lance henriksen – Podcasting Them Softly

STOPPING for ERIC RED by KENT HILL

December 21, 2021December 21, 2021 by Kent Hill, posted in Interviews

With pages that zoom ahead at the pace of a well-crafted screenplay; the further I was pulled along by what seemed like a rope around the neck, deeper into Eric Red’s (Body Parts, Bad Moon) latest action spectacle-in-print, I found myself thinking of that old story of a script called Simon Says. Of course, by the time Simon came to a theater near you…the title of the picture had changed to Die Hard: With a Vengeance.

If you carry on and research that story…you’ll stumble across another little tale about another spec script titled: Troubleshooter. This also would eventually find its way before eager, action-seeking audiences. Though, they weren’t so eager when they came out of Speed 2: Cruise Control.

But let us not dwell on the frailties of ego and hubris, I’m here because, although I haven’t podcasted them softly from a distance in some time, all-of-sudden, there came the opportunity to have a powwow with a filmmaker/novelist whose work I’ve long admired. It sounded like a hot ticket. And I was flattered beyond belief when, being accustomed to the ever-convenient PDF, I not only received a copy of STOPPING POWER, but two other of Eric’s newest efforts, including one headed for our screens in the form of WHITE KNUCKLE.

So now, as my veracity may be in question, you’re wondering why I would begin writing about Mr. Red’s new book talking about how someone else’s idea was transformed into franchise fodder? The answer isn’t simple. It’s kinda just where my head went to as the story unfolded. I kept thinking, “If Eric Red wasn’t ERIC RED…they would totally reconfigure this into like a Speed 3.” And as Stephanie Power’s problems start to look like the tidal waves the James Cameron’s NTI’s were going to use to wash the pestilence that is humanity from the face of the Earth in his ABYSS, my head kept spinning like the wheels of so many vehicles in, HANDS DOWN, the best car chases I’ve thus encountered on the printed page.

STOPPING POWER will make an equally incredible film. And should WHITE KNUCKLE’s transition prove successful, I dare say, then it shall not be long before this mother/daughter/action/heist/thriller; with an ensemble of such surprising, terrifyingly and delightfully depraved villains that play cat and mouse and Russian Roulette with the lives Stephanie Power and her daughter. There’s 60 million dollars in bearer bonds as well as every cop in Texas on the hunt for this woman who is Power by name, but powerful by nature. I’ve already spoke on the blinding action that awaits you here, but the character work is not to be underestimated. Mr. Red, you can tell is a screenwriter as the pages decline. He knows that if you don’t give a damn about the people in peril…then he’s gonna lose you.

Lucky for you, dear reader, there are enough twists and turns and further secrets unearthed as the story snakes around the highways like the frantic mother behind the wheel, a puppet being pulled by evil strings as her daughter sits at the end of the barrel of a loaded, automatic weapon. She’s a bomb on the bus, only the bus is an RV. There’s a shitty ex-Husband, there’s an unlikely hero. There are moments that’ll you wish were up there on a screen in front of you as the roads are lashed with Mad Max fury; all culminating in a climax that’s as good as they come. Heck, if the whole thing was set around Christmas time…it could also work as a Die Hard movie too, I guess.

Point is STOPPING POWER works! It works damn well. And if you’re not completely satisfied with some really tight storytelling, involving and emotion human components, all dressed to the nines with scintillating mechanical carnage, explosions…all part of your complete breakfast really.

I really loved this book, and as I mentioned earlier, a chat with Mr. Red was on the cards. So, here it is. He’s taken the time out from his busy schedule to field a fistful of questions from yours truly. Ladies and Gentlemen…Eric Red…

KH: So, Mr. Red, like WHITE KNUCKLE, I believe it won’t be long before we’ll be hearing that STOPPING POWER is headed for the Big Silver. I see it clearly as SPEED meets DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE; what was the genesis of the story?

ER: One day was watching a TV news report showing a high-speed chase of a bank robbery suspect on an L.A. freeway with all the news helicopters filming it. Wondered what would happen if the bank robber switched their getaway car with someone else’s car and used them as a decoy. They might get away with it. Everybody would be watching the other car. But how would you make another driver drive the getaway car? Then I thought what if the escaping bank robber carjacked a parent and child, kidnapped the kid, switched cars and blackmailed the parent into doing the driving the bank robber’s car as a decoy leading the police in the wrong direction. It would be a perfect crime, a clean getaway. That was the seed of the story.

The characters of the mother, daughter and kidnapper sprang from the idea. Here’s this mother suddenly in this extraordinary situation where everybody thinks she’s a bank robber and nobody believes her daughter has been kidnapped. It’s up to her not only to elude a citywide police dragnet but also somehow catch up to the kidnapper and get her daughter back. And the kidnapper is watching the high-speed chase on the TV news and has eyes on her every minute. She is all alone. Out of this impossible situation, the ultimate predicament for a mother, the fun for us is how she figures it out. Because of course she will.

