Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift 2006 Review

Han: I have money. It's trust and character I need around me. You know, who you choose to be around you lets you know who you are. And one car in exchange for knowing what a man's made of, that's a price I can live with. Look at all those people down there. They follow the rules, for what? They're letting fear lead them.

Shawn: What happens if they don't?

Han: Life's simple. You make choices and you don't look back.

   Once upon a time before the franchise became silly and just plain dumb. Fast and Furious focused on illegal street racing. The cars were the stars that happened to be driven by Paul Walker, Vin Diesel, Sung Kang, and Bow Wow (that’s a name I haven’t heard of in a very long time). The first three films in the long drawn out franchise actually dealt with cars and racing, which is hard to believe now seeing the trailer for the new film. Cars are occasionally in the films like when a submarine is chasing them or they drive off an airplane. When I saw the trailer for the newest film I shook my head at how ridiculous it was and thought to myself, “how the hell does this franchise make so much money?”

   I actually liked the first three films a lot, but out of the three my favorite is the one that is hated by most. That’s right it’s Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift. Fans of the franchise mostly hate it because there was no Paul Walker and very little of Vin Diesel. Tokyo Drift is probably the most street-race focused film in the entire series aside from the first one of course. It’s the purest film in the series too with a promise of adrenaline and nitrous-fuelled attitude not seen before and since.

   So the protagonist is played by Lucas Black who is supposed to be a teenager, but looks about 40. Looking back he’s actually the only character in the series that just wanted to race cars and not become a super criminal with a heart of gold. I’m sure the franchise will bring him back though and change that, but back to the 40 year old teenager. He gets caught up in the Yakuza cause ya know Japan and all then racing, drifting, cars, and all that! And it somehow becomes the Romeo and Juliet of the Fast and Furious franchise.

   Now onto what I liked about the film. The film actually has real engine sounds unlike the rest of the films that involve heavily edited engine sounds. There was actual drifting and no CGI. It’s more authentic, better-shot, and it's damn rewatchable for the drifts, skids, and slides. Hardly anything cringe worthy.  The dialogue is actually pretty decent. LIKABLE CHARACTERS! Not a spy thriller. No outrageous CGI moments. The film is actually about racing. The real drift king Keiichi Tsuchiya had a cameo in the film, which brings us to the last thing I liked about the film and that is the respect of car culture.

  Tokyo Drift did well at the box office, but opened up at number three behind Nacho Libre and another film dealing with cars… Pixar’s animated film Cars. Tokyo Drift is the financially least successful film of the franchise though, which is sad considering it’s the best. It’s not the best film of all time, just the best film in the franchise, which again isn’t saying much. If you hated the film when it first came out. Give it another chance. It may be a breath of fresh air compared to what you get now.

4 out of 5

Demonic Toys (1992) Review

“I can walk, I can talk, I can even shit my pants. Can you shit your pants?”

  Back in the day, Friday nights were my favorite. I either went to the cinema to see a new movie or my father and I stopped at the local video rental shop. This was before the take off of Internet and cellular phones were as big as a suitcase. Remember beepers anyone? So if you wanted to rent a good movie (that you haven’t seen before) you either had to ask the workers at the shop who were most likely movie enthusiasts or you simply went off by the cover art. This is how I found Charles Band’s Empire Pictures and Full Moon films. B-movies with fantastic covers for the most part. There were the Puppet Master films, Trancers, Subspecies, and Demonic Toys. The cover alone for Demonic Toys made me love the film. 

    I love films where toys or inanimate objects come to life and begin killing every person they come in contact with. The person who probably loves killer toys more than me is Charles Band. He’s reutilized the idea of killer inanimate objects over and over for his films. There’s Dolls (1987), Puppet Master (1989-now), Demonic Toys (1992), Ragdoll (1999), Blood Dolls (1999), Doll Graveyard (2005), and so many more films. You have to respect the man for that. He really wanted to make “killer toys” a sub-genre for horror. He succeeded I’d like to think.

   Demonic Toys is a rip-off of Band’s Dolls and Puppet Master with a mix of Child’s Play. The film is exactly what you’d think it would be like. A sting operation goes terribly wrong. A group of people get locked in a warehouse and this leads to a sixty-six year old demon bringing toys to life to do his bidding. The demon is looking for a new body to take a physical form on earth. Fortunately for him, the policewoman is pregnant. The toys start taking out everyone in the group one by one. It’s a pretty typical Full Moon Features film.

