In Theaters/On VOD: LOST RIVER (2015)

LOST RIVER
(US - 2015)

Written and directed by Ryan Gosling. Cast: Christina Hendricks, Saoirse Ronan, Iain De Caestecker, Ben Mendelsohn, Eva Mendes, Matt Smith, Barbara Steele, Reda Kateb, Rob Zabrecky, Torrey Wigfield, Landyn Stewart. (R, 95 mins)

When it was shown at the Cannes Film Festival a year ago, LOST RIVER, the writing/directing debut of actor Ryan Gosling, was booed and jeered and declared a pretentious, unreleasable disaster. It seems Cannes audiences had their knives sharpened for Gosling, with LOST RIVER coming a year after the actor starred in Nicolas Winding Refn's ONLY GOD FORGIVES, which got a similar reaction but has already secured a sizable cult following (ONLY GOD FORGIVES is quite brilliant), and that seems to be the path that LOST RIVER will take as well. Recut by Gosling after Cannes and trimmed from 105 to 95 minutes, LOST RIVER isn't any more commercially viable, which is certainly why Warner Bros, who quickly snatched it up at Cannes only to immediately and unsuccessfully try selling it off after the toxic response, shelved it before opting to release it on just three screens and VOD in a stealth burial the likes of which the studio hasn't pulled off since Sondra Locke's RATBOY (1986) or Emir Kusturica's ARIZONA DREAM (1994). That's too bad, because LOST RIVER would probably look stunning on a big screen.

I wonder if anyone from Warners actually bothered watching LOST RIVER before acquiring it or if they saw the words "A Film by Ryan Gosling" and offered a deal on his name recognition alone. While he does appear in major Hollywood movies that pay well (THE NOTEBOOK, CRAZY STUPID LOVE), Gosling is typically drawn to smaller films of the offbeat (LARS AND THE REAL GIRL, DRIVE) or challenging (HALF NELSON, BLUE VALENTINE) sort, and one thing is certain: Gosling made the film he wanted to make with absolutely no concern for commercial appeal or mainstream acceptance. A surreal, one-of-a-kind hybrid of David Lynch, Dario Argento, Stanley Kubrick, Harmony Korine, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Terrence Malick, Michael Mann and quite a bit of Gosling's buddy Refn, with a haunting score by Johnny Jewel (another Refn collaborator) that recalls Goblin, John Carpenter, and Tangerine Dream, LOST RIVER is a triumph of style over substance. Filmed in Detroit, MI, it's also an essential entry in the ongoing cinematic chronicle of the urban blight of the once-mighty Motor City. In recent years, Detroit has taken on the aura of the Bronx in the late '70s and early '80s, providing some starkly effective locations in arthouse horror films by people who typically don't work in the horror genre, like Jim Jarmusch's ONLY LOVERS LEFT ALIVE and David Robert Mitchell's IT FOLLOWS. While Gosling's script leaves a bit to be desired, his eye for shot composition (he definitely has a Kubrickian thing going with center placement and framing), colors, camera movement, and his use of standing ruins in and around the Detroit area are remarkable, with LOST RIVER being perhaps the most visionary fusion of sight and sound since Panos Cosmatos' BEYOND THE BLACK RAINBOW (2012) and Jonathan Glazer's UNDER THE SKIN (2014). Filled with one striking image after another, it's so compulsively, hypnotically watchable that's zero doubt that the more adventurous, fringe audiences out there will lovingly embrace it.

