Gerald's Game (2017)

For the third in our Three for Halloween, I thought I would go back to my Maine roots and pick a movie based off of a Stephen King novel.  I also thought too that it might be interesting to go away from the more traditional horror film.  Let's see how it all went.

Gerald's Game has Carla Gugino and Bruce Greenwood as a couple struggling in their marriage.  In an attempt to spice things up during their weekend away, Greenwood handcuffs Gugino to the bed, and then proceeds to die of a heart attack.  Now Gugino needs to try to keep her wits about her while she figures a way out of this predicament.  It's not going to be easy.

I know this was based on a novel, which I haven't read, but can see according to Wikipedia is 350 pages; but it felt like there was only enough material here to make a great Tales from the Crypt episode, not a 103-minute movie.  About 20 minutes in we were spinning our wheels, and I don't know that all of it was fluff padding the film until we got to the end, but a good portion of it was.  Then there was an extended ending that felt tacked on and inorganic, and in a way betrayed a lot of what made this unique for a scary movie by trying to give us a more traditional boogeyman.  I liked the idea and what they were trying for, I just think it could have been more effective in a smaller package.

Again, I haven't read the novel this was based on--in fact I haven't read anything by Stephen King before, beyond the first three pages of Pet Sematary translated into German in my German translation class in college, but I do respect him as one of Maine's most successful literary figures.  At least from what I know of him, this definitely had the brutality he's famous for, and I think the film makers were able to carry that through.  Maybe I should read the novel to see how this story is carried over 350 pages, because it's possible that what felt like padding and spinning its wheels in the movie, read much quicker in the novel.  It's funny how that works: 10 pages that might take 15-20 minutes to read can feel shorter than 5 minutes worth in a movie.

One of the biggest tropes in the DTV movie is bondage or the damsel in distress (and one of the biggest tropes in online movie reviewing is using the word "trope," but I digress...).  It's common to see either the female lead tied up in some way, or even see the male hero tied up--like Miles O'Keeffe yelling "no!" in Ator.  I think it dates back to the old pulp detective books that spawned a lot of the DTV genres we know, and when it involves the damsel in distress, can run into that vibe of control that borders on sexual deviance/embracing violence against women, but done through the surrogate of a baddie so anyone enjoying it can assuage any guilt they might have.  It's not like that in all cases, but I think for the ones where it is that, this movie really turns that trope on its ear.  There's nothing sexy or seductive about any of this, it's uncomfortable right from the start.  One could say it's an answer to Fifty Shades of Grey twenty years prior, but for me I think it's an answer to those pulp novels that were probably prevalent when King was growing up, which to me makes it an answer to the standard damsel in distress paradigm that we've become accustomed to.

As far as I can tell, this is not available on DVD.  I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing.  On the one hand, I almost never buy DVDs anymore; on the other, it seems like you can't own this, you can only stream it if you have Netflix, so in order to rewatch it you need to keep you subscription up.  I love that Netflix has so many titles available to stream, which gives me as a movie blogger many more options like this film to review; and I also know that my wife and I have a bunch of DVDs we no longer watch because it's easier to stream if it's available on a streaming service or On Demand than it is to get the DVD out, put it in the player, then get up and take it out when it's finished--plus we have an issue with finding space for all our stuff, so not having to get DVDs of all the titles we want to watch helps us; but it does put you in a tough spot if they've released a movie that you want to rewatch, because the DVD is a one-time price of $20 (or less), while Netflix is a monthly fee you have to keep paying.

It's always a treat if we get to use our "The Guy from ET" tag.  The funny thing is he plays Carla Gugino's dad in flashbacks, but they're the same age in real life.  The not so funny thing is that he's a not-so-great dad.  From this profile shot, he kind of looks like Mickey Thomas of Starship.  I think he's still touring the country, singing hits like "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now."  I imagine those shows cater to people my age and older, with plenty of seating and wine in plastic cups.  Maybe REO Speedwagon and The Outfield are on the same bill.  I get a few cups of Cab Sav in me and next thing I know I'm standing and belting out the lyrics to "Sara", when the couple born in the late 60s sitting behind me yells for me to sit down, and my face turns red and I apologize.  As I sheepishly try to return to my seat, I miss it altogether and fall in the grass, the remnants of my wine flying out of my cup and covering my face.

