Splice isn’t what you think it is

Behold: the birth of a human-designed creature! It’s the second of its kind—a gross, slimy monstrosity about the size of a football. The scientists responsible, who happen to be dating, are Elsa and Clive (Sarah Polly and Adrien Brody). They drive a Gremlin. They eat pizza at work (because movie scientists always eat pizza). They think their designer creature is cute. And this will become relevant later on: Clive wants kids while Elsa doesn’t mind waiting.

The scientists are on the cusp of curing all the bad things that tend to happen to the human body. Naturally, bureaucrats conspire to take the project away. The scientists’ lofty goals simply aren’t profitable to the company’s investors. Polly pushes forward with the research anyway. It results in something that resembles a human fetus outside the womb. Now they’ve got something on their hands that was highly unethical to make in the first place. Getting rid of it is even more so.

The scientists attempt to keep the creature a secret, but this causes one complication after another. And if you’re anything like me, you’ll be waiting for the routine horror stuff to begin any second. Thankfully, the movie doesn’t become routine until the last seven minutes or so. By then, it’s earned it. Its horror is bizarre, cerebral, and wonderfully gross a lá David Cronenberg’s The Fly. The “monster” (and I’m really trying not to give too much away here) has more in common with Frankenstein’s than you might suspect.

So do you like body horror? This picture’s got it. You like dance scenes? There’s a pretty unique one, I guess you could say. You like movies that really aren’t for the faint of heart? Then step right up. Sure, sometimes you kinda know where it’s going, but that’s part of the fun: watching characters on a slow motion collision course with outcomes that could have been easily avoided earlier, but can’t be avoided now.

Event Horizon doesn’t affect the outside observer

When Sam Neill attempts to explain black holes to his crew members, they roll their eyes. One says, “Singularities? Speak English!” I can’t imagine a depressing future in which people who live in space are lost at the mere mention of singularities, but Paul W.S. Anderson apparently can. He’s the guy who made Mortal Kombat, Resident Evil, and Alien Versus Predator. He’s got as much taste as a toenail.

The Event Horizon, an interstellar ship with an experimental gravity drive, has vanished. Seven years later, it mysteriously reappears, orbiting Neptune. A second ship is sent to investigate. Sam Neill is the scientist who designed the Event Horizon, Laurence Fishburne is the captain, and Kathleen Quinlan looks great in a tank top. Due to unforeseen circumstances, the rescue vessel is damaged and the crew have to swap ships. Unfortunately, the Event Horizon begins to make the characters hallucinate. We’ll soon find out it’s been places it shouldn’t have been and brought something sinister back with it.

It’s fair to compare Event Horizon to Alien, even though that’s like comparing restroom graffiti to Picasso. On second thought, it’s actually among the better Alien rip-offs (and some of the official sequels, to be honest), because instead of yet another alien running around, it at least tries to do something different with the supernatural angle. I often see Event Horizon regarded with reverence in movie forums, and I certainly see why others love it, but I just wish it were a little more fun.

To be clear, it’s okay for horror films not to be fun, but those need to be exceptionally good in other ways. Event Horizon is not exceptionally good in any way. It’s not just joyless, it’s pointlessly joyless, partially because the director has the emotional complexity of a housefly. Compare it to another Sam Neill horror movie, one that’s also as serious as a heart attack: Possession. That’s a movie that actually has something to say and it’s even more unsettling than this one.

I’ll be the first to admit Event Horizon isn’t without merits. The set designs look fantastic, though there’s no logical reason for the maintenance lighting to turn eerie colors or for there to be a hundred headlights all over the wormhole generator. The CGI is terrible, but the rest of the special effects are top notch. I’ve heard tale that there’s a more graphic cut somewhere in the studio’s vault. I have the sneaking suspicion that’s a better film than this, the watered down theatrical version. I would be extremely interested to see it some day.

As is, Event Horizon just isn’t my cup of tea. Almost, but not quite.

I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream: The Game (1996)

I miss The Sci-Fi Channel in the early nineties. It was weird and kooky, a far cry from the tamed content that occupies its programing today. The scrappy little station introduced me to Harlan Ellison when I was like ten or eleven years old. In those early days, Ellison had been hired as the channel’s version of Andy Rooney; his brief but audacious opinion pieces provided filler, often necessary as the oddball programming rarely conformed to 30-minute slots. The incredibly egotistical Ellison never had anything to say that wasn’t a hot take, and although he was often abrasively wrong, he was almost always right.

