New Releases for Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2001

Posted Dec 17, 2011 by John Allman

Updated Dec 17, 2011 at 04:45 PM

What’s new in stores and on video shelves this week:

Little Deaths
Genre: Horror Anthology
Directed by: Sean Hogan, Andrew Parkinson and Simon Rumley
Run time: 90 minutes
Rating: Unrated
Format: DVD

The Lowdown: Sex and death.

Two acts that present humans at their most vulnerable and, as this insanely twisted anthology would suggest, at their most vicious.

This is the kind of cutting edge filmmaking – brazen, original, fearless – that only comes from overseas. Few American directors would allow themselves to plumb the depths of depravity with such eloquent insight as the three UK filmmakers who conspired to titillate, shock and challenge audiences with “Little Deaths.”

Simply put, it’s one of the best movies of the year, and one of the most consistently solid anthologies you’ll likely ever see.

Each of the three stories – Sean Hogan’s “House & Home,” Andrew Parkinson’s “Mutant Tool” and Simon Rumley’s “B#tch” – examines the fragile nature of human relationships, the complexity of love and how it often disagrees with unbridled lust, the exotic lure of deviant fetishes and the ultimate cost that fulfilling a fantasy or giving in to a dark desire can bring.

Hogan’s “House & Home,” on the surface, might appear the most straight-forward. Richard and Victoria Gull (Luke de Lacey and the devilishly wanton Siubhan Harrison, in her first feature role) seem to be stuck in a sexless marriage. Richard makes advances. Victoria rebuffs him. She seems to be saving herself for…something.

The ‘something’ Victoria longs for is a playmate, someone for both of them to use in their own way and then discard, and Richard has had his eye on someone special for several days, at least.  A unique beauty, a homeless squatter, who lives in a tent on the outskirts of the woods, with her boyfriend. The kind of girl who would appreciate the offer of a hot, homecooked meal from a loving couple concerned for her well-being.

At least that’s the story that Richard tells the girl. How he and his wife are devoutly religious, and as Christians, they want to provide something special for the less fortunate.

Special, indeed. Before the night is over, both sides are in for a surprise. Because neither Richard and Julia nor the woman they picked to invite over for dinner are what they appear to be.

Parkinson’s “Mutant Tool” is the most abstract of the three – a freakish variation on the mad scientist genre with hints of the great World War II/Nazi exploitation films like “Ilsa: She-Wolf of the SS.”

Basically, there’s a new street drug that’s causing an uproar. But where the drug comes from is the real shocker. It’s harvested from a very special source, extracted from a very special root that grows in the unlikeliest of places.

“Little Deaths” reserves the best for last, though.

It’s no secret that BVB: Blood, Violence and Babes loves Rumley’s work. His “Red, White and Blue” was one of the best films released in 2011.

And with “B#tch,” Rumley continues his streak of writing and directing some of the most inventive madness ever put to film. Seriously. Most people who watched this or any of his other work might have serious concerns about his well-being, and consider him a possible danger. Me – I just can’t wait to see what he comes up with next.

Claire and Pete (Kate Braithwaite and Tom Sawyer) have a unique relationship. Outwardly, they look like any other working couple. She toils away in an office, he tends bar. But behind closed doors, their relationship takes on a different form altogether.

Claire likes to be in charge. She likes to put Pete in his place, to make him know who’s the boss.

It’s not unlike any other highly fetishized relationship. Each party assumes their role. Everybody gets off and enjoys.

Typically, such unions are consensual. And more often than not, the submissive party is really the one in control.

Not so with Claire and Pete. Claire isn’t playing fair, you see. She treats Pete so poorly in every aspect of the rest of their lives that she has spoiled whatever joy there was to be found in their bizarre sexual ritual.

Worse, she keeps pushing him into corners, almost daring him to speak up, to object, to leave. And finally, one night, when she beds his best friend right in front of him, Pete breaks down and consents, only to be rejected. It’s the ultimate betrayal. And it sends Pete down a road from which there is no recovery. His resulting actions will forever change him, and Claire, and their relationship. Because Pete’s scorn calls up in him the worst kind of revenge, the most diabolical of retaliations. He goes for the one thing that, literally, terrifies Claire to her core.

The beauty of a Simon Rumley film, whether feature-length or a 30-minute short, is the meticulous pacing, the spare dialogue, the sense that each word spoken and every image shown has specific meaning and purpose.

The last 10-12 minutes of “B#tch” is a Master’s Course in filmmaking. There’s zero dialogue. The scenes that unfold are all set to music, but the music serves as background only, ambient noise. It never interferes with the impact of what he wants you to see, to absorb, to comprehend.

You know what is about to happen well before it happens, but that still doesn’t lessen the emotional punch. Partly, you’re shocked. And partly, enticed.

Has Claire earned this fate? Is anyone deserving of something so awful? I suspect that many people will be shocked at the answer they settle upon.

