Brian Yuzna (Return Of The Living Dead 3) Interview

Brian Yuzna (pictured below left) is one of the world’s most prolific and respected genre film-makers and on the eve of RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD 3 receiving its network TV premiere on the Horror Channel, Yuzna gives us some insight into the making of the film, news on the SOCIETY sequel and why he thinks Horror has gone too mainstream.

RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD 3 is broadcast on Saturday Nov 2, 10.40pm.

Q: Did you know from a young age that you wanted to work in the movie industry?
BY: No, I didn’t. Like most kids, I loved movies; and I saw some scary ones at a young age that really disturbed me. That gave me an interest in horror for the rest of my life. But I never imagined that you could actually make a living making movies. Back then there were no dvd extras and tv shows demonstrating how movies were made. While in high school I had fooled around with a friend’s 8 mm camera and we mostly shot special effects but it wasn’t until I saw Truffaut’s Day For Night that I had an idea of how a movie crew worked. Many years later I was vacationing with my girl friend and we rode past a big encampment outside of Cartagena, Columbia and I recognized that it was a film shoot. That evening we left our modest quarters and were eating at a restaurant on the beach when a couple of jeeps drove up with the rowdy actors etc from the shoot. As they drank and ate and partied I realized that I was on vacation and they were on a job – but they were having more fun than I was. That’s when I thought maybe making movies was a desirable job! Cut to a few years later when I was working as an artist and had an art supply store. I acquired a 16mm Bolex wind up camera and started making a short film – a short film full of fx that turned into a feature. Although I never took a film class, I learned how to make a movie just by doing it with people who did know how. The process fascinated me - it was exciting and satisfying. The movie I made was pretty bad, but I was hooked. I moved to Los Angeles to make movies.

Q: How did the Return Of The Living Dead III project come together?
BY: Joel Castelberg and Danica Minor contacted me about directing Return 3 – they said they had the rights and thought that I would be a good collaborator. I was thrilled because I loved both Return of the Living Dead as well as Night of the Living Dead. In order to set it apart from the plethora of zombie movies that had been made (even back then!) I decided that a zombie should be the main character. They found a company to finance it and we began listening to pitches from potential screenwriters. However, when the time came to formalize a deal it turns out that Joel and Danica’s agent was wrong about the rights being in their control – so it all fell apart. Soon after I mentioned this to Mark Amin, the ceo of Trimark Pictures, and somehow he acquired the rights and offered me the job of directing and producing. Again, the process of interviewing writers began, but this time it was Trimark who lined them up. When I met John Penney and heard his pitch, I was immediately sold. He was the guy.

Q: What did you think of the script the first time you read it?
BY: There never was a first time that I read the script. John had a ‘pitch’, which was a basic ‘take’ on the movie. His idea had to do with kids on the run, kind of a Romeo and Juliet, in a world in which the military is experimenting with the living dead as weapons. I don’t remember exactly the details, but my obsession with having the main character be a zombie fit right into that. The next step was for John to write a ‘treatment’ to base the screenplay on. John and I brainstormed the ideas and John organized them into characters and a story. Then the Trimark development folks would review it. By the time we got to the screenplay John and I were collaborating very effectively. John was seamlessly able to satisfy his storytelling ideas as well as mine – and Trimark’s as well. In fact, for the only time in my moviemaking experience, I had the screenwriter (and co-producer) on the set with me throughout the shoot. During pre-production John Penney was there to rewrite the script according to the cast, the locations that we found and the ideas that came up with the storyboard artists and fx artists. So during the filming we were literally shooting the script.

Q: Was it a difficult movie to cast?
BY: It wasn’t a difficult movie to cast because of the support of Trimark. I feel like they were able to access excellent options for each of the roles. They were very involved with the casting and fortunately we seemed to be very much on the same page as them regarding the casting ideas. Trimark had strong ideas about the casting, but never did I feel like I was obliged to accept an actor that wasn’t my choice. They really were good to work with. The biggest role of course was Julie – and we were all pretty blown away by Mindy Clarke. But Trimark was most helpful, I think, with the secondary roles for which they brought in really quality talent. It is really great that the cast, in my opinion, is uniformly good.

