jürgen fauth’s muckworld

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: the Alien is my favorite movie monster of all time, and I’ll go see the insectoid, double-jawed acid-for-blood chestbursting spawn of H.R. Giger in any incarnation — even this budget-bin junk, which wasn’t screened for critics and cost me $11 at the Queens midnight screening. I thought I was ready for anything, but you know you’re in trouble if you find yourself holding up the “original” AvP as any kind of standard.

AvP:R picks up at the exact moment the previous film ended: a “predalien,” product of gooey space miscegenation, causes a Predator UFO to crash in the Colorado woods, and a few exploding rib cages later, all of Gunnison is under Alien attack. What should have been a fanboy’s wet fantasy — Aliens on Main Street! — turns into a piss-poor attempt at the kind of 50s horror we’ve seen plundered, satirized, and bowdlerized a million times, from The Blob to Slither.

Instead of showing us the creatures battling it out in bright sunlight (which would have required a few fresh ideas), the entire movie takes place over the course of one rainy, moonless night, which means that you can’t see the monsters you came for. Instead, the “talent” behind this film (”the Brothers Strause”) cranked up the gore: victims usually considered taboo all become Alien fodder, including children, pregnant women (”I think my water just broke. Ahhhhhh!”), and the hot high school chick (Kristen Hager) who takes the pizza boy skinny dipping. The ostensible heroine — a poor man’s Ripley indeed — is a returning Iraq vet (Reiko Aylesworth) who brings her daughter — get this — a pair of infra red goggles as a homecoming present. Gee, I wonder if those will come in handy!

On a downward spiral ever since Fincher’s failed Alien 3, the series has now hit rock bottom. This is the Return of the Son of Dracula meets Jesse James vs. Frankenstein’s Daughter Unbound of Alien films, or whatever the classic equivalent would be. It’s been a long way down from the polished horror by Ridley Scott and James Cameron. Bad as it was, AvP was savvy enough to slyly quote from the original movies, but AvP:R doesn’t even bother with genre conventions like the pithy catchphrase. (The wittiest thing these people can think to say after killing an Alien is “Fuck you.”)

Too underlit to qualify as splatter, too bloodless to qualify as fun, too unaware of its own idiocy to be enjoyed Grindhouse-style, AvP:R is a real education in the finer stratifications of badness. A straight-out parody may be the only move left for the franchise, and then, perhaps, in another few years, the Gods governing the cycles of genre may just smile upon us again with another high-minded attempt at returning the monster to its former glories. Where there are sequels, there is hope.

Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem. Colin Strause and Greg Strause, 2007. *

• Rotten Tomatoes: 16%
• Official Site
• The trailer
• Alien vs. Predator

Robert Zemeckis’ high-tech “performance capture” adaptation of the Old English poem turns actors–Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins, Robin Wright Penn, John Malkovich, Angelina Jolie–into rubbery action figures. Only Crispin Glover, covered in a disgusting, festering texture, manages to infuse some sort of twisted soul into his Grendel. I saw this in 3-D, which is sorta groovy if you’ve taken some preventive aspirin, but it also further increases the sense of artificiality. The action sequences have all the excitement of a video game cut scene.

Beowulf is only one of a slew of recent movies that wouldn’t have been possible without The Lord of the Rings, and Zemeckis lifts dozens of shots directly from Peter Jackson. Of course, Tolkien in turn would be unthinkable without the Anglo-Saxon poem — and so we come full circle.

Long ago, in the Age of Heroes, I wrote an essay about “hyperfiction” that used the cheap carnival effects of early 3-D movies as metaphor for the teething troubles of a new form. I was tickled to see that even at this late stage, 3-D still means “Poles in Your Face,” along with all manners of swords, naked torsos, dripping saliva, and flaming arrows. It’s true that Neil Gaiman’s script manages to put a somewhat interesting spin on the original epic, but first and foremost, Beowulf is self-satisfied spectacle. I’d rather play God of War. Opens Friday.

