“Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters” is the best “Evil Dead” sequel we never got. It’s a fast paced horror action hybrid with witches that are monstrous, powerful, and absolutely disgusting. To offset their frightful appearance, Hansel and Gretel are there to stomp on their heads and provide merciless deaths while providing biting bon mots. “Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters” channels Sam Raimi in many ways; I almost expected Ash to jump out from the woods at some point yelling “Yo, She-bitch!”
If anything, “Hick” certainly is a movie. And it’s an adaptation of a book, so it’s a special kind of a movie. It has a beginning, a pretty good soundtrack, and some end credits. And our director pretty much loves to feature prepubescent actress Chloe Moretz barely naked for much of the film. But that’s okay, because her character Lulli is so lovable spending so much time drawing pictures, talking to herself, and acting out her favorite movies that we can forgive the fact that she walks around her house in frilly panties and a tank top, even when men she’s never met visit for the first time. Is she just naive or is she trying to seduce men? I never quite figured it out and neither did the writer, apparently.
Lulli is supposed to be this lovable little nymph who spends most of her days in her fantasy world, narrating her life story to herself (?) and then trying to figure out why her life sucks so much. She has her thirteenth birthday party in a bar where her parents get drunk and try to fight over her. She’s given a gun by her uncle and spends most of her time playing with it and imitating “Taxi Driver” in front of a mirror. Her parents let her keep the gun. Because they’re hicks. Get it? As for Lulli she goes on a coming of age journey that will change her life. Or alter it. In fact, let’s just be honest here. She learns nothing by the time the film ends. The basic bullet point of the movie is that Lulli ventures out to go to Las Vegas, meets an assortment of demented and violent characters along the way, figures out the world is one big scary place, and decides that maybe living life with two drunk dysfunctional parents using her in their ever lasting bitter battle isn’t so bad.
Hell in reality, Lulli would opt to swallow her gun. Or at least enter in to child services. But no, she goes home because, there’s no place like a broken home. The screenwriters can never seem to make up their minds about our protagonist Lulli. Sometimes she seems street smart, and then she seems too stupid to travel outside her door, let alone Las Vegas. Is she a Lolita or is she just naive? Does she know how good looking she is, or is she oblivious because her mom soaks up the attention from men? Is she more street smart than the audience is aware of or is she just a misguided dunce living by what she’s seen in the movies? Is she a tease or just someone who hasn’t yet realized the effect she has on men? Who does she spend her time talking to during the opening of the movie? “Hick” never seems to know thus the movie is painfully confused nine times out of ten. For all intents and purposes, the cast is pretty damn great with Moretz more than able to hold up the movie on her charisma and acting ability.
The most interesting sub-plot though belongs to Eddie Redmayne’s character Eddie Kreezer, a disabled cowboy with a penchant for violent outbursts who is constantly kicked around in his life and chooses to look after Lulli when the pair form an uneasy bond. Much of “Hick” is confusing and downright distracting as the writer can never decide on a tone to keep audiences invested. The story varies from drama to comedy to road film, and spends an enormous amount of time on broken characters to help emphasize how broken the whole world is. By the time Lulli awakens strapped to a bed, you’ll wonder if it’s leading to anything remotely meaningful. “Hick” has clear potential to be a compelling adult coming of age drama, but in the end it’s just a notch above dismal. Even with the star power.
What does “Hunchback” teach the audience? Whether you’re gorgeous or ugly, if the hot girl says you’re cool, you’ll become the hero. Also, the nice guy always finishes last. Surely Quasimodo rides off in to the sunset with his crowd of supporters in the end, but who is Esmerelda going home with later that night? “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” is a bastardization from Walt Disney, where they take the tragic and brilliant tale of Quasimodo and water it down so much it’s barely an adaptation when we see it in animated force.
It’s almost as if Marlon Wayans, the least funny Wayans brother (which isn’t saying much) decided he wanted to get out of the shadow of his big brothers and siblings, and just made his own comedy movie. Since the “Scary Movie” brand is now someone else’s property (since that series is so genius), we now have “A Haunted House” a movie so bereft or wit or actual comedy, that it’s embarrassing. But Wayans himself seems intent on going his own way and forming his own comedy niche. And he fails. Wayans only really works well under the guidance of someone who knows what they’re doing. Or (in the case of the “Scary Movies”) have some idea of what they want to accomplish in the arena of comedy.
Director Adam Green’s concept for a throwback to slashers has always been a good idea. In theory. Sadly Dark Sky Films has taken a one note concept for a serviceable slasher film and turned it in to a three film series that really didn’t need anymore than one movie. I’m still not in the thought process that the “Hatchet” films are the second coming of the slasher sub-genre, because while they have their audiences, slasher films are still pretty much just a sub-genre reserved for indie filmmakers at the moment. “Hatchet” has been a consistently repetitive and tedious series that really offers nothing new. Even with the casting of Danielle Harris as a replacement for the original lead, “Hatchet” still manages to be loud, redundant, and lacking in any genuine scares.
Director Wes Bencoster’s short horror film is a master stroke of a commentary on war and the inherent futility of the Vietnam war. Much like a horror film, “Hold Your Fire” begins with a gas masked soldier in a dusty land rooting through a landfill, and watches as a figure slowly creeps up on him. He fires shooting the figure in the head, and walks over to investigate the corpse. “Hold Your Fire” is based heavily on metaphor and symbolism paired with a thick irony that never spares a single second in displaying a world still affected by the Vietnam war, and how it still affects so many.
After over thirty years, director Joe Dante’s “The Howling” has thankfully managed to survive its dated premise and concept, and remains a very good horror classic. While it’s surely not the best werewolf film I’ve ever seen (“An American Werewolf in London,” anyone?), it’s definitely a werewolf picture that stands above its contemporaries. It presents audiences with a steady and rich balance of slow burn mystery, werewolf terror, and some fun dark humor that’s peppered ever so lightly throughout the film.