'Resident Evil' moves into the neighborhood

Resident Evil (2002)
Starring: Milla Jovovich
Director: Paul W.S. Anderson
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

If you like action flicks AND are a fan of the classic horror flick "Dawn of the Dead," you're going to love "Resident Evil."


In a future where the global trade and politics is dominated by Umbrella Corporation, something goes terribly wrong at a top secret research installation under a major metropolitan area. A crack commando team is sent in to discover what happened... and come face to face with ravenous hoards of undead and other nasty critters created by the corporation's military/health research department. Meanwhile, a young woman, Alice (Jovovich), is trying to recover her memory and learn how she might be connected to the outbreak... and if she might be the key to stopping it.

The scares are neat, the action is non-stop and well-conceived, and, while the plot doesn't really stray from the "science goes horribly wrong and now the dead walk!"-type plot, it is very well executed and there are a couple of nice twists and interesting moments.

And some scary moments, too. The infected dogs are horrifying and the revelation of who Alice is very well done and it give Milla Jovovich a chance to actually act instead of just look tough and sexy.

Even better, although I've never played the video games this film was based upon, I could see the "levels" and the "challenges" of the game play out on screen without seeming too hokey. It's nice to see something that remains true to the nature of its source material, yet still create an adaptation that works in the new medium.

You may feel like you've been shaftedafter watching 'The Shaft'

The Shaft (aka "The Lift" and "Down") (2001)
Starring: James Marshall, Naomi Watts, Ron Perlman, and Michael Ironside
Director: Dick Maas
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

The express elevators in New York City's famous Millennium Building suddenly develop minds of their own... and they are minds bent on murder! Will a slacker ex-Marine hunk turned elevator repairman (James Marshall) and a sexy, plucky girl tabloid reporter (over-acted by Naomi Watts) uncover the truth of what's happening, or will they fall victim to elevator industry cover-ups, mad scientists delving in Elevator Technology Man Was Not Meant to Know, and renegade killer elevators?


This often unintentionally funny horror movie features a script that should have gone through a draft or two more; copious overacting (everyone is SO over the top here that Michael Ironsides--featured in a small but pivotal part--seems subdued and restrained); and too many 'because the plot requires it' moments to count. There's enough interesting things here to keep the viewer's attention, but ultimately the movie is unsatisfying and lame, mostly because it has the killer elevators perform truly amazing and physically impossible feats without even bothering to attempt to explain how they manage to do it. (Sadly, one of my favorite killer elevator scenes is tied into one of these... the death of the obnoxious rollerblader. While I'll buy into the building's express elevators developing a mind of their own through the wonders of mad science, I can't accept that lets them completely ignore the laws of physics.)

A fun film, if you can get it cheap or for free... and if you have absolutely nothing to do, or nothing better to watch.

'The House by the Cemetery' isn't worth visiting

The House by the Cemetery (1984)
Starring: Katherine MacColl, Paolo Malco, Giovanni Frezza, and Ania Pieroni
Director: Lucio Fulci
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

A researcher (Malco) moves with his family to Boston to complete the work started by a collegue who committed suicide. Through a flurry of coincidences (or Fate, or maybe the researcher's specific manipulation, take your pick), they end up in a creepy house that is tied to the subject of the research. Ghosts, unkillable bats, and weird murders then drive the young family toward doom.

If you like your horror flicks with a high level of well-done gore but don't care whether the story hangs together well, then this is a film for you.

One part haunted house movie, one part slasher flick, and with a dash of mad science thrown in out of left field for good measure, " House by the Cemetery" exhibits all the strength and weaknesses that were the hallmarks of Italian horror movie makers in the Seventies and Eighties; the gore is appropriately disgusting--although the highmark in this film is definately the maggot-infested insides of the film's monster!--but there are characters who behave inconsistently or incomprehsibly and the script writers seem more concerned with getting from plot contrievance to plot contrievance, or providing excuses for the special efffects crew to go to work than they are with providing a story that hands together sensibly by the time the End Credits roll.

I know Fulci has his strong admirers, and I'm sure they will find much to like in this movie, but I was too annoyed with the coincidences, pointless ambiguities, and just plain random junk that pass for the story to get much enjoyment from it. It wasn't even fun nonsense, like you get in the Monogram and PRC horror movies from the 1930s and 1940s; it was just nonsense. (And if you are an admirer of this film, can you explain the behavior of the creepy babysitter [played by Ania Pieroni] to me? That annoyed me more than anything else in the picture.)

Oh... and that picture I used to illustrate this review? It appeared on a German poster for the flick, It's a cool painting, even if it has little do to with what actually happens.

British monster menaces choir boys and big-breasted women!

Panic (aka "Bakterion") (1974)
Starring: David Warbeck, Janet Agren, and Jose Lifante
Director: Tonino Ricci
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

A butter-fingered scientist spills experimental biological weapons-matter all over himself and turns into a rampaging creature that attacks big-breasted women in tight tops and choir boys on the outskirts of London. Captain Kirk (Warbeck)--no, not THAT Captain Kirk--is charged with hunting him down while a beautiful scientist (Agren) races to find a cure.


This is not the worst movie ever made, but it certainly is one of the stupidest. Heavily padded with tranquil city and country road scenes--supposedly made suspenseful by the lame soundtrack--and featuring a lame monster, lame villains, a painfully generic hero, and even more painfully bad dialogue.

"Panic" might provide some mild entertainment as a secondary feature at a Bad Movie Party, but otherwise it's an utterly worthless bit of cinema.