Vehicular Manslaughter

DVD Review: STEPHEN KING’S TRUCKS
18 – 95mins – 1997
Screenplay by: Brian Taggert
Based on the short story by: Stephen King
Directed by: Chris Thomson
Starring: Timothy Busfield, Brenda Bakke, Aidan Devine, Amy Stewart, Roman Podhora, Jay Brazeau, Rick Skene, William Hope, Brendan Fletcher
________________________

It goes without saying that the genre of horror is all about the abnormal, the uncanny; therefore possessing inanimate objects with deranged sentience which gives them unnatural supremacy over their owners is a wickedly perverse concept – when done correctly. For every Childs Play there’s a Small Soldiers, where the transfer of intimidation to an inorganic object diminishes the threat from chilling to cheesy and it’s therefore played for laughs.

This inability to differentiate between these dissonant demeanors ultimately stalls Trucks before it even kicks into gear. What we are left to survey is a flat, po-faced low budget TV Movie from the 1990’s (although, rather tellingly, not released until 2000) about unmanned automobiles running down their drivers that wants to be taken seriously and evoke an eerie/dramatic tension, but the absurdity of the whole endeavour unintentionally invites laughter rather than screams.

Based, believe it or not, on a 1973 short story by master of horror Stephen King, Trucks is actually the second filmic adaptation of this peculiar work, which I can only assume works much better on the page than the screen: 1987’s tongue-in-cheek horror/comedy Maximum Overdrive was actually directed by the author (his first and last foray into that field) and despite universal derision, was perhaps the favourable tone to take, as the only thing genuinely horrific about Trucks is the fact that it ever got made.

Timothy The West Wing Busfield must have been desperate to take on this lazy movie modification, which sees him and a contingent of clueless rednecks become trapped in a dust-ball truck stop by the murderously demented four-wheelers. The trucks (endowed with sentience following a sketchy "toxic spill") joy ride around the gas station’s forecourt, taunting their two-legged adversaries, knocking down signs, honking their horns and flashing their lights at one another to communicate!! It's never really discovered why.

But that isn’t even the epitome of Trucks’ preposterousness: the HGV’s are foiled in their hostile demon-stration by a fatal flaw in their bodywork – without limbs they must still rely on humans to refill their tanks with fuel!! There’s more, still: in a cutaway completely isolated from the main narrative, a postman delivering the morning mail is set upon not by a dog, but a remote control toy truck which trips up the poor man and smashes his head into the curb until he’s dead! Well, at least he didn't have to endure all 95minutes...


In a CR@B Shell: Helmed by inferior drivers, a killer King story careens dangerously off-road and implodes into a lifeless pile of scrap. Steadfastly failing to acknowledge the absurdity in its outlandish sci-fi concept, Trucks plays everything so straight that you’re laughing at it rather than with it.
aaaaa

'Tis the Season to be Busy

So here is a smattering of slimline assessments – all the goodness of a regular CR@Blog, with half the inane prattling (not scientifically proven).

Film Review: A CHRISTMAS CAROL (2009)
PG – 92mins – 2009

Robert Polar Express Zemeckis’s visually consummate CGI retelling of Charles Dicken’s Victorian ghost story sees rubber-mouthed Jim Carrey taking on a multitude of assorted vocal roles, including the misery Ebenezer Scrooge, and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come.

Some of the landscape rendering is so masterful you’ll wonder whether you’re not looking at a photograph, while Colin Firth’s festive Fred and Bob Hoskin’s portly Mr. Fezziwig look so much like Colin Firth and Bob Hoskins that they may as well have done away with the pixels altogether.

Ultimately, other than some boastful ethereal effects – this was shown in 3D cinemas, after all – and a nightmarish shrink n’ chase scene with a demonic horse and cart, this umpteenth cinematic adaptation offers us nothing we haven’t seen copious times before, no doubt at a tenth of the budget of this overblown Disney retread. If that makes me a Scrooge then I say “bah, humbug!”

CR@B Rating: aaaaa

Film Review: THE DARK HALF
18 –122 mins – 1993

Creepshow collaborators and genre legends George A. Romero and Stephen King joined forces once again in the early ‘90s, with the Granddaddy of the Living Dead bringing the literary spinechiller’s pseudonym-exorcising 1989 novel to the big screen.

King waved goodbye to his own darker half “Richard Bachman” shortly before writing this terrifying tale of a pen-name-made-flesh, with Oscar winner Timothy Hutton (no, me neither) stepping into the dual role of Thad Beaumont/“George Stark”.

This is not a murder mystery, since the supernatural nature of Stark’s personification is never in doubt, so when Thad is accused of slaughtering those who were in on his pseudonym’s “death” we never once share the police’s suspicions.

Nevertheless, this is a polished and visceral horror (twin tumour!!) with a superbly ambitious and disturbingly twisted end for the evil Stark more than making up for any plot holes (like why prime suspect Thad was free to go about his day to day life during the investigation, besides the fact it would otherwise have been a very short film).

CR@B Rating: aaaaa

Film Review: THE SEEKER: THE DARK IS RISING
12A – 99mins – 2007

Everyone always tells you to read the book before you see the film; well here is an instance where I did just that and thoroughly regretted it. Character names aside, there aren’t many details from Susan Cooper’s 1974 fantasy adventure novel that the filmmakers didn’t alter.

