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The Entity (1982)
Starts off strong, but falters at the second half and doesn't recover.
The concept alone is terrifying. It doesn't matter if you are a man or a woman. The idea of an invisible being or force repeatedly attacking you is enough to explore in one film especially a horror film. To do it right you need someone who can sell this to the audience. Someone who will keep it from coming off as sleazy. Thankfully, Barbara Hershey succeeds in her portrayal of Carla Moran and her performance is one of the biggest strengths of the film. However, without Hershey the film would suffer tremendously and fall apart because unfortunately Hershey's performance is not only one of it's biggest strengths, but one of it's only strengths.
Now I'm not saying the supporting cast is not good. In fact, the performances by the supporting cast members are solid all around for what the script gives them. As others have pointed out in their reviews the script is indeed sloppy. The tension steadily rises for the first half of the film, but after the halfway point the tension is jagged going up and down to the point that it almost feels like another movie. Of course in order for me to go any further I'd have to go into spoiler territory.
***SPOILERS*** Once Carla's friend witnesses the titular Entity in action and Carla no longer feels that she's alone (Hershey does an excellent job portraying the wave of relief one would feel in that situation) the second half of the movie begins leading the film to decline in quality. Earlier I said the second half feels another movie and it does, specifically "Ghostbusters" (1984), but not in a good way.
I'm not joking. Carla gets the help of three parapsychologists who help her combat the supernatural Entity and try to capture it. The film even has it's own Walter Peck in the form of Dr. Sneiderman (Ron Silver), who looks like the coke-head executive Harry Ellis from Die Hard. Sneiderman is a character that is fine for the first half of the film, but ruined in the second half no thanks to the sloppy script.
In the first half of the film Dr. Sneiderman is portrayed as an understandably skeptical and logical man, who is reasonably reticent to think that Carla is affected by anything supernatural. He comes across as fair, level-headed man of science. Yet that all dissolves at the beginning of the second half. Unlike Walter Peck, who had never talked to eyewitnesses of the supernatural had justification for being skeptical of the supernatural whereas Dr. Sneiderman has none. Dr. Sneiderman devolves into an incredibly annoying, close-minded jerk who ignores eyewitness accounts from several people including Carla's boyfriend.
I know I'm spending a lot of time on Dr. Sneiderman, but he really is a big problem for the film during the second half and frankly this character really drags the film down. The psychologists are frustrating to watch at this point because the audience and other characters know there's supernatural forces at work, but they refuse to listen. The end is also a bit of a mess.
By that point in the film Hershey and the supporting cast are doing their best with the material they're given. Sadly, the ending leaves much to be desired. You really don't know what the Entity is and this is an instance where ambiguity hurts the film. There is no real satisfaction save for that Carla has become stronger from this ordeal I guess. Other than that there are a lot of unanswered questions and not in any contemplative or compelling way.
All in all the Entity is a mixed bag of a horror film that starts off strong for a solid hour, but falters at the second half. Still its worth your time at least for Barbara Hershey's wonderful performance. In short, I personally wouldn't call this one of the 11 scariest films of all time like legendary filmmaker Martin Scorsese, but to each their own.
Demon of Paradise (1987)
The floater of the Jaws rip-offs
Even films that are blatant rip-offs of far superior films have some good merits of their own and the Jaws rip-offs are no exceptions. Films like Joe Dante's excellent "Piranha" (1978); Charles B. Griffith's campy "Up from the Depths" (1979); and the MST3K-target "Devil Fish" (1984) are basically Jaws rip-offs, but each film makes up for this by doing at least one thing right to make it their own. Whether the merits include: decent acting, likable characters, decent writing, decent characters, good creature effects, et cetera. Whatever the case may be at least one of these are present in each film (or all like in "Piranha"). Unfortunately no such merits are found in "Demon of Paradise" whatsoever.
