Alright folks, it's official... we have to keep our eyes open for BOONDOCK SAINTS. From the review given within this massive retelling of the German Fantasy-Film-Fest... well... It sounds like it rocks pretty hard. But I have to commend ol Fallen Angel for a job well done. Enjoy this massive look at a ton of genre films...
Hi! Fallen Angel reporting from Germany.
Same procedure as every year: Should I go on holiday to explore other countries or should I attend the annual Fantasy-Film-Fest ?
I think the answer is obvious.
After paying the 250 bucks four month ago I couldn't wait for the festival to start. Not a day on which I didn’t check the mail for the program and my festival-ticket. Not a day without checking the festival-homepage for news and - most important of all - the program-schedule. Then, some weeks ago, there it was. Rapidly my eyes searched for the part which says: 'Première from A-Z'. One mouseclick away from German fantasy heaven.
CLICK.
Scrolling down the frame, some movies I couldn't await to see were finally at close range:
BALLISTIC KISS ... BLAIR WITCH PROJECT ... DROP DEAD GORGEOUS ... EXISTENZ ... INTRUDER ... KUNOICHI, THE LADY NINJA ... RAVENOUS ... THE RING ... SEUL CONTRE TOUS (I stand alone) ... on and on and on ...
Plus STIR OF ECHOES on the opening night and THE BOONDOCK SAINTS (never heard of) on the closing night.
Plus a small Cronenberg retro including some of my all time favorites: RABID, SHIVERS/THE PARASITE MURDER, SCANNERS and VIDEODROME (oh Blondie...)
All in all there are about 50+ movies to be shown. The only let down is that there are two theatres, so there's always a parallel screening. I'm talking hard decision making here, folks...
Finally the 4th of August was there...
After getting my stuff together I'm heading to Cologne which is normally just an hour away from were I live - but I didn't think of traffic jams. Me the idiot! Add to that, that it is a sunny day with 95 deg Fahrenheit, the humidity is fuckin' high and I’m not much of a sun loving person (some would consider me a Goth with what I got a *slight* problem - but hey, most people can't live without categorizing):
I’M NOT YET IN A YAHOO MOOD.
I'm more than just a little pissed off and sweated to the bone when arriving at a friend of mine, who is gracious enough to tolerate me for the next week. (Thanx Steinwulf/Egger!). After a shower and a couple of smokes I'm in my car again and heading to the city center of Cologne. The sun's starting to go down but the temperature’s still too high and my clothes are again soaking wet when arriving at the festival cinema. It’s still a good hour to the first and only screening this evening, hence enough time to check for some people. There’s always a bunch of geeks who attend this festival every year and some of them I met on my first attendance in 1993. Since then the festival moved from a relatively small cinema to a bigger one, which offered with a small green and a fountain in front of it, to lay down and relax between screenings. Having finally found one of the organizers, the usual Q&A nailing starts: Should I see this or that movie ? Is Blair Witch really that good ? What about eXistenZ? What’s the Sneak Preview this Year? Will it even be Eyes Wide Shut? The list is endless.
8:15 PM: The doors open. Everybody rushes in.
Usually I like to sit in the middle of a cinema to get the best visual and audio experience I can get – but right now is a different story: This is a fuckin’ boiler room! Haven’t they ever heard of an invention called air condition? I decide to stay in the back where the seats are twice as big, and less people sit.
8:45 PM: There’s the welcome speech and the first sincere let down: KOMODO isn’t finished, so there won’t be a screening of it – Shit, this was the only animal-horror flick this year. I love animal horror. From FROGS to KINGDOM OF THE SPIDERS, from JAWS to PHASE IV. I love’em all. Then a short info about THE BOONDOCK SAINTS: Its a work in progress copy and the US released is scheduled for summer 2000 or so. That’s interesting. Last year there was PRINCESS MONONOKE which I haven’t heard of since then. Wasn’t it sold to Disney for a world wide release? I hope I’m wrong cause this would be a shame. They told us it wouldn’t be released prior summer 1999. And where is it? Anybody? Ahhh... (Annotation: Just read something a day ago on this side :) )
Speech is over. Sweat is drying. The lights go off... Two trailers: WING COMMANDER (uh..) and RAVENOUS. Especially the latter sucked. I really waited for this movie, never seen the trailer before – but this definitely sucked. If I would never had heard of this movie I have to be tortured and dragged by my fingernails to see it... mmmm...
