Horrorscifiguy's Blog

The Churchill Awards!

The award season ended in Hollywood earlier this week when this year’s Oscars were handed out. Now it’s time for the limelight to shine fully on the prestigious Churchill genre film awards.
Nominees and winners were selected from the films I either watched at a theater or received an advanced copy of during 2007. When I looked over the list of nearly 50 films, 2007 was a deceptively good year for movie going. But please keep the following in mind: I didn’t see every movie that got a theatrical release, and I skip at least 80% of all sequels and remakes. I’m interested in fresh groceries, aren’t you? So, with no further adieu, time to present the annual Churchills!

Best Action/Adventure Film: Apocalypto. Don’t be put off by all the hoopla surrounding Mel Gibson’s celebrated foreign film. Released late in 2006 and billed as a historical epic, don’t let the sub-titles fool you. This film is a pure adrenaline thrill ride, with a great hero to cheer for and no shortage of unrelenting action and bloody violence. The other top nominees included 3:10 to Yuma and the supremely kick-ass 300.

Best Horror/Thriller Film: Mr. Brooks. I’ve never been a real Kevin Costner fan, but this entertaining and shocking serial killer flick was a total surprise. Runner ups were Pan’s Labyrinth and Zodiac.

Best Comedy: Knocked Up. Suddenly Hollywood has decided pregnancy is hilarious. First there was Knocked Up, and now the current indie gem Juno. The story is simple: a gorgeous career woman has a drunken one night stand with a professional slacker, leading directly to the descriptive title. The film is both poignant and hilarious. Super Bad and the comedy/action hybrid Hot Fuzz were the other nominees.


INTERMISSION. (Should be really short lines at the restrooms.)


Biggest Surprise: Mr. Brooks. The film far surpassed my expectation, headed up by a great performance by Kevin Costner. Catch it on DVD.

Most Unique Film: Black Snake Moan. A very peculiar drama with adult themes rooted in both physical and emotional betrayal and redemption, Samuel L. Jackson and Christina Ricci star in this most unusual, disturbing, thought provoking film.

Most Disappointing Film: I Am Legend. Will Smith did a great job talking to mannequins and his dog, but it just turned out to be another big budgeted holiday remake that faded quickly from memory as the days passed. It wasn’t even better than either of its predecessors, The Last Man on Earth and The Omega Man. At least the Fresh Prince saved the world again.

Worst Horror Film of 2007: So many choices….Resident Evil 3, Black Christmas…Some stunk so bad I can still smell them, but the worst of the worst was tabloid queen Lindsey Lohan’s I Know Who Killed Me, a horror film that probably tried to cast Paris Hilton or Britney Spears before Ms. Lohan’s luck went from bad to worse.


And now for the, shall we say, unconventional awards…


Most Bullets Fired: There are several very strong nominees - Smokin’ Aces, Hot Fuzz, 3:10 to Yuma, or Live Free or Die Hard, but the winner is Shoot ‘em Up.

Ugliest Death: There were some dandies, such as death by zombie crows, but I have to give the Churchill to 28 Weeks Later and the raging homicide that took place between Robert Carlyle’s guilt-ridden husband and his wife, who infects him and pays an ugly price.

Most Ridiculously Cool Scene: Many reached for prize, but the hardware goes to 30 Days of Night, and our hero sheriff that shoots up with vampire blood so he can grow fangs and go one on one with the vampire leader. Now that’s ridiculously cool.

Best Monster: Not a great year for monsters, but I’ll go with the mutant, otherworldly spiders in The Mist. *Gagging* I hate spiders!

Worse Horror Remake: Though it hit big screens on Christmas Day 2006, I didn’t plunk down my cash until early 2007. Black Christmas was no gift. Despite a bevy of beautiful, talented actresses, the flick flat out sucked. Well, except for the shower scene.

Best Near-Miss: Gotta go with Dead Silence. James Wan wrote and directed in this scary little ditty involving ventriloquist dolls, town curses, and, oh yeah, did I mention ventriloquist dolls? It had all the elements to be a low budget classic, but there were too many lapses to overcome. So close, and yet so far.

Hottest Smokin’ Genre Momma: This category was by far the toughest to decide. Nominees included Christina Ricci (Black Snake Moan – if you like your woman trashy), Elisha Cuthbert (Captivity), Monica Bellucci’s lactating beauty (Shoot ‘em Up), Rose McGowen machine gun legged stripper (Planet Terror), or take your pick between Milla Jovovich or Ali Larter (Resident Evil 3). But when it was all said and done, the Churchill goes to Alicia Keys’ killer siren assassin in Smokin’ Aces. If only it could have been me carrying her off into the sunset…Ms. McGowen’s Cherry of Planet Terror was a close, close 2nd.

