On this episode of The Bonus Material Podcast, Sean Smithson and Thom Carnell (with Heather Buckley away at Mad Monster Party & Langley J. West making the rounds at Monsterpalooza) talk AMC's THE WALKING DEAD. With the airing of the show's Season 5 finale, we dig deep into the grave dirt and dissect the show season by season, death by death. What's gone right with the show? What's gone wrong? And why won't Carl stay in the house? Yes, it's an all Walker episode of The Bonus Material Podcast!
On this episode, Sean Smithson, Langley J. West, and Thom Carnell (with Heather Buckley in absentia) talk Monsters of Mother Nature. From crocs & gators to lizards, sharks, & primates, it's lions and tigers and bears, oh, my! We're talking big things that eat little things...
Let me preface this by saying straight out, by and large I am a huge fan of "Bobcat" Goldthwait's directorial work. SHAKES THE CLOWN was a brave, fucked up film, and THE WORLD'S GREATEST DAD stands as one of star Robin William's shining cinematic moments, right up ther with "Mork"s work in THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP. GOD BLESS AMERICA got a little rant-y for me, with it's extended monologue's, but absolutely echoed my thoughts on modern culture, and in the end, it sits on my shelf in the permanent collection.
As anyone who has read my writing, or listened to the podcasts knows, I'm also a bona fide "horror kid", the scarey stuff being my axle, and having served as my introduction to movies. Full stop.
So imagine my excitement when Goldthwait announced he wasn't only going to do a horror-themed found footage film (another sub-genre I admit to being a sucker for, I said it!), but was going to center it around the criminally unused Bigfoot lore.
WILLOW CREEK is simple in it's premise. A young couple sets out into the wilderness to track Bigfoot, along a trail notorious for sightings and incidents involving the cryptozoological boogeyman. Alexie Gilmore and Bryce Johnson give solid, credible performances as Kelly and Jim, who set out on the real-life trail where the controversial yet undeniably iconic 1967 Patterson-Gimlin footage of the One with Big Feet was caught.
Kelly and Jim encounter resistance, and downright hostility from locals as they make their way to, and finally enter onto the trails' head.
As par for course in found footage movies, we get the obligitory padding, but it makes sense in the milieu Goldthwait is working in. As things begin to heat up, we get a lot of Corman-esque what-you-don't-see-is-scarier kind of budget saving tricks. Ok, that's cool, I'm still down for this ride. Then...nothing really happens. There is a taught, extended 20 minute scene, one shot with no edits, in which Kelly and Jim sit in their tent mortified, as something obviously big, dangerous, and obviously not of the local hick variety, rummages around outside, mere feet away. Again, the acting is completely convincing. Sadly though, at this point I personally needed a glimpse of something...anything. A hairy hand. A whispering shadow in the dark, disappearing into the dark foliage. But nope.
The film, to be fair, does ramp up in the last 5 minutes, and the semi-explanation given to the lore is indeed a little stunning. But, WILLOW CREEK sits in the "noble attempt, but too little too late" category for me. Still, it does understand the horror genre better than Kevin Smith ever will (if we must compare funnymen making scary flicks, a little unfair, but there you have it), and it respects it's subject matter absolutely. In that regard, WILLOW CREEK is not a failure. Looking at it as something of a watershed, it is what it is. As far as being a bar-setter, as I'd hoped it would be, as far as the sub-genre of Bigfoot films? Nah.
If you want to see what i consider to be a more succesful foray into furry horror, see EXISTS, which is also a semi-recent release, and doesn't skimp on the monsters.
Rating: 2.75 out of 5
Here is the aforementioned Patterson-Gimlin footage as well...
Olivia is a driven, workaholic medical intern with a bright future and an understanding, handsome fiance' in Major. When "Liv" is invited to a party, the supportive boyfriend urges her to attend and cut loose for once. Good times bad times! While there, Liv is offered a new designer drug called Utopia, which minutes later has the hipsters turning into violent, flesh eating zombies.
