Old Vs New Week: Black Christmas

Back again boys and girls and today we look at what are constituted as a disturbing thriller and its slasher scion.   We examine the need to make the holly jolly season such a night for gut wrenching terror or a view into sheltered lives can lead to mass levels of chaos.  So stock up your stuffers, light that Yule time log and grab your gifts.  This is Black Christmas.

Mmm have you been a naughty girl?

Spoilers have no reason or consciousness…

The 1974 thriller Black Christmas was directed by Bob Clark (Dead of the Night, Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things, Murder by Decree, Porky’s and Turk 182!) a man that was not truly defined by a specific genre of film making but clearly a believer in the spherical lens as his main story telling  unit.  Our story opens up with a Christmas break celebration as the girls are planning anything from going off to see their parents to a skiing vacation in the mountains.  Now this mythological college is apparently in a town called Bedford which oddly enough looks an awful lot like Ontario Canada.   Claire (Lynne Griffin of Drop-In, The Heavenly Kid, The Adventures of Bob & Doug McKenzie: Strange Brew, True Identity and Dream House) a freshman is presumed missing given she did not meet up with her anal retentive father for their lengthy drive back home. 

Plastic bag: the silent killer

The sorority house sisters are baffled to her whereabouts, so Jess (Olivia Hussey of Romeo and Juliet, Death on the Nile, Sam Marlow, Private Eye, Escape 2000 and Ivanhoe) and Barb (Margot Kidder of 92 in the Shade, Superman, The Amityville Horror, Miss Right and Some Kind of Hero) get flack from the cop on duty and it is not treated like it should be investigated.  Clare’s boyfriend Chris (Art Hindle of The Brood, Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Paradise Falls) tries to help the girls figure out what happened.  Meanwhile the sorority sisters are being attacked left and right while the Sheriff attempts a trap to catch this psycho of unknown origins.  That is the beauty of this story idea. No rhyme or reason to the killer. Is it personal?  Did these girls do our killer wrong?  We truly do not know.  A lot of the shots were done handheld and a few tripod set ups given the size of the house and town in question but the stairwells in the house were pretty narrow.

I just said plastic was deadly! Pay attention!

Black Christmas.    Ho ho hoo boy this is a stinker in the works.   Alright then let’s just dive into this festive holiday horror shall we?    For starters, this is a remake/re-imagining/re-construction from a storyline that occurred in 1974.   Pick and choose your own suffering, because this is a pale comparison to its predecessor.   The original had so much for all.  Police scramble to catch the killer after finding the body of a 13 year old girl.  They take note of the sorority house complaining about disturbing phone calls and place a wire tap on it in the hopes to catch the killer in time.  The killer is unknown, girls are terrified and the suspects keep racking up.  This existed prior to Halloween or Friday the 13^th, a forerunner if you will to the beginning of the slasher films.   Suspense, nerve racking calls pre-caller id and a decent body count that would have made Jason Vorhees proud.   We are not reviewing that particular film however.  We get to enjoy its successor of the same title.  Brought to us in the year 2006 we open with a young girl at sorority house writing and wrapping presents for the family while enjoying a cheap red wine.  Startled by a noise in her closet (Oh damn you Bogeyman.  Must you ruin Christmas?!), she gets up to investigate, setting her calligraphy pen down. 

A sigh of relief to see it is only heat from the vent rustling her clothes, heads back to her presents only to find the pen missing and since she has NO peripheral vision has a bag placed over her head and is stabbed right in the skull with said pen.  At this all takes place at 2 minutes 38 seconds.  Well, if that doesn’t set the tone I do not know what will. 

Mind your manners, psycho boy.