Biggest Slice of Beefcake: Women genre lovers need eye candy too, and no film of 2007had more pure testosterone for those women who take their hard liquor straight from the brawn bottle than 300. I know my wife had no problems at all sitting through it, and I don’t think the female gasps I heard from the audience were all from the violence either.

Well, there you have it - genre films recognized and saluted for the year of our queen 2007. Hope you had a great time sitting next to the cute seat filler. Be careful driving home.

See you next year for The Churchills.

DARK CASTLE: A Reasonable Rant

Howdy fellow horror fans.
Right off the bat I’d like to promise not to cry like such an unhappy horror baby, but I just can’t ignore something that has bothered me for quite a while.
Is it just me or have the films of Dark Castle Entertainment pretty much stunk to high heaven?
Okay, just in case there are folks unfamiliar with Dark Castle, here’s da poop: it’s the genre specialty production company created in the late 1990’s by Joel Silver and Robert Zemeckis, they of Lethal Weapon and Forrest Gump fame. I mean, not only are these two major Hollywood heavy hitters, but both were executive producers on the Tales from the Crypt series, so you figure they both have a sincere affection for entertainment that goes bump in the night. I also believe the family of William Castle, the deceased director and showman, is involved in this venture. Now, I acknowledge neither Silver or Zemeckis are known as forces to be reckoned with in horror outside of Crypt, but come on, with combined resumes that read like a who’s who of whoop-ass popcorn munchers - we’re talking Back to the Future, Die Hard, Predator - I have to admit I had dreams of a return to the horror renaissance of the late 70s/early 80s. I was genuinely thrilled when I heard about the creation of Dark Castle. So far they have managed to bless the world with The House on Haunted Hill, Thirteen Ghosts, Ghost Ship, Gothika, House of Wax, and The Reaping. Wow - can you hear the cheers of the adoring horror crowds around the globe? Funny - I can’t, but that might just be an earwax build-up problem.
So it really was too good to be true. You have a production company with major studio backing (Warners) with a mandate to provide horror fans with some good old-fashion chills and thrills. Amen bruthas and sistas! I’ve been saved! And that’s the way I felt until The House on Haunted Hill came out in the year of our Prince, 1999…
The House on Haunted Hill is a remake of an oldie but cheesy goodie from the late 1950’s. William Castle directed, with legend Vincent Price playing a millionaire offering $10,000 smackos to a group of strangers to stay the night in a creepy mansion with a bad history and some serious Ghostbusters-type problems. I guess the film might be a little dated, ‘cause geez man, you can’t even get a kid to take on a paper route for ten grand nowadays. Anyway, it’s a black and white flick from the days of no profanity, skin or gore but still manages to be fun even today. Who knew, right? But the Dark Castle remake, directed by William Malone (now best known for Feardot.com or possibly Showtime’s horror mini-movie series Masters of Horror), lacks the overall fun of the original film despite a promising amusement ride opening sequence. Geoffrey Rush is a fine actor, but come one, there’s only one Vincent Price. The rest of the cast is well stocked and easy on the eyes with the likes of Famke Janssen, Taye Diggs, Ali Larter and Bridgette Wilson. Unfortunately, despite millennium spit and polish and modern digital effects, the story falls flat. There are a few moments that give the audience hope of better things but the film never seems to be able to hold what little momentum it establishes from time to time.

Strike One.

Two years later, another remake sprang from Dark Castle’s creative womb. Funny thing - their sophomore venture’s source material was also two years more recent. The 1960 Saturday matinee 13 Ghosts was re-envisioned, again with solid casting and effects fit for the turn of the century. Tony Shalhoub, Matthew Lillard, Shannon Elizabeth & F. Murray Abraham run around a freaky see-through maze of a home that also has a specially constructed holding tank for ghosts in its basement. Gee, who thought property taxes were the only scary thing about inheriting a new home, right? Much like The House on Haunted Hill, there are a few nice scenes, including a nasty little visit to the bathroom by Shannon Elizabeth’s character that could have been a classic but by the time the end credits roll it’s hard to remember the few good smatterings amongst the entire disposable dribble. And if I see just one more movie with a Black servant/nanny acting totally ignorant for the sake of entertainment, I may have to become a cinematic terrorist. Allah/Hitchcock forbids such foolishness from filmmaking infidels. The least they could have done was have Ms. American Pie shed some clothing but noooooooooooooooooooooooo, we get screwed out of that simple pleasure too. I suppose 4 credited writers was a tip-off to impending disaster, even with James Gunn among them. And director Steve Beck - who is he again? I’m betting he’s a really nice guy but his credits at the time didn’t exactly jump up and scream he was the next Carpenter or Argento. Hey, I’m glad when some new blood is given a shot at the big-time...well, at least until the lights come on and I’m leading a Braveheart-like charge toward the theater box-office for a refund.

