Valentine Week: Lovers Lane

Howdy again girls and boys and welcome to the last day of Valentine Week.  Valentine’s Day in fact is graced with a lovely throwback to thriller rather than gorefests of current.   When thieving film ideas of this magnitude it is always important to sample from Halloween, Friday the 13^th and a dash of the original Black Christmas.  Stir that in a pot and let it bake for at least an hour and a half and you have the makings of an ambitious attempt at a thriller/horror film.   So grab your coat for it may be chilly, grab a fella for some snuggling and enjoy multiple clichés.   This is Lovers Lane.

Spielberg Presents: Hook: The Lost Tales

Chloe Grefe: We have to go back for Brad!

Michael Lamson: Brad is spoiling dead, alright!

Our story opens with a flashback sequence and I tell ya after 3 of these this week I was shocked that was going to happen.  Thirteen years ago, on Valentine’s Day, a couple getting hot and heavy at lover’s lane Dee Dee(Diedre Kilgore of Good Luck, The Falls, Approaching Union Square and Hawaii Five-0) and boyfriend Jimmy (Carter Roy of White Face, The Elevator and Me + U) get attacked by a nut with a steel hook.  They flee to another car and find another couple deader than disco.  The sheriff arrives on the scene to find out it was his wife and town stud Ward that were murdered.  To make matters worse apparently it was bring your daughter to a double homicide day as young Mandy sees her mom bound up in a sheet that Valentine’s Day.    Ray Hennessy (Ed Baily of Lovers Lane)is locked away in Weston State Institution and treated by Dr. Jack Grefe (Richard Sanders of WKRP in Cincinnati, Berrenger’s, You Can’t Take It with You and Men of Honor) and ladies and gents he is no Doctor Loomis to be certain.

Remember to buckle up before being brutally slain, kids.

End flashback and hello present day as Mandy (Erin J. Dean of Blackbird Hill, Lolita and The Journey of Allen Strange) is the slightly quiet and removed from cliques girl and an uncanny resemblance to her late mother, her dad is still sheriff of the town and teens will be teens planning a big bash for Valentine’s Day.   Geez, didn’t any of these punks see either My Bloody Valentine flicks?   So they prep for a night of drinking and debauchery as Ray has not only kills his guards but reclaimed his hook for more bloody terror.

Now what is to be said about this film?  No stranger to danger in Issaquah Washington since 1990 when Twin Peaks was first introduced to the airwaves, we have a prime small town location that will offer enough eerie to cause the hairs on the back of the neck to RISE…and make it difficult to ignore.   Well the formula is nothing we have not already seen. The cops are worthless, the teenyboppers practically demand to be killed viciously and the killer is a stealth god given the lights simply dim whenever he is around.   The SFX make-up is fair, the actors really do try to offer credibility to a slasher film and while some of the responses are more wooden that the Hundred Acre Woods the technical aspect to the film are bang on.   

Really decent handheld and lighting done for the nighttime exteriors this is the hallmarks of a horror movie, I just feel bad they didn’t get a screen release at all as this was a fair thriller.  They would have easily found an audience.

2...for 1...refill....uahhhh...

Valentine Week: Valentine

Day 3 of the madness that is Valentine Week and let me just give you folks a shout out.  I apologize if these blogs are not churning out as quick I normally do but I am devoting most of my attention to my book that I have been working steadily on and hope to get it e-booked soon.   I spare you the details for now but you will recognize its tone and writing rather quickly.  Well our glorious holiday is almost upon us or as most of my single friends like to call it the last of the biggies of the year.  As a single person if you do not throw yourself on your sword or in front of a bus during Christmas, the New Year and Valentine’s Day; you can pretty much handle a zombie apocalypse. 

So instead of that dark note, how about a film that’s trailers made it far too easy for me to figure out who the killer was.   So be a nice girl, don’t pick on the spazzies, gimboids and thickies and be pure of heart…or die horribly.   This is Valentine.

Hummel figurine from Hell!!

Paige Prescott: [sarcastically, to Brian]  You brought me upstairs to show me your spoiler? How sweet!

Our opus opens up with true Slaughter High flashback sequence of a junior high dance in the way back time line of 1988.  I hear those kids actually had to use payphones to call their parents for a ride home.  The dark ages aside, a young bashful lady named Jeremy ask 5 girls to dance separately.  Three just shoot our lad down, one declines politely and another tricks him into dancing with her and then screams sexual assault…because she can.  The boy is humiliated, forced to go to reform school and there will be no Sybil Danning or Wendy O. Williams to show him life’s consequences.  

13 years later, Med student Shelley (Katherine Heigl of Grey’s Anatomy, Knocked Up, The Ugly Truth and Life as We Know It) is practicing on a cadaver when she finds a disturbing Valentine card and is chased about moments later by a tall black clad man in a Cupid mask.  An important safety tip, ladies is to not hide in a body bag.  It is morbid and foreshadow. 

Buffy, I am happier with Bones is all. We can still be friends.

After Shelley’s death her friends of yesteryear all receive an equally disturbing Valentine’s card but no one thinks anything of it because it was never mentioned in the news.   Homicide is funny that way to no give out M.O.s the killer might be hoping the media blabs about.  As the girls’ friend Lily (Jessica Cauffiel of Road Trip, Legally Blonde and White Chicks) gets filled full of arrows by the killer…hey the killer is Oliver Queen!    Pushing ahead the cops are actually treating this murder with a bit more diligence than the last one as it looks like a serial killer may be in the works.   The girls get together and somehow string the theory of a boy they tormented 13 fricking years ago is the culprit.   Folks, to be honest if I could actually tally the amount of people I have irked, annoyed or openly mocked over the years I would be a memory god.