Q: How much of the budget went on special effects?
BY: Not that much – but working with my producing partner Gary Schmoeller (to whom is due a great deal of the credit for the success of the movie) we used an approach for producing the effects that had worked well for us in the past. Typically fx horror films of that era would hire one fx company to produce all of the fx – the theory being that by giving them all of the fx budget they would be able to dedicate more of there time to your production. Our approach was the opposite – with limited funds it is better to break the fx down into categories and hire various companies with different strengths. This meant hiring an fx supervisor (Tom Rainone in this case) to find the appropriate fx artists, make the deals and supervise the work. Paying a top fx artist for a key fx makes sense – paying the same artist to create background zombies may not be cost effective – a newer fx company might put extra effort into the effect in order to show there stuff. Some fx artists are experts in prosthetics and others in mechanical devices. We tried to get the most bang out of our fx budget.

Q: Was it a difficult shoot?
BY: It was a difficult shoot in that we were trying to make a bigger and better movie than we were budgeted for (we always aim higher than our budget). But the shoot was so well organized (kudos again to Gary Schmoeller), and Trimark were so supportive, and our Director of Photography (Gerry Lively) was so tirelessly resourceful that everything went more or less according to plan. It was very hard, exhausting work – but the whole crew seemed to be pulling in the same direction, so I really would not categorize it as a ‘difficult’ shoot.

Q: Why do you think the film has built up such a loyal following?
BY: Because it is a really good zombie movie. I say that as someone who has made a lot of horror movies that I wouldn’t characterize as ‘really good’. Return 3 has a good clear story and satisfying horror. Mainly what sets it apart in my book is the love story at the center of it all. I think it is very romantic, you really feel for Julie and sympathize with Curt’s determination to not let go of her. I feel like it is a goth romance, a heavy metal tragedy, a young love in a corrupt world. As a life long horror fan I think that Return 3 holds up as an example of good ‘90s horror.

Q: Horror Channel has also shown films from The Dentist and Re-Animator series of movies, do you think its times these characters came back?
BY: Yes, I do. Corbin Bernson has tried to get the rights to do a third Dentist – he loves playing that character. And it would be good see Jeffrey Combs get out the re-animating syringe one more time. And I have been asked many times about a Re-Animator re-boot. Problem is, as always, financing. The business has changed considerably due to the digital revolution. There just aren’t many Trimarks out there any more.

Q: Have you ever been tempted to make a follow up to your astonishingly original shocker, Society?
BY: I am actively working on it. Once again it is all about the financing. My idea for a sequel is to have it take place in these super exclusive late night clubs that they have in Hollywood. Once you get in there is always a VIP room or a VVIP room that is off limits…

Q: What state do you think the horror movie industry is in at the moment? A victim of its own success, perhaps?
BY: Horror has become so mainstream that it seems to have mostly lost that transgressive creativity that used to make it so exhilarating. Now that Zombie movies have hit the mainstream (the modern equivalent of the ‘Western’?) they have mostly lost the element of the macabre, the disturbing sense of dead things coming wrongly to life, and are now mainly action films about disease and overpopulation. Vampires are more romantic than horrific. And extreme violence is the norm almost as an end in itself. I think that we are at the end of a cycle and that a new kind of horror will grow out of the new production and distribution digital technologies. We seem to have reached the limit of what the screenplay structure formulas (popularized especially by Syd Field) of the last decades can give us. Whereas these ideas began as a way to identify the structure of successful movies and learn from them, they have inevitably led to a be treated as a set of rules to follow, rules that can lead to a sameness in screenplay structure that makes you feel like you know what is coming in a film from the early scenes. The horror genre has a relatively rigorous structure and it may be time for new filmmakers to develop it into more effective directions. One of the most interesting horror films for me recently was Cabin in the Woods. It wasn’t very scary, but the way it deconstructed the horror tropes made me think that after that you just cannot make a teenagers in the woods movie again. The times dictate our fears, and these times are definitely very different from the last few decades. I am waiting for the new classics to emerge – horror with the effectiveness and artistry of Rosemary’s Baby, The Omen, The Exorcist, The Shining – and the devastating impact of Night of the Living Dead and Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Q: You’re a multi talented person but are you happiest directing, directing or writing?
BY: I am happiest when I am giving form to something I have imagined. It is the most exhilarating to direct – but if the director is doing stuff that surprises and delights you it is fantastic to produce. Writing is the fun of brainstorming the original ideas. When you produce you can stay with the movie for a long time after everyone else is gone. And with producing you can get so many more movies made. I love collaborating and am happy to take whatever role is available as long as I feel like I am a real member of the creative and organizational team.