Before we get too knee deep in the hoopla, let's wrap this up.  I'd be curious to know how close this is to the King novel, because that might tip the scales for King fans.  For me, I think it would have been great in a smaller package, maybe in the format of a Tales from the Crypt episode or something like that.  It is available to stream on Netflix, but as far as I can tell, because it's a Netflix original, that's it, you can't get it anywhere else.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3748172

Rise aka Rise: Blood Hunter (2007)

Some friends got this as a free rental from Hollywood video, and they brought it by. I didn't have anything else going on, so I was up for it. Good thing it was free.

Rise is about vampires. Lucy Liu stumbles across them while doing her journalist stuff, and two of them, one of whom is Carla Cugino, try to kill her. But she doesn't die, and instead becomes a vampire too. Now she's on a quest to kill the people that made her vampires, and luckily it didn't take her long to learn how to fight and use a continuously loading crossbow. Pursuing her is Michael "Dick" Chiklis, a cop after the people who killed his daughter. This also has a bunch of cameos from people like Nick Lachey, Marilyn Manson, Mako, former MTV VJ Simon Rex, the big guy from Mighty Ducks, the chick from Entourage with the short hair that was also in the Hanson video for "Penny and Me", and the dude who played the bounty hunter that fell in love with Pam Grier in Jackie Brown.



This was a boring assed movie. Scenes were just put together with some kind of loose connection that somehow formed a useless plot. What we saw was the unrated version, so I'm assuming that one was longer than the original. Maybe I could've saved myself some suffering. The film makers thought it would be cool to tell half the story in flashback mode. All that did was take a boring plot and make it more tedious. These people aren't Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski.

Vampires seem to be able to do different things in different films, and this one was no exception. Here, the vampires didn't seem to be stronger than other people, just immortal, I guess. They didn't have fangs, but used some kind of little knife instead to cut people's throats so they could suck their blood. Using the Blade standard for judging vampire films (that's my gold standard), this film sucked.



Lucy Liu was hot. She gets naked a couple times, but it's not that big of a deal: first she's in the morgue on a metal slab in a cooler, then she's hanging upside down. What's weirder to me is that she's in this sack of asscrack at all. I thought she had a deal with GM to advertise OnStar. I thought she was a Hollywood A-lister. I can't imagine she's still working with the same agent after this debacle. Come on Lucy Liu, you're better than that.

Mako is one of my favorite actors. Sadly he passed in 2006, and this was his last feature film. Many of you may remember him from Conan: The Destroyer and the third Highlander movie. In this he has a great scene where he and Lucy Liu beat the crap out of each other. He tried to smother her with a shower curtain, which was awesome. Probably the only redeeming part of the film.



This had a who's-who of other actors. You've got Michael "Dick" Chiklis of The Commish and now The Shield. My mom worked with a dude who I guess went to acting school with him. A cool feather in that guy's cap. I dug the Marylin Manson cameo personally. He didn't have much make-up or that weird contact lens he usually has on, which was cool. Nick Lachey was barely in it, much less than in the Hard Easy, like two scenes. Somehow all these people either had a bunch of favors called in by the film makers to get them in this, or they were sold a bill of goods telling them this film would be a hit. Poor them.

I'd only bother with this if you can get it free like my friends did. Any money spent would feel like a waste. Even for free, it's a hard recommendation, because it's so long (over two hours if you get the unrated) and so boring. Why put yourself through that if you don't have to. And if you're one of those cats that rents movies to see if the female leads get naked, again, Lucy Liu does, but it's not that big of a deal. I shouldn't say that, because if you are one of those kind of people, it would be kind of funny if you sat through the whole thing and was disappointed.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0389328/