Saturday Scream Queen: Hilary Swank

One thing's for certain about two-time Best Actress Oscar-winner Hilary Swank: Neither of those were given for her horror movies.

While horror films already rank pretty low on the Academy's list of things to consider when handing out awards, there can be little argument that they've properly ignored the dozen or so thrillers and chillers Swank has appeared in since making her screen debut as a child actress in 1991.

It's a shame that Swank hasn't been featured in better horror films, because she is often the best thing about ones she's been in. She continues to appear in scary movies (with her most recent one being "The Resident" from the revived Hammer Films), so there's still hope for fans that she will be in the right project sooner or later.

'The Reaping' nets a thin harvest

The Reaping (2007)
Starring: Hilary Swank, Idris Elba, David Morrissy, AnnaSophia Robb, and Stephen Rae
Direector: Stephen Hopkins
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

A former missionary turned college professor-and-professional-debunker-of-miracles Katherine (Swank) is called to an isolated Louisanna village to provide a scientific explanation for a series of events that mirror the Ten Plagues of Egypt as depicted in the Old Testament. As scientific explanations start to wear thin, Katherine and her deeply religious assistant (Elba) uncover signs that something supernatural is indeed happening in the town--something that may well be of Biblical proportions--and it centers around a 12 year-old girl (Robb). But is she a savior or a destroyer?

"The Reaping" is a fairly standard, paint-by-numbers supernatural thriller with religious themes that will you'll derive enjoyment from in direct proportion to the number of other films in this vein that you've seen. There's not much here that hasn't been done better in other films, although it is well enough paced, decently acted, and decently executed on the technical level. (It does feature one of the best "When Bugs Attack" moments ever put on film, and this sequence is when the film is at its best and its scariest.)

Like so many other modern thrillers, however, its fatal weakness lies with the script. It's not only unoriginal, but its shallow both emotionally and spiritually. The viewer never experiences the pain and horror that caused Katherine to lose her faith in God, and her rediscovery of it is likewise nothing that we feel any emotional investment in. (It's necessary for the plot, but we never get close enough to her--or any of the characters, really--to feel the process happening.)

The film is also not helped by the way it devolves into a special effects extravaganza where the viewer feels even more detached from the action and the characters than at any previous point in the film. Then, just to botch the finale completely, we're treated to a lame "twist-ending" denouement instead of some sort of emotional wrap-up to the story.

"The Reaping" rates a low 5 on the 0 to 10 scale... it's watchable, but there are probably other films you'd be better off spending your time on. It did hold my interest throughout... although I'm not sure if this was to the story's credit or Hilary Swank's tight tanktops and flimsy nightgowns.

'The Demons of Ludlow' is one of Rebane's best

The Demons of Ludlow (1975)
Starring: Paul von Hausen, Stephanie Cushna, Carol Perry, James R. Robinson, C. Dave Davis, and Angailica
Director: Bill Rebane
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

A curse that's haunted a small New England town since its founding two hundred years ago is brought fully to horrible life when a piece of its secret history--a piano that sounds like a harpsichord (or is that a harpsichord that looks like an upright piano?)--resurfaces. Will the town preacher (Von Hausen) and a pair of young journalists (Cushna and Robinson) stop the curse, or will they fall victim to it?

I watched several of Bill Rebane's movies, and I don't know whether my ability to tell crap from quality started to erode when I got to this one, but I think that "The Demons of Ludlow" is actually pretty good for a low-budget horror film. Compared to some of Rebane's other efforts, it's downright brilliant.

Unfortunately, like another of Rebane's almost-good movies--"The Game" (aka "The Cold")--he and his writers simply can't seem to pull off the ending. Remember my question im the summary above as to whether the preacher and the journalist escape the curse? That remains a question at the end of the movie, and it's not a question that hangs there in a good way. The ending is so abrupt that seems as though Rebane ran out of film and had no money to buy more. The film simply feels like the ending was left off.

If a little more care had been taken to construct a story with a decent end, this could have been a solid 5 rating. The soundtrack is decent, the acting is better than most of what you see in films of this kind, and there are even some pretty scary scenes--the sequences where the preacher's alcoholic wife is being tormented by the ghosts' of Ludlow's past are particularly well done. But, again, Rebane screws up the ending.

Picture Perfect Wednesday: The Milla Jovovich Quarterly

That's what Milla's face looked like when she learned that she's a recurring feature on Shades of Gray.

