The Shape of Water

"The Shape of Water" (2017, Guillermo del Toro, Double Dare You Productions, Fox Searchlight Pictures) is a dark fantasy about love.... and vivisection.

Elisa (Sally Hawkins) has been mute since infancy and speaks in sign language. She works as a cleaner at a large research facility with her friend, Zelda (Octavia Spencer), -who chats enough for both of them- and spends her free time with her friend and neighbour, an artist called Giles (Richard Jenkins).

During her time cleaning up the suspiciously bloody messes at the facility, Elisa comes to know one of the research specimens; a humanoid aquatic creature (Doug Jones) with whom she shares a bond of boiled eggs, sign language lessons and music. Unfortunately, the scientists and military personnel at the facility, particularly the fairly unstable Colonel Strickland (Michael Shannon), do not have nice plans for the amphibious man and Elisa becomes determined to save her unusual friend.

An unusual love story between a creature worthy of the Black Lagoon and an imaginative and adorable, but lonely woman. The film begins fairly slow-burning and took its time to introduce the set up and characters, but enjoys some more outlandish scenes within the imagination of Elisa. The film explores the nature of the loneliness of being different and touches on some prevalent topics from '60s America, including race and sexuality and the lingering distrust from various global tensions (most notably, of course, the Cold War). Hey, guess not much has changed, really.

The effects are, as ever with the works of del Toro and with the characters of Doug Jones, exceptional and both very realistic and fantastic in their strangeness.

A film that manages to be peculiar, haunting and, at times, humorous, as well as delivering a thoughtful and entertaining piece of cinema. And a nice, cerebral (and oh, so weird) link to the Hellboy universe. It deserves all the awards it can hoover up, in my view.

[Image: Double Dare You Productions, et al]

Hani

The Lawnmower Man

"The Lawnmower Man" (1992, Brett Leonard, New Line Cinema) is not-even-loosely based on a Stephen King story. I say that as it's pretty much nothing to do with Stephen King or his story, except for perhaps the title! In fact, King had to sue them in order to remove mention of his name from the film!

Dr. Angelo (Pierce Brosnan - no idea how he ended up in this) is a genius scientist working on computer simulation technology that can increase intelligence in primates. While on forced hiatus after his test subject tried to escape and murdered a security guard, he decides to start using his technology on a human subject: Jobe (Jeff Fahey), a handyman gardener with learning difficulties.

Soon Jobe goes from a simple man to a crazed genius, but he goes too far, beginning to exact revenge on those who wronged him before. He also tries to take over the world, believing himself to be some kind of high-tech Jesus computer virus.

Dated graphics with animation sequences that could have been about a third of the length than they actually are really mar the film. I'm sure they were impressive for the day, but they are pretty painful to watch nowadays. Not to mention the fact that on the whole it's pretty boring and provides no scares at all.

Jeff Fahey gives a good performance though, I enjoyed his character's transition from simpleton to killer computer virus.

With the exception of the scene where there's a psycho-kinetically controlled lawnmower, this film is pretty dull.

[Image: New Line Cinema]

Hani

The Crazies

"The Crazies" (2010, Overture Films, Breck Eisner) is the remake of the 1973 Romero film of the    same name.

The main plot is the same as the original, the government have developed a virus which makes people crazy, violent and eventually kills them (after they've killed as many other people first, of course).

A small town in Iowa has been infected through their water supply after a plane carrying the virus crash landed in their resevoir. Simples.

This movie follows all the usual zombie movie conventions, and does so well. Tension, gore, nasty people and 'crazies' (living zombies pretty much). I liked that the crazies still remembered who they were and other than looking veiny and disgusting, were still coherent (if not, completely sack o' hammers). Human resentment and grudges are powerful things, you know!

We follow the local police sheriff David (Timothy Olyphant), his pregnant doctor wife Judy (Radha Mitchell) and his deputy Russell (Joe Anderson) as they escape first the crazies, then the military, then both the military and the crazies.

The military presence as the straight up bad guys, as opposed to "28 days later" where they start off as the saving grace but end up corrupted, is a nice touch. The use of military style surveillance from the helicopter keeps the whole 'Big Brother is watching you' thing in play. 

Also, lets be honest with ourselves, yes the whole situation is the military and government's fault, but brutal as is it, they are only trying to stop the virus spreading worldwide. Do we even want our proragonists to survive?

A good conspiracy-cover-up/sort of zombie film.

[Picture: Overture Films]

Hani

Fido

"Fido" (2006, Andrew Currie, Anagram Pictures) is the Canadian tale about a boy and his zombie, in the way that one would usually expect a tale about a boy and his dog.

Timmy Robinson (K'Sun Ray) is the boy and Fido (Billy Connolly) is his zombie.

The three main reasons I love this gloriously grisly horror comedy:
1) Zombies
2) Billy Connolly (I'm Scottish remember)
3) It's set in the '50s (I love the 50s, just check my wardrobe for proof!)

The zombie "apocalypse" has been and gone, and thanks to "Zomcon" (a corporation who have patented a collar which turns psychopathic zombies into slave-like-menial-workers) the world has moved on. Although, when you die, you will become a zombie.

Every respectable household owns at least one zombie servant. All except the Robinson family, who had up until recently, when Helen Robinson (Carrie-Anne Moss) decided to get a zombie to impress the new neighbours, avoided zombie contact due to Mr Robinson (Dylan Baker)'s fear of the undead or kinemortophobia. Understandable really, but in this 'verse, it's weird.