Next thing she knows, Liv is waking up dead. Starting a new life as coroner, who has developed taste for (you guessed it) brains, she finds upon consuming someones cranium meat that she also gets their memories and habits. Her boss, Dr. Chakrabarti, quickly figures out Liv is indeed undead, and having lost his previous job at the CDC due to his insistence that something like a zombie apocalypse was an inevitability, to be brought on by something man-made, he becomes Liv's one-man support network. When Liv feasts on the brain of a dead prostitute, she begins getting visions of the killer, and becomes a defacto assistant to rookie homicide investigator Detective Babineaux.
I am a pretty big fan of the Vertigo imprint comicbook from which iZombie is culled, and was incredibly disappointed when I found out huge changes were being made to the basis and tone of the story. Gone from the graphic version are many of the characters I already loved. No weredog boy, no immortal Mummy-ish Egyptian prince, no bad ass government sanctioned monster hunters. I in no way set out to like this show, but decided to give it a shot anyway when co-creator Mike Alred (the classic MADMAN) insisted it all worked really well. I took that pretty cynically, assuming a paycheck and a toe into the door of working in Hollywood was making things prettier smelling for the creators than they were for the fans. That said, I must admit, after watching the pilot I now "get it". Had the television show stuck with the original concepts down the line, it could have come off as incredibly soapy. Instead they opted to go for CSI-meets-YA-horror thing, with huge dashes of pop culture references, and snappy (albeit sometimes annoying to an old geezer like myself) dialog. But the format of iZombie, which is a self contained story episode to episode, with a bigger far reaching arc concerning Liv's ex, her family, her secret, and her burgeoning working relationships/friendships with the shows other characters, works pretty darned good. This isn't a program aimed at my generation (70's kids who grew up on Creature Features and single screen theaters), and that's okay. It's target audience is obviously younger "geeks and nerd" who don't remember when things like comicbook conventions were only attended by pimply, introverted fans (of which I definitely was one) and where it was rare to see a guy dressed in a Superman costume who weighed less than 250 lbs, and most of that below the waistband.
It's a bit geek chic, but once I got synched up with the tone of the show it grew on me pretty quick. Is it the savior of genre television, raising the bar on zombie mythology? Nope. Is it fun for the kids, and a nice and relatively safe gateway to other more caustic material? Yes.
At the end of the day, not a bad start to a show that will garner obvious comparisons to fare like BUFFY, as well as other Whedon joints, and recent contributions like WARM BODIES. I for one wil be giving it three episodes to turn me into a regular viewer. Right now the outlook seems to be more on the positive than negative side. If you can set aside any cynicism you may have for the current wave of undead flicks, etc, or have a tatse for YA-genre-mashing horror tinged stuff, you'll probably find iZombie at least digestible.
iZombie can be see Tuesday nights on the WB, or the next day on HuluPlus.
On this episode of The Bonus Material Podcast, a returning Sean Smithson, Langley J. West, and Thom Carnell (with Heather Buckely away at SXSW) talk "Buddy Flicks." From Lemmon & Matthau to Martin & Lewis... from Hope & Crosby to Poitier & Cosby, we're talking people with a deep love toward one another. Yup, it's the Buddy Episode of The Bonus Material Podcast!
The great character actor Ozzie Davis (BUBBA HO-TEP) directs this unsung classic of Blaxploitation starring Godfrey Cambridge (WATERMELON MAN, FRIDAY FOSTER), Raymond St. Jacques (THEY LIVE, THE GREEN BERETS), as well as Redd Foxx, Lou Jacobi, Eugene Roche, and Cleavon Little. Cambridge and St Jacques play Gravedigger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson, two tough cops who have a reputation of shooting first and asking questions later. When the dubious Reverend O’Malley disappears along with $87,000, the boys go around Harlem knockin’ on doors and crackin on heads. Why this film doesn’t get more respect is anyone’s guess. I mean, in my opinion, this is every bit as good an example of the genre as SHAFT or SUPERFLY. In fact, it is, at its center, a more moral film than either of those. Anyway, there’s a great chemistry between Cambridge and St. Jacques which rivals Cosby and Poitier (UPTOWN SATURDAY NIGHT or LET’S DO IT AGAIN). Based on a book by Chester Himes (COME BACK, CHARLESTON BLUE and A RAGE IN HARLEM), the film is FULL of some awesome character actors and features some really terrific dialog. Super fun and a fascinating encapsulation of the time (the 1970s). Recommended especially for blaxploitation fans, 70s crime dramas, and fans of character actors. Good stuff!
