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

Chopping Mall (1986)

For the second in our Three for Halloween, I wanted to do something from the 80s.  I thought the best way to start my search would be to look up some of the best directors in field, which brought me to Jim Wynorski, and that brought me here to Chopping Mall.  On top of that, my wife Jen and I have been watching dead mall videos on YouTube, so this seemed like it could give us an added burst of stroll down memory lane.

Chopping Mall takes place at the same mall from Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Commando. Apparently after what Arnold did to the place, the mall contracts with a security firm that uses robots to patrol the space after hours.  At the same time, six kids are having a party at the furniture store they work at after the mall closes.  Sounds like they're all on a collision course to wackiness!

This movie did everything I'd want it to do, and the 77-minute runtime didn't hurt either.  Great kills, funny characters, and all the 80s nostalgia we could handle.  This is the kind of horror movie I love.  Maybe it's silly and predictable, but even that element works for me.  It's just fun to watch something like this, poke fun at it, talk about the actors we recognize, and reminisce about what it was like going to the mall back then. 

Among the actors you'd know, of course there was Barbara Crampton.  Her character devolved into the whiny one who can't handle the stress and breaks down, and, SPOILER ALERT, ultimately justifies the use of the flaming stuntperson.  We also had Tony O'Dell from Head of the Class--Howard Hesseman and Robyn Givens would have been proud.  Character actor Gerrit Graham bites it early on, which I imagine allowed him to run to other micro That Guy roles in other films and TV shows.  The heroine was played Kelli Maroney, who, among some other B movies and TV roles she had, was also Cindy in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, one of the cheerleaders at the pep rally, meaning she was in two films that were shot at the Sherman Oaks Mall.  Finally, DTVC fans will remember Arthur Roberts, the villain from Revenge of Ninja.  He plays one of the girls' fathers, but does not don his ninja garb.

And then there was this guy, Mike, played by John Terlesky.  They just don't make 'em like him anymore.  A face chiseled out of granite, a mullet that is equal parts business on top and party in the back, smacking his gum and wearing tight jeans and sneakers, all of it was great.  And we knew the moment we saw him sitting on a desk when he was supposed to be working, talking about partying that night, that he wasn't long for this world. That's the thing, this guy didn't evolve to survive past the 80s, and by 1986 his species was already starting to be selected out.  Whether it was killer robots rampaging through a mall after hours, or Bill Clinton's election, the 90s were coming to take him down, and replace him with a guy with poorer hygiene and poorer style.  None of us knew it then, but Bender would eventually have the last laugh.

People think I'm hung up on runtime, and that's not entirely true, I just feel like there's no need to tell in 90 minutes what you can tell in 77--and no need to tell in 150 minutes what you can tell me in 90.  This movie could be an interesting case study in this concept, because the original version was called Killbots and was 90 minutes long.  I've never seen that version--this version here was what was packaged for the video market--but I can't imagine that extra 15 minutes did anything good for this.  The other advantage to a shorter runtime is it's easier to sell to people to watch with you.  Case in point, Jen watched with me, and I don't think she would have if it were longer.  Again, all filmmakers should take Roger Corman's advice and keep it under 88 minutes--and anything over that should be seen as borrowed time that needs to be justified.

In 1986 the mall was the king of commerce, and none of us could imagine the world we're in now where malls are dying and trying to find ways to repurpose themselves.  The internet is part of their demise; in addition, I think the move toward urban versus suburban living, particularly among Millennials, has shifted some of the commerce that malls once cornered back to small shops downtown--plus those small shops can now use the internet to hedge against any loss of foot traffic in ways they couldn't before; but I also think stores like Target, and later Walmart in following Target's model, turned the strip mall department store into something cool that obviated any need to go to the mall.  When we lived in Delaware County, PA, the Springfield Mall had Target as one of its anchors, and I decided to take a walk through after getting what we needed, and nobody else was doing that.  Why would they?  Unless they have a thing for malls like I do, they just got everything they needed at Target.  You couldn't say that about K-Mart back in 1986.  It'll be interesting to see what becomes of the mall in the future, especially as more and more of these spaces die out. 

