FILM REVIEW OF ''OCULUS" (2014)

Although it’s more fresh than original, “Oculus” (*** OUT OF ****) qualifies as a subtle but spooky supernatural saga.  This creepy, complicated, psychological horror chiller casts an ordinary, everyday piece of household furniture as the source of all Evil.  You may have one in your home, office, and/or car.  Horror thrillers have appropriated virtually everything inanimate and transformed them—houses, cars, beds, bulldozers, condoms, toys, etc.--into murderous machines.  The addition of mirrors should surprise nobody.  This notorious object has been killing people as well as their pets for centuries with nobody the wiser about it.   Actually, this isn’t the first time Hollywood has employed mirrors other than to offer the latest updates as in Disney’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.”  The Karen Black nail-biter “Mirror Mirror” (1990) represented an early example of evil mirror melodramas.  A high school teenage girl summoned ghostly energy from a mirror to deal with obnoxious girls bullying her.  Later, the Kiefer Sutherland thriller “Mirrors” (2008) appropriated mirrors with ghostly powers.  Basically, there are three kinds of evil mirror movies.  First, the owner of the mirror calls the shots.  Second, the mirror from Hell  takes everything back to Hell.  Third, the mirror adopts other corporeal characteristics.  In other words, the mirror shape-shifts into man or beast and leaves the wall where it is hanging on to create terror.   Mind you, the malevolent mirror in “Oculus” doesn’t kill its victims by shape-shifting into something larger.  Here, we have an evil as impassive as it is impersonal.   In fact, the mirror does nothing but hang on the wall.  Gaze into this wicked mirror, and you’re not going to be the same!  The mirror exerts an eerie effect on individuals.  Everything turns into something else.  After you peer into this mirror, you find it difficult to distinguish between reality and fantasy.   Nothing in “Oculus” is what it seems!

“Absentia” director Mike Flanagan and co-scenarist Jeff Howard generate more than enough dread despite their preposterous but audacious premise.  “Oculus” contains scenes that will make the hair on the nape of your neck and forearms levitate. Unmistakably, the setting and the storyline give away the film’s modest $5 million budget.  Flanagan and Howard confine the mayhem primarily to the confines of a suburban residence with some exterior jaunts to various, peripheral locations.  More importantly, Flanagan and Howard forge sympathetic characters in the crucible of this mesmerizing melodrama who maintain our interest throughout its 105 minute running time.  The leads are attractive, and we want them to succeed in their cosmic battle between Good and Evil.  Compared with mega-budgeted horror pictures, “Oculus” appears minor in many respects.  Nothing in the form of either savage beasts or exotic creatures emerges from the mirror to eviscerate our hero and heroine.  Indeed, some abhorrent things occur, but nothing that will afflict you with nightmares.  You’ll be able to sleep with your lights off after dark. This unsettling, R-rated saga doesn’t wallow in blood and gore. Flanagan creates terror in your mind without crossing the line with gutsy, gross-out, gore moments.  Make no mistake, people are slashed and bled, but “Oculus” is neither “Alien” nor “Predator.”  Ultimately, despite its small-budget, low-wattage cast, and nominal gore effects, “Oculus” makes the grade because we care about the protagonists—two siblings--who set out to expose that infamous mirror as a mass murderer!

“Oculus” combines characteristics of haunted house movies (think “The Shining” and “The Amityville Horror”) with found footage flicks, such as “The Blair Witch Project” and the “Paranormal Activity” franchise.  Most of the action occurs in a single house where two siblings, Tim Russell (Brenton Thwaites of “Blue Lagoon: The Awakening”) and Kaylie Russell (Karen Gillan of the BBC’s “Doctor Who”), grew up together and witnessed the deaths of their mother and father.  Flanagan complicates this chronicle by presenting not only a contemporary story line about the siblings as adults, but also as adolescents in an alternate flashback, so we experience what they saw in their youth.  Essentially, Tim saw his father kill his mother, Marie (Katee Sackhoff of “Riddick”) so he shot his father Alan (Rory Cochrane of “Dazed and Confused”) and killed him.  Since the incident, Tim has spent ten years in a psychiatric hospital recuperating from the nightmare.  Since he has just turned age twenty-one, Tim is released because the doctors don’t believe he constitutes a threat.  Meanwhile, Tim’s obsessive sister, Kaylie, who is two years older, has been working at an art auction house.  She picks Tim up after he is discharged, but he refuses to stay with Kaylie and her fiancé, Michael Dumont (James Lafferty of (“S. Darko”), who works with her at the auction house.  Instead, Tim prefers to chill out in a motel.  Later, Tim learns that Kaylie has obtained the opulent 400-year old mirror that once graced their father's office.  Furthermore, she has taken it back to the house where their parents died and placed it in the same room!  If this weren’t enough, Kaylie has assembled a sophisticated array of gadgetry, including video cameras, sound detection equipment, and temperature monitors.  She behaves like one of the “Ghostbusters” but with a straight face.  She is determined to prove that Evil lurks in the mirror and brought about tragic consequences not only for her family but also others, too.  In this respect, “Oculus” resembles a found footage flick.  She believes that she can expose Evil and destroy it with one striking blow.  Unfortunately, the chief problem with “Oculus” is that we never learn what prompted the antique mirror to embark on its reign of evil and what lies behind it.

