The Doctor – I Mean, Peter Vincent – Is In.

Posted on December 27, 2011 by nicole

Isn’t it nice when a movie surprises you? I will admit straightaway that my initial reason for going to the theater to see Fright Night was the one and only 10th Doctor, David Tennant. Remakes are not usually the most stellar examples of cinema, with horror entries in particular leaving a bad taste in my mouth given some especially disappointing recent titles. I thought that, at best, Fright Night would be a relatively painless 106 minutes to be endured in exchange for the chance to see my favorite actor on the big screen. Instead, what I experienced was one of the most enjoyable times at the theater in recent memory. Not only was Tennant remarkable to watch in the role of Peter Vincent, but I was also struck by the fantastic performance of Colin Farrell as Jerry. The talent of these two actors alone would be enough to save even the most potentially disastrous of films. A perfect mix of tense horror and slick humor, Fright Night is one of my favorite films of the year. If my fawning alone is not enough to convince you, check out this clip below from one of the movie’s best scenes.

Edward Is Not The Only Vampire

Posted on December 7, 2011 by alex the spaz

I will start this post by stating for the record that I have not read the books that the Twilight movies are based on, nor have I seen the movies. So this post will not mention them, however, with all the attention that they’ve been getting I figured it might be nice to be reminded of some of the vampire characters that came along before it all became about “Team Edward”.

The idea of vampires has been around through most of human history and the word “vampire” started appearing in the 18th century, and while Bram Stokers Dracula set the tone for the vampire legends we know today vampires in cinema started with the still creepy Nosferatu.

Released in 1922 this silent film essentially follows the plot of Dracula, eliminating a lot of the secondary characters and focusing primarily on Thomas and Ellen Hutter (the Jonathan and Mina Harker characters) and their dealings with Count Orlok, the vampire.

Now, to jump ahead…. about 60 years. The 1983 strange night kin tale The Hunger which stars Catherine Deneuve, David Bowie and Susan Sarandon.

This movie is based on a book, with the same title, that was published in 1981. It is unique because it is not the typical story people have come to recognize as “the vampire story”. Miriam (Deneuve) can only create vampire/human hybrids with extended lives, but who do eventually begin to decay. John (Bowie) her lover of around 200 years is starting to succumb and aging rapidly. When he seeks help from Dr. Sarah Roberts, who might be able to cure him, becomes the object of Miriams attentions.

In 1992, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, was brought to the screen. Starring Gary Oldman as Count Dracula, Winona Ryder and Keanu Reeves as Jonathan and Mina Harker and Anthony Hopkis as Van Helsing.

This is a love it or hate it movie. It stays truthful to the book in many ways, which some people like and others don’t. The costumes are amazing, the film won Academy Award for the costumes and make up. On top of that Gary Oldman gives a stunning performance as the tormented Count Dracula. It is a wonderful return to the story that started it all.

Aside from defining may of the attributes we associate with vampires, Dracula also set in place the tormented-tormentor character psychology, the vampire who hates vampires and hates himself but on the other hand loves the power that comes with being undead.

Blade is a great example of the tormented-tormentor, and eve takes it one step further. In his half vampire state Blade uses all his abilities to destroy every vampire he can find. He revels in his ability to fight toe-to-toe with other undead but his rage at the vampires is unyielding.

However with every personality there is an opposite, in this case that is the vampire who loves being a vampire, and believes he is happier as a vampire than he ever was a mortal. Killing to feed, never seeing daylight and trusting no one is where he thrives.

Lestat De Lioncourt is probably the best example of this, from the start he loves everything there is about being a vampire and uses it to his constant advantage. People are playthings and the desires and wishes of other vampires are of no matter to him. Bringing vampires out into the light of day (so to speak) wasn’t enough, he needed them to see him and recognize him for the great vampire he was. Don’t worry though! He learns his lesson.

Now to bring this little vampire lesson to a close, I know I have not covered nearly all, or even most kinds of vampires and vampire movies. So below are some more vampire titles that you might want to check out, if Cullen isn’t enough.Some are better than others, but they’re all entertaining

Halloween II, too?

Posted on October 31, 2011 by journey

Halloween II turns 30 this year and was recently given the Blu-ray treatment. Team Video discussed this film briefly in our horror sequels podcast, but in honor of Halloween, I thought I would tip my hat (mask?) to this unusually strong horror follow-up (*spoiler alert herein for certain key plot points*).

