The Mike's Top 11 Horror Films of 2013

I said it last year and I'll say it again - going to 11 never gets old.

I realize things have been a little bit slow here of late, and even the Midnight Movie of the Week is on vacation. But I'm not gonna miss my chance for a good year-end wrap up. Moreover, there have been too many horror movies I didn't have the chance to cover in 2013, so this is my way of making up time for all y'all out there who might not know how good 2013 was in the horror 'verse.

Before we get to the top eleven, some honorable mentions are in order, and some ground rules must be set. The most important of these ground rules is that not all of these films are strictly 2013 releases. Like previous years (here's 2012, here's 2011, and here's 2010), I'm considering films that a) were widely released in 2013, b) were provided to me for review in 2013, or c) were never widely released until their home video release in 2013.  So, there will be a couple of outliers but I assure you they are damn fine horror films and if you're that broken up about them being here then you're clearly being silly. OK?

Honorable Mention: 
(listed in alphabetical order)

American Mary - This might be #12 on the list, and it was a hard cut. I dig the Soska sisters' bold approach to filmmaking, and Katherine Isabelle owns the lead role. It's haunting in a gross kind of way.

Byzantium - I feel like I might be undervaluing this one, which is probably the biggest and most romantic vampire story in ages. Vampires have been a tool for lesser filmmakers of late, but Neil Jordan and company seem like they respect what they're doing here. That made the film stick with me longer than I expected.

Cockneys vs. Zombies - I feel like I've been fed up with zombies for years, but there's always a movie each year that surprises me. This year that movie was Cockneys vs. Zombies, which sounds like the worst idea but is actually a really funny and really exciting action comedy. 

The Conjuring - I don't get the love many have for this one, but I sure did have fun in the theater watching it. That counts for something.

Dark Skies - For my money, this is the most underappreaciated horror film of the year. I went to see it just because I wanted to make fun of it (and because I had to see the school counselor when I thought I saw a UFO as a kid), but it ended up keeping me entertained. Well written and intense; it feels more genuine than most jump scare horror films we've seen lately.

Frankenstein's Army - This one's here mostly because it's just so cool looking. It feels like a low budget twist on a Guillermo Del Toro film, with a nice tie in to World War II and some jolting surprises. Director Richard Raaphorst is one to watch.

Jug Face - A unique backwoods horror with excellent work from Lauren Ashley Carter in the lead. Possibly the most original horror film I saw this year, and I think it might grow on me as time goes on.

Manborg - Not sure I saw anything this year that was more ridiculously fun than this.

V/H/S 2 - A huge step up from the first film - which I liked a lot, too - and the much loved third segment in this one is probably as good as most people say it is. The whole thing still feels a little rushed to me, but I love the concept and wouldn't mind more of this series.

World War Z - It's mostly here because it was so much more exciting than I thought it would be and wasn't a total train wreck. Brad Pitt will do that for your movie.

(In the interest of full disclosure, here's a few limited release 2013 flicks I really want to see but didn't have a chance to get to before writing this. Maybe you'll see them on the 2014 list.
Berberian Sound Studio, Big Bad Wolves, Contracted, A Field in England, Haunter, Magic Magic, Only Lovers Left Alive, Resolution, We Are What We Are, Willow Creek, Witching & Bitching, WNUF Halloween Special, Would You Rather.)

Now, list time!

Number 11 - The Lords of Salem
(Directed by Rob Zombie.)

I'm surprised that I'm listing this here too. Rob Zombie has never been my favorite cup of tea, but I've always respected something about his films, even when he was ruining everything I love about the first two Halloween movies. (Oh, did I bring that up again? My bad. Still bitter.)

The Lords of Salem has a lot of the same problems Zombie's other films have - it's 100% style-over-substance, for example - but it's also the first time that his wife, Sheri Moon Zombie, has been a capable actress - and she actually carries the whole darn film. There's a lot of beauty in this grimy film, and Zombie manages to create something that bizarre and memorable visually. The ending falls apart, but I still feel like the whole thing works. Well done, Mr. Zombie. You have my attention in a good way for once.

Number 10 - Grabbers
(Directed by Jon Wright.)

Lots and lots of tentacles combine with a great comedic energy in this Irish monster flick, where likeable actors and a smart script reign. Richard Coyle and Ruth Bradley really work well together as the mismatched cops on the monster's trail, and the film ends up feeling like Shaun of the Dead than Tremors - two movies that any horror comedy should strive to replicate.

(By the way, this would be a heckuva double feature with Cockneys vs. Zombies, which you just read about in the Honorable Mentions section. Why do those UK folks get horror comedy so well when us Americans are making Scary Movies and A Haunted Houses? Poor America.)

Number 9 - Here Comes The Devil
(Directed by Adrian Garcia Bogliano.)

A Mexican homage to films like Rosemary's Baby, Here Comes The Devil is one of the creepiest horror films I've seen in a long time. The plot balances between human and supernatural horror very well as we learn about the evil at work in this family's life, and great performances by the young co-stars only make the film that much more effective. At the center of everything is a fantastic performance by Laura Caro and one of the best reveals we've seen in a long time. This one left me thinking and feels like a script from the 1970s that's been updated perfectly to modern times.

Number 8 - John Dies At The End
(Directed by Don Coscarelli.)

It's about time that I start talking about Don Coscarelli as one of the greatest horror filmmakers, at least when it comes to being bizarre and unique. The man who created Phantasm and Bubba Ho-Tep did it again with the clinically insane John Dies At The End, a dimension-crossing, drug-induced fever dream with all sorts of entertaining stuff. Like meat monsters. And killer mustaches. See what I mean?

John Dies At the End (or, J-DATE, as I like to call it) doesn't work as well as Bubba Ho-Tep did in the pathos department - heck, very few horror movies are as emotionally involving as that one - but Chase Williamson and Rob Mayes are perfectly adaptable to the randomness of the film as the leads. J-DATE also features top notch special effects throughout, and it's the rare film that I can truly say never suffers a dull moment.

Number 7 - Kiss of the Damned
(Directed by Xan Cassevetes.)

Style definitely won out over substance in many horror films this year, and Xan Cassavetes - the daughter of legendary director/Rosemary's Baby co-star John Casssavetes - provided one more example of that with Kiss of the Damned. This is another throwback vampire whose sexually charged roots spread into both Hammer Films' heyday and Italian vampire films of the '70s like Daughters of Darkness.

