Bank robbers, a perverted ghost, a vampire hideout, and rogue cops.
KILLING ZOE (1993)
When producer Lawrence Bender was scouting locations in Los Angeles for Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs, he came across a bank that he thought would be a great place to shoot a movie, but it just wasn't right for Reservoir Dogs. So he put the word out to his screenwriter associates that he was looking for a script that was set in a bank - and Tarantino's friend Roger Avary, who got story credit on Pulp Fiction and did some uncredited rewrites on True Romance for director Tony Scott, said he had just such a script. Except he didn't. So he had to knock one out within two weeks so he could show it to Bender.
Apparently Avary approached writing this script in the way Tarantino approached True Romance - make the lead character a proxy for himself, then tell the story of this character meeting his dream girl under crazy circumstances. It just so happens that the dream girl in both scripts is a sex worker who gets upset when the wrong term is used for their profession. In True Romance, the woman responds to being called a whore by saying, "No, I'm a call girl and there's a difference, you know?" In Killing Zoe, the character Zoe doesn't like to be called a prostitute; she's an escort.
The lead character is Zed, played in the film by Eric Stoltz. He comes to Paris to assist his longtime friend Eric (Jean-Hugues Anglade) and his motley crew of thieves in a bank robbery that will be carried out in the only bank that opens on Bastille Day. Zed is an expert safecracker and his skills will be put to use to bust into a specific vault in the bank's basement.
It's clear that Avary and I have very different mentalities, because if a producer pal of mine said they needed a script that could be filmed in a bank in Los Angeles, it would never occur to me to set that script in Paris, even if I wanted to conceal the fact that it hadn't been written until after the script request had been put out. I would also be endeavoring to move the story into the bank as quickly as possible. Avary doesn't get his characters into the bank until 46 minutes into the 96 minute movie.
The first 18 minutes of Killing Zoe are really my favorite part of the movie. This is where we see Zed arriving in Paris, checking into a hotel, and being visited by an escort a cab driver has set him up with - Zoe, played by Julie Delpy. I saw Killing Zoe and Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise both right around the same time, and that was enough for me to realize that Delpy is a fascinating screen presence.
Zed must be James Bond in bed, because after he and Zoe have sex (in a sex scene that's intercut with moments of Nosferatu playing out on the hotel room TV) she starts fawning over him, saying they fit together and he's the only client who has ever given her an orgasm. It's kind of cringe-inducing, and yet still part of my favorite stretch of the movie. And then Eric shows up to usher in my least favorite stretch of the movie.
Eric whisks Zed away into the Parisian underbelly for a 28 minute sequence of the bank robbery crew spending the night melting their brains with heroin, hashish, various types of alcohol, and mystery pills. Along the way, Zed is informed that the robbery is going to take place the next day. Staying up all night and getting wasted right before a bank robbery seems like a wise decision. Add in some travel exhaustion for Zed. Yep, everyone's in top shape and completely in their right minds when they reach that bank.
The second half of the film takes place entirely within the confines of the bank, where things go to hell real quick. Zed doesn't speak French, so he's not aware that Eric and the others plan to brutalize and kill hostages that give them trouble. He finds this out when they blow away the concierge (porn star Ron Jeremy in a quick cameo) for not putting his hands up fast enough. In a terrible coincidence, Zoe is one of the employees in the bank. This is the day job that, when combined with the money she gets from being an escort, is helping her pay her way through art school.
The police are gathered outside, Eric and the others are conducting themselves like idiots and maniacs, Zoe may be in danger, and Zed has to concentrate on busting into the vault. The safecracking is another area where it's clear that Avary thinks about his stories differently than I think about mine. I tend to get hung up on minutiae, so if I was making something about a safecracker I would feel the need to do research on safecracking tools so the moments of the guy doing his job would appear accurate. Avary, on the other hand, had the confidence to send Zed into the job with nonsensical tools like a wood drill, a stud finder, and a bottle of thick, orange liquid that was actually carrot juice. I always wondered how the hell the stuff Zed was doing worked, but I figured it must have some basis in reality. It doesn't, at all. Lesson learned, the audience will buy something if the movie doesn't question it.
