Sweet With Teeth: An Interview With Trick ‘r Treat Director Mike Dougherty [Part 2]

"Bonfires burning bright/Pumpkin faces in the night/I remember Halloween" – the Misfits sang it best, but Michael Dougherty really takes it to heart. In part two of my San Diego Comic-Con round-table interview with the writer/director of Trick 'r Treat (pictured below, on set, with one of the film's stars, Brian Cox), the ultimate nostalgic Halloween horror movie, he recalls his own experiences during the season, how they informed the film, and more about his career as a filmmaker. Scroll down for part 1, or click here.

Enjoy, and may your own Halloween be all sugar, spice and everything not nice...

[Part 2]

Did you make any major changes from page to screen?

 

“It’s funny because I’ve definitely learned a lot about the process, having already co-written X-Men 2 and Superman Returns for Brian Singer. That was like boot camp. You learn that you kind of write a film three times: once on the page, once on set when you’re shooting it and once in the editing room. And you never ever know what the final product is gonna be. Originally it was written like Creepshow, you’d have one story, that one ended and you move on to the next one, and there would be certain crossover moments where you saw the same moment from one of the other character’s perspective. But we put it together in the editing room, and honestly I thought it would’ve worked fine, but there was definitely a consensus between myself and the producers and Brian of ‘What if we mixed it up? What if we stuck with this story for a few minutes, then jumped to the next one?’ I think it helps keep the audience guessing a little bit more that way. If you read the first draft of this script – which I will never let you read [laughs] – you’d see that it’s vastly different. I think the only one that mostly stayed intact was Brian Cox’s story.”

 

Are you going back to superhero films or stick with horror movies?

 

“I like the idea of jumping around. I did two superhero movies that I had a blast on but felt like, ‘Ok, what’s next? Let’s go to horror.’ Horror being my favourite genre of all time. Now that I’ve done horror, I’m going to do something else. The next one I think will be more of a sci-fi monster flick with bigger monsters. I don’t like to pigeonholed, but everything I do tends to be a checklist of things I was in love with as a kid – reading X-men comics, watching Superman cartoons, growing up with Halloween and I had a massive love of Godzilla films.”

 

 What are some of the films that inspired Trick ‘r Treat?

 

“I think there were certain films that inspired the tone of the piece. That certainly goes back to old episodes of The Twilight Zone, Tales From the Crypt, Creepshow – those being big ones. There was a tone that, like, Poltergeist had, which is, yeah, it’s a horror movie, but there’s a sense of humour, it doesn’t take itself too seriously. There’s just as much levity and humour in that as there is shock and horror, and it’s the balance of those things that I really like. I thin that anytime you caught up in just being scary, you lose out on the opportunity to kind of inject humour to make your audience feel comfortable, let the air out, and then grab ‘em by the balls.”

Trick ‘r Treat is full of Halloween nostalgia, particularly the colourful costumes; what did you dress up as when you were a kid?

 

“I had a pretty big variety. For a few years my sister was always the witch and I was always the vampire, so that character’s in [the movie]: the kid vampire. But then I dressed as a slaughtered cow one time, the hunchback. They started getting more complicated and diverse; last year I went as a Battlestar Galactica soldier – that was fun. Yeah… I still dress up.”

 

Because the film was pushed back so much, a lot of people knew the movie through the Sam toy that was on shelves way before the movie’s release. What can you tell about the movie’s toy line?

 

“That’s one of my favourite aspects of it. When I came up with the film and started writing it – I collect the toys and the comic books from my favourite films – I thought, ‘What is the comic book for this movie? What is this soundtrack? What is the Halloween mask?’ When we approached all the different possible vendors, everyone was eager to do their version of Sam. I went into Forbidden Planet Comics in New York and I saw Sam sandwiched between Freddy Krueger, Leatherface and Bride of Frankenstein, and that sent chills up my spine.”

 

Do you see Trick ‘r Treat as part of a series of films?

 

“In the back of my head I’ve always thought of that idea. I’m fascinated by the way that Halloween is celebrated in different geographical areas, as well as time periods, so I think it would be fun to hop around. What’s the version that’s set in the 1950s? What’s the version that’s set in the 1800s? Let’s go to New York City, let’s go to the bayous of Louisiana. The one constant would be Sam.”

[Photos by Joseph Lederer]

-Dave Alexander

Sweet With Teeth: An Interview With Trick ‘r Treat Director Mike Dougherty [Part 1]

 
Halloween may be fun, but it isn’t always fair – why else would crappy little boxes of raisins exist? And sometimes you have go to a lot of houses giving out those nasty little rectangular killjoys, or packages of stale gumballs, or those weird barf-coloured toffees in the orange wrappers, in order to hit the jackpot and find the house on the block doling out full-sized O’Henry bars.

