Movies Archives - Page 3 of 4 - JohnnyCompton.com

My Favorite Horror Movie Trailers: GHOST STORY

July 27, 2017 No Comments

The film adaptation of Peter Straub’s novel is unsurprisingly simplified in comparison to its source material. While it has its moments, including a fairly well executed and suitably gruesome climactic reveal, and Alice Krige is pretty magnificent in it, it also has more than its share of corny scenes doomed by bad shot selection, or oversold acting, or questionable (even unnecessary) dialogue. There’s an opening scene featuring a man plummeting to his death that’s laughable even by 1981’s “We’re still sketchy on how best to execute believable falling scenes” standards. A later scene of someone falling off a bridge ends with the same clumsy impact seen when a character takes a dive in Les Miserables thirty-one years later. Apparently, in this one very, very specific area, we haven’t collectively learned much in the past three decades. read more

Movies

I am With the “Proud Mary” Trailer and REALLY with its Poster

July 21, 2017 No Comments

Not too much to say beyond what’s in the title of the post. I’m glad to see (or hear, rather) that this trailer didn’t use some slowed town, sobered up, somber, twisted, chopped-&-screwed, or otherwise tortured cover version of the song “Proud Mary.” If you’re not too good to use the name, you’re not too good to use the song, and the trailer’s creators recognize this, so bravo to them for that. Beyond that, the trailer is edited well (including a nice bit using diegetic sounds to replace Tina Turner’s vocals) and is solid enough for an action movie trailer. read more

Movies, On Writing

One of the Keys to Keeping “Unlikable” Characters Tolerable

June 23, 2017 No Comments

The recent box-office disappointment Rough Night drew obvious comparisons to the movie Very Bad Things given the shared premise of “accidental killing of stripper/sex worker leads to cover-up and further criminal behavior.” In speaking of Very Bad Things, several of the film’s detractors have pointed to just how vile and insufferable the characters were. Sure, it’s a dark comedy/thriller, so at least some of its characters are expected to be criminals. And it’s far, far, far from being the first or only movie whose primary characters are unsympathetic, selfish and even murderous assholes. And while there are certain people who are just never going to be on board with watching or reading a story featuring “unlikable” unsympathetic characters, there are many others (like me) who find such stories interesting, provided that the story is, well, interesting, and provided that the unlikable characters aren’t utterly insufferable. read more

Movies

Perfect Rivals: Doc Holliday and Johnny Ringo – TOMBSTONE

June 22, 2017 No Comments

Some rivalries are built and strengthened by the opponents being perfect opposites, but others are memorable because the enemies reflect each other a little too closely for comfort. Doc Holliday spells it out for us during the famous first encounter he has with Johnny Ringo in Tombstone; here is a man who reminds him of himself, and for that reason alone, a drunken Holliday decides to despise him. When Ringo exhibits a knowledge of Latin that matches Holliday’s, Doc declares, “Now I really hate him.”

The men are very similar and it shows up on screen. Sometimes we’re simply told that two characters are or were similar in some fashion, but we’re given scant evidence of it. In Carlito’s Way, for example, one character scolds the older Carlito that brash, upstart Bennie Blanco (from the Bronx) is just a younger version of Carlito, to which the more seasoned gangster responds, “Never me.” It’s an example of how sometimes telling isn’t always necessarily worse than showing (a flashback would be cumbersome and disrupt the movie’s momentum), but it’s still something that we never get to visualize. Not so with Tombstone. The confrontation in the video above efficiently illustrates how Ringo and Holliday mirror one another. It also shows us where they differ. read more

Movies

My Favorite Horror Movie Trailers: BODY PARTS

June 14, 2017 No Comments

I’m a sucker for a certain level of audaciousness, and the premise of Body Parts has audacity in spades. It belongs to the “possessed limbs” sub-sub-genre of horror. While “posessed arms/hands” are most memorably used to mine gruesome humor from a horror story, Body Parts, is entirely oblivious to its ludicrousness, as you can see in the trailer below.

