Mini Movie Review - Van Helsing (2004)

 

“Van Helsing” is one of those movies that’s just….fun. Yes, the whole premise of Dracula trying to make his wives happy by creating children for them is about as far-fetched as you can get. But if you can suspend the total disbelief that idea might cause and just let yourself become immersed in the world of the movie? It’s a rippin’ good time.

This movie is old enough, and was just popular enough, that I’m not going to worry about spoilers here. So, just as a quick refresher, here’s the gist of the movie. Van Helsing works for the Vatican, dealing with problems that the everyday folks just can’t. Heck, most of the everyday folks don’t even know about things like men who become wolves. Or benign doctors who become grotesque monsters when they take a potion. So, he’s also wanted by the law.

Now we’ll introduce our beautiful heroine, Gypsy princess*, who along with her brother, is trying to defeat none other than Dracula. What they don’t know is that their success will admit generations of their family to Heaven. And the only two surviving members of the family’s line are her and her brother. Van Helsing needs to make sure this happens. Apparently, there’s some sort of curse on them.

Now Dracula’s wives are feeling bereft because they can’t have children. (Why this would be an issue when you’re undead, I don’t know. I mean, you’re no longer human or living, so the drive to procreate should be gone, but hey, it’s a movie.) To make this happen, Dracula has encouraged the experiments of one Dr. Frankenstein, thinking that the creature he creates will provide the extra something-something needed to zap the “children” into a state of life.

Sounds bonkers to me, but that’s part of what makes it so fun! What makes it even more fun is watching Richard Roxburgh’s Dracula. I swear that man could just stand there and still steal whatever scene he’s in. (You might also recognize him as “M” from “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen”.) The fact that he gives us a somewhat sympathetic Dracula just adds to the movie. And yes, he scores on the sexy scale as well. Maybe not Langella levels, but still up there.

And can we talk about Hugh Jackman’s hair for just a moment? It rivals even Kate Beckinsale’s in its gloriousness. I have no idea how much hair spray was used in the movie, but their hair stays in place regardless of what they’re doing. And Jackman’s mane may actually outshine Kurt Russell’s in “The Thing”. (Who knew I had a thing for men with amazing hair? Apparently, I didn’t!)

The movie is a fast-paced, adventurous romp from start to finish, with a few bits about family ties and what makes us human tossed in for good measure. It’s got moments where you’re worried about the protagonists. It’s got moments where you tear up a little bit. AND it makes you feel, at least a little, for the monsters as well. And it’s beautiful to watch.

The basic premise of “Van Helsing” could easily translate to a Ravenloft setting and campaign, but it would also be fun to toss in just about any horror game. Tone down the over-the-top nature of the movie as much as you need and substitute appropriate horror monsters for your setting. You can either have your characters trying to save a good and virtuous family from a curse or, have some added fun and make some of them the ones with the curse. Either way, you can’t easily go wrong.

October and the horror movie challenge are over, but I’m still getting caught up. If you’d like to see my movie selections, you can find them in this post. And if you’re curious what themes Pun Isac originally proposed, check out his post here on the Halls of the Nephilim.

*Now, why did I use the word Gypsy instead of Roma or Romany? Well, because that’s what they are in the movie. However, they are also not wondering travelers, going from town to town, in the movie either. Rather they are settled in a Transylvanian village as its leaders. In normal writing situations, I try to no longer use the word Gypsy and instead rely on Roma.

Movie Review - Bone Tomahawk (2015)

 

I’ve been putting this one off, so let’s get it over with. Let me know if I succeeded in at least making the review entertaining to read. Oh, and there are a few spoilers hidden in here.

The name drew me in. A horror movie set in the late 19 century West that wasn’t a Native American slaughter fest. Oh, and it has Kurt Russell, looking very fine. The name is evocative of something faintly romantic. Interestingly enough, “Bone Tomahawk” is, at its core, a love story of sorts. What lengths would you go to, what hardships and challenges would you endure, to save the person you love? In the case of Arthur O’Dwyer, it would be quite a lot.

