Film is Truth 24 Times a Second

October is here! And I know I’m not alone in regarding it as the most exciting and fun time of year. In my excitement for the month in which almost everyone indulges in spooky movies, I wanted to start out giving some attention to a new addition to Film is Truth’s great supply of Halloween movies.
My Boyfriend’s Back (1993) is my new favorite movie to recommend to basically anyone this Halloween. Its lovable cheesiness and crooked sense of humor coincide with most of my “guilty pleasure” movies, but in this one I lack any sense of guilt. I first heard about this comedic take on a zombie story in “Zombie Movies: The Ultimate Guide” and had low expectations due to the bad review it received from the author Glenn Kay.
The story is Johnny Dingle’s. He’s a small-town, plaid-clad nice guy, who has been infatuated with Missy McCloud since the first grade. Now in senior year, he finally decides to make a move when she breaks up with her quarterback boyfriend Buck (played by Matthew Fox of Lost). He approaches her at the convenient store where she works after school, but his dashing plan to sweep her off her feet goes wrong and Johnny gets gunned down by a robber. As he’s dying on the floor of her workplace, he asks Missy if she’d like to go to the prom with him. Not one to refuse a dying wish, she says yes. But the night of his burial, Johnny rises from the grave and heads home. The groundskeeper warns him that he can’t leave the cemetery or he’ll decay, but all Johnny can think of is his date Friday night.
Now, the review I’d read claimed that since it was advertised as a romantic comedy and then incorporated horror, it only grossed out its rom-com audience and fell short of what the horror crowd wanted. While I will agree that not all those who like rom-com will like this movie, anyone who enjoys a silly comedy will. And there’s no way it was expected by anyone to be a horror movie (if anyone so much as looked at the case with Johnny’s friendly but pale face and “oops” shrug). In fact, much of the humor in the movie is due to how un-horrifying the situation is. For example, the first day out of the grave, after shocking his peers by still coming to class, he attempts to bite his friend Eddie’s arm during lunch. After Eddie yells at him, Johnny smirks and says, “It was just gonna be a little bite.”
Even though he becomes the victim of prejudice in town, he also has the support of his surprisingly unshaken parents and a doctor who’s befuddled yet determined to help keep him from decomposing. And best of all, he begins to win the interest of Missy who claims, “I’ve never kissed a dead guy before you, Johnny.”
It is obvious, to me anyway, from the premise of the movie, with its silly attitude and the friendly good-guy zombie that this movie is not meant to be taken seriously. Not as a rom/com or a horror flick (although of course anyone with a slightly dark sense of humor won’t be able to help chuckling throughout). Stuffed with great one-liners (“I’m just dead, it’s not like I’m an asshole or anything.”), hilarious cameos (Phillip Seymour Hoffman as the bully on Johnny’s tail and Matthew McConaughey as Guy#2), and puns on everything zombie, this is simply a dorky comedy, perfect for Halloween.

Now, I’m always a little too prepared for Halloween, and that is true this year as well. I made a Halloween list, a Horror list, but it just didn’t cover enough of the scary/silly Halloween flicks I want to recommend, so I made one more. This list is just another ten October movies I love and would encourage anyone to see. Here they are:

1. They Live - too many cool things about this one to name briefly.
2. Possession (1981) - Not for the faint of heart. This one is weird as hell, but I guess that’s why I find it so fascinating.
3. Zombie - Meant to be a sequel to Dawn of the Dead, this film has some really awesome gore, plus a scene where a shark and a zombie battle it out!!!
4. In the Mouth of Madness - Sam Neill stars in John Carpenter’s homage to H.P. Lovecraft about a writer whose fictional nightmare begins to overtake reality.
5. Opera - Amazing for 85% of the movie, until the 70s hair metal gets incorporated. Still, seriously worth seeing for some classic Dario Argento macabre.
6. Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer - Brutal, awesome, realistic representation of a serial killer.
7. Freaks - The spooky classic that hired actual circus performers for the roles of the “freaks”.
8. The Fly (1986) - So cool. So crazy. So very David Cronenberg
9. White Zombie - The very first zombie movie! The idea of the zombie first came from beliefs about voodoo, and in this flick the legendary Bela Legosi plays “Murder” Legendre, who controls the will of the zombies.
10. Return of the Living Dead - A silly zombie flick where a group of punk rockers who just want to party get trapped inside a mortuary and surrounded by hordes of the undead!

I only heard of [REC], the new Spanish horror film, by word-of-mouth and watched it for the first time before it was available on DVD, online, in eight different segments. I got together with about eight different people and we all crowded around my laptop to watch it in the dark. Despite the small, pixilated screen and the large group, the film still made a significant impression on everyone in the room.

