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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Prime Time: Reborn (2018)

Maybe I would have enjoyed Reborn more if it hadn't seemed so smug about having a couple of well-known stars in the cast. Maybe I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't been so irked by a quote that referred to it as "Carrie for a new generation".  Or maybe, just maybe, I enjoyed it just as much as I could have enjoyed it. I certainly didn't hate it, despite a very silly opening act, but it's not a film that makes me want to note down the names of everyone involved.

The rather distasteful starting point for the plot concerns a stillborn baby brought back to life and cared for by a Frankenstein-like morgue attendant. That baby grows up to be Tess (Kayleigh Gilbert), a young woman with the ability to control electricity around her in a way that can harm others. Tess ends up spending time with actress Lena O'Neill (Barbara Crampton), an actress who doesn't realise that her child has come back into her life. It's not Lena's fault though, considering she was told that her child died during her pregnancy. The bodycount starts to rise, and Tess has to decide when she can tell her mother the truth. Meanwhile, a detective (Michael Paré) is trying to piece things together.

Director Julian Richards might do a decent job with the material here, but it's often very obvious that writer Michael Mahin doesn't have too much experience in his field. This is a very (mercifully?) short film, with a runtime of approximately 77 minutes, but it still feels a bit baggy and disappointingly lacking in the conviction to just keep delivering as many thrills and moments of bloodshed as possible.

I like Crampton in pretty much anything, and her presence here is a big bonus, but that's not to diminish the work of Gilbert, who actually manages to be the best part of the film. Equal parts deadly and sympathetic, Gilbert works hard to sell the sillier aspects of the script and keep her character as a villain that you can spend most of the runtime rooting for. Paré, on the other hand, has one of the least interesting roles in the movie, and he feels sadly wasted. Rae Dawn Chong has a small role, and is as wasted as Paré, but I guess having her name to add to the cast list is a bonus (hey, I would be lying if I said it hadn't helped to lure me in).

Reborn was something I didn't mind watching, for the most part. While not quite good, it certainly didn't feel bad. I could overlook a lot of the minor failings because I was enjoying the chance to watch Gilbert and Crampton shine. If the film had gone for some standard and cheesy ending then I might have been recommending this, with reservations, to like-minded horror fans. Unfortunately, the very last scenes are a huge mis-step, ending the whole thing on a note of backslapping cutesiness that jars with everything that came along beforehand. There's also a cameo that actually caused me to roll my eyes so far to the back of my head that I saw the very rear section of my own brain.

Saved by the cast, almost ruined by the ending, Reborn ends up as something supremely average. It's certainly not a film I can imagine anyone watching more than once.

5/10

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Tales From The Darkside: The Movie (1990)

Coming along a few years after the TV show, Tales From The Darkside: The Movie is a fun anthology horror movie, full of familiar faces and some entertaining nastiness.

The wraparound segment itself is a lot of fun, as a wicked woman (Deborah Harry) sets out to prepare and cook a small boy (Matthew Lawrence). In an attempt to delay his transformation into a main course, the boy starts to entertain his captor with the tales.
First off, "Lot 249" is a great slice of macabre fun, based (loosely, I'm assuming) on a tale by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Steve Buscemi stars as a young man who has been wronged, but who has just taken receipt of a mummy that he thinks can help exact his revenge.
Then it's on to "Cat From Hell", a Stephen King tale (adapted into a screenplay by George A. Romero) about an old man (William Hickey) who hires a hitman (David Johansen) to kill a cat that he thinks is responsible for the death of his brother and sisters. Is the old man being paranoid, or is the cat really such a nasty piece of work?
The last tale, and a favourite for many viewers, is "Lover's Vow". Written by Michael McDowell, who also adapted the first tale from the source material, this sees James Remar playing a struggling artist who witnesses something unbelievable one night. It's a dangerous monster that allows him to live, only on the condition that he never tells anyone else of their encounter. Fortunately, Remar also meets the lovely Rae Dawn Chong on the same night. The two develop a relationship, but Remar wonders if he can break his silence to be fully honest with the woman he loves.
And then it's back to the wraparound story, of course, for a conclusion that allows viewers to see who will end up in that big oven.

Director John Harrison doesn't do too much wrong here, but he's helped immensely by three decent stories, a fun wraparound, and a collection of great actors in the main roles. As well as Steve Buscemi in the first tale, we also get Christian Slater and Julianne Moore. The second tale is mostly a two-hander, but I'm a big fan of William Hickey, especially when he's working in the horror genre, so that's not a problem. And Remar and Chong both work well in the last tale. Oh, I'd also better mention that Harry and Lawrence are a lot of fun in their scenes.

The script isn't the sharpest, but that's okay. Things work out, in this instance, thanks to the ability of the stars to carry the material, and the great punchlines for each segment. Everyone who has seen this movie remembers the third tale, yet the others are certainly above average for this kind of thing. "Cat From Hell" is the one I like least, and even that has a number of fun moments throughout, before it starts to tail off in the last few minutes (no pun intended).

There's plenty of dark humour, there's just enough gore to keep fans of the red stuff happy, and there are some enjoyable practical effects (some enjoyable for being good, and some enjoyable for being amusingly fake). It's also perfectly paced, coming in at about 90 minutes, therefore preventing any one tale from outstaying its welcome.

Despite my praise, this is far from the best anthology horror movie. It is, however, also far from the worst, and it's definitely worth your time.

7/10

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