Similarly, there are an awful lot of terrible horror films out there, but there are all kinds of gems if you take the time to look. One of the best horror films of the year is Michael Dougherty’s Halloween-themed Trick ‘r Treat, recently released on DVD and Blu-Ray by Warner. The movie is legendary among genre fans that saw the trailer debut years ago, before 300, and then puzzled as it was pushed back indefinitely. Finally, after a gangbusters festival run, it got dumped to home video – despite the fact that it’s had an overwhelmingly positive reaction from fans and critics; it’s got name stars, such as Anna Paquin, Dylan Baker and Brian Cox and it’s a wonderfully colourful, cinematic big screen film perfect to give crowds an alternative to Saw. Meanwhile… the Scary Movies keep on coming to theatres.

Sigh…

The less you know about the plot of Trick ‘r Treat, the better, because the film is full of surprises. Here’s what else you do need to know, however: it’s an anthology-style film, much like Creepshow, in which four intertwining stories all taking place in the same town on Halloween night unfold, involving a variety of monsters, madmen and bloody mayhem, but also a lot of humour. It’s an instant Halloween classic and when you see it – and you’d better see it, pal – you’ll wonder just how Trick ‘r Treat didn’t go theatrical.

I got to take part in a round-table interview with writer/director Dougherty (who also co-wrote the first two X-Men films and Superman Returns) at this year’s San Diego ComiCon, where he explained some of the reasons the film got shafted, talked about his own Halloween obsessions and described the nostalgic world he was trying to create.

Here’s part one of that interview:

 

How did Trick ‘r Treat come about?

 

“I did the short film [version] at NYU, which was my senior thesis. And that was the introduction of the character Sam, this kind of creepy trick ‘r treater. I have an unhealthy obsession with Halloween. … I grew up loving the holiday, mostly because my birthday was right around the same time; I was born on the 28^th of October, Halloween’s the 31^st, so my birthdays tended to be trick ‘r’ treating parties. Might as well kill two birds with one stone, so, yeah, had the friends over, dressed up in costume, went out trick ‘r’ treating, came back, ate candy. October was always a magical month for me growing up.”

 

Tell us about the world that Trick ‘r Treat takes place in.

 

“Well, it’s set in a fictional town in Ohio – the state I grew up in. Time period-wise we try to keep it mostly non-specific; you’re not ever going to see characters Googling information on Halloween. The biggest piece of modern technology we have is one cellphone in the entire movie. We wanted to do everything we could to not date the film. Even the costumes are very non-specific. With the kids’ masks, we tried to echo those cheap Halloween masks you got while growing up, from Woolworths or Wal-Mart or whatever – they came in a crappy box, but they’re creepy as hell. You put them on a kid and let them wander around the street and it’s unnerving. … There’s something about not being able to see the whites of the kids’ eyes that’s really creepy.”

 

You really mix humour and horror in this film, which doesn’t happen very much these days; is that part of the reason this film was a tough sell to the studio?

 

“It’s difficult. Even Sam Raimi, who did it in Drag Me to Hell – which I loved, I loved that movie – it was hard to get audiences to accept the idea. I grew up watching Evil Dead and Nightmare on Elm Street, which is hilarious – it’s a funny movie if you sit down and watch it. [Switches momentarily to Freddy Krueger voice] ‘No running in the halls!’  Poltergeist is hilarious too. I don’t what it is, if it’s a generation of executives that are terrified of the combining the two. A lot times there are these unspoken mandates in the industry from studio to studio of ‘Oh, that doesn’t work. Marketing! Test demographics!’ Yadda yadda yadda. Or one subgenre becomes successful, so everybody tries to copy it. The last time we had this happen was with Scream. So we had Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer and we had a lot of copy-cat films. Honestly, it led to a backlash. It led to ‘torture porn’ to wash away ironic horror. Hopefully humour horror will come back.”

 

More specifically, why did this film get held up for so long?

 

“Yeah, I was in labour for a while. You have to remember that Warner Brothers is a big tent pole studio; they have their Harry Potters and their Dark Knights to worry about, so a $12 million horror film isn’t exactly at the top of their priority list. The budget of my movie probably wouldn’t even cover Brad Pitt’s trailer in the Ocean’s movies. It’d just not a big thing. And if you think about it, a lot of our favourite horror movies, a lot of our favourite horror franchises, started as low budget, independent movies. Had they been made in the studio system, I guarantee that they would’ve had the same problem this film had. In the studio system there’s a lot of nervousness, a lot of second or triple guessing as to whether something will work or not. It’s a very fear-driven way of making movies. It takes and independent film to get out there, to break the rules, to be embraced by the public. When [John] Carpenter tried to get Halloween out there, he would show it to studios and they would say that it’s the worst thing they’d ever seen. He had an executive tell him, ‘This is the most un-frightening thing I’ve ever looked at.’ It goes to show what she knew. So I feel like this is the type of film which I feel that – in a way – snuck into a studio, got itself made, and the studio kinda looked at the thing when it came out and said, ‘What the hell is this?’”

 

What you’re saying is that suits have no clue how to sell something orginal.

