Sukeban Deka (1991) Review - How You Feminist Properly

There are people - blisteringly stupid people, mostly on Twitter - who have somehow gotten it into their heads that men don't like strong female characters. That men are instinctively averse to women wielding anything deadlier than a wooden spoon and that they should stay in the relative comfort of their homes making sandwiches and shooting out babies while us men get on with being 97% of work place deaths. You know, as God intended. 

But I can assure you that this is not the case. Contrary to popular belief, men like female action heroes. Men like - for example - the 'Alien' movies. They like 'Kill Bill'. 'Tomb Raider', 'Sailor Moo...' *ahem*...  'Xena: Warrior Princess'. Point is that men like women in action oriented roles. What they DON'T like is being undermined. 

The issue with a lot of so called feminist fiction these days, particularly in comics and TV, is that not only do they go out of their way to remind you that their main character is a strong, capable woman held back by an oppressive patriarchy; they also frequently tear down any male characters in order to build up the female ones. They think that if the female characters are to be taken seriously in any way, then that must come at the expense of any male characters

Hell, it doesn't even have to be specifically the male characters. It could just be men in general. Some of the stuff I've seen from recent seasons of Doctor Who for example have been horrendous. 

The issue with this of course is that the female characters don't earn much in the eyes of the audience. They tend to come off obnoxious and entitled. Like I'm supposed to just automatically like and respect them because of their genitals and not because of the things that they've done. And I doubt I'll have to remind you guys of the first 'Batwoman' teaser trailer in which Kate Kane seems to take credit for Bruce Wayne's work before her as if that's supposed to endear her to an audience. 

But enough bitching and womanning about the state of modern TV. Today I'm here to show you feminists how it's done. Or more specifically Japan is here to show you how it's done. Yes, that Japan. The one with the vending machines that dispense used knickers. 

I'm not exactly what you would call the most informed when it comes to anime, but I know what I like and the subject of today's review 'Sukeban Deka' translated literally as 'Delinquent Girl Detective' is probably now one of my favourite OVAs. I wont go too much into the history or backstory surrounding this franchise. For that I highly recommend Kenny Lauderdale's excellent videos on delinquent girl TV shows from Japan, which is where I found out about this OVA, for the record.  

With that let's move into the review.

Sukeban Deka begins with our main character Saki Asamiya in jail for a crime she did not commit. Just what crime this was is left up to the audience and all the info we're really given is that Saki took the fall for someone else. She is then given a proposition by the authorities; become an undercover detective in schools across the country and not only will she be given her freedom, her mother (also in prison) will be taken off of Death Row.

Her first mission happens to be at her old school, Takanoha High, which has been entirely taken over by the three evil Mizuchi Sisters, Emi, Ayumi and Remi, whose powerful father uses his wealth and influence to further his daughter's criminal endeavours. With the help of her police mentor Jin, admirer Sanpei and ultimately the assistant principal of the school, it's up to Saki to end the Mizuchi Sister's reign of terror over the Takanoha high school. 

This OVA is like if you took the writers room of the show '21 Jump Street' and made them watch samurai movies while snorting coke into the dead of night like Tony Montana. Let's break this down: You have a pink haired Japanese school girl who at one point was the terror of her entire school and with good fucking reason. She beats up entire rooms full of people, sometimes using only her fists, other times using her signature weapon, which is - wait for it - a yoyo.

No, I am not kidding. Her weapon of choice is a fucking yoyo. It just appears in her hand like magic and she throws it with such force that she can fracture people's skulls at a distance some paintball guns would be jealous of.

Although personally this doesn't surprise me much. Like everyone and his mother I used to do yoyo tricks, and those things could be deadly. A well placed Loop the Loop could efficiently take out your neighbour's cat and your grandmother who happened to be walking up behind you at the time. Fuck gun control, back in the day we needed fucking yoyo control. Gangs of school boys conducted bank robberies armed with these things and the local authorities could do nothing about it. Don't tell me you didn't try to do a spinner off of your brother's nutsack while he was asleep. I'll know you're lying. 

At any rate, in the hands of a practitioner such as Saki from Sukeban Deka, the yoyo is an instrument of death to rival Zoe Quinn's Twitter feed. From the very moment Saki enters the Takanoha high school grounds she's set upon by Ayumi Mizuchi's band of unusually combat adept students; and despite this school being headed by the scariest motherfucker to ever fail to become a hardboiled detective and became an assistant school principal instead, the school just lets this happen. 

The entire school is under the thrall of these three girls and it's all because their father is a big rich asshole. That's it. In fact this man is so rich, and such an asshole, that he has his daughters plant gas bombs under two school buses which causes them to drive off of a cliff, thereby killing over seventy teenage children. Seriously, that's more than the Columbine and Sandy Hook massacres combined and this happens at the start of the OVA. And he does this so that he can sell positions in the school to his rich friends so that their kids can go to this hell-prison of a school to be pushed around by his daughters and so that he can make more money when he presumably fucking yeets them off a cliff as well.

This is such silly shit and I have to say, I kind of love it. Contrary to what some might think, a movie doesn't need to make realistic sense for it to good. In fact often the opposite is true. Some movies and TV shows spend too much time justifying why certain things are happening instead of just getting on with the things happening. 

With the Sukeban Deka OVA the plot is simple and easy to follow. It's only two 50 minute long episodes, adding up to the duration of a feature length movie when watched back to back. Any questions you might have about the more farfetched elements of the plot are countered by the use of likable characters and fast paced action scenes, which I may have already mentioned, involves a school girl wielding a yoyo as a lethal weapon. Don't ask me why Ayumi Mizuchi has a vault in the woods accessible by an electronic keypad installed in a tree. Why are you even asking these questions? What's wrong with you? Who hurt you?

Saki as a character is what you'd expect. She's a bit of a hardnosed Tsundere, especially when it comes to Sanpei whom, being the OVA's only main male student character, provides the comic relief with his simpish level of devotion to Saki. 

"bUt GlEnN!" you vomit into my ears while buggering a racoon in a skip or whatever else it is you do when you aren't bothering me, "yOu SaId YoU dOn'T lIkE iT wHeN mAlE cHaRaCtErS aRe UnDeRmInEd!"

Exactly. Specifically when they are undermined with the intention of artificially propping up a weak female lead. This isn't what this is though. Not only is Saki an eminently strong lead for this action story, lacking a requirement for being propped up; Sanpei, despite being the comic relief, is not undermined. He is useful in the story and has many positive traits. In fact he even saves Saki's life at one point by shoulder-checking a shotgun wielding thot into the tarmac like a real man. He even has to be stopped from running into a burning building to try and save Saki again. In other words, he may be a simp, but he's a likable, committed and capable one, whom Saki warms up to over the course of the story.

