Disney’s 1951 adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland” is perhaps one of their most iconic animated productions. And yet it’s one of my least favorite Disney films of all time. More so than “Hunchback of Notre Dame” even. Alice, as played by Kathryn Beaumont, is a restless British girl who falls down a rabbit hole when she attempts to chase a talking rabbit who is insistent on reaching an appointment. After falling down a rabbit hole, she enters in to Wonderland where nothing is ever what it quite seems in her world. Up is down, big is small, and everything garners some sense of sentience that makes her exploration of this world even more menacing and baffling than she imagined.
Izzy’s Terror-ific Shorts Program [Boston Terror ‘Thon 2016]
Filmmaker Izzy Lee gathered shorts films from different fellow short film makers and will be showing them to the crowd at Boston Terror’Thon 2016 this weekend. For those unable to attend, here’s a sneak peek of four of the shorts in small bit sized reviews.
Dragon Wars: D-War (2007)
Shim Hyung-rae’s action film is a great concept with many possibilities that is never realized in to a watchable movie. While it’s not the worst movie of 2007, it’s an ill conceived film better suited for more forgiving Kaiju buffs. Shim Hyung-rae’s “D-War” is a confusing, poorly written, convoluted mess that only exists to host average CGI monsters, all of which are the actual stars here. Shim Hyung-rae’s film seems much better suited for cable, as its jumbled storyline tends to snuff out any momentum of action or suspense; it does sport one of the most droning prologues in cinema history, after all. “D-War” tends to fall in to repetition as a sloppy bit of fantasy filmmaking that it can never really decide what story it wants to tell. This meandering narrative does nothing but foreshadow future events, and the almost endless flashbacks hoping to bind the story into coherence fail and collapse in on themselves.
Dragonheart (1996)
Rob Cohen’s “Dragonheart” is a film that was admittedly a favorite of mine when I was growing up. When it first premiered on cable, I recorded it on VHS and would watch the movie at least five times a week. Years later, “Dragonheart” is still a fun and rollicking bit of family fantasy fare. It’s by no means a masterpiece, but if you’re in the mood for a nice and breezy fantasy adventure with a hint of menace to it, you might enjoy what Cohen brings to the table. This is also one of the very few buddy action movies involving a human and a dragon, both of whom make up a bickering pair of friends that find common ground and a common enemy.
Hag (2014)
“Old Hag Syndrome” is a state of paralysis where the sleeper usually awakens completely frozen, but conscious and is convinced a supernatural entity is among them and is sitting on their chest. This is where the origin of creatures like the Succubus stems from. Scott Somers is a seemingly normal man married to a beautiful wife named Marie, but every night he awakens to see his wife standing at the window and muttering to herself. Convinced she’s sleepwalking, Scott awakens yet again in the middle of the night, but this time incapable of movement.
GiverTaker (2016)
For the nineties kids that grew up with great YA horror fodder like “Goosebumps,” “Fear Street,” and “Are You Afraid of the Dark,” director Paul Gandersman and writer Peter S. Hall really seem to have done their research, building a pretty damn great short horror film around the mold of a series called “The Dead Kids Club.” I hope they can find the funding to continue producing films under this label, as I’d love to see a series of shorts or feature length films within “The Dead Kids Club” concept.
Jack Goes Home (2016)
Father to be Jack learns that his father has been killed in a gruesome car accident and he travels home to go take care of things and help his mother get better. Once home, he discovers long buried secrets about his family and himself. Written and directed by actor Thomas Dekker, the film centers around the character of Jack as he comes to grip with his father’s passing and his past as he discovers bits and pieces of it while working on getting his mother back into shape. The character of Jack is nicely complex and he is a good representation of what a man may go through when losing his father. This is of course not as simple as it seems, especially given that it is considered drama, thriller, and horror. The film develops themes that fit all three of those categories and themes that connect with audiences.