*SPOILERS* Not only is it a "Jaws" rip-off, but a its a "Creature from the Black Lagoon" rip-off that's stitched together to create a Frankenstein-esque mess. The basic plot is that it takes place in "Hawaii" (the Philippines) where hunters' illegal dynamite fishing awaken a prehistoric fish- monster-man (which looks like the secret love child of the Beast from "Krull" and the tree monster from the 1957 film, "From Hell it Came") that the locals believe to be a mythical creature. Once awake the monster begins to terrorize the locals (those dumb enough not to leave after finding the first body) and guests at a tropical resort. Now its up to Sheriff Keefer (played by Steis who looks like a failed clone of David Carradine) and the herpetologist, Annie (Witt), to track down the lethal living fossil before it kills anymore people.
Throughout the course of the film there is the standard skepticism followed by a greedy moron (Cahill, the resort owner) wanting to profit on the local lore and finally an all-out hunt for the creature. In addition there's a pointless side-story involving criminals illegally making explosives which adds nothing to the main story save for colliding with the creature story at the end of a shoot-out with the cops. Once the creature's existence is confirmed the National Guard are called in only to leave save for a few troops the commander leaves with them. The movie ends with the real heroes, the National Guard, using grenades to blow the creature suit into green chunks as the two leads look on doing nothing.
Yes, the creature is killed by nameless extras and not the main character. Anyway Keefer reasonably assumes it's over, but Annie "ominously" asks "have you ever cut the tail off a lizard" implying the creature might have the ability to regenerate it's entire body cut to one of the creature's arms floating down into the stream before abruptly ending. Although it sounds serviceable on a B-movie level it still fails.
The main reason "Demon of Paradise" fails is because it commits the worst B-movie sin a movie like it can commit: it's boring. Why is it boring? Where to start? The two leads act as if they're on tranquilizers and the side-characters are cookie-cutter generic, annoying, or both. Even on the level of a Jaws knock-off it's exceptionally awful because it does not even make an attempt on the most basic level other films in its class made. What it results in is a rip-off that does nothing with the source material and chooses the lazy way by creating an inferior carbon copy of elements from two classics for the price of one in every way possible.
In addition it makes the mistake of taking itself too seriously which one might think would make it unintentionally funny, but it doesn't go overboard and suffers for said misstep. You can find the film on a Double Feature DVD of Roger Corman's Cult Classics series alongside "Up from the Depths" which is the far superior film in the Double Feature.
Simply put "Up from the Depths" succeeded by having decent acting; at least one likable character; intentionally over-the-top performances; self-awareness. Unfortunately for "Demon of Paradise" no such thing is present here leaving the boring story to trudge along as the boring set- pieces and boring, inferior carbon copied characters make no effort to get anything moving. As a result viewers are left watching an unappealing mass of waste taken from great films and asked to stare at it for over 80 minutes floating face-down in the water.
Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo (1966)
An influential masterpiece from a once deemed "trash" genre
What can be said about a film that already has over 694 reviews (both professional and personal) on this site alone? Should I talk about the unbelievable set-pieces; the great cast; the criminally-ignored Oscar- worthy performances from all 3 leads (Eastwood, Wallach, and Lee Van Cleef); the 3-dimensional characterizations; the great performances from the supporting cast (those with and without dialog); the multi-layered storytelling; Leone's satire on paint-by-numbers Westerns; the breath- taking cinematography; the tight script; the brilliant direction; the classic music; the eternal thought-provoking themes of war, violence, compassion, and humanity; the intense action; the quiet atmospheric moments; the great action scenes; the violence; the timeless humor; the legendary climax; the behind-the-scenes moments? What can be said about a film now widely regarded as one of the greatest films of all time? What about when it was first released?
When Sergio Leone's "The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly" first premiered to US audiences in 1967 (1966 in Italy) it was a time when many critics looked down on the Spaghetti Western genre as a whole. The Western genre itself was starting to wear off its appeal for many critics and said audience viewed the Spaghetti Western as an excuse to depict senseless violence which is exactly what they criticized about Leone's film. Critics at TIME, Variety, The New York Times, and the L.A. Times are a few examples of the major US publications that gave negative reviews to Leone's film. I write all this neither to mock the critics' opinions nor their reviews of the film at the time because from a historian's perspective these reviews provide insight into the US' critical movie culture towards a genre deemed then as violent trash. Yet history has shown a different opinion since its release.
