PROMETHEUS Sequel Now Called ALIEN:COVENANT

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PROMETHEUS Sequel Now Called ALIEN:COVENANT

PROMETHEUS sequel changes names…again.

What started as PROMETHEUS 2, director Ridley Scott’s follow-up to his controversial ALIEN sidebar/prequel PROMETHUS, then became, according to Scott, ALIEN: PARADISE LOST…

Now, FOX has just put the word out that the final, official, carved in stone title will be ALIEN: COVENANT.

And to prove it, they sent us the title treatment.

Here it is.

I don’t know about you…but that ALIEN logo raises my blood pressure.

More details about ALIEN: CONVENT as we get them…

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Comic Review: PACIFIC RIM: TALES FROM THE DRIFT #1

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Comic Review: PACIFIC RIM: TALES FROM THE DRIFT #1

SHOCK reviews the new comic book spin off from the PACIFIC RIM universe, TALES FROM THE DRIFT.

PACIFIC RIM was a bit of a mixed success when it hit theaters in 2013. While it may have been a commercial disappointment in the US, it more than made up for it abroad, not only garnering international success but earning it the coveted title of “Biggest Summer Blockbuster of the Year!” around the globe. Regardless of the where and when, the film definitely left it’s impression on those who had seen it, so it’s no surprise that a comic book would follow on its heels. PACIFIC RIM: TALES FROM THE DRIFT (Legendary Comics) is the second story arc from the comic franchise which, like its predecessor, tells the story of our favorite monster-busting business in its early days.

The comic focuses on the little mentioned but hugely influential characters of Kaori and Duc, the pilots of one of the first mechas, Jaeger Tacit Ronin. The reader is dropped straight into a monster fight in Tokyo bay three years after K-Day, the day when kaiju began appearing on Earth. The married team of Kaori and Duc attempt to hold their own against the monster Itak, but are unfortunately taken down and are severely injured in the attack. As they attempt to not drown or get killed in the Ronin, the comic begins jumping back and forth between the future and the past, shining light on the initial relationship between the two and how they first met.

PACIFIC RIM: TFTD is a hard comic to get into. This is a work that is very much aimed at fans of PACIFIC RIM expanded universe, more specifically, fans who have read the first comic. There was no introduction beforehand of who Kaori and Duc were and, aside from a cameo appearance in the movie (that required research into the PACIFIC RIM wiki,) they could’ve been anybody. To follow-up, the characters were not interesting in the least, especially since the reader was supposed to feel some kind of connection to them. Kaori is a no-nonsense scientist who plays by her own rules and Duc is a flirty pilot who plays by his own rules and they meet when she punches him in the face. It’s your standard, boy meets girl, love story; even their banter is boring. Their characters make it hard to want to grab the second issue to see if they survive the attack especially since a small part of you kind of wants to see them die.

To be fair, the monster Itak was pretty damn cool. His spikey body and glowing blue interior light was very reminiscent of the movie. Same goes for the Ronin scheme; a solid nod to the anime-esque designs that were prevalent in the source material and that brought such a huge draw from the global market. Marco Marz art is clean with a beautiful color scheme and the panel layout works out great between the action scenes and the calmer parts. While the writing by Joshua Fialkov is dry it’s at least interesting to see some history behind the behemoths that have threatened our world. Hopefully PACIFIC RIM: TFTD picks up in the follow up issues as this is a weak start to what can be an amazing work.

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TV Recap: THE WALKING DEAD Season 6, Episode 6, ‘Always Accountable’

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TV Recap: THE WALKING DEAD Season 6, Episode 6, ‘Always Accountable’

SHOCK recaps tonight’s episode of THE WALKING DEAD…with spoilers!