The performances are good.  Karen Gillan is especially forthright in her naivety that she can defeat Evil.  Brenton Thwaites is almost as good as her cautionary little brother.  Rory Cochrane and Katee Sackhoff make a believable couple.  Incredibly enough, Annelise Basso of “The Red Road” and Garrett Ryan of “The Millers” are terrific as their adolescent counterparts. The pacing is even, but you may jump occasionally at some sudden visual revelation.  As it turns out, Flanagan expanded “Oculus” from his half-hour short film “Oculus Chapter 3: The Man with the Plan.”  “Oculus” qualifies as an above-average reflection about terror. 

FILM REVIEW OF ''WHITE ZOMBIE" (1932)

Director Victor Halperin’s “White Zombie” (***1/2 OUT OF ****) boasts the distinction of being the first official Hollywood zombie epic.  Mind you, the undead here are not as pugnacious as  those in the cinema of George Romeo and his imitators.  Indeed, these zombies are similar because they are undead.  Nevertheless, they don’t crave the flesh of the living like insatiable cannibals.  Like Romeo’s zombies, Halperin’s undead are mindless hulks with neither a soul nor a trace of animation.  They walk slowly without alacrity, and they never utter so much as a syllable.  They stare without blinking.  Although their presence is eerie, they are not as scary as the individual who commands them.  

Murder Legendre (Bela Lugosi) controls them as if they were puppets. The inspired casting of Lugosi as the insidious zombie master earmarks Halperin’s film  as a vintage horror chiller. Lugosi’s make-up augments another of his more evocative performances.  Some have argued with validity that “White Zombie” overshadows “Dracula,” and Lugosi emerges as more diabolical than he was as Stoker’s legendary vampire.  You won’t forget those intimidating close-ups of Lugosi’s eyes, especially when Halperin superimposes them over other images.   The moments when Murder is show carving statutes out of wax candles is as genuinely creepy as his intensely sinister stare.  Lugosi resembles Satan himself with his hair protruding in a widow’s peak on his forehead and his peculiar looking goatee.  Murder Legendre appears in formal attire and looks like a Catholic priest with his broad-brimmed hat when we see him for the first time in the night at the side of a road.  Appropriately enough, Halperin and scenarist Garnett Weston furnish Murder with a pet Vulture that emphasizes his villainy.   An actual vulture itself, this foul bird emits an eldritch cry that is pretty unnerving. The best moments in "White Zombie" feature Murder.

Despite the overall creepy atmosphere that Halperin forges with the zombies, the West Indies setting, and Lugosi, “White Zombie”  amounts to little more than a simple but formulaic tale of boy wins girl, boy loses girl, and boy wins girl back.  The film is reportedly based on William B. Seabrook’s novel “The Magic Island.” Essentially, a young Caucasian couple travels to the remote plantation of Charles Beaumont (Robert Frazer) in Haiti where they are to be married.  The first time that we see the couple they are riding in a carriage through the night.  They interrupt a ceremony in the middle of the road and learn to their surprise that it is none other than a funeral.  Their coachman explains that the natives bury corpses in the road to prevent anybody from digging them up and turning them into zombies.  Anyhow, since Beaumont met Madeline during the voyage from New York City to Port-au-Prince, he has yearned secretly for her hand, even though she plans to marry one of his employees.  Desperate to possess the girl, Beaumont manages to persuade Neil Parker (John Harron) and Madeline (Madge Bellamy) to delay their marriage until they reach his estate deep in the jungle.  

