This movie helped pave the way for common practices in film as we know them today. Norman Bates was a gold mine for character study, and the infamous shower scene has become common curriculum for film classes around the world. Alfred Hitchcock is the master of mystery and suspense, but there's certainly no mystery as to why if you've seen this film.

Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) is a simple woman that has a fairly complicated problem. She's been seeing Sam Loomis (John Gavin), who lives in California, and they're both madly in love and wish to marry. However, he lives on very little money and wouldn't be able to support her. He's stuck in a rut of paying alimony to his ex-wife. On top of that, he also lives in California, which is a bit of a hike from where Marion lives. They continue to see each other when they can, but they want more. They're tired of feeling like they're sneaking around, and want to make it official.

After a rendezvous with Sam during her lunch break, she heads back to work. She's given $40,000 to deposit in the bank for her employer, and she decides to take the money and use it to start the new life with Sam they've always dreamed about.

On her way to California, she stops at the Bates Motel for some much needed rest, and is welcome by owner and caretaker, Norman Bates. He's a very nice man, but reveals to Marion his life as a prisoner. He's bound to that hotel, because he takes care of his sickly mother in the house on the hill out back. It used to bother him, but the very thought of leaving his controlling mother behind fills him with guilt. After Marion finishes her increasingly awkward conversation with Norman, she retires to her room for the evening... and that's the last time anybody sees her alive.

Over the next week, Marion's sister and Sam grow increasingly worried over her sudden disappearance. Their worry is only heightened when a detective that's on the hunt for the missing forty grand starts to confirm their suspicion that Marion's dead. All signs point back to the Bates Motel, but the case is far from being solved. Despite the obvious answer as to where Marion disappeared, how, and why, are the real reasons why you must see this film if you've never done so before.

I can't say anything about Psycho that hasn't been said before. As I mentioned, it's common curriculum for film 101. So, I'm going to tell you why Psycho works so well for me, even after all the years worth of repeat viewing.

Alfred Hitchcock deceives the audience not just through mystery, but in the way the story is told. From the beginning of the film we follow the life of Marion Crane. She's set up to be the central character for the film. It's not as if she just rolls on screen and the infamous shower scene happens in the first ten minutes to set up the mystery. We get to know her, become comfortable with her, and then the shower scene happens and the game changes considerably. It's something you wouldn't expect, and I've never been able to shake the concept of how masterfully Hitchcock played this out.

Pyscho also manages to do something very few movies have ever done for me. The entirety of the film is laced with extremely intense discomfort. For one reason or another, there's always a sense of a cat and mouse game going on. Sure, the concept itself isn't revolutionary, but Hitchcock was able to work it effectively from beginning to end. Everything was crafted to create an atmosphere that kept you on the edge of your seat, from camera angles, lighting, the acting, pacing, as well as using some subliminal photography. There are numerous things Hitchcock had to fight about with the MPAA, so he relied heavily on making something as integral as the shower scene, trick you into seeing something you didn't really see. Incredible amounts of hard work and nit-picky oversight from Hitchcock made this film what it is, and it shows in every frame. I do mean every frame, too.

Some director's put every piece of their soul and being in a movie, and fail miserably. Some, work just as hard and get some very nice recognition for their work. Hitchcock's Psycho however, is an extremely rare case where its effectiveness still works just as good today, as it did back then. That's a quality that very few movies in cinematic history can boast about...

...Psycho is a masterful creation of atmosphere and suspense. This is a film that plays some very dirty tricks on the audience to continually make you sit on the edge of your seat, even after numerous repeat viewings. It's hard to imagine anyone who claims to be a film lover, not appreciating one of the most influential films of all time. Hitchcock was a perfectionist every step of the way whenever it came to any of his masterpieces, and Psycho is a film that looks as close to perfection as anything I've ever seen. I dare you to find a single frame in the film where the cinematography doesn't show the amount of effort that went in camera angling or lighting to provide a feature length amount of chills.

In a remote gold mining settlement, a line has been drawn between two terrifying gangs: the red-costumed Heike and the white-clad Genji. Into the town rides a stranger in black, known as The Gunman (Hideaki Ito), who has come to offer his services to the highest bidder. Sending the gangs into a fury, The Gunman quickly becomes invested in the plight of a widowed saloon girl (Yoshino Kimura), her traumatized son, and a grandmother (Kaori Momoi) who hides a secret past. With Heike leader Kiyomori (Koichi Sato) in a rage and Genji kingpin Yoshitsune (Yusuke Iseya) nursing a calm curiosity with this new resident, the stage is set for an explosion of violence, as the three sides declare war on each other.

Perhaps some of the inspiration for "Sukiyaki" was supplied by Quentin Tarantino, who's known for this sort of idolatry, and even cameos here as the quickdraw outlaw who kicks off the story. Miike doesn't share Tarantino's rabid fandom for big screen replication, but the details in the film are rendered with large handfuls of affection. Working the Leone vibe to more artificial ends, Miike and his production crew bathe the film in Western motifs, exaggerated widescreen lensing, Morricone-style music cues, and thoroughly utilizes a known sound effects library to a point of giddiness. Much like the titular dish, the film is an anything-goes stew of imagination, taking design cues from multiple eras to fashion an experience that overwhelms with detailed grit and eye-catching polish.

