Spanish Crap: Anguish

This film makes David Lynch look like Michael Bay.  It is so amazingly-arty that it hurts.  I won't waste too much time explaining why it's so pretentious to you.  Why?  Because it's much more fun to have it happen as part of the review and catches you off-guard.  Yeah, I'm a dick like that.  I will tell you that this film stars as the odd duo of Zelda Rubinstein and Michael Lerner.  How often have we had the chance to see that?  To find out what makes this fairly-obscure, Spanish film so ridiculous, read on...

The film opens with a warning that the film could mind-control.  Thanks for blocking pubic hair, but not this, MPAA!

Michael Lerner is a man who works for an Opthamologist, but tells his Mother that he's an Eye-Surgeon.  Speaking of her...

...she can hear people talking by holding a sea shell up to her ears.  Yeah, I don't get it.

Anyhow, she hypnotizes him into killing people- like a woman at the Clinic.  However, it's about this time that the film turns.

The movie is actually a filmed being watched in a Theater.  Wait, wait, wait- people paid money to see this film?  That's stretching reality too far for my liking it!

One of the two main characters goes outside to get a break from the film and...crap, I should have just saved this film for Sunday.  Oh well.

 How can this film get more Meta?  By having Lerner break into a Theater showing The Lost World- the 1925 version, for some reason- and start killing people.  Don't back up anymore or we'll get a super-infinity shot!!!

One of the audience members goes crazy and starts killing people.  I'd include the Theater Staff as Poor Bastards of Cinema, if they were remotely-interesting.  They're not.

The film gets nice and even more Meta when the man in the Theater begins to act out the Climax of the film he's watching...in the Theater.  It's not clear how he matches the actions so well or, especially, how the Police come in and time up perfectly.

Who needs Logic when you can make Infinity Shots?

 I would be remiss if I didn't mention the implausible Twist Ending where Lerner shows up in the Hospital with our heroine.  Coincidence?  Evil magic?  Never stated.  The End.

What can I say about this movie?  Some Spanish guy- who is an accomplished Director and Judge at Cannes- came up with a silly, silly idea.  He made it, putting in as many pretentious and artistic flourishes as possible.  Some of you may be reading this and go 'wow, that looks so clever.'  I suppose that one could argue that...just not me.  It's just pretentious bullshit.  I may get some flack for that, but I can live with it.  Other than the silly premise, there is no point to this movie.  Is there a message?  Is there a point?  No.  It's just a pretense to show a bunch of silly imagery and gore.  For all the pretentiousness on display here, that's all it is.  Spin out!

Next up, a Chinese fantasy film about time-travel.  Of course, it's real focus is on sex jokes that make Judd Apatow films look subtle.  Stay tuned...

Forgotten Sequels: Poltergeist III

Our second and final Poltergeist sequel is upon us.  What do you need to know?  Well, the 'curse' claimed the life of Julian Beck and Will Sampson.  Damn you- you took a man who already had stomach cancer when he started filming and one who was having both his heart and lungs replaced!  Seriously though, their deaths were tragic, but hardly due to any curse.  It's not like talking about it can kill you....nope, still alive.  The other news was that Heather O'Rourke died during post-production, due to some doctors being dumb-asses and treating her for the wrong disorder.  Some confusion exists about this, as the director claimed that she died before the film was actually finished, while everyone else said she died during re-shoots.  Why did they do re-shoots?  Well, the movie was given a PG rating- oh the humanity!  That's right, the studio spent a shit-ton of money to make the movie more gory and full of blood.  Because of that, they refused to use the original ending that actually featured O'Rourke, leaving them with...well, you'll see.  Check out the movie for the obvious inspiration for 2003's Into The Mirror and the subsequent remake.  Get out your two-way mirrors for my review of...

The film begins by completely contrasting the original film.  We're not in the desert or in the suburbs- we're in the big city!  This movie takes place in Chicago, a city that I actually like.  After all, Batman lives there.  We see that our heroine- O'Rourke- is living there with some relatives.  Actually, it's one relative and their awkward family.  Why is she there?  Well, the movie has no real good answer for it, so neither do I.  The family consists of her mother's sister, the woman's new husband and the man's teenage daughter.  Before you ask, they're not her kids...I think.  The movie spends so little time actually setting this up that I'm honestly not sure.  I know that the couple has only been married for about a year, so, unless the kids are aliens and/or mutants, they're not her kids.  Oh right, there's a plot here.  The young girl is going to a school for gifted kids, a school so prestigious that they get spied on by random people that help fund it.  Seriously, her class consists of a teacher telling the kids that they can do great things.  That's a nice sentiment...but don't they need actual knowledge to do this?  In a weird sub-plot, the school's psychologist is convinced that our heroine has some sort of ability to make people see things.  Sure- why not?