Director Adrián García Bogliano (HERE COMES THE DEVIL) and writer Eric Stolze (no...not the actor) craft a tale of a curmudgeonly, blind army vet, Ambrose, who is being conveniently tucked away in a generic retirement community by his son and daughter in law. His first night in his new place, the neighbor is murdered and he is attacked. His faithful dog Shadow is killed as the canine fights off the unseen assailant.
The cagey Ambrose starts putting the events together in his mind, and erring on the side of caution, is soon commissioning a grip of silver bullets from the local gunsmith. As he battles depression, he is befriended by the local priest, and begins to get to know the locals, a hodge-podge of boring suburbanites and ailing senior citizens. Not incredibly well liked, Ambrose keeps to himself, and bides his time until the next full moon, his suspicion growing to certainty as he prepares for what he knows will most likely be his final battle.
LATE PHASES is a noble attempt at bringing a new spin to the sub-genre of Lycanthropy flicks, but is undermined by a whiz bang beginning, that is then followed by a semi-plodding seventy minutes of character development and endless exposition. The upside to that is the cast is damned solid, namely lead Nick Damici (STAKE LAND, WE ARE WHAT WE ARE) and Tom Noonan (MANHUNTER, THE MONSTER SQUAD), with welcome guest turns from character actor stalwart Rutanya Alda (THE DEER HUNTER, AMITYVILLE 2: THE POSSESSION) and ex-sexpot Tina Louise (GILLIGAN'S ISLAND). That said, we now come to the werewolves themselves. Looking more like something from a Sid and Marty Krofft show, the creature suits are not far above a decent quality Halloween shop costume, and are perpetually frozen in a mono-expression. When the antagonist infects some of the seniors from the community so he has help in attacking our hero, it looks like each face was cast from the same mold. You can damned near see the zippers running up the back of the hairy outfits, and the performers within come off as stiff and just plain old goofy.
That said, again, I'll point to the solid performances, which are absolutely the saving grace of LATE PHASES. But in the end, this is a watch-and-discard flick that won't be joining it's brethren of THE HOWLING, AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF, or even guilty pleasure BAD MOON up on the video shelf. I'm sure this played well on the festival circuit, where many of my friends saw and loved it, but without the excitement of seeing this with a theater full of horror loving friends, this SILVER-haired BULLET is merely tolerable fun, but not much else, when brought home. Rating: 3 out of 5
Gregory Levasseur, the screenwriter behind HIGH TENSION, the HILLS HAVE EYES remake, and other Alexander Aja (who produces here) projects jumps into the directors chair for the first time with THE PYRAMID. Part found footage film, part narrative, THE PYRAMID centers around a father/daughter archeology team and the documentary film makers following them as they work on their latest discovery, a long buried 3-sided pyramid.
When Egyptian authorities shut down the operation, mere hours after an entrance to the structure reveals itself, the team decide to sneak inside to get a quick look around, and gather data on the ancient anomaly.
Soon, disaster strikes, and the group dind themselves trapped within the labyrinthine structure, as unidentifiable creatures stalk them, and booby traps make quick flight an impossibility.
THE PYRAMID, while neat for using monsters not seen in horror movies, suffers massively from being "act-y" and having dialog that, at times, would make a first year creative writing student wince. Odd, because I really think director/co-writer (along with Nick Simon) Levasseur is a solid movie scribe. But as a director he is unable to illicit believable performances from his often hammy cast, which includes TRUE BLOOD alumni Ashley Henshaw and Denis O'Hare (who does everything he can to keep things sincere), James Buckley (THE INBETWEENERS), and the particularly annoying Christa Nicola (a relative newcomer with a very short list of credits, and threatening to remain short given her quality of work here...whose girlfriend is she I wonder?).