Despite the ridiculous plot and action driven story the OVA is not without its drama. Saki and Sanpei befriend an orphaned teenage girl named Junko, whom Saki saves from being assaulted near the beginning. She's a talented artist and unfortunately this makes her a target for Emi Mizuchi, who steals her artwork to win a prestigious art contest. But it's what she does to Junko herself that ultimately becomes the impetus for Saki's campaign of revenge against the sisters later in the OVA. It adds an emotional element to the story that makes the climax all the more satisfying. 

As for the sisters themselves, like the rest of the anime, there's little nuance here. The Mizuchi sisters are plain old scheming, conniving, evil bitches. Ayumi is a drug addict with an extreme love of money; Emi is an egomaniac whose sense of self worth far outstrips her actual talent as an artist; and Remi... well she uses computers to control people's minds and turn them into zombies to do her bidding. Hey, this is anime from the early 90s. You were expecting down to earth slice of life stuff here?

As for some other side characters you have Jin Kyoichiro, Saki's mentor, who is basically Japanese Dirty Harry and he has one of the best scenes in the entire OVA towards the end. I wont spoil it but it had me cheering in my seat and that's not something that normally happens.  

On a technical level it's animated beautifully, with particular attention to be paid to the action scenes. I of course being the shameless Westerner that I am watched the dubbed version (available on YouTube) and yeah, some of the English voices are questionable to say the least, especially in regards to some of the minor characters. But the people voicing the main characters do a good job and yeah I'm sure it's better in the original Japanese, fuck off weeb. 

Overall Quality Rating - 4/5

Formulaic? Maybe. But there's nothing wrong with that. Whilst the plot itself may not win any awards Sukeban Deka is filled with pulpy nonsense and oh so very Japanese ideas. In other words it's fun as hell. Saki is a genuinely strong female lead who doesn't need to tell you she's a strong woman. She just shows you by shattering your skull with a militarized children's toy. I know I said the idea of a girl going undercover to stop crime in a school reminded me of '21 Jump Street' but quite frankly Johnny Depp and Peter Deluise are a bundle of stick wrapped up in twine compared to Saki Asamiya. Did Deppo ever strangle a bitch with a steel yoyo string and then walk out of a blazing inferno without a scratch on him? No? I rest my case.

Idiot Rating - 4/5

Do I even need to tell you why this gets such a high idiot rating? School girls doing battle with kid's toys? Mind control zombies? Snake whip wielding commando blondes? Part of me is disappointed they didn't do any more of these OVAs but to be honest I'm not even sure what they'd do to follow this up. Saki takes on ISIS? Saki gets hired by Elon Musk to wipe out all life on Mars and make it safe for his self-governing Musk-topia? 

Holy shit. Japan, get on this right now. 

I'm DeadEye, genki ni shite kudasai.

Us - A Totally Original Film With Black People

Okay, I admit it, I have avoided watching a Jordan Peele movie. I've seen a few of his 'Key & Peele' sketches and even laughed at them, but ever since I saw the trailer for 'Get Out' in the cinema and saw it as another cringeworthy Hollywood attempt at race baiting, I've kept a berth wider than Fairuza Balk's smile before she consumes a raw gazelle. 

Topping it off you have a near universal acclaim from mainstream critics which only set my internal alarms off even further; given that getting the seal of approval from a modern film critic is about the equivalent of a day-care centre getting an A+ from the McCanns.

I also admit that I may very well have been missing out on what is a genuinely decent satirical horror film that eschews any of the worries of SJWism I may have had upon my first viewing of the trailer. But YOU also have to admit that Peele's own comments haven't exactly helped when it comes to this perception. 

Back in 2019 Peele remarked that, "I don’t see myself casting a white dude as the lead in my movie. Not that I don’t like white dudes. But I’ve seen that movie."

Now look; on the face of it, there's really nothing wrong with this. I'm a pretty libertarian guy. If Jordan Peele doesn't want to cast white dudes in lead roles then that's his decision and there's nothing wrong with that. It really shouldn't be a big deal. 

But let's be real here; we all know fine that such a statement would not have received such a tepid backlash bordering on outright indifference if it had been made by say Michael Bay, and that is somewhat of an issue. But what really confuses me is the "I've seen that movie" part. What the hell does that even mean? Is he trying to tell me 'The Conjuring' would have been a much more original movie had they cast Snoop Dog instead of Ron Livingston? 

"But Glenn!" I hear you stupid from afar, "You just don't get it! Jordan Peele is an auteur! His films are from the black perspective and are thus highly original!"

Oh yes, breathtakingly original. Whereas other lowly and lamentably white film directors make films about an average white family moving into an idyllic suburban house only to run afoul of a supernatural threat; Jordan Peele on the contrary makes a film about... an average BLACK family moving into an idyllic suburban house only to run afoul of a supernatural threat. Man, you can really taste that originality can't you? 

And don't get me started on the "black perspective". You mean to tell me there aren't any films about the black perspective? Ever heard of Spike Lee? And apart from anything else, what IS the black perspective exactly? Navy blue cords? 

Edgy Joke Quota met

Okay, I'm mostly being facetious here. As things are 'Us' isn't a bad movie, no matter what that 93% critical consensus on Rotten Tomatoes may tell you. But whilst I will concede to the shills that this one isn't nearly the abortion that other critically lauded efforts have been in the past... it still isn't as great as they're saying. 

The film follows the Wilson family as they go on vacation to their second home near the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. The mother, Adelaide, is reluctant to even go near the beach due to a traumatizing incident she had as a child at the Hall of Mirrors in which she claims to have seen a double of herself. 

After a few ominous happenings Adelaide and her family are suddenly attacked by another family, who all turn out to be fucked up doppelgangers of each of the Wilsons. 

Inspired partly by the 'Twilight Zone' episode 'Mirror Image', Jordan Peele's second directed movie 'Us' starts off pretty compelling. The direction and visuals are more than solid and at times border on Shining-esque in their composition. The cinematography does an excellent job creating memorable imagery that is mimicked later on in the film and it all contributes to what is a thoroughly surreal atmosphere that's consistent throughout. 

Pretty much nobody gives a bad performance, with particular attention to be paid to Lupita Nyong'o who plays the beautiful and doting mother, Adelaide; and contrasts this with her creepy and entertaining performance as Adelaide's psychotic doppelganger, 'Red'. 

Winston Duke gives an amusing performance as the family patriarch, Gabe Wilson, who portrays a mostly stereotypical soft suburban middle class dad character; and even manages to maintain that humour in the portrayal of his own doppelganger, the hulking and mentally inferior 'Abraham'.  

