FILM REVIEW OF ''PANIC ROOM" (2002)

David Fincher has fashioned some first-rate films since he started directing movies back in 1992. The Colorado native called the shots on “Se7en” (1995), a gripping serial killer saga starring Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman as the cops and Kevin Stacey as the villain, that disturbed as much as it enthralled audiences. He toyed mischievously with audiences in “The Game” (1997) toplining Michael Douglas and Sean Penn in the tradition of George Roy Hill’s Oscar-winning Best Picture “The Sting.” The incomparable and offbeat “Fight Club” (1999) qualified hands down as Fincher’s finest, reuniting him with Brad Pitt and co-starring Edward Norton in a pre-terrorist 9/11 opus. Until he made the Jodie Foster crime film “Panic Room” (*1/2 out of ****), “Alien 3” ranked as Fincher’s least distinguished epic, with a shaven-headed Sigourney Weaver impersonating science officer Ripley for the last time as a flesh & blood human being. Comparatively, as the least commercial entry in the creature-feature franchise, the anemic “Alien 3” induced sleep rather than suspense. No matter how atrocious “Alien 3” seemed, “Panic Room” weighs in as infinitely worse. Only deep-fried Jodie Foster fans will savor this superficial, occasionally sadistic exercise in futility. Actually, the producers cast Nicole Kidman, but she injured herself and pulled out. A hopelessly miscast Jodie Foster brings a certain elegance to this unexceptional nail-biter. Indeed, lensers Conrad Hall and Darius Khondji’s atmospheric cinematography, the eerie lighting, and the looming interiors win “Panic Room” brownie points, not nearly enough.

This inferior feminist fable takes its title from a 12 by 12 foot, steel-plated, concrete bunker inside a four-story Brownstone in Upper West Side Manhattan. The reclusive tycoon who owned it has died, and our divorced heroine, Meg Altman (a bespectacled Jodie Foster) and her diabetic daughter Sarah (Kristen Stewart of “Twilight”) now occupy the place. Plagued by paranoia, the late millionaire equipped the townhouse with a secret room. This impregnable bomb shelter boasts a high tech surveillance system with a cameras that scan the premises 24 hours a day from every angle inside and outside. The chamber contains its own ventilation system and features a separate telephone line. During the first night that Meg and Sarah sleep in their new beds, they awaken to find themselves at the mercy of three harebrained hoodlums out to steal millions of dollars worth of bearer bonds that the dead financier concealed in a vault in the safe room.

Predictably, Meg and Sarah hole up in the bunker while Junior (Jared Leto of “Girl, Interrupted”), Burnham (Forrest Whitaker of “Bird”), and Raoul (country singer Dwight Yoakam of “Sling Blade”) toil incompetently to evict them. Aside from their vulnerability as females-at-risk with flaws—Meg suffers from claustrophobia, while Sarah requires insulin shots)—these females do little to appeal to our sympathy. Ironically, Whitaker’s character emerges as not only the most sympathetic but also the most interesting. Poor Patrick Bauchau of “A View to a Kill” plays Meg’s millionaire, ex-husband (no relation to the deceased tycoon) and takes a hellacious beating from Raoul in a scene which will undoubtedly sicken some viewers.

This tedious, third-rate tale unravels from the outset with a premise as contrived as it convoluted plot. What veteran scenarist David Koepp of “Stir of Echoes” fame doesn’t steal from his own scripts, he appropriates from the durable Audrey Hepburn thriller “Wait Until Dark” (1967) and the exciting Sean Connery caper “The Anderson Tapes” (1972). The Raoul character clearly recalls the Mafia thug in “Anderson Tapes” that veteran character actor Val Avery played in a ski-mask with a penchant for violence. The ending that disposes of the bearer bonds comes straight out of John Huston’s “Treasure of the Sierra Madre” (1948). Had the “Panic Room” been a tenth as entertaining as any of those classics, this derivative mishmash with its unintentionally hilarious histrionics might have proven tolerable. Instead, “Panic Room” resembles a heavy-handed Lifetime channel version of “Home Alone.” Decked out in a black, tank-top to display cleavage, Jodie Foster imitates the antics of Macaulay Culkin as she battles a trio of bungling burglars. These clueless cretins make the Three Stooges appear like intellectual titans. Foster is a top-flight actress who shouldn’t have stooped to this one-dimensional nonsense. Koepp’s script bristles with inconsistencies. After making a big deal about Meg’s claustrophobia early in the film, Fincher and Koepp unaccountably drop it from the plot when they tighten the screws on our protagonists. The scene with the butane gas tank elicits derision more than dread, and the flashlight batteries in another scene were clearly of the Eveready variety.

Don’t get trapped in the “Panic Room.”

FILM REVIEW OF ''HIGH TENSION" (2003)

Scary films—like nightmares—shun logic. After all, what else would you expect from movies about vampires, werewolves, ghosts, zombies, mutated creatures, and sadistic maniacs?

Searching for logic in a scary movie is like skinny dipping in quicksand.

