Aaron's Blood (2016)

JUNE 1, 2017

GENRE: VAMPIRE
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

Hey, have I mentioned that I have a kid now?

I joke, of course - I know I can't talk (well, write) for five minutes (sentences) without bringing up my new, mostly wonderful job as father, but it really does have a profound effect on how I watch horror movies, and I don't just mean that it takes me a week to get through one because I never have 90 minutes to myself. It's wearing off some, but I get more worked up whenever kids are killed or in danger, and find myself feeling sad at the weirdest things. There's one Friday the 13th sequel (Final Chapter, I think) where we just see some crying parents in the hospital, and it bummed me out last time I watched! It dawned on me for the first time that some (yes, fictional) parent probably had to muster up the courage to let their beloved son or daughter go off for the weekend, and now they're dead - and so I start thinking that I'll never let my kid do the same. So when I read the plot of Aaron's Blood, I knew it was right up my alley, as it involved a father being torn between his love for his kid and his own conscience when the boy turned into a blood-needing vampire.

Now, when it comes to masked maniacs, there's a slim, but not impossible chance my son could find himself the victim of one someday, but I don't believe vampires exist, so I can watch this kind of a plot without hyperventilating at the possibilities, while also considering them in the hypothetical. WHAT IF my beloved Will (who just turned 3, by the way) turned into a vampire and needed human blood to survive? Would I be able to bring myself to kill innocent people (also someone's child) to keep him alive, or would I mercy-kill him in order to spare him the agony of immortality? I mean, sure, blood is blood and thus I could conceivably get it from prisoners or right-wing nationalists in order to lessen the guilt, but it's easier said than done, and that's just the hunger part of it. He couldn't go out in the sun anymore, so he'd have to stay home - and thus I'd have to stay home as well, which means no work. How do *I* survive, in this case?

Literally dozens of these questions ran through my head while watching, more than making up for the fact that the movie doesn't really offer much that you haven't seen in the likes of Maggie (albeit with a zombie) or Let The Right One In, among others. The father/son dynamic is the biggest wrinkle, as it's often a father and daughter (or a couple) that go through these "whatever it takes to keep my loved one alive" scenarios, but the script finds precious few moments for the two of them to bond or even really talk at all. Unlike Maggie, which kept things (too) simple, the movie offers a subplot involving a Van Helsing-y type who wants to kill the vampires but is also sympathetic to the father's situation, as the kid is all he has (the mother died some time ago). There's also a priest who wrestles with the implications and offers advice/exposition, plus his sister, and so the father (James Martinez, who was in another "Dad protects son" movie, the underrated Run All Night) spends more of his screentime with these folks than he does with his kid. As a result, the appeal is somewhat muted - you really need to see how deep his bond with his son is to go along 100% with his actions throughout the film.

It probably wouldn't have hurt to see more of the story from the kid's POV, either. Early on we get the usual scenes of him getting stronger and finding out how hard it can be to be a vampire (no sun!), but as the movie goes on he is kind of backgrounded in favor of the dad's attempts to save him. The DVD has some deleted scenes and I wasn't surprised to see that they all involved him - more stuff at school, setting up more antagonism with the obligatory bully, etc. I mean, the hook of the film is how the father-son bond is challenged by this new development, at a time when kids tend to start being more independent, so it's odd that writer/director Tommy Stovall kept muddling up that appeal with pointless diversions like the dad trying to track down the blood donor that caused the vampirism in the first place, because that stuff just isn't as interesting (at least, to me).

Indeed, the best moments are those quiet ones that kinda pulled at my dad-strings. Just this morning my kid seemed disinterested in his usual hug and kiss goodbye when I dropped him off at daycare, and so a scene where the dad considers the idea that his son will stay a young boy (11 or 12ish, in this case) forever kinda hit hard - I'm not sure I can handle the "Dad you're embarrassing me" era, and wouldn't mind always having him small enough to cuddle up with me to watch cartoons as he someday won't want to do. There's also a scene where the kid questions why the dad no longer uses one of his old nicknames on him ("Because you told me to stop calling you that," the dad sadly replies), which flooded me with memories of when I, as an adolescent, would feel a bit sad that I was too big to say "mommy/daddy" anymore - just because you want to grow up doesn't mean you want to shed yourself of all the benefits that come from being a nearly helpless toddler. It's this sort of stuff that really gave the movie its appeal to me, and I'm curious how non-parents will react to it - will it just be "boring talk" that delays the vampire action?

