"Big Bad Wolf" (2006)

• Directed & Written by: Lance W. Dreesen
• Starring: Trevor Duke, Kimberly J. Brown, and Richard Tyson

     So many werewolf films, such little quality. If you asked me to list off the amount of good to great werewolf films, I could probably count all of them on one hand. Apart from a few classics like "The Wolf Man" and "An American Werewolf in London", most werewolf films are severely by-the-numbers, badly made, and poorly plotted. Unfortunately, "Big Bad Wolf", one of many in a huge slew of independent/direct-to-dvd werewolf films, is not an exception.
     "Big Bad Wolf" follows the adventures of Derek Crowley (Trevor Duke), a college student who has recently pledged himself to a fraternity. In order to get into the frat's social standing, he agrees to let them spend a night camping at his stepfather's secluded cabin out in the woods. Unfortunately, they just happen to arrive on the night when a werewolf is running loose! The werewolf kills all of Derek's frat friends, but Derek himself is spared when his sometime-friend, sometime-girlfriend Samantha Marche (Kimberly J. Brown) axes the wolf-man in the back. Later, when they arrive home, they conclude that Derek's abusive stepfather is the werewolf (trust me, this isn't a spoiler, they reveal this within the first 20 minutes), and they must do all they can to stop him.
     First off, the trailer and the official synopsis for this film is incredibly misleading. I went in expecting a middling werewolf slasher flick taking place in the middle of some creepy woods. The film holds good on this premise for about 15 minutes, and then the film follows Derek and Sam as they try to take down his stepfather, which turns out to be a much less interesting and fun plot for many different reasons.
     One of the worst things about this film (other than it's plotting, characterization, and dialogue) is that it has absolutely no idea what kind of movie it wants to be. At times it takes things deadly serious and gives an honest effort to try to be scary and build up suspense, but then other times it immediately rockets around in the other direction and tries to be a funny, over-the-top horror parody. It's incredibly jarring, and it cancels out any semblance of consistency or scariness. If they had went either way with the film it could have had the potential to be good (if, you know, everything else was fixed), but the fact that they went down the path of constantly flip-flopping and changing moods just took me out of the film and ruined any kind of atmosphere it was trying to build. If you want me to care about your characters, stop making them do stupid, goofy shit like hitting their heads on ceilings like they're in a fucking "Three Stooges" movie.
     And when I say the "comedy" bits are jarring, you better believe that I mean it. A good example of this was when the werewolf first attacks. At first I was thinking that the movie would go town a traditional monster movie route and the werewolf would just be menacing and silent, which would have been okay. But then, in the film, we hear a scream come from the room of one of the frat boy's girlfriends. The frat boy grabs a fire axe and beats the door down (which is very obviously made of balsa wood, by the way), and looks inside the hole to see... the werewolf fucking his "virgin" girlfriend in the ass. When the frat boy yells at the beast
that his girlfriend was a virgin, the werewolf says, in a gruff voice, "She ain't anymore!," and promptly slits the girl's throat.
     I couldn't believe what the fuck I had just seen, and that's what I'm talking about. Once you have your werewolf bumming around and spouting out one-liners like a hairy Freddy Krueger, your film loses any hope at all of being taken seriously, and I highly doubt that it was the filmmaker's intention for the movie to be completely silly, because later on, when the film actually tries to be suspenseful, it means it. The characters are completely serious and the actors play their roles with conviction. So I don't believe for a second that the film was meant to be an all-out comedy.
     Anyway, besides the terrible, uneven tone, the plot is achingly monotonous and boring. Like a lot of horror films, you'll probably be able to figure out where the plot is going fairly quickly. It's a strict, "Point A" to "Point B" plot sequence. This would be fine if the characters and dialogue had any sort of depth or competence, but the characters are total cookie-cutter archetypes, and their personalities frequently shift whenever it's convenient to the plot.
     The character of Derek is a painful nerdy stereotype who is too much of a pussy to talk back to anyone or do anything (and of course by the end of the film he's a total badass), and his friend Sam is an archetypal "female badass", with leather jackets and slutty t-shirts (and of course she and Derek end up fucking by the film's end). It all just runs together and is completely boring. Throw in some cringe-worthy dialogue ("We can take a little romantic walk in the moonlight, you know what I mean?", "Can you even walk?", "Oh, I can do a lot more than that, baby"), and some completely ridiculous plot points (Sam sucks the werewolf's dick to get a semen sample for a DNA test... I'm serious), and you have a recipe for disaster.
     There are a few moments of unintentional comedy, like the aforementioned dialogue, the teeth-grindingly awful soap opera acting, and the fact that, apparently, werewolfism also gives you the ability to teleport, as the werewolf frequently jumps around and disappears out of nowhere like the fucking Batman. As for the comedy that's actually meant to be funny? I hope you like lots and LOTS of canine-related puns. However, there is some genuinely funny dialogue. For example, when one of the frat boy's girlfriend's comments on Sam's tongue ring, she asks her if guys like it when she goes down on them. Sam responds with: "When I blow your boyfriend, you can ask him." Unfortunately, this all clashes with the potentially serious tone that the film is trying to create, and these actually funny moments are so few and far between that it's not worth sitting through the entire film for.
     If there is anything at all that is genuinely good about the film, well, there is some decent cinematography (the opening scene in a creepy swamp is a highlight), and the gore effects aren't too bad, but that isn't saying much. There's only about a quarter of practical effects in the film. Everything else is digital composites or CGI, leading to a godawful transformation sequence and some laughably fake digital fire toward the end. The werewolf itself also looks terrible, like a shag carpet with teeth.
     To it's credit, the film does try to do some interesting stuff. There is a particular scene leading up to the climax where the werewolf stepdad tries to have an honest heart-to-heart with his stepson that almost comes close to making him a sympathetic character, but after the stepson storms out in a huff he goes right back to being a wisecracking asshole villain, and whatever depth he may have been developing is dashed to the ground.
     Overall, despite some unintentional comedic elements, some decent cinematography, and some sweet, but all too short cameos from Clint Howard and David Naughton, this film is just another bit of protein in the sea of werewolf films. If you're incredibly bored, like I was when I saw this film, then I'd give it a whirl. Don't expect anything much, though. Unless you really like the idea of seeing a werewolf get a blowjob.