That said, this is NOT a good movie. It’s also not a BAD movie. It is an okay movie that’s problematic. And the more I think about it, the more problems I find. If this were a short story I was beta reading for a friend, my red ink pen would be out of ink.

Okay, let’s get into the plot. Bad men rob and murder a small group a few days outside of town (Bright Hope), trespass on forbidden land, and only one survives to make it into town. There he arouses the suspicions of the local “backup” deputy, gets himself shot and carted to jail. The next morning, he’s missing, along with the actual deputy and local woman who’d been tending his wound. Trigger the entrance of the movies token Native American (played by the incredible Zahn McClarnon) character, and the formation of a very small rescue party to go onto said forbidden territory – seriously, the actual Native tribes in the area avoid it because the cave dwellers (Troglodytes) there are so murderous (and cannibalistic) that they know better.

And for the next hour and a half you get four white dudes wandering around in the dessert scrub breathing heavily. (There is a very sparse score for this thing.) Their horses are stolen just a couple of days out by some Mexican bandits, so they decide to continue on foot. Oh, and I forgot to mention that Mrs. O’Dwyer’s husband is in the rescue group? With a broken and splinted tibia? Yep. I think that’s where most of the horror is in this movie, as anyone ever on a pair of crutches can attest to. And he’s only got ONE.

The husband gets into an altercation with one of the other rescuers and compounds his broken leg, so he’s left behind. The others go on and, of course, get caught. By this point we’re now down 2 rescuers – one is killed by the Trogs – and two cannibals. The sheriff and his backup deputy are tossed in a cage up in a cave up on the hillside, where they find the wife and the actual deputy, who dies shortly thereafter in a VERY graphic and gruesome manner and is eaten by the Trogs.

The very lame, yet determined, husband saves the day. Although they do lose the sheriff. They do not show them getting back to town, probably because there is no way they’d make it without provisions or horses. And even then, he was probably going to lose that leg, at the very least. It says something right there about the movie – those were my final thoughts about things.

 One of the most obvious problems is the pacing. It starts at a good pace. And then it slows down. I mean, there are so many shots of them riding, then walking, through the scrub, stopping to refill their canteens, looking concerned about O'Dwyer’s broken leg, and bedding down for the night. When they are on foot, shots of them going up and down hills are added in. I think it’s partly to show how much discomfort and pain O'Dwyer is in, and yet he continues. I’d like to think there’s a reason for it other than just dragging the movie out to fill time.

And you would think that it would be building towards the big climax and the final encounter with the Troglodytes. But nope. The ending moves at about the same pace, only now we can at least enjoy how clever O'Dwyer is as he looks at the evidence of what maybe happened around him and then thinks it through. He’s also the one to note something that looks like jewelry implanted in the throat the Trog he first kills. That proves rather crucial to his survival overall, but so does his taking a few moments to plan and not just charging in like the others have done. But, while this makes me appreciate his character a little more, it still does nothing to wake me up and make me sit on the edge of my seat in anticipation. Nothing in this movie manages that.

Another problem I picked up early on is, well, the Indian problem. The movie does use the term Indian, which would be in keeping with terminology for the 1890s, so that didn’t really bother me too much. (It might some folks who are of Native American descent, but as far as I know, I don’t fit into that category. Nor can I speak for everyone, even if I wanted to. I sadly only remember ONE Native American in the entire movie – The Professor, or Tall Trees, towards the very beginning of the movie. The Professor must be nickname for our lone Native American, although he’s presented as cultured and learned. I suspect that’s more of a nod to modern sensibilities. *One member of the rescue party is a known “Indian Hunter” and boasts of how many he’s killed – including women and children. He gets called out on it by the rest of the rescue party, but his reasoning is that Native Americans killed his mother and sisters, so it’s all justified. The others just seem to nod or shrug, and they move on.) The Professor points out that his people don’t recognize the Trogs as Native, but the people he’s talking to will, because we lump them all together. And that’s pretty much how it goes.