 

“It’s weird, it’s not a formulaic horror film, it’s not ‘Five teenagers get into truck. Drive into wilderness. Get killed off one by one.’ It’s not an easy sell. We’re talking about four separate short stories with easily recognizable villain. There is Sam [the little guy on the movie poster], but he’s not the villain in every story. Lots of twists and turns, and kind of a mish-mash of tones. One story is extremely dark and creepy, one’s a bit lighter. And they cross within the horror genre – one that involves a serial creature, one with creatures – so I think it was just an odd movie for them to try to market. It would’ve cost them another $20 million to market and distribute this film.”

 

[Watch for Part Two of my interview with Mike Dougherty tomorrow]

-Dave Alexander

St. Anger

He’s been called “a performance artist whose medium is rage,” he has spent 30 of his 35 years in prison in solitary confinement, his reputation includes being Britain’s most violent, most expensive and – his favourite part – most famous inmate. He was born Michael Gordon Peterson, but that’s boring when you’re an ambitious tough guy, so he stuck with the nickname a fight promoter gave him: Charles Bronson. Unlike the late Charles Bronson, famous Hollywood tough guy actor, though, this CB shaves his head, sports a 19^th century era curled moustache and is built like a turn-of-the-century bare knuckles brawler.

You couldn’t ask for a better bio pic subject, so no surprise that said bio pic, Bronson, has been a festival favourite. Last week, here in Toronto, there was an advanced screening in preparation of the film’s limited theatrical release. If you’re like me, you’d consider this movie “a renter” normally, but there are three major reasons to catch this on the big screen.

Firstly, the semi-true story of Peterson/Bronson himself, which is captivating, as the guy seems perfectly happy as an institutionalized danger, having been responsible for numerous assaults, protests, riots and hostage taking incidents over the years. There’s clearly something admirable about the man’s commitment to his lifestyle and jovial take on the whole thing. Here are more facts on the man from U.K. rag The Mirror.

Secondly, there’s Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn, who made a name for himself with the crime saga Pusher trilogy (he also co-wrote Bronson with Brock Norman Brock). Refn takes his biggest cue from A Clockwork Orange, with a touch of Natural Born Killers’ violent-criminals-as-media-celebrities zaniness thrown in. Like Alex (Malcolm McDowell) in the Kubrick film, Bronson (Tom Hardy) has gleefully adopted the Thug Life and wins you over with his charm and charisma, despite being otherwise reprehensible. Also, Bronson similarly uses extreme violence (no rape, though) to play with the viewer’s reaction to the bloodshed – we’re simultaneously attracted to, repulsed by and entertained with the spectacle of violence onscreen.

Refn wisely does like Kubrick did in Clockwork Orange and shies away from realism, stylizing the violence and constantly reminding us that we’re watching a performance by cutting to Hardy in a Vaudeville-type theatre, entertaining an upper crust-type crowd with his brutish tales. This both distances us from the violence, and invites us into Bronson’s circus-like mentality. In keeping with this, there’s an energy to the film that fills the screen – it’s a little big movie.

Thirdly, and most notably me thinks, is Hardy as Bronson. This is a career making performance from an actor who gained something like 100 pounds of muscle (take that DeNiro in Cape Fear), literally bares all and creates the larger-than-prison-life persona needed to make the movie work. Plus that moustache is inarguably amazing. (I sincerely hope the style returns – long live moustache wax!) Hardy’ previous work includes RocknRolla, Layer Cake and Star Trek: Nemesis, as an alien baddie (a bald one, of course). Here, when he’s covered in blood, sweat and filth, eyes crazed, drooling from rage, Hardy looks like G.G. Allin on ‘roids – scary.

But that said, the character is given an artistic side outside of violence (like the real Bronson, he develops an affinity for drawing), a soft spot for women (there seems to be a direct correlation between him failing in a relationship or being rejected and resorting to – no, reveling in – violent criminal activity), and even a couple tender moments where he sheds some tears.

Of course, who’s in it for that? Bronson is all about the meaning of mayhem – the title character treating prison like it was Candyland for someone with a sweet tooth for punches.

You certainly can't say the man hasn't earned his reputation.

 

-Dave Alexander

Into the Wild

How could you not get excited when the trailer for Where the Wild Things Are premiered? Seeing Maurice Sendak’s creatures come to life at the hand of Spike Jonze, to the transcendent strains of The Arcade Fire’s “Wake Up” was absolutely thrilling to anyone who grew up on the book.

That said, adapting a ten-sentence story into a feature-length film is a huge challenge. Jonze’s movie explores Max’s back story as a lonely single parent child with an overactive imagination and anger issues. And when the boy eventually makes the journey to the realm of the Wild Things, the characters spends a long time there, living amongst the creatures, slowly realizing that he belongs back at home with mom.

