Zombos' Closet

Sin-Jin Smyth Sneak Peek Review

Zombos Closet friend (and odd relative on Zimba's side, I believe) Bruce Murray was recently invited to take a first look at Sin-Jin Smyth. Sure, he gets invited. Lucky for us, he graciously sent along the review in time for Halloween. Which is apropos, as the film takes place during one dark and stormy Halloween night. Boo! Here's his review:

The eternal struggle between good and evil creates a presence we all feel throughout the human condition. We have front row seats for this battle played out on the grand stage which is this life. Many different cultures develop the same themes that attempt to understand, explain, and guide us through our struggle. The great religions of the world warn us of the darkness we face inside and in the world around us. This darkness is best exemplified in the persona of the Devil. The King of Darkness.Lucifer. Beelzebub. Sin-Jin Smyth.

Once Again Unto the Breach Saw III (2006)

ZC Rating 4 of 7: Very Good

"Hello, Zoc."

"What? Who's that?" I shook the sleep away. It was 2:30 in the morning. I had dragged my butt back from watching the midnight showing of Saw III, and was fighting sleep to write an early review of it.

"Let's play a game."

"Who's talking to me?" I asked.

A squeaking sound came from the dark corner of my attic office. A tricycle slowly rolled into the circle of sparse light that illuminated my desk. It was Papa Smurf.

"I am Jigsaw. Your life is an empty shell."

"You're not Jigsaw! You're Papa Smurf!" I cried, frantically pinching my hand to wake up.

"I am--"

"You're Papa Smurf with large red targets painted on his beard." I pinched harder.

"I am here to help you face your fears. Of course, you may die in an extremely painful and gory way, but you will thank me in the end. If you survive."

"Okay, look, when Zombos said I needed to cover these midnight showings while he's away, he didn't mention shit like this." I gave up on pinching my hand. It hurt anyway. "Okay, I'll bite. What's the game?"

"Look at you; you are tired, overworked, and barely notice the richness of life around you. Your entire existence is now focused on only one thing. Blogging. How sad. To lose the gift of Twitter, of Facebook, and yes, even the gift of World of Warcraft, just so you can type away on that cold, hard laptop keyboard. Click, click, click, all day and well into the night. For what? You have lost touch with your inner self, Zoc, and those most important around you. I will help you find the way back--did I mention you may die horribly like a twisted pretzel, or maybe a ribcage deboner would be visually cool--back to your life that is waiting patiently for you, and the loved ones who miss you."

"Er, what's the catch?" I asked.

"The game is simple. Write the review. If I like it, you will live and have fame and fortune. If I don't like it, you will make like a corkscrew and go pop in a shower of crimson. Make your choice."

I always knew deep down that Papa Smurf was evil. I just didn’t know how much.

"Okay," I agreed. I must be dreaming, so what did I have to lose? I also vowed to give up either midnight showings of horror movies or drinking that fourth. I started typing on my cold, hard keyboard, and relived the horrors of Saw III.

 

Before you can nestle in your theater seat with your drink and popcorn, Saw III starts with a little game. Should the victim saw his foot off or just mash it down to a bright red pulp in order to slip it through his shackle. Let's see, you're a horror fan, what would you rather see? Oh, wait, sawing off a limb was done in the first Saw, wasn't it? No sense repeating that, then.

And before you can take a swig of Coke, and eat a handful of popped kernels, another game brings us to a room, a guy who is about to have a really bad day, and another set of chains, although these have large hooks at the ends. Bloody chunks should have been the tagline for this movie. You do get to see lots of them. Funny, but no one sitting around me in the theater--it was surprisingly packed for a midnight show--ever touched their  drinks or popcorn after that one.

The story--do you really care there’s a story linking all this gory carnage together?--revolves around two plotlines: Amanda (Shawnee Smith) is back with a vengeance as Jigsaw's eager apprentice, and a man must come to grips with the loss of his son, and the witness, judge, and killer involved with his son's tragic death. Director Darren Lynn Bousman moves between both stories, using a fair amount of woozy camera shots, dark lighting, and grainy, garish coloration to move characters through a succession of torture tableaus highlighting the devious, extremely unkind, and painfully realized Rube Golderg devices that come into play for unlucky victims.

