DVD of the Week: Halloween: Unrated Director's Cut

Remaking a classic horror film is almost never a good idea. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003), Dawn of the Dead (2004) and The Hitcher (2007) are examples of recent remakes that are inferior shadows of their original selves. And so it came with great disappointment when it was announced that John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978) was going to be remade and Rob Zombie would direct. Known mostly for his music with White Zombie and a successful solo career, he’s branched out into making films like The Devil’s Rejects (2005), a down ‘n’ dirty homage to outlaw cinema of the 1970s. Why would a self-professed horror film buff like Zombie even try to remake a revered classic like Halloween? Hubris? Fanboy wish fulfillment? Or, did he figure that this film was going to be made one way or another and rather than let some hack do a crappy job he could at least bring his stylistic touches and point-of-view to the table.

Remakes succeed or fail on the kinds of choices the filmmaker makes and Zombie spends the first two thirds of the film examining what turned Michael Myers into an emotionless serial killer. All the signs are there at an early age: Michael (Daeg Faerch) tortures and kills small animals, his mother (Sheri Moon Zombie) is too busy trying to support her family by stripping, his stepfather (William Forsythe) is an abusive, homophobic bully, and his sister is too pre-occupied with her boyfriend to care about her brother. To make matters worse, he’s relentlessly picked on at school.

Pretty soon, Michael graduates from killing animals to viciously dispatching everyone who treated him horribly. The ten-year-old boy is eventually transferred to a sanitarium where he is put under the care and supervision of Dr. Samuel Loomis (Malcolm McDowell). The scenes between Loomis and Michael are some of the strongest in the film as the good doctor attempts to understand the young killer’s psychology and how he uses masks to hide what he perceives as his ugly self. Aside from his mother and Loomis, Michael communicates with no one and this only gets worse as the years progress.

Daeg Faerch, the young boy who plays Michael, is fantastic and very convincing as the disturbed killer-in-training. It’s all in the eyes which look dead and only get worse as he gets older until nothing good is left. It’s a very impressive performance. Zombie has an uncanny knack for casting. Malcolm McDowell is the only actor who could possibly replace the late-great Donald Pleasance. He brings his trademark intensity to the role while also providing shades to his character. Loomis starts out as altruistic with Michael but when he realizes that the boy is a lost cause, he turns his many sessions into a tell-all book and begins flogging it on the lecture circuit. It is only once Michael escapes the sanitarium that Loomis has a purpose again and makes it his single-minded mission to find and capture his former patient.

The original Halloween focused on the mystique of Michael while the remake shines a light on the areas of his life not explored in Carpenter’s version. What happened to Michael as a kid that made him into a monster? Zombie’s film answers this question and really gets into his head and explores what motivates him. The remakes of The Hills Have Eyes (2006) and The Hitcher failed because they were simple rehashes of the original with no new insight. Zombie doesn’t make that mistake. We get to hear Michael talk in great scenes with his mother and with Loomis that humanize him and also show his gradual de-humanization. They are simple, yet effective scenes with two people talking and are a nice breather from all of the carnage.

The first two thirds of Halloween (2007) are unrelentingly bleak and grim but also very gripping stuff. The last third condenses Carpenter’s film but fortunately Zombie doesn’t try to ape its style, opting instead to choose unusual camera angles and interesting compositions of the frame for certain scenes. He also mixes up how the many killings are depicted. Some are shot traditionally, others with hand-held camera in a very claustrophobic way, and one of the more interesting ones is when Michael kills a nurse in the sanitarium. It is captured in slow motion with the sound replaced by a jarring alarm that is surprisingly effective.

Zombie’s remake works because he takes the Halloween mythos and expands on it in all kinds of fascinating ways. He makes some really intriguing choices, like not making Michael supernaturally strong but rather a big guy who is naturally tough. Zombie also opts for gritty realism like he did with The Devil’s Rejects and it is a smart choice that works. Whether you love or hate Zombie’s take on the material, you have to admit that it doesn’t resemble Carpenter’s film in any way. It is easily the best Halloween film since Part III, although that isn’t really saying much when you consider the quality of the subsequent sequels.

Special Features:

The first disc features an audio commentary by writer/director Rob Zombie. He points out the various locations they shot in while also drawing our attention to where he took footage out and why. He also talks about the music choices he made and why he picked a certain song that appeared in the film. Zombie spends a lot of time talking about the challenges he faced on certain scenes. He also points out the new footage in this cut and why he put it back. The filmmaker delivers another solid commentary that is well worth a listen if you’re a fan of this film.

The second disc starts of with 17 deleted scenes with optional commentary by Zombie. Unlike some auteurs, he is refreshingly ruthless with his footage and so we have a lot of scenes that were cut, including more of the strip club where Michael’s mom works. There’s also more of Loomis talking to a young Michael. Michael also attends a parole hearing that features a character played Tom Towles. Adrienne Barbeau even shows up briefly in a scene with Loomis. Zombie does a good job explaining why these scenes were cut.

Also included is an “Alternate Ending” with optional commentary by Zombie. This one is more sympathetic to Michael but wasn’t satisfying enough for the director and he went with the other ending which is much more visceral.

“Bloopers” features footage of McDowell cracking up with Sheri Moon Zombie take after take. It turns out that the veteran actor is a real goofball and looks like he’s having a blast making his fellow actors laugh.

