Reviews

This low-profile direct-to-DVD movie may not have the high production values of some of its contemporaries ("The Edge Of Darkness", "From Paris With Love"), meaning that it didn't cost nearly as much to make,though it wasn't exactly cheap. It is another in the long list of terrorism-related films over the years that also includes Executive Decision, Air Force One, A Mighty Heart, Flight 93, Body of Lies, Paradise Now, Brothers, Get Smart, to name a few. Gregor Jordan directed "The Informers" which while unrelated was also something of a B movie.

The film it reminds me of most is last year's "The Killing Room" which also took place in an antiseptic room with a glass observation area and technicians as recorders of data. It also reminds me of last year's "The Line", because of the illegal black ops connection. "The Line" was also a direct-to-DVD movie, and, like this movie, was not on most critics' "A" lists. The screen writing is quite good in places and it

features Samuel L Jackson, known as "H", as a black-ops interrogator who is not afraid to use torture techniques, and Carrie-Ann Moss as an FBI agent who is adamantly opposed to his tactics. "H" is married to a Bosnian Muslim whose first family was killed in Bosnia. The film features somewhat detailed, if sketchy, characterizations of Muslim motivations and family values, including that they believe in themselves and their mission. There are quotes from the Koran, and brief images of Muslim women and children in traditional clothing. The protagonist, played by a Welsh actor who has also portrayed Prime Minister Tony Blair in "The Queen", calls himself a "loyal American" who has planted 3 nuclear bombs in 3 unknown American cities set to detonate in 3 days. Not much acting is really required here, except prolonged screaming. The film also features military and FBI personnel, including a general and former Superman Brandon Routh as an FBI agent, who trust "H" to come up with the required information using his brutal techniques. "H" is not afraid to brutalize the Muslim, who has willingly turned himself in, not only physically but also psychologically, at one point killing his wife, while he looks on, by slashing her throat. Other techniques include dismemberment of fingers, pulling fingernails, extracting teeth,covering his head with a plastic bag, and zapping him with a taser gun for 15 seconds, while "H" is taking a break and enjoying a glass of wine with his wife. At the end, "H" also threatens his children, though privately promising he will do them no harm. The film features familiar images from the Iraq War and Abu-Ghraib prison, including the prisoner's head covered with a sack, so it is entirely believable in some ways, as is the nuclear bomb premise. The prisoner's demands include amnesty for all Muslim prisoners and withdrawal of all American troops from Muslim soil.

Hollywood may exaggerate outrageously what may be the truth about torture or black-ops, as it has done in many ways in many films, for the sake of entertainment, no matter how bloody or sadistic. Not for the squeamish.

Not overwhelmingly original, this movie packs quite a punch for a low-budget feature, despite a superficial similarity to Predator and other slasher films. The similarity to Predator is due to the green filtered scenes presumably showing the alien's point of view. I thought the alien, with a few humanoid features and creepy claws, was truly frightening as he appeared on the crest of a hill on an October full moon night. I give the director full credit for this. The dialog reveals that October is an especially bad time to be in this area of the desert. As the film's special features reveal, the alien was constructed for maximum ugly and sinister impact. Not as physically bulky as Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers, the alien catcher is seven feet tall, and lean and mean.

It is true that this is a "B" movie that has little in the way of character development, but there was a Western/horror movie last year called "The Burrowers" that was similar and that I would also recommend.

The movie is carefully constructed with about 8 20 -year- olds driving their all-terrain vehicles into a remote desert for a weekend of partying, with flashbacks to an alien abduction some time previous. The dialog is also for the most part much better than average and the characters are all good looking specimens, the better for the alien to capture. One of the male characters has had a series of recurring bad dreams regarding his schizoid uncle's stories of abduction. Part of the reason for the weekend getaway is for his friends to "cure" the dreamer of his presumed illusions. The alien also has the ability to create sinkholes which disappear after capturing their victims, so his quarry cannot escape. He has a mountain lair where he stores his victims in glass cages prior to abduction. He also spits green gobs of goo, and uses a human spine dislodged from a previous victim, and also a snake as slingshot weapons. His spacecraft looks like an evil insect. There are a number of confrontations between human and alien and eventually the teenagers ingeniously contrive to blow up one of their all terrain vehicles when the alien approaches. As one might expect, after the characters douse the alien with gasoline and light it, the alien survives, only half-alive, but with enough life to get back to his spacecraft. All in all I thought this little movie had quite a bit going for it because it's unique and doesn't carry a lot of "sequel baggage" unlike the endless repetitive sequels of the Friday 13th or Halloween films.

While this movie does not have high production values by today's standards, it is about a subject that few filmmakers broach so openly--the hallucinatory effects of drugs. Many famous historical personalities had experiences with drugs, notably poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the painter Modigliani, whom Picasso admired greatly. I enjoyed this "B" movie as a thrill ride, because, like Coleridge's poem Kubla Khan, it was the product of a drug-induced state. The protagonist is an artist whose whose work appears to be enhanced by the drug experience, despite its other more frightening aspects which include turning her into a vampire. Like many other horror movies released in the past year, "Bled" fills a gap now that was filled by Stephen King, and a few others, 20 years ago, and previous to that, by The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits. "B" horror movies come in many different forms but they are a distinct genre, just as gangster/crime films form a (usually) distinct genre, and war movies, and comedies.

