Movie Review: "Elvira's Haunted Hills"

Or: "The Hills Are Alive... With The Sound of Torture..."

Nearly twenty years after her film debut, Cassandra Peterson is back as Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, with a new movie. I had a great time with her first self-titled film, and though "Elvira's Haunted Hills" is entertaining in its own way, it's a very, very different movie... so much so that I'd say it appeals to a different audience altogether.

When I reviewed "Elvira: Mistress of the Dark", I noted that it was a film based on a specific dichotomy: only half of the film takes to horror parody in the Elvira style (ie: using her chest to break open a locked gate while running through a graveyard). The first half was more of an anti-authority/social revolution parable a la "Footloose" or "Breakfast Club", where the oppressive hierarchy is challenged by an individual who dares to be different. That layering adds a lot to the movie: it manages to capture a spark of the late '80s zeitgeist, infusing it with much more meaning than you'd expect to find from a B-movie horror hostess.

"Elvira's Haunted Hills" doesn't bother with that layering. Or any layers at all, really. It's a piss-take at Edgar Allan Poe, Roger Corman and the Gothic horror genre in general. It's very effective in that respect - you've got the overdone orchestra music, the frail Victorian woman coughing up her lungs, the gaunt and hysterical lord of the haunted manor, ridiculous British accents, thunderstorms, exotic and sexy foreign laborers... hell, Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum" is replicated straight out of the original story. As a parody taken to extremes, it's funny. But that can only go so far.

Part of the problem, in my opinion, is that the previous movie played heavily on the contrast between Elvira and the people of Fallwell. But she isn't that different in Carpathia of 1851. Everyone's pale, everyone wears a lot of low-cut black. Instead, she's displaced via anachronisms, making references to Oscars and the Village People... as I said, it's a different kind of humor, and one that's much harder to pull off consistently.

Another reason the movie might fall short of expectations is because it's very scaled-back in comparison to "Mistress of the Dark": smaller budget means smaller cast, more enclosed setting, rudimentary plot lifted directly from any conventional horror movie of the early 20th century. There's virtually no room to maneuver, and it shows: even at the age of fifty, Elvira is still witty and charming, but there's not much for her to do aside from make the obvious snipes at the obvious people. The ensemble cast is great, especially Richard O'Brien (who I still remember as the host of "The Crystal Maze"), but it's not enough.

To sum up, then: good Gothic parody, but you should only watch if it that's exactly what you're looking for - there's not much else to be found.

Comics Review: December 3

Legion of Superheroes #12

First things first. We finally get two things this book desperately needed: a recap and a dramatis personae. Considering the book's primary storyline spans thirteen issues and the cast is made up of nineteen primary characters, it was probably overdue.

This is the penultimate issue of Waid's "galactic war" epic, which has been running since the very first issue. We're reaching the climactic point now, as the four subplots begin to converge. Projectra's team launches a suicide attack on Lemnos' army; Cosmic Boy manages to send out one last message to the Legion and their followers; Sun Boy and his team reach their destination only to find a difficult choice waiting for them; and Brainiac calls upon a secret weapon against Elysion.

There's a lot of action going on, a lot of movement, and in that sense it's as strong an entry in the series as the other issues. However, one very problematic element in this particular chapter is an increased reliance on contrivance. Brainiac's secret weapon, for example, is something that had been foreshadowed once or twice before, but we're asked to believe that he just didn't consider using it until just now. For someone who's been portrayed as the smartest being in the Legion, that's a bit hard to swallow. After having their powers switched, Sun Boy's team suddenly have full control of their abilities again, for no apparent reason. Projectra has magical abilities that no one mentioned before (in fact, there was a whole scene in a prior issue where she was almost held back from the squad because she was powerless). And Cosmic Boy manages to whip up a Cerebro helmet out of nowhere.

It's a bit much, really. Granted that Waid is operating on an atypically-wide scale, and it hasn't reached eye-rolling levels yet, but it still knocks a few points off.

Stuart Moore delivers a rather dull and pointless interlude that supposedly takes place during the first issue. If it's a subplot Waid forgot to insert that will have major ramifications on the last issue, it's sloppy storytelling. Otherwise, it's just extraneous.

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Amazing Fantasy #15

I've been anticipating this issue ever since it was announced. Some background: in the early '60s, "Amazing Fantasy" was an anthology book facing cancellation. In the very last issue, #15, writer Stan Lee went for broke and threw in an 11-page story about a boy named Peter Parker who has an accident with a radioactive spider. I'm sure you know what happened next.

