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John Allman

If you’ve ever wandered the aisles at the video store or surfed the DVR pay-per-view options and seen a bunch of movies that you’ve never heard of, chances are John has watched them. Why? He loves movies. All kinds of movies. Good, bad, so-bad-they’re good, even the truly unwatchable ones. He mostly loves horror and science-fiction and drive-in exploitation movies that most upstanding model citizens wouldn’t dare watch. Then he writes up his thoughts so you can decide - watch, don’t watch or avoid at all costs. Sometimes he even gets to talk to the cool folks who make some of your favorite films.

Blood, Violence and Babes
John Allman

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New Releases for Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2011

Posted Oct 7, 2011 by John Allman

Updated Oct 7, 2011 at 09:20 PM

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

Scream 4

Fast Five

Genre: Horror/Action/Both Sequels
Directed by: Wes Craven and Justin Lin
Run time: 111 minutes, 132 minutes
Rating: R, PG-13
Format: Blu-Ray

The Lowdown: Most film franchises run out of ideas well before the third entry, much less the fourth or fifth.

Even the greats hold spotty track records the deeper into the sequel suburbs they stretch. “Friday the 13th,” “Saw,” “A Nightmare on Christmas,” even “Pirates of the Caribbean,” one of the biggest money-making movie series of all time, all found the idea well drying up the deeper on they got. It could be argued that “Pirates” ran out of steam after the Black Pearl or “Friday the 13th” once they jettisoned Jason into outer space.

How surprising then, and refreshing, to find that there are exceptions to the rule.

Both “Scream 4” and “Fast Five” prove that no matter how far you might be into a franchise, there’s always room to wow. In fact, these two movies represent the best entries in their respective series since the original, if not the best of the bunch overall.

“Scream 4” is a vast improvement over the muddled and convoluted “Scream 3,” which brought in long-lost relatives, a slew of red herrings and a claustrophobic setting, a Hollywood mansion, for the overlong, will it ever end, finale.

Both Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson seem re-energized, which is wonderful considering Craven’s most recent efforts, “My Soul to Take” and “Cursed,” the ill-fated werewolf flick he attempted with Williamson.

“Scream 4” starts off with renewed vigor, playfully mocking the meta-format it established more than a decade ago where the potential victims know as much about scary movies as the killer.

That same spirit flows throughout the fourth entry, giving returning leads Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox and David Arquette some funny moments where they find themselves trapped between real life and reel life with the “Stab” movie-within-a-movie.

The new recruits are the best bunch since the original picture with Hayden Panettiere proving she has breakout potential and Rory Culkin continuing to establish himself as an interesting young actor to watch.

The renewed sense of purpose for the “Scream” franchise carries over into the brutal and downright mean-spirited kills, which are more graphic than past series entries. The inevitable twist at the end actually surprises given the number of possible Ghostface killers we’re introduced to. And despite the seemingly indestructible trio of leads, the fact that none of them die isn’t as annoying as one might expect.

It sucks that “Scream 4” bombed so badly at the box office. This is one franchise I actually wouldn’t mind seeing extend to Part 5. As it is, “Scream 4” is a fitting denouement to one of the most successful and inventive horror franchises of all time.

Speaking of fifth chapters, “Fast Five” essentially obliterates every other film in its franchise, if not every other mainstream action movie released in the past two to three years.

Director Justin Lin stages some of the most ridiculous (do not, I repeat, DO NOT even begin to consider the probability of some of the stunts you are watching because 10 out of 10 real people would die attempting them) car chase and car crash footage ever committed to film.

This is a movie that just continually one-ups itself. As soon as you catch your breath and think, holy crap, that was great, they shouldn’t have put that so early in the movie, along comes another set piece that kicks the previous one in the crotch.

“Fast Five” won’t win any awards for its dialogue, and stars Paul Walker, Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson appear determined to duke it out for most wooden and/or cheesy performance, but somehow their chemistry lifts you up over those dreadful moments when its time for some drama, and soon enough you’re roaring back down the street heading for another hairpin turn and you’ve forgotten all about the corny sentiment that was just expressed.

“Fast Five” is fun, it’s fast and it allows you to turn off the brain for two hours and enjoy being a big, goofy kid again. There’s nothing wrong with that.

