New Releases for Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Posted Aug 1, 2010 by John Allman

Updated Aug 1, 2010 at 06:54 PM

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

The Prowler
Genre: Horror/Slasher
Directed by: Joseph Zito
Run time: 88 minutes
Rating: R
Format: Blu-Ray

The Lowdown: Every now and then, the stars align and a group of people you might never expect to join forces come together to create something truly surprising.

The oft-overlooked 1981 slasher “The Prowler” is the real deal, one of the earliest but best offerings that the genre offered.

Few could have known it at the time, but the creative team at the heart of this genuinely unsettling, unbelievably brutal effort would all make an impact on pop culture – just not in ways that you might expect.

Director Joseph Zito would make just six more films, all low-budget genre films. Yet four of them still rank among the guiltiest pleasures of the 1980s – “Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter,” the best sequel in the franchise, behind Part 2; “Missing in Action,” the Chuck Norris Vietnam fantasy that spawned its own sub-genre; “Invasion U.S.A.,” another cheesetastic Norris actionfest; and “Red Scorpion,” a woeful Dolph Lundgren starring-vehicle that is infamous for its screenwriter, the disgraced political lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Special effects guru Tom Savini – well, he needs no introduction – but his work on “The Prowler” ranks among his most vicious, his goriest, his most realistic kills to date.

And writers Neal Barbera and Glenn Leopold would both go on to make children’s cartoon history. Barbera is the son of Joseph Barbera, one half of Hanna-Barbera, which gave the world “Yogi Bear,” a character that Neal would continue to work on for years. And Leopold would go on to write 49 episodes and oversee the scripts for nearly 150 episodes of “The Smurfs.”

How those two conceived the uber-violent, almost snuff-worthy slasher “The Prowler” is proof that appearances truly are deceiving.

“The Prowler” was so brutal that for years some of its legendary kills were heavily edited to lessen the impact. Blue Underground, however, has restored the film to its original form, allowing fans to fully appreciate just how nasty a true slasher film can be.

That’s what makes this Blu-Ray such a marvel.

Zito’s camera doesn’t cut away when a kill occurs. It lingers, almost longingly, lovingly, on the damage, capturing every detail of the magic of Savini’s dirty work. Throats don’t just get slit, they get sawed open, blood gushing forth, as the actors, mostly unknowns except for a few iconic genre stars (Farley Granger, Lawrence Tierney), convey an agony that is truly memorable.

Typically, in most of the slasher films that would follow, the kills were quick. Not here. The effect of the camera staying put, forcing you to watch, makes it an almost uncomfortable voyeuristic experience.

The story really isn’t all that original – a soldier learns while away at war that his girl is leaving him, that she can no longer wait for his return. When he does return, he wreaks havoc at the local college graduation dance. Twenty some years later, the college decides to reinstate the dance. That’s all the motivation The Prowler needs to make his return and cut a bloody swath through the dance that no one will ever forget.

“The Prowler” ranks up with “My Bloody Valentine” as one the best, most-underrated genre offerings of its kind. While Jason and Michael Myers went on to rabid success, these smaller movies languished in semi-obscurity for years.

Not any more.

The Stuff You Care About:
Hot chicks – Yes.
Nudity – Yes.
Gore – Unbelievably gory.
Drug use – No.
Bad Guys/Killers – The Prowler may not have made it as a slasher icon, but he’s one bad mother of a killer.
Buy/Rent – Buy it.
Blu-Ray Bonus Features – Audio commentary with director Joseph Zito and effects icon Tom Savini; theatrical trailer; short but entertaining featurette, “Tom Savini’s Behind the Scenes Gore Footage.”

Fanboys (Vivendi, 90 minutes, PG-13, Blu-Ray): Sometimes the best thing that can be said of a movie is that it did not suck nearly as bad as you had heard.

That is definitely the case with “Fanboys,” a long-in-the-can comedy about four friends who take an impromptu road trip to Skywalker Ranch in California to sneak a peek at George Lucas’ new Star Wars film, “The Phantom Menace.”

“Fanboys” has been available in various forms for some time, but it’s just now being released on Blu-Ray and I approached it with skepticism, given the thrashing reviews that I’d read.

