Perfume: Story of A Murderer (2006)

Grenouille, a man born with a superhuman sense of smell, vows to learn and master the art of creating perfume and preservation of sent in 17th Century France. His life mission leads him to become a very prolific serial killer in the search to preserve beauty.

This is a very beautiful movie. Very beautifully shot and very beautifully written. The colors of lights and darks are bold and bright. This movie was thought to be impossibly adapted from the brilliant novel from David Suskind mainly because it’s almost impossible to describe smell and sent. The film forges on and gives a college try with positive results. Dustin Hoffman almost steals the movie as the elder perfumer. You get the impression that if there was a companion piece, Dustin’s Baldini would definitely a central character. Tom Tykwer does a very good job with this film.

There are some faults. It’s a bit slow and paced for your casual movie goer. Another thing is that it’s a movie about a murderer. Is this bad? No. It’s just that casual filmgoers are a bit more hardwired to predictable variables. The final sequences did lose me a bit. I had to watch the movie a couple times to get it. It also seemed to lose focus in the middle of the film just immersing itself in perfume and smell.

As a movie, it’s great, but as a DVD it kills. It sucks. First of all, I’m sick and fucking tired of the anti-piracy ads that auto start when you play the discs. You treat the public like fucking morons when you do this. Especially the ones who collect DVDs. To have SEs, Box Sets, two years worth of DVDs with that ad on it really is pushing the point too far. Another thing is this DVD is almost bare bones. It’s like they didn’t give a shit about the movie. Just slapped it on a disc with it’s Showtime documentary and some trailers of movies that doesn’t even have a thread related to the main movie and just threw it out. Bad form Paramont. Bad form. There was a lot you could have done in supplement material and you threw it away.

31/2 stars.

Coming Attractions

Coming Attractions…

Curse of the Living Corpse (1964)

In 1894, a millionaire is placed in his crypt after he is believed to be dead. At the reading of the will, his family is given instructions as to how to maintain his body in case he is not dead. They do not carry them out and he rises from his tomb to enact ghastly punishment.

The Good

Del Tenney double billed this with The Horror of Party Beach and by far is this the more stronger of the two. It is a bit of a more modern take of the Old Dark House genre that fueled most of the 30’s cheap fair. Some thing that wasn’t quite seen at the drive in at the time. It’s a very nice bridge between the two. This is also Roy Schnider’s first movie. He and a great cast he worked with also made the movie riveting. It was very well acted.

Comparing Curse with Horror, you have to wonder what went wrong. I think Del Tenney is used to directing more stage like performances and wasn’t as familiar with outside shots or how to film under a deadline at the time. Plus, I think working with a better cast helped him out a lot as well.

The Bad

The pacing was a bit awkward. It would rev up for a minute then slow down again. While sometimes it was for build up, the rest was totally unneeded. It also was getting a bit predictable towards the end.

The DVD!!!

This is the other half of the Del Tenney Double Feature disc. Like Horror, It has awesome cleanup on the visuals and audio content. The feature also comes with a Del Tenney commentary track and a trailer of the movie.

Conclusion

If you get this disc, watch Curse first before Horror. You feel a lot better if you did. Both are great in their own way. definitely for the boring day.

3 stars.

Bijou Special: Rob Zombie’s Halloween (2007)

After being committed to a state mental institute for 17 years for killing most of his family, a psychopath returns to his hometown to finish the job.

The Good

I think Daeg Faerch did an awesome job as young Mikey. He had that ability to switch from an innocent loser to a psychopath in seconds. Probably the best actor out of the bunch. I think this was punctuated in the scene where he beats the living shit out of the school bully.

The Bad

Sweet Cthulu, where to start….

While I do understand this is a remake…re-imagining…whatever, certain elements need to be intact or added to the idea to keep the movie at least scary as the original was. With The Thing it was the wide expanse of Antarctica and open isolation. The Fly had that chilling subtext of terminal illness during the era of AIDS. If we were to remake Halloween, what it needed to cover was the idea of…swift quick, feel good techniques creating a monster. How gated communities and social drug regimen could create a killer. Zombie does not do this. He forsakes the subtext to make a generic slasher movie.

I think it’s safe to say that after three movies, Rob Zombie’s major flaw is writing. He’s too in love with exploitation elements to properly write a script. You can see it in the first part of the movie clearly. And yes, while the first part seems to hold a bit of interest, the whole movie goes downhill in the second half. He needs someone to hold his hand and to help him convey his messages a wee bit clearer. Maybe even be a leash to tighten when he gets too far.

The second half of the film was just so god damn frustrating. It reminds me of this little habit my brother used to have when singing songs. He’d sing at least a bit of the song and then get to what he thought was awesome. Rob takes the build he has in the first half and just totally squashes it in the second. He takes what he thinks are the best scenes out of the original and just scatters them while trying to add his own flavor into horribly bland scenes.The difference is, I can’t backhand Zombie when he does that.