One last thing before the reviews. I won’t make long ones especially not for those you already read zillions of reviews for or the ones most of you seen already. Also the mediocre ones won’t be discussed thoroughly. Well, the *really* good ones will – and of course the worst of them... Considering that I’m not a huge fan of spoilers I’ll try to avoid them gracefully.
On with the show:
Wednesday. Day one.
--- STIR OF ECHOES ---
Uh, not another haunted house movie. That was what I thought when reading the first tid-bits about it. Uh, Kevin Bacon – not exactly my favorite actor. Tom Witzky (Bacon) is a blue collar worker, married, one son. He lives in one of those neighborhoods, where everybody knows everybody and watches after them. In the opening sequence we see his boy turning to the camera, making that typical interested child face: “Does it hurt to be dead?”. Aha. Ok, this kid has supernatural visions - contrary to his father who doesn’t believe in anything – until at a neighborhood-party he’s hypnotized. Very inventive. From now on he also has visions, visions about a dead girl - and the story unfolds... As you might have guessed the story itself in not quite unique – to be honest, it is old fashioned. But don’t get me wrong here, folks: Apart from that, the film manages to tell this story in a thrilling way, not to dark, but gloomy at least. There are a good amount of cheap-thrills that don’t actually get you – but gives you this eerie kind of grin in your face, ‘cause you know, when you gonna show this to a friend who’s a bit weak of heart you might have a considerably funny evening :). The direction (David Koep) itself is good maybe even a bit more than that. As I said, some scenes are really very well done - I especially loved the colors and some of the cuts - and the fact that this is NOT a teen-filled-oh-so-cool-supernaturally-hip movie. Nice for the opening night – but not hilarious. Go, see it, if you don’t mind another haunted-house flick. Ah, and by the way, the story is based on a novel by Richard Matheson, who’s work includes the brilliant novel-turned-movie “Duel”.
Thursday. Day Two
Didn’t get much sleep last night and the weather hasn’t changed. Thank God the first movie today isn’t crowded. That’s a typical thing for those Scandinavian films although I don’t understand why. In the past years, a lot of my festival-favorites were from those countries. But let’s wait and see.
--- THE LAKE ---
Lisa (Regina Lund) travels from London to her small hometown in Sweden to arrange the funeral and the selling of her parent-home, after her father was pronounced dead following his disappearance some days before. But we know better. The opening scene reveals that he was killed. We know three men were involved, but not who did the actual killing. From the day of her arrival she senses that something isn’t right, and we see that almost all of the citizens are opposing her... The films starts promising but soon gets kind of boring and I early lost the interest in the story and the persons involved. Not the best start for a day.
--- TWO HANDS ---
‘Leatherstocking’ did a review a few days ago and that describes the film quite well. But I have to disagree with his opinion that it deserves a cult following. The movie is funny – but only partially. There are hilarious scenes, but these don’t make a good movie alone. The story really reminds one of LOCK STOCK... but this had a fairly good pace from start to end. TWO HANDS doesn’t manage that. The ‘between-parts’ are .. eh ... not so interesting, visually old fashioned and lame in my opinion. The acting is a completely different thing. Apart from the love interest who sucked (acting, perverts, acting!), they are really good. The lunatic killer (forgot his name) was the best of the bunch. Nuf said. A good film. No more no less. You disagree? Not my problem...
--- RAVENOUS ---
Finally one of the movies I’ve been waiting for. As said before the trailer pissed me off and I already buried my hope for an intelligent, fleshy, blood dripping guts’n’gore galore cannibal extravaganza. Good idea. It definitely came different than that. Considering that most of you people already seen it – if not you’re probably not even interested in it – I skip the content description and just tell you that I was impressed. The humor was dark, sometimes grim, the music was a blast and sometimes even reminded me of 2000 MANIACS. Wanna talk about the acting? Forget it. It’s perfect from beginning to end. Go, see this movie even - or better - especially if you thought it‘s a typical cannibal movie
– Repeat: Cannibal movies are dead, Cannibal movies are dead... The typical ones don’t exist any more. The good old Italian days are gone forever...
