Today's movie is a lot of fun. The documentary Six Days in Roswell (1998) was made by the people behind one of my all time favorite documentaries, Trekkies (1997) - and its sequel, Trekkies 2 (2004), was really good too! Timothy B. Johnson and Roger Nygard have an amazing ability to march into the belly of the beast and show just how absurd and hilarious humanity can be.
In this doc, we follow one of the people we met in Trekkies on his pilgrimage to Roswell, New Mexico. Last time we saw Rich Kronfeld he was traveling in his motorized recreation of Captian Pike's wheelchair/life support/Dalek thing from the original Star Trek. In this film we learn that Rich's life-long dream is to be abducted by aliens, so he treks to Roswell for their annual festival in honor of the crash site. We get to travel with him as he takes in the sites and meets many, many interesting people.
I love the filmmakers' style of guerilla documentary and simple storytelling. At times it feels like we are watching a school filmstrip about UFO kooks. The simple graphics and background music are perfect for this approach.
Since our host is just as quirky as many of the people he interacts with, there is a surreal element to the entire experience. I love when his questions go off topic because he just can't help himself when dealing with some of these characters. Like when he is interviewing a man from Montreal who has built a special metal detector to find leftovers from alien crashes and gets distracted by the fact that Canada has Radio Shack. These kinds of moments make the movie feel genuine and that much more enjoyable for the audience.
One thing I wasn't crazy about were the moments that were obviously staged and felt more like comedy skits than sections of a documentary. For example, at one point we see him getting lessons on self defense just in case he encounters a hostile alien, but it feels scripted and unnecessary. They seem to exist as visuals to accompany the narration of our host's journal entries, but take me a little out of the moment.
Otherwise I loved this film and was pretty upset that the Bonus Material section on my dvd did not want to work. I was dying to see the outtakes and deleted scenes because I couldn't get enough of these wacky, sun-baked, UFO aficionados! I recommend this film to fans of both science-fiction and documentaries, but you have to have a good sense of humor!
I am a huge fan of Italian Giallo director Dario Argento, but I have admittedly overlooked some of his more modern films. So in an effort to fix this error in my ways, today we are looking at Argento's 1993 thriller, Trauma. It seems that many people have also skipped Dario's films from the 90's because they felt there was no way these movies could compare to his classics. Considering how I was disappointed with Argento's Phantom of the Opera (1998) and had hoped for so much more from Two Evil Eyes (1990), I too was unsure about the films in the middle, but its time I gave Trauma a chance to defend itself.
I will start off by admitting that I was a little timid about watching this particular movie because I was worried that since I haven't heard a lot about Trauma that maybe it wasn't very good. I picked up the Anchor Bay DVD year's ago but kept passing it over. I really wish that I had watched it sooner. I think this movie may not be as stylized as some of my favorites like Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970) or Opera (1987), but was still an excellent horror movie. In traditional Giallo fashion, the story centers around a mysterious case of murders, but this time all of the victims have been decapitated.
Another big highlight for me here is getting to see Tom Savini team up with Argento again. The effects are top notch. No one makes a severed head as real as Mr. Savini and his shop rose to the occasion with the murders of the film's villain, The Headhunter. There is only one instance in the film that is cringe worthy and that is a very dated image involving a certain disembodied head and some not so great green screen work, but I am willing to let it go since we are still talking about the early 90s.
While I am always a little creeped out seeing Argento direct some awkwardly sexual moments with his daughter, I was intrigued by the interview with the director on this DVD. Apparently Asia's character was influenced by two young women that Argento had experienced who suffered from anorexia. He went on to research the condition and tried to portray a realistic interpretation of a girl who is afflicted with this disorder. Unfortunately several of the scenes that hoped to really drive this point home were removed from the final film and this goal is a little too ambiguous leaving her to come across more like a recovering junkie.
