Halloween Top 13: The Remake- #11- The Hills Have Eyes (2006)

Ever been riding around in a rural area with someone and they lean over and say, “It’s like something from ‘The Hills Have Eyes’ out here.”? You then look around at the wooded area you’re driving though and the Fast Fare that you just passed and say, “Yeah, sure does”, but in your horror-hound heart you want to tell them, “No, this is nothing like The Hills Have Eyes. We’re not in the freakin’ desert. We’re not in an Airstream camper. And most importantly, while there does seem to be a contingent of Moonshining rednecks back at that Fast Fare, I haven’t seen a single person who I think might be an irradiated mess.” The problem is that you can’t say that because the person in the car with you either a) had never seen Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes b) has seen it but is mixing it up with Last House on the Left c) might have seen it, but doesn’t know, doesn’t care, and sure isn’t going want a horror nerd hissy fit on their hands.

Choice ‘c’ there is how I kind of felt every time someone came at me with Alexandre Aja’s The Hills Have Eyes. I had seen it some time back, didn’t much care for it, and no amount of persuading me could get me to think that it wasn’t unnecessary. As you might have surmised, my opinion has finally changed….somewhat. After ranting about Piranha 3-D a couple of months back, I thought maybe I should give Aja another look. I rewatched High Tension, and it still ticked me off. Then I caught Mirrors again, and it never rises above the one gruesome scene that was already in the trailer. However on a second viewing of Aja’s The Hills Have Eyes I finally got into what he had done with the film. Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes is a tense, well paced movie, but his flat, blunt style keeps the action at arms length. Aja brings his viewer right into the bloody mess.

The core of the original story is kept in place. A family going cross country is given bad advice by a gas station attendant who sends them down an unpaved “shortcut”. Naturally, there is no shortcut at all, and the family soon is being stalked by a group of nuclear mutants. This is where the film takes a departure. Instead of the mutants being a vaguely Max Max-ian gang, these mutants are just that. When the U.S. government decided to test nukes in the desert, these folks’ ancestors went underground to live in the mines where they gave birth to generation after generation of inbred, irradiated cannibal killers. Needless to say, they were pretty put out by the whole “nuking our homes” thing, and so they seem to have decided to get by day to day eating whatever passersby they can.

Aja penned the screenplay with Gregory Levasseur, his co-writer on High Tension, but there was very little to do here but update how the people talked and add in a few minor sequences. There is a shockingly little difference in the storyline and dialog between the two films, but that didn’t bother me that much. Often times people complain about remakes going off in their own direction with little connection to the original film, and of course some films (Psycho remake, this means you) that don’t even seem to have an original thought. Aja might be able to be blamed for not taking the film a little further away from its roots, but that’s not the kind of remake he crafted. By keeping the story safe and familiar, he was able to spend a lot of time on visual imagery, and there are some striking examples in this film. Belgian cinematographer Maxime Aleandre, who also worked on High Tension which looked good if nothing else, and Aja make full use of the barren landscape and wide open settings to lets the camera swing, dart, and circle the characters. I thought this was a wonderful touch. It really gives the viewer a sense of what the family must feel like. They are being watched from all sides, danger surrounds them, and a chance of escape looks minimal. I would have liked to see a little more play with the lighting and shadow, but overall, Aja made the film his by making is a sleek, stylish production which are two adjectives that I’ve never heard used to describe Craven’s original film.

As the actors are playing virtual carbon copies of their 1970’s counterparts, there is little to write home about in that department, but I do want to mention a few folks. Ted Levine, who many will know as Buffalo Bob in Silence of the Lambs, appears here as another Bob, Big Bob, the patriarch of the family. No matter if I’m seeing Levine on Monk, in the Swayze classic Next of Kin, or just as the voice of Sinestro in Justice League cartoons, I always enjoy a performance from Levine, and this is no exception. Aaron Stanford, who played the son-in-law suffering Doug, really has the only dramatic arc in the film, pretty much everyone else gets whacked before they could become more than a static character, and he does it well. As the emotional center of the film, he impressed me very much, and the parts of the flick that don’t belong to cannibalistic nuclear mutants, are purely his to own. The last person I have to mention is one of my favorite genre film actors ever, Billy Drago. He shows up here are Papa Jupiter, the role originated by James Whitworth in the original film, and more than does the part justice. Plus with how odd Drago looks naturally, they probably saved some cash on special effects.