The saving graces are, for the most part, the creatures, and that even falls down when second rate CGI rears it's dog-faced head in the climax. THE PYRAMID is not a complete waste of time due to it's highly unused monsters concepts, but beyond that, it's the viewers job to cull anything worthy out of the experience. At the end of the day it's a disposable half-pleasure of a flick. If you don't end up unearthing and digging into THE PYRAMID history will forgive you.
In this extra mid-week installment we bring you an interview TBM's Sean Smithson did at Salt Lake City's FanX event January 29, 2015, with actress Laurie Holden (THE WALKING DEAD, THE MIST, THE MAJESTIC, DUMB AND DUMBER TOO) in front of a rabid crowd of 2000 geeks.
Extra extra special thanks to WATCH PLAY READ's Kyle Steenblick, and the fine folks at FanX SLC for making this file possible.
On this episode, Heather Buckley, Thom Carnell, and Langley J. West (with Sean Smithson in absentia) talk puppetry. From Muppets and puppets to THUNDERBIRDS and GHOULIES, Pick your poison: TEAM AMERICA or MEET THE FEEBLES?
And don't get us started on guys like Charles Band!
Yes, we're traveling to Puppetland, kids...
Only on The Bonus Material Podcast!!!
With this, his first film, director Alejandro Hidalgo, plays fast and loose with his audience’s perception of time and the supernatural to varied results. The film (which is essentially Nacho Vigalondo’s TIMECRIMES meets J.A. Bayona’s THE ORPHANAGE) spends a lot of its time purposefully obfuscating what’s going on and does its best to be a classic “old dark house” movie, but soon… it gives away its narrative game and reveals itself to be, instead, a “time loop” flick. The acting is good across the board, but overall… the film stumbles due to its “molasses in January” slowness. I mean, the film takes FOREVER to get where it’s going and does its audiences no favors by wallowing in its own novelty. That said though… the “reveal” at the end is handled deftly and with no small amount of resonance. All in all, HOUSE is a solid Venezuelan puzzler. It’s just that the script tries too hard and the director seems to feel compelled to slather on the confusion for it to be a solid film. The uniqueness of its premise is simply not enough to support an entire film. This would’ve made a great short, if you get my drift. Also… look for one of the WORST old-age makeups of all time in this film. The makeup is so poorly done that it left me scratching my head as to why they let that fly. But yeah… Well made, but again, slooooow, HOUSE AT THE END OF TIME will not make you forget films like THE DEVIL’S BACKBONE or Jaume Balaguero’s DARKNESS, but it does hold one’s attention and, again, that pay-off at the end is handled REALLY well.
On this episode, Heather Buckley and Thom Carnell (with Sean Smithson away on business and Langley J. West off on a film shoot) talk creatures; specifically, what makes a good creature design and why. We cover a lot of ground in this episode, but don't worry if you don't hear your favorite monster / creature mentioned. We'll undoubtedly be returning to this topic many times in the future. So, join us... for an informed discussion of Creatures and Creature Design.
Director Tommy Wirkola (HANZEL AND GRETEL: WITCH HUNTERS) returns to the ground that made him famous by doing a sequel to his popular film, DEAD SNOW. The premise – Nazi zombies come back from the grave to reclaim their fortune – was a novel one, but the film’s execution was – in my opinion – spotty and it felt as if they didn't know what kind of film it was that they wanted to make. With this new film, we get a director who now has had a few years to think about it and, as a result, has realized where the meat of his premise lay: its ludicrous premise. And so, we get this new film which dips a whole lot more than its toe into outright (almost Grand Guignol-esque) comedy. The FX are fun and over the top (and jaw-dropping gory). The acting… slightly better than the first film. But this is clearly the director’s showcase here and he does an solid job. You may want to steer kids away from DEAD SNOW 2 (because of the gore), but teens will eat this up. All in all, a fun little time waster… and funny. The film is definitely funny. Recommended… especially after a few drinks.
