Double Bill Mini Musings: Decidedly meh, even rubbish...

The Incredible Melting Man:
For some reason three astronauts have gone on a mission into space to gawp at the sun from nearby Saturn, then something happens and the sole survivor is back on earth and has been transformed into the eponymous purveyor of immovable carpet stains. The flick is really only worthwhile for fans of naff genre flicks, or - more admirably perhaps - Rick Baker's gloriously gloopy make-up effects work. Baker's work is the real draw of the flick - indeed there are numerous scenes where we just sit there and watch the titular enemy of Cillit Bang, drip runny snot-like blobs of gooey flesh from his form (the final meltdown is good fun after an all-too-long, not-terribly-exciting chase sequence).

When it comes to the script, and indeed the acting, I can't tell whether it's deliberately - or accidentally - trying to be a bit pants. It's like the movie is trying to be tongue-in-cheek, but the jokes (if you can be so generous) seem to have been lost in translation to any of the actors, whose performances are wooden to say the least ... its as if they're trying to be the antithesis of the very much fluid lead. When the gloop isn't glooping, and when heads aren't getting lopped off, it does get rather tedious ... which is a shame, because in terms of production design it's pretty good (they certainly squeezed every drop out of their time at industrial locations).


The Hills Have Eyes II:
Wes Craven's original was pretty good - not great, but good - and the Alexandre Aja remake has been one of the rare instances in which a remake has been worthwhile. However, Craven's sequel is a woeful mistake (mirrored by the unconnected sequel to Aja's remake - featuring the worst military recruits America has to offer - which was beyond crap). Making liberal use of flashbacks to the original film (including one for Beast - the dog from the original movie!) to pad out the skimpy running time (which, ironically, moves by slower than a glacier), the vast majority of the new footage is risible at best - a bunch of cardboard teens (who are off to the desert to race dirt bikes) yomping around the wrong part of the desert being total morons.

There's initial - very brief - promise when the flick begins with one of the survivors of the original moving suffering mental anguish several years later, still trying to cope ... but what could have made for an interesting personal struggle is ditched after 15 padded-out minutes in favour of idiots making useless decisions (except for the aforementioned survivor, who makes the only smart choice in the entire movie - to not go to the ruddy desert!). Hills II is one of the worst examples of the horror genre - when those who moan about the genre dismiss it off-hand, it's movies like this that they're referencing - utterly witless, inane, bore-fests with little merit even to die hard horror hounds.

However - there is one plus - the soundtrack. Having not noticed in the credits, a short while through I recognised the unmistakable similarity in feel to the soundtracks for the early Friday 13th films - and sure enough, Harry Manfredini scored this stinker, and while the movie is indeed a rotten load of old nonsense, the score is classic, chilling, Manfredini.

It's a strange thing - Wes Craven had done so well with the likes of Last House on the Left, the original The Hills Have Eyes, and A Nightmare On Elm Street, but what on earth was he thinking with this?! That said, as bad as it is, it's not even as atrocious as the unforgivably wretched 2007 follow-up to Aja's 2006 gore-ific irradiated remake.

Eyes Wide Shut, Role Models...and Kubrick...

So here we are, post #251, and as I've not blogged for a bit I thought I'd pimp up some quick thoughts on a couple of recently viewed flicks.

Role Models - the lads and I originally went to see The Spirit, but our nearest cinema is having some odd problems with the film, or probably the theatre in which it is being screened. So it was only around for about a week and a half, and since then it's not been around - hopefully they'll fix whatever the stupid problem is and put it back on screen so we can go and see it.

As a result we checked out Role Models instead, which was on our to-see-list anyway. All pretty good fun, chuckles were had, and like many films of its ilk, when the third act kicks in so the plot can be resolved, the humour tails off a bit - but I've seen far worse comedies in my time, and it's good for a laugh with the lads, and certainly worthwhile seeing if you're a fan of Paul Rudd's style - who delivered some of the guffiest of guffaws in the movie.

...

Now, I've been in a bit of a Kubrick phase for the past several days as I snapped up the 10-disc Stanley Kubrick box set (2001, A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, Eyes Wide Shut, plus Stanley Kubrick: A Life In Pictures - and all the copious extra features).

I'd never seen Eyes Wide Shut, I'd only seen snippets of it on Sky last year at most. I just never got around to it I guess, so here we are almost 10 years after it came out (and indeed almost 10 years since Kubrick's far-too-early death), and I finally checked it out thanks to this superb 10-disc box set.