Upon the film's release it became a hit (both national and international) and more importantly was influential beyond film becoming iconic in countless forms of art. The film breathed new life into the Western; the main theme topped 1968 charts for a year and now is one of the most recognized movie themes ever; "A Fistful of Dollars" introduced Eastwood's "Man With No Name" character but this film cemented him as an icon in the public mind. Many filmmakers, musicians, writers, painters, designers (clothing, video games, etc) point this film out as influential in their careers. Again I will not spoil anything and anyone curious about the film should definitely check it out. Personally speaking I can't say enough about the film and I always notice something new every time I watch it whether in the background or a character's mannerisms. I have watched it countless times and have yet to tire of it. Not only is "The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly" one of the all-time greatest films ever made it's my all-time favorite film. Shalom.
Smiley (2012)
The New Face of Failure
The poster for "Smiley" boasts the tag-line "The New Face of Fear" and honestly I did find Smiley's appearance unsettling the first time I saw the trailer. However, all feelings even vaguely related to fear immediately began to disappear less than 3 minutes into the film (more on that in a moment). Still, I give the film one star to stand as a personal reminder for that one moment in time Smiley seemed promising.
"Smiley" is not only bad, but it's exceptionally bad to such a fundamental degree in both film-making and writing that every problem is encapsulated in the phrase: "BAD BLANK 101". Bad acting, pacing, atmosphere, dialog, characterization, direction, cinematography, editing, and sound are all astoundingly present as if "Smiley" was the meeting place for the reunion of elements in hack film-making.
As a film alone the characters are painfully flat; the acting is atrocious and the main character acts like a being from another planet; the dialog is so bad it smells; every single one of the "scares" are some of the cheapest jump scares in modern horror (that's saying something); the pacing is slower than a slug; during the long-drawn out scenes of fundamental philosophical waxing from the college professor (Roger Bart) that same slug is glued to the floor; I will not spoil anything here because the ending still remains an incomprehensible mess that started in less than 3 minutes.
Two minutes and thirty-two seconds into the film is a jump scare by a little girl that is simply a soft then LOUD noise made for no other reason than hack writing. Get used to that because those are the only kind of "scares" in the entire movie. The problems really begin as the audience and babysitter are told by the little girl about an urban legend killer, the titular Smiley, a mysterious killer (in that he's never explained, we're just expected to take the horribly shoe-horned exposition from the little girl that Smiley is a well-known urban legend, yet the audience doesn't know; Gallagher just expects us to blindly accept this). How does the little girl know this? Who is she? If Smiley is based around the NOT-Chatroulette then is it an international urban legend? All of these questions are just a few examples of what I kept asking the film which gave me nothing in return.
Then the awful writing comes into play as the audience learns of how "Smiley" is summoned beginning the long endurance test that was this movie. The Smiley killer is summoned (ala Candyman) by typing out the phrase "I did it for the lulz" three times to someone on Not- Chatroulette causing Smiley (dressed in Michael Meyers' one piece jumpsuit) to sneak up behind the person you typed the message out to then stabs them in the back (with Ghostface's knife no less). Let that sink in. The killer is summoned through Chatroulette.
Now here's a quick lesson to future horror writers and filmmakers: if you want to create a new horror icon then its important to remember that often timelessness trumps modernity. Sure, technologically based horror movies can make some of the best in the genre (Ringu, Videodrome, Kairo, Christine, Poltergeist, etc) and there's nothing wrong with being hip to the now (if done right), but the technology has to age well and be recognized as being a staple of everyday life with the majority of the public and Chatroulette has not aged well at all. In fact, Chatroulette is stale and by having the killer revolve around such an unbelievably dated concept severely hurts the potentiality for the character only speeding along its inevitable fade into obscurity.
Smiley might as well have been summoned by wearing a haunted pair of Crocs. Of course Smiley might have appeared more if the characters were wearing haunted Crocs because Smiley rarely appears in his own film. The rest of the film is just awful acting, horrible dialog, and one middle- finger of an ending.
What else is there to say? Smiley is just all-around bad in every single way possible regarding filmmaking and writing dumbing down or ripping off intriguing concepts from far superior horror films to create a poorly-stitched together amalgamation of first year philosophy, general science, and psychology. The only amusement is watching Roger Bart trying to make "I did it for the lulz" sound ominous and if you want to see that I'm sure Youtube will provide for you.