Forty years later, "Amazing Fantasy" is resurrected as an anthology title, albeit in a slightly different format (ie: introducing new characters in separate, self-contained multi-issue arcs). Sadly, it hasn't quite done as well this time around: the first six issues were dedicated to Arana, who then got an ongoing series more because she was Marvel's token Latina superhero and less because Fiona Avery had a single interesting thing to do with her. The silent cancellation of "Arana: Heart of the Spider" due to abysmal sales (and despite considerable hype) speaks for itself. The next six issues were considerably better, featuring Fred Van Lente's "Scorpion: Poison Tomorrow", but sales failed to improve and the character has more or less been consigned to pointless guest appearances. The last three issues featured "Vampire By Night" backups by Jeff Parker, which led into Giffen's "Howling Commandos" series - but since that turned out to be a total failure, there's not much to say about it. Then came the two-part "Vegas" I reviewed a while back, along with "Captain Universe" backups leading to last month's "Captain Universe Event".

All of which brings us to issue 15, the "anniversary" as it was. Clearly hoping for lightning to strike twice, Marvel has put together a double-sized anthology issue, featuring six short stories (and a seventh that's really just a gag) by six writers. These six are part of Marvel's "Ten Terrific", a rather silly promotional device for writers trying to outmuscle the Hollywood influx for a bit of spotlight. Still, Mark Paniccia (AMFAN editor) has brought together a rather quaint collection here - Greg Pak, Dan Slott, Robert Kirkman, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Sean McKeever and Daniel Way. No one too horrible (ie: Hudlin) or otherwise occupied (Whedon, Heinberg, Hine). And, of course, that precious commodity for which I'll generously lower my critiquing standards: new characters.

So let's take them one at a time...

"Mastermind Excello" is an interesting piece about a teenage supergenius who's being pursued both by the American government and by a mysterious, undefined enemy who wants him dead. Except they might be one and the same - an ambiguity Greg Pak leaves open to challenge the reader. After all, if Amadeus Cho really is the seventh smartest person in the world (and he demonstrates this rather nicely in the diner scene), we'd be inclined to trust his calculations... except he's angry, he's tired, and he's clearly emotionally involved. What if he's just paranoid? Points to Pak for a Marvel superhero cameo that's both surprising and, more importantly, thematically relevant to Cho himself.

Dan Slott's "Blackjack" is actually four two-pagers, as opposed to a single eight-pager. The vignettes are interspersed throughout the issue, and range from comedy to high action to slightly baffling philosophy (destroying aliens who offer utopia because "to advance, man needs to be discontent"?). They're all very energetic, very light (no big shock considering the length), and fun.

"The Great Video" is typical Daniel Way: violent, muddled and somewhat unfulfilling. A man is caught in an explosion at his video store and gains X-ray vision (that, for some reason, also sets people on fire). After ten days in a coma, he wakes up to find officers accusing him of arson. After immolating them, he escapes to his house only to discover his girlfriend has left him and taken everything but the video camera. He duly straps the camera to his head and kills someone who is either his ex's new boyfriend, or the rival video store that put him out of business (though there's no indication he was going out of business). As I said, there's a lack of clarity here that really prevents the climax from coming across well. Or at all, for that matter.

I wasn't approaching Robert Kirkman's "Monstro" with any expectations; I've noted before that he's always seemed very bland and uninteresting to me. So you can imagine my surprise when I actually liked "Monstro", a tale about a man called Frank, who uses his super-strength in a rather unconventional way: he's a firefighter. His partner points to the obvious expectation that he should be famous, or an Avenger - but in a refreshing twist, Frank replies that he doesn't particularly care for superheroics. In a genre where the first thing most superpowered people do is slap on a pair of tights, Monstro's more realistic perspective is actually a nice change. Again we have a bit of mystery at the end, and I'm beginning to think all these stories were deliberately written that way, to encourage the possibility of follow-up miniseries. Interesting exercise, if slightly futile considering the general fate of Marvel Next projects.

The first thing you'll notice about Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa's "Heartbreak Kid" is that it's drawn very much in the '60s Marvel style - dots of color, slightly yellow paper, etc. This isn't just a gimmick, because the story is set at the earliest point of Spider-Man's history - possibly his first encounter with another superhuman. Uncle Ben is freshly dead, and Peter Parker is inconsolable. Enter the Heartbreak Kid, Danny Shephard, who has the power to absorb people's pain and grief. As with Pak's story, there's a bit of ambiguity here because Peter thinks the Kid is just a vampire feeding off other people's misery, and he might be right; but unfortunately, by focusing so heavily on Peter Parker, Aguirre-Sacasa doesn't manage to do much with the character he's supposed to be introducing. We don't even see Danny's powers in action because Peter chooses to preserve his pain, thinking that giving it up would take away his memory of that fateful "Great Power" platitude. So when, at the end of the story, the narrator helpfully informs us that "another name is added to the roster of those marvelous individuals who make the world of fantasy the most exciting realm of all", it's not a statement that rings very true.