If you have only heard about it, but never seen it, here’s what true about the criticism:

1 – The cancer subplot does get a little maudlin at times, and threatens to derail the funny on several occasions. But, ultimately, it proves an OK catalyst for the ensuing adventure, even if thematically, it is presented in a way that defies medical logic.

2 – The inside baseball, ie overly geeky references to minor details that real people with real lives have no business noticing or obsessing about, particularly when it concerns a space western that should simply be enjoyed, not enshrined, gets a bit wearisome at points. But, again, ultimately the geekier moments set up some of the funniest bits, if only because they expose just how obsessed some people can become with a film franchise.

The stuff that really works in “Fanboys,” and there’s a lot that does work well, are the pop culture putdowns that get thrown about like ninja stars, eviscerating the intended targets. There are two references in particular to “Top Gun” and “A.L.F.” that are just plain bend-over funny.

The inevitable cameos are a riot too, particularly Seth Rogen as a hysterical Trekkie, Billy Dee Williams as a country judge, Carrie Fisher as a doctor and William Shatner as, well, himself.

The biggest knock on “Fanboys” is Dan Fogler, an actor that I find to be more annoying than ingratiating, someone who tries way too hard to channel Jack Black or Chris Farley, and ends up just being loud and obnoxious.

But even he isn’t enough to stop the Force in this one, which is indeed strong.

Rambo: The Complete Collector’s Set (Lionsgate, 393 minutes, R, Blu-Ray): To go back today and watch “First Blood,” the 1982 war-is-Hell ode to Vietnam vets, you realize just how much of a great drive-in B-movie it was. Sylvester Stallone, fresh off two smaller character-driven films, “Nighthawks” and “Victory,” stars as John Rambo, a special ops commando turned drifter who can’t make sense of the world to which he returned.

Stallone is actually top-notch and impressively subdued for most of the movie, allowing his face, with those hang-dog eyes, and his physique, which had yet to reach the ridiculous chisel of “Rocky III,” also released that same year, to say more than his mumbled delivery ever could.

Plus, he’s surrounded by a stellar supporting cast, including Richard Crenna as Col. Trautman (who seems to relish every piece of scenery that he chews like its his last supper) and Brian Dennehy as Sheriff Teasle, a good cop who gets in too deep with a force he doesn’t understand. Even David Caruso shows up in an early role as one of Teasle’s deputies, and he manages to not suck nearly as much as he does today top-lining “CSI: Miami.”

The script, based on a great pulp novel by David Morrell, is pure testosterone. And it’s not until the end, when Rambo breaks down and starts bawling about the war and its impact to an oblivious Trautman, that the film feels contrived.

How the character of John Rambo went from a disillusioned veteran to an uber-soldier-killing machine being dispatched to foreign lands as a vigilante is anyone’s guess.

But I think it’s fair to say that never before has there been such a startling transformation, likely fueled by personal ego, to concoct the kinds of ridiculous situations that pervade “Rambo: First Blood Part II,” “Rambo III” and 2008’s “Rambo.”

While there is a certain guilty rush to watching Stallone obliterate the bad guys in “Part II” as he basically rewrites history, and the Vietnam war, all vestiges of tact or subtlety vanish by Part 3. The most recent incarnation, allegedly the last, finds Stallone once again playing it subdued and understated to his benefit, allowing his face, now more weathered and marked by years of success and heavy defeat, to imply things that his words just couldn’t convey.

It’s not an embarrassing end to an era, or a character, even though it’s not an entirely necessary one. But given the unintentionally hilarious kaka that is “Rambo III,” it was an understandingly personal need to an actor whose hubris has often overshadowed his own innate ability to entertain.

All four films have been packaged together by Lionsgate in a nice collector’s set chock full of more than 20 new bonus features, including documentaries on the real issues facing the countries where Rambo wreaks havoc, such as Burma and Afghanistan; multiple featurettes on the character of John Rambo and his weapons; multiple commentary tracks, deleted scenes and trailers.

