Remake

DA SWEET BLOOD OF JESUS-2014-The crazy Dr. Hightower (Rami Malek) is talked out of suicide by his colleague Dr. Hess Greene (Stephen Tyrone Williams). Later they have a fight and Hightower stabs Greene with an ancient knife. After Hightower finally does kill himself Greene comes back to life as a blood drinking “vampire”. When his suicide attempt fails he robs a blood bank (after starting a fire as a distraction). Then he kills a hooker and drinks her blood. Mrs. Ganja Hightower (Zaraah Abrams) arrives looking for her husband. She and Greene have sex and she later discovers hubby's body in the basement freezer. She doesn't really care, so she and Greene dump the body and get married. He kills her with the knife and she comes back like him. After killing the butler and another woman, Greene seeks redemption at a church but dies under the sign of the cross. Ganja goes to meet her new partner/lover: the woman they killed earlier. 

Terrible talky and pretentious remake of GANJA AND HESS that tries to modernize the story and deepen the religious overtones. The original had its faults but it was a low budget personal film. Here once again director Spike Lee is only looking for attention.

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It's Crazy Alright

THE CRAZIES-2010-Residents of a small Iowa town are acting weird (parts were filmed in Georgia though). Timothy Olyphant (TV's JUSTIFIED) is the town's sheriff who discovers there's something wrong with the drinking water. He's almost cut to pieces by a saw wielding coroner (who had already sewn some victim's mouth shut) and another guy burns down his house with his wife and kid in it. Eventually the government gets involved and rounds up everyone including his wife (Radha Mitchell). There's lots of chaos and killing but not much to distinguish it from any of the other "modern day horror flicks" (like the DAWN OF THE DEAD remake which parts of this resemble). And while the original blurred the lines between who's crazy and who's not, this version makes it clear our evil government is once again to blame. It could also be the only horror where victims are terrorized while going through a car wash!

Director Brett Eisner (SAHARA) has taken the premise of George Romero's paranoid claustrophobic low budget classic and turned into a typical drawn out over emoting disaster movie. The acting is better and of course the budget is bigger but there's just nothing new here. Just a lot of cheap thrills and excessive violence. And as usual it makes me wonder about the mental health of the director, although Romero himself was one of the executive producers! One of the writers Scott Kosar also scripted remakes of THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and THE AMITYVILLE HORROR. The other screenwriter Ray Wright wrote CASE 39 (two writers to script a remake??).

Apparently I'm in the minority on this movie as it was both a box office and critical success.

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Why????

PIRANHA-2010-This useless remake (I think parts of it were suppose to be comical) takes the scary but fun original premise and turns it into a CGI driven bore-fest. Elizabeth Shue and Ving Rhames are law officers investigating some deaths during Spring Break. It seems the fish are of a  prehistoric variety that somehow survived and are very hungry. They look like something from the old "Diver Dan" kid's TV show! Like most horror movies today it's just a mean spirited excuse to spotlight grotesque SFX and unlikable overacting characters. Christopher Lloyd as a fish expert provides the only highlight. Jerry O'Connell is shredded from the waist down but keeps on emoting. One character manages to hold off the deadly fishies with a frying pan! The quick comic final scene is good though. 

Over arty direction is by Alexandre Aja (THE HILLS HAVE EYES remake) who seems to have confused Spielberg with Corman and features Richard Dreyfuss as pre-credit scene as a victim. 

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The Maddest Story Ever Told!

SPIDER BABY or THE MADDEST STORY EVER TOLD-1968-This quirky black and white horror film may not be the maddest but it's certainly one of the strangest!It starts out with the legendary Lon Chaney singing the title theme over the credits!

The story concerns the Merrye family who suffer from "Merrye Syndrome", a genetic disorder caused by inbreeding. Lon Chaney is great as Bruno the insanely smiling family caretaker, chauffeur and guardian of the three Merrye children: Ralph (Sid Haig, still doing mostly TV at this time), a bald mute lunatic, the homicidal Elizabeth (Beverley Washburn) and the spider obsessed Virginia (Jill Banner). A few cannibalistic aunts and uncles also live in a pit in their basement. After Virginia kills a messenger (the great Mantan Moreland) the family is visited by Peter (Quinn Redecker) and Emily Howe (Carol Ohmart from THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL) distant relatives who want the family house. Also along is their weaselly lawyer Mr. Schlocker (Karl Schanzer) and his secretary Ann (Mary Mitchel). When the guests decide to stay for dinner Ralph kills a cat so they have food to serve. Though everyone else acts disgusted and snobby, Peter seems oblivious to the macabre surroundings. He's very cheerful and nice to his hosts. After Peter takes Ann out for a drink Schocker snoops around.  The girls slice him up because he doesn't like spiders ("This isn't right. There are proper procedures!"). Later the girls chase Emily (clan in black underwear) through the forest and Ralph rapes her (off-screen). When Peter and Mary return Elizabeth and Ralph kidnap Mary while Virginia ties Peter up and does her spider dance. Emily now crazy finds Ralph and blinds him. Peter manages to break his bonds and flee with Mary just before Bruno blows the place up. Peter (who narrates at the beginning and the end) 10 years later lives happily ever after with his Mary, now his his wife and their young daughter...or do they?  

SPIDER BABY was pretty much ignored in it's initial release (according to director Jack Hill it was hard to get a distributor because by 1968 black and white films were out of date) but since then it's become a cult movie and it's easy to see why. Chaney really throws himself into his demented role lecturing the murdering brood:  "How many times have I told you it's not nice to hate?" "How many times do I have to tell you just because something isn't good doesn't mean it's bad!"  His career was really almost non-existent by this point and his health problems were getting worse but he still puts in a memorable performance.

It's really strange to see a once funny guy like Mantan Moreland getting stabbed to death while caught in a window. It's not graphic though except for a quick shot of his severed ear. He made a few more movie and TV appearances before dying in 1973. Quinn Redeker was a familiar TV actor and screenwriter who was nominated for an Academy Award in 1978 for co-writing THE DEERHUNTER. Both Karl Schanzer and Mary Mitchel had been in DEMENTIA 13 in 1963. Beverley Washburn was a former child actress who was on many TV shows. Her Elizabeth is very whacky and frightening.

But Jill Banner steals the whole show as the alluring, innocent but bloodthirsty Virginia who really loves her spiders. She was in a few other movies (THE PRESIDENT'S ANALYST & A MAN, A HORSE, A GUN) and TV shows (she was in around 5 episodes of DRAGNET!) but quit acting soon after. She was killed in a car accident in 1982.

Director Jack Hill made this around the same time he filmed Boris Karloff's American scenes for his last 4 film appearances (produced in Mexico).

http://www.spiderbabyonline.com/

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Willard!

WILLARD-2003-Back in remake land comes this new version of the 70’s horror hit.

Crispin Glover plays the lonely weird office worker who lives in a gothic like house with his ailing mother. Somehow he becomes friends with the vermin in his basement led by white haired Socrates and dark haired Ben. While Bruce Davidson’s earlier portrayal was that of an unsophisticated friendless nerd, a guy you really felt sorry for, Glover plays this Willard as a dark almost sinister loony. Of course many CGI rats do his biding, eventually eating up his overbearing boss (R. Lee Ermey, over the top as usual). Using Davidson’s image and photo as Willard’s dead father is a nice touch though.

A strange film that contains some good performances and effects but somehow fails to deliver. First time director Glenn Morgan wrote FINAL DESTINATION and THE ONE as well as many TV episodes of THE X-FILES, MILLENNIUM and SPACE ABOVE AND BEYOND (which featured Ermey).

Have a nice weekend!