Given this and Peele's background in sketch comedy, the film maintains a sense of humour which is welcome for someone like me who enjoys their horror with a few dark laughs thrown in for good measure. All of this contributes nicely to a creepy, weird and genuinely fun horror experience.... for at least an hour or so. 

Don't get me wrong, the second half of 'Us' isn't bad strictly speaking. Like the rest of the film it's well made and fairly entertaining. Where I think it falls apart though is when the film attempts to explain the phenomena of the doppelgangers away, and at the same time engage in some level of satire that I believe was outside of the movie's scope. Let me explain, and yes, there will be spoilers so, spoiler alert.

After a fairly tense cat and mouse sequence where individual family members duel separately with their own doubles, it's revealed that the Wilsons are far from the only people dealing with the prospect of psychotic versions of themselves appearing out of nowhere to yeet them to Hell with a pair of scissors. Indeed the phenomena is nation wide.

The movie went in a direction I honestly didn't expect. What I expected was an almost Strangers-esque film with doppelgangers replacing the masked Mansons in that film. It starts off that way but then suddenly shifts into something of an apocalyptic movie with satirical overtones. It's later explained that the doppelgangers, or the 'Tethered' as they are referred to, are the result of a failed government experiment involving an attempt to control people on the surface. They now remain abandoned inside the miles and miles of tunnels underneath the continental United States, brainlessly and often horrifically mimicking their surface-world doubles. 

Red, having made contact with her own double in the beginning flashback, then becomes a semi-messianic figure, staging an uprising she refers to as 'The Great Untethering'; which, true to form, involves genocidal levels of fucking violence. 

This is where the film kind of lost me if I'm totally honest. One of the best things about this film is actually the mystery and intrigue surrounding the origins of these 'Tethered' people, and when you find out it's all the result of some nonsensical government mind control plot it weirdly becomes a bit banal. 

I mean, we all know the government's trying to control our minds, this isn't a secret. In a world of online conspiracy theories, gay frogs, fact checkers that don't check facts and obvious mainstream Fake News (TM), the concept of government mind control in a horror film is kind of passé really.  

Don't worry Alex, you'll have a place in our hearts.

   

And then there's the problem of over-explaining things. As Stephen King once said, 'there's little fun to be had in explanations' and this is particularly true with horror. But once you do explain something away like this, all that does is demand further explanation. Like, I know the Tethered are supposed to be eating the rabbits that roam freely down in the tunnels, but what do the rabbits eat? Who tends the rabbits? Is there a government employee who goes down every now and then to fill up their water bottles and clean out their hay? I've owned rabbits, they are messy motherfuckers. They shit everywhere, and those tunnels look pretty damn clean to me. 

Who pays for this? The taxpayer? Is this in one of those 5000 page budget proposals that Rand Paul tries his level best to summarize on Twitter to the detriment of his own sanity? Why do they even bother to keep them down there? If it's a failure why not just kill them all? What, do we care about human rights now? Does Joe Biden have his own doppelganger he feels sentimental about? Maybe he helped him fight Cornpop back in the day.

If there are potentially limitless amounts of people in government who know about this then surely someone's said something. This is the age of the internet and, more importantly, Alex Jones. You mean to tell me not one person has done a Snowden and tried to reveal this to the public? This is the US government; they couldn't run a two door shithouse. They couldn't keep election fraud secret, what makes you think they can do this?

Oh fuck off Susan, it was a joke.

My point is that the film could have left a few more things in the shadows but I think Peele was probably making an attempt at satire. I've seen people try to make this an allegory for the treatment of blacks in America. Eh, maybe if you're a race ideologue who thinks only black people are ever poor or treated poorly, as many critics are. Anyone else would probably see it as a fairly standard 'haves an have-nots' class warfare allegory in the vain of 'Snowpiercer', and the direct reference to and use of the 'Hands Across America' event in the film lends some credence to that idea.

In summary I think it kind of shows off too many of its cards and ends up going a little beyond what I think it should have been. I'm not against satire or social commentary in horror films and if you dig it then more power to you, but it didn't really gel for me. I think the idea probably would have been better served had it had stuck with being a small-scale home-invasion horror flick as the idea of the mysterious doppelganger antagonists provides enough originality to keep things interesting. 

Outside of all that, I know I praised the humour before but as the film goes on Peele does go a little bit overboard. As stated previously the film begins quite surreal, ominous and Shining-esque, but as it goes on it becomes more humorous. Many of the jokes do land but you kind of feel like they probably shouldn't be there. Some of it is outright cringey Millennial humour though, for example when Gabe makes a reference to 'Home Alone' and then Adelaide makes a joke about having referenced 'Home Alone'. 

Desist, Jordan. 

Add to this one or two non-sensical and confusing moments later on and you get a film that's... almost a fine film. Nowhere near bad and also not quite the 93% rating either.

Overall Quality Rating - 3/5

It's well made, atmospheric and funny in mostly the right places. The horror sequences early on are tense and there's a lot of a memorable imagery. It just kind of fell apart for me when it tried to be something more than what it ultimately was. It goes in an unexpected direction but that's not always a good thing, as Kevin Smith's 'Red State' will attest.

Again, maybe I just don't dig Peele's attempts at social commentary, and I will say the twist at the end was a good one, even if I was able to telegraph it shortly before it happened. It's worth a watch if you have Netflix and you're in the mood for a fun little nightmare.

Idiot Rating - 2/5

As I said it has a sense of humour and most of the jokes got at the very least a chuckle out of me, like when Elizabeth Moss tries to get her version of an Alexa type bot to call the police while she lies bleeding to death and the thing starts blaring out 'Fuck the Police' instead. Problem was a fair few of them felt like they shouldn't have been there and along with other problems it helps to undermine what could have been a much better horror film. It certainly doesn't go so overboard that it becomes a full blown idiot movie though.  

Having finally exposed myself to a Peele film I'll say that guy knows what he's doing for the most part. But does this make me want to check out the new 'Candyman' film co-scripted by him? Eh, even if 'Us' had turned out to be a rousing success I'd be cagey about that one, being that 'Candyman' is one of my favourite horror movies. But we'll see, maybe it'll be decent like the last 'Halloween' movie.

I'm Deadeye and fuck da police. 

  

Train to Busan - What the Fuck Was I Waiting For?

Far be it from me to review yet another film about a viral outbreak and the resultant fallout but this happened to be in my DVD collection and being that I am still under collective house arrest I thought I'd give it a watch. Yes, DVDs, remember those? They're those weird plastic frisbee things we used to use to dispense visual entertainment before we started paying corporations to curate said visual entertainment for us on snazzy looking websites and almost immediately regretted it when they started making their own. 

