First and foremost, I’m not one of these people who thinks every horror flick has to be rated R. You can make a perfectly good horror flick with a PG-13 or even PG rating if you do it right. I’ve long stated that the original Halloweenwould be a PG-13 movie if you cut out a couple of entirely gratuitous and inessential breast shots.

But I do prefer that my blatant B-movie monster-rampage horror flicks have an R-rating. What’s the point of releasing a movie with an obviously corny title, a corny premise, a cast full of nubile young actors posing as vacationing teenagers out for summer fun, and then slapping it with a PG-13 rating? Unless this flick is about to uncork some extremely unexpected, high-quality writing, acting and filmmaking, then the entire reason this movie should exist is for blood, guts, ass and breasts. That’s it! That’s all I’m ordering with my Shark Night 3D, and that’s exactly what a PG-13 rating promises to deny.

It’s like opening a McDonalds franchise that exclusively serves salads. No thanks, if I want a salad, I’ll go someplace where I can trust that there are chefs in the kitchen who actually know how to make one with fresh, healthy ingredients. You go to fast food joints for fast food that’s awful for you but fills the inexplicable craving you have for it at 2:30am after you leave the club. You go to see Shark Night 3D for R-rated, unflinching shark-related violence and random, pointless nudity. This movie should feature so much gore that “Chewed Up Body Parts” ends up getting a screen credit and a SAG card. It should have more T&A than the sentence, “Tattle-tale attacked by tattooed acrobat.”

It’s like someone saw last year’s Piranha 3D and decided to make the same movie, minus everything that made that movie even remotely worth renting. This movie has an infinitesimal chance of having any redeeming qualities. It’s directed by the same guy who gave us Final Destination 2, Snakes on a Plane and Final Destination 4. The guys behind the script have VH1 recap shows and nothing for past credits. Pretty far cry from an Oscar-caliber résumé.

Who the hell gave this the green light? Were they trying to get fired? Is this an experiment in creating the Justin Bieber of gruesome, brainless horror movies? That lame ass ABC show “Shark Tank” is more horrifying than this is going to be. The inevitable Robot Chicken parody of this movie featuring Jabber Jaw as the man-eating shark is going to be scarier thanShark Night 3D.

In short, this movie gets my coveted ”Zero Faith” award. I can hardly wait to see it fade into obscurity.

In a blatant, shameless attempt to garner more hits, I’m  making a topical post referencing the recently released film The Last Exorcism. And so I present to you an entirely subjective list of 4 good (and 4 terrible) movies featuring exorcisms.

Exorcisms would seem to be a pretty popular topic in the horror genre, and yet it’s not explored  as frequently as other common horror tropes such as vampires, haunted houses or zombies. I think it’s a bit harder to make demonic possession fun or sexy–too many people take it quite seriously. I’ve never met anyone who believes in the walking dead, but I have met a couple of ardently religious folk who swear they know someone who was possessed and think any fictional “entertainment” employing the subject is appalling. The good news is that this means demons are still a long way off from becoming de-fanged and romanticized. You won’t be seeing “Team Pazuzu” t-shirts in Walmart anytime soon, I’d wager.

On to the lists…

I could easily overpopulate the entire “Terrible” list with Exorcist knock-offs from the 70′s and no-budget DTV flicks, but what’s the fun in that? At the same time, it would be remiss of me to completely ignore these movies, so we’ll kick off the list with…

4. Beyond the Door

A common complaint leveled at Hollywood in the 21st Century is that they’re constantly producing inferior remakes of great foreign flicks–often horror movies. But there was a time when foreign directors were the primary purveyors of hot, steamy cash-in remake action. And they often didn’t even bother with little details like “rights” and “permission” when making pseudo-sequels and Asylum studio style knock-offs. Beyond the Door was the movie that got sued by the creators of The Exorcist for jacking such signature signs of demonic possession as projectile vomiting and head-spinning. It’s about as bad as you’d expect it to be, but it’s also a 70′s Italian horror flick, so at least it has ridiculous audacity going for it.