I enjoy this movie's quirky storytelling, love affairs and awesome zombie murder scenes. Everything is gloriously colourful and very '50s.

We of course have our gruesome murders, zombie-napping and mass hysteria! As well as our cheerful story about Timmy and his new friend... and some other disturbing zombie love...

The odd thing about this movie is how turvy topsy it is. You wind up routing for Helen, who finally takes notice in young Timmy's life, and of course Fido. But really, aside from his terrible choice in presents, general lack of interest and scary obsession with funerals, Timmy's dad, Bill, is the most sane person in this odd universe!

You can hear Billy Connolly's Glasgow twang under his zombie tones, which I find hilarious!

In my view, this is a movie everyone should see at least once!

(Picture: Anagram Pictures)

Hani

Man with the Screaming Brain

"Man with the Screaming Brain" (2005, Bruce Campbell, SciFi Channel).

I just opened my "The Bruce Campbell Collection" boxset, so expect some raving reviews on the works of the B-Movie king!

I'm not sure what I expected from this comedy/sci-fi/horror, but "Man with the Screaming Brain" delivers everthing it says on the tin (or rather, the box...) and accomplishes it with the cheesey, awesome style I've come to expect from such quality productions.

The Basic Plot

William Cole (Bruce Campbell) is a rich business tycoon in the pharmaceutical industry. He and his wife Jackie (Antoinette Byron) arrive 'somewhere in Bulgaria', where most people seem to be Russian, for a conference. Bruce Campbell happily hams up his 'ugly American' capitalist character into an unlikeable jackass. And his wife is an equally unlikeable rich-bitch love cheat.

The mad scientist, Dr. Ivan Ivanov (Stacy Keach) and his assistant, Pavel (Ted Raimi) are working on a scientific solution to halt body rejection of transplanted organs. Raimi gives a hilarious performance and really clearly enjoys the role. Also, I watched this with a guy working on his PhD in Theoretical Physics and we had to pause a scene while he studied their blackboard so that we could confirm that yes, indeed, it was just a bunch of equations which together have no meaning! Note to self, avoid movies with equations when watching with scientists in future!

Cole rudely dismisses an invite to see the doctor's work. Too bad for him, huh?

Cole and Jackie take a taxi and wind up in Gypsie Town where they witness a fight and also spy the mysterious Gypsie beauty, Tatoya (Tamara Gorski).

Jackie quickly gets frisky with the taxi driver, Yegor (Vladimir Kolev), a character I also really enjoyed. Cole, in the meantime, tries his luck with Tatoya, but is instead robbed and then bludgeoned when he attempts to take back his belongings. Yegor witnesses the attack on Cole and confronts Tatoya (who is his ex-fiancée) only to be killed himself!

The doctor then takes this opportunity to demonstrate his research to Mr. Cole first hand by bringing him back to life!

Cole later awakens to find that he is in the doctor's very-convincing (yes, that was sarcasm) laboratory, and has been 'patched up' using some parts of Yegor's brain where his had been damaged. I enjoyed the cranial stitching, also very convincing (yes, more sarcasm!). Cole escapes the laboratory and discovers that he can hear Yegor speaking to him inside his head!

Jackie, in a fit of rage, attacks Tatoya for killing her husband, but is then also killed by that gypsie minx. Luckily, she's brought back as a robot in a yellow catsuit.

There's some more fighting, an unconvincing car chase, a tiny explosion and of course, no Bruce Campbell movie would be complete without the textbook Bruce vs Bruce scene!

(Picture: Scifi Channel)

Verdict

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. If it were a rollercoaster, it's definitely the one where you ride on the caterpillar through the apple core; simple, pleasing and not at all scary!

Ted Raimi steals the show and I do enjoy his American-being-Bulgarian-being-Russian-being-American-rapping! Hilarious! 

The Cabin in the Woods

"The Cabin in the Woods" (Joss Whedon, Drew Goddard, 2012, Mutant Enemy)

A real treat for me as I am a huge Whedon fan (Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Dollhouse, Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog, Serenity... you name it, I like it!).

'The Cabin in the Woods', as I'm sure you're aware, is not your average 'Five-friends-go-to-a-cabin-in-the-woods-and-are-killed-off-one-by-one-by-a-dark-force-after-reading-some-creepy-latin-from-an-old book' story. Well, yes it is. Five friends (the bimbo, the jock, the smart guy, the sensible but nerdy girl and the stoner - played by Fran Kranz. Have I mentioned my huge crush on Fran Kranz?) all go to a cabin in the woods to stay for a party weekend. They go down the cellar and discover a creepy book (amongst other creepy-ass items) and proceed to read its contents aloud, causing some evil to arise. Mayhem, mayhem, mayhem....

Whedon's well-known talent to create characters who appear to fit a generic profile, but are really lovable and much deeper than that, shines through in this flick. All the characters are not really how they appear, and even the characters in the 'evil' lab are enjoyably rounded.

You'd think Amy Acker would be getting a bit bored of being hot-lab-coat-lady by now, but she pulls it off with her usual flair.
Also, I have to enjoy any movie with a hot female red-head in lead role! Hats off to you, Kirsten Connolly!

The gore and action is exciting and well paced. The story is consistently topsy-turvy in true Whedon form. And we are left at the end to think "who's the true evil here? Is it we, the horror viewer? Are we the reason behind all this???"

A few well placed homages to the horror greats, excellent acting and the kind of witty banter one has come to expect from Mr. Whedon makes this movie a new favourite! Can't wait for the DVD Joss!

 

(Picture: Mutant Enemy "Grr Arg!")