The film's potent visuals are really what "Sukiyaki" is all about. Miike is less interested in the story, which reheats "Yojimbo" twists and turns, with the film adding in more slapstick and Miike's specialty: unswerving, operatic violence. The anachronistic look of the piece is something to behold, keeping the feature involving when the story runs completely out of gas early on and the cast, performing the film in English (you haven't lived until you've heard a Japanese actor use the phrase "Whistling Dixie" in a sentence), can barely hurdle their lines. The English is a strange choice from Miike, but then again, it fits along cheerfully with the piercings, tattered punk clothes, and bullet-stopping heroics the rest of the film prides itself on.

"Sukiyaki" is a highly stylized motion picture and, while difficult to invest in, will offer a more prepared viewer a heightened, bullet-drenched good time. It's worth a look for Momoi's barnstorming performance as the dreaded "Bloody Benten," an opportunity to embrace the sorely missed profusion of spaghetti western melodrama, and to see Miike create a film that is powered solely on nostalgia and ridiculous matinee enchantment.

The Plot: Even though he is immortal, Andreas is not happy. He hates being an errand boy for local Satanist Edward Crowley, and despises the fact that his boss gets to bed the entrancing Muldavia. He's also sick and tired of looking after Crowley's pet "project" a junkie vampire named Smoke. What he wants is power, and not the kind derived from his status as a bloodsucker. No, Andreas wants the secrets to the Devil's domain, and there is just one thing stopping him from obtaining that desire – the red diamond known as the Scarlet Moon. A one time possession of a powerful Egyptian sorceress named Tara, whoever has the gem owns the key to unimaginable power. But if improperly used, the jewel can bring about the end of the world. When corpses start showing up, drained of all their blood, the government calls on their top paranormal scientist, Professor Hertz, to get to the bottom of the killings. In the meantime, Andreas plans his coup, and discovers that local vampire artist and forever flower child Satanya has the stone. But before he can get it, our paranormal peacenik heads off on a trip around with world. With Hertz hot on their trail, it's not long before the forces of good and evil clash. And if everyone's not careful, it could mean an Earth-exploding Armageddon. If Warren F. Disbrow Jr. is comparable to a genre David Lynch, then Scarlet Moon is his Dune. Dripping with ambition, dense with ideas and attempting the epic while maintaining the idiosyncratic, this determined effort at a new modern mythology works, most of the time. Sure, it trips over itself once in a while, and makes narrative leaps of world record like distance, but when all is said and done, we have another amazingly inventive effort from a true fan of the medium of film. Disbrow is like a directorial encyclopedia of horror. Watching Scarlet Moon, we see the sci-fi and fantasy elements merging with macabre to become a definitive statement of one man's love for the scary, as well as the speculative. There are obvious nods to '60s drive in classics, '70s shockers, the '80s teen slasher romps, the '90s kind of ironic eeriness – even a couple of non-horror classics get passed through the Disbrow dissecting device. The final product is a mishmash of comedy and corpses, devil worship and dumbness. There are hints at other, more mysterious goals that this film strove to achieve. But somewhere behind the dream and distribution, this director's lofty aims were squashed and stunted…and that's a shame.

Using a Clockwork Orange like narrative to start the film (our lead demon vampire hitman Andreas is a perverse Alex de Large) and throwing a whole lot of stock and travelogue footage into the mix, Disbrow is determined to make an apocalyptic comedy, simultaneously dark and daffy. In a montage filled with missing scenes (including a lot of splatter effects and the killing of kids) Andreas tells us the tale of Tara, an Egyptian witch who used her knowledge of the black arts to obtain Satan's favor. After a backwards Bible full of goofy Gospel – and some outright naughty nakedness – we end up in a kind of paranormal Pulp Fiction, with Andreas and Smoke as Jules and Vincent, and Edward Crowley as a Marcellus Wallace of the REAL underworld. There's lots of loopy dialogue, scads of references to pop culture, and a note for note replay of the classic "needle to the chest" scene from the Tarantino masterwork. But just as soon as we get comfortable with the QT take, the movie shifts seismically and we're suddenly inside Disbrow's own X-Files. Featuring his father, Warren F. Disbrow, Sr. as a Mulder like meddler in all areas of the supernatural, we get a clever cameo from Famous Monster of Movieland's Forrest Ackerman as a government bureaucrat putting Papa Disbrow's Professor Hertz back on the trail of terror.

All along the way, loose ends fly free, never even trying to connect to the reality of the plot. Michael Bruce ("of the Alice Cooper Group fame" or so the dialogue constantly reminds us) is also part of this story, since he seems to want the gemstone as well. Yet we never get closure on why this aging member of a shock rocker's backup band would even want the jewel, let alone why he's important to the film. Instead, it feels like a failed idea, or one that got sidetracked by either story, or outside issues (the bonus features sort of fill us in on the truth). Similarly, the Satanya character seems scattered and unfocused. One day she's a dithering mess, lost in her locked-in living dead dimension of the '60s. The next, she is whizzing around the world, acting like a typical gold digging tart. One scene has her serving mushroom enhanced urine to Smoke. The next has her acting like an asshole over the painting of Crowley's altar. Maybe it was Disbrow's intent to have her bouncing off the plotpoints like the portly pinball she resembles, but it's really not his fault. AnnMarie Donato makes her character a confusing chatterbox, never really delivering the performance the script mandates. She's just reading lines. She doesn't commit to her character the way Dominic Gregoria does as Andreas or Colin Reynolds does as Smoke.

