The Free Box

There's a Portland-based web comedy show that's dangerously close to being discontinued by it's very talented cast and crew for the simple reason that it's not profitable to give away great comedy for free. "The Free Box" has been entertaining denizens of the World Wide Web since Drew Hicks and Jon Meyer started the show a few years back. Since then the show has grown considerably in scope and the laughs have grown proportionally. Fans have been clamoring for more new episodes, but are you actually willing to support the show with your greenbacks? If you are, you are in for a treat. "The Free Box" has set up a "pledge" system through kickstarter.com in order to raise funds to continue the show. In addition to the great feeling you get supporting young people with boundless talent and potential, "The Free Box" is offering prizes as well. A 5$ pledge will get you a bumper sticker of the show's most memorable catch-phrase: "We ran out of dish soap". Larger pledges mean more and larger prizes, up to whole seasons of the show on DVD. Big-money pledgers (500$-1000$) get the cast and crew of the show to write and perform a song commissioned by you and to make it into either a music CD or a music video DVD. It's an all-or-nothing pledge system, meaning that if the boys and girls from "The Free Box" don't reach their 5000$ pledge goal, those who have pledged aren't charged. But the real tragedy would be if we allowed this great show to die. Money is the "magic dust" that makes great TV and movies possible, so please sprinkle some of that magic dust on "The Free Box"!


The season 1 DVD includes hilarious commercials from the creators of the show (including the "Junk in the Box" short that became the show's logo). "What'd you expect?" This set and each of the smaller prizes are awarded for kickstarter.com pledges of 50$ or more. 100$ pledges get the as-yet unreleased season 2 DVD as well as all the smaller prizes.

"A Nightmare on Elm Street" (2010)

Directed by Samuel Bayer
Written by Wesley Strick and Eric Heisserer

Rated R for strong bloody horror violence, disturbing images, terror and language.

Alright movie fans! My new full-time job has prevented me from reviewing as many films as I would have liked this last week and a half or so, but this one was just too big to keep under my fedora.

The newest installment in the famed series "A Nightmare on Elm Street" restarts the series at it's dark beginnings, expanding on events that were only mentioned briefly or alluded to in the original "Nightmare" movie.

The teenaged children of Springwood are being stalked in their dreams by an eerie man in a striped sweater, fedora and a glove with knives for fingers. The film opens at the Springwood Diner, where Nancy (the hero of the original), Kris (her best friend) and Quentin (Nancy's boyfriend) watch horrified as one of their friends commits suicide with a steak knife while screaming that he's being attacked. I felt like this was a fairly solid opening. The initial dialogue in the diner is a little contrived as it's obvious main purpose is to quickly introduce the main characters. The death scene however, is a great first kill for Freddy. Because witnesses saw the boy kill himself there are no supernatural loose ends that might merit further police investigation. In other words, a death that the parents of the community can mourn as a tragic fluke without worrying enough about their own children to do anything about it. A perfect start to a new "Nightmare".

Well, almost perfect. One of the big problems with this movie is acting. For the first third of the movie, I thought that Nancy (played by no-name actress Rooney Mara) had some kind of speech impediment or learning disability. She speaks like she's having trouble breathing and looks like she's zoned out on some heavy medication. I blame "Twilight". Those terrible "glam-pire" movies have sullied what it means to be a horror movie heroine. Instead of tough, passionate and resourceful, like Heather Langenkamp's original portrayal of Nancy, Mara's version of the character is frail and waif-like, bookish and brooding. It sickens me to draw a comparison between such a good series and such a bad one, but in her worse moments, Mara's Nancy seems like a carbon-copy of the hideous and reprehensible character Bella from the "Twilight" series. 

The devolution of horror heroines (left to right): Heather Langenkamp as Nancy in 1984, Rooney Mara as Nancy in 2010, and Down's Syndrome Bella.

In all fairness to Rooney Mara, even Heather Langenkamp was a terrible actress when she first stepped into Nancy's shoes. The key difference between their performances is that Heather knew how to scream and act frightened. Mara's acting in the remake was of such a low intensity that it almost seemed like Freddy Krueger was an annoying ex-boyfriend who won't stop calling; obnoxious but ultimately harmless. How is the audience supposed to be afraid of the villain when the heroine is so lethargic?