The movie also makes broad use of stereotyped characters, but the quality of the acting, and the actors, helps mitigate some of my frustration over it. Regardless of whatever else I think about this movie, the acting is excellent. So is cinematography. It’s another beautiful movie to watch. Id’ say those are the plusses.

More negatives: the Trogs are wiped out, but at a high cost. Only half of the rescue party makes it out, and with only half of the captives they went to rescue. And the Trogs did have to “blind crippled pregnant women” as part of their group. Those women are just left there – they are neither harmed nor killed by the rescuers. So, in the end, it was all to save one white woman, upon whom I’m sure the irony isn’t lost as she is the only one who seems to have any sympathy for the Trog women.

Some point out that the movie’s message is about how generally bad decision making and stupid actions cost more lives on the frontier than anything else. I’d say that’s true, but it doesn’t excuse the sloppy storytelling. I mean, true, they had no idea what was happening to Mrs. Dwyer, but it would have made so much more sense to gather a properly-sized group of people to go deal with the Trogs. And yes, eradication would not have been a bad thing, given their viscousness. They killed White, Hispanic, and Native alike.

I’m still not sure how the Trogs survived long enough to even be known. Seriously, 12 men and only 2 women, who need at least a minimum of tending to since they’d been crippled. This is not a group of people looking at long-term survival as an ongoing concern. Also, they apparently had a fire, but didn’t bother to cook their food – including the deputy.

There are plenty of other problems, but I’m going to stop here before this gets much longer. Seriously, given the talent and the germ of the story idea, I expected so much more. It would have been nice to see more Native American involvement with the rescue, even if it was to swoop in at the end and help the survivors get back to town.

I feel like some said how about a movie with a tribe of cannibals, but we set it in the American West? And someone else said F’yeah, let’s do it! And then either no one read the story looking for obvious gaps in information, or it got lost on the cutting room floor. Perhaps the reason Mrs. O’Dywer is a backup doctor in town fell to the film editor in exchange for 15 seconds of men wandering around in the scrub. We’ll never know. But it would have been a much better movie if someone had asked a few more questions about what was going on…and why. And as glorious as Kurt Russell is, 90 minutes plus of him wandering around in West for 45 minutes is too long.

From a gaming perspective, there are a several Western and Weird West settings out there for various systems. And let’s be honest, at least in our home games, political correctness doesn’t always come into it if it interferes with our fun. And that’s fine as long as no one gets offended at the table. Part of the fun of gaming is trying on different hats and types of roles. So go ahead, add in a quest to rescue someone or something from a tribe of overly violent, murderous cannibals in some caves in the desert. Have at. Just please don’t let me know you made the definitely Native American without a really good reason. Figure out a way to turn the tried, cliched trope on it's head. Oh, and don’t have your characters spend that much time on travel. We all know there’s no need unless there are some serious encounters happening. Otherwise, your plays will all be asleep on their dice.

If I were awarding stars for this, I’d give it 3 out of 5, but one of those stars would be just for Kurt Russell’s hair. Sorry.

If you’d like to see what other movies I’ve got on my schedule this month, check out my post here. And if you’d like to play along, check out Pun’s blog, Halls of the Nephilim, for his daily theme suggestions.  

 

Mini-Movie Review - Bubba Ho-Tep (2002)

This…..is not a good movie. But it’s a really fun movie that every horror fan should watch at least once. So should every fan of Bruce Campbell. The story itself is from a short story by the incomparable Joe R. Lansdale.

Here’s the gist, and it’s a doozy: Campbell plays none other than Elvis. Yep, the man himself. Only it’s Elvis pretending to be an Elvis impersonator. See, Elvis got tired of the regular grind of celebrity and fame. So, he traded places with the best Elvis impersonator out there. You’ll have to watch the movie to get the entire hilarious story. Including how he wound up in the Shady Rest Retirement Home.

Elvis is aided, or maybe encouraged, by his best buddy at the home, Jack, aka Jack Kennedy. The President has been the victim of some sort of government conspiracy that has gone so far as to dye his skin black and stick him in a retirement home. Other than the craziness of his claims, Jack is very cultured, well read, and intelligent.