We’ve seen Daryl coasting around on his motorcycle a lot this season, in a relatively zen state, despite the herd following the growl of his engine. But with this round of THE WALKING DEAD, it’s Easy Rider no more…

The show – which has been deftly spinning narrative plates and juggling timelines this season – opens with Daryl once more leading Abraham and Sasha along the blood-spattered road with the grimy zombie herd following as quickly as their shambling, supernatural limbs can propel them. Suddenly, shots fire at the team from the sidelines and Daryl goes skidding down, the back windshield of Abraham and Sasha’s car blowing out and the villains giving chase. Daryl goes off one way, Abraham and Sasha turn around and face their attackers, blowing them to smithereens, along with a smattering of zombies that come-a-crawling…

Meanwhile, Daryl collapses in the woods, right beside the charred body of a barely moving ghoul.

Slam to credits…

Daryl tries his damnedest to summon his comrades on the CB to no avail and, considering his leather jacket is shredded and bloody, he loses his leather and shows off his impressive pipes, along with an impressive amount of road burn on his left arm. He picks up his deluxe crossbow and goes hunting, where he finds two shivering girls who claim “what they took, they earned” before an unseen figure smashes him in the face and he goes down.

Flitting in and out of consciousness, he catches glimpses of his attackers and captors and we learn that he might be the victim of mistaken identity. Regardless, the trio steal Daryl’s stuff an lead him at gunpoint through the woods, where they stumble upon legions of burned ghouls. They tell Daryl that it was they who fried the forest to burn the dead…

Norman Reedus’ is really rocking the Snake Plissken vibe this episode and even composer Bear McCreary knows it, with signature grinding guitar stings that sound like vintage John Carpenter swagger.

With that, Daryl escapes the trio, who he has gleaned are not bad people, and they shoot at him as he runs away with their stuff. Hiding behind a fallen tree, he tries to unsheathe his crossbow from the team’s duffel bag. As he struggles, an awesomely gross, moss encrusted swamp zombie that looks exactly like SWAMP THING stumbles into frame. In the nick of time, Daryl liberates his crossbow and takes the creature out…

But after he pulls the arrow from the ghoul’s green skull, he examines the bag and finds a cold-pack of insulin. It seems one of the girls is a diabetic, leaving Daryl with a moral conundrum: flee or find his former captors and give them back the lifesaving elixir?

We then cut back to Abraham and Sasha who, after trying in vain to decipher the motives of the raid that decimated their vehicle, find an insurance office in the neighboring town. Abraham wants to kill as many zombies as he can find, but Sasha urges him not to waste his energy, dialing down Abraham’s blood-lusty bravado.

After Abraham gleans that one of the employees was a veteran, he find Sasha sitting in front of a Plexiglas trapped office zombie who is weakly trying to get at her, but obviously cannot. When Abraham finds her, he can only think of decimating the undead dude but, again, Sasha tells him to chill out and just leave it be. It’s a moment of pathos for the dead, in a show that has had very little of that. George Romero has cited that element as a failure of the program, that the zombies are just target practice and have no personalities. This is true, but this moment reminded me of the sequence in DAWN OF THE DEAD where Gaylen Ross’s Fran mournfully watches a baseball player zombie who stares at her through the locked department store door.

As Abraham curbs his typical rage, he and Sasha begin talking, getting to know each other and share almost existential passages of dialogue.
Meanwhile, good old Daryl returns the duffel bag just in time, shocking the trio who now realize that Daryl is not one of the bad dudes hunting them as they previously believed. But said bad dudes do show up and shout out to the trio that they will “take them back”. The trio scream that “they’re done kneeling” and, with Daryl guiding them, they hightail it into the woods to hide.

Daryl sees a ghoul trapped by a rock and lures one of the villains towards it. The bad guy gets the bite and his colleague hacks off the bitten arm and tells the poor sod to “walk it off”. Whoever these guys are…they’re hardcore!

Back to the Abraham/Sasha thread, the ginger-haired hero find a hummer on the roof and an arsenal in its trunk. And a half-full box of cigars. The driver of the hummer is hanging over the edge of the roof and, after Abraham screams in its face – but doesn’t kill it – it thrashes and slides off its impaling rod before smashing to the ground and leaving the rocket launcher it had in its back for Abraham to take. Suddenly, Abraham thinks that Sasha’s urges not to randomly put down every ghoul he sees might be wise advice.