The story of this new "Nightmare" film is actually very good. The writers have taken characters and situations from the original and re-imagined them in a modern setting, with an increased focus on Freddy's back-story (which was only alluded to in the original). In the original "Nightmare", Nancy's alcoholic mother reluctantly reveals that Freddy Krueger was a perverted school janitor who killed (and possibly molested) little children. "...the lawyers got fat and the judge got famous, but someone forgot to sign a search warrant in the right place and Krueger was free, just like that." The parents of Springwood corner Krueger in an old abandoned boiler room where he had taken kids to do terrible things to him, and set it on fire with him inside, killing him and ultimately turning him into the vengeful dream demon we  all know and love. In a deleted scene from the original "Nightmare", Nancy's mother goes further to reveal that all of the main kids who are being targeted by Freddy had older siblings who Freddy had killed when he was alive, but when the kids were too young to remember. Watch the deleted scene here:

My idea of the perfect "Nightmare" origins story would be a portrayal of Freddy when he was murdering the first batch of kids as a living man. The film would chronicle all of his alleged kills (around 20) and end with his fiery death at the hands of the town's parents. They could even use this deleted footage from the original (touched up digitally so it looks shiny and new) as a way to tie the new prequel to the original. The new "Nightmare" didn't take this path, but rather tells a story that weaves parts of the original into something new. 

In the new film, Krueger is not killed for killing children, but for allegedly molesting them. He seems more sympathetic in the new film because the parents choose to kill him without even trying to let the law handle him. In the first flashback dream sequence, we see him chased into an abandoned warehouse(?) by the angry parents. As they set the fire, Freddy looks scared and is screaming "I don't know what you think I did". All in all, we're set up to question whether or not Freddy was ever really guilty of the crimes he was killed for.

Whether or not he's a child molester, Freddy is pissed and out for revenge on the kids whose "stories" got him killed. Killing is clearly what Freddy's best at. The kill scenes are pretty solid, and are mostly recreations or homages to the fantastic death scenes in the original "Nightmare". Some of the classic visuals have been redone fairly well. Kris' death scene is a more brutal homage to Tina's death scene in the original. Her terrified boyfriend watches in horror as she's thrown against the ceiling and walls by an invisible force. While it lacks the charm of the "rotating room" special effect in the original, it's a scene that will make fans of the original smile. Certain other effects from the original are worked into the remake in a different context than in the original. Some scenes, like the bathtub scene are almost shot-for-shot.

What Jackie Earle Haley fails to do well is be scary. The makeup artists were supposedly using real burn victims as the inspiration for Freddy's new face. What these talented professionals came up with looks like a cross between Voldemort and Two-Face. Freddy's new, reptilian look is in no way creepier than Freddy's face in the original. I didn't even like the "updated" Freddy face in Wes Craven's "New Nightmare" (perhaps the best of the "originals"), but at least it bore a stronger resemblance to his old face. 

 

Another big mistake with Freddy this time around is that he's over-featured in his own movie. In an effort to provide fans with the maximum amount of fan-service, Freddy all but juggles and does tricks for peanuts. He's practically got more lines in this movie than Nancy, and the lines he does have are mostly bad puns and one-liners. While Robert Englund's Freddy did have his share of one-liners, they only got really cheesy in the sillier "Nightmare" sequels (like when he says "Welcome to prime-time, bitch!" while shoving a woman's head into a television screen). The original was so scary because like "Alien" and other great horror films, the villain was barely seen or heard. The lines he did have were creepy and unsettling, and most importantly didn't sound like he was rehearsing for a stand-up comedy act.

Freddy in "Nightmare 1" is also only seen fleetingly, in part, from a distance, through fog, in the dark or indirectly lit. The overall effect is that we never get a very good look at him and our imaginations are allowed to go crazy. Freddy has more than a few close-ups in the new "Nightmare", and is often well-enough lit that his make-up and attire seem more garish and carnivalesque than creepy. While I have many friends who laud Jackie Earle Haley for his portrayal of "Rorshack" in "Watchmen", I can only say that he made a decidedly sub-par Freddy Krueger. Like George Lazenby, the oft-forgotten actor who played James Bond for a single movie after Sean Connery abandoned the role, Haley has a very hard time filling the shoes of his predecessor. 