Q: So what projects are you working on at the moment?
I am working on the sequels we mentioned above – but also have very interesting multi platform project with John Penney called The Pope.

Brian Yuzna, thank you very much.

TV: Sky 319 / Virgin 149 / Freesat 138
www.horrorchannel.co.uk | twitter.com/horror_channel

The Bling Ring DVD Review

Rating:
15
Release:
28th October 2013 (UK)
Distributor:
Studiocanal UK
Director:
Sofia Coppola
Stars:
Emma Watson, Katie Chang ,Leslie Mann, Israel Broussard,
Buy The Bling Ring:[DVD] or [Blu-ray]
The Bling Ring is very sadly Sofia Coppola’s latest film. She seems to have got to the point her dad is in making absolutely dreadful films cause the money people want to make a film by a Coppola. Both generations of Coppola struck gold early on in their career but after a gold period of about a decade (longer in her father’s case) they stop making those great films.

The Bling Ring is based on a true series of crimes committed by celebrity-obsessed teenagers in L.A during 2008 and 2009. These vacuous spoiled little brats robbed other spoiled brats like Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan etc. They do this by stalking their every move on facebook. The clan of vermin end up stealing more than $3,000,000 worth of kit off these equally horrible human beings and come on who really cares?

Sofia clearly thinks she is making a satire on Celebrity culture but in falls flat in almost every instance. Some noted film critics quite liked and it has some about the 60% mark on rottentomatoes.com and who knows why. Every character is a unlikable Hollywood kid who spends too much time on facebook posting selfies who eventually decide stealing some coke snorting whores who pretend then can “act”’ stuff is a good idea. To be fair to Lindsay she was quite good in that Robert Altman film but that was what nearly a decade ago and she has done enough coke and botox to ruin her career.

Emma Watson plays like the ringleader of the coke fuelled teenage gang who does these robberies and is dreadful as is the rest of the cast. Her character is a home schooled (a wonderful American concept) by an equally air headed liberal new age mad women who should have had a forced a Tubal Ligation so her spawn wouldn’t inflict herself on the world. She is joined by her equally self absorbed gay friend who is just obnoxious from the get go who gets involved in coke and stealing shit like the rest of them.

The film is very sadly the last film shot by Harris Savides who shot one of the greatest films of the noughties Zodiac. He also worked with Fincher on The Game and Se7en, Gus Van Sant, Scorsese, Ridley Scott Woody Allen and Sofia Coppola before on Somewhere. He probably got the brain cancer he died from this due to the brain-dead nature of the film’s material. It’s a real shame cause he was a damn fine cinematographer.

It’s a massive failure by the golden girl of American cinema of the noughties, shame her career had to lead to this. Sofia please go to a cabinet and don’t come back till you something that isn’t this vapid on us. Everybody involved should repent, I want my money back and I got the dvd for free.

★☆☆☆☆

Ian Schultz

Carol Morley's The Falling Officially Starts Shooting

Press Release:

Independent Announces Start of Shoot for Carol Morley’s Film The Falling, 28 October 2013
THE FALLING tells the story of Lydia, the troubled girl at the centre of a mysterious fainting epidemic, who is determined to discover the cause of the malady spreading through her British all-girl school in 1969, a year when the whole world seems poised on the brink of change.

Following her films BAFTA-nominated The Alcohol Years, Edge, and the critically acclaimed Dreams of a Life, writer/ director Carol Morley presents her skewed and dreamlike coming of age story The Falling, with director of photography Agnès Godard (Sister, Beau Travail). The Falling is represented internationally by Independent Film Sales who will be introducing the project to buyers at AFM in November.

The Falling is presented by BBC Films and BFI in association with Lipsync Productions, a Cannon and Morley/ Independent production in association with Boudica Red, a Carol Morley film. The film was developed with the BFI Film Fund. Written and directed by Carol Morley, Produced by Cairo Cannon and Luc Roeg, Line Producer Donall Mccusker, Executive Producers Lizzie Francke, Christine Langan, Philip Herd, Andrew Orr, Norman Merry, Peter Hampden, Rebecca long and Ian Davies.