Shoddy acting aside - there's some language barrier issues at work here, even with English speaking Milo Ventamiglia - Kiss of the Damned is a captivating modern addition to the vampire subgenre, and - alongside the previously mentioned Byzantium - a nice reminder that some filmmakers are still willing to take vampires seriously when Hollywood doesn't.

Number 6 - The Last Will And Testament Of Rosalind Leigh
(Directed by Rodrgio Gudino.)

This is one of the few films this year that made my skin crawl. A son inherits his late mother's home, and soon realizes the religious artifacts around the house are related to some cult stuff and suddenly everything gets creepy. It seems like a standard plot, but the approach to the film by director Rodrigo Gudino really plays up the relationship between mother and son that ended badly.

Many horror films deal with unfinished family business, but here we get terrifying work from the great Vanessa Redgrave, a whole lot of commentary on religion and Heaven and Hell, and in the end everything just feels so incredibly tense that it's impossible not to be affected by The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh.

Number 5 - Maniac
(Directed by Franck Khalfoun.)

This seemed like a bad remake of a film that didn't need to be remade when it was announced, and the casting of Elijah Wood in the lead didn't inspire much confidence in this horror fan - who is now pleased to admit he was totally wrong.  Director Franck Khalfoun nails the sleazy tone of the original film and presents one of the most interesting portrayals of a mentally disturbed serial killer that I've ever seen on screen.

Khalfoun does a De Palma-esque job by keeping the camera inside the killer's eyes for much of the film, which creates a voyeuristic feeling that had me hooked on this film. Aided by a beautiful cast of potential victims (SIDE NOTE: That redheaded actress Megan Duffy who appears early in the film is literally the cutest thing. I just have to say that.) and a shockingly sinister Frodo, Maniac works. And it works really darn well.

Number 4 - Sleep Tight
(Directed by Jaume Balaguero.)

It's been about 11 months since I watched Sleep Tight, and just the thought of it makes me smile a sinister smile. One half of the duo behind the first two [REC] films provides this marvelous thriller in which a demented doorman (Luis Tosar, giving what is probably my favorite performance in recent memory) pines for a beautiful woman and then begins to do nasty things in the name of love.

My favorite thing about Sleep Tight is Tosar's performance, as he makes Cesar the doorman into the most Norman Bates-ish horror villain since...well, Norman Bates, probably.  I struggled with wanting to root for this guy, even though he was doing awful terrible things to this woman, because Tosar does such a good job of seeming lost in his love. It's probably kind of the same way we dudes always root for John Cusack when he stalks women, and I'm sure some feminists might say I'm evil for admitting what I just said - but the point I'm trying to make is that Sleep Tight is too good at getting the viewer involved and being creepy on a human level. And that's great horror.

Number 3 - Stoker
(Directed by Park Chan-Wook.)

The English language debut of the South Korean director behind the rightfully Vengeance trilogy, Stoker - like Sleep Tight - draws on the influence of Hitchcock and manages to be incredibly unsettling while entering into the characters' home life.

Mia Wasikowska and Nicole Kidman both shine as the women of the film who are dealing with death, but it's the consistently undervalued Matthew Goode who steals the show as the bizarre uncle at the center of the script (which was written, oddly, by television star Wentworth Miller).  Goode is perfectly stilted (it's eerily reminscent of this his turn as Ozymandias is Watchmen, only he's in a rich country home instead of a skyscraper) and his posturing throughout the film makes the character uncomfortable to watch. Park Chan-Wook plays on the same tensions between sex and violence that filled films like Oldboy, and with help from his cast leaves us with the most engrossing horror story of the year.

Number 2 - You're Next
(Directed by Adam Wingard.)

I saw this thing three times while it was in the theater and if it was in the theater right now I would watch it again. (It's not, but it is out on blu-ray next Tuesday and I will be watching it then.)  You're Next is kind of the ultimate junction between exploitation horror and slasher horror and torture horror and home invasion horror, and I'm still kind of in awe of it living up to the hype that had built around it over the last few years.  Even more so than last year's The Cabin in the Woods - which ran away from the pack as my favorite horror movie of that year - this is a perfect party horror movie to enjoy with a group of blood-loving film fans.

But aside from just being a gory spectacle, You're Next has some of the more intriguing characters who have been brought to life in years, and several performances that pop off the screen. Sharni Vinson takes the "final girl" role to the next level, while AJ Bowen, Nicholas Tucci, and Joe Swanberg all shine as the competing brothers in this dysfunctional family of victims. And, to top everything off, one of my all-time favorites, Barbara Crampton, gets to scream in fear one more time. There are about 470 reasons this movie makes me smile (Larry Fessenden's in it too, you guys!), and I imagine it'll hold a place in the heart of horror fans for a long, long time.

Number 1 - Evil Dead
(Directed by Fede Alvarez.)

I don't understand why horror fans aren't all in love with this movie like I am. I mean, I do understand - it's called Evil Dead but it's not The Evil Dead and horror fans are more defensive of their territory than a pack of opossums - but most of the criticisms I've seen lobbed at this movie make absolutely no sense in my mind. (P.S. - Even though I think you're taking crazy pills - I still love you, horror fans.)

Instead of talking about what other people think, I should probably tell y'all why I love Evil Dead so much, shouldn't I?  For starters, I should also point out that I love all the other Evil Dead films as much as anyone, and I wouldn't say this one improves on those films in any way. The biggest treat for me as I look at the four films that now inhabit this franchise is that each one has a different tone and feeling for the viewer than any of the rest. While this Evil Dead mimics some of the details of its predecessors and offers more than a few winks and nods at the series, it also makes enough changes along the way to feel unique and different.

I also love the lead character created for the film. Mia, realized wonderfully by Jane Levy, is not Ash - and she also doesn't need to be Ash for the film to work. Alvarez and co-writer Rodo Sayagues made a brilliant choice by introducing drug addiction to the series and Mia's arc through the story provides for maximum drama as the film unfolds. Some have decreed that this is not a "strong" female character, but this portrayal of a young woman who is dealing with addiction - a portrayal that spotlights the trials of her addiction - allows her to grow while fighting herself and the forces at work in the woods. Maybe she's not Sigourney Weaver in Aliens, but I think this kind of strong female presence is more real and accessible than it would be if the film had just made Mia a regular old-fashioned butt-kicker.