I'd give the new "A Nightmare on Elm Street" an 8/10. The "Nightmare" series has been fairly consistent in one thing: the odd-numbered movies are good, the even ones are terrible. This has held through the first eight movies (with "Freddy vs. Jason" as the last bad one), and it holds true for number nine as well. Overall, this is a solid entry in the series. It is true to the feel of the original without being overly derivative. While the lead actors were mostly disappointing, Rooney Mara grew on me a bit towards the end. It's not Shakespeare, but it's an entertaining homage to one of the best horror films of all time.

The first eight films have been recently released in these cheap 4-film packs. Only the odd-numbered ones are good, but even the even-numbered ones are entertaining. If you're a "Nightmare" newbie, stick to the first four. If you like 'em and feel adventurous, check out five through eight.
 

Mike Bazanele's "In a Grove" Teaser Trailer

The very first sneak-peak at my new short film "In a Grove", which is based on the Ryunosuke Akutagawa short story of the same name. Other adaptations of this story include Akira Kurosawa's "Rashomon" and the Star Trek: TNG episode "A Matter of Perspective". The story is so popular in Japan that it's title "In a Grove" (Yabu no Naka) has become a common idiom for a situation in which no conclusion can be drawn because evidence is insufficient or contradictory. I'm very pleased with how this trailer turned out. While the teaser trailer includes only black and white footage, the final film will alternate between black and white and color. The haunting acid-western theme used in the trailer was graciously furnished by Little j and Ed Wrzesien. Enjoy!

Shutter (2008)

Directed by Masayuki Ochiai
Written by Luke Dawson

Rated PG-13 for terror, disturbing images, sexual content and language.

"Shutter" is one in a long line of recent Hollywood remakes of Asian horror films. Though I haven't seen the original "Shutter" (2004, Thailand), I feel like the American remake is a respectable addition to the "Asian horror remake" genre. Asian horror fans will appreciate the frequent homages to the "classic" Asian horror films, most notably "The Ring" and "The Grudge". Beautifully photographed and well-acted, "Shutter" is more than just another horror rehash.

The story starts with the wedding of Benjamin and Jane Shaw (Joshua Jackson and Rachael Taylor). While Joshua Jackson isn't my top pick for a horror lead, he does well enough as a newlywed photographer with a dark past. Rachael Taylor is pitch-perfect as the "blond Asian horror remake survivor girl", joining the proud ranks of fellow "survivor girls" Sarah Michelle Gellar ("The Grudge") and Naomi Watts ("The Ring"). Taylor is beautiful and vulnerable as a new bride being called away to Japan for her husband's work.

In the car on the way to their Japanese honeymoon, Jane accidentally hits a strange woman who appears suddenly in the road. Jane loses control of the car and it crashes. As she's sitting in the wrecked car, Jane sees the woman she hit sit up and look at her creepily. By the time the police and ambulance have arrived, there's no sign of the strange woman, and no evidence that she was ever there.

Disturbed by the experience, Jane tries to enjoy her honeymoon but is still haunted by the image of the girl on the road. Ben has been suffering back pains since the car wreck, but is otherwise no worse for the wear. He starts his job at a big Japanese company where everyone seems to know and like him. Ben has worked in Japan previously, though Jane is visiting for the first time. Jane is a little uneasy about how friendly Ben is with his female Japanese co-workers, especially his sultry and aptly-named secretary Yoko. Ben also has two crass, womanizing male coworkers named Bruno and Adam that immediately make Jane uncomfortable.