If the vampires, werewolves, ghosts, zombies, creatures, and madmen defy logic, their victims fare no better. Folks in horror movies behave foolishly. When they confront horror, they freeze in their footsteps and belt out a blood-curdling screams. Or they flee in the wrong direction, fall down, and sprain an ankle. Even if the girl doesn't sprain her ankle, she will run in a circle and collide with the villain. If the victims reach their car, they must crank up their jalopy repeatedly before the engine finally turns over, just as the monster or killer looms large in their rearview mirror. Indeed, the only reason that the engine doesn't fire-up the first time out is that it would make it too easy for the victims to escape.

Alas, horror movie villains are as unreal as they are undead, and their victims qualify as the least resourceful humans on earth. Now, keeping this in mind, do you watch scary movies to see the victims apply cold, hard logic to an illogical crisis while keeping a cool head under pressure? Anybody that goes to horror movies hoping that the villain will be realistic or that the victims won't do idiotic things clearly doesn't know much about horror movies and life-in-general. Some moviegoers love to berate the victims for their crazy behavior. If you saw a vampire, werewolf, zombie, mutated creature, or homicidal maniac, you'd probably freeze-up and howl, too. If logic has no place in horror movies, neither does realism. People ridicule creature-features routinely because Godzilla doesn't look like the genuine article. Has anybody seen a radioactive prehistoric monster? Werewolves aren't real, so how can they look genuine? Basically, criticizing horror movies for lapses in logic or lack of realism makes no sense. Criticizing horror movies as a type of movie makes better sense, and people who hate horror movies have no right to single out horror movies that abuse logic and defy realism.

The French horror movie "High Tension" (***1/2 out of ****) definitely gives both logic and realism the axe. As the best and bloodiest horror chiller since "Saw," "High Tension" qualifies as a ghastly valentine for gorehounds. First, "High Tension" narrowly avoided an NC-17 rating from the Motion Picture Association of America, but the MPAA must have been in a generous mood when they gave this nerve-jangler an R-rating. You'll see more blood and gore on display here than those recent remakes of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," "House of Wax," or nail-biters like "Bogyman." Second, director Alexandre Aja doesn't waste time with a lot of cheap false alarms to make the hair rise on the back of our necks. He is too busy showing a homicidal maniac killing people to indulge in those moments designed to make you jump when he can plunge you up to your neck into a blood-soaked situation.

Just for the record, don't see this movie if you are the squeamish. "High Tension" will scare the puke out of you. Aja doesn't pull any punches when it comes to depicting violence. The scene where the maniac breaks out a huge buzz saw that resembles something firefighters wield to free people trapped in cars illustrates this idea. The villain approaches a stalled-out car that his victim has flagged down on a deserted road. As the driver frantically cranks the vehicle, the maniac smashes the windshield then mangles the driver with this hideous weapon, turning the interior of the car into a bloodbath. In some horror circles, gorehounds call these movies splatter movies instead of slasher movies.

Actually, "High Tension" combines slasher with splatter for a bloodbath of a life-time. Plot wise, "High Tension" concerns two female college students in contemporary France who spend a weekend in the country to catch up on their school work. Marie (Cecile De France of "Around the World in 80 Days") and Alex (Maiween Le Besco of "The Fifth Element") cruise into remote Southern France where Alex's family live on an isolated farm house. No sooner has everybody turned in for the evening than a homicidal madman (Philippe Nahon of "Irreversible") barges into their house. This one-man home invasion army slashes the father, jams his head in the rails of the staircase, and decapitates the breadwinner with a piece of furniture. This madman opens the wife's throat from ear to ear like a watermelon and pursues the little boy into a cornfield with a shotgun. He shackles poor Alex in chains, gags her, and prowls the rest of the house in vain to find anybody else. Miraculously, Marie avoids detection in scenes of heart-stopping suspense. The maniac tools around in a rusty old truck like the monster drove in the "Jeepers Creepers" movies and sticks Alex in the back. At the last second, unbeknownst to the killer, Marie scrambles aboard with Alex. Marie resolves to save her best friend.

Before it's all over with, "High Tension" evokes chilling memories of the original "Texas Chainsaw Massacre." Compared with "Friday the Thirteen's" Jason or "Halloween's" Michael Myers, the maniac her make them look like pansies. Although the first hour or so of "High Tension" is a brutally straight-forward exercise in stomach-churning terror, the last half-hour takes a bizarre 180 degree spin reminiscent of the Brad Pitt movie "Fight Club." Already, Aja has been tapped to helm the remake of "The Hills Have Eyes." If you're looking for a movie that will make you scream and wet your pants at the same time, look no farther than "High Tension."

