American Mary

I first read about this in a recent issue of Fangoria magazine. It sounded so weird, but original: Katharine Isabelle (Freddy vs. Jason, Ginger Snaps) plays a med student named Mary. Her bills are quickly piling up with no way to pay them. Eventually she decides to resort to stripping, but on her first night she ends up performing surgery on a bouncer with a nasty eye injury. She also receives $5,000 for her troubles. Word gets out that Mary is able to do surgeries that might be considered unconventional, and she ends up dropping out of med school and making a business out of body modification surgeries.

Mary's luck does turn around, but she seems to go through a psychological change as well. At first you feel bad for her. Then she goes from hero to villain in a short time. But it does make sense. Without spoiling anything, Mary goes through a very traumatic event at the hands of someone she trusted. So by the last 30-40 minutes of the film, she basically snaps because of it. She becomes this tragic figure, but it's done in such a great way. We see that Mary wasn't able to choose how her life went at certain points, but she's still bound and determined that things end up in her favor.

I should mention there are two writers: The Soska Sisters. These are the ladies responsible for Dead Hooker in a Trunk and See No Evil 2. While their first two films are questionable in taste, American Mary is actually a solid effort from them. I give it a 4 out of 5. It's different and interesting, funny, and Isabelle shines as Mary.  I say go out and buy it. It would be a great movie to have in any collection.

High School of the Dead (Season 1)

WARNING

This anime contains enough panty and side boob shots to be soft core porn. Once you get past all of that, it's actually a brilliant show. The plot isn't original: high school kids surviving a zombie outbreak. But the interesting part is how each episode carefully examines each character, and how they've adapted to what is basically the end of the world. The show basically asks this question: If the world were to end, who would rise to the occasion? Would it be who you expected, or the one you ignored?

We also see how morals and standards go out the window: families killing their children so they don't become infected, theft and rape are now the norm, and it gets to the point where you're not sure who's more evil: the zombies, or those still living. In the midst of all the madness, we have 5 teens that have to quickly grow up and band together. I think this show is amazing. It's not just sex and mindless violence. It really is an in depth look at how any personality type could potentially deal with an apocalyptic situation.

 I give it 5 out of 5. This what zombie movies should aim to be like. It's awesome to see something zombie related that's more than head-shots and sex. While I do love those, they become quite boring and repetitive after a while.  If it's not your cup of tea, and least watch it for Monica Rial. She's the ditzy nurse that joins up with the teens. She's also... "blessed" when it comes to her bra size, and that leads to some great comedic scenes that break up all the tension perfectly. It's on Netflix and Hulu, and it's only 12 episodes. You'll be glad you watched it.

Night Raid 1931

This marks my first anime review. And I'm a little disappointed. The premise sounds awesome: a secret spy organization in Shanghai, China tries to prevent terrorist attacks. The main agents, however, have been gifted with powerful psychic abilities. I thought I was going to see a lot of action and intrigue. What I got was a slow, jumbled, hot mess. It's just confusing, and creates more questions instead of answering them.

The only positive are two characters named Aoi and Feng Lan. Aoi is one of the agents. While his powers are arguably the most powerful, their duration has a time limit. He's also impulsive, but that usually works in the team's favor. Feng Lan works at a local restaurant, and nags Aoi into buying food. The interaction between the two is hilarious. Unfortunately that seems to be the only genuine interaction in the whole show. Dialog between other characters seems so forced and lacking any emotion. That's surprising considering the cast has Andrew Love, Luci Christian, Chris Patton, and many others who I think are some of the most talented voice actors around.

For an original premise, great voice actors, and interesting characters I give this a 3 out of 5. It's not completely horrible, but I think more questions should've been answered and there didn't need to be so many filler episodes. It probably would've helped if there had been more back story for all of the characters instead of just one. If you want to see mystery and espionage done right, check out Ergo Proxy or Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex.

Antiviral

I'm going to warn you now that this review requires some back story. This is the debut film from Brandon Cronenberg. Does the last name seem very familiar? It should because his dad is David Cronenberg, master of body horror movies. Body horror plays on the fears of infection or mutations that can happen to us. While I commend his son for wanting to follow in his father's footsteps, I wish his first effort was stronger and not as mindbogglingly weird.