All right, enough of my mall rant.  As far as I could tell, this is only available on Amazon Prime, so if you have that, I would check this out.  A great 80s mall horror action romp that at 75 minutes really can't be beat.  I think growing up in the 80s, we probably all dreamed of staying in the mall after hours, so this is a great way to indulge those fantasies while watching adorable killer robots bumping off kids in their late 20s who were playing teens.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090837

Clownado (2019)

Part of getting back into doing the DTVC again was opening the old DTVC Yahoo email account, which I also hadn't touched in a long time.  Long story short, I had over 1000 emails in there, and a lot of them were from publicity companies getting the word out about their client's films.  One that I thought would be perfect for my Three for Halloween was this one, which Katie at October Coast was nice enough to send a screener over for.  Beyond the obvious, I was also intrigued by the fact that this was a Todd Sheets film, a director and schlock auteur that I was introduced to a while back by Mo from Drunk on VHS and Doug Tilley through their No Budge Nightmares podcast--which is definitely worth checking out if you haven't already.

In Clownado, Todd Sheets takes us on a delightful culinary journey through western Missouri.  We start with a small, family-owned farm that is currently producing some of the best artisan jellies, jams, and preserves in the country--the blackberry chutney is to die for!  Next, we visit a couple of culinary pioneers who are turning the world of charcuterie on its ear with some innovative cured meets and sausages....  Okay, it's actually about a woman married to a clown in a traveling carnival show who has her friend cast a curse on him and his fellow clowns, the curse turns them into supernatural clown killers that travel up and down western Missouri in a tornado, and we have a rag tag group of heroes that are the only thing that can stop them; but included is a lot of gore that looks like fancy artisan food items.  Simply scrumptious!

This is a tale of two movies for me.  The first 27 minutes or so could essentially be dumped and repackaged as a five-minute flashback sequence that Savanna, the evil clown wife, can tell everyone else when the Clownado first attacks.  The opening credits alone were almost 3 minutes!  If I were just streaming this for free on my Roku, I would have stopped it and moved onto something else.  And that would have been a shame, because from the 27-minute mark, when we see the hitchhiking Elvis impersonator, we get fantastic schlock horror at its Todd Sheets-iest.  All kinds of culinary items repurposed as gore; consistent kills, and fun kills at that; and characters that we get a kick out of watching, played by actors that, as much as they're in on the joke, they play it straight enough, which for me is the most important, because I think there's an earnestness in that that allows me to not take the product seriously (which is the intent with a movie called Clownado), but still take the effort seriously.  By the end I had almost forgotten about those first 27 minutes, but they still happened, and I think before I fully endorse this, it's important to mention, because anyone watching without that warning would be like "what was Matt talking about?"... and who knows, they may still think that!

I could have sworn I'd done a Todd Sheets film on the blog before, in particular either Nightmare Asylum or Zombie Rampage, both of which I've seen before.  He stays pretty true to his roots here, the only issue is that excessive runtime due to the opening 27 minutes.  Each of those other two movies I mentioned ran about 70 minutes, and I would say the last 70 minutes of Clownado is the Todd Sheets you came for--the exception being at about the 20-minute mark when the clowns are dismembering a body to bury it, and we get our first glimpse of Mr. Sheets's use of the fine artisan jams and jellies of Missouri.  He should open a gastropub with some of these great dishes he serves up in the death scenes.  "Ooh, let me try the fennel duck sausage with the black currant preserves coming out of that person's stomach!"