"Positron", by Sean McKeever, is certainly the most frustrating of the six main pieces, because it doesn't even try to present a complete story. This can't really be blamed on page allocation, because however abbreviated the other stories were, they managed to provide both a self-contained tale and enough loose threads to warrant more. Annie and Jackson are enjoying a romantic evening when they get ambushed by Annie's father. Sounds domestic, but it spirals into something else rather quickly. A traitor is revealed, who expresses remorse after it's far too late... and that's it. It ends with "To be continued...?" Normally this wouldn't be such a big deal, except there's very little that guarantees McKeever will ever be able to finish the story, and it's a pet peeve of mine when writers take such things on faith (since they usually turn out to be wrong).

The anthology ends with "I Was That Guy In Spider-Man's Armpit!", a very amusing two-page story going back to the cover of the first Amazing Fantasy #15: who is that man tucked under Spider-Man's arm? More importantly, since Spidey helpfully blurts out his real name on that cover, does Armpit Guy know who Peter Parker really is? Great joke by Dan Slott.

Amazing Fantasy #15 falters here and there, but on average it's still an exquisite read, offering glimpses at a variety of characters we'll probably never see again... but it would certainly be nice if we did.

Comics Review: November 29

1602: New World

I think this miniseries was doomed from the start. It's a sequel to Neil Gaiman's "1602", which may have been a quaint little story but was hardly a peak moment for the creator of "Sandman". Even so, if the original is remembered fondly at all it's likely because of Gaiman's narrative and descriptive skills - something "New World" writer Greg Pak tries to emulate, without much success.

To be fair, it's not that Pak is a subpar writer - he's more than proven himself with "Warlock" and "Phoenix: Endsong". But in attempting to continue the story of 1602, Pak makes all the wrong choices.

For example, Pak chooses to focus on Roanoke as the setting for the story... and in doing so, he discards Gaiman's entire cast, limiting himself to bit players Peter Parquagh and David Banner. Oh, and Virginia Dare's in there too. Pak adds Norman Osborn and Iron Man to the mix, but nothing really emerges from it.

And that's the fatal flaw of this miniseries: it's not offensively bad, just terminally dull. There's virtually no attempt to step outside either Marvel Universe standards or what Gaiman established in the original story: Hulk's got a split personality, Peter's working for an anal-retentive publisher (proving that J. Jonah Jameson is an obnoxious twit no matter what universe you're in). The situation in England (King James' persecution of the Witchbreed) is left mostly untouched. We don't know where the 1602 X-Men, Thor or Fantastic Four have gone. No sign of Inquisitor Magneto and his minions. Still no explanation as to why dinosaurs are running around the New World. It's just five issues spent accomplishing very little on the level of plot, and using characterization that's mostly derivative of the original versions.

It's funny, because Pak is one of those writers Marvel is trying to boost these days, yet the only assignments that come his way (or Sean McKeever's, for that matter) are miniseries that, on a purely conceptual level, are utterly condemned from the word "go" ("Mega Morphs", anyone?).

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Ultimate X-Men: Magnetic North (61-65)

On the other side of the spectrum, this was the story I was simultaneously waiting for and dreading. It's the conclusion of Brian Vaughan's excellent run on "Ultimate X-Men", drawing together a lot of plotlines from previous arcs (even extending into the Bendis and Millar runs). At the same time, odds are it'll all go downhill from here - we've got a Kirkman run coming up, followed by Bryan Singer.

Anyway, "Magnetic North" features the return of Magneto - unlike the mainstream counterpart, "Ultimate X-Men" actually managed to do away with this particular X-Men staple for quite some time. He was brought down at the end of Millar's run (early 30's) and was kept out of the spotlight until now. Impressive feat considering he can't stay gone for six months in the main MU.

So Magneto's back, still imprisoned at the Triskelion (home base of the Ultimates). Meanwhile, we're reintroduced to Emma Frost and her Hellions, and this is one of Vaughan's greatest strengths as an Ultimate writer - he knows exactly how to play on his readers' expectations. After all, we're well aware of who these characters are (or should be), and even if we're trying to keep an open mind, there's something surprising about the idea of Longshot as a mutant supremacist, or a group of Hellions who bear more similarities to Claremont's New Mutants than you'd think.