--- SCARFIES ---
Chose this one instead of WISHMASTER 2... Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the first one, but that’s enough. Tell me: How many good sequels to a horror movie exist except HELLBOUND: HELLRAISER II ? You got it. Well Scarfies. Lets do it quick and dirty. Five students find a house which seems to belong to nobody. They move in, discover A LOT of cannabis-plants in the cellar, sell it for 50.000, have some fun – ‘til the owner of the house and the dope shows up and they lock him in the cellar. A psychological-fight begins... Nice acting, a bit of SHALLOW GRAVE – that’s it. Well worth a look.
Friday. Day three.
No weather changes.
--- OFFICE KILLER ---
This one’s rather old. So a short one on this. Really loved it. Its dark, sometimes strange, its kind of subversive. Just my kind of movie. Loved Carol Cane in the leading role. Just saw her for the first time in JAWBREAKER a few days before and she always managed to bring a smile on my face when she was in a scene. See it if you like the atmosphere of old Abel Ferrara films.
--- DECADENCE ---
Wow, did this movie split up the scene! It’s a no-budget movie about some gay cannibals who live in the mountains of Switzerland and – well – kill and eat people. That’s surprising, he? Its not *that* bloody, but has some great gore-f/x. The acting is poor, the story even poorer, but funny. For example, they even decide to send the youngest of them to school(!) one day so that he can learn something. As you might have guessed he comes straight to the point and kills his teacher and the principal! As I said it’s no budget.
--- THE 13TH FLOOR ---
Technically well done, but in its entirety, it has many logical errors and doesn’t really tell anything new – but I was actually surprised that although R. Emmerich was involved, it wasn’t a total failure.
--- SHORT FILMS ---
Just giving you the titles. They are all worth taking a look at: BRUTALOS, DIRT, EXPLODIERT, EYE FOR AN EYE, FULL FEEDBACK, HAPPY DAYS, MORE, PSYCHO TOO, DER RABE(The raven), RUBEN, SANDLAND.
Saturday. Day four.
The weather is getting better. No more high temperatures.
--- INTRUDER ---
Wow. One of the best films I saw this year. I know its from 1997 but I haven’t seen it on video yet. It’s straight forward adult entertainment. Well entertainment doesn’t exactly fit. There are no laughs or giggles in this one. The tone is *very* dark. Won’t give away anything of the story. Go see it!!!
--- THE RING ---
As I said I waited for this one – and it was worth it. It’s about a ‘cursed’ video-tape - everybody who sees it dies a week later under unknown circumstances – their hearts just stop. Now it’s on to a young reporter to solve the mystery - of course she can’t resist watching it... The atmosphere is chilling in this big Japan blockbuster, especially all the scenes where the video-material is involved. Disturbing and sometimes even scary. The story has some elements of VIDEODROME and TESIS (I recommend this one if you haven’t already seen it!!!) by Spanish director Almènabar. Like INTRUDER this one isn’t funny at all – no teen-horror bullshit. It’s not violent or bloody, so you gore-hounds go back to your BRAINDEADs, STORY OF RICKYs, UNTOLD STORYs etc. – but it’s definitely unsettling. The score helps the atmosphere alot and the actors are believable. Specifically the – no I won’t tell you more. As we were told prior to the screening this movie was such a success in Japan, they already shot a (naturally) weaker sequel and – you guessed it – a TV-Series! Gosh. By the way: Can Anybody can give me (and others) a *good* explanation for the title? This needs elucidation.
--- SEUL CONTRE TOUS (I STAND ALONE) ---
Chose this one cause I saw TRANCE (THE ETERNAL) two days before the festival. Although I might be the only living person who enjoyed Michael Almereydas NADJA I thought this one was boring, badly acted, not interesting – why is Chris Walken playing in *every* fuckin’ movie he’s offered? Forget it! Now to the real thing. This movie is not for those looking for an entertaining evening. It’s as much entertaining as ONCE WERE WARRIORS or SCHINDLERS LIST. It’s excruciating and depressing, a real social drama. The story takes place in Paris: There’s a butcher who thinks his daughter was raped by one of his colleagues, so he takes revenge... After some years in prison he’s released, and tries to start a new life. You think he manages it? No comment. Apropos comment. In the whole movie there’re just a few dialogs, the rest is narrated as an inner monologue of the protagonist. And (hoping the English subtitles were correct, cause I don’t speak any French word) this monologue is a blast! It creeps right to your spinal cord – and tears it out. It’s aggressive, provoking, and absolutely not political-correct. This man is on a mission – and his mission is revenge. On the visual part it’s got more of a documentary than of a ‘normal’ story driven movie. There are a few *fast* camera moves accompanied by gun shot sounds. Simple but effective. The old rule still is THE rule! I don’t know if this movie is going to be released world wide, but if you can get your hands on it – take your chance to see a exceptionally impressive character study. As for myself – I was only happy that this wasn’t the last movie I saw this evening!