The Hills Have Eyes at first doesn’t come off at exactly what I thought it would be. Going into it, especially after the credits, I expected a film that was charged with political statements and social relevancy. Perhaps Aja thought those things were in there, but I didn’t see them. What I saw instead was a beautifully shot film that takes the ideas of the original film and expands on them with a style that doesn’t so much overshadow the substance but enhances it. I still don’t count myself as a fan of Mr. Aja’s films, (I am a fan of how his last name brings to mind Steely Dan songs every time I read it though.) but in this instance I have to say that he really did this remake justice. Let’s face it, while The Hills Have Eyes(1977) is a classic, it is only slightly average film to begin with (I have it a 2.5 in its review.). The fact that the remake exceeds the original is a testament to the work that Aja must have put into this film.

Bugg Rating

Hey Hey, we’re up to day 3 on the countdown, and that brings us to our guest today, the lovely and talented Ms. Christine Makepeace of Paracinema magazine, one of the baddest cinema magazines in the land. the new issue has just come out so get on over there and pick one up, but for now I won’t hold up Ms. Makepeace anymore. Let’s check out her list…

“HEY! After much thought, I realized I don't really like too many remakes! I could only come up with two!

Dawn of the Dead (2004)- I find this film more enjoyable than the original. Not to downplay the importance of Romero's creation... send all hate mail to christine@paracinema.net

The Hills Have Eyes (2006)- Both films are SUPER successful, but this remake was shockingly good (and faithful).

Whatddaya know! One of those picks is on the list, and one is the film I talked about today. I can’t thank you enough for taking part Christine, and I can’t wait until my copy of Paracinema arrives in the mailbox. That wraps it up today for The Halloween Top 13: The Remake. Tomorrow, things start to get a little more serious as the top ten picks start rolling.

Whatcha Craven?: Scream (1996)

Do I like scary movies? Sure, that’s why I started this site in the first place, and more new recently why I wanted to take a look back at the works of Wes Craven. After four weeks of checking out The Hills Have Eyes, The Serpent and the Rainbow, The People Under the Stairs, and Shocker, we’ve finally come to the last entry in Whatcha Craven. After trying to get a franchise off the ground with Shocker, Craven revisited his most famous creation with the mostly successful film New Nightmare (1994). Then he made Eddie Murphy a bloodsucker in Vampire in Brooklyn (1995), and the less said about that travesty the better. Luckily, the next year he made a film that is arguably one of his best.

Scream began its life as the brainchild of Kevin Williamson, a part time actor with one sold but not produced screenplay to his credit (Teaching Mrs. Tingle which Williamson would ultimately direct). When he read about a series of killings in Florida, he was inspired to write a script featuring characters as aware of horror movies as he was. The script, then titled Scary Movie, was sold to Dimension films which brought in Wes Craven to direct.

The film opens with a twelve minute sequence featuring Drew Barrymore being harassed and ultimately killed by a killer in a Munch’s Scream inspired mask. The killer taunts his intended victim with phone calls reminiscent of the film When a Stranger Calls, and their conversation involves a discussion of many of the great slasher films. The best line, and one that Craven almost omitted, comes when Barrymore’s character comments that the first Nightmare on Elm Street was good but “the others sucked”. Craven felt the line might be too egotistical, but since he had been involved as a writer of Part 3 and Part 7, he kept it in. Upon first viewing, the scene is shocking. Who could have expected that Drew would be killed off when the movie had barely begun? This opening is part of the reason the movie succeeds. After it, the viewer knows that no character is safe, expect the unexpected, and no matter how many rules are laid out, expect them to be broken.