“The Many Masks of Michael Myers” takes a look at how they constructed the iconic Michael Myers mask. They created several versions, including clean ones and then gradually grungy ones to symbolize the passage of time. We also see how the put together the various ones that Michael makes in the sanitarium.

“Re-Imagining Halloween” is a three-part look at various aspects of the making of the film. Zombie wanted to shoot it in the style of 21 Grams (2003) and The Constant Gardener (2005). He wanted the three acts to have their own distinctive looks: the first part was all hand-held cameras, the second was very static, and the third act used lots of steadicam work. The film’s production design is examined. They take a look at the various sets and briefly talk about the specific look Zombie was after. The makeup effects are also featured. This involved a lot of work as Michael kills a lot of people. Zombie wanted them to look realistic and we see how some of the kills were done.

“Meet the Cast.” Zombie says that the casting process is the most exciting part of the filmmaking process for him because it is the first time the film feels real. He talks about why he cast the actors that he did and, in turn, they talk about their approach to the characters and a bit about working on the film.

“Casting Sessions” is a collection of excerpts of audition footage of the cast members. It gives us a chance to see what convinced Zombie to hire them.

“Scout Taylor-Compton Screen Test” features more footage of this young actress testing for the role of Laurie Strode. It is easy to see why she was cast as she nails the role.

Finally, there is a theatrical trailer.

Phantasm II

While many fans of the Phantasm franchise usually cite the first film as the best one, I’ve always been partial to the sequel. Much like Evil Dead II (1987), Phantasm II (1988) works as a sequel and an upgrade in terms of budget and scope. Phantasm II is also funnier, has more gore and violence than its predecessor. The intellectual part of me acknowledges that Phantasm (1979) is the better film but I enjoy watching Phantasm II more. This franchise is the brainchild of filmmaker Don Coscarelli and works best as it blurs reality and a fevered dream state. The films are best remembered for the menacing presence of the Tall Man (Angus Scrimm), who terrorizes the protagonists of each film, and the deadly flying silver spheres that have a nasty habit of impaling their victims and then draining them of their precious bodily fluids.

Elizabeth Reynolds (Paula Irvine) is a young woman who has visions of Mike and Reggie (Reggie Bannister) from the first film, which is a convenient way for Coscarelli to bring those who haven’t seen the first one quickly up to speed. The Tall Man is an evil mortician responsible for the death of Mike’s older brother. Mike teams up with his friend Reggie and they manage to escape the Tall Man and his minions. This fiercesome figure destroys entire towns and plunders their graveyards to build up his army of vicious creatures which resemble a cross between the Jawas from Star Wars (1977) and the child-sized monstrosities in David Cronenberg’s The Brood (1979).

Eight years have passed and Mike (James Le Gros) checks out of a psychiatric clinic. He has been having dreams of Liz and hooks up with Reggie in order to find the Tall Man and destroy him. Reggie is reluctant at first, but after the Tall Man blows up his house with his family in it, he enlists “for the duration.” So, they set out in Reggie’s kick-ass Hemicuda muscle car and hit the road. First up, a visit to a hardware store where Mike and Reggie buy all the fixings to make their own personal arsenal: a homemade flamethrower and fusing together two, sawed-off double-barreled shotguns for a truly formidable weapon.

They pick up and follow the Tall Man’s path of destruction: the small towns he destroys as Reggie puts it, “small towns are like people. Some get old and die a natural death. Some are murdered.” Coscarelli not only shows a town that has been abandoned and deserted but even more chilling is a shot of a cemetery that has been completely gutted, every grave dug up and the bodies taken. Meanwhile, Liz is helping her grandmother bury her husband at a cemetery run by, you guessed it, the Tall Man. She’s captured and it’s up to Mike and Reggie to rescue her.

Coscarelli is still able to get a lot of mileage out of the unsettling interiors of a mortuary with its pristine hallways where the deadly spheres roam, looking for new victims. The spheres don’t make their appearance until well into the film but when they do, Coscarelli orchestrates some rather creative mayhem with them, including one embedding itself into the forehead of a hapless priest and another burrowing its way through a man’s body before getting stuck in his mouth.

Surprisingly, the weakest aspect of Phantasm II is James Le Gros, a usually dependable character actor known for strong performances in independent films like Living in Oblivion (1995) and small, but memorable supporting roles in high profile stuff like Point Break (1991). However, in Phantasm II he gives a rather bland characterization of Mike, making one long for Mike Baldwin’s earnest and engaging turn in the first Phantasm. As a result, Le Gros’ character isn’t all that interesting to watch and it’s up to the affable Reggie Bannister to pick up the slack, which he does with ease.

Bannister is the heart and soul of the series and provides the same kind of roguish charm and bluster as Bruce Campbell does in the Evil Dead series. Along with Angus Scrimm, Bannister gets to utter the film’s best lines and delivers them with gusto. His character’s sex scene with the mysterious Alchemy (Samantha Phillips) is hilarious. He also gets to do all the cool action stuff, like a chainsaw duel with one of the Tall Man’s flunkies. Scrimm, with his imposing frame, brings his trademark intensity to the malevolent Tall Man.

Even though the original Phantasm was quite successful, Coscarelli did not want to rush out a sequel right away because he wanted to avoid being stereotyped as a horror filmmaker and set his sights on making a big-budget film. Unfortunately, he went on to make The Beastmaster (1982), a mess of a film that he lost control of; almost directed Silver Bullet (1985), and made Survival Quest (1990), which had trouble getting released. Coscarelli decided to make Phantasm II because he wanted to “get back to having control and making films on my own terms.”

