My
man Lo Pan, James Hong co-wrote, co-directed, and stars in this batshit insane
horror movie. There’s a great scene
early on that clues you in on the awesomeness to come. Hong is in his island mansion banging his hot
wife before he rapidly begins turning old.
(His old age make-up looks like a dime store version of the prosthetics
he wore in Big Trouble in Little China, but that’s kind of what makes it look
creepy.) He retreats to his mad scientist
lab down in the basement where he keeps a bunch of girls in skimpy outfits
chained up. He then uses their blood to
make an elixir to give himself eternal youth (err… well… make himself
look like the then sixty-year-old James Hong).
After
that amazing opening, the rest of The Vineyard kind of treads water. It’s here when a group of would-be actors and
actresses come to Hong’s island as part of a movie audition. Really, he just wants them for his latest crop
of victims. It’s in these passages that
the film feels most like a “typical” horror movie. I’m not saying it’s bad by any means. It just lacks the pizzazz of the early scenes
where Hong’s hired guards Kung Fu and castrate infidels.
The
good news is, the finale that involves Hong trying to make the sexy Final Girl
his new bride is more entertaining than the Scooby-Doo shit that populates the
middle act. Oh, and did I mention all the
zombies that are buried in Hong’s vineyard that occasional dig themselves up
and shuffle around the mansion like lost extras from the Thriller video? It’s that everything-but-the-kitchen-sink
approach that makes the movie so endearing.
Overall,
The Vineyard is wildly uneven, but there’s some vintage stuff here. If only Hong could bottle the fun of the
early scenes. I can’t say the rest of
the movie lives up to those moments, but that’s just sour grapes. In the end, the film is so crazy you just have
to raise your glass to it.
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