“Little Deaths” is an amazing film, but it wouldn’t be the same without Rumley’s contribution. Watch it and see. I have no doubt that you will agree.

The Stuff You Care About:
Hot chicks – Smoking hot Kate Braithwaite and Siubhan Harrison
Nudity – Yes
Gore – Considerable
Drug use – Yes
Bad Guys/Killers – Sexual desire and deviancy
Buy/Rent – Buy it.

Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (Indomina, 119 minutes, PG-13, Blu-Ray): The contrast between American and foreign films has never been more stark than after viewing the wonderful Chinese import, “Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame.”

Produced for just $13 million, this incredibly dynamic martial arts fable-meets-historical epic is one of the best looking films you’re likely to ever see, especially on Blu-Ray.

The sets are magnificent – from the inner-workings of a towering statue of the soon-to-be-inaugurated Empress Wu to a mystical courtyard protected by kung-fu-fighting deer – to the point that you feel like you’re watching a $100-million Michael Bay or James Cameron opus.

“Detective Dee” has a lot going on – political intrigue, supernatural deaths, ninjas – but it never feels over-stuffed. The film just hums along to its own rhythm, offering elaborate, operatic wire stunts, expertly choreographed fight scenes, nicely rendered CGI spontaneous combustions and more.
Detective Dee, it turns out, was a real person, a celebrated official from the Tang Dynasty. This film casts him as a brilliant detective with a bit of the whimsy and mischief of Robert Downey Jr’s Sherlock Holmes.

It’s a fitting comparison, and also the reason for the stark contrast, noted earlier. Whereas watching an American blockbuster like “Sherlock Holmes,” you can almost see the Hollywood machine at work (A-list cast, expensive CGI shots, that everything but the sink approach), the same isn’t true for a film like “Detective Dee.”

It doesn’t feel forced or overlong or padded with extraneous scenes that should have been left on the editing bay floor.

This is an exhilarating adventure epic that you likely haven’t heard of, but you most definitely need to seek out.

Intruder (Synapse Films, 88 minutes, Unrated, Blu-Ray): You don’t get much more Cult Classic than this iconic 1989 splatterfest directed by Scott Spiegel, the former roommate of Sam Raimi and the Coen Brothers, who famously played a Fake Shemp role in both “The Evil Dead” and “Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn” (meaning he was a stand-in for an actor who otherwise quit the production or was no longer on set and available to film additional scenes).

Spiegel corralled not only Raimi, but Raimi’s brother Ted and Bruce Campbell for small roles in his first feature-length film, the over-gory ode to Japanese splatterpunk films about a massacre that takes place inside a local grocery store on its last night as a business.

It’s not a great movie – the story by Spiegel and Lawrence Bender (Pulp Fiction) is kind of haphazard, there are too many obvious red herrings teasing the killer’s identity and the acting ranges from wretched to campy to overly-earnest.

But the reason to watch and to praise “Intruder” is for the insanely cool special effects created by some of today’s most-revered makeup masters – Greg Nicotero, Robert Kurtzman and Howard Berger.

The sick, sick, sick gags that these three concoct earned “Intruder” a cult following as one of the grossest, greatest low-budget splatter films ever created (at that time).

Nicotero, Kurtzman and Berger make great use of the various machines available at a grocery store, particularly in the meat department. Heads get sliced, bodies get gutted and much, much blood is spilled.

Ironically, Spiegel has done more acting than directing since “Intruder,” but this year he returned with two features, his first since the mid-1990s, including the direct-to-DVD threequel “Hostel: Part III,” which is equally erratic and abundantly gory.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Fox, 105 minutes, PG-13, Blu-Ray): Here’s the deal – this is a much, much better film than the last Apes movie, 2001’s abysmal Tim Burton retelling of the 1968 original “Planet of the Apes.”

“Rise of the Planet of the Apes” wisely keeps the focus on the primates, allowing the human characters to take second seat for much of the action. And all the hype that you’ve heard about Andy Serkis’ motion-capture performance as “Caesar,” the main Ape, is justified. It’s a remarkable, award-worthy achievement.

Overall, though, Rupert Wyatt’s film is a good, not great, imagining of how the world came to be taken over by super-intelligent primates. It’s the origin story that fans never got from the original series, which was told in five films from 1968 to 1973, followed by a live-action television series and a Saturday morning cartoon.

And, once again, the Apes are the most interesting characters on display. Serkis’ Caesar, as well as the other motion-capture primates, display far more emotion and humanity.

James Franco dutifully handles his role as the research scientist who invents a possible cure for Alzheimer’s, which he secretly hopes will cure his ailing father (John Lithgow). He tests the formula on Caesar, which eventually provides Caesar and the other apes with heightened intelligence, and spawns the revolt that sets the stage for global takeover.

Poor Freida Pinto, however, is given absolutely nothing to do as Franco’s love interest, a veterinarian, who literally just stands around and offers encouragement.