Once Jeff (Angus Macfadyen) escapes into Jigsaw's maze, he must face the people he blames for his son’s death. Will he save them from horrible, painful deaths--and disappoint horror fans--or will he let them suffer and die gruesomely? Surprisingly, even knowing what must happen--this is a horror movie, after all--the tension is still palpable, the expectations still hopeful. Everyone’s acting sustains this suspense well as does the direction, although the woozy camera was used a bit much and diluted some scenes down to confusion.

As Jeff makes his way to salvation or damnation, Doctor Lynn (Bahar Soomekh) is kidnapped by Amanda. Good old Jigsaw (Tobin Bell, of course) is not doing so well. He needs a doctor. In one of the most gorily effective scenes I’ve seen, the doctor tackles his brain tumor with a few handy Home Depot tools lying around the old torture device workshop. I tried the old standby of closing my eyes, but Bousman put the foley (sound effects) guys into overtime with this scene. The squishy, ripping, sucking, pealing back the scalp, cutting the skull, and wrenching the bone fragment out audio accompaniment is the best use of disgusting sounds I’ve heard in a horror movie. Considering the stark, bloody chunky close-ups of pealed away skin and the drill bit going into his head—with close-up blood bubbles dribbling around the drill bit--this scene is one sustained gorefest treat.

Did I forget to mention Doctor Lynn is sporting a beautiful new shotgun shell collar, designed by Amanda? A bit showy, but definitely a party conversation starter (or ender, depending).  If Jigsaw dies, Doctor Lynn's head goes bang. If things weren’t bad enough Amanda is going off the deep end and Jigsaw is having trouble staying alive and keeping her in check. Woozy flashbacks tell the story of Amanda and how she came to be Jigsaw's apprentice.

 Jeff finally meets the man who killed his son, tidily stuffed into the Twister. His arms, legs, and head are locked into a 360 degree rotating armature. Guess what happens next? Will Jeff save him, or spend too much time thinking about what he should do while bones crack and muscles are twisted? While Jeff deals with his latest conundrum, the doctor and Jigsaw have a nice chat about suffering and murder. Tobin Bell is so convincing as Jigsaw he makes your hair stand on end. So self-righteous, so certain what he is doing is right; his character echoes the reality of extreme rationalization uncomfortably for us. In a twisting climax (pun intended), Jeff confronts Jigsaw, the doctor, and Amanda. Will he make the right choice? Will Jigsaw once again play his game too well? Exactly who is Jigsaw playing games with?

Saw III is hard horror. The midnight showing I attended was sold out. I'm not sure if that's a good thing for horror movie in general, but it certainly may bode well for Lionsgate and the franchise. The acting and scripting is done well enough, and the ever ingenious evolution of the main star of this franchise, the convoluted machine of death, is an unforgettable draw for the more sadistic--

"--Umhum." Papa Smurf Jigsaw cleared his throat.

--for the more gore-headed fans of the genre.

"Well," I said.

"It will do."

"So I win, then?"

"No."

"What? You said I would have fame and fortune!"

"Surely, John, you of all people should realize that you will have to wait."

"Wait? For what?" I asked.

"The sequel of course; there is always a sequel," said Papa Smurf as he and his tricycle squeaked back into the darkness.

"Noooooooo!"

The Magic of The Prestige (2006)

Like a well-performed routine of cups and balls, director Christopher Nolan and writer Jonathan Nolan manipulate the nonlinear twists and turns of Christopher Priest's novel, The Prestige, pausing here and there just long enough to make sure we are watching closely until the revelatory climax. Steampunk science-fiction merges with Victorian-era stage magic in this engaging story of rival magicians striving to upstage one another in a dangerously escalating battle of wits, secrets, and one-upmanship bravado.

Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman) and Alfred Borden's (Christian Bale) obsessions for their magical art, and for one teleportation illusion in particular--the Transported Man--provide the drama in this story set against the backdrop of turn-of-the-century London. Mingling the social horrors of workhouses--where little girls could be sent  for want of money and family--with the wonderment of stage magicians, the headliners of their day, performing their pseudo-scientific and preternatural miracles to the amazement and delight of their Industrialization-era audiences.

Angel's Blade Actor Jeb Toms

In the upcoming film, Angel's Blade (2008) a young girl is possessed by Mayan spirits. When she dies, the spirits live on, haunting a lonely stretch of road. A man finds that the spirits are responsible for the death of his wife. Unfortunately, the spirits have followed him home - and are now after his young son's soul. Actor Jeb Toms steps into the closet to talk about himself and his role in Angel's Blade.

John McCarty's Fearmakers

I met author John McCarty (Splatter Movies) at the recent Fangoria Weekend of Horrors Convention in New Jersey, where he showed clips from his documentary, Fearmakers.

I was interested by his determination to chronicle the  creative people who have made horror cinema a passion for horrorheads everywhere and asked him about it.

What led you to create the documentary, Fearmakers?

Around 1994 or so an editor at St. Martin’s Press approached me to do a book on the directors behind the cinema’s most enduring – i.e., classic – horror, SF, and suspense films. I called the book The Fearmakers and it profiled around twenty of them, from Benjamin Christensen to Stuart Gordon.

A year or so after The Fearmakers was published a Texas-based filmmaker with whom I was working on another book called The Sleaze Merchants suggested turning The Fearmakers into a television series. He got a Texas-based production company interested and we selected a baker’s dozen of the filmmakers profiled in the book for the episodes, and taped the series in 1996, interviewing actors, directors, film technicians, and so forth on both coasts. I served as on-camera host (a mistake I always believed) and narrator.

When the series was completed, it was shopped around, and sold well overseas, to Japan, the Middle East, France, Britain, etc, where each territory was able to substitute me with an on-camera host of their own speaking their own language. The series never received any domestic play in the States, and was never released on DVD here, probably because it lacked a “name” as host, even though the shows themselves were filled with name interviewees, from John Carpenter and Richard Matheson to Joe Dante and Stuart Gordon.

About a year ago, I contacted the production company in Texas and made a deal with them to take over the show and re-do it on my own, cutting them in on any domestic distribution deal I might make. I retained myself as narrator, but eliminated myself as on-camera host so as not to have a host at all. I’d always had a fondness for making films and not just writing about them, so I was not unfamiliar with the filmmaking and editing process. The digital realm had opened up a whole new world of possibilities for us would-be auteurs so I acquired some heavy-duty movie editing software programs and went to work, completely re-fashioning the baker’s dozen original episodes into the package of ten half-hour programs available now, which I am taking to market. It’s a labor of love, aimed squarely at us fans of the genre.

Closet Space's Mel House

Any movie with the word "closet" in the title holds a special place in our hearts. And Mel House, director of Closet Space, was kind enough to invite us into his closet to chat about his upcoming film.

What's Closet Space about and why should horrorheads see it?

Closet Space centers on five graduate students searching for their missing professor. At first they have no idea where the guy went to - he's just gone. When the students get out to the "site" (which is a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere), they discover a door that opens up onto a seemingly endless, lightless pocket dimension. The laws of nature and physics are merely the first layers to be peeled back and discarded as the group continues their inexhaustible search for their mentor—which leads them deep inside the ‘Closet Space.’ But…there are things that live inside the vast emptiness. Horrible, hungry things. With tentacles.

First of all, I think horror aficionados should check out Closet Space because I think we succeeded in making a dark and gruesome picture.  Too often these days you see people making horror flicks just to "cash in" or whatever, because the genre is a proven moneymaker. 

