Scarecrow's Blog From the Darkside

The conquest awaits all the horny males of a high school who converge upon a ranch summer party hoping they are the lucky guy to bed celebrated virgin Mandy Lane. She's like some sort of magnet for male libidos, all wanting a shot at dethroning the girl, winning her acceptance with a right of passage that no guy has been able to come close to achieving. Interesting enough, Mandy is an unassuming, relatively quiet and shy, and doesn't necessarily invite such guffaws and lusty looks. She doesn't seem conceited or self absorbed. She doesn't go out of her way to attract the boys, or seem desperate for attention. God, it's so refreshing, really. Mandy seems responsible and mature compared to those around her. She doesn't cry for the position so many have entitled her with. The girls and guys that accompany Lane to the ranch are the exact opposite. They worry about the image they represent, care about how they look, and their abilities of seduction. While Mandy doe...

At two hours and thirty five minutes, I can certainly see why many had a hard time getting through it, it's quite exhausting. WATCHMEN to me was Zach Snyder's epic. As I was watching it I said to myself, this is the GONE WITH THE WIND of superhero movies. Snyder pulls out all the stops, he does. He develops each and every superhero painstakingly in great detail. Rorschach, the only crimefighter who has defied the law banning masked heroes..his mask, interesting enough, reflects his psyche. The fedora hat and leather jacket complement him excellently. He's our narrative focal point, his journal details the events which could lead to catastrophy at a global scale. WATCHMEN follows a different US history than we have in reality..Nixon was elected five times for chrissakes and is the one with the burden of possibly sending missiles towards USSR in order to prevent our country from being utterly destroyed. Jon, before his physiology was rearranged(to put it mildly)thanks i...

I'm glad that I had watched GOODFELLAS before Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs on Sunday because I think Scorsese's film really set the standard for the depiction of violent mafioso, their acts presented in unflinching, and very stylish, detail. Just the scene where a trunk door opens and we see three criminals looking over a body, shot from a lower angle to establish the point of view from the victim towards his killers, it instantly recalls Reservoir Dogs in regards to the way men look down at us, in total control, the victim doomed. I was quite staggered(this is only my second viewing of the film)at the potency of the opening as Pesci stabs a victim multiple times with a kitchen knife. It's really does set the tone. I think right away, you'll get a clear impression of Pesci's gangster, his psychotic tendancies(later elaborated when he shoots a kid bringing drinks to the gang playing poker because the young man tells him to go fuck himself)and explosive temper if ...

Gosh, it's been a while, the year 2000 I believe, since I had last seen B.MONKEY. One distinctive memory is certainly Asia Argento. This was before I become aware of her father and I had left my first love, horror, for a little while due to school, marriage, and work. Watching early in the morning(about 1 am, to be exact)on cable due to my insomnia, B.MONKEY didn't really work for me as a crime drama. I see what they were trying to do with the overall theme. The idea of romance constantly thwarted by outside factors. Asia Argento and Jared Harris are polar opposites. Argento portrays Beatrice(Bea), a bank robber who has been associated with some rotten eggs in her lifetime. Jared Harris is a kindly schoolteacher who cares for his students' welfare(he has a child beaten by his mother at home). Bea has actually landed a job, albeit a minial one, as a gopher for big shots in the art world. These two meet and something sparks them. What interested me was the casting of Jared Ha...

I must admit that I had reservations going into JUNO. I'm not sure why I had such dread. I didn't mind Diablo Cody's script for JENNIFER'S BODY. I really like Ellen Page. I adored her in Drew Barrymore's WHIP IT. She's cute. I know this is a sin when I talk with my fellow horror fans on the imdb horror message board, to even use the word "cute", but I just can't help but develop warm feelings when I watch Ellen Page in JUNO. There I said it, good to get it off my chest and just admit it and move on. In regards to the situation, a pregnant teen who herself really contributed to her current dilemma, I was surprised at how mature the script is in regards to the girl handling this new development. Maybe, this film's handling of her dilemma may seem a bit unusual(how the parents aren't engaged with Juno in a heated exchange of words regarding the pregnancy, just disappointed in her decision making during that time)and not as we normally might re...