He had an idea for a sequel and retreated to an isolated mountain cabin where he proceeded to hammer out a screenplay in a month’s time. His intention was to make a mainstream film “along the lines of Terminator.” So, he hooked up with Universal Pictures and they gave him $3 million and a 45-day shooting schedule. However, they also imposed some restrictions. Phantasm II had to have a more linear plot line than the first one, no dream sequences and Mike Baldwin would be replaced by James Le Gros. In addition to getting Bannister and Scrimm to reprise their memorable characters, many of the crew members from the first Phantasm also returned.

The film’s interiors were shot in a warehouse in Chatsworth, California with the exteriors filmed at various locations in Southern California. At Sam Raimi’s suggestion, Coscarelli hired Mark Shostrom (Evil Dead II) to create Phantasm II’s make-up effects. Shostrom enlisted Greg Nicotero and Robert Kurtzman as his key assistants. The house that blows up at the beginning of the film was bought from the state for $200. It was going to be demolished anyway to make way for the construction of the 105 freeway. The effects for the silver spheres were split between Dream Quest Images and Steve Patino.

Phantasm II was summarily trashed by mainstream critics when it was released. Roger Ebert gave the film out of four stars and wrote, “The target audience for Phantasm II obviously is teenagers, especially those with abbreviated attention spans, who require a thrill a minute. No character development, logic or subtlety is necessary, just a sensation every now and again to provide the impression that something is happening on the screen.” In her review for The New York Times, Caryn James wrote, “Mr. Coscarelli tries to keep things moving, deflating the horror with intentionally ludicrous scenes such as this, but the result is all too slow and labored.” The Globe and Mail’s Jay Scott wrote, “Coscarelli has said he resisted doing a Phantasm sequel because, ‘I didn't want to be stereotyped as a horror film director.’ He need not have worried: he's not apt to be stereotyped as a director of any type.” The Washington Post wrote, “Of course, the 1979 original also had just enough of a script to sustain interest between shock effects. Alas, that is not the case on this go-round, which has a bigger budget but no attendant improvements.”

Once Coscarelli gets the first film recap out of the way, he doesn’t waste any time getting into it, stripping things down to their essential genre elements. It’s all about forward momentum with Phantasm II. With a bigger budget than he had on the first film, he ups the ante in terms of action and gore. The action set pieces are more impressive and the gore bits more creative (even more so in the work print version). Where in the first film Mike and Reggie were always on the defensive, they are much more proactive in this one as they take the fight to the Tall Man. However, much like Evil Dead II, Phantasm II ends on a down note as our heroes are basically screwed and the Tall Man prevails again, thereby leaving things open for Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead (1994).

Check out kindertrauma's take on Phantasm II and also The Lightning Bug's Lair's excellent appreciation of the film.

Italian Horror Blog-a-thon: DVD of the Week: Dellamorte Dellamore (a.k.a. Cemetery Man)

NOTE: This post is part of the Italian Horror Blog-a-thon over at Hugo Stiglitz Makes Movies.

Michele Soavi got his start as an actor with small roles in Italian horror films like Lucio Fulci’s City of the Living Dead (1980) and then worked in various capacities (actor, screenwriter and assistant) on five of Joe D’Amato’s movies. Soavi went on to work as a second assistant director on Dario Argento’s Tenebre (1982) and was promoted to first assistant director on Argento’s Phenomena (1985). He also directed a couple of music videos and this led to his directorial feature debut with Stagefright (1987).

After a spell working on other people’s films again, Soavi got another opportunity to direct with The Church (1989) which was a much larger film than Stagefright in terms of budget. This was followed by The Sect (1990) and finally the independently produced Cemetery Man (1994) (a.k.a. Dellamorte Dellamore) which was based on a popular Italian comic book called Dylan Dog and went on to become an international success.

Francesco Dellamorte (Rupert Everett) is a cemetery watchman who kills the living dead when they rise from their graves (“returners” as he calls them) along with his oafish assistant, Gnaghi (Francois Hadji-Lazaro). He can’t explain the phenomenon – to him, dispatching the living dead is simply a job. One day, Francesco spots a beautiful young widow (Anna Falchi) and is immediately attracted to her but she wants nothing to do with him.

After a lusty tryst with the widow that begins with a passionate kiss in a decrepit crypt and ends up with them making love on her husband’s fresh grave only to end badly for her, Dellamorte starts thinking more about the living dead epidemic. In a vision, he is told by Death to start killing the living, that way he won’t have to kill them when they’re dead. And so, he goes from night watchman to mass murderer. Dellamorte certainly isn’t your conventional protagonist. For starters, he reads old copies of the local phone book in his spare time. He seems indifferent towards life and death, content to merely exist. Only the young widow is able to make him feel passionate about life again and then she dies.

Anna Falchi, aside from being a stunning, sexy beauty with those pouty lips and curvaceous, hour-glass figure, plays three different roles and even gets to be one of the undead. It’s easy to see why Rupert Everett’s character falls so hard for her and repeatedly.