For sure I am not one to wallow in misery as it casts its shadow perched upon the bust of Pallas just above my chamber door. Perched and sitting and nothing more. Take thy beak from out my heart and take thy form from off my door!

Nonetheless here I am, and yet no misery casts its shadow here, as I am glad to announce that not only is the film 'Train to Busan' one of the best modern zombie flicks I've seen, it's nice to see that the Koreans of all people are making movies that people actually want to fucking see. There must be something about living in the shadow of a tin-pot communist regime that regularly threatens you with war that's a recipe for churning out badass fucking movies. I actually don't think I've seen a single Korean film in recent years I've disliked. Maybe 'The Wailing' but even then it was far from shit. I'll take it over 'Midsommar' any day, although I will admit I'd take an acid bath before watching that shitshow again.

Seriously though, what WAS that? It was like if you had Quentin Tarantino write 'The Wicker Man' with a brick lodged in his frontal lobe. If 'Hereditary' was the sex of a lifetime then 'Midsommar' was the subsequent AIDS diagnosis.  

But anyways, enough negativity. Let's get on with the praise.

Seo Seok-Woo reluctantly gets on a train to Busan Metropolitan City to escort his young daughter Su-an to spend her birthday with her mother. As they make the journey, chaos abounds outside as riots and violence seem to spread with little indication as to the cause. When a wounded person enters the train and attacks some people, it becomes apparent that the zombie apocalypse has finally happened; and true to the law of sod, you're unarmed and on a fucking train instead of shut away in your hentai bunker.

One of my pet peeves, particularly when it comes to Western films, is the trope of the workaholic father. Not necessarily because it's over-played or not true to life, but mostly because of how they tend to be treated. That being with some level of contempt. 

It's same in a lot of movies; a man works long hours in a shitty corporate job dealing with idiot shareholders, dull portfolios and now autists on Reddit; only to come home to an ungrateful wife and child who'll take just enough time out of the life of luxury their husband and father has built for them with his own two calloused and bleeding hands to tell him he's 'just not there', y'know?

Yes, Sharon, I'm not there. You know why? Because I'm at the office slaving my nuts off to keep the kids fed and you in fur-coats, jars of potpourri and canvases that say 'Live, Laugh, Love' on them. I'm up to my tits in spreadsheets and memes about 'stonks' so that you can go to the spa on the weekend with the girls; and Stevie, did you walk this dog? I told you, if you're gonna have the dog you're gonna fucking walk him, or Mister Sausage goes back to the shelter to meet Doctor Needle!

Point is that dads in movies, and in real life, get a lot of flack. It matters little what they do, society is always asking more of them and to top it all off they tend to get shafted and shit on from a great height. And it seems initially that 'Train to Busan' is playing to this trope. Fortunately it doesn't and through a fine performance from Gong Yoo as well as a terrific turn from child actress Kim Su-an, this film may be the most pro-dad movie since 'Sudden Death' starring Jean-Claude Van-Damme.

Early in the film Seok-Woo meets Sang-Wa, a tough bloke with a pregnant wife who initially treats Seok-Woo with some contempt given his profession as a Fund Manager. Eventually they're forced to team up, along with a young male athlete, to fight their way through a train filled with rage zombies to rescue their loved ones; and upon viewing these sequences my conclusion is that South Korean film-makers are weirdly good at filming action scenes on moving trains. 

Speaking of the action, it fucking rules. I can get that it's sometimes difficult to merge genres like action with horror since part of the point of horror is often the helplessness one can feel in a situation that's beyond your control, but Train to Busan merges the two almost seamlessly. Again, I don't want to harp on it, but the scenes where the three men battle their way through gore-streaked train carriages with nothing but a baseball bat and their own fists are practical perfection. If there's any scene in a movie that requires a heavy metal soundtrack, it's that one. 

Of course it's a zombie film, so where would we be without some ham-fisted social commentary; and here it comes in the form of Yon-Suk, the chief operations officer of the train company and believe me, he does fucking suck. He's one of the most cowardly and hateable characters to ever grace the screen and only becomes more of a contemptible shit as the film goes on. He manages to convince an entire train carriage full of people that our heroes are the dangerous ones due to the possibility that they may have become infected after bulldozing through hordes of the dead. Prescient considering the hysteria that's come about as a result of a certain other epidemic that shall remain nameless. 

What's the definition of 'Insanity' again?

But this film's aim isn't social commentary. When it isn't putting hairs on your chest with testosterone fueled zombie skull crushing it's pulling you in with eminently likeable characters. Seok-Woo begins the film as an insensitive and emotionally distant father neglecting his child for a soulless career in finance who tends to put himself above others, to a determined warrior, fighting for his daughter's life. Sang-Wa, or as I like to call him, the Magnificent Butcher, is probably my favourite character, if not for his tough attitude then for his tendency to beat zombies with his bare fists. 

What? You need a gun? What are you, some kind of fa...?

...bulous individual? Hahaha, please don't arrest me.

As already stated Kim Su-an, the actress that plays Seok-Woo's daughter, does a fine job, especially in a world where child actors can turn entire scenes into nails on a chalkboard. She begins somewhat stoic, although clearly miserable at the situation between her parents and her father's perceived indifference and selfishness. Later on however she acts up a storm, contributing to some genuinely heart-wrenching, if not a tad melodramatic, moments. 

In a world where zombie flicks are so abundant they could be used as Venezuelan currency, Train to Busan stands out as a genuinely ass-kicking and emotional, well, ride, through a uniquely Asian zombie apocalypse. 

Overall Quality - 4/5 

If you're looking for a George Romero style satirical dark comedy then there's some of that, but this is more 'Night' and 'Day' than 'Dawn'. Focusing more on character and action than social commentary, to make use of an overused term, Train to Busan will in fact keep you on the edge of your seat. Character deaths are like a punch to the gut, even in moments where they don't make much sense, and small inconsistencies in the time it takes for someone to turn feral after being bitten are more than made up for by some excellent action direction. As such I'm very interested in checking out the animated prequel 'Seoul Station' and the recently released spiritual sequel 'Peninsula'.

Idiot Rating - 1/5

No idiocy here, just great action. Like any South Korean thriller it has its sense of humour, some of it coming from the character of the traumatized homeless man, who goes out like a boss anyway so he's not just a comic relief character in the long run. 

This film was in my DVD collection for a good while and so when I put it on at the recommendation of some friends, I was delighted to find myself asking 'What the fuck was I waiting for?' Hopefully you'll think the same. 

I'm DeadEye and go buy your dad a beer for putting up with you for this long. Some day he might save you in the zombie apocalypse.   