Jonzes uses the creatures to explore the facets of Max’s emotional turmoil, with Carol (voiced by James Gandolfini) as the symbol of childhood frustration turning into destructive rage, then regret and sorrow. As Jones takes us through Max’s imagination, he unveils all kinds of larger-than-life sequences and images tied into the things that little boys are made of. Dirt clod fights, pile-ups, fort-building, running through the forest, discovering secret places, screaming and causing general destruction are all on the menu.

Yet, I found myself checking my watch. The adventures-as-character study plot becomes repetitive, and the Wild Things are completely impressive overall but the awe soon wears off. I think 20 minutes shaved off the 101-minute running time would’ve suited the film well.

The original story was just a brief excursion into the protagonist’s imagination, so it’s no wonder that there are a bunch of animated shorts that adapt Sendak’s tale. I came across a bunch of ‘em on YouTube over the past week, as well as some other essential viewing material for the longtime Where the Wild Things Are fan.

Rumpus away…

 

Here’s the official animated version of the story from the ‘70s, which uses Sendak’s illustrations and brings them to life. The soundtrack is pretty dated and the animation less than ambitious, but it’s still cool. Love the narrator’s voice (composer Peter Schickele) too.

 

A claymation adaptation done as a school project. Max and the monsters look fairly cool but the animation itself is crummy at times.

 

Wow, I had no idea that Disney was using the Sendak story to do early computer animation tests. This video from 1983 shows how Disney animators were experimenting with vector-based computer animation to bring a section of the book alive. Well, that’s not quite, true… Rather, this is a Disney-fied version in which Max is drawing on the walls in marker and then playfully chases the endearing family dog around. Sendak doesn’t have a cheesy Disney sensibility by any means, though, and I think this would’ve been pretty lame.

 

Here’s a rather neat rendering of the story using shadow puppets, from Wales. It’s a little herky-jerky but I do like how the creators interpreted the monsters in their own way. The volcano is pretty sweet too.

 

Animation doesn’t get much cruder than this one, and what are those Teletubbies things playing the drums? It’s a pretty weak effort, although the trippy soundtrack has its charms.

 

This one’s a video of Montreal band Patrick Watson (also the name of the singer) performing “Where the Wild Things Are” off the group’s new album Wooden Arms. The disc was recently shortlisted for the Polaris Music Prize.  I love the playful, hypnotic tone and howling vocals, which capture the spirit of the story. This song would’ve been great for the end credits of Jonze’s film.

 

This apparently leaked test footage from the film shows a scene with Carol being portrayed by an actor in a suit – Muppets-style. Obviously the filmmakers were trying to get their heads around how best to depict the creatures.

 

Here’s my favourite short film version, an ambitious stop-motion claymation take on the tale with shades of Nick Park (of Wallace & Gromit fame) yet more rough and sparse (e.g. where are the vines the narrator says are growing in Max’s room?), and much darker. In fact, this has some downright frightening moments when Max glowers, and later the Wild Things do the same thing (making the important connection between the boy and his monsters). It’s the first time I’ve seen the creatures look actually frightening, which fits the theme of childhood angst that permeates the book. The world music soundtrack really works here too. One more thing to note: like the feature film, this one dispenses with the sea monster Wild Thing. That guy (girl?) just doesn’t seem to be too popular.

 

Lastly, if you’re sick of all this kid stuff, here’s a Wild Things chaser.

Universal Studios Florida: From Dusk 'til Dark (Part 2)

“Ripped From the Silver Screen” is splashed across the website for the Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Florida, which is no surprise, seeing as the park was built on cinema. But Universal in Orlando doesn’t just pay homage to particular films with movie-themed rides, restaurants and attractions, as the Horror Nights demonstrate, the creators also pay tribute to cinema itself. So, as I discovered on my tour through the place (you can read about Part 1 here, or just scroll down), the history and experience of movie watching shapes this seasonal event, as well, whether it’s the ghoulish theatre ushers that roam the park, the drive-in-themed outdoor “Scare Zone” or the Silver Screams haunted house, which is designed to look like it takes place in an old movie theatre.

The main draw, of course – as the long lines that began to form after sundown indicated – is the collection of eight haunted houses. In addition to Silver Screams, there’s the sewer mutant-themed The Spawning and the family-butcher-shop-with-a-secret-themed Leave it to Cleaver, which also have original storylines created for this year’s Horror Nights. The other five houses are based directly on existing franchises; there’s Saw, The Wolfman (based on the upcoming remake), Chucky: Friends Til the End, Frankenstein: Creation of the Damned and Dracula: Legacy of Blood. Our guided V.I.P. tour allowed us to cut the lines and see all the houses, one after another, which makes for a whirlwind of sensory stimulation (translation: it was a total blast).

The man who leads the team responsible for shaping the themes of the event is J. Michael Roddy, who’s a filmmaker himself (he co-produced the Jaws-themed doc The Shark is Still Working, which should be available soon). I got to hang out with him while at the Horror Nights and he’s not just a helluva fun guy, but a true blue movie geek who is making the most of a dream job.