Soavi sets the darkly comic tone of his film right from the first scene where Dellamorte quickly and efficiently dispatches one of the living dead. The cemetery setting provides a rich, gothic canvas for which the filmmaker to paint his subversive horror film on and to immerse us in at every opportunity. Working with horror maestros like Fulchi, Argento and Lamberto Bava certainly paid off for Soavi who expertly orchestrates the carnage in such a way that ranks his film right up there with other splatstick horror classics like Re-Animator (1985), Evil Dead 2 (1987) and Braindead (1992). He has the living dead riding around on motorcycles and Gnaghi ends up falling in love with the disembodied head of a living dead girl that evokes the aforementioned Re-Animator only in a sweeter, more naively romantic way.

Like those movies, Soavi’s film isn’t afraid to thumb its nose at convention and smash a few taboos along the way. Cemetery Man has everything you’d want from a cult horror film: stylish camerawork (that, at times, evokes Sam Raimi during his Evil Dead days), cool gore effects, naked voluptuous women and a wicked sense of humor.

Special Features:

“Death is Beautiful” is a retrospective featurette made specifically for this DVD. Soavi cites the three filmmakers that inspired him to become a filmmaker as D’Amato, Argento and Terry Gilliam. He worked for all three at various points in his life and learned so much about the art of filmmaking. Soavi talks about how he got involved in the film and how he was hesitant, at first, because he felt that the screenplay was childish and he didn’t get the sense of humor. This is an excellent look at the making of this movie with Falchi and several key cast members also interviewed.

Also included are a theatrical trailer and a decent Michele Soavi biography.

The Crazies

With the recent threats of Anthrax, SARS, bird and swine flu, The Crazies (1973), with its deadly viral outbreak affecting a small town in Pennsylvania, has become more relevant than ever before. Case in point: the impending remake starring Radha Mitchell and Timothy Olyphant. Made between zombie film classics Night of the Living Dead (1968) and Dawn of the Dead (1979), The Crazies is the missing link, of sorts – a warm-up for Dawn in that it explores many of the same themes but you can see filmmaker George A. Romero working them out in The Crazies.

Romero starts things off with a bang as a father smashes up his house before setting it on fire with his two kids and wife (whom he already killed) still inside. No explanation is given for his destructive behavior which makes his actions that much more chilling. David (W.G. McMillan) and Clank (Harold Wayne Jones) are two voluntary firefighters that rush to put out the fire. A highly contagious virus, code named Trixie, has infected some of the town’s inhabitants, turning mild-mannered people into crazed killers. The military has moved in and army soldiers are everywhere. David’s girlfriend is a nurse named Judy (Lane Caroll) and she shows up to work and finds all kinds of soldiers in white hazmat suits setting up base camp. David and Clank realize that something big is going down and decide to find Judy and split.

Naturally, the military doesn’t give a crap about the townsfolk and are thinking only about natural security, even considering dropping a nuclear bomb over the town in order to burn out the infected area. The military are in a state of controlled chaos as they try to contain the infected with varying degrees of success. A dance is broken up as martial law is imposed. Innocent people are woken up and taken from their homes, including crying children seized from their beds. David, Clank and Judy cross paths and joins forces with Artie (Day of the Dead’s Richard Liberty) and his daughter, Kathie (Lynn Lowry), after they are all captured by the military. They manage to escape and hole up in an abandoned country club as they try to figure out what to do next. As he did with Night of the Living Dead and to even greater effect in Dawn of the Dead, Romero explores the dynamic between these characters, including how they cope with the stress brought on by the dangerous situation they find themselves in.

The Crazies features slightly cheesy pre-Tom Savini gore that looks a lot like red paint but this only adds to the film’s low-budget charm. There is also a refreshing lack of recognizable movie stars. Instead, Romero populates his film with a cast of average (in the best sense of the word) looking people that could have been picked up right off the street. This kind of casting gives the film an authenticity, an almost documentary-like feel. The amateurish, unpolished delivery of dialogue by the cast also adds to the realism. It is like these people are being caught on camera during an unguarded moment in their lives, like we are intruding. For example, we are introduced to David and Judy in bed having a conversation that an actual couple might have. It is touches like this that help us get to know these characters so that we empathize with their plight later on.

Also adding to the realistic feeling is the film being shot on location in actual homes and buildings. Romero starts off with a claustrophobic vibe as most of the action takes place in-doors but by the film’s climax, he moves the action outdoors and really opens things up with an exciting chase that takes place in the countryside. There are all kinds of striking images in The Crazies, like a doctor with a gas mask on tending to two children with burns. There are chilling images of bodies being stripped of their valuables, bagged and then burned. In another scene, a crazed priest sets himself on fire a la the infamous Buddhist monk who did the same thing to protest the Vietnam War. Perhaps the most memorable image is that of an infected old lady repeatedly stabbing a soldier with a knitting needle only to resume her knitting as it nothing happened.

The army comes across as ineffectual as represented by Major Ryder (Harry Spillman) who seems like a bureaucrat in a military uniform. He looks disinterested and spends his time waiting for supplies to arrive, signing forms and giving orders that don’t always seem to be followed. Ryder gives an understandably upset local doctor sarcastic answers to some honest questions. His superior, Colonel Peckem (Lloyd Hollar) is a little better. He seems organized and actually knows what he’s doing. Even though he may well-informed, he meets resistance from his superiors, politicians far away from the situation who have no real understanding of what’s going on. Peckem is a rare, sane voice in a chaotic situation. Dr. Watts (Richard France, who would go on to play another scientist in Romero’s Dawn of the Dead), one of the developers of Trixie is brought in and complains to anyone who will listen. He has no problem voicing his opinions, openly criticizing his military handlers. The film cuts between scenes of the overwhelmed and disorganized military and the protagonists from the town just trying to find a way out of this nightmarish scenario.