And then, there’s the mummy, who wants to feed on the souls of the residents so he can gain his full powers back and rejoin the land of the living. There are a few other equally wonderful characters as well, but it comes down to Elvis and Jack to figure out what’s happening and put a stop to it.

Seriously, this is a wonderfully funny movie. Watching Campbell clomping around with the aid of a walker while fighting a mummy is something that needs to be seen to be fully appreciated. The acting is spot on. The movie was, I think, done on film, so it has an almost grainy quality to it that suits the dingy setting of the nursing home. And you can tell that everyone was having fun during the filming.

Gaming wise, this would be good for any fun horror setting. Or you could take out the humor – leave that for your players – and just keep the setting. Having a mummy lurking around draining patients of their energy and souls would lead to a very dark adventure. Call of Cthulhu comes to mind, because I run it so much, but I think there are some Bloat Games that would lend themselves to this treatment as well. And with a few more tweaks you could even take it to a fantasy setting. Although you might want to rethink the mummy and use something more appropriate for your setting. Heck, this could be a truly horrific Vaesen setting, now that I think about it. Because, honestly, the setting would be great for several different types of scenarios and adventures.

If you’d like to see what other movies I’ve got on my schedule this month, check out my post here. And if you’d like to play along, check out Pun’s blog, Halls of the Nephilim, for his daily theme suggestions.  

 

Mini Movie Review - Devil (2010)

Thanks to everyone who reads along and bears with me while I dust off both my writing and reviewing skills. It's been a few years since my brain would let me put words together into a string of written sentences. Lack of oxygenated blood and the mental messiness of menopause really had me messed up for awhile, but the menopause symptoms toned way down after a couple of years and a quadruple heart bypass earlier this year helped with the oxygenated blood issue. It's nice to get me life back!

 This will be one of the shortest reviews yet, because I only made it 1/2 an hour before turning it off. Seriously. Some folks maybe will like it? I'm not one of them, and I can tell you why. But first, why did I pick this movie that none of us have probably heard of? Well, the day's theme was "With a Twist" and I know M. Night Shyamalan is known for his twist endings. And he's not only involved as a produce, but also created the story. So, I at least expected decent. Maybe I shouldn't have. I mean, the talk about his movies since The Sixth Sense. 

First thing that was wrong? The opening credits. Very stylized shots of the camera moving through an upside-down cityscape. All it had me asking was why. The story is about 5 people trapped in an elevator and one of them is the devil in disguise. So, they've already started to lose me. I thought it might be redeemed with the next few bits, but no.

Second thing that was wrong? The score. Do not start with tension building music when there's just ordinary stuff happening. And yes, i n this kind of move, a dead body on top of a van is just ordinary stuff happening. Now, if you'd shown the action leading up to the body coming through a high level window from the skyscraper office building....maybe. (And aren't those windows shatter-proof? How much forse would you need to get a body out one of them?) So, we have a rampant case of music not fitting the scenes.

Third thing wrong with the movie? Voice over exposition during the credits. Actually, I didn't mind this. It was a nice device to get us up to speed with the mythology behind the story. Except that it was continuing a third of the way into the movie. And I'm still not sure which character was doing the voice over. But seriously, if you need to still be giving me info on top of what I'm seeing by that point in the movie, you've lost. Seriously, show, don't tell si a mantra for storytelling for a reason.

And finally, the fourth and last reason I stopped e the movie? The folks in the elevator were too much a caricature of real characters. And I felt no sympathy for any of them really. At best I didn't feel anything about them either way and at worst I wanted to drop them down the elevator shaft myself. There were some characters outside the elevator who were decently done, but they weren't the focus. 

So, seriously, skip this movie. I couldn't even make myself sit through it for the sake of finishing my challenge movie for the night. I kept hoping it would get better, but instead it just got worse. It was so bad, you'll notice I didn't even post a handy IMDb link for you. And no, it's not a so bad, it's good kinda bad. It's just bad.

Given that it's the fifth movie in the challenge and the first I really haven't liked is a pretty good record. 

