Director: Stephen Earnhardt
Cast: Beanie Andrew, Miss Jeannie, Larry Parrot
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Mule Skinner Blues proudly bills itself as a story about a man with a gorilla and a dream. The gorilla is actually a cheap costume and the dream is to make a horror film. As an avid fan of both “filmmaking” and “redneck” documentaries, I knew I had to check it out. How can you go wrong with a documentary about trailer park denizens making a horror movie with a ratty gorilla suit?

This project began when music video producer Stephen Earnhardt was in Jacksonville, Florida recruiting extras for a Jim White video. One of the extras was an eccentric old man named Beanie Andrews. Beanie was a singing, dancing, kazoo-playing kook who happened to have a cool old car.  He was glad to put his talents to use in the music video, but this small taste of show business made him want more.

After the film crew was long gone, Beanie got his hands on a video camera and began documenting the residents of his trailer park. He sent these tapes to Earnhardt and they established a correspondence. This correspondence resulted in Earnhardt returning to Jacksonville with a camera crew to help Beanie produce a no-budget horror flick called Turnabout is Fair Play. The film being produced is an E.C. Comics inspired piece of hokum about a murdered blues musician who turns into an ape on a quest to find his severed arm.

Beanie enlists the talents of several of his trailer park comrades who simply have to be seen to be believed. Beanie crew includes: a timid horror fanatic with a mail order bride; an elderly lounge singer who hopes her song “DUI Blues” will be her ticket to the big-time; a loony costume designer who keeps her dead dog on ice. There are also a couple of alcoholic guitar players and chicks with bad dental work involved in the production.

The first two thirds of the film that deal with the creation of the film are a lot of fun. Beanie’s strange charisma and obsession with bringing his vision of “a gorilla rising from the muck” are priceless. As strange and misguided as these people are, there’s something compelling about them. There’s also something about the filmmaking process and the way it throws very different people together in a high pressure situation that will always be interesting.

As the film enters it’s final third, it takes a sharp turn into much harsher and even poignant territory. Basically, a series of tragedies halt the production of the film and send Beanie spiralling into an alcoholic depression that leaves him living in a dirty mattress in the woods. The strange little group of people that he brought together have disbanded and found their own serious problems to deal with. When Earnhardt and his crew return, they find that a lot has changed since production shut down on the little horror film.

Finally, with much post-production help from Earnhardt, Turnabout Is Fair Play is completed. You won’t be surprised to learn that it sucks… however, it doesn’t matter. The screening brings together the friends and enemies that comprised the crew of the film. The finished project, has a powerful, maybe even healing impact on all of them.

Ultimately, Mule Skinner Blues rises about other classics of the redneck genre like Jessco the Dancing Outlaw and Heavy Metal Parking Lot. It becomes a lot more than an excuse to laugh at rednecks. Instead, it makes a powerful statement about the redemptive power of creativity. These people with all their weaknesses and flaws, just want to “rise out of the muck” and create something meaningful… and that’s nothing to laugh at.

Review by Christopher Sharpe.

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How do you remake one of the scariest movies of all time? Gus Van Sant tried it with Psycho failed miserably. On the other hand, Tom Savini did it with Night of the Living Dead and improved upon the original. Marcus Nispel’s (okay, let’s admit it—Michael Bay’s) remake of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre kind of falls somewhere in-between. In some ways, it’s better than the original, but in many ways, it’s also kind of unnecessary.

Tobe Hooper’s original Texas Chainsaw Massacre is one of the movies where the title inspires more memories than the actual film does. Sure everyone remembers Leatherface dancing around the morning sun at the climax, but few remember that the film has little to no gore. What made the original scary was it’s sweltering, Texas-summer atmosphere and it’s grainy, documentary amateur style that captured brutality at it’s most bizarre. Even the infamous sledge-hammer to the head is relatively tame compared by today’s standards.

This imagined swirl of memories seems to be the basis for the remake. Well, the film claims to be a remake, but it holds on to so little of the original, it might as well be called a “re-imagining”, much like what Tim Burton called his Planet of the Apes remake. Sure it still takes place in Texas, has a van load of irritating teens and Leatherface is still a monstrous, scary-as-hell beast, but it pretty much changes everything else.

