Monster (2023)

Director Hirokazu Koreeda is someone I have been a big fan of for some time. That doesn’t mean that I have made time for everything he does though, sadly. As time keeps running away from me, I still have a number of his films to explore, but I have loved almost everything that I have seen from him so far. If you haven’t heard of him before, I implore you to start working through his filmography (and I will happily make a few recommendations). Having already heard some praise for Monster, I was delighted to make time for it recently when it was showing at a cinema near me, and I am very happy I did.

Showing one main story from three different perspectives, Monster is initially about a single mother (played by Sakura Andō) who is concerned about her son (Minato, played by Sōya Kurokawa). He has had an encounter with a teacher that seems to have crossed a line and left him fearful. We then see things from the perspective of the teacher (Michtoshi Hori, played by Eita Nagayama), who believes that Minato has started to seriously bully another child in his class (Yori, played by Hinata Hiragi). Last, but by no means least, we see the full situation from the perspective of Minato.

While not necessarily the most radical way to create more drama, tension, and misdirection, the structure of Monster works brilliantly by teasing out one little detail at a time, leading to the reveal of a picture that appears like one of those Magic Eye things I could never see (seriously, I was basically the guy in Mallrats every time I looked at one of those bloody pictures). The delicate screenplay is written by Yûji Sakamoto, someone I am not at all familiar with (but will be keeping an eye out for in the future), and it requires a certain amount of patience from viewers until the various questions raised start to be answered. There is also an ambiguous ending that manages to be both uplifting and heart-breaking, no matter what way you interpret it, so be prepared to keep mulling this over for some time after the end credits have rolled.

Koreeda directs with his usual skill, working once again with the kind of material he seems drawn to, stories that heap some grit and danger around a core of love and warmth. It would be wrong to consider most of his movies infused with magical realism, but he usually allows for at least a portion of any film runtime to be viewed through a filter of wide-eyed innocence that helps viewers to see the potential best in any relationship.

The adult cast members do very good work, although both Andō and Nagayama have to play out their parts while they lack essential information about the situation they find themselves in, but it is young Kurokawa and Hiragi who are the real stars, playing their parts in a way that feels both completely natural, as absolutely uncomplicated as children often seem to be, and yet also in line with how everything plays out in the third act.

This may not be up there with the very best of Koreeda, mainly because a fair bit of the third act simply underlines what viewers find out by the end of the second “story”, but it’s still a great film nonetheless. I can’t imagine anyone being unmoved by the finale, and every minute of the runtime feels authentic and well-earned.

8/10

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Dead By Dawn 2018: Mon Mon Mon Monsters (2017)

Written and directed by Giddens Ko, Mon Mon Mon Monsters is, on the one hand, an enjoyable yarn about some schoolkids who catch themselves a monster. Then again, on the other hand, it's a look at bullying and the cycle that often plays out when someone who is bullied finds a weaker individual to bully in turn. Unfortunately, on the . . . third hand, it's also a film that moves so abruptly between tones and unearned moments which viewers are supposed to care about that it ends up a rather unsatisfying viewing experience.

Deng Yu-kai stars as Lin Shu-wei, a schoolboy who has been bullied and also set up to look as if he stole money that was intended for use by the whole class. He is then given a mild version of "community service" - feeding the elderly - and is made to endure this alongside the group of bullies who have been making his life hell. As they all start to make fun of the elderly, Shu-wei feels as if he may be accepted, and no longer a victim. But it is only a temporary reprieve. Maybe things can become more permanent when the teenagers grab a monster, keeping it tied to a pillar while they come up with various ways to torture and investigate it. But the monster is just a child, and not alone.

There are various aspects of Mon Mon Mon Monsters that I enjoyed. The acting from the largely young cast is all very good (as well as Yu-kai, Bonnie Liang is very good as the one female member of the group of bullies, Carolyn Chen is excellent as an unhelpful teacher, and Kent Tsai is very good as the leader of his little gang, JUST smart and cool and menacing enough to push others into behaving in ways they otherwise might not). The performers bringing the creatures to life are also very good (especially Eugenie Liu as the adult monster). And there are a number of good ideas throughout the script, some mined more effectively than others. I can't even really complain about the direction from Ko. It's generally good, and one or two key sequences tower over the rest of the film, both of them involving the main female characters.