"Boys Life 6" (2007)

• Directed by: Carter Smith, Etienne Kallos, Soman Chainani, and Mark Christopher
• Written by: Various
• Starring: Various

     You know, I don't mention it overtly here on this blog, but most of my readers, who are primarily made up of friends, all know that I'm gay. And being gay, I'm often drawn to any sort of media portraying homosexuality. It's a remnant from growing up in the closet. Frustration toward unfair and even hateful portrayals in the mainstream media, and an even bigger frustration once the realization hits that the indie crowd doesn't offer much better. As a young gay guy, not of a flamboyant or promiscuous caliber, this severely dampens my chances of finding anything great, anything that really deals with gays like me. But I keep searching.

I often enjoy short films because I see them as very much like the short story. You have a limited time to express your characters, your background, and your plot, and so often the filmmaker must really try to pack a punch within a very short timeframe, so that the viewer is left with a significant impression. If it isn't, your film tends to fade into the background.

So for this review I'm going to try something different. I'm going to talk about "Boys Life 6", a collection of four gay-themed short films, and I'm going to do little mini-reviews of each short. Gay themes and short films! It's a milestone for this blog! Okay, not really. Let's get into it!

The first film is entitled "Bugcrush", and is written and directed by Carter Smith. It's about 35 minutes long, and tells the story of a young, gay high school student named Ben (Josh Barclay Caras), who runs across a new, very rebellious and slightly menacing student named Grant (Donald Eric Cumming). Because of his attraction to Grant, Ben attempts to ingratiate himself into his group of equally strange and slightly creepy friends, and once he does, learns a very horrifying secret.

Yes, it's a horror film, and it's excellent, by far the best in the entire collection. The first thing that struck me about "Bugcrush" was it's incredible direction. It's very modestly budgeted, but you wouldn't know that, considering that it's beautifully shot on 35mm, and is full of extreme close-ups and atmospheric shots of dark and lonely roads. The suspense in the film is masterful as well. I found my heart racing for almost the entirety of the film, and it didn't let up. It was so nerve-wracking that I almost had to pause the film for a minute to calm down.

The reason the suspense is so well done is because the film gives you the sense that there is DEFINITELY something strange going on, but it does it without giving anything away, it implies here and suggests there, so you get the vague sense that something is wrong, but you don't know exactly what, and this keeps you glued to your seat, eager to find out.

There are a few shortcomings, however. The acting, frankly, is crap. Everyone talks in a very slow, monotone stoner drawl, and when they try to get menacing it's painful. However, the standout is Josh Caras as Ben, who is convincing as an innocent gay kid that doesn't know what he's getting into. I felt for him, as he haplessly jumps into this venture without realizing the consequences, all because of an attraction. Everyone else is horribly wooden. The climax is also slightly predictable, but appropriately harrowing, and the final scene is VERY well-shot for an independent film. I loved it. Sure, it's dark and macabre, but how often do we get a great gay horror story?