While Ben sets to work on a big Fashion photo shoot, Jane shows herself around the city. Disturbed by some phantom images on her honeymoon photos, Jane has Yoko take her to the publisher of a "spirit photography" magazine. Yoko explains that the Japanese are very interested in supernatural phenomenon. While most "spirit photos" are faked using computer editing effects, some are thought to be the result of actual spirit activity. Yoko's friend tells Jane that Polaroids can't be faked. The simple shutter action and self-developing format make it impossible to insert an image artificially into a Polaroid picture, therefore spirit images on Polaroid film are considered to be authentic. Back at the fashion shoot, Ben is having problems with phantom images too. He thinks he sees a girl on the photo set, but when he looks again she's gone. When the film from the shoot is developed, Ben finds that every photo has been ruined by faded ghostly images. Ben assumes that the camera must have been damaged by the car crash, but Jane suspects something darker is at play.

Jane notices that in the photos from the fashion shoot, all of the phantom images point to a certain corner office in the building Ben works in. Borrowing a Polaroid camera from Yoko, Jane sneaks into the building to look for the dead girl. The office in question turns out to be the "International Office", where Ben, Bruno and Adam work. Jane uses the Polaroid to "scan" the room for the ghostly girl. When she gets a glimpse of the ghost, Jane panics and starts to run out of the office, but a picture falls off of the wall, startling her. It's a group picture of several of the International Office's employees, including the ghostly girl whose name Jane learns is Megumi Tanaka. On the back of the photo is a stamp that reads "Photo Taken by Benjamin Shaw".

Jane is furious to discover that Ben had been lying about knowing Megumi. He reveals that she is actually his ex-girlfriend. They had been dating steadily for a while when Ben was in Japan several years ago, and when he decided to break it off, she became depressed and started stalking him. Ben says that he asked Adam and Bruno to talk to Megumi about it and that he hasn't seen her since. When Adam and Bruno both die mysterious, gruesome deaths, Ben worries that he's next. Newly armed with the identity of their phantom stalker, Jane and Ben rush to Megumi's abandoned apartment to find out what happened to the intense, quiet girl.

I give "Shutter" an 8/10. It's too derivative of other Asian horror films to be a truly great film, but it follows the formula lovingly. A few instances of noticeably computer-generated effects brought the overall visual quality down, but most of the film is beautifully shot and well-edited. I particularly enjoyed the twist at the end, in which the true reason for Megumi's wrath is revealed. The end also features one image that is both original and creepy-as-hell (bonus points if you post a comment that describes the scene I'm talking about). Of course I use the term "original" loosely, as "Shutter" is a remake itself. All-in-all, this fine contribution to the remake genre makes me yearn to watch the original Thai "Shutter" (review to come?).













I also recommend:

I Bury the Living (1958)

Directed by Albert Band
Written by Louis Garfinkle

Unrated

"I Bury the Living" was a pleasant surprise. In spite of the cheesy title and sensationalized movie poster, "I Bury the Living" actually turned out to be a surprisingly modern thinking-man's (or woman's) horror film.

Richard Boone stars as Robert Kraft, a department store owner whose business interests place him next in line to be the chairperson for the Immortal Hills Cemetery.  Though he doesn't want the position, Bob quickly finds himself being shown around the Cemetery manager's shack by the thick-brogued Scotsman groundskeeper Andy McKee (Theodore Bikel).

Bikel and Boone as Andy McKee and Robert Kraft (left to right)

Andy shows Bob around the groundkeeper's hut. The two key fixtures here are a heater that doesn't work and a creepy wall-mounted map of the cemetery grounds. Andy explains that the plots with white pins stuck in them on the map indicate people who have reserved grave plots but are still living, while the black pins denote graves whose owners have died and been buried. As they are talking, a couple of young newlyweds come to buy a pair of adjoining plots. The groom explains that his inheritance will only pay out after he's bought a plot each for himself and his wife at Immortal Hills Cemetery, which I personally thought was an oddly morbid stipulation. Robert sells them the plots and puts some pins in the map to reserve their plots for them, but he accidentally marks them with black pins instead of white.

When Robert receives word a few days later that the young couple has died in a car crash, he begins to suspect that the map has some kind of supernatural powers. Half-disbelieving, he sticks a black pin at random into one of the plots on the map, removing the white pin that had been there before. When the owner of this plot turns up dead too, Robert becomes convinced that there is some kind of dark sympathetic magic at play.