What I have most trouble with, and what drags the film so far down for me, is the rhythm of the film itself and the lack of any main character to truly root for. One small scene, showing a character being absolutely horrible to a disabled shop worker, turned the whole film so mean-spirited, with no obvious redemption coming along quickly enough, that I was then put off for the rest of the runtime. There was also a finale that had no real stakes, because I'd given up caring for any of the characters by that point, and a punchline that felt as fun as it was completely pointless.

It's a shame that Mon Mon Mon Monsters makes such big mis-steps. There's a great idea at the heart of the whole thing, and one or two minor tweaks would have been enough to turn this into something much more enjoyable. Then again, a lot of people have already enjoyed this more than I did so maybe I am just plain wrong. Again.

5/10

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Q (1982)

AKA Q: The Winged Serpent.

Writer/director Larry Cohen has given fans a lot of great little movies over the years. Films with no delusions of grandeur that often just manage to punch above their weight thanks, usually, to Cohen's ability to knock out fun scripts that are peppered with cool dialogue.

Q is one of his best, a film all about a giant bird winged serpent that terrorises the good people of New York. Yet it's not really all about the giant, winged beastie because Q is equally a character study, focusing on a small time crook named Jimmy Quinn (Michael Moriarty). Jimmy bemoans his lot in life but it's really all his own fault, as is shown by how unappreciative he is of the love of a good woman (Joan, played by the wonderful Candy Clark). When he's involved in a robbery that doesn't go according to plan, Jimmy has to scarper and he stumbles upon the nest of the titular serpent. When the police (David Carradine and Richard Roundtree, amongst others) get a hold of him and take him in for questioning, Jimmy starts to think that his luck may have finally changed. He hears talk of some flying creature that's been killing people and he knows that he has information that could save the day. At a price.

The main character of this movie is not a nice guy. No, Jimmy Quinn is an ungrateful, cocky, cowardly, crude, pathetic excuse for a human being. Thankfully, the script and Michael Moriarty's performance also make him into someone that you want to keep watching, even if it's only to see if he'll get his comeuppance. The support from Clark, Carradine, Roundtree, James Dixon, Malachy McCourt, Larry Pine, John Capodice, Tony Page and a few others also keeps this movie being watchable and very entertaining from start to finish.

Q himself isn't fully shown very often, for obvious reasons. Thankfully, there's enough aerial photography and trickery with shadows to ensure that viewers never feel shortchanged. Even for the many moments when the beast isn't directly involved, it always seems to be hovering over everything. Which is most appropriate, of course. To be fair, when it does finally come to the "money shots" then it's not all that bad either.

As already mentioned, Cohen crafted another winner with this one - that great character study mixed in with part monster movie and part serial killer film (the beast may have been summoned by someone flaying people alive) - but he really lucked out when he snagged Michael Moriarty for the lead role. The man gives, perhaps, a career-best performance.

I easily recommend this film to lovers of smart b-movie fare. Grab a beverage, put up your feet and spend some time up in the clouds with Quetzalcoatl.

8/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Q-The-Winged-Serpent-DVD/dp/B0009JJY40/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1352672133&sr=8-1

Carnosaur 2 (1995)

In case you haven't seen Carnosaur, or have been lucky enough to wipe it from your memory, here is my review of it here (0 out of 4 people found that useful, oh woe is me). For those wanting to get up to speed without going through any unnecessary pain, here is the briefest synopsis - someone went out of their way to recreate dinosaurs and that led to a number of scenes in which a puppet was shown with lots of fhasling lights behind it whenever it would attack someone. Things built up to a finale in which the puppet had to be dealt with, of course.

Carnosaur 2 might follow on from the first movie but you wouldn't really know that while watching the film. It works just fine as a standalone film - there's a throwaway line or two explaining the science behind the thing but that's about it. In fact, I can't even recall if the main character mentioned anything that linked specifically to the first movie so perhaps the only link would be dinosaur puppets.