Intense Lydia (Maisie Williams, Game of Thrones) and beautiful, rebellious Abbie (Florence Pugh) are best friends at their all-girls school, ruled over by the enigmatic headmistress Miss Alvaro (Monica Dolan) with her deputy, the overly strict Miss Mantel (Greta Scacchi). It's 1969, and the girls, like the world around them, are in a state of change. Abbie is embracing her sexuality, even sleeping with Lydia's beatnik brother. Lydia, neglected by her agoraphobic mother Eileen (Maxine Peake), has made Abbie her emotional focus. After a shocking tragedy, Lydia, finds herself at the center of an outbreak of a mysterious fainting condition. Before long, the phenomenon spreads throughout the school community and when Lydia’s own symptoms worsen, she rallies against the school’s authorities to find and remove the underlying cause before it’s too late.

The film is set for release 2014.

Creepshow (1982) Blu-Ray Review

Rating:
15
BD Release Date:
28th October 2013 (U)
Distributor:
Second Sight
Director:
George A Romero
Cast:
Hal Holbrook, Leslie Nielsen, Adrienne Barbeau, Fritz Weaver
Buy: Creepshow on Blu-ray [Amazon Link]
Creepshow is one of Romero’s few “studio” films because he mostly works with independent financers. It came out after Knightriders which one of the strangest films Romero has ever done, it’s about a travelling group of knights in modern times. Romero was slated to direct Salem’s Lot but eventually it became a TV movie but he was friend and fan of Stephen King (he was a admirer of Romero’s films as well) so they decided to collaborate on something together. King in 1982 was probably the hottest writer in America after books such as Carrie, The Shining, and The Dead Zone etc. (all made into great films as well) so he had carte blanche to do whatever he wanted. They decided to collaborate on a film inspired by the horror comic books of the 50s and 60s that they both grew up on.

They are all short horror stories all about 20 minutes in length. The shorts are all pretty fun comic book inspired horror stories and a bit of the The Twilight Zone thrown in. It’s neither Romero nor King’s finest work but it’s a lot of fun, it’s goofy, weird even though it’s never really scary. The Crate is probably the best story of the film.

The different stories include performances from everyone from Hal Holbrook, Ted Danson, Ed Harris, Leslie Nielsen and even King himself is a deliciously over the top performance as the title character in “The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill”. The film has great practical special effects but that is expected with Romero. It uses extensive use of comic book inspired special effects, which can get a bit tiresome but it’s amusing even though that effect works much better in Hausu.

Overall it’s a fun romp though the minds Romero and King. It’s not Dawn of the Dead but you could send a much worst 2 hours of your time. Characteristic of Second Sight the blu-ray includes a great transfer, a feature doc, commentaries, doc with special effect maestro Tom Savini and more.

★★★½☆

Ian Schultz

Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler (1922) Masters Of Cinema Blu-ray Review

Rating:
PG
BD Release Date:
28th October 2013 (UK)
Distributor:
Eureka! Video
Director:
Fritz Lang
Cast:
Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Aud Egede-Nissen, Gertrude Welcker
Buy Dr.Mabuse The Gambler: [Blu-ray] / (Limited Edition Steelbook) [Blu-Ray]
Dr. Mabuse: der spieler is a two-part film from Fritz Lang. The films it total run over 4 hours in length. It’s one of Fritz Lang’s first great films and Lang would continue the story of the criminal masterpiece Dr. Mabuse in The Testament of Dr. Mabuse and The 1000 eyes of Dr. Mabuse, the last film Lang directed. The character of Dr. Mabuse comes from the novel of the same name by Norbert Jacques.

Dr. Mabuse (Rudolf Klein-Rogge) is a criminal masterpiece, doctor of psychology and master of disguise. He also has powers of hypnosis and mind control. The good doctor the overseer of counterfeiting and gambling of the Berlin underworld. The first film starts with orchestrating a cunning plan of a theft of an important contract that creates a temporary panic n the stock market that he exploits to his financial advantage.

Dr. Mabuse is also a expert gambler due to his hypnotising his opponents. He hypnotises Edgar Hull but after other people confront him about his lost he can’t remember loosing. He goes to State Prosecutor Norbert von Wenk and he believes it’s the same man who is responsible for all of these huge looses in illegal card games. He vows to find the man responsible and bring him to justice. Dr. Mabuse will do anything in his power to stay elusive even if it means murder.

The film was preceded by Fritz Lang’s Destiny, which I’ve still never seen but from all accounts was the film, which his style became apparent from. Lang along with Eisenstein and Griffith are hands down the people responsible for all the techniques in modern film language. Lang invented what would become the modern thriller and science fiction film in films like Mabuse, M, Spione and of course Metropolis. He was one of the first directors to use special effects extensively and many modern techniques from him then for example Méliès.