The Stuff You Care About:
Hot chicks – Yes, hello, both films are packed with hot chicks.
Nudity – No.
Gore – Considerable; none.
Drug use – No
Bad Guys/Killers – Ghostface; crazy Brazilian drug lords.
Buy/Rent – Buy both now.
Blu-Ray Bonus Features – Scream 4: Making of featurette, alternate opening, extended ending, deleted/extended scenes, gag reel. Fast Five: Multiple featurettes, including “Dom vs. Hobbes,” “Inside the Vault Chase,” “Tyrese TV”; Take Control 2.0: All-access with Justin Lin behind the scenes; Virtual Car Garage; Scene Explorer; Picture-in-Picture; The Music of Fast Five.
On the Web – http://www.scream-4.com/ and http://www.fastfivemovie.com/

Phase 7 (The Collective, 95 minutes, Unrated, DVD): Bloody-Disgusting Selects unveils another winner, the Spanish contagion-pandemic-themed “Phase 7,” which while not terribly original, does earn points for being an above-above-average The World Has Gone to Hell thriller. Much of the action is confined to a single apartment building where Coco (Daniel Hendler) and Pipi (Jazmin Stuart) have recently moved. Pipi is very pregnant, and the film opens with her and Coco shopping, oblivious to the crowd scouring the grocery for supplies. Back home, in the parking garage, they encounter Horacio (Yayo Guridi), who is packing his vehicle. Horacio is a survivalist, and for some reason, he likes Coco, who seems completely clueless to the fact that the world outside is coming unglued. Clueless, that is, until their apartment building is quarantined and cordoned off. Horacio offers to explain to Coco what is happening, even as Coco tries to keep Pipi from worrying that their neighbors might become a threat if they were to be infected with the disease ravaging the country, or if they run out of supplies and decided to storm Coco and Pipi’s apartment looking for food or water. The film chugs along with enough suspenseful moments to keep you anxiously worrying about the fate of characters you grow to like. The ending is a little too pat, as are most of these type movies. Everyone always has some ‘last refuge’ where they can escape to and wait to rebuild society. But still, “Phase 7” is a superior thriller in a genre where not too many films stand out.

The Presence (Lionsgate, 87 minutes, R, DVD): Whenever a movie is billed as being as a new twist or an inventive spin on a particular genre, I always worry that the actual film won’t live up to the hype. I actually resisted “The Presence” for that very reason. The DVD box art is plastered with glowing quotes about how fresh and innovative the movie is, not to mention the glaring disclaimer: “From Executive Producer Dan Myrick, Co-Creator of The Blair Witch Project.” How awesome it is to report that writer-director Tom Provost’s debut feature is indeed incredibly innovative. It’s surprisingly inventive and a completely different take on the haunted house genre than I’ve ever seen before. This is not to say that “The Presence” will knock you back on your butt and make you go ‘Wow.’ It won’t. But it’s not designed to do that. “The Presence” puts atmosphere first and foremost. In fact, the first 20 to 30 minutes pass by with barely any dialogue at all. It’s like a Terrence Malick ghost story with long, loving shots of nature, of rolling clouds, of creeping shadows throughout the cabin where all of the action eventually takes place. The first person we meet is a ghost who moves from room to room in the cabin, standing morosely looking out windows or staring at inanimate objects. “Ghost” is played by Shane West, who currently stars in the CW’s “Nikita.” Next, we meet “The Woman,” who is played by Mira Sorvino. She wanders around the cabin for awhile, hangs out in the outhouse, which keeps being besieged by kamikaze birds dive-bombing the outhouse and killing themselves. “The Presence” is at its creepiest when it focuses on a dark room and Sorvino is moving around with a lantern and suddenly, in the flickering light, West is revealed to just be standing there, in the dark, in a corner. Very creepy. Next we meet “The Man,” who is boyfriend to The Woman, and played by Justin Kirk of “Weeds.” It becomes clear pretty quick that something bad happened to Sorvino’s character. She doesn’t trust men. She is hesitant to accept a proposal from Kirk’s character. We soon discover that’s because there’s another ghost in the cabin, The Man in Black, not Johnny Cash, who keeps whispering divisive things into Sorvino’s ear, turning her against Kirk. All of this goes on to a big climatic finale that seems to suggest that some ghosts are spirits from Hell left on Earth to do Satan’s bidding, and others act as protectors, guided by a natural force, or God. I could be completely wrong, but one thing I know for certain, the whole decision to film “The Presence” with these two ghost characters loitering in every scene unbeknownst to the central players totally wigged me out and made me wonder if that’s what it is like, if there is a ghost constantly shadowing me. And then I immediately felt bad for what that spirit has to put up with.

Also Available:

Dead Alive – Peter Jackson’s gleefully gory gross-out about the horrific consequences once one particularly nasty Mum is bitten by the dreaded Sumatran rat monkey, which can only be found on Skull Island (That’s right, folks, even way back in 1992, Jackson was already telegraphing that he would someday helm a big-budget King Kong remake because it is the one film that has inspired him all these years). “Dead Alive” is hands down one of the funniest, bloodiest, nastiest zombie films you’re likely to ever see. A Must Buy for horror fans.