When we later learn that Disbrow's original cut was nearly four hours in length, we suddenly start to see why Scarlet Moon is a lesser effort in the filmmaker's canon. When looking at something like the sensational Flesh Eaters from Outer Space or Invasion for Flesh and Blood, we can see the seat of the pants invention right up on the screen. No no-budget filmmaker gets a free financial pass when making their film, and logistics often arrive from outside the project to really louse things up. But here, we don't see the same delirious dives into surreality. Certainly, if he had simply stayed with his story of supernaturals battling it out for dark dominion over evil on Earth, he might have had a better handle on his overall production. But there are times – as when Jesus makes an appearance during a dapper vampire's story of salvation – when Disbrow could have upped the anarchic ante and really let loose with his manic inner muse. Instead of making a cameo, Christ could have become a pseudo action hero, entering into the storyline just as all 'Hell" is about to break loose to kick some Antichrist ass. Unfortunately, that doesn't happen here.

Though it's better than most of the mindless trash using the technological breakthroughs of DAT and DVD to sell their substandard wares, Scarlet Moon feels like discount Disbrow. Maybe the proposed sequel/prequel will shed some light on a few of the failings found in this film. Whatever it does, it stands a good chance of being another original offering of film fandom from someone who typically knows his way around a movie camera. Love him or loathe him, Warren F. Disbrow, Jr. represents the reason independent film continues to thrive. Outside the mindless mainstream of demographically determined moviemaking, here is a man who plays by his own arcane rules and puts his own unique stamp on even the most tired of terror tenets. And if that's not the definition of 'auteur', it's hard to imagine what is.

Final Thoughts: Truth be told, Warren F. Disbrow Jr. would have a hard time living up to the legend that is The Flesh and Blood movies. Those filmic fever dreams, with their larger-than-life ideas and balls-to-the-wall execution stand as testaments to the power inside outsider cinema. They remind us that imagination can often overcome even the most middling of production paradigms. Scarlet Moon comes close. It may be a tad disjointed at times, and fail to fulfill the perplexing promise of its mind-blowing opening, but it still exceeds the efforts of others in the homemade movie business... The film itself is an easily recommended romp, but it's the added content that provides the step up in evaluation. It's a shame that directors like Disbrow have to work without the luminescence of the limelight leading their way. Imagine what he could do with an actual mainstream budget. Of course, the fear would be that a large outlay of cash would require an equally huge amount of corporate interference. Such a situation would only strip this filmmaker of the facets that make him special. Warren F. Disbrow is indeed an auteur. Among the talent pool of pretenders to the Tinsel Town throne, he is definitely one of the most original.

That's what you'll see if, for some ungodly reason, you happen to be holding the latest Charles Band DVD. If so, put it down. Immediately.

After spending much of the past two decades churning out colorful schlock like Dollman Meets the Demonic Toys' Puppet Master Robot Attack, Mr. Band has settled down with a new outfit called "Wizard Entertainment," and if you happened to read my reviews for the first two Wizard flicks (Decadent Evil & Doll Graveyard), then you already know two things:

1. As an old fan of Band's early work, I'm actively trying to like his new stuff. Honest.

-and-

2. These movies are just all sorts of terrible. Seriously.

I was half-expecting to have a royal hoot with The Gingerdead Man, but the thing never comes close to being colorful crap or affable camp. It's just ... dingy and tiresome and painfully plagiarized from Child's Play. Only this time instead of a doll we have a cookie, instead of Brad Dourif we got Gary Busey, and instead of actors, a screenplay, and an actual three-act story structure ... we have inept amateurs, a lot of aimless blather, and a formless movie that clocks in at about 55 minutes, not including the opening and closing credits. Put together one DVD, the triple feature of Decadent Evil, Doll Graveyard, and The Gingerdead Man might be worth maybe 9 American dollars.

Frankly I'm amazed that something this low-rent and borderline-unwatchable could come from a guy who has directed over 100 movies. True, they were always low-budget and cheesy, but at least they felt like real movies! The Gingerdead Man is a few limp kill scenes, a truly moronic concept, and a whole lotta brain-damaging "cookie" puns. Not even the gimmick casting of Gary Busey can bring any color to this crummy affair.

Final Thoughts: I wish I could offer the opinion that Charles Band is back and slingin' his trademark cheeseball goodness, but the guy's 0-for-3 with his new production company, and after watching all three flicks in order ... things don't seem to be improving.

On vacation in Mexico, four college students (Shawn Ashmore, Jena Malone, Laura Ramsey, and Jonathan Tucker) meet a German tourist (Joe Anderson) looking to break away from the grind of perfect beaches and bottomless margaritas. Their adventure destination is a lost Mayan temple located in the middle of a dense jungle, and once arrived, the group tragically learns they are not welcome by the vicious locals. Trapped on top of the temple, the students quickly grasp they are not alone, finding the flowers and vines that surround them have a taste for blood. Toying with the group, the flora waits patiently as injury and madness soon settles in, leaving the hapless youngsters with no means of escape.

Adapted by Scott Smith ("A Simple Plan") from his own novel, "The Ruins" is governed by one rule: razor-sharp simplicity. There's no undercurrent of absurd social commentary, no extraneous subplots vying for screentime; "The Ruins" is a straightforward exercise in endurance and disturbing imagery. Not having personally experienced the novel, I didn't sense any gaps in the storytelling, which is a credit to Smith, who overhauled his original plot to streamline the agony. It's a triumphant piece of scripting, securing the tension to the front burners at all times and staging sequences not for their jump-scare potential, but for more gut-wrenching results that will surely leave weak-kneed audience members sprinting for the exits.