The plot deals with the last denizens of a dying suburb called Lost River. Billy (MAD MEN's Christina Hendricks) is desperately trying to hang on to her family home in a mostly condemned area where houses are being torn down around her. Three months behind on her mortgage and with two sons--teenage Bones (AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Iain De Caestecker) and young Franky (Landyn Stewart)--she takes a job at a bizarre torture cabaret at the suggestion of sleazy, partially deaf bank manager Dave (Ben Mendelsohn, currently earning raves for the Netflix series BLOODLINE). Bones, meanwhile, tries to help out by raiding the ruins of buildings for copper, only to run afoul of Bully (former DOCTOR WHO star Matt Smith), a terrifying, self-described Lost River crime boss who claims ownership on all the copper in the city. Bones also spends time with the family's only remaining neighbor, Rat (Saoirse Ronan), who lives with her catatonic grandmother (Barbara Steele sighting!), who spends her days in her hoarder's nightmare of a home, dressed in her best and watching footage of her wedding decades earlier. Grandma's husband was killed many years ago in an accident when several towns were purposely flooded to make a reservoir at the edge of Lost River. The towns remain intact underwater, and local legend claims that Lost River's bad fortunes will turn around if someone can bring any kind of artifact from the flooded city to the surface.

The plot doesn't really hang together all that well (and most of what was cut from the Cannes version is said to involve some egregious overacting by Smith), but Gosling and cinematographer Benoit Debie (IRREVERSIBLE, ENTER THE VOID, SPRING BREAKERS) dare you to turn away. LOST RIVER is cult movie fan's wet dream, from the small-town oddness of Lynch, the cold and clinical staging of Kubrick, Bones and Rat's date filled with a neon glow and a Tangerine Dream-ish cue that recalls both Michael Mann's THIEF and Caleb and Mae getting ice cream in Kathryn Bigelow's NEAR DARK, and the endless Argento homages. Apparent Argento superfan Gosling's got a ubiquitous Fulvio Mingozzi-like SUSPIRIA/INFERNO cabbie played by Reda Kateb (at the risk of sounding like of a lecturing, condescending dick, if you get the reference to Mingozzi and cabs in SUSPIRIA and INFERNO, it's a good indication that LOST RIVER could work for you); a blatantly SUSPIRIA-like music cue plays throughout; there's some underwater shots that remind you of the secret flooded room under Mater Tenebrarum's stronghold in INFERNO; and the outside of the club where Billy works looks very similar to the Via de Bagni No. 49 library that Eleonora Giorgi enters in INFERNO (again, if that makes sense, LOST RIVER is for you), as well as the poster art for the Canadian horror film CURTAINS, oddly enough. And if all that isn't enough to get your Eurocult boner on, how can you not be won over by the casting of '60s genre icon Steele (BLACK SUNDAY, THE HORRIBLE DR. HICHCOCK) in a small but important role? Say what you will about the movie--true, it's little more than a series of fun and stylish references for the nerdiest of cult movie obsessives and a filmmaker's loving tribute to his Blu-ray and DVD collection--but the presence of Steele really sells Gosling's sincerity. I don't think he had a good idea of what he wanted to say with LOST RIVER, but he sure knew what he wanted it to look and sound like and once in a while, that's enough. What you get out of LOST RIVER depends on how much you bring to it from your own cult cinema experience. Many people will hate this hot mess of a film and you can't really blame them, but Gosling made it for himself first and foremost. However, if you're among those who "get" it, LOST RIVER might be 2015's most fascinating flawed masterpiece so far.

On DVD/Blu-ray: HAUNTER (2013); ENOUGH SAID (2013); and HOW I LIVE NOW (2013)

HAUNTER
(Canada/France - 2013)

