Moby-13 Reviews

Game, Set, and Match (1988– )

Rocks

[26 June 2003]

Top quality, great story (and thankfully one Deighton continued in writing), but unavailable in any media form, and not broadcast in Australia since the original screening back in 88.

Please, please, please, someone release this on DVD. PAL preferably... I'm begging... :)

Aliens (1986)

Alien vs Aliens

[6/10 · 21 January 2001]

Having been a fan of the Alien films for many years, I have recently been finding myself drawing comparisons between the first two films in the series, and not liking what I was thinking. I like both films a great deal, but find Alien a superior film in my books.

The overall plot of Alien is about a small group of people in isolated conditions. A dangerous alien gets loose amongst them. Everyone bar one person and a cat is killed. The lead goes back to rescue the cat. The survivors manage to barely escape at the last moment from a large mining ship going thermonuclear. Unbeknownst to the survivors, the alien sneaks on board, and after a brief struggle, it is blown out of an airlock into space, courtesy of Ripley. The survivors go into hypersleep, and the credits roll.

Aliens is about a larger group of people in isolated conditions. Many dangerous aliens gets loose amongst them. Everyone bar three plus an andriod are killed. The lead goes back to rescue a child. The survivors manage to barely escape at the last moment from a large mining colony going thermonuclear. Unbeknownst to the survivors, the big alien sneaks on board, and after a struggle, it is blown out of an airlock into space, courtesy of Ripley. The survivors go into hypersleep, and the credits roll.

More than just a few similarities here. The second one is basically a rehash of the first, on a larger scale (more people, more aliens, more noise, more explosions). The basic plot is not only the same, there are specific point of plot detail that are the same.

I also find the story for Alien a lot more edgy, a true psychological horror / drama, where the alien was secondary in the story to the interaction between the crew of the Nostromo. Aliens is more of an action / horror film. This is of course a personal preference. However, I am finding myself getting increasingly annoyed with modern movies concentrating on loud noise, fast action, and great effects, while neglecting the story. And from what I can see, Cameron took the original story, and added loud noise and fast action. I feel the effects on the first were actually superior. Bigger is not necessarily better.

Set / decoration / costume wise, both movies have aged very well. I do however get a little annoyed in Aliens when I continually see the video screens in the movie being standard 4:3 tv's, actually blackened down to 1.85:1 to make them look like a futuristic widescreen sets I guess. Pretty ironic, when I think about it, given how Cameron makes films (matted 1.66:1 Super 35). If he made Aliens now, he'd probably matt the tubes down to 2.35:1...

And on a light-hearted note, I like cats. Anyone who'd risk their life to save their cat is true hero in my books. Add to this the fact that I don't like children, and Alien definitely gets my vote in this area too...

The Exorcist III (1990)

A Superb but Overlooked Psychological Horror

[10/10 · 22 November 2000]

I tend to feel compelled to add reviews for movies I feel strongly about, where I disagree with the majority of sentiments previously given.

This film is a finely crafted psychological horror film, the result of some impressive direction by William Peter Blatty, and strong performances by George C Scott and Brad Dourif.

I hear a lot of people praising The Exorcist, but I always found the original incarnation of that film lacking in story continuity. I had read the novel many years prior to seeing it, and must say I was disappointed with the film (although not the book). In fact, I actually fell asleep twice watching The Exorcist, and had to watch it several times to see the film in it's entirety. I found the flow of the story was pretty horrid, so I was continually wondering if I had missed a particular scene which future scenes seemed to be referencing. I hadn't - they had been removed. Later on, reading comments and seeing interviews with Blatty, he basically said the same thing. They were a point of contention between Blatty (the screenwriter for Exorcist) and William Freidkin (the director) over a period of more than 20 years. The updated release has apparently corrected some of these story problems (where footage was still available), but I have yet to see it. Apparently Blatty's incessant nagging had some effect.

In fact, the aspect of The Exorcist I appreciated the most were the background they provide for Exorcist III. In particular, the original ending (which was cut from the original release), showing the beginning of the friendship between Detective Kinderman and Father Dyer; and the background on other characters featured in III.

