At the Movies

I've recently caught 2 horror movies in theaters, one being Rob Zombie's interpretation of Halloween,the other being Hatchet. Halloween is pretty much showing everywhere, but Hatchet was only playing in 1 theater in the tr-state area.
While I'm not a fan of more recent horror movies, and even less a fan of remakes, I saw Halloween anyway. I had seen Devil's Rejects, and thought it was ok, so I figured Rob Zombie might do a decent job. The original Halloween movies were pretty awesome, but the last few were terrible. In this one, they try to go more in depth with the origin of Michael Myers and Dr. Loomis' relationship. In reality, they waste a good 45 minutes to establish that Michael just kills for no reason... As if I couldn't figure that out already. They show his affinity for masks, and how he obtains his trademark jumpsuit. There's plenty of blood and nudity, which all self respecting horror fans love. Zombie naturally cast his usual cast of characters to play cameos in this as well. The best casting decision was to cast Danielle Harris (Halloween 4/5) as one of Laurie's friends. The ending seemed so forced that by the end of the movie I really didn't care anymore. It seems like they added an extra half hour just for a chase scene through the house. Hopefully there won't be any sequels, which I don't think they planned since Michael and Loomis seem to be dead.
Hatchet is promoted as "old school american horror," which is basically referring to classic slasher gore. The movie follows a group of tourists who find themselves stranded in the woods of New Orleans when their boat tour crashes. The woods are inhabited by Victor Crowley, a deformed man who was thought to have died in a fire. Or maybe it's a ghost, either way the dude's huge and violent. The special effects are all makeup and no CGI (thank god), and the gore is top notch. The story kin dof falls apart, since you don't really see much of Victor aside from when he's mutilating people, and the tourists are all annoying and un-funny. This movie had a lot of potential, but could have been a lot better. If this had the support that Halloween did, maybe they would have put more development into it. Even though it was kind of disappointing, it was still way better than most recent horror movies by far.
I did see a really good horror movie recently, which was the straight to DVD movie, Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon. It started off as a sort of documentary of a reporter following a man in trainign to be a killer. In this reality Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers and Freddy Kreuger are all real people. They follow his training, finding his target and setting traps in a house. In the end, the reporter and camera crew find themselves in the main event. In a way it's similar to Scream how they talk about horror movies in a horror movie, but didn't completely suck like Scream did. This movies is a horror movie for horror fans. It's got loads of cameos, humor, gore, nudity and a damn good story. I highly recommend giving this one a spin, I found it on DVD real cheap on Amazon.

American Hardcore DVD review

After reading the book of the same name, I wasn't exactly about to go out of my way to see the movie. The book was loaded with opinions, one-sided arguments and inaccuracies; the movie naturally was full of the same. It seemed like certain topics, like the violence and craziness overshadowed the more positive aspects of hardcore. Straight edge and women's roles in the scene were merely glanced at. Notable problems were the lack of any Misfits or Dead Kennedys content, and the inclusion of DOA (who are from Canada) and way too much on the Cro Mags (who suck). I'm sure some of it due to legal reasons, but they were in the book so I don't see why not include anything. There was a lot on the NY scene, which didn't really take off until after they claim HC died, or maybe the NYHC scene killed it. It also seemed like they directors wee playing favorite with who's stories were told, since it seemed like certain people were always talking. There was also some poor editing decisions, which cut off stories before they ended. I also thought it was weird that certain people's credits under their name were omitting bands of worthy mention. For example it said "Brian Baker: Minor Threat," what about Dag Nasty and Bad Religion?

My biggest gripe is that (like in the book), they stated the fact that hardcore died in 1986. I mean if that's true, what have I been doing with my life for the past 10+ years? You look at the footage of Black Flag, SSD and DYS from their later eras, and could see why people would lose interest. Here it is in 2007, and that stuff still sucks, but their earlier stuff still sounds awesome. They try to blame the fact that they were losing interest and writing shitty music on the scene dying away. If hardcore was dead, why would anybody know who these people were or care about this "documentary?"

The bonus features had some of the live footage, deleted scenes and footage of the opening party in Toronto. The live footage was all stuff shown in the movie, except in its entirety, of course I would have wanted more... The deleted scenes are interesting, but not skippable, so you need to watch it all the way through. Plus it seems like the deleted scenes got cut out too. There is a pretty funny moment w/ Vinnie Stigma and Jimmy Gestapo at NYHC tattoo at the end. There's also a director's commentary, which I am reluctant to give a chance.

Despite all its problems, it was an alright movie. I think you'd need a lot more than an hour and a half to cover the history of hardcore, but I'd be willing to watch that DVD. There would need to be a lot more live footage, and it would need to cover all the important states and their bands with more live footage. American Hardcore probably won't open people's eyes to hardcore who weren't already into it, but at least the soundtrack to the movie makes for a pretty decent mix tape.