Returning to the office, Abraham lights a cigar and, looking her dead in the eye, tells Sasha that he’d like to stay there, set up a home and that he’d really like to get to know Sasha better. She catches his drift. And so do we. After my recap last week, where I suggested that Maggie and Aaron would be wise to hookup now that Glenn is (presumably) dead and was promptly reminded that Aaron was actually gay (which I knew, but forgot about), it’s nice to see the actual promise of apocalyptic nookie between good characters we love on the horizon. This show needs more sex, damn it.

Meanwhile, after one of Daryl’s new friends is eaten by a pair of shrink-wrapped zombies, the remaining two inexplicably pull out a gun and steal his crossbow and motorcycle.

Says the girl: “We’re sorry!”

Says Daryl: “Yer gonna be…”

No doubt.

Wandering back to the location he started at, with the burned, helmet-wearing ghoul, Daryl finds said zombie’s truck, a fuel truck that is ripe for the taking. He doubles back to find Abraham and Sasha, who give up their domestic fantasy and the three begin to head back to Alexandria. As the truck rolls down the road, Daryl tries Rick on the CB again. He gets…someone…and that someone, I think, says “Help”.

Is it Rick?

Or…is it…Glenn?

See you next week!

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‘The Disc That Wouldn’t Die!': THE ANGEL COLLECTION on DVD

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‘The Disc That Wouldn’t Die!': THE ANGEL COLLECTION on DVD

In this ongoing SHOCK column, journo Trevor Parker sifts through discount stores for the cheapest and coolest DVD’s and Blu’s he can find and lives to tell the tale.

After the last installment of this column sagged with monstrous disappointment at the Roger Corman-directed FRANKENSTEIN UNBOUND, it seemed the safer option was to retreat into examining some of Corman’s many dynastic adoptions rather than deal with any more of his direct lineage. Hence cometh THE ANGEL COLLECTION: a cheap single-disc compilation from Image Entertainment that assembles all three ANGEL movies originally released by Corman under his New World Pictures shingle.

ANGEL (1984) is one of those titles, alongside questionable fare like GHOULIES and SLEEPAWAY CAMP 2: UNHAPPY CAMPERS, that is likely better recalled due to its striking key art than for the actual film contained underneath. That cover, here reproduced on the ANGEL COLLECTION’s case, was a salacious Jekyll-and-Hyde split photo featuring star Donna (JAWS 2) Wilkes decked out as a virginal pig-tailed schoolgirl on the left and then sporting hot pants, heels, and a come-hither pout on the right side.

That art pretty accurately summarizes the plot of ANGEL: Molly is a cheerful, cherubic fifteen-year-old, attending an L.A. prep school and fending off advances from some comedic nerd and jock caricatures. Once the sun dips below the hills, Molly is off prowling Hollywood Boulevard as the prostitute known as ‘Angel’, trolling for tricks and dodging vice busts with the survival acumen of a ghetto veteran. Also plying his trade on these same streets is a serial switchblade slasher, and Angel is forced to team with a police detective (Cliff Gorman, whose eyeballs have the distracting propensity to point in different directions at once) to prepare for an inevitable clash as the slasher whittles his way through the ranks of her fellow working girls.

ANGEL is a specimen of exploitation film at its purest, in the sense that it’s so baldly two-faced: The sympathetic, earnest melodrama of an abandoned minor subsisting on the meanest of streets couches no shortage of lascivious leers at the disturbingly-babyfaced Wilkes strutting along in a leather miniskirt and navigating a nasty clientele (often lit from beneath their chins for maximum spookiness). With that duality reconciled, director Robert Vincent O’Neil pulls together a fairly compelling thriller around his ANGEL; He grants John Diehl, as the killer, enough solo moments to truly sculpt out his character’s lunacy (all about that egg scene… Yikes!), and tests the parameters of an ‘R’ rating with a lurid necrophilia angle. ANGEL’s supporting cast of wacky boulevard denizens is, to be kind, spotty—but it’s difficult not to adore the great Rory (MOTEL HELL) Calhoun as a washed-up cowboy actor patrolling the strip and signing autographs. This ANGEL, as does the other two films in the trilogy, definitely deserves some retroactive applause for offering several positive, occasionally heroic gay characters in a decade not exactly renowned for tolerance.