Antiviral takes an unflinching look at celebrity obsessed culture. We follow Syd March, a salesman for the Lucas Clinic. The clinic specializes in selling diseased or infection-ridden samples from celebrities. Anything from herpes, the flu and even HIV can be purchased by people that are desperate to have a physical connection with their favorite actor or actress. But, Syd also uses his body as an incubator to sell the same samples on the black market. You can guess where this is going. He obtains a sample of a cold from the actress du jour Hannah Geist, but it's not just any cold. He basically injects a new strain of bubonic plague into his body. The movie is mainly spent watching him slowly die from hallucinations, internal hemorrhaging, and brain melting fever.

Ultimately he lives...by making a deal with the Lucas Clinic since they created the virus that killed Hannah Geist. Why would they want to kill their cash cow? To make an even bigger profit from her death. What is the point of all this? The best guess I have is that this is the direction our society is heading in if we encourage such unhealthy obsessions with the rich and famous. Or it could be the writer/director just wanted to fill almost 2 hours of screen time with blood and steaks made from human skin cells. I wish I was making the human steaks part up.

This just wasn't very good. The plot is very interesting, but once again the actual delivery is what kills it. Plus Syd is a dishonest, unlikable, whiny brat. Also he's creepy. The very last scene we see him cut into the regenerated skin of Hannah, and suck out the blood. I was willing to give this a pass until I saw that. So for a too long run time, annoying characters, and visuals that made my head hurt, this gets a 1 out of 5. It doesn't always pay to focus on visuals instead of plot. If you want to see body horror done right, look for Videodrome or The Thing.

You're Next

One of my all time favorite home invasion movies is The Strangers. You're supposed to be safe in your home, and when that sense of security is shattered it truly is terrifying. The only problem with that film is that other filmmakers try to copy that same terror and fail miserably. You're Next is no exception. The film is directed by Adam Wingard. Sound familiar? He's the one partly responsible for unleashing V/H/S onto the world. He's also the editor of this film, which is quite obvious. Yes, my arch nemesis Shaky Cam is back in full force. When done right, it adds to the tension or mass hysteria that the characters are experiencing. Wingard doesn't seem to understand that.

Much like V/H/S, the editing is so bad that at several points myself and other viewers became dizzy. There's also quite of bit of strobe light effects, so please do not see this if you're prone to seizures. So the editing and cinematography is terrible. The plot and gore should make up for it, right? Well, the thing about gore is that it's only effective if you see the end result. If I see someone get beaten to death (which happens twice within a 20 minute span), I fully expect to see blood splatter and brain matter all over the room. Instead most of the deaths happen off camera or we only see the victims' faces, and some squishing noises. In other words, it was just repetitive and boring.

We're now left with the plot. At this point I still had some hope left. Of course that tiny glimmer of hope was crushed around the 45 minute mark. In order to explain, let me go back to The Strangers. The reason why it was so scary is because we never found the reason why the couple was picked by the crazies in creepy masks. When done right, that type of plot can work out very well. It just doesn't work here, and prepare for spoilers.

Long story short, an older couple is celebrating their wedding anniversary, and their highly unlikable hell spawn bring their equally unlikable significant others. There's the brother that's a douche bag for no reason, the brother that's fat and gets picked on by the douche bag, the black sheep, and sickeningly sweet sister. People start dying like flies, and we discover the black sheep has hired ex-military to dispose of his family so he can get the inheritance. Why? Because he's the black sheep. No seriously. That's really the only reason the movie gives as to why he would pay to slaughter his family. And yet he appears to be emotional when forced to kill his own brother. I call shenanigans. If someone pays to kill their family for the prospect of more money, they're a heartless bastard. Therefore if a situation arose where they had to kill someone, there would be no hesitation and they certainly wouldn't be emotional. After more jumping around the house, the black sheep dies from getting a blender shoved into his head and turned on.

Oh I forgot to mention the fat one's girlfriend. She just happens to be the daughter of a survivalist who forced her to move to the Australian Outback when she was a child, and taught her how to defend herself if needed. That's right, there just happened to be someone that can save the family. Well, maybe considering the fat one was in on it too. Shocker! Have you noticed how I've described the plot? That's exactly how events were laid out in the film. Confused? You should be. Annoyed because this whole thing is so contrived and mind numbing stupid? I know I was when I realized I paid $8.50 to see this turd.

