The Theatre Bizarre (2011) Horror Anthology

The Theatre Bizarre (2011) - Anthologies have been really making a comeback the last few years. The VHS films and the ABCs of Death are a couple more successful entries. The Theater Bizarre with some wonderfully strange stories, more of a weird tales than hard horror is the latest to be reviewed here. Search anthology on the site for more reviews. This one starts a fever dream of an artist, Enola Penny (Virginia Newcomb) obsessed with the old theater across the street from her. Seeming emotionally unstable and frigidity she is drawn from her apartment into the theater. A scattering of mannequins occupy seats in the audience. Her presence raises a puppet like master of ceremonies, Peg Poett (Udo Kier) who reveals some other mechanized puppet that leads into each of the stories of this anthology. The trick of the interwoven piece is as each time the master of ceremonies returns he is a bit more human. Enola at the end becomes one of the puppets deposited onstage to become part of the play for the next person drawn to the Theatre Bizarre. It was written by Zach Chassler and directed by Jeremy Kasten. There was a depth of clarity missing in this piece where it did not have meaning in a way that the viewer could see it as one of the parts of the whole. Sure it connected the stories giving a familiar place to come back to and a way into the next. It was not strong enough though to stand on its own. It's meaning not communicated strongly enough leaving it just a device and not a self supporting piece of the film. It did have the wonderful treat of having the renown actor Udo Kier, a veteran of genre film, extraordinary performer he brings an expertise that raises the piece and at 70 years old commands a frame better than most actors.
The first is Mother of Toads about an anthropologist Martin (Shane Woodward) and his girlfriend, Karina (Victoria Maurette) who come across an old star symbol at a market in an old French village . The Store keeper, Mere (Catriona MacColl) talks of it being part of her family traditions for generations. She invites him (a fact not lost on his girlfriend) to come to the french countryside to see a copy of the Necronomicon.  As someone who studies such things Martin starts fitting the trip into their schedule right away without really consulting  but more explaining how its going to happen. There is some nice simple character dialog in this piece that defines the characters and brings the viewer right into their situation. He obviously has been here for a longer time than she and his condescending attitude quickly brings up the cracks in their relationship. She arrives to join him, a vacation for her and he has his interests forefront in his mind paying less attention to her than he should. Slightly obsessed with the symbols on a marker near the road, that he sees as signs, the boundary between the real world and the spirit world. We are having him cross a boundary, it may not be completely clear to the audience as this transition is subtle and it is certainly not clear to Karina who just wants to get to the spa but there is a symbolic change.
  Martin arrives at the house of Mere and fails to notice the symbols on the floor below the table she sits him at. We begin to learn that she is a witch and follower of the Mother of Toads and through mostly musical queues we see that her intentions for him go beyond sharing her beliefs. It is a classic motif of a witch seducing a traveler on the road and is done with atmosphere and style by director Richard Stanley. Mere is played with, possibly overplayed by MacColl yet another veteran actor who known for some favorites from the seventies, The Beyond, House by the Cemetery and City of the Living Dead. Stanley also holds a place in genre hearts with his wonderful, Dust Devil, as well as directing the less acclaimed The Island of Dr. Moreau and Hardware. He pulls no punches with this story and it is appreciated.
 Seduced and condemned the couple could have been part of an elaborate fever dream but instead we get some harsh reality. Karina coming back to pick up her missing boyfriend discovers the drugged and in the throws of some slimy lust making with a younger more fuck-able version of  Mere. She runs off into the now toad filled countryside to meet her doom. He wakes staring at an old photo that could be him.It's some old magic that enchanted him. A creature with the desire for a former lover a role that he easily filled.  The Mother of Toads has found the love of her past in the present and his inevitable rejection of her will also mean he is short for this world. There are some excellent visuals at this point in the movie. Groggy Martin wakes and the first indication we the audience get that things are awry is the clawed amphibian are draped over the man. Then as he gets up we get the full view of the toad creature sleeping next to him, our view from above.
  A dark tale warning that one should never reject a god. Mere certainly gives Martin the chance to save himself. She offers him more of the wonders of a goddess if only he will stay and be hers. His rejection seals his fate.