The people involved in Closet Space actually love the genre. It's not a joke to us. We are in this for the long haul. In addition, what we tried to do with Closet Space was make a low-budget horror movie...without all the trappings of low-budget horror moviemaking that you see so often these days. Every new horror flick on the shelves seems to be some 10th-generation slasher rip on Scream, or worse yet, a horror-comedy. Then, if you're suckered into a rental by some (probably misleading) box art, you get little to no delivery on the special effects front. Compounding that, what little FX gags you do get treated to are really, really bad CGI. Fortunately, just about all of our special FX on Closet Space were done practically (by the extremely talented guys at Oddtopsy FX), and what little digital stuff we have is being handled by Visual Odyssee, who are masters of their game.

Ghost of Mae Nak (2005)

ZC Rating 4 of 7: Very Good

In this Thai horror film, writer and director Mark Duffield updates the legend of Mae Nak, which many Thai people reverentially believe in, adds J-Horror makeup and shock-cuts, and ups the ante with a few well-choreographed gore stunts. The gore stunts rely less on bloody chunks and more on creative lighting, timing, and framing to deliver chilling tableaus of vengeance wrought by the ghost of Mae Nak when anyone gets in her way.

Along the way, Duffield maneuvers through the Thai cultural nuances of family and society to keep the story interesting for Western audiences not accustomed to seeing young people turn to elderly family members and Buddhist monks for help and guidance. In Western horror movies, it's usually your family and the authorities who either ignore your pleas for help, or try to kill you; so it's refreshing to see grandmothers who believe in ghosts and take you to blind seers for help. Duffield also tones down the exaggerated acting style common in Thai films, which lends more seriousness to the story.

Nak and Mak are soon-to-be newlyweds. Not only do they need to find a place to live fairly quickly, they also must cope with the usual pressures of work and doting families while preparing for their wedding in present day Bangkok. Mak is also coping with prescient nightmares regarding one disgruntled ghost with long black hair and a hole in her head big enough you could drive a bus through.

Interview With Ghost of Mae Nak's Mark Duffield

In your article in Asian Cult Cinema (No. 51), you mention the challenge of directing the film in the Thai language. What were the other cultural challenges you faced--as a Western writer and director--in making The Ghost of Mae Nak , a Thai language horror film?

Making Ghost of Mae Nak in Thailand as a Thai language horror film did bring about many challenges. The day before filming, the entire Ghost of Mae Nak cast and crew went to the Mae Nak shrine in Bangkok to give an offering and asked Mae Nak for permission to make a film about her. This is an actual shrine to Mae Nak where many Thai people ask for guidance and blessing. I felt she gave us her blessing as the filming went very smooth and it was a joy to direct.

Some members of the crew were superstitious about Mae Nak and would wear Buddhist amulets to protect themselves from her spirit. And the actress named ‘Cartoon' Pornthip Papanai who played the Ghost Of Mae Nak-- and the period Mae Nak-- would pray to her on set to ask her for permission and blessing before we shot the scene.

Communicating with cast and crew was difficult at first, but filmmaking is a slow process and we eventually learned to find ways of understanding. Of course I had translators, and there was the script, which was written in English and translated perfectly into Thai to work from. As a director I had to be precise about what I wanted and always double-checked the information was clearly conveyed. A film director is highly regarded in Thailand which also means it becomes a responsible role.

What is it about the legend of Mae Nak that inspired you to write and direct a movie about her? 

The idea for Ghost of Mae Nak came about when I first went to Thailand to work as a cinematographer for the British feature film Butterfly Man (later I was awarded Best Cinematographer at 2003 Slamdunk Film Festival Park City for my photography). While in Bangkok , I became fascinated with Thai legends and Ghost stories. I heard about an actual shrine at Wat Mahabut in the Prakahnong area that is devoted to a famous female ghost legend called Mae Nak (Mother Nak). The Mae Nak shrine is visited by hundreds of Thai people everyday who ask for blessing and guidance. I became more fascinated with the Mae Nak legend and her tragic love story.

I also discovered that there had been many films about her over the last 50 years. I watched the definitive Mae Nak period film called Nang Nak directed by Nonzi Nimiburt. This film concluded with the ‘evil' spirit of Mae Nak being held captive in a piece of bone cut from her forehead by an Exorcist Monk, and the bone was lost in time. It was here that I was inspired to write my script and continue the Mae Nak story.

