I was originally attracted to The Bleeding House by its poster. There wasn’t a half-naked, sweaty girl looking terrified on it, nor did it have rusty implements of torture on. It didn’t seem to be standard fare, and it wasn’t.

First, there were no big names in the cast. This is excellent because it’s easier to believe a story if you don’t immediately recognise people (it occurred to me later that the lead male had been fantastic in Galaxy Quest, but at the time he was just a creepy guy in a very neat suit.)

Second, I had no idea where the plot was going. When you watch a lot of films it’s difficult to be too surprised, but this one kept me guessing more than most.

Those two things can give a thriller a head-start, as it were, because you’re not instantly thinking about the other things you’ve seen the big actors in that weren’t so formulaic and hoping they bought something nice with all the formulaic money so they can get back to making films that aren’t crap.

But back to The Bleeding House.

‘Hello Clarice.’ … wait, wrong film.

The plot revolves around a family, the Smiths, that has been ostracized (or possibly is under self-imposed exile) from the nearby town. The reasons become clearer throughout the film, but there’s clearly something off about at least one of the family members. [If you like that sort of setup, I highly recommend We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson.]

A genteel Southern stranger has car trouble and asks for their help. Never let genteel Southern strangers in your house. (Or the non-genteel sort, either, as those always end up being inbred cannibals.) And then the fun begins!

I don’t want to say more about the plot; just watch it. And if you’ve seen it, please leave a comment below.

I’m probably preaching to the choir, as anyone reading this site is probably already a fan of Hotel Transylvania, but in case you’ve been putting it off because it’s a ‘kids movie’ or something, go watch it now. I’ll wait.

See? Wasn’t that worth it? Don’t you wish you’d watched it sooner?

…

You didn’t go watch it right then and you’re still reading this post…?

Wow. I thought I knew you better than that, but it’s about Dracula, who, after having a terrible time with humans, built an hotel for monsters (the Mummy, the Invisible Man, the Werewolf, etc, but also myriad monsters of stripes I’ve certainly never seen). He’s dreaded the day his little girl turns 118 because then she’ll be old enough to go out into the world that he knows wants nothing more than to harm her. But she’s turning 118 at the weekend and all the monsters in the world are invited to her party.

Not the pouty bat face! Right in the feels!

After cooking up a plot to scare her off the human world forever, the worst possible thing happens. An American tourist shows up. Dracula knows that if all the other monsters find out the most terrifying thing they can imagine (humans tend to kill monsters, after all) has invaded their safe haven they’ll flee and never return. So Drac gets the young man up in a costume to make him monster-y and he becomes a huge hit at the party. A huge hit with everyone, including Drac’s daughter, ifyouknowwhatImean.

It’s the sort of animation where if you blink you miss five sight gags. The sort you can watch multiple times and be delighted every single time.

The website is great fun, as well. There are games, wallpapers, Facebook covers and Twitter skins, and a downloadable activity book.

And if you’ve already seen Hotel Transylvania (and loved it), I highly recommend Mad Monster Party , which is about a similar situation, but was made in the 60s. And it was TRIPPY.

I watched Puccini for Beginners at the weekend and it was a fun enough romp. New York was shot beautifully and the actors did a better job than what I was expecting–I don’t have high hopes for most lesbian-themed films, as they usually don’t have great budgets. Gretchen Mol was nice (this is the first thing I’ve seen her in–is it just me or does she look exactly like Kate Hudson?) as were the other two leads, Elizabeth Reaser and Justin Kirk.

The premise is a commitment-phobic lesbian (Reaser) is dumped by her heterosexual girlfriend (a Molly Parker look-a-like named Julianne Nicholson) and falls into bed with a man (Kirk). They have a relationship of sorts and have a rather ridiculous conversation about the differences between heterosexuals and homosexuals philosophies towards relationships. The friends of the lesbian-dating-a-man are two dimensional, but the actresses (Jennifer Dundas and Ute Lemper’s twin Tina Benko) do their best. And I know it seems like I’m saying everyone in this film looks like someone else, but that’s bound to happen, really. There are only so many ‘attractive’ faces in the world and a good number of them are on the screen–some of them are bound to resemble one another.

The thing about the film that’s stuck with me longest was the pronunciation of “Turandot” by Reaser within the first five minutes of the film. She pronounced it: TUR-in-dot. I thought it was a French name and therefore the ‘t’ would be silent. So I looked it up and the final answer is: Yay, I’m right. According to Puccini scholar Patrick Vincent Casali, Puccini never pronounced the ‘t’. Which totally kills the illusion that the character was supposed to be such an opera buff. Oh well. At least I learned something.