Anyhow, when the sun goes down, Universal Studios Florida really comes to life at this time of year. To give you a taste of it, here’s Part 2 of my Halloween Horror Night photo album.

This is the fantastically retro faux-drive-in sign for the Horrorwood Die-In Scare Zone. A bunch of cars (some bloodied) were parked in front of a screen, while Harry Warden, the killer from My Bloody Valentine wandered about in the dark with his pick-axe.

We also went on the Jaws ride, which is a year-round staple of the park. You're not allowed to take pictures while on it, or while in the haunted attractions, for that matter, so I couldn't snap any of the mechanical shark rising out of the water beside our boat. This hanging beastie outside the ride made for good photo ops, though. Bonus: there were a bunch of actors in town for Orlando's Spooky Empire convention, and many of them went to Universal. I ended up riding Jaws with Jason Mewes ("Jay" of Jay and Silent Bob fame) and Derek Mears, who played Jason Vorhees in the Friday the 13th remake. (For the record, I'd totally pay to see Jason vs. Jaws.) While at the park, my group also ran into Jake Busey and Tom Savini.

To give you an idea of how popular the haunted houses are, here's a shot of part of the line-up to get into Leave it to Cleaver. This one takes you through the back of a the shop, where captives are caged (plenty of actors are used in the houses) and chained up, waiting to be used for meat; then you move into the actual abattoir, which is nice 'n' gory; and eventually you end in the front of a 1950s-style deli/butcher shop. It looks completely authentic, which is part of the fun. The budget for these attractions is much larger than anything I'd seen before. They really should've had a hot dog stand at the exit to this one.

Another one of the Scare Zones is the circus sideshow-themed Cirque du Freak. I didn't realize it until I looked it up for this, that it's based on the upcoming, inevitably crappy, Vampire's Assistant movie. Regardless, the old-timey sideshow atmosphere made it one of my favourite stops in the park. The bearded lady was there among the rat-girl, stilt walkers and other performers. At least I think it was a lady...

The most action-packed Scare Zone is War of the Living Dead, in which American and German forces continue to fight out it as zombies, decades after WWII. Roddy told us that this was his favourite, and I have to agree because nothing is quite as disturbing as Nazi zombies. Above is Exhibit A. These guys would fire on each other, chase you around, but also pose for photos. The undead are rarely so damn accommodating.

Again, here's an example of the effort put into the Horror Nights: the lighting, the authentic vehicles, the props and the actors. This particular Scare Zone is especially effective at night. Even better proof of that below...

This is my favourite shot from the night at Universal Studios.  Army + zombie + fire = awesome.

Aside from the Scare Zones and haunted houses, we also went on rides, the best of which were Revenge of the Mummy: The Ride and the Simpsons Ride, which is the same as its counterpart at Universal Studios in California. Both are multi-media ride attractions that use screens to tell a story, although The Mummy is a literal indoor roller coaster, while The Simpsons is one of those virtual-style ones where your seat moves around in sync with the action on the screen. Again, no pic allowed, so here's a spooky shot of the giant Krusty head at the Simpsons ride.

 

Lastly, here's the rotating Universal Studios sign outside the park.

So, if you're a theme park junkie, Halloween lover or movie geek, I'd highly recommend a trip to Universal Studios Florida for the Halloween Horror Nights. These guys really do it up right. Giant sharks, bearded women, zombies, cannibalism, celebrities, all kinds of movie-themed stuff... what more do you need? Well, maybe zombie sharks with beards – that would rule.

Universal Studios Florida: From Dusk 'til Dark (Part 1)

It has been a helluva theme park year for me. After wanting to visit Universal Studios since I was old enough to see the TV commercials for the California location, which promised a supernova of movie and TV-themed fun, in 2009 I finally visited both the one on the West Coast (back in March) and the one in Orlando, Florida (this past weekend).

Now, there's only one thing that can make a visit to Universal Studios Florida better, and that's visiting the place while the Halloween Horror Nights are on, which mean the place grows eight haunted houses, is now crawling with hundreds of costumed performers and it gets a huge Samhain makeover in general. On top of that, there are the usual rides, attractions and displays.

OK, and there's only one thing better than a visit to Universal Studios Florida during the Halloween Horror Nights: getting free VIP passes and a guided tour through the haunted houses. Such are the benefits of the day job at a horror magazine. No line-ups for the Jaws ride! Ride the Revenge of the Mummy 'coaster twice in a row!! Do all eight haunted houses, one after another, including the Child's Play, Dracula, Saw and Frankenstein-themed ones!!! (Sorry, couldn't help but boast a little there, just so damned excited.)

I arrived at the park with a couple of my co-workers in the late afternoon and stayed until close at midnight. I've divided the photo album of the trip into two parts: Dusk and Dark. First up is the movie-themed mania we experienced before the sun went down.

The front gate has been outfitted with a movie marquee, a screen with frightening footage and giant posters advertising the themed haunted houses.