Exorcist III continues from where The Exorcist ended, although many years later. The friendship between Kinderman and Dyer has survived the years, and begins with the arrival of a force of evil in the town, in the form of a series of brutal religious motivated killings. Kinderman links these murders to people from the original Exorcist, and discovers that both an old friend and an old enemy he thought dead may still be alive. Although (not to give too much away here) in the same body.

Brad Dourif gives an outstanding performance as the Gemini Killer. I honestly feel myself cowering under his verbal onslaught in certain scenes of this film. Dourif is an actor I would dearly love to see more of in films. And Blatty is someone I'd dearly love to see directing more horror films.

The violence in this film is primarily off camera, but there are some excruciatingly suspenseful and impressively choreographed scenes leading up to deaths. In particular, there is a scene leading to the death of a Nurse. It is shown from a fixed camera perspective, where the actual death is off camera. The tension is built up to so well it is actually more shocking than if you saw it on camera, where your overstressed imagination fills in the blanks. The horror seems very real and personal in this film. The only real gore of the film comes in at the ending. I had read elsewhere that this ending was not the ending the director originally had, but was added at the `request' of the studio to make the film more horrific. I would be interested in seeing a special edition DVD of this title, but given it is an entirely overlooked film, there is little chance (but I guess if an insignificant film such as `Romper Stomper' can get a 2 disc special edition, I guess anything can happen).

Hellraiser: Inferno (2000 Video)

A New Direction for Hellraiser

[10/10 · 17 November 2000]

This new chapter in the Hellraiser series was a welcome change of pace. The first two sequels were basically treading out the same ideas as the first - Open the box, demons come to tear you apart (usually involving chains with hooks). Bloodlines tried to add new ideas, charting the history from beginning to end, but as the finished product was "Alan Smithee"d, I find it hard to comment fairly on that film. I'm not sure what the finished product was envisaged to be.

Inferno was a different altogether. I tried a new approach to the result of opening the box, more cerebral in effect. In actual fact, I could draw some comparisons to Jacob's Ladder for the concepts used here (a film I love dearly). I found the film psychologically powerful, and disturbing by non-violent means.

Craig Scheffer does a great job as the lead. Come to think of it, I haven't seen him in much other than Nightbreed. Good to see him being given a good role again.

Some people complain that Pinhead wasn't in this film very much. Well, he wasn't in Hellraiser 1 much either. Clive Barker was wanting Hellraiser to go in new directions, and I feel that Inferno has managed to do this nicely. Which makes Barker's comments about Inferno a little perplexing to me.

Mutant Action (1993)

An entertaining, satirical, ultra-violent black comedy movie

[10/10 · 11 October 2000]

The film starts off as a satirical, blackly humorous, look at society, where a group of disabled terrorists (Accion Mutante), reunited with their newly released leader Ramon, kidnap a beautiful wealthy socialite Patricia at a bloody raid on her wedding reception. The kidnapping is the culmination of a campaign of anti-beautiful people terrorism, and leaves half of the terrorists dead after a violent battle at the reception.

After this stage of the film, the film takes a turn to a SCI-FI crime black comedy, where Ramon takes Patricia to a rendezvous on a distant planet in a pure money-grabbing ransom attempt (none of the anti-beauty ideals of Mutante Accion remain). On board the ship, Ramon starts to spread dissent among the remaining gang members, resulting in the death of all of them bar one, who happens to be half of a siamese twin (leading to some pretty disturbing scenes later in the film). The socialite eventually falls for her kidnapper, even though he treats her particularly roughly, and is only after the money. There ends up being a race to the ransom rendezvous between the half siamese and Ramon, with Ramon and Patricia meeting up with a family reminiscent of the inbreeds in Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and the siamese being strung up with his dead brother, eventually causing their separation. The showdown at the end between Ramon, Patricia's father, and the twin, leaves nearly everyone dead.

If this doesn't interest you in this gem of a film, let me add that it was not really cheesily done. The story was done in an exuberant style (not in content, but in the rapid pace and settings of the film). Although extremely violent and bloody, it fitted with the story, and the high quality of effects added a real feel to the film.

This is one of my all time favorite films. I would love this on DVD...