Review: Not The Last But A Memorable Exorcism

By Leo Owen

4th January 2011 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

Director: Daniel Stamm
Writer: Huck Botko, Andrew Gurland
DVD and Blu-ray release date: December 27 2010
Studio: Optimum Home Entertainment
Number of discs: 1
Price: From £9.99-£15.93
Running Time: 87 mins
Certificate: 15
Starring: Patrick Fabian, Ashley Bell, Caleb Landry Jones, Iris Bahr, Louis Herthum

Indie writer and director, Daniel Stamm returns to the award-winning ingredient of his directional feature debut, A Necessary Death. The Last Exorcism takes the well-worn fake doc style of recent horrors and gives it a new spin courtesy of a strong lead preacher in doubt.

Reverend Cotton Marcus was brought up a preacher, performing his first exorcism at the age of ten. Now all grown-up he’s seen forcing his son to go to church while having doubts himself. When he reads an article announcing the pope is to open a new exorcism academy, Cotton decides to expose exorcism for the scam it is. Previously believing exorcism “delivers a service” for those in need, he’s decided rather than healing, it’s harmful.

Taking a camera crew with him Cotton randomly opens an envelope begging for an exorcism and promises to follow the request wherever it takes him. The letter leads to Louis and his family – hostile son Caleb and apparently possessed sickly-sweet 16-year-old daughter, Nell. Louis’ wife and Nell’s best friend died of cancer two years ago, causing Caleb to start hating God and the start of Nell’s home-schooling.

Cotton rationalises, Nell’s crucifix burning as a nickel allergy but continues to “perform” the rituals of exorcism. With a book of demons handed down through family generations, Cotton identifies Abalam as the culprit to have possessed Nell – the most powerful demon listed who “defiles the flesh of the innocent”.

After the sham exorcism, Nell surprises Cotton by showing up speechless at his motel five miles from home and tries to strip off before vomiting. Since his wife’s death, Louis has lost faith in the medical system and no longer trusts “big city priests”; Refused treatment, Nell’s inexplicable behaviour becomes more disturbing and threatens more than the farm cattle.

One of the greatest strengths of The Last Exorcism is its unusual lead. Watching a priest criticising a community he describes as a “stopped in time place – the perfect breeding ground for demons and evil,” is highly entertaining. Humour is created by exposing Cotton’s unethical preparations to booby trap Nell’s room and watching him mock the locals by matter-of-factly asking where the UFO landing site is. Seeing a priest relishing explaining his trickery and contraptions to his crew, giving comically dramatic bible readings and boasting about the programme he uses with over 800 demon sounds, is strangely satisfying.

Convincing performances from the supporting cast make this mock documentary almost seem believable. A snarling Caleb threatening Cotton: “If anything happens to her. I will hurt you”, contrasts effectively with the seemingly harmless childlike Nell, who’s endearingly chuffed by the novelty of “Miss Iris’” DMs. The almost role reversal of these troubled teens helps build the suspense, leading to a crescendo of face slashing, cautionary notes (“Don’t leave her alone with him”), chains, the expected bone snapping and body contortion, doll drowning, sinister drawings, crazed eyes and ultimately a very limber Nell demonstrating some seemingly impossible gymnastic moves.

A fine follow-up to Stamm’s debut, The Last Exorcism, certainly isn’t an end to the genre as the title suggests but will take some topping. Introducing some talented new movie industry fodder and exploring the concept from a refreshing new angle, the film’s skimpy running time certainly leaves no room for boredom but unfortunately leads to a rushed-feeling ending.

***

Special Features

DVD Special Features

• Actor and Director commentary with Daniel Stamm, Ashley Bell, Patrick Fabian and Louis Herthum
• Audio commentary with Producers Eli Roth, Eric Newman and Tom Bliss
• “The Devil You Know: The Making of The Last Exorcism” featurette
• “Real Stories of Exorcism” featurette
• 2009 Cannes Film Festival teaser trailer

Blu-Ray Special Features

• Actor and Director commentary with Daniel Stamm, Ashley Bell, Patrick Fabian and Louis Herthum
• Audio commentary with Producers Eli Roth, Eric Newman and Tom Bliss
• “Witnesses to an Exorcism: An Audio Commentary with a Haunting Victim, Deliverance Minister and Clinical Psychologist”
• “The Devil You Know: The Making of The Last Exorcism” featurette
• “Real Stories of Exorcism” featurette
• 2009 Cannes Film Festival teaser trailer
• Audition footage
• Theatrical trailer
• BD Touch and Metamenu Remote
• Lionsgate Live™ enabled, featuring extra content for Internet-connected players

The Collector: Set for A Sequel

By Leo Owen

20th October 2010 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

Director: Marcus Dunstan
Writer: Patrick Melton, Marcus Dunstan
Certificate: 18
Running time: 90 minutes
Studio: Icon Home Entertainment
No of discs: 1
Region: 2
Price: From £10.92-£11.93
Release Date: October 18 2010
Starring: Josh Stewart, Michael Reilly Burke, Andrea Roth, Juan Fernandes

After the initial success of Saw, Director and Writer team, Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton, milked the franchise, possibly to their own detriment. Horror fans respectful of the genius behind the first Saw, are perhaps a little weary now after seven. Knowing that Dunstan and Melton are merely responsible for Saws four-seven prompts unavoidable scepticism of their new joint-venture, The Collector.