Most importantly, the film crescendos perfectly to a final confrontation that I think is as good as anything horror has produced in a long time. It's a literal bloodbath that is perhaps the goriest thing that's ever been sent to multiplex screens. It gives me goosebumps just thinking about it. For my money it might be the most beautiful horror sequence since Suspiria, and I don't feel like I'm being too hyperbolic when I say that.

Evil Dead has provided to be a divisive entry to the horror canon, and I am trying to understand when people voice their complaints about it. (Although, I generally feel like any complaint people have about this one is also a complaint that could be made about the original The Evil Dead - but that's a different story for a different day.)  I think the new Evil Dead is a welcome companion to the original trilogy that I love so dearly. It's one of the most exciting, thrilling, disgusting, and memorable horror films of this generation.

Have your own favorites that I missed? Love these movies too? Think I'm being ridiculous and bat-shit crazy? The comment section below is open. Here's to another great year of horror in 2014, and I can't wait to make another list and have these conversations again next January.  To paraphrase my hero Joe Bob Briggs and his thoughts on the drive-in, 2013 is a great example of why horror will never die.

(Any excuse to add Joe Bob to a post is an excuse I LOVE.)

Midnight Movie of the Week #202 - Invasion of the Body Snatchers

"In an hour... you won't want them to. In an hour, you'll be one of us." 

 (1978)

Starring: Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams, Leonard Nimoy, Virginia Cartwright, Jeff Goldblum.

Directed by Philip Kaufman.

Rated PG for not-quite-nudity, gooey huge fetuses, Veronica Cartwright's tears, rat turds, and lots of screaming.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers in Six Words:

Pod People seduce '70s San Francisco.

Why You'll Love It:

I doubt any film has had two better remakes (this one and Abel Ferrara's Body Snatchers) than Don Siegel's Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The original film still packs a punch despite some heavy-handed politics, but Philip Kaufman's 1978 remake stands on its own as a thoughtful and dramatic retelling of the original story. Kaufman's film is dark and serious, with only a few nods to the original's tone (like the cameo by original star Kevin McCarthy). It's a rather intense tale of lost identity that adapts well to its new setting, with a great cast led by Donald Sutherland and Leonard Nimoy offering excellent performances.

The Highlights:

• Any scene featuring a young Jeff Goldblum, who reacts in a perfectly cynical manner to the idea of pod people. He's only a small part of this film, but it's easy to see how he became a star through this performance.
• Going along with that point, a mid film scene in which the female leads discuss the possible infestation and its floral roots with a skeptical Goldblum starts to bring the film together as it prepares for a high paced finish.
• I've never been entirely fond of the film's final ten or fifteen minutes - I think I want more from the story than this rushed finish - but most will tell you the final scene is one of the most iconic moments in modern sci-fi/horror.
• Also there's the human faced dog. Yeah, you gotta see it.

Also Worth Knowing:

• Donald Sutherland was hit by a Volkswagen beetle while performing his own stunts for the film. Who wants to be the guy who hits Donald Sutherland with their car? Not this guy.
• As noted earlier, this is the first remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Ferrara's Body Snatchers was released in 1993, and the forgettable The Invasion, starring Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, and a returning Veronica Cartwright, was released in 2007. So we can probably bet on another version by 2019.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers is for Fans of...
Spock, curly haired Sutherlands, paranoia, San Francisco based cinema (Has any city had more great movies set in it? I say NO.), cynical sci-fi, and human faced dogs.

If You Like This, You Might Also Like...
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1955) (Obviously.)
Village of the Damned (1960)
The Mephisto Waltz (1971)
Magic (1978)

Evil Dead

(2013, Dir. by Fede Alvarez.)

Evil Dead deserves its place in the world alongside the Evil Dead trilogy. That might be the least important thing you need to know about this reboot and I have so many other thoughts running through my head about the movie that I just experienced, but my first reaction has to be this. It is impossible for me, as a fan of all things in the Evil Dead universe, to see this movie and not immediately consider its worth in comparison to Sam Raimi's trilogy. Unfair or not, it is reality - and I'm excited that I can open this review by saying that - with no comment on "better than" or "worse than" - I'm glad Evil Dead exists.

Balancing - not always delicately - between "homage" and "new vision", Evil Dead offers five characters, a cabin, and a weekend gone wrong.  The mathematics are the same as the film(s) it exists to emulate, but the characters are new and the dynamics are changed. The major change worth talking about is probably the fact that our lead female is now a drug addict who is being forced into a cold turkey weekend by her brother and her friends, and that this character, Mia, is created wonderfully by actress Jane Levy. The young woman undergoes a few transitions in tone and a large amount of turmoil during the film, but she never misses a beat.

You could counteract the great character moments with a few concerns, like the fact that the blonde female character has three lines in the first forty-five minutes of the film, is never involved in any pertinent conversations, and is more often than not referred to as "Baby."  Characterization is not strong across the board, which will surely give some critical viewers pause as they enter this new Deadite-filled universe. I think this is a rather hollow complaint on some fronts - though I did find the fact that a movie with basically five characters appears to lose one of them for large stretches of the exposition - because a movie like this (or like the original The Evil Dead) are not about unique and outstanding characters.

To no one's surprise, this movie is all about the carnage that is unleashed via that dastardly Necronomicon (whose well known name, if I'm not mistaken, is never spoken in this film).  And what carnage it is. Director Fede Alvarez throws in plenty of trademarks from the first two Evil Dead films and sly nods to Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell (for examples, look for returning shirts, camera tricks, and Oldsmobiles), but he also offers a whole new bloody vision that is a complete change of pace from anything we've seen in the preceding films. And a lot of what he does is freaking awesome.

Indeed, this movie works because it invents its own mayhem. It could be mistaken for being too serious, but I find it hard to really accuse a movie who changes pace so often and pushes so many bizarre images in our face as a humorless experience. Maybe I am desensitized to blood on screen, because I rarely found myself flinching - I did cover my eyes all three times a syringe came into play, but I was fine with dismemberment and disfiguration - while others were groaning in their seats. I was too wrapped up in how Alvarez was presenting his story to care that what I was seeing was gross. I knew what I was walking into, and if you've seen the film's trailer (if not, it's posted below) you probably have the idea that this film does not intend to pull its punches.  The changes to what the "evil dead" are and how they are represented is probably the biggest difference from original to remake, but it allows Alvarez to maximize the amount of splatter in the film.