The Crazies began with filmmaker Paul McCullough who wrote a screenplay called The Mad People about people who went crazy after a weapon spilled. Romero remembered, “it was really a character piece, it was people doing things, doing life that you see in the papers every day.” The military subplot in the McCullough’s script was only featured in the first act. Producer Lee Hessel agreed to finance and distribute the film but only if Romero rewrote the script to focus on the military taking over the town. Hessel had previously worked with Romero on There’s Always Vanilla (1971). Another change Romero made to the story was to have more action as per Hessel’s request. The budget was set at approximately $270,000 and the film was shot over 40 days. This was the first time that Romero worked with Screen Actors Guild actors and 35mm stock. Despite Hessel’s best intentions, The Crazies was poorly distributed and released under several different titles all over the country. It was not given a wide release but was eventually rediscovered on home video.

The Crazies takes the template Romero established with Night of the Living Dead and adds a political component, showing the ineptitude of military leaders. In this respect, The Crazies is a warm-up for Dawn of the Dead as it also features a small group of protagonists forced to survive on their own, unable to trust the authorities as they battle the infected. The Crazies also anticipates recent outbreak viral horror films like 28 Days Later (2002), its sequel 28 Weeks Later (2007), and Planet Terror (2007). Unfortunately, The Crazies is often considered to be a minor work in Romero’s canon but I have always felt that it was an important stepping stone towards more ambitious projects like Dawn of the Dead and Knightriders (1981). He showed more political and social awareness – something that was only hinted at in his early work.

DVD of the Week: The Nightmare Before Christmas: 2-Disc Collector's Edition

When The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) debuted in theaters, it was a modest commercial success but hardly the massive hit Disney had hoped for, especially with the pedigree of Tim Burton’s name above the title. It was well-received by critics who felt that it was too scary for children and the film went on to become a cult classic with its own vast merchandising empire. The film was given an excellent DVD release a few years ago and Disney has gone back to the well, re-mastered it and added some new extras.

Halloween Town is a magical place inhabited by vampires, witches, ghosts and skeletons hanging from talking trees where the Mayor (voiced by Glenn Shadix) gives the vampires an award for most blood drained in a single evening. Jack Skellington (voiced by Chris Sarandon) is the Pumpkin King and is bored with the same old routine and “weary of the sound of screams.” Sally (voiced by Catherine O’Hara) is a Frankenstein-esque creation, a stitched together rag doll created by mad scientist Dr. Finkelstein (voiced by William Hickey) who can scratch his own brain when he feels like it. She secretly pines for Jack.

Depressed and directionless, Jack wanders through the forest and finds a door leading to Christmas Town. He lands in a place covered in snow with Christmas lights hanging on every house. Jack is revitalized with this colourful new realm which is the complete opposite of the gloomy, dreary Halloween Town. Jack decides to introduce the spirit of Christmas to the denizens of Halloween Town. He also kidnaps Santa Claus and, with help from his friends, takes over his job on Christmas Eve. Sally believes that what Jack is doing is wrong and proceeds to restore order and rescue Santa from the evil ghost Oogie Boogie (voiced by Ken Page).

All of these creatures are lovingly rendered with stop motion animation that evokes the old Rankin and Bass cartoons albeit with an Edward Gorey vibe. The animation in Nightmare Before Christmas is impressive with such care and attention to each and every character. They all have their own distinctive look and personality. There is a personal, handcrafted feel to everything that creates a tangible texture missing from completely computer animated films.

All of the songs in this musical are insanely catchy and part of the film’s enduring appeal. Danny Elfman is the mad genius behind the music which comes as no surprise being a veteran of numerous Tim Burton productions. Thanks to the film’s premise, Nightmare Before Christmas works for either Halloween or the Christmas season. It features a vibrant color scheme and beautifully realized characters created by Burton, top notch direction by Henry Selick, and dialogue written by Caroline Thompson who wrote Edward Scissorhands (1990). This really deserves to be regarded as a modern classic and one of the best things to ever spring out of Burton’s brain.

Special Features:

So, if you already own the previous Special Edition is it worth double dipping for this new version and what is new? The good news is that with the exception of a DTS soundtrack and director Henry Selick’s solo commentary track, everything from the previous edition has been included in this one.

Disc one includes a new audio commentary by producer Tim Burton, director Henry Selick, and music designer Danny Elfman. They were recorded separately and then edited together. Burton talks about the classic animated holiday TV specials that made a huge impression on him. He was always intrigued by the visual combination of his two favorite holidays: Christmas and Halloween. Elfman claims that this is his favorite collaboration with Burton and talks about how he got involved. There is a significant amount of overlap from the numerous featurettes included on this set.

A new extra is “What’s This? Jack’s Haunted Mansion Holiday Tour,” which takes you through a haunted mansion ride based on the film. The attention to detail and decor is fantastic, done in Gothic fashion. You can also take the tour with a trivia subtitle track imparting all kinds of factoids. Also included is a featurette examining how they added the Nightmare Before Christmas style to the classic Haunted Mansion design.