ANGEL became a modest box-office success, and thus a sequel was rushed into production and appeared in theaters barely a year later. AVENGING ANGEL (1985) sees the departure of Wilkes’ studied girlishness and husky voice; she would vacate the role over a salary dispute with producers and was replaced with the muscle tone and thousand-yard glower of Betsy Russell—yes, the TOMBOY herself.

AVENGING finds Molly now a student at law school and happy to leave her sordid past behind. However, once she gets word that her mentor Detective Andrews (Robert Lyons replacing Gorman, he of the wayward eyeballs) has been killed in a shootout, Molly resurrects Angel to go undercover on the now-gentrified boulevard and solve Andrews’ murder. One might assume that a simplistic revenge premise like this would be foolproof—that is, until returning director O’Neil expends far too much of AVENGING on scenes of Angel reuniting and kibbutzing around with her motley collection of compadres. Changing antagonists from a creepy, misogynistic killer to generic sport-jacketed gangsters involved in real estate schemes shrinks the dramatic factor of AVENGING considerably, and the tone is overall much sillier—witness Angel organizing a hilarious WEEKEND AT BERNIE’S-type of gambit to swindle the baddies with a corpse in a wheelchair, for example.

Angel would lie dormant for a three year period, and then rise back up with ANGEL III: THE FINAL CHAPTER (1988). Completists please note: As with another “Final” chapter, this was hardly the end of the Angel saga, as a fourth film was made in the early nineties but is not included on this disc. Writing and directing duties on FINAL CHAPTER are inherited by exploitation veteran Tom (REFORM SCHOOL GIRLS) DeSimone, and the title role is again recast, this time played by Mitzi Kapture of later SILK STALKINGS fame. Apparently, that whole ‘law school’ doddle just didn’t pan out for Molly, as the FINAL CHAPTER has her relocated to N.Y.C. and working as a freelance photographer. Molly gets a lead on a long-lost family member and returns to Los Angeles to investigate. There Molly learns that her heretofore-unknown sister has been abducted into sex slavery by an evil madam (a haughty Maud ‘OCTOPUSSY’ Adams), and so once again dusts off the Angel persona to mount a rescue.

By this point, the whole ANGEL routine is fatigued to the point of boredom constantly nipping at both filmmakers and audience. The tepid action moves from the dark and sticky byways of Hollywood Boulevard to a sun-dappled beachfront (?), and while Kapture is close enough to Russell in physical appearance, she rejects the camp of AVENGING and plays the role in a very dry and over-serious manner. The three-year gap has FINAL CHAPTER feeling disconnected to the first two films, and the total recasting grants Angel with a new and far less interesting supply of street sidekicks (seriously, her old gang makes hustler Spanky (Mark Blankfield) look like an insurance salesman).

The transfers on the ANGEL COLLECTION are unimpressive; they’re likely unmodified from those used for the old Anchor Bay ANGEL box set, and there are no extras other than a trailer for the second and third films. The disc is still a recommend simply for the grimy first film, though anyone out there who happens to be craving flicks pickled with that distinct Eighties syrup—neon glow, saxophone wailing over the soundtrack, abundant nudity, and chunky bullet squibs—will find themselves well satisfied by the entire ANGEL enchilada.

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The Neo-Gothic Horror Of James Wan

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The Neo-Gothic Horror Of James Wan

Filmmaker James Wan’s brand of Gothic cinema has helped shape the state of the genre.

