Seriously, people.

I’m not kidding about this.

I blow the ending and the surprises and everything.

SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT

Everyone gone who doesn’t want to be here?

Good.

Hostel: Part II

There’s no other way to slice it so I might as well lead off by saying it: Hostel: Part II is nowhere near as good as the original.

This is not to say it’s a poorly made movie. Just like the first one, it’s frequently, nearly always in fact, gorgeous to look at. During the Q&A that followed the screening I attended yesterday, Eli Roth said that his years of experience as everything from a P.A. to an A.D. on movies with budgets ranging from $100,000 to $100,000,000 taught him how money is wasted on movies before he ever helmed one himself. “I think I know how to spend the money on-screen,” he said, and he does, from that breathtaking ruined-factory shot to the torture props.

And there are occasional–occasional–moments of great wit and intelligence, the stuff from which the first movie was constructed. The cryptic warning offered by the apparently sole decent human being left in the Slovakian town where the torture-factory is located was a knowing callback to horror films past, a creepy bit of foreshadowing like the drunk at the cemetery in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre or the old man who warns Ned Beatty “you don’t know nothin'” in Deliverance. There’s an equally enjoyable Aliens shout-out at the beginning, too.

Gems on the movie’s own terms can be found as well. The fact that female members of the “hunting club” receive the bloodhound tattoo on their lower back, party-girl style, is a welcome example of the first film’s keen eye for the downside of modern-day gender politics. A set piece involving competing bids for the privilege of torturing American women to death, shown in quick cuts between an ever-widening network of wealthy businessmen and women the world over, elicited audible “oh my God“s from the audience as it conveyed the sheer scope of the torture operation, and hammered home the “no one is innocent” message. When you figure out early on that two American-businessmen customers of the torture factory will be our main characters alongside the trio of turistas, it seems that, as an exploration of man’s inhumanity to (wo)man to rival the first film, this one’s off to a good start.

But it doesn’t go much further than that, I’m afraid. In the Q&A, Roth said that his motto for making the movie was “the next level,” a raison d’etre he said was best served by making the film more “operatic,” more “cinematic.” “I wanted to let people know that hey, it’s only a movie.” Well, mission accomplished. The incisive sadness and genuine horror of the first has been replaced by gialli-by-way-of-Studio-City revenge plots, stylized murder set pieces, and splatstick as a substitute for character-based story resolution.

Ultimately, the believability of the characters in the first Hostel made the film frightening–think the Dutch businessman’s speech about the closet to his future victim, think the German’s horror at hearing his victim speak his language, think the almost elegiac scene in the dive bar when Paxton tracks down the two women who’d made his friends disappear, finding them half-drunk and shrouded in smoke, their make-up and glamor stripped away. In place of that, we have Heather Matarazzo playing to the cheap seats as a nerd straight out of a Disney live-action comedy, the alpha-male American stereotype from the first film stretched out to an unmanageable length, and a final girl who all but instantly morphs into a the kind of two-dimensional victim-become-victimizer who makes with quips before she chops people’s heads off. You know how the basic concept behind the ending of the first film was easily the toughest part of the whole movie to swallow, but the spoonful of sugar, in the form of razor-sharp performances and cinematography plus a psychologically desperate tone, made it work? This one’s a horse pill of artifice with nothing to help you choke it down.

The Slovakian setting gets infused with unreality, too. The wink-wink return of the hostel’s desk clerk, best known for his behind-the-scenes origin as a local production assistant and Star Wars fan club president who ended up with the role when the professional actor bailed, is lingered on for far too long; “it’s only a movie” indeed. Meanwhile, the village festival, handsomely shot though it may be, appears to consist more of half-remembered costumes from The Wicker Man and mondo movies than any real research into local customs.

And the ending! The most shocking ending EVAR turns out to be a guy’s dick getting cut off and fed to a dog, followed by a woman being decapitated and her head being used by little kids as a soccer ball. Shockingly, I’m not describing the end of the new Toxic Avenger sequel! Because that’s exactly how these things are filmed, folks–as a laff, complete with those quick extreme close-up shots that are Troma’s trademark. (Think an even goofier version of the ending of Death Proof.) I definitely laughed and cheered and clapped–the way the film’s set up, it’s impossible not to, as impossible as not feeling repulsed by the torture scenes. But the sensation wasn’t any deeper a satisfaction than laughter from getting tickled. When I told Roth that I thought the comedy element might not have been a good thing and asked him why he went so over the top, he said “I wanted people to leave the theater feeling good.” Well, I walked away from the computer screen feeling good the first time I saw that hilarious fake trailer he made for Thanksgiving. But I wanted more than the gore equivalent of a knee-slapper for the climax to the sequel to one of the most powerful films I’ve seen in years, you know? At least two other should-be-huge character-rooted moments of violence are marred by rimshot-shots as well. Why bother, man?