Being that this is a low-budget independent film, I trust no one will walk in expecting Blade levels of carnage. The body count is low, but they make those moments count with some decent vampire makeup and an admirable acceleration to the "turning" process; Tate is drinking blood at around the 25 minute mark, so there's no slow burn "save it for the third act" bullshit. And they splash real fake blood on actors' faces during the kills, so kudos for that as well. One good thing about the dad keeping so busy by meeting folks who can help is that it keeps things moving even though there isn't much traditional fangplay. It's a short movie (barely over 80 minutes), but the pacing surprisingly made it feel even shorter - I was actually kind of surprised when it ended, thinking it was only a little over an hour or so since it started.

Overall it's a well-intentioned film that tends to focus on less interesting things a bit too often, somewhat handicapping its chances to be something truly special. It's enjoyable and reasonably well made, but there are probably 20 or so minutes devoted to the same sort of "vampires must be stopped!" kinda hooey that we've all seen a zillion times. Perhaps if the two primary characters went on a road trip or something, minimizing how much time the supporting cast could drop in, Stovall and his team would have really hit it out of the park. But if you enjoy these low-key vampire flicks, and/or want something besides Field of Dreams to watch with your dad next Sunday, it's worth checking out. The disc has a smattering of standard extras (behind the scenes, trailer, and the aforementioned deleted scenes) to sweeten the deal, though I'm sure VOD (and apparently even a small theatrical run) will be where most people see it. I'll keep the disc, however - if my kid turns out to like horror movies maybe I can show it to him in time for him to think twice about telling me not to call him "Pookie" anymore, when he sees how sad the kid felt when he realized his dad stopped using his pet names in favor of his real one!

What say you?

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Underworld: Blood Wars (2016)

JANUARY 7, 2017

GENRE: VAMPIRE, WEREWOLF
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

A week or so ago, I pointed out how the last time a new Underworld movie came out (2012's Awakening), there was no such thing as Thursday evening shows for the new movies - if you didn't want to deal with going over the more crowded weekend, you had to go at midnight, which was difficult for me given my well-documented battle with Cinesomnia. So, now that Thursday night shows at 730 or so is the norm, I was excited that I'd be able to watch Underworld: Blood Wars at a normal time, before I get real sleepy and end up being more confused with these movies than I am when wide awake. Alas, for whatever reason, Sony seems hellbent on burying this one - not only did they not have much of a marketing campaign for it (I've seen next to no posters/billboards around town - that town being Los Angeles), but they also skipped the Thursday shows entirely, with only a handful of theaters opting for an old-school midnight showing. I even went to a theater that had a 7:45 showing listed, only to be told it was pulled, disappointing me, my friend, and (this made me sad) a dad and his two teen sons who all showed up expecting to enjoy the latest round of vamp v. wolf action.

Now I'm sure there are complicated and possibly even legitimate reasons for this, but to the above-average moviegoer (i.e. the people that go to the early shows on Thursday night), this suggests that they're trying to hide the film, a bizarre course of action for a franchise entry. Even if they thought it was a stinker, why make it seem like one by hiding it from the people who probably wouldn't care much about what critics think anyway? Especially for a series that's on a high; while the last one cost more than usual, it also MADE more than usual - nearly $200m worldwide. A franchise hitting highs with its 4th entry is pretty rare, so while I don't get why they dilly-dallied making the next one (the five year gap is the longest for this usually "every three years" series), I'm more confused that they seem to be content with letting it wither and die, even with yet another cliffhanger ending that sets up the already promised sixth entry. Will it actually happen?

Based on the box office so far (which I finally got to add to, by myself, on Saturday), I wouldn't exactly hold my breath, though the reduced budget means they might be able to justify another in the same ball park if they can play up the "final chapter" element (as Resident Evil is currently doing) and sell another batch of boxed set Blu-rays (maybe even 4K ones - who wouldn't want that for Kate in her leather suit?). If this turns out to be the last we see of the Lycan vs Death Dealer battle, at least it goes out on a relative high, in that it follows Underworld series tradition of being better in some areas than its immediate predecessor while lacking in others, making a ranking of the franchise - a time honored tradition for any horror series - rather difficult. If I absolutely had to rank them right now, it'd be something like Evolution > Awakening > Blood Wars > Lycans > original, but that could completely change depending on my mood (though I suspect the original will always be at the bottom, given its punishing length and lack of any good action scenes). They each offer something I like while frustrating me in other ways, unlike most franchises where I can clearly peg which ones I love and which ones I don't. For Underworld, they're all... not bad!

