Category Archives: Film

The Man with the Iron Fists Hammers the Chop-Chop Flick

This is a film that you will either love or hate. And you’ll know before you even see it. If you’re excited about over the top sound effects, fists flying through the air, and blood squirting everywhere, then this is the film for you. If you have even the slightest doubt, then you’ll hate it. No in between.

Directed by rapper RZA and co-written with horror filmmaker Eli Roth, this film delivers. It starts off with gansta rap while two clans, lion and hyena, spar. You know you’re in for a great film when the leader of the lion clan, a fella decked out with a massive mane of hair, rips the arms off his opponent.

Plenty of blood throughout the film.

RZA certainly knows how to hit all the marks for a chop chop film. The plot is fast and loose. (Honestly, if you pay too much attention to plot on these films, it just gets in the way.) He segues from rap music to cowboy (as the clans ride out to battle) as well as traditional Chinese.

The Gemini Twins using the their secret weapon, a thigh mounted gun.

The fight scenes are well choreographed and filmed so you can witness every bit of gore. There’s one scene where an eyeball shoots out toward the audience. Excellent.

Eyeball popping scene.

Russel Crowe eats up the scenery as Jack Knife, the lone Caucasian with a twirling bowie knife.

Byron Man, who plays the baddie Silver Lion, is so over the top he makes the whole film. Every line is delivered with a devilish grin. When one of his victims begs for mercy, Silver Lion mocks him, whining out: “Please stop.”

Cung Le as Brass Lion (left) and Byron Mann as Silver Lion (right wearing glasses)

Did I forget to mention that Lucy Liu is there, as the madame of a brothel? She holds off with her Kung Fu skills till the final battle royale.

I can’t add to much more without spoiling the best parts. If any of this sounds good, then just go see it.

Tim Kane

Home Decor for Your Hell House: Six Evil Home Additions

Imagine you’re an interior designer or contractor and you get contacted by a fellow who wants an iron maiden installed in his basement. Perhaps accessed through a secret door with a few traps. It makes you wonder, where do some of the horror movie villains get their homes made? Here are the top six bizarre home building projects that would drive any contractor nutty.

#6 Secret Passage from Young Frankenstein

Put the candle back.

I have a secret, I’ve always wanted to build a secret passage. It would be so cool to be able to access your den or writing room via a chamber that no one else can see. Yes. It’s everyone’s dream, right? Of course, you’ve have to access it with a candle, just like in Young Frankenstein. I only hope I never get stuck like Gene Wilder.

#5 A Swinging Pendulum from The Pit and the Pendulum

Imagine a clock pendulum swinging, only now, it’s set to slice you in half. I don’t even know where you’d have room to put this in any house, much less make it work. Only Edgar Allen Poe could dream this up and only Roger Corman could execute it.

#4 A Smoky Pit to the Netherworld from Lair of the White Worm

An unwilling victim

As kids, we all tried to dig a hole to China, but in horror flicks, holes in the earth tend to lead other places. In Lair of the White Worm, a nasty slimy serpent slithers up to chomp on young maidens. With that in mind, think how long it would take to drill this out?

#3 A Personal Torture Chamber from Princess Bride

Not only is this my favorite movie, it also has it’s own torture equipment. Who knew? The machine is there to instill pain on its victims with suction. So basically its one giant Hoover. As an added bonus, it’s made entirely out of wood. That would take a fleet of carpenters to build.

#2 Your Own Mechanical Band from The Abominable Dr. Phibes

Sure, all your songs fit onto an iPod, but nothing replaces having live performers. Barring that, you could go the robotic/mechanical route. Nothing says creepy as faceless horn players. I’d like to see Apple market that.

#1 A Vat of Acid in the Floor from House on Haunted Hill

I put this as number one simply because…why? Why would you ever need a vat of acid in the floor other than to dissolve someone. I know there was some sort of explanation for it in the film, but let’s face it, death by acid is just awesome.

Tim Kane

Five Funny Undead Movies

Everyone likes to be scared. (Okay, not everyone. But if you’re reading this, then yes, you do.) But how about giggling during your brain eating? Not every horror flick needs to be a serious spine tingler. Humor can liven up a scary flick. What follows are the funniest zombie (or zombiesque) films around.

5 Evil Dead

Rami has a gift for delivering chills and gags all at the same time. The demon possessed folk aren’t exactly zombies, yet they stumble around asking Bruce Campbell to “join them.” This is probably the most serious of the bunch, but still good fun.

