Sci-fi/Horror Round-Up, pt 2: Post-Witch

Our modern understanding of viral marketing exists largely because of two guys in 1999 who were trying to advertise their $100,000 horror movie on almost no budget. Thanks to their creative approaches to internet advertising, The Blair Witch Project went on to set the record (at the time) for highest-grossing independent film. Writer/Directors Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick were touted at the future of the horror genre, and had their pick of a multitude of high-budget studio projects. Instead they decided to produce a Blair Witch sequel that bombed, and spent years developing a comedy entitled Heart of Love that was eventually dropped by the studio before production could begin. What are they up to now? The same thing they started out doing: making independent sci-fi/horror movies.

The Objective
Daniel Myrick has directed a number of interesting genre movies in recent years, but The Objective stands apart from the rest. CIA operative Benjamin Keynes is given control over a small group of elite US soldiers in late-2001 Afghanistan. Officially, they have been tasked with seeking out a respected local religious leader and securing a statement of support for the US military's campaign against the Taliban. But Keynes seems to be seeking something else. He keeps taking measurements with some strange-looking equipment, and doesn't seem surprised when they cannot locate their target. They travel further into the desert, and strange things begin to happen. There's a firefight with a group of Taliban rebels, but no bodies or blood left over afterwards. They hear the sound and feel the wind of a helicopter directly overhead, but nothing is there. Their communications stop working. And then they start seeing strange lights.

The Objective is not interested in handing out easy explanations. We never get a real answer about what is happening, just some hints at what might be happening. And there's a lingering sense of danger and dread that plays over every scene. The Afghan desert is presented as an impossibly big, foreboding wasteland from which there is no easy escape or rescue. There is plenty of death, but none of it is predictable. The characters are not cardboard cutouts, and act like professionally-trained soldiers. There is order, even when it becomes clear that they may not make it out of the desert alive. The uniformly-good cast is mostly unknowns, with the only kinda-recognizable face being Blair Witch's Michael C. Williams as one of the soldiers.

But like so many genre movies, The Objective doesn't know how to end. The last five minutes are a disappointment, and throw an additional few confusing twists into a movie that already had a lot of unanswered questions. But up until then, it was a rich, engrossing sci-fi movie that benefits greatly from its setting and atmosphere.

[possibly NSFW language near the end of the trailer, so wear headphones if you have nosy co-workers]



Alien Raiders
Let's establish this right away: Alien Raiders is a terrible, terrible title. Alien Raiders is what you call a movie showing at 2 a.m. on the Sci-Fi (sorry, I mean SyFy) Channel starring David Keith. The working title for this movie was Supermarket, which is not a great title by any means, but at least makes more sense for this movie than Alien Raiders. Whoever chose the title Alien Raiders is an idiot, and unfairly cost this movie a lot of viewers that may have actually given some consideration to watching a movie called Supermarket. OK, I've said my peace.

The Daniel Myrick-produced Alien Raiders is a skillfully made sci-fi movie that manages to merge a dark hostage drama with John Carpenter's The Thing. As the movie opens, a van pulls up to a small town grocery store at night. A group of masked, armed men (and one woman, but her gender is not essential to the plot) enter the store and start shooting customers, seemingly indiscriminate in their bloodshed. But there is something else going on. The assailants are rounding people up, and having a bug-eyed junkie named Spooky stare them in the eyes. Spooky is somehow screening people for...something. He detects something in a crying middle-aged woman, declares "She's one," and the woman is promptly shot in the head. An off-duty cop incites a shoot-out, and Spooky is killed. The store is locked down, everyone that Spooky had cleared are allowed to exit, and everyone else is rounded up in the back. The police arrive outside, and a stand-off begins.

As the movie progresses, we start to understand what is happening. There is an "infection," and no one is allowed to leave until they've been cleared. With Spooky dead, the only easy way to detect an infected person is not going to be fun for those who are tested. The nature of this infection is hinted at, and revealed slowly throughout the film. There's some great storytelling tricks used here, with the police outside viewing some home video footage they've found in the van, juxtaposed with what the hostage takers are telling the surviving grocery employees and patrons. It becomes clear that the hostage takers believe they are doing good, but there's always the threat that they are willing to cause unnecessary deaths to achieve their goal.

This is not a movie about character, so not a lot of development goes into that area. There are a few familiar-looking faces in the cast (including 24's Carlos Bernard), and the actors do a good job of at least giving their characters each a distinctive "feel," since the story flies by too quickly to give them a "depth." The film moves briskly, and at 85 minutes does not overstay its welcome. It starts with an interesting idea, executes it, and ends. There's a last-minute twist that's predictable, but it doesn't detract too much from the overall enjoyment. Despite costing less than a million dollars to make, the film never looks cheap. It's a kinetic, thoroughly entertaining B-movie that is unjustly hampered by a terrible title.



Altered
I have praised Eduardo Sanchez's Altered before, so I will not repeat myself here, save to say that it is one of the best examples of independent sci-fi/horror to come out of this decade. The more times I watch it, the more I find to love about it. It's a great combination of small cast, small set, and a plot that presents an impossible situation for the characters. Unlike Myrick, Altered is the only film that Sanchez has completed since Blair Witch. And he knocks it out of the park.