  The second tale, "I Love You" opens with a man Axel (André Hennicke) waking on a bathroom floor of his bathroom with a gash on his hand and wondering why his wife, Mo (Suzan Anbeh) is not home. An obsessive man with a drinking problem he is a man losing the woman he loves. He wants to know everything about her life at all times. She has decided that the overly attentive husband is not what she wants, but is is more than that. There is an intimacy problem that they have where he thinks sex is for him and fails to meet her needs. As we learn more we start to wonder about whether this is what it seems or some sort of hallucination the broken man is having. The story unfolds and we learn more and more about how broken their relationship has been. They have a conversation but the whole time you can think this is his subconscious working out the reasons why he has sunk so far. As the memories come to him now back in the aftermath on his bathroom floor we see that things are much worse than previously presented. It is an incredibly sad take on the dangers of  beautiful crazy love and how we create the reality we want when in its thrall. Written and directed by Buddy Giovinazzo.
  In "Wet Dreams" we meet a man Donnie (James Gill) driven by his desire but where his fantasies that become horrible nightmares. A wife Carla (Debbie Rochon) with emotional and physical scars theirs is a relationship on the rocks. Donnie's therapist Dr Maurey (Tom Savini) tries to help him get to the bottom of it but that role does not seem professional in his interactions with Donnie, maybe this is the first hint of the twisty twist of this segment. Whose dream is this anyway? Sometimes the penalty for our actions can't be dispelled by recognizing it is a nightmare. Making it hard to tell what is fantasy and what is reality is a problem for this segment. Maybe its the writing by John Esposito or maybe its the Directing by Savini or editing by Douglas Buck, or even this viewer may have been the issue but this segment was hard to define. Certainly it is a revenge tale but what part of it is real?
  "The Accident" is a meditation on death, framed in the eyes of a little girl who saw death on the side of the road. Traveling in her car a motorcycle hits a deer and is killed. The child trying to understand what she has seen asked her mother a bunch of question. She sees the suffering deer still alive and her mother calling the accident in. Cut with Mother (Lena Kleine) and Child (Melodie Simard) discussing the incident later. Touching but these type of stories have a hard to pull off. The child seems too smart in her dialog and the explanations too simple. It makes you wonder who the audience the piece is intended for. It is well done and a topic anyone with children will at some time have to breach. Not really fitting neatly with the other pieces in this film as it is far from the bizarre threshold the film name implies. Still writer director Douglas Buck makes a emotional short about the fragility of life.
  "Vision Stains" A strange but enjoyable story of a women gone mad with visions of other peoples memories. This young woman (Kaniehtiio Horn), a psychopath really learns that the key memories of a person's life are captured in the fluid of their eyes. When they die all those memories come to the forefront and can be extracted using a needle. So this young woman kills homeless women and using a needle extracts the memories from their eyes in what is wonderfully done special effects. She then injects this eye fluid in her own eye and relives the victims life memories. She records all she sees into journals and sees herself not as an addicted killer but as a recorder of those women's lives. Her commitment is important to her next idea where she steps even a step further than she has. Not ready to settle for live that have been lived she wants to see the memories of someone who has yet to see. Then things go horribly wrong. Writer / director Karim Hussain has statements in the climax about predestination and lack of original lives and stories was cynical, first in its assumption of even a distracted God but second in that knowing we are predestined seemed unbearable. A side note that there are several stories about people coming out of the theater during Visions Stains and fainting from the eye damage special effects.
The final story "Sweets" is a sad and sorry tale of a relationship at its end.Written and directed by David Gregory it is centered around the gluttony of sweets. We see a fat (ish) man, Greg (Guilford Adams) struggling to come to terms with his attractive girlfriend Estelle (Lindsay Goranson) as she dumps him. The Excellent straight faced liturgy of cliche excuses she runs though are a great counter to his overly emotional almost child like whining. The disgusting room filled with rotting sweets is the perfect metaphor for the  crumbling relationship. Then the mixed in scenes of them in happier times is a perfect counter of then and now. Then when the turn of the story come it is so wonderfully evil that it makes the whole story. The truly grisly scene is worth the wait.
  Overall this was an interesting anthology. Like every anthology the opportunity to have hits and misses is there. This one hits more than it misses. Strange is what it is about and it lives up tho its title of Bizarre. Recommended.