Also new is “Tim Burton’s Original Poem,” narrated by none other than veteran genre actor Christopher Lee. This provided the original inspiration for the film. Lee’s great voice narrates over evocative concept art.

“The Making of Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas” takes us through various stages of the production, including the music, storyboards, art direction, and animation. It provides a detailed look at all of the work that went into creating the film and the challenges of stop motion animation.

The second disc starts off with “Frankenweenie,” a short film Burton directed in 1984. He offers a new introduction and mentions that work has begun on a feature-length stop motion animated film. Shot in gorgeous black and white, it’s about a young boy named Vincent (Barret Oliver) who decides to resurrect his dead dog Sparky a la Dr. Frankenstein. Shelley Duvall and Daniel Stern play his very Leave It To Beaver-esque parents. Also featured is the late-great Paul Bartel as Vincent’s science teacher.

“Vincent” is an animated short film that Burton made early in his career about a young boy who idolizes Vincent Price, who, incidentally, narrates the story. It has a wonderful, Expressionistic look reminiscent of early silent horror films.

Also included are three deleted storyboards and four animated sequences introduced by Selick. They feature sequences that didn’t make the final cut, some were never animated. Selick explains that they were cut for reasons of time and pacing.

“The World’s of Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas” explores the characters that inhabit Christmas Town, Halloween Town, and the Real World with all sorts of character designs, animation tests and concept art. It allows you to see the various incarnations of these beloved characters.

“Storyboards-to-Film Comparison” takes a look at a scene from the film and allows you to watch it simultaneously with the corresponding storyboards.

Finally, there are “Posters and Trailers,” a collection of poster art, a teaser trailer and a theatrical trailer.

From Dusk Till Dawn

Bob and Harvey Weinstein must have been salivating at the prospect of teaming up Quentin Tarantino, red hot from Pulp Fiction (1994), and George Clooney, red hot from the television show ER, on a film. What they got wasn’t exactly a mainstream crowd-pleaser but rather a down ‘n’ dirty grindhouse movie called From Dusk Till Dawn (1996) that was several years before Tarantino and his filmmaking brother-in-arms Robert Rodriguez would make it official with the double bill of Planet Terror and Death Proof in 2007. The screenplay for Dusk Till Dawn had been kicking around for years, before Tarantino exploded on the scene with Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Rodriguez with El Mariachi (1993). The two filmmakers used their new found clout to push this pet project through the system: a drive-in movie on a studio-sized budget and with recognizable stars like Clooney, Harvey Keitel, and Juliette Lewis.

From Dusk Till Dawn starts off in familiar Tarantino territory with the Gecko brothers: Seth (George Clooney) and Richie (Tarantino), stone cold killers on the run from the law. It seems that Richie broke Seth out of prison and to celebrate the two have gone on a crime spree that has resulted in a bank heist and many dead lawmen. They are introduced in an exciting prologue that could be a mini-movie unto itself. A Texas Ranger (the always watchable Michael Parks) enters a liquor store in a tense yet chatty scene where he talks it up with the greasy-haired register jockey (John Hawkes). In Tarantino’s world, having the gift of the gab is essential to one’s survival and when a character runs out of things to say they tend to die. Pretty soon the Gecko brothers are walking out of an exploding store thanks to a well-aimed flaming roll of toilet paper.

They take refuge at a roadside motel with a female bank teller they took hostage from the bank robbery that is never shown (just like the heist we never see in Reservoir Dogs). Ritchie and Seth plan to make a break for Mexico and find safe haven in a place called El Rey (a reference to a similar place of salvation in Sam Peckinpah’s The Getaway). All they have to do is cross the border and meet their contact Carlos (Cheech Marin) at a biker bar called the Titty Twister. To escape the ever-increasing manhunt, the Geckos decide to hijack a Winnebago with a preached named Jacob (Harvey Keitel), his daughter (Juliette Lewis), and his adopted son (Ernest Liu).

The Titty Twister turns out to be a really raunchy, biker bar/strip club where if you even look at someone funny you run the risk of dismemberment. But this is the least of their problems. It soon becomes apparent that this is no ordinary low life scumpit, but an ancient home to a rather large army of vampires. It is at this point that From Dusk Till Dawn mutates into a full-on, balls-to-the-wall horror film. The Gecko brothers and Jacob and his family are forced to defend themselves against hordes of the undead in a siege situation straight out of John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) with a healthy dose of George Romero’s zombie films.

Robert Kurtzman of KNB Effects Group, a special effects company, had a treatment called From Dusk Till Dawn and was looking for someone to turn it into a screenplay. Writer Scott Spiegel (of The Evil Dead fame) had met and befriended a then-unknown Quentin Tarantino through a mutual friend. He recommended Tarantino to Kurtzman based on the strength of his Natural Born Killers screenplay. Kurtzman read and liked it and agreed to pay Tarantino $1,500 to write a draft of Dusk Till Dawn. While filming Desperado (1995) in Acuna, Mexico, Tarantino asked Rodriguez if he would consider directing his Dusk Till Dawn script that he had shown him briefly in 1992. The director agreed to helm the project with the only stipulation being that Tarantino would rewrite the script. He agreed and the project was a go, but only after the two filmmakers finished shooting their respective vignettes for the anthology, Four Rooms (1995), which featured two other up-and-coming indie filmmakers, Allison Anders (Gas Food Lodging) and Alexandre Rockwell (In the Soup). Without giving a chance for the buzz surrounding Four Rooms to die down, Rodriguez and Tarantino moved on to Dusk Till Dawn.