The film is sprawling complicated mystery of intrigue, magic, hypnosis and cocaine. It’s runs for an epic 4 hours and 30 minutes or so and it would be a lie if it didn’t drag at moments but silent films of this ilk were very much the original mini-series. It predates film noir by roughly 20 years and Lang and German expressionism in wider sense were the biggest inspired for the film noir of the 1940s and 1950s. The influence was so much so that Lang himself is also a noted director noir with films like The Big Heat and Beyond a Reasonable Doubt.

It’s a one of Lang’s most important film even though it probably could have lost a good hour of footage but if you take it as a proto mini-series you will be fine. The sequel The Testament of Dr. Mabuse is a tighter film and better for it but it all started here and it’s mighty fine piece of work. The great Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein actually edited it down for a Soviet audience and that would be an interesting find but I doubt it will ever surface sadly.

★★★★☆

Ian Schultz

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Film Collection Blu-Ray Review

Rating:
12
Release Date:
28th October 2013 (UK)
Distributor:
Mediumrare Entertainment
Directors:
Steve Barron, Michael Pressman,Stuart Gillard
Cast:
Josh Pais, Michelan Sisti, Leif Tilden, David Forman, Judith Hogg
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has skateboarded onto blu-ray courtesy of Mediumrare. The 3 original live-action films have been digitally remastered and collected together for the first time in the UK. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles come from an original comic book by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. The comic books were much darker in tone and were actually a response to Frank Miller’s Ronin.

The first film in the set is by far the best and closest to the original comic book. It’s considerably darker than the sequels even though it’s kid friendly enough it’s not gonna scare the kids. The Foot Clan (led by Shredder) is behind a crime wave across New York City and the police can’t stop it. The Ninja Turtles come out the sewer after saving report April O’Neil and they john forces with vigilante Casey Jones to combat the Foot Clan.

The first film is probably the film I’ve seen the most with the possibly exceptions of Donnie Darko and Brazil. Strange mixture but the first Ninja Turtles was a film I would watch over and over when I was like 5 or 6 like kids do. I have such a fondness for this film and supposedly still holds up pretty well while the sequels don’t. It’s also worth to note it has an early role from Sam Rockwell as the classy credit Head Thug.

It’s one of the first comic book adaptations; it’s post-Superman and pre-Blade. This period was during the time when comic book adaptations were a totally liability (except Batman) and many of the ones in the 8 years between Ninja Turtles and Blade were direct to video or tv movies. It’s surprising that were due to the massive success of Ninja Turtles (it was at one point the highest grossing independent film ever made) that not more were made but maybe if Terry Gilliam’s Watchmen happened the comic book film craze would have happened a lot earlier.

The sequels are a real mixed bag; the first sequel Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Secret of the Ooze is quite clearly the better of the 2. I’ve watched it a ridiculous amount of times when I was a kid from a taped broadcast of it. It’s dated pretty poorly which partly due to Vanilla Ice’s cameo and his “Ninja Rap”. It’s more colourful than the original’s relatively dark aesthetic and was clearly aimed to sell more action figures and was more inspired by the animated show that was on at the same. It’s also noticeably less violent than the 1st film, which was relatively violent for a PG film.

The final film has the Turtles travel back in time to feudal era Japan and they become samurai warriors. It’s all a bit naff and it’s a long way from the urban dwellings of the first film and I liked it as a kid but 16 years later it’s a pretty disappointing effort. It’s sadly going be remade by Michael Bay who is going have the turtles as aliens or something dumb like that.

★★★½☆

Ian Schultz

The White Dove (1960), Josef Kilián (1963) DVD Reviews

The White Dove (1960)
Rating:
PG
Director:
Frantisek Vlácil
Cast:
Katerina Irmanovová, Anna Pitasová, Karel Smyczek
Josef Kilián (1963)
Rating:
n/a
Director:
Pavel Jurácek, Jan Schmidt
Cast:
Pavel Bartl, Pavel Silhánek, Stanislav Michler
Buy The White Dove & Josef Kilián: DVD
Second Run has continued it’s love of 60s Czechoslovakian New Wave cinema with films by two of it’s key players. The people in question are František Vláčil and Pavel Jurácek. Vláčil would later direct what is often considered the greatest Czech film ever made Marketa Lazarová and Jurácek is more well known as a writer for his screenplays for Ikarie XB-1 and Daisies. All of these films are available from Second Run and all are highly recommended.

