(Don't) Feed the Birds

You know what's fairly short, at least in terms of human measurements? A bird. Yes, they immediately fly higher than most of our heads, but you know...9 years of Shortenings means I sometimes have to reach (PUN!).

Quick Plot: Small town sheriff Wayne has one last day on the job before he moves to the big city with his scholarly wife for her research work. Naturally, no good cop can retire without experiencing a raging birdemic.

This one comes courtesy of some shifty Mennonite farmers and their overprotective ways. When mad cow corpses get pecked by a gaggle of ravens, chaos reigns faster than you can clear your throat for a proper Hitchcock impression.

Directed by Sheldon Wilson, Kaw is essentially exactly what you want from a Birds-inspired cheapie, right on down to casting good sport Rod Taylor as the kindly town doctor. Canadian treasure Stephen McHattie lends some quality as the town drunk, and the better-than-it-should-be combination of CGI and a few well-trained avian actors makes it clear that we're not playing in Asylum Studios territory.

Still, Kaw doesn't seem to have the resources or ambitions to overcome its baby budget, leaving it as a pleasant enough SyFy Channel bit of entertainment.

High Points
Maybe it's just the recent influx of anything bird-related coupled with the film's obvious low budget, but all in all, Kaw is surprisingly smart about its bird graphics, cleverly blending real birdings with bargain (but passable) CGI 

Low Points
Rod Taylor aside, it's a shame that there isn't more spark to the townspeople, though credit should be given to the fact that a few stray teenagers manage to make it out with personality

Lessons Learned
Never bring a rifle to a bird fight
Mennonites have very bad hearing (and even worse cattle-raising instincts)

Rent/Bury/Buy

Kaw should be a breezy stream, but unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be readily available. I watched it via a "long wait" Netlix DVD queue disk, the benefit of which is that I had a chance to jump into the extras: an affectionate making-of short and a lovely interview between director Wilson and the classy pro Rod Taylor. 

It's still not exactly a movie worth owning, but if you come across a bargain copy, it should satisfy your itch for a bunch of impressively trained raven thespians plucking the life out of a few good-spirited Canadian actors. 

Little Miss Deadshine

I’ll never forget the day I watched Vincenzo Natali’s Cube on a rented VHS in 1998. There was something so mind-blowing to sixteen-year-old me about a film that seemed unlike anything I’d ever seen. Since then, I’ve been waiting for Natali to capture that same unique spirit with his bigger budget works. I’d heard intriguing things about his recent haunted house (OR IS IT?) tale Haunter, so let’s see what Instant Watch wrought. 

Quick Plot: Lisa (Abigail Breslin) is a grumpy young suburbanite going through the motions on the eve of her 16th birthday. How ANY teenager can be grumpy when such a day includes macaroni and cheese AND Murder, She Wrote is truly beyond me.

Seriously, Mr. Natali. You should thank your Cube cred that I didn't turn off your little movie the moment a character failed to express enthusiasm at sitting down to watch Jessica Fletcher visit one of her six hundred godchildren and solve a homicide committed by a character actor or TV personality.

Anyway, we can forgive Lisa once we learn the source of her misery: she's been Groundhog Daying this uneventful Sunday for an interminable amount of time. Each time, her little brother plays Pacman with his imaginary friend, Mom hounds her about missing clothes in the laundry, and Dad attempts to repair the family car at varying levels of hostility.

But it always ends with mac 'n cheese and Angela Lansbury's delightful laugh.

It doesn't take long for Lisa to realize that, much like the twist ending of 98% of all modern horror films, she's actually dead. This is confirmed when a mysterious telephone operator in the form of Grant Mazzie (er, Stephen McHattie) visits with an ominous warning about what will happen if she tries to contact the living, something that proves easier than she thought via a few strategically placed pieces of jewelry.

There are a lot of ways to tell a story like Haunter, and while much of the film does work, I also found myself wishing Natali had chosen a different approach. Much like Drag Me To Hell, Haunter sort of falls into a category I like to call 'slumber party horror.' This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as sometimes, a tame but effective little ghost tale is perfectly fine entertainment.

And you know what? Haunter is...perfectly fine. The performances are strong, and the script keeps the character interactions quite natural. Like the recent House Hunting, the premise of being trapped in the same remote suburban setting is interesting and executed well. The problem for non-teenage viewers, at least for me, is that once you meet the big bad, the film's PG13 feeling becomes an issue.

Most serial killers are, one would imagine, pretty monstrous people. Those who target young women have an added ick factor. Those who slaughter entire families throughout five decades should be truly horrifying. And those played by Stephen McHattie and a dandy imaginary friend should be the WORST.

But, how to say this? There's something a tad anticlimactic about a man who kills his victims in what might possibly be the most peaceful way possible.