The movie ponders about for a bit before it gets down to the nitty-gritty.  After some random scenes of the ghost of Kane (aka the Preacher who's not Julian Beck), our heroine stays in for the night as the parents go off to a party...in the building.  This is one big-ass building!  So big-ass, in fact, that it is actually one building, the mall from a different building across the street and the parking garage from a third one!  The daughter sneaks off to another apartment to hang out with her friends, who all plan to sneak off to the pool after hours.  Oh, you wascally-wabbits!  They go through a lot of trouble to do this, even making a loop in the security cameras.  Seriously, why don't you just save some time and have sex?!?  At a luncheon, Tangina senses a 'disturbance in the force' and flies towards the city to help.  Make note of the timing, by the way.  Back in the apartment, the image of Kane finally makes himself known in a mirror and tries to kill our heroine.  Um, how can she help you when she's dead?  Actually, this become a key plot point later...in a complete contradiction of the previous films.  Tangina saves the day by way of psychic communication with the on-flight phone.  No, really.

Things get crazy in the last forty minutes or so and I can only try to keep up.  Our heroine, the sister and the boyfriend fall into a watery pit in the parking lot.  The boyfriend pops out through the frozen pool- which is unfrozen seconds later- while our heroine gets out via a mirror.  The girl?  She shows up when a mirror-version of our heroine instant-kills Tangina (thanks for coming) and the girl comes out through her corpse (see above).  How did Tangina get there so fast?  The boy leaves, but we learn that the teen girl is actually a mirror duplicate (as shown by the backwards writing on her clothes).  Where does this lead?  Pretty much nowhere.  The parking lot becomes a dangerous ground when Kane coats them in ice and controls them...somehow.  It's all a big mess...that just sort of ends.  Well, that was a simple thing to solve, but...nah, it's not over.  The door is frozen over as Kane attempts to steal O'Rourke, so the father takes out the window-cleaning mechanism to go around the window.  He breaks in...and instantly disappears.  The wife has to get the spirit of O'Rourke back by telling her that she's part of her family.  They go into the mirror and bring back the father, daughter and O'Rourke.  What happens to Kane?  The dead Zelda (too soon?) leads him 'into the light' and all is well.  Well, except that you can't show O'Rourke's face in the finale...

This movie...tries too hard.  Seriously, the plot is interesting at points, but just throw in too much.  On top of the family, we have the teenage friends, the multiple controlled-objects and the therapist.  You could have cut a couple of those, guys!  Of course, the problem for this is simple: sequel-itis.  They had to one-up both of the last two films, so we got weird mirror duplicates, frozen rooms, randomly appearing pits, ghost-controlled cars and an oddly-realistic Tangina corpse.  I wonder if the 'girl pops out of a dead body' scene was added to get that rating up?  The so-called 'Poltergeist Curse' comes up as the writers had to write around Will Sampson not being in it, having apparently given over his magical necklace (where was that in Part II?) to help out.  It is nice of them to credit Julian Beck as the original actor to play Kane, although the new guy does pretty well too.  The obvious thing to mention is the new ending that has no shot of O'Rourke.  I can see what they were trying to do, but they apparently had another ending with her.  Why didn't they use that?  It just sets you up for this line of questioning and could have been so easily avoided!  Is this movie as good as the first film?  No.  It just tries too hard.  Is it as good as the second film?  No.  The spirit of the movie (no pun intended) was just gone and this just feels weird.  Why change everything save for O'Rourke and Zelda?  They could have done so much more here!  As it is, it's an interesting film, but not the best send-off for the series.

Up next, my first Klaus Kinski review sets the bar pretty high.  It has knights, aliens and the guy from Bad Lieutenant- oh my.  Stay tuned...

Forgotten Sequels: Poltergeist II

Tobe Hooper's Poltergeist is a film that is rightfully-praised as an '80s classic.  Hell, it's so popular that an entire Family Guy episode is based on it!  The other thing about is that the entire series is supposedly cursed.  The urban legend is based on the idea that a real human skeleton was used as a prop, thus dooming the whole cast.  Never mind that a good majority of them (including Hooper, Craig T. Nelson, JoBeth Williams and Steven Spielberg) are still alive and well.  The legend grew strong when Dominique Dunne was murdered after filming the first film and one of the cast members (Julian Beck) died during production of this film, followed by another one in the next couple of years and, finally, the young star of the series.  Yeah, that looks bad, doesn't it?  Even so, there's go to be more going on than a crazy bit of urban lore, right?  Well, yes.  I like to highlight sequels that have gotten overlooked or forgotten about & this one seems to fit the bill.  Will it match the original film or just fall flat?  Get out your Indian beads for my review of...