So what does this one offer that the others don't? For starters: SWORD FIGHTS! OK, that's not really new - Rise of the Lycans had them, but this is the first time they've used them in the present day, when they had their machine guns and what not at their disposal. They still have the guns of course, but it's fun seeing Charles Dance aka Tywin Lannister getting in on the action in a manner Game of Thrones never afforded him, as he was always just sitting around killing people with his words instead of weapons. Speaking of Thrones, they seem to be influenced a lot by the show; not only does it have other actors from it (new bad guy Marius is played by Tobias Menzies, aka Edmure Tully, and one of the vamp elders is played by Sam's dad), but a new character looks and acts exactly like Jamie, and there are seemingly more political chess-playing maneuvers than usual. But fear not, for those who find Thrones too talky - there's still plenty of violence to enjoy between conversations, and thankfully it's not all just "Selene vs whoever else" this time around. Even the gun action is stepped up a bit; there's a pretty great bit where a vamp and a lycan (in human form) are firing machine guns at each other as they walk toward one another, eventually riddling each other with bullets from only a few feet apart while barely flinching - it's laughable but in that awesome kind of way, not unlike the Fast & Furious guys defying gravity and what not. Selene also gets a pretty good fight on an ice lake with another giant Lycan, slightly more satisfying than the parking garage one she had in the fourth movie.

And that's the other thing that I liked more about this one than Awakening - it's been largely shed of that one's overly stylish, futuristic decor, largely due to the return to Europe for filming as opposed to the previous film's Canadian production. While I can appreciate a fresh look (it certainly helps to know which one you're watching), when I rewatched Awakening the other day I couldn't help but think it felt like a half-assed attempt to make it feel like a Resident Evil film, with all the secret labs and evil scientists running shady corporations. This one returns to the Gothic feel of the first two entries; set in the modern day but letting its characters favor old compounds and castles instead of bland looking office buildings. A good chunk of the action takes place at a coven that was set up by Amelia back in the day (which, for this series, means the 13th century), and then later Selene and David (Theo James) travel to an even older area that's hidden in this world's version of Siberia (guessing, since we see the Northern Lights as they make their way there and it's in an ice-covered area). Modern tech shows up when necessary - a car, a security system, etc. - but otherwise this feels like they wanted to return to the "old and new" feel of the original, as opposed to the last one's "just new" look.

However, they also shed something else from Awakening - its characters. David and his father return, but Eve and Sebastian are gone, and in the latter's case he isn't even mentioned (when we last saw him he was fending off attackers to buy Selene and Co. some time, so I guess he's just dead). As for Eve, it's not clear how they got separated - since it took five years I guess they felt they couldn't just pick right up where Awakening left off with a new actress for Eve (even though they'll replace Scott Speedman...?), but since the plot revolves around the Lycans hunting Selene to get a hold of her, it's very odd that their separation is left so vague. Selene keeps denying that she knows where Eve is, and we're not even sure if she's lying or not because it's not clear how they got split to begin with. The film doesn't pick up x number of years later, best I can tell, but it still feels like I missed a movie in between that detailed a. how Eve and Selene got split and b. where all of the new enemies came from, as they're kind of established as big players right off the bat. I mean, both races are dying out, shouldn't there be few surprises concerning this kind of thing? Wouldn't they already all know about this Marius guy (the new Lycan villain) at the end of Awakening if he was such an important factor now, a couple days later?

Then again, this helps keep the plot more streamlined and thus easy to follow, so if you skipped Awakening you wouldn't be as completely lost as someone who, say, watched Evolution without seeing the original. As always there's a recap of the whole thing at the top, given by a bored sounding Beckinsale, so as long as you see that and have some passing knowledge of the series, you should be fine. Characters occasionally say aloud things that they both know for our benefit, just to make sure everyone's up to speed, but really the whole thing boils down to what the title promises - blood. The Lycans want Eve's blood, the bad guy vampires want Selene's blood, and that's pretty much it. Every 15-20 minutes we get another big action scene, a traitor or two will be exposed (the trailer gave away the biggest, but thankfully it's an "end of act one" twist so ultimately not a big deal), and Kate Beckinsale will wrap her legs around the world's luckiest Eastern European stuntman when she takes him down - it's pretty much status quo for the Underworld series.