Despite his severe misgivings, Beaumont  strikes a Faustian deal with the villainous zombie master to seduce her.  The wealthy plantation owner visits Murder at his sugar mill where the villain employs zombies to harvest his crop.  One of the most spine-chilling scenes in “White Zombie” occurs in the sugar mill where Halperin shows the zombies delivering baskets of sugar cane.  The zombies tote the baskets atop their heads. They enter by means of a catwalk above a huge grinding mill that other zombies operate which grinds up the sugar.  One of the zombies loses his balance and falls into the grinder.  Of course, the zombie doesn’t scream in agony because it doesn’t experience any pain.  Halperin compounds the horror by not showing the poor fellow being ground up.  Similarly, the zombie doesn’t cry out in agony because it doesn’t experience any pain.  The scene is one of the strangest in “White Zombie.”  Initially, Beaumont is convinced that if he can separate Madeline from Neil for at least a month that he can win her over, but Murder argues otherwise.  Murder contends that Beaumont couldn’t woo Madeline away from Neil in a lifetime. Instead, Lugosi provides the jealous  Beaumont with a vial of medicine that will induce a state of death and send Madeline to her grave.  He instructs Beaumont to use only a “pin-point” in either a flower or a glass of wine.  As they descend the stairs together, the hopeless Beaumont realizes that he cannot dissuade Madeline from marrying Neil so he hands her a rose and she sniffs it fragrant aroma.  Not long afterward, Madeline collapses.

A missionary, Dr. Bruner (Joseph Cawthorn), has been summoned to perform the marriage.  Bruner has spent 30 years in the West Indies and is thoroughly familiar with the superstitions that guide the natives.  Cawthorn is suspicious of Beaumont’s motives.  The equivalent of a Professor Van Helsing, he comforts the disconsolate Neil during his separation from Madeline and acts as an intermediary between Neil and the Haitians.  At one point, in Murder’s house, he knocks out an assailant bent on killing Neil who had collapsed on a couch not far from where Madeline and Murder were sitting.

Of course, Neil, the grief-stricken suitor, cannot get his beloved bride out of his mind.  Halperin captures Neil’s desperation during a scene in a bar where only Neil is seen drinking while the shadows of other patrons dance across the walls.  This scene acquires a surreal quality because at one point Neil sees Madeline as one of the shadows.  He strikes up a friendship with Dr. Bruner.  Eventually, Neil wins Madeline back after Bruner and he ride to the far side of the island where they find the house of the undead. Neil enters Murder Legendre’s estate perched as it is on a cliff by the sea.  Ironically enough, in the finale, Charles Beaumont reunites Neil and Madeline when he breaks the spell that Murder has over Madeline by pushing the zombie master off the cliff and taking the plunge to follow him.  “White Zombie” concludes with Dr. Bruner asking Neil for a match as he had done when they first met at Beaumont’s plantation.  

FILM REVIEW OF ''DEATHSTALKER III: DEATHSTALKER AND THE WARRIORS FROM HELL"

As sword & sorcery sagas go, “Deathstalker III: Deathstalker and the Warriors from Hell” (**1/2 out of ****) surpasses “Deathstalker II: Duel of the Titans.” John Terlesky and company in “Deathstalker II” might as well have been swatting at each other with tennis rackets for all the swashbuckling thrills and chills that the tame first sequel failed to deliver. John Allen Nelson of “Hunk” looks like he could be the eponymous character. Mind you, Nelson is no match for Rick Hill but he is a hundred times better than Terlesky, and Mexican director Alfonso Corona shuns the juvenile antics that Jim Wynorski emphasized in “Deathstalker II.” Moreover, nobody gives an embarrassing performance in “Deathstalker III” that compares with the truly abysmal performance of Monique Gabrielle. Although it isn’t as campy as its pathetic predecessor, “Deathstalker III” contains some humor. Director Corona prefers to play things along the lines of the straight and narrow. For example, a secondary character dies under tragic circumstances so this second sequel isn't as lightweight as the first sequel. The only flaw in the original “Deathstalker” was the death of our hero’s companion too early in the action. Conversely, the character of Marinda here is introduced early in the action and survives until the finale when she helps our unarmed protagonist defeat the villain.