I'll admit it, I had fun watching D.E.B.S. because of my affinity for pretty young things in short skirts, with high powered guns, using funny gadgets to detect and locate, after arch criminals. The movie almost has no ugly person in it's cast. Sara Foster, who I know from the Owen Wilson comedy caper THE BIG BOUNCE, is a celebrated agent in the DEBS spy school because she scored high on her SIA test, a perfect score at that. DEBS are after a serial bank robber known as Lucy Diamond(the gorgeous Jordana Brewster)and Foster encounters the criminal mastermind in the act of running away as the agents pursue her. What happens next is how D.E.B.S. kept my attention (besides the beautiful young actresses in the cast), Foster and Brewster fall for each other and their lesbian feelings cause the complications which separate an established leader from those she represents as she must somehow choose between her role as a crimefighter and the criminal she loves. This has colorfu...

Claude Lelouch's ROMAN DE GARE(TRACKS in English)has a brilliant script which questions whether or not Dominique Pinon is a pedarist/rapist, a ghostwriter for a famous author(Fanny Ardent, nothing short of superb), or a teacher who has just left his wife, kids, and job. Notice how beautifully Lelouch constructs a scene involving Pinon, as to bring a lump to your throat, when he walks with Audrey Dana's(more on her in a moment)daughter trout fishing afar off, or when we hear coming across the radio, a bulletin regarding a serial killer on the loose, with the director(screenplay)shooting Pinon in his opening introduction, listening on as he drives his car to what seems like an unknown destination. There are three characters of great importance in the movie. Fanny Ardant as Judith Ralitzer, an author who may be successful off of someone else's work. Pinon who could be anyone. Audrey Dana, as Huguette, a neurotic chain-smoking hairdresser who has an unstable relationship with ...

Well, accompanying all the shits and fucks(in the screenplay) is a really startlingly violent movie I hadn't watched in some time. I picked up a special edition of RESERVOIR DOGS for like 10 bucks and started it up tonight(May 26, 2010). Must say I was quite impressed with this trendsetter which was the catalyst for Tarantino's PULP FICTION. I was taken aback by long conversation pieces between Mr. Pink(Steve Buschemi)and Mr. White(Harvey Keitel)while Mr. Orange(Tim Roth)is bleeding out on the floor of a filthy warehouse from a gun shot to the gut. Or, how we see Mr. Pink and Mr. White discussing their belief of a bad apple among their criminal group to psychotic Mr. Blonde(Michael Madsen)who had tipped off police where the location of their diamond heist would be located. Interesting enough, and this was something I had forgotten, is that we never see the big act which fuels the film's intense exchanges within a warehouse which was the place the group, assembled by a busi...

I was watching a little bit of 5IVE GIRLS on Chiller channel late Friday night(May 21, 2010). I had seen it in it's entirety as it alternated on my satellite's Showtime channels. I thought it had a rather shit plot with blah special effects, but I was glued to the girls in the movie. They are Catholic school girls sent to the church as punishment for their various sins by their parents or as a result of having no other place to go. They have the misfortune of being under the charge of headmistress Pearce(Amy Ciupak Lalonde) . She had a sister and wishes to bring her back from the dead. She also has the dirty little secret Ron Perlman's priest wishes to remain buried, and keeps him under her control because of it. Witchcraft is involved and Pearce is willing to do whatever it takes to have her sister back. Perlman is really neutered because as much as he'd like to help the girls, they are subject to their headmistress' rule and yet is powerless to stop her. ...

I finally had a chance to watch Don't Answer the Phone! uncut as it was shown on IFC in it's complete form. Everything known in the slasher genre is represented here. I think the best movies in the slasher genre occur in the early 80's before everything become slick and pretty. I think the true slasher movies should bring about discomfort and unpleasantness. We're talking about a depraved wacko, wearing a silk stalking, in a monstrous form, bulky and massive, giggling as he strangles helpless females much smaller than he, his gargantuan hands trapping their throats as if these poor women were caught in a vice. Nicholas Worth has this great physical presence which cuts the perfect profile of a serial killer you don't want awaiting you when you arrive home, undressing after a hard day's(night's)work. If a slasher movie, in my honest opinion, is to truly work, it must leave the viewer very uneasy because we are dealing with disturbing subject matter, broug...