I just finished watching the Back to the Future trilogy for the first time in years, so, as you can see, I was particularly excited about coming across one of the modified Deloreans used in the series. Note the Mr. Fusion mod on the back. We peeked inside to get a closer look at the Flux Capacitor, naturally. Oddly enough, Huey Lewis was sleeping in the passenger side under an old sleeping bag. If only he could go back to the mid-'80s when he was king, thanks to the movie's theme song. "Gotta get back in time."

Just a few metres away sits the time machine train from part III. And, yes, it does look just as ridiculous from up close.

What those last two pics don't show you are the crowds that were pouring in. In the background is the rotating sign for The Monster Cafe. Behold: Frankenstein's Monster, the Wolf Man and the Creature From the Black Lagoon, none of which look particularly frightening when holding food, including The Creature's bowl of shrimp salad.

This is the is the first of the mini-narratives set up on the streets of the park. Here, some sort of toxic waste resulted in disfigured mutants. Of course, the whole thing was slightly undermined by the massive Jimmy Neutron sign on the building to the left. Or maybe it was some very subversive commentary about that particular Universal property.

Ack! One of the gross mutants. Worst. Whistler. Ever.

And for those looking for something with more transvestites in it: The Rocky Horror Picture Show Tribute.

Finally, as dusk was almost replaced by night, and the real Halloween atmosphere settled in, a look at a seasonally-modified Mel's Drive-In. Maybe a little try-hard, but points for effort.

In the second half of my Universal Studios Florida photo album, the Halloween Horror Nights fun begins...

-Dave Alexander

Dylan is Killin'

“Hilarious” and “pedophile” are two words that rarely share a sentence, unless of course you’re talking about Dylan Baker. Baker is that guy, the character actor that everyone knows, that one who kinda looks like William H. Macy, and is best know for his portrayal of the pathetically scheming yet sickly amusing diddler Bill Maplewood in Todd Solondz’s Happiness (the scene where he desperately tries to feed the uninterested neighbour kid a drugged tuna sandwich is legendary). His IMDb resume is long; among his most memorable performances is his role in the Spider-Man franchise as Dr. Kurt Conners (the guy who eventually will turn into the Lizard if the series follows the Spidey comics and cartoon), repressed 1950s-style dad in the awesome Canadian zombie comedy Fido, and now in Trick ‘r Treat, as Steven, the friendly neighbourhood dad, school principal and poisoner of trick-‘r’-treaters.

Baker plays the most memorable character in the Halloween-themed anthology from writer/director Michael Dougherty. The film, which was released this week on DVD and Blu-Ray (from Warner Bros.) is a Halloween classic, and I’ll be doing more on it as we head towards Oct 31 because it’s a damn-near perfect Halloween movie.

But, seeing as today is Baker’s 50the birthday, let’s talk about him. Trick ‘r Treat is the ideal role for a guy who plays buttoned-down so perfectly and subverts that into something much darker, yet hysterical. His archetype is kind of a cross between the characters that Macy and Anthony Perkins play(ed). Steven is a seemingly square guy on the verge of snapping, who isn’t as much as lovable loser as the former and not as much of a damaged psychopath as the latter, but a little of both – a seemingly harmless workaday fellow with a beady eyes and a serpentine smile. He’s the very bad guy you love to root for because he’s constantly bubbling over with angst.

Actually, I’d add a third actor in the mix: Tom Hanks in his best guy-losing-his-shit roles. You know – the ones before he became a boring, er, I mean serious actor, notably as the harried new homeowner in The Money Pit and as Ray Peterson in The ‘burbs (his best role ev-er). More specifically, Baker has that high-pitched freak-out voice that Hanks used to be so good at. In Trick ‘r Treat Steven is trying to finish up a particularly ghoulish task in the backyard when his young son appears in the upstairs window to bug him about pumpkin carving. With his lips pursed, veins popping out on his neck, beads of sweat forming on his temples and a stress-hiding grin, it’s all he can do to hold it together. I love it.

I want to see more of Baker, and I think he’d be great as the quirky lead in a Coen Brothers comedy. So, if Joel and Ethan are reading this – and dammit, I’m pretty sure they are – I hope that in the near future you get some Dylan Baker in your oeuvre. Just, y’know, don’t accept a tuna sandwich from him…

 

-Dave Alexander

They're Running To Get You, Barbara

If you’re a zombie purist, you’ll have a big problem with Zombieland. For many, the zombie-comedy (zom-com) from director Ruben Fleischer, which was number one this past weekend at the box office, commits blasphemy because it contains fleet-footed flesheaters.

Some context: when the zombie film as we know it (the dead rising to feast on out flesh, not the voodoo-slave kind) was created by George A. Romero in 1968, one of the rules it laid out was that zombies shuffle along, overwhelming us with their numbers, not their stealth. It’s a quieter, creeping, introspective kind of terror, where we see ourselves reflected in this hideous subversion of humanity.

