The stench was pungent from the very first scene. I sat down, endured some pretty lousy trailers (I’ve seen the Death at a Funeral remake preview a dozen times now and it somehow gets worse with each round), and eagerly anticipated a spin in the Hot Tub Time Machine. The reviews have been predominantly upbeat, and the cast all but promised enjoyment. Craig Robinson and John Cusack, side by side? Foolproof, I thought. But five minutes in, I nearly slapped my forehead in disbelief. Robinson’s character, Nick Webber-Agnew (having taken his wife’s last name, because he’s the emasculated Ed Helms/’Stu’ member of the film’s all-dude quartet), works at a dog training-and-grooming spot, ‘Sup Dawg, after a failed singing career left his days as the frontman of Chocolate Lipstick as historical inventory. A customer (the usually spot-on Thomas Lennon) brings his sick pooch in for a look-over, recognizes Nick from his crooner days and then gags as Nick pulls the canine-owner’s car keys out of the dog’s ass—-fecal matter as a bonus topping. And in that instant, I realized a painful truth: Hot Tub Time Machine was going to be an excruciating 100 minutes.
Little, if anything, convinced me otherwise by the time Rob Corddry’s just awful Lou pops up in the final scene as the lead singer in a fake Motley Lue video. The impetus, of course, is that he and his pals were sent back to 1986 after getting sloshed in the title jacuzzi, and the old butterfly effect came into play, allowing Lou to use his foresight to conceptualize Lougle (Google) and front Motley Lu (Motley Crew, obviously). It’s a somewhat clever ending to a altogether unfunny film. Ineffective use of its inner 1980s motif is made, other than a running joke with Back to the Future costar Crispin Glover, tons of shiny clothing and scattered peripheral imagery. Focus is put on gags where one heterosexual guy is forced to give his also hetero boy oral sex, or hand soap is splattered all over one’s face to look like ejaculated spooge. Cheap tricks, dragging down a premise that could have spawned endless humor. Guy-on-guy blowjobs are the easy way out, of course, and will always induce a giggle or two from audience members. Nobody (myself included) buys a Hot Tub Time Machine ticket and expects high art, but unexpected punchlines and intelligent one-liners? Shouldn’t be too much to ask.
I’ve spoken with a good amount of people who’ve seen Hot Tub Time Machine and loved it, so perhaps I’m screwing up here. I’m no flawless filmgoer, being the same cat who owns Neil LaBute’s The Wicker Man remake on DVD, by tongue-in-cheek choice, though that doesn’t matter in the bigger self-respecting picture. I’ll duel to the death on point, though—-Rob Corddry single-handedly ruins the film. One of the most over-the-top performances I’ve ever seen; manic beyond the point of entertainment. It’s tough enough that the majority of his lines are stale dick-and-ball jokes; he could have been delivering Ricky Gervais-written bits and I still wouldn’t have liked a mere second of his work. One reviewer called him “the next Zach Galifianakis,” an attempt to parallel Hot Tub Time Machine to last year’s infinitely superior The Hangover. Toss that comparison out the window, right away. Galifianakis’s presence in The Hangover succeeds thanks to an alternately subtle and bizarre demeanor; Corddry, however, bullies his way through every scene on a tailspin. There’s a stark difference between a humorous guy and one who seems on the verge of self-destruction, or, worse, gone-postal violence. Spitting out words like a cocaine fiend. Unfunny words, at that.
I know, I know… the film is called Hot Tub Time Machine, so I should just loosen up my britches. Put my analytical side on hold. Go watch The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo instead (which should be the move tonight), or Catherine Breillat’s Bluebeard (tomorrow evening), if I’m craving a real fix. Believe me, that was the intention all along, until Rob Corddry ruined everything. If not for him, I could have even given ‘Sup Dawg another try.
Katie Featherston, the female half of Paranormal Activity‘s sudden stars-on-the-rise cast, starred in another little horror film called Walking Distance. While its buzz isn’t even a morsel of what Paranormal Activity‘s was before the mainstream knew about, Walking Distance has been popping up on the various horror sites recently, no doubt a result of Featherston’s presence. The film is about a quaint town that harbors some (probably) supernatural secret, and how that hidden evil wreaks H-E-double-sticks on its residents. Or something to that effect; the film’s plot isn’t important right now. It’s a mute point.
Early last week, during my daily ritual of scouring through various horror websites in hopes of stumbling across some old forgotten gem that Netflix can so kindly bless me with, the title Let’s Scare Jessica to Death surfaced somewhere, though I’m remiss to recall which URL exactly. Doesn’t matter, really; I’m thinking it was somehow in relation to Ti West’s new The House of the Devil, which I have a screener DVD of, that I watched, and love(d) every second (but more on that film later this week). Back to Let’s Scare Jessica to Death, a wonderfully-intriguing name for a film, and when I noticed that it was made in 1971, I was even more compelled. Obscure ’70s horror hardly ever disappoints, case in point Race with the Devil. Without even reading as much as a two-sentence synopsis, I bumped Jessica to the top of my Netflix.
