it went from theaters without much of a fuzz. To the world, it was just another horror movie. No big deal. In comparison, when The Exorcist (1973) was first released, people passed out while watching the movie, people walked out of theaters because they couldn’t take what they were seeing. It was an experience to watch; an event. This latest exorcism movie  (The Rite)  failed to capture the attention and imaginations of the audience. This was not a ‘shit in your pants’ scary film, but did it work on any level?

Well, I did enjoy the fact that the film didn’t come off as hokey, the way a lot of these films do turn out. It seems to me that for The Rite they were trying to do a film that wasn’t exactly a horror film. They were apparently trying to do a realistic depiction in the life of an exorcist, so goofy it aint. This is the kind of film that the catholic church would be proud of.  A good example of a goofy exorcism film is Lost Souls (2000) with Wynona Ryder and even goofier was The Unborn (2009), if you want to see a laugh inducing exorcism sequence check that one out. The Rite made an effort to make things a bit more credible and authentic. A lot of that could have something to do with the fact that the film is based on a book called The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist by Matt Baglio. In preparation to write his book, Mr. Baglio actually went to the Vatican for a seminar on exorcism. There he met Father Gary Thomas, the actual person on which the character of Michael Kovak is based on. In addition to that,  director Mikael Hafstrom actually went to a couple of ‘real life exorcisms’, a couple of which he heard from afar because they wouldn’t allow him to see them. So there is a level of authenticity to the film.

But when it comes right down to it, no matter how ‘authentic’ the film is, there’s no such thing as the supernatural. No one has ever seen the things that happen on these exorcism  films in real life. All these priests have seen in their ‘exorcisms’ is people screaming, and twisting and cursing profusely, but supernatural events? Real life supernatural activities that we could see with our own eyes or document with a video camera? Nope; never happened. Don’t you think if these supernatural events ever really happened a priest would have already caught something on tape? Or on their cell phones? Yet no actual evidence of the supernatural exists outside of a couple of hoax pictures that somebody altered on Photoshop in their home computers. Still, films that are ‘based on real life’ try and make us believe that events such as these actually occured. To that I say ‘phooey!’  Of course, if ask the catholic church they’ll tell  you that they loved the movie. And loved it they did, the catholic church gave this one glowing reviews. They loved it as much as they loved The Exorcist. Why? Because these films spread their fantasies around, and after all that’s all the church really wants, to dig themselves deeper into peoples consciousness.

What we got here ladies and gents is a decent exorcism picture. It is well photographed and acted, the locations are beautiful looking (most of it was shot in Hungaria) and the visual effects are decent. It plays everything deadly serious, not a smile to be seen. These characters seem to really believe that they are dealing demons, or perhaps even Satan himself? Oooh spooky! Everything is augmented by Anthony Hopkins performance, and may I send kudos his way for throwing himself so completely into this physically demanding role. This film is one big catholic fantasy brought to life in the only way that in can be brought to life, through the wonderful alternate universe of movies. And as such, it works. I thought it needed a few more creeps and scares, but the ending is really what it’s all about with this movie. Stick all the way to the end, for the big exorcism scene, it’s worth it.    

Rating: 3 1/2

Fright Night (1985) vs. Fright Night (2011)

Title: Fright Night (2011) and Fright Night (2011)

Directors: Craig Gillespie and Tom Holland (respectively)

Cast: Collin Farrell, Anton Yelchin, David Tennant, Imogen Poots, Toni Collette, Christopher Mintz Plasse, Chris Sarandon, William Ragsdale, Amanda Bearse, Roddy McDowall, Stephen Geoffreys

Review:

The original Fright Night was one of the first films (along with Nightmare on Elm Street: Dream Warriors) to get me hooked on horror films. When I was a kid, horror films scared me like crazy, but it was Fright Night that taught me how fun horror films could be. Fright Night mixed a love for old school horror films with modern day make up effects. It had awesome characters all through out; Charley is the bookworm, the mild mannered regular Joe who suddenly finds himself dealing with the fact that his next door neighbor is a vampire, and nobody believes him. He befriends Peter Vincent, an aging horror film actor who pays the rent by doing ‘Fright Night’ a television program that showcases old horror films, Peter is the host of the show. Following Charlie in this adventure are Evil Ed, Charlie’s best friend who also happens to be a horror film connoisseur and Amy, Charlie’s nerdy unbelieving girlfriend. The whole cast was made up of the perfect actors for their respective roles. William Ragsdale was perfect as the nerdy Charlie, so naïve, so innocent yet brave enough to do what he’s got to do. Roddy McDowall was perfect as Peter Vincent, an actor who seems like a coward at first but then discovers he wants to become what he always played in the movies – a real life vampire killer! Stephen Geoffrey’s plays one of the most memorable vampires in cinematic history, the drooling, rambling Evil Ed! But the most memorable of all roles on this film was the role of Jerry Dandridge, played with gleeful delight by the great Chris Sarandon. That’s one thing that the original Fright Night had, great characters played by great actors, and an involving story.