Detroit-born, Canada-based filmmaker Vincenzo Natali's place in the cult movie pantheon was established with his 1997 debut CUBE, but he's largely maintained a low-profile since.  CUBE spawned two inferior follow-ups sans Natali, who instead went on to the mandatory unpleasant Miramax experience with the long-shelved CYPHER (dumped on DVD in the US in 2005, four years after it was shot), and then the quirky character piece NOTHING (2003), and a segment in 2006's PARIS, JE T'AIME.  He returned to big-screen sci-fi with 2009's bonkers SPLICE, which proved a little too odd for the summer multiplex crowd, which brings us to his latest film, the ghost story HAUNTER.  It's refreshingly old-school in its restrained approach, but it has some genuine scares, a sense of unease throughout, and a strong lead performance from LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE Oscar-nominee Abigail Breslin.  Breslin is Lisa, a gothy teen in 1985 who seems condemned to live the same GROUNDHOG DAY-type scenario every single day.  She lives with her parents (Peter Outerbridge, Michelle Nolden) and little brother (Peter DaCunha), and every day begins the same way, as they eat the same meals, do the same chores, and have the same arguments as Mom asks the same questions and Dad perpetually works on a car that just won't start.  The phone is dead and the house is surrounded by thick fog.  Only Lisa seems to realize that they're all dead and stuck in some sort of purgatory.  Lisa uncovers clues in hidden doors and in the attic, and is visited by an ominously spectral "Pale Man" (a terrifying Stephen McHattie) who warns her to accept that she's dead and to stop trying to contact the living.  Lisa has been somehow been summoned by the one of the house's present-day occupants, a teenage girl (Eleanor Zichy) whose father (David Hewlett) is seemingly possessed by the Pale Man, a serial killer who lived in the house prior to Lisa's family moving in.  His victims' souls are trapped in the house, kept from rest by the vengeful Pale Man, but Lisa must find a way to cross over into the real world to prevent history from repeating itself with the family now occupying the house.

Natali and screenwriter Brian King (the pair previously collaborated on CYPHER) are wearing a lot of influences on their sleeves here.  Not just GROUNDHOG DAY and THE OTHERS, but THE AMITYVILLE HORROR and THE SHINING, and a little of the 1988 cult classic LADY IN WHITE, and a lot of Lucio Fulci's THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETARY with its children reaching out to the living in a cursed house inhabited by a murderer who wreaks supernatural havoc on each new set of tenants.  With its foggy surroundings, Natali blankets the film in an almost Euro-horror sheen with some unabashed Spielbergian sentimentality.  Other than some cheap, TV-movie-looking visual effects, HAUNTER comes across like the kind of film that could've been made in the 1980s.  While the effects are disappointingly-executed at times and Natali goes for some tired RINGU-type ghost action in the finale, HAUNTER succeeds on style and atmosphere and some solid acting all around, particularly Breslin and McHattie.  It's not quite THE HAUNTING or THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE, but for the most part, it's a nicely low-key and pleasantly surprising little throwback horror film that just fell through the cracks and deserves to find an audience.  (Unrated, 97 mins, also available on Netflix Instant)


ENOUGH SAID
(US/UK - 2013)

Since her 1996 breakthrough WALKING AND TALKING was released during the height of Miramax's indie heyday, writer/director Nicole Holofcener has been a distinctive voice with smart, insightful movies about women that don't resort to "chick flick" clichés.  Her latest, ENOUGH SAID, relies a little more on dumb contrivance than her earlier films, and right down to its title, frequently feels like the kind of pleasant-but-middling effort her one-time mentor Woody Allen (Holofcener was a production assistant on Allen's A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S SEX COMEDY and HANNAH AND HER SISTERS) might crank out between genuinely great films.  That's not to say it isn't enjoyable, but were it not for a dumb decision by its main character, there probably wouldn't be a movie.  Julia Louis-Dreyfus is excellent as divorced, middle-aged masseuse Eva, stuck in a rut and fearing the empty nest once daughter Ellen (Tracey Fairaway) goes off to college.  Dragged to a party by her friend Sarah (Toni Collette), she meets Albert (James Gandolfini), an affable, schlubby sort of guy, and they immediately hit it off.  Meanwhile, Eva has a new client in poet Marianne (Holofcener regular Catherine Keener), who does little but trash-talk her ex-husband.  Eventually, Eva figures out that Marianne's ex is Albert, and can't stop herself from projecting Marianne's issues back on to him, jeopardizing the relationship (at one point, after an uncomfortable dinner with friends, Albert says "Why do I feel like I just spent the evening with my ex-wife?").  Here's why this whole conceit doesn't work:  Marianne is a bitter, pretentious, unlikable bitch, which goes without saying as she's portrayed by Catherine Keener, who, with rare exception, more or less has a lock on this type of character.  Eva doesn't seem desperate enough for a friend that she'd latch on to Marianne the way she does, or be so inclined to nitpick to such a level that she'd fatalistically torpedo her relationship with Albert.  Yeah, it's a romantic comedy, but real characters in real life--or, at least, characters in earlier Holofcener films, would've resolved this situation in a matter of minutes.