Robert tries to tell his story to the cops, who receive it with cynicism and disbelief. The police are convinced that Kraft is just superstitious and that the deaths are coincidental. They cannot claim wrongful death without any evidence of such. Robert tries to tell his coworkers on the board at his department store about the map, but they tell him he's just paranoid. In order to put his mind at rest, Kraft's coworkers arrange a "test" of the map's powers. They choose a random person who has a plot at Immortal Hills, and get Kraft to replace the white pin with a black one. The board members promise that if anything happens to the owner of the plot, Kraft can resign as chairperson at the cemetery with no questions asked.

Of course something DOES happen to the man in question, but Kraft is beginning to realize that the map can't be killing people on it's own. Some of the Kraft Department Store board members have been chairpersons for the cemetery before Robert, and they reported using the wrong pin color on the map many times with no mishap. Robert begins to suspect that it is not just the map that is killing people, but that something dark within himself is turning the map into a deadly weapon.

Kraft's fellow board members tell him that he can resign if he wants to, but now Robert is too obsessed with the map and his dark powers to back out. He insists that he stay at the cemetery, so that no one else will use the murderous map. Though they are uneasy about the most recent death, the other board members propose a final test. Robert will place black pins in the plots of his fellow board members, including his uncle George, to prove once and for all that the curse isn't real. Robert protests, knowing that the black pins could mean death for his coworkers, but they insist. When all three men die, one by one, Robert is left the sole surviving member of the board.

At this point, enough people have died that even the police are willing to entertain Kraft's outlandish theory. They bring their own test to Robert: Put a black pin in the map on the plot of someone who is young, healthy, and currently in France. Robert tells the police plainly that to do so would mean the man's death. They accept responsibility for any consequences of their test, and force Robert to pin the plot. They reason that the other deaths all occurred in an isolated area, and that a death so far away would establish the range of the map's "powers". After doing the deed, Kraft calls Paris to talk to the man, only to be told by his wife that he's passed away.

At this point, Kraft's mental disorientation begins to be reflected in the editing. Stylish transitions and surprisingly modern editing techniques herald in Kraft's mental breakdown. The map seems to grow and distort, nearly filling Kraft's office. As he stares at the map, Robert realizes that if he has the power to take lives with the black pins, he should also be able to reverse the process with the white ones. Robert replaces all of the black pins of the people who'd died with white ones, and then lights a fire in the middle of the room and locks himself inside. But the fire burns out without catching the building ablaze, and Kraft suffers some smoke-inhalation, but is otherwise unharmed. Rushing out to the graves he'd marked, Robert is horrified and amazed to discover the graves empty.

 

Richard Boone at first struck me as a rather boring choice for the lead, but as the film progressed, he performed some powerful scenes that gradually earned him my respect. Theodore Bikel lays on the thickest Scottish accent I've ever heard, but gives an overall good performance as the disgruntled groundskeeper. I was very impressed with the way this film took full advantage of it's catchy premise. Everyone who learns of the map's power feels the need to test it for themselves, each "test" resulting inevitably in a death. The idea of a supernatural killing tool falling into the hands of a normal guy reminds me a lot of the manga/anime series "Deathnote", in which a smart high-schooler finds a notebook which allows him to kill anyone just by writing their name in it. Like "Deathnote", "I Bury the Living" takes a simple premise and then systematically explores all the different possibilities that this premise allows for. While the deaths in "I Bury the Living" are eventually found to be non-supernatural in origin, the dark psychology behind Kraft's assumption of guilt, and his hallucinatory descent into madness are what I found fascinating about this film.

I give "I Bury the Living" a 9/10. It is a surprisingly well-done b-movie that is in many ways ahead of it's time. Many of the transitions and editing techniques are so modern and stylized I'm surprised this film wasn't considered for any visual editing awards. The film features fine acting all around (with an extra pat on the back to Robert Boone) and the music is appropriately moody. For an evening of thrilling fun, watch "I Bury the Living" with a friend or two and a six-pack of good beer.