Director Carter Smith ("Bugcrush") is game to go where Smith leads and he rarely breaks the film's constant haze of dread. "Ruins" dabbles in psychological torment, yet the heart of this beast lies in old-fashioned displays of gore, with the characters digging around in their own bodies with knives in a pathetic attempt to keep the vines literally out of their system. Certainly this isn't high art, but "Ruins" is near-perfect at manipulating its audience, emphasizing physical threat and consequence, with a profound admiration for armrest-squeezing bodily harm on a level few recent horror productions would dare explore.

The acting by the young leads is better than expected, especially the work committed to the screen here by Laura Ramsey, who is the only member of the cast to reach the next level of despair as the vines attempt to find a warm home under her skin. Smith wisely keeps the actorly hysterics to a minimum, preferring visual communication of suffering that's incredibly more effective riling up the audience than bad actors allowed free reign to act badly.

It could be the steady diet of numbskull horror offerings lately, but I was with "Ruins" for the entire ride, delighting in the merciless direction and fantastical botanical twists with eyes wide open. It's one of those strap-in-and-ride-it-out experiences that are all too rare; forgoing elaborate strands of exposition to settle on more direct lunges of terror. It's a marvelous nightmare machine.

Half-man, half-demon dude goes around offing demons and laying the smackdown on possessed people who simply don't respect the bible. He's been raised by priests to fight for good, but he's also struggling with his own inner demons. (Weak pun intended.) Paired up with a chaste (yet inevitably sexy) young nun, our kinda-hero tangles with a boss demon who sweats a lot and rambles on and on to whichever undead minion happens to be within earshot.

So the concept basically sounds like Constantine meets Hellboy meets the first five minutes of Scary Movie 3, only imagine that concoction stripped of all energy, excitement, creativity, style, intensity, thrills, chills, gore, and half-decent special effects.

That's Demon Hunter in a nutshell, one of the driest, dumbest, and most consistently derivative knock-offs since that E.T. rip-off about the alien who loved McDonalds. (You know the one I mean.) What could have been a mindlessly exciting b-level retread is instead a ponderously uneventful yawnfest laden with overwhelming amounts of lengthy exposition rants, circuitous backstories, and dialogue barrages that border on the unjustifiably painful. The action bits are fairly few and far between, but you'll know 'em when you see 'em, because you won't be able to help but notice that the main characters have somehow managed to stop yammering for 11 consecutive seconds.

Not only does Demon Hunter pilfer from four or five painfully obvious sources, but it doesn't even bother to take the borrowed foundations and build something semi-creative on top of it. It's all familiar themes, endless conversations, goofy FX work, oh, and a sweaty Billy Drago in a series of hotel room scenes in which he gropes a devil-woman with glue-on horns. If this flick were just a little more awful, it'd probably be hysterical.

Don't believe me?

Screenwriter/stunt coordinator Mitch Gould and DTV hack Scott Ziehl* may go on to much bigger and better things, and I'll be here to give 'em a second shot when that happens, but what they've put together here is equal parts boring, silly, and downright stolen.

(*To be fair, Ziehl also directed Earth vs. the Spider, which is a perfectly, stupidly enjoyable b-movie, just so everyone knows I'm not just gunning for the little guys. He also did Cruel Intentions 3, which I somehow missed, and he's presently working on something called Road House 2: Last Call, which stars Jake Busey, Will Patton, William Ragsdale, and Johnathon Schaech, and which (no lie) I cannot wait to see.)

Final Thoughts: A dreary and overly familiar DTV occult thriller is, of course, nothing new. But what's interesting here is that Demon Hunter was produced by Stephen J. Cannell, a name familiar to anyone who's seen The Rockford Files, The Greatest American Hero, The A-Team, Hunter, Riptide, 21 Jump Street, Wise Guy, or The Commish. These days Mr. Cannell is producing movies called Demon Hunter, The Tooth Fairy, and It Waits, two of which I've seen, both of which are destined for the $1.99 bin by the end of 2006. Hollywood's a nutty place.

Regarding Demon Hunter -- stolen plots, stupid stories, and silly monsters I can take, but there's no damn reason a 75-minute movie should feel like 275.

Unfortunately, through the miracle of DVD technology, I'm able to see Virgin Witch in its entirety, completely uncut and commercial free. It's a pity. What might have titillated me at ten -- knowing for sure I was missing out on something good whenever there was an awkward jump cut - now becomes an unendurably rote and routine experience. Oh, there's nudity, all right. But that's about it -- and I'm not ten anymore. There's no scares, no gore, no tension, no horror - nothing. What promised to be a creepy exercise in English witchcraft seen through the exploitation lens, devolves into a third-rate Hammer knock-off, with precious little to recommend it.

Sisters Christine and Betty (Ann and Vicki Michelle) are running away from home, when they're picked up by sharpster Johnny (Keith Buckley), who takes them to stay with him in London. Christine, we learn, wants to be a model. We also learn that she has powers of ESP; this is how she picks out commercial modeling agent Sybil Waite (Patricia Haynes) from a magazine layout. Going to Waite's office, Christine is compelled by Waite to remove her clothes to "measure her for the records" (frankly, she doesn't seem that upset by the request). But Sybil has other plans for Christine that don't include modeling. Sybil fakes a phone call from a photographer, telling Christine that she's in a bind to find a model on short notice who will spend the weekend at a country estate, shooting a liquor ad. Christine readily accepts, and brings along her sister Betty for protection. But from the start of the weekend, it appears that Christine doesn't need any protection; she willingly removes her clothes for the photo shoot, and acts as if she doesn't have a care in the world. Meanwhile, Sybil keeps a sharp eye on Christine -- for personal reasons.