Let’s not forget one of the most outstanding things about the original Fright Night: the show stopping make up effects! The vampires looked really demonic on this one, very animal like. Huge fangs, yellow eyes, long finger nails! And we even get a scene in which a vampire transforms into a werewolf! An awesome sequence if there ever was any. This is one of those movies that no matter how much time has passed, the make up effects are still awesome to watch. I still love this movie to death, I re-watch it every now and again, and not just to the ‘good parts’, I love the whole thing. I love how it pays respects to the horror movies of old. For example, Peter Vincent plays a character not that different from Vincent Price or Peter Cushing. Peter’s always remembering the golden days when he participated in making classic horror films. So it’s a film that understands and respects where it’s coming from, it pays homage to all those vampire movies that came before it. At one point Charlie is watching a horror film on television, it turns out he’s watching Hammer films Scars of Dracula (1970)! At another he is watching Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things (1973)!

The dynamics between the characters always pulled me in as well. I especially enjoy the friendship that Peter and Charlie develop; Peter becomes something of a father figure to Charlie since Charlie has no father. I liked how they became truly good friends, a friendship that crosses over to the sequel Fright Night Part II (1988); and a worthy sequel that one was, not as great as the original, but still pretty damn respectable as far as sequels go. So when a remake to Fright Night was announced, I had incredibly mixed feelings about it. On the one hand I was curious as to what it would end up being like, with all the modern special effects available nowadays. But at the same time a question kept creeping into my mind: would they get it right? Or would this be another one of those ‘remakes’ that doesn’t pay respects to the original?

Well, I’m happy to announce to you guys that Fright Night (2011) was not the disappointment I expected it to be. The promotional material for this film made it look very tame in comparison to the gruesomeness of the original. Is it just me or did the poster for this remake say “blah” every step of the way? Something that I love about the original film is that awesome poster with the clouds forming into the face of a vampire. To this date, the poster for the original is still one of my favorite horror film posters EVER. The new poster is so freaking bland, it says nothing to me. It certainly doesn’t tell me that Im going to be watching a vampire film. So already, my doubts were raised. And this was just the poster! Would the film be just as bland? Then came the previews, which didn’t inspire a lot of confidence either. No make up effects show up on the trailer for the film, so immediately I’m thinking they toned down the look of the vampires and the gore, because you know, this is the day and age of the watered down action and horror film. So immediately after seeing the previews, my wings of hope where shot down. In my opinion, as far as I could tell, this new Fright Night was going to suck. Still, my curiosity got the best of me and so I ended up at my local theater to see it. I just couldn’t help myself. Plus, to my surprise, the film was actually getting good reviews all around, so I was like “things cant be all that bad”.

Anton Yelchin, the new Charlie Brewster

As expected, a few changes have taken place from old to new. First up was the big surprise that Charlie is no longer a nerdy book worm, but a dude who has crossed over from being a nerdy dude to becoming one of the “cool guys”, Charlie is now part of the “in crowd”, complete with hot girlfriend and all. Evil Ed and Charlie are no longer best friends. In fact, Charlie is ditching Evil Ed because Evil is still a major geekazoid and Charlie doesn’t want to be associated with none of that. I’m not sure I liked that change, one thing I liked about the original was that Charlie was a geek, hell, I thought this would fit in with the current norm of making the geek the star of the film, but whatever, filmmakers wanted to make Charlie a cool kid with a hot girlfriend this time around. The other change? Peter Vincent isn’t a horror show host anymore, now he does a Vegas style magic show a la David Copperfield. He’s no longer the lovable old man/father figure, now he is young, rich (no longer struggling to pay the rent like in the original) a drunkard and a womanizer, great. He is a mix between Chris Angel and Russell Brand. Actually, they originally wanted Russell Brand to play Peter Vincent, but when he backed out David Tennant stepped in. So as you can see, they really twisted the characters around for this new film.