The first film is The White Dove. It’s a very simple story it’s about a boy who nurses a dove after he injures it so it can return back home. It contrasts his story and the girl Susanne waiting for it’s return to his home in the Baltics. There really is much more to that story than that, it’s only slightly over an hour. It exceeds its simplistic story which wonderful cinematic touches throughout. It’s compared to Kes in the press notes but it’s a very strange comparison cause it has tons of surrealistic touches, which is the complete opposite of Ken Loach’s great film. It’s photography is truly stunning and leaves indelible marks on the viewer’s memory, it won award for it’s cinematographer Jan Curík who would later shoot Valerie and Her Week of Wonders and The Joke.

Jan Curík also shot the other film on the disc Josef Kilián. It’s directed by Pavel Jurácek and Jan Schmidt and is only slightly over half an hour. It’s obviously inspired by Kafka and it’s no coincidence that the year the film came out 1963 was the same year that there was a large conference which including a cultural reappraisal of Kafka’s work. It was later “banned forever” after the 1968 Soviet invasion.

It’s a Kafkaesque nightmare of bureaucracy. A young man goes to a cat rental place to rent a cat for a day (best idea ever for non cat owners) but when he comes back to return the cat. He then enters into a world of bureaucracy to try to solve his issue. There is a truly stunning shot of him against a wall of filing cabinets, which is reminiscent of the famous un-filmed deleted scene of Brazil, which was used for the criterion cover. It has cats and has a labyrinth of surreal bureaucracy so ticks 2 important cinematic boxes for me.

So overall another great release from Second Run and hopefully more hidden Czech gems will come in the near future. According to the booklet Karel Zeman’s A Jester’s Tale will be come out soon which Pavel Jurácek also wrote and hopefully The Joke comes out so I can see it.

★★★★☆

Ian Schultz

Before Midnight DVD Review

Rating:
15
Release Date:
28th October 2013 (UK)
Distributor:
Sony Picture Classics (UK)
Director:
Richard Linklater
Cast:
Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy, Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick
Buy Before Midnight:DVD [Amazon]
Before Midnight is the 3rd film in the most unlikely film franchise ever made. It started with the tiny budget Before Sunrise and followed 9 years later with Before Sunset. Neither film were smash hits but were critically acclaimed universally. Before Sunset even got an Oscar nomination for screenplay. It’s credited as directed by Richard Linklater but it’s more of collaboration between the director and it’s leads Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, who are credited as screenwriters on the 2 sequels.

It all started with Before Sunrise, which came out in 1995 that concerns a brief encounter between Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Céline (Julie Delpy) in Vienne in their early 20s. They have a night together after meeting on a train and they wander aimlessly in Vienne and fall in love. They realise they will probably never see each other again and decide not to swap contact details.

The saga continued in Before Sunset, Jesse has written a book about their night together and it’s a bestseller. He Is on European book signing/reading tour and is in Paris and Céline pops by to say hi to an old friend. Jesse has a kid and is married but his love with Céline is rekindled and he famously misses his plane in the last scene.

Before Midnight is set 9 years after the events of the last film. Jesse and Céline have married and parented twin girls. Jesse’s son from his previous relationship is staying with them for summer in Greece but he has to fly home to Chicago to stay with his mother. Jesse has continued writing to great success but Céline is at a crossroads about her career and is debating to work for the French Government. The two of them go to dinner with some writer friends and they buy them a hotel for a night so they can have a night together. Jesse and Céline arrive at the hotel but tensions mount between the two and breaks into an argument.

The Before trilogy is one of the very few honest depictions of a romantic relationships on films. They are so often sentimental and unrealistic. The 1st 2 films are so hopelessly romantic so in the 3rd film they decide to see how is it to really live with the personal you are madly in love with. It’s perfectly acted by the two leads you buy into these characters, you care for about them and it’s works it’s strange magic over you.

Linklater has worked in all genres from teen comedies, scif-fi, dark comedy, more experimental works, crime etc. The one thing that is really his forte is the films within one day, which he has done 8 times now. Almost all of these films are his best films. It’s just a time frame that suits his aesthetic of films about people wandering and talking aimlessly about art, philosophy, films etc.

Overall Before Midnight is by the far the best cinematic romance you will see all year and the most real. It helps that Linkatler, Hawke and Delpy are such good friends for it not seemed forced which it could so much. I hope there will a 4th film in the series cause the ending definitely leaves that possibility. It’s about 100 minutes and you will hard pressed to find a more enjoyable 100 minutes of cinema this year.