3. Exorcist II

Warner Bros. did not decide to sue themselves for screwing up their own film property after releasing a sequel to The Exorcist in 1977. It would have been stupid, bizarre and self-defeating… kind of like the plot to Exorcist II: The Heretic. For this sequel the filmmakers decided that what a movie about demonic possession needs to spice it up are subplots about ESP, pseudo-science, collective consciousness and psychically telling swarms of locusts to stop devouring crops. The film’s aspirations are somewhere between laudable and laughable. It has some moments of visual flair but the story makes zero sense. Anti-sense, even. I’m tempted to go so far as to say the plot of this movie is a hate crime against sense itself.

2. Stigmata

Nobody likes a preachy ass movie, but a preachy movie preaching against someone else’s preachings disguised as a horror flick… that’s the kind of movie that especially deserved to be punched right in the credits. Stigmata, released in 1999, is ostensibly a religious thriller but reveals itself to be one of those movies with a “message.” A message borrowed from an apocryphal scripture, the Gospel of Thomas. The basic gist is that you don’t need to go to church to get closer to God. I’m not here to disparage any such argument or speak on defense of any churches, but I am going to say that if you’re going to make a “serious” movie about how the Catholic church might be a less-than-holy organization with a sordid past that is more than willing to allow innocent people to be harmed or even killed if it serves their own agenda… make and market that movie. Don’t give me a “horror” flick that is actually a plodding bit of unconvincing propaganda interspersed with moments of supernatural hi-jinks to keep audiences awake.

1. The Unborn

Fabulous fanservice poster. Terrible movie...

“Do you think it’s possible to be haunted by someone whose never even been born?” In the deceptively promising trailer for The Unborn, that one bit of quoted dialogue told me that despite a reasonably impressive supporting cast (Goldman, Idris Elba), an okay premise and an ostensibly good screenwriter in the director’s chair, this movie would ultimately drown in its own stupidity. Why would you offer a qualifying addendum to a situation most people would already believe is impossible? No, I don’t believe you can be haunted by someone. Whether or not they were born is pretty much irrelevant. You might as well ask if you think it’s possible to move objects with your mind even if you have a mild headache, or if it’s possible to run faster than the speed of sound even if your shoelaces are untied.

Sure enough the movie is up to its crown in stupidity, with stereotypically bad dialogue (“The door is open…” Yeah kid, we just saw the door opening, thanks for blatantly pointing out the symbolism), predictable jump scares and PG-13 level pseudo-gore (“Hey, this dog’s head is upside down! This lady just bloodlessly bent in half! This corpse is gooey and has big teeth! Please tell us we’re being creepy… please?”). But at least the climax provides a decent set up for a joke: So a priest and a rabbi are trying to perform an exorcism…

Honorable Mention: Repossessed – the current crop of spoof movies are flat out horrible, but at least they’re not 17 years late in satirizing their primary target.

4. Beetlejuice

Ya know, it’s a bit difficult finding really good movies that prominently feature exorcisms. Beetlejuice on the surface is a bit of a stretch. So the titular ghost claims to be a “bio-exorcist” who gets rid of the living. Does that really qualify?

Yes. Yes it does. But even if it didn’t, there is also the film’s climax where the new homeowners are essentially exorcising the ghosts played by Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis not only out of the house, but clean out of existence. What’s interesting about this is that both forms of “exorcism” are played for screwball laughs but, if it had been given the “serious horror” treatment, they would be absolutely horrifying. A specter who makes it his business to remove living people from the premises by any means necessary (imagine if a flick like The Others had introduced that angle)? An exorcism that completely destroys the soul? Within the context of a grimmer film this could be a source of abject terror.

But it’s Beetlejuice, so instead we got Michael Keaton dancing toward some sort of brothel full of female ghouls. Not that I’m complaining. The movie is hilarious.

3. [REC]

Hmmm… ummm… spoiler alert?

