thewoods Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Okay. Deep breath. Today I am just going to go all-out fangirl, unabashedly, unashamedly. Next week you can ask me to discuss the Bechdel rule or the future of the term "mumblecore." But on Sunday, My Name is Bruce comes to Austin as part of a tour around the country, with its filmmaker-star Bruce Campbell in attendance, and my goofy inner fan is taking the upper hand over the professional film critic.

I realize that My Name is Bruce is unlikely to be one of the great films of the century, or even as fun as Army of Darkness. I'm fine with that. Look, I paid to see Man with the Screaming Brain in a theater (also with Campbell in attendance). I don't care. All of you who would go see anything touched by Joss Whedon, even if he remade an Oscar-Meyer Wiener commercial, can have your sweet revenge on me now. And I know I'm not alone -- in Austin, tickets for the My Name is Bruce screening sold out in five minutes, and they had to add two more screenings, which also sold out speedily. I talked my husband into watching the first Burn Notice episode with me on Hulu, and now we've watched all of them and he's coming with me this weekend, threatening to bring a yogurt container for Mr. Campbell to sign. We do have our limits -- you can watch the entire series of Jack of All Trades on Hulu too, but I figured once was way more than enough for me.

I keep hoping Campbell will appear in something as good as Bubba Ho-Tep again. In the meantime, I'm finding my favorite Bruce Campbell moments in film (and TV) to enjoy while keeping my fingers crossed about My Name is Bruce. So for the rest of you die hard Campbell fans out there, here are seven of my favorite moments. (I wish I had YouTube clips but the studios can be such spoilsports about copyright.) I don't need to tell you to feel free to point out what I missed, or where I'm wrong, in the comments. I'm hoping someone will let me know if I missed anything worthwhile in Serving Sara, The Love Bug, or McHale's Navy.

If there's one thing the media really loves to do, it's lump a bunch of barely-connected people into an ill-fitting group -- and then give that group a clever name. Whether it's The Rat Pack, The Brat Pack or The Splat Pack, I just get irked whenever a new "pack" makes it into the cultural lexicon. Oh, you're not familiar with that last one? Yeah, it's a moniker that's been given to a bunch of "new" horror filmmakers, one that seems to imply that these guys get together every weekend to smoke weed and watch Halloween 2 together.

According to a recent article in Time Magazine, one that seems to approach horror flicks the same way a prissy schoolmarm would approach some inappropriate comic books, the members of "The Splat Pack" are Eli Roth (Cabin Fever, Hostel), Neil Marshall (Dog Soldiers, The Descent), Alex Aja (High Tension, The Hills Have Eyes), Rob Zombie (House of 1000 Corpses, The Devil's Rejects), and James Wan, Leigh Whannell and Darren Lynn Bousman of the Saw trilogy. (Apparently Wolf Creek director Greg McLean was part of the original pack, although he goes unmentioned in the Time article, probably because he hasn't made much money yet.)

But what do these guys have in common, really, other than the fact that they all make horror flicks? I see Americans, Brits, Aussies and a Frenchman in the mix, and while some of the guys are fresh-faced and 20-something, guys like Roth have been toiling away in backstage anonymity for years. Plus, c'mon, Rob Zombie is 42 years old, so how exactly does he tie in with these kids? And why is it that Neil Marshall never seems to be quoted in these articles? Is he just included because his horror movies are ... GOOD? Apparently the Splat Pack label was created by Alan Jones of Total Film, and I'm sure the guy's an absolute expert on horror flicks -- but labels create limits, exclusions and oversights. And, ultimately, articles like this one, I suppose. (Either way, I bet Jones bangs out a book called The Splat Pack by the end of 2008.)

The UK's Christopher Smith (Creep, Severance) is young and horror-heavy, so why isn't he a member of The Pack? Shouldn't (Dawn of the Dead screenwriter, Slither director) James Gunn be one of the den mothers? Lucky McKee has made only two feature films (May and The Woods), but they're both downright excellent pieces of horror. Why's he not a member? Uwe Boll's done a bunch of horror flicks that could be accurately described as " laden with torture," so why not throw him an invitation? You want a guy who loves the word splat? Try Jake West, the guy who directed Evil Aliens. Plus I read another article a while back in which Jonathan Liebesman (Darkness Falls, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning) was considered a member of The SP! Now, if that guy can be considered some sort of "future of horror," I'll eat my hat.

