Red State (2011)

Red State (2011)

Directed by: Kevin Smith

Starring: Michael Parks, Melissa Leo, John Goodman

I was just as surprised to find out that Kevin Smith directed this as I was that he did Cop Out, and I was just about as impressed with the final product. This movie just seems like it really has no idea what it wants to be, so it just throws up its hands and says “I hope you think this is edgy or something, I dunno.”

Red State centers on a Westboro Baptist-like church, which stages protests at funerals for gay people… after they kill them. They kidnap three boys that they lured through the internet and are prepared to kill them too, when one breaks out and shoots a guy while the deputy is there to investigate. What follows is John Goodman and his ATF squad getting in a Waco-style situation with the church, whose members are heavily armed. The gunfight finally ends when the remaining churchgoes give themselves up willingly because they hear trumpets, believing that the rapture is upon them (it turns out it was just the neighbors fucking with them).

The movie starts out as a workmanlike horror film, but once John Goodman arrives (who was really good, to nobody’s surprise) it changes tone like, four times. Combine that with the really lame twist ending, and you realize that Smith was more interested in airing his personal hate towards the church and state than he was in actually making a movie. Also, for everyone who thinks that this is a totally crazy move on his part to make a horror movie about crazy religious folks killing homosexuals, then maybe you should take a look at half of all horror movies ever made.

Aaah! Zombies!! (2007)

Aaah! Zombies!! (2007)

Directed by: Matthew Kohnen

Starring: Matthew Davis, Julianna Robinson, Michael Grant Terry

Back in December, I made a decision to stop watching zombie movies for a while. I’m honestly a little amazed that I managed to go five whole months without seeing another one, and it was actually really nice. Aaah! Zombies!! did nothing to make me regret my decision, either.

Four idiot teenagers eat some ice cream laced with a secret government super-soldier serum and turn into zombies. However, they don’t realize that they’re zombies, and after they meet a soldier who also seems to be one of them, they actually start thinking that everyone ELSE are zombies. They eventually learn the truth and go off to start their own zombie-friendly community.

The way they do the effect of the main characters being zombies but not knowing it is to separate “real life” as being black and white, and the zombies’ perception in color, where everybody else are going really fast, but the characters look normal, apart from their injuries. Which is fine and all, but even the slightest amount of thought into the parts where they switch back and forth and they show that it really doesn’t make any sense how the zombies could be bowling, or talking with normal people, or fucking anything else they ever do. Actually, NOTHING in this movie holds up to even the most cursory amount of scrutiny, and it’s not even close to being funny enough to make you suspend your disbelief for the sake of the writing. Because it isn’t funny at all. Fucking zombie movies.

Freaks (1932)

Freaks (1932)

Directed by: Tod Browning

Starring: Wallace Ford, Leila Hyams, Olga Baclanova

The reason I sought out this movie was because I was trying to look up where that “one of us, one of us” chant came from that everybody always quotes. As it turns out, this was a really cool movie, so hooray for quotes!

The movie is about a group of circus performers, most of whom are “freaks” in one way or another. One of the two “normal” people in the circus decides to seduce and marry a little person performer, so she and the circus’ strongman can kill him and take his inheritance. The other freaks find out about this, and exact their own revenge on the two… by turning the woman into… “one of us”.

This is a creepy film, and it does a fantastic job of portraying the freaks (who were all actual circus freaks) as kind and lovable people who are rejected by society because of the way they look. The point is basically that they’re just like anyone else, and they exact vengeance just like anyone else would. It’s good.

13 Assassins (2010)

13 Assassins (2010)

Directed by: Takashi Miike

Starring: Kôji Yakusho, Takayuki Yamada, Yûsuke Iseya

This is the third Takashi Miike movie I’ve seen, after Audition and The Great Yokai War, and I gotta say that I have no idea whatsoever what his style is. All three of these movies are pretty good/remarkable in their own ways, but they’re also pretty extraordinarily different from each other. That’s a really interesting thing to get out of a director’s filmography.

Near the end of Japan’s feudal era, there is one really, really bad lord who does a lot of bad things, and a couple old school samurai are not happy with him. They decide to get together a group of samurai to kill the guy, and come up with a plan to head him off on the road back to his home, where he will be completely untouchable.

The action sequences in this film are fantastic. It’s all very realistic, yet still very cool samurai swordfighting. You’d think the movie would rest on the action alone, but there are actually some really good individual character arcs in there, on top of the very nice, traditional sort of main story. If you like cool action and aren’t turned off by dramatic scenes in between them (kinda like Seven Samurai, as obvious of a comparison as that is), then I recommend 13 Assassins.

Josh Kirby… Time Warrior: Chapter 2, The Human Pets (1995)

Josh Kirby… Time Warrior: Chapter 2, The Human Pets (1995)

Directed by: Frank Arnold

Starring: Corbin Allred, Jennifer Burns, Derek Webster

I’ve already seen the fifth part of this six-part series, so it seems only fitting that I watch part two next. Fitting because those were the only ones I could find, that is. Oh, who cares, it’s just Josh Kirby… TIME WARRIOR.

The movie actually starts out by ending the story of the first movie, which involves a kid, an old guy, and some woman in a weird kind of Robin Hood times where everyone rode dinosaurs around for some reason. Eventually they beat the evil, scenery-chewing king and go forward in time to the year seventy bajillion, where a giant ugly bald kid captures them. They’re forced to fight a cowboy and a musketeer and a WWI German fighter pilot, but eventually team up with them to get back to their time machine.

Every single actor in this movie made me want to either cry or shoot my TV. The plot was confused, mostly because it was really a movie and a half, and the plot devices were predictable and lame. Still, the special effects were way better than what there should’ve been in something like this. I especially liked the claymation dinosaurs who look for all the world like they were actually made out of Play-Doh. Also, there was a preview on the tape for Prehysteria! 3, which I really, really, really want to see now. Tiny dinosaurs help Fred Williard fix up his putt-putt golf course! Who wouldn’t want to see that?!