BLUE RUIN (2014) ***

After being impressed by Jeremy Saulnier’s Murder Party, I figured I’d give his follow-up, Blue Ruin a try.  It was a critical hit on the indie circuit and got him good enough notices to parlay it into his biggest success, Green Room a few years later.  While it’s not quite as strong as either of those films, it’s still an absorbing and stylish thriller.

What we have is basically a homeless version of Death Wish.  Dwight (Macon Blair) lives in his car along the Rehoboth boardwalk.  When he finds out the guy who murdered his parents is getting out of jail, he heads down to Virginia and kills him in a barroom bathroom.  His family comes after Dwight packing heat and he must defend himself at any cost.

Saulnier moves things along at a slow and methodical pace.  Even though there are times where it seems like not a lot is happening, it all works out well in the end because you get to see the toll that violence and revenge takes on its characters.  There are a lot of quiet stretches along the way that are punctuated with bursts of gruesome violence, which is what makes them so effective and shocking.  

Blair (who’s appeared in every one of Saulnier’s films) is great in the lead role.  The whole movie rests squarely on his shoulders.  If we didn’t grow to care about him and his quest for revenge, everything would’ve come crashing down.  He does a fine job showing what an average joe has to go through to get revenge.  He’s not Charles Bronson.  He’s just a dude, which is the main thing that separates Blue Ruin from your typical revenge picture.

THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS (2018) ** ½

The Coen Brothers’ The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is their first Netflix movie.  It might also be the first western anthology ever made.  It’s the first one I’ve seen at any rate.  Like most anthologies, it’s almost doomed from the start because of the uneven structure of the genre.  However, there’s some real gold to be found here.

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (****) Buster Scruggs (Tim Blake Nelson) looks like an aimable, unassuming goofball, but he’s also a crack shot quickdraw gunfighter.  In addition to shooting people, he loves singing and narrating the events of his life.  In fact, nothing, even death can stop him from his longwinded narration.

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (the story, not the whole movie) is probably the best thing the Coens have ever done.  It is a hilarious and surprising ode to Roy Rogers and Sam Peckinpah in which the sadistic outbursts of violence are almost as funny as Nelson’s performance.  This segment allows the Coens to take their penchant for creating colorful characters with peculiar dialogue patterns and their knack for sudden violence to the nth degree and they in turn create what has got to be the ultimate Coen Brothers creation.  

Near Algodones (***) James Franco stars as a bandit who tries to rob a bank.  He doesn’t count on the armor-plated teller (Stephen Root) and his devotion to the bank’s security.  As he is about to be hung for his crime, the bandit, through a set of unlikely circumstances, goes out of the frying pan and into the fire.

This tale has a great set-up and a strong middle section, but it ends much too abruptly (albeit fittingly).  Personally, I would’ve liked to have seen this sequence expanded upon.  It would’ve been nice to have had Franco’s character fleshed out a bit more.  It would’ve given the final scene a bit more impact, instead of just a taste of (literal) gallows humor.

Meal Ticket (** ½) A man (Liam Neeson) runs a small traveling sideshow.  The star of the show is a quadruple amputee (Harry Melling) who performs everything from the works of William Shakespeare to the speeches of Abraham Lincoln.  Eventually, he realizes the show can’t go on forever.

Wow.  This one is just bleak and depressing.  It’s well-realized and the art direction is excellent, but like the previous tale, it’s all too brief.  This is another one that would’ve benefited from a longer running time.  It earns points for being relentlessly grim, but the payoff (although inevitable) isn’t quite as effective as it could’ve been.  

All Gold Canyon (*** ½) An old prospector (Tom Waits) makes his way through the countryside looking for gold.  Through many ups and downs, he finally strikes it rich.  Almost immediately, he’s forced to defend his claim at any cost.

This tale perfectly shows us the loneliness and isolation of the Old West.  The grizzled Waits fits right into the Coens universe, so much so that you have to wonder why it took them so long to cast him in one of their movies.  Waits endears himself to the audience and when it comes time for him to protect his gold, we wholeheartedly root for him.  This also has the distinction of being one of the most uplifting stories in the lot, which is nice, because the last two tales are utterly depressing and/or dull.  

The Gal Who Got Rattled (**) Zoe Kazan goes out on the Oregon Trail with her brother to meet her future fiancée.  Along the way, she has to deal with the death of her brother, the possibility of putting down her dog, and the prospect of being cheated out of her money by a scoundrel wagon master.  A handsome cowpoke (Bill Heck) offers to help her by proposing marriage, but that might not be enough to save her doomed voyage.  

This one moves at an ambling pace.  It also lacks the sharp humor of the other stories.  The ironic ending doesn’t quite work as well as in the other tales either, mostly because of its drawn-out nature.  The performances by Heck and Kazan are solid, but they are unable to elevate this solemn, slow-moving sequence.

The Mortal Remains (**) A stagecoach carrying a handful of passengers pushes on toward the frontier.  The passengers pass the time by having rambling conversations and generally getting on each other’s nerves.  It soon becomes apparent that two of the passengers aren’t who they seem.  

