Author Archives: Frank Cerros
Merantau (2009)
Merantau (2009) DVD / Blu-ray
By: Frank Cerros (Two Beers) -
BEERate this movie!
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Do you enjoy cinematic ass-kickery? Do you like watching people perform athletic feats that you yourself could never do without ending up in traction? Do you not mind the feeling of cottonmouth that you get from having a constantly dropped jaw? If so, this review is for you!
Having recently seen, and loved, The Raid: Redemption, I knew that I needed another fix and couldn’t simply wait around for The Raid 2: Raid Harder. Luckily, the director and the star of The Raid (Gareth Huw Evans and Iko Uwais, respectively) had made a previous film together called Merantau and it was just what the doctor ordered (Note: if your doctor actually does prescribe Merantau for an ailment, he is both awesome and not a real doctor).
Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984)
Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) DVD / Blu-ray
By: Frank Cerros (Four Beers) -
BEERate this movie!
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Immediately following Thanksgiving, before we’ve even had a chance to digest all that food or the fact that Great-Grandma Mildred just came out as a lesbian and declared herself “on the prowl,” we are bombarded with constant reminders of the impending arrival of Christmas. From pre-Christmas sales, to the ubiquitous Christmas music, to ads telling you to buy this and that for so-and-so, to blinding red and green as far as the eye can see, to pre-pre-Christmas sales, and of course: Santa, Santa, Santa. It can be overwhelming. And if you’re anything like me, all that Christmas cheer can sometimes make you want to puke (or it could be all the eggnog).
The last thing I want to do when I’m already holiday-queasy is to watch a Christmas movie because they’re so saccharinely sweet, cheery, and emotionally manipulative that a mere 5 minutes of one will surely make my innards become my outards. This is why I prefer the movies that offer a darker, more cynical take on the holidays: the anti-Christmas movies. And Silent Night, Deadly Night is exactly that.
WHY DID I DRINK SO MUCH EGGNOG?
On Christmas Eve, 1971, a young boy named Billy witnesses his parents get slaughtered at the hands of a criminal dressed in full Santa Claus garb, and he barely escapes with his life. He grows up in an orphanage and every year, he begins to act strangely around Christmastime. The orphanage is run by the stern Mother Nuncliché…I mean, Mother Superior, whose solution for Billy’s Christmas freak-outs is to make him sit on Santa’s lap. This ends with a broken nose for Santa, and a Nun-rage spanking for Billy. When he turns 18, he gets a job at a toy store a few months before Christmas. The holidays roll around and the store needs someone to wear the Santa suit and, Hey, Billy, you’re neither old, fat, nor jolly, so you’re the obvious choice to put on this suit! A few PSTD-induced flashbacks later, Billy grabs Santa’s Axe (*Sold Separately) and the Christmas Carnage begins!
A Toast
To the genuinely creepy and disturbing first act of the movie. Billy and his family go visit Grandpa, who’s a vegetable, at a mental hospital. As soon as the parents are out of the room, Grandpa turns to Billy and starts telling him how scary Christmas Eve is and that Santa punishes the naughty boys and girls. This scene completely creeped me out. Not just because of my fear of old people talking to me, but because of the sheer delight the old man seemed to get out of scaring the shit out of his own grandson. I also liked the fact that he’s apparently been faking his non-responsiveness for years just so he could terrify Billy this one Christmas Eve. That’s the kind of prank that takes commitment (literally).
Jamie Kennedy: The Later Years
The other important scene in the first act is the actual murder of Billy’s parents. What’s most effective here is that it is unrelentingly bleak. Billy’s dad pulls over to help a stranded Santa Claus and is rewarded with a bullet to the head. Billy’s mother then has her throat slit while the boy watches from the side of the road. The scene ends with shots of the dead bodies, a crying baby in the car, and the desolate snowy landscape, while joyful Christmas music fades in. FUCKED. UP.
Beer Two
Unfortunately, there’s not much to the plot. Once he puts on the suit and starts to believe he is Santa and must dole out punishment to the naughty peoples of the world (or at least the surrounding area within a 5 mile radius), any real story is thrown out the window. For the most part, once he kills all his coworkers at the toy store, he begins just wandering around looking for other victims.
There is an attempt at a subplot involving the Mother Superior torturing Billy as a boy, just so he will have some ultimate destination for the final scene of the movie back at the orphanage, but it is minor. However, it does lead to a hilarious exchange between Sister Margaret (in the Dr. Loomis role) and Captain Richards where they attempt to predict his next move: The Orphanage! Of course, I’m not exactly sure how the other two locations where he killed people (Random Unrelated Character’s House and Random Snowy Forest Area) really fit into the pattern, but I’m neither a detective nor a nun so I’m clearly missing something.
A Badge & A Nun – a new show on TNT
Beer Three
If you’re looking for gore or creative kills, you’ve come to the wrong place. Sadly, there’s not a single Christmas-themed kill in the movie at all. No candy cane impalements, no bludgeonings by fruitcake, no one even gets run over by a reindeer. The closest thing we get is someone is strangled to death with a string of Christmas lights and another person is impaled on the antlers of a deer head mounted to the wall. I’m going to hope and pray that it was a reindeer. Oh and he decapitates a snowman for no reason.