At the same time, sister Betty is exploring the estate, when she stumbles across a ceremony room for witches. Disturbed by this, she goes outside for some air, where she again becomes confused by the lustful stares of several men from the village. She wakes up in bed to find Dr. Amberly (Neil Hallett), the owner of the estate, comforting her while saying it's perfectly normal for a young virgin to have sexual frustrations (Mr. Smooth). After Betty confides in Christine what she has found, Christine states that all of the people at the estate are witches - and yet, she feels absolutely no fear concerning this situation. Later at dinner, Dr. Amberly freely admits that they're a coven of witches, but that they only practice white witchcraft - never Satanism. Eventually, Christine discovers her powers becoming more acute, and decides to become the next High Priestess, pushing Sybil out of the way. Will Johnny come to Betty's rescue before Christine totally loses it, and sacrifices Betty at the pagan orgy?

It's not difficult to interest me in one of those typical "there's something wrong at the English country estate this weekend" type of movie. It's such a common setting for British films and TV shows, and it can encompass many different types of film genres, from Agatha Christie-type mysteries, to horror films (Night Must Fall) to Hammer suspense films (Die! Die! My Darling!), to various Avengers and The Saint episodes. But for that type of film to work, there has to be something wrong at the estate, and after watching Virgin Witch, I couldn't figure out what the problem was. The film starts out with a montage of naked women, with one apparently being sacrificed during a pagan witch ceremony. But this is never referred to again in the film. Who's the victim? We never find out. Dr. Amberly assures Betty and Christine that his coven never practices the dark arts, and even argues about it with Sybil, demanding it stay that way. Did Sybil lose control, and sacrifice a virgin? One might think so, but the film never definitively answers that. As well, there never seems to be a credible threat to the young girls in the house; I kept waiting for someone to feel threatened, for someone to start getting that uneasy feeling that all was not right with their too-friendly and accomodating hosts. But it never happened. Christine seems to be at one with the house immediately upon her arrival, and there's no question (from either her or her hosts) that she will eventually become a witch -- and a powerful one, at that. The witches and warlocks in the house keep saying they don't want to harm anyone - and then they don't harm anyone. And Betty - poor, dim Betty - doesn't seem to comprehend anything that's going on in the house. And once she is clued in, she willing agrees to become a witch in the final ceremony, to bring back Johnny (with the help of Christine's powers). Again, no big threat is seen at the house. So...basically, we have a pallid little witchcraft movie with no internal strife, and no dramatic conflict.

And when you're left without dramatic tension or a provocative plot line, the only thing left to concentrate on is the acting. The actors are fine in Virgin Witch; Hallett and Haines do an adequate job with their "evil" witches parts, while the Michelle sisters are suitably desirable as the nubile victims. The only problem with all of these performances is that you've seen tham all a hundred times before, in better movies. There's nothing in the slightest way distinctive about Virgin Witch's story or screenplay, or its performances. The direction by TV veteran Ray Austin is, in a word, perfunctory. He seems incapable of building any kind of tension, and most of his scenes just lie there, inert. He isn't helped, either, by indifferent cinematography and editing. As for the musical score by Ted Dicks, it's derivative John Barry.

Final Thoughts: I know Halloween is coming up, and you're looking around for something new to watch - anything, anything other than Halloween or Friday the 13th for the upteenth time - but you can find something better than Virgin Witch, trust me. There's lots of Hammer collections out there that you can rent or buy on DVD. Or if you're lucky, something will come up, late at night on TV - just remember to keep the volume down or your Mom will hear. Skip it.

The Plot:
TV wunderkind Warren Piece and his American Idol like cast of critical cohorts - former A-lister Laura Wilcox and confused corrections officer David Smith - are self-centered schmoes. Together they create some of the most successful reality TV ever produced, but they are all burdened with personal issues. Smith wants to be taken seriously as part of the entertainment industry. Wilcox is working off a 'fat actress' reputation. And Piece needs to make up for a previous production disaster. When desperate network CNT puts a newbie in charge of production, the trio thinks they've found a friendly ear. All that's left is to pitch their latest project. And it's a dozy. Piece wants to find a group of photogenic, engaging 'retards, psychos, and freaks' to star in his latest reality brainstorm - Handicaps. That's right, He plans on picking individuals with differing physical and/or mental issues and force them to live together in a swanky Addams Family-like Victorian house of humors. Then he can monitor their behavior and manipulate the playback in order to discover what it's really like when mongoloids and misfits stop being polite, and start being...well, he hasn't quite gotten that far yet.

At first, it looks like Special Needs is going to be the same old sloppy spoofing. James - who wrote, directed, stars, and probably prepared the craft services - appears overly eager to roll out a combination of actual and 'artificial' human oddities and get us to laugh at what makes us nervous and uncomfortable. We expect the thwarting of convention, the tweaking of PC paradigms, and some good old fashioned vulgar funny business. It will all be in bad taste, but the current envelope pushing conceit of motion picture comedy readily supports such obvious offensiveness. Just ask the Farrelly Brothers. But believe it or not, this is not where James and his clever cast actually go. Instead, we are introduced to an engaging and intricate world of high maintenance histrionics, battling bravado, and just enough sideshow shock value to transcend the potentially tacky. Special Needs does employ the services of several handi-capable individuals, and all of them single-handedly steal the show. During an open audition for potential participants, we are introduced to a paranoid schizophrenic lounge singer, a determined deaf actor, a genial blind man, a wheelchair bond vixen and a no bullshit dwarf. Initially, they remain on the fringes. But once the callbacks come, James gives each individual their three dimensional setpiece moment to shine.