It picks up precisely where the John Carpenter-directed part one left off, giving us another 90 minutes of Michael Myers’s killing spree in Haddonfield, Illinois. In this sense, the film is a classic “more of the same” sequel – it doesn’t attempt to veer off in a different direction, but instead offers what amounts to a “second helping” of the first. To that end, Halloween II, directed by Rick Rosenthal, has the same pared-down, evocative simplicity of the original.

The film plays in the same visual key as its predecessor, thanks in part to Dean Cundey’s atmospheric cinematography, and is filled with plenty of pleasing rhymes to the 1978 Carpenter installment. Night Of The Living Dead makes a cameo appearance, just as The Thing From Another World occasionally popped up on the TV set in Halloween. Alan Howarth effectively tweaks Carpenter’s original musical themes with synth textures, retaining the same urgency of the iconic piano material while infusing it with a fresh feel. Nick Castle does not return to play Michael Myers, but stuntman Dick Warlock nicely recaptures Myers’s bizarre manner of moving – catlike at times, stilted at others. There is something of the uncanny valley here . . . his motion is recognizably human, but with certain ineffable qualities that aren’t quite right. Particularly unsettling is Myers’s final assault on the hospital entrance – Myers simply walks straight through the door, breaking glass and metal but slowing down only slightly.

One of the most striking sequences is the final pursuit through the hospital, as Myers chases last-woman-standing Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) into an elevator. We can all recall moments when we impatiently fidgeted with elevator buttons, waiting for the doors to finally close. We can only squirm with a perverse delight to imagine a scenario where our very life depends on the speed of those doors closing! The editing and music here is perfectly calibrated to keep the tension on a slow agonizing rise.

Not everyone is as lucky as Laurie. Halloween II features some of the most grimly disturbing slayings in the entire series. Sure, there are spectacular send-offs, such as the grisly boiling of Nurse Karen during an ill-timed hot tub tryst. But it’s the less over-the-top sequences that linger in the memory: ambulance driver Jimmy’s slow death by apparent brain injury, or Mrs. Alves’ Dr. Phibes-esque drip, drip, drip blood-draining demise. Both conceptually and in their execution, these deaths are disorienting, unpleasant and surprisingly subtle.

The film is not without its problems. Having hero Laurie immobilized and stuck in a hospital makes the beginning of the movie somewhat slack. (This is a puzzling decision. Although Laurie was stabbed at the end of Halloween, stalker-film heroes have soldiered on through far worse wounds than this. Perhaps this was merely screenwriter Carpenter’s way of getting the story into the hospital, an admittedly strong environment for horror goings-on.) Plus, the twist of making Laurie the long-lost sister of Michael Myers seems like a dim appropriation of the ending of The Empire Strikes Back.

Nevertheless, Halloween II is a worthy successor to the original Halloween, rich in atmosphere and matching the first film’s beautiful evocation of the Halloween season. Plus, The Chordettes’ “Mr. Sandman” will never seem quite the same ever again . . .

Horrible Horror Movie Sequels

Posted on October 25, 2011 by alex the spaz

In a little less than a week, my favorite holiday Halloween will be upon us when witches and ghosts, ninjas and princess walk the streets together with pillowcases, buckets and pails to collect candy of all colors, shapes and sizes. To lead up to that most awesome of days, Journey (writer of some awesome blog entries and general cool and knowledgeable movie guy) and I sat down to discuss our picks for some of the most Horrible Horror Movie Sequels.

Our picks: (in no particular order)

We focused primarily on the sequels with some background from the originals, and a mention of the remakes. But, I’m not going to give too much away here, because you can go stream the podcast here or you can download it here and you know what? If you like our podcast you should totally subscribe via iTunes to Team Video so you can get the latest of the entire teams movie opinions, reviews and more!

And – be sure to check out our next Podcast which will have me, Journey and Nicole in the next in the director series where we’ll talk about Tim Burton.

Daniel Radcliffe – Beyond Potter

Posted on October 19, 2011 by alex the spaz

During afternoon tea, there’s a shift in the air. A bone trembling chill that tells you she’s there. There are those who believe, the whole town is cursed, but the house in the marsh is by far the worst.What she wants is unknown, but she always comes back. The specter of darkness.
The Woman In Black

As has been reported on this blog before - Daniel Radcliffe is going to be starring in his first post-Harry role when The Woman In Black makes it’s way into theaters February 3, 2012.