The common themes among the Splat Packers are ... what? They all like horror movies, they don't shy away from intense chills, harsh themes or copious gore, and they're all carbon-based life forms, I guess. But really: Does anyone out there think the work of Eli Roth is even remotely similar to that of Neil Marshall? Does a Rob Zombie flick remind you of what was seen in, say, High Tension? I mean, if you're going to define a term, then define it. And as a big fan of just about all these movies, I just gotta scratch my head when I hear these guys lumped together in one basket.

And what happens when guys like Ryan Schifrin (Abominable), Adam Green (Hatchet), J.T. Petty (S&Man) Scott Glosserman (Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon), Jon Levine (All the Boys Love Mandy Lane) and Adam Mason (Broken) start to make their way up the ranks? Will we have the arrival of Splat Pack 2: The New Generation? Back in the late '70s/early '80s, did we need a goofy little heading to remember names like Carpenter, Hooper, Craven, Dante, Landis and Cunningham?

Ultimately, I have no real point. I'd just seen the phrase "Splat Pack" one too many times and felt the need to vent. Opposing viewpoints are welcome, as long as they agree with my own opinions.

Not a whole lot of juicy new happenings have fallen out of the horror machine recently, so (since I'm bored and they pay me to blog) I thought I'd just share a couple of small-sized exclusives from the Bloody-Disgusting boys.

1. Brace yourselves: Sony's slapping together another direct-to-video semi-sequel. This time it's The Craft that gets the unwanted little sister. Yep, that flick about teenage witches who do very little with their evil powers besides torture boys, color their hair and fight with one another. No word yet on whether Fairuza Balk will be returning to play "that creepy witch girl who lives down the street," but I'm guessing she might.

2. More word from Sonyville's Horror Department: Apparently there's all sorts of problems with the mildly-anticipated The Grudge 2, and also big buckets of reshoots being done on The Pang Brothers' The Messengers as well. (Y'know, between Ghost House (The Grudge, Boogeyman) and Dark Castle (Gothika, House of Wax) I don't think they've put together one completely solid horror movie yet. What gives?)

3. Speaking of Dark Castle movies that probably aren't any good, WB rescheduled The Reaping's release for next March. Oh, and (as mentioned earlier) both Lucky McKee's The Woods and John Gulager's Feast have earned DVD dates, cover art and copious supplemental doo-hickeys.

Thanks to BD.com and Dread Central for the terrifiying tidbits.

You think I talk about The Descent a lot? You should have seen me a few years ago when May finally showed up on DVD after I'd been gushing over the thing for forever and a week. (Seriously, no messing around: If you haven't at least rented May yet, please click right here and then come on back. I'll wait.)

So the reason I brought up May is this: It was directed by a guy called Lucky McKee, and his second film (The Woods) has been sitting on a shelf in a Sony broom closet for about 18 months. It recently played a few film festivals (to enthusiastic response), but the studio doesn't seem willing to spend any money on the flick. So now you can plan to buy/rent the DVD on October 3rd. And yes, you read it right: The Woods stars not only Agnes Bruckner and Patricia Clarkson... but Bruce Campbell, too.

What boils my proverbial potatoes is this: Sony can release a pathetically wretched remake of The Fog on 3,000 screens, yet something like The Woods gets jammed in a drawer, forgotten and then shuffled off to Blockbuster to collect dust. This is why the horror genre gets no respect. (Rant over.) Ah well, May didn't play the 'plexes either, and that flick's a freakin' masterpiece.

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It could mean a number of things, right? Perhaps you're stuck in the middle of the woods and people around you are disappearing, while horrifying visions follow your every move. Congrats, you've just lost your sh*t. Oh, or maybe you were accidentally flushed down the toilet and wound up trying to survive in a sewer system. Okay, maybe in that situation, your sh*t would follow you down. But upon arrival, I'm sure you would lose it.

While the term may mean different things to different people, the character's in the following films, at one point or another, probably felt as if they had lost their sh*t. Personally, when I see someone separate a curse word with a *, it often causes me to lose my own sh*t. So, in theory, I've just pissed myself off while writing this post. Hmm, maybe I'll simply blame the FCC.  Welcome to this week's Trailer Park....