The clear breakout star here is someone called Killer P. A bad ass gansta rapper with cerebral palsy, he uses an aggressive thug life stance to shelter criticism over his obvious physical limitations. The result is a foul mouthed masterwork, a tripwire Tupac locked in an equally potent personal fortress. He's a classic character (or a great actual find) and almost instantly demands a solo feature all his own. Every moment he's on screen is worth savoring and repeating. He's gutbustingly great. He also illustrates part of Special Needs' motion picture mystery. If he was discovered by James and brought to the project, then this filmmaker has a clear eye for flawless idiosyncratic talent. On the other hand, if he's merely a handicapped actor putting on a front, then James is a genius for creating such a character, and P (real name, Keith Jones) is equally brilliant at bringing him to life. For this one element alone, Special Needs deserves unlimited praise. But there is more to what's going on here than outlandish personalities and a sly spoof of reality TV. In fact, it's safe to say that this film really isn't 'about' a potential series centering on the handicapped. Instead, it's about the individuals involved, from Piece's high-strung hubris to Laura Wilcox's self loathing meanness.

Yet none of this touches on what really makes Special Needs shine - its brave sense of humor. Allowing the handicapped actors onscreen to hold their own, to be both the brunt and providers of many of the jokes, keeps the comedy fresh and honorable. Even when Killer P is hit with the N-word, his hilarious reactions take the sting out of the sentiment. In fact, that's this film's major motion picture contribution. In recent years, off balance disasters like The Ringer have tried to temper the mentally and physically challenged with something akin to soiled saintliness. Sure, they're crude and rude, but they also have a built-in buttress against such standard human behavior that gives them a moralistic pass. Here, James simply let's them be people, and it's the everyday depiction that makes this movie so clever. By being both mired and motivated, capable and curtailed, what could easily become symbols instead turn into substantive comic characters. That James leaves the caricaturizing to the rest of the supposedly normal individuals at the center of the story makes Special Needs something extraordinary indeed. It will definitely make a considered appearance come end of the year awards/acknowledgment time.

Final Thoughts:
Special Needs is a certified cinematic homerun, an instant candidate for independent comedy of the year and another terrific title in Troma's growing collection of outsider gems. It easily earns a Highly Recommended rating. Those expecting a mean-spirited marginalizing of the disabled will be greatly disappointed, while others wanting the mindless purveyors of reality rot to really get theirs will be doubled over in sidesplitting delight. That he managed to salvage something that could have been a disaster is not Isaak James' greatest accomplishment here. No, the real revelation is his ability to thwart convention while carefully walking across all the formulaic necessities mandated to make a clever motion picture. Along with proving yet again that mainstream moviemakers have completely forgotten how to handle humor, Special Needs argues that the future of film lies somewhere beyond the fringe. Any cinephile who visits there will be wonderfully rewarded.

Walker is the story of William Walker (Ed Harris), a renaissance man who abandoned safe, lucrative jobs as a doctor and a lawyer to pursue adventure in support of a puffed-up faith in democracy. After he failed to foment a revolution in Mexico in the mid-1800s, Walker, who often referred to himself in the third person, was convinced to go down to Nicaragua to secure an overthrow of the nation's government on behalf of industrialist Cornelius Vanderbilt (Peter Boyle). Vanderbilt cared nothing about democracy beyond it being a means for him to secure exclusive rights of trade through Nicaragua; that means was a tool to secure Walker's service. Such are dirty deals made in the American system.

As a character, Walker is a complex mixture of personal pain, pride, and conviction--a perfect concoction for an actor with Ed Harris' stoic intensity. His decision to take Vanderbilt's assignment comes after he loses his fiancée (Marlee Matlin) to cholera, and so jumping back into battle is as much to hide from his grief as it is a righteous cause. He also rejected God on her deathbed, so his moral posturing has lost some of its gravity. Not that he expresses any of this. A reserved man, he keeps his thoughts bottled up and conducts himself with a self-possessed rigidity. He is a walking, breathing embodiment of Manifest Destiny, strutting imperiously through gunfire and chaos without being harmed. Parts of Walker's journals are used as voiceover, often as ironic commentary to the action. He was the greatest of spin doctors, turning the bleakest situation into propaganda.

Wurlitzer and Cox establish a darkly comic tone for their satire. The filmmaking style of Walker is just shy of crossing the line into gonzo territory. Cox uses several incongruous elements to achieve a sense of irony in the picture. This notably includes former Clash-frontman Joe Strummer's peppy, Latin-flavored score, which pairs mariachi horns with slow-motion death and destruction. The most talked about incongruity, though, is the introduction of anachronistic elements. We see the wealthy businessmen of the region reading Newsweek and Walker's face on the cover of Time. At the climax, the modern world comes crashing into the old one in all of its mechanized glory, changing the fate of William Walker in one dramatic swoop.