Songbird (2020) - SPOILERS

Well, as of writing this review the UK is still in lockdown, our mental and physical health is fucked and so is the economy, the West is now China's bitch and I am slowly turning into Jack Torrance. So you know what that means. That's right, time for Hollywood to cash the fuck in, because only they could take the stark, horrible reality of our situation, ram it through a filter of lens-flares and saccharine bullshit and sell it straight back to us on Amazon for those sweet, sweet Covid bucks. 

Then again by the time all of this is over with, Gambol here wont even have a nickel for his grandma.

ENOUGH of the Lockdowns!

 

So I suppose I can't blame their avarice, I mean we're all looking for ways to make money. I personally am thinking of starting up an Onlyfans account. Can't let Bad Orange Man have all the fun. 

Inevitably the Michael Bay produced viral thriller 'Songbird' has gained a bit of backlash for its cynical exploitation of a worldwide tragedy. And when I say 'backlash' I mean some Twitter randomers decided to act shocked and appalled for likes and retweets and some low level news outlets picked up on it. 'OMG, Covid-23? Dis twailor made me pee my pants!' I know right? A movie exaggerating things for dramatic effect? Say it ain't so. 

'I hate to give this movie attention it doesn't deserve....' Then why do it? Stop typing. Get off the Twatter. There's a whole world out there. Oh wait, most of it's locked down because of measures you and your retarded Twitter spawn brethren probably support. Oh well. Continue to complain about things that don't matter. 

Speaking of complaining about things that don't matter; this movie. It doesn't deserve anywhere near even the minority backlash it's receiving. Not because it's good, if anything it's astoundingly mediocre at best; and not even because it isn't controversial. In fact it seems to go out of its way to NOT say anything controversial. It's just fucking there. Hell, aside from one or two moments involving Peter Stormare channeling Gary Oldman in 'Leon', it isn't even entertaining. 

It's the year 2023. Covid-19 has mutated into Covid-23, presumably because people refused to wear masks during sex. People are holed up in their homes, talking to each other via Skype and getting things delivered to them via courier. So far this sounds almost like how thing were BEFORE the lockdowns. But that's not all; people are subject to regular temperature checks via their phones and if you're found to have a fever then you're assumed to have the Coof and a bunch of nice men in hazmat suits will knock politely on your door and escort you to the concentration ca... I mean, Quarantine Zone for what will no doubt be top quality medical care. 

We follow Nico, one of these couriers whose girlfriend whom he's never met in person finds herself about to be taken to one of these Zones after her mother dies of the Coof, despite the fact that she seems to be immune herself. It's up to Nico to procure an immunity bracelet for his girlfriend before she is menaced to death by Peter Stormare. 

On the face of it, 'Songbird' seems like a fine opportunity to explore themes surrounding the rights of the individual in the midst of a pandemic; or perhaps even how reliant we've become on social media and technology as a means of communicating with each other regardless of any lockdowns. But this is a Michael Bay movie, to expect nuanced social commentary from the man who gave us Skid and Mudflap is a folly to rival the lockdowns themselves.

Realistically the film is a romantic thriller, and despite the film being neither written nor directed by Bay himself, make no mistake, this is a Michael Bay movie. From the glossy production value, needlessly frenetic camerawork and editing and the saccharine, soap opera level dialogue, the only way this could be more Michael Bay is if you extended the runtime to around 3 hours and added an Aerosmith ballad. 

Thankfully this film isn't so cruel; with a runtime of around 85 minutes it doesn't outstay its welcome too long and moves at a decent pace so as to prevent me from gnawing off my own foot in terminal boredom. But in the long run, it still suffers from what I like to call 'Jingling Keys Direction.' It's designed to keep your mind occupied for long enough for you to not realize that what you're watching is a cinematic piss stream. 

And I'm not even talking dark green, opaque with chunks of kidney stone piss either. I'm talking about watery, transparent piss that barely leaves a scent behind and would probably keep a houseplant alive. It's not even bad bad. It lacks the acidity of real bad. Or real good for that matter. 

The story itself is pretty paper thin, with Nico's own story only taking up about a third of the movie. Another third involves an boomer couple, one of which is played by Demi Moore, conspiring with Peter Stormare's character to sell illegal immunity bracelets. The other third involves a disabled war veteran developing a relationship with a YouTube singer, whose only real connection to the rest of the plot is the fact that she's hired by the boomer husband as a personal prostitute. Some interesting ideas never explored in any satisfactory way. 

Whilst the first two thirds of the story connect up enough of a thread for maybe a mediocre 50 minute episode of 'Black Mirror', the last third never really establishes a proper connection to the rest of it, despite the fact that the movie seems to be named for the singer character.

The film's most entertaining aspect is probably Peter Stormare as Harland, the head of the 'Sanitation Department' which has the power to detain people and take them to the camps. As usual Stormare crazies up a storm, stabbing people at random and being generally menacing. He's completely unbelievable as a villain and his backstory only makes things more confusing. Apparently he was a garbage truck driver whose superiors died off one by one and eventually he found himself running things. 

   

Sorry, what? Is this film trying to tell me that if I kill the Mayor of my city and then keep killing his acting replacements, then eventually my entire city will be run by a single street-sweeper? I don't think that's how that works, movie. I don't think local sanitation works the same way as the line to the presidency.

At any rate I just like the fact that Stabby McStabberson here ended up in a position of authority. That's government for you. 

He's not even a competent villain. At one point Demi Moore lures the Nico character into a trap where he meets up with Harland to get some illegal immunity bracelets, and instead of simply having him arrested by the authorities he himself controls, just decides to try and stab him - after all he is Stabby McStabberson - only to get headbutted by Nico who then escapes with the help of some crazy resistance hobo who we never see again for the rest of the movie. 

And once again, the shitty villain death rears its ugly head as Nico ends the saga of Stabby McStabberson with a well placed pencil to the neck. Pencils that the movie took painstaking efforts to establish beforehand. Textbook Chekhov's Gun, movie. I'm proud of you. 

It all kind of ends with everything being wrapped up in a neat little package, despite everything not being wrapped up in a neat little package. Nico and his girlfriend finally get together and leave the city; Demi Moore's character never really receives any kind of comeuppance but her husband's dead, so yay for her; Craig Robinson who plays Nico's boss gets his own illegal immunity bracelet and the Songbird is now free to continue singing songs on YouTube as Nico gives a cringeworthy and optimistic end narration about how 'we weren't delivering packages, we were delivering hope'. 

Yeah bud, delivering hope to rich boomers in gated communities. I'm sure all those people locked up in Tik-Tok Dance Video Training Camps are feeling a lot of that hope right about now. We're all in this together after all.  