I use the B label to distinguish it from A movies, which have higher production values and are more profound: in my opinion, A movies from last year include Star Trek,The Hurt Locker,The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3 (remake), and Brothers.

While last year may not have been the greatest year for "B" horror movies, I did watch quite a few, and I liked them all at least some, for various reasons. Some fall more in the sci fi category, and some are better considered in both categories. Many were poorly reviewed, and some were only reviewed by horror film aficionados. Some were clearly made only to make money, and are not that good, particularly those that have already been explored previously. The best film I have seen in the past year, in this category, is "Shutter Island." It may end up with some Oscar nominations, and if it doesn't, it should. Second, perhaps, is "Drag Me To Hell" in which Sam Raimi piles on the supernatural special effects in a story of a gypsy's curse. The others include, "The Wolfman", "The Crazies", "The Graves", "Pandorum", "The Thaw","Pandemic", "Hardwired", "The Butterfly Effect: Revelations", End Game (2009),"The Devil's Tomb", "Deadline" and "The Train" (both with Thora Birch),"Mirrors","The Uninvited" "My Bloody Valentine", "Hard Candy" (actually from 2-3 years ago and with a younger Ellen Page), "Farmhouse", "The Last House on the Left" (remake), "The Strangers" (stands out to me, despite a mediocre review from Rogert Ebert), "The Horsemen", "The Box", "Final Destination 3-D" "Dark Country", "Hydra", "The Killing Room", "The Fourth Kind", "Children Of The Corn" (remake) and "District 9". This is a selective list.

This movie straddles the line between an "A" and a "B" horror/sci fi movie. It is not quite as good in my opinion as Martin Scorcese's "Shutter Island", which is definitely an A. But it is such a pure thrill ride, particularly the ending, that it could be considered a B, as well. The problem with it that it contains so many loose ends and details than it ends up being a bit incoherent. It is a bit like the recent, notable, French horror film "Mirrors" particularly in the use of water as a horror element. Arguably, it has high production values, which may mean that it takes place largely among upper middle class people. It has star power with Cameron Diaz. Frank Langella's ironic performance alone, in his absurd bowler hat, elevates it from a 6 to a 7. It also has a great MacGuffin, Alfred Hitchcock's term for a key plot element that drives the plot: a man of unknown origin offers a million dollars tax free to randomly selected people, with the caveat that someone in the world will die if they accept the offer. The choice is somewhat profound, as the couple's greed entails consequences, what is referred to as the altruism principle. The couple in the movie, although upper middle class, is in financial difficulties so their choice to push the button is not really greed, more taking advantage of a presumed gift. There was an identical plot element, minus the long black limousine, in a 1950's TV show called "The Millionaire." The movie, which takes place in 1976, straddles the line throughout between science fiction and horror and contains elements of both. It has pursuing zombies bleeding at the mouth, and also references to the Mars Voyager lander. It has scenes from Langley Air Force Base. It contains a subplot having to do with human deformities: a bolt of lightning struck Arlington Steward's face, disfiguring it, an event so unlikely as to be pure science fiction. It is suggested that Steward is being controlled by some alien force. It contains references to two 20th Century intellectual giants, Jean-Paul Sartre and the science fiction giant Arthur C. Clarke, who wrote "2001." What is not mentioned in the initial money offer at first is the eventual impossible "lady or the tiger" choice the couples who accept the offer at first must face. As the husband points the gun at the back of Steward's head, he intones "It won't do you any good, I am just a vessel, and if you kill me they will just send another."

I have a mixed opinion about this movie. On the one hand, in many respects it is not that original. It channels numerous sci fi/horror movies of the recent past, including the entire "Alien" series,2001, Star Trek, The Box, Terminator Salvation, the Descent,Deep Blue Sea, The Devil's Tomb, and even Shutter Island to name a few. Ben Foster spends almost the whole movie trying to "reboot" the reactor since the entire spaceship is dark. The final sequence in which the reactor blows up destroying all the monsters, and the whole concept of hyper-sleep was done before in Aliens and 2001. On the other hand, it has numerous qualities that make it somewhat unique and unquestionably exciting,or horrific: Dennis Quaid brings star power to a role that is probably less interesting than Star Trek's Captain Kirk; the humanoid white-faced mutant monsters with spines coming out of their backs could be viewed as a bit of an change from the Aliens, which have grown tiresome after at least 3 unnecessary sequels. The ejection of the 1000 capsules in the movie's last scene, the destruction of the spacecraft by water and the near-drowning of the two surviving protagonists (the cameraman uses a red filter) were exceptionally creative and an exciting climax. The captain's alter-ego, which shows him as a young man and separate both in mind and body from the captain, is interesting. The alter-ego pleads with the captain to abandon the mission as hopeless and tries to eject himself into the void, as in a previous ill-fated mission. The mental disease Pandorum that afflicts space travelers during claustrophobic space flight was original. The crew's near total amnesia was frightening. The Noah's Ark tube room and Ben Foster's eating of a live grasshopper are horrific. The overall darkness of the movie adds to the terror and is very reminiscent of another dark movie, Terminator Salvation. The fights between the Vietnamese soldier and the monster are exciting, as is his final confrontation with the child monster, who turns out to be armed with a deadly weapon. The artwork scratched into the walls, and the brief flashbacks to the voyage's beginnings give necessary background. It is noteworthy perhaps that gunfire is avoided in these enclosed spaces. The new planet, in contrast, is beautiful. But the miles of conduit pipe and see-through metal scaffolding, the recluse who for years has resorted to cannibalism to survive while forced to avoid the monsters is somewhat reminiscent of the "Newt" character in Aliens--all of these are quite derivative of James Cameron's terrific 1986 movie and its sequels. These derivative features and Quaid's occasionally uninspired performance give Pandorum at times a "B" movie feel which is perhaps not justified by its $40M price tag. The writing and the final revelation about the voyage's actual duration are exciting, and in particular the final scene, while a bit overdone or clichéd,is a logical conclusion.