Yes, I get that Evil Dead is not a perfect bit of storytelling and I am more than aware of the fact that it is not the original Evil Dead. These two issues will no doubt derail many viewers, but I prefer to look past them and see that Evil Dead is a perfect version of what Evil Dead wants to be. It's got a manic energy, a great visual style, and - probably most importantly - some of the most jaw-droppingly entertaining gore you'll ever see on a movie screen. I had a great time watching it. That's all I care about at this point.

Midnight Movie of the Week #154 - Body Snatchers

Y'all probably know by know that a remake can be a dangerous thing. The minute you start making one is the minute someone starts getting mad about it.  You can prove them wrong once in a while - more often than most people think, I'd argue - but there's always gonna be people mad about it.  You have to be a little insane to remake something that's widely called a classic - but you have to be even more insane to remake a classic that's already been remade and remade well.

That insanity can work in your favor sometimes.  Case in point: Body Snatchers, the 1993 update of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.  This version started with a story co-written by Larry Cohen (The Stuff, It's Alive), moved on to a script co-written by Re-Animator power duo Stuart Gordon and Dennis Paoli and was directed by Abel Ferrera, who's most known for gritty crime flicks like King of New York and Bad Lieutenant.  It seems like a random assortment of talent to the casual observer, which is part of what makes this Body Snatchers tale unique.

Don Siegel's 1955 original film - adapted from Jack Finney's novel, which is credited as the source material here - used the idea of identity-stealing pod-people as a commentary on the communist scare of that time period.  The first remake, by Philip Kaufman in 1978, is updated for that time period (with struggling artists and empowered women!) and maintains the main premise and California setting.  Ferrera and company, however, decided to take the film in a different direction - moving the action to a military base in the southern United States.

While previous versions of the story focused on strong male leads trying to make sense of the invasion, Ferrara's film puts most of the drama on the shoulders of a teenage girl, played by the talented Gabrielle Anwar.  Through her turn as the daughter of an environmentalist who is stationed on the base, the film spends less time trying to figure out who the invaders are and how they work than those that came before it.  The teenager is dealing with her own issues - she's very emotional, if not fully "emo" - well before she stumbles into an aliens-who-take-over-our-identities-and-show-no-emotions fiesta.  This means that a) she's not one of them overly scientific people that try to solve the what and the why of the situation, and b) she does the natural thing we'd expect a teenager to do in this situation - runs away.

Anwar's Marti, along with her little brother Andy, can't be blamed for their fear as they deal with the escalating "hive mind" situation that they are a part of.  One of the film's most haunting scenes has young Andy realizing he's not like the other children in the day care center on base, thanks to some repetitive and tentacle-y finger paintings.  Subtlety is one thing this film definitely lacks - a lot of scenes like this are telegraphed and almost too easy for folks who know the story to predict - but the film still manages to be patient and artistic as it quietly shows us the snatchers' hold on the community.  This sequence works perfectly because it's framed delicately and given a chance to really sink into the viewer's mind. To put the film's approach in simple terms, it's as if Ferrara shows us that there's a monster running at us and then makes us patiently watch as the monster gets closer and our vision of it becomes clearer. We aren't surprised by what we see, but the increasing clarity about the attack makes the tension grow within us.

The most perfect example of this film's blatant, yet slow-moving brand of horror is the performance given by Meg Tilly as the seemingly evil stepmother turned actually evil stepmother.  The monologue that allows an emotionless pod-Tilly to explain the scale of the attack to her scared family is one of the greatest crazy/calm scenes on film, and the silky voiced actress - who would later loan her talents to the Child's Play series - is the key to the film maintaining its power as a quieter version of the Body Snatchers tale.  As if her reminder that humanity is kind of screwed isn't enough, she gets to do what I call "the big scream" - a throwback to the '78 adaptation - which send chills all the way up my spine for what feels like infinity.

There's something pretty fantastic about the way Ferrara and company get these actors to sell the difference between themselves and their pod-selves, especially as he manages to still surprise us with a few turns in the final act. The first two Body Snatcher films feel like their primarily interested in stopping "them", while this take on the story is more about protecting "us" and our identities. The military setting is obviously not an accidental choice, and the film's commentary on the military's interest in squashing emotion and creating controllable soldiers is a nice parallel to the pod person problem.  But this military aspect is less interesting to me than how the film abandons the scientific focus of the other films and switches its focus entirely to the fight to maintain our individuality.

It's a neat switch, even if some of the supporting actors aren't as talented as Anwar, Tilly, and Forest Whitaker (whose performance as the on-base doctor allows for a bit of the paranoia that ran rampant in the other films) when the film needs them to help sell the.  I've spent much of this space commenting on how the film compares to those other films, but there are plenty of reasons to laud this surreal and haunting spin on Finney's novel as its own beast.  It works a lot better than most remakes do, and it holds up today as one of the most effective horror films of the 1990s.

8 Things I Love About... House on Haunted Hill '99

That time when Lisa Loeb and Spike went on a rollercoaster.

Spooky eye stained glass.

Chris Kattan freaking the heck out.

Things with old spoky wheels always creep me out.

The wicked sensory depravation/crazy making room.

And plenty of other drop-ins from the esteemed Mr. Combs.

Bloody naked scary women in black and white and red.

You'll never top Price and Ohmart, but Geoffrey Rush and Famke Janssen are a fantastic match.

 

Silent Night

(2012, Dir. by Steven C. Miller.)

Following up one of the most refreshing pieces of violent cinema I've seen in years - a little ditty known as The Aggression Scale - with a remake of an infamous '80s horror film is a bold move - but it's the move director Steven C. Miller made in 2012.  His project? Silent Night, a souped up remake of the controversial 1984 slasher Silent Night, Deadly Night that offers a new twist on the killer Santa formula.

Malcolm McDowell and Jamie King, both very recognizable to fans of horror remakes (if that kind of person exists, I guess), star as police officers in a small Wisconsin town who are tasked with tracking down a killer in a Santa costume.  Like the real Santa, this one is making a list of people who've been naughty, but his means of dealing with them is a little more brutal than the other guy.