Overall Quality Rating - 2/5

The movie uses current events as a jumping off point but pretty much fails to make any kind of use of the backdrop or make any comment on it. As such it's not the freedom movie some anti-lockdowners may hope it to be and nowhere near the irresponsible incitement to disobedience or exploitation of suffering that pro-lockdowners might think. Paper-thin, saccharine and generally stupid, it's only real upside is that it's well produced and isn't too long. 

Idiot Rating - 2/5

Not even much to recommend for hilarity's sake either. Peter Stormare is fun to watch and there are one or two moments that genuinely made me laugh; such as the scene where Demi Moore's husband visits his personal prostitute while wearing a Blue Velvet style oxygen mask and she's wearing fucking PPE along with her sexy lingerie, and no, it isn't played for laughs. Another scene involving the same two characters and a remote control drone with a built on gun is also notable as being one of the more entertaining moments in the film. 

I'm DeadEye and I hope you all catch Hope. 

Roadgames (1981) - In the Outback, No One Can Hear a Dingo Bark

Tell me this, ladies and gents: What do you get when you cross English prisoner DNA, Scottish governance, a land where everything down to the plant life wants to kill you and copious amounts of industrial grain alcohol?

Well there can only be one answer to that.

That's right. Australia. The Land Down Under. The land that gave you AC/DC, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, this video, and probably future war with China. The land that comprises around 90% of the shitposting community despite having the least functional internet of all the OECD countries. And given all that, what other country could provide us with such insane cinema gems as:

Razorback

Dead End Drive-In

The Man From Hong Kong

Harlequin

Day of the Panther

Strike of the Panther

Fair Game

Mad Max

And many others. Chances are if you've seen a Brian Trenchard Smith film, then my friend, you have been Aussied. 

But I'm not here to talk exclusively about the achievements of the Empire (although trust me, it has occurred to me). I'm here to do what I always do which is talk about films I've seen. Which shows you how dull my life is. And as you've no doubt gleaned, I watched an Australian film. A seemingly little known Hitchcockian thriller known as "Roadgames". 

Described by the director, Richard Franklin, as "Rear Window" in a truck; "Roadgames" stars Stacy Keach as Pat Quid, an American trucker in the outback tasked with transporting meat from Melbourne to Perth. On his way he encounters numerous characters such as a woman whose husband leaves her behind on the road for being annoying, the owner of an ill-fated boat, a motorist with an inexplicable number of balls in the back of his car and of course Jamie Lee Curtis as Pamela, a hitchhiker looking for adventure on the road. On this journey he becomes suspicious of a man in a green van as the police hunt for a serial killer who dismembers his victims and leaves their body parts scattered around the country. 

Of course Green Van Man turns out to be the murderer in question and after Pamela is taken hostage by the killer and Quid is fingered by the police as the prime suspect, Quid finds himself in a race against time to track down the killer and save both Pamela and himself.

Firstly, this is no dreary road movie. This film is pure Hitchcock, from the (implied to be sexually motivated) psychopathic antagonist, the witness turned suspect wrongfully pursued by the law, to the very wicked sense of humour, Roadgames isn't covering up its inspiration. No wonder then that it's praised by the likes of Quentin Tarantino, as that's pretty much his career in a nutshell. 

Stacy Keach is by far the best thing about this movie, and given that the rest of the movie is pretty golden, that's saying a lot. He plays a character who is high on intelligence and low on ambition and every moment he's on the screen is entertaining. The fun and fast paced dialogue written by Everett De Roche (writer of "Razorback", "Harlequin", "Long Weekend" and many others) certainly contributes to the overall charm, even when Keach's only acting partner in a scene is a sleepy looking dingo. 

Pat Quid as a character is I guess what you could call a self-trained snob but not insufferably so, frequently claiming that "Just because I drive a truck, doesn't mean I'm a truck driver." His tendency to overanalyze the world around him is only complimented when he picks up hitchhiker Pamela, played by Jamie Lee Curtis, who despite being the Scream Queen and this being a serial killer movie, never actually lets out a scream. But to be fair that's kind of hard to do when you have a sack over your head. Their chemistry is excellent, even to a point where a romantic scene happens between the two and it doesn't really come off cringeworthy despite the age difference between the two characters. 

Stacy Keach himself even said that it was a bit of a coincidence to have two Americans meet in the middle of the Outback, but it works as the idea of the two foreigners in a strange and hostile land only lends itself to the scenes of genuine suspense and dread that comes later in the film. This isn't first time an Everett De Roche scripted film has left me with that sense of dread, as "Long Weekend" managed to scare me with a manatee's corpse. Indeed Greg McLean, director "Wolf Creek", names Roadgames as a definite inspiration for Wolf Creek and it's not hard to see why. 

The killer himself is played by stuntman Grant Page, and in true "Halloween" style he doesn't say a word. We never find out what his motivations are beyond speculation from our main protagonists. All we know is that he kills women and that his wits match that of Pat Quid in their game of cat and mouse across the plains of Australia. Further proving that sometimes the scariest antagonist is the one that's unknown and yet entirely familiar. If I were to lay down one gripe about the film's handling of the killer, I'd say it's that I probably wouldn't have revealed his face so early on. I think it would have lent a more mysterious slant to the character, perhaps even leaving you wondering if he's even real or not, a la "The Hitcher". Indeed the first murder scene makes his first appearance in the blinding light of the hotel bathroom seem almost supernatural and that's kind of undermined a little when you see pretty quickly that he's just some bloke. 

Overall Quality Rating - 4/5

Roadgames is definitely a treat for both Hitchcock fans and fans of Aussie cinema. The film crew actually made the journey that the characters do from Melbourne in Victoria all the way to Perth in Western Australia, so if you're looking for a film that displays the beauty and desolation of the Outback in all its glory, then Roadgames is the film for you. Other than that, it's a classic and highly influential thriller and I recommend it to anyone.

Idiot Rating - 3/5

The film has an excellent sense of humour. Stacy Keach is constantly cracking often Dad level jokes, and the characters that he comes across on his journey are often strange and hilarious in their own right, with special attention paid to a certain man with a certain doomed boat. The film even ends with a very dark piece of comic imagery, meaning you'll be laughing about as much as you'll be fearing for the character's lives. 

I'm DeadEye... g'day mate.