   There’s a killer stuffed bear, a robot that shoots lasers, a crazy looking Jack-in-the-box that loves to bite, and my favorite Baby Oopsy Daisy the foul mouthed doll that loves to go stabby stab. They don’t get as much screen time in the film as I would have liked. I was shocked how good the gore was. The effects are quite good considering it’s a Full Moon Features film, which means thirty dollars for the production and a Full Moon shirt for the people involved in the film.

   Charles Band is credited with the “original idea” for the film, but the script was written by none other than the man who has us nerds split, we either hate him or love him, yep you guessed it David S. Goyer. He’s credited for the Dark Knight trilogy, Blade trilogy, Man of Steel, Jumper, and the worst entry of the Terminator franchise Terminator: Dark Fate. He’s even directed the worst entry in the Blade trilogy. He’s been involved with television, comics, and video games. It’s nice to see him start with a Full Moon Features film.

    Demonic Toys is a fun film and in a way it’s sort of self-aware. It has a lot of campy charm. It’s one of those hidden gems I’m glad I got to enjoy when I was younger, now if you’re lucky it’s one of those hidden gems that you’d find in the bargain bins. The film definitely isn’t for everyone. It’s the type of film you’d watch with buddies while you eat some extremely cheesy pizza. A good time if you shut off your brain for a bit.

3 out of 5

Nostalgic factor 5 out of 5

Insidious (2011) Review

   It’s always hard to get a solid horror film. Of course they’re cheap to make and usually are guaranteed in box office returns. Lots of them nowadays simply rely on gore and CGI. That’s not the case for Insidious. It builds the suspense on piano notes, screeching violins, shadowy figures, slamming doors, and the scariest thing of all Tiny Tim’s Tip Toe Through the Tulips. That song is the stuff of nightmares.

   The film is about a family, Josh, Renai, and their three children, moving into a new home. Everything seems fine until some spirits come and ruin everything for the family. Their son is knocked unconscious and becomes comatose. The frightened parents turn to a ghost hunting team and a psychic for help. They discover that a spirit is hell bent on possessing the boy. So they have to stop the spirit before their son’s soul is lost to “the further”.

   Insidious is probably one of the few films that go into detail about ghost hunting and the reasons behind why it occurs. It was extremely creative and you can tell that someone really put a lot of thought into the mythology behind it. I don’t know why, but every time I watch the film I am reminded of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me. Probably because of the Black Lodge and the further are somewhat similar I suppose.

   To be honest, I only have one complaint about the film and that would be the film’s second half. It’s not able to live up to the high standards that were set by the first half, but that’s usual for most films actually. Imagine you’re watching Rambo and then midway through the film, it turns into a Hallmark Christmas TV movie. That’s a pretty drastic change right? That’s how Insidious felt to me.

  The film isn’t your typical horror film. First of all it’s PG-13. Usually a horror film being rated that turns me off, but it’s actually my favorite PG-13 horror film other than ‘The Sixth Sense’. It’s a horror film geared toward the more patient viewers in my opinion. Actually I believed that the film was going to be one of the few horror films that had a happy ending the way things were going. Silly of me to assume that.

    It’s reminiscent of the old-school horror flicks. Writer Leigh Whannell and director James Wan did put together a fun horror film, which spawned three sequels. Overall, ‘Insidious’ is a fun creepy film with great practical effects and a pretty decent ending.

4.2 out of 5 Black Lodge Dale Coopers

Fade to Black (1980) Review

“Mr. Berger, if you're firing me, I need to get my stuff out of there and my movie posters. My posters are valuable originals and I want them!”

   There are a few handful of films that about cinephiles such as ‘The Dreamers’, ‘Cinema Paradiso’, and ‘Hugo’, but for me my first film about a cinephile was ‘Fade to Black’. Essentially it’s a film about a cinephile whose obsession gets the better or him. It’s a film that both celebrates and condemns a deep love of film.