[Repost from now-defunct blog. Original post date: August 7, 2007]

Resurrection men dug up corpses  to sell to doctors who wanted to dissect them (taking apart God’s most beloved creatures–humans–was frowned upon at the time) or for use in medical lectures. They were also called body snatchers, but, as this occurred during the 19th century, ‘Resurrection Men’ is more poetic and fitting, I think.

It was such a problem that people would opt to be buried in mortsafes to ensure their final resting place was indeed their final resting place.

Between this and the pains taken to avoid being interred alive, being buried was a complicated business in the 1800s.

This is a practise I find interesting, but, for some reason, isn’t covered in film very often.

So imagine my surprise and delight to discover there was not only a film about Burke and Hare* –two very famous resurrection men who sort of … hurried things along if the usual crops weren’t ripening fast enough, if you get my drift–but it starred Simon Pegg and Andy Serkis, as well. It was released in 2010 and must have received very little press, because I would have remembered hearing about it. Because, you know, body snatchers and Simon Pegg.

Mr Pegg wonders, ‘Did someone forget to send out a press release or ten?’

And it’s not as though Pegg and Serkis were alone on some indy picture. They were accompanied by Tom Wilkinson, Isla Fischer and Jessica Hynes. It was directed by John Landis. He directed American Werewolf in London and the long-form music video to Thriller amongst others. AND every other male British comedian seemed to have a cameo. Short list: Tim Curry, Bill Bailey (without a beard! weird), Michael Smiley, Christopher Lee, Ronnie Corbett, Reece Shearsmith, Hugh Bonneville, Jenny Agutter (not a man, admittedly)… there are more. It was a constant, ‘Oh my god! It’s [insert name here] .’

So why didn’t I hear about this?

It must have been something to do with not knowing how to market the thing. Here is the film poster:

‘Look, Simon, there are the people who’d like to see our film but won’t because they didn’t hear about it for two years.’

It looks like some mindless goofball comedy from the ’80s, and it definitely has its goofy moments, but it’s worth more than that. I give it 8/10. Go watch it.

Another film about body-snatchers with a clueless marketing team was I Sell the Dead, which is about a pair of resurrection men who discover that some of their charges aren’t as dead as they should be. We have zombies and vampires and … other things. It’s a highly enjoyable, slightly above B-movie, with several laugh-out-loud moments. This one had an even bigger problem with marketing. Here are the movie posters available for it:

‘Did this film come out in the 50s? I thought it was very recent?’

‘So… it’s a TV movie about a serial killer with split-personalities that are a zombie, a posh doctor and Jack Nicholson in The Shining?’

‘Wait…wait…I see. It’s a long-form rock video. “I Sell the Dead”… right, right, by the doom metal band with the oddly clean-cut front man.’

‘…you didn’t even watch the movie, did you?’

This one most accurately conveys the feel of the movie, though it’s still not quite right.

‘It’s about a hapless boob having to do icky things and there are…monsters… on an island?’ Close enough.

I give this one 7/10. It is what it is, but I must address the ‘surpasses Shaun of the Dead’ comment on the rock video poster: No. Not even close. It will appeal to fans of Shaun of the Dead, but doesn’t surpass it by a long chalk.

*If you’re interested in reading more about Burke and Hare, Gutenberg.org has both The History of Burke and Hare and of the Resurrectionist Times  by George Mac Gregor (it’s free on Amazon ) and The Court of Cacus or the Story of Burke and Hare by Alexander Leighton ( Amazon link ).

The bad thing about being far behind every other human in terms of media is that it can be difficult to avoid spoilers. The good thing is having your expectations lowered to the point of very, very rarely being disappointed and fairly frequently being pleasantly surprised.

Such is the case for The Raven, which was panned by Poe fans and critics.

Someone is killing people in the manner of some of the murders in Poe’s stories. It becomes obvious the person is trying to communicate directly with our man and he is the only one who can solve the case. This is bookended by Poe being found in a park, delirious and apparently inebriated, as an explanation of the man’s final, mysterious days.

Many scenes were nearly too dark to see what was happening, and, while I appreciate that they were trying to recreate the terror of walking into a gruesome crime scene with only gas lamps, I think the audience would have forgiven a couple extra lights.

Beyond that, it was typical suspense fare. The costumes were lovely and the sets worked well–the atmosphere would appeal to fans of Sleepy Hollow. 7/10 for period touches.

Hilarity ensues.