Not too long after my first viewing of it, the American remake QUARINTINE came to Film Is Truth. To be fair, I watched that also and was (as I expected to be) greatly disappointed. Though the story tagged many of the same points, it just couldn’t be taken seriously and the acting was enough to distort the characters into people who I couldn’t really sympathize with, no matter what “horrific” events they were put through. Even the makeup jobs didn’t hold next to the original.
So I waited, in high anticipation, for [REC] to finally be released on DVD, to get the chance to see it again and spread the word. Although I was worried that it would somehow not be as realistic or as frightening when seen on a TV screen rather than a laptop, I had no need to be. This film is one of the pinnacles of new, foreign horror. Like LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, it takes an old favorite and refurbishes it into something refreshingly original. And it just so happens to be one of the handful of horror films ever to scare me.
Angela Vidal is our main character, a reporter for a late night TV show, who is filming at a fire department to get a first hand view of what the volunteers do. While most of the night is routine and quiet (setting an appropriate pacing for the film, one that continually builds to the end) they are soon called out to an apartment building where a woman was reported to be screaming in her home. When they arrive, it is first very unclear what the situation is, but the panic of the other tenants sets you on edge before you even know what you’re afraid of. Seen through the eye of the camera, and while other films have used this same technique (BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, CLOVERFIELD), [REC] makes it believable and not at all dizzying. The camera becomes a character, as its presence is questioned by the police officers also responding to the call, and they are forced to turn it off by authorities, even as the equipment falters during high-paced moments.
After finding the woman who was screaming, an officer is wounded and the situation becomes much more urgent. Before anyone can get the injured medical attention, however, they reach the bottom floor to find that the building has been sealed and they are all locked inside. Again, while some films have used claustrophobic settings before, [REC] uses it without staring at the same scenery the entire time. The quarantine still gives the story and the characters room to move, and makes climbing the floors of the buildings and either trying to reach the remaining people upstairs or keep them there a magnificent plot device. Asked to wait downstairs, the tenants panic and the terror rises as the state of the injured turns horrific.
Now, I’m struggling not to reveal too much more, because this film is better seen with few ideas about what happens. I am certain the surprises will get to you, but while watching also make note of the incredible make up jobs, and the impressive acting because without the work of these actors the film would fall apart. Part of the actor’s presence is due to the directors, however. In watching The Making of [REC], I learned that the directors only told the actors pieces of what would be happening, so they’re fear was more tangible and their confusion was legitimate. The finale is amazing and by the time you get there, I promise you won’t be able to look away.
This is a must for any horror or thriller fan, and for those who are craving an original plot out of the flurry of summer movies. Come by and pick up [REC], if only so I can talk further about this fantastic movie without giving anything away!

I didn’t have the luck to catch Let the Right One In –which I’m sure you’ve already heard is fantastic- while it was playing at the Pickford, but it arrived at Film is Truth a few weeks ago. When I took it home, I made sure to switch the audio settings to their original Swedish with English subtitles (if you don’t mind “reading” your movies, I suggest watching it this way. Personally, anything dubbed over is harder for me to get into), then snuggled in. It happened to be during a random sleet/rain storm, which added to the mood of the movie. The story takes place in winter, which I felt really built up the isolation our main character, Oskar, lives in. He’s a young boy without friends, who is intimidated by bullies at school. It isn’t until a young vampire girl Eli (who also works with the setting of winter since she, like the world around them, is dead and cold. Plus vampires have that whole “eternal life” thing going on, leaving them frozen in one point in time) moves into the apartment next to his that he begins to form a deep friendship with a peer.
The thing about this movie that makes room for it in my heart is that the friendship between Oskar and Eli is so endearing, yet it doesn’t ignore the facts of her morbid state of being. They are friends because they both have dark sides of themselves that they keep secret, that they thought no one would understand. And while my heart was genuinely warmed, I also got what I wanted from a good ole’ vampire movie; blood, immortality, other-worldliness and super abilities! It also led to ideas of how neat it would be to have a vampire friend that came through my window to hang out.
Since its arrival to the store, it’s practically been absent from the shelves. It’s just checked out too quickly. What else is notable is that it’s not just vampire nerds or horror fans coming in and calling to see if it’s been returned yet. Let the Right One In is a good example of a movie that is so unique that it reaches beyond the audience of its genre and is loved by more “mainstream” moviegoers as well. The lasting difficulty once one has seen it, of course, is that the desire for equally fantastic vampire flicks follows. And while I can reel off a few other titles including some bloodsucking fun, (The Lost Boys, Vampire Hunter D, Shadow of the Vampire, Nosferatu, plus my latest and favorite fix Buffy the Vampire Slayer the TV series) in this situation, there is just nothing quite like Let the Right One In.

The first movie I ever rented at Film Is Truth was Teeth, written and directed by Mitchell Lichtenstein. It is easily one of my favorite films, period. That’s a lot to say, I know. But every time someone rents it or I get to recommend it to anybody, I remember all over how much I loved it. So I thought I’d share my thoughts with all of you on why.