I also recommend:

Jess Franco's "Count Dracula" (1970)

aka "Nachts, wenn Dracula erwacht (Germany)", "Les Nuits De Dracula" (France)

Directed by Jesus Franco
Written by Dietmar Behnke and Jesus Franco

Rated PG for implied violence and disturbing imagery.

Jess Franco's "Count Dracula" is a special kind of vampire movie. For one, it's the last portrayal of Dracula by longtime Hammer Horror film star Christopher Lee ("the Horror of Dracula", "Dracula Has Risen from the Grave", "Drink the Blood of Dracula", "Dracula A.D.1972", "The Satanic Rites of Dracula" and others). Though Franco's "Count Dracula" wasn't produced by Hammer, the directer lured Lee back to the role with the promise that, for once, this Dracula film would be a faithful adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel. While there are a few significant deviations from the plot of the novel, overall Franco's "Count Dracula" is the closest film adaptation to Stoker's original novel.

Christopher Lee in "the Horror of Dracula" and Franco's "Count Dracula" (left to right)

One of the biggest differences between "Count Dracula" and other Dracula movies is that Dracula appears old, grey-haired and mustached, as he is described in Bram Stoker's book. Bela Lugosi's heavy-accented, clean-shaven, youthful interpretation of Dracula had been so deeply engrained in our cultural consciousness that it took forty years for Stoker's original vision of Dracula to make it to the big screen.

 

Dracula welcomes Johnathon Harker (Fred Williams) to his secluded castle to go over documents pertaining to Dracula's purchase of a large London estate. Harker quickly notices something is not quite right at castle Dracula. The count looks suspiciously like the shrouded coachman who drove Harker's carriage to the castle. By the time Dracula gives his "...children of the night. What music they make..." speech, it's safe to say that Harker is majorly creeped out. "Count Dracula" includes the often passed-over part of the story that deals with Harker's stay in Dracula's castle. This includes a sequence with three hot female vampires who live with Dracula at his castle (Dracula always has multiple ladies. It's just how he rolls.), and a scene of Harker escaping his locked room by climbing out a window on a narrow ledge. Both scenes are very cinematic and intense in the novel, but they're usually discarded in film adaptations. After finding Dracula sleeping in his coffin, Johnathon takes a panic-fueled dive out of a window, reawakening in Van Helsing's Hospital in London (In the book, he's rescued by some Swiss nuns and nursed back to health, THEN sent back to England).

Back in London, Harker's wife Mina hopes for his hasty recovery. Meanwhile, her best friend Lucy (pictured above) begins to have strange nightly visitations. She appears anemic, as though her blood is being drained away, and in spite of major blood transfusions and all the care Dr. Seward can provide, Lucy slips gradually away, finally dying of blood loss. When local children start disappearing, Dr. Van Helsing begins to suspect vampirism. He leads Harker and friends to the cemetery, where they find Lucy very much undead, and they commence with the classic vampire-staking scene.

Meanwhile, back at the sanitarium, a patient named Renfield collects flies and spiders, obsessed with taking "lives". Renfield (played by the legendary Klaus Kinski, who also played Nosferatu in Warner Herzog's "Nosferatu  the Vampyre") is reputed to have lost his mind in the same Carpathian mountains where Dracula's castle lies. Kinski's performance in "Count Dracula" is spot-on. It's a shame that Renfield is a relatively minor character, but Kinski uses every second of screen-time as a canvas for his performance art. 

Kinski as Renfield in "Count Dracula" and as Nosferatu in "Nosferatu the Vampyre"

Johnathon, Dr. Seward, Van Helsing and Sir Quincy Morris (whose part in the Dracula legacy is harshly abridged in this film adaptation) regroup and put their efforts into Dracula's complete destruction. Unfortunately for them, he's already began to visit Harker's wife Mina in the night. Will they kill Dracula before he kills Mina?

The DVD transfer of the film is pretty good. A particularly neat special feature is an audio track of Christopher Lee reading Bram Stoker's "Dracula". I haven't listened to it yet, but I'm psyched that someone sat Christopher Lee down and got him to read "Dracula" on tape. Other bonuses include subtitles for the hearing impaired (which I always appreciate), as well as a featurette on Jess Franco and an essay on Soledad Miranda.