The story is a standard scarred and scared boy that nobody loves vowing revenge on those evil girls and blah blah blah.  The effects are sound, the death scenes though elaborate are convincing more or less but the need for a twist ending became a staple of the beginning of 2001 we have been seeing this duplicated over and over now. 

This is more common for the remake slasher films though to make it more edgy and bloody.  Bloody, yes.  Edgy, nope.   While these films attempt to ratchet up the tension they seem to miss the point which is deliver a film of interest, suspense, thrills and chills. 

Valentine is not by any means a gory film, the level of violence is not over the top and done with a level of discretion.  Still for what was a recycled idea it tried to make people jump out of their seats but relied far too much on jump scares, dramatic pauses in dialogue and conclusions that were on whole, pretty far fetched.   Not a bad film but not exactly wowing me at the same time.

SHOT THROUGH THE HEART!!!!  Must be a Bon Jovi fan.

Valentine Week: My Bloody Valentine 3D

Greetings to Valentine Week and I thought I would start the cheese right with the foul taint of a remake. Yes as if the 80’s didn’t produce enough regurgitated slasher nonsense we clearly need to re-imagine that.  So call your incompetent law enforcement, run up the stairs when you should go out the door and lock yourself in a closet.  This is My Bloody Valentine 3D.

Yo Sammy, you down here?!

SPOILER CAVE-IN!

Oh we could be in a world of excitement or utter hurt.  Director (Patrick Lussier of Dracula 2000, Dracula II: Ascension and White Noise 2: The Light) drives us down nostalgia lane with no seat belts and doing 30 miles over the limit.  With the assistance of writer (Todd Farmer of Jason X, The Messengers, and Drive Angry) I feel as though we are in suspect hands for our movie viewing.  Ten years ago in the mining town of Harmony, a drilling accident caused the mine to collapse and six miners were buried alive.  After 6 days of digging the rescue team found only one man, Harry Warden   (Richard John Walters of Smart People, Neverland and Art Thief Musical) alive but in a coma, and the other miners skewered by his pickax.  The conclusion was that Harry did them in to save the oxygen for himself.  The son of the mine owner Tom Hanniger (Jensen Ackles of Supernatural, Smallville, Devour and Batman: Under the Red Hood) failed to vent the methane out of the mine and blames himself for the happenings of that accident.  

Luke, join me and rule these mines as father and son...

One year into his coma Harry awakens, starts making a mess with the hospital staff Jason Vorhees style and heads back to the mine.  I guess it is his Crystal Lake.   A gathering of teens are having a party in the mine are attacked by Harry and panic ensues as the teens flee while Tom arrives late.  Injured and looking as though his life is about to end, Tom heads back into the mine to evade Warden only to see Harry shot down by the town sheriff.  For the teens ten years have came and went.  Tom Hanniger returns to lay his father to rest and sell his family’s mine in the hopes to lay some ghost to rest.  His former girlfriend Sarah (Jaime King of Sin City, Pearl Harbor, The Spirit and White Chicks) is married and has a grocery store while her husband Axel (Kerr Smith of The Forsaken,Dawson’s Creek and Final Destination) is the town sheriff and the townies are trying to meek out a life as best as they can.   Okay, off topic this town is white.  I mean Clarinda Iowa white.  Devoid of people of color, coordination and dance moves white. 

We now return you to our scheduled write up.   When last we left off the town of Harmony was a downer and suddenly murders occur within days of Tom’s return.    As Tom and his mine manager Red (Jeff Hochendoner of I Am Number Four and Unstoppable) are jumped by Warden, Tom is forced into a cage and Red meets his fate at the hands of a pickax.  Former friends of Tom show the common denominator and Hanniger is looking guilty.  Will Tom be able to prove his innocence?  Will the town care about justice?  Who is the muffin man?  What is the mystery of the Yeti?

A combination of 35mm Spherical and D-cinema was use to blend this footage together and yes gore fans this is messy.  A lot of gags were thrown in for this that blood is caking the floors and walls.  Lot of torso and limb attacks so yes that is making a mess.  Overall regardless what I thought of the cast, I found the plot to be lacking, the characters underdeveloped and my time wasted.  The original was just as equally campy so don’t feel as though I am hoisting it aloft to the gods as a tribute.

Boy, Debbie sure can shovel it in...*slaps self for bad pun*

Valentine Week

Hiya campers!  I have returned after the FUBAR that was my computer issue of which is both good and bad news.  Good news is I was able to re-cable my old computer back to working order.  Yeah I know, how did I have an issue with that?  Well truth is, I have not done any computer work and upgrades in 12 years so behind the curve and forgot a fair amount on the internal dynamics that is a computer tower.
Bad news I kept screwing up my cabling in my new tower so I had to ask my Dad to do it.  Yeah I felt like Franklin Richards playing with one of Reed's new inventions, got busted and he had to bail me out. ( Fantastic Four reference so read some comics, people)  Turns out I just misunderstood a connection I should have been doing and Dad got it up and running no sweat.  Apparently it needs a new hard drive though.  Damn, Dad was raised in the right age to work tools better than I.

HONEY, WE JUST NEED SOME COUNCILING!!!

But enough of all that jibber jabber, you folks have Valentine's day around the corner.  A time when some men are convinced lingerie and chocolates make up for you being a total knob around the rest of the year.  It doesn't, fellas.    This overly commercialized holiday makes single men and women feel like they are worth less than nothing if they haven't received a card or some much as an e-mail and I will not stand for it.  So this week we will focus relationships that have gone south.  No, no romantic comedies and see whether or not they will iron out their wacky indiffernces.  I was thinking more a horror themed Valentines so grab your comfort food, lock the doors from impending psychos and grab at least one sharp utensil in case they burst through the door.

"HERE'S JACK!!!" CUT! Dammit Jack, It's Johnny.