Always Right Movie Review'dustries

I've been trying to get ahold of this movie ever since my wendigo fever began. It is a low budget, independant film written and directed by Larry Fessenden. When I began watching this movie, I was expecting a typical horror/monster movie. You know, a family is on vacation in an isolated, small community when all of a sudden pets and people begin to disappear... et cetera, et cetera. Well, I couldn't be any further from the truth.

The film begins with a Manhatan family, George, Kim, and their 8 year old son (played by Erik Per Sullivan), travelling to a friend's vaction home for a weekend vacation in upstate New York during the winter. On the way, they hit a deer and end up stuck in a snow bank. As they wait for the tow truck, they meet up with the hunter who was tracking the deer. As in any situation where a country personality meets with a city personality, there is conflict. But Otis does give them a tow out of the snow bank and sends them on their way. A lasting impression is left on the family though. A mercy killing of the deer by Otis, seems to frighten Miles. Miles has nightmares of Otis shooting him and as the boy says, that man knows where we live.

As the movie progresses, we learn of Miles's creative imagination. Partially thanks to his fathers inattention of him. On a visit to town, Miles meets an old, mysterious indian, who tells him of the wendigo.

The wendigo is an angry spirit, not an evil spirit, but a spirit to be feared, nonetheless. The wendigo is always hungry... when a wendigo eats it grows larger and hungrier.

Upon their parting, the old indian gives Miles a small carving of the Wendigo. Stangely, none of the other characters in the film meet this new friend. The film continues on towards it's climax, a collision course between a Manhattan family, an angry hunter, and an ancient myth. As you watch the film, it is obviously a low budget movie, but the writing is clever and unique. The acting is well done, especially by Erik Per Sullivan (known for playing Dewey on Malcolm In The Middle). I really enjoyed much of the camera work, I thought this film (like many independant films) had a real artsy apporach.

On giving this film a rating, I am having a real hard time. I liked how the direction of the film broke the traditional monster movie mold and created it's own style. But I felt the movie kindof dropped off at the end, since the run time is only an hour and a half I felt that more could have been done with the conclusion. On the other hand, I do enjoy a movie that does not tie up every loose end. A movie that leaves a viewer thinking (I know this can be dangerous). As a IMDB user suggested, the movie is intelligent and thought provoking. The yahoo users and critics both are so widespread in their ratings that nothing can be decided from them alone; they range from an A to a F!

I have decided that the most appropiate rating is that of LAST MAN STANDING. A middle ground between dying spree and killing spree. In terms of Unreal Tournamnet (UT), this film is not blown away but neither does it blow it's competition away. It finds a nice place to hide and wait for the rest to eliminate each other ;)

But adding a new rating to the scale fo this movie seems kindof lame, so if my hand were to be forced, I would choose Killing Spree for the rating.

This is what I thought when I saw it at the rental store: King of the Ants? Sounds like some low-budget horror picture about some Half Man Half Ant who can control hordes of army ants like those in the awesome short story "Leiningen Versus The Ants".

I would probably watch something like that. But that's not what it is about at all.

Trust me. After seeing King of the Ants you will never quite look at Cheers actor George Wendt in quite the same way again.

Let me be clear. This movie is kind of disturbing. It is a modern noir-ish crime/revenge film but oh so much more. You see in King of the Ants there is something involved called "Superb Development of Characters". There is another something called "Good Dialog". And I suppose, if you really want to get down to it, there is something called "Merciless Brutality."

You see, in a lot of movies today, the violence is just a little too cartoonish. Even in movies supposedly about wicked serial killers, the actual serial killing just doesn't seem very...authentic...somehow. And sure, you see people getting beat in the head, but the head beating just doesn't seem as head beat-ish as the kind of thing you see in real life. And afterwards, the hero doesn't seem to have the kind of bumps and bruises you would expect after taking about three dozen roundhouses to the skull.

Not so in King of the Ants.

King of the Ants is like this: There's this guy, the main character, looks to be in his early to mid-twenties, who is kind of adrift in life and working odd jobs in California to get by. I kind of identified with him (maybe it was his great haircut I happen to share--shaved head), and because of this identification I had an investment in the movie and it paid off insofar as making the story really affect me. While painting this house he meets George Wendt, who plays a seemingly innocuous electrician. This electrician, upon seeing how the main character is kind of up for doing pretty much anything for a little cash, invites him to do a little moonlighting doing certain undercover work for a guy he knows. Sound shady? It is.