The plot – involving teen “Old One” Will Stanton’s (Alexander Ludwig) search for six signs to stop the Dark from, you’ve guessed it, rising – remains broadly akin to its source, at least tonally, but faithful it sure ain’t: Ages, nationalities and character traits are needlessly altered, key plot points butchered, inexplicably moved or dropped in favour of weaker new additions, etcetera.

Viewed on its own accord, I’m sure this magical fantasy romp would more than satisfy young fans of the Harry Potter, Eragon, Narnia, Inkheart, Lemony Snickett and Golden Compass ilk, but when seen in light of the visionary novel, the only thing it leaves you seeking is an aspirin! The Dark is Rising purists beware.

CR@B Rating: aaaaa

Two-Dimensional Terror

DVD Review: CREEPSHOW 2
15 – 89mins – 1987
Written by: George A. Romero
Based on stories by: Stephen King
Directed by: Michael Gornick
Starring: Tom Savini, George Kennedy, Dorothy Lamour, Frank Salsedo, Holt McCallany, Paul Satterfield, Jeremy Green, Daniel Beer, Page Hannah, Lois Chiles , David Beecroft, Tom Wright, Richard Parks
____________________________________

Five years after George A. Romero and Stephen King brought us five tales of jolting terror in 1982's Creepshow anthology, the masters of horror returned to bring us another issue of camp comic scares presented by demonic storyteller The Creep (Tom Savini). Second time around Romero took screenplay duty and Creepshow's cinematographer, Michael Gornick, was promoted to director. Budget restrictions (what more should we expect when indie auteur Romero is involved?) saw the original film's five strip set-up reduced to a trio of King-inspired shorts.

A cartoon wraparound bringing back Billy (Domenick John), the avid reader of the eponymous tome from the first film, interjects the live-action stories with a clichéd story of bullies never prospering... with giant Venus Flytraps. Given the film's graphic inspiration, it was a nice idea to incorporate hand-drawn animation, and I fully accept that these serialised skits would make the most of their artistic (and budgetary) freedom, but the moralistic story felt far too childish and ridiculously OTT, and it lessened the impact of the more mature – though equally unrealistic – live-action vignettes. And that's saying a lot...

Old Chief Wood'nhead: The wooden statue of a Native American (Dan Kamin) comes alive to deliver vengeance for an elderly couple needlessly murdered by a gang of lowlife thugs in a bungled raid on their southwest store.

This first story starts surprisingly slowly, allowing the audience to warm to Ray (George Kennedy) and Martha Spruce (Dorothy Lamour), a kind-hearted and hard-working couple you can't help but admire. This bond makes their slaughter at the hand of vain, delusional ringleader Sam Whitemoon (Holt McCallany) and his braindead cohorts all the more cruel and hard to watch. The lengthy burglary scene leaves little time for the Chief's bloody retribution to have much impact, and the majority of his rampage is only shown in silhouette or off screen (such as Sam's apt demise). Also: what's the point of having a possessed wooden bodyguard if you have to die before he step's off his podium? A great concept then, but "Old Chief Wood'nhead" was averagely executed.

The Raft: Four disposable teens with hackneyed personalities (jock, slut, shy girl and eco-warrior) take an out-of-season trip to a lake to smoke weed, swim in the freezing waters and get laid on the titular wooden device. However, an unidentified blob monster has other plans and strands them in the middle of the lake before picking them off one by one and dragging them under the surface...

The weakest of the three segments, “The Raft” is let down in three key areas. Firstly, by a supernatural predator which looks more like a few old plastic bags floating in the river then the “oil slick” it keeps getting mistaken for. Secondly, I appreciate that the teenagers are meant to be naïve and they are playing clichés of the helpless victims who always get killed off, but when even the nicest and most “normal” guy, Randy (Daniel Beer), fondles his dead mate’s girlfriend while she sleeps, having just seen two of their friend’s murdered, I failed to have an iota of sympathy for any of them. Thirdly, the plot is as thin as a line drawing: the monster is never explained, the characters fail to think up an escape plan and the whole story is terribly one-sided. “The Raft” suffered from a lack of substance or plot progression; the kids don’t even attempt to see if their alien adversary has a weakness, preferring to simply wait it out until death. Good plan(!)

The Hitch-hiker: Businesswoman Annie Lansing (Lois Chiles) is in a hurry to drive 20 miles in an impossible 7 minutes to avoid her rich and punctual husband (Richard Parks) from suspecting her infidelity with a male gigolo (David Beecroft). Losing control at the wheel, Annie runs down a hitchhiker (Tom Wright), panics and leaves him for dead. Only he isn’t prepared to let her get away with it… "Thanks for the lift, lady!"

Ramping up the tension and the gore-factor, “The Hitch-hiker” is far and away the most satisfying of the three tales: a paranormal fable of revenge where we are rooting for the bloodied and mangled remains of a man wronged. It is also successful in playing with our sense of reality – has Annie’s state of shock lead her to hallucinate the disturbing events? – before justice is, ahem, wheeled out. Though quite how Annie ever made it home before her husband is beyond me...?


CR@B Verdict: As fun as this comic book horror can be, Creepshow 2 offers little depth to its lightweight chills. The animated intermissions also negate the live-action terror, with only “The Hitchhiker” delivering any darkness in an otherwise bright, camp extravagance.
**.5