Operation: Endgame (Anchor Bay, 82 minutes, R, Blu-Ray): An odd action-comedy hybrid that seems oblivious to its failings, racks up an impressive and impressively bloody body count and manages to induce enough chuckles throughout to make it worthwhile. “Operation: Endgame” boasts a surprisingly strong cast of fringe comedians, including Rob Condory, Zach Galifianakis, Bob Odenkirk and Jeffrey Tambor. While none of them scream “Action Star,” particularly, they are buttressed by some acting heavyweights who know a thing about getting physical (Ving Rhames, Maggie Q and Ellen Barkin) and sprinkled with hotness from Emile De Ravin of “Lost” and Odette Yustman, who made a splash in “Cloverfield” and “The Unborn.”

“Operation: Endgame” is also possibly the first post-Obama-election genre flick to get its kicks out of trampling the heavy-handed, defend our nation at all costs attitude of the former Bush regime.

That, in and of itself, is pretty funny.

Don’t Look Up (E1, 98 minutes, Unrated, DVD): “Don’t Look Up” is the American remake of “Ghost Actress,” a 1996 Japanese horror film by Hideo Nakata, the director who created the original “Ringu” and its sequel, “Ringu 2,” as well as directing “The Ring Two,” the American sequel to the American remake of his Japanese original (yeah, it’s kind of confusing, try to keep up, but don’t look up).

Instead of Nakata behind the lens, though, the director this time is Fruit Chan, a Chinese director best known in the U.S. for his installment “Dumplings,” which was included in the superior J-Horror anthology “Three…Extremes.”

“Don’t Look Up” leans too heavily on imagery that is by now all-too familiar – creepy, dark-haired ghost women with wild, creepy eyes who either crawl, or project things like flies, out of television sets and whose snakelike hair is meant to evoke terror in all people, not just stylists cringing at the bad split ends and natural colored roots showing through.

The campy flashbacks with horror director Eli Roth don’t necessarily work, but the abundant gore is guaranteed to please fans who aren’t looking to spend a lot of time piecing together the plot.

Repo Men (Universal, 120 minutes, Unrated, Blu-Ray): As is often the case in Hollyweird, competing film projects get the greenlight and race to see which one can get released first. Remember “Volcano” and “Dante’s Peak”? Or “Troy” and “Alexander”? Or “Armageddon” and “Deep Impact”? Usually, the film that made it on screens first won the race. Sometimes, they both sucked. Actually, the only one of those that didn’t suck was “Armageddon.” The best thing that could be said was at best, both movies in the race offered enough different ideas that they didn’t seem identical. With “Repo Men,” that ain’t the case. What you have here in this lame, over-stylized futuristic actionfest is a complete and blatant rip-off of “Repo: The Genetic Opera” that lacks the visual wonder, the stylistic imagination and, frankly, the cajones to try and do something completely different than the bland, over-marketed crap that gets released most weeks. “Repo” was a wonderfully creative, bold and nearly brilliant attempt to merge the goth and steampunk aesthetics with a bloody, bombastic opera. “Repo Men” is Jude Law and Forrest Whitaker running around gutting people to retrieve their organs, thankfully with no musical interludes forced into the mix. “Repo” had a story that evoked emotion, a father trying to protect his ailing daughter from a corporate machine that cared little for the human casualties that solidified its profit margin. “Repo Men” has Liev Schreiber as a greedy corporate fat cat who makes his employees essentially lie to people who need high-priced organs to live that he knows they one day will fail to pay for. Where the two films divert in the woods is that “Repo Men” tries to build suspense from an unexpected accident that forces Law’s character to become a client. But it’s simply not enough of a twist to sustain the gunfights and explosions that follow, the double-crosses and the inevitable bait and switch ending that is meant to be edgy and cool but really is just another weak revelation that does little to make you care.