But ENOUGH SAID excels in other areas:  Louis-Dreyfus is very good and Eva's parental panic over her baby venturing into the real world is handled in a believable and sympathetic fashion.  She's also very funny, especially in a scene late in the film where she's insulted by someone and lets loose with a laugh that displays outrage, dismissal, and hurt all in a matter of seconds, and it's a vintage Louis-Dreyfus moment.  And then there's Gandolfini in his penultimate role (his last film, the crime thriller THE DROP, is due out later this year).  Released four months after his death, ENOUGH SAID lets the actor show a vulnerable side of himself rarely seen before.  You've always heard women say "he just had something about him," but he never really got to play a romantic lead until this and it's a stellar performance.  ENOUGH SAID is likable if a little too slight and predictable, but it's a must-see for fans of Louis-Dreyfus, who's really flourished post-SEINFELD (her HBO series VEEP is one of the funniest things on TV), and especially the much-missed Gandolfini.  (PG-13, 93 mins)


HOW I LIVE NOW
(UK - 2013)

This dumb, drab adaptation of Meg Rosoff's 2004 YA novel about a American teenager's survival in England after the country is leveled by a nuclear attack only made it to 68 screens during its US release.  Pick a reason why:  is it that it centers on the most abrasive and coarsely unlikable heroine in recent memory?  Is it that the target audience is too young to get into R-rated movies?  Is it that the central romance in the film is between cousins?  Coming off like a TWILIGHT-ized CHILDREN OF MEN and showcasing all the depth of a Taylor Swift song, HOW I LIVE NOW manages to defeat the gifted Saoirse Ronan, who's never turned in a bad performance but can't do much with the bitchy and complaining Daisy, a standard-issue Ugly American spending the summer--against her will, it seems--with some cousins who live in the English countryside.  While she churlishly resists any attempts to bond with them until they playfully throw her in a river and goo-goo eyes with the oldest, Eddie (George Mackay), quickly escalates to all-out cousin-fucking, London is nuked, Aunt Penn (Anna Chancellor) disappears, and the military comes through to round up the survivors.  The kids--there's also 14-year-old Isaac (Tom Holland, so good in THE IMPOSSIBLE), and nine-year-old Piper (Harley Bird)--are split up, with Daisy and Piper forced to fend for themselves.  It's amazing how quickly Daisy goes from spoiled bitch to hard-nosed survivalist almost instantaneously.  Even in the context of a fantastical film, it's too much of a stretch and even an actress as good as Ronan can't sell it.  There's no suspense, the pace is deadeningly dull, and while it might be aimed at sullen teens, it feels like it's made by them as well, which is quite shocking considering that director Kevin Macdonald (ONE DAY IN SEPTEMBER, TOUCHING THE VOID, THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND) and co-writer Tony Grisoni (the RED RIDING trilogy) have made very good films before (Macdonald is also the grandson of legendary British filmmaker Emeric Pressburger).  A meandering misfire from the start, you can probably live the rest of your life without subjecting yourself to HOW I LIVE NOW.  (R, 101 mins)

On DVD/Blu-ray: VIOLET & DAISY (2013) and DEAD IN TOMBSTONE (2013)

VIOLET & DAISY
(US - 2013)

The directing debut of Oscar-winning PRECIOUS screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher, VIOLET & DAISY is an oddity that starts as an almost chick-flick version of THE BOONDOCK SAINTS before becoming a stagy character study.  It's a little too "cute" at times, only very rarely crossing the line into "quirky." It could almost be a play, and it definitely feels like the kind of movie made by a screenwriter stepping behind the camera for the first time.  Violet (Alexis Bledel) and Daisy (Saoirse Ronan) are two teenaged assassins about to start a much-deserved vacation when they get a call about a quick-money hit from their handler Russ (Danny Trejo):  rub out a guy who stole some money from their boss.  Wanting some time off but needing some extra money to buy matching dresses from the trendy clothing line of teen pop sensation Barbie Sunday (Cody Horn), Violet and Daisy take the assignment.  Arriving at the target's apartment only to find he's out, they wait for him but fall asleep on his couch.  When the schlubby target (James Gandolfini) arrives home, he covers them with a blanket and gives them cookies and milk when they wake up.  The girls unexpectedly bond with the target, who turns out to be a nice guy who's had some shitty luck, and find it difficult to pull the trigger, causing them to re-examine their own friendship and working partnership while the boss sends his top assassin (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) to trail them in case they can't complete the job.