★★★★★

Ian Schultz

Red River (1948) Masters Of Cinema Blu-Ray Review

Rating:
PG
Release Date:
28th October 2013 (UK)
Distributor:
Eureka! Video
Director:
Howard Hawks
Cast:
Montgomery Clift, John Wayne, Joanne Dru,
buy:Blu-ray
Red River is one of the finest classic Hollywood westerns ever made. The jack of all genres Howard Hawks, who also directed the great western Rio Bravo, directs it. John Wayne starred in both; he probably gives his finest performance in Red River.

The film unlike many pre-60s westerns doesn’t have the racial stereotypes that populate the film of let’s say John Ford. That’s not a dig at John Ford who was a mighty fine director in his own right but Hawks was a much more sophisticated director when it came to his subject matter. Orson Welles once perfectly described the different between Hawks and Ford “Hawks is great prose; Ford is poetry". Ford’s films were more about the poetry and mythology of the west while Hawks’ films were based on the true west.

Red River is based on a news article about the first cattle drive from Texas to Kansas along the Chisholm Trail. It’s set after the end of the American civil war and the South is too poor after loosing the war. Thomas Dunson must lead a group of men including his adopted son Matthew Garth (Montgomery Clift) to move his massive herd of cattle to Missouri.

Dunson is determined to get to Missouri but he is told by many people on the way that the railroad has reach Abilene, Kansas. He instantly dismisses these claims because none of the people have actually seen the railroad. He becomes increasingly merciless in his control over the men and naturally a rebellion starts to grow.

The film is expertly told by Hawks with book passages to fill you in, it moves a very solid pace though out. Hawks after all directed one of the fastest moving films ever made His Girl Friday. The cinematography by Russell B. Harlan is outstanding with stunning point of view shots from inside the carriages. The only real flaw in photography is some of the rear projection is bit dodgy at times; it was clearly shot as pick-up after the location shootss. Harlan also shot To Kill a Mockingbird later in his career along with many films for Hawks like The Thing.

John Wayne’s performance is widely considered one of his finest if not his finest. He was never known for his great acting ability but he gives a fascinating psychological portrayal of a tyrant. The only other performance he gave that comes close would be The Searchers. Red River was only Montgomery Clift’s 2nd film role and was the one that really made him a star and it’s a great performance. Walter Brennan is great as usual; he is really the quintessential character actor of the first half of the 20th century he was literally in everything from Bride of Frankenstein, Swamp Water, Meet John Doe, To Have and Have Not and countless westerns.

The film has some hilarious gay subtext to a modern audience. It’s widely known now that Montgomery Clift was bisexual. The scene that makes the gay subtext very overt is when Cherry Valance (John Ireland) appears and is clearly eying up Matt and they have an exchange involving such lines as “Can I see your gun?” and “Would you like to see mine?” Dunson and Matt’s relationship is also rather suspect especially with the line at the end after a fight between the 2 a woman says “Everybody can see you love each other” There is also barely any women in the film and even they appear and the love interest is basically there just to verbalise the tension between Dunson and Matt.

Red River is possibly the finest western of the Golden age of Hollywood with great performance, expert storytelling, fantastic cinematography and priceless gay subtext. Masters of Cinema has done a very fine Blu-ray release even though a few more bonus features would have been nice.

★★★★★

Ian Schultz

Tobe Hooper Double Bill - Lifeforce & Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 Blu-Ray Reviews

Rating:
18
Release Date:
14th October 2013
Director:
Tobe Hopper
Cast:
Steve Railsback, Mathilda May, Peter Firth
Buy Lifeforce: Blu-ray



Rating:
18
Release Date:
11th November 2013
Director:
Tobe Hooper
Cast:
Dennis Hopper, Caroline Williams, Jim Siedow
Buy Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2: Blu-ray

The great Arrow Video has re-released two mid 80s Tobe Hopper films, both were part of his 3 picture deal with Cannon films. The films in question are Lifeforce and the unthinkable sequel to his masterpiece The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. He got the deal after the massive success of the overrated Poltergeist, which we all know Steven Spielberg really directed anyway.

Noted British occult, sci-fi and crime writer Colin Wilson novel The Space Vampires is the basis for Lifeforce. When he saw the finished film he famously called up John Fowles who cited his the adaptation of his book The Magus as the worst film adaptation ever, he told him there was a new one Lifeforce. I have never read Wilson’s source novel so I can’t comment if that’s the case.