As the film begins in earnest, we are introduced to Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), a young woman still reeling from her mother’s murder a year ago. She is soon terrorized by a phone call from a menacing voice and then attacked by the ghost face killer (not to be confused with Ghost face Killer, the badass Wu Tang Clan MC). Sidney escapes, but soon her movie conscious friends are being picked off by the killer. With nosy reporter Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox) on the story and bumbling detective Dewey (David Arquette) on the case, the kids have to try and survive if they can follow the rules.

Perhaps more than any other slasher in recent times, I think Scream owes a great deal to the classic gaily of the 1970’s. This is not a film not based in the supernatural like Nightmare or Friday the 13th nor does it feature in unstoppable force like Meyers or Leather face. Instead, I see much more of the hallmark of Bava’s Twitch of a Death Nerve or Argento’s Opera. While the characters, much like myself at the time, would not have been well versed in those film, there’s no telling where Williamson took his inspiration for the story’s structure. Like gialli, Scream features a masked and gloved killer, numerous instances of misdirection, and an ending featuring a shocking and unexpected twist. It’s interesting to me how the film contains all the parts from the whole history of slasher films from the roots in Italian cinema to the gore fests of the ‘80’s.

Throughout the film, the actors all do fine jobs, even the usually irritating Matthew Lillard and Jamie Kennedy. Kennedy especially was very enjoyable as the resident horror movie geek who introduces the group to the rules (Don’t have sex, do drugs, or say that “you’ll be right back”). This film is also the best role I’ve ever seen from David Arquette. His goofy cop Dewey is definitely my favorite character, and while I have great hesitation about the forthcoming Scream 4, at least he has been confirmed as returning. Also coming back for another sequel is his wife, Courtney Cox, whom he met while filming this movie. Rose McGowen is lovely as always though I hate that she dyed her hair blonde to appear less like the brunette lead, Neve Campbell. Neve herself is more the catalyst for the events in the film than an integral part to me. While she does a fine job, there is nothing in her performance that blew me away, and the same can be said of poor man’s Johnny Depp, Skeet Ulrich.

I’m not going to go into all the referential nods and horror inside jokes contained in the film because I think that has been endlessly explored elsewhere, and I’m sure that you folks don’t need them spelled out. I’ll just say that this time (perhaps my third viewing of the film) I did notice a few more things I missed last time. This film is loaded with Easter eggs for the horror fan, and that’s one thing that confuses me. I’ve often seen Scream looked down on by horror hounds as teen trash. While I think that label might be accurate of films it spawned, Scream was a game changing film for the slasher genre. By taking in and regurgitating the history of slasher films in the way it did, Scream turned the genre on it’s ear and breathed new life into what was basically a dead subgenre. I know that Kevin Williamson went on to pen Dawson’s Creek, and many people hold that against him. Perhaps they forget he also wrote the well done Scream 2, Rodriguez’s fun sci fi film The Faculty, and I Know What You Did Last Summer, the only worthwhile entry into that series.

If somehow you like scary movies, but have been living under a rock since 1996, then this is a film that you should see. If you haven’t seen it in a while, then I recommend a re-watch. Though the film loses something when you know the ending, there are tons of clues to look for when you do give it another view. It’s also a film about people like us, people who know not to run out into the woods, who yell at characters to look behind them, and who know the bad guy is never dead even when the credits roll. Thanks everyone who left all the great comments on the Craven films this month. I’ve got something special in mind for August’s feature, so check back in next week to see what I have in store for you folks.

Bugg Rating

Whatcha Craven?: Shocker (1989)

This film is called Shocker. I want to state right away that it in no way has anything to do with The Shocker, and if you don’t know what that is, well, I’m not going to tell you. All I can tell you is that tonight’s entry of Whatcha Craven is not full of too many surprises. Well, there was one surprise for me, but thankfully it wasn’t an uncomfortable one, merely unfortunate.