VIOLET & DAISY doesn't always work, and it belongs to that KILLING THEM SOFTLY and THE AMERICAN school of denying audiences the kind of payoff that the set-up seems to ensure (I imagine this would've gotten an "F" from the insipid CinemaScore had it opened wide), but it has its moments amid the inconsistencies.  Ronan and Bledel are quite good, and they get a great intro dressed as nuns, mowing down a roomful of mobsters to the tune of Merrilee Rush's version of "Angel of the Morning."  Other odd touches include the pair being prone to hopscotch and lollipops, riding a large tricycle to a job, and Daisy playing patty-cake with Russ while talking over their assignment.  The joke, of course, is that they're basically little girls in a cold, violent profession, though Violet--played by a well-cast Bledel, who's about a decade older than she looks--hides that she's a bit more hard-edged and worldly and tries to shield that from the naïve and childlike Daisy; Violet is almost like a few-years-older version of Natalie Portman's Matilda from Luc Besson's THE PROFESSIONAL.  At times, there's a bit of a SUCKER PUNCH thing going on here as well, though VIOLET & DAISY was shot in 2010, well before that film's release.  It's also worth a look for the always-excellent work of the late and already much-missed Gandolfini, who died two weeks after the film's belated, 17-screen theatrical release in June 2013.  At just 88 minutes, the film feels a bit hacked down (a pre-OFFICE and MAGIC MIKE Horn is in the credits but is only seen on a magazine cover and a billboard) and hits and misses in equal measure, but the fine performances of the leads make it an interesting curiosity, as does Gandolfini's brief reunion with his SOPRANOS co-star John Ventimiglia.  (R, 88 mins)


DEAD IN TOMBSTONE
(US - 2013)

With films like DEATH RACE 2, DEATH RACE 3: INFERNO, THE MARINE 2, and THE SCORPION KING 3 to his credit, Dutch director Roel Reine is usually mentioned along with Isaac Florentine and John Hyams as a top name in the world of straight-to-DVD.  The surprisingly entertaining DEATH RACE 3, in particular, demonstrated that Reine--who frequently functions as his own cinematographer and camera operator--was adept at making low-budget action films look like big-screen contenders.  The idea of Reine helming a supernatural western is full of potential, but DEAD IN TOMBSTONE is a disappointment, primarily because he falls into the trap of shaky-cam action sequences that reduce everything to jittery, headache-inducing incoherence.  Reine's camera never stops moving and swirling, and he also gets a little too distracted with directorial wankery, usually in the form of bizarre POV shots that bring to mind what a spaghetti western might look like if Sergio Leone had access to a Skycam.