Elvira’s Haunted Hills – The queen of the Double Entendres returns for another slice of inspired satire. This time around, our heroine, the bodacious Elvira, gets sidetracked en route to Paris when she winds up a prisoner in a castle, mistaken for the reincarnated love of a madman.

The Caller – An interesting idea that slowly becomes annoying in its redundancy, “The Caller” is a paranormal story about phantom phone calls co-starring King Bill (Stephen Moyer) from “True Blood,” who seems relegated to bit parts in every project I’ve seen him in outside HBO. Weird.

George: A Zombie Intervention – Zombies are the new Vampires as far as go-to supernatural creatures in Hollywood, right now. As a result, everyone is looking for a fresh interpretation. “George,” much like the criminally underrated “Z. A.: Zombies Anonymous,” deals with a zombie, George, who has eaten too many people, and his still living friends who try to intervene to cure his addiction.

Grandview USA – Remember when C. Thomas Howell was the “It” actor of his generation. He headlined movie after movie in the multiplex, from “Red Dawn” to “The Hitcher” to “Soul Man” to this little-seen slice of 1980s bliss, “Grandview U.S.A.,” a character drama co-starring Jamie Lee Curtis and the late Patrick Swayze. There’s a Demolition Derby, a steamy love triangle and a surprisingly poignant take on small town life and the complications that can ensue.

Buck – The true-life documentary of the real Horse Whisperer, Buck Brannaman, a cowboy who grew up performing under the watchful eye of an intolerant and abusive father. “Buck” is a special film, a moving film, a film that transcends its genre to truly touch people with a story of redemption, genius and kindness that’s rarely seen. This is essential viewing.

Perry Mason: Season 6, Volume 1 – Did you hear the news? Robert Downey Jr. is primed to star in a big-screen take on Perry Mason, the indomitable defense attorney who never fails to crack the case just as the trial is about to conclude.

According to Jim: Season 5 – The mere fact that Jim Belushi’s unfunny sitcom made it to five seasons on ABC is proof positive that Hollywood is broken, that the general viewing public pays zero attention to what they are watching and that Belushi himself struck a deal with the devil.

Boy Meets World: The Complete Seventh Season – Wedding bells loom for Boy as he and his long-running sitcom bid adieu.

The PJ’s: Season 3 – Long before Fox Sunday had its Animation Domination slate of shows in place, Eddie Murphy tried his hand at creating, producing and lending his voice to an adult cartoon about the superintendent of an apartment project.

Legend of the Millennium Dragon – A young boy searches for his destiny, time traveling more than a thousand years into the past, and tries to stop a war between humans and demons.

Melisa and Joey: Season 1, Volume 2 – Whoa! There’s another volume of this Look At Us Now sitcom that plays heavily on nostalgia for laughs.

Moby Dick – I’m not even going to attempt a pun. You know the story. The whale wins in the end. But this version stars Scully, aka Gillian Anderson.

The Lion King – Disney’s masterpiece returns in high definition, and 3D, where available.

African Cats – Some studios do product placement, Disney markets entire films to coincide with the release of a big title. After you watch animated lions, then you can watch this and learn about the real deal.

In Treatment: The Complete Third Season – Gabriel Byrne continues his successful run as psychotherapist Paul Weston, who may be more tortured than the kooky collection of patients he sees.

Bored to Death: The Complete Second Season – HBO’s unbelievably quirky series about the fictional exploits of Jonathan Ames, a real life writer, who is played here by Jason Schwartzman as a private detective, teaming up with Zach Galifianakis and the hysterical Ted Danson, enjoying quite the late-career resurgence.

The League: Season 2 – A show about a fantasy football league that has more in common with “The Guild,” an online series about role-playing gamers, because it deals more with its eccentric cast of characters than the actual pastime of picking real NFL players to play on fake virtual teams.

Lie To Me: The Third and Final Season – That’s it. The show’s over. Am I lying? Can you tell?

Living Will – This week’s gross miscalculation of seeming earnest but really just coming off creepy and exploitative, the late Ryan Dunn’s final film gets a direct-to-DVD release. That he looks high as a kite on the cover doesn’t help matters.

The Cider House Rules – Tobey Maguire dies at the end. Dammit, that was just wishful thinking.

Bette Midler: The Showgirl Must Go On – She knows she’s your hero. Just don’t start singing. That’s Bette’s job.

The Pee Wee Herman Show on Broadway – Holy Jambi, they recast Cowboy Curtis! And Laurence Fishburne is out of work now too!