Clash of the Titans (Warner Bros., 106 minutes, PG-13, Blu-Ray): Somewhere, Harry Hamlin is smirking. Who knew it would take a big-budget Hollywood remake of his cheesy camp cult classic “Clash of the Titans” to make fans remember just why his Ray Harryhausen-filled flight of fantasy was so good. Sam Worthington should step back and re-evaluate his career trajectory before he oversaturates himself with iconic roles. First, he becomes the face of the new Terminator series, stealing the show from Christian “I don’t know why I’m always yelling!” Bale. Then he gives a positively flawless performance as Jake Sully in “Avatar,” and likely will return to the character at least once again for the inevitable sequel. But picking up the gift-from-the-Gods shield and sword of Perseus, Worthington doesn’t bring enough to the role to separate fans from the established Hamlin, whose pouty, pretty lips and wind-swept moptop made Perseus seem like Zoolander let loose in ancient Greece. The effects are, as expected, over the top CGI, but they lack the heart of Harryhausen’s more primitive creations. Even Medusa, the big bad boss at the end of the last level (if this were a video game), seems somehow less than her stop-motion counterpart of 20 years gone by. And the Kraken, while monstrous and menacing, isn’t defined enough to be as cool to fanboys as the original beast was, especially when you consider the toy licensing arm of these movies. I loved my original four-armed Kraken monster from 1981. He had personality and presence. This one, not so much. In the end, the new “Clash of the Titans” doesn’t inspire any awe, and that’s a big problem. It’s a rental on a slow night at best.

Red vs Blue Reconstruction: Season Six and Red vs Blue – The Blood Gulch Chronicles: The First Five Seasons (New Video Group, 120 minutes/550 minutes, Unrated, DVD): So, this is what being a Halo fanatic will get you – a subversive online Internet series sensation about the poor soldiers stuck fighting a war on a desolate planet that no one wants. The viral video hit gets the full compilation treatment with both Seasons 1-5 gathered on a six-disc boxed set and Season 6 getting its own separate release. Funny, well-made and completely geektastic. You will want to put down your controller and turn off the Xbox Live headset for a little while. Master Chief commands you.

Battlestar Galactica: Season Three (Universal, 953 minutes, Unrated, Blu-Ray): Never before has a television series been milked for money the way “Battlestar Galactica” has been presented to fans. A years after the complete SyFy Channel series was released in a collectible Cylon packaging case, and less than three months after the complete series was re-released in more traditional packaging, comes this five-disc Season Three compilation. That’s it. There’s no more seasons, no more special event movies that “Battlestar” can offer. The only way that Universal could possibly dip into fans’ hard-earned money any more would be to offer a one-time-only delivery of the complete series on Blu-Ray to be hand-delivered to their door by Tricia Helfer, the sexy cylon Number Six.

SGU 1.5 (Fox, 537 minutes, Unrated, Blu-Ray): SyFy’s long-running Stargate series just doesn’t wuit. This second half of the first season, aptly titled “SGU 1.5,” which is becoming an irritating trend with TV on DVD releases, stands for Stargate Universe and features the once B+-list Robert Carlyle as the latest intrepid soul to step through the stargate into worlds unknown. More gritty than “Stargate: Atlantis,” but still trying too hard to emulate “Battlestar Galactica,” SGU is a decent sci-fi series that will keep fans satisfied until the next big thing comes along.

The Job (Magnolia, 99 minutes, R, DVD): Ron “Hellboy” Perlman and Joe Pantoliano chew up the scenery in this film adaptation of an award-winning play about the perils of criminal endeavors.

Lock Up (Lionsgate, 115 minutes, R, Blu-Ray): Was it a requirement in the 1980s if you were an action movie star that you had to star in at least one prison flick? I mean, Van Damme had “Death Warrant,” “Kurt Russell and Sylvester Stallone had “Tango & Cash,” and Stallone himself had 1989’s “Lock Up,” which ranks right up there with “Over the Top” as one of his more ridiculous efforts. But he looked good, all muscles and low-key swagger, and Donald Sutherland seemed to have fun playing an evil warden.

Johnny Handsome (Lionsgate, 96 minutes, R, Blu-Ray): There’s an eeriness in watching Mickey Rourke play a disfigured mope, given how much his once-striking features have changed over the years. But this underrated Walter Hill action flick, the kind directors used to pump out once or twice a month, it seems, is actually a durable genre offering with solid performances from Rourke, Morgan Freeman, the hot and brassy Ellen Barkin and the incomparable Lance Henriksen.

Accidents Happen (Image, 92 minutes, R, Blu-Ray): Geena Davis needs to make more movies. The quirky, tall, luminous Davis appears in this family drama with a dark undercurrent. I still remember her from such classics as “The Accidental Tourist” and, better, “The Long Kiss Goodnight,” one of the better shoot-em-up action offerings of the 1990s that needs its own proper Blu-Ray release.

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