As someone who grew up in the VHS age, there is that nostalgia for the old video store days, and the look of the low-budget movies shot on video or cheap filmstock; but I have to say I appreciated this being done on modern, digital equipment.  Again, beyond the runtime, everything that was great about Todd Sheets in the early 90s was great here in 2019, the picture just looked clearer.  When I think of watching schlock horror growing up, it was about crazy kills, funny lines given by funny characters, and inventive ways to recreate gore that my buddies and me would watch and quote and talk about over and over again.  I got that here, and I like that technology has evolved to a point where filmmakers like Sheets on the budgets they're confined to can have access to a nicer quality picture.  It levels the playing field a bit, which I'm all for.

If you stay for the credits (which I always do to make sure I don't miss anything for the review), Sheets gives a thank you for the inspiration he got from some real legends in the low-budget field, names like Fred Olen Ray, Jim Wynorski, and Russ Meyer; and he also gives a shout-out to all the low-budget directors out there trying to make it work without the backing of a big movie house.  I know he didn't intend for this, but it was a reminder to me of just how much these films are a labor of love to all involved in making them.  By the same token, as much as I want to be fair in saying what I thought about the movie, I think it's also important for the film to make me feel how much it was a labor of love--the tendency for me often is to go easier on a movie if I'm sent a screener; but I think what I liked about this was by the end I felt like I didn't have to go easy on it, it won me over, and that's something I really appreciate when it comes to writing up the aftermath.

Finally, as you may know, I'm living in Philadelphia now, but am originally from southern Maine, and the gore used in the first dismemberment scene reminded me of the relish on Flo's hot dogs in York, ME.  If you've never been before, and you're in York, ME for anything, you need to check Flo's out.  Also, if you're in that area, pretty much every gift shop has their relish for sale.  You could set me up with a few Flo's dogs and a bottle of Moxie, and I'll be good to go.

I'm definitely digressing here, so time to wrap this up.  For me, outside of the first 27 minutes or so, this is what you came for, and I think it would be a fun addition to a horror movie night.  As far as where to go to see it, I only found it on On Demand through my cable company, and it was $5 to rent, which is a bit steep for me.  Hopefully it'll catch on with one of the major streaming sites soon.  Thank you again to Katie at October Coast for the screener.  Also, if you're a low-budget/indie filmmaker and want me to look at your film, you can either email me at the Yahoo account, or you can message me on the DTVC Facebook page.  I'm looking to do one screener a month right now, but that may change depending on the number of requests I get.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8485548

Goon (2011)

I thought with hockey season starting again, I'd do something in honor of that.  I still haven't gotten over my Bruins' stinging game 7 loss in the Stanley Cup Finals yet.  I may not get over it.  Ever... but I digress  Now while this isn't officially DTV, it had a lack-luster theatrical run that was followed by a lot of success on Netflix and VOD, so I felt it fit here.

Goon is based off the life of Doug Smith, a boxer turned minor league hockey enforcer from Massachusetts who played for various teams in various leagues from the late 80s through the late 90s.  Seann William Scott plays Doug Glatt, a bouncer from a small city in Massachusetts who is signed by a local lower division minor league hockey team to be their enforcer after he beats up an opposing player that rushed into the stands.  He can't play, he can barely skate, but he can fight.  The coach has a brother coaching a minor league team in Halifax that needs an enforcer to protect their star player, so he gets the call up, finds love, finds himself, and helps the team from Halifax make the playoffs in their league.

Like most sports movies, this one ultimately devolved into the Rocky/Bad News Bears paradigm.  It had its fun moments, and there were great performances by Scott, Kim Coates, Jay Baruchel, Eugene Levy, Liev Schreiber, Allison Pill, and one of my personal favorites, Nicholas Campbell--also loved seeing Jonathan Cherry from WolfCop; but because the plot is essentially stuff we've seen before, I found myself checking the timer to see where we were, and mentally ticking off milestones in the story the way I would tick off milestones at a wedding, waiting for it to wrap up.  You know what I mean: best man toast?  Check.  Bride dance with father?  Check.  This is kind of the same thing: hero meets girl?  Check.  Hero faces adversity?  Check.  Hero overcomes adversity?  Check.  Hero loses girl and faces more adversity?  Check.  This did its best to not be paint-by-numbers, but it's hard when we've seen the drawing before, and it's just this time the colors were nicer.