“Deathstalker” scenarist Howard Cohen sticks to the tried-and-true formula of the strong man who rescues a comely princess from the clutches of an evil sorcerer. Occasionally, Corona and Cohen generate a modicum of suspense, particularly in Deathstalker’s torture scene and Cohen scores with one major surprise that enhances the action. Further, Cohen has an adolescent character that is good with a bow and arrow appear at opportune moments, but he foreshadows the child’s skill with the weapon. Basically, “Deathstalker III” revolves around two multi-faceted white stones that when combined will yield their power. These two stones will take the owner to Erendor, the city of lost treasure. The villainous tyrant of Southland, Troxartes (Thom Christopher of NBC-TV’s “Buck Rogers of the 25th Century”), possesses one stone, while Deathstalker winds up with the second stone. He obtained his stone from a princess running around incognito to find a wizard. Indeed, Carissa (Carla Herd of “Wild Zone” in a dual role) has spent the last three years searching for Nicias (veteran Mexican actor Aarón Hernán) who wanders from village to village prophesying about the villagers’ future. One cool looking villain, Inaros (Roger Cudney of “The Border”), rides around with batwings attached to either side of his helmet. This entry in the quartet of sword and sorcery sagas was lensed on location in Mexico, but it is still a low-rent Roger Corman spectacle. The orchestral music by Alejandro Rulfo and Israel Torres captures the atmosphere of this mock-heroic nonsense, and Troxartes makes good use of a falcon as his eyes in the skies.

The first scene in “Deathstalker III” resembles the opening scene in “Conan the Barbarian” when the evil warriors stormed a village, killed most of the inhabitants and captured young Conan. Deathstalker is enjoying himself at a village festival, swapping blows with an adversary on a felled tree as they battle with long sticks. At the same time, the long, gray-haired wizard Nicias tells those who can afford his prices what their future holds. Nicias wears a long fur robe. Carissa has been looking for Nicias and shows him her half of the stone, fully expecting the wizard to have the other half. Suddenly, warriors on horseback wearing ominous armory ride into the village and start slaying people. Deathstalker fights them long enough for Nicias to escape and vanish into thin air with only his smoking footwear to note his presence. Carissa flees, and she winds up in Deathstalker’s camp where she identifies herself as a princess. Deathstalker is amused by his luck. “Why is it I keep getting mixed up with princesses?” Carissa tells him about Erendor and its treasure. “Enough to make my people strong forever,” she assures him. Deathstalker isn’t impressed. “Here I go again, riding hundreds of miles, fighting whole armies, up against magic maybe. In the end all I will get is flowers on my heading telling me how wonderful I am.”

No sooner has Deathstalker seen his future than the same warriors who raided the village strike his camp and kill Carissa. She gives the stone to Deathstalker. Before she dies, Carissa tells Deathstalker about her sister Belizean. According to Carissa, “It was either me or my sister and she cannot put on her own shoes.” This description fits Elizena. Later, after Deathstalker eludes Troxartes, he stumbles into a valley looking for a horse. He tries to steal one from a mother and daughter who live in the valley and live on a diet of potatoes. Marinda (Claudia Inchaurregui of “The Bikini War”) is the daughter who hasn’t set foot outside the valley and has never made love to a man. Marinda lets Deathstalker deflower her and then leads him out of the valley. Mom believes that Deathstalker has abducted her daughter so she leads Troxartes’ army after them.
Once he is safely away, Deathstalker runs into Carissa’s sister, Elizena, and Elizena is every inch the stuck-up princess that we’re used to seeing.

Troxartes hungers from the second stone. His mistress Camisarde (Terri Treas of “All That Jazz”) asks him, “Aren’t you rich enough without one more jewel?” She goes on to add, “You own every inch of land and peasant between here and the sea and me if you ever noticed.” Troxartes points out, “That city is power. The magic of a thousand generations lives in the stones of its wall waiting to erupt by the one who puts these stone together. When this is complete the world is mine. With it I’ll live forever!” Troxartes keeps track of Deathstalker with a falcon. Elizena spends the night in Deathstalker’s camp, without sharing hi blankets. The next day she leaves early, only to be assaulted by wandering swordsman, but Troxartes comes to her rescue and takes her back to his castle. Deathstalker follows, clashes swords with Troxartes, releases the warriors in his power, and defeats the dastard.

“Deathstalker III” is a relief after the abomination of “Deathstalker II. Corona and Cohen bring more dignity and pathos to this installment and—aside from the excerpts of the castle from Corman’s “The Raven”—rely less of previous footage from “Deathstalker” than any of the other entries in the franchise, including the 2003 remake “Barbarian.”