The main character is a high school girl named Dawn, who grew up two blocks away from a nuclear plant, inhaling the spewed toxic smoke all her life. They show this plant at the transitions between many scenes during the film, hinting at its possible role in our main character’s unusual development. Dawn heads her local abstinence group, giving speeches on purity and saving your most precious gift in life for the day you get married. However, through circumstances not entirely under Dawn’s control, she has sex, which leads to the discovery of something terrible going on inside her. She researches anatomy and realizes she has “adapted;” she has been born with the mythical Vagina Dentata: teeth, deep in her vagina. They imprint this theme throughout the story, hinting on evolution and the idea of a species mutating in order to better protect it. It’s an aspect of the movie that I really thought brought more substance to what could have been a very superficial story.

The film is arguably vulgar, with numerous sex scenes and gory effects. However, it’s expected since the film is Horror and it is a horrific concept. Besides, the sex scenes aren’t unnecessary; how else would you present a story about a woman’s viscous reproductive organs?

Some Horror films leave out the human element brought to the story by those undergoing the events around them, and lacks for doing so. Teeth never forgets its characters, who’ve been assigned to incredible actors/actresses who handle both the horror scenes and the simply ridiculous nature of the story with grace. The experiences Dawn, and those she copulates with, are terrible, and each character handles the moment expertly. Jess Weixler as Dawn grabs her role and gives it even more spark, whether she’s pulling an innocent, virginal expression of confusion or staring menacingly at an unknowing victim. Be sure to keep an eye out for her, as she is part of the line up in several new films (Peter and Vandy (premiered at Sundance), Welcome to Academia, As Good As Dead) that I know I will be taking a look at to see how she does.

The gore never fell short, yet the writing flowed between horror and comedy seamlessly. The outrageous nature of the film makes it clear that it is meant to be hilarious, and in that it succeeded. I watched this movie with all of my four roommates (who each have different taste in movies) and everyone liked it. Anyone who likes horror, or anyone who has a bit of a morbid sense of humor, should see Teeth.

Being new to Bellingham, my trip to see Creature from the Black Lagoon in 3D was only my second time at the Pickford. My first was to see a showing of Slumdog Millionaire which -I’m sure I don’t have to tell you- was excellent (or, to put it more appropriately, the most wonderful, uplifting film I’ve seen in a long time). I’d already heard about the showing of Creature in the newsletter, but the manager made mention of it before Slumdog started, warning people to come early. I shrugged it off, to be honest.

Then I showed up fifteen minutes early on the day of the showing to find a large line and heard the people in front of me saying that the theater was already full. I thought I’d missed my chance, but luckily snagged one of the five tickets left for the two o’clock showing later in the day.

Several cool things about seeing Creature in 3D: It was the first 3D film I’ve ever seen; I’d been meaning to see the film ever since I took the MGM ride when I was about five or six and can only remember (fondly) the moment Gillman pops up out of the lagoon and scares everyone on the barge, including me; and I now own a pair of 3D glasses.

Now, I mostly enjoy horror films and have never extended my knowledge into much Sci-Fi, but to start exploring the genre, I couldn’t have picked a better film. The gentlemen who sponsored the showing had a little trivia quiz for the audience beforehand, which gave me endearing knowledge of the film. Like how when Gillman is on land, he’s wearing some glass eyes over his own, not allowing the actor to really see (I jokingly like to say this is the reason for Gillman’s hesitant shuffling and outreached arms when out of the water). And I now know one of the taglines for the movie, which entertains me to no end: “Centuries of passion, pent up in his savage heart.” Who couldn’t feel sympathy for Gillman, after a tagline like that?

The experience was more intimate than any theater I’ve ever been in. I liked seeing a face that introduced the film to the audience (other than the sponsor, the Pickford always gives intros). It gave me the familiar feeling of hanging out with a friend who just wants to share a unique film with me. He checked to make sure everyone’s glasses were in order, then dimmed the lights and left us all eager to see the film.

From the first shots of the creation of the planet, with debris and explosions flying out of the screen, to the climatic final chase sequence complete with spear guns in my face, I enjoyed myself the whole time. Even the points in the movie that weren’t wildly 3-3-D were stimulating because it almost felt like seeing a play; the characters looked so much more tangible.

There was such an atmosphere of shared entertainment that it was invigorating. Any time in which people gather together for a common purpose, it’s hard to not enjoy yourself. When it ended, everyone clapped, myself included. The sun was still out when I exited the theater, but even if it hadn’t been I would still have felt the same elation. I think I had forgotten the joy of going out to see a movie. I don’t know how I could have. But seeing Creature From the Black Lagoon in 3D, at the Pickford, reminded me strongly.

In case you weren’t aware, these Sci-Fi matinees occur once a month at The Pickford. Next month’s feature is It Came From Outer Space. Although it won’t be shown in 3D, I am just as excited to see it, if only to get out to the Pickford again. Sci-Fi is promising so far, and I plan on making the monthly showings from now on. I would recommend them to anyone. If you can, check out their website or newsletter for show times. And be sure to get there early.