The films opens with John Larroquette—Dan from Night Court!-- reprising his narrator role in a vocal cameo over archival footage of the crime scene. This opening sequence is quite good and sets a pretty atmospheric (or at least, an attempt to capture the atmosphere of the original), desolate Texas tone-you actually feel the sweat drip of your temples. To the strains of “Sweet Home Alabama” we meet our requisite annoying teens: the drug-dealing, uber-cool boyfriend; the strong female lead; the boyfriend’s dumb friend; a slutty hitchhiker and the nerd who is looks like Matt Stone, spits when he talks and is every bit as annoying as the wheelchair bound Franklin from the original.

The kids pick up a woman on the side of the road, who apparently has just been in the middle of some ordeal. An ordeal so bad that when they try to take her back to town, she pulls a gun out of her bloody vagina and blows her brains out-and the graphic gore starts! This is the source of much comedy as the kids drive back to town to find a place to report the body. They end up in this creepy-***censored*** diner (that looks like a set piece from a Nine inch Nails video) and are sent on a wild-goose chase to find the sheriff. Eventually, they’re split into to groups: the ones who stay at the van and the ones who go exploring.

The ones who go exploring wind up at the house of an invalid with a messy catheter. The ones who stay at the van meet with the sheriff (R. Lee Ermey, stealing the show as usual) who get the best lines of the film as he’s wraps the corpse in Saran Wrap. Meanwhile, the boyfriend gets his head smashed in by Leatherface.

At this point, the film becomes pretty much one long chase scene, as the remaining kids are offed one by one as they encounter one disturbingly bizarre inbred character after another. While there is one particularly nerve-wrackingly scary scene (where the sheriff corners the kids and forces one of them to recreate the crime scene), the film becomes pretty tedious, and almost interminably dull for the last 30 minutes. I was fighting as hard as Jessica Biel against Leatherface to stay awake. I nodded off twice.

The main problem with TCM is that it’s very easy to become desensitized and bored with all the carnage. Once you see one hacked off limb or fly-covered pig corpse, you’ve pretty much seen them all. This may be why the original film retains so much of it’s power. I know I may be sounding like an old man who says “movies were just better back then”, but perhaps what made the original so mind-bendingly horrifying was that it did leave more to the imagination. Sure modern audiences may disagree, but I just get sleepy.

With the exception of Ermey (who’s on a roll with this and the under-rated remake of Willard under his belt), the only other actor of note is 7th Heaven refugee Jessica Biel, who proves sure she can scream, but really she’s just all boob and no talent. The guy who plays Leatherface (does his name matter?) is huge, hulking, menacing and can run with a chainsaw through the woods. That’s all that character needs and it’s delivered in spades.

(On a sidenote, the TCM purists who were enraged that this guy could never replace Gunnar Hansen, the original Leatherface, reminds me of the fanboys who were upset when Kane Hodder was replaced as Jason in Freddy vs. Jason? Seriously guys-does it matter who plays Jason or Michael Myers or Leatherface? No acting is required. Just be some slightly fat hulk and wear a mask. Make sure you can sling a blade. I can do that… where’s my audition?)

After it was all said and done, I have to say I was kind of disappointed. I guess I was just expecting more. It’s not a bad film-it’s worth a look. It looks great and the first hour is excellent. It’s just those last 30-45 minutes where it becomes just like every other mainstream horror film of the past 15 years-screaming teens on the run.

I’ll tell you what: don’t go in there expecting a brilliant, post-modern revisualization of a classic, but an above-average teen horror film with a familiar (Leather)face, and I think you’ll be OK.

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Louis Fowler is a frequent contributor to Cinema Eye and Hitch Magazine. He is also the publisher of Damaged Magazine, a new issue of which is coming soon.

Tobe Hooper’s original Chainsaw really disturbed me the first and only time I saw it. Part 2 was easier to stomach. Never saw the third one. And the less said about The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation, the better. But the Michael Bay-produced remake isn’t half-bad. Of course, this means it’s only half-good, too.