The new Peter Vincent, no longer the sweet old man

Anymore twists? Well yeah, for example Evil Ed is still pretty much a nerd, only he is more of a nerd. In the original, Evil Ed was a horror film buff, he looked like he heard heavy metal and watched a lot of horror films, but he didn’t look like a nerd. On this new one he looks like a major geek, largely due to the fact that they chose Christopher Mintz-Plasse (of McLovin’ fame) to play the character. Now this was a bad casting choice if you ask me. Such an important character in the original, with so many awesome sequences, and on the remake they give the role to McLovin’? What? That never made sense to me! On top of all this, they completely exorcised the sequence in which Evil Ed turns into a werewolf! That sequence was one of the showstoppers in the original! On the remake they replaced this sequence with a battle between Charlie and Evil Ed. Yeah the sequence gets gory on this remake, they even chop off a couple of limbs and a head, but still, I would not have left out the werewolf transformation which was such a cool scene in the original. But whatever, the sequence we get on the remake isn’t bad at all, I’m glad that at least the scene they replaced it with is actually a bit gruesome. Bottom line though: Mintz Plasse as Evil Ed was a bad choice. But here’s the deal my friends: McLovin’ playing Evil Ed was the only real bad choice on this film as far as I’m concerned, everything else clicked.

Christopher Mintz Plasse as Evil Ed, Big Mistake! 

They did tone down the demonic looking faces of the vampires for this remake; yet I’m glad to say that they still managed to squeeze in some cool vampire make up effects and transformations. I can’t imagine why they would leave all these cool looking vampires out of the previews for the film since to me these are some of the biggest selling points for this film. I mean that’s what people want to see, freaking vampires! Show the people a glimpse of the vamps and their demonic visages and this will surely guarantee more seats in the movie theater. But no, apparently gruesomeness isn’t allowed in movie trailers these days. And the studio paid the price for it too, the bland looking trailer equaled low ticket sales. I remember the original exploited its gory aspects to the max in its marketing, including a music video that showcased lots of demonic looking vampires. Here's another funny thing about the original: back in 1985 it only cost a mere 9 million dollars to make! Man they really made the best out of their 'meager' budget! Now compare that with the remake. As it is, the remake underperformed in theaters . It had a 30 million budget yet it only made 18 million in  U.S. theaters, and a worldwide gross of 36.8 million, just barely making it's budget back. Sad part is that this remake's not a bad film at all. I blame the studios marketing, I mean, all promotional material for this film screams “blah” when in fact the movie was all kinds of fun. Did they purposely want this film to fail? Again, me thinks horror films are under attack by the powers that be.

This is not the poster for a vampire film, sorry!

Another big selling point for this film was Colin Farrell playing Jerry Dandridge, and here’s one thing that this remake got very, very right. Farrell was great as Dandridge, playing it cool and ominous. One awesome sequence has him interacting with Chris Sarandon, the original actor who played Jerry Dandridge, not gonna spoil it for you guys but that cameo was all sorts of fun. Speaking of Chris Sarandon, he went all the way with his portrayal of Jerry Dandridge, he wore extensive amounts of make up for his role and if you ask me it was all worth it, the result is one evil looking vampire!.He was charismatic as hell but also very evil when he had to be. Same goes for Colin Farrell’s portrayal of the character, though I wish they would have had the character looking more demonic for longer periods of time. Most of the time all we see is Colin Farrell looking like Colin Farrell except for a few seconds here and there where he completely vamps out. By the way, I loved seeing Jerry Dandridge’s demonic face up close and personal and in 3-D! That shot was freaking cool! At one moment in the film, they do this extreme close up of Jerry Dandridge’s fully vamped out face that was all kinds of awesome. But that was the only really stand out 3-D sequence. The 3-D element worked fairly well in a couple of instances, but it’s nothing to write home about.