4 Dead Alive

Everyone knows Peter Jackson from The Lord of the Rings. Few know that he started with slapstick horror. Honestly, you can’t get more gore than Dead Alive. It takes gross to a whole new level. But the film is dead on funny. It has a zombie baby, a plague infested rat, and a kung fu practicing priest. “I kick ass for the Lord.” Come on, give it a go.

Zombie baby

3 Evil Dead II

If the first Evil Dead was great, the squeal is awesome. But this isn’t really a continuation of the story. It’s a remake with a bigger budget and more laughs. Bruce Campbell (aka Ash) has to do battle with his severed hand. He replaces his lost appendage with a chainsaw and proceeds to cut up some demon possessed people. All while black blood spews everything. For fun, count the number of head injuries Ash sustains in the film.

Ash tripping out as the house creaks and lamps start dancing.

2 Shaun of the Dead

This movie simultaneously pays homage to nearly every great zombie flick while making you roll over laughing. One of the best scenes is one that would probably happen in real life. Simon Pegg (Shaun) is going through his morning routine of picking up a soda and an ice cream from the corner shop. He fails to notice the staggering corpses in the streets or the bloody hand print on the glass door.

1 Dead and Breakfast

This is a highly under appreciated movie. Watch this and you will never look at blueberry pie the same again. It has it all. Line dancing zombies (alright, possessed people, but they act like zombies). A person’s head used as a hand puppet. And David Carradine.

Eating blueberry pie and ignorant of the gore behind him.

Tim Kane

Iron Sky Rides the Blazing Saddles Vibe

I had the extreme pleasure of watching Iron Sky the other night. My wife surprised me by buying tickets through Tugg. The experience more than delivered on my expectations. I’d heard about Iron Sky more than a year ago. The logline is this: “Nazi’s create a moonbase in 1945. In 2018, then return to invade earth.” What I didn’t know going into the movie, was how funny it would be.

The current President of the United States is a thinly veneered Sarah Palin. Her reelection campaign concept is to send a black astronaut to the Moon (the tagline is: Black to the Moon). Little did she know that Nazis have been holing up on the dark side. You can imagine the shock when the Nazis remove James Washington’s helmet to see a brother.

Although the film plays fast and loose with race, it does take on the task of portraying both the Nazis and James Washington seriously. At one point, the Nazi’s use an Albinoizer to transform him white.

The technology the Nazis use looks astounding. A combination of 1940 tech with diesel-punk. The filmmakers actually make the idea of Nazis living on the Moon for 73 years plausible.

The amazing attack using meteorblitzkrieg

The massive Gotterdammerung spaceship (powered by an iPad)

This is a must see film. Truly a Blazing Saddles for this generation. However, unless you can Tugg it to your theater, you might have to wait for video.

Tim Kane

There Are No Original Ideas (And That’s A Good Thing)

Everyone goes on and on about original ideas, yet the the notion of an original idea in art has only been with us for about one-hundred years. This concept was propagated by the Modernists who sought to abandon the superstitions and folklore of the past. These Modernists valued the strange and surreal over traditional storytelling. Novelists like James Joyce and William Faulkner wanted their stories to be difficult and complex. They thought that if the story were intricate, then it would supersede oral tradition. (Ironically, Joyce’s seminal work, Ulysses, modeled itself off of the Odysseus myth.) Even today, we look for originality as a sign that something is “good”.

Skipping to before the twentieth century, we see that folklore and tradition reign. People retold stories over and over again, in a game of telephone that lasted centuries. The myth of Odysseus wasn’t even written down for ages. People simply memorized the story.

There’s also something to be said for a good story. Myth and folklore have plenty of great ideas. So use them. Why struggle to come up with something brand new, when the old tales work. They have to work. They survived. It’s evolution for writing. Even the US Government acknowledges this. You can copyright an execution (how you write something) but not an idea. That’s why you typically see two or even three movies about the same subject from Hollywood: Dante’s Peak and Volcano; Armageddon and Deep Impact.

Take Frankenweenie. It’s a rehash of the Frankenstein story. But who cares. I plan to see it. The concept was reinvented by Tim Burton to become a macabre comedy. The original short film was hilarious. Now that’s it’s expanded into a full film, it should be hilarious. Do I constantly think back to how Burton pirated from Mary Shelly? No. I think of how inventive he was in his adaptation.

If you feel hemmed in as an artists because you simply can’t think of an idea, reverse your strategy. Look for good stories and then write your own take on it. Reimagine and reinvent. Put your own spin on it.

Tim Kane