With a nod to the original by having John Larroquette again serve as narrator, this Chainsaw begins with five young, horny and weed-high Texans en route to a Lynyrd Skynryd concert. After almost hitting a girl on the side of the road, they give her a ride; she blubbers on about “they’re all dead” and then promptly puts a bullet through her brain. In trying to report the death, the group comes across the Hewitt home in a desolate, overgrown field, housing a bizarre clan of miscreants and mischief-makers, not the least of which is Leatherface, the hulking, power-tool-wielding killer who sews himself masks from his victims’ skin in his spare time. (He’s also got Internet gnome Harry Knowles’ disembodied head in his basement lair; I got a sadistic glee out of seeing this while simultaneously hating the movie for sucking up to him.)

Full Metal Jacket’s R. Lee Ermey steals the show as a squirrel-eyebrowed sheriff (or is he?) with one hell of a mean streak. As the only likeable character among the completely annoying and disposable teens (for my money, they aren’t impaled on meathooks fast enough), 7th Heaven’s Jessica Biel has the Marilyn Burns role as the lone survivor of the slaughter; with the modern-day twist, however, she somehow turns from screaming crybaby to courageous ***censored***-kicker in Act III. But since she makes said transformation all in a clingy and increasingly damp tank top, I don’t mind so much.

What I did mind was the quick-cut, rapid-fire editing – a Bay trademark – that dilutes the horror; those shots of the ‘saw slicing through people’s limbs might be scary if they actually appeared onscreen long enough to register. That said, there’s plenty of vomit and viscera for the film to wallow in, and its brutality and nihilism grow tiresome, as does the running time with a drawn-out conclusion that has half a dozen endings.

After being fired from End of Days and S.W.A.T., it’s nice to see Marcus Nispel finally make his directorial debut, and the washed-out look he brings to the film is welcome. Unfortunately, the rotted colors also reflect Chainsaw’s staleness. There are no new ideas or innovations to elevate this above average. At least it’s not an embarrassment to the original’s enduring legacy – that’d be the aforementioned Part 4.

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Rod Lott is the publisher of Hitch Magazine: The Journal of Pop Culture Absurdity.

When hated director Michael Bay announced plans to produce a remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, horror fans were aghast. After all, the original film has rightly earned a place for itself among the true horror classics. Its sun-bleached cinematography, exhausted actors and gritty documentary-like directing still pack a powerful punch.  A couple of uninspired sequels and the mind-numbingly horrible Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation only added to the feeling that the chainsaw should probably stay on the shelf.

But with Michael Bay producing, the project was fast-tracked and the collective bitching and moaning of all the horror fans on the internet wasn’t about to derail it. Now that the film has been released, we can separate it from all the hooplah and attempt to judge it on it’s own merits.

The basics of the story remain pretty much the same. Five kids are driving across Texas with two pounds of weed they have apparently smuggled in from Mexico. Appropriately enough, they are headed for a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert. A chance encounter with a suicidal hitch-hiker leads them into a brutal encounter with a psychotic clan of butchers.

The first hour of the film is absolutely riveting. There is an ominous sense of dread that pervades the film and it steadily builds as we meet more of the psychotic redneck characters. The rural Texas atmosphere is very creepy and unsettling. And once the tension has built to a feverish pitch, the violence starts, and it is very, very brutal.

While the basic concept storyline and concept remain true to the original, director Marcus Nispel and screenwriter Scott Kosar add some substantial embellishments to Leatherface lore. I won’t spoil them here, but prepare yourself for a Darth Vader style unmasking. For the most part, these additions are interesting, but after a point they only diminish the raw horror the character possessed in the original.  Unfortunately, as it enters it’s third act it quickly becomes a pretty standard girl monster chasing a pretty girl type of movie.

Thankfully, the pretty girl getting chased around is Jessica Bihl, clad in the best pair of jeans ever put on celluloid and a white tank-top that is drenched for most of the movie. In addition to the physical attributes Biel brings to the role, she does a great job as a traumatized girl watching her friends get hacked to bits.