Okay, okay, I'm being a bit harsh there. The dinosaurs are made to look a bit better this time around but that's the only improvement. The plot sees a bunch of folk that it's hard to care for investigating a mystery that isn't a mystery at an abandoned facility. People start to get picked off and then the truth comes out that there might be some dinosaurs in the facility. Oh dear.

Directed by Louis Morneau, and written by Michael Palmer, Carnosaur 2 loses the sense of fun that the first film had. Oh, the first film was bad but it was bad in an enjoyable way. This one even misses that mark and is just bad. We get the usual low-budget setting with no invention to provide any variety, an awful script and a cast of far-from-A-listers.

It's always good to see Miguel A. Nunez Jr. onscreen, no matter how small his role, so that's a small plus that makes up for having to spend time with John Savage, Cliff De Young, Don Stroud, Rick Dean, Ryan Thomas Johnson and even the pretty Arabella Holzbog. They're not awful but the individual below-average ability seems to join together and form one great pool of soul-sapping . . . . . . . . rubbish.

If you fancy seeing something that has some cheap dinosaur effects in it, a mixed bag of actors and a number of moments that will provide you with unintentional hilarity then see the first movie. If you fancy torturing yourself, as I often do, then see this one.

3/10

http://www.amazon.com/Carnosaur-2-John-Savage/dp/B000087F29/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1351025266&sr=8-2&keywords=carnosaur+2

Super Shark (2011)

It's not surprising that Super Shark is a bad film. It's directed by Fred Olen Ray (who also co-wrote the thing with Clyde McCoy and Antonio Olivas). It has the word shark in the title. After the word super. And the biggest name in the cast is John Schneider. Now I like John Schneider in most of his movie appearances but an A-list headliner he ain't.

I'll try to contain my giggles while I attempt to explain "the plot". You see, there's this shark and it can even jump onto land and do other super stuff, which makes it a Super Shark. The shark is responsible for destroying an oil rig and that brings Oceanic Investigator Kat Carmichael (played by Sarah Lieving) onto the scene. She hires a boat captained by a local man named Chuck (played by Tim Abell) and the two soon realise that something wasn't quite legitimate about the drilling in the area. Kat questions company man Wade (played by Schneider) about his business practices but while it quickly becomes clear that Wade has something to hide it also becomes clear that there's something potentially damaging in the sea. Is it pollution? That may be what some people are thinking until Super Shark pops his fin up to say hello.

Knowing that this would be a bad film, I was hoping to at least find it one of the many "so bad that it's good" movies I have enjoyed so much over the years. A lot of films from The Asylum come under that category and Fred Olen Ray has made one or two good films over the years. Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers isn't for everyone but I was damn glad when I finally got to see it, and Evil Toons is, well, ummmm, well actually it's pretty bad but showcases a few fantastic scream queens.

Sadly, however, this is just a bad movie that doesn't even do enough to allow viewers to laugh at its ineptitude. I gave the thing an extra point because of an amusing, and completely gratuitous, bikini babes competition but there isn't enough good stuff to make up for the horrible CGI (the shark looks like it has just escaped from the 1980s Jaws arcade game), the poor script, the poor acting (Schneider still gets a pass but he's the only one), the unappealing cast of characters and the sloppy execution of every moment that features the shark.

It's bad. The fact that there's a groovy theme tune and that the makers of the movie clearly wanted to replicate something along the lines of Sharktopus doesn't make it any better. Well, okay, I admit that it DOES make it a little bit better but I'm still reining in my generosity for this one.

3/10

http://www.amazon.com/Super-Shark-John-Schneider/dp/B006BZ8NZM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1348078943&sr=8-1&keywords=super+shark

2-Headed Shark Attack (2012)

If you've seen a number of killer shark movies and often found yourself thinking "well, sure, they're scary and dangerous but they would be even scarier and MORE dangerous if they had two heads" then this is the film for you. It's another gem from the folks at The Asylum and it's pretty bad, I'm sad to say.

2-Headed Shark Attack is yet another movie that you can't possibly begin viewing without knowing what to expect. Would you be astonished if I told you that it concerned a group of young adults being attacked by a 2-headed shark? No, no you wouldn't. The biggest stars in the cast are Carmen Electra and Charlie (brother of Jerry) O'Connell while everyone else seems to have been chosen for their willingness to act alongside some of the worst special effects since "Button Moon". Brooke Hogan tries to acquit herself as the lead but she's ill-served by the material, as are all of the other actors.