New Amy vs. Old Amy, take your pick

The director behind the remake is one Craig Gillespie, the director behind films like Lars and the Real Girl (2007) and Mr. Woodcock (2007). Gillespie is not exactly the kind of director one would associate with a vampire film, especially not when we look at his filmography. There’s a couple of up and coming horror directors out there who would have made great choices for this one, but no, they went with Gillespie. To be honest, I don’t think he did a bad job at directing this one, the performances are decent and the film looks polished as hell. But I personally would’ve preferred a director with a horror background. So what if Ty West (House of the Devil), Eli Roth (Hostel I and II), David Slade (30 Days of Night) or Jim Mickle (Stake Land) could have directed this, no, give the film to the guy who did Lars and the Real Girl? What? That choice makes as much since as Tim Story (Barber Shop, Taxi) directing the Fantastic Four films. But whatever, Gillespie didn’t do a bad job, in fact, there’s this awesome standout sequence that takes place inside of a car as a vamped out Jerry Dandridge chases Charlie and family on his motorcycle, loved that sequence. It was all done in one continuous shot, a la Children of Men (2006). I’m just saying, someone with a horror background could have given the film that extra edge. I guess Hollywood was just playing it safe, same as they always do.

So my final verdict for this remake? Not bad, not bad at all. Like some of the best remakes, this one changed a couple of things around, brought some new things to the table while at the same time paying its respects to the original. Of course, there are some marked differences, most notable of all is how this remake managed to loose the spooky vibe that the original had, especially towards its ending. I remember on the original, when Peter and Charlie walk up to Jerry Dandridge’s house, the house looks like something straight out of the freaking Exorcist! Not so on this one. Final thoughts on the remake is that it’s good (I was expecting a disaster and got a fun vampire flick), but when it comes right down to it, the remake is NOT better than the original. The first one, though silly at times, still has more bite than the remake. Blame it on Hollywood’s ever increasing desire to water down horror films.

Rating for Fright Night (2011): 3 ½

Rating for Fright Night (1985): 5

Stake Land (2010)

Title: Stakeland (2010)

Director: Jim Mickle

Cast: Connor Paolo, Danielle Harris, Kelly McGillis, Nick Damici

Review:

New horror directors, there’s a slew of them out there, but the question is: are they worth a damn? Do they have what it takes to form a part of the elite? Will they ever stand proudly next to the likes of John Carpenter, George Romero, Tobe Hooper or Wes Craven? I always find it interesting to see new horror directors emerge, because let’s face it, horror films are currently going through an anemic state. To me, American horror films simply don’t have the guts and gore they used to, they seem a bit restrained when compared to horror films of the 70’s and 80’s. The same can be said about action films, but that’s a whole other blog post. So when a film like Stake Land comes along, where its getting pretty decent reviews all around, my hopes are raised. Some reviewers are going as far as calling Stake Land “The best American horror film” they have seen in a long time. Are comments like these a log of hogwash? Or is Stake Land deserving of such praise?

Story is fairly simple. A young man named Martin has just lost his entire family in a vampire attack. It’s a good thing that the mysterious drifter known only as “Mister” suddenly appears and saves Martin from dying in the attack as well. Mister decides to ‘adopt’  Martin along his travels through post apocalyptic America and teach him everything he knows about killing vampires. There’s talk of a vampire free area called “New Eden” and Mister and Martin are headed there. Along the way, the encounter a couple of freaks, make a couple of new friends, and encounter a dangerous religious cult. Will they ever make it to New Eden alive?

One thing I liked about Stake Land is that it effectively manages to sustain the dreadful atmosphere of a post apocalyptic world very well. It achieved this by shooting most of the film on out door locations, a very smart move when making a post apocalyptic film, all you have to do is find an abandoned building and shoot your film there. The landscape on this one is grim. If I had to compare Stake Land to any other films, I’d say it’s a mix between The Road (2009) and 28 Days Letter (2002). And much like 28 Days Later, this film is more about the characters that inhabit the film than the vampire action or gore. In fact, for long stretches of film, you won’t even see any vampires. The creatures of the night function more as a backdrop to the story more than anything else.

Though the film does have some good looking vampires, and the make up effects are very well achieved, this isn’t a film made to impress you with it’s make up effects sequences or gore, Stake Land is more of a character driven film than anything else. The thing is that for a character driven film to work well, characters have to be interesting, they have to have something to say, the situations and dynamics amongst the characters have to be interesting enough to keep us hooked, or else you’ll simply end up with a boring movie. Stake Land arrives somewhere in between. It’s not the most exciting film ever made, but it has a winner with the character of ‘Mister’ portrayed by newcomer Nick Damici. Mister’s a vampire hunter/loner type with a heart of gold. He’s the kind of character that Mickey Rourke or Woody Harrelson would have been great at playing. In many ways, this one has the same dynamic seen in Zombieland (2009), with an older more experienced character serving as a father figure and teaching the younger kid how to survive in the mean old world.