At the end of [REC] comes the revelation that the catalyst for all of the mayhem that has transpired is the apparently botched exorcism of a “possessed” little girl by a Vatican official . In a relatively clever twist on the subject matter, the “demonic possession” is actually the result of a virus which has spread to everyone else in the apartment building and turned them into ravenous “zombies.” The sequel (seriously people, there are spoilers about) shows that the “virus” is some sort of demonic, sentient organism and while the execution is a bit clumsy, the idea is intriguing. A second sequel and prequel promise to expand on the idea and more than likely ruin the hell out of it with some half-assed explanation of what’s going on shrouded by pseudo-scientific / pseudo-theological technobabble.

2. The Exorcist

I’ll readily admit, I’m probably getting cute here by not putting this at number one. Then again, I’m not really assigning much value to these “rankings” anyway. Besides, if I made The Exorcist the number one flick featuring exorcisms what could I write about it that hasn’t already been covered more than The Beatles? The Exorcist is the grandaddy of ‘em all, the Rose Bowl of supernatural horror flicks. So what other movie could I possibly have listed ahead of it?

1. Requiem

“Oh for the love of… really Compton? Really? You’re putting some foreign mocku-drama 99% of the people reading this haven’t heard of at the top of your list? You are such a hipster, elitist d-bag.”

Woah, woah, hipster? I just made a college football reference and quoted Keith Jackson a couple of paragraphs ago. Pretty sure that absolves me of any hipster accusations at least through the rest of the year.

Requiem is based on the same true events that inspired The Exorcism of Emily Rose. Whereas Emily Rose played up the supernatural bits to make it ambiguous as to whether or not the possession was real, Requiem emphasizes the mental illness that the actual victim was probably suffering from. As the most–nay, only–realistic film on this list it provides the most unique approach to the topic, and its exorcism scenes manage to be unsettling without special effects. The possibility of a foreign, nigh-invulnerable force of super-nature taking over your body and mind is indeed disturbing, but in my view, not quite as scary as the reality that your mind can up and betray you to obsession and insanity.

Quick, somebody give me a top to spin so I can verify that this is reality!

Even though it’s likely a lie, much like Friday the 13th’s blatantly false “Final Chapter,” the new teaser trailer for SAW 3D declares that this is the “Final Saw.” I won’t link to the teaser because f*** this movie and all of its predecessors, save the first one which was half-decent. (Ordinarily I wouldn’t censor my profanity, but I refuse to waste the first f-bomb on my site on this magnificently stupid franchise).

Producer Oren Koules told USA Today,”It’s time to stop. We have told the story we wanted to tell.”

Did you? Did you really?

You and your colleagues one day decided you wanted to tell the story of a ridiculously inefficient serial killer who makes up for his pointless extravagance by having inexplicably unlimited funding and resources. A killer who can get away with killing multiple cops and feds amongst normal civilians using shit as elaborate and conspicuous as bombs and houses that crush people? All while he indulges in such vapid faux-moralizing it would even make John Doe from Se7en say, “Shut the hell up you pretentious prick!” That’s the story you wanted to tell? Are you sure?

And yet, I can think of no other reason for the series to conclude. I’ve lambasted the Saw series as being every imaginable sort of awful, and even a few unimaginable sorts, but I’ve never denied that it’s a brilliant formula for profit. Make your movie on the cheap, employ the easily renewable gimmick of killer traps and plot twists unhindered by any need to make sense within the context of your own universe, release during the Halloween period when people feel the need to experience something “scary” so they attend your movie like it’s a local haunted house attraction, then rake in the dough. If I had the means I’d definitely invest on such a surefire money-making scheme–as a silent partner, of course. I wouldn’t want my name within 500 sentences of the project. But it makes dough, and I can’t hate on it for that.

Last year was the first time a Saw flick didn’t dominate the Halloween season, courtesy of the release of Paranormal Activity. Say what you will about the latter film, but at least it derailed the herald of sub-competent horror story-telling that is the Saw franchise. If this is truly the death knell for the series, then I may owe a debt of gratitude to Paranormal Activity that I will not even be able to properly calculate, much less repay.