When zombie movies came back in fashion – fuelled by a variety of things, including zombie videos games, millennial angst, etc. – the undead picked up the pace. As Josh Levin points out in this article for The Slate (Dec. 19, 2007), they were running in the Resident Evil movie, House of the Dead, 28 Days Later (thought, they’re living people who are “infected” with a rage virus, and not the undead) and Zach Snyder’s MTV-paced makeover of Romero’s Dawn of the Dead.

Purists decry this , including Simon Pegg, who, of course, starred in Shaun of the Dead, the zom-com that paid homage to Romero. He went so far as to write this piece for the UK newspaper The Guardian (Nov. 4, 2008), ripping apart the trend, saying, “Death is a disability, not a superpower. It's hard to run with a cold, let alone the most debilitating malady of them all. … More significantly, the fast zombie is bereft of poetic subtlety. As monsters from the id, zombies win out over vampires and werewolves when it comes to the title of Most Potent Metaphorical Monster.”

He makes some great points in an entertaining, well-rounded thesis piece. It should be pointed out, though, that neither this article or the one for The Slate mention Return of the Living Dead, the beloved zom-com from the ’80s, in which zombies run (this film also invented the specific hunger for “braaaaaains” that’s a zombie standard now). The running zombie phenomenon isn’t new, and, as many have pointed out in online forums, the child-zombies in Romero’s Dawn of the Dead even run, thereby breaking the filmmaker’s own rules, if you want to get technical about it.

Regardless, there are reasons that running zombies have become so popular. It has been argued (again, see the Slate article) that it represents a shift: “the obsolescence of the slow zombie signals the decline of ‘mobocratic’ culture in favor of a modern taste for individualism.” OK, sure, but as both Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead remake and Zombieland prove, there are cinematic possibilities with running zombies that don’t exist with shuffling zombies. The breathtaking opening to Snyder’s film, where Sarah Polley’s character flee the suburbs, and the hilarious chase sequences in Fleischer’s movie set to Metallica’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls” require the running dead. Both of these filmmakers come from music video backgrounds, and while that may not make them equipped for weighty social commentary, they bring the undead into their worlds and do what they do best. Instead of trying to ape Romero in that respect, they’re using the medium to show us, cinematically, what they can do with zombies. That makes sense to me, after all, I don’t always want to watch a serious horror movie.

Pegg argues that running zombies are absurd, stating, “The speedy zombie seems implausible to me, even within the fantastic realm it inhabits” (and, smartly, he does preface his argument by acknowledging that this whole thing is a rather silly argument to begin with). There’s a flipside to that, though. I recently saw the world premiere of Romero’s latest zombie film, Survival of the Dead, which is a career low-point for him for a lot of reasons, but one of the big ones is that it’s relentlessly silly while also trying to be serious on a social commentary level. It’s got a zombie riding a horse all over the place; a zombie mailman chained to mailbox, pretending to deliver a handful of letters over and over again; and a faction of ranchers pretending that their undead loved ones never stopped being family.

I’m not going to argue the merit of lack of merit of those new zombie-isms, but rather compare the apparent absurdity of running zombies to the outright stupidity in Survival of the humans being unable to escape the slow-moving ghouls. Romero zombies moan and drag their feet but somehow characters don’t hear them sneaking up; despite the climax unfolding on a ranch full of fences and wide open spaces, people immediately run into cramped corners and wait to be attacked; no one flees to the nearby house and locks the doors; a horse stands still and allows a zombie to take a bite out of it; and so-on. The point is that regular old zombies can be just as ridiculous as running ones if the filmmaker uses them nonsensically.

But let’s talk about the bigger picture. Running zombies represent the popularity of the zombie movie subgenre. In order for a (sub)genre to survive and thrive, filmmakers have to explore it, play with its rules, and even break them, because nobody wants to see the same thing over and over again. When purists decry running zombies, it makes me wonder if Bram Stoker fans of the 1920s wrote angry letters to newspapers about Nosferatu. In fact, the vampire film is an excellent example of a genre that thrives because artists play with the form, giving us everything from Bunicula to Near Dark to Buffy the Vampire Slayer to 30 Days of Night. (That said, Twilight’s vegetarian vamps are about the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard of.)

I’ll always love Romero’s original zombie trilogy, and the rules that he crated are never going to disappear – much like there are still plenty of classic Stoker-style vampire stories being told – but the bottom line is that his zombies are now part of a larger world of the undead. So, if you want to talk about shuffling zombies, you should probably clarify that you’re referring to “Romero zombies.”

Personally, I want my pick of Romero zombie films, rule-breaking zombie films such as Zombieland whatever else original and/or entertaining some undead-obsessed filmmaker can dream up. That’s the great thing about cinema, there’s room for all kinds of different apocalypses. Undead, run-dead – bring ‘em on.

 

-Dave Alexander

Me vs. Ecks vs. Sever - Part 2

Explosions ahoy! Welcome to the second part of a mind-numbing odyssey in which I detail the moment-by-moment experience of watching the film that Rottentomatoes.com recently put at the top of its list of the worst movies of the past decade: Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever.