In 1989, Wes Craven was desperate to spawn another franchise. Feeling like he hadn’t been paid all the money he was owed by New Line for the Nightmare series, he took a new idea to Universal in hopes that it would spawn sequels and residuals for years to come. The end result however had more in common with Nightmare on Elm Street 4-6 than Wes’ original masterpiece. With Shocker, Craven didn’t bother to try and recapture his former glory, and instead churned out a film that played right into what many horror fans feel are the weak points of Freddy’s final adventures.

Shocker is the story of Horace Pinker (Mitch Pileggi) a serial killer who’s already killed seven whole families and gotten away without a trace. When the cops do begin to close in, Pinker lashes out and kills lead detective Don Parker’s (Michael Murphy) whole family. After an accident, Parker’s foster son Jonathan (Peter Berg), who now lives on his own and is a football star at the local college, develops a connection to Pinker through his dreams. Eventually, Jonathan is able to lead the police to Pinker and the killer is caught, jailed, and sent to the electric chair. Pinker, who practices black magic, has made some kind of unholy pact, and after he is electrocuted, his soul lives on and he gains the ability to possess people and keep on killing. With the help of his dead girlfriend Allison (Cami Cooper), it’s up to Jonathan to come up with a way to defeat the body hopping, TV dwelling, electric killer.

I have to admit I was a bit confused when it came to this film. I had strong recollections of really enjoying it, but sometimes, as we get older, tastes change, memories fade, or worse yet, it’s not even the movie you remember it being. I completely had this movie confused with the much, much better and extremely similar film The Horror Show (1989) starring Lance Henrikson and Brion James. How this ever slipped my mind I’ll never know. I even had the good fortune to meet Mr. James at a sci fi convention in the early nineties and he was extremely surprised to have someone tell him how much they liked The Horror Show. Unfortunately, that fine film is out of print while this Wes Craven stinker still remains.

The main problem with Shocker is that as the film moves through its 109 minute running time what starts off as an interesting premise slowly becomes an almost unbearable exercise in foolishness. Mitch Pileggi, who would later achieve fame as Skinner on the X-Files, begins the film playing Horace Pinker as a ruthless cold blooded killer, but by the time the credits roll he’s reduced to spouting one liners that would make Henny Youngman cry. What is it about becoming a supernatural slasher that makes antagonists feel the desire to reel off puns and quips? Well, in this case, I think it was the cold hard cash that the Nightmare films were still taking in.

Craven wanted what he felt like was his, and so he proceeded to rip off anything that was theirs. Take for example the fact that Jonathan can track down Horace in his dreams, sounds a little familiar, right? How about Jonathan’s cop father who won’t believe a word his kid says about the killer? How about an appearance from Heather Langenkamp, Nancy from the original Nightmare? Sure, it was neat to see her in a cameo role in Craven’s film, but it just felt like more of Craven lifting from the successful franchise. The film, which starts off as a derivative but interesting slasher, devolves into a mess of desperate copycatting. Wes was just coming off the success of 1989’s The Serpent and the Rainbow, and for the life of me I can’t understand what made him stoop this low after hitting an artistic height with his previous film.

While Pileggi makes the most of his role (even the campy parts), the same can’t be said of his co-stars. Peter Berg, the future star of TV medical drama Chicago Hope, is just plain bad as the football star on the killer’s trail. He alternates from over-emoting to underselling his lines, and frankly, neither of the two was very good. Even as his girlfriend, coach, and pals get killed off by Pinker, I could never really get empathize with Berg’s Jonathan. Mr. Berg, I know Nancy, and you sir, are no Nancy.

The film does sport some pretty cool performances in the supporting cast. Ted Raimi, who I always love to see, pops up as Jonathan’s nerdy friend Pac-Man (Really, by ‘89 people were still nicknaming people Pac-Man?), and as usual, he provides a solid performance. You also get a small role from future Law & Order A.D.A Richard Brooks, longtime character actor Michael Murphy as the cop dad, and a blink and you miss him performance from Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Brent Spiner. The best cameos come from the most unexpected folks with John Tesh hamming it up as a news reporter, and best of all, Acid guru Tim Leary as a money grubbing Televangelist. The latter was the high point of the film for me.