Vaughan manages to accomplish a lot in his last storyline: one X-Man leaves the team, another is critically injured, a third gets a boyfriend, a fourth returns from hiatus. A new villain is introduced, and two old ones get a change in their status quo. Plus several battles between the Ultimates, the Hellions, the X-Men and the remnants of the Brotherhood. Excellent characterization all around, especially of Magneto.

All in all, Vaughan goes out with a bang. "Ultimate X-Men" probably won't be as good as this for a very long time. If you're looking for a jumping-off, this is probably it.

Adieu, DC.

Or: "Of all the comics in the DCU, he had to walk into mine."

Dan DiDio has revealed that during "One Year Later", Mark Waid's "Legion of Superheroes" will be renamed "Supergirl and the Legion of Superheroes."

Apparently there's some debate as to whether this Supergirl is the Loeb version or Power Girl. I find I couldn't care less. For me, the fact that Waid's Legion has been so accessible and so detached from the usual cliches of the DCU has been a big plus; I'm not that anxious for a distaff Superboy to get top billing, particularly considering the fact that both options aren't much more than fanboy masturbation material. Not to mention the fact that it's yet another Silver Age retread, and people who don't share the view that the Silver Age was "Best Comics EVAR" might as well sod off as far as DC is concerned.

So if the next issue of Legion is a jumping-off point, I'm taking it. Unfortunate, because that was the only DCU title I was reading, and I was really enjoying it. But apparently, anyone who isn't a devoted, hardcore, walking DC encyclopedia has no place in DiDio's DC.

Very unfortunate indeed.

Movie Review: Mysterious Skin

Or: "So THAT'S What Tommy Solomon's O-Face Looks Like. I'm Going To Hell."

Well... that was weird.

I'm really not sure how to review this movie, because it has a lot going for it, and a lot going against it, and a lot that could have made it better than it turned out to be.

Structurally, there are two plotlines running throughout the movie. The first concerns Neil McCormick (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt with surprising conviction), a rent-boy who drifts aimlessly from client to client, trapped in his pointless small-town life. The second plotline concerns Brian Lackey, a withdrawn and troubled teen who spends every waking moment trying to figure out what's gone wrong with his life (a stark contrast to Neil).

In what appears to be an intentional move on writer Gregg Araki's part, these two plotlines never intersect until the very end of the movie, despite the fact that there's clearly some mysterious link between the protagonists. While this might have been an attempt to build suspense, it has the unfortunate side effect of rendering Neil's storyline pretty boring - aside from having sex every now and then, he doesn't do much of anything. Any relationships he has with other characters are maintained by them, not by him. There's one scene towards the end of the movie where he gets in way over his head and pays the price, but it doesn't lead anywhere. Overall he's a pretty flat character. Brian's journey would be the part that's meant to hold our attention, except...

Except that, at first glance, "Mysterious Skin" seems to be a psychological mystery: Brian and Neil both shared the same traumatic experience when they were children, yet they each recall it differently. Brian remembers it as alien abduction, while Neil remembers it as molestation. And Brian's the one who's trying to find out the truth. The problem, of course, is that the question doesn't necessarily need an answer. On a purely psychological level, it really can go both ways: either they were molested and Brian created an alien fantasy to cope, or they were abducted and Neil constructed an elaborate (and, more importantly, realistic) scenario in his head. Memory is unreliable, we know this and it's been the subject of many fascinating films, but in trying to resolve the issue, Araki inadvertantly makes it clear that there's only one way it can go. As a result, anything in Brian's storyline regarding his search for the truth is rendered moot because he's looking in all the wrong places, and we know this long before he does. His rapport with fellow abductee Avalyn (who initially provides support for Brian's theory) goes south at the drop of a pin, and not very convincingly.

To Araki's credit, he doesn't get caught up in cliches regarding sexual abuse: Neil has a pretty positive outlook on the whole experience, claiming he was in love with his abuser anyway, that getting deflowered at age eight made him understand the truth about his sexuality (though you could pretty much go for a "chicken or the egg" argument there). Brian follows the more conventional route of repressing sexuality altogether, to the extent that it's not clear whether he's into guys or girls at all because the thought of intercourse with another human being is repulsive to him.

At the end of the movie, the two characters finally meet, and Neil tells Brian exactly what happened, in excruciating detail. But again, Araki cuts the scene short at that vital moment where everything Brian ever believed in is lying in ruins. It's not enough of a resolution to the character arcs or to the movie as a whole, because Neil isn't much affected by Brian's breakdown (why should he be? He already knew, and never saw himself as a victim). There's no connection, no reason to care about what Brian's next step will be.