The third act of “Rise,” the wealth of money shots of Caesar and the ape army that he creates by exposing them all to the super secret cure, are pretty incredible, particularly an extended stand-off/battle on the Golden Gate Bridge that is an exhilarating example of how far CGI has come.

The film ends sequel-ready, and word is that Wyatt and Co., including Serkis, have already started work on a follow-up.

Fright Night (Disney, 106 minutes, R, Blu-Ray): It’s no secret, I love-love-loved Tom Holland’s “Fright Night” when it first premiered in theaters way back in 1985.

It remains one of the best horror films of the 1980s, and, in my humble opinion, one of the best horror-comedy hybrids ever created. “Fright Night” had everything – Jerry Dandridge, a vampire that was actually scary, but also super smooth with the ladies; Billy, an intimidating henchman/I still don’t know what kind of monster; Evil Ed, a lovable comic foil; and Peter Vincent, the best vampire hunter since Van Helsing.

When word of the inevitable remake surfaced, many fans immediately voiced objection. How dare someone try to reinvent such a beloved property. The outrage, the horror!

Then casting news trickled out, and the concern only intensified. Colin Farrell as Jerry Dandridge? Anton Yelchin as Charley Brewster? David Tennant as Peter Vincent, only now Peter Vincent wasn’t a late-night cable TV horror host, but a Las Vegas illusionist a la Criss Angel?

Well, for once, I’m happy to report, the pundits got it completely wrong.

The 2011 version of “Fright Night” isn’t so much a remake as a re-imagining. It’s its own film, just with many of the same characters, and enough loving nods to the original, to keep longtime fans satisfied.

And it’s really, really good.

In fact, the new “Fright Night” stands alongside the original in terms of being a shining example of how good mainstream horror can be, even if the final box office figures don’t reflect it.

Between this and “Horrible Bosses,” I am now officially a fan of Colin Farrell. He completely nails the role of Jerry, making it his own. He moves with such fluidity, morphing effortlessly from guy’s guy to lady killer to killer great white shark, that his performance is one of the genre’s best this year.
Tennant disappears inside the role of Peter Vincent, allowing the illusionist to become an illusion who is slowly exposed from the outside in. It’s a wonderful performance that plays off the strength and personality he exhibited as Doctor Who, but with an edgy new element, almost a raw sexuality, that hasn’t been seen before, with his bare chest and leather pants and thick guyliner.

Marti Noxon, the “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” veteran writer, does a marvelous job of refashioning a classic for a new generation. She gets major points for mixing in ample homages to Holland’s original, which never feel forced (Jerry eating an apple, Evil Ed telling Brewster he’s so cool), and also for coming up with a perfect setting for a present-day Fright Night in Las Vegas, a city that is literally becoming a ghost town with the housing crisis, where a majority of the residents are odern-day vampires, sleeping all day so they can work all night. The perfect place for a predator to find victims who won’t be immediately missed.

The new twists that Noxon brings – the entire third act is brand new, introducing an interesting premise on what vampires might do with their victims, and giving Vincent a reason to want to help Charley that makes sense and stays true to the genre – are solid and effective. The big action set pieces all work.

And many of the original scenes that get refashioned – Ed’s race from Jerry and conversion to vampire, Amy’s abduction from the nightclub – still hold true in what made them effective 26 years ago.

If you were worried that Hollywood had tampered and tinkered too much with a classic, fear not. This “Fright Night” is for real.

Also Available:

The Expendables: Extended Cut

Champions 

Heavenly Creatures

Velvet Goldmine 

City of God

Vietnam in HD

Gunsmoke: The Fifth Season Volume 2

The Lucy Show: The Fifth Season

Black Power Mix Tape

Switched at Birth: Volume One

Tanner Hall

The Life and Times of Tim: The Complete Second Season

Stars and Stripes Forever

Family Guy: Volume Nine

Not to Be Overlooked:

Absolutely Fabulous: Absolutely Everything (BBC, 1,186 minutes, Unrated, DVD): It’s one of the best television series ever made, and one of the funniest. “Absolutely Fabulous” ushered in the era of uncomfortable TV – presenting two classic anti-heroes, Edina and Patsy, who never failed to make the wrong decisions or the most inappropriate comments and always at the most inopportune time. Whether being ridiculously intoxicated at the crack of dawn, or trying to perform the most mundane of tasks, like hosting a dinner party, the AbFab girls created the best, most hysterical, cringe-worthy moments on TV.

To celebrate the show’s 20th anniversary, with a new special set to air in early January 2012, the BBC is re-releasing this wonderful nine-disc retrospective, “Absolutely Everything,” which comes in a silver padded commemorative booklet and features all five seasons of the show, plus the specials “The Last Shout,” The New York Special” and “White Box.”

Also included are more than four hours of bonus features, including the behind-the-scenes documentary, “How To Be Absolutely Fabulous”; “Absolutely Fabulous: A Life”; the original sketch that spawned the show, “Modern Mother and Daughter; the original pilot episode, “Mirror Ball”; and more.

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