--- DROP DEAD GORGEOUS ---
I think most of you saw this one already. So just my comments. Liked it. The theatre was packed and we all had a good time. The crowd hardly ever stopped laughing. The only thing to criticize in my opinion is, that it is too long. It should have ended after the first beauty-contest. But hey – it still was funny after all.
Sunday. Day five.
Raining. Great!
Skipped TOTAL RECALL 2070.
--- BEOWULF ---
What a piece of crap. Where does it take place? WHEN does it take place? It looks kind of MAD MAX style, but classes below that. They got electronic machinery, but only torches? Bodybags with zippers? The list is endless. Lambert proves again that he’s a damn fine actor. Hehehe... He competes with German actor Goetz Otto in a I-can-make-less-different-faces-than-you-can-contest. This movie is really the worst of all worlds. Bad acting, bad music, stupid story, and on and on and on...
Skipped FEVER. Sorry Harry, but THE STORMRIDERS still rocks. As I was told they screened a completely different version than the one I watched on tape. But I don't know which one's better. Guess the one on tape, cause they said it's longer. Can't tell for sure.
--- SCHREI - DENN ICH WERDE DICH TOETEN (Scream - cause I’m going to kill you) ---
Huh yeah, a German SCREAM rip-off. I guess nobody will ever see it outside of Germany. But I had lot’s of fun with this movie. Can’t wait to see it on cable in November again. Some of you might know the director for his highly acclaimed LAURIN and one episode of LEXX – THE DARK ZONE: Giga Shadow.
--- RESURRECTION ---
Looks like SEVEN, sounds like SEVEN, but how does it compare? I have to admit that I was more entertained by this movie than by Seven. Now, before everybody starts to throw shit on me, let me explain why: I was really into the first half of SEVEN, but when they discovered the killer, the movie lost me. The way they did was so stupid, so illogic, so unbelievable impossible, arghh!! To be honest I was actually pissed off by the script. I hated it from that point on. I hated Fincher for doing this to me after a hilarious first half. I hated Brad Pitt – well actually I hated him before. RESURRECTION didn’t do that to me – so it has to be the better one, doesn’t it? Ok, Lambert is still not an A-class actor but he does a much better job than in BEOWULF. Uh, two Lambert movies on one day! The direction is ok - nothing more nothing less. And my god: Is this a bloody movie. In most of the graphic scenes (and trust me there are lots) the camera is on focus. Just one example: When Lambert finds one of the victims with his left leg sawn off, but still alive, we follow him as he rushes to the poor guy and tries to stop the blood-flow with just his hands! Boy, does this red stuff fly around! The script delivers nothing new (guess who participated in the writing... yes he did and you should have heard the audience grumbling when the opening credits rolled), but works for me. Its straight, very dark, totally uncompromising and kind of (anti-)religious (those themes nearly always get me). And of course there’s David Cronenberg – yes, the master himself – in a small cameo as... a priest!
Highly entertaining. Believe it or not.
Monday. Day six.
Forget about LIGHTHOUSE. Don’t ever see it if you don’t feel the urge to kill a director.
--- eXistenZ ---
Finally the movie I waited for the most. You geeks already seen it? No? Poor bastards! Its funny. Not in the usual creepy Cronenberg way – I really mean *funny*! But not dumb. It’s a blast. The acting? Incredible. The Story? Most people, that were disappointed, said it was just a Best-Of-Cronenberg-Mixture, but nothing new. It wasn’t suspenseful they said! Well, was CRASH? No. And was it a good movie? For sure. It wasn’t subversive! Has a Cronenberg movie to be? Can you blame a director to try something new? But is it really so different to all his other movies? I don’t think so. Its very well written, every line is just perfect. The settings are beautiful. Never seen so many organic things in a movie being cut, sliced and misused. Its not erotic visually, but the script fills the lacking pictures. And you gotta give Cronenberg credit for making a virtual-reality film with hardly *any* electronic gimmicks at all. Everything is organic, no computer generated effects (well in one scene there is, but it’s not that STAR WARS bullshit stuff). Its pure Cronenberg. Ok, the ending was kind of cheap, but that doesn’t ruin the film. It’s not as complicated as VIDEODROME. You can definitely say at what time the illusion starts (maybe after seeing it again) and another layer of reality begins, ultimately you (at least I) couldn’t in VIDEODROME. But that’s not a problem. One of the best VR movie ever to be made! A must-see!