In a book, it seemed like the kind of thing people would believe could really happen and happen to anyone. In thriller terms it was preposterous yet plausible. My favorite suspense stories are the kind of in-the-wrong place-at-the-wrong time situations that could happen to regular people like us. I love Alfred Hitchcock and this appealed to me as a classic Hitchcock mistaken identity set up where an innocent individual is framed for a crime he didn’t commit, as if Alfred Hitchcock had done a car chase thriller.

KH: When you sit down to write is it a book idea, a script idea, or simply…I have to get this story out?

ER: Some ideas I have are for novels and others for scripts. I often get an idea for a screenplay and sit down and write it in two weeks. Novels involve much more material on every level, and on those will usually make notes for months or even years until I have enough notes that the book is ready to write. Author Tom McGuane phrased that stage perfectly calling it “building up the cabin pressure.” In the end, the ones that get written are the ideas I can’t stop thinking about, for purely subjective reasons.

KH: Having recently seen and enjoyed The Last Duel, appreciating the Rashomon quality, what made you choose the shifting POV from first person to third person storytelling…or did the story dictate that

ER: Maximizing reader identification with the characters meant telling the story from multiple voices. The novel has two first person narratives with the mother Stephanie and her kidnapped daughter Libby, so we see the same events from their contrasting different perspectives, giving us the whole picture. First person gets the reader right inside the character’s heads. We needed to be outside of the villainess Ilsa, so I wrote her third person so we never truly know what she’s thinking, keeping her unpredictable because we never know what she’ll do next. What I love about Rashomon is the truth is the whole of the sum of the parts of all of the characters’ perspectives!

KH: You’ve spoken in other interviews about liking in movies “what you don’t see.” Can a writer get away with that when writing novels, or is that best left to the screenplay?

ER: “Keeping it off-screen” is a storytelling technique that works equally well in films and books. In a movie we would describe that as “not how you show it but how you don’t show it” or in a novel we might say something is described “between the lines,” but either way it means handling a scene in such a way that people fill in the blanks. Then they use their imagination picturing things you just suggest instead of explicitly showing or describing graphically. There’s a place for both.

KH: Christopher Isherwood was quoted as saying writing for Hollywood made him a better novelist in the sense that it showed him greater economy of language; do you feel the same?

ER: Yes, writing screenplays you cut everything out that doesn’t move the story forwards. You “load” words because you use as few as possible. It’s a strong background to have as a novelist because for screenwriters “when in doubt, cut it out.” Also, scriptwriters are story wonks and we bring that narrative skill-set to novels. When we write them. Most screenwriters can’t write a novel even though they try, or write just one. I’ve written eleven. And honestly many novelists can’t write a script to save their life. Screenplays and books are very different animals.

For instance, in a novel you have many more tools in your storytelling toolbox. In a script, you have just action and dialogue. You have those in a novel, too, but also first second and third person narratives, different voices, and much more ordinance to weaponize your prose. The thing I love about doing both is that when a script is made into a movie, we give you the pictures so everyone sees the same film, but in a novel, we bring their own pictures to the prose, based on our mental images and memories, so it’s more personal.

KH: I love the tension in the early scenes with Ilsa and Libby, before their dialogue kicks in later. It was for me, reminiscent of what you did in the scenes involving Michael Pare and the dog in Bad Moon.

ER: There’s a lot of stare-downs, that’s for sure! At first, Ilsa and Libby deal with each another in a silent primal animal level, sniffing each other out. Not unlike Pare and Thor in Bad Moon, as you say.

KH: Stephanie’s thought as she makes a dynamic and daring rooftop evasion from the police is that “it’s like being in a car commercial from Hell.” Does the Fury Road adrenaline you capture come from the novelistic glee that says, “Gee, I’m glad I don’t have to do this on a budget with a schedule?”

ER: Sure, writing a novel obviously the only limits are the limits of one’s imagination. The only thing to worry about is fully imagining the scene in enough detail so it’s believable. But the rooftop car chase certainly could be viably filmed with first-class precision vehicular stunt driving and standard mechanical special effects.

KH: Dan Crockett turned out to have more moxy than I gave in through the early stages. You pay off characters well, and as much as this is a book about “hot minutes” and high-octane mechanical carnage; what makes it all work is the people?

ER: It’s always all about the people. Action or suspense scenes are empty exercises in mechanics unless you care about the characters involved, even the bad guys. It’s not about sympathetic characters—we become involved with flawed characters we don’t morally approve of all the time in what we read and watch—audience and reader involvement is the apt phrase. I’d say it’s an even split with the mother and kidnapper in STOPPING POWER as far as who interests us the most. Stephanie is a mother tiger protecting her cub, hard not to root for. We don’t root for Ilsa, quite the opposite, but we do get to understand the kidnapper and become involved with her. Many readers tell me she is the most interesting character in the book. We all know villains are often the most compelling characters, like in Shakespeare. Lots of reasons for that.

