Shudder Saturday: Shiver (2012)

Some people really seem to spend a lot of their time squandering a lot of goodwill. I understand that people in the film industry don't always have the luxury of ensuring the quality of the work that they're involved with, but it would help if they at least did their part. There are some people here who feel as if they're going through the motions, and unable to even do that minimum amount of work well. I would name and shame them, but I worry that I'm misjudging people based on the poor writing and direction.

John Jarratt plays Franklin Rood, a talkative serial killer who targets women and believes that he is always poised to save them. When his latest victim (Wendy Alden, played by Danielle Harris) finds the courage to fight back, he actually feels quite pleased with himself. Wendy may have needed him to make her into the strong woman hidden away inside herself. He's probably still going to have to kill her though, especially while a couple of detectives (played by Casper Van Dien and Rae Dawn Chong) are closing in on him.

Based on a novel of the same name by Brian Harper, Shiver has been adapted from page to screen by Robert D. Weinbach. I'm not familiar with anything else that Weinbach has written, but I'm not surprised to see that he doesn't have a large filmography. There are a couple of upcoming projects that he is penning. I won't be rushing to see those.

Neither Harris nor Jarratt are at their best here, far from it, but I can see why they were picked for their respective roles. It's just a shame that they were then given nothing good to do by the clumsy and tired screenplay. The same goes for Van Dien and Chong. Neither may be at the top of the acting game, especially the former (who is, however, lovely, and I'll always have a soft spot for him due to the time he would happily answer various questions on the IMDb message boards that used to exist), but both are still usually a lot better than they are here. A few others appear in supporting roles, but the focus is on these four characters, even if they're just moving around in between scenes that contain either horrible violence or horrible (for different reasons) speechifying.

I like director Julian Richards, despite his filmography not giving me many reasons to. It may have been over 20 years now since he helmed the dark and enjoyable The Last Horror Movie, but I'll always hope that he can find his way back to something that inventive and twisted. This certainly doesn't come close, and I can only imagine it being enjoyed by the most easily-pleased horror movie fan looking for another chance to watch Harris battling against a fictional psychopath.

3/10

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Shudder Saturday: Daughter (2023)

It may not always seem obvious, but I am always rooting for a film to do well. Always. There may be someone I really dislike starring in it, there may be a budget that could barely cover one day of catering on the last Christopher Nolan movie, and it may be about a subject I have no interest in (or even, very occasionally, find distasteful or repugnant). I'll still root for the film to do well though. It takes a lot of people to get a film made, and those people are often battling against overwhelming odds. 

I decided to watch Daughter because it had Casper Van Dien in a starring role. That made it easier to root for. I have been a fan of Casper Van Dien for some time. He has never been one of the best actors in the world, but he has been putting the work in for a good few decades now. Writer-director Corey Deshon, on the other hand, is quite new to feature films. And it shows.

What you get here is the story of Father (Van Dien) and Mother (Elyse Dinh) kidnapping a young woman (Daughter, played by Vivien Ngô) to be a worthwhile sibling for their beloved Son (Ian Alexander). That's it. Daughter doesn't want to be stuck in this new family, however, and needs to figure out ways to create some division that may afford her an opportunity to escape.

Deshon does well to keep things simple here, focusing on the one claustrophobic location, the mind games being played between the characters, and a selection of relatively still and lengthy takes. If he did better with the writing then this could have been a winner, but there's a disappointing lack of quality here, both in the dialogue and in what is unsaid. There's nothing that actually holds your interest, making the 95-minute runtime feel like quite a slog.

Van Dien tries his best in the pivotal role (the film could have arguably been called Father with one or two extra tweaks made to put him at the centre of a few more scenes), but he is unable to spin gold from the thin straw that he's given. The same can be said for Dinh, Ngô, and Alexander, although the two women have some moments that allow them to remain more intriguing and watchable than either of their male counterparts.

I want to say that I can at least praise Deshon for trying to give us something a bit more original, but even that isn't true. Yes, this is different from many other thriller or horror movies in the past couple of years, but there are many other movies that cover similar ground (whether it's the disturbing Bad Boy Bubby, The Bunker, or even, to some degree, The Baby, to name just a few that came to mind as I considered better options while this played out). You should check those out ahead of this, and then feel free to ask me for some more recommendations along the same lines.

3/10

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Mad Heidi (2022)

While there has been a lot of fun delivered to genre movie fans by the past decade or so of film-makers emulating the grindhouse movie aesthetic, it has also given us some dross. A bad movie is not always improved by excessive gore effects and attempts to make it look old and damaged. 