I hadn't watched a Kubrick film all the way through in a fair while (there's just so many movies out there to see), but I'd been very strongly into Kubrick in my GCSE and A-Level years, and then I got distracted by many other films throughout my time at university - although I still found time to fit in a comparison between Saving Private Ryan and Full Metal Jacket - in terms of how each film showed us war. The former shows us warfare from a soldier's eye view, meanwhile the latter shows us warfare from a filmmaker's eye view.

But anyway, the point being, I realised it had been quite some time since I really indulged in some Kubrick - and with this box set, I finally got to see Eyes Wide Shut - which alerted me to the fact that I'd forgotten how sumptuous filmmaking could be. The meticulous attention to detail, the measured feel throughout, the slow but steady pacing and that deeper-something, which only comes out after a myriad of takes.

The lighting in itself was superb, but then the whole film was pretty damn great too. It's an intriguing film, and I just get the feeling that perhaps it needed a few years to mature to really show what it's made of. If memory serves it had a mixed reception, or was considered "unfinished" (even though this was not the case in actuality).

So indeed - it has stuck with me since seeing it.

It really is a great thing, this box set business, you can really indulge in whatever it is you have chosen - in this case the later works of Kubrick with lashings of the old ... extra features. It's great to rediscover these films all over again - and indeed 2001, which I'd only seen once before many years ago, has been particularly lodged in my brain since I watched it on this DVD set.

Last night I re-watched A Clockwork Orange, for the first time in a good few years, indeed it was the film of my final year in GCSE - it even became the focus of my final piece for my 2-D Art course (I still have the painting itself, in all its youthful obsession, covered up in the garage). It really took me back to that time - the film itself had only just been re-released in the UK, following Kubrick's death, and I subsequently dived into the world of the film - I saw the film, listened to the soundtrack, and read the book. I will point out that the obsession wasn't with the violence on show - indeed the violence is only a small part of the film (a bigger part in the book) - I guess it was really just the film that captured my imagination at that time when I was 15/16 years old.

Next up - re-watching The Shining for the first time in, yep, a good few years. Then obviously, Full Metal Jacket (which seems to have an interesting line-up for the commentary).

Alright, I've rambled on long enough - this has really become a post that's like a sandwich - Role Models is a sliver of meat wedged between two chunks of really thick-cut Kubrick bread, hehe.

P2...

Honestly, with Alexandre Aja co-writing this parking lot terroriser, I expected more. Switchblade Romance was a deliciously gore-soaked, nerve-shredding, twisted slasher flick - it should be noted that France doesn't "do" horror movies 99.9% of the time, but Switchblade showed there was no reason they shouldn't be.

Then Aja followed that skull-crushing blood feast with a remake. Now yes, in this day and age there's far too many remakes, however not all remakes are bad, some pretty effective...but many are gash and uninspired - at least of late, most of which circle the horror genre like a starving Hyena. The Hills Have Eyes was the target this time, a pretty fair one at that. The original film wasn't incredible, but nor was it atrocious, and this time round Craven was back on board - a much better situation than the name-raping bucket-of-shit crap-fests sticking themselves to George Romero's coat-tails (Day of the Dead 2008 - need I say more? How about Day of the Dead: Contagium ... or Creepshow 3).

Indeed, Hills 2006 was a production of respect and genuinely went for a terrorising thrill. The flick went for the audience's jugular, not as gimmick, but from pure and honest intention. In some ways Aja's vision improved on the original (I personally preferred the new third act - taking place in a mock American town circa the Cold War - over the original's mountain-based escapades). In other ways it simply matched the original's nasty attitude, with the odd hint of cheap scares here and there. However, over-the-piece it was a surprisingly genre-loving effort from Aja & Co.

Now here we are with P2. Prior to this we've had the most visceral throat slice ever committed to film. We've had decapitation by chest of drawers, axes hacking off limbs, the whole KNB-riffing side show. P2 however, despite being nestled amidst the adult ratings of respective territories, feels neutered. Only two significantly gory set pieces shadow the 90-odd minute running time.

What happens for the rest? Nothing much, the dark parking garage setting is spooky, but not menacing. The antagonist feels Dawson's Creek bad guy, rather than deranged nutjob ... what it feels like, is a diet meal. You've had a taste, but now you're ready for the main course ... only then do you realise this is a bit like if Weight Watchers made a horror movie. Gore isn't everything of course, but in horror you have to have tension and chills, but this is sadly lacking those as well.

It feels like it could have been a sinister, rather crafty short subject, but nothing more than that. Mind you, Aja merely co-wrote this piece ... but still, considering his name is splashed all over it, you honestly expect more.