A big part of the drama in Stopping Power deals with the Stockholm syndrome dynamics of the kidnapper Ilsa and her teenage captive Libby. Each needs to keep the other talking for survival reasons, forcing this unlikely pair to engage and form an unusual if not friendly bond. Ilsa, a completely emotionally detached human being, finds herself experiencing younger sister feelings for the teenage girl, and because Ilsa has no experience with feelings she becomes unstable, which could have consequences for both her and Libby. It’s an instance in the book where the drama between the characters ups the jeopardy. Those are some of my favorite chapters in the novel.

KH: In light of the recent tragedy on the set of RUST, it made Stephanie’s backstory, primarily her relationship with her father extremely poignant?

ER: Sam Power took reckless safety risks as a stuntman like his generation of stunt people did making movies during those days, but Stephanie’s dad was a seasoned professional and the only lives he risked were his own and unfortunately hers that one time. Ironically, if her father Sam had not taken those risks with Stephanie teaching her how to stunt drive, she would not have survived the ordeal in the novel when Ilsa puts her to the test.

KH: $64,000 question. Did Jack Stevens crap his pants when the boys from SWAT came calling. I only ask ’cause the Sheriff said things got messy?

ER: Let’s say it’s an example of “between-the-lines!”

About The Author: Eric Red is a Los Angeles-based novelist, screenwriter, and film director. His films include The Hitcher, Near Dark, Cohen and Tate, Body Parts, Bad Moon, 100 Feet and The Last Outlaw. He has written nine novels, including Don’t Stand So Close, It Waits Below, White Knuckle, The Guns of Santa Sangre, The Wolves of El Diablo, Noose, Hanging Fire and Branded. Red divides his time between California and Wyoming with his wife and two dogs. Find out more about Eric Red and his books and films on his official website EricRed.com, on Facebook at OfficialEricRed, and on Twitter @ericred.

“There isn’t another novel this year that cuts as quickly to the chase as Stopping Power. Eric Red’s new thriller is tense, tough and tenacious. Once the story evolves from its simple but highly effective premise there’s no exit for the reader: a psychologically clever described mother-and-daughter relationship and a vicious villainess sure make for a hell of a ride – a purist genre narration encased in a very contemporary almost all-female action firework.”

Marco Siedelmann, Publisher and Editor, Seidelman & Company.

Jason Momoa’s Road To Paloma

November 19, 2021 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

I was always kind of aware of Road To Paloma as ‘that biker flick passion project that Jason Momoa directed and stared in but didn’t really make a big splash’ so I never really got around to it until now. Well I think that there’s a reason it didn’t make a big splash, as it’s far more of a meditative, almost spiritual picture than any sort of action thriller type thing, an esoteric, atmospheric portrait of one Native American man meandering the southwest on the run from both the law and his past. But it’s a fantastic film, one that shows Momoa as a true visual poet in command of every frame, giving his story a loose, elegiac aura that’s not always so easy to capture authentically. He plays Robert Wolf, an indigenous wanderer who has a nasty, predatory federal agent (Timothy V. Murphy) on his tail at the behest of a gruff FBI section chief (the briefest of cameos from Lance Henriksen), guided by a conflicted sheriff (Chris Browning). That sounds like the setup for something fast paced and thrilling, but such is thankfully not really the case. There are some scenes of action and pursuit but most of the film is Wolf and his rambunctious buddy Cash (Robert Homer Mollohan) rambling from place to place on their bikes and carving out a path through the gorgeous, rugged Sierra Nevada Mountains and desolate plains below. They visit Robert’s friends and family, participate in a junkyard fight club for cash, hang out, drink, ponder existence and the unjust system that led to their predicament and really just… live. Many people have said this film is ‘dull’ and ‘nothing happens’ but I guess those people need constant gun battles and car chases pumped into them from an IV. If they slowed down to think a bit they’d see this film is anything but dull or nothing, it’s a heartbreaking, honest look at one man running from injustice after avenging the death of a loved one, and naturally being part of an indigenous tribe, he and his family experience the full weight of the racism, hate and evil that has bred in the area since time immemorial. Wolf feels less like martyr here and more like myth, a totem of the swiftly shrinking freedom human beings have in any given era or area, and a deliberate force of nature who lives moment to moment in utter clarity, possessive of an elemental restlessness that sees him never tarry in one space for long. He meets others including his tribal police chief father (the great Wes Studi), his sister (Sarah Shani) who has married an old friend of his (Michael Raymond-James), briefly entering and re-entering their lives before hitting the road again. He also meets a mysterious stranded girl called Magdalena, played by his real life wife Lisa Bonet. The two have a brief romantic encounter here that’s sweet, haunting, supported by their genuine love and chemistry and adds a heartfelt dynamic to Wolf’s story, even just for a few quick scenes. The story may be lilting and free form, simply a brief, tragic and melancholy glimpse into the life of a man who has spent most of it on the road, and is now nearing the end of it. But in that lyrical, shifting-sand narrative there’s a profundity and aching soul, a need to tell the story of great injustice and corruption, however far you need to read, and feel, between the lines. Great film.