I don't want to give too much away, since the story is pretty cool. Suffice to say the work he does for the electrician's boss isn't on the up and up and one thing leads to another and then alcohol is imbibed and then some people say things they don't really mean, pretty housewives become involved, and there's a horrible misunderstanding and then bad things happen and eventually really, really bad things happen.

And then things get ugly.

Then you might think things might get better, right? No. Then things get uglier (literally), mayhem ensues, and, well, after that, it's all kind of downhill.

Okay, hopefully I have enticed people with a taste for darker-flavored movies to get your hands on a copy of King of the Ants as soon as possible. And believe me when I say this is possibly the darkest film I have ever, ever seen. And this is coming from a guy who has seen a lot of dark movies. Dark humor, dark bruises, dark story, dark, dark climax...(no Donnie Darko, but oh well)...

Now, the fact that I will give this movie the coveted rating of Godlike may or may not mean I'm a very disturbed individual, insofar as I would take such a shine to this film equivalent of a lump of pure black onyx mined from the uttermost caverns of Hell and possessed by a tortured demon seething with pitch-black evil. To allay fears, it's not that I necessarily agree with what the characters are doing in the film (and in case you haven't figured it out it involves a lot of killing and torturing and maiming and mutilation with varying degrees of heartlessness and efficiency, with heartlessness having a positive correlation with efficiency). But I do agree with the way it was presented. It brings the real horror of violence home and makes you (or it at least made me) feel it in your gut.

That's not to say, however, that fun is not to be had with severed body parts.

Oh, and the star of Office Space, Ron Livingston, has a great scene. It involves a kitchen, and I say no more...

What do time travel, fundamentalist gurus, fate, predestination, schizophrenia, Michael Dukakis, a monstrous pooka, and high school all have in common? They all seem to be intertwined in the life of Donnie Darko, a mal-adjusted teenager who is in therapy and on medication. Shortly after inexplicably escaping death from a fallen jet engine that destroyed his room, Donnie is contacted by a pooka named Frank who tells him that the world will end in 28 days. Frank also tells Donnie that he is a time traveler, and he instructs Donnie to perform anti-social acts such as flooding his school and burning down a local author's home.

Donnie discusses his visions of Frank the pooka with his therapist, who quickly concludes that Donnie is schizophrenic. Even Donnie appears to believe this diagnosis, although his interactions with Frank spur him into investigating time travel. Donnie's search eventually convinces him that he understands how to travel through time. Is Donnie merely a disturbed schizophrenic, or does he hold the key to preventing the imminent end of the world?

This movie provides one of the most interesting character studies I have ever seen. Donnie struggles with his demons, both literally and figuratively all throughout the movie. He knows that he has emotional problems, and he goes against social norms by telling people right out what he thinks about them, yet at times his actions appear to be self-sacrificing and heroic. Does Donnie deserve the label of "disturbed individual" that he is branded with, or is he just another misunderstood member of society who, in spite of his rough exterior, has a good heart?

Overall, I'd have to give Donnie Darko a rating of Godlike with the caveat that if you don't like the works of Philip K. Dick, you probably won't like this movie. (Even though Philip had nothing to do with this movie, it very much reminded me of his works.)

This film is based on a true story... well, more like a true unsolved mystery. The Bell Family began to experience supernatural events. Strange sounds in the night, strange sightings (including a black wolf), nightmares to begin. The occurrences seemed to be directed at both John Bell and his daughter, Betsy Bell.

The movie takes an interesting apporach in telling the tale. In the year 2006, a mother and daughter discover a letter, written by Betsy Bell's mother to Betsy Bell, in their attic. Apparently the daughter has been experiencing similar supernatural events. As the mother begins to read the letter, the viewer is taken to the nineteenth century (1817-1821) to relive the Bell Family's curse.

The film even chose to reveal a possible explanation of the mystery/haunting. I feel that this movie was very well done. The suspense built up well and had theatre goers jumping in their seats. I really enjoyed this film and again, I will stand against the critics... I give An American Haunting a ghost's rampage.