Let Me In (2010) THUGGY

Alright, before I get into this review I’d like to take the time to express to our readers that I am an AVID horror fan. A regular freak since childhood for all things terrifying and macabre, so when I hear classic horror (albeit a very recent classic) is being remade I usually find myself in fits of rage, cursing these Hollywood whores for their feeble-minded and cow-hearted outlook on profit vs. concept. Sadly this is not a new trend, as there have been around five-hundred and twenty-one movie remakes since films inception in the 1880’s. Now this is not to say that I abhor remakes… Hell, I spent most of my younger years thinking Bob DeNiro was the one and only incarnation of Max Cady in the ’91 version of Cape Fear, I just feel classics are made by risk and innovation… Bottom line is I came to this film assuming it would drown inside the massive size 15’s of “Let the Right One In” the 2008 Swedish masterpiece based on the book by John Ajvide Lindqvist…. Now get ready purists…. It did not.

For all of you film fans out there who haven’t seen “Let the Right One In” tsk tsk… The premise of “Let Me In” is this. Young Owen, a lonely and bullied middle school kid who is being raised by his mother due to an impending divorce finds himself the unwitting neighbor of Abby, a barefooted vampire child and her nameless father figure who’ve just moved in next door. Owen, left to his own devices due to his mother’s increasing despair and alcoholism spends most of his time after school in his apartment complex’s courtyard eating candy and stabbing trees, envisioning revenge upon his schoolyard bullies. It’s during one of these nightly forays that he first meets his new neighbor. Their interactions are at first cold but curious as she tells Owen she “Can’t be his friend”, but it is a small courtyard and they inevitably become strange allies, each looking out for one another in their own ways.

The film then cuts back and forth between Owen and Abby’s respective home lives. Owens being the solemn existence of an only child, constantly harried at school by a bully whom in my humble opinion is a bit over the top. Abby’s of course being the curse of having to spend her days in deep slumber locked in a darkened bathroom while her “father” makes his nighttime runs into town to abduct and drain locals of their life-blood. The “father” who we can only assume has been doing this type of work for god knows how long, coupled with his charges budding interest in Owen becomes sloppy, forcing Abby to hunt for herself leading to a string of very public murders and attacks which garner the attention of “The Policeman”.

As I’ve said, I began this film with apprehension and bias being a huge supporter of the original film, but was pleasantly surprised by the film being set in the early eighties during the dead of winter Los Alamos, New Mexico. I myself spent a portion of my childhood in Albuquerque and know firsthand the remoteness you feel there. Director Matt Reeves (Cloverfield) does a fantastic job keeping his camera still and creating a somber atmosphere to spin the tail of these two tragic characters, isolated in their own ways from everyone but each other. The shots are dry and desaturated, giving the film a cold feel that compliments not only the time of year, but also alludes to the fact that our Abby is very much; undead. I have to tip the old hat to Chloe Moretz who plays Abby, for her perfect portrayal of sorrow. She does not have a back story, she does not explain why she drinks blood, save for that she will die if she doesn’t. I was surprised to find out that she also played Hit-Girl in last year’s Kick-Ass, I didn’t make the connection at first because the two characters are polar opposites, and of course she isn’t wearing a mask the entire movie. Depicting Owen is Kodi Smit-McPhee (The Road), a great choice for the character in my mind because he sort of has the same look as Kåre Hedebrant who played Oskar in “Let The Right One In”, McPhee also nails his part adding to the sadness of the film. Abby’s “Father” is portrayed by Richard Jenkins, who has enjoyed a fairly full career appearing in movies like The Witches of Eastwick, Something About Mary, Me Myself & Irene, Step Brothers etc... The twist is that he is usually plays authority figures, professors, judges, and law enforcement types, so to see him placing jars of acid in his ruck-sack before going out to stab people in throat is oddly fantastic. Rounding out the main cast is none other than Elias Koteas who first won my heart decades ago with his portrayal of Casey Jones in the Original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, that and his part as Azazel in Denzel Washington’s “Fallen” solidified him in my mind as a bad ass. In this film he plays the straight man, a strictly by the book cop who obviously believes in his work, and is good at it.