In Thailand Mae Nak is a legend and there are many stories about her. A lot of people believe the legend to be true and the Monk who exorcised her did exist. The legend is as famous to Thailand as Dracula or Jack The Ripper is to the West.

Why do you think Mae Nak is so revered by many Thai people?

Many Thai people revere Mae Nak, because they believe she once lived and her spirit still lives on. Couples, who go to her shrine with offerings, ask for a favor or guidance. One of the most common requests is for Mae Nak to bless them with conception of a child and protection during the pregnancy. This is because Mae Nak is seen as a guardian Mother--that is why she is known as Mae (Mother) Nak.

The story of Mae Nak is also a tragic love story and about love that transcends death. This is also valued and it was an inspiration for me to tell her story.

Which directors inspire you the most and why?

Many filmmakers inspire me. Sometimes it is because I've seen a film that has an impact on me and triggers an emotional or creative inspiration. Then films that are related to a script I am writing inspire me. Since I write horror stories I watch a lot of horror films for inspiration. I would say ‘horror director's' who  inspire me are ones who have created a style, a language or an atmosphere that has defined horror and set a horror precedent.

Ridely Scott's Alien, John Carpenter's Halloween, Tobe Hooper's Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Robert Wise's The Haunting, Dario Argento's Suspiria, Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. Sam Rami's Evil Dead. These are just a few.

While the Final Destination-styled denouements of several bad characters in the film are quite imaginative, two stand out in my mind: Mr. Tock's untimely run-in with fire and that nasty sheet glass incident with the seedy house attendant. Can you tell us more about the choreography and logistics involved in setting those terrific stunt effects up?

Mr.Tock's death by immolation or “Death by Chicken Barbecue” as we called it, took a lot of planning. It had three stages. First Tock falls backwards after seeing the Ghost, in to a large pan of boiling oil. Scolding and boiling he runs out into the path of a TukTuk taxi and is hit by it which sends him hurtling into a large chicken barbecue rack where he is impaled and bursts into flames.

First we had to design a Chicken barbecue big enough for a man to fall on. I came up with the concept and the Production designer drew up a blueprint that was then passed onto a metalworks company to physically build it. It was quite sophisticated because it had to work and rotate 8 chickens on metal skewers over a real flame. The skewers had to be ‘break-away' so the stuntman could fall on them. The effects company First Ideas created them. The stunt company Baan Rig provided a brave stuntman who would be completely set on fire. The fire stunt was handled with great care and caution with Hollywood supplied fire retardants and protective clothing and an ambulance on stand-by. It took a whole day to film that sequence at the actual market square, and it attracted a huge crowd who patiently watched and applauded.

A falling sheet of glass or “Death by Dissection” kills Mr. Ant, the seedy house attendant. This too required a lot of planning. We filmed this at the Tobacco Studios backlot where we built a street set lined with market stalls and traffic.

Nirun Changklang, the actor who played Ant, first had to visit the effects company First Ideas to have a full life-size cast of his entire body in latex made. The authentic looking body-cast was literally sliced in half from his head through to his groin and then joined back together with a hinge.

On set, Baan Rig wired up the two large sheets of glass (Plexiglas) to fall on cue. The life-size Ant figure was treated like a giant puppet with wirework to support him and control the split. Later the CGI effects company Digital Lab would enhance this with computer generated wire removal and digital blood. The scene also required a stunt vehicle and driver for the screeching bus, stunt extras to jump out of the way, a trained dog to pick up Ant's severed arm, and a bucket full of animal offal to add grossness to the “Grand Guignol” scene. The Ghost of Mae Nak DVD will feature my Director's Video Diary as an extra that will visually show how the death scenes were filmed as well as the day-to-day film making process.

What will be your next film in horror cinema?