King of New York (1990) - Basically Grand Theft Auto: The Movie

Abel Ferrara may be the most underrated director on the planet, and his 1990 movie, "King of New York", is ample evidence of this fact. He might be more well known for the video nasty "Driller Killer", starring himself; or crime drama "Bad Lieutenant", starring Harvey Keitel's penis; but he should also be commended for often schlocky and exploitative efforts such as rape-revenge movie "Ms. 45", kung-fu serial killer movie "Fear City" (yes, that's what I said, kung-fu serial killer), and unjustly underrated sci-fi horror flick "Body Snatchers". Beyond all that, "King of New York" represents both Ferrara and long-time collaborator and screenwriter Nicholas St. John at their apex. 

At its core "King of New York" is basically a B gangster flick, and some may even mistake it for a low rent version of "Scarface". But fuck that, because having watched it again after years of not seeing it and stupidly watching nonsense like "The Snowman", "King of New York" might be up there as one of my favourite movies. If you don't like this movie then you quite literally have no balls. You were born without genitals.

Or merely lost them.

The film stars Christopher Walken as Frank White; a drug lord who has recently been released from prison having been jailed presumably for being a suspected reptilian. And as can be expected it isn't two seconds after crossing the prison gate threshold that people start dying. The movie throws you straight into the action as Frank White's henchmen on the outside start killing off the competition one by one; and as the film goes on, the rivers of blood get so thick and copious that New York City Council begins talks to invest in a giant tax-payer funded street tampon to steady the flow.

You ever feel... you know... not so fresh?

As soon as Frank is free he begins talks with other drug lords, pimps and drug pimps to engage in some free trade agreements under the presumed intention of funding some inner city children's hospitals. Naturally when they turn him down they find that they have unintentionally purchased themselves first class tickets on the express train to Hell. 

Whilst some gangster flicks revel a little too much in torture or internal gangland politics, "King of New York" presents the audience with quick and wrenching moments of violence that characterize Frank White as a man of ruthless efficiency with little taste for sadism and a sweet tooth for being the man at the top. Some scenes in this movie honestly resemble a "Grand Theft Auto" playthrough and that is by no means a criticism, as Ferrara's almost fly-on-the-wall style of direction (similar to his later effort "Bad Lieutenant") lends a certain level of realism to the events. 

Of course what gangster movie wouldn't be complete without its law enforcement element?  David Caruso, Wesley Snipes and Victor Argo take up Frank White's opposition on the other side of the law. Dennis Gilley, played by Caruso, displays a volatile character, almost as morally questionable as the people he hunts down, and whose actions lead to not only his own downfall but that of his close friends on the force. 

Just about every scene in this film has some memorable element to it. From an opening scene where a rival drug lord makes his way through his palatial home with scantily clad hookers strewn about like crisp packets, only to be gunned down in a phone booth just outside; to an otherwise standard street gun battle that's made eminently more notable with the addition of a gorgeous black woman in a leather jacket and gangster hat careening around the corner in a black car, sticking out of the sun roof and annihilating anything that moves with a machine gun (what did I say about this basically being a GTA movie?). If the film indeed has one flaw it's that its plot moves so quickly that at times some of the scenes be blurry; but this only results in many of the key scenes - such as the night club shooting scene in which Laurence Fishburne dual wields pistols - becoming all the more memorable and almost iconic. 

Again, unlike Ferrara's later and perhaps more well known effort, "Bad Lieutenant", "King of New York" doesn't attempt to throw any kind of moral at you. The closest it comes is in a scene towards the end, and whilst Bad Lieutenant's moral seemed confusing at best and ass-backwards at worst, King of New York condenses it into a single line.

"I spent half my life in prison, I never got away with anything and I never killed anybody who didn't deserve it."

Similar to Tony Montana:

"I never fucked anyone over in my life didn't have it coming to them."

Less a moral than a justification for what Frank White does. And to be fair, it seems born out by what you see in the movie. Frank only seems to kill people he has a personal or moral disapproval of and most of them are other gangsters who engage in practices such as human trafficking and child prostitution. In fact the only arguably innocent guy who Frank kills in the film is Roy Bishop (played by Victor Argo) a police officer. It's only at that point where we see Frank face the consequences of his actions, as he sits in the back of a taxi with a gunshot wound in his stomach and the police slowly closing in on him. 

Is it as dramatic as "Scarface"? No, not really. I mean you can't get much more dramatic than a coked up Cuban murdering scores of gunmen with a grenade launching M16 machine gun, so really the comparison is a tad unfair. But King of New York is not Scarface and it's not trying to be. Whilst Tony Montana meets his maker as a result of actually doing a good thing for once in his life, Frank White's fast paced and debauched lifestyle simply catches up to him. In a way his character and that of David Caruso's follow a very similar path. His own hubris consumes those around him and ultimately leads to his own demise. 

But fuck the analyzing, because even without any subtext or messaging, King of New York is a film fit for a King.

Overall Quality Rating - 5/5   

I love this movie and it's without a doubt one of my favourites. It's visually arresting, its characters are fun to watch despite not being entirely sympathetic, and it's just generally filled wth guns, tits and Christopher Walken looking like he wants to eat you like the lizard person that he is.  

Idiot Rating - 2/5

There are some fun moments such as the first shootout scene where one of Frank's men bursts in yelling "Room Service, motherfucker!" Another notable moment is a scene where Wesley Snipes tries to coax Laurence Fishburne out of hiding during a gun fight by offering him fried chicken. But this is no idiot film. The fun moments are entirely intentional and genuinely funny. Recommended without reservation. 

I'm DeadEye, and Christopher Walken smiles at you while you sleep.

 

The Snowman (2017) - WORST REMAKE EVER

 

In a way, I kind of have a love/hate relationship with remakes. Some of them are great. In fact my favourite movie, "John Carpenter's The Thing", is technically a remake of an older film. David Cronenberg's version of "The Fly" is of course a disgusting classic, as is the lesser known Chuck Russell version of "The Blob". There is "Cat People" but we don't talk about "Cat People", unless it's in reference to Nastassja Kinski. 

"Nastassja, is that your father, Klaus, poking a rifle into my back,
or are you just glad to see me?"
"What?"
"Please, help." 

But all those films had one thing in common, and no it wasn't just that they actually updated the stories of the original films with groundbreaking special effects of the time and the unique visions of the individual directors. It was that they were all made in the fucking 80s and therefore they piss on anything that ever came out in subsequent decades. And yes, fat nerds, that includes your precious MCU. How does it feel knowing that each viewing of "Avengers: Endgame" is directly correlated with a marked decrease in Testosterone levels? I don't need a fucking study. You need Kurt Russell.