When people die in this movie, special effects legend Tom Savini provides the bloodshed. Most of the deaths only required simple blood splatter, but there is a more grotesque effect put on display when a character gets caught in an explosion. Another character who dies in the bank is played by someone Savini worked with on Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, actress / stunt woman Kimberly Beck.
I like Killing Zoe and have watched it several times over the years, but it's not a fun movie to sit through. It's very dark and unsettling, filled with gut punches of appalling events, and it leaves the viewer with a troubling question in mind. Bender wanted a movie set in a bank and Avary delivered one, and I don't think anyone else would have put together a bank robbery flick quite like this.
THE ENTITY (1982)
The Entity has some of the most insane concepts ever packed into a cinematic ghost story, and in the hands of another director could have been very sleazy and off-putting. Instead, it was brought to the screen by Sidney J. Furie, who put the film together like it was a prestige horror film on the level of Rosemary's Baby and The Exorcist, and it even has a running time in the same range, clocking in at 125 minutes. In fact, Furie saw it as being so prestigious that he doesn't even consider it to be a horror movie. He calls it a supernatural suspense movie... which, sorry to break it to him, means it's a horror movie.
Scripted by Frank De Felitta from his own novel, which was inspired by real claims of a violent haunting, the film stars Barbara Hershey as a single mother Carla Moran. We get a quick glimpse at Carla's home life, then less than 6 minutes into the movie she's being attacked in her bedroom by an unseen force that hits her, throws her on the bed, and rapes her. This invisible spirit proceeds to attack and molest Carla several more times over the course of the film - in her home, in her car, in a friend's house. This wreaks havoc on her love life and causes experts to question her sanity. Watching it might also push the viewer to the edge of insanity, because these attack scenes are scored with some obnoxious, loud, repetitive sounds courtesy of composer Charles Bernstein.
It's not Carla's home that's haunted, this ghost is targeting her and her body no matter where she is. Since it goes wherever she goes, that allows for an ending that is totally off-the-wall. Parapsychologists build a recreation of her house in a school gymnasium. Carla then spends the night in this replica house in an effort to lure in the ghost, because the place is rigged with devices that will blast the place full of liquid helium once Carla flees into a safe space. Yes, their plan is to freeze the ghost into a block of ice, just like The Blob.
With brutal attack scenes and a pervert ghost people try to turn into a popsicle, The Entity has to be seen to be believed. I wouldn't put it on the level of the other examples of prestige horror movies I mentioned, but it's a good one.
THE SHED (2019)
There has been some concern during the build-up to the release of writer/director Frank Sabatella's film The Shed that the headlines and marketing materials mentioning this was a vampire story were giving away spoilers. I can now assure the concerned that this was not the case; Sabatella makes it very clear within the first three minutes that this movie has vampires in it. This isn't structured in a way where we follow the lead character Stan (Jay Jay Warren) from the first scene and discover along with him that there's some kind of mysterious creature living in the shed behind his house. Instead, we follow a vampire into that shed in the opening sequence.
The vampire is a farmer named Bane (Frank Whaley), and we're introduced to him right before he gets bitten. He's being pursued through a dark woods by a vampire that has Dracula's fashion sense, as it's wearing a cape, but doesn't have his charisma, because it's a hideous monster. The vampires in this movie won't be doing any seducing. Bane gets bitten right before sunrise and has to seek shelter in the titular shed so he doesn't get burnt up by the daylight. Once in there, he becomes a monster just like the thing that bit him. And then we meet Stan.
There are plenty of creature moments throughout The Shed, but what really makes the horror aspect of the film effective is how much focus Sabatella puts on the characters and how well the cast does bringing those characters to the screen. 17-year-old Stan has a miserable life. His parents have both passed away, he has gotten in trouble with the law, and now he's living with his grandfather Ellis (Timothy Bottoms), who's a total dick. Roxy (Sofia Happonen), the girl Stan likes, has taken to hanging out with the school bad boy Marble (Chris Petrovski), who - with his two lackeys - bullies Stan's friend Dommer (Cody Kostro) every day at school.
Warren proves capable of handling everything Sabatella throws at his beleaguered character over the course of the film. Oddly enough, the emotion he least convincingly conveys is happiness, during a cringey, cheesy dream Stan has about his late parents. Which becomes a nightmare so Warren can start showing us what he can really do. Happonen has a likeable screen presence, and we find out that Roxy is a better person than her choice of friends might imply. But I have a feeling that Dommer is going to turn out to be the favorite character of many viewers, as Kostro delivers a captivating performance as his sympathetic, tormented character.