Director James Wan wheeled into the horror genre alongside his buddy Billy the Puppet in SAW. Born in Malaysia, raised in Australia Wan has gone on to make some of the most popular interpretations of American culture in genre films of the new millennium all with an eye to destabilize the familiar and create fear in our most intimate relationships. The Gothic or Neo-Gothic movement which emerged in England in the 1740s rose in popularity throughout Europe on multiple fronts (from architecture to art) in part as a reaction to industrialization which was sweeping the Western world at the time. The Gothic movement is seen as a reaction to the minimalism which industrialization was popularizing, it was a return to opulence; individualization over industry. Gothic literature also emerged during the period and was marked by imbuing romantic stories with supernatural elements, prophecies and cursed places making the ordinary extraordinary. Wan’s horror oeuvre (outside of his work in action with the films DEATH SENTENCE and FURIOUS 7) has showcased these elements while updating and manipulating them to create a new Gothic set in contemporary America.

In SAW two men, Dr Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes) and Adam (co-writer Leigh Whannell), wake up in a decrepit room and are forced to play a game by an unseen assailant. Each element of the “game” pushes the men to further extremes testing their humanity. In relation to previous understandings of Gothic art Wan’s use of the decidedly urban space of the room which at some point featured amenities is now shown to be falling apart, a symbol of the failings and trappings of industrialization. Wan has included the Gothic element of the cursed place alongside the movement’s reaction against industry. As the film builds to its climax, Adam and Lawrence both learn of their reasons for being imprisoned. It was not by happenstance but rather because of their actions. The notion of the Gothic curse or prophecy is realized through Wan’s framing of the two men as victims of their own choices, a theme that would be explored and tortured out of the entire franchise. Gothic literature has long concerned itself with the repressed or forgotten, in Saw forgotten spaces are where the Jigsaw killer is able to lay his traps in places that are no longer needed by society. His selection of victims (or victors) is based on deeds or incidents that they have forgotten with Jigsaw forcing them to relive and react to them.

Wan’s follow-up film which he produced before SAW took off in a massive way has been derided by its creator. In the press Wan has admonished the supernatural thriller, lamenting the lack of time he felt he had to conceptualize and make the film.DEAD SILENCE sees Jamie (Ryan Kwanten) returning to the town he grew up in after the brutal murder of his wife. Jamie begins to suspect that his wife’s murder may have something to do with the town lore of Mary Shaw a long-dead ventriloquist who may be dealing out punishments from beyond the grave. While Saw explored a modern Gothic in an urban landscape, DEAD SILENCE explores a more traditional Gothic story with the main updates coming for the modern characters. After the opening coda in an urban setting, the film transitions to a rural landscape where large houses are filled with threatening and eerie objects. Wan’s camera treats object as potentially threatening to the point where large rooms become more threatening than the potentially cognizant dummy (the actual dummy, not Donnie Wahlberg). The setting of the small town of Ravens Fair serves to mark the film act as a throwback, the cursed place from a cursed time that threatens to consume everyone in it. The ghosts of America’s relatively young past are returning to wreak havoc on the living…

INSIDIOUS would combine multiple elements from Wan’s previous films to crystallize the concepts that would mark Wan’s new Gothic. When INSIDIOUS was released in 2010 it was marketed as a bloodless film; a palate cleanser to the new millennium’s interest in Torture Porn. INSIDIOUS follows the Lambert family as they begin believe their house is haunted. Soon they learn that it is not their house that is haunted but their son who is being tracked by a malevolent spirit who has been threatening to overtake the family for decades. Not only does the film mimic a Gothic aesthetic through the costuming of the ghost and parts of the netherworld known as The Further but tonally the film is in keeping with the inherent sense of inescapable dread prevalent in Gothic literature. It is not until the family patriarch Josh (Patrick Wilson) recognizes his role in the haunting that he is able to help his son. INSIDIOUS as well as INSIDIOUS 2 and 3 have helped popularize the sub-genre of the Suburban Gothic where the American Dream is threatened by old, underlying forces (see also: IT FOLLOWS and SINISTER). While the ideology behind this form of Gothic is terrifying, it also elevates the plight of normal families to the mythic by viewing it through a classically Gothic aesthetic. Wan’s frames the Lambert’s life in a rainbow of washout greys where vibrant colors are only introduced once Josh passes into The Further. The Lambert’s cinematic framing renders their story has part of a longer lineage which traces itself back to the Gothic ghost stories which emerged in the 18th century.