He's a little more brutal than we were used to in the '80s, too.  This version of Silent Night has to keep up with the expectations for horror violence in a post-Saw world, which means our killer has plenty of tools at his arsenal.  You won't see the typical slasher kills here, as things like exploding Christmas lights and flamethrowers and woodchippers all come in to play.  The film is vicious in its killings, and those who enter the film just wanting to see a series of inventive kills by Saint Nick won't be disappointed.

It's not all splatter, as Miller and writer Jayson Rothwell manage to make the film feel more like the original versions of Halloween or Black Christmas - at least in the plot department.  The interactions between the members of the police force - primarily McDowell's comical Captain and King's practical everywoman - break up the action quite nicely, as do side performances from potential victims like Courtney-Jane White as the mayor's uninhibited daughter and Donal Logue as a foul-mouthed Santa impersonator. The story never gets too deep - it's a killer Santa film, and it doesn't lose sight of that - but it's competent enough that it feels like more than an excuse to make Santa off some good looking women in various states of dress. 

Miller's direction is also a great asset to the film, as this film - much like The Aggression Scale earlier this year - manages to make the stalk-and-kill sequences feel like something out of a high energy action film.  The film's final showdown between killer and cops is vivid and eye-catching as different colors of lighting are used throughout the sequence, and the director's eye often teams with an incredibly effective musical score by Kevin Riepl to set the mood wonderfully for the fast-paced sequences of violence throughout the film.

Silent Night is very well made and incredibly watchable, even it never becomes anything more than a flashy popcorn slasher film.  Indeed, Silent Night's biggest failure might be that it doesn't feel as raw and edgy as its brethren from the 1980s did, and I'm sure some fans of that brand of slasher will be a bit disappointed with this film because it doesn't do the "old-school" grindhouse thing. I don't think this is as big of a deal as some will make it out to be - and the film is packed with references to the original series of films and definitely shows a love for its predecessors - but I did feel the film was almost too well-made to compare to the original film at times.

Then again, not being compared to an artistically challenged slasher film from 1984 isn't always a bad thing.  Silent Night does enough things right to be worth watching on its own merit.  It exists somewhere in between the two extremes at which people love this type of film - it's not incredibly profound horror and it's not incredibly sleazy either - but it's a nice addition to the Christmas-based horror shelf and it feels like it'll be a fun film to pop in with friends over the holiday season. The bottom line is that Miller's film is well-made, has performances that work, and offers a lot of fun bloodshed - which is more than enough reason for me to file Silent Night under "Nice" when I look back at 2012.

The Mike's Top 50 Horror Movies Countdown: #24 - Horror of Dracula

Previously on the Countdown: Number 50 - Happy Birthday to Me  Number 49 - Prince of Darkness  Number 48 - House on Haunted Hill  Number 47 - The Monster Squad  Number 46 - Hellraiser  Number 45 - The Fog  Number 44 - Creature From the Black Lagoon  Number 43 - Zombie  Number 42 - Tales from the Crypt  Number 41 - Bubba Ho-Tep  Number 40 - Phantom of the Paradise  Number 39 - Dog Soldiers Number 38 - Pontypool  Number 37 - Dark Water  Number 36 - Army of Darkness Number 35 - The Legend of Hell House  Number 34 - Poltergeist  Number 33 - The Abominable Dr. Phibes  Number 32 - The Phantom of the Opera  Number 31 - The House of the Devil   Number 30 - Evil Dead II  Number 29 - Dead of Night  Number 28 - Carnival of Souls  Number 27 - Nosferatu  Number 26 - Candyman  Number 25 - The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

Horror of Dracula

(1958, Dir. by Terence Fisher.)

Why It's Here:

First of all, can I just have this poster? It's like the awesomest thing I've ever seen, and I don't even speak Dutch.

(OK, stop rolling your eyes.  I was kidding about the Dutch thing.)

Hammer Films are an acquired taste to modern horror audiences.  The studio produced movies that were essentially remakes - though no one ever seems to call them that - of Universal's classic monsters, and struck gold when they cast Christopher Lee as Dracula and Christopher Lee as Van Helsing.  The first film that offers this collaboration, Horror of Dracula, shines despite a meticulous pace and a lack of abrupt shocks.  This is dramatic - heck, even melodramatic - horror, but it's the kind that keeps me riveted.

The Moment That Changes Everything:

Lee's Dracula career - which went through a lot of ups and downs - began with a bang.  The opening seduction of Jonathan Harker by a gorgeous vampiress is ended quickly by the menacing figure of the actor, who stakes (no pun intended) his claim to the role with passion. 

It Makes a Great Double Feature With:

As I mentioned, Lee's tenure as Dracula was not completely positive.  He refused to speak in the first sequel he appeared in, and has lamented many of the later films openly.  But among some of the slips is Freddie Francis' Dracula Has Risen from the Grave, which features the keen eye of one of my favorite directors and my favorite Lee-as-Dracula moment of biting on film.  I wrote a bit about the scene in a guest piece for The Bloodsprayer one time, and I'm still pretty sure that scene makes the movie.

What It Means To Me:

Hammer films have always been the kind of films that inspired me to love horror.  They're not just here to get to the viewer on a visceral level - though they did offer vibrant colors, excellent music, and a lot of blood for their era - they're interested in telling an old fashioned horror tale.  And no film shows just how much they respect horror standards as Horror of Dracula does.  Some see it as slow and bloodless, I see it as horror poetry.

Piranha 3DD

(2012, Dir. by John Gulager.)

Man, I really don't want to go write about Piranha 3DD.  This is the kind of movie that does not ask the viewer to access any part of their brain that involves intelligence, and I'd like to think that anything I write about the movie will be more thoughtful than the movie itself. Like, that sentence I just wrote.  I over-wrote that sentence.  I could have said, Piranha 3DD is a dumb movie. And that's all I needed to say.

Then again, the movie - which is a sequel to the less-than-two year old horror remake (that featured the all too lovely and amazing and beautiful Elisabeth Shue - HEY ELISABETH SHUE, I LOVE YOU!) - doesn't aim to be anything but dumb.  The plot revolves around an "adult" water park, (run by the always brash David Koechner of Anchorman), the returning chompy-faced-fishes, and (naturally) a bunch of college kids who can bare their breasts (although, truthfully, all the actual characters keep their stuff under wraps throughout the film) and party and eventually become chum.  They are led by two very good looking young actresses with horror under their belts, the Friday the 13th remake's Danielle Panabaker and Tucker & Dale vs. Evil's Katrina Bowden - but neither actress is given anything to do other than be a standard horror victim.  Bowden's performance stands out a little bit, but primarily because of the predictable, yet entertaining, discomfort that her character is forced to endure.