I am writing an exciting new horror script set in the US in English language. I do have several other spec horror scripts I have written and I am also rewriting or fine-tuning them. This is something I always do with my scripts until they get made. I do have a new Thai/Asian horror script, but with Western characters and English language, it's a great idea. I am keen to develop my passion for horror/fantasy films. I have some great, original ideas, however I'm afraid I don't want to reveal anything about my scripts as yet, but I will keep you posted.

Finally, what question have you been dying to be asked, but no one has asked yet? And what's your answer?

I guess the question I would like to be asked is to describe the type of writer/director I am?

As a writer/director, I feel I am drawn to explore darker stories with adult themes in the horror and fantasy film genre. As a writer I love researching the subject for a new script. I become possessed with wanting to know as much as I can about the subject. This involves reading biographies, historical literature, or any related source of information I can acquire. I also watch a lot of films or documentaries, especially horror based, as I mainly write horror. Writing a script takes a lot of energy and requires a strict discipline but can be very exhilarating.

As a Director, I feel I am a well-organized, calm director, with plenty of planning, but I also like to allow for the unpredictable ‘cinematic' moments. I have loved horror films from an early age and aspire to direct a horror film that would become a classic. Some of my favorites are; The Changeling , Stir Of Echoes , The Shinning, The Exorcist, Suspiria, The Haunting, Candy Man, Final Destination, and The Omen.

Finally, I would like to thank Zombos' Closet for showing interest in the Ghost of Mae Nak and myself as writer and director. I would like to thank the fans of Ghost of Mae Nak. I appreciate your support. And for those who have not seen it, then I hope you will give the GHOST a chance and allow yourself to be taken on a ghostly thrill in Bangkok, Thailand and discover a true Thai legend.

LovecraCKed's Elias Talks

Biff Juggernaut Production's Elias steps into the closet to talk about himself and about his film, LovecraCKed! The Movie. Taking nine aspiring and very independent directors, combining them with a loose theme of Lovecraftian shenanigans, and looping it together with a slightly unpolished reporter just trying to do a story can be quite a challenge.

What turned you on to the horror scene?

When I was a teenager I got a job at a movie theater where I became friends with an extremely talented fellow by the name of Chad Bernhard who is also the frontman for the band, THINGS OUTSIDE THE SKIN, and a frequent collaborator on BiFF JUGGERNAUT productions. He also was and continues to be a raving horror nut, and he introduced me to the likes of Carpenter, Raimi, Jackson, and Romero to name a few. It didn't take long before I was completely suckered in.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006)

ZC Rating 4 of 7: Very Good

In the cinema of the helpless, Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning reaches a new benchmark in unrelenting, stinking-bloody-abattoir-of-pain, horror. I winced at the slimy grimy blood-soaked chaos in Speak No Evil; and I squirmed in my seat during the guest suite scenes in Hostel. But I became physically ill while watching the particularly nightmarish scene in the basement, where Leatherface methodically, silently, carves a Thanksgiving turkey--except it was not a turkey he was carving up and it wasn't a day to be thankful for.

Perhaps the grainy hand-held camera scenes and tight close-ups in the film made me a little queasy to begin with. Or perhaps it was the way the camera lingers while dark, syrupy blood pours from mangled bodies, soaking into the ground, into the carpeting. I wondered how they were going to get those stains out of the carpet. They are the Hewitt family; an insane bunch of cannibalistic rednecks always playing with their dinner. I wondered if they cared about the stains at all.

It is 1969. Two friends are taking one long, slow trip to the war in Vietnam by way of Texas. Along for the ride are their girlfriends, a few desires, and impending doom. The Hewitt family has been going through a series of setbacks as their town and way of life disintegrates around them. The meat packing plant, the town's primary source of jobs is shut down and townsfolk have nowhere else to go but away. The Hewitts refuse to leave, and young--and really huge for his age--Tommy (Andrew Bryniarski), their disfigured and misfit adopted son, refuses to stop pounding and slicing meat, whether bovine or two-legged kind.

When told he has to leave the meat packing plant, he expresses his unhappiness by wielding a sledge hammer in a brutal scene of shattered bones, muscle, and skull. Young Tommy has found a new hobby.