Possibly the most assured example of Wan’s preoccupation with Gothic elements comes from his 2013 film THE CONJURING based on real-life paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren and a supposedly true case of possession in rural America. Set in the 1970s Wan amplifies the pastiche nature of the time period to create fear and suspense in the rural farmhouse that the Perron family has moved into. The repressed past, this time in the form of a witch, stalks and terrorizes the family in similar fashions to the rest of the malevolent figures in Wan’s films but in THE CONJURING, the evil stems from the land, not the people. Wan’s contemporary Gothic structure places the onus on the family and society at large for moving into a house that is once both affordable and haunted. With THE CONJURING, Wan insinuates that like the Gothic tales that came centuries before, fear lies around every corner waiting to be discovered by anyone.

The appeal of the Gothic and Wan’s updating of it comes elevating the everyday. Saw crucifies those that do bad things with full knowledge that what they are being punished for is relatively mundane in the grand scheme of things. Their trespasses are ones that people make on a daily basis. In DEAD SILENCE there is a fear of history, of the former self and the idea that folkloric tales yield terrifying consequences. Insidious deals with what we inflict on the next generation while THE CONJURING looks at bad luck of receiving a cursed object or location. Wan amplifies the terror in the banal; everything ordinary is a threat specific to us which in turns renders our lives and our contemporary stories as meaningful rather than meaningless.

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Eli Roth’s The Green Inferno Coming to DVD & Blu-ray

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Eli Roth’s The Green Inferno Coming to DVD & Blu-ray

Eli Roth’s THE GREEN INFERNO will be getting a digital release and a DVD/Blu-ray release. Love or hate this film (I loved it–my review), THE GREEN INFERNO is definitely the type of film the genre needed in 2015. For those who saw it in the theater, how could you not love watching a bunch of … Continue reading →

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Bruno Mattei ‘Women-in-Prison’ Flick Hits Blu-ray

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Bruno Mattei ‘Women-in-Prison’ Flick Hits Blu-ray

Ultra-nasty Italian exploitation film WOMEN’S PRISON MASSACRE screams on to Blu-ray.

Had Bruno Mattei (HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD) lived long enough to see the Blu-ray revolution reach the lower echelons of euro-perv exploitation titles, even he might be surprised to see his grubby 1983 sex and violence wallow EMANUELLE IN PRISON (aka BLADE VIOLENT) buffed to a high-def gloss.

But buffed it has been and now, on December 8th, Scream Factory will release the Laura Gemser trash classic on Blu-ray under its alternate title WOMEN’S PRISON MASSACRE. Deviants rejoice!

SHOCK recently reviewed Mattei’s final women-in-prison flick, the charmingly detestable THE JAIL and WOMEN’S PRISON MASSACRE is almost as vulgar. But it is the superior Mattei lesbos-in-the-slammer experience as it was shot on film. And because of the presence of the luscious Italian sex film superstar Gemser, of course…

Directed by Mattei and co-written by his frequent collaborator Claudio Fragasso (TROLL II),  this one sees Gemser reprising the role of “Black Emanuelle”, in this incarnation essayed as a reporter who gets framed and sent to the world’s worst prison. Sex, violence and humiliation reign supreme and things get worse when a quartet of male cons get sent to the slammer with the nasty gals.

Just have a look at the title and you can guess how this one ends…

You can pre-order WOMEN’S PRISON MASSACRE by going to the Shout Factory website.

Here’s the trailer! And NO it is NOT safe for work. Unless you work at home. Alone. In which case…have fun!

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