Check out the rest of my challenge choices at this post. And if you want to play along as well, you can find Pun's daily themes on his blog, Halls of Nephilim. And if you watch, or have watched, any of my reviewed movies, please leave me a comment in below.

Mini Movie Review - Jaws (1975)

 

The third night of our movie challenge was to watch a horror movie where nature strikes back. There are several movies that fall into this, but Jaws was the obvious choice for us. I mean, we did get to go to the beach again this summer, Rowan loves sharks, and I have a bit of a fondness for the odd creatures as well.

Jaws is considered one of, if not THE, first summer blockbusters out there, and Spielberg has malfunctioning animatronics to thank for it. We only see the shark towards the very end of the movie, while the first half is all about setting up the big showdown between man and shark. And that first serious look at the monster shark doesn’t fail to impress, leading to the classic movie line, “We’re gonna need a bigger boat.) And in the meantime we get plenty of blood and body bits.

This movie also showcases some social commentary, what with the mayor wanting to keep the beaches open at any cost, including the loss of human life. He even points out that during the July 4^th festivities his children were also on the beach. And this was after he bullied a friend to get in water, along with his wife and grandkids.

As already stated, most of the second half is simply the fishing trip to try and catch the shark. Just three men on a boat – the sheriff, the shark expert, and the crazy fisherman who owns the boat. I’ll let you figure out who, if anyone, makes it out alive. I will say that the tension building in the second half of this movie is a master class. And this was one of Spielberg’s first movies!

Not sure how I’d play this one up in a gaming sense. Maybe a small scenario for Call of Cthulhu? OR, it could be fun to move it to a fantasy setting, maybe, for Pathfinder or that other D20 game that’s popular. Could be fun. If you do, make sure that shark is a souped up version of the Monster Manual or Bestiary and that it has plenty of hit points or armor.

Seriously, this was a fun re-watch from when I was in high school. I’d forgotten how much humor it had. Unless you have a shark phobia, give it a watch.

 Check out the rest of my challenge suggestions here. And if you want to play along as well, check out Pun's themes on his blog, Halls of the Nephilim. . 

Mini Movie Review - Train to Busan (2016)

While I have time, let’s work in a quick review of Last Train to Busan (2016). This one made a lot of “Best Of” lists and it’s easy to see why – it’s well executed, the cinematography is wonderful, the acting solid, and the premise is simple at heart – Seok-woo’s daughter, Soo-an, just wants to see her mom for her birthday. All he needs to do is take the time from work, ride on the train to Busan to meet up with his ex, and come back to work.

But, of course, that would be a really boring movie. So let’s add some viral outbreak that quickly infects folks making them want to immediately infect anyone around them who isn’t already. That way you quickly get hordes of infected chasing non-infected, and it really does make for some effective and tense moments in the movie. I liked it.

I also like the social commentary of the movie, regarding who was maybe worth saving and what lengths some people would go to in order to increase their odds of survival. Or at least it let them feel that way. South Korea has a very polite cultural norm. And yet it would be easy to see the movie set in so many other places. The more different we are, the more we are the same, eh?

The ending of the movie is truly guy-wrenching. Heck, the last half is gut-wrenching and nail biting as we cheer on our male heroes who are trying to make their way through the rail cars to their female loved ones. And they don’t just bash their way though, either. There is some seriously observation, cunning, and quick thinking that happens in this movie. And I truly was in tears by the end. Sacrifices are made. The stocky businessman I cheered over finally getting his due at the hands of a horde of infected only to tear up when the director and writers managed to humanize him before his final death. Train to Busan belongs on all of those “Best of” lists for a very good reason.

That said, I could still totally nit-pick this movie to death. There are so many little things from continuity issues to just logic ones. But I made the decision while watching it, not to do that, and I’m still not going to do that here. It was really that good, in spite of any issues I might have found. (I mean really, what virus has an infection rate of less than 3 seconds. It’s not sustainable, at the very least.) I thought the amount of blood and core was about right – it added to, rather than distracted from, the movie. And the earlier actors playing the roles of the infected did an amazing job with the necessary body work. Those early scenes of the infection taking hold were especially physical.