Scroll down or click here for part one.

And now, the misadventure continues...

52:45 Ecks is about to confront his (now) former wife at the Vancouver aquarium. The scene is shot very nicely. Nothing like some jellyfish and a baby beluga in the background of your shots to class ‘em up – and I’m not being sarcastic, it looks really cool.

 

55:58 A car explodes in the flashback – ha! Exploding car count: sixteen.

 

56:20 Still in the flashback. Ecks is lying on the ground. A second car explodes. Exploding car count: seventeen, and now each thinks the other is dead, thanks to her current husband’s trickery (he had a remote trigger device in pocket, the dirty dog!). That said, when they’re reunited at the aquarium, they simply hug – she’s not even shocked. Your husband, who you believed dead for the better part of a decade suddenly reappears and you hug him like he’s – I dunno – your old roommate? And didn’t either of them have family or friends to let the other one in on the truth? What the hell is going on in this film? Someone should go to screenwriter jail for this.

 

58:00 Ecks and former wife get in a car with Sever to find out where the kid (really Eck’s son, of course) is being held. Wife calls her a bitch, Sever responds, “I’m the bitch protecting him.” Make that solitary confinement in screenwriter jail.

 

58: 40 The three of them drive away from the cops. In the background the sun is setting over a cityscape; it’s some of the worst compositing I’ve ever seen.

 

60:00 A police radio informs us that “He’s at the south end of Victoria Park.” Mention a Vancouver landmark, get a tax break?

 

60:11 Mother and son are reunited and leave. Ecks and Sever grab a whack of guns for the final showdown with evil husband and his men.

 

63:14 More random steam emanating from the ground. Was the city built on a giant boiler? Or do city workers continually pour giant vats of piping hot water down the drain for effect.

 

65: 30 Three train cars were just blown up. Although they aren’t tankers, they explode in balls of flame, and for some reason we hear glass shattering. Exploding train car count: three.

 

66:02 Sever – proclaiming “My turn” – just blew up a train car. Exploding train car count: four.

66:10 Why does this bad guy have a private army that sometimes works with the police and FBI? I don’t get it…

67:19 Ecks just blew a bunch of train cars – everybody’s having fun. Despite the massive fireballs shooting into the sky, no cops have arrived. Exploding train car count: seven – I think. It’s getting hard to tell.

68:01 He just took out another three using a single blast from his shotgun. Hopefully those aren’t his loads for duck hunting. And that brings us to double digits for the exploding train cars.

69:00 This is the part of the movie where Ecks and Sever got each others’ backs; each of them shoot enemies standing behind the other’s back. That cliché machine has been seriously overclocked for this film.

70:50 Enemies exploded via tripwire: six.

72:22 This is the part where the big bad guy has the drop on the hero and says something smarmy that defines just how dickish his character really is. “Power and profit – that’s what we do.”

 73:32 A series of explosions! I dunno who or what has even blown up. And still no police…

74:36 Bad guys have broken into the secret, randomly steam-filled hideaway. Exploding door count: one.

75:49 Sever and main henchmen guy are having a showdown. They’ve discarded their weapons so they can slug it out old school, of course. Oh man, there’s blue smoke billowing from the cliché machine.

76:20 He just grazed her cheek with a knife. Now she’s grabbed a chain. Warning: sparks shooting from cliché machine!

78:25 Big bad guy arrives and throws a grenade into a vat of boiling liquid(!). Exploding water count: one.

79:20 The wife and kid just stepped off an elevator! What the hell? I thought they left a long time ago? They were actually just hanging out in the elevator?!?

80:00 And now a calm moment before the final showdown, in which the bad guy explains the his nefarious plans that the audience already knows. BOOM! Exploding cliché machine count: one.

81:43 A twist! Sever is going to have a showdown with the bad guy. Ecks leaves with his family – what a wuss! Oopsy daisy, somehow the nanobot got into the bad guy. Sever activates it and kills him in the absolutely most anti-climactic way possible. He just kinda keels over. Laaaaaame…

85:00 Sever makes her escape, leaving behind a paper crane. Cue terrible R&B soundtrack tune and end credits. The film is mercifully short, I’ll give it that.

So, why did Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever make the absolute bottom ranking on Rotten Tomato’s list? It isn’t any worse than the average Jerry Bruckheimer film or something like XXX or The Fast and the Furious. In fact, it’s less obnoxious. Maybe that’s the problem, the film isn’t as flashy or “extreme” as those movies, so its cliché-ridden lameness is all too obvious. Case in point: explosions are fun to look at, but dozens of them, that all look the same, aren’t very impressive. Bruckheimer, now he would’ve blown up fifteen cars all at once – before the opening credits – and then moved on to exploding aircraft carriers, razing cities to the ground and maybe hurling an entire continent into the sun.

Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever has, um, well, er… a lot steam.

-Dave Alexander