Then again, given how 3-D ticket sales tend to boost numbers even for movies that don’t perform all that well at the box office otherwise, and the fact that the creators are touting how much more violent and trap-laden this “last” installment is (“11 TRAPS! 6 Submissions to the MPAA to not get an NC-17 rating!” That might as well be part of the ad campaign…) I have an inkling that this “last” entry will only be a doorway to an eventual “new beginning.”

I recently finished Devil in a Blue Dress, Walter Mosley’s excellent hard-boiled mystery novel. Within the first third of the book there was a line that struck me like a solid swing of baseball bat to the abdomen. Mosley’s lead, World War II veteran Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins, describes the fear that seized him during his introduction to combat.

“The first time I fought a German hand-to-hand I screamed for help the whole time I was killing him.”

As I made it through the rest of the novel, that line would to flash across my mind from time to time. There’s nothing aesthetically remarkable about the above line. It’s not meant to be poetic. It has no intention of showing off any metaphors or similes. But that one sentence captures the character’s experience with violence and presents a scene worthy of its own short story. Even with the novel done, questions born from reading that sentence persisted.

How did Easy find himself in the situation where he was fighting an enemy hand-to-hand? Where were his allies? Was he alone, in a building perhaps (the scene of Adam Goldberg fighting for his life in Saving Private Ryan comes to mind), or out in an open space surrounded by fellow soldiers all to busy fighting their own individual battles to hear or heed his cries for help? What was going through the German soldier’s mind as this black American soldier cried out during the attack? Was he able to understand anything that Easy was saying? Could he understand the meaning of the words without knowing the language, just by reading the panic in Easy’s eyes and soaking in the terror in his voice? Was the German soldier crying out for help as well, suffering a crisis of faith in the Nazi Übermensch concept he may not have believed in in the first place?

The next line, “His dead eyes stared at me a full five minutes before I let go of his throat,” almost seems redundant to me, but I recognize that this may just be on account of what I extrapolated from the preceding sentence. Not everyone reading the novel likely pictured Easy continuing to scream for help well after he had already killed his enemy; stabbing, punching, kicking and strangling a corpse.

I haven’t yet read the rest of the novels featuring Easy Rawlins. I don’t know if the conflict with the German soldier is referenced again or expanded upon. I do know that the image conjured by that single line is powerful enough to make me want for further explanation, but effective enough on its own to make me hope that it isn’t explored any further. I like to wonder about that other story, more perhaps than I would enjoy having its details revealed to me.

With the release of a teaser poster, The Last Exorcism has gone from being completely off my radar to squarely within my cross hairs.

As my boy over at The Brand New Cool points out, this poster is so creepy it almost makes watching the film pointless. Color me cynical or impressed, perhaps a bit of both, but some part of me thinks this is probably going to be the film’s signature moment of horror, or will at least be related to it.

I can’t exactly pinpoint what quite makes this poster so eerie. The girl bent backwards with the bloodstained dress is obviously a frightening image on its own, but any horror fan has seen much, much worse. Something about the starkness magnifies it beautifully, though. No excessive effects in play to distract from the central image. Washed out gray color scheme. It’s cold and distant and bold and startling all at once. I’m torn on whether or not the crucifix adds anything to the poster, or if it distracts, or if it’s harmless, but otherwise, this is damn near perfect.

I’m unfamiliar with the work of any direct contributors to the film. Eli Roth is apparently producing, but his level of involvement is unknown as yet. This might be awesome, or it might disappoint, but for the moment it certainly has wrested my attention. Well played, Last Exorcism.

EDIT: The trailer was released a few weeks back. Decided I might as well add it here instead of creating an entirely new post. The “mockumentary” approach is a bit of a turnoff, but I’m still willing to give it a chance to impress.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yN9hY16Yg9M

I am aware that this counts for virtually nothing, but I think the new Clash of the Titans earns a few points for not trying too hard. There’s no attempt to turn mythology on its head, no effort to “modernize” the story beyond the obvious special effects upgrades. There’s something almost traditional about how straightforward this story is. The “hero” is motivated solely by vengeance and lets his stubborn refusal to accept his demi-godhood effectively cost the lives of the “great men” who fight along side him. There’s a shortage of redeemable characters: from callous, casually genocidal gods to hubristic and/or cowardly humans. There are few excessive explanations trying to rationalize the existence of gods or the supernatural, and we have little reason to sympathize with the human cause to wage war against the gods. Did the gods stop providing fish to the fisherman because the prayers stopped, or did the prayers stop because the gods neglected their creation? Doesn’t really matter, man and god were destined to be at odds in mythology.