The other highlight of the cast is R. Lee Ermey as a sadistic and depraved local sheriff. The Sheriff may actually be the most menacing character in the movie and Ermey takes to the role with great relish.

Visually, Nispel has made the interesting choice of avoiding the gritty realistic style of the original in favor of a slick style that looks a lot like a (surprise, surprise) Michael Bay film.  The slick cinematography actually works very well and the film is beautiful to look at. Nispel has also toned down the cannibalistic decor in favor of a more realistically creepy white trash type of decay.

In the end, this is easily the best Chainsaw movie since the original, and it does nothing to harm the reputation of that film. The filmmakers have approached the film with an appropriate amount of reverence and seriousness while adding their own spin to the storyline. All you horror fans can just relax and be happy that mainstream Hollywood is actually releasing such an intense, violent and non-campy horror film.

Reviewed by Christopher Sharpe.

Con-man movies will never go out of style. There’s something that will always be appealing about street-smart that can earn a living by outwitting un-likeable marks.

Confidence brings us not just a single con-man, but an entire team of con-artists that move around the country perpetrating elaborate scams. The team is led by the too-smooth and too-confident Jake Vig, played by Edward Burns. We meet Jake and his team as they are scamming a greasy accountant out of $150 grand. Unfortunately, the accountant and the stolen money belong to a notorious crime lord nicknamed the King. Jake realizes that both he and his gang are dead men if they don’t make thiings right, so he arranges a meeting.

The meeting takes place The King’s strip club while he auditions a sister-on-sister strip act while simultaneously trying to snuggle up and hold hands with Jake. The King is played by Dustin Hoffman, in full blown scruffy-rat-faced-hyperactive freak mode. Jake agrees to work a grift for King in order to pay back what he owes him. Of course, nothing is really what it seems and everybody is working a complicated grift on everybody else. The double-crosses and hidden agendas just keep building until you just give up trying to figure it.

The movie would be infinitely more compelling if the characters were developed beyond cookie cutter stereotypes.  It’s ***censored*** near impossible to root for the mumble-voiced Edward Burns as the protagonist. He’s just too arrogant, too smug and too girly-faced. The rest of the characters fall into easy stereotypes: the corrupt cops, the pretty girl, the fat guy with a heart of gold, the grizzled federal agent, the big black guy, etc.

The highlights of the cast are Rachel Weisz as a beautiful and mysterious pickpocket and Paul Giamatti as a grifter with a phobia about unclean toilets. Neither is given much to do, but both actors do their best with the limited material. Weisz’s character seems implausibly added to the story line just to add some sex appeal. It seems highly illogical that you would pick a random albeit attractive pickpocket to join your highly-experienced crew on a very important job.

However, that would only be illogical if this movie took place in something that remotely resembled the real world. Instead, Confidence seems like it was shot from a tenth-generation copy of a David Mamet script with some mid-90’s Tarantino flourishes added for seasoning. The movie is even presented with a fractured time-line which opens with the Jake Vig character apparently dead, although definitely alive enough to narrate the movie and break the fourth wall when necessary.

With it’s bright neon lighting, slick cinematography and uninspired script, Confidence feels like the product of some rich white guys who have watched too much film noir and fantasize about living the gangsta lifestyle. The film is mildly entertaining because it hints that it has the potential to develop into something pretty cool, but it never does. When the movie is over, your are left with an elaborate trick, thin characters and an unsatisfied feeling. Confidence works as a temporary diversion with some nice performances, but ultimately falls flat.

Reviewed by Christopher Sharpe.

DVD DETAILS
Director commentary
Writer commentary
Cast commentary
Sundance Channel Presents “Anatomy of a Scene”
Music videos
Widescreen anamorphic format

CREDITS
Directed by James Foley
Written by Doug Jung
A Lions Gate Films release
Running time: 1:38.
MPAA rating: R
Starring: Edward Burns, Rachel Weisz, Andy Garcia, Dustin Hoffman, Paul Giamatti, Donal Logue, Luis Guzman