Marchlands (2011)

NetFlix N/A
IMDB 7.4/10
My Rating: 8/10

In this ITV 5 part miniseries, 3 families across 3 different time periods are impacted by the supernatural repercussions of a young girl's death.

During the years we lived overseas, we watched a lot of BBC via our satellite dish but very little ITV, other than the occasional US TV shows they'd run.  ITV was... Well, as the Brits might say, it was Chav-TV.  Reality shows by the ton, trashy soaps about self-obsessed young people having sex all the time, and just generally not what you'd think of as intelligent television.  That's why I was all the more surprised to be so impressed with this show - When did ITV start making TV for people who weren't the UK equivalent of Dittoheads?  (Normally I'd pick on the Tea Party as my example of Stupidus Americanus, but Rush is on my mind at the moment for his absolutely hilarious and roundly internet-mocked accusations that comicbook villain Bane is a liberal conspiracy to make Mitt Romney look bad.  Nevermind that Rush would probably be a Bane fan if he'd just get to know him...)

So, Marchlands is a great show.  Let's just start with that up front.  You especially need to see this if you're an old-school horror fan, because the style of scares here is right out of The Haunting or The Legend of Hell House.  This is not full up with jerkycam ghosts and "BOO!" jump scares - Instead, we're introduced to a cast that we believe in and invest in, and we're slowly drawn into the mystery of the hauntings that occur... So slowly that when something genuinely creepy happens, the skin goes all prickly.

The story is really three stories in one.  In the 1960's, a young couple live with parents in the titled household and cope with grieving over the loss of their daughter.  Mysterious circumstances surround her accidental drowning and the heartbroken mother is essentially walled out by the "Everything must be normal" facade of her family and village friends.  In the 80's, a family with children live in the same house and find their daughter increasingly targeted by an unseen presence that she calls her "invisible friend".  And in the present day, a young couple buy the house for their quiet country escape and find something is very interested in their newborn baby.

All three tales connect in ways both expected and unexpected.  It reminded me somewhat of American Horror Story in this respect with the house's past always lurking right on the edge of the current day experience and giving deeper layers of meaning to all sorts of seemingly casual occurrences.  It isn't so intense as American Horror Story, though - While AHS was like a steam train barreling directly at you, Marchlands is more of a soft touch...  Just a delicate whisper of scares here and there, just enough to keep you uneasy.  It helps that the characters are so real.  Alex Kingston departs from her River Song persona in Doctor Who to embody a frustrated, anxious 80's housewife, and the producers did a great job at choosing look-alike actors to play younger and older versions of the same characters across the time span.

To enjoy it the most, don't look at it as a horror series, look at it as a mystery with horror elements.  The cloud overhanging the death of the young girl is gradually unveiled over the series and for once, everything wraps to a tidy conclusion without any jarring, "Let's throw this in just to be clever" twists - It's smart but doesn't try to be TOO smart.  Worth seeing!

Tranzor's "The Thing"

Recently I've been sending some time browsing at fanedit.org, a site dedicated to amateurs re-editing their favorite movies for various reasons - Sometimes improvement, sometimes drastic alteration, and sometimes just fun tinkering.  This is a case of the latter, and it's a generation-targeted nostalgia missile in the extreme.  You see, what fan editor "Tranzor" has done is not try to improve John Carpenter's 1982 classic The Thing in any way - Instead, he has transformed it into an edited-for-television late 70's Midnight Movie.

Before I go on, a word about legality.  Fan edits exist in a weird sort of murky grey zone in copyright law - It is legal to make them and it is legal to watch them and it is legal to own them... provided you actually own the original DVD as well.  So, while I can download this fan edit with impunity, someone who didn't own the original DVD would essentially be committing a file sharing copyright breach by downloading it, which is why I'm not posting any download links with this article.  If you want to see this yourself... Well, let's just say that Google is your friend.  That said, on with the show!

Remember the late night monster movie?  There was the news at 11, then Benny Hill or Monty Python, then some sort of late night horror movie in edited-for TV mode, usually something from the 50's.  For all the talk about the "grindhouse" theater experience, this sort of midnight movie had its own strange charms - Missing reels, terrible film quality, choppy cuts, dropped-out profanity, etc.  What this fan editor has done is to recreate this experience with The Thing.  The movie is reformatted into 4:3 and changed to B&W, with a few other tweaks here and there.  You know you're in for fun when you put the disc in...

Right after an intro that will throw you straight back to age 12, you start realizing that this is going to be a wholly different "Thing" viewing experience:

The funny thing about this is how GOOD the movie looks in black and white - The setting is pretty timeless and with the color and the cussing gone, you could almost think you were watching a genuine 1957 drive-in classic.  It's funny how some films time-travel well and others do not.  We were watching the original Alien the other night and it could have been shot last week - Other than some amusing computer nostalgia (A text-prompt green screen monitor on a starship), the look and style were timeless.  Compare it to something like Logan's Run, which immediately says, "1975-1978" really loudly.  I wouldn't have thought that The Thing could get more brooding, but then I saw it in B&W:

There's a great irony here that I've spent most of my adult life avoiding commercials, and yet the commercial breaks in this are the highlight of the experience.  You'll be totally into the movie and then it will hit a crisis point and BAM! - Commercial cutaway:

I haven't watched commercials since the day I got my first VCR - I'm a little hostile to the messages advertisers try to shout at us.  I don't mind informative advertising, but 99% of TV commercials amount to either, "Use our product or no one will ever have sex with you!" or, "Use our product because all our competition sucks."  Thanks, but no thanks.  However, in this case the nostalgia factor wins out, and I'm sitting there watching original 1977 commercial blocks all over again, filled with cheery disco music and ads for Tab cola.

