Pan's Labyrinth...wow

Hello all… we are at the climax, the cusp of Guillermo del Toro week and what better film to end on then a tailored fairy tale.  So get comfy in your seats, grab a beverage and imagine.  This is Pan’s Labyrinth.

Spoilers can be magical…

Guillermo del Toro’s creation describes a fascist Spain of the year 1944.  The story is once again told through the eyes of a young child.  Ofelia (Ivan Baquero ofRomasanta: The Werewolf Hunt, The Anarchist’s Wife, The New Daughter and The Red Virgin) and her pregnant mother Carmen (Arianda Gil of The Age of Beauty, Nuts for Love and Soldiers of Salmina) must journey to the North and Carmen is wed to Captain Vidal (Sergi Lopez of An Affair of Love, With a Friend Like Harry and Dirty Pretty Things), a ruthless dictator that delights himself with torturing rebels.   And you thought your step-dad was kooky.   Ofelia, her head in the cloud realms of dreams and myth does not want to take this monster of a man as her new father, her part-time nanny Mercedes (Maribel Verdu ofCanguros, Y Tu Mama Tambien, The Blind Sunflowers and The Red Virgin) tells Ofelia of a magical garden that she may explore to her heart’s content.   Ofelia roams the garden only to discover a massive maze, a labyrinth if you will and encounters Pan (del Toro regular Doug Jones of Hellboy, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer, The Wager and Fallout: Nuka Break), a faun guarding the labyrinth.   He identifies Ofelia as the long last Princess Moanna and tells her of three sacred tasks she must perform before the next full moon to reign for all eternity in the Underworld.  With these tasks complete she will escape the holy hell that is her life.

Now while this sounds like your typical Disney movie tripe, let us be clear on our director.  With a man that combines macabre, humor, fantasy and harsh reality for his films, so we are in for a bumpy ride.   Ofelia is operating on her limited logic and emotional plight.  With her country struggling to rebuild and the post-war angst, to her mother suffering from a complicated pregnancy and her tyrant of a stepfather, it is not difficult to see why she would want to escape this madness in this realm, but what of the other?     I was asked recently if this is a family film and I have to be honest, I really do not know.  The film is terrifying in parts of the sheer brutality of humans tormenting one another; to the emotional rollercoaster of the world but any many ways for me I had the same response to the Devil’s Backbone too.   If anything it shows the audience that not all tales of history and fantasy are mad dash excitement and good triumphs over evil every time.  It gives perspective but at the same time it may fall under more enjoyment for the horror fans.  This film offers a dark gothic tale of cruelty in either realm of dream or consciousness so it is really up to the parents to show this one to the kiddies.   The visuals alone will blow you out of your seat.  Del Toro’s patented panoramic cinematography and melodious pacing of storytelling is what truly makes this mystifying and ominous tale the very life it needed.    Be warned Parental Units, this film has a whole lot of bleak.

Hellboy...don't tell me you never heard of it?

What is it that makes a man a man? Is it his origins, the way things start…Or is it something else, something harder to describe?   Hey folks I thought this would be a good kick start to Guillermo del Toro week if we tackled a film a great deal of us know, like or dislike, love or loathe.  Now without further adieu…This is Hellboy.

Skip to the part where I can kill a spoiler

In 1993, San Diego Comic Con’s second titled comic was released by comic artist/writer Mike Mignola (Wolverine, Daredevil, Power Man and& Iron Fist) Hellboy was a monster, a demon that championed on the side of good and taught Christian morals. Hellboy was contracted by Dark Horse Comics in 1994 and is a title to this day.   Mignola stated in a interview for the movie he got tired of drawing men and women in tights, panel after panel and really like making monsters instead. So why not make a monster a hero?