I give "Count Dracula" an 8/10. The film has a lot of technical flaws. For instance, many of the shots look as if they were done by a cameraman with Parkinson's disease. There are several unnecessary uses of the zoom effect. Also, all of the bats and spiders in the film are VERY clearly fake. But for all of this, the film maintains a certain rustic charm. Though there are several marked deviations from Bram Stoker's novel, it maintains the Gothic feel of the novel, and is by far the most faithful film adaptation of "Dracula" I've seen. The biggest highlights for me were Christopher Lee doing his "bloodshot eye" Dracula face (which looks like it hurts, and is a call-back to his Hammer Horror Dracula films), Kinski as Renfield throwing himself out a window, and the very attractive Maria Rohm and Soledad Miranda as Mina and Lucy. If you're going to be lame and try to wuss out of reading Bram Stoker's "Dracula" (which is really an amazing novel), this is as close as you're going to get in terms of film adaptations. A real treat for fans of pre-Twilight vampire films.













I also recommend:

Shadow of the Vampire (2000)

Directed by E. Elias Merhige
Written by Steven Katz

Rated R for some sexuality, drug content, violence and language.

"Shadow of the Vampire" is a historical fiction based on the premise that Max Schreck, the actor famous for portraying the titular character in F.W. Murnau's classic silent vampire film "Nosferatu" is actually a vampire himself. In addition to being a thrilling historical horror, "Shadow..." is also a cutting commentary on realism and the art of filmmaking.

"Shadow..." stars John Malkovich as F.W. Murnau, the brilliant but haunted director of "Nosferatu". He's so devoted to creating a lasting work of art that he is willing to sacrifice his actors and his soul to have a real vampire play the titular role.

   Max Schreck in "Nosferatu" (1922)           Dafoe as Schreck in "Shadow..." (2000)

Willem Dafoe was nominated for the "Best Supporting Actor" Oscar for his performance of a vampiric Max Schreck, and rightly so. While Defoe isn't a perfect double for the real Max Schreck, his acting skill and facial gymnastics make him every bit as creepy. The film crew is amused but perplexed by Schreck, who insists on only appearing at night and in full make-up. Murnau introduces Schreck as "the ultimate method actor," explaining that he should be referred to by his character's name, "Count Orlock" for the rest of the production.

"Shadow of the Vampire" is an overwhelming success at faithfully recreating the look and feel of scenes from "Nosferatu". It also takes us behind the scenes to see the everyday logistics of making a film. Murnau is set upon by demanding producers, actors and even crew members, each with their own concerns and opinions. He's even plagued by the widow of Bram Stoker, who was suing him for his blatant and shameless appropriation of her husband's book "Dracula". While "Shadow..." clearly takes liberties with historical fact, it does incorporate many real historical elements that were involved with the making of "Nosferatu". For instance, Stoker's widow really did sue Murnau for making "Nosferatu".

Things get even harder for Murnau when cast and crew members begin to turn up dead. Murnau scolds Schreck, insisting that he do nothing to hurt the production, but Schreck is clearly a force of nature that Murnau can't hope to contain. The shooting of the film continues, building towards Schreck's climactic scene with Greta Schroeder (Catherine McCormack), a silver-screen "it" girl, who Schreck has already developed a blood-lust for.

When only a few core crew members are left, Murnau reveals to the survivors that there is no Max Schreck, that Murnau found "Count Orlock" in the very abandoned castle they are using as a set. With only the final scene to shoot, the crew decides to continue shooting with "Schreck", even though it will mean the death of the leading lady.

I give "Shadow of the Vampire" a 10/10. It's a beautifully-shot modern reinterpretation of an already great classic horror film. Dafoe and Malkovich perform to their usual high standard of excellence, and the supporting cast is also quite talented. A perfect companion film to "Nosferatu", "Shadow..." deconstructs filmmaking and vampirism to the point that you begin to see similarities between the two. Watch "Nosferatu" and "Shadow..." together for maximum effect. (Scroll to bottom of review to view "Nosferatu" in a streaming online video player)













I also recommend:

Clerks (1994)

Written and Directed by Kevin Smith

Rated R for extensive use of extremely explicit sex-related dialogue.