I actually remember the first time I saw a magazine advertisement for the video game adaptation of Ellison’s I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream. I had a similar reaction when I first heard the term “cyberpunk:” I didn’t know what it was at the time, but I instantly knew that I liked it. I am now thirty years old and I Have No Mouth is still on my short list of favorite stories of all time. It’s very much required reading before playing the game (and, luckily, it’s not hard to find on the internet in its entirety).

Ellison himself voices AM, the supercomputer which ultimately exterminates humankind, saving only a handful of humans it immortalizes for the purpose of torturing forever. In one interview for the game, Ellison insists AM is not evil, but an amplification of human nature itself. After all, humans are AM’s creator. It was our own shortcomings and self-hatred that ultimately took root and spun out of control in its circuitry.

The game deviates from the source material with Ellison’s input. Ellison initially told the lead designer he wanted a game you cannot possibly win, a game that taught you “that if you cannot win the game, at least you can lose better.” The designer pushed back, tampering Ellison’s famous disdain for his fans. I have not seen any of the good endings, but how good can they be when, at the end of the day, the player-character still lives in a world in which a computer has, for all intents and purposes, made humans extinct?

It won’t be long until the player is confronted with a “motivator switch,” just to find its sinister purpose: the torturing of six caged animals. The player-character reacts appropriately with shock, but it’s something you must do in order to progress. It’s grim choices like these that makes the game as uncomfortable as it is fun (Ellison said he wanted a game that “taught ethics”). Like a lot of games of this type, I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream requires some hit-and-miss puzzle-solving, but when you stumble onto a solution, you’ll often slap your forehead and say, “Of course!” It may seem silly removing the sheets from two bunks, but here’s a hint: they make a good rope.

The artwork and the music are fantastic. The voice work isn’t the best I’ve heard (Ellison really hams it up), but for some incredibly odd reason, it works.

Evil Dead 2013: Dead by Yawn

“It’s a few hours until dawn.”

“We’re not going to be alive to see it.”

When the credits rolled, many applauded. Teenagers were so engaged, I didn’t see a single phone screen light up. As I made my way out the doors, I overheard a much older woman tell a friend, “I didn’t care much for the gore, but I just loved the supernatural elements.” I don’t know if that says more about the movie or the changing times, but we’ve come a long ways since the original Evil Dead ended up on the infamous Video Nasties list. I felt somewhat baffled as I made my way out to the car. One thing kept repeating in my head: That’s it?

Look, I’m probably in the wrong here as this movie is doing gangbusters. Intellectually, I know Evil Dead 2013 isn’t a bad movie. It may be exemplary for the kind of horror we’ve been getting lately. The trailers played before the film can attest to the fact: Hollywood horror is in a dull, joyless rut at the moment. I always loved Evil Dead films (when I was a kid I went as Ash for Halloween two years in a row) so it’s disappointing to report I never felt moved—even as everyone around me reacted to the jump-scares. I think I would have enjoyed it much more if it weren’t an Evil Dead movie.

This time, most of the five characters who end up at the infamous cabin in the woods are cardboard cutouts. The main character, Mia (Jane Levy), is a heroin addict who’s trying to kick the habit through seclusion. As expected, an ancient tome is found, incantations are spoken, and an evil is unleashed via flying photography. Despite the great special effects (they promised no CGI, but I feel that’s not entirely true) I just don’t care when a character cuts her tongue in two or when someone dismembers a friend.

Chekhov’s Gun states: If a gun is shown in the first act, it must be fired by the end of the third. Here it’s a nailgun, an electric carving knife, and a cellar step that’s going to break exactly when we expect it to. I’m not giving anything away. You’ll see it coming from a mile away, too.

I feel like I just left a funeral. Bruce Campbell recently announced they’re making Army of Darkness 2, but I’ve heard that one so many times I won’t hold my breath. Their tentative plans to make an Evil Dead 2 in this universe and combine the subsequent sequel with Army of Darkness 3 (yes, part 3) isn’t clever, it’s confusing. And let’s face it: it’s not gonna happen, either.

I gotta admit, though: Mia picked a hell of a day to quit heroin.

Here’s a zombie pie fight GIF for you (Dawn of the Dead)

Our Hausu, in the middle of our street

Yesterday I was asked, “What’s the most absurd horror movie you’ve ever seen?” I was surprised how quickly the answer came to me. It was obviously Hausu.