Beowulf. Robert Zemeckis, 2007. **

• 300
• Beowulf and Grendel
• Beowulf at Rotten Tomatoes
• Wikipedia
• The trailer:

Plenty of DVD commentaries are happy to dispense self-aggrandizing anecdotes or reveal information that permanently damages the viewing experience (I’m looking at you, Peter Jackson.) Instead, Guillermo del Toro talks about storytelling concerns, structure, framing, staging, color choices, sound design, edits, references and symbolism — in other words, the where and why of creative decisions that make up Pan’s Labyrinth.

If you’re one of the people who sort of liked the movie but ultimately didn’t quite know what to make of its blend of fantasy and brutal historical reality, this track should clear up some of your questions. If you recognized it for the instant classic it is, you’ll gain a new appreciation for the care and depth of thought that went into it. Together with Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather track, this is one of the best director’s commentaries I’ve heard.

El Laberinto del fauno. Guillermo del Toro, 2006. *****

• Marcy’s review
• Pan’s Labyrinth on Muckworld
• Pan’s Labyrinth DVD on Amazon

Two faltering eighties franchises are being remaindered for the price of one, but the H.R. Giger-designed Alien will always have a place in my heart as the greatest movie monster ever. AVP is shameless B movie fare without any of the polish and auteurist pretensions of the other installments, but at least it moves fast and has enough awareness of the history of the series to get a number of clever visual quotes in. I won’t bore you with the plot; as far as titles-as-pitches go, this is up there with Snakes on a Plane. The fanboys must’ve enjoyed it: there’s a sequel in the works. I’m tempted to give it three stars just because I remember the original Dark Horse comic book.

AVP: Alien vs. Predator. Paul W.S. Anderson, 2004. **

• Rotten Tomatoes: 22%
• Alien Loves Predator: In New York No One Can Hear You Scream
• Aliens vs. Predator 2: Requiem

Before he made this 1920 version, director Paul Wegener, who also stars as the monster, had already adapted the Jewish folk tale about the Golem in 1915 and 1917. Individual moments of this third incarnation are great, but in a decade filled with fantastic movies, they’re somewhat few and far between. You know the story: the Rabbi breathes life into a clay statue to protect the ghetto, but he doesn’t read the fine print, and the Golem exacts a terrible price. 1920 was a long time ago (especially in movie years), and the film is worth appreciating as a museum piece and early horror classic more than something you’d watch for kicks. Some of The Golem prefigures Frankenstein and so forth, but from our vantage, most of it doesn’t feel terribly inspired. For one thing, it’s much too slow, and you could be excused for setting the DVD player to double speed and providing your own soundtrack. I do wish there were more movies with Rabbis who cast spells–and I don’t mean Matisyahu.

Der Golem, wie er in die Welt kam. Paul Wegener, 1920. ***

• Der Golem on Wikipedia
• Paul Wegener — Man or Monster?
• Kinoeye: Narratives of Transgression

After the jump, the entire movie via Google Video. It’s ok for taking a look, but if you’re serious about watching it, you’re much better off with the Kino DVD–it’s a restored version with better intertitles and tints.

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With The Host about to be released in the US, I finally uploaded my footage of the NYFF press conference from October. With the help of a very enthusiastic translator, Bong talks about designing the monster, balancing satire, humor, and horror, and having made the highest-grossing movie in Korean film history. Just off-screen, Richard Peña asks the questions.

More from the NYFF:

• Almodovar and Cruz Talk Volver
• “Because I Could:” Marie Antoinette Press Conference

What’s better than Snakes on a Plane? Of course: worms in the brain. Another gleeful B-picture, a cross between Invasion of the Body Snatchers, either Blob, and any number of zombie movies. There are the usual wisecracks (most of them delivered by Firefly’s Nathan Fillion), a cursing mayor, a teenage girl whose painted fingernails come in handy. What sets Slither apart is how genuinely disturbing the horror elements are. The psychosexual connotations of Michael Rooker’s transformation into an oozing, tentacled squid are obvious; the takeovers of new host bodies play like alien rape, and the grand finale is only a few blinks away from hentai. More than just a cynical recreation like Eight-Legged Freaks, Slither deploys its shock effects like it really means it.

Slither. James Gunn, 2006. ***

[tags]film, horror, 3 stars, james gunn, elizabeth banks, nathan fillion, scifi, monsters, horror, sex, hentai, rape, tentacles, worms[/tags]