The funny thing is that there are two scenes that are not funny at all in this movie, two scenes among the most unpleasant I’ve ever watched: the Heather Matarazzo bloodbath sequence and, in what I’m sure will be the most controversial scene in the movie, the execution of a child. Roth said that the former created the most trouble for the movie with the MPAA because the look of terror and pain on Matarazzo’s face was so convincing. “Would it be okay if she gave a bad performance?” he asked them. “Well, yeah, actually,” they replied. “Then don’t punish us for doing a good job!” he argued, and won. And they did do a good job, so good that you spend those minutes, watching a nude woman hanging upside down, crying and screaming for help, while her skin is cut to ribbons, kind of wondering what the fuck you’re doing here. The giallo influence Roth was mainlining is particularly strong in that sequence–velvet fabrics, candlelight, decadent naked Eurobabe, scythes, the aestheticized abuse of women. If we’re just going end with yuks, what’s the point?

This goes double for the murder of children. Another questioner really put Roth on the defensive about this, to the point where he was saying, “I’m not exploiting children here–plenty of movies have shown kids getting killed before.” But we’re not talking about City of God (which he cited), nor the handful of Italo-horror flicks he also rattled off–we’re talking about this movie, one that ends with a dick joke and a soccer game with a human head. “Awful shit really happens,” Roth explained. “I wanted to take the audience to that place where they’re completely horrified. I wanted the stunned silence.” Hey, hold a gun to a kid’s head and pull the trigger (offscreen, admittedly, but there’s a lengthy run up as the killer presses the barrel against the faces of every kid in the pack, and you see the body with blood running from it afterwards), and you’ll get that.

But if “it’s only a movie,” again, why?

From tragedy to farce.

The day job has some cool Battlestar Galactica features up on its site right now.

First up, there’s ToyFare magazine’s complete BSG episode guide for all three seasons and the miniseries, featuring the thoughts of pretty much the entire cast and crew.

Second, there’s a huge transcript of the recent conference call with Ron Moore and David Eick on BSG‘s fourth and final season, plus its movie-length prequel airing this fall. Tons of juicy stuff, including whether or not there will ever be a Battlestar movie after the series ends.

Because one of us is attending a sneak preview of Hostel: Part II–complete with a Q&A session with Eli Roth–tonight. Guess which one that would be?

+

4-EVA

Behold, Vinnie Jones as Mahogany, the killer, in Ryuhei Kitamura’s adaptation of Clive Barker’s Midnight Meat Train. God bless us, it looks like they’re making a real movie out of this.

(Pic from Shock Till You Drop, via Hellraiser Gallery.)

In a move that I’m sure will be totally helpful, some clowns in the UK are offering a $2 million bounty to anyone attending a rock festival in Loch Ness who comes up with proof that the monster exists. Break out the loony-detector van!

It turns out that the guy who took the recent “Loch Ness Monster” footage is what Monty Python would refer to as “a loony.”

While I certainly can’t speak for David [Chase], I will say that messages are not his style.

—Sopranos writer Terence Winter, The Sopranos Final Season TV Club, Slate.com

We’re doing the Monster Mash over at this week’s Horror Roundtable, singing the praises of underrated movie monsters. I’ve got a whole slew of choices, all of which have one thing in common…

I talk about the latest issues of Daredevil, New Avengers: Illuminati, Justice Society of America, Hellboy: Darkness Calls, and Wolverine in this week’s Thursday Morning Quarterback at Wizard. (Although it’s technically Friday Morning Quarterback this week.)

Ever since I visited the place and found that one of the tourist attraction museums basically admits that all the good evidence is forged and the beastie is probably just a series of landlocked sturgeons, I’ve gone from true believer to skeptic on the topic of the Loch Ness Monster. Still, the Gordon Holmes footage of Nessie is easily the biggest water-monster news since the giant squid discoveries, and Loren Coleman’s Cryptomundo is all over it (as you might expect), with image stabilizations, close-ups of the “head and neck” area, a comparison to an easily hoax-able radio-controlled model, and a version of the footage without that irritating watermark, which I’m reproducing here.

I’m goin’ back to the Mythic Creatures exhibition at the American Museum of Natural History tomorrow. I bought tickets in advance and everything!

Aside from movies and books and comics and albums, which to me don’t really count because they’re works of art with which I actively engage rather than objects to be appreciated, the one thing I collect (I realized about a month ago or so) is T-shirts, and I’ve been meaning to post about some of my favorites, for no other reason than I think they’re neat. (Man, looking at these past few entries, it’s been an eclectic few days around here, huh?)

We’ll see if I get to that plan anytime soon, but in the meantime, here’s howto fold a T-shirt in two seconds.

And here’s a YouTube video of a similar feat, but without the step-by-step explanation offered above.

I’ve got a couple drawers of clothing with this thing’s name all over them.

(Hat tip: Jackie Danicki.)

Who would have anticipated the Barkerian horror Pac-Man would become if you flayed the little yellow chomper of his skin and exposed the skull and teeth beneath?