The soundtrack is “rad” if you will, featuring classic 80’s hits from David Bowie, Culture Club, Blue Oyster Cult and others. Even now, a good two weeks after watching the movie (procrastinator deluxe) the thought of Blue Oyster’s “Burnin For You” playing in the background during one of “Fathers” truly terrifying abductions brings tears of joy to my eyes. There is CGI in the film which I could have done without, but Abby’s kills are fucking brutal, exactly what I would imagine a Vampire attack would play out like in real life, none of that soupy seduction stuff. Multiply all this with Reagan America’s “Satanic Panic”, then add it with being in a language I can understand (that’s not to say that I don’t watch foreign film, it’s just the subtle nuances that come with that subconscious “non-think” of the native tongue put me in a slightly closer place than the original), and you have a piece of American Horror that one can be proud of…

On the Clydesdale Scale I give this movie a 2 star

Please giant horses take your time in tearing my face off so I can finish this film!

Rhipt Fuel: Grandpappy Purps

Rhipt viewing rating: 2.5/5

Dream Home (2010) ROB

Boring ass Tuesday night and my netflix has been turned off because there's insufficient funds for them to take out my payment for my next month of high quality entertainment. Where do I turn? Comcast OnDemand is home to few great things but one thing I do love about it is its OnDemand feature, mostly in part to the IFC/Sundance Select/Magnolia feature where some of us that can't make it out to film festivals but would love to see the films along with others seeing it for the first time actually can.

I totally forgot that Dream Home was getting a VOD release and upon surfing my options in the IFC section discovered it, my mind let out a "fuck yeah sigh" (I've been in the mood for a slasher, not exactly mindless but nothing bottom shelf) and ordered this motherfucker without hesitation and what I got was exactly what I hoped for.

Our main character, Cheng Li-Sheung, has been saving for an apartment with a view of the sea and overlooking the city her entire life. She works one meager job after the other and saves for what she sees as the perfect living space for her grandfather and brother. One day Cheng Li- Sheung reaches her goal and is given a look at the apartment and given an offer which she enthusiastically approves only to be changed soon after to something far more than her savings could cover, for no reason in particular. What follows is our main homegirl systematically butchering everyone she can in the building with little remorse. The gorehound in you will no doubt cheer at the ridiculousness and cringe at the overwhelming brutality of some. There is one kill in particular that made me do the whole etching my eyebrow into a question mark thing that I rarely do in response to horror movie kills, most commonly done when seeing people do idiotic extremely painful things (ie. pain olympics).

It's a simple story that I welcomed after film after film of metaphors and complex storylines that I've been partying with as of late. I love my slasher films and this delivered, my only complaint was that this could have been trimmed down, a healthy amount of shitty soon-to-be-fodder filler that could have easily been trimmed to make this a 78, maybe 83 minute affair.

3/5

Our Day Will Come (2010) ROB

I've been waiting to see this for about a year now. I had heard about it on a horror movie website which was weird but it was because nobody knew what to think of it when the trailers started appearing. When I first saw the trailer I had no idea what the fuck to think other than we had Vincent Cassel acting crazy again like Vincent Cassel does so well (Sheitan, Irreversible) and that it had something to do with the fact that the two main actors had red hair (courtesy of a translator on a youtube video of the French trailer).

We start with Remy, a ginger, who is reamed day in and day out by his peers and family for being a 'faggot' and for the color of his hair. One day in a disagreement with his mother Remy flees his house only to be discovered by a psychotherapist named Patrick and the minute these two are introduced with their fire red hear and the apparent look of disdain on each of their face in the same frame we get feeling that Patrick isn't just helping this young dude out, he has a plan for Remy and a project for himself. From then on we witness Patrick try to shape Remy into something proud and as cynical as himself, forcing Remy into one awkward situation or absurd act to the next and in turn awakening something far more deep rooted and violent than he probably imagined. The two leading actors grab their parts by the throat and run with it, limp legs trailing with maniacal smiles.

