The October Alphabet: B

Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006)


Scott Glosserman, dir; Glosserman & David J. Stieve, screenplay (director/writer debuts for both)

Nathan Baesel - Leslie
Angela Goethals - Taylor
Robert Englund - Doc Halloran
Zelda Rubinstein - librarian

Notes: literate screenplay; opening - killer's eye view, watch waitress dump trash, here a noise, see a figure standing in the distance, door to diner close, she runs to the front--this is all a set-up, and even the closed door has been planned. Cut to a news reporter talking about the small burg of Glen Echo, that someone has contacted the tv station saying that Glen Echo will be next famous town. Taylor asks, "Who are these men? How do they do they do what they do?" talking about three serial killers from Springwood, Crystal Lake, and Haddonfield. "20 years ago a boy supposedly possessed by evil, was taken by a frenzied mob and thrown over the waterfuall where he perished." That boy has since grown and now claims he--Leslie Vernon--will be the next famous serial killer.

Documentary fashion--at first.

Taylor & cameraman go to Vernon's house, and they knock on the door, they look around outside, and Vernon jumps out and startles them, and he laughs, and he takes them inside his house, and he lets them see his pet turtles ("very feng shui" she says). He has an extensive library, mostly manuals, textbooks (Grey's Anatomy) and books on majgic tricks, he even plays a card trick on the cameraman. Taylor interviews him, and he says he doesn't plan to terroize innocents, says it's up tho her to understand the mind of a madman. He takes 'em to his old house where he'll reappear this year to scare the kiddies who dare each other to approach the house.

He takes Taylor to the orchard behind his old house and tells a story of it being haunted, that if one goes to the orchard when the moon is full or some such malarky, that if one digs in the ground, one will find it wet with blood. Silence. He then tells her he's just kidding. What a loon! He then shows her part of his karate-training regime, stating, "You gotta be able to run like a freakin' gazelle, without gettin' winded. Plus, there's that whole thinkg where you're walking, and everybody else is running their asses off. You gotta keep up. It's tough man; it's tough."

He then describes his methodology to her, as if he were on a corporate planning committee, examining the stages. First there's the location, then there's the target group. "Target group," Taylor asks. "You mean victims?" Leslie responds, "Potaytoe, potahtoe." He tells her then he must find a survivor girl from among this target group, and that she must be a virgin. Taylor asks him how he can tell, and he responds with, "How do the swallows find Capistramo?"

If, by now, you haven't laughed at this dialogue, then you won't like this movie. However, if you--like me--laugh at the satire, then you'll love it. I laughed out loud several times, waking my my wife in the process. After that last aforementioned line about the swallows, my wife woke and asked me what was funny, and I repeated the line to her (without telling her the pretext), and she told, sure that we'll get some Capistramo the next time we go to the grocery store, and that I can have it next week for lunch. Folks, you just can't make up material that rich.

The movie holds numerous other witty little satirical jabs and random, humerous non-sequiters, and I don't want to give more of them away (though I will note that Leslie's got a great joke when he's in the stacks in the library, so pay close attention there). The film, alas, wants to have it's serial killer and eat it, too (eww!), as about half-way through the movie starts to evolve into a horror movie proper, with the satire and mockumentary aspects falling to the wayside. Actually, this doesn't hamper the movie all that much, because the actors are so successful at playing their parts straight and honest, that we begin to like the characters, and we begin to shudder in anticipation and suspense when things start to go south for the characters. I wish the movie would have kept the laughs rolling while still churning out the traditional plot, but it doesn't. I guess the temptation to give in to cliche and formula was too strong (though I must say that the moviemakers handle these scenes with almost as much aplomb as they handle the satirical first half).

Again, the actors here are top notch, and the two leads I've never seen before, though after looking at imdb, I see that they've both logged in several hours in network television crime drama. Goethels plays the intelligent girl-next-door-gone-to-college type with natural ease, and Baesel's Vernon is a hoot, mixing some aww-shucks charm with some goofy, pleased-with-himself eagerness, all underscoring the satirical nature of the movie. Without Baesel's loopiness, the film wouldn't work at all.

The coup for a small-budgeted movie such as this is finding great supporting character work, and they find it in spades here. Robert Englund (Freddy Krueger) plays a cop who's obsessed with ending the evil in this town ("We've found our Ahab!" Vernon shouts), and he plays it both aping and honoring the late, great Donald Pleasence who played oh-so-similar a role in John Carpenter's Halloween. Zelda Rubinstein (the little lady from the Poltergeist films) succeeds here, too, masterfully using her voice and inflection to suggest depths of horror from just a few nondescript lines. Best of all, there's the old warhorse Scott Wilson (The Ninth Configuration, The Right Stuff, The Exorcist III, Dead Man Walking, Pearl Harbor), who gives a teeming, ferocious energy to his witty lines and actions, giving the film some good ol' humor mixed with a bit of danger that makes his scenes just crackle.