Not as loudly shouted but still not unknown is my particular fondness for writer extraordinaire Richard Matheson, the superior horror-fantasy novelist who also scribed a majority’s stack of Twilight Zone episodes. In my bedroom’s library rests two paperback compilations of his best T-Zone scripts, which I read frequently. One of the scripts included in those books is “Steel,” the great Zone episode about the washed-up boxer turned washed-up manager who’s hoping to land one final star-scrapper in a futuristic world where flesh-covered robots are the only ones allowed to be in-ring pugilists. It’s more of a character drama than anything supernatural or morbid, but it does end with a somber send-off that’s pure Matheson, meaning not a stand-up-and-cheer closer. Works perfectly as a 20-some-odd minute television work; swiftly molds the characters, churns some tense fight scenes and doesn’t wear out its welcome.
So, why the hell wouldn’t Hollywood try to stretch it out into a feature-length film? By the sound of the synopsis for Real Steel, the just-announced adaptation of Matheson’s “Steel,” those who share my love for the original will surely cringe and wish to fart in the producers’ general direction (Monty Python those bastards). “2,000 pound human-like robots” better not mean they’ll be Transformers-sized. Kill yourselves, if so. Unsurprisingly, the older grizzled manager has been prettied up and given to Hugh Jackman, and they’ve added a little kid into the mix, replacing the loyal middle-aged partner. The final nail in the casket? The director assigned is Shawn Levy, the guy behind the Night of the Museum movies, Just Married, and The Pink Panther. Nowhere near a hack, but still his presence is a bad sign because it signifies that Real Steel stands no chance of retaining any of that old Twilight Zone veneer. Makes sense, if they’re trying to turn this into a hit vehicle for Jackman to show he’s more than your dude Wolverine; doesn’t make this news any less angering, though.
The news that there’s soon to be a real-life-actors-mixed-with-CGI version, Night of the Living Dead: Origins, gives me slightly more optimism than its lazy predecessors. Why? Because the project—-which will be directed by Zebediah de Soto, a guy with some impressive animation work on his resume—is taking a different approach, providing backstories for the original’s characters. At least it’s not turning Ben into a white teenager with dreamy good looks. And, although I subscribe to the notion that zombies should always be actual people, not CGI (the utterly-fake-looking creatures in I Am Legend used as evidence), this description of de Soto’s technology doesn’t sound half-awful:
If you’re ever looking for insightful horror shit-kicking mixed with hilarity, look no further than “Dinner for Fiends,” the always-thoroughly-entertaining podcast from the folks over at Dread Central. A new edition is routinely anticipated with excitement around these parts, and it’s with great pleasure that I link to their latest, a vicious bomb-drop session on Rob Zombie’s Halloween 2.
I was under the hopeful impression that this project had gone the way of the Hellraiser remake, in that it’d fallen off the face of Hollywood’s bad-idea-landscape. Not so much, apparently, as David Gordon Green‘s remake of Dario Argento‘s Suspiria seems to be very much alive, and aiming for a 2010 start-date. The bad news comes from 
Paramount, in an attempt to deliver a gut-punch to yours truly using a battering ram instead of a mere fist, has just announced that they’ve moved Martin Scorcese‘s adaptation of Dennis Lehane’s Shutter Island (a favorite book of mine, read it three times now, the third concluding this afternoon) to February 19, 2010—-a whole four fucking months after its original, seemingly-set-in-stone date of October 2. Which had been marked on my mind’s calendar in permanent, dark-as-night Sharpie; Shutter Island has been my number one must-see film of 2009 since late 2008. Its opening was rapidly upon us. More specifically, though, me. Now, I’m feeling like Teddy Daniels around the page-340 mark.
If you plan on seeing Bruno this weekend, as I’m sure most of us are, there’s a high probability that you’ll catch the first official trailer for Jennifer’s Body, Megan Fox‘s first leading-woman flick scripted by Juno award-winner Diablo Cody. I’ve posted some early stills from the film here, so it should come as no mystery that I’m anticipating this one. Let’s make it clear right here, right now, though—–I’m not looking forward to this in the Shutter Island sense. Nope. More in that age-old “hard not to watch trainwreck” way. As hot as Fox is, she’s a pretty horrendous actress, so there’s strike one, and then there’s the fact that every Jennifer’s Body script review that I’ve read first or second hand has been negative, some even downright scathing.
Some genre vets would consider this sentiment to be blasphemy, but fuck it—–Phantasm is a terrible movie. Boring, cheesy, the opposite of scary. Overrated and forgettable. Placed alongside the sequels (which I have seen, ass-backwards enough), though, director Don Coscarelli’s franchise jumpoff is on the same plane as Alien, another ’79 horror favorite. That’s saying very little, however. I’m not going to overtalk my point here, simply because I don’t have much to say about the film, it disinterested me that much. Points are awarded its way for originality, offering some unique ideas and an off-kilter narrative approach. The script is wise enough to tap directly into a common fear of suburban youngsters, and that’s the mysteries and potential terrors that reside in the local cemetery. And Phantasm has a formidable, memorable villain in The Tall Man (played by naturally-freaky-looking Angus Scrimm); the problem is, The Tall Man is underused, washed over by strictly-for-the-gore orbs that zoom around and drain blood from foreheads, and black-hooded ghoulies that just jump around and irritate rather than doing anything that’s actually scary.
THEATER OF MINE 
