Change Your Image
DaveC-13
Reviews
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (2006)
The 80's are Back
John Carl Buechler and his MMI company did most of the effects in all the old Empire pictures for Charles Band, and this is a very direct throwback to that style of schlock. Badly directed, paced and written, with guest star actors that look lost, it never the less manages to be kind of fun in it's earnestness. And Tony Todd does seem to enjoy playing Mr.Hyde. It's actually one of the better Hydes. other than the overdone makeup and general nod and wink attitude. Slap a 1986 date on it rather than 2006 and it would be in good company.
Haunted Boat (2005)
Heavy "Carnival of Souls" influence.
While I agree that the film is hurt badly by the technical merits, particularly in the first third, it does move towards a very surrealistic feeling that reminded me a lot of Carnival of Souls. That film was similarly pretty low rent, but managed to create a very unearthly atmosphere. Haunted Boat seems to be at least trying for the same thing, although with less internal logic. So I give it a few points for ambition.
Supernova (2000)
Lapse in Logic
I didn't check to see if another user commented on this, so excuse me if this has already been noted upon. The whole idea is that the characters are on a rescue mission, to see if there are any survivors on a remote base. Their ship travels through space using a form of warp drive which is potentially damaging to them, so they must each enter a protective "cocoon", similar to suspended animation. It is noted there are exactly the same number of cocoons as there are crew members. One character is horribly killed when a cocoon chamber is damaged, and said character is exposed to the warp effect during the trip. When a lone survivor is found at the base, this creates an opportunity - with one crew member deceased, the now-repaired chamber can be used to bring back the survivor. Here's my problem - how did they INTEND to bring back a survivor, much less a group of survivors??!!! They had no extra chambers to bring anyone back!!! They weren't equipped to rescue anyone!!! The movie doesn't dwell on this long enough to let it register, but when this dawned on me I just spent the rest of the movie shaking my head.
Dungeons & Dragons (2000)
Holy Campy Acting, Batman!
I watched this movie the day after I watched Lord of the Rings Part One, and was surprised when I noted that both films came from New Line Cinema. Oh brother. Kind of like the Saturday morning children's television version of Rings, everything about Dungeons and Dragons just screams infantile. The director may have been trying for some kind of intentional camp, and had been deliberately making his cast act as childish as possible, but I kinda doubt it. I think it just happened. One exception is Tom Baker in a nice cameo, he knows how to play this stuff like it's for real. Otherwise, it's the 60's Batman TV show all over again.
Bats (1999)
Attack of the Hyper Camera
One previous commenter suggested that the editing was the best thing going for this film. I would go in the opposite direction. This is so over-edited and over-hyper, that the action scenes are rendered hard to follow, and the movie as a whole is made distancing and uninvolving. For comparison I kept thinking of the somewhat similar Tremors, which took the time to develop the characters and get the viewer interested. Bats just goes for a MTV feel, with constant movement and dramatic music being the director's only concern, and becomes forgettable as a result.
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Romero's Revenge!
Now that associate John Russo has had his chance to present NOTLD in the form he feels it should be in, we can see who the real creative talent behind the original film all along - George Romero! Russo's insertion of new footage has none of the visual style and editing sense of Romero's, and stands out in a most obvious manner, like scenes from the cheapest direct-to-video production. The re-scoring completely negates the 40s horror film feel the movie has always enjoyed, again making it seem like the recent DTV release that it's become. And the re-editing of both scenes and audio is jarring and sloppy. Plus which, the DVD's sound is occasionally out of sinc! The added plot point concerning the preacher who survives getting bit was an interesting idea, if badly presented. And the new stereo sound effects are effective here and there. However, the notion that this version may one day replace the original in the view of the general public is by far the scariest thing about this release. I doubt it will, but look at what happened to Star Wars.
Wishmaster 2: Evil Never Dies (1999)
Sequelitis
A typical by-the-numbers sequel, Wishmaster 2 goes through most of the same plot devices as the first, but with less resources and less of a sense of fun. There are more plot holes (a character wishes he'd never been born, but everybody still remembers him afterwards, a guy with the Dijjn is squeezed thru prison bars to his death, but later there's no mention of it ). The lead actress and her priest/love interest (!) look just hopelessly lost, and lack the charisma and earnessness that Tammy Lauren had (or maybe it was those big lips). The saving grace here is returning actor Andrew Divoff, who hams it up enjoyably as the Dijjn (great voice!),although he's placed in a prison location which seems oddly comic, what with him grinning madly at the other inmates, who really ought to beat the tar out of him. It lacks the threatening tension that the first occassionally managed. Much of that tension came from waiting for someone accidently phrase something as a wish, thus allowing the Dijjn to act, and this one DOES play with that a little, but not as cleverly.