Christopher Ray gets to sit in the big chair and direct stuff based on a screenplay by H. Perry Horton and it's hard to think of who to blame more for the final result. A movie that could have been a bit of dumb fun (as so may of the other creature features from the studio are) is bogged down by a mix of laughably poor practical effects, CGI that looks like it could have been created on a mobile phone and a script that, I kid you not, includes the following clarification about 3/4 of the way into the movie: "Two heads is twice as many teeth".

I know that movies of this kind aren't going to be the most stimulating movies around, I know that the budget is limited and that logic often has to take a back seat. Anyone who has knowledge of the many low-budget horror movies that I've enjoyed already knows that I know that. Yet there's no excuse for something quite this irritating. A bunch of characters that you really don't care for are terrorised by a bunch of pixels that don't provide one iota of tension. I was tempted to give this an even lower rating but it's saved by two things. 1 - it's never dull. 2 - unusually for a creature feature from the studio, there's some gratuitous nudity in the mix (not for long but it's at least a bonus for male viewers enduring the whole movie).


3/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/2-Headed-Shark-Attack-Carmen-Electra/dp/B00623N54C/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1341604720&sr=8-1

Yes, this is a completely gratuitous opportunity to post a pic of Carmen Electra in a bikini but, trust me, this is a damn sight better than any images that I could have posted containing the laughable 2-headed shark.

Revenge Of The Creature (1955)

I love Creature From The Black Lagoon. Absolutely love it. Despite stiff competition from other classic movies, it is one of my very favourite Universal horrors from the era that gave us a number of definitive works. Beautiful, tense, haunting and surprisingly sympathetic to the main creature.

I didn't hold out much hope for the sequel because I knew that it would take something very special indeed to equal that first movie. As I expected, the sequel is a lesser movie but it's not a terrible one and it, once again, proves to be sympathetic to the creature by showing his poor treatment at the hands of lousy humans.

Following on from the events of the first movie, though it's made clear that some time has passed, the poor creature is this time hassled by a new bunch of folks (the one familiar face is Lucas, played by Nestor Paiva, who is once again guiding the boat for them). This time the creature is caught and taken back to an aquarium in Florida, to be put on display and poked and prodded and studied and trained. Understandably, the creature is none too happy about this and seeks an opportunity to escape, much to the upset of everyone in the local vicinity.

Martin Berkeley is responsible for the screenplay this time around, which isn't the strongest aspect of the movie, and Jack Arnold returns to the director's chair to make this a reasonable follow up to a real classic. The underwater photography isn't as good as it was in the first film but it's still the best part of the film, not counting the plotting that doesn't mind showing our lead characters (played by John Agar, Lori Nelson and John Bromfield) in a bad light.

The acting isn't too bad but the cast are weighed down by the screenplay, which isn't really terrible but remains terribly dull for large portions of the runtime - whether it's because of scientists discussing the creature or the uninvolving plot strand showing the relationship that blossoms between Agar and Nelson. Of course, the best performances come from the people you don't get to see, Ricou Browning who played the creature in the water and Tom Hennesy who played the creature on land.

Eagle-eyed fans of Clint Eastwood will want to watch this to see his uncredited appearance as a scientist monitoring some rats while everyone else should watch it simply because it's another great creature feature starring the best misunderstood gill man to ever be forcibly moved from the Amazon.

6/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Revenge-Creature-DVD-John-Agar/dp/B0046GCJLM/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1337459434&sr=1-1

One-Eyed Monster (2008)

Ron Jeremy - actor, porn star, bit of a legend. It's no overstatement to say that the rise of Ron Jeremy through the ranks of adult entertainment to become a household name and someone more like a cuddly, hairy uncle that you wouldn't want to have to hug TOO tightly at family parties (like a sleaz(y/ier) version of Robin Williams) was something that nobody saw coming. No pun intended.