How can it apply to a gaming setting? Well, Rowan, my eldest, thinks it would be a decently adapted idea for The Walking Dead. They’re probably right. And I think it would make a great Humans vs. Zombies game, which is already a live-play game of horror survival.

Anyway, check it out. It’s a fun, yet heart-wrenching, couple of hours that you won’t regret. 

 Check out the rest of my challenge suggestions here. And if you want to play along as well, check out Pun's themes on his blog, Halls of the Nephilim. . 

Mini-Movie Review - John Carpenter's The Fog (1980)

 

My mini reviews of the movies we’re watching this month are going to run a wee bit behind. October decided to come in with a bang and I’ve barely been home. Fitting in a movie in the evening has been challenging.

1 October – The Fog (Day’s theme was First Time Watch) This was the original version of the movie, from 1980. I really enjoyed it and loved how it didn’t play to the tropes we so easily toss about nowadays when discussing movies. It would be worth a re-watch.

My biggest problem was the age difference between Tom Atkins and Jamie Lee Curtis. I might not have discovered just how big of an age difference there was, except Jeff pointed out that he looked a little old for her. A little! Try he was 45 to her 22. Once I knew, it just became icky. However, you can already tell how good of an actress she is.

I really loved that the three female leads are the top billed in the credit, with Jamie Lee Curtis and Adrienne Barbeau having top billing on the movie poster. And the women were smart, too.

The movie makes the most of suspense, which I like. It’s also got some slasher vibes as the creatures in the fog exact their revenge, but you don’t see a lot of blood splashed about. I honestly think that would have been a distraction from the suspense John Carpenter kept building as the story progressed.

And since this is a, at least in theory, a gaming-related blog, I started thinking Call of Cthulhu by the mid-point. I mean, really, creepy fog with murderous monsters coming out of it? It practically screams Deep Ones – and I’m not talking about those Hybrid nasties either. Oh, and the movie backs up my philosophy of if you play well, and smart, you have a good chance of surviving.

That's it for now! Play along with your own Halloween movie challenge and check out Pun's themes here. 

Pun's October Horror Movie Challenge

 

You are invited to join me. Apparently October horror movie challenges are a thing this time of year. Who knew? A gaming friend of mine – Pun Issac, decided to create his own challenge. And me being not of a normal person’s right mind decided “Why not?”. And so, here we are. I spent HOURS yesterday coming up with the schedule below.

There are some caveats. I don’t watch a lot of horror, although there seem to be more movies and television seeping into my viewing nowadays. I was a teenager in the 80s, at the height of the slasher movies, where directors and producers kept pushing the limits of just how much fake blood they could toss around. Even action movies got into the game, upping both the blood and the body count. And I loved action movies, until it just got to be too over the top. As for horror, give me a good Hitchcock or similar movie any day. So you won’t really find any of those sorts of movies on my schedule. I also don’t do torture porn. Totally not my thing.

Also, 31 movies in 31 days is a lot to clear one’s schedule for. So, some movies will need to become part of a double feather either the day before or the day after. I’ve gaming commitments twice a week. Some movies, depending on length, I can watch after gaming on Wednesday nights, but our Monday group goes to 11 pm. And I’ve a podcast review livestream every other Sunday, but can probably still fit in a movie after.

All of these movies will be watched at home, except for Five Nights at Freddy's, which I hope to catch opening night. (I had to change New Movie and Found Footage to make that happen. Not a big deal. Most of the movies can be found on streaming services, although there are several I already have on DVD. I bought The Thing on Amazon last year, and will probably buy two others for this horror movie challenge.

I hope to provide quick reviews as we go, but that will probably depend on just how busy October gets. Anyway, I hope you watch along, leave your own comments, and generally enjoy the spooky fall weather and atmosphere of October. It’s one of my favorite months.

The original challenge can be found at Halls of the Nephilim, so you can see the various categories I needed to use. (And for the most part, I did!) And an easier to read/print version of my schedule can be found here. 

Happy Spooky Season! It's good to be back!

Melinda