Collaborating with writer Peter Briggs, del Toro and he start hammering through the pages of Mignola’s Red Right Hand of Doom story arc and place a father/son relationship that Hellboy and Professor Broom did not have in the comics.   That being said, let’s get to fun!   In 1944 on the shores of some remote ruins in Scotland a natural connection of ley lines, the Nazis are attempting to cross a dimensional gate to a realm uncharted by sane men.   From a substantial gunfight between US forces of the newly founded Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense and the Nazis, Russian scientist, paranormal expert Grigori Rasputin (Karel Roden of Blade II, Bulletproof Monk, The Bourne Supremacy and The Abandoned) delves in a realm where angels dare not tread and is sucked through the portal, all seems well but Professor Broom points out that portal worked both ways and was open long enough for something else to have gotten through.    A search of the premises comes up with a small ape like child, red as a fire engine and a right hand composed of stone.   Cut to 2004 and young FBI agent John Myers (Rupert Evans of Sons & Lovers, Fingersmith, Emma and This is David Conrad) entering the world of the BPRD and informed there is much more going on this little blue green planet by Professor “Broom” Bruttenholm (John Hurt of Alien, History of the World: Part I, The Hit, 1984,Beyond the Gates and V for Vendetta).  A brief introduction with the aquatic Abe Sapien (Doug Jones of The Time Machine, Men in Black II, Adaptation, Doom and Pan’s Labyrinth) a vault about 8 inches thick is open to reveal the man or demon of the hour, Hellboy (Ron Perlman of Beauty and the Beast, The Magnificent Seven, Crime and Punishment, Cronos, Blade II and Star Trek: Nemesis)   

A few issues being in the BPRD, if you do not really have an area of expertise and just a grunt with a gun you have the live span expectancy of a red shirt.   You are on Hellboy’s team and we never heard of you?  Bye bye cannon fodder.   This film with its crane shot, hand held and a fair amount of dolly track with anamorphic scope gives you that chestnut of being there in the action without a fraction of the collateral damage.  An enjoyable monster flick, you can show to the kids and they will thank you for it.

Subspecies...Gem of Month.

Hey Halloween folks, what say we sit around the campfire and bring up an obscure B movie that became a franchise from Full Moon Entertainment?  So prep some holy water, start chopping that garlic and prep the blackthorn oak stakes.  This is Subspecies.

Spoilers be immortal…

Director/writer/producer Ted Nicolaou (Bloodstone: Subspecies II, Remote, Bloodlust: Subspecies III, Dragonworld and Vampire Journals) brings forth the tale of Vampires and humans living in a pact of peace for far too long according to some.  The vampire King Vladislav (Angus Scrimm of Phantasm 1 through 4 and I Sell the Dead) is beseeched by his eldest son Radu (Anders Hove of Critters 4, The Silencer, Bloodstone: Subspecies II, Family Passions, Loving, Bloodlust: Subspecies III and Subspecies 4: Bloodstorm) whom he exiled centuries ago now returns to Prejnar to claim the throne and the sacred bloodstone.   This enchanted artifact that is said to drip the blood of the saints which would empower or warp a vampire.  Radu is no ordinary vampire as he seems to have powers magic as well as his own vampirism as he creates minions from his own blood freeing him from his temporary prison and allowing him slay his own father and claim what he deems his birthright.  Meanwhile two American students come to Prejnar to do result on folklore in the residing area.  Michelle (Laura Mae Tate of Dead Space, Diggstown, I Love Trouble and California Myth) and Lillian (Michelle McBride of The Playroom, Masque of the Red Death and Prey of the Chameleon) meet up with fellow college roommate and local of Prejnar Mara (Irina Movila of Hotel de lux, Sundays on Leave, Dipolmatic Siege and Alone Verses Myself) had made arrangements to stay in the existing fort of Brașov Citadel Fortress. The caretaker Carl (Ivan J. Rado of Mask, The Puppet Master II and Mac and Me) retells the tale where a handful of monks and warriors is said to have held off the vampires until the king of the vampires was given the Bloodstone to pacify his hunger.  Thus creating a lasting peace of more than 300 years or so they thought.  The girls venture to Castle Vladislav in its ruins and take a few photos.  Lillian accidently cuts herself in a doorway and leaves a bit of her blood tempting poor Radu.  He tracks them back to the fort and stalks them in true creeper fashion.  

 The girls encounter Stephan (Freddy’s Nightmares, General Hospital, Deadly, Blackfellas, Midnight Man and Viper) a fellow scholar and traveler to this region and immediately gets goo goo eyes for Michelle and vice versa but in a subtle undertone.   Stephan makes his way to the castle as dawn approaches to combat his brother Radu.  *gasp* Another spoiler.  Stephan and Radu share the same father.  Would that mean that Stephan is a vampire as well?  

The film itself is shot around Transylvanian area Hunedoara, Brasov and Sinaia with extensive footage using fish eye lens and more anamorphic and yet recorded in mono for some reason.  The subspecies were originally to be stuntmen filmed via blue screen but Nicolaou felt they were being too hammy so he went stop animation and rod based puppets instead.  The village and graveyard scene was actually a re-enactment of the festival of the dead. This is also the first American film project in Romania.  A guilty pleasure to be had and yes boys there be boobies.