Tuesday. Day seven.
Oh, no – its getting hot again.
--- BALLISTIC KISS ---
Visually stunning film about a killer (Hong Kong seems to be filled with assassins) who fights a former pal, in the battle for a woman. Nothing new storylike, but highly entertaining, especially if you see it on a big screen.
--- KUNOICHI, THE LADY NINJA ---
One word: Disappointing. Maybe I was getting tired after seeing so many movies, but a couldn’t follow the storyline (is there?), couldn’t laugh about the ‘Breast-Wave-Magic’ and didn’t enjoy the artificial blood fountains. Maybe you can, I couldn’t.
--- THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT ---
Hype, Hype, Hype. That was the word most people used prior to the screening. You all seen it, thousands have commented on it, so just a few remarks from my side. When do you judge a movie as *good*? I always think that way: Does it WORK? Well WORK has to be defined depending on the genre. A comedy works if its funny of course. A drama works if it touches me. But did BLAIR WITCH work? No it didn’t – sad but true. However: I don’t blame the movie. How can a movie like that work in a 350+ packed theatre? It’s supposed to scare me - isn’t it? Can a film create an atmosphere of ‘being alone in the woods’ when being watched that way? Nope. I bet my balls that it does if seen in a small dark room with just three or four people. When the DVD is out I’ll show it to some of my friends in an appropriate setting. Just another thought: can this kind of movie work with so much hype? I don’t think so. The more you know the less it works. The less you know – you do the math.
Conclusion: A very good film – but the wrong occasion to watch it.
I was really getting tired, so I skipped 303 FEAR/FAITH/REVENGE which was a stupid decision judging some guys’ comments on...
...Wednesday. Final day.
--- THE SOUL GUARDIANS ---
Another Satan-raped-a-woman-the-woman-dies-so-now-he-wants-the-baby flick. A former priest, a boy with supernatural powers, and a martial-arts fighter (battling with a dagger possessed by his former love!!!) are trying to help her. Starting interesting, it gets more and more melodramatic towards the end -even the music sounds like TITANIC by then. Not bad, but I hoped and wished for more
And now ladies and gentlemen: The last movie for this year – and definitely the best.
--- THE BOONDOCK SAINTS ---
As I said in the beginning, this was a work in progress copy (although I didn’t see anything that should be changed at all) and will be in cinemas not earlier than next summer. This movie rocks!!! I don’t know if any of you heard about it, so here are some
SPOILERS:
Connor and Murphy McManus, born in Ireland but now working in a meatpacking facility in Boston. They fluently speak five languages, including Latin (“’cause our mama wanted us”). After killing two Russian mobsters (we don’t see the fight) gay FBI agent Paul Smecker (outrageous: Willam Dafoe) arrives at the crimescene. With just the two bodies and the bullets he manages to find out what happened – and we are now presented the footage. That's the way all other ‘crimes’ are shown: First we get to know what they want to do, then Smecker arrives at the scene, then we SEE the actual event. Couldn’t this be boring after some time? It could, but first time director Troy Duffy was intelligent enough to slightly change this method of story telling. He more and more merges these three parts – so ultimately we see the action, with Smecker IN it, trying to re-act what happened. Not a new technique, but *perfectly* done.
End of SPOILERS
Wow! What a blast! The acting, the camera, the ideas! The music also fits perfectly, changing from techno to choral at unsuspected moments. I only hope they don’t lay a hand on this one. They shouldn’t change a thing. It’s perfect: Look out for a test screening or what ever to see it as soon as possible. Ah, and wasn’t that Clive Barker in this bar?
When I came out of the Cinema I WAS in a yahoo mood. After seeing about 32 movies (didn’t talk about all of them here, some were German productions of NO interest) I now could go on for another week, or two, or... But its 257 days from now to the next festival – and even then LORD OF THE RINGS is not in sight :(
So that’s it. The end of the 13th Fantasy-Filmfest. Greetings to all the geeks I met there. C’ya next year.
Fallen Angel
Getting some sleep now...
P.S. The Sneak Preview was IN DREAMS which a I already saw on DVD. Mediocre. OUT.
