At the end of the day, Katy Perry’s awfully immediate documentary about her life on the road is as hard hitting and candid as your normal fluff piece on an entertainment TV show. “Part of Me” is really supposed to be a film for the Katy Perry fan club where she strives, enjoys life, and reveals her hardships from a struggling Christian singer to a fairly so so pop star. It’s all fluff and should really be called “Katy Perry is Amazing” when all is said and done. Continue reading
With the “Definitive Document of the Dead” you have to take the good with the bad. It completely glosses over Romero’s production of “Day of the Dead” to where it’s almost an irrelevant foot note in the legacy of the Dead films. Yet, the documentary does go back to Romero years after “Day” to where he’s directing “Land,” “Diary,” and “Survival” implying that they’re all valid and relevant projects of Romero’s career. Difficulties in Hollywood and the studio system are side stepped, and often times the documentary can never decide if it wants to be a Hollywood inside look or a fandom tribute, so it tries to be both.
The one downfall about “From Comic Books to Television” is that realistically a documentary about EC Comics should be longer than an hour. I mean this is EC Comics, one of the biggest influences for many horror icons, and it deserves more than fifty six minutes for audiences. EC Comics is a powerful force in horror and continues to spawn horror fans to this day. That said, “From Comic Books to Television” is a nice and entertaining look at the legendary run of EC Comics. Beginning life as Educational Comics and eventually transforming in to Entertaining Comics, “From Comic Books to Television” explores the creative explosion of EC Comics, and how it managed to change the comic book medium for better or for worse.
The main problem with “Still Screaming” is that though it does cover one of the most popular horror movies of all time, the story of “Scream” and its inception just isn’t very interesting. Sure, Wes Craven happened upon one of the most trendy slasher films ever made and created something of a resurgence in a decade that almost saw the death of the horror genre, but the making of the film and the series of weak sequels is just a series of normal studio anecdotes compiled in to a ninety minute mediocre documentary. There isn’t a lot of magic behind “Scream.” Not like “Return of the Living Dead,” “A Nightmare On Elm Street,” or even “Psycho.” It was a studio fueled film that brought the right talent to the forefront and it succeeded in reviving a sub-genre. It’s barely a tale of independent filmmakers scraping dollars together to make a bang up horror film.
The world featured in the newest documentary “Girl Model” features an entire world of people who have decided a model’s life. Except for the actual models themselves. When we first view the casting agents for the Switch agency, they’re lining up groups of incredibly beautiful prepubescent girls with potential to be international models and judging them incredibly harshly. They’re called fat, pigs, and told to go on major diets in spite of the fact most of these young girls could be knocked over with a gust of strong wind at any moment. “Girl Model” explores a world that doesn’t just appreciate youth. It lusts for it.
Like pretty much any documentary involving the video age and golden age of horror “Screaming in High Heels” is a love letter to the genre, and a requiem for a period of horror and filmmaking that is dead and buried. Granted there is the occasional Danielle Harris and Diora Baird, but the facet of the scream queen is defunct, thanks to a new wave of horror directors who feel they’re above such elements. Scream Queens were once upon a time a big lure for potential horror audiences to a new title. Director Jason Paul Collum sets the spotlight on three of the most beautiful women to ever rule the horror world, and examines the highs and lows of being a scream queen.
One of the many classic devices of American television much of today’s youth will never get a chance to experience is the horror host. Though there are many talented performers keeping the tradition alive, we don’t have a glut of horror hosts as we once had. And it’s a shame because horror movies are ultimately an experience, and the horror host is the persona that keeps us watching and makes the viewing experience worthwhile in the end. “American Scary” is a brilliant and utterly fantastic tribute to the age of horror hosts, and really excels at informing audiences of a once American facet of television that no longer exists.