I think you'd have to be a dunderhead to miss Cox's point: the Reagan administration's campaign to interfere in Nicaragua is part of a long history of U.S. interference in that country. In the 1850s, the people rose up and eventually kicked us out, and this was exactly what was happening again in the 1980s. America's cockiness was no match for the will of the people, and democracy did not mean foreign rule. Walker's ultimate fate is also part of a larger pattern of U.S. backed dictators that grow mad with power and get abandoned by the people who put them in its seat. In order to maintain control of the nation, William Walker betrays each of his principles one by one, and with each restraint that gets lifted, the world around him declines deeper into madness. By the end, it's beginning to look a lot like Apocalypse Now, something that was likely intentional given that Cox begins his closing credits with a clip of President Reagan insisting comparisons between Nicaragua and Vietnam to be baseless. Sarcastic juxtaposition, anyone?

Though many of today's cable news pundits would have us believe that history is vindicating Reagan in all things, more rational minds will show the advantage is Alex Cox's. Just as history will also likely not be in George W. Bush's favor for leading America into virtually the same swampy morality of greed with his campaign in Iraq.

But just because Alex Cox is right, does that make Walker any good? I'd say the answer is yes and no, but mostly yes. The film received a pretty horrendous critical drubbing in 1987, and I'd say unfairly. The film does have its faults. There are times when it feels like the director is in less control of his picture than he should be, and it comes dangerously close to veering off the edge. If you'll indulge another reference to Apocalypse Now, in much the same way the insanity of the war he was portraying infected Francis Ford Coppola, so too does it feel like Cox is getting lost in the carnage of Nicaragua. Just as William Walker couldn't keep a firm grip on his army, the final film suggests Alex Cox found Walker a slippery fish.

Even so, as I said, the answer is mostly yes, the film is mostly good. Walker remains as potent a blast of political anger twenty years later. Its reemergence on DVD for the excellent Criterion edition has come at just the right time, too. Given all the madness around us, maybe a bloody, anarchic allegory will restore a little lucidity to the arena.

One can only hope.

FINAL THOUGHTS: The Criterion Collection DVD release of Walker is a chance to fix the maligned reputation of a dangerously funny, violent political satire that didn't get its due in 1987. Alex Cox's anarchic portrayal of the cyclical nature of America's aggressive policies in Nicaragua is a blistering indictment of our country's lingering sense of Manifest Destiny. Watching it brings some laughs, a few shudders, and more than one "what the--?" moment. It's not perfect, but its heart is in the right place, and the constant forward movement of the story means you don't really have time to get bored with it. Recommended.

Directed by Juan Antonio Bayona from a screenplay by Sergio G. Sanchez, The Orphanage has a similar feel to other fright fests that have come from Spain and Latin America in recent years, most notably Alejandro Amenabar's The Others and Guillermo del Toro's Devil's Backbone. del Toro also served as a producer on The Orphanage, so it's no surprise that Bayona and Sanchez share the same love of storytelling that has made del Toro's best films such a pleasure to watch. That's right, unlike Hollywood's endless recycling of iconic horror franchises and remakes of Asian curse pictures, The Orphanage has an honest-to-goodness story. There is an art to spinning a scary yarn, and The Orphanage sucks you in with its intrigue; then once it has your tantalized, it delivers the scares.

The plot revolves around an old Spanish house that had once been an orphanage. One of its former tenants, Laura (Belen Ruede, The Sea Inside), has now returned to reclaim the place that gave her a start in life. As one of the few kids who actually got adopted and left, she now wants to open a home where she can help mentally challenged and other special needs children. She has an adopted son of her own, Simón (Roger Princep), who was born with HIV. Caring for children is almost like a crusade for her, one that her husband Carlos (Fernando Cayo) sympathetically goes along with.

When the family arrived at the house, Simón had two imaginary friends. Within days of being there, he has gathered five new ones, including a strange child named Tomas who wears a raggedy burlap mask over his head. Simón plays elaborate treasure hunting games that he says his new friends set up for him and also draws pictures of these playmates. His parents believe he is in a phase that he will grow out of when the other children arrive, and he can occupy his time with some flesh and blood friends.

Only, on the day the other kids come, Simón has a tantrum and stays in his room. When Laura goes to look for him, he is gone, nowhere to be found. She is also attacked by a child dressed like Tomas. She suspects something otherworldly is going on, a conviction that grows the longer the hunt for Simón continues.

That's about all I really want to say about The Orphanage. The filmmakers have taken such great care to construct a story that reveals itself in such an inventive, seductive fashion, it seems criminal to talk about it too much. I want you to go and see the movie and have the same experience I had. There are some real chills to be found in The Orphanage, as well as some genuine shocks that will likely make you jump in your seat. It's where that whole thing about imagination comes into play. The creators of this movie know that if they can spark yours, you'll completely buy into the web they are weaving, and the more entangled you become, the more you're going to enjoy it.

Laura (Belen Rueda) and her husband (Fernando Cayo) have reopened the orphanage of her youth with grand plans of child care. Simon (Roger Princep) is their adopted son: a seven-year-old with HIV and an arsenal of imaginary friends. When spooky events start occurring around the property, Laura becomes consumed with discovering what forces are behind them. Once Simon disappears, Laura is forced to consider otherworldly possibilities, leading her to a final showdown with the orphanage.

I enjoyed "The Orphanage," but only in fits. It's a creative gothic horror piece, meticulously directed by Juan Antonio Bayona, and represents another step forward in the mainstream appeal of the Spanish genre filmmaking movement, spearheaded by del Toro. When it hunkers down with the unknown, it's a rewarding movie; Bayona is terrific with specific tension beats and the creepy echo of the titular location. I also adored how Laura's frightening journey takes her to emotional extremes where sanity is questioned and her past confronted, even involving the advice of mediums (Geraldine Chaplin). Her panic is the jewel of the film, since the audience is never quite sure if her fears are authentic or the result of a fractured mind lost to the extremes of grief.