I will say that this movie really shines at the end. Once the true backstory of the killer begins to unravel and we see how the victims are all linked, there is a nightmarish air to the flashbacks. The true murderer is revealed with a great and grisly twist ending. Here we see Argento show his true colors and are reminded of the beautiful stylized final moments of his classics Suspiria (1977) and Profondo Rosso (1975)!
The only real complaint I have here is that there is still a missing ingredient that would make this film stand up against Dario's other films and that is the score. Argento movies work best when they are backed by the music of Goblin (and sometimes just the front-man Claudio Simonetti) or the music of Motorhead and Iron Maiden - like in Phenomena (1985). A traditional orchestral score feels oddly out of place to me in Trauma. I could only imaging what some frenetic, synth driven, pulse-pounding prog rock or even some well placed heavy metal in the soundtrack would have done to make this movie better!
All in all, I definitely recommend this film to fans of American thrillers, Italian Giallos and Dario Argento. Now if you will excuse me, I think it is time I pick up a copy of Argento's Stendhal Syndrome from 1996 and see how it holds up too! I'll let you know about it one day.
John Russo's Midnight (1982) tries to mash up several horror subgenres that were successful at the time - occult, backwoods and survival. Unfortunately it comes up short on all of them.
It feels like Russo took a very business-like approach to this movie and created what seemed like a fail-proof formula. First you start with Russo's name recognition from his involvement with Image Ten in creating the classic Night of the Living Dead (Russo was the co-writer of the film). Then you look at what other horror films had made a lasting impression on the American audience - namely The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), Rosemary's Baby (1968) and even Last House on the Left (1972). These three subgenres had a major impact on horror in the 70s. Occult films had made a huge stir since Rosemary gave birth. Movies like The Blood on Satan's Claw (1971) and Race with the Devil (1975) were prime for the exploitation circuit at the drive-in. Audiences are always ready to blame satan for the horrible atrocities of men. Speaking of atrocities...Leatherface influenced a swarm of films about killer families of in-bred crazies. Mother's Day (1980), The Hills Have Eyes (1977) and actually the Grand Daddy/Uncle/Brother of all in-bred horror was Deliverance (1972), but all these movies prove how scared we are of our redneck brethren that roam the backwoods. And there is even a touch of survival horror within Midnight that owes some dues to the Last House and I Spit on Your Grave (1978) - which I would bet Russo and company never actually sat through either of these, but may have seen the trailers. So the influence of all of these successful B-Movies should have added up to one scary film, but maybe there was just too many ideas getting in the way of a good story.
Please don't get me wrong, this is not the worst independent horror movie I have ever seen. Far from it. It's not that bad. It just isn't great. I had pretty high hopes, but it didn't have the big scare you would hope for. There was some good performances. Look out for the entrance made by Romero regular John Amplas (the star of Martin) who comes across as a pretty nasty redneck cop that doesn't care for city folk. He is accompanied by Greg Besnak (a zombie in Dawn of the Dead and the bald biker in Knightriders) who also is pretty convincing as a backwater, trigger-happy officer.
MAJOR SPOLIER ALERT. DO NOT READ IF YOU WANT TO WATCH THIS MOVIE.
When it turns out that these two are actually the murderous brothers from the beginning of the film, I will say I was surprised and happy for the plot twist. And while we in the Spoiler Zone - I was almost disappointed that their mummified Mother was alone in a room preserved ala Grandpa in Chainsaw. This was a little too close of a reference for me.
OK SPOILERS ARE OVER! What this movie does do well is set up that nasty feel of the backwoods towns that are down the highway a piece from the city. I would say that these are a sign of the times of the early 80s, but I will admit that we still feel these outdated sentiments today. The bigoted townies are still out there - and that is the really scary thing about this film.
I will recommend this film to all of us that used to scour the horror sections of our local video stores. Just like back then, this film will feel vaguely like many of the movies that lie in the boxes next to it on the shelf. Nothing new or revolutionary here, but not that bad either. Its just ok.
