At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul introduces one of the greatest cinematic villains of all time. Forget Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees and Hannibal Lector. Coffin Joe could teach them all a thing or two.

Coffin Joe is the creation of Brazilian director José Mojica Marins. Marins not only writes and directs but plays the Coffin Joe character. At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul is the first Coffin Joe film and it’s very low-budget. However, there is an energy and power to this film that is visible to this very day. The film was a tremendous success in Brazil at the time, even though it never appeared in U.S. theaters. Something Weird released the Coffin Joe films on VHS a few years ago, but now they are finally being released on DVD.

When we first meet Coffin Joe he is still a mortal human and lacks the supernatural powers he gains in later films.  He works as an undertaker in a small Brazilian town. The superstitious townspeople aren’t sure what to think about him. He is definitely a strange-looking character, even for an undertaker, always dressing in a black suit, top hat and cape. A black beard, bushy uni-brow and long claw-like fingernails only accentuate his weirdness.

Apparently the townspeople tolerate Joe, they just speak in hushed voices when he is around. Then one Good Friday, Joe decides he wants to eat some meat, which is apparently very taboo for Brazilian Catholics. Joe doesn’t care. He sits in his window eating a huge leg of lamb and laughing and the church people as they pass by him. The expressions of the shocked churchgoers only goad Joe on further.

Joe’s delight at tormenting the religious townspeople is one of the most entertaining parts of the film. As we learn in his spoken introduction to the movie, Joe doesn’t believe in ANYTHING. Not God. Not Satan. He believes that life is the beginning of death and that’s pretty much it. So he’s not scared to go around tormenting the poor townspeople, flirting with their women, forcing them to take a bite of his lamb leg on Good Friday and beating the crap out of anybody who gets in his way.

Since everybody is afraid of Joe, they don’t rat him out to the authorities. Not even when he cuts a guys fingers off with a broken wine bottle. Joe is the biggest bully in town, but he’s got one problem. His wife can’t get pregnant. Joe is anguished that his bloodline will not continue and what good is a woman if she can’t bear a child. So he takes the most rational course of action. He drugs his wife and lets a poisonous tarantula bite her so that it looks like an accident.

Then he sets his sights on the homely looking Terezhina, who apparently is the most beautiful girl in the world to Coffin Joe. The problem is that Terezhina is engaged to Joe’s best friend. So Joe murders his best friend and rapes Terezhina.  It looks like Joe’s bloodline will continue until Terezhina kills herself and vows to kill Joe from beyond the grave. That’s where the real fun begins!

Marins is positively electric to watch. Coffin Joe is so cocky, so aggressive and so filled with bad intentions that he can barely contain himself. His lips quiver and his eyes practically bug out of his head as he contemplates his evil deeds. And when he gets pissed off, Marins uses a quick dissolve to show Joes eyes suddenly going bloodshot. It’s a little hokey, but pretty ***censored*** cool even to this day.

Watching this film, it becomes clear how far ahead of his time Marins really was. A lot of it is very dated, but there are still elements that are very effective today. The black and white cinematography is actually very good. Marins uses heavy shadows to set an oppressive mood, while doing his best to hide the cheapness of his tiny ramshackle sets. Some of the optical effects are pretty shaky, even in this DVD transfer, but they actually enhanced my enjoyment of the movie. There is even a sequence where Marins glued glitter to each frame of film in order to illuminate a ghost. It looks pretty goofy but it is still great fun to see this kind of shoestring ingenuity.

If you’re a fan of international horror films or experimental cinema in general, you will find a lot to enjoy here. Long live Coffin Joe!

Buy it at Amazon.com!

Rent DVDs Online from Netflix - Try it for FREE!

Dickie Roberts:Former Child Star opens as an episode of an E:True Hollywood Story mockumentary. We learn of how young Dickie Roberts became a household name as part of a Brady Bunch-esque sitcom. But as all True Hollywood stories have a tendency to do, this one ends with Dickie down and out and descending into Corey Feldman-esque strangeness (i.e. wearing gloves 24 hours a day and changing his name to “David Soul’s Son").

When the prologue is over and the opening credits roll, we are treated to a Celebrity Boxing match with a grown-up Dickie getting the hell beat out of him by an enraged Emmanuelle Lewis. By the time he gets back to Hollywood, his girlfriend has ditched him, his car is destroyed and his picture is on the cover of every tabloid emblazoned with headlines about how he is Webster’s ***censored***.

With an opening like that, it’s hard not to have high hopes for the rest of the movie. Dickie Roberts shows a lot of promise in it’s first act while it is depicting the world of washed up former stars living in the seedy, desperate gutters of Hollywood. However, in order to get a role in an upcoming Rob Reiner movie, Dickie decides he needs to hire a family, so that he can learn how to be a “real” person. He finds a typical middle-class white bread family and moves in with them. Unfortunately, once Dickie movies to the suburbs, the film quickly deteriorates into saccharine sweet feel good pap.