If you liked Scream, then this one might be right up your deserted alleyway. It's less loud and obnoxious, and the actors aren't as precocious, and it doesn't have the in-your-face soundtrack that it's spiritual predecessor did (though it might not be quite as sharp or as observant...and it doesn't have Drew Barrymore, either). For those of you who like your humor sharp instead of broad, then this one you'll enjoy all the way through, even to the end credits.

The October Alphabet: A

An American Vampire Story (1997)

My first pick of the month is a low budget flick (possibly direct to video/DVD) by director Luis Esteban about the need for all cast and crew involved to make a quick buck without any thought to originality or creativity or humor or fright. Let's just pop in Carmen Electra and some vampires and see what happens.

The movie opens up on teenager Frankie (Trevor Lissauer), and it opens up too close to Frankie's face; we see Frankie diving in a swimming pool and surfacing while a voiceover in a bad German accent speaks pseudo-Freudian claptrap about dreams. Frankie's then being attacked/seduced (depends on your p.o.v.) by the pool by a couple of attractive vampire chicks, and then he wakes up, where his friend Bogie (Danny Hitt) reminds him that his parents have absconded with everyone's good taste and left this throwback to 1980s low-budget horror movies to go to Europe for the summer, leaving Frankie the entire estate--which means the living room, a hallway, two bedrooms, a kitchen, a pool, and a back porch--to himself. They must have taken Bogie's parents with them, and his parents must have taken their child's sense of fashion, because the first time we see Bogie, he's seemingly shirtless but wearing overalls--not a bad look, per se, but then we see that Bogie's got a hunter-orange surfing bodysuit on underneath, and he's pulled this down to his waist--and still has the overalls on top. Dude, man...crash and burn, crash and burn. Where are Clinton and Stacy (from TV's What Not to Wear) when you need them?

After Bogie reminds Frankie (where's Johnnie?) about his envious situation, the two drive up to the beach listening to terrible rock music (really bad stuff here). They surf, they talk about Frankie's girlfriend and the fact that Frankie hasn't even made it to second base with her yet, and then--out of nowhere--surf-guitar god Dick Dale and his Daletones (complete with two drummers, one of whom is three years old) appear and play. The youngsters all flock over and start dancing, but this scene is just too unbelieveable for me to, uh, believe. I doubt its credulity not because the ancient surf band just appear unannounced (hey, you ever seen an Elvis movie? Stuff like this happened in every other one, I kid you not), but because--dude! It's Dick Dale and the Daletones! Where are the old fogies in the crowd? Where? I don't know either, but they should have been front and center and rear, because that's this guy's only audience (well, them and me), and at a beach--twentysomethings flocking to dance to him? Nuh-uh. Dude--ain't gonna happen.

Several hours later, and it's nighttime, and Frankie and Johnnie are still on the beach, talking. As if. Dude, I'm not buying this. These guys would so totally be wasted by now, it's not even funny; man, they're not even drinking or smoking. Either that, or they'd be back at home playing video games or watching horror movies, 'cause they seem to have, like, no other friends, and Frankie's got horror-movie props and posters and gothic art covering his room, man. And, and, and--they've been on the beach for hours, and both are still as pale as they were when they got there--I'm talking lilywhite, here, whiter than me. Speaking of pale white dudes (with bad hair), another one washes shore shortly after an unintentionally hilarious Ed Woodian bat attack. Dude's name is Moondoggie (Johnny Venocur). Moondoggie? Do modern day surfers even use names like that, even as a joke anymore? I didn't think so.

Anyway, Moondoggie tells the two Coreys that he's just had a similar insect attack, and he swam all the way over from another island to avoid it...and he's completely drenched in dry, not a spot of water on him or his early '60s slick-sided w/full burns hairdo. And Simon & Garfunkel buy it. Dude, how dumb can you be? (I guess I shouldn't be asking that question, though, man, 'cause, like, I'm the one who paid money to rent this shindig). Moondoggiedog asks Elton John & Bernie Taupin to return with him to his island where he had some honeys wanting to par-tay, but Elton, see, he's not digging this dude's vibe, so the Rocket Man tells the Moon Man that he can't, 'cause he and his buddy have to go catch the KISS concert that night. Paul Stanley then looks at Gene Simmons surprised, but Gene tells him he bought him the tickets for his birthday--which is only six months away. So, if you're a late teen/early twenty-something dude, hard-up for female companionship, what would you choose: the band KISS or the real thing? Of course, you'd choose the band, and that's what Paul here chooses, too, but he tells Man on the Moondoggie that they're welcome to come back to his buddy Gene's pad later that night, after the concert, and to make sure and bring the chicks, so that they can all Lionel Richie and party all night long. The dude agrees and leaves, but Gene tells Paul that he lied about the KISS concert, but he felt like he had to, 'cause, like, Ace was giving him the wrong vibe, man, and he probably needed to be kicked off the island. Paul didn't agree, but what's a Star Child to do?