The second film is called "The Doorman", and it's directed and co-written by Etienne Kallos. It's about an attractive Hispanic doorman (Jamil Mena) who works at an apartment, and enters into a brief and painful sexually charged relationship with one of his tenants, a strange, kind of fugly college kid (Stephen Sheffer).

To make a long story short, it's crap. It's shot very amateurishly on what looks like miniDV, the camera won't stop wobbling around and the story is bland. The film mostly tries to convey it's story through the use of visuals, with very little dialogue. This would be fine if the character's actions made any sense. They constantly do very odd things, such as the doorman's liaison requesting him to beat him, and without the aid of dialogue or backstory or some other sort of visual aid to at least help the audience understand what's happening and why, it just feels like a bunch of randomly spliced scenes, and the film lays over a bunch of "oohs" and "ahhs" whenever something meaningful is supposed to be happening. It also doesn't help that the acting is unbelievably over the top and schmaltzy. I'm not even sure what the conflict is supposed to be. They imply the relationship goes to shit because the doorman won't let the college student fuck him for a change, which is just... stupid. There is literally no character development for either of them. We're not given an inkling of an idea why they've gotten into this relationship, or who they are, or how they relate to the plot, or why we should care. Skip this pretentious, artsy crap.

The third film is entitled, "Davy & Stu". It's directed by Soman Chainani and written by Anton Dudley, and it features two young Scottish boys (Nicholas Cutro & Travis Walters) meeting up and discussing their lives for a bit before revealing that they're lovers. Essentially it's a character study, as we glean information about their places in life based on their dialogue.

"Davy & Stu" is decent, but it's nothing special. The cinematography is a step-up from "Doorman", but it's nowhere near as good as "Bugcrush". It takes place in a bog though, so it's full of very nice, bright green scenery. However, I just wasn't drawn in, really. The dialogue between the two kids is interesting, but it didn't blow me away, and the dialogue itself is horrendously stilted and unrealistc. The two actors do their best with what they have, and admittedly they're not bad, but in the end the film just made me go "meh". The plot is also nothing special. It feels like the fact that they're in a gay relationship is meant to be a twist, but since I watched it in a fucking collection of gay short films, it's not much of a twist, is it? I really can't say much about this one. You might like it, you might not.

The fourth, and final film is entitled "Heartland", and it's written and directed by Mark Christopher. It's told primarily with narration and still photographs, and it's about a young man named H.G. Gudmanson (Corey Sorenson), who has to return to his hometown in Iowa to help his father on the family farm. Tensions arise once word spreads that he is gay.

Again, like "Davy & Stu", it left me with a profound feeling of indifference. The plot has been done over and over and over again, and if you don't see the big reveal coming, you're kind of stupid. Telling the story through photos and narration is slightly interesting, but the narration from Sorenson is incredibly stiff and unnatural, and the mixing isn't very well done, it's very hissy. When there are actual live-action bits to watch, Sorenson isn't bad, which makes me wonder why his narration was so terrible. But overall, it's just not that amazing. I was also slightly offended that even though H.G. has a boyfriend back in New York where he lives, he still lusts after someone else on his dad's farm. But that's another conversation for another time. "Heartland" is all right, it has potential, but is ultimately boring, predictable, and badly acted.

Overall, while it's an incredibly interesting idea to package a bunch of gay shorts together, there is a very, very high bad-to-good ratio for this specific collection. "Bugcrush" is the only really excellent one with it's taut direction, beautiful cinematography and macabre story, but the rest of the films are either badly directed crap ("Doorman") or just ineffective, slightly boring pieces that may have something interesting there, but nothing substantial enough to be compelling ("Davy & Stu", "Heartland"), which is sad, because "Bugcrush" was so great that I was really looking forward to what came next. It seems that I'll still be searching for that one great gay film. As for you, well, if you already don't like gay films then you've pretty much wasted your time, but if you're interested, check it out on Netflix Instant Watch. Don't expect anything spellbinding, though.

"The Innocents" (1961)

• Directed by: Jack Clayton
• Written by: William Archibald & Truman Capote
• Starring: Deborah Kerr, Martin Stephens, Pamela Franklin, Megs Jenkins, Michael Redgrave, Peter Wyngarde & Clytie Jessop

     Lately I've been becoming very intrigued by ghost stories. There's something about the dark, Victorian mysteriousness of them that endears them to me... and scares me out of my wits. However, "The Innocents" is not a ghost story.

  "The Innocents", adapted from Henry James's 1898 novella "The Turn of the Screw", tells the story of an English governess (Deborah Kerr) who has been tasked with taking care of a disinterested uncle's children. At first, things go well, but soon strange things start happening, the children start exhibiting abnormal behavior, 

and the governess begins seeing ghostly apparitions. But are the ghosts really ghosts?