-Nate Hill

Hellraiser 8: Hellworld

October 30, 2021 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

And now we arrive at the final Hellraiser sequel, or the last one to star Doug Bradley as Pinhead anyways, so it may as well be a good a place as any to stop. Hellworld is the eighth, and silliest iteration of this story, a script that tries to properly usher the franchise into the cyber age with a sort of meta narrative that turns the Hellraiser characters and movies into an online game that college kids get hooked on. So with this one the movies exist, like this takes place outside the canon in a way, like Wes Craven’s New Nightmare took Freddy Krueger out of his own fictional narrative and placed him in the real world, except that it’s far less effective and properly utilized of a concept in this franchise. The main reason this one doesn’t fall into thorough mediocrity is Lance Henriksen, it doesn’t matter how shitty your sequel, threequel or eight-quel is in any given series, you cast him and immediately there’s a level of pedigree by default alone. He plays a mysterious rich dude who hosts a party at his remote, spooky mansion where players of the once popular online RPG game Hellworld can live out their gaming fantasies one more time. Of course, Pinhead and his buddies break the fabric of time, space and fiction to make their night a literal world of hell, facilitated by Henriksen’s treacherous collector/socialite. It’s a fun enough time, the actors who plays the teens are a silly bunch, but it was neat to see a very young Henry Cavill in their bunch. Decent kills too. One thing I did appreciate is that Henriksen’s character could have easily just been like, a nondescript cyber host type archetype or temporary avatar for Pinhead, as they sometimes do in these films. He’s a very real human character himself with his own fascinating arc and that at least gives the film some narrative fibre, as does his solid, creepy performance. Not the best, but also not the worst in this canon.

-Nate Hill

Viggo Mortensen’s Falling

July 5, 2021 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

I love to see it when a cherished and talented actor makes their debut as a director, especially if they absolutely nail it, and Viggo Mortensen’s Falling is an astonishingly terrific first time effort behind the camera, in front of it and collaborating with one of cinema’s most prolific and underrated character actors, the mighty Lance Henriksen. Mortensen paints a deeply personal and seemingly autobiographical portrait of a stormy father son relationship here, a dynamic put to the absolute test in its twilight years as dementia throws a curveball. Henriksen is Willis Petersen, a conservative, sexist, crass, bigoted, bitter, flint-edged old goat whose emotional problems and inability to properly communicate made life extra tough on his wife and two kids growing up on a farm in chilly upstate New York. He is now a snowy haired senior citizen who can barely remember what day it is, and journeys with his grown up son John (Mortensen; patient, restrained, meticulously pensive until the breaking point) to live with him, his husband (Terry Chen) and their young daughter (Gabby Velis) in sunniest California. Willis is utterly and completely out of his element in this setting, while John, his family and the rest of the city do their best to ignore, endear and diplomatically deflect his brittle onslaught of angry, bigoted, rude and altogether inappropriate behaviour. Willis is a tough cookie to love or care for, especially in this golden age of hyper-tolerance, but Henriksen, in an absolute career best tour de force, makes him not just another angry old man but a human being who is so scared of dying, losing his memories of life and slipping away from the life affirming groove of his routine that he’s lashing out at basically everyone around him. Except for his young granddaughter, his relationship with her is perhaps the only genuinely warm-hearted and easygoing interaction he allows himself to inhabit. Mortensen masterfully edits together their present day life in Cali with picturesque, auburn laced and earthen flashbacks to Upstate NY where we see a young Willis (Sverrir Gudnason) raise John and his sister, struggle to be there for them without letting his flaws run amok and navigate through two marriages, one to the children’s sensitive mother (Hannah Gross) and later to another (Bracken Burns). Laura Linney gives a reliably focused and mesmerizing turn as Willis’s grown up daughter, who does everything she can not to get emotionally compromised by her father’s issues, and there’s a sly cameo from Viggo’s longtime pal David Cronenberg as a stoic butt doctor whose scene with Willis highlights some of the films coarse black humour, often at the expense of his son’s homosexuality as John himself looks on in almost unfathomable patience. It’s easy to condemn and dismiss a difficult character like Willis, but Mortensen’s complex direction and Henriksen’s volcanic yet finely shaded nuance refuse the viewer in drawing such hasty, narrow conclusions. Mortensen’s surreal editing, fluidly washed transitions, the wonder of the natural world and the magic of music to remind us that human beings are never just one thing and that a seemingly lost, scared and downright mean old man is still capable of compassion, patience and a modicum of self reflection, even in the eleventh hour. This is an astonishing film and a staggering debut for any filmmaker of any background with a central performance by Lance that anoints his entire epic career with that one last minute entry to crown it all, he and the film overall are truly magnificent.