Strike Two.

Well, shut my mouth. Steve Beck did such a great job with Thirteen Ghosts that he was brought back to direct Dark Castle’s 2001 Ghost Ship. Okay, okay – I know better than to lay the blame of a less than successful production at the feet of the director but I’m not sure why they brought him back. Was it just that Ghost was in both titles? *shrug* Hell, I have no friggin’ idea and that explanation sounds as good as any. And I have to admit, having just watched Ghost Ship mere days ago as a refresher, it’s not half bad.
Psych.
Okay, it’s not horrible but it’s not particularly good either. More good money is thrown after bad, and the formula established by the first two films continued to be followed, with the exception that Ghost Ship was not a remake. Hey, it means less corpses rolling around in their graves, right? Once again, at least on paper, a potentially great cast was assembled. This time we’re talking Gabriel Byrne, Julianna Margulies, Ron Eldard, Desmond Harrington, Isaiah Washington & Karl Urban. They play a salvage crew called in to investigate a mysterious vessel (The Ghost Ship! Were you surprised? Liar) and possibly land the fortune of their lives. Of course, the creepy luxury liner is just waiting for several stupid, greedy and drunken people to come aboard. Bloody mayhem inevitably ensues, some of it even providing so-so entertainment. Ms. ER is too much a sea going Ripley for me, and most of the cast is wasted in clichéd roles. In fact, the young female ghost in the movie kinda reminds me of a slightly older Newt from Aliens. A little blonde haired savior she is, if you can get past the fact that you’re not going insane talking and listening to a ghost. Whatever.
There was just one credited writer. Hmmmmmm. Four writers, a single writer…I guess Dark Castle still hadn’t quite gotten the right number of writers down yet. *heavy sigh*

Strike Three.

How many strikes it that? Oh yeah three. But unfortunately the rules of baseball do not apply to Dark Castle. Au contraire.
So a couple of years later they give us horror fans a break, skipping their normal Halloween opening weekend, only to completely ruin our Thanksgiving with one of the worst major horror/thriller flicks every made. Gothika - the Halle Berry resume filler of 2003. A bigger turkey had never been served to horror fans. Thankfully video stores weren’t closed for the holidays because rioting might have taken place if Gothika had been the only horror entertainment available. I’m not sure which was more mystifying: how this absolute stinker made 60 million dollars, or how they could have Halle Berry in a shower scene that wouldn’t even give a convict a stiffie. That’s just a damn shame. And I have to take my hat off to the Dark Castle crew because they must have the best photographers in Hollywood taking incredibly incriminating photos to gather yet another nice cast. How else could they have gotten Berry, just seconds (okay, a couple of years) after grabbing a best actress Oscar, Charles Dutton, Robert Downey Jr. and Penelope Cruz? I might just wake up tomorrow on an earth ruled by apes. Shit. People - does anyone out there remember when having William Shatner starring in a horror flick was kick-ass casting?
Anyway, Ms. Catwoman/Storm/Jinx stars as a psychiatrist who ends up in the booby hatch with no memory of murdering her husband. And guess what - weird shit is happening and she has to escape and prove her innocence, but not before taking an extremely unsexy shower. Geez, it might as well have been Liza Minnelli or Bea Arthur under the water. Sorry, I just can’t get over how Halle Berry getting wet COULD NOT be sexy. Simply unbelievable. Gothika turns out to display the personalities of 4 or 5 different movies, which doesn’t say much for the mental health of the writer, director, or the producers. My guess is that everyone creatively involved was very happy, including the janitor who dumped trash cans overflowing with a virtual rainbow of revision pages. Ever hit a skunk with your car? That’s what it felt like when I emerged from the theater after watching Gothika.

Okay…how many strikes is that? Oh yeah.

Strike Four.

So this leads us up to Dark Castle’s latest foray into horror. *play scary music here* Despite generally poor response from audiences, 2005’s re-imagining of the quasi-classic, 3-D eye poker House of Wax was, and is, at least to me, the closest thing to them getting it right. Bordering on mean spirited in its attempt to scare, shock & thrill, Dark Castle takes yet another Vincent Price vehicle and completely remolds it for the modern young male driven audience, complete with Paris Hilton casting. (I must admit, I cheered for her death. I mean, her character’s death. Freudian slip.) With only young up and comers Elisha Cuthbert and Chad Michael Murray to carry the proceedings, House of Wax manages some nice tension, a few great deaths and a setting ripe for horror disaster fun. Heck, I even thought the theatrical poster was kick-ass. Expanding on the corpse covered museum of the previous House of Wax films, the filmmakers took the idea to a whole ‘nother level, creating an entire town of creepy wax recreations…they are just statutes, right? Anyway, with madmen running loose and young folks trapped within the deadly township, things get wonderfully icky. I’m not exactly sure what was missing that kept House of Wax from being more successful, but for the most part the elements were in place. I do know worse movies have made much more money. Like Gothika, for crying out loud.