Well, despite Gene's wishes, the Moondoggie in the Window pays him a visit (since Paul invited him in), and he brings with him his parlance of chicks (one of whom is Carmen Electra, doing her best to avoid dialogue as much as possible--and that's a good thing, too. ) and his very own Renfield, an aged, balding, greasy, portly, toothless, sloppy slob named Bruno (Sydney Lassick), who enjoys felines as food (like gross, dude), whose nasty appearance is the most frightening aspect of the film. Stacy & Clinton need to get a holt of him, too. Bruno's there to help his master Moondoggie set up shop and move in for the summer. A couple/three dead pets and dead locals (including perhaps the worst caricature of an I-talian I've ever seen, man) later, and I'm reminded of those dudes who lived next to me in college, man; whenever I saw road-kill on the road on the way home, I knew my neighbors would be grilling that night (and I knew what they'd be grilling, too). Moondancedoggie and his ladies of the night start dining more and more frequently, and then hits Frankie that, hey, these guys might be vampires. Wonder what I should do, man?

He does just what I would do, dude. He calls Batman. Really, he does. "Holy Wipeout," even. Adam West (who does actually say, "Holy Wipeout") plays the Big Kahuna, a.k.a. Ludwig Van Helsingmeister, the descendent of you know whom. West sports a slicked-backed pony-tail that looks less like an extension than it does a pin-the-pony-tail-on-the-aging-actor wig, and he wears the typical Hawaiin shirt (open, of course) that shows off the grey chest hair against his George Hamilton eternatan. He's game, too, dude, as West never gives less than a great performance, as he's always slightly altered his tone to fit the material, and here, he plays the character pretty close to the self-tanning lotioned chest, with just the hint of mischief in his delivery. The lead--Lissaeur--contains just a hint of talent, as he doesn't seem to try too hard for effect, and his face has that geek-boy-next-door quality, as he looks like Seth Green with a much younger John Cusak's haircut. His work with Danny Hitt--though often amateurish--had a certain pity-those-poor-actors-he's-not-too-talented-but-garsh-darn-aren't-they-cute type of charm. They're the modern day Coreys.

The rest of the cast fares--terribly. The vampiresses...well, the moment when they hiss at Fluffy the dog, loudly, for quite a long time, trying to seem menacing --that was their best moment. Dude, I nearly barfed up a lung laughing. And at one point, Carmen Electra managed to spit out a line: "His neck is so jugular." Duuuuuude! That's only one of the most vividly terrible lines I have ever heard, from any entertainment medium.

As the head vampire Moondoggie, Johnny Venocur was...ineffective at best, laughable at worst. He emanated no charisma, no magnetism, and he was a bit too chubby (I know I'm one to talk, but I don't have my fat behunkus up their on the silver/small screen for people like me to criticize) to be believably appealing--he looks like a chunky Al Pacino--and his hairpiece even seemed to lack life. The supporting actors fared a bit better, but that's only because they had so little to do.

And then there's Sydney Lassick; his Bruno was disgusting, which, I guess, was the point, but man, that dude was grody, man. He made my teeth hurt. However--however--he did happen to be the center of the most perplexing, the strangest, the most off-beat, the most atypical (I could keep going like this, too, but Mr. Redundant just left the building) scene in the movie. Here's the scene: Frankie walks in his house, and Bruno is sitting at a baby-grand piano (which had not been seen in the movie prior to this scene, and was not seen after) playing an understated, elegiac version of "Auld Lang Syne." The movie grinds to a complete halt as Lassick plays, and his playing--while certainly not technically brilliant--is moving. Of course, the song itself is sentimental, so there's that, but I've heard the song in other movies--and elsewhere--and never found the playing of it--not influenced by the scenes before the playing of it, but the playing of it itself--so dramatic, so artful, so completely unlike every other aspect of this film. And the scene's not connected to anything else in the movie at all, not even remotely. I have no idea why it wasn't cut. Doesn't make sense, but doggone if it feels...lonely. Sad and lonely and wistful and nostalgiac.

Other than that--and Adam West--the movie really stunk. It bit (sorry 'bout that). I don't even know who the producers were thinking would see this movie? It's got no T&A and no violence and no gore, so certainly not teenagers. Italians? No way! Latinos--dude, the house gardener's name is "Nacho," and he doesn't speak a word during the movie. How bad is that? Pre-teen boys who lust after Carmen Electra? They've got other placecs to go to see more than they saw here. Thirty-plus-year old white dudes with nothing better to do than to watch this movie because he'd seen all the other A movies on the shelf at Blockbuster? Yup, I think that's it.

100!

Happy Hallowe...uh, October! Not only is today October 1st, it's also my one-hundredth post! In honor of these two (relatively) momentous occacions occuring simultaneously, I've (probably foolishly) decided to watch and review a horror movie a day for the first twenty-six days of this month? Why twenty-six instead of thirty-one? The alphabet only has twenty-six letters, and I'll be taking an alphabetical stroll through horror movies that I've never seen before, starting later this evening, one a day from now through October 26th. If you've got any recommendations, let me know, and if I haven't seen it yet, and I can find it locally, then by garsh, I'll watch it and review it.


Hope you've enjoyed these first one-hundred posts (I know I have), and here's hoping for (at least) one-hundred more. Salud!