-Nate Hill

House 3: The Horror Show

June 14, 2021 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

After checking out the first House flick and digging it I skipped right ahead to the third one, given the subheading ‘The Horror Show.’ I did this because it was more readily available to me than than the second and because they’re anthology anyways but mainly because it stars Lance Henriksen, who I’m a huge fan of. This one has a super bad reputation for some reason and I see from some reviews (Ebert, notably) that they had no idea this was even connected to the House franchise and thought it was an attempt at a standalone horror flick. This is understandable as it has almost zero connective tissue to at least the first film, which is odd they’ve used the House name but no matter, it’s still a perfectly entertaining, impressively gruesome cop versus slasher outing. Henriksen is Detective Lucas McCarthy, a tough cop and gentle family man who has successfully tracked and apprehended ‘Meat Cleaver’ Max (the great Brion James), a profoundly vicious mass murderer whose weapon of choice is, you guessed it, a giant meat cleaver. When they try to fry the fucker in the electric chair it literally goes haywire and somehow Max’s ghost is able to escape via electric currents and continue to kill as well as make life hard for Lucas and his family as he lurks about their home turning inanimate objects very animate. What to do? Lucas must think outside the box of his usual cop skill set towards more metaphysical methods before Max literally kills everyone. Henriksen is terrific and gives the role a genuinely haunted aura and PTSD afflicted frenzy that is very effective and believable. James is a mad dog monster as Max, imbuing him with a devilish trademark laugh and chewing scenery like there’s no tomorrow. There’s some very unnerving prosthetic effects, a standout moment sees a turkey dinner some nauseatingly to life in front of Lucas, provoking a hilariously deadpan reaction from the man. While I don’t see quite what this has to do with the House franchise in essence and could have easily just been it’s own unrelated thing, I really enjoyed it for it’s energy, the brutal cat and mouse game between Henriksen and James who are both at the top of their acting game here and the inspired, deranged special effects. Good times.

-Nate Hill

William Butler’s Madhouse

May 11, 2021 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

There are so many horror movies set in mental institutions that it’s pretty much a sub genre at this point, and while these days we realize that the aesthetic of presenting that world in such a.. heightened and lurid manner isn’t all that enlightened, we can still appreciate a good entry on its own trashy terms I guess. William Butler’s Madhouse is a gory little diversion with a kind of messy story that it makes up for with some truly unsettling, deeply disturbing visuals that are very clearly influenced by Adrian Lyne’s Jacob’s Ladder, but such influences on other works are welcome, even if worn shamelessly on their straightjacket sleeves. Joshua Leonard, who comes across as a kind of subdued, less succinct Sam Rockwell, plays an intern taking up residency at an underfunded, spooky asylum run by a head doctor (Lance Henriksen, naturally) who has little interest or compassion for the patients and whose safety protocols and ethical groundwork are, shall we say, questionable. Most of the patients run about willy nilly and the terrifying subterranean maximum security wing is a furnace heated nightmare corridor of leering monstrosities and deliberately grotesque personalities, like the hallway of prison cells from Silence Of The Lambs went to sleep and had a bad dream. There he finds a sort of ‘patient X’, a mysterious mummified individual who tells him a long forgotten tale of a young boy decades before who was mistreated by the asylum staff (you know, more than usual anyway) and whose ghost still runs around at night, and I found it funny how the script acts as if the ghost of a little kid is the *scariest* thing left to run about the place at night when the film has this level of freaky production design and prosthetic soaked extras on hand, which are really quite impressive, even if the story can’t quite get it up. Henriksen does little more than bluster, but his presence is always welcome, the lovely Natasha Lyonne has an extended cameo as a severely distressed patient and that adorable little southern dandy hobbit Leslie Jordan (a frequent staple of American Horror Story) has a nice bit as one of the facility’s doctors who reaffirms our primal fear of being murked while we sneak out to the refrigerator for that 2am snack. Director William Butler has a solid body of DTV horror work including the Danny Trejo/Tom Sizemore vehicle Furnace and while he can’t quite land the narrative here with overall coherence and the twist is felt a mile away, Madhouse has atmosphere in spades, truly horrific gory imagery that borders on the surreal and a very effectively creepy vibe.