Handy man Arkin (Josh Stewart), is seen eyeing-up family pictures suspiciously while he works at the Chase house. Later, we discover Arkin’s wife owes money to loan sharks who are coming for her that day so protective of his wife and young daughter, he promises to get money by midnight. With the Chase clan leaving for their holiday, Arkin visits a strip club, convincing his crooked boss to let him do the safe job that night for a 40/60 split.

The setting is perfect for a bout of horror – the night is foggy, Arkin approaches his target through brush, lightning illuminates a neighbourless creaking house, crystal wind chimes tinker and lullaby backing music is punctuated by magnified heart beat thumps. A creaky step and mysterious shuddering box also indicate all won’t be well.

Fantastic camera work adds to the spooky atmosphere as dark upward shots of the wood with eerie cloud movement are accompanied by lethargic guitar music. There are plenty of sinister close-ups of teddy bears, cats, dolls, toys and insects, repeatedly emphasised. Slow deliberate shots of cigarette lighting and the moon build tension as we see Arkin’s car approaching by night through cloud coverage looking down at the lone beams of his headlights.

Finally inside, torch lit shots and those illuminated purely by the outside light streaming in from the patio doors are the last scene-setters before a series of fast-moving ariel shots showing character movement through the booby-trapped house and intricate trip-wire arrangements. Arkin can hear screams through air vents and finds the locks have been tampered with.

A leather masked killed who collects people he likes, always bringing bait in a box with him threatens the Chase family and a balaclavared Arkin is their only hope. Arkin faces a seemingly impossible challenge with all the windows boarded-up, the chandelier fitted with knife attachments, the phone tampered with and all the doors and room floors booby-trapped – one is covered in man traps, another has an acidic liquid covering it and mesh wires block various entrance-ways
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Gaining access to the basement, Arkin finds the father, Michael, seriously tortured and strapped to a chair. He must now ensure mummy Chase, Victoria, the teenage Jill and vulnerable Hannah somehow reach safety.

For a formulaic horror with low expectations, The Collector is surprisingly tense. A great soundtrack, including Depeche Mode “I feel you” accompanies a film so unrelenting and punishing, even in its frustrating conclusion that annoyingly paves the way for a sequel, there’ll be plenty of wincing, even from the greatest horror fans and veterans.

****

Special Features:

• Director/Writer Commentary
• Deleted Scenes
• Music Video
• Alternative Ending
• Soundtrack Song Preview

Sanity Challenger: Shutter Island

By Leo Owen

10th August 2010 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

Director: Martin Scorsese
Writer: Laeta Kalogridis
Release Date: August 2 2010
Studio: Paramount Home Entertainment
Number of discs: 1
Region: 2
Price: From £9.99
Running Time: 133 mins
Certificate: 15
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Max von Sydow, Michelle Williams, Emily Mortimer, Patricia Clarkson, John Carroll Lynch, Elias Koteas

Before Shutter Island even appeared on mainstream release, Scorsese cleverly played with viewers by using the trailer to trick them into expecting a straight-forward horror film and luring them into a false comfort zone of misplaced preconceived notions.

On the surface Shutter Island is about US Marshall Teddy Daniel’s investigation of missing patient, Rachel (Emily Mortimer, Patricia Clarkson) at Ashecliff mental asylum on Shutter Island. Armed with his own agenda, Teddy’s investigation is not so straight-forward – Teddy seeks another patient, Andrew Laeddis, the man who burnt down his home and in doing so, killed his wife, Dolores (Michelle Williams).

Having previously met an ex-Ashecliff inmate and with the knowledge that the asylum is funded by The House of American Activities Committee, Teddy suspects the clinically insane are being used as guinea pigs for mind experiments and decides to blow Ashecliff’s cover and save all the human lab rats. As Teddy and his partner Chuck, try to find all the missing pieces of the jigsaw, Teddy becomes increasingly obsessed with uncovering the truth of the identity of the 67th patient and exploring the infamous ward C.

When the back-up generator fails in the storm, the whole electrical system fries and with the chaos this brings, Teddy is finally able to explore the lighthouse. Positioned at the bottom of a craggy cliff face covered in poison ivy on a rocky islet surrounded by a security fence and monitored by a guard, the lighthouse is where Teddy believes they open up patients’ brains, performing brain surgery to create the “ghosts” to go out into the world and do things sane men would never do. And all protected by the notion that: “People tell the world that you are crazy and any protest to the contrary just proves otherwise.”

Long before the credits start to roll, Shutter Island morphs from a crime thriller with horrific undertones into a mind-bending ingenious piece of psychological trickery. Its challenging plot line weaves between the past, present, future, make believe and down right delusional.