A few superfluous characters run about without adding anything relevant to the story: Wendy Peterson is played by Michelle Trachtenberg, who - years after her stint on Buffy - still arouses a desire on my part to slap her until her head detaches. Eric is Neil's best friend and, of course, is in love with him (another subplot that goes nowhere, because Neil doesn't know or doesn't care).

I can't really recommend "Mysterious Skin" because it spends most of its time building expectations that are never fulfilled. The moment you figure out what happened to those two kids, you've solved the riddle - and more likely than not, it'll be long before the movie's actually over.

Comics Review: November 22

This week also saw the release of three new books I'll be reviewing at a later date: "All-Star Superman", "Books of Doom" and "X-Men: Deadly Genesis".

But now, onto the main attraction: David Lapham's "Daredevil vs. Punisher: Means and Ends".

Generally speaking, these two Marvel characters have clashed before, most memorably in the "Child's Play" arc of Frank Miller's "Daredevil". The reason they work so well together is because of their similarities - they're both street-level vigilantes largely motivated by personal loss, and defending the same territories against the same enemies. The only thing that separates them is Matt's belief in the law and Frank's use of lethal force. This is something Lapham picks up on... we'll get to that in a bit.

Overall, "Means and Ends" is an interesting story, wherein Daredevil and the Punisher are after the same target for very different reasons, while in the background another victim of crime prepares to follow in Frank Castle's footsteps. Lapham portrays both title characters very effectively, without going over the top and making Punisher an unsympathetic monstrosity a la Ennis. In fact, Lapham really manages to find middle ground in that neither character proves to be "superior" to the other. Usually when you have this kind of face-off, a writer will allow his favorite to come out on top while the opposing party is torn down. That's not what happens here. Oh, the Punisher acknowledges that Daredevil has an advantage because they both know Frank won't kill Matt... but that doesn't make the Punisher less than his opponent.

The problem with appealing to both fanbases, though, is that both characters come off as a bit flat here. Lapham can't really develop either character significantly - on the one hand, this is rarely a requirement in an extraneous miniseries, and as such, it doesn't really impact the quality of the story (ie: David Hine's excellent "Daredevil: Redemption"). However, it's a bit of a problem here because Lapham does try something here that doesn't play itself out.

Specifically, he makes a bold attempt at breaking down that one line between the two - Daredevil discovers one of the Punisher's victims, who he thought innocent, was in fact guilty as sin, causing him to question his perception of Castle as some raving lunatic who needs to be put down (because clearly, he does know what he's doing). Meanwhile, an altercation with Daredevil causes Punisher to momentarily lose control, and he shoots an innocent man. That goes right to the core of everything he believes in, and it shakes him. For a few moments, you can almost see these two characters move beyond their firmly-entrenched positions, to consider the other side.

Except, if that were ever to happen, Daredevil and Punisher really would become interchangable. So Lapham only manages to scratch the surface before moving onto another track altogether.

The larger issue is that it's not clear whose story this is, when all's said and done. It's not Daredevil's story or the Punisher's story, because they're only bit players in the overall plot - in fact, the whole issue of Hammerhead trying to take over the underworld (which kicks off the first issue) ends up being resolved off-panel. Rather, it seems this is Martin Bastelli's story (the boy who tries to emulate the Punisher), or rather it's Martin's and his sister Mary's (the girl who looks a lot like the Punisher's dead wife Maria).

I say this because these two actually provide a relevant thematic link. Like Castle and Murdock, the Bastelli siblings find themselves victims of mob violence. Martin picks up a gun and plays at being Punisher Junior, and it costs him his life. Because he's not the Punisher, and not everyone can be the Punisher. Martin pays the ultimate price for his choice, as the Punisher might someday.

Mary, on the other hand, is subjected to an even worse fate, and would have every reason to seek revenge... but she doesn't. She's not the Punisher, because not everyone wants to be the Punisher. It's always been the cliche of the vigilante characters (Batman, Spider-Man, etc.) that ordinary tragedy leads to extraordinary reactions - but is that really the way people behave? Not always, as Mary proves: there's a lot of grief in her final words, a lot of pain, but she doesn't fall into the Daredevil/Punisher, law/justice quandary. She sidesteps it, and moves on with her life - something neither Matt nor Frank will ever be able to do.

Good story, if a bit self-nullifying in its conclusion. Definitely worth reading.

FUCK. NO.

Newsarama reports that Jeph Loeb is joining the writing cast of "Lost", and his episodes will start airing in January.



It's like the schmuck is chasing me from fandom to fandom. I'll try to be optimistic and hope that in the best case scenario, he's not going to screw things up too badly.

Dammit. And I was really liking this season too. :(