This movie is just pointless. The characters are so annoying and spoiled that you actually want them to die. The plot is so thin and complicated that it really shouldn't even be called a plot. And finally the editing is so bad to the point where you actually have to figure out if someone just died. It's yet another 0. Just watch The Strangers or Funny Games. They're both creepy, and you'll be able to see what the hell is going on.

The Raspberry Reich

WARNING

This movie is unrated, and the following review will contain graphic description of gay sex scenes. Don't say I didn't try to warn you.

No, this is not a gay porno. This is some artsy film by Bruce La Bruce. I don't know who he is, and frankly I'm too scared to do a Google search to find out. From the 30 minutes that isn't hardcore porn, the plot is some German nymphomaniac wants to start a sexual revolution that goes against heterosexuality, marriage, and monogamy. And she bases her delusions on revolutionaries from the 1970s. In order to test her male followers, she has them have sex with each other. Basically this is a 20 minute short film stretched into a 90 minute feature. It also took me 3 hours to finish it. You're welcome.

I feel the need to add that I have absolutely no problem with gay/lesbian/transgendered films. What I can't stand is when a movie uses that for shock value. It's cheap, and paints a negative picture on someone's lifestyle. Men don't just turn gay after 5 minutes, and they're don't always hop from one partner to the next. This movie wants you to think otherwise. I'm not even going to dive into the whole German aspect, because quite frankly this movie is just stupid.

As I've said before, if you want to make porn just go ahead and make porn. Do not try to hide behind terms like avant garde or art house. You're not being creative. You're being a pretentious douche bag. Now, it's one thing if there's only one graphic sex scene, or even major nudity. But when I see a penis thrusting in and out of a vagina, mouth, or anus it's porn. There's no gray area, and it is definitely not artsy.  Then there's also the masturbation with guns, old people having sex on a table, and several close-up shots of ejaculation. And I can't forget about the constant paragraphs of texts over seizure-inducing backgrounds.

There's just no point to this movie. It's all about shock and sex, but it's not done tastefully and it's far from new. This is in the same vein as A Serbian Film: using graphic sex as a metaphor. It doesn't work that way, and it's a load of crap. It gets a huge 0, and just avoid it at all costs. If you want to see shock done right, check out Blood Feast or The ABCs of Death. But, if you're like me and you just have to see it, at least have alcohol on standby. It's the only way you'll be able to sit through it.

Assault Girls

Ah it already feels good to be back (sort of). After browsing through the Foreign section of Netflix, I came across this little gem. Now, I'm going to warn you that this is a case where the poster is horribly misleading. I thought I was going to see chicks with guns being super awesome and such. Nope. Instead it's women that have to team up in a video game to defeat a common enemy. That doesn't sound bad. Actually that might be interesting: a ragtag group of women going after an evil corporation, a guy that two timed them, or I'd even take evil spirits. So what is this this powerful foe? A giant eel that has the head of Godzilla.

What makes it even worse is that the running time is only 70 minutes long, with a 10 minute introductory narration that has NOTHING to do with the plot. There's also the actors that speak English even though they're Japanese and their accents are so thick that the movie is subtitled. Why are they speaking English? The announcer of the game tells us 50 minutes into the movie that native languages aren't allowed during game play. Why? Insert your own explanation because I can guarantee it would be way more creative than whatever the writers would've thought of.

I'm going to make this easier on myself and on you. Instead of watching 70 minutes of nothing, just watch the movies and anime this movie manages to rip off in an admittedly impressive amount of time. I'll even give you the list:

Mobile Suit Gundam, The Matrix, Appleseed, Desert Punk, Gamer, Source Code, Godzilla, Watchmen, Rampo Noir, Gunslinger Girl, Big O, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Aliens, Gantz (not if you're squeamish), Trigun, Burst Angel and Ghost in the Shell.

17 in 70 minutes. I think that's some kind of record. What really bugs me outside of the blatant rip offs is that it's a potentially interesting concept that is wasted and lost in the midst of 40+ minutes of no dialog, no plot, bad CGI, very odd characters, and this weird gray haze that made me think the screen on my computer was on its last leg. It's a 0 for me. I'll never understand how a movie called Assault Girls could be so boring and borderline depressing.