Writer/director/producer Glen Morgan dusts off and retouches the previous screenplay.  Probably needed a few jump scares added no doubt.   Glen Morgan has written both TV and Movie and will be the director/writer for our current pain.   He has written on such shows as: X-Files, Millennium and Space: Above and Beyond as well as Final Destination and Final Destination 3.   At the 18 minute mark and 4 deaths later, two of which occur at the sorority house prior to Billy Lenz’s escape, we finally get some back story on the lad who is definitely on the naughty list.    Is there two killers roaming about?  Will there be a holly jolly bloodbath?  What of Timmy trapped in the well?  This film is littered with enough back story and flashbacks to rival most Highlander films and/or TV series. Our notorious killer was born with a liver disease that yellowed his skin at birth.  Mommy didn’t love him at all.   Aw.   After receiving his Christmas at age 12 he hears Mother and father arguing about her secret lover.  Billy sneaks downstairs to witness Mom tying a plastic bag over his father’s head and stab him repeatedly.  Later she and her lover bury his body in the basement and lock the boy in the attic to his teen years.    Guess the school board didn’t know about the boy…ever.

  

And what holiday story wouldn’t be complete without the unfortunate incest addition to it.   Boy any wonder why Billy is nuttier that a fruitcake?   I can’t imagine myself.   Incest leads to little Agnes being born and Mother once again shuns Billy from her life.   Drunken lover is none the wiser.  So the film is already ruined.  We know too much, movie.  Thanks a heap really.  The death scenes are more violent and I guess with killing the story arc they had to up the gore factor with arterial sprays, gouging and disturbing imagery of cannibalism.   Young actresses in this schlock fest are (Lacey Chabert of Party of Five and Mean Girls) (Michelle Trachtenberg of Buffy and Eurotrip) and last certainly not least (Mary Elizabeth Winstead of Final Destination 3 and Scott Pilgrim Vs the World).   While I am enjoying their performances overall, what the hell were their collective agents thinking getting them in this turd?   OoOo here’s a career saver, girls. 

Boyfriend Kyle to Kelli in the first portion of the movie sneaks in for a scare and some more exposition on Billy.  Yeah we have even more flashbacks.  Man, Vietnam vets don’t have this many flashbacks.   Billy gets out of the attic and has a heart to heart with his “child” in the form of mutilating her.   So much expanded and spoken about in this film it is a wonder if we left anything for our killer to do at all.  Bottom line is thus:  No suspense and build up leads to gorefest goodies for those that just want mindless violence. I get the fact this film was meant to take people completely out of their comfort zone but it was too much, too fast and way too many cut and paste flashbacks that did not intertwine well.  The funny fact is they use the same house from the original but they make it Billy's childhood home.  Cozy, huh?

Old Vs New Week: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Well kiddies I am back for Day 2 of Old Vs New and we shall see the variant between of the original and its 2003 remake.   The stories are a bit different with each director having their own vision.  So get your clogs on, make a lot of noise, and shucks go hide in the basement with the killer.  This is The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

In abject fear, Biel's hair is still looking good.

Spoilers need killin’!!!

The original Chainsaw film was loosely based on the exploits of real life serial killer Ed Gein formerly of Wisconsin.  So we change locations and build a bizarre family of cannibalistic, graverobbing nutter butters tormenting teens and making spare ribs.  Doesn’t that sound keen?  Director Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Eaten Alive, Salem’s Lot, Poltergeist, Lifeforce. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, Body Bags and Night Terrors) claims in articles and interviews the thought behind his horror Mecca was being swarmed by mass loads of shoppers in a department store during the holidays and the first thing he spied was a chainsaw and how ideal that tool would have been to cut a bloody swath to the exit.  I think we all have had days like that. 

Welcome to Applebee's. Texas style.

Five teenagers go on a road trip because their friend and her brother want to pay respect to their grandfather’s grave.   This time it was desecrated with a human skeleton perched on top of the headstone posed like some sick joke. Our plucky teenagers pick up an odd fellow on the road who informs them all about a killing floor and head cheese.  He freaks the kids out when he cuts on himself and they chuck him out their van.   The kids head to an old house looking for some assistance only to be ambushed and systematically rubbed out of existence by our villain Leatherface and his demented family.   One survivor makes her way from the loony tunes and we assume went into hiding.  Enter a decade of abject silence other than did you see that warped film on the drive-in or Beta-Max.    The sheer desperation of our lead actress is felt from the disgusting view of this house covered in bones and dead animal carcasses strewn throughout the home of these raving nutters and it gives such a bleak vision. This film is brutal, vicious and an awe inspiring example of an independent film.