High Points

Hey, remember in The Wedding Singer when it was the 1980s and you knew that because characters were constantly pointing out every cultural reference that happened in the 1980s? Yeah, Haunter doesn't do that. Thankfully

Low Points

I guess I just like my sadistic murderers a little more sadistic

Lessons Learned

Imaginary friends are never REALLY your friends

Ghosts are extremely fast adapters to today's Apple technology

If you’re going to relieve one day for all eternity, you might as well make sure said day includes mac ‘n cheese and Murder, She Wrote

Rent/Bury/Buy

If and when you’re in the mood for a good, if light little horror film, queue up Haunter on Instant Watch. It’s  solid, if a tad restrained. 

I guess what I’m saying is that Haunter is fine, just not as fine as Murder, She Wrote.

Like most things in the world.

A For Effort. Eh For Execution

I've said it time and time again: setting your genre film in the olden days will automatically make it more interesting. Aside from removing the annoyingly obligatory "No service!"shout-out, a pre-automobile driven society gives way to more tension, more limitations, and an environment even less fit to fight supernatural horrors than the one we all know.

In other words, I added the new Bloody Disgusting release Exit Humanity to my queue because it was a Civil War era zombie film. What could go wrong?

Quick Plot: Narrated by an always welcomed Brian Cox, Exit Humanity is assembled from the diary of Edwin Young (a solid Mark Gibson), a battle-scarred soldier who caught a glimpse of the undead while shooting the other side on the mountains of Tennessee. Six years later, he experiences new horrors when he returns from a hunting trip to find his wife and son zombified, as well as a good portion of the nearby community. Edwin embarks upon his own mission to research and exterminate the new population of flesh-eaters, eventually venturing out to spread his son's ashes at a peaceful waterfall that soothed him during the war. 

Along the way, Edwin befriends Isaac, a fellow zombie hunter looking for his sister, who has been kidnapped by a rogue group of Confederates (led by genre stalwart Bill Mosely) using a tired medic (Pontypool's Stephen McHattie) to work on a cure. Edwin, Isaac, and his sister Emma escape to find solace in a local healer's home (played by Dee Wallace, and yes, the genre cred meter just burst).

Let's examine what we have so far:

-A fascinating and underused time period

-A superb cast of proven horror actors

-Zombies

Mixing these ingredients should yield a pretty delicious pie, right? 

Well...

Written and directed by John Geddes, Exit Humanity is an ambitious film, one that clocks in at nearly 110 minutes and feels determined to make you feel each one. With Jeff Graville, Nate Kreiswirth, and Ben Nudds' soaring score and the sometimes pretentious narration, Exit Humanity is certainly aiming for epic status. But unlike something like Stakeland (which FELT big even on a small budget), the elements of this film never quite add up to something as grandiose as it wants to be. Gibson is a strong lead, but too much of the early scenes are devoted to Edwin screaming at God, while later montage-ish sequences that are supposed to show developing relationships never resonate with any true depth. Though we get some strong zombie chases here and there, the undead seem to randomly fade in and out as an actual threat. Part of what makes a historical-set horror film so effective is knowing that antiquated weaponry and technology might not be advanced enough to handle the threat. But in Exit Humanity, rarely do the shuffling hordes of extras even feel that dangerous.

That being said, Exit Humanity has to be admired for some of its more unique touches. Throughout the film, Geddes interjects expressionistic style animation, presumably as drawings from Edwin's journal. The artwork is quite striking, even if its more modern look never quite gels with the 19th century feel of the rest of the film.

Based on its premise and cast, I wanted to like Exit Humanity and by golly, I just, well, kind of didn't. The film looks quite good, with its woodsy setting never tipping its Confederate hat to reveal a low budget. Lots of credit does go to Geddes for taking his time to create something unique to the zombie genre without ever settling for easy gore. Unfortunately, the incredibly labored pacing just never clicked for me. The sentiment was there, but while the landscape and soundtrack worked so hard to establish Edwin's crew's misfortunes, I just never cared enough about them as individuals to stay involved with the molasses moving narrative.

High Points

Dude: it's the 1870s!

Low Points

...a time when movies took themselves far too seriously

Lessons Learned

There ain’t no cure for monstrous behavior

Leather jackets have always been in style, be it 1987 or 1871

As Cold Mountain already taught us, one could not find better healthcare in the 19th century than in the secluded forest cabin of a female hermit

Rent/Bury/Buy

I don't want to discourage anyone from checking out Exit Humanity. I give Geddes a lot of credit for tackling a tired genre with a fresh approach, and between the surprisingly strong production value, reliable cast, interesting artwork, and an extras-loaded DVD, the film offers quite a lot for horror fans with an appreciation for something new. Overall, it didn't quite work for my tastes, but this is a better than average straight-to-DVD horror movie that could certainly please plenty of viewers. I feel bad not being one.