Basically wacky suburban hijinx ensue, with Dickie learning important life lessons while teaching the kids how to do dance routines and outwit bullies. There are some very funny moments scattered throughout, including a great scene featuring a dead rabbit, but the movie could have been a lot funnier. Instead of making us laugh as hard as possible, Dickie Roberts would rather make us feel warm and fuzzy. It’s this decision to go for schmaltz that makes the movie just as pointless as the sitcoms it satirizes in it’s opening act.

The movie is entertaining and well-made. David Spade is appealing and funny in the latest variation of his scrawny loser everybody hates character. John Lovitz is the highlight of the supporting cast as the agent who is willing to sell a kidney to get his client a role. There is also dozens of notable cameos including Brendan Fraser, Rob Reiner, Screech, Greg Brady, Corey Feldman and Emmanuelle Lewis just to name a few. 

The real highlight of the movie doesn’t happen until the credits start to roll. A group of former child starts gather together to sing a “We are the World” style anthem. The song is funny and sung with a lot of feeling. There’s something almost surreal about watching these aging versions of the little kids you used to watch on television. Most of your favorites are probably here, including a little over half of the Brady Bunch, Arnold and Willis from Diffrent Strokes and Ernie from Three’s Company. And if you were every wondering what happened to Corey Haim, just look for the pasty-faced Michael Myers look-a-like. Creepy!

Director: Sam Weisman
Screenwriter: Fred Wolf, David Spade
Starring: David Spade, Alyssa Milano, Jon Lovitz

Director: Stephen Frears
Starring: Chjwetel Ejiofor, Audrey Tautou

SYNOPSIS:
Okwe (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is an illegal immigrant in London, working hard at two jobs just to scrape by. He chews on illegal herbs to stay awake. By day he drives a cab. At night he is a porter at a hotel. He rents a couch in the tiny apartment of another immigrant, Senay (Audrey Tautou). One night, his carefully maintained routine is shattered when he discovers a human heart clogging the drain of a toilet at the hotel. His discovery sets into motion a chain of events that will test his character and force him to come to grips with his mysterious past.

REVIEW:
Director Stephen Frears has made some very interesting films spanning a variety of genres. He always hits pretty close to his mark. This time he hits it dead on. Dirty Pretty Things is a tense thriller, filled with real people we care about and set in a vividly realistic environment. London’s underworld is depicted as a vibrant network of beat-up people forced to rely on each other in order to survive. Frears throws us into this world with little explanation and forces us to figure it out as the story movies along.

Frears deftly handles the social commentary aspect which could have easily ruined this film. Since the film is set in the underground world of illegal immigrants, Frears could have taken the easy way out and used melodramatic techniques to make us feel sorry for these poor people. However, instead of depicting the characters as things to be pitied, Frears depicts them as hard-working, resilient people with a humanistic optimism for life.

This tough resiliency is epitomised in Okwe. I haven’t seen Chiwetel Ejiofor in anything prior to Dirty Pretty Things, but his performance here truly marks him as one to watch. Okwe is a immigrant from Nigeria where he worked as a doctor. Because of his status in London, he is forced to do menial jobs that are looked down upon by people far less intelligent than he is. As the story unfolds and Okew is force to confront his past and make some very difficult decisions, the agony Ejiofor brings to the role radiates from the screen.

The rest of the movie seems perfectly cast as well. Audrey Tautou is as cute as ever as Senay. I believe this is her first English language role. Senay has developed feelings for Okwe, but she is unsure of how to express them. This is another element that could have overwhelmed the rest of the film, but Tautou plays it perfectly. 

Dirty Pretty Things doesn’t pander on any level. It doesn’t sensationalize the relationship between Okwe and Senay. It doesn’t turn the plight of London’s immigrants into a maudlin sob story. It is first and foremost a highly effective thriller. But it is set in a very real world that most of us haven’t seen before. By walking this fine line, it opens our eyes and entertains us at the same time.

Director: Victor Salva
Cast: Ray Wise, Nicki Aycox, a bunch of shirtless young guys, etc.

SYNOPSIS
The Creeper is a half scarecrow/half dragon creature who lives in corn fields and goes on a killing spree once every 23 years. He has many ways of killing people, the most innovative being weird shurikens that look like the throwing star from Krull. (except these shurikens have teeth and bellybuttons sewn onto them). The Creeper makes the mistake of killing a young farm boy, thus setting his father (Ray Wise) off on an Ahab-like quest for revenge.