From the start, the two men established the agenda that their film would adhere to. As Tarantino stated in an interview, "The thing that's kind of cool is we're basically making this head-banging horror film buff drive-in movie with this really big-budget – and we're not pulling back. We're going for it." It is this kind of take-no-prisoners attitude that propels the hyperactive (and hyperviolent) narrative of From Dusk Till Dawn. The film marked Rodriguez's biggest budget yet at $18 million, but still small potatoes compared to a Sylvester Stallone film where $20 million of the budget goes towards the actor's salary. Like he did with El Mariachi and Desperado, Rodriguez uses all of his resources to make the film look better than it costs and gives the material his own unique spin despite the presence of Tarantino's obsessions which often threaten to overwhelm the film.

Rodriguez's influence lay in the origins of the vampires which were rather vague in nature in the script. The director decided to use his working knowledge of Mexican history and base the creatures' genesis on ancient Aztec and Mayan culture. "There were actual vampire Goddess statues and things during Aztec times ... So the idea is that this den of vampires in an old Aztec temple has, over the years, been turned into a sleazy bar in Mexico to continue to attract victims." It is this playful attitude towards his own heritage and the film's story, coupled with Tarantino’s strong script, which keeps From Dusk Till Dawn from slipping into self-parody.

This was the first film that demonstrated George Clooney’s ability to make the jump from the small screen to the big one. With the character of Seth Gecko, he isn’t afraid to portray an amoral criminal and yet Clooney’s natural charisma makes you like him. The actor is able to turn on the charm and also show a more intense side when someone crosses him, like the opening shoot-out in the liquor store. Unfortunately, this is one of the films that Tarantino acts in and demonstrates why it is better he stay behind the camera. He looks like someone trying to play a twisted criminal instead of becoming the character like everyone else. Tarantino even sports a ridiculous looking Burt Reynolds-circa-Deliverance (1972) haircut. His character’s death doesn’t come soon enough. It’s a credit to Rodriguez’s skill as a filmmaker and the strength of the material that the film isn’t ruined by Tarantino’s lousy acting.

It doesn’t hurt that there are plenty of distractions, like a showstopping scene where a scantily-clad Salma Hayek dances seductively with a rather large snake. Of course, she turns out to be the queen vampire at the Titty Twister. There are all kinds of inside jokes and references for genre fans, like a bit where make-up legends Greg Nicotero (who also worked on the film) and Tom Savini play rival bikers who have a disagreement. That is, until Savini shows off his crotch gun (first seen in Rodriguez’s Desperado). Another genre veteran Fred “The Hammer” Williamson also has a memorable turn as a biker who gets to deliver a monologue about the Vietnam War a la Bill Duke in Predator (1987).

Harvey Keitel gives From Dusk Till Dawn some much-needed gravitas as a preacher who has lost his way after his wife’s death and must find God again if his family and the others are to survive the vampire attacks until dawn. Keitel does a nice job of showing Jacob’s transformation from a faithless preacher to, as Seth puts it, a “mean motherfuckin’ servant of God.” In addition, several Rodriguez regulars show-up in supporting roles, like Danny Trejo as the Titty Twister bartender and Cheech Marin in an impressive three different roles.

Not surprisingly, this film divided critics. Roger Ebert gave it three out of four stars and described it as “a skillful meat-and-potatoes action extravaganza with some added neat touches.” In her review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote, “The latter part of From Dusk Till Dawn is so relentless that it's as if a spigot has been turned on and then broken. Though some of the tricks are entertainingly staged, the film loses its clever edge when its action heats up so gruesomely and exploitatively that there's no time for talk.” Entertainment Weekly gave the film a “B” rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote, “Rodriguez and Tarantino have taken the let-'em-eat-trash cynicism of modern corporate moviemaking and repackaged it as junk-conscious ‘attitude.' In From Dusk Till Dawn, they put on such a show of cooking up popcorn that they make pandering to the audience seem hip.” However, in his review for the Washington Post, Desson Howe wrote, “The movie, which treats you with contempt for even watching it, is a monument to its own lack of imagination. It's a triumph of vile over content; mindless nihilism posing as hipness.” The San Francisco Chronicle’s Mick LaSalle called the film, “an ugly, unpleasant criminals-on-the-lam film that midway turns into a boring and completely repellent vampire ‘comedy.’ If it's not one of the worst films of 1996 it will have been one miserable year.” Cinefantastique magazine’s Steve Biodrowski wrote, “Whereas one might reasonably have expected that the combo of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez would yield a critical mass of nuclear proportions, instead of an atomic fireball’s worth of entertainment, we get a long fuse, quite a bit of fizzle, and a rather minor blast.”

At its heart, From Dusk Till Dawn carries on in the proud tradition of other low-budget, gonzo horror films like Sam Raimi's Evil Dead trilogy and Stuart Gordon's Re-Animator (1985), while paying homage to classic horror films like George Romero's Dawn of the Dead (1979). Rodriguez admires these "lower budget, edgier kind of horror films, the ones where you didn't know what the filmmaker would do next. Because they didn't have any money, they would just try and grab you any way they could." Rodriguez and Tarantino now had the money to play with, but still maintained the low-budget aesthetic that they admired so much.