A couple of months ago I found a copy of "Clerks" on DVD sitting on top of a recycle bin behind Albertson's. I joked that I had finally found a Kevin Smith movie at the right price. Joking aside, "Clerks" is probably Smith's most significant contribution to the art of cinema.

I feel like there's something about "Clerks" that was uniquely suited to American culture in the mid-90's. The film just wouldn't work today. The choice to shoot the whole movie in black and white was considered edgy and defiant of convention in the 90's. Today, the same choice would be considered trite. It is probably no surprise that the recent sequel, "Clerks II", made the transition from black and white to color in the first minute of the film.

 

Randall and Dante (right to left)

The main characters are Dante (Brian O'Halloran) and Randall (Jeff Anderson), the clerks of a Quick-Stop mini-mart and a video rental place, respectively. The film begins with Dante being called in to work at the mini-mart on his day off. He's furious because it threatens his plans to play street hockey with his friends at two o'clock, but his boss assures Dante he'll be in at noon to relieve him.

Dante's time at the mini-mart plays out as a series of short episodes highlighting the different aspects of working in a mini-mart. Different customers come with different issues. One customer begins preaching against tobacco use, riling up an anti-tobacco crowd who see Dante (as a cigarette vendor) as the root of all evil. The crowd becomes incensed and begins pelting Dante with cigarettes until Randall jumps in and saves him, revealing the rabble-rousing customer as an undercover chewing gum salesman who was using his anti-tobacco platform to push gum on smokers. Another problem customer pulls carton after carton of eggs out of the refrigerators, performing endurance tests to find the "perfect dozen". Yet another crazy customer asks if the mini-mart carries hubcaps. The comedy of these situations will be lost to no one who has frequented a mini-mart and seen the strange things that happen there.

Around the time Dante's supposed to be relieved by his boss, he gets a call from another employee telling him that his boss has left town indefinitely. Angry but unwilling to stray far from the store, Dante decides that he and his friends can play hockey on the roof of the Quick-Stop. Randall even talks him into giving the players free Gatorade. But an angry would-be customer ends the game after only a few points by hitting the only street-hockey ball into a sewage drain.

Most of the film deals with Dante's irritably restricted existence and Randall's casual disrespect for restrictions colliding in an explosion of witty dialogue. Randall openly disrespect customers, much to the horror of rule-abiding Dante. He even negligently sells a four-year-old girl a pack of cigarettes, for which Dante is blamed. For all of Randall's faults, he knows who he is and that the rules of a Quick Stop mini-mart don't amount to a lot in the grand scheme of things. Dante is plagued by indecision and uncertainty. He never takes a stand for himself and ends up being a doormat.

Dante's dating Veronica, a nice girl who brings him lasagna at work, but he's still infatuated with his ex Caitlin. When he learns that Caitlin is getting married, he risks his relationship with Veronica to try to win Caitlin's heart again, and through a dark but hilarious twist of fate, ends up losing them both. Dante's biggest problem is wanting to have his cake and eat it too. He wants to have a stable job that provides him financial security while still having the freedom to play hockey at 2 PM on a weekday. He wants a loving, stable girlfriend, but still lusts after the girl who cheated on him seven times. Randall has a much firmer "fuck the world" attitude. He skates through life with as little effort as possible, but in the end he's a happier and more self-aware character than Dante.

The conflicting personalities of Randall and Dante finally clash in a fight that tears the Quick-Stop apart, literally. Then, when they're exhausted and down-trodden, they help each other clean up the mess and close up the store so they can repeat the whole debacle tomorrow.

I give "Clerks" an 8.5/10. It's not a perfect movie, but is surprisingly well done for a film that was funded mostly on credit cards and donations. The two leading actors have enough on-screen chemistry to sell their "Odd Couple" relationship. The film also introduces Jay and Silent Bob (Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith himself), who will become regular Kevin Smith movie fixtures in the decade to come. Overall, this film captures the essence of 90's youth apathy and wraps it up in a smart, edgy  package.













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