The most famous “killer arm/hand” in horror cinema history probably belonged to Ash in Evil Dead II, and its presence was played for gruesome laughs. The most famous in movie history of any genre might belong to Dr. Strangelove, where it was also a comedic device. Body Parts said to Hell with that, and the result is captivating enough to almost be mistaken for effective. read more

Movies

Well…This FLATLINERS Remake Looks Underwhelming

June 13, 2017 No Comments

I’ve mentioned it on here a time or three, but I’m not automatically averse to remakes. While people speak as though it’s a relatively new blight upon the world of cinema, there is a long, rich tradition of remaking movies in and outside of Hollywood, dating back to at least the 1920’s. Years pass, new technologies come along, new potential audiences come along, you try to update something that came before and, hopefully, make it even better than it was the first time. That last part is usually where the problems come in–when you’re remaking something that was already great, you better have a fantastic take on the material in store, otherwise people are likely to consider your efforts a waste of time at best. read more

Movies

My Favorite Horror Movie Trailers: PUMPKINHEAD

June 12, 2017 No Comments

Special Effects guru Stan Winston poured his best efforts into horror flicks ranging from the obscure or ill-regarded (The Bat People, Darkness Falls), to the cherished and influential (The Thing), but he only directed one horror movie during his career. Pumpkinhead is a well-built, country-gothic chiller with a memorable, somewhat laughable title that still makes me wonder if the general dearth of humor in the film is a missed opportunity. Granted, it’s hard to inject humor into a premise that is essentially “What if the father from Pet Sematary couldn’t resurrect his son and resorted to conjuring a vengeance demon instead?” read more

Movies

The new “IT” Trailer isn’t half bad

March 29, 2017 1 Comment

The new full trailer for the upcoming adaptation of Stephen King’s It came out today, and it’s a reasonably solid trailer. Nothing exceptional or new, no surprises, but we get some glimpses of some solid set pieces and what could be some effective scares. The carousel slide projector scene is the rightful centerpiece of this trailer, and I like that the trailer (and possibly the scene in the film, that remains to be seen) ends without a full reveal of Pennywise’s face. It maybe should have cut off just a bit sooner, leaving it as more of a hint in the trailer, particularly if that’s also how the scene plays out (I doubt that, but it’s possible), but I’m nitpicking there. read more

Movies

DON’T KNOCK TWICE Trailer Checks Off a Few of My Boxes

January 2, 2017 No Comments

Spindly-limbed creature? Check.

Title that doubles as a warning? Check.

Black-and-white ink illustrations that look like they could be pulled from a fake grimoire? Pretty damn specific, and yet, that’s a check.

This isn’t a particularly great trailer. Pretty by the numbers, in fact. But I’m a sucker for the things that I am a sucker for, so it’s a given that I’ll be at least slightly interested in Don’t Knock Twice based just the small sample of it shown here.

There are some elements present here that I’ve come to be wary of over the years, in particular the whole “incredibly powerful supernatural being is summoned by the most mundane action” thing. On one hand, I have a soft spot for such summoning, since Bloody Mary might be the first major fear I can remember in my life, and probably should be a subject of a future Confessions of a Fear Junkie entry. On the other hand, for many stories it makes very little sense, particularly when the supernatural creature is summoned to do someone’s specific bidding. That said, the act of knocking on a door may not be what actually summons our supernatural antagonist at all, so I’ll won’t hold that against the movie just yet. read more

Movies

‘Baskin’ May be as Close as We’ll Get to a Good Silent Hill Movie

March 2, 2016 1 Comment

While the pull-quotes in the trailer for the Turkish horror film Baskin compare it to Hellraiser, the actual content of the trailer is more reminiscent of the best of the Silent Hill games. It appears to be a story about location that is damnation incarnate, and the story kicks off due to a car accident involving someone suddenly appearing in the middle of the road. Check out the IFC Midnight trailer and the shorter, TIFF trailer below. Neither is graphic enough to enter red-band territory, but if you’re on the squeamish side of things, you may want to brace yourself. read more