If the first half of From Dusk Till Dawn feels like a Tarantino film reminiscent of True Romance (1993) and Natural Born Killers (1994), which feature amoral outlaws on the run from the law, then the second half is all Rodriguez as he lets his John Carpenter-esque freak flag fly for a blood-drenched finale with all sorts of creative deaths involving balloons filled with holy water, a crossbow and a disco ball. As with most of his films, Dusk Till Dawn is a fun ride with everything you could want from something like this: gun-totting criminals, tough bikers, cool action sequences, memorable dialogue, lots of inventive gore, and half-naked vampire strippers. What more could you ask for?

DVD of the Week: Silent Hill

NOTE: To celebrate Halloween I will be posting articles related to horror films all month.

Since Christophe Gans’ surprise international success with Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001), there has been a certain amount of anticipation for what he would do next after showing such promise with a film that effortlessly juggled several genres. For awhile, he was attached to The Adventurer, an Indiana Jones-style adventure film and a remake of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, neither of which made it past the pre-production phase. Fortunately, he finally made another movie called Silent Hill (2006). Unfortunately, it’s an adaptation of the video game of the same name. The track record for these kinds of movies isn’t that good (Resident Evil and Alone in the Dark anyone?).

After her daughter Sharon (Jodelle Ferland) almost sleepwalks her way off a cliff while yelling out the words, “Silent Hill,” Rose (Radha Mitchell) decides to find and take her daughter to the place of the same name as a form of therapy. Rose and her husband Chris (Sean Bean) differ on how to treat their adopted daughter – he thinks she should be medicated and see a doctor, while Rose chooses Silent Hill, West Virginia because that’s where Sharon supposedly came from. Unfortunately, after they leave, Chris does some research and finds out that where they are going is a notorious ghost town that was devastated by a horrendous fire 30 years ago.

While foolishly trying to outrun a police officer (Laurie Holden) on a motorcycle on a dangerous stretch of road, Rose crashes her SUV trying to avoid a mysterious figure. When she regains consciousness, her daughter has disappeared and ash falls from the sky like snow. Rose continues on foot with the cop and they soon find themselves in Silent Hill, a deserted town not on any maps. Unfortunately, they soon encounter the town’s creepy denizens while searching for Sharon.

Radha Mitchell, who established solid genre credentials with Pitch Black (2000), plays a strong woman who undergoes an emotionally harrowing journey during the course of the film. She is credibly scared out of her mind when it is warranted but is also very proactive, driven to find her daughter. Mitchell has the ability to act tough while also conveying a vulnerability that makes her very appealing. It is also nice to see Sean Bean cast against type, playing a sympathetic character instead of the bad guys he traditionally plays.

As he demonstrated with Brotherhood of the Wolf, Gans is an excellent visual storyteller and within the first five minutes not only the central dilemma but also a richly atmospheric world with a David Lynchian soundscape is established. He also demonstrates a knack for vivid, unsettling imagery: an army of horribly charred toddlers still burning as they swarm all over Rose, crying out in pain. With its nightmarish, otherworldly look, Silent Hill clearly exists in another time and place and Gans conveys this through production and set design rich in detail and a soundtrack that uses music sparingly but when he does it is unusual and very effective. He downplays a musical score that is trip-hop in nature (a funky juxtaposition) in favor of elaborate sound design including an eerie air raid siren that goes off repeatedly when something bad is going to happen.

I have never played the video game so I have no idea how faithful this film is to its source material but it is strong enough to stand on its own merits and is very much its own entity. They say every town has its own story and Silent Hill’s is as troubled as they come. Over the course of the film, its past and the source of the apocalyptic fire that brought about its demise is gradually revealed. Silent Hill is one of those rare horror films that is truly horrific, right down to its impressively staged grand guginol finale where the tormentors become the tormented as Rose serves up some well deserved revenge but not in a stereotypical way, like at the end of a gun. Like most good horror movies, Rose’s journey is a waking nightmare with one frightening encounter after another with all sorts of grotesque creatures tormenting her along the way.

Silent Hill is a refreshing horror film in that it not only features two female protagonists who are more than capable of taking care of themselves and uncover the mysteries of the town but also a formidable female antagonist and the man as the passive character who waits by the phone for our heroine to call. Roger Avary’s screenplay isn’t anything special but it doesn’t need to be in Gans’ capable hands. Together, they have crafted a clever horror film that depicts a zealous, puritanical society punished for unjustly persecuting witches. The film illustrates the destructive power of hatred – pretty heavy topics for a video game adaptation.

Special Features:

“Paths of Darkness: Making Silent Hill” is comprised of six featurettes that can be viewed separately or altogether. Gans was a big fan of the video game and found it very scary with lots of cinematic possibilities. For the director, the film is about fear and emotion and that is what attracted him to it. He also purposely cast actors who work predominantly in independent cinema because they aren’t instantly recognizable and in one featurette he touches upon why he cast the actors that he did while they talk about their characters. Most of the town of Silent Hill was created from scratch with four different phases of its incarnation that resulted in an impressive 106 sets! However, they did film some exteriors in the Canadian town of Brantford, Ontario. A terrific amount of work went into these sets as these extras illustrate. They also explore the stunt work and how, in particular, Radha Mitchell and Laurie Holden did a lot of their own stunts and had a blast doing them. We also see how the various creatures were created – Gans’ mandate was that they should be disturbing rather than disgusting, although, they are that as well.