Now, I’m convinced that almost all of this is a result of bad writing and poor plot pacing, but nonetheless, points scored, even if by mistake.

As a film though, the best I can say for the new Clash is that it’s unremarkable, yet inoffensive. It doesn’t get the Spring Blockbuster season off to a notable start, but at least it’s not in league with Ghost Rider or 10,000 B.C. as a movie so bad it makes you lose faith in the entire movie season.

There are a few pointless or flat out bad elements to Clash. Sam Worthington as Perseus is so wooden he should take out restraining orders against lumberjacks and carpenters just to be safe. He’s also rocking a buzz-cut even though I’m pretty sure electric clippers didn’t exist in ancient Greece.

No wonder even the blind hags want him...

Pegasus is black for no damn reason whatsoever. The Medusa character was apparently created as the F/X budget was nearing exhaustion. The male and female leads almost shared a first kiss in the lower deck of Charon’s ferry while crossing the River Styx and atop the scattered coinage of the damned (in all fairness, I’m still not sure if that’s terrible or awesome). And then there’s the completely dissatisfying, clumsy and conspicuous Sequel Hook ending that makes the entire story seem pretty damn pointless.

On a side note, at the end of the film people in my theater applauded. Which is sort of sad. I mean to make no judgment of you as a person if you applauded this film when the credits finally rolled, but I’m compelled to say that applauding Clash of the Titans as though it were a grand entertainment spectacle is like adoring Pizza Hut pastas as an Italian delicacy. Relax, the highest compliment this film should receive is that it’s passable. That is all.

Okay, that’s obviously not all, but only because “outstanding” is not quite super enough of a superlative to describe God of War‘s first (and only?) installment on the PS3. Neither is “epic.” Oh no. God of War makes the word epic feel inadequate and unsure of itself. Epic was the coolest kid in school–star quarterback and star pupil–until God of War jumped a ramp on its motorcycle into the third floor of a burning building to save a group of children and emerged unscathed, leaving “epic” to hang its head and walk away knowing that scoring touchdowns and being on the honor roll can’t compete with that.

I’ve never really played a series that made “more of the same” feel so utterly captivating and intense. I mostly enjoyed Bioshock 2, but ultimately felt a bit let down by it given how much I loved the first game. The Final Fantasy series has just lost me, as the character models and indeterminate “vibe” of the latest games feels like redundancy wrapped in pretty, translucent packaging.

I think the sheer scale of God of War leaves you little recourse save to surrender to its majesty. The good gents at Penny Arcade! summed up the opening of God of War 2 perfectly…

God of War III begins with you fighting enemies while riding the back of a Titan as it scales Mount Olympus to combat the gods. Very soon you are doing battle with a Leviathan summoned by Poseidon (while still riding the Titan) before directly and brutally assaulting the sea god himself. I’m at a loss to find a proper hypothetical scenario to compare it to. It is equivalent to itself alone.

I hardly mean to say that God of War III is the “best game EVAH,” or even the best game I’ve played within the last twelve months. Uncharted 2 gave me similar levels of joy without any of the awkward events that inspire questions like “Did I really have to kill that gratuitously topless woman in Poseidon’s temple when using the dead body of an enemy would have worked just as well?” and “Are they really offering Kratos a chance to get naked with Aphrodite who is at the very least his great aunt?” Of course, when you consider the kind of craziness that occurred in actual stories from Greek mythology, the above moments are relatively tame. Neither here nor there, though. As a game, God of War III is clearly excellent. Beyond that, it is a successful experiment in interactive indulgence and grandiosity.

Restraint be damned. Damned and subsequently drawn, quartered, immolated and Kratos knows what else…