What really bothers me is that I can’t recall a single thing that happens in the second half other then the stuff lifted from the original. That’s really sad.

Conclusion

If you’re a fan of Horror, don’t go see this movie. If you have friends who are into horror, stop them at all costs and if you know somebody who thinks this movie was good, stage some sort of intervention because clearly they need help.

In the spectrum of remakes, this movie is just above TCM: The Beginning, but waaayyy below Night of The Living Dead ‘92.

2 stars.

H (2002)

Someone is copying the murders of the serial killer Shin Hyun a year after he’s captured. It’s up to the Seoul police department to stop the copycat, whoever who they may be.

This movie has a huge influence from Fincher’s Se7en (Rainy season, kosai/sempai bonding, killing to stymie sin, etc.) with a dash of Silence of The Lambs (Shin Hyun asked for advice) to boot. What works is that it’s very brutal and very shocking. They actors are very good and the cinematography is very well done. The only reason this hadn’t sold well in Korea was that marketing at the time decided to released the movie around Christmas time. Yeah, I’m sorta flinching at that too. Who in their right mind believed this was a good idea deserved, I repeat, deserved to be fired from whatever position they were at at the time.

That doesn’t mean that this movie was perfect. I think the biggest problem with this thing is how it just plods along. Like it was trying to lead us to someplace meaningful, but whatever ore wherever that place was, it was just to far to go. The anti climatic ending will also leave some people cold, although it’s pretty understandable. A lot of people will somehow feel cheated and need time to think about it to truly understand it.

While this movie would be good for your collection, I don’t think one is to rush out for it instantly. This is one of those movies you should at least buy at your own leisure.

2 and a half stars.

La Morte cammina con i tacchi alti (1971)

After finding out her diamond thief father was killed and is threaten by his assailant, a cabaret girl runs off with an eye doctor to England to get away. Things go for the worse as she’s killed and the doctor is left critically wounded.

When people talk about giallo, they usually mention Argento, Bava, maybe even Lenzi. Nobody mentions Ercoli. This is because Ercoli never did any horror features. He was purely giallo. Most possibly the default King of Giallo. Heels is definitely one of his best works. It is very stylistic in cinematography. The color is very lush and bright. The characters are detailed and the story is very interesting. It seemingly draws you in and puts you on the edge.

Now giallo isn’t for everyone. The thing that might get on people’s nerves is that it tends to twist and turn three or four ways at a time. You feel that you may have lost something in translation or at least confused after watching. That’s perfectly okay. Giallo, I think, is an acquired taste. You have to learn to like it sometimes.

If you’re a big mystery fan, you’ll love it. It would also fit well in your collect. But I must tell you that you can not watch this in one sitting all quick like. This film demands your attention and should be watched on a day when you have nothing to do an there is almost no disturbance. I believe it will be a more enjoyable experience.

three stars.

Shiryo no Wana (1988)

A Reporter gets a snuff movie via mail and decides to trace it. Her search leads her to an abandoned factory, not knowing a psycho killer is at large.

It doesn’t take a genius to know that this is japan’s version of what a Dario Argento movie looks like to them. From the gruesome murders to the music, it somewhat has Dario’s fingerprints on them. That’s cool. Nothing wrong with paying homage to the ones who inspire you. In fact, that’s the thing that makes it great. It’s a valiant effort.

What shuts it down is the last 45 minutes. I mean, yeah, try to tie it up, but do you wanna tie it up that way? It all feels rushed and listless in where you want the movie to go. This was totally breakfast meeting material. Walks in the park could have come up with better material then this. Not that I’m against leaving the audience going “WTF?” at the end, but geez, can we just anchor it a little better then what you put out. It makes everyone feel cheated.

While this is a cornerstone for J-Horror Cinema, I don’t think one should put out an effort yet to search this out. If you must get it, make sure you get the essentials before it. Like Gojira and Tetsuo.

2 stars.

Visiting Hours (1982)

After defending an abused woman, a journalist is attacked at her home by a psychotic misogynist. After being saved, the journalist is rushed to the hospital. Little does she know that the psycho has decided to finish the job.

I thought this would be a low rent job, done to ride the coattails of Halloween 2, but it actually stands on it’s own two legs. The characters have a bit of detail to them. Michael Ironside is freakin brilliant as the baddie. Every movement he makes has this aura of menace to it. From playing with his stress ball to giving subtle glances to the city girl. All pure Menace.

Another cool thing about the movie is the Canadian feel of the movie. Yes it was distributed by Fox, but the colors are more brighter then usual. The scenes are set up differently as well. I don’t know. There’s a Canadian…”Presence” to it.

There are some holes in the movie. Areas that are supposed to be populated aren’t, some people can’t put two and two together, some situations that aren’t supposed to happen, happen. I think people can overlook all these holes because the plot is so solid.

I think this is defiantly a buy purchase. Will go great with your collection and is defiantly one to pull out once in a while to enjoy.

Three and a half stars.