He's the main star here despite the fact that he's barely onscreen for a third of the runtime. That's irrelevant. The whole movie revolves around Ron Jeremy's most famous attribute. Yep, as you could probably have guessed, while shooting an adult sex movie out in the middle of nowhere a ray from space hits Mr. Jeremy and ends up taking control of his penis. This leads to the penis causing all kinds of problems when it detaches itself from Ron and starts inserting itself into anyone it can find, and doing so with such force that they end up dead. As the snow keeps falling outside things are definitely heating up inside but not in the way that was intended when the crew first arrived on location.

One-Eyed Monster is completely ridiculous, full of bad taste gags and doesn't even have all that much nudity, considering the central premise. It's also very funny and entertaining from start to finish.

The cast may be a mixed bag but the good performances far outweigh the bad, despite how silly the material is. Alongside Ron and colleague Veronica Hart there's also some screentime for another starlet from the adult entertainment industry, Carmen Hart, and then the rest of the cast includes Amber Benson (probably best known to everyone from her turn in the Buffy TV show), Jason Graham, Charles Napier, Jeff Denton (grabbing most of the best lines), Bart Fletcher, Jenny Guy and John Edward Lee.

Director Adam Fields (who co-wrote the movie with Jordan Fields and Scott Fields) does a great job of walking a fine line between outright absurdity and self-aware fun. Hell, I'd give a beer and a pat on the back to whoever came up with the great line "we're gonna need a bigger tampon" that manages to, of course, reference Jaws and keep things amusingly distasteful.

If you enjoyed the dubious delights of Pervert! then you should also enjoy this. And if you don't think this kind of thing would entertain you in any way whatsoever then . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . well, I guess you're reading the wrong reviewer.

6/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/One-Eyed-Monster-Amber-Benson/dp/B002WVCRIS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1336769921&sr=8-1

In The Woods (1999)

In The Woods is so cringeworthy, so awful, so poorly acted, so incompetent in so many ways, so full of terrible dialogue that it's one of those bad movies that becomes comedy gold. Unfortunately, for me it's never the kind of comedy gold that makes you forgive it for all of the sins and clutch it to your heart and rewatch it every time you have a movie-themed party night. But I know that the man who recommended it to me would say otherwise, and I'm sure that he'd be able to gather quite a decent group of supporters.

It's the fact that the movie isn't COMPLETELY inept on every single level that just stops this from transforming into something really superb. Writer-director Lynn Drzick actually knows where to point the camera most of the time. Sadly, that would appear to be the limit of her knowledge as she doesn't seem able to wring even half-decent performances from a cast of uniformly terrible actors and her script is one of the most laughable things I've encountered on film since watching The Room.

I guess I should still attempt to describe the ridiculous plot. Alex Kerwood (D. J. Perry) is a firefighter who turns to the bottle whenever things get too stressful, much to the upset of his wife, Helen (Aimee Tenaglia). At the start of the movie we see Alex leaving a burning building and lashing out at people because someone died. He turns to drink to take the edge off the day. When Alex then goes for a day hunting with Wayne (Jim Greulich) everything takes a turn for the worse when the pair find a grave and Wayne insists on digging the thing up, in an effort to possibly find one of the victims of a killer who has been terrorising the area. Something chases the pair through the woods and they then turn to drink to take the edge off the day. It's not long before body parts are being left in the vicinity of Alex's house and big, bad, stuffed toys are causing havoc and . . . . . . . . . . . you'll probably end up having to turn to drink to take the edge off the day.

There are too many choice moments to tell you about here, too many examples of how laughably dire this whole thing is, I just can't single anything out. Well, maybe one or two highlights would include: the performance of Rachel Walker as she tries to win the award for absolute worst acting in a cast full of terrible actors, the "special" effects used throughout and, my own personal favourite, a serial killer who lets a couple of loose fingers spill from his bag while he's getting money out to pay for a new knife. You're possibly already laughing hard at what I've just told you but, I assure you, it's very, very true.

If you know what to expect from this awful movie then you'll still get some entertainment value from it. Everyone else should approach it with extreme caution or avoid it altogether.

2/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/In-Woods-DVD-D-J-Perry/dp/B000OCYEFG/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1334609268&sr=1-1