The folks behind Piranha 3DD are director John Gulager - son of cult hero Clu Gulager, who appears briefly here - and screenwriters Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan, the same trio who won some filmmaking reality show and got to make the Feast trilogy, three films that I truly love for their increasing ridiculousness and utter disregard for traditional expectations and/or sanity.  But, like a lot of sequels that are given to promising folks, it's hard to see their stamp on this film.  Don't get me wrong - there's plenty of gore and violence and a few decent shockers - but the whole thing is a bit standard for the guys who made a trilogy with the most ridiculous ending this side of The Matrix.

If there's a positive note about Piranha 3DD - as mean as I'm sounding, I really think there is a positive side to this film - it's the crude and hilarious humor that fills the script.  Things particularly pick up in the final act of the film, when cameos by a bunch of famous folks take over parts of the film.  The humorous additions include three returning characters from the first film - played by Paul Scheer, Ving Rhames, and Christopher Lloyd - who reprise their roles with tongues firmly in cheek.  Lloyd gets to spout sciencey nonsense while dealing with his character's YouTube fame - there's a couple of hilarious lines of dialogue involved there - while Rhames and Scheer deal with the former's injuries from the first film in goofy ways.  An exchange late in the film is punctuated by a comment from Rhames that had me laughing loudly and deeply, and I would have loved to see more from them in the film.

The most entertaining thing about the film, however, is the cameo by television icon and walking punchline David Hasselhoff. (SPOILER ALERT: Germans love David Hasselhoff.)  The Hoff plays himself, lampooning his infamous Baywatch role - and throwing in a rare reference to his work in Anaconda 3, which made me laugh out loud too. We've seen Hoff being Hoff a lot over the last decade or more - heck, he did this same shtick in Spongebob's movie, which is a weird parallel to make - but I'm not above laughing at his foul mouth and self-deprecating sense of humor again.  Hoff is easily the film's biggest star, and I can't tell a lie: I'd love it if they found away to focus another Piranha flick on The Hoff.

And there's the real rub of it all. Piranha 3DD is stupid, dumb, inappropriate, inept, and even - dare I say - pointless. And despite all that, I'm here admitting that I have a place in my heart for a movie like it. I'm not gonna say guilty pleasure, because I believe in guilty pleasures like I believe in the dramatic appeal of Pauly Shore, but I'm just saying that I'm not above enjoying something this ridiculous. I had fun watching Piranha 3DD, even though I know it's pretty worthless and a bit of a let down from the folks behind Feast. (Y'all should really just go rent the first Feast film instead.)  There's nothing wrong with this film that wasn't already wrong with Piranha 3D, so I guess if you liked that film enough you'll like this film enough.  Like one famously bad horror film once said - It's exactly what you think it is.

Mother's Day

(2010, Dir. by Darren Lynn Bousman.)

I have to admit, I've never finished the original Mother's Day, a 1980 cult film treasure - according to some - from the folks over at Troma.  I remember trying to watch it a while back, but I was in the mood for something shiny and watching Instant Netflix is about my least favorite thing in the world, so I ended up moving on and saying I was gonna catch up with it later.  And I never did.  So, this review of Mother's Day - the recently released remake of said film - shall just focus on the newer, shinier Mother's Day.

Rebecca De Mornay - who I feel like we haven't heard from since like 1995 and something like Never Talk To Strangers - takes center stage in Darren Lynn Bousman's film, as the matriarch of a criminal family who take control of a private residence where a bunch of hip and trendy people are having some sort of celebration.  It seems that Mother's three sons have just failed in crime, and need the safety of their old home - despite its new owners (a married couple with their own issues played by Jaime King and Frank Grillo) and their guests who appear to have just walked off the set of a Light Beer commercial.

What follows is a long and painful evening of torture, tears, and tribulations.  With 5 criminals and about 10 hostages/victims, there's a lot of opportunity for varying kinds of madness and violence in the film, which runs for what feels like a terribly excessive 112 minutes.  Most of that time is spent making sure each and every character is given some sort of unique torture while also being involved in one or more different attempts to escape or overthrow the family that is holding them hostage.  Sometimes it feels like Bousman and writer Scott Milam wrote their script while playing Clue - Is it the husband in the upstairs with the clothes iron? Or is it the tattooed lady in the kitchen with the knife? - as they refuse to pass up any opportunity for a good bit of trauma.  Surprisingly, there's evidence of more restraint when the film deals with gore - there's blood, but not on a Saw-esque level - than evidence of restraint in the editing room.

Despite its repetitive nature, the film doesn't wear out its welcome entirely.  The cast is hit and miss, but the performers that shine - like King, Warren Kole as one of the brothers, and Deborah Ann Woll as the timid sister of the criminals - give very strong performances that hit all the right marks.  Other cast members are less likeable - Patrick Fleuger has some bad moments as the alpha brother, while most of the folks who spend the movie whining in the basement grated me (except the always welcome Briana Evigan, who's...well...HOT) - but there's no one in the film who completely sucks life from the production.

But the film's really all about De Mornay and her wicked turn as Mother - which, thankfully, is the best thing about the movie.  The character is one of the more interesting and disturbed that we've seen in horror for a while, and the actress plays off her past work - like her unhinged turn in The Hand That Rocks The Cradle - to balance between brutal and loving throughout the film.  There's some fantastic dark comedy inside the motives of Mother, which also allows De Mornay's performance to offer a tiny reprieve from the other terrors on screen.  To put it simply, she's the main reason I can even come close to recommending this film.

There are some good moments throughout the film - an interaction between one of the aggressors and two ill-fated women at an ATM was fantastic, and plenty of other brutal scenes are handled with surprising grace - but another edit and a little more grit would have gone a long way to making Mother's Day feel like something more than just another run-of-the-mill home invasion film.  I wanted to like the film a lot - several moments and one fantastic lead performance gave me hope - but the full package fell a little short of being something I feel comfortable suggesting to others.  I guess you could give it a rental if you're really interested, but don't get your hopes too high for this one.

Silent House

(2012, Dir. by Chris Kentis & Laura Lau.)