I don’t really have much else to say about this film. It did have quite the opening theme from rock super group The Dudes of Wrath featuring Kiss’ Paul Stanley on vocals and Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee, but I reject the heresy that is the Megadeth cover of the Alice Cooper classic, “No More Mr. Nice Guy.” The score to the film was not memorable at all, and the film making itself was uneventful. In fact the romp through TV land that was the big effects bonanza was the worst part of the film, and I recall better looking effects in A-ha videos.

All in all, I wish I had remembered this film better going into it. Last week I found that people were quite divided on the love it or hate it film, The People Under the Stairs. I would find it very hard to believe that many folks would rush to Shocker’s defense, but who knows? There’s one more week left in Whatcha Craven, and next week I’m going to cover the first installment of the successful franchise Wes so craved. So check back next week, well, that is if you like scary movies.

Bugg Rating

Whatcha Craven?: The People Under the Stairs (1991)

Wes Craven loves to take the innocents that exist in this world, like Nancy in Nightmare, Sidney in Scream, and the Carter family in The Hills Have Eyes, and throw them into a situation well beyond the normal parameters of their lives. With his 1991 film The People Under the Stairs, Wes went younger with his protagonist than he ever had before. It’s a dangerous road to go down working with a child actor, and it could be what makes or breaks your film. Sometimes they can draw you in, making you feel like you did when you were their age, but there’s also the chance they won’t be up to the task presented to them.

The People Under the Stairs follows Poindexter “Fool” Williams (Brandon Quentin Adams), a 13 year old boy who shares an apartment in the ghetto with his sister, her children, and their mother who is sick with cancer. When they miss their rent and are about to be evicted, “Fool” is desperate to find a way to help. So when family friend Leroy (Ving Rhames) approaches him with a plan to rob a cache of gold from their landlords, “Fool” reluctantly agrees. When they break in, they soon find themselves trapped in the house, and the landlords turn out to be creepy, cannibalistic kidnappers. “Fool” must find a way to escape with the money and their abused daughter before he becomes their prisoner as well.

The young man who plays “Fool” Williams is perhaps the highlight of the film. This is a child actor who was quite up to the task before him, but sadly, the task itself was a deeply flawed one. Brandon Quentin Adams had quite a pedigree coming into this film. After all, he got his start as Zeke “Baby Bad” in Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker. From there he took roles in films such as The Mighty Ducks and The Sandlot, and as of late he has provided the voice of Raijin in the Kingdom Hearts video games. Personally, I thought Adams was very strong in The People Under the Stairs, and his reactions all mirror those that a 13 year old boy might have when put in the same situation.

The problem is that the situation itself has quite a bit of issues. Once trapped in the house he is confronted by stairs that turn into slides, secret passages, an unstoppable Rottweiler, and the “Mom” and “Dad” who seem like crazier versions of Baby Jane and Bob from the Church of the Sub-Genius. The film starts to become Home Alone in reverse. Instead of the kid fending off the bad robbers, we have the kid robbing the place and fending off the baddies that are after him. As the film goes on it devolves more and more into slapstick type violence which is punctuated by a few shots of gore. Without the gore, and 2 uses of the F-word, then I would say this film was geared toward kids around the main character’s age. I’m sure if I had seen this when I was 12 or 13 I would have loved it, but as an adult, I found it did not deliver on the tension necessary to make the situation dire or enough laughs for me to consider this a dark comedy.

That’s not to say it wasn’t an enjoyable film to watch. I found it quite entertaining mostly due to the performances of Adams and his costars. Ving Rhames provides a small but solid part, but as I’ve said before about him (in my review of Entrapment), I find he generally plays the same character in every film with this being no exception. Everett McGill and Wendy Robie are perfectly creepy as the “Mom” and “Dad” characters, and fans of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks will recognize them as Big Ed and Nadine Hurley. Essentially they play broader versions of the creeps that they portrayed in Lynch’s series, but by the time McGill’s “Dad” is dressed like the gimp while chasing the boy around the house, he loses any real ability to be scary. Instead the two antagonists devolve over the film to become cartoonish caricatures, and it’s too bad. If the film had taken a darker bent then the two of them would have made excellent baddies.