The talky nature and claustrophobic setting help to drag this story down and end things on a down note.  That’s not to say there aren’t some good moments here.  I particularly liked Chelcie Ross as the talkative trapper who goes on and on about people being like “ferrets”.  The twist ending is a bit obvious (especially if you’ve seen Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors), but like most of the stories here, it ultimately comes off a bit slight.

Like most anthologies, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is uneven and fitfully amusing.  It serves to sketch for the audience the harshness of frontier life as well as the sudden outbursts of violence that hallmarked the Wild West.  Most of the stories end with a big death scene, which shows the arbitrary nature of life and death.  I can’t say it’s entirely successful, but the first segment alone just about makes it worthwhile. 

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: THE NIGHT OF THE STRANGLER (1972) ** ½

College student Denise (Susan McCullough) returns home to the south to tell her family she is leaving school to marry a black man.  Denise’s younger brother Vance (Micky Dolenz from The Monkees) is supportive, but her older brother Dan (James Ralston) is a full-blown racist, so he smacks her around.  The next day, Denise’s boyfriend is murdered by a sniper, and she is later drowned in her bathtub by a black gloved killer, who makes her death look like a suicide.  Meanwhile, a young black priest (Chuck Patterson) reaches out to the brothers to offer his condolences.  More people close to the family wind up dead, and a pair of perplexed cops are left trying to make sense of it all.

Directed by Joy N. (Night of Bloody Terror) Houck, The Night of the Strangler is surprisingly progressive and modern for a movie from 1972.  It has more on its mind than just being another whodunit, even if the execution is a bit clunky at times.  Houck tries to juggle the various plotlines, which involve multiple killers and (too many) supporting characters with inconsistent results.  It’s not completely successful, but the murder scenes have a moderate amount of kick to them (there’s a neat bit involving a booby-trapped glove compartment), and the twist ending is effective.  

Oh, and nobody gets strangled, so there’s that.  

Another debit is that some of the dramatic scenes veer into heavily into camp.  Ralston especially goes overboard as the sniveling racist brother.  Dolenz on the other hand fares well in a rare dramatic role and makes a memorable impression as the sensitive brother.

Dolenz also gets the best line on his brother’s wedding day when he says, “Beauty and the bigot!”

AKA:  Dirty Dan’s Women.  AKA:  Is the Father Black Enough?  AKA:  The Ace of Spades.

THE BLUE HOUR (1971) **

Tania (Ann Chapman) is unable to get it on with her boyfriend on the beach.  He tries to understand where her head’s at and she relates to him her entire sexual history.  She works as an artist’s model, gets accosted by her horny Greek uncle, attacked by bikers, and used by just about anyone who comes in contact with her.  The longest flashback recalls her teenage years living with her mother on a small island where her mating prospects are slim to none.  (“There’s nothing on this island but goats and old men!”)  That all changes when a young priest catches her eye, but like all her conquests, it too will end in tragedy.

The Blue Hour is a slow moving, sometimes dull affair.  It’s short on exploitation goods and long on amateurish artsy-fartsy aspirations.  The fractured narrative, which consists of lots of flashbacks within flashbacks, is frustrating, and the film hems and haws way too much to be considered effective.  The rapid-fire, ADD editing is probably the worst part, although the long, drawn-out scenes where nothing happens (like the endless belly dancing scene) don’t help either.  

This is more of a psychological profile of a damaged woman with a fragile psyche than an honest to goodness skin flick. If the director’s intent was depressing us instead of titillating us, then mission accomplished.  Still, if you are patient, you’ll be treated to a decent third act where Chapman has an excellent solo girl scene on a bed and bangs the priest on the beach. It doesn’t save the movie or anything, but at least we’re treated to an OK amount of skin.  It’s just a helluva long wait. 

Chapman is quite good and looks rather incredible naked.  Too bad she’s rarely given a chance to display either of her talents.  It’s a shame she didn’t have much of a career because there’s enough evidence here to suggest she could’ve been a minor exploitation star.

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: HOBGOBLINS 2 (2009) *

Rick Sloane returns with a Hobgoblins sequel no one asked for, and thirty-one years too late at that.  It was his first film in eleven years after Vice Academy 6.  According to IMDB, he hasn’t made a movie since, which I’m sure is best for everyone.

A bunch of forty-year-old looking teenage college students go on a field trip to a mental institution.  After their visit, a disbelieving doctor unleashes the evil Hobgoblins upon the hospital.  The teens go home for a movie night and the hobgoblins soon show up to feed on their fears.

Most of the jokes are complete groaners, or worse, don’t elicit any response at all.  The only sight gag I laughed at was when one of the girls holds a textbook that says, “Really Abnormal Psychology”.  There are a couple of callbacks to the original, like the fight with garden tools, but they don’t really add anything to the film.

The worst sin this painful sequel commits is that it’s just boring.  As bad as the original Hobgoblins was, there was a goofiness about it that made it at least semi-tolerable.  Whenever things get too dull, someone will say “Hobgoblins” three times and get attacked by a hand puppet.  Or, should I say, awkwardly hold a hand puppet to their chest and pretend to be attacked.  It’s that kind of movie.