The outlaw Blackwater Gang, led by Guerrero de la Cruz (Danny Trejo) and his half-brother Red Cavanaugh (Anthony Michael Hall), arrives in the small mining town of Edendale to steal some gold from a bank vault.  They successfully steal the gold, but the psychotic Red kills the sheriff (Daniel Lapaine) and goads the rest of the gang into killing Guerrero.  Trapped in a Purgatory that looks like a leftover SILENT HILL set, Guerrero makes a deal with the Devil--who appears in the form of a philosophical blacksmith (Mickey Rourke)--to save his soul in exchange for the six remaining members of the Blackwater Gang.  A year later, Guerrero pulls a HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER and shows up in Edendale--now taken over by the power-mad Red and renamed Tombstone--to exact his revenge.  There's no reason that this shouldn't be a fun B-movie, but Reine can't restrain himself and just shoot a sequence in a straightforward fashion.  He wants to go for a classic Sam Raimi feel with a contemporary, video-game aesthetic--Reine's a talented genre director but he's not Raimi and the results are simply eye-glazingly dull.  If he'd just buckled down and made a normal-looking western, he might've had a minor cult movie on his hands instead of the forgettable DTV throwaway it turned out to be. Trejo is perfectly cast, Hall has some fun playing a dastardly villain, and Dina Meyer is good as the sheriff's vengeance-obsessed widow.  Rourke, presumably here because he torched the last remaining bridge built after his short-lived WRESTLER renaissance by walking off of SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS and trash-talking its director, Martin McDonagh (Woody Harrelson replaced him), looks even worse here than he did in JAVA HEAT.  Reine directed the 2008 Steven Seagal dud PISTOL WHIPPED and seems to employ some classic Seagal tactics here as he has a bloated Rourke a) wearing a big duster in a hapless attempt to conceal his gut, and b) dubbed by someone else in most of his scenes.  There seems to be no rhyme or reason as to why Rourke--who has a distinct sound--has an obviously different voice on and off throughout.  Perhaps a plot point was changed and this was the best they could do rather than deal with him coming back to record some new dialogue?   DEAD IN TOMBSTONE makes impressive use of some unlikely locations in Romania, utilizing some still-standing COLD MOUNTAIN sets that have been seen in several westerns since (the History Channel miniseries HATFIELDS & MCCOYS was also shot in Romania), but when it's all said and done, it's unfortunately a missed opportunity.  Available in both R-rated and unrated versions, the R-rated running 99:59 and the unrated 99:58.  What the hell is that all about?  (R/Unrated, both 100 mins)

On DVD/Blu-ray: BYZANTIUM (2013) and FRIGHT NIGHT 2: NEW BLOOD (2013)

BYZANTIUM
(Ireland/UK - 2013)

Many reviews of Neil Jordan's vampire film BYZANTIUM said it felt like the director was taking a second pass at his 1994 big-screen version of INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE.  Considering the film's past/present structure, that's a valid statement but it doesn't really represent the whole film.  BYZANTIUM, scripted by Moira Buffini and based on her play, is frequently derivative in the way it feels like it belongs in the same Anne Rice universe but also in its similarities to the Swedish vampire hit LET THE RIGHT ONE IN (2008).  It manages to become its own beast, so to speak, and despite the occasionally slow pacing, the overlength, and the sometimes confusing structure, it overcomes its obstacles and ends up an interesting if inconsistent work.  Clara (Gemma Arterton) and Eleanor (Saoirse Ronan) are a mother-daughter vampire pair passing themselves off as sisters in present-day London.  Clara works as a stripper, procuring her own victims among the drunk and belligerent men for whom she provides lap dances and, if the money's right, sexual services. Where Clara is ruthless and does what she needs to do for nourishment and money, the sympathetic Eleanor is quiet and withdrawn, feeding on humans but only those who are already about to die and who ask her to end their pain.  When a mystery man from their past turns up asking questions, Clara decapitates him and the two flee to a downtrodden seaside resort town that Eleanor senses they've visited before.  There, Clara latches on to lonely, schlubby Noel (Daniel Mays), who recently inherited a rundown hotel from his late mother.  She turns the hotel into a brothel called Byzantium as local men gradually start to vanish.  Fed up with her mother's lifestyle, Eleanor goes off to school and tries to live as normal a life as possible, befriending sickly Frank (the perpetually sickly-looking Caleb Landry Jones of ANTIVIRAL) and writing down her story for him.  Frank gives the memoir to their creative writing teacher (Tom Hollander) and soon, more men from Clara's past are on the scene.  In Eleanor's story, we learn that she and her mother are over 200 years old and that Clara was a prostitute servicing some Napoleonic-era soldiers who were part of a vampire order called the Pointed Nails of Justice.  Clara tricked her way into joining this He-Man Woman-Haters Club, and they've been after her and her daughter since.