Seriously, is that not the kind of thing a Books of Blood character would gaze upon in speechless, insane awe just before it clambered up his body to snuff out his life? Almost makes you want to root for Blinky and the rest of the little ghosts.

More at Le Gentil Garçon.

(Via Strange Ink.)

Like The missus, I love Klaus Nomi. Here’s an outrageous video of his for “Falling in Love Again.” I don’t know who he was trying to kid with the heterosexuality on display here, but hey, go for it, Klaus, god bless you.

And here are some lovely first-hand Klaus stories and pictures by Madeline Bocaro.

I hope you’ll pardon the annoying watermark, but here’s footage of an unidentified swimming object in a certain body of water in Scotland. The Loch Ness Monster, or a wave, or a sturgeon, or what? Via the great Loren Coleman.

Next, can you identify this mysterious sea creature?

Mr. Coleman thinks he can…

Finally, the Onion turns to the man on the street for reaction to the news that a hammerhead shark gave virgin birth. The middle response is the one that lines up with mine.

Behold, The LOLcky Horror Picture Show.

I love the internet.

(thx Ken)

Is the giant hog story a photoshop hoax? I hope so. (Via Keith Uhlich at The House Next Door.)

Via the indispensable I Can Has Cheezburger.

This vicious critique of 28 Weeks Later and the entire brutal-horror enterprise by Reverse Shot’s Andrew Tracy strikes me as a very important piece in terms of the genre’s future. I say this even though it’s so diametrically opposed to my own take on horror that it’s like it was written by Bizarro Sean, as evidenced by passages like these:

Much early praise has been showered upon this sequel to 28 Days Later for its “relentlessness,” “bleakness,” “darkness,” “ferocity,” et cetera and ad nauseam. That these are merely descriptions rather than values in and of themselves does not seem to register.

There’s not a whole lot for me to say here by way of refutation or response that I haven’t already said (for a long time). I mean, yeah, I disagree, duh. I will, however, point out that the essay’s conclusion perhaps contains the key to unlocking the problem with Tracy’s approach:

The unnerving and terrifying cinematic power of the original Chainsaws and Living Deads transcended their generic packaging and filtered into the world at large; their inheritors package an unnerving and terrifying world and serve it back in consumable portions. 28 Weeks Later and its ilk do not make one reflect on the ugliness of the world, but on the needless ugliness of the far narrower film world. To look away from this garbage is not to refuse to face reality, but to look towards more rewarding films.

Oh dear, the dreaded “transcending the genre” rears its ugly head! I’m so, so tempted to allow the use of that phrase to make me ignore the piece entirely, as that is the right and good response to the deployment of T.T.G. in nearly all cases. But the real problem is the distinction Tracy’s attempting to draw, because, simply put, I’m not sure that it’s based on anything other than which cinematic values cause Tracy to wrinkle his nose. To listen to the likes of George Romero and Tobe Hooper talk about their work, “packag[ing] an unnerving and terrifying world and serv[ing] it back in consumable portions” is exactly what they were doing. Are we to ignore them? (To be fair, we probably should: They’ve clearly learned what mainstream film critics and scholars will eat, and they’ve trained themselves to serve it.) I think what Tracy’s saying is that the filmmaking in the earlier films is more sophisticated, to which I can only reply that he should watch those two movies and then Hostel and 28 Weeks Later again; none of them is really self-evidently superior, in purely cinematic terms, to the others. It seems like what it ultimately comes down for Tracy is a beef with a perceived “slickness” in the recent films, coupled with an aversion to out-and-out gore. Fine–even admirable in belief it demonstrates that style is substance–but, well, wrong. I’m not sure how the fact the more recent movies had the luxury of decades of erosion of censorship of gore going for them and weren’t shot on 16mm for whatever disqualifies them from “mak[ing] reflect on the ugliness of the world [as opposed to] the needless ugliness of the far narrower film world.” They certainly made me reflect on the former much more than the latter.

Overall I think Tracy’s piece is a part of a wave of “cynicism fatigue” that’s starting to crest (cf. responses to this season of The Sopranos). All I can really say is that driving into work this morning, I saw the remains of a black and white cat whose head had been so completely destroyed by the car that ran it over that but for the paws and the tail you wouldn’t even know what it was, and I honest to god thought “that about sums it all up, doesn’t it?”, so the cinema has a long way to go before it can hit bottom with me.

Sorry to be a downer. Anyway, read the whole thing, then check out the comment thread at the House Next Door post where I initially found this link, which contains this gem from Matt Zoller Seitz:

28 Weeks Later” is filled with images of people doing the right thing and being killed almost immediately. But not for a second does the film suggest they should have behaved selfishly. The subtext is, doing the right thing is its own reward, and observance of the golden rule, especially when it costs us personally, is what truly makes us human.

Add “and that cost is what makes life tragic” and yep, there you go.