Strike Five? Hardly.

And then in the spring of 2007 came The Reaping. And lo the Dark Castle curse was broken! Oscar winner Hilary Swank did what Halle Berry couldn’t do - deliver the goods in a solid horror film!
I almost said ‘screw it’ and didn’t bother go see The Reaping. And since I’m not an avid movie renter, I probably would have missed out on pretty good flick.
The plot of The Reaping is pretty straightforward. Swank plays a former Christian missionary university professor that investigates (and normally debunks) religious-based phenomena. She and her assistant head for a small Southern town to probe a mysterious reoccurrence of the ten biblical plagues. The film is well shot, well acted, and well written compared to the bulk of American horror films out there. Director Stephen Hopkins (The Ghost and the Darkness, Lost in Space, Predator 2) does a solid job at the helm, I admit the series of plagues casts a doomed pall over the town and the audience, and the tension builds right up to the climax. Overall, it’s the steady, professional effort I as a fan expected from all of Dark Castle’s productions. Unfortunately, I had to wait until their sixth film. Oh well.
I’m hoping House of Wax really served as the turning point for Dark Castle, and I do wish they would continue to focus more on original material than remakes. Their development roster seems to be running toward the original side with titles such Whiteout, Orphan, RocknRolla, and The Factory, which I know absolutely nothing about. I think I’ll wait and be surprised.
Despite the overall results, I still applaud Dark Castle for their valiant attempt to give horror fans something to cheer about. Perhaps House of Wax and The Reaping is the beginning of an upward swing, though I have to admit after Gothika I had my torch lit and pitch fork in hand, and was ready to storm the castle, per se. I can only hope their best films are still to come.
I think the biggest lesson I take from Dark Castle and its brief history is that bigger budgets, name casts and studio backing do not a better horror film make. Bigger is simply not better in most cases. Too much money seems to corrupt a good horror idea faster than a drunken night with Tonya Harding. I do think it’s safe to say the future of horror doesn’t lie with the Dark Castles, or the major studios. The best of horror yet to come is going to emerge from the independent low budget world (here and abroad) where passion and imagination consistently win out over big bucks and studio interference. So while I’ll continue to support the studios’ genre specialty divisions, I’m putting my faith in the little guys with the original stories and maxed out credit cards. And the better the young renegade horror bloods do, the happier we’ll all be. Even the horror fans of Dark Castle.



This is a revised and updated version of an article originally published in Hackers Source magazine, issue number #21, April/2006

Let The Experiment Begin

So, here I am. Never thought I'd write a Blog.

I have a novel to finish, a website to maintain (www.vincechurchill.com) a weekly newspaper column to write, and other minor writing project piranha nipping at my toes, but here I am. 

I'm here due to the miracle of email and a gracious invitation to interact with people world wide who share the same love for genre entertainment that I do. I've been a fan for more than 3 decades, and I see no end in sight.

But first things first.

My name is Vince Churchill. I'm a novelist of two horror/scifi books, and a contributor to my share of horror anthology books. I also write a regular column for Hackers Source magazine called The Splatter Pattern, and used in work in Hollywood in both the freelance and coporate worlds. I currently reside in the Midwest, but I consider L.A. my home. I have friends throughout the arenas of film, television, and publishing that I hope to be able to share with any interested parties out there in the weeks to come. I hope to do a little of everything: horror film reviews, offer up some fun genre interviews, and continue this Blog thing in an entertaining fashion. I certainly look forward to upcoming discussions over subjects other fans like myself can get into. 

Hope to see many of you on a regular basis. It's always nice to make new friends and intriguing enemies.

In the meantime, here are a few subjects the maggots of my mind have been burrowing through lately...

1) Exactly when did my idol John Carpenter shoot his horror wad and practically disappear from the championship ring of nightmare filmmaking?

2) Anyone read the Scott Smith besteller The Ruins? Discussion has been intense on just how good a horror novel it really is (I think it was great) and the hopes fans have for the upcoming flick.

3) Is Sarah Michelle Gellar the new Jamie Lee Curtis? God, I hope so.

See you soon - got an experiment to check on...