As I'm wont to do when it comes to these reviews, here's what I think could have been done to make this better.  In the credits we see actual footage of the real Doug Smith fighting, and then getting interviewed about it after, and it was amazing.  He had an authentic Mass accent, a slight mullet, and he was speaking over grainy late 80s/early 90s home video footage of his games.  That's what the movie should have been, a documentary on this larger-than-life figure.  When it's dramatized, it can only turn into Rocky or The Bad News Bears, and we've seen those before; when it's a documentary, it's real, it's raw, and it's compelling.  That's the thing with sports: it's the most dynamic, dramatic storytelling there is, so to build on that, you either have to do Rocky, or you have to go outside the box like a Bend it Like Beckham or Raging Bull--or even Slap Shot.  I had fun with this movie, but seeing and hearing the real Doug Smith in the credits made me realize what I really missed.

But then you ask, "Matt, if this were a documentary, we wouldn't have DTVC favorite Kim Coates!"  I hear you, and I thought of that too.  He'd have to be the host/narrator.  As I mentioned above, this also had Nicholas Campbell, great actor that I know best for Da Vinci's Inquest.  He plays Doug Glatt's first coach, and when Doug leaves him to move up in ranks, I'm thinking "no, how can you improve on Campbell?"  And maybe Coates isn't an improvement on Campbell, but at the very least he's a worthy replacement.  For me, it was a nice respite to have him play a hard-nosed yet endearing hockey coach, as opposed to the jerks and villains he usually plays that I find myself rooting for when I know I shouldn't.

Eugene Levy had a small roll in this as Doug Glatt's dad.  His character is a jerk, and I wish they had maybe thrown in some pratfalls or a funny accent or something to redeem it a bit for us.  I think of all those great Christopher Guest films he's done, and it's like "oh no, stop being a jerk to Seann William Scott!"  Maybe that was the trade-off: for Coates to be a good guy in a movie, Levy had to be a baddie in order to maintain the Canadian actor balance.  I'm willing to accept that.

Much has changed in hockey since this movie came out.  In 2011 the Bruins won the Stanley Cup with Shawn Thornton, one of the league's top enforcers, on their fourth line.  Now, with fighting almost legislated out of the game, teams no longer keep an enforcer on the bench.  I think a lot of old hockey fans like me look back at those old days with rose-tinted glasses, but one thing I did appreciate about this movie is that the hockey fights were gorier than a lot of the action movies we review here, reminding us how brutal it all was.  Sure, fighting was great, but maybe it's time for us as hockey fans to evolve... maybe... (A reminder of a different sort I got was seeing Tim Thomas have a cameo.  Politics aside, he was amazing in that 2011 B's Cup run, it was an all-time performance, and the biggest reason I've been able to enjoy a Bruins Cup and parade in my lifetime.  I lift my cup of coffee on this Sunday morning to you Mr. Thomas.)

I grew up a huge hockey fan.  I remember my friend and I hiding below the banks of the pond we played on because it was too early in the season for skating and probably wasn't safe enough, so a neighbor called the cops on us.  While the Bruins were my big team, I used to go more often to see the Maine Mariners, and later the Portland Pirates, in Portland, ME; and then when I went to UMaine it was all about college hockey and the Black bears.  I say all this because I feel it's necessary to demonstrate my hockey fan credentials if I'm going to critique this movie.  I wasn't going in expecting Slap Shot, but it unfortunately did devolve into the Rocky/Bad New Bears paradigm, which I felt was less compelling than a documentary on Doug Smith would have been, and that's why I can't fully recommend this, even though it had its fun moments.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1456635