   The film centers on Eric. Everywhere he goes he is ridiculed, shunned, and ill-treated so he retreats into his movies as an escape. Black and White films are Eric’s refuge from a society that hates him. His aunt blames him for putting her in a wheelchair for something he had no control over. His boss of an advertising firm constantly calls him a fuck-up. His co-workers, who are cinephiles themselves, abuse him at work. Even strangers think he’s a creep. He has a substantial amount of movie knowledge, which he uses as pay back against his co-workers with trivia questions that they can’t answer (this is before Google and cellular phones). 

    ‘Fade to Black’ references many of the Golden Age films and many horror films as well. The film creates its very own monster as well… the cinephile pushed over the edge. Eric is a guy who thinks, lives, and breathes cinema. Then add that with his cynicism with life and he turns into morbid monster. It’s like a ‘Walter Mitty’ story gone wrong. His fantasies make him encouraged, unique, and they are also his coping mechanism to deal with a society that hurts him. When he coping mechanism goes full throttle and drives him into delusion… he starts to murder those who have done him wrong.

    The writer and director Vernon Zimmerman clearly knows what he’s talking about here, filling every scene with film references whether it’s in the dialogue, in the set decoration (there’s even a Tourist Trap poster at his workplace), and there are plenty of clips from some of the best Golden Age films even my favorite Cagney film. 

     Dennis Christopher played Eric. You actually feel sympathy for the guy. He just wants to escape from reality and watch his movies. When I first watched this film as a kid. I was so happy to see that there was someone like me; not the killing bit though, but that there was someone who loved the movies as much as I did. I didn’t feel that alone and knew there has to be another cinephile like me. Once again this was before social media. I actually still have the VHS somewhere. I wish they would release this film on Blu-ray already.

  All-in-all, this is an amazing and memorable experience for any cinephile. If you love film, Golden Age Hollywood, and horror this is the film for you. You can stream it on Shudder until we finally get a Blu-ray release.

5 out of 5 film reels 

The Mortuary Collection (2020) Review

  Anthology films are either a hit or miss because some segments are good and others not so much. There might be one great segment then two or three are really terrible. ‘The Mortuary Collection’ feels very much like those old school anthology films. It’s quite refreshing actually from the current anthologies that have been coming out.

   

   A ghoulish Clancy Brown plays an elderly mortuary caretaker who is approached by a young woman wanting a job as his assistant.  He begins to tell her a series of frightening tales about those who died in the town, a set of morality tales if you may. Unquestionably has that old school vibe. It’s hard to tell what year the film is set in since each segment is set throughout the 50s to 70s. I loved all the segments even though the middle story about the sick wife did drag on for a bit too long.

    The film looks fantastic despite its very modest budget, but at times it feels like its more style than substance. There’s some great looking practical effects especially that pregnancy bit. You can tell that they put a lot of work into their effects.

   There are some fabulous performances all round. The actors play their parts well, but Clancy Brown gives a larger than life performance. He steals every scene he’s in. Makes me miss the Carnivàle series, which should have lasted more than two seasons.

   This is Ryan Spindell’s debut feature film. He wrote and directed, which is pretty impressive.  The film is morbidly dark and scathingly funny. It’s a well-made entertaining film. Its right there up with my favorite anthology films: Trick ‘r Treat and Tales from the Darkside then of course there’s the television series Tales from the Crypt. It deserves high praise and any horror fan should give it a watch.

4 out of 5

Available on Shudder 

The Cleansing Hour (2019) Review

Spoiler Free Review

   Exorcism movies are a dime in a dozen. They’re usually either a hit or a miss. So when someone recommended the film to me I was hesitant, but I was pleasantly surprised by it. Anyone who has been on social media for a significant amount of time knows how evil it can be. The film adds a modernized twist to the possession story and asks the question what would happen if an actual demon from hell decided to use social media as its platform for evil.

  The film centers on two friends, Max and Drew, who run a webcast together. The webcast claims that every week they perform real life exorcisms, but the truth is that they work out of a soundstage and those aren’t real people who are possessed. They’re just actors who signed a non-disclosure agreement.  After every live stream “Father” Max thanks the audience for their prayers, but both Max and Drew are upset that they can’t pass the half a million views mark. Although selling the fake “blessed by the Vatican” cloths bring in some pretty good stacks of dough, but even then Max isn’t happy. He wants to reach that coveted verified status of over a million views during his live stream.