The film begins with a car driving through the desert and passing by a giant piece of rock.  We cut to a matte painting...I mean, the top of the thing and see an old, Indian approaching a fire.  He's joined by an even-older Indian man who sets up a weird, ceremonial light show.  Way to blow your budget on a complete non-sequitur, guys!  On some other day, the man shows up at the smoking crater that once was the Freeling residence.  He finds Zelda there, fulfilling her contractual obligation, and they discover a bunch of corpses under the house.  The key one is a mummified corpse that will prove to be important later.  We cut to the Freeling family in their new house, which they apparently were headed to in that opening bit.  The family is not doing well for money, since their house insurance will not pay for the damages.  In a truly silly bit, they actually claimed the actual reason for their house being destroyed!  Really?  Am I supposed to take this seriously?  As part of the new arrangement, the family is living with grandma, a nice woman who apparently has some secrets.  She gets along well with the kid, since they share a connection: they're both psychic!  Yeah, that doesn't feel forced at all.  One night, the girl gets a call on her toy phone from the grandma, who apparently just died.  Thanks for coming, actress who outlived most of the cast by a good 15 years.

Our little heroine is having some trouble, as she sees visions and is being followed around by a creepy ghost man.  Man, I hate it when that happens.  The man (Julian Beck) is a priest who wants to spend some 'quality time' with our heroine.  You see, he's a spirit that can't pass on and needs her to lead him to the light.  You wouldn't think that this goal would not make him a villain...so he has to be pure evil all of the rest of the time.  He gives a big monologue in the rain to the dad before making his exit.  Well, that's good.  I was worried that you were going to do crazy stuff like summon ghosts and monsters to attack the family.  Oh wait, you still are!  When shit goes down (in this case, the daughter's dolls attacking her), the family decides to book it out of town!  Thankfully, the Indian man arrives at the family estate...but is not exactly greeted with open arms by the dad.  He learns to accept the man and faces the truth: they can't run away from this.  Considering that the first film was all about their house being haunted, this is kind of a cheat, don't you think?  The family learns to embrace their new helper, which is good when more shit goes down.  This time, the son's braces attack him and the other, forming a giant web of rusty metal!  How does the Indian help?  He stays back and watches the girl, of course.  Thanks for the help!

Things don't calm down for the Freeling family, no matter how much they want it to.  More ghosts and spirits appear, clearly showing where the budget went.  It's a shame that you couldn't pay Zelda Rubinstein to appear in more scenes, huh?  When Zelda finally shows up, she coerces/forces the mother to use her latent, psychic powers to learn the truth about the pastor.  His name is Kane (insert WWF joke here) and he led his followers into the cave before the 'apocalypse' came.  When it didn't, he made them stay, setting up a cave full of dead bodies.  He makes his big power play by possessing the father and forcing him to say mean things (ooh) before turning into a monster that comes out of Nelson's mouth (eww).  This change was done due to Beck's actual death, by the way.  Our heroes go back to the site of the bodies and try to bring them peace...only to have the daughter and wife be sucked into a dated-special effect.  The men follow them in, confronting a Treant-looking Kane in front of a blue screen effect.  They manage to pull their women back, using the power of a spear given to them by the Indian man.  All is well once again!  By the way, get better home insurance next time!

This movie...is actually pretty good, although it does have some problems.  The plot is good, even if it takes a weird detour from Part I.  A lot of the changes are due to the thing known as 'sequel-itis.'  The movie does everything it can to one-up the original, perhaps going a bit too far.  To see more examples of that, check out Part III!  The acting is good here, although the kids never quite do all that well.  It might be 'sacrilege' to say this, but Heather O'Rourke never really sells me here.  She's not terrible by any means, but I just wasn't sold- that's all.  As far as the effects go, they are either really good or really dated.  For example, one scene involves a possessed chainsaw floating around.  This looks really fake due to the dated-digital effects and the fact that it was made for 3-D!  Damn you, third dimension!  I will say that many of them are still genuinely-freaky (the Kane monster) and some of them are actually kind of subtle.  Watch for the make-up work done on Nelson to make his face look gaunt when he's possessed.  Does the film match up to the original?  Not really.  It's still not a bad effort and it's one that should be acknowledged more often.  Don't worry- it's not part of the curse to watch it.

Next up, we conclude our look our look at the Poltergeist sequels with Part III.  What do you do when have of your main cast is dead or replaced?  Stay tuned...