In this 1900s period horror, Radcliffe stars as a young lawyer visiting an isolated English village to resolve the estate of an old woman. A usual, the locals are secretive and spooky, throw in family photos with the eyes scratched (like in the totally creepy poster above!) out and a mysterious woman draped in black running around and you’ve got the makings of a truly awesome horror movie.

Check out the official Woman In Black website for a great trailer (with a little girl doing a voice over of the above poem.) And there is also there is this awesome teaser trailer!

Who ya gonna call? Big-screen big screams

Posted on September 30, 2011 by journey

Multiple sources report that the 1984 classic Ghostbusters will receive a limited-run theatrical re-release in mid October. As an avowed lover of revival screenings, I’m excited to revisit the Bill Murray horror/comedy. While I would much prefer a large-scale theatrical run for John Carpenter’s Halloween (which, with its marvelous use of the full Panavision frame, is perfectly suited for cinematic re-release and big-screen TVs), Ghostbusters will still satisfy at least some of my yearly craving for ghouls and ghost and goblin host. Halloween aside, what spooky movies would benefit from a theatrical revival (or, at the very least, a re-watching on a mammoth HD screen)? Here are four I’ve seen at revival houses in the past few years, and how much oomph they have on the big screen.

City Of The Living Dead – Lucio Fulci’s bizarre Italian horror movies compensate for their awkward dubbing and plotless “storylines” with spectacular horror setpieces. You sink into your seat, staving off Mr. Sandman as stiff, boring actors exchange meaningless dialogue, and then Fulci whams you with something like the “splinter scene” from Zombie (a girl’s eye is slowly, inexorably, wince-inducingly drawn into a door splinter). City Of The Living Dead’s similar and equally infamous drill scene almost had me hiding under my cinema seat. And really, isn’t that just what we want from a horror movie?

Nosferatu – Odds are, if you catch this silent film fave in a theater, you’ll also be treated to a live musical performance. A wide variety of musical accompaniments have appeared on the DVD editions of the film, ranging from traditional organ to spooky, ambient new age. A nice string quartet, with the bowing violin as a shrill aural representation of vampire Nosferatu’s predatory gaze and bite, seems the ideal sonic complement to director F. W. Murnau’s haunting visuals.

Poltergeist – Don’t you just hate it when they move the cemetery but they leave the bodies? Effects-heavy movies always play best on the big screen. And admittedly, some of Steven Spielberg’s (oops, Tobe Hooper’s – let’s save that old controversy for another day) matte shots do look a little bit dated on home video. The big screen experience gives them all a distracting visual sweep, allowing you to enjoy the Freelings’ clash with restless spirits without thinking much about matte lines.

The Shining – The legendary genre effort is not shot in an ultra-widescreen format (in fact, all video versions until 2006 were in a full-screen, open matte format at the director’s behest), but the oft-mentioned Steadicam shots, to say nothing of that elevator unleashing torrents of blood, are ideal big screen fodder. And when little Danny spins round those corners in his Big Wheel, you’ll feel like you’re right there in the Overlook Hotel with him.

What old-school horror movies would you love to see playing again at your local cinema? Re-watch a few old favorites and post some suggestions in the comments section.

Radcliffe Back In Black

Posted on August 17, 2011 by journey

Susan Hill’s The Woman In Black is a throwback ghost story, molded in the tradition of Henry James, but with enough legit scares to draw in more than just the English major crowd. Slow-burn horror has become somewhat passé in this era of reboots and torture porn, but maybe the new film version of the English tale will signal another shift. The new trailer:

Creepy toys, unsettling narration by a dispassionate child, Daniel Radcliff e looking like Hogwarts is a thousand miles away . . . I’m cautiously optimistic! Indeed, I can remember being rather spooked by the promos for the original A&E;/UK telefilm back in 1989 (fortunately, it aired at 10pm, beyond my bedtime at that age, so I knew I wouldn’t accidentally run into it while channel surfing . . . whew!) To my memory, the recent stage version rests largely on the audience’s reliable habit of jumping when there is a loud noise or sudden movement. Let’s hope the cinematic “woman” has a few more nuanced tricks up her dark-colored sleeve. I missed most of the Harry Potter movies, but I may have to be The Guy In Line for The Woman In Black.