Director Marcus Nispel (Frankenstein, Pathfinder, Friday the 13^th and Conan the Barbarian) created a different vision of 5 carefree teenagers that pick up a terrified girl hitchhiker who warns them all that they will all die out here and blows her brains out in the back of the mini-van, grossing her would be saviors and thus putting a cramp in the day.   Looking for local help our teens happen across the house of horrors with shockingly enough a demented family of cannibals and lunatics.  This film has graphic dismembering and gouging death scenes unlike the original which most of the violence was implied.  ArteriaI sprays, bodies being worked on by Leatherface.  The meat hook scene will cause the weak of stomach or heart to have more than a few issues and quite possibly another look at lunch.  This version is bloodier, disgusting and a bit on the odd and while there is some dark humor make no mistake that they wanted to top the original.

 I gather Nispel felt the visual was more necessary than dialogue driven in describing how wacko the Hoyt family is.  Writer Scott Kosar seems to be a remake writer with 3 remakes under his belt including: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Crazies and The Amityville Horror.   So clearly he can write…something someone else already created groundwork for him to write ahead of time.  An amusing fact of both films that the narration is done by John Larroquette and I hope he got more than a joint for the remake.

Ah the annual chainsaw dance of joy.

For me they were some solid scares, decent enough performances but honestly they plugged it entirely too much via media of TV, Internet and papers.  Also I am not overtly thrilled with Michael Bay producing so much as a high school play let alone a film.  As a film, the remake starts off with a fast pace, peters out, starts up again, gets extremely gory and then start waning down and frankly that is an odd beat for the watcher to dance to.  The original starts off slow and depicts disturbing issues off the bat but it moves at a leisurely pace which was not uncommon for films of that age but to be perfectly honest it still scares the figurative crap out of me.   

Old Vs New Week: Assault on Precinct 13

Hello all and welcome to Old Vs New Week and we start off with a John Carpenter classic and its remake.  Both films have bloody intros and dive right into their stories and while both have diverse concepts the films are more or less the same thing.  So board up the windows, douse the lights and conserve your ammo.   This is Assault on Precinct 13.

Now who the hell payin' for that window?!

Officer, Detroit is a tough town...honest.

Spoilers all around us, man! There is no escaping it!

Our story opens with a sting takes out a series of gang members in a bloody gunfire. Cannot even imagine how many shots fired forms they were filling out.  The surviving gang members swear in blood oath that vengeance will happen.  Lieutenant Ethan Bishop (Austin Stoker of Battle for the Planet of the Apes, Horror High, ‘Sheba, Baby ‘, Roots and Machete Joe) a recently promoted officer is scheduled to Precinct 13. A station being torn down, paperwork and supplies shipped to its future location.  While this is not the best gig, it is Bishop’s first assignment as a Lieutenant and he will see it through.

Meanwhile in Los Cruzes, a notorious criminal named Napoleon Wilson (Darwin Joston of Eraserhead, The Fog, Coast to Coast, Time Walker and Airwolf) is being transported in a bus on his way to death row by Starker (Charles Cyphers of Halloween, Halloween II, Escape from New York, The Fog and Grizzly II: The Concert)

Back at the precinct, Bishop meets the remaining staff, desk sergeant  Grumpy McStereotype, filing clerk Leigh (Laurie Zimmer of American Raspberry, A Dirty Story and Survival of Dana) and dispatch operator Julie (Nancy Kyes of Halloween, Halloween II, The Fog, Halloween III, Not in Front of the Children and Lady Boss)

One of the inmates on the bus is violently ill and the only station in route is Precinct 13, with that the bus pulls in assessing the situation and hope they can lay aid to the sick man.  Blocks away a father takes his daughter with him in order to scoop up and move her nanny (Oh Mr. Sheffield) in with them.  Driving a high end Cadillac in South Central L.A. under the influence of being a dumb white guy this could get a bit dicey.