Sci-fi/Horror Round-Up, pt 1: Introduction

I don't even attempt to hide the fact that I love science fiction and horror movies, even the terrible ones. And by "terrible ones," I mean "most science fiction and horror movies." The two genres are a cesspool of terrible filmmaking, in part because they are the starting ground for many talentless would-be filmmakers. It's easy for directors to start out in sci-fi/horror, because the genres themselves are the attraction to the audience. There's no need for recognizable actors or a coherent script. Just grab some women willing to get topless, a bucket of corn syrup, some red food coloring, and a piece of raw chicken with some rubber hose tentacles stapled on. There, you now have the makings for a sci-fi horror movie. And believe me, lots of people go this route in an attempt to build a career in the movie business.

But what makes these genres so artistically appalling is what can also make them great. Science fiction and horror give a free pass to the filmmakers to do whatever the Hell they want. It's a playground of wild invention and ambition. It exposes a filmmaker's raw talent, or lack thereof. Don't believe me? James Cameron wrote and directed the highest grossing movie in history. His first film was Piranha 2: The Spawning. Yes, killer fish that fly. Peter Jackson started with Bad Taste. Roger Corman is infamous for producing some of the worst sci-fi/horror schlock to ever touch celluloid. His terrible films are also famous for launching the careers of Martin Scorcese, Francis Ford Coppola, John Sayles, Joe Dante, Jack Nicholson, Johnathan Demme, Gale Anne Hurd, Peter Bogdanovich, and Ron Howard's directing career. So suck on that, all other genres!

There is a ton of crap to wade through, but it's always an awarding experience to discover that 1-in-1000 movie that actually manages to have new ideas, or a talented director putting a fresh spin on an old one. It feels special to see a natural filmmaker in their larval stage, struggling to make something original and entertaining with a budget that wouldn't fund a 30-second tampon commercial.

Maybe it has something to do with 9/11 (because if anything changed between 2001 and 2009, it is legally required that the change be attributed to 9/11), but the terrible sci-fi/horror drought of the 90's ("Let's see how many Scream knock-offs we can release in a single year!") gave way to a surprisingly large number of original, well-made movies. The mainstream theatrical releases were still mostly crap, with only a few exceptions (The Descent, Grindhouse, the grossly-underrated Silent Hill). And one of horror's biggest theatrical success stories, The Ring, probably did more harm than good with the number of terrible remakes it inspired. But the indie world has been grinding out respectable films at a steady pace throughout the decade. Not since the 70's has indie sci-fi/horror been this good.

So over the next few posts, I will be commenting on some of these overlooked films. I imagine several of them will have dedicated cult following within the next few years, and some may even eventually be looked back on as landmark moments in the genre (Hyperbole? Never heard of it.)

Hiatus Ended

While I worked through some last minute 2008 misery, I obviously left this here blog unattendiated (now that Bush is gone, I'm going to have to come up with these words myself). Well, playtime is over. It's back to the horrific grind of typing 4-sentence reviews of movies while on company time at an almost bi-monthly pace.


Lower Learning
It's a shame this went straight to DVD. Lower Learning is a solid R-rated comedy about an elementary school on the verge of collapse. Jason Biggs plays the downtrodden vice principal of the school who has to use all his might just to find the will to keep on working. Rob Corddry is the scheming principal who is planning to get the school closed and steal millions of dollars from the state by exploiting an accounting error. On what should be the school's last day, inspector Eva Longoria-Parker shows up to confirm that the school should actually be closed (rather than the elementary school with the massive heroin problem, which provides my favorite moment in the film). Longoria-Parker suspects that Corddry is up to something, and goes along with Biggs in an attempt to save the school. Critics hated this movie (as of this writing, it only has a 3.4 IMDB rating), and I only decided to watch it based on Nathan Rabin's DVD review. Much of the backlash comes from the film enthusiastically creating situations where adults are saying horrible, horrible things to children. This is especially true in the case of the other teachers at the school, hilariously portrayed by Will Sasso as the recently divorced gym teacher("You punch that girl right in her happiness!"), Nat Faxon as a beloved homeroom teacher who pines for the school nurse ("I'm looking for a different kind of love, the kind that's wet and smells a little."), and a scene-stealing Monica Potter as Sasso's depressed ex-wife (when a child asks a question, she just sighs, lights a cigarette and tells him to go fuck himself). Anyone who is easily offended should not be watching this movie. I imagine this film will find a cult audience, because there are tons of quote-worthy lines and throwaway gags (my favorite being Longoria-Parker very casually huffing spray paint while trying to inspire Biggs to overcome his self-doubt). It is absolutely worth a Netflix rental.


Repo! The Genetic Opera
This movie is frickin' surreal. It's a futuristic Goth horror musical with a cast that makes no coherent sense:

Alexa Vega, the girl from Spy Kids
Anthony Head, the guy from Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Sarah Brightman, the Broadway singer
Ogre, the lead singer from industrial band Skinny Puppy
Bill Moseley, from lots of horror movies
Paris Hilton, from......uh.......
Joan Jett, from music
and Paul Sorvino, who you should just know by now.

It's bad, but so very, very fascinating. The songs are not good, and are barely songs. Most of the time it seems like the script had regular dialogue, and the actors just chose to sing the lines instead of speaking them. This sing-speak is annoying at first, but starts to get really addicting after awhile. Writer Terrance Zdunich has the best role as the sometimes-narrator, sometimes-character Graverobber, who has 2 of the film's better songs. Brightman's singing unsurprisingly towers over all the others, but the rest of the cast runs the whole gamut, from the terrible (Moseley, Hilton) through the mediocre (Vega, Sorvino) to the very good (Zdunich and Head, who actually sounds a lot like Bowie). While not a success, this film is certainly a unique experience and ambitious effort, and I will likely end up rewatching it several times.