The technical aspects are superb all around with an original score by Sebastien Akchote and beautiful cinematography by the homie Andre Chemetoff who also worked with director Romain Gavrais on pop star MIA's insanely cool video Born Free. All in all this a group of first time feature film makers showing their stuff and shoveling some pretty fantastic stuff into our face and I loved every bit of it. I found myself laughing out loud on several occasions by Gavrais script, marveled by the beautiful imagery shot by Chemetoff and extremely impressed at how well the score accentuated the actions happening on screen. In a lot of ways it matched the feeling of urgency in previously mentioned Born Free. It's clear by the time the credits roll that this was some sort of inside love affair and that all involved knew what they were doing and what they wanted to portray. Fantastic.

Don't let the trailer fool you, this is not near as dark as it seems, though it does stagger into darker territory at some point i would categorize this a dark comedy/coming of age jam.. Highly reccomended: 5/5

House (2008)-Thuggy's Take

Now this movie was iffy to me at best… It looked like something it could never live up to, and the plot had a hint of rotten dog parts long before I bothered to see who played in the starring roles. To my surprise, Bill Mosley was one of the first names to pop up. As some of you know, Bill has a sizable fan base in the horror genre, with classic roles like Chop-Top in Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, Army of Darkness, and Night of The Living Dead 1990. More recently he portrayed Otis Driftwood in House of 1000 Corpses and Devils Rejects. These facts alone proved the movie worthy of my consideration. Next is Michael Madsen, although an iffy prospect in himself, seeing how he has appeared in a mammoth amount of film and television, and not all of it good. Yet he has portrayed some of our more classic cinema villains, most notable is surely Vic Vega the one and only Mr. Blonde in Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs. Which one of us hears "Stuck in the middle with you" and doesn’t think of oddly playful mutilation? I know I do. But the meat of the movie is played by various names I can’t remember, with credits including Hansom Fellow, Female Radio Voice, and Paramedic Niki. Exciting... I know.

So with strong trepidation and morbid curiosity I rolled the dice and dug the opening credits. I will say I was fairly surprised when the first scene in the film didn't look like it was shot with an old VHS camcorder. Although the events taking place were fairly cliché in the ever widening tide of terrible American horror films. Directly hereafter we are introduced to our protagonists of the film, Handsome Fellow and Female Radio Voice. They are a couple suffering from what many couples who survive a child face, the cold feelings of resent and blame that eventually tears the union to pieces like a pack of desert hyenas. This does not mean I like them... In fact I was sick of them in seconds. Not to say they weren't good actors, you just couldn't tell behind such bland writing. We've heard these two argue before, in a trillion other movies, to the point where you can almost pantomime the entire sequence, but I felt compelled to keep at it in hopes of the antagonists’ grand entrance. The couple is on their way to marriage counseling somewhere in Alabama, maybe Montgomery when they decide to turn back and end up striking tractor parts and effectively getting themselves stuck just down the road a stretch from the Wayside Inn. Who's proprietors Betty an absolutely bat-shit crazy woman played astoundingly by Leslie Easterbrook of the Police Academy Series (Google her if you're not familiar and you’re guaranteed a smile). Also her son Pete the well-dressed sex pervert of the family played incredibly well by so and so, almost to the point that I started getting the feeling he was watching me out of the corner of his eye. Rounding it up is Stewart played by Bill Mosley, whose character was in my opinion 'whatevers' at best. At the Wayside Inn we are introduced to another couple stranded over night with them in the company of this twisted family.

Shortly after dinner shit hits the fan in the form of a local legend named 'Tin Man'. He is apparently a psychopathic who killed God and likes a nice cold tin mask flush to his face when he does his killin'. Ridiculously, the family is well aware of the Tin Man and his off color activities so much so that they have every window and door secured with giant metal grates and lock arms. The plot gets even sillier when we learn that the house reads your innermost shame or fear and exploits it, showing our characters painful or terrifying flashback-esque backstory.

Sort of reminds me of Event Horizon... Oh right.