However, the mixture of horror and tension is rarely allowed to ferment long enough. It's the feature-length directing debut for Bayona, and his inexperience with pacing shows. The film only sporadically puts the screws to the viewer, instead of drawing out the terror in an infinitely more gripping fashion. "Orphanage" is filled with delayed reactions, perhaps to extend the running time to contractual lengths or to suit egotistical notions of cinematic importance. "Orphanage" is distanced and dry when it's clearly screaming out to lunge at the viewer, as seen in the sequences in which a mysterious hooded child terrorizes Laura. Those moments are tremendous; it's too bad they are lost in a picture in need of some serious trimming and concentration.

When the suspense is lined up correctly, "Orphanage" is a decent thrill ride, excellent when it's focused solely on creeping out the room. The finale is a doozy, ditching any need for exposition and plowing ahead with scares and spirit world storytelling payoffs, and closes the film on a terrific, oddly comforting note of terror and solace.

On this particular trip, Oden gets help from inside man Lo Jin (Wee Hong Thomas), who claims that he can help track Kate and that there is the possibility she was abducted by a crime organization and sold into white slavery. This means that Oden is kept at an arms length, told he cannot meet with the informants or tag along too closely with Lo Jin, otherwise that will put them in trouble. But, as they travel through Cambodia's seedy nightlife, meeting dead ends and robbery, moving on with little tangible evidence and more money spent, Oden starts to wonder if he is being fooled.

The film is pretty basic and routine. It doesn't really simmer or thrill, mostly due to issues that one can chalk up to the limited production. The direction and setups are simple. The acting and staging is sometimes awkward. All problems that, no doubt, could have been smoothed over with more time and money. It does at least succeed with some good location footage. No doubt yawn-inducing to natives, but to Western and European eyes its is completely compelling, be it a mist covered forest, ancient temple grounds, or the dingy back alleys. Much of Morris', who looks kinda' like the guy who played Max Headroom, grumbles as an actor are forgivable considering his multitasking (and the jungle heat too). As his guide, Thomas does a fine job, dryly getting to offer the film's best one liner- after Morris' character discovers a rat in his bed, he says, "Catch it and I'll make you breakfast."

In terms of how the story unfolds, there was a little obviousness in some of the twists. One quickly realizes it not a film about the mysterious loss of a loved one and the tone (and common sense) suggests that the truth of what happened to Kate isn't going to be pretty. With some nods to problems of third world crime, the films real focus is on the possible deception of Lo Jin and mental unbalance of Oden. As the film wound to its conclusion, I was surprised to find that my assumptions about the finale were all true and that, plus some diaphanous character psycholgy, took some steam out of my enjoyment.

Conclusion: Much like another film I'm reviewing today, the Japanese indie Lost By Dead, I brace at being too harsh. Does the film entirely work? No. Last Seen at Angkor isn't horrible either . It is the kind of project that the hurdle of just getting it made with so much against it (budget, general conditions, etc) makes the final product an admirable accomplishment no matter what the little tics tremors may be.

Truer words are rarely spoken within a film than in this case. Fear House looks like it was made for next to nothing, yet its script and a creepy performance by its lead - Aleece Jones - help elevate this film into something that at least passes the time entertainingly for fans of fright house ghost flicks.

After an introductory scene - mixed in with the movie's credits - where two horny kids are dispatched within an old house in the middle of nowhere, Fear House begins with successful horror novelist Samantha Ballard (played by the aforementioned Aleece Jones) purchasing said house from an elderly agent. She views it as a great place to write her next book.

Nine months pass by and no one hears from her - or the agent for that matter. Thus, one night, Samantha's hemophiliac brother and her literary agent, along with two women including the real estate agent's daughter, arrive to check up on her. Conveniently, it's the very same night at the very same time that Samantha's estranged husband and his new lover show up to get her to sign divorce papers.

Why they all have to do this in the middle of the night is never explained. I guess it wouldn't be a horror movie otherwise.

In any case, the six characters break into the spooky old house. There, they find Samantha clearly deranged and discover that they cannot leave the house without facing their greatest fears and being killed by them. Apparently, a young girl named Anna Lisa was imprisoned by her abusive father 100 years ago at this very house, and her spirit is still causing mischief along with the spirit of Mondrique, a servant who cared for her and was killed for his troubles. Ah, but are these malevolent specters truly to blame? Time will tell - precisely 86 minutes, the runtime of this movie.

I watched Fear House wanting to like it despite its warts. Some of the acting is really over-the-top atrocious - though the two worst actors play characters who get killed straightaway so it's not a long-running nuisance. It's the lack of a special effects budget that ultimately takes away from the shocks of the film. Towards the film's climax, for example, a nearly laughable beheading scene followed by an equally shoddy looking death-by-giant-fireball really undercut the tension developed by the movie.

The script isn't bad, though, and offers a fairly standard haunted house scenario. Aleece Jones is both creepy and engaging as the prescient, haunted novelist who seems to be in sympathy with the dark forces that surround the house. The obsessive horror hounds out there who simply must see everything made in this genre could certainly do worse than spending an hour and a half with this movie.

Final Thoughts: Fear House offers a compelling spin on the haunted house genre; unfortunately, its shoestring budget hampers the effectiveness of many of its scares... A Rent It recommendation for the fright flick crowd.