Machete (2010) - Revisited! Action

Machete (2010) - REVISITED! My original thoughts on Machete were blogged after seeing this film in the theater, and are pretty basic, I didn't want to give too much plot away. Now though I think it is time to revisit this film. Stop complaining you have had two years to see this film so while I am spoiling it, just sit there and shut up. If you want to stop reading right here and go see it that would save you knowing all the details. This film is a wild adventure of a man pushed from his life, who has lost everything he loved. He sees an injustice he can fixed, though doing it by agreeing to assassinate someone is a real jump out of being righteous. When his attempt is revealed to be a setup, he must run and survive until he can bring closure to the situation and his past pain. It is a revenge film that is over the top in violence, the bad characters are evil and ugly making Machete's action seem justified. With a strong political message it turned off many right leaning folks but hey, can't please everyone.
  The first thing that had to be done in this film is to establish the main character as one bad assed mother fucker and create the central struggle of the revenge part of the film. Machete (Danny Trejo) is a Mexican Federale and a damn good one. He and his partner drive towards the hideout of some kidnappers and discuss the wisdom of attempting a rescue.  The girl in the house was to be a witness in a case against Mob leader Rogelio Torrez (Steven Segal) and Machete's partner would prefer they did not go in. In fact a call from Machete's Chief (Alejandro Antonio) can not stop him. As he barrels into gunfire and then directly into the side of the building.  No less than three machine guns are blasting away in this first action and remarkably Machete is unscathed while his partner is riddled with bullets. This establishes the fantasy of the film, it is not a realistic walk through the life of a Federale but a hyper-violent hero story where if you are close to the main character your chances of survival are much less than his. At this point you can stop saying, "Oh that would not happen that way! Impossible!" No it is now establish that this is a fantasy story and all your notions of what could happen in reality should be put away
  Machete leaves the vehicle unharmed and begins his walk through the hideout looking for the girl and easily killing any gangster he comes in contact with. Humor is established by having Machete hack the hand of a gun toting thug and then using the gun hand still attached on the next gangster to enter the room. He then looks at the gun and his blade and tosses the gun away as the least effect weapon choice. He is the skilled warrior and like in so many samurai films of the seventies all who come against him perish quickly. The scene where men enter from three separate doorways to surround him only to have a spinning Machete behead them all takes his prowess to a new level.
  Furthering the fantasy elements of the film happens with the finding of the girl, Chica (Mayra Leal). She is sprawled nude on a bed, light dimming the room through the red curtains. Seventies porn music starts in what can only be seen as comical as the sultry vixen attempts to seduce her rescuer. Not only is he to be seen as a bad ass but as a figure of sexual desire. The contradiction between the hard rough looks of Trejo and the response of the beautiful naked girl creates an almost comical juxtaposition. She can't be on the level can she? When he picks her up and throws her over his shoulder his manhood is established completely. So when she double crosses him and stabs him with his own machete in the leg it turns back to the expected reaction to the man. Then, why this scene exists I can not explain, but the Chica pulls a phone from the only place a nude woman would hide it, and calls in Torrez. The sound effect for this was more than a little squirm inducing.
  All of the opening has been an elaborate setup by Torrez with the help of Machete's boss, the chief because Machete will not be bought out.  As he lays on the floor wincing from his leg wound Torrez and the Chief enter to confront the only straight cop left on the force. Offered one last chance Machete balks, and then the reason for revenge. Torrez brings out Machete's wife and beheads her, and then with all the menace that Segal with his horrible acting ability can muster asks Machete something to the effect of  'Is your little daughter at school? I don't think so."  Then he orders the place burned down with Machete in it. Segal probably the weakest link in this film is the baddest of bad guys. A drug dealing murderer who has no tolerance for not getting his way. Unfortunately or fortunately his character is barely developed into anything resembling real menace. He mostly is the  guy on the other end of the call as he works through his partners on the US side of the border and really in the end when he faces off with Machete it is a bit disappointing. Still though Machete seems doomed and has lost his family to this monster so lets reconvene three years later in Texas.
  Machete is working as a day laborer, hanging by the taco truck waiting for a pickup from a local business to come by and choose him for a day's work. How he survived is never explained but considering what an amazing bad ass he is, you could imagine a path of corpses in his wake. The film starts to establish some of the politics of the story. Luz (Michelle Rodriguez) not only sells food from her taco truck but is secretly head of a secret organization called the Network. A loose connection of illegal and legal immigrants who help immigrants cross the border, settle them and get them papers so they can work. Basically trying to do the service that the immigration service does for immigrants who are not from the south and Spanish speaking. She sees the world as exploitative of the illegals who gather for work, on one hand the Americans complain about the illegals but on the other they have no problem exploiting them for cheap labor. In fact many border businesses rely on the low cost of illegal immigration to maximize profit. In the reality of this movie the immigrant is both disdained and desired. Luz is particularly worried about militant terrorist groups that have sprung up to self patrol the border to stop illegal immigration. They are violent and not being controlled by the government. What are they spending their time doing? Well apparently trying to uncover the Network. We join immigration agent Sartana (Jessica Alba) in her car as she watches and makes notes about Luz and her suspicions about the Network. She is the contrast to Luz, a Latina trying to stop illegal immigration of her own people. Alba was not the best fit for the role either, too damn beautiful for my male mind to buy as a tough cop, she does not pull off hard ass well enough to make the role a winner.
  We then get to see the bad guys with a scene on the border following a group of illegals. The scene opens at night on the border. A group of illegals are making their way into the country when they are surprised by the lights of a vehicle. They are stopped by a border vigilante group lead by Von (Don Johnson) and including Senator John McLaughlin (Robert De Niro). Wounding a child and having his pregnant Mother in his sights Von gives his speech about his motives, "I know anybody born here is a citizen just like you and me. I know people will call us vigilantes when its just about vigilance. Somebody has got to keep watch on this great nation of ours, otherwise Texas will become Mexico again..." He then shoots dead the pregnant woman. The response to this comes from State Senator who agrees and kills the kid. The way over the top portrayal is further evidence that the film is intended as a hyper violent fantasy. The vigilantes are the lowest of beings, arrogant in the accident of birth into this country, lacking morals, decency and being the perfect villains for Machete.
  To further the audiences understanding of how bad the State Senator is we see one of his campaign ad. In it he refers to illegal immigrants as parasite, who are sickening the country, leaching off our system and killing the country from the inside. He calls for an electric fence covering the entire border and no amnesty. Considering that, in real life, there are active border patrols by citizens who believe their policy for the border should supersede the government. That they are actively trying to get a wall and no amnesty for illegals, you can understand that having their ideas co opted by these particularly murderous bad guys can be upsetting to them.  They do not see themselves as the same as these characters and probably did not get that this is a fiction where the bad guys are exaggerations in order to build empathy for the main character and his cause.
  There are two main plots that develop in the film. The first is a man on the run story featuring Machete and the second is a subplot where the Network and the vigilantes are moving towards a war. Machete is recruited by McLaughlin's assistant Michael Booth (Jeff Fahey) to kill the Senator, or at least that is what he tells Machete. In reality he wants to set him up as the fall guy in a plot that includes wounding McLaughlin so he can get sympathy and also so he can establish that the illegals are dangerous. All this to further his anti immigrant agenda, but Booth had no idea who he was hiring and it is only through his conversations with Torrez that he realizes he picked a dangerous man. When Machete escapes the setup he is on the run, a wanted man but one who can fight back.