-Nate Hill

The Chronicles Of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay & Assault On Dark Athena

April 27, 2021 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

I’m a huge fan of the Riddick films, I love the mythology, world building, alien anatomy and general vibe, and while the film trilogy is amazing there are also all kinds of other bits of lore to be found in other arenas including comics, animated shorts and two spectacular video games that I got a chance to view entire walk-throughs on YouTube the other night. Now, these aren’t just cheap promotional ‘tie-in’ games that are rushed into production to be released alongside the film for no other purpose than cash, they are deep, important chunks of Riddick’s story with integral character beats, wonderful stories and jaw dropping set pieces all their own. They’re also great because Vin Diesel did the voice and motion capture work for Riddick, which has to be the lynchpin role of his career and he’s supported by a galaxy of star talent and cult actors in voice roles.

The first game is called Escape From Butcher Bay and it sees Riddick and his perennial bounty Hunter nemesis/best pal Johns (Cole Hauser) arrive at the titular penitentiary, a grim institution lorded over by preening Germanic warden Hoxie (Dwight Schultz) and brutally kept in check by his corrupt head guard Abbott (rapper Xzibit). It’s here that Riddick must fight his way through hordes of feral inmates and descend deep into the bowels of the prison to find a way out and discover pieces of his mysterious identity. He participates in a gruesome fight club run by Centurion (Michael Rooker), fights alongside exiled gang kingpin Jagger Valence (Ron Perlman) and runs afoul of many other creeps voiced by awesome folks like Tony Plana, the late William Morgan Sheppard, Stephen McHattie and Joaquim De Almeida. Deep in the heart of the facility he encounters half undead deformities and meets a shadowy subterranean prophet called Pope Joe (Willis Burkes) who operates on him and first gives him his ‘sight in the darkness’ eyes. Along with these eyes come haunting visions where Furyan spirit Shirah (Kristen Lehman) speaks out to him from his ancestral past and guides his eventual path towards destiny that we see unfold in the films.

The second game is called Assault On Dark Athena and while not as mythologically rich as Butcher Bay it has the advantage of being made a few years later and so the graphics, cutscenes, fighting styles and visual aesthetics are far more polished and impressive. It picks up right where the other left off, as Riddick and Johns approach a mammoth slave ship ruled by aggressive tyrant Revas (Michelle Forbes), where he must fight and outwit his way to find intel and weaponry deep within the giant floating prison. He’s aided by former military man turned inmate Dacher (Lance Henriksen, superb) and he forges a deep bond with a little orphaned girl roaming the craft, a relationship that reminded me very much of Ripley and Newt from Aliens and provides Riddick’s arc with pathos and poignancy. I can’t speak for the actual gameplay, controls or anything on the ‘hands on’ aspects of these games as I essentially watched them as you would a movie, but in that sense they are absolutely terrific stories and more than essential to the Riddick canon and lore. Spectacularly violent, gory and hard-R like these stories were always meant to be, a beautiful fusion of poetic deep space atmosphere and kinda steampunk/mecha/convicts in space aesthetics and a wonderful pair of expansion stories on Riddick’s exciting, moving, imaginative, immersive and artistically spellbinding voyage through galaxies to find his identity, history and change the course of the universe’s future. Highly recommended, whether you want to get an old console and play them as games or hop on over to YouTube and view them as films.

-Nate Hill

William Kaufman’s Daylight’s End

December 5, 2020 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

The zombie genre is so saturated these days that most new entries just try and stir up the pot by default and do something innovative with the scenario, but it’s refreshing when a filmmaker goes for a simple, honest to goodness zombie film with little to no frills and we’re reminded of why we fell in love with the genre in the first place. William Kaufman’s Daylight’s End is an earnest, brutal and rousing undead post apocalyptic piece that benefits from a strong ensemble cast, wicked sharp tactical direction and a script that adds just the right amount of character work in between the gunplay and gore. Johnny Strong plays a lone gunslinger who bands together with a tight knit tribe of survivors protected by gruff leader Lance Henriksen, while undead forces gather against them and they try to fight their way out of a severely destroyed Dallas to somewhere safer. The only real deviation from classic zombie lore here is that these creatures can’t stand daylight and only come out when it’s dark, leaving the daytime scenes to have this eerie, desolate feel while most of the heavy action takes place atmospherically after dusk for a nice Vampirish flourish. Kaufman is a real master at staging tactical, realistic feeling action and as such blocks his actors, chooses his weapons and makes his kills feel exciting, propulsive and immediate. Strong is every inch action hero material, Henriksen makes a stoic and sage pack leader and surprisingly emotional work is provided by the usually cavalier Louis Mandylor as his son and top lieutenant. This is obviously a low budget film and one can see that but the story they’ve told and the world they’ve built using what they had is really impressive, and stands with some of the best zombie shoot-em-up’s out there. Check out Kaufman’s New Orleans set cop flick Sinners & Saints too, which also stars Strong as a relentless badass and also features flawlessly directed action scenes, they make a cool genre double feature together.