'The Gambler and the Lady' is worth a chance

The Gambler and the Lady (1952)
Starring: Dane Clark, Naomi Chance, Meredith Edwards, Kathleen Byron, and Erich Pohlmann
Director: Sam Newfield, Patrick Jenkins and Terence Fisher
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

An American hood living in London (Clark) wants more than to just be the guy who made his fortune owning popular night clubs and running successful after-hours gambling parlors... he wants to accepted among the circle of the British ruling class the admires so much. When he befriends the beautiful and truly noble-in-spirit Lady Susan (Chance), it appears his dream may come true. But will gangsters trying to take over his businesses, bitter ex-employees, and his own naive belief that the British upper class is inherently more honest and decent than men of the street like himself conspire to destroy him first?

"The Gambler and a Lady" unfolds like a Greek tragedy, with everyone around Jim Forster, the American street tough turned die-hard Anglophile, warning him that the upper-crust is not a place for him, nor are those who are already there the kind of people he imagines. But, like all tragic heroes, Jim forges ahead, pursuing his hopes and dreams... and ultimately dooming himself and everyone and everything he ever cared about. The end of the film is its starting point, but even if it wasn't, it is no surprise that Jim comes to a sad end, nor how he got there; each step that he thinks leads him closer to his dream turns out in the end to be another factor in his downfall and only Jim is blind to this fact until it's too late.

Although Dane Clark will never be enshrined among history's great actors, he had a real knack for portraying Everyman and tough guys with soft interiors, both of which made him perfect for the role in "The Gambler and the Lady". In the hands of a lesser actor, or a more handsome one, the character of Jim could easily have come across as pathetic rather than sympathetic. While the entire cast is good in their parts--as is the case with most of these black-and-white Hammer crime dramas given that we see the same supporting actors over and over again--it really is Cook who makes the movie.

"The Gambler and the Lady" was reportedly shot in less than a month, and with a configuration of three directors in order to allow American writer/director Sam Newfield to help the project without drawing flak from the British labor unions, but any production difficulties aren't to be seen in the final product. It's a fast-paced, interesting and compelling drama that features more action than is the norm for Hammer's black-and-white thrillers and it easily ranks among the best of the films born from the partnership between the English studio and American B-movie producer Robert Lippert.

This is a movie that doesn't deserve the obscurity it has languished in for the past many decades. It's worth checking out for anyone who enjoys classic movies.

'The Heist' isn't worth stealing

The Heist (aka "Unlawful Force") (1997)
Starring: Cynthia Geary, Andrew McCarthy, Wolf Larson, Peter Hanlon, Hannes Jaenicke, Brent Stait, and Janice Simmons
Director: Michael Kennedy
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

A retired police officer (Geary) turned security company dispatcher engages in a battle of nerves and wits with the leader of a gang that is staging a robbery (McCarthy).

"The Heist" is a made-for-TV movie that screams "cheap" from every single frame. From its limited locations (all of the interior spaces were probably on the same sound stage and all the exteriors feel like they were probably filmed around the same rundown industrial park) to the run-down vehicles used throughout the picture, this is a movie with a budget so low it can't conceal it.

It doesn't help matters that the script is predictable in every way but one (I guessed wrong when it came to the identity of the "mole" in the security company that was, but I called every other plot development long before it made its way onto the screen, and anyone who has seen more than two or three crime dramas will easily do the same.

It's not a particularly bad movie--it's paced decently, no one in the cast embarrasses themselves or their co-stars with bad performances, and stars McCarthy and Geary are as good as one expects them to be, based on work that came both before and after this film--but it's also not particularly good. "Bland" is the perfect adjective to describe it.

This is a film that deserved to fade into TV oblivion, but someone acquired the DVD rights cheaply enough to put it out there for rent and purchase. Unless you're the world's biggest fan of Andrew McCarthy or Cynthia Geary, or unless you've set yourself the goal of watching every single heist movie ever made in North American, it isn't even worth shoplifting.

Det er Fastelavn i dag!

If you don't know what that means, you're probably not Danish!

Here are pictures of girls with masks... but what I really want are some fastelavnsboller. (But you can spare the fastelavnris!)

For more hidden beauties, click here.

Saturday Scream Queen: Kathleen Benner

Arizona-based actress and model Kathleen Benner made her film debut in the 2005 sci-fi/horror fusion "Vampire Slayers" and has since appeared in more than 20 films, the vast majority being independent horror flicks.