Here is a B movie saved from mediocrity by the performances of Hilary Swank,sweet, lithe, and somewhat lascivious, perhaps somewhat miscast in the title role.Anna Sophia Robb gives a deadpan performance, if you want to call it that, as the devil or angel child,and some striking cinematography is also noteworthy..The acting for the most part is good. The lead character, played by Swank, actually has some depth since she plays a former minister who has lost her religious faith due to a family tragedy in Africa. Now she relies on science in her work. The plot is also inherently interesting, derived from the Bible. As one critic pointed out, Cecil B. DeMille said that for entertaining subject matter you can't beat the Bible. Despite what viewers have said,the director clearly makes an effort throughout to keep the movie squarely in the horror genre,and in the South,and it is not meant to be taken entirely seriously, or to be entirely logical. On a second viewing, intimidating scenes I had not noticed the first time captured my interest: for instance, there are children hung from the rafters at the old church ruins, Loren McConnell's mother shoots herself; the priest burns up in a fire, the bloody egg, the vigilante squad determined to do away with poor Loren McConnell,whom they feel is responsible for the plagues;the way the locusts attach themselves to the doors of the McConnell house as Katherine watches, the swamp,the sickle sign on the dead body of Loren's brother and at the entrance to the McConnell's basement, the way the birds swirl around the church ruins,the way Loren's bloody wound spreads to the entire river. The script has a few slow spaces and is not really an award-winning exercise in wordplay but it's good enough and the pacing might appear slow at times, but the story holds up well enough to be called interesting, certainly horrifying, and the plague effects, such as the fish kill, are probably worth the admission price.

David Morrissey is pretty good as Doug, as well. There are also some notable horrifying flashbacks to Conception,Chile and,more importantly, to the Sudan, where Katherine Winter lost her faith when her family was murdered by tribesmen. The priest Father Costigan, in a small but important role, recognizes that this is a Satanic cult and tries to warn Katherine several times after seeing the sickle sign among his photographs.

Here is a movie which, along with "The Reaping" and "Perfect Stranger" has been underrated by the critics, in my opinion. Others will tell you that this is a movie about a suburban housewife, played by Sandra Bullock, who lives in a time warp or a personal psychosis in which she does not live her days consecutively. I will tell you that this movie comes close to being a horror movie or rather, straddles the border between horror and sci-fi. The movie starts out with Linda's storybook wedding, and the couple purchasing a very nice older house. Then we have some routine scenes in which Linda fixes breakfast for and takes her two children to school, showers, and jogs. These mundane scenes serve to heighten the tension by filling in daily aspects of Linda's life.

The ending car accident, done with typical if horrifying Hollywood flourishes, reminded me of Kurt Russell's "Breakdown." One of Linda's angelic children crashes through a plate glass window causing her to have ugly though temporary scars on her face. The bearded psychiatrist is sometimes an intimidating character, particularly when he applies a sedative with a needle to Linda's arm. There is a somewhat intimidating cop who brings Linda the tragic news of her husband's death, and he appears later in a routine traffic stop. Even Linda's mother is intimidating and I found myself wondering at one point if she might be part of some plot against Linda. There are lugubrious funeral arrangements and a frightening scene in which the body falls out of the coffin when Linda demands to see it,a sorrowful funeral,and what comes very close to being an extramarital affair between Linda's husband Jim and a coworker.

In real time, Linda and Jim seem to have a fairly idyllic marriage. As in "The Reaping," there is a priest who has a significant, if minor, role, urging Linda in a touching scene to find "something outside yourself" to live for, telling her each day can be a miracle, and giving some historical examples of people who could see into the future. Linda has been thrown into a tragic situation that would justifiably drive many people crazy and the audience are participants in her insane ride. Linda consults friends to try to figure the whole thing out--why she wakes up one morning and her husband is dead, and the next morning he is there. Finally she figures out what is happening to her and decides to make a calendar of events, something some people would perhaps be too disoriented to do. This calendar enables her and us to see more clearly what has occurred. The ending is admittedly a little weak.