-Nate Hill

The most excellent tragedy of ROUTINES by Kent Hill

July 6, 2020September 22, 2020 by Kent Hill, posted in Film Review, Interviews

It I believe is the low sinking fear that dwells in the pit of a comedian’s stomach, to die out there in the spotlight, to have each and every gag bring as much of a chuckle as the idea of an infant being suffocated by its own psychotic Mother. Like a potato in a hat, it doesn’t sit well with anyone but, there are those with something to say…whose audience just hasn’t been born yet.

So Domenic Migliore brings us his feature debut,ROUTINES, the story of the fall and fall of Bruce Mann (Michael Bugard), a solitary, tragic figure that uses his stage to scream a little…though it often falls on deaf ears. His spartan existence is then rejuvenated by the arrival of Darling Wednesday (Anita Nicole Brown). She becomes his muse, a vital spark, the link to life and love… stopping his slow spiral into the abyss. Theirs is a star-crossed lover’s tale with a moment of finality like you have never seen. And, though it is the catalyst that sees Bruce resume is quest toward self-destruction, it is the Eden he goes to at his hour of grace.

ROUTINES is a difficult film to write about. Not because of the film itself, but to talk about it in detail is to truly soil the experience of watching it unfold. Migilore exhibits his love of masters of Italian cinema alongside a strong Jarmusch infusion that plays in the smoky background like a jazz man high on the music. It is an immersive and emotional film, chronicling the slow internal decent of its front man, as he fights time with passive resistance against a slick and speedy modern world with which he has no connection.

Some of this might read like a bummer man…but it ain’t. While ROUTINES isn’t a date movie or something you should watch while operating heavy machinery, it has a handcrafted feel, a quiet and beautiful melancholy. It is cinema as art, and just like Coppola said at the end of Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse; (and I’m paraphrasing here) it was his hope that one day some little girl on a farm in Kanas would make a film with her father’s little 8mm camcorder and become the next Mozart, and that the professionalism of film would disappear…and it would really become an art form.

That is finally, how I feel about ROUTINES. A modern take on comedic tragedy stretched over a spare yet poignant canvas. It is possible to laugh one’s self to tears, but there are those who can meet with triumph and disaster, and who treat those two imposters just the same. ROUTINES carries these elements, and it is my profound hope that you will eventually have you chance to check it out.

Till that day comes, we have for you now the writer/director and his two accomplished leads for you listening pleasure…

MICHAEL BUGARD

Michael attended university and studied philosophy and film theory at the University of Michigan and Eastern Michigan University before venturing into non profit fund raising and eventually business to business sales.
Curious to pursue his creative interests, Michael began with modeling for print ads for a clothing retailer and Detroit area photographers and movie background work. He moved on to doing stand-in and featured extra work. Being heavily featured as an elite Hunt Club client in Hostel: Part III (2011) gained him attention in the indie horror community.
Michael attended acting and improv workshops, and has acted in two award winning and other shorts, cable network TV, corporate training and promotional videos, TV and internet commercials, and several independent features. From background to talent, Michael has been on the sets of over three dozen productions, and specializes in sinister, scary, and eccentric roles.
In 2013 he stepped behind the lens to do his own photography when not on set. His work has been displayed at the Damned Exhibition in Detroit, published online, in newspapers, a publication by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, in a print magazine and on one cover, have been used by celebrities for their social media profile pictures (most recently for David J of 80s goth/alternative legends Bauhaus and Love and Rockets), one celebrity IMDb photo (Jeff Hatrix, aka “Jeffrey Nothing” of Mushroomhead), and unexpected places on the internet, such as the main photo for the Clu Gulager page on Wikipedia.
Michael was asked to write an article about horror film for issue X of Michigan Movie Magazine in 2011, which sparked his interest in writing for film. Drawing upon his nearly 30 year, personal exploration of film and theory, he added screenwriter to his list of artistic skills; the script for “The Russian Sleep Experiment” feature film, adapted from the wildly popular urban legend, is the first creative result of his generation long, cinematic investigation.
His next step in his evolution as a filmmaker is producing. He co-produced the mockumentary short, Behind the Scenes of Horrorcore Hotel (2014) and a music video for punk rock band Dead in 5, which featured Don Campbell (brother of Bruce Campbell), with more to come.