Couple that with fact that the Tin Man can speak to our protagonists via the haunted house, and it starts looking like by the end of the film all the characters could be dead in some outer space nightmare tormented by a Bio-Exorcist named Mike Keaton. However the movie does stay true to trying to hold a solid creepiness throughout. The set design is too bomb, blending the polished southern interior of the upstairs with the mental hospital like cavernous basement seamlessly. Never once letting you forget that you’re in a shit load of trouble. Throw in some black fog oozing out of the houses inhabitants, doppelgangers, and rune smeared pentagrams you have a pretty entertainingly ridiculous film.

At no point in this movie did I say to myself "Gee, what a great movie this is"… The ending is inexplicable and somehow done before, as with almost every aspect of this movie. The writers must have just gotten trashed one night and thought up the most ridiculous situations you can stuff into the classic framework of a haunted house/twist ending framework. I wish I was there that night... I would have drunk Ancient Age and convinced them to come harass the night instead. Frankly it would have been a safer bet.

Although the movie isn't terrible, it’s still pretty bad, but it does have moments when it acts like what it’s supposed to be. It was worth a watch through I guess and I'm writing this review so hey.... Maybe you'll like it....

On the Clydesdale scale I give this movie an 8 star.

Rhipt Fuel: Grahammies- A Sativa infused 4X brownie in a graham cracker crust.

Rhipt Viewing Rating: 1/5

*Try getting super rhipt maybe get a whole different perspective on shit.

Bronson (2008)-Thuggy's Take

This movie is an adaptation on the life of Michael Peterson, otherwise know as "Charlie Bronson", England's most famous and violent convict.

As soon as this film started I was sure it wouldn't disappoint. The first scene is stark contrasts, in the form of Charlie Bronson, this films protagonist (if only by default), who holds the foreground with his thick British accent and his Chevron mustache. Behind him is a wall of blackness one can only assume is his cell where much of this story unfolds. Not to say the film takes place in one small room, but it is a prison film so be prepared to break out your three hots and cot because you'll be stuck with good ol' Charlie for the duration.
Although brutal from start to finish Director Nicolas Winding Refn of "Pusher" fame manages to compliment this savage character with moments of sheer comedy and odd melancholy bits of theater. We're obviously supposed to get on Charlie's good side early on, and they do a fine job because I was rooting for this man barely ten minutes into the movie. He's a brawler, he's a hot head and misanthrope but gosh darn it if he aint a strange modern day hero. Now I'll keep the artsy observations like social commentary and symbolism to a minimal because lets face it... I'm Rhipt, and theres enough of that drivel coughed up in your local news rag to choke a camel, and yet Bronson is an individual fighting the system as it were, and I believe thats worth noting in this day and age of homogenized lives.
Bronson is portrayed by Tom Hardy, accomplished English actor who has enjoyed a fair amount of success this side of the pond, sinking his teeth into rolls in both Band of Brothers and Black Hawk Down. Along with cross-over hits Layer Cake and Rock'n'Rolla his face will seem both familiar and foreign. Hardy's performance is gripping and intense, with absolutely disturbing scenes of full frontal nude combat. To say this portrayal is fearless would be a slight understatement... So much so that you'll probably want to know more about Hardy's real life counterpart; I know I did.
You can google this man and find a site run by Bronson supporters titled... You guessed it, Free Charles Bronson | Home Page. It gives you a very in depth look at the genuine articles day to day life, with letters, medical reports and art gallery. Now I'm not saying the man should be released, judging by his letters he is still quite upset about something. Yet he seems to be seen as something of a folk hero, otherwise this review wouldn't be taking place. Added with the fact that he never raped or killed anyone and realistically has paid for his crimes a million times over gives rise to the question as to why there isn't more FREE BRONSON t-shirts adorning some of our American rebels.


All in All I give this film a 2 star on the Clydesdale Scale...
Very entertaining, quasi-informative and downright FUN...

Rihpt Viewing Rating 1 out of 5: *2
Rihpt Fuel: Lemon Kush