Thematically speaking, this one is all about survival. You adapt and survive as best as you can or the world eats you up. The film also decides to make a comment on religion when Mister and Martin encounter a religious cult of freakazoids who seem to think that vampires were sent by God to make humanity pay for their sins. An idea similar to this one was presented in the independent zombie film called The Dead Next Door (1989). On that film a religious group of individuals decide to worship zombies as something sent by god instead of the zombies being enemies of humanity. My only real gripe with this movie is that in terms of plot and themes, Stake Land is very thin. It never goes past the survival mode. The film is simply about a group of people going from one place to the next, searching for a zombie-less place to live in, along the way they encounter the religious cult, they encounter a town that’s trying to re-establish a modicum of humanity; but that’s about it. The whole religious cult sub-plot is something that pops up half way through the middle of the film, and is then dropped. The film doesn’t have a strong theme to pull it together, in this sense; thematically speaking the film feels a bit disjointed. The film portrays religion as an evil in society, but it doesn’t go very deep into these themes either, it simply touches upon them briskly instead of really going for an exploration of it’s themes. 

Sadly, even though Mister is a fun character (loners always make entertaining characters in films like these), the film looks great, manages to maintain a great post-apocalyptic vibe to it and is well acted, Stake Land still manages to be a boring film. A vampire pops up every now and then, but nothing new or interesting is presented to us. Stake Land does a decent job of creating a dreadful place for its characters to inhabit, but fails at being an entertaining or engaging film. My guess is that they were purposely going for a deadly serious vibe, and they achieved it. But we must remember that deadly serious doesn’t have to equal boring, which I’m sad to say is this film mains problem. They needed to turn up the heat just a bit more. Take for example 28 Days Later, Stake Land’s biggest influence in my opinion. That film was about characters, it captured humanity pulling together in the midst of all the chaos. It presented us with characters that made an effort to show each other the warmth that the world they inhabited was not giving them; but heres one thing 28 Days Later never forgot: it was first and foremost a zombie film. It never forgot to give us that jolt of excitement that Stake Land forgot all about. Still, this is better than a lot of the crap that passes for horror nowadays. And does a couple of good moments here and there, unfortunately, it looses steam pretty early on. If you ask me, what this film managed to do was show that director Jim Mickle has promise, and that we need to see what he will come up with next. Hope it’s something as well made as Stake Land, but with a bit more excitement to it.

Finally, why is this movie getting so many good reviews? Honestly, the film is well made and all, but it’s not the “best American Horror film of the year” or a film you have got to see before you die or anything like they are making it out to be. I just think that horror fans are sick of Twilight, they where thirsty for a real vampire film. Films like Twilight  fail to deliver the goods, they fail to give horror fans what they want to see in a vampire film. And since Stake Land is the real deal as far as vampire films go and its a vampire movie with vicious bloodthirsty vampires instead of vampires that sparkle like diamonds when sunlight hits them, horror fans have embraced it with open arms. But the end all be all of vampire films this one isn’t.  

Rating: 3 ½ out of 5  

The Seventh Sign (1988)

Title: The Seventh Sign (1988)

Director: Carl Schultz

Cast: Demi Moore, Michael Biehn, Jurgen Prochnow

The Seventh Sign is one of these movies that takes elements from Christian mythology and brings them to cinematic life. In this way, The Seventh Sign is similar to films like The Exorcist (1973) and Rosemary’s Baby (1968) because they are films that play with people’s fears of the afterlife, of ghosts and demons and the supernatural. Also, these types of films deal with the biggest fear of all for God fearing Christians, the Antichrist and Satan himself! The interesting thing about religious horror films such as The Seventh Sign is that they bring to life things that Christians can only day dream about. For example a Christian might pass their whole lives waiting for the proverbial ‘Day of Judgment’ to come, but films like The Seventh Sign bring that biblical day of apocalypse to life. I’m sure that for a Christian, this kind of film will have a special edge to it, that an unbeliever (such as myself) simply won’t find. To me it’s just a regular old horror movie dealing with the supernatural, and as such, I have fun with it. But scare me it doesn’t. Still, I’m sure a lot of people would be spooked out by this one. This is the kind of film that sinks itself deep into biblical lore; it goes deep into prophecies and portents that foretell all about the end of the world. Those of you not familiar with bible prophecies might get a little lost within the Christian mumbo-jumbo, but in all honesty, the premise and plot aren’t that difficult to understand.