DOMENIC MIGLIORE

Domenic Migliore grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. At the age of 12, he started making home movies with his friends. At the age of 14, he started writing short screenplays. He entered several small writing contests and was a semi-finalist in some of them. At the age of 18, he attended Tribeca-Flashpoint Academy for film, but left early to enter a mentorship program where he met actor/writer/producer Tom Malloy. With Tom’s notes he completed the feature screenplay, “Sprawl”. The film was produced in 2011 (re-titled “Ashley”), it starred “America’s Next Top Model” winner Nicole Fox, “Two and a Half Men” star Jennifer Taylor, and Michael Madsen. The film is now available to stream (from Warner Bros. VOD) on Amazon Prime, iTunes, and Google Play. Domenic has directed 7 short films and 5 music videos. For his short “debeaked”, he received the “New Emerging Filmmaker” award at the 2013 Terror Film Festival in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His work has been featured on the horror anthologies “Faces of Snuff” and “Ted Bundy Had a Son”, compiled by filmmaker Shane Ryan. Domenic is also a photographer. His work has been displayed at the Los Angeles Center for Digital Art and the Black Box Gallery in Portland, Oregon. Domenic lives in Barrington, Illinois.

ANITA NICOLE BROWN

Anita Nicole Brown is an aspiring actress who caught the acting bug late. Although cast in many independent films, Brown still considers herself aspiring because she feels that with acting (as with anything in life) one should always look to grow and learn more. And that is what she is doing. Coming late into the field, Brown feels she has been blessed with many life experiences that have prepared her for each and every character she has and will be cast in. She has played the gamut of characters that include an action fighter (Crisis Function and Crisis Function Awakening – still filming), a detective investigating corruption (Wages of Sin: Special Tactics – still filming), a jury member trying not to be swayed by her fellow jurors (12 Angry Women – still filming), a woman who discovers her boyfriend has been cheating on her (Pieces of David) and even a mother pushed to the edge (A Woman And A Gun)! But Brown has yet to accomplish her goal: Showing the world that a Type One Diabetic (T1D) can and will accomplish anything they desire and change the perception of diabetics in this industry. After almost 17 years as a T1D, Brown has overcome so much with her diabetes especially regaining the ability to walk after fighting diabetic nerve damage in her legs and feet almost nine years ago. And now, Brown wears her diabetes each and every day. Literally! She has an insulin pump and for some productions, the thought of having an actress with such a visible device for treatment has been a bit unnerving. But in the past few years, Brown has seen a change in which production companies are writing her character in as a diabetic who is strong and determined OR they allow the pump to be worn and shown without feeling the need to address it because it does not take away from Brown’s ability to deliver the character. It is a slow change but it is one Brown is excited about accomplishing! Look out world, Anita Nicole Brown has much more to show you!

WATCH ROUTINES ON TUBI NOW:

https://tubitv.com/movies/550660/routines

B Movie Glory: Tim Curry is GingerClown

April 19, 2020 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

It’s the great Tim Curry’s birthday so let’s look at a horror movie where he plays an evil clown… and no it’s not that one you’re all thinking of. Gingerclown is an awful, trashy, cheesy piece of crap and I loved every excruciating minute of it, despite probably losing a year or so of my life sitting through the entire 80 minutes of it (it somehow feels way longer). The ‘plot’ is barely there: an asshole jock makes the nerdy kid go into an abandoned amusement park in exchange for a kiss with his ditzy girlfriend. This carnival happens to be haunted by sadistic Gingerclown (Curry) and his merry band of prosthetic monsters who are somehow voiced by an all star genre cast that the budget feels like it suspiciously went only to. The acting of all the teens will make your eyes and ears bleed, the dialogue is so far beyond cliche it could be the fucking textbook on cliches. It feels like a terribly failed Tim Burton pastiche mixed with a low rent version of like Critters of Ghoulies with the fluid drenched, jerky animatronic effects and the whole thing feels sloppy, cheap and incredibly shitty. But you know me, I lap this cheap shit up like pigs at a trough, genre garbage is my formative bread and butter and this one is a fucking laugh. The actors are all having a ball including Lance Henriksen as a hung-ho ‘BrainEater’, Brad Dourif as a morbidly obese ‘Worm Creature’ and Sean Young as ‘Nelly The Spiderwoman’, the only one who approaches anything remotely resembling scary. Curry himself has a ball as titular Gingerclown, a cackling maniac who makes the most out of lines like “ Quack quack quacker… time to die, motherfucker!!” as he clumsily ambles down a hallway brandishing a rubber ducky. Like, wow. This guy is like Pennywise’s retarded twin brother who never made the big time. The sets are ambient enough, colourful and interesting but the lighting is super dark and muddy so it’s tough to tell what’s going on but that’s probably just to hide the hilariously primitive effects. This was written and directed by a Hungarian dude and often when someone from a different country tries to do a genre throwback to an era of American movies it ends up horribly tome deaf via the culture gap which is kinda the vibe here, the dialogue feels like it was fed through a short circuited algorithm. But hey if you’re in the mood for some ultimate trash of the trashiest, SHITTIEST variety then get drunk and give Gingerclown a go.

-Nate Hill