Nothing makes me hate human society more than when everyone freaks the heck out about the ending of an otherwise fine horror movie.  I guess there are a lot of people out there who think the ending is the most important part, or one of the most important parts, of a movie.  I do not subscribe to their reasoning.  An ending is just there, man.  It's not the whole movie.

Don't get me wrong.  There are times when a bad ending can ruin a movie completely.  If Casablanca ended with Captain America flying into Morocco, shield-boomeranging all the Nazis and throwing Rick and Ilsa into a seedy motel where they do some S&M, it probably wouldn't have won Oscars and lived on for 70 some years as an all-time classic.  But people are so quick to dismiss a movie - particularly a horror movie - when the ending comes out of left field like a bus taking down to lovey-dovey pedestrians.  And them people drive me crazy.

As you might have guessed by now, Silent House is a movie with a "twist" ending.  And the fact that I've wasted the last two plus paragraphs warning everyone who's a lame-o "I hope the ponies save the day in the end!" filmgoer to go somewhere else and leave us horror fans alone pains me.  Because, when you stop talking about the ending - which really isn't as crazy surprising as you might think, though it's certainly poorly handled - Silent House is a pretty fantastic chiller.

The advertisements for the film won't admit it - instead using a bogus "INSPIRED BY TRUE EVENTS" pitch that's a bold-faced lie - but this is a remake of a 2010 film from Uruguay, which did the same premise and plot very similarly.  A father and daughter go to a quiet - some would say silent - house in the middle of nowhere to clean the place up, and the daughter ends up (emotionally and physically) powerless to an assailant in a locked house with no (electrical) power.  The trick that brought interest to the first film, which is also parroted here, is that the film is presented in "real time" with one continuous shot following the characters through the house as bad things begin to happen.

Normally an almost shot-for-shot remake of a less than two year old film would be something I'd avoid, but Silent House drew me in with the casting of young Elizabeth Olsen in the lead.  Olsen, who's probably tired of being referred to as Mary-Kate and Ashley's younger sister,  set the indie cinema world on fire last year with her performance as a young woman recovering from her past in a vicious cult in Martha Marcy May Marlene, which - to be 100% perfectly honest - was a performance that should have earned Olsen no less than an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role. 

The young Ms. Olsen carried that film with an incredibly natural ease (Perhaps she learned a lot about drama from watching her less-than-stable sisters?), and the shift from that role to becoming a terrorized victim in Silent House plays to her strengths wonderfully.  She's one of those actresses who really buys into the emotion of her roles physically, using tears, hyperventilation, and tremors as some of her tools to keep the audience riveted.  A lot of actors and actresses care about how they look on screen - For example, I doubt you could get an extreme close-up shot of Miley Cyrus keeled over and screaming like Olsen is on the Silent Hill posters - and it's clear from the early moments of both of her recent films that Olsen will do whatever it takes to make her character look afraid and/or vulnerable.

With the one-shot thing going on and her character being one of like four people in the whole darn movie, we spend almost every second of the film with Olsen.  And while this might not be the Oscar caliber performance I saw in her last film, Olsen is easily the top reason to see this version of the Silent House.  Though the film is technically on par with almost every shiny Americanized horror remake and the ending is - y'know what, I'm just not gonna talk about the ending again - I really do think her work makes this a must see film for horror fans who crave something fresh.  The emotions are all over the map - just like a young woman's emotions might be if they were trapped in a dark house with an ominous stalker - and they're handled with such flair by the diminutive 23 year-old. 

With one of the best performances to hit American horror in a long time carrying the burden, Silent House doesn't need to do a lot more to be a worthwhile viewing experience. Directors Chris Kentis & Laura Lau - who helmed the similarly gritty and tense Open Water in 2003 - handle things well through most of the film, providing a couple of good jumps and a fine sense of dread that doesn't seem to telegraph scares.  It all leads up a series of moments that change the landscape of the film entirely (the ending does not follow the original's path entirely, so fans of the first film might want to check themselves early) which is what a lot of people are going to focus in on.  But I'm happy to give props to a wonderful performance and ignore the mess of an ending here, and in the end I think I can recommend Silent House due to the lead's fine work.  There are a lot of young actresses trying to make a name for themselves right now, plenty of whom are spending time in horror cinema, and it's been a long while since I've seen one who is as promising as Elizabeth Olsen is.

The Woman in Black

(2012, Dir. by James Watkins.)

There are two kinds of people that will want to see The Woman in Black. There are those who dig good old Gothic horror, and there are Harry Pottheads.  The two groups aren't always as far a part as you'd think - there's a heavy helping of horror goodness in the couple of Harry Potter flicks I've seen - but I'm definitely not the demographic that's checking out the film due to Daniel Radcliffe taking the lead.  I lean more toward being the demographic who struggles to see the film's title and not sing it to the tune of 'Lady in Red' - but that's a personal problem of mine.

The Woman in Black - a remake of a British TV movie that was based on a novel by Susan Hill - is the latest effort from the reborn Hammer Films, and it's a full-blown return to their roots in horror.  The period ghost story - I don't think the date is given, but I place the film around the 1930s by guessing - features plenty of scenes that feel like they jumped right out of a classic Hammer film - like disagreeable and ominous innkeepers or carriage drivers who won't go to certain remote places at certain dangerous times - and is certainly the most impressive of the new Hammer films in recapturing the spirit of the brand name.  The things I love about Hammer films - minus Lee, Cushing, and an abundance of well-placed corsets - are all over this film from the ominous start.

The film immediately warns us about the title spectre in the opening scene, which shows three young girls who are coerced to turn a tea party into a triple suicide by the woman's appearance. Shortly after, Radcliffe's character - an aspiring lawyer who's tasked to go through a considerable amount of paperwork at an abandoned mansion - arrives in town and heads to the secluded (and we're talking surrounded by marsh that floods the road secluded) home and starts to witness odd things and, eventually, the lady herself.

You probably don't have to guess to hard to figure out the ghastly woman's intentions - hauntings like this generally seem to go back to the same kind of causative circumstances - and Radcliffe's investigation weeds out the truth of who the woman is and why she's angry from beyond the grave relatively early in the film.  But the film maintains tension by visually manipulating the viewer.  There are more shadows in this film than you can possible imagine, and as the woman's appearances begin to increase I found myself increasingly wary of every odd black shape on screen and every movement I thought I saw.  The musical score (which is pretty well done by horror music maestro Marco Beltrami) adds to the unease well at most times, but there were a few moments when musical cues provide a warning to the viewer when perhaps we didn't need one.  The film's sound design also aggressively sells the scares, but has a few too many false stingers (like when birds fly by or a friendly hand surprises a character) for my liking.