There are a couple of parts of the film that I did really like. Seventeen year old A.J. Langer may have been way too old to be playing “Mom” and “Dad”’s captive 12 year old daughter Alice, but along with Brandon Quentin Adams she turned in a fine performance. On an interesting side note, Langer grew up and married a British Lord which is a hell of a long way from her supporting role in Craven’s flick.

The other thing I really liked in the film were all the scenes featuring the titular People, a group of kidnapped boys kept in the basement. With one exception, you don’t get a good look at any of them until the end of the film, and it makes them a eerie presence throughout. The one you do get to meet, Roach, is played by Sean Whalen, and his is probably the most memorable character in the film. His tongue having been cut out by “Mom” and “Dad” he has escaped into the walls where he has developed a friendship with Alice. I really liked the exuberant insanity he brought to the screen like he was a maniacal member of Peter Pan’s lost boys. Whalen is still at work today and has appeared in Charlie’s Angels (2000), The Hebrew Hammer (2003), and Employee of the Month (2006).

The People Under the Stairs does feature some really well constructed shots, and it is some of the best film making that Craven has displayed since the original Nightmare. Cinematographer Sandi Sissel had a background in documentary film, and I think it really shows. The opening images of “Fool”’s home are strikingly filmed, and the adventures he has in the walls of the house look great. I love the way the light is captured coming through cracks, and sometimes bullet holes, in the walls. Again, I have to go back to my wish that the film had been given a darker tone. I don’t think a thing would have had to be done to the camera work as it is noticeably more moody than the tone of the film.

I don’t have that much else to say about the film except that is was quite a disappointment. This is one some friends of mine had hyped up as being very good, but I was just let down. It really seemed like Craven wanted to make a kids horror film, but he made it for a mature audience. While I am no big fan of remakes, I would love to see this one redone with more emphasis on the darker side of the story.

Bugg Rating

Whatcha Craven?: The Serpent and The Rainbow (1988)

There are certain things that you could not pay me enough money to mess with. Gypsies, Ventriloquist Dummies, and Hairless Cats spring to mind, but there is one thing that looms larger above all of these, Voodoo. The rituals, the chanting, the trances, it all freaks me out. As a fervent non-believer of practically everything, it may seem kind of strange that a religion would freak me out so much, but it’s movies like tonight’s film (and the book it was based on) that convinced me that it was not to be trifled with.

The Serpent and The Rainbow (1988) recounts Dennis Alan’s (Bill Pullman) investigation into the secrets of Haitian voodoo. He has been sent there by a major American drug manufacturer who is interested in the process of zombification, and Dennis soon finds himself embroiled in a world that he can barely understand or explain. As he goes in pursuit of the powder used to make zombies, each layer he peels back finds him deeper and deeper until he finds himself six feet deep and still alive.

When Wes Craven set out to make this film, he was in the middle of a creative drought. The success of 1984’s Nightmare on Elm Street had translated to big box office, but not to better films. The 1985 made for TV film Chiller and the lackluster sequel to The Hills Have Eyes had failed to impress audiences. Wes then moved on to the film Deadly Friend which is about as divisive as they come. It’s been many years since I’ve seen it, but I remember the film fondly although it was not without a certain clunkyness.

Based on Wade Davis’ book about his experiences in Haiti, The Serpent and the Rainbow was the film that reinvigorated Craven and began a new era of his creativity. The film was perfectly suited for Craven’s voice. It contained elements of the supernatural invading everyday life. I think it is no coincidence that the Haitian revolution plays a part in the film. Putting this everyday struggle in the background of this heavily supernatural film gives the setting a very real feeling, and it makes the events that unfold before out eyes sparkle with veracity. One of Craven’s greatest strengths in his films has always been to bring the plausible into situations no one could believe. This is why the first Nightmare on Elm Street will always be the best, and why The Serpent and the Rainbow is such a chilling film.