Sure, there’s bound to be more absurd movies that I’ve either forgotten or haven’t seen. But when someone asks questions like that, the person isn’t asking for shitty recommendations. Hausu is as close as you can get to full blown insanity without sacrificing a cohesive and enjoyable experience. It’s fast, it’s funny, and it’s ridiculously out of its mind.

Hausu is among the best times I’ve ever had watching a movie. To this day, I still don’t know exactly what it’s about. To avoid confusing this masterpiece with the numerous other movies called House, I will refer to it as Hausu. Yes, I just called Hausu a masterpiece. It should appeal to anyone with a pulse.

I’d typically mention something about the plot by now. What’s the point? There’s a house. It’s haunted. There’s a cat. It’s crazy. Heads will fly. Literally.

‘Nuff said.

Nightbreed: The Cabal Cut

I haven’t seen Nightbreed in at least a decade, but I saw it a lot and I remember that sometimes I liked it, sometimes I didn’t. If there’s anything my multiple viewings had in common, it was this: the movie is confusing. Said one of my friends, “I love that movie, but it really doesn’t make any sense!”

There’s a reason the theatrical cut doesn’t make a lick of sense: the studio panicked when the film performed poorly for test audiences. The execs ordered several weeks of re-shoots and attempted to turn a monster movie into a slasher film (slashers were more commercial at the time) and predictably failed. Instead of releasing the film around Halloween of ’89, the studio moved it to February of the next year because nothing says “Valentine’s Day” like monster/slasher mayhem. Needless to say, the movie bombed.

I remember hearing rumors about missing footage some time ago. I didn’t think much of it—these things usually just get your hopes up. According to an excellent article in the latest issue of Rue Morgue, however, the footage hasn’t just been found, there’s a new cut of the film. That’s the good news… the bad news is this long lost footage was found on VHS dubs of the master. The current state of The Cabal Cut (Cabal being the name of Barker’s original novella) is a patchwork of VHS scenes and DVD footage. Despite the alternating quality, the screenings of the project are reportedly doing well.

Apparently the studio is taking notice. These kind of movies typically perform much better years after they find their cult following. According to Clive Barker and the other guys involved with The Cabal Cut, Morgan Creek Productions gave them permission to screen the film as a way to gauge interest. So one day there could very well be an official version of The Cabal Cut, but I won’t hold my breath.

Spoiler: John Dies at the End

John Dies at the End is now available on VOD about a month before it releases in theaters. Pointing out the flaws in a movie like this is like refusing to go to bed with Marilyn Monroe because she has a mole. All genre classics are flawed, from Escape to New York to Evil Dead 2. Given enough time, these movies’ flaws become so endearing that drunken frat boys excitedly point the flaws out at movie parties. I suspect John Dies at the End may have launched itself on a similar trajectory, though David Wong’s serialized novel-thing somehow has better comedic timing. Questionable CGI aside, this movie’s a fine crowd-pleaser.

Don Coscarelli was the director who broke into the movies when he made the ultra-low budget Phantasm, a horror film about a demonic undertaker whose bidding was done by inter-dimensional dwarfs and sentient spheres. For me, it’s not a very rewatchable movie, but I have a soft spot for its first sequel. Coscarelli also made Bubba Ho-Tep, which supposes the real Elvis Presley (Bruce Campbell) ended up in a nursing home through an unlikely series of events (it was an impersonator who died). Teaming up with Ossie Davis, playing an elderly black man who thinks he’s JFK, Elvis must go toe-to-toe with a mummy who’s eating the souls of the nursing home’s residents.

As he did with that film, Coscarelli once again adapts a bizarre story written by a little-known cult writer. John Dies at the End is somehow even harder to summarize than Bubba Ho-Tep—and apparently harder to film as significant sections of the source material are omitted. It’s about a couple of slackers who are addicted to a drug called Soy Sauce that makes them see things from another dimension. There’s an alien subplot, too, all of which unfolds in a confusing order of events, true to the source material. The movie also features Paul Giamatti, Clancy Brown, and Doug Jones, who you may not recognize without the monster makeup he wore in Hellboy and Pan’s Labyrinth.

Just watch the trailer. If that appeals to you, then watch the movie. I have to go now. My hot dog is ringing.