That’s right, this week you get a double dose of podcasts from us here at Where the Long Tail Ends. James and I have been mentioning for sometime that we wanted to watch and review the 70’s throwback horror film The House of the Devil, but do to our busy schedules we never had the chance to get together. But finally, finally, we were able to get enough free time to sit down and have an in depth and spoiler filled discussion about this interesting film.
Also, big thanks to Craig Varian of 400 Lonely Things (whom I interviewed at this year’s Flyway Film Festival) who was nice enough to give me a copy of his latest album Tonight of the Living Dead, an album composed entirely from the soundtrack to the the landmark horror film Night of the Living Dead. And since The House of the Devil uses an interesting technique involving clips of Night of the Living Dead to help show the passage of time in the film, it seemed only fitting to use one of the songs from Tonight of the Living Dead to close out the show. I can’t speak highly enough about the album, so be sure to check out the 400 Lonely Things website and get yourself a copy of it for yourself.
As the latest Twilight fan-fic opens nationwide, it seems only fitting that I finally get around to writing something about a South Korean vampire film I watched a few weeks ago at The Uptown Theatre. Now most people know director Park Chan-wook for his Vengeance trilogy (Sympathy for Mr Vengeance, Oldboy and Lady Vengeance) or possibly for his segment from the horror film Three Extremes making him one of the better known foreign language film makers in the US. So when I heard he’d be making a vampire film, I was excited at the possibilities, but I got something I never expected.
Thirst follows the story of a priest who undergoes an experimental treatment, during the course of which a blood transfusion transforms him into a vampire. Soon he discovers that if he doesn’t feed, that his disease will return, thus he must soon abandon his morality in order to survive. But that is scarcely his furthest fall.
You see, our priest has a secret, he’s in love with his friend’s wife. And his hunger isn’t simply for blood, but for other things just as carnal. Thus, our intrepid hero must slowly abandon his faith in order to satiate his growing desires. And that’s when Thirst truly blossoms into a modern masterpiece of film making.
While Thirst is a morality play to be sure, and it is full of horror elements, at its heart it is a romance, though a very twisted and dysfunctional one to be sure. As our priest falls deeper in love with the woman of his desires, he makes a rather foolish step that propels the two of them into an unending struggle for dominance of their lives, their relationship and of their hunger.
Following in the footsteps of last year’s outstanding vampire film Let the Right One In, Thirst creates complex and realistic characters that are thrust into worlds they can scarcely imagine let alone control, try as they might. These are people with faults and flaws, and simply craving the taste of blood won’t change that, but it just might amplify their flaws. Thirst simply isn’t just the best vampire movie of the year, its one of the year’s best movies, period.
Some quick backstory before the interview, Craig and his recording partner Phil Harrell were roommates during the Flyway Film Festival with Film Junk’s Jay Cheel. We ended up having dinner together on Friday night before the screenings of the opening night films. So it should come as no surprise that the four of us spent the dinner talking about horror films. After that evening, I knew I wanted to get an interview with Craig so he could talk about his rather fascinating concept album Tonight of the Living Dead.
Using only a public domain copy of the film Night of the Living Dead that he downloaded from Archive.org he remixed the score of the film into a wholly new album. Then, he collaborated with Phil to do the same with the visuals of the film. What’s fascinating is that Craig and Phil did this entirely online. Even more amazing? That they had never met in person until they both attended the Flyway Film Festival.
I’m not anti-remake by any means, in fact I rather enjoy them quite a bit, but it would be nice if Hollywood took a bit more care in just which films they chose to remake. Texas Chainsaw Massacre is one that comes easily to mind, as the original is perhaps a perfect film, and the remake doesn’t seemingly intend to do anything other then tone down the weirdness and ramp up the gore.
I also don’t mind if people take a signature film and attempt to re-imagine it or put their own spin on the material. Take iconic fare like The Wizard of Oz, which has been remade at least 5 times by my count. Even the Judy Garland version was at least 4 tries in. Making it a bit difficult for purists to make a decent argument for one and done film making.
But what I enjoy most are when Hollywood takes lesser known films, or even films that were high on ideas but low on quality production and pump some much needed money and exposure towards them as they come up with a new take on the film. George Romero might have come up with a pretty nifty concept for the original The Crazies, but the film is far from perfect, and not much closer to even being decent. The remake looks like a hop, skip and a jump in the right direction, and it looks like it might be one of the rare recent Hollywood horror films to squarely hit its mark.
I woke up this morning hoping that the first show of the day for Pandorum would be at noon as last night I screened Ichi for those of us stuck working and who were unable to watch the film during its screening. Because of that I didn’t get home until 3am, and since the print needed to be shipped out by noon today I was hoping I’d be able to get at least a few hours of sleep before heading out to the movie. But alas, AMC made sure to have the first show of the day at 110:45 am (thus ensuring a sparse crowd for the only matinee show of the day) and meaning I had to get up at 9am so that I could be at work and have the print broken down in time for me to make it to the screening. Not exactly the choicest way to view a movie, but I made it so I don’t have too many regrets.
Oddly enough Pandorum, despite the interesting trailers, was not screened for critics and has been released with little fanfare. This seems a bit curious as the film looked like it might be a nice sci-fi styled horror film and the production values alone looked impressive enough that they would draw people if even the tiniest bit of effort was put into publicizing the film.
The good news is the films visuals are stunning, the set designs are fantastic and the creatures roaming the ship are grotesquely amazing. Along with those we have some decent camera work and a solid performance by Ben Foster and a truly chilling one by relative newcomer Cam Gigandet.
That all being said, Pandorum has some serious pacing issues and it is particularly bloated in the middle of the film when the plot doesn’t quite seem to know where to go so to cover that up everyone runs around in circles on the ship for a half hour from one scene of expository dialogue to the next before they finally decide that things are much worse then they realized and they need to be fixed as soon as possible.
Luckily, Pandorum rights itself in its final act and gamely recovers from whatever pacing issues it might have been struggling with to pull off a pretty fun and somewhat inventive conclusion that seems to make the whole thing more then worth your time. Its far from a perfect movie, but it certain isn’t because of a lack of effort.
That’s right, this week you get a double dose of podcasts from us here at Where the Long Tail Ends. James and I have been mentioning for sometime that we wanted to watch and review the 70’s throwback horror film The House of the Devil, but do to our busy schedules we never had the chance to get together. But finally, finally, we were able to get enough free time to sit down and have an in depth and spoiler filled discussion about this interesting film. 
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