For “The Monster,” director Bryan Bertino who debuted with the excellent “The Strangers,” channels “Cujo,” exploring a family in disarray and what happens when they’re tested by a force of nature that’s unstoppable and deadly. “The Monster” is two parts a family drama and one part horror movie. The film’s monster serves as something of a metaphor for family dysfunction and the potential for character Lizzy to end up the victim of her rage-aholic father. Zoe Kazan and Ella Ballentine work beautifully together as a mom and daughter Kathy and Lizzy who spend more time arguing with one another than working for a goal. When Lizzy decides she wants to move with her father, Kathy begrudgingly takes her. After hitting a wolf on the road, they’re left stranded, and stuck in a rain storm. Sadly the wolf has managed to lure a monstrous beast from within the heart of the woods, leaving Kathy and Lizzy vulnerable and incapable of diving to safety.
Author Archives: Felix Vasquez
Space Jam (1996)
IN SELECT THEATERS — If you haven’t had a massive amount of nostalgia to frame the memories for “Space Jam,” then odds are you won’t really enjoy the mix of Michael Jordan, The Looney Tunes, and Bill Murray, for some reason. Without the nostalgia, “Space Jam” is just a mediocre animated comedy that is made by a committee, and used to boast the waning popularity of Michael Jordan and the Looney Tunes. There’s also Bill Murray for some reason. Back in the mid nineties, Michael Jordan was sports royalty and was playing baseball professionally; someone had the bright idea to give him a movie co-starring timeless cartoon characters because that’s how stuff works. For all its faults (and there are a lot of them) “Space Jam” is a perfect storm of urban appeal, and family appeal that managed to make it a veritable marketing juggernaut in 1996.
“Haters Back Off” Season Review
For the uninitiated, Miranda Sings is a combination of Napoleon Dynamite and Mary Katherine Gallagher from “Superstar.” I’ll admit I was only made aware of the Youtube comedy personality “Miranda Sings” about a year ago, and that’s due to the tributes by Youtube family “The Eh Bee Family.” Miranda Sings is a brutally deluded and creepy woman who spends a lot of her time performing and is a celebrity in her own mind. She’s the girl you’d likely see during opening auditions of “American Idol” back in 2001 who would argue incessantly with the judges after giving a heinous audition. After opting not to send her to Hollywood, she’d argue with them for twenty minutes before having to be escorted out of the room, and would likely force her way back in a few times begging for another song to sing. She’d then storm down the lobby swearing the judges knew nothing about singing.
Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride (2005)
I respect Tim Burton’s legacy a lot and I admire what he was going for with “The Corpse Bride.” Not a lot of mainstream directors aspire to deliver movies that are more bent toward the Gothic sensibility with homages to folks like Edward Gory. Burton is a man who clearly has a love for the style, and I love it as well. Sadly, “The Corpse Bride” is a weaker approach toward the stop motion animation that Burton was mostly known for with “The Nightmare Before Christmas” for a long time. The aforementioned film is so much more charismatic and entertaining than “The Corpse Bride” in the end. Granted it’s not an awful movie, but it just feels like Burton is trying to recapture the brilliance of “The Nightmare Before Christmas.”
The Book of Life (2014)
“The Day of the Dead” is such a fascinating holiday filled with so much interesting lore, that there’s a lot more material left for five more animated films of this ilk. Jorge Gutierrez has spent a long time trying to expose audiences to Latin and Hispanic heroes and complex characters, and with “The Book of Life” he succeeds yet again. “The Book of Life” is a wonderful animated romance in the vein of the classic Disney films, but it’s also a respectful tale set amidst the backdrop of the Day of the Dead. A group of rowdy grade schoolers are in for a unique field trip when they’re taken in to a museum by a mysterious tour guide who relays to them an epic story of love, life, and death. Set in the Mexican town of San Angel, we meet three childhood friends Manolo, Maria, and Joaquin, all of whom have spent enormous amounts of time together and are facing adulthood with pressures to grow up and realize their potential.
Nightmare Sisters (1987) [Blu-Ray/DVD]
David Decoteau’s “Nightmare Sisters” is the result of economic independent horror filmmaking and one of the finer artifacts of eighties horror sleaze. It three of the most iconic scream queens in movie history working together to dole out the best comedy that they can. “Nightmare Sisters” is a silly and often weird horror film that is oddly bloodless, considering it spends a shocking amount of time setting up the fact that our trio of lusty protagonists becomes man eating succubi. In either case, “Nightmare Sisters” is a kitschy bit of eighties exploitation that garners a unique history behind with DeCoteau using the remaining funds for “Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl O Rama” to complete this movie. That’s just economic and smart thinking.
Trick ‘r Treat: Days of the Dead (Paperback)
For folks that didn’t know if “Trick r Treat” would end up as a one and done horror classic, or end up becoming a full fledged dynasty, creator Michael Dougherty is nice enough to team up with Legendary Pictures to deliver “Days of the Dead.” Michael Dougherty pens the introduction to “Days of the Dead,” where still uncertain if a sequel would ever blossom back in 2015, helped build this anthology to keep Sam alive in our hearts. “Days of the Dead” is a mid-quel ripped directly out of the “Trick r Treat” universe, the graphic novel unfolds five stories involving Halloween and Autumn that tries to recapture the spirit of the original film. With the mid-quel being a graphic novel, Dougherty side steps the interconnected story format from the film and bonds the tales mainly through our beloved Sam.