While the story is plenty freaky enough on its own, the effects shots that Craven captured were what really sold the film. The evil voodoo priest Dargent Peytraud (Zakes Mokae) can enter and affect the dream world, and being no stranger to baddies in your nightmares, Craven handles these sequences effortlessly. As Pullman’s investigator is drawn into the Voodoo priest’s world, he confronts actual zombies, skeletal brides, and being trapped in a coffin filling with blood. Each of these scenes unfolds expertly, and as they get progressively worse, the nightmarish visions intersect with the real world in the end sequences.

If there is a weakness to the film, it does come from lead actor Bill Pullman. Pullman, who is probably most known as the President in Independence Day, has never been one of my favorite actors (although I do make an exception for Spaceballs). I can’t quite put my finger on what I feel is wrong with his performance, but it often seems like he’s holding back when the film is not calling for him to summon terror to his visage. I will have to give it up for him in those scenes. Whether he’s about to be buried alive or have a nail put through his scrotum, Pullman can look plenty scared.

There are a couple very fine performances in the film. Paul Winfield (Trouble Man, Star Trek: The Wrath of Kahn, Damnation Alley) turns in a heck of a performance as the good voodoo priest Lucien Celine while Zakes Mokae (Dust Devil, Cry Freedom, Outbreak) is terrifying as Celine’s nemesis. However, if I were going to name one actor who really impressed me it would be Brent Jennings as Louis Mozart, the man with the zombie powder. Jennings made appearances in Witness (1985) and Alone in the Dark (1982) before going into a career of small roles in television. As Louis Mozart, he is Dennis Alan’s key to the secrets, and he gives an inspired wide-eyed performance that will stick in my memory long after the freaky effects are forgotten.

When Wade Davis, the author of the book The Serpent and The Rainbow, saw Wes Craven’s picture, he deemed it the “one of the worst Hollywood movies in history.” It sounds very much like sour grapes from a man whose work had been primarily discredited. I read the book some years back and found it very thrilling and interesting, but it did not contain some of the broader scenes that Craven envisioned. There’s nothing wrong with Hollywood taking a little license to make the film more exciting, but there is something wrong Davis taking the facts a little liberally to begin with. The “zombie powder” he brought back with him has been disputed among researchers for years, and many believe that Davis sensationalized the affair to move copies of his tome.

Whatever the truth may be, it holds little sway over the quality of film delivered by Wes Craven. I have known very few people I could mention this film to without them commenting on how it had scared them. I can’t say that I blame them. Very few things give me the creeps, but this convincing tale of actual zombies does the trick every time. If this one has passed you by, then by all means check it out, and I’ll see you back next week with the next Craven film, a personal favorite of mine that doesn’t get near the attention it deserves.

Bugg Rating

B.L.O.G Presents Entrapment (1999) and The Catherine Zeta-Jones Effect

Ahh, 1999, that was a good year. Well, if you enjoyed the Y2K panic, the premier of Spongebob, or were like, hell yeah, what the world needs is The Euro, then you probably were taking the Purple One’s advice and partying like it was 1999. There’s one specific reason that I remember the last year of the century fondly. It was the last year that Catherine Zeta-Jones was hot.

There are many scientific theories about how life, the universe, and everything happens. I am not a scientist, but in my spare time, as a hobby, I have come up with one universal theorem, and that is the Catherine Zeta-Jones Effect. In 1999, Me and Ms. Zeta-Jones had a thing going on, The Phantom, The Mask of Zorro, count me in. Then came along Entrapment with Zeta Jones’ erotic dance through laser beams (more on that later), plus Sean Connery and Ving Rhames, and director Jon Arniel following up a film I really liked, The Man Who Knew Too Little.

Sean plays an art thief named Mack, and Zeta-Jones as Virginia Baker, an agent dispatched from an insurance company to bring him down. She forms a partnership with him to steal an ancient Chinese mask, and the two embark on a rigorous regimen of training for the job. Mack soon finds out that Virginia might not be what she seems, but when she tempts him with a job worth eight billion dollars, he agrees to pull the job with her. It all ends up in a series of double and triple crosses where allegiances switch at the drop of a hat.