  This is the question that the film asks. It presents us with what, at first glance, seems to be an ordinary ghost story and then asks us to dig deeper, to question not only the actions of the governess, but her reality and sanity as well. The ghosts could be real, but then again the governess could merely be insane. It's this complex, intriguing theme that makes the film rise above the trappings of generic ghost fiction.

This psychological undertaking is supplemented by the film's airtight, beautiful and even haunting atmosphere. It opens very coldly, with a chilling child's song, floating ethereally over the 20th Century Fox logo. It perfectly prepares the viewer for the tone of the film. Not only that, but it's framed by the late Freddie Francis, and it's one of the most effective, beautifully shot films I've ever seen. Every shot looks like a painting and it infuses the film with an evocative, dreamlike atmosphere.

As well as the simple visual look, the hauntings themselves are very subtly portrayed. Oh yes, we do see some apparitions, but when we do it's not about jump scares and gory imagery. Instead, the apparitions simply serve to unnerve and disturb the viewer, despite the fact that they never appear to do anything menacing. We only catch fleeting glimpses of them out of the corner of our eye, or far away, dressed in black, exhibiting some kind of feeling of danger, but as to what sort of danger we're not exactly sure. The fact that the cast is very minimal also contributes to this atmosphere, making the house itself feel claustrophobic and lonely.

However, at the heart of the film is the question of the governess' sanity. Throughout we are provided with many visions of the ghosts, but it is implied that only the governess sees them. However, we are also provided with evidence to the contrary, as it seems that the children have some knowledge of the ghosts as well as learning vulgar language that they couldn't have possibly learned anywhere else. Just when we think that we have figured out the mystery, the film throws something else our way to make us rethink our position. It leaves the film with an air of uncertainty and it's not easy to decide what exactly happened. The film is much stronger for going this route, in that it explains basic things like the history of the house and the people in it, but it doesn't decide the outcome of the story for us, it's left up to the audience. It's very rare that a psychological thriller such as this leaves so much of the actual thinking to the viewer.

Neither does the film provide us with any easy answers to the characters. They're not black and white slates, attempting to sway our emotions one way or another, they feel like very real and confused individuals. Should we feel sorry for the governess because of her increasingly manic actions that drive everyone away from her, or should we hate her because of it? And what about the children? Are they just little brats that are dirty schemers, or is there something more to them, something sadder? Like a lot of great films, it doesn't tell us what they are or how to feel, it simply presents us with the facts and asks us to make our own conclusions.

Much of this complex characterization comes from the actors themselves, who play their roles with a terrifying amount of conviction. I've never actually seen Deborah Kerr in anything before, other than "The King and I", but her role as the governess is so amazing that it makes me angry! She can go from lilting and sweet to manic and crazy at the drop of a hat, and yet she avoids seeming like an exaggerated parody of a crazy person. Instead her (percieved) insanity is depicted very convincingly, like a woman who is merely frustrated and has been pushed too far, rather than someone who has had too much sugar and cocaine.

I also can't forget the two children, Nora and Miles (Martin Stephens and Pamela Franklin, respectively) who are so chillingly creepy and convincing that at times I find it impossible to believe that they were only 11 when they made this film. I've never seen any child actors that can even approach their talents in this film. Stephens in particular is a highlight, with his icy stare and his erudite manner of speech that seems far too mature for someone of his age. Everyone in this film is perfectly cast, and it's some of the best acting I've seen in a film.

But there's more to the plot of this film as well... there is some intriguing psycho-sexual tension going on. Throughout the film Miles is slightly flirtatious and playful with the governess, and this reaches a head when, while putting Miles to bed one night, he kisses her full on the lips, and the governess responds not with revulsion, but instead her eyes fly wide open and she seems taken aback, like a lover who has been kissed for the first time. In the opening scene of the film she tells their uncle that she loves children. What does she mean by this? Does she merely enjoy the company of children, or is there something a bit more sinister going on? It's quite possible considering that Truman Capote, well-known for infusing his works with psycho-sexual undertones, had a hand in writing the screenplay.

After the film's chilling and frankly disturbing climax, "The Innocents" ends just as it begins: the governess, hands clasped, beseeching the heavens. "I must protect the children," she says. And this very rewarding, very unnerving film shows just how far she will go to do that. This is not only a great horror film or a great ghost story, it's simply a great FILM in every sense of the word. The fact that the Academy chose to completely ignore this masterpiece is a crime of the deepest order. Seek this film out and watch it in the dead of night, you won't come out disappointed.