Yes, Tab has even less calories than water.  Never knew THAT, did you, you fatty water drinkers...
Overall, this DVD is a blast, right down to its custom printable DVD case cover.  If you have fond memories of staying up for the late movie, then watching it in wide-eyed childish terror and running to the kitchen for snacks during the commercial breaks, then this is an experience to love.  If you were born after, say, 1978, then I suspect you'd only find this confusing - A bizarre re-edit of a great move for no understandable purpose.  Like the man says, ya just had to be there...

Super Shark

NetFlix NA
IMDB 2.5/10
My Rating: 5/10

An oil drilling rig run by the Dukes of Hazzard awakens a giant, bulletproof prehistoric shark that can walk on land and fly.  Clearly this was a film aimed at the NPR audience.

Once I saw the trailer to this thing on YouTube, there was no way I could resist checking it out.  So whadda we got here, eh?  Sleazy oil man Bo Duke (John Schneider of Dukes of Hazzard) is using some kind of weird chemical to dissolve ocean floor rock to make drilling easier.  I guess at this point, when you join the oil industry you just automatically have to change alignment to Lawful or Chaotic Evil.  Anyway, said chemical releases Super Shark, a gigantic monster shark that possesses not just the abilities to walk on land and perform jet-powered leaps, but also a really savvy intelligence and a, *ahem*, biting wit.  Super Shark doesn't just eat the cast, he eats them in the most ridiculous and embarrassing moments possible.  Feel like your love life is in the dumps?  Don't answer that doorbell, it's Super Shark!  Annoyed by obscene phone calls?  It's Super Shark calling you from upstairs!  He hovers over the movie like an omniscient giant eating machine, and half the reason I give this movie a 5 is due to the laughs induced each time Super Shark turns up to take another bite out of the assembled crew.

With a giant walking shark on the loose, it isn't long before people notice and begin delivering observations like, "That's bad" and, "I need a drink."  The heroine, a lady CSI-type, fences with Bo Duke a bit and ends up advising the army that they're going to need a bigger boat.  Said military types send a squad of soldiers, a jet fighter, and a robotic walking tank to battle the beast.  Along the way, lots of people get chomped in ways both gruesome and hilarious.

The Kentucky Fried Popcorn Relationship Guide tip #1 - If you want to have a happy marriage, start with a woman who is willing to watch Super Shark with you.  But be prepared to get punched in the arm a lot, because the cheesecake level in this flick is, well, right up there with a Fred Olen Ray film because it IS a Fred Olen Ray film.  Yep, that would be the guy who brought us classics like Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers, an understated gem of the 80's video store era.  This is a TV movie so there's no nudity, but ole Fred takes advantage of his beach setting to throw bikini boobies at us every chance he gets, which is roughly 2/3 of the film.

Aside from the cleavage FX, we get a whole lotta CGI shark.  Syfy has gotten better at this, but most of their rendering still looks like something you could do on a Mac, and it doesn't help that when the shark is out of water crawling around, the bright sunlight isn't too forgiving on the special effects.  The climactic fight with the CGI robot tank is even sillier - It's a lot of fun to watch (assuming sufficient quantities of beer are on hand) but it lacks the coolness of the great Ray Harryhausen monster battles because A) the robot design is REALLY uninspired, and B) it isn't nearly long enough.

The cast does a bouncy job throughout, and they're the other reason I give this a better rating than IMDB...  I mean, as a movie, it's a 2.5, yes, but as an entertainment package it's a hundred times more fun than any Sex & the City episode ever made.  The leads are competent, the sidekicks are tolerable, and everyone delivers their Ed Wood dialog with a sense of barely-suppressed fun.  Except for Jimmie "JJ" Walker, who delivers his own performance through a megaphone of 1977 insanity:

Does he have anything to do with the movie?  Absolutely not, why do you ask?  He just plays a local radio host who occasionally pops in to narrate the latest news of Super Shark's thrilling adventures on land and sea and air.  Acting-wise, however, everyone takes a back seat to Super Shark himself, that mega-Pacino of the high surf - He has a lot of personality for a CGI blob and I expect him to be invited to host Cannes any day now.

Bottom line - The leads are decent actors, the story is fun and silly, there are copious amounts of  boobage on display, and it stars a giant shark that eats an oil rig. This is not a movie that I'm ever going to want to go back and watch again, but it was a hoot, and would be great for group MST3K sessions. If you watched Sharktopus, you'll get much the same thing here.   And if you're at all curious for a taste of this flick, check out the FUNKTASTIC trailer below - Yes, Super Shark even has his own theme tune, straight out of a 70's disco!  Truly, this may possibly be one of the greatest movie trailers I have ever seen.