Mad Heidi is advertised as the first Swissploitation movie, and it was realised with the help of a major crowdfunding campaign. If you know the classic tale of Heidi then you should enjoy it, but it’s also very accessible to those who somehow haven’t ever heard of the character. Sadly, it is also surprisingly boring.

Alice Lucy, an actress with a very small filmography you could check out in the space of an afternoon (not saying that as a criticism, it’s a note for anyone who wants to see her in other work), plays Heidi. Events conspire to make her a very angry Heidi, putting her on a path that will lead her to battle a dictator named President Meili (Casper Van Dien). Heavily-armed, skilled in a variety of combat styles, and with the potential to get oppressed people on her side, Heidi is a force to be reckoned with.

It’s hard to pin down quite why Mad Heidi doesn’t work for me. The tone is fairly amusing throughout, the onscreen world is set up quickly enough, and there are a number of cheese-based puns. In fact, a central part of the plot concerns weaponised cheese, which was ridiculous enough to make me smile. And, hey, a lot of Nazis get decimated. It just feels like there’s not enough in between the gags, gore gags or standard gags, and the film-makers rely on viewed being patient until they pull out the stops for a blood-soaked and gloopy finale, but that then feels like too little too late.

Lucy is fine in the lead role, as cute and light as Heidi should be, and then ready to cut up Nazis with a host of sharp weaponry. She’s a highlight, as is Van Dien, who overacts in a way that makes his character feel exactly as he should, a mad ruler struggling to keep the mask of politeness on his face as minor things start to become a major inconvenience for him. David Schofield is as welcome as ever, but sadly not onscreen for long, and Max Rüdlinger is an entertaining secondary villain. 

Directed by Johannes Hartmann and Sandro Klopfstein, who both also wrote the screenplay with Gregory D. Widmer and Trent Haaga (a man who has written some GREAT little movies), the overwhelming feeling by the time the end credits roll is one of wasted potential. The visuals often work well, the practical effects are enjoyably squishy and wet, and everyone involved gets into the spirit of the thing. It doesn’t come together though, and that is because of the script having too much randomness thrown in there, and all of it given equal weight by the directors. It’s like being cured of your sweet tooth by working in the chocolate factory and being told you can eat as much as you like. Sometimes less is more.

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I started watching Mad Heidi. I certainly didn’t expect to be bored though, and that was my mental state for a good chunk of the middle section. One or two highlights in the finale almost made up for that, but not quite. The game cast gain a lot of goodwill though. Just not enough for me to view it as anything more than just below average.

4/10

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Twelve Trees Of Christmas (2013)

Twelve Trees Of Christmas is exactly what you expect from a Christmas TV movie. That's not to say that it's bad. If you don't want to watch something that's safe and sweet then you'll hate it, of course, but it's actually not a painful viewing experience if you've sat through as many Christmas-centric movies as I have.

Lindy Booth plays a young woman who wants to save the library that she works in. The man responsible for it being due to close (Robin Dunne) initially thinks that she is just out to save her job, but it soon becomes clear that the library is more than just a place of employment. It's a hub for the community. A competition is organised, with people competing to design the best Christmas tree. Who will win, and will the endeavour actually change anything?

Directed by Michael DeCarlo, and written by Kevin Commins, this is flat, predictable and doesn't even build up to any hugely satisfying finale. Yet, somehow, it's just easy to watch and almost enjoy. I say almost because I can't, in all honesty, rate this as anything but completely average, but it wouldn't have taken much to push it up into the realm of the good. A sharper script and some better editing, because it never seems to live up, would have done it.

A better cast might have helped, but those onscreen don't do too bad. Okay, I have to admit that Lindy Booth isn't the strongest female lead, but I like her well enough. Dunne is enjoyable, and it's good to watch the two main characters butt heads without Dunne being painted as a big meanie from start to finish. In fact, his character comes over as quite a nice guy who has made a bad decision that he felt was necessary. Shauna MacDonald lends some nice support, and Melanie Brown plays a ruthless designer enlisted by Dunne to design HIS entry for the competition. Uneven accent aside, Brown is amusing enough. And Casper Van Dien may only be in the film for about a minute, but I like him enough to still mention him in this review. So there.

If you don't like any of the cast, or the title, or Christmas movies, in general, then just give this one a miss. But if you're wasting some time with yuletide viewings at this time of year, this isn't the worst that you could choose.

5/10

http://www.amazon.com/Twelve-Christmas-Chesler-Perlmutter-Productions/dp/B00GOFA6FY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1386859973&sr=8-1&keywords=twelve+trees+of+christmas