Anyhow the film is a pretty naff bit of horror sci-fi, it was suppose to be a big budget franchise starter but it bombed quite badly. It’s about a group of astronauts who discover some space vampires in this spaceship hidden in the corona of Hailey’s Comet. Everything goes to shit and a rescue mission is launched and the 3 bodies they found in the spaceship but they look human.

They start to operate on them but they are actually still alive. Despite everything going to shit and the rest of the crew dying, one escape pod gets back to earth (it all seems to be a matter of days) with Colonel Tom Carlson. The Colonel is flown to London (which seems to be only a matter of hours) and warms them of what happened and has a psychic connection to the girl who is one of the bodies. The Space vampire girl breaks free and sucks the souls out of people for energy and England brings in Martial law. It’s called Space Vampires but they more resemble Zombies than vampires.

It’s a passable bit of sci-fi/horror fluff. It has some nice matte paintings and special effects, some terrible acting but it’s about 30 minutes too long for it’s good and is quite a chore at times to get though. The end space vamp zombie apocalypse is gleefully batshit crazy which it gets some props for that. It’s one of many misfires in Tobe Hopper’s career every since his made such a splash with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which brings us too…



The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 is one of the strangest sequels ever made. It is much in tune with something like Evil Dead 2 than its almost cinema vérité style of the source material. It takes place 13 years after the events of the first Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It starts with almost parody voice over of the first film which gets increasing fast telling you what has happened in the 13 years. It many ways like Evil Dead 2, it’s a retread of the first film. The family having a chainsaw killing spree across Texas and it even has a redo the famous dinner scene from the original.

The film starts with Leatherface killing a bunch of yuppies on the freeway an obvious political statement. The yuppies are harassing a local female radio dj called Strech (Caroline Williams) who records their death on tape. Dennis Hopper than shows up in probably one of his most unhinged performances ever and this is a guy who made a career out of them. He is Lieutenant Boude "Lefty" Enright who is the uncle of Sally and her brother (the guy in the wheelchair) from the original film. The police have been incompetent in bringing the Sawyer family so he is on a mission to find the killers of his niece and nephew.

Strech plays the tape on air so the police are forced to listen to it but the Sawyers hear it and Leatherface and his acid casualty Nam’ veteran Chop Top comes to kill her at the radio station. The film becomes a total bloodbath from this point onwards. She survives and teams up Lefty to finish the Sawyer family for once and for all. Lefty brings a lot of chainsaws.

The film is fascinating mess of a film in the best possible way. It’s a deliberately surreal film from the get-go, which is as different as you can from the original. This may be one of the many reasons why the film was probably panned when it first came out. It has a great 80s aesthetic, which is partly inspired by his previous film The Funhouse, The Sawyers live a disused theme pack out in the desert. It’s all day-glow and obvious a good chunk of the budget when on the almost German expressionist esq. design of their underground home.

TCM2 is a deciding more political film as well even though the original is very much a post-Nam/Watergate film as much as any other 70s film. It is damning on everything from the treatment of veterans, 80s greed, consumerism and so on. In an interview with Tobe Hooper says he considers it one of the finest political films of the 80s and the guy has a point. Horror a genre not known for being particularly political if not somewhat dodgy politically it’s refreshing for a film of this kind to be so political. The award winning human chilli scene definitely brings back memories of Soylent Green.

Dennis Hopper is so insanely unhinged it’s almost mindblowing he was directed if at all. It’s also worth noting this was after he got “sober” he seems to have had a cocktail of blow and Frank Booth’s helium. It’s kind of a glorious bit of over acting to other side and then some. This was after all the same year as Blue Velvet.

It’s misfires often with it’s zany but extremely black humour. It often does Felliniesq retrends of scenes from the original film but it has a certain bizarre 80s charm that make it worth while and it’s only like 90 minutes. It’s probably his best film since the original film as well.

Both discs include loads of bonus material including feature length docs on Lifeforce and TCM2, numerous interviews, 2 different cuts of Lifeforce (theatrical and director’s), commentaries. TCM2 also includes early films made by Hooper including a rare bland comedic short and feature length film on hippies. I recommend TCM2 but if you’re a fan of Lifeforce you will be overjoyed with it’s blu-ray.

Ian Schultz

Lifeforce

★★½☆☆

Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2

★★★½☆