Coincidentally, a bus filled with shirtless high school basketball players and a couple of young girls crosses the Creepers path. He cripples the bus with a couple of well placed teeth-shurikens and starts going after the teenager filled vehicle like an old sailor tearing into a can of sardines. One of the girls conveniently has a couple of dreams in which the thin premise of the Creeper is revealed. Her revelations have no bearing on the plot. After that, everyone runs around. The Creeper flies around. The angry farmer drives around. They all meet up for the climax and the movie finally ends.

REVIEW
I’ve never seen the first Jeepers Creepers and after seeing this sequel, I count myself lucky. While I am a big supporter of dumb fun and even gave Freddy Vs. Jason a decent review a few weeks ago, I can’t recommend that anybody go see this or even rent it.

This film has no plot, no character development, no suspense and no imagination. The most interesting element of the movie is the ***censored***-erotic subtext Victor Salva’s direction brings to the film. With all it’s leering camerawork, I’m sure this film will find a huge audience among the NAMBLA crowd.

Ray Wise reprises his grieving father performance from Twin Peaks. The intensity of his performance seems very out of place in this movie. His performance is almost blistering compared the the rest of the performances which wouldn’t even be up to far for a syndicated action television series.

The rest of the actors don’t seem to be acting from any kind of script at all. They just bumble around and spout off-the-wall lines about “swinging dicks” and “token white people”. Salva was possibly trying to inject some outdated social commentary into the relationships between the football players, but it just adds to the meaningless clamor of this movie. These characters exist to get killed and yet they are so bland, they even defy the easy stereotypes used by unimaginative horror films. There is the nerdy team manager that stands out because he wears glasses, but the rest of the characters totally blend together.

At times, it seems that Nicki Aycox’s character is meant to be the protagonist of the piece, but she doesn’t get much screen time. Aycox is really cute and it seems like she’s trying to give an actual performance, but she has absolutely nothing to work with. She has a series of convenient dreams in which she comes to an understanding of what is going on with the Creeper. However, nothing happens with these revelations or her character. Towards the end of the movie we see her running around lost and confused, and she apparently survives, but her character is utterly inconsequential.

By the end of the movie, everybody is running around, but we don’t know who anybody is or where the hell they’re going. Then the grieving father shows up and starts firing a home-made harpoon gun out of the back of his pickup truck.

This is the type of movie where you ideally you could at least root for the monster to kill these idiots. But in the case of Jeepers Creepers 2, the monster is just as bland as the rest of the characters.  The film itself doesn’t display even have a spark of imagination or humanity. It’s a soul-numbing waste of time.

Director: Victor Salva
Cast: Ray Wise, Nicki Aycox, a bunch of shirtless young guys, etc.

My review of the original Jeepers Creepers began thusly: “Jeepers Creepers. Movies don’t suck much deepers.” The sequel is a hair better, but a hair better than ***censored*** is still ***censored***.

As the film’s opening crawl informs us, the flying, winged Creeper feasts for 23 days every 23rd spring. We begin on day 22 of such a season, when the youngest son of farmer Ray Wise (Twin Peaks) is snatched up out of the cornfield and carried away. On the next day, a school bus full of a high school state champion basketball team and assorted cheerleaders blows a tire on the near-deserted highway, thanks to the Creeper’s well-aimed special brand of homemade ninja stars. With nowhere to go, the bus serves as a Hometown Buffet for the hungry Creeper, at first picking off (or up) all the adults, until Wise shows up for some heavy-duty harpoonin’ with his truck-mounted, jerry-rigged Post Puncher 500.

JCII has its moments, but only a precious few, and fleeting at that. This installment gives the monster far more screen time, but it’s simply the same thing over and over: Creeper attacks, Creeper flies away, Creeper attacks again. If we were supposed to empathize with the characters, writer/director Victor Salva could’ve picked another group besides cocky athletes. For my money, the Creeper can’t kill them fast enough. But then, Salva’s camera wouldn’t be able to linger on their shirtless, hairless upper bodies. For those who have forgotten all about the Clownhouse-to-
Powder controversy. Salva’s a bit of a Post Puncher 500 himself (think oral sex with underage boys). It’s hard to believe the film’s overt homoeroticism isn’t at least semi-intentional, what with all the bare chests and dialogue like “You want to poke it with sticks?” and “Can’t they just whip out the jack and pump this mutha up?”

I liked Wise, but then again, I like him in just about anything. I also liked Nicki Aycox as the Girl Who Has It All Explained to Her in Dreams, but then again, that’s probably because she’s the only hot one in the movie. But any horror film that delivers such an illogical ending (so chop it up, whydon’tcha!) and christens its characters with names like “Double D” and “Big K” deserves a straight-out D.