For fans of post apocalyptic cinema who love their fiction with subtext and undertones of society and class warfare, you’d probably want to look elsewhere for your brain food. Goodness knows I loves my apocalyptic fiction, but “The Day” is purely apocalypse porn with an artsy gloss added to it for good measure. Director Doug Aarniokoski tries to conceal the fact that this movie is basically a clumsy and one-dimensional action film by lensing the entire film through a black and white filter that saps the color, and directing almost every shot with a hand held camera. Someone at Anchor Bay or WWE studios loves John Carpenter’s “Assault on Precinct 13” because 2012’s “The Day” is basically an end of the world version of it.
Tag Archives: Thriller
Masters of the Universe (1987)
We could have had Star Wars meets Conan the Barbarian. There’s monsters and machines aplenty in the “He-Man” mythos! There’s villains and demons and mystical storylines in the franchise. Except we’re given He-Man in the Hood! This is a man who comes from a civilization with unusual machines, and magic, and war weapons, and he can’t get over the fact that there’s a place that sells meat on bones for human consumption. There’s literally a scene where Teela, Man at Arms, and He-Man marvel at a bucket of chicken and ribs they found at the local restaurant. This is clearly not what we He-Man fans originally envisioned. Of course, that didn’t stop me from watching it at least a thousand times when I was a child, but “He-Man” deserved a space epic the size of “Star Wars” and instead we get so little of it. I’m not asking much from a franchise built solely around selling toys, but there is a lot of mythological potential for making a He-Man movie.
Arkham Rising (2012)
This is one of the few fan films I’ve seen that doesn’t take place prior or subsequent a film, but during the film. Unofficially considered a part of the Nolan Batman mythos, director Tito Guillen’s short is set during the time where Bane has defeated Batman and now sets every criminal in Arkham free to do whatever their hearts desire. With a thick sense of tension and dread, along with a wonderful score that channels Nolan’s films, “Arkham Rising” is a simple and short look at madness being unleashed.
Bad Boys (1983)
After “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” actor Sean Penn barely skidded the realm of being typecast and completely destroyed his break out role by taking on a new form as a dramatic actor. One of his more intense efforts is the 1983 “Bad Boys,” an underrated but excellent near masterpiece about boys on the verge of being men who don’t realize they’re about to become hardened criminals if they don’t break out of their cycles of violence soon. “Bad Boys” is a message at the core about when these young men will transform in to individuals capable of being tried as adults and when they will eventually make it in to an actual penitentiary. In the realm of “Bad Boys,” the penitentiary is the final stop for these young men, and counselor Ramon Herrerra makes a point of showing main character Mick O’Brien his environment, if he doesn’t find a way to change his fate soon.
Red Cloud
From Red Cloud Comics comes the prologue to Sioux Cloud’s short indie drama thriller “Red Cloud: Deliverance.” Taking off from the short film’s original premise about an enigmatic man with a violent past who seeks peace in a rented room, this is the comic before his newest chapter. In case anyone who saw “Red Cloud: Deliverance” were wondering why the climax ended the way it did, this is the comic book that basically lays the ground work.
Red Cloud: Deliverance (2012)
Sioux Cloud and Hezues R’s short “Red Cloud” is a film very much in the vein of “The Professional” and “Gone Baby Gone,” a short dramatic thriller that has potential to be a wider more full length story, in the end. “Red Cloud: Deliverance” is a very powerful and engrossing exploration of a man escaping his past and his demons, and in the process is confronted by a young girl facing her own demons on a daily basis.
Apocalypse of the Dead (2009)
I don’t know why indie filmmakers are still under the delusion that referencing horror maestros in some form during your film is clever or cute. Granted, it worked to some effect in “Night of the Creeps,” and in a slight degree in “Final Destination,” but now every indie filmmaker who drudges up a zombie movie feels the need to reference George Romero or Tom Savini in some way. There is actually a character off-screen named Agent Savini. Come on, quit it. I’m surprised there wasn’t a Romero hospital by Fulci street and Nicotero Lane. Hey, that’s going in my screenplay! “Apocalypse of the Dead” basically combines “Assault on Precinct 13” with “Dawn of the Dead” and completely throws the shit in the fan.