  This first plot follows a easy to follow path, Machete has close calls but through violence and help from the Network and later Sartana and Luz he escapes those hunting for his again and again. All the while figuring out what is going on and how he can counter it to clear his name. The bad guys have a story arc where they start to find out who they are dealing with and then start to turn on each other as the chances of there scheme gets closer to becoming public. We see that Booth and McLaughlin are in with Torrez and that this will bring the mob leader into the states to face off with our hero.
  There are some memorable scenes between the start of the chase and the final battle between the Network and Von's group. Machete wounded is brought to a Network hospital, as Booth's henchmen close in we here the doctors verbose explanation about the length of the human intestine, only to have the main character use one as a rope as he dives from a window to avoid death. Hilarious!

• There is also a corkscrew kill that is something else. 
• A reference to "Cheech and Chong" when Machete visits his brother a priest (Cheech Marin) and makes reference to cigars, as Cubans and then Mexican where he shows large joints like in his old comedy bits.
• In the final battle the  hopping suspension on the low rider that hops up and comes down on a vigilante's head. Wow!
• Lindsay Lohan in a nun outfit delivering a kill line.
• The twins from Grindhouse as nurses in the network arriving at the final battle with uzis.
• Torrez's silly unnecessary death speech.

  Even less believable is that both Luz and Sartana at times are attracted to Machete, Luz after saving him from Booth's men and then later Sartana shows interest also. I guess we are supposed to suspend disbelief in the movie since Machete is such a bad ass but damn he is not an attractive man. I don't care how much machismo you have there has got to be a believability line here somewhere.