FILM REVIEW OF "FIVE CARD STUD" (1968)

"Garden of Evil" director Henry Hathaway's western whodunit "5-Card Stud" (**1/2 out of ****) pits 'hellfire gambler' Dean Martin against 'gunfire preacher' Robert Mitchum in a frontier tale about lynching, murder, and revenge. Mind you, deducing the whodunit will pose a minor challenge to astute audiences. You will spot the actor committing the crimes long before the film identifies him in its second-to-last scene. If you study the stable strangling scene, the killer's headgear gives him away. The characters in "True Grit" scenarist Marquerite Roberts' screenplay based on Ray Gaulden's novel are flat since they neither change either their their mentality or their morality. Nevertheless, Roberts boots around an interesting question about "who people were before they became who they are" which segues with the mystery. Otherwise, this Hathaway horse opera is sturdy enough, contains a believable cast and knows how to blend comedy with drama nimbly enough so that it rarely becomes either heavy-handed or repetitious.

Compared to Hathaway's other oaters, "5-Card Stud" doesn't top "True Grit," "The Sons of Katie Elder," "Garden of Evil," "From Hell to Texas," or "Rawhide." However, "5-Card Stud" surpasses "Shoot Out" and "Nevada Smith." Although some critics don't cotton to Maurice Jarre's orchestral score and denigrated it as "Dr. Zhivago" on the range, I contend that it is superb music and differs from anything that Jerry Goldsmith, Elmer Bernstein, or Ennio Morricone would have done. Jarre's score enlivens the action and enhances the atmosphere. The Dean Martin song at the beginning and end of "5-Card Stud" marks this sagebrusher as a traditional western As far back in the 1950s, many major westerns contained a ballad about the story or the hero with lyrics like ". . . play your poke and he'd leave you broke."

Interestingly, "5-Card Stud" makes some racial references that chipped away at the usual barriers. In one scene, Robert Mitchum's gun slinging preacher doesn't think it inappropriate that a black man be buried among whites, something that marked this western as a departure from Jim Crow mentality. John Sturges' "The Magnificent Seven" had broken ground earlier with a gunfight so that an Indian could be buried in a white graveyard.

Professional gambler Van Morgan (Dean Martin of "Sergeants 3") takes a break from a Saturday night poker game while Sig Ever's son Nick (Roddy McDowell of "Planet of the Apes"), stableman Joe Hurley (Bill Fletcher of "Hour of the Gun"), Mace Jones (Roy Jenson of "Big Jake"), storekeeper Fred Carson (Boyd 'Red' Morgan of "Violent Saturday"), Ever's ranch hand Stoney Burough (George Robotham of "The Split") continue to play poker with newcomer Frankie Rudd (Jerry Gatlin of "The Train Robbers") until Nick catches Rudd cheating 'red-handed' and organizes a lynch party. They take Rudd out to a stream and string him up from the bridge. Barkeeper George (Yaphet Koto of "Live and Let Die") warns Morgan and Morgan lights out after Nick and company to thwart the necktie party. "You don't hang a cheat," Morgan growls, "you kick him out of town." When Morgan arrives, Frankie is swinging with a noose around his neck, and Nick clubs Morgan on the back of the head with his six-gun.

Mama Malone (Ruth Springford of "Vengeance Is Mine") discovers Morgan strewn on the boardwalk the following morning and summons George to help the battered gambler to his room. Morgan decides to pull out of Rincon and try his luck in Denver. Before he leaves, he rides out to Sig Ever's spread to bid goodbye to Sig's comely daughter Nora (Katherine Justice of "The Way West") and deck Nick as repayment for clobbering him at the hanging.

Naturally, the town marshal (John Anderson of "Young Billy Young") can neither identify the lynch mob nor can he identify the hanged man. Later, participants in the card game begin to die. One is wrapped up in barbed wire, another is hanged in the church, and still another is suffocated in a barrel of flour. Indeed, Hathaway and Roberts make each death look different. Eventually, George visits Morgan in Denver and Morgan decides to ride back to Rincon. Two things have changed since Morgan rode out of Rincon. First, the town has acquired a gun-t0ting pastor who renovates the church and holds services, and second Lilly Langford (Inger Stephens of "Hang'em High") has opened a barbershop that features a $20 item that intrigues Morgan when he visits her establishment for the first time. Lilly and Nora contend for Morgan, while Morgan closes in on the new preacher Jonathan Rudd.

"5-Card Stud" boasts several good scenes. The shoot-out in the streets of Rincon when paranoid miners go berserk because they fear that they may be the next victim of the local serial killer is well staged. If you slow down your DVD or VHS copy, you can see Dean Martin lose his Stetson when he grabs hold of an axle to let a wagon haul him out of harm's way. You can see his headgear fall off completely and in the next scene is hat is back on his head. Nevertheless, it is still a neat gunfight with Morgan and Rudd standing back to back against the opposition. The scene at a windmill where Rudd hits each of the windmill blades because he was aiming at the spaces in between the blades is fun, too. George plays a role in the story and provides his buddy Morgan with a clue to the killer's identity. The animosity between Nick Evers and Van Morgan is feisty throughout the action with Nora trying to do her best to dampen it. Van Morgan and Lilly have some amusing banter. The expository scenes about Nick's childhood almost make his character marginally sympathetic.

Indeed, "5-Card Stud" is no classic, but it good enough for a rainy day.