"Is that a shotgun in my hands pointed at your face,
or am I just glad to see you?"
"What?"
"NO." (Shotgun blast)

(Side Note: Even though "The Thing" is my favourite movie, let it be known that "Tombstone" is the best movie ever made and don't ever let the question part from your lips ever again, less you want them NO'd into oblivion)

So anyways, the original "The Snowman" is a Christmas classic. Fine animation, atmospheric music and an iconic main song sung by Aled Jones culminates in a bittersweet little tale told without a single line of dialogue. It's animation and indeed visual storytelling at its finest. Plus it made a cracking Irn Bru ad. 

 This on the other hand:

This is a fucking travesty.

I'm sad to admit that I was pumped for this movie. I mean sure, Disney's live action remakes of their own animated classics have largely been an exercise in redundancy as far as I'm concerned, but this was different. They got the guy who made "Let the Right One In" to direct and personally I thought Michael Fassbender was a fantastic choice to play the titular Snowman. 

But upon viewing the film I was utterly shocked to find that he never once dons a snowman costume. In fact there are multiple snowmen in the film, not just one; and not only does Michael Fassbender not play any of them, none of the others actually do anything. They sit there. They don't even fly or tragically melt at the end making children cry.  

Plus there are a lot more dead women than I remember in the original film. Granted it's been a while since I've seen it and my memory is fuzzy, but I don't recall there being any serial murderers in the original. I know Hollywood has this obsession with "gritty reimaginings" of things but quite frankly this is exactly the same as pissing on the Quran. 

"Who cares, GLENN," I here you dribble incoherently, "It's a different movie, GLENN. You should separate it from the original, GLENN." Okay, fine. But even if you do separate it from the original in your mind and treat it as its own entity, the movie is still shit. Shit I tell you!

Michael Fassbender plays Inspector Harry Hole, who works for the Oslo police and is an amalgam of just about every hard drinking, chain smoking, estranged and generally traumatized TV detective out there. When women start turning up missing with only the calling card of a snowman built near the scenes of the crimes, it's up to the Inspector and his plucky female sidekick to discover the Hole truth. 

Firstly, this is pretty much every serial killer movie ever made but worse. As stated previously Harry Hole is the archetype Will Graham-esque traumatized detective, who despite being an alcoholic with a habit of sleeping in children's playgrounds, also happens to be a brilliant practitioner whose cases are studied in universities. You have the estranged family issues, which don't amount to much; there's some implied corruption in local business circles, which, again, amounts to very little; and whilst the movie takes itself undeservedly seriously this film is home to some occasional moments of serial killer silliness that seem more at home in an episode of "A Touch of Cloth" than a serious mystery film. 

For example; Chloe Sevigny stars as one of the ultimate victims of the killer and upon the discovery of her headless corpse, the police investigate the nearby area only to find her severed head perched atop the body of a snowman, complete with stick arms and buttons made out of clusters of coffee beans for some reason. Although this shouldn't have surprised me given Chloe Sevigny's past of giving head for a film production. 

It's just one of the moments where you sit there and think "Why?" Why would anyone do that? The killing women part I get. Hell, I even sympathize. But not even the Zodiac would pull this kind nonsense. And when a further moment comes where the killer blows off Val Kilmer's head with a shotgun (yes, Val Kilmer is in this film and suffering from some sort of square face syndrome) and places an apparently pre-made snowman head on the stump where Val Kilmer's head used to be, this is when you start to realize that this movie may be taking itself seriously, but it certainly isn't taking you seriously. 

Speaking of Val Kilmer, it took me a while into the movie to realize that all of his scenes in the film are in fact meant to be flashbacks. This only further complicates the overly convoluted and incoherent plot. Entire plotlines established are never resolved and you end up phasing in and out of paying attention and wondering why anyone is where they are, what's going on and why in the frozen hell I see pictured before me (AKA: Norway) should I give a fraction of a shit? It isn't surprising then when Tomas Alfredson, the director, comes out and says that a good percentage of the screenplay was never actually filmed due to time constraints.  

On top of all this you have what has got to be the shittiest serial killer death of all time. I figured out who the killer was fairly early on and when it's finally revealed who he is and what his reasons for doing what he's doing are - SPOILER ALERT: His abusive dick of a father didn't want him, he and his mother tried to chase him down in their car as he left which resulted in his mother going catatonic at the wheel and allowing the car to skid out on to the ice and sink into the lake with the future murderer managing to get free before the fateful moment - we are treated to the inevitable scene where the detective's loved ones are kidnapped and held hostage by the murderer. Pretty textbook so far.

A scuffle ensues and Harry Hole chases the killer down to a frozen lake for a showdown that mirrors the opening flashback and... get ready for this... the killer falls down an opening in the ice. So I guess you could say that... the Hole won in the end. 

Seriously though, what a shitty villain death. The Tooth Fairy killer's fake death in "Red Dragon" was better than that. You mean to tell me you had me track through ten inches and two hours of a boring, incoherent, incomplete and cliched mess of a fucking serial killer movie, and you can't even give me a proper villain death? I hate to harp on this but a good villain death, in my opinion, is an important thing. The audience wants to see the killer get his comeuppance and all you can give us is him falling down a fishin' hole and not coming back up again. Terrible.

And to top it all off, they make a point of trying to blame everything on the killer's illegitimate father. You know, instead of his mother who decided to commit suicide in front of him and possibly even kill him in the process. Good job, drunk detective who sleeps in playgrounds and has no actual family of his own. Your opinions are duly noted. 

 

Add to all this a dreary film-making style, largely morose performances and the Hole's female sidekick's revenge plotline ends in a wet fart with no real emotional reaction and what you're left with is a serial killer film that's somehow worse than "The Bone Collector". And believe me, that's saying something. 

Overall Quality Rating - 1/5

There is almost nothing I can recommend this movie for. It's not as imaginative in its filming or direction or concept as "Let the Right One In" and it lacks any of the intrigue of the similarly convoluted "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy". It certainly doesn't live up to the quality of past genre standards like "Manhunter", "The Silence of the Lambs" or "Se7en". Nothing shocking, nothing memorable, and overall the WORST REMAKE EVER.

Idiot Rating - 1.5/5

I give it an extra .5 for the Idiot Rating due to the aforementioned snowman corpse art, as well as the fact that every time I saw Chloe Sevigny's severed head all I could think of was that they'd best make sure Vincent Gallo wasn't allowed anywhere near the set. Outside of that you really don't have much to laugh at, although I will say that J.K Simmons' weirdly well executed posh English accent provided a few moments of mirth. Plus scenes where Val Kilmer acts like a drunken lunatic on the roof of the police station probably represents this film at its apex. 

Doc Holliday, what happened to you?

"Hey, is that a gun in your pocket or is that Tuberculosis?"
"It's Tuberculosis."
"Oh." (Dies of Tuberculosis)

 

I'm DeadEye and Merry Christmas ya filthy animals.