 

    So Max decides what will bring in views is if his friend Dante will be his possession victim of the week. Dante happens to be a drag queen and he’s hoping that’ll give him his coveted million viewers. When Dante fails to make it to the set, Drew’s fiancée takes the role at last minute. As the cameras start to roll, the crew realizes that their fake exorcism has become horribly real. As the clock ticks down, the bodies begin to start piling, they have to figure out how to expel the demon before its too late, but hey at least now millions of people are watching. The demon’s motivations aren’t clear until the very end of the film.

     Kyle Gallner, and Ryan Guzman give great performances. You can tell that they’ve been friends for a while, but the pressure from their webcast are coming between them. Then there’s Alix Angelis. The film simply just wouldn’t work without her in it. She gave a phenomenal physical performance with her eerie expressions and delighted provoking as the demon manipulating its way through the webcast.

     My only major complaint was when the film went from practical effects into CGI. The CGI felt dated, but it’s understandable since they were at a budget. It was like a mix of Playstation 2 and 3 CGI. It didn’t ruin the film by any means, but it was a distraction. If the film had a somewhat bigger budget that it could have had a perfect score from me.

   With that being said, ‘The Cleansing Hour’ is one of the most original films in recent years. Actually I haven’t been entertained by a possession film in many years. The acting was surprisingly good, the pacing was perfect, really well executed, and a visual delight minus the CGI of course. Not only is the film creative, but also quite humorous at times.  The film uses a possession story and uses the embodiment of evil to highlight how dangerous social media can be. An alternate title for the film could have been ‘So You Want to become an Influencer’. I like how director Damien LeVeck used the story to focus on hypocrisy, guilt, and the abuse of power. Not to mention providing one of the best endings to a horror film in quite some time. It’s a well made film that needs to be seen. Definitely give it a watch.

4.5 out of 5 Pazuzus

Available to watch on Shudder

Dr. Giggles (1992) Review

“If you think that’s bad, wait until you get my bill.”

Guilty Pleasure: a movie or piece of music that one enjoys despite feeling that it is not generally held in high regard.  

    For me there are a few horror films that are simply guilty pleasures. Mainly horror films from the 90’s; one such film is the one and only ‘Dr. Giggles’. Sure I love ‘The Godfather’, ‘Amadeus’, ‘Doctor Zhivago’, ‘The Shining’, and ‘The Mission’, but even my dark side requires some sick and twisted films to appreciate those Oscar worthy films. ‘Dr. Giggles’ is such a sick and twisted film. 

   After the success of the Elm Street films, many film studios tried to make their own horror mascots. Some attempts were fruitful like Candyman, Chucky, and Pinhead. Though a lot of attempts were less than desirable. Do you remember ‘The Dentist’, ‘Jack Frost’, or ‘Ice Cream Man’? Some do, but most don’t.  ‘Dr. Giggles’ is one of the more entertaining attempts to recreate the next Freddy Krueger. The crazed doctor is played by the great late Larry Drake (Darkman, Darkman II). He truly goes over the top with his performance and his one-liners during his kill scenes are hilarious. For example:

   I remember seeing an advert on the back of my ‘Robocop 2’ comic and I instantly wanted to see the film. That poster really gave off some killer slasher vibes. I begged my father to let me see it. He gave in. He didn’t much care for it, but man did I ever love it. Unlike ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’ I still very much to this day enjoy ‘Dr. Giggles’.

   The film is directed by Manny Coto, the man behind the 1997 box-office smash ‘Star Kid’… wait it was a box office disaster, but that too will forever be a guilty pleasure. Sadly both ‘Dr. Giggles’ and ‘Star Kid’ made him become one of those directors that only made Disney Channel movies before hanging it up as a director. Which is sad because he was a good director. Brian May composed the score, no not the Brian May of Queen fame, who also composed ‘Mad Max’ and ‘Freddy’s Dead’.

   The film is an extraordinary and highly enjoyable slasher film. It’s goofy, over-the-top and tries way too hard, but I’ll be damned I love the film. It’s stupidly funny, full of gore, tons of great one liners, and has some creative kills. Then there’s that laugh he makes throughout the film. So yeah check it out because…

Laughter really is the best medicine. 

5 out of 5 Scalpels