  To push the envelope even further Machete gets to Booth's house and finds his wife June (Alicia Rachel Marek) and daughter April (Lindsay Lohan) skinny dipping in the pool. When the seventies porn music queues we see Machete join them in the pool and while filming the whole thing to leave as a message for Booth again he is the masculine lover. At the same time he finds all the video evidence he needs to take down McLaughlin and Booth. Included in this is the video tape of the Senator shooting the immigrant.
  In the end the first plot merges into the secondary story of Luz getting ready to do battle with Von and his vigilantes. Never well defined the Von threat is really not that great but it allows the writers to make statements about immigration policy through the characters. Alba gets to come around to seeing it through the eyes of Luz and actually has the wonderfully ridiculous line "We didn't cross the border, the border crossed us." ridiculous in delivery not in sentiment.
  Machete who ends up with the Network brings them to Von's hideout in a low rider parade that is absolutely outrageous. Stereotype and parody it is a sight to behold. See when people are getting upset about the film you have to know this is a fantasy through and through. It is a wild ride that takes things to the extreme and really all you can say to them is fucking lighten up. In the end the Good guys win, Luz and the Network defeat the evil vigilantes, Machete gets his revenge on Torrez, Sartana comes to see the light and becomes part of the network, Booth and McLaughlin meet their ends as it seems they deserve. Mc Laughlin in particular gets an ironic end that has to be seen.
  Machete Kill the sequel is do out next year and I am sure will go even further. The cast including Charlie Sheen Amber Heard, Mel Gibson, Venessa Hudgens, Sofia Vergara, Edward James Olmos, Cuba Gooding Jr, and Lady Gaga looks to be pushing the envelope even further. So I can't wait for that. Now for rating the film.... I really liked the movie and enjoyed it through and through. Still on a second viewing some of the acting was not as good as I remembered although Jeff Fahey was just great. So I think my grade comes down a bit to a more reasonable number for this hyper violent fantasy romp.
Rating (7.6) 5.0 and up are recommended, some films just more recommended than others.

Maniac (1980) - horror psycho

Manaic (1980) - This review is part of the Final Girl Movie Club, the talented and entertaining Final girl Stacie Ponder continues to thrill her fans with her comic RPG. Check her out at her website Final Girl. Maniac was made the same year as Friday the 13th but it is quite a different movie. Friday the 13th released in over 1000 theaters with a surprisingly large advertising budget, while Maniac struggled without the push. It was made for $350,000 and took in a total of six million. Sure both killers seek out and murder all based from a past trauma but they are far from the same kind of movie. F13th would go on to create a modern day classic monster in Jason Voorhees while Frank Zito (Joe Spinell) would not be heard of again. Both films have special effects by Tom Savini but Maniac for all its faults have far superior gore.
  The best piece being Tom Savini blowing his own head to pieces. It is surprising that this film is getting a remake this year starring Elijah Wood. This is a film on the dark side of the slasher film. Instead of any mystery at all we follow a killer and learn in excruciating detail the trauma that has set the crazy to murdering. We watch his crazy habits and slowly the reveal is what his Mother did to him that made him so nuts.
  We start right away in this film with a killing, two lovers are having a fire on the beach and when the man in the couple heads out to collect more firewood the Killer's POV shows the killer moving in on the woman. He slits her throat with a straight edge and then waits in hiding to come up behind the man and strangles him with a wire. Then our killer wakes from a nightmare and the film credits start.
  Frank Zito is a disturbed man, scarred from a child hood of abused  he lives the life of a maniac. Compelled to keep his prostitute mother with him forever he is constantly seeking her out in the female victims he kills. Then he in his whacked out thinking takes their scalps and nails them onto the heads of mannequins that he sleeps next to.
  Early on we are forced to watch him kill a prostitute after an inability to get through the act of fornication. Really what the film is doing is slowly showing Frank's sickness and violent behavior while also giving more and more information about how he became so damaged. After the killing we get to see Frank struggle and cry, really trying to get us to sympathize with him, but then the film shows him as he cuts the scalp from the prostitute and any sympathy gained is lost.
  We get this for the entire movie, moments of Frank in anguish and then him doing some base behavior that reminds us there is nothing redeemable in this character. So instead of continuing on droning about his kills let me just say the special effects are exceptional. From the multiple slice scenes to the over the top and wonderfully done shot gun to Tom Savini's head, there is great gore for those who like that sort of thing.
  You think things are going to change when he meets photographer Anna ( the lovely Caroline Munro) who for some inexplicable reason is attracted to this fat awkward and ugly man.He stalks her a bit but is charming enough to get her to go out on several dates with him. I suppose the audience is supposed to think that he may be the beast changed by the introduction of his beauty. You just can't with this film though, Frank is completely unlikable and you know there is not a bit of sane in his crazy head. Hell the internal dialog we are forced to hear throughout the film is compelling in letting the viewer know he will never recover from his sickness.
  When Frank stalks and kidnaps one of Anna's models, Rita (porn star Abigail Clayton) we are forced to get the reliving Frank does of his relationship with his mother before seeing his victims as her and killing them so he can keep them forever. There is a progression here with Frank going further in each of his kills. So it is just a matter of time before he snaps completely and makes the mistake that gets him caught or killed. So will Anna be a victim? It is really the only compelling question in the film.
  I have to say I so dislike Frank that this movie was just painful to watch. I so did not care one way or the other about his condition. I just wanted the gross film to end. When all is said and done a crazy killer is just that, I really don't want to care for him.
Rating (3.5) 5.0 and up are recommended, but some more recommended than others.