Even though Hobgoblins 2 was made in ’09, the grimy cinematography makes it look like it came out of the ‘80s.  Because of that, it feels like a natural continuation of the original (even if the mythology of the creatures is totally different).  That’s about the best compliment I can give it.

The best part though is seeing glimpses of Sloane’s old fake movie trailers like Chainsaw Chicks, Amputee Hookers, and Nightmare of the Lost Whores.  Unfortunately, you’ve got to wait until the end credits to see most of them.  Say what you will about Sloane, but at least he was making these faux trailers decades before Grindhouse made it fashionable.

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: APOSTLE (2018) ** ½

Dan Stevens sets out to rescue his sister from a religious cult who live on a remote island in the early days of the 20^th century.  A chance (and potentially deadly) run-in with the leader Malcolm (Michael Sheen) sort of grants him an immunity to go around the island unsupervised.  His rescue mission is eventually compromised when one of Malcolm’s lieutenants (Mark Lewis Jones) stages an uprising.

Apostle comes to us from Gareth Evans, the director of The Raid.  I wish I could say it does for horror movies what The Raid did for Kung Fu action, but that is sadly not the case.  It has his fingerprints all over it and as a fan of Evans’ work, I can honestly say I’m glad I saw it. 

Many have compared it to The Wicker Man.  That’s certainly an apt description, but Apostle has its own unique energy.  It’s closer in spirit to Evans’ short from V/H/S/2 as they’re both about religious cults.  In the end, he veers into some serious Mark of the Devil territory as people are hoisted upon a series of torture devices and ground up into gory, gruesome gristle.  This justifies some of the longwinded build-up, although for such a slow burn, the movie really needed a little more sizzle in its finale.

Like most of Evans’ work, Apostle moves at a deliberate pace.  This is one of the rare times where his approach is a little too deliberate for its own good because you really start to feel the length.  The middle section particularly dawdles.  Once you learn the secret of the cult and the island itself, it works up to a certain point, but stops just short of being satisfying.  We do get at least one scene where he shows his Raid roots with Stevens showcasing a smidgeon of Kung Fu flair.

Stevens is excellent.  If anyone of lesser talent was in the lead, the movie would’ve gone off the rails much sooner.  Lucy (Bohemian Rhapsody) Boynton lends fine support as Malcolm’s skeptical daughter.  Sheen is a lot of fun too.  If you saw his scenery chewing performance in Tron:  Legacy, you know a cult leader loony is well within his wheelhouse.  All three leads do a great job, but in the end, it’s not quite enough to push this one into the win column.

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD 3D (2006) * ½

Night of the Living Dead is in the public domain, so virtually anyone can remake it and not have to pay any royalties to George Romero’s estate.  However, just because you CAN do something, doesn’t mean you SHOULD.  I mean Romero and Tom Savani even tried to remake it in 1990 and look how that turned out.

This remake starts with same bickering siblings going to a cemetery, but it becomes very different very quickly.  Instead of being immediately killed, Johnny (Ken Ward) basically ditches Barbara (Brianna Brown), Ben (Joshua DesRoches) is white, and Harry (Greg Travis) is now a pot farmer.  Also, it seems that the zombie outbreak is a local phenomenon, which lessens the impact of worldwide impending doom.  What the fuck?  

I guess making Ben white is the biggest problem.  Instead of making social commentary like Romero did, director Jeff Broadstreet opts to make another stupid zombie movie.  The updating of the classic moments from the original are also weak.  In this version, Johnny delivers his famous “They’re coming to get you Barbara” line via a text message.  I’m not making this up.  There are even moments that crib from Return of the Living Dead and some of the make-up look like zombies from that film.

I didn’t see this in its intended 3D format, but it didn’t look to me like much popped out of the screen.  All I can remember is a joint, a bullet, a shovel, and a few hands.  That’s not nearly enough to really justify the 3D if you ask me.

It’s not all bad though.  I liked the opening, which starts with the beginning of the original film before the camera pulls back to reveal it’s just playing on a television set.  The addition of Sid Haig as an ornery mortician is one of the few treats.  He skates by on his persona alone as he seems more annoyed that the dead are coming back to life than anything.  Some of his dialogue is good for a laugh too.  

The other bright spot is Cristen Michelle.  She plays a horny babe who gets caught having sex in a barn by the zombies and is attacked in the nude.  Her extended nude scene is reminiscent of the one by Betsy Rue in the My Bloody Valentine remake and is by far the best thing in the film.  

A handful of memorable moments aside, Night of the Living Dead 3D completely falls apart in the end.  The change of the original’s ending is downright infuriating, although admittedly this ending isn’t nearly as bad as Savani’s version.  Heck, Michelle’s nude scene alone gives this one the edge over that flick any day.

AKA:  House of the Dead 3D.  AKA:  Night of the Living Dead 2007.  AKA:  Zombie 3D.