In addition to being a successful actress and model, Benner also works as a stunt woman. Maybe someday, she'll get to kick Jason Vorhees' or Ghostface's butt on the big screen. She certainly has both the looks and the talent.

'The Abducted' is saved by its stars

The Abducted (aka "Match.Dead") (2011)
Starring: James Ray, Kathleen Benner, and Michael Harrelson
Director: Jon Bonnell
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

A serial killer (Ray) abducts a young woman (Benner) he met through an online dating site. After deciding he loves her, he forgoes his usual habit of murder, and he tries to win her affection through violence and terrifying mind games. Will she escape, or will she end up as just another victim?

"The Abducted" is a movie that's elevated by a actors that ALMOST manage to transcend the weakness of the material the are working with. The idea behind the film is an interesting one--it takes the basic framework of the countless torture porn movies that have been spewed forth into the direct-to-DVD market and onto the big screen since the surprise hit "Saw" but uses it for a psychological thriller instead of a disgusting sadistic gore-fest--but the execution is lacking.

The biggest flaw with the film is that we never get any insight into the film's villain, Ridley, and why he does what he does. Nor do we ever gain an understanding of the tortured heroine, Valora, even if we get several flashbacks to her childhood, which the writer and director presumably felt would explain why she was able fight her abductor and why he saw a kindred spirit in her. Because the villain and the heroine both remain unknowns to us, much of the potential emotional of the film never materializes. The battle of wills between the two characters feels a bit hollow and even the murder of the girl's grandfather feels like nothing more than a badly motivated excuse for some splatter and melodrama, because we know even less about the grandfather than we do the heroine.

While it's good for a movie to hit the ground running, it would have been nice if there would have been a little more set-up of the characters in this film. Specifically, how the main characters met, and why someone who seems as appealing and strong-minded as the kidnap victim had to resort to online dating to find love? All this could have been accomplished with just a few minutes at the beginning, perhaps even showing the two characters meeting after their online connection. (All the promotional material for the film references online dating and the initial meeting of the two main characters, so I wonder that material never made it into the movie.)

More background on the main characters would also have helped make the ending seem more satisfying, because as it stands Valora's transformation is very, very lame. (The ending also made me wonder: Why do so many action and horror films end with the villains getting killed? In so many movies, it would be a far worse punishment for the bad guy to go through the humiliation of trial and imprisonment. Death is the easy way out. It most cases, the justice isn't even poetic, nor barely even justice.)

It's a shame the script here ins't stronger, because James Ray and Kathleen Benner both give fine performances, and they each have enough charisma together and apart to carry the film despite its flaws. This is the second time I've seen Ray play an unpleasant bad-ass (the other time being in "Fable", a film which also happened to feature Benner in a small part), and I think he if all goes well for him he might find himself a prominent spot in the pantheon of cinematic heavies.

"The Abducted" will see wide release on DVD on March 7. My thanks to the good folks at Brain Damage Films for supplying me with an advanced copy.

Tectonic Tuesday: Natalie Portman

I'm sure the great visionary, the Imam of Imams Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi, would agree that the only thing more dangerous than an immodest woman, is an immodest woman who was brought into this world through the the nefarious machinations of the Zionist Conspiracy!



Nineteenth Case Study: Natalie Portman

Natalie Portman, winner of the 2011 Academy Award for Best Actress, was born in Israel in 1981. Reportedly the child of an "artist" and a "fertility expert," she was mostly created by them in a top secret Zionist weapons lab and unleashed upon the world with the intention of creating havoc and destruction. It is not a coincidence that her debut film role at the age of 12 in "Leon the Professional" was described by some critics as "Lolita-esque". Nor was it surprising that an earthquake struck the Al Hoceima region in the northern Morocco, leveling towns and killing hundreds.

Portman has flaunted herself in over 30 movies since her debut, and each one has threatened lives around the world. She welcomed the new millennium with an earth-shattering role in "Home is Where the Heart Is", which caused the Baku earthquake that damaged churches and mosques, but no synagogues. More recently she pranced around in skin-tight outfits and had all kinds of sex on screen in "Black Swan". Predictable, a series of massive earthquakes have struck in New Zealand, damaging over 100,000 homes in the city of Christchurch and killing hundreds.

All because of the immodesty of Natalie Portman. And the sinister agents of the Zionist Conspiracy!