Stan spends the first half of the film being horrified by the presence of the monster in the shed that kills anything and anyone who dares to open the door. He tries to figure out how to handle the situation, and feels he can't call the police because they already have it out for him and might blame him for the deaths. This is all building up to the point where Dommer finds out about the shed and sees this "pet monster" as a gift, a potential weapon. A way to get revenge. And he's responsible for shifting the horror into a whole different gear.
Some viewers might find the first half of The Shed to be a little slow, but things get livelier and crazier in the second half. There was even a sequence where circumstances kind of reminded me of The Lost Boys - although, of course, this movie doesn't have the '80s MTV tone or style of The Lost Boys. Despite the fact that it seems to be set at some unspecified time in the past, as Stan listens to music on cassette and makes his calls on a rotary phone. The prevalence of flannel in the wardrobe suggests it could be set in the early '90s, but Sabatella keeps things vague.
I was very impressed by The Shed, finding the film to be a wonderfully disturbing blend of monster movie with dark teenage drama. It's well made, well acted, and provides a satisfyingly creepy, fun, and bloody payoff.
The review of The Shed originally appeared on ArrowintheHead.com
DRAGGED ACROSS CONCRETE (2018)
Apparently Lionsgate put an offer on the table in front of Dragged Across Concrete writer/director S. Craig Zahler: if he could whittle the film's 159 minute running time down to 130 minutes, they would give it a wide theatrical release. Zahler declined the offer, and the 159 minute long Dragged Across Concrete got a smaller release. I think the movie could have reached 130 minutes without losing anything substantial from its slow burn story; some dead air here, some overwritten dialogue there. But I don't think there would have been any point in cutting it down for a wide release. This isn't a movie that would go over well in wide release. It's a nasty, ugly film about people doing bad things, the worst fates meeting the people who are the least deserving of them, and it features dialogue that could offend various different segments of the audience.
Mel Gibson and Vince Vaughn star as police officers Brett Ridgeman and Anthony Lurasetti, who are given a six week suspension with no pay for excessive force. This suspension hits just as both men realize they are in desperate need of more money. Anthony is about to propose to his girlfriend but wants to make sure he can give her a good life. Ridgeman's wife is suffering from MS and his teenage daughter is being bullied by the African American kids in the bad neighborhood they live in - the Ridgemans are certain that their daughter is going to be raped by those black kids someday, a fear that brings to mind things Gibson was caught saying in the recordings that nearly destroyed his career a decade ago. When Ridgeman says things like "I don't politic and I don't change with the times, and it turns out that shit's more important than good honest work," it comes off as Gibson being defiant to critics about his own past issues.
Ridgeman and Anthony come up with a plan to rip off a criminal believed to be a heroin dealer, but this criminal has something else going on right now. Aided by masked henchmen who carry submachine guns and kill anyone in their path, this guy is out to steal a load of gold bullion from a local bank. But never mind the theft, the murders committed by these guys are appalling - especially when one of their victims happens to be a woman who we spend several minutes with, getting to know the details of her life, just so we'll feel especially bad when bullets tear her face apart. Ridgeman and Anthony have unwittingly put themselves up against a trio of monsters.
Stuck in this mess with them is getaway driver Henry Johns (Tory Kittles), who was recently released from prison and pulled back into the crime life by his pal Biscuit (Michael Jai White) because he has to provide for his son - and give his mom a better life than the drug-shooting and prostituting she's been up to.
Dragged Across Concrete is not a pleasant movie to sit through and I feel it could have been shorter, but it held my attention and I was invested in seeing how things were going to play out. I can't say I liked any of the characters, but I wanted Ridgeman, Anthony, and Henry to find a way to best the cold-blooded bastards pulling off the bullion heist. Of course, I knew Zahler wouldn't make it easy for them.
I didn't like this movie or Zahler's second directorial effort Brawl in Cell Block 99 nearly as much as I enjoyed his first film Bone Tomahawk, but I remain fascinated by his unique style. I will continue to follow his career with great interest.
No comments:
Post a Comment