Connery only had two more films in him, and unfortunately, they were Finding Forrester (“You’re the man now, dog!”) and Allan Moore’s favorite film The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Sean sleepwalks his way through Entrapment, and Mack never rises above the printed page to be any kind of engaging character. His worst scenes by far are the ones he shares with Ving Rhames, Mack’s underworld contact. At least Zeta-Jones and Connery have some sort of chemistry because when Rhames and Connery take the screen it’s like these two have never met. Rhames is playing the same cool tough guy he played in pretty much every film post- Pulp Fiction while the former Bond looks as if he’s pondering how he would rather still be making Zardoz.

Then there’s Catherine. While her acting is not the best I’ve seen from her, she does seem to be trying which is more than I can say of her esteemed cast mate. I have to admit fully this film is mediocre at best, and my love of this flick comes from how beautiful Zeta-Jones looks in nearly every single frame of this film. As good as she looks while thieving, going to fancy parties or just waiting for Connery to wade through his lines, there is not a better sight than Catherine Zeta-Jones in a skintight sweats weaving her way through a series of practice laser beams. Okay, in fairness, there are probably better things, but when I was twenty-three, yeah, let’s just say the scene spoke to me and leave it at that.

There’s not much else to say about this flick. It should have been much better than it was. It never manages to ramp up any kind of excitement, suspense, or thrills. Jon Amiel doesn’t make great films. Sure, The Man Who Knew Too Little and Entrapment were entertaining, but one film does make up for Copycat (1995), Somersby (1993), or The Core (2003). So by this point in the review you might be wondering why in the hell I would:

A) Bother to review this

B) Admit to watching it more than 10 times or

C) Think anyone might still be reading at this point.

All good questions, but good things come to those who wait. Thankfully, the wait is over. I want to share with you folks what The Catherine Zeta-Jones effect is all about. Here’s a picture of Catherine in 1999 looking totally hot.

Ok, now here’s a picture of her in 2001.

See the difference? No? Then let me explain. The Catherine Zeta-Jones Effect is very simple. A famous woman who a guy has a crush on is only as hot as the guy she is currently dating or married to. In 1999, Catherine was smoking hot, and sure, she had dated some questionable men, producer Jon Peters being chief among them, but then she went and filmed Traffic (2000) and met and fell for Michael Douglas. Now I have nothing against Mike personally. I like many of his films and his dad was quite the asskicker, but after she married him, I noticed a change. There just wasn’t the same sparkle in her eyes anymore. Me and Mrs. Zeta-Jones Douglas, we no longer had a thing going on.

I began to notice that the CZJE (Catherine Zeta-Jones Effect for those not keeping up) was not limited to just that one occurrence though. It happened all the time. I used to love me some Sandra Bullock, but then she got with Jesse James of Monster Garage fame. There are even some that hurt me deeply. Drew Barrymore is a longtime crush, but really, the dude that’s an Apple? The CZJE strikes again.

In the most complex of the theorem’s equations has to involve Jennifer Anniston and Brad Pitt. I was always a bigger fan of Courtney Cox than Anniston, but when the two of them got together, she was under the effect of the reverse Catherine Zeta-Jones Effect, being with Brad Pitt made her hotter somehow. Then after the breakup both of them suffered the regular CZJE with Pitt shacking up with serial adopter Angelina Jolie and Anniston finding solace with John Mayer. Thankfully the rumor has it that Jen had taken up with Midnight Meat Train’s Bradly Cooper so there’s hope for her yet.

By this time if you’re still with me, then you think this is one of the more amusing things you’ve read in a while or you think I have serious issues. Either way is fine, and both are probably equally true. There are just some movies that become moments in time, and for me Entrapment is one of them. It was the last time in my life I could just look at Ms. Zeta- Jones without a leering Gordon Gekko entering my brain as well. The movie is pretty much crap, but the innocent time before I discovered The Catherine Zeta-Jones effect is what will always bring me back to this film.

Bugg Rating