Shutter Island is located in the middle of the ocean accessible only by a limited ferry service the government control. After two days of its claustrophobic isolation and punishing climate, Teddy starts to get horrific migraines; begins to mistrust and doubt his partner’s intentions; is haunted by the voices of ghosts telling him he “should have saved [them]” re-setting “like a tape playing” and is tortured by traumatic visions of concentration camp mass exterminations and piles of frozen corpses.

Abound with disturbing flashbacks and haunting dream sequences and full of intrigue, Shutter Island is bleak and dire, questioning moral order, the definition of sanity, what makes the individual and the value of man. DiCaprio creates a range in Teddy’s character, successfully depicting the “tough guy” veneer for this troubled soul, while Ben Kingsley makes a mildly humorous humane Doctor Cawley and Mark Ruffalo plays the sympathetic partner.

An expertly executed psychological masterpiece to make you question your own sanity, Shutter Island sits proudly among Scorsese’s impressive body of varied and always captivating work. Testimony to his range as director, Scorsese explores the horror/thriller genre with gravitas, leaving us to ponder if it “ would be worse, to live as a monster or to die as a good man?”

*****

Special Features:

• Behind the Shutters
• Into the Lighthouse

Legion: Ridiculously Hilarious All-Action Angels

By Leo Owen

10th August 2010 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

Director/ Producer: Scott Stewart

Writer: Peter Schink, Scott Stewart

Release Date: August 9 2010

Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

Number of discs: 1

Region: 2

Price: From £9.99

Running Time: 100 mins

Certificate: 15

Starring: Paul Bettany, Dennis Quaid, Lucas Black, Adrianne Palicki, Tyrese Gibson, Kate Walsh, Willa Holland, Kevin Durand, Charles S. Dutton

The trailer for Paul Bettany’s last major role as Michael in Legion, suggested it would be nothing more than utterly ludicrous entertaining trash, hilarious for all the wrong reasons – despite this, the audacity of a bold plot premise is to its merit.

Sick of all mankind’s “bullshit” a traditionally merciful God implements mass extermination, instructing his angels to possess humans and pit themselves against each other. Michael, an angel and general in God’s army is given an order he does not believe in and becomes “the rebellious son” going down to earth to save mankind.

Meanwhile, on their way to Scottsdale the Anderson family’s car breaks down and they wind up in a New Mexico desert diner where eight months pregnant waitress, Charlie (Adrianne Palicki), works. Simpleton Jeet (Lucas Black), the diner owner’s son (Dennis Quaid as Bob Hanson) dotes on Charlie and will do anything to protect her.

Queue Gladys Foster, affectionately named “Grandma”, a seemingly nice old lady who walks with a zimmer frame and beams at the dinner staff and customers, introducing herself and delightedly announcing: “It will all be over soon… I said your fucking baby is going to burn. All those little babies are going to burn. You are all going to fucking die.” A foul-mouth is not all Gladys has as she hungrily bites Howard Anderson before spider-pigging it along the ceiling slack-jawed with her triangular shark teeth on display.

The gang are fearful and confused; the TV, radio and phone are down and dust clouds seen in the distance are in fact “a mother-fucking pestilence” preventing their escape. Just as chef, Percy (Charles S. Dutton) announces, “I’m going to get my bible – somebody’s got to start praying,” the mysterious Michael shows up to explain the apocalypse is upon them and that the birth of Charlie’s baby is the only hope for humanity.

With the eerie sound of an ice cream van approaching, they prepare for battle, lock all doors and barricade themselves in. The rest of Legion sees the diner gang fight “malicious gatherings” with one wave of the Pac Man jawed spider-like possessed testing their strength followed by a second test of weakness by an onslaught of cars containing juddering people shaking demonically, possessed like characters paused in a computer game. Legion turns into a race against time for Charlie to give birth to the redeemer and re-write the future.

The script is liberally peppered with appalling one liners – far too many to mention as either Michael spouts vague mystical references or comical macho talk; Charlie muses nonsensically; Percy makes supposedly clever observations and gives an incredibly unconvincing ‘touching’ speech and the intentionally sinister, Gabriel with his metal wings and laughably gruff gravely Terminator voice, sternly announces: “You wanted to live like one of them but now you will die like one of them.”

Set to cheesy angelic sounding music, much of the fight between Gabriel and Michael as they grapple with each other, looks more like a gay love scene than mortal combat; Charlie’s labour is conveniently speedy and the miraculous survival of the baby after a severe car crash with no booster seat, carrier or seat belt is entirely implausible.

Legion is Scott Stewart’s second outing as Director – his background is in visual effects so where Legion fails miserably to satisfy in script and plot, it certainly doesn’t in vision. Sadly, looking pretty isn’t enough to save Legion from its consistently poor characterisation and dialogue making it nothing more than something to laugh at.

**

Special Features:

DVD

• Creating the Apocalypse – Behind the Physical Effects
• Humanity’s Last Line of Defense – The Cast and Characters
• From Pixels to Picture – A Look at the Visual Effects

Blu-ray

• Bringing Angels To Earth: Picture-in-Picture
• Creating the Apocalypse – Behind the Physical Effects
• Humanity’s Last Line of Defense – The Cast and Characters
• From Pixels to Picture – A Look at the Visual Effects