The former Mr. Potter is on screen for pretty much the entire film, and does an admirable job of keeping the story afloat.  The character is still struggling with the loss of his own wife and a disconnect with his four-year-old son, which means Radcliffe spends a lot of time sulking and being mopey.  The actor's attempts at these scenes were slightly off-putting - maybe because his physical appearance is just so odd at this stage in his career and it seems like he's trying to model his head after that of a young Patrick Dempsey - but in total the performance gets across what it needs to.  There are a couple of fun additions to supporting cast - primarily Ciaran Hinds and Janet McTeer as the couple who take the lead character in - but the film primarily relies on Radcliffe and he doesn't drop the ball too often.

As the plot moves toward a conclusion, I unfortunately couldn't help feeling that some of the steam that was provide by the early part of the film had been released.  The final act feels more like a modern Insidious/Don't Be Afraid of the Dark type fright fest than a Hammer tale, and the uptempo pace and overbearing imagery as Radcliffe works to vanquish the woman were a little disappointing to me.  An obvious example is the woman in black, who sent chills down my spine when shown at a distance, but who looks like nothing more than another hollywood ghost when her visage is actually revealed.  The film also goes a little bonkers when focusing in on animatronic toys for sections of the film, and I don't think that milking these little critters and their odd faces creates as much unease as director James Watkins wants it to.

The film all boils down to a final confrontation which, to be honest, is a big mess.  After the lead leaves the creepy house for the last time things go straight off the rails, with everything from ghastly voiceovers to abrupt changes in tone and even a groan worthy final "scare" making me shake my head in disappointment.  It's rather unfortunate that the film didn't cut the ending up just a little bit - I believe there's a good ending inside what the film offers - but what we get seems muddled and rushed and just a bit silly.  I look at a film like Sam Raimi's latest, Drag Me To Hell, as a good example of how to pull off an ending of this type, because the ending that's presented here has too many attempts to wow the viewer - each of which takes power from the last.

I want to like The Woman in Black, because I was legitimately enamored with the film for most of the first hour, but it's hard to be as enthusiastic as I'd like to be based on the final act.  I still recommend checking this one out - it's the closest thing to a traditional haunting film or a classic Hammer film I've seen in a long time - but don't be surprised if some of the plot's latter turns leave you scratching your head.  Quibbles aside, I want to see more new horror movies like The Woman in Black, horror movies that offer atmospheric settings and classic chills, and I'm sure I'll gladly give this one another go sometime down the road when I want a dose of old-school horror.

William Castle's The Old Dark House

(1963, Dir. by William Castle. Obviously.)

Do I need to give you all another commentary on remakes and horror movies? No, of course I don't.  These days remakes go together like reality TV stars and failed marriages. (I really don't watch any TV, but I hear that analogy works, no?)  And, let's face it, this isn't at all a new trend.  Once studios recognized how much money there was to be made in horror, sequels and re-tellings became all the rage in even the earliest days of cinema. 

But one of the more curious remakes I'd never encountered up til now is William Castle's version of The Old Dark House.  The original film was one of the most bizarre horror films of the early 1930s, as Frankenstein director James Whale filled a house that fits that description with odd characters ranging from a pyromaniac to a bedridden grandfather to - most importantly - an angry mute bearded giant played by the unmatchable Boris Karloff.  So when I learned that Castle - working with Hammer Films at the legendary Bray Studios(!) - had created an updated color version of that story in the 1960s....well, that's when my head exploded.

From frame one, it's pretty clear that Castle's version of The Old Dark House takes a drastically different approach than Whale's film.  The color film follows a comical lead character - I use "comical" very loosely here, because really this guy's just a big honkin' doofus - played by Tom Poston.  The character, Tom, is an American who is invited to a secluded mansion by the man he shares a flat with, and who is soon stranded with the kooky Femm family in the house, which is referred to by its residents as "old and dark" on at least two occasions.

(Speaking of kooky, one of the highlights of this version has to be the opening title sequence, which were drawn by the legendary Charles Addams - who knows a little bit about kooky families himself.)

Once Poston's Tom is in the house - via a trap door that keeps him contained a bit too often - he meets this family, which is not near as bizarre as the original family.  Instead, Castle's film sets out to provide a comedic take on the classic tale.  This isn't surprising considering Castle's output - his most famous film is probably House on Haunted Hill, which also ends up more tongue-in-cheek than most horror films - but this House is much further down the comic spectrum than most films that would be called horror comedies.  It seems like it's playing off a lot of the same tricks that the recent spoof Dark and Stormy Night would use almost fifty years later, but that 2009 film seems to have a better understanding of '30s "house" flicks than Castle's film does.

Part of me thinks Castle's Old Dark House is as bad as I sound like I'm saying it is, but part of me really wants to say I had fun with this film despite its silly comedic tone.  Poston's character definitely wears on the viewer as the non-stop slapstick antics increase throughout the film, but there are plenty of moments in the flick that do provide good chuckles.  The supporting cast is more interesting than the lead is by far, with the lovely Janette Scott playing it straight while a host of British character actors - Robert Morely, Mervyn Johns, and Peter Bull (in a dual role) add to the mysterious events of the film.  The most odd part of the film might be when we find out that one of the Femms is building an ark and believes the world is about to end, especially when his logic echoes that of the "prophet" who recently predicted the world to end in May 2011.

The film's madcap style of comedy misses as often as it hits - and there's absolutely no real substitute for Karloff - but there's a simple charm to this British comedy version of a Hollywood horror tale.  I'm certainly not going to replace my copy of Whale's version with this one, but it's a unique movie that I'm glad I saw.  It's far from being Castle's best, but at least it's a cute little adventure (with a lot of the cute little Ms. Scott) that's not completely annoying.  If you're a Castle completist you might have fun with this one. If you're one of those folks who loses sleep over remakes, you're best to just stay away.

(Speaking of Castle completists, I got a feeling (not a feeling that tonight's gonna be a good night, though that is a distinct possibility) that we might hear more about Castle in the upcoming weeks at FMWL. The William Castle Collection came to me via Santa this year, which means the schlock business is about to pick up for The Mike!  Oh yeah, here's the trailer....)