Basically, what we have here is the idea that God is ready to bring forth the end of the world. He has passed judgment on humanity, and the verdict says humanity has been very, very bad. So the sings of the end of the world are starting to show up all over the world. Every living thing in the sea is dying, it’s raining hail, earthquakes are happening left and right, and the stormy winds have begun! The apocalypse is at hand! But wait, one last sign has to happen before the end of the world comes, can that sign be stopped? Can the end of the world be prevented? Will god give humanity a second chance?

Jurgen Prochnow as Jesus Christ himself

 A couple of films have already played out the biblical “end of the world” scenario, one of  my favorites is Alex Proya’s Knowing (2009). I liked that one because it portrayed the end of the world as something that is scientific in nature, but that it can be perceived by Christians as something that’s fulfilling bible prophecy.  With that film, the end of the world can be divine in nature; or the other way around, depends on what you believe. That one didn’t lean toward one side or the other. Films like The Seventh Seal adhere strictly to the Catholics interpretation of the bible, same as The Exorcist. Other films that deal with the fulfillment of bible prophecies include: The Reaping (2007), Legion (2010), The Omen Franchise, Prince of Darkness (1987), The Prophecy Franchise and  Stigmata (1999), just to mention a few. The Seventh Sign is a pretty cool one among these because it brings us so close to the whole shit house going up in flames. I mean, Knowing is the most destructive of all these pictures, that one actually brings forth ‘the end of the world’ but The Seventh Sign comes pretty close to annihilating all of humanity  as well. On this film we actually get seconds away from the end of it all.

"Would you die for him?"

Demi Moore plays the role of Abby Quinn, a pregnant woman who holds the fate of the world within her womb. The film goes for a Rosemary’s Baby type of vibe because at one point the film becomes all about Abby Quinn protecting her baby from a group of people who want it. And we get the idea that maybe they want the baby to sacrifice it or something? Or is their some other motive? So for a while the film goes on that vibe. Then things turn really apocalyptic when we learn that Jurgen Prochnow’s character is actually Jesus Christ himself! Though he goes by the alias of ‘David Bannon’, he is actually The King of Kings whose second coming, as it turns out in this film, was to take place in 1988. So we even get the second coming of Christ on this picture! I get the word play on his alias; ‘David Bannon’ as in ‘Banning’ humanity from this world for all eternity. He has come to judge humanity, and he doesn’t find anything he likes in it. But wait, is their a glimmer of hope with this young lady called Abby Quinn?

The best part about these types of films is seeing the prophecies coming true. According to the bible, the signs that the Day of Judgment is at hand are: the moon turning blood red, the fish in the sea dying, water turning into blood, earthquakes, hail…and strange things happening in general, all of which we see happen in this film. There is a constant build up through out the film because we know that all these signs build up to the titular “seventh sign”, and then the end of the world is supposed to happen once that seventh sign shows up. And let’s face it, who wouldn’t want to watch the world end on film, from the safety of your couch? Call me crazy, but I always look forward to it! One question was left unanswered and I’m sure it’s something to do with bible lore that I’m not getting, but Jesus goes around the film opening these letters and breaking these seals on them. These letters each speak of the prophecy that is being fulfilled,  and I know that the bible says that when these seals are broken, the end of the world is at hand, but exactly what happens when these letters are opened that brings forth the end of the world? I don’t know. 

The basic idea of this film goes a bit against what the bible says about the end of the world. Sure it plays with the idea and it uses the bible and catholic mysticism to back its story up, but at other times it goes clearly against what the bible says. I don’t blame the writers of the film for getting a couple of things mixed up; after all, the bible is filled with contradictions and it’s at times a jumbled mess of ideas. But for example, in The Seventh Sign a woman can determine if the end of the world is going to happen or not. The way I see it, if God wants to bring forth the end of the world, I doubt that a mere human would have the power to stop him. The guy is supposed to be all powerful, he can do whatever the hell he wants. Also, according to the bible when the Day of Judgment comes, it will come like “a thief in the night”, and no one will be expecting it because according to the bible no one knows when the day of reckoning will come. Not the angels, not us humans, and not even Jesus himself knows, only God. So the whole premise of this movie goes against what the bible teaches because on this film, quite a few people know when the end is coming. But whatever, as a religious horror film it works wonders, especially if you’re into the bible and its teachings.

Rating: 3 out of 5