Why is this piñata filled with snow?
Beer Four
Billy’s catchphrase is terrible. When he kills people, he moans “PUUUUNIIIISH” like a zombie searching for brains. I would have expected some sort of snarky “You’ve been NAUGHTY!” but instead we get this dull, lifeless delivery making it not particularly scary. In fact, at the very end of the movie, Billy’s little brother says “NAUGHTY” indicating he may carry on the Santa’s slaying tradition created by his brother, and that’s exactly the way Billy should have been saying it the whole time.
The first act of the film is great and disturbing in the way it pretty much just says “Fuck you” to feel-good Christmas movies. Unfortunately, the rest of the movie doesn’t live up to the beginning and becomes too predictable, rote and, frankly, boring as we don’t really care about any of the characters except for Billy and he’s turned into a murderous monster. It’s worth checking out, especially if you’re sick of A Christmas Story playing 472 times in a single day, but it probably won’t get into your yearly rotation.
Bonus Drinking Game
Take Half a Drink: whenever a boob shows up. There are lots of boobs.
Take a Drink: whenever the words “naughty” or “punish” are said
Down a Shot: whenever Santa’s Axe hits something other than a person (poor Snowman!)
Paranormal Entity (2009)
Paranormal Entity (2009) DVD / Blu-ray
With Paranormal Activity 3 in theaters now, I thought I would check out one of the imitators of the series which kept popping up in my Netflix suggestions: Paranormal Entity. Seeing as it was another “mockbuster” from our friends at The Asylum, I just knew it would be worth a beer or six.
The movie is about a mother and her two grown children, a son and daughter, dealing with a ghostly presence in their house. The film begins in medias res as the son, Thomas, is setting up cameras to catch the activity of the supernatural being that seems to have its sights set on the daughter, Sam. What follows are the terrifying events of a single week that leads to the destruction and demise of every member of the family. Spoiler: my synopsis just made it sound way better than it actually is.
A Toast
To Erin Marie Hogan, who plays the daughter, Sam. Although unable to do things like convey emotion or believability, she is at least very talented in the hotness department. Thankfully, the movie also comes up with some completely perfunctory, utterly gratuitous reasons for her to be naked. This is something which definitely gives the edge to Entity over Activity, which never had the balls to give us a Katie Featherston nude scene, despite my multiple internet petitions for it to do so.
Seriously, who wouldn’t haunt this?
Beer Two
The filmmakers, in their infinite wisdom, also unfortunately decided to have Sam be screaming bloody murder any time she’s naked. Now, I don’t know if it’s the shoddy sound equipment or if Erin Marie Hogan is just capable of reaching a frequency hitherto only the domain of nails on a chalkboard, but it felt like someone was driving an ice pick into my eardrum with every scream. So, just make sure to keep the mute button handy as soon as her clothes come off. This is also just a good tip for the rest of the movie as well.
Your best friend for the next 87 minutes
Beer Three
If any of you found Paranormal Activity dull, then the tedium of Entity will surely drive you to alcoholism. Basically, any scene where the ghost wasn’t pushing around a coffee table or turning on the TV could have used some shots of grass growing or paint drying just to spice things up a bit. I guess that’s what you get by having talentless actors improvising an entire film.
Beer Four
Down another beer as soon as you realize that the characters aren’t going to get any funnier, more likeable, or more interesting. Apart from the different pitches at which they screech at each other, they have no individual personalities of their own. A dot drawn on a piece of paper has more dimension than these people.
Wear these glasses while watching if you want to give the characters some depth
Beer Five
At the very least, a scary movie should be scary, right? Well, don’t get your hopes up. The calorie count of the five beers you just drank is scarier than what this film has to offer (and those better not be light beers, ya pansy). To break up the monotony of characters spouting mind-numbing monologues into the camera, the film occasionally has attacks by the titular entity, which consist of lights flickering, bells ringing, and knocking on doors. While these effects could be spooky if they happened to you in real life, the film does such a poor job of employing subtlety and building tension that we only know when we’re supposed to be scared because the characters are screaming about how scared they are (don’t forget about that mute button).
Beer Six
Finally, the denouement: the family gets a doctor that they have been calling throughout the whole film to come by and somehow exorcise the ghost. Shit is about to go down in a badass third act that blows the entire film’s budget in one massive special effects extravaganza, right? Wrong. The film decides to leave all the good stuff on the cutting room floor and instead cuts right from the doctor talking about the exorcism directly to the aftermath where he’s dead and Sam is, once again, screaming and naked. Are you serious? Everything that could have saved this movie just happened off-screen. Perhaps even the filmmakers got tired of making this thing and just said “Fuck it, let’s end it already.”
Sam, the daughter, kept a journal of her paranormal experiences and one of her notes said: “WHY AM I SEEING THIS?” Funny, I wrote the exact same note in my journal, but it was about this movie.
Bonus Drinking Game
Take a Drink: whenever Sam’s boobs show up
Take a Drink: whenever you find yourself checking your watch
Drink a Shot: whenever the characters stay in the house when they clearly should be fleeing