Wait, no, Horrible Things happen.

Cube: The first strangers-in-a-room film I saw and I thought it was a brilliant concept. Seven strangers awake in a cube. None of them know how they got there or why they’ve been taken. Each of the walls of the cube has a door that leads to another cube; and they soon find out that some of the rooms are booby trapped. Occasionally, the room seems to move and they work out that they’re in one room of an even larger cube. The goal becomes getting to the edge of the larger cube. There are two others in the series and they’re all right, but can’t compare to the first.

Hunger:  Five people awake in a cave-like room with a clock on the wall that shows time in 24 hour periods–the clock moves once per day. There are thirty marks on the clock. The strangers only have to make it thirty days with a few barrels of water. They’re being observed by a person who wants to see what happens to people’s humanity in that sort of situation. Hint: All of the bad things.

Exam: This one is a bit different from the others on the list, in that the characters intentionally walk into the room in order to complete the final portion of an intensive interview process. So they know why they are there, but they still don’t know who their interviewer(s) are. Each candidate is given one sheet of paper, one pencil, a set of instructions and then told to answer the question set before them. The paper is blank so they have 80 minutes to work out both the question and the answer. What transpires is a sort of live-action escape-the-room game, if you were playing with other people with whom you were also in competition for a prize. This one was the most suspenceful, and well-written.

Die:  Six people, all of whom are suicidal, awake in a room. They’re each in a glass cell and can see the others. They’re brought out, two at a time, into the middle of the room. One is strapped to a chair, the other must cast a die and, depending on the number that comes up, must then administer a punishment to the one in the chair. It winds up being about a cult of people who’ve been ‘saved’ from suicide and ‘reborn’. It’s all a bit ‘I’m sorry? Je ne comprends pas.’ I suppose the writer was trying to make it about something other than a psychopath mentally and physically torturing people.

(Seriously, if there’s an ensemble comedy where a bunch of strangers wake up in a room, please leave a comment.)

An American Masters student becomes fascinated by the case of Armin Meiwes , the German who took out an advert to find someone willing to be eaten and killed, in that order.

The student envies the relationship between the men, since they so clearly ‘fit’ with one another. Each saw the darkest side of the other and were drawn closer because of it.

The student (an unrecognisable Keri Russell) goes to Germany and looks into the past of both men, which we see in nicely-done flashbacks. She begins frequenting cannibalism forums (something I have not researched, but no doubt exist) as she becomes more deeply drawn into the case.

At the end the student finds the video of the meal/murder and is repulsed. This is supposed to be redemptive, I suppose, because she’s revolted by the reality behind what she’d thought of as a perfect relationship. Which was meh, though I’m not sure of another way it could end.

Prior to this film, I knew only that a man had advertised for someone to eat and another man had responded to that ad, so learning about the background of both men was part of the appeal.

Grimm Love Wikipedia page,  which includes spoilers.

Bonus Info: I couldn’t remember the real names of either of the men and when I searched ‘German cannibal’ Wikipedia came up with five. I thought that was a lot until I checked ‘American cannibals,’ which returned 21. There’s nothing for ‘British cannibals’. ‘English cannibals’ only asks if I meant ‘English Canadians’.

[Bonus: Last week on Slate they had an article about the 'Cannibal cop' in New York, wherein they discuss both Meiwes and the current fetishizing of cannibalism. Fascinating stuff.]

My last tattoo was Tim Burton-esque, and my tattooer recommended Mad Monster Party, a stop-motion film released in 1967.

What a trippy, fun time.

Dr Frankenstein needs someone to succeed him upon his retirement, so he calls a weekend-long party/conference to choose his successor. Included in this group is Dr Jekyll/Mr Hyde, the Invisible Man, Frankenstein, Dracula, a werewolf, the Mummy, the creature from the Black Lagoon and other monsters. Also invited is the doctor’s nebbish nephew Felix.

Dr Frankenstein is voiced by Boris Karloff and Frankenstein’s mate is voiced by Phyllis Diller. I cannot tell you how fantastic that is. There’s also Dr Frankenstein’s helper, Yetch, who is based on Peter Lorre. The impression was so well done I was surprised to learn the character wasn’t voiced by Lorre himself.

And my tattooer was right about the Tim Burton connection. According to Wikipedia:

The stop motion cute/ghastly look of the creatures in this film was very influential on Tim Burton’s Vincent, The Nightmare Before Christmas and Corpse Bride; in particular, Burton creations strongly resemble the little monsters seen in the Stay One Step Ahead number.

And the end was a genuine surprise.