That’s not to say this update isn’t gory — oh, boy, is it ever — but it has a style the first film sorely lacked. Admittedly, Lustig had little budget to work with back then, whereas P2 helmer Franck Khalfoun enjoyed a $6 million sandbox, now clumped with blood. Playing aggressively against his nice-guy rep, former […]
remake
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Starbuck
The equally shlubby Patrick Huard plays David, a middle-aged man with no ambition who seems perfectly content delivering meat for his family’s butcher shop, even if he’s not very good at it. He’s $80,000 in debt; his ex-girlfriend (Julie LeBreton) has announced she’s pregnant with his child; and, worst of all, his past years of […]
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Evil Dead
In Sam Raimi’s wildly original, wildly influential The Evil Dead of 1981, five friends into the woods for a cabin getaway and couldn’t get away from the demons they accidentally summon from an ancient book. In his feature debut, Uruguay director Fede Alvarez retains that setup, minus the vacation. In his vision, the young men […]
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The Tower
Set on Christmas Eve (thereby also making it akin to Die Hard), the film takes place at Tower Sky, a twin-towered luxury apartment building of some 1,700 units and 108 floors. The towers connect via a shivers-inducing “sky bridge” with see-through floor. If that makes your stomach do flip-flops, perhaps it can be settled with […]
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Come Out and Play
Francis (Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Lola Versus) and the very pregnant Beth (the genetically blessed Vinessa Shaw, Side Effects) rent a boat to explore the nearby island of Punta Hueca (can’t-be-accidental translation: Hollow Point). Under a sweltering sun, they find a few kids at the dock and seemingly no else along the village’s roads or in its […]
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The Philadelphia Experiment
Based on the 1984 sci-fi movie of the same name, this made-for-Syfy version doesn’t improve upon the premise of scientists cracking invisibility. Again, it has terrible consequences — namely, a World War II destroyer ship suddenly transported to a modern-day runway. Holy Battleship! Coffee barista Molly (Emilie Ullerup, TV’s Sanctuary) worries when her cop boyfriend […]
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Texas Chainsaw
“This is the true sequel,” Texas Chainsaw asserts. To prove it, the first three minutes serve as a Reader’s Digest encapsulation of the original before picking up right where it left off. Leatherface (Dan Yeager) and the surviving members of his Sawyer clan come under siege by an angry redneck squad of vengeance. In the […]
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Flash Gordon: The Complete Series
Now that I’ve seen its long-delayed DVD set from Mill Creek Entertainment, I can say that, to my surprise, it’s not. Oh, it’s still not “good,” but it’s watchable in a minimal-investment, entertainment-as-wallpaper way. The first step for interested parties is to remove any hopes that this small-screen Flash Gordon will be anything like the […]
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Trance
Based on a 2001 British made-for-TV movie, Trance casts X-Men: First Class member James McAvoy (presumably standing in for Ewan McGregor) as Simon, an art auctioneer who becomes a media hero for foiling the heist of an über-valuable painting, yet pays the price when the would-be thief, Franck (Vincent Cassel, Black Swan), comes looking for […]
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Mimesis
Look, at least it’s not the new Night of the Living Dead 3D: Re-Animation, but that’s another review. There’s not much to Mimesis beyond the one-line summary above. Various attendees at a horror convention are invited to an exclusive, super-secret party that turns out to be the “game” — one in which they are stuck […]