No, don't help me find the phone book. just gaze at the girl.

A shoot out later the father makes his way to Precinct 13 to safety but the combined forces of the gang follow him with their ill-gotten gains from a heist of the National Guard Armory depot, they have enough firepower to level six maybe seven city blocks.  Equipped with silencers, the lack of neighbors in the rundown area and barely any public safety of any sorts the members of the precinct, two prisoners and the remaining transport troops have to hold off this mass army of lunatics until help arrives.  

The dialogue gives the feel of a B-movie and this is Carpenter’s second film after Dark Star in 1974. Fewer dolly tracked shots and more hand held you really had to feel for those poor cameramen breaking their backs.  Given its fairly violent nature and penchant for shock and awe, this movie does invoke fear and dread for the decent folk trying to live through the night and almost seething hatred for the gang members.  In my humble opinion a gem that gets overlooked.

I...(gasp)...hate...vanilla...

Enter our remake with its bluster opening with a drug buy conducting by Jake Roenick (Ethan Hawke of Dead Poets Society, Floundering, Before Sunrise, Gattaca, Great Expectations, The Newton Boys and Training Day), an undercover cop that gets found out, his bust goes pear shaped and he loses a team member because it.  Now months later he is addicted to pain killers, a damaged knee and a crap duty to watch the transfer of a precinct to another.  He has been assigned to watch over a few scumbags on New Year’s Eve.  They will have no direct communications beyond radio frequency and offloading paperwork and evidence locker. His subordinate Sgt. Jasper O’Shea (Brian Dennehy of First Blood, Silverado, F/X, Legal Eagles, Best Seller, Seven Minutes, The Last of the Finest and F/X2) are busy grumbling at the crackhead Beck (John Leguizamo of Romeo + Juliet, Spawn, Moulin Rouge!, Ice Age and Chronicles ) gang bangers Anna (Aisha Hinds of Neo Ned, Invasion, Madea Goes to Jail, Dollhouse and True Blood)  Smiley (Ja Rule of Rush Hour, Next Friday, The Fast and the Furious and Fish Tank) and the crème de crème of villainy, mastermind criminal Martin Bishop (Laurence Fishburne of Apocalypse Now, The Cotton Club, The Color Purple, Cherry 2000, Boyz n the Hood, Bad Company and The Matrix) 

Get a haircut baby face!

Before the evening even gets started, the precinct is under siege by a collection of corrupt cops, blocking radio signals and exits. Led by Captain Marcus Duvall (Gabriel Byrne of Miller’s Crossing, Shipwrecked, Point of No Return, The Usual Suspects, Pirates, The Man in the Iron Mask and End of Days) demanding Bishop turned over to them.  Roenick gathers his staff and the crooks to save each other they need to fight back until help comes or they can escape.

Now the complaints of this movie are there is just too much.  Too much backstory, too many characters and dear God some are just over the top to the likes that would rival Doctor Doom in melodrama.  A lot of hand held work that cause really quick cuts and jumpy edits which could cause any photophobic to be wildly sick viewing it.  More explosions than an 80’s Schwarzenegger film and honestly it is a darker movie than the original.  To quote TV’s Frank, “I thought it had no texture.”   I think the main complaint I have is this really is the first time I get to see Fishburne as a sinister bastard and he didn’t get to do nearly enough other than the ritualistic tough guy talk and a bit of gun play.   At the end of the day while the remake wasn’t bad it just was way too much for one film.    Both films feel like a hybrid of Rio Bravo and Night of the Living Dead but I feel Carpenter’s has a better feel for it.