This Movie Is Going To Give Me Nightmares

Posted on June 30, 2011 by bethany

Apollo 18 is a found footage film that chronicles the “real” reason why the USA has never gone back to the Moon. Directed by Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego, this film is bound to be this summer’s Paranormal Activity.

Check out the trailer, if you dare:

http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/-82qd_rCzOs?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0

Kubrick: Batting 1.000

Posted on May 24, 2011 by journey

Memorial Day signals the unofficial start of summer, and what does that mean? A glut of popcorn movies, for one, and another season of the American national pastime. Baseball may not hold sway over the U.S. collective consciousness the way it once did, but you know what – it still makes a very pliable framing device for a light-hearted “welcome to summer” blog post. In film, as in baseball, everybody wants a hit as often as possible. Ted Williams was the last professional ball player to bat a .400 average. Artistically, who is cinema’s Ted Williams? And which director is batting 1.000, if any?

Hmmmm. Steven Spielberg has an admirable selection of excellent films, but there are undoubtedly a lot of duds (1941, Hook, The Lost World: Jurassic Park and A.I. to name only a few). Hitchcock had a heck of a run during his Hollywood period, but you’d need Bill Buckner on first base to claim Topaz or Family Plot as a solid hit. Sidney Lumet’s 1970s output is an enviable string of classics (Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico, Murder On The Orient Express, Network et al), but let’s face it, he basically went 0 for the ‘90s and ‘00s. Billy Wilder was a master of most genres, but The Private Life Of Sherlock Holmes is headache-inducing for even the most devoted mystery fan. David Lynch? Erase Dune and we’ll talk. So, whose directorial record is unblemished by an ill-conceived WWII comedy, tonally unbalanced caper, or over-budget Western (no, Michael Cimino, I haven’t forgotten Heaven’s Gate, much as you would like me to)?

(Cue the 2001 theme). Why, Stanley Kubrick’s, of course.

Not only is every feature-length film in his directorial canon a masterpiece (from The Killing on), I think he can claim to have crafted the crowning achievement in at least four genres. The Shining? Its mounting sense of dread is unmatched by any other horror film. 2001: A Space Odyssey? Best sci-fi – find a cinema projecting it in 70mm and they’ll be scraping your brains off the ceiling by the movie’s end. Barry Lyndon? No period film is better (as much as I love Amadeus, Milos Forman definitely stole the look and tone of the Mozart quasi-biopic from Kubrick). Dr. Strangelove? The standard by which all dark comedies are judged, to my mind. (And just try to tally how many times you’ve heard that film’s subtitle – “Or how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb” parodied and spoofed. It’s enough to make General Jack D. Ripper go insane once again!) And I’d love to claim that Full Metal Jacket is the top Vietnam war movie, but, well . . . Apocalypse Now. Sorry, Stanley, but don’t fret, it’s still a classic. Ditto The Killing, Paths Of Glory, Spartacus, Lolita and A Clockwork Orange.

Yes, I know what you’re thinking. Have I clamped my peepers down to Kubrick’s final screen venture, Eyes Wide Shut? Surely that was the moment that, as the Ernest Thayer’s famous poem puts it, Mighty Casey struck out. Color me contrarian (Color me Kubrick?) but I consider Eyes to be another S.K. classic. Perhaps not genre-defining and -transcending the way 2001 and The Shining are, but an eminently watchable treatise on the nature of desire, nevertheless.

So, step aside, Joe DiMaggio – Kubrick has a record as seemingly untouchable as your famous 56-game hitting streak. 11 at bats, 11 home runs. The upcoming Blu-ray collection will no doubt offer Kubrick’s oeuvre in its most spectacular picture quality yet, so have a Kubrick marathon! As a certain Johnny Carson-loving ax-wielder reminded us, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!

Spooky & Subtitled

Posted on October 26, 2010 by nicole

If you haven’t listened to the latest episode of the Team Vide o podcast, what are you waiting for? In our second of three Halloween-themed podcasts, we talk about some of our favorite foreign horror films, spanning a wide range of territory both chronologically and geographically. There are so many great entries in the field that it was just impossible for us to cover them all. Here are a few more suggestions for those looking to expand their horror horizons. Did we forget any of your favorites? Check out the podcast here or subscribe on iTunes, and get at us on Twitter – @team_video!