A fifteen year old teenager, Connie(Laura Dern in an exceptional performance), is interested in boys and seems little concerned for the possible consequences of dressing provocatively and flirting with the guys older than her at the mall and "adult" hamburger diner. Connie seems little interested in her family at this time in her life and mother Katherine(Mary Kay Place, perfectly capturing a frustrated mother attempting to somehow find a connection with this girl during those turbulent, emotional years as Connie is going through her stage of sexual awakening)is growing tired of her daughter's listlessness and lack of desire to help out around the house, or other chores big sis, June(Elizabeth Berridge), is more than willing to do. Connie's trip to the diner with her best friend, Jill(Sara Inglis), grabs the attention of the enigmatic stud, Arnold Friend(Treat Williams, handsome, odd, creepy, and quietly forboding). I must say that having read that this was at one poi...

Well any movie that has Jeff Bridges, Sally Field, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Robert Englund, R G Armstrong, Joe Spinell, and Scatman Crothers in it's cast can not be all that bad, now can it? Bridges is the heir to a steel business fortune and is working with real estate businessmen, in a venture buying properties. A gym is the property for which Bridges' Buck Blake is supposed to acquire. These people Buck has aligned himself with are supposedly dangerous and they want the gym property. Buck loves the people at the gym and starts on a fitness kick which causes his duty to retrieve the rights to the property to go on the backburner. Buck falls for a fitness instructor, Mary Tate(Field), and becomes best friends with "Mr. Austria" Joe Santo(Ahnuld), a foreignor known for achieving metals for various sports which deal with his impressive physique. RG Armstrong is Santo's trainer, and owner of the gym, who drives him real hard to secure a weightlifting metal. Buck's...

I was watching Andrej Zulawski's 1981 film Possession late tonight..I'll just say this movie gives new meaning to the word histrionics. The scene with an unhinged Adjani in a subway tunnel has to be seen to be believed. Sufficed to say, a marriage(between Sam Neill and Isabella Adjani)is tested in more ways than one. To say I'm at a loss for words in trying to describe this movie would be the understatement of the week. I think Adjani is one of the most beautiful actresses ever to grace the screen..she mesmerizes me. I can't take my eyes away from her even when she goes apeshit. Her lips, expressive eyes, her skin of white porcelain..I just adore her. It's a kind of beauty lacking today, the portrait beauty that artists are inspired by. Like Anna Karina. As you can see, I've kind of shied away from the movie which left me paralyzed in befuddlement. Sam Neill, I enjoy how he goes from one extreme type of behavior to another, like he's schizophrenic or s...

I was watching Basic Instinct and found the end result, how everything seems to implicate the psychiatrist, quite haunting, and was amused at how Verhoeven wonderfully evoked the spirit of Hitchcock in revealing a small detail regarding a broken lock and how Douglas' detective tells the apartment's occupant that she should get it fixed. It was certainly sound advice..advice that would forever scar her reputation. I was listening to Verhoeven talk about how Vertigo was of certain inspiration and I could see that throughout..the way he shoots San Francisco and the way Goldsmith's score mimicks Herrmann. Several thoughts were going through my mind as I watched it. How gullible Douglas becomes and how he would be ensnared, doubting the person he was at one point linked(Jeanine Tripplehorn)in favor of Stone's devious, clever, seductive author. Verhoeven mentioned that the film emphasizes Catherine Trammell's control, how she is able to secure fresh subjects for her ...

Ghoulish tales of the macabre, loosely linked by a melancholy paramedic, featuring an assortment of stories containing restless spirits and creepy ghosts. The first deals with the ghost of a young woman who hung herself in the fifth floor bathroom of a university..two gangsters force a student who stole drugs from their mob boss(and the student's fiance)to the university to get the goods back, one of them deciding he wants to see a shrine located inside the haunted fifth floor bathroom, with all four suffering the consequences. The second tale concerns the niece of a general who ordered the execution of protesting students, and how she must bring the spirits of two lovebirds (..who were separated during the gunfire by soldiers hunting them down, shooting the kids in cold blood)back together in order them to find rest. Also, of great importance in this episode is how the student copes with what her ancestor did and how she is treated by others for something a relative committ...