BYZANTIUM has a great opening half hour, but then meanders a bit when it gets bogged down in the 200 years ago backstory and even more when one of the soldiers (Jonny Lee Miller) tells his own story within the flashback.  It picks up again in the home stretch, but the final scene between Clara and Eleanor feels rushed considering the emotional buildup to it, as one interpretation of the film could be as a metaphor for a concerned mother (it's not often you see vampires being concerned about money and keeping a roof over their head) learning to let go of her child.  Even with its problems (sorry, but "Pointed Nails of Justice" just sounds too goofy for a serious film), it's just nice to see a vampire film for adults that isn't populated with brooding hotties headed straight for the Teen Choice Awards.  A terrific Arterton has the showier role, attacking it with sometimes feverish gusto while avoiding the easy pitfall taking it over-the-top, but it's Ronan's Eleanor who's at the heart of BYZANTIUM, effectively conveying the human side of vampirism, showing no malice or desire to harm anyone and struggling with the anguished burden of eternal life.  With one foot in the arthouse and the other in the multiplex, BYZANTIUM sometimes takes on too much and becomes too unwieldy for its own good, but it's an interesting take on the vampire genre that will certainly find a cult following rather quickly.  (R, 118 mins)


FRIGHT NIGHT 2: NEW BLOOD
(US - 2013)

Ostensibly a sequel to FRIGHT NIGHT (2011), which was a remake of FRIGHT NIGHT (1985), FRIGHT NIGHT 2: NEW BLOOD has nothing to do with FRIGHT NIGHT (2011) and is actually another remake of FRIGHT NIGHT (1985), with elements of that film's sequel FRIGHT NIGHT PART 2 (1989).  Does that make sense?  Just by breaking that down, I put more thought into FRIGHT NIGHT 2: NEW BLOOD than the filmmakers did.  Directed by Eduardo Rodriguez (STASH HOUSE) and written by Matt Venne, whose screenplays for WHITE NOISE 2 and MIRRORS 2 have apparently made him the go-to guy for in-name-only DTV sequels, this "sequel" has hero Charley Brewster (Will Payne) pining for his ex Amy (Sacha Parkinson) while they, and his buddy Evil Ed (Chris Waller) are on some group exchange student sojourn to Romania, where production services can be cheaply procured by budget-conscious Hollywood studios unwilling to spend any more coin on a Will "Who?" Payne-headlined movie than is absolutely necessary.  They're attending a seminar on European art history taught by the sexy Prof. Gerri Dandridge (Jaime Murray of HUSTLE and DEFIANCE), who, of course, is a vampire but Charley can't prove it to anyone. 

 

This mostly follows the template of Tom Holland's 1985 classic, with the twist of turning Jerry Dandridge (previously played by Chris Sarandon in 1985 and Colin Farrell in 2011) into "Gerri" Dandridge and utilizing both the legend of Elizabeth Bathory and riffing on Julie Carmen's "Regine Dandridge" (Jerry's vengeful vampire sister) from FRIGHT NIGHT PART 2 (1989).  It's all a rather slipshod affair with a mostly uninteresting cast (only British TV vet Murray seems above the material), and thoroughly unlikable characters.  Waller plays Evil Ed as a smirking douchebag until the plot requires him to be a horror geek, and Peter Vincent, so brilliantly played by Roddy McDowall as a has-been TV horror host in the 1985 film (in a performance that, believe it or not, briefly generated some Supporting Actor Oscar buzz) and acceptably by David Tennant as a Vegas magician in 2011, is here a cynical, hard-drinking, asshole reality-TV monster hunter played by Sean Power.  It's hard to imagine McDowall's Peter Vincent telling a vampirized Evil Ed to "Kiss the cross, bitch!" which is pretty much the level of this loud, stupid, and boring film.  The only real surprise FRIGHT NIGHT 2: NEW BLOOD offers is Evil Ed telling the Bathory story and having it play out onscreen in animated graphic novel form.  It doesn't really serve a purpose, but it's something, I guess.  Bland actors, dull performances (in their defense, they're all British or Irish and with the exception of Murray, using American accents), and the mandatory shitty CGI splatter.  What a forgettable, pointless waste of time. (Unrated, 99 mins)