That is, until the 3rd act (SPOILERS AHEAD! Skip this paragraph if you don't want to know the context of why she has lighter hair in the film's poster), when Selene is killed and revived by a group of vampires who are tuned into some witch type powers, including the ability to teleport. The revival makes her become one of them, so now she can zip around like Jason Voorhees in Manhattan, adding to her already impressive stable of superpowers. This gives her renewed value in the vampire world, to the extent that they make her an elder at the end - it almost seems like a way to set up a future where Beckinsale's presence is reduced in favor of "on the ground" participants in this endless war? I can almost see her making a cameo in an Underworld TV show pilot just like Sam Jackson did for Agents of Shield, or taking the "and" role in the next film as new heroes take the spotlight. I mean, she's basically invincible at this point, so they almost have to scale her back somehow to keep it fresh/interesting. The film moves along just fine without her for that 15-20 minute chunk where she's "dead", and I actually liked Lycans a lot when I saw it (I only rank it low now because it's really dull on the action front, giving it very little rewatch value), so as much as I love the woman I don't think she needs to be front and center for the Underworld series to sustain itself - but keeping her out entirely would probably be something they'd have to gradually work towards, not introduce out of the blue (indeed, Lycans is the series' lowest-grossing entry, so clearly people want her around).

But even that development doesn't exactly send the film skyrocketing to another level, so ultimately whether or not it has any value depends on how you feel about the others. They're preaching to the choir here at this point; like the Saw franchise, at a certain point they were no longer interested in scoring new fans, just making sure they didn't lose any more of the ones they already had. Die-hards may nitpick about hiccups in the mythology (with the original writers all having since moved on, I'm sure there are some inconsistencies), but for others like me who find them enjoyable enough but probably wouldn't bother reading an official tie-in novel or watching a Kate (or Rhona Mitra)-less TV show, I think it will provide a pretty entertaining 90 minutes at the movies. They still use CGI wolves more often than not (another casualty of Len Wiseman's reduced involvement; say what you will about the guy, but he has a preference for practical FX), and Scott Speedman's absence has yet to be fully resolved (it feels like they keep Michael alive but MIA just in case they can get him back), but overall I had a good time and hope that the 6th film comes to pass. But if it doesn't? I'm sure I'll get over it.

What say you?

P.S. I saw it in 2D, so I dunno how the 3D was, if you were wondering. I will no longer pay extra for it since projection standards are so low around here (indeed, the film did not fill up the screen, either on the sides OR the top/bottom. I complained, but naturally the theater did nothing to fix it.) But I'm guessing that big ice battle looked great.

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Hotel Transylvania 2 (2015)

SEPTEMBER 25, 2015

GENRE: ANIMATED, MONSTER, VAMPIRE
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

I shrugged off the original Hotel Transylvania, finding most of the humor to be beneath me (lots of fart jokes) and the narrative not taking advantage of the setting and its characters (as the title suggests, a hotel in Transylvania, owned and frequented by monsters). Knowing it was for kids I didn't care much, though the same season offered the superior Paranorman and Frankenweenie, proving that there was a way to make a solid film for kids that adults could enjoy, so over time I just kind of forgot about it. So when I say that I saw Hotel Transylvania 2 on opening night, I want to stress that it wasn't out of undying excitement for it - merely a matter of scheduling, as my Saturday was busy and I was on baby duty Sunday night - and there was no way I'd go see a kid's movie during the day. So an 8:45 Friday night option made the most sense, as it would likely be kind of empty save for the other curious adults*, right?

Alas. I barely even got a seat, and sure enough it was pretty packed with noisy kids up way later than I ever got to stay up on a Friday when I was their age (let alone go to the movies). Now that I'm a dad I've gotten less intolerant of the little brats talking during the movie, though I still can't condone seat-kicking. Thankfully, a few seats to my right remained empty (I know they were sold due to the seat-picking screen, so I hope they were some kids buying for this and going to see Green Inferno) and I was able to mostly focus on the film - which I am happy to say is a big improvement on the original. I know it's hip to hate on Adam Sandler these days, but I credit him and frequent collaborator Allen Covert for the increase in quality - it's the same director, same co-writer (Robert Smigel, an SNL vet who otherwise has never written a film with Sandler, or at least credited as such), etc - so who else can we thank for getting it right this time, since Sandler didn't get writing credit on the first and Covert only supplied a couple voices?

For starters, they give the other monsters more to do. The plot concerns Dracula's grandson, who is the spawn of his vampire daughter (Selena Gomez) and her human husband Johnny (Andy Samberg, surprisingly given almost no funny lines - though his dad is Nick Offerman so that more than makes up for it) and thus no one knows if he'll be human or a vampire. Dracula, obviously, wants him to be a vampire, and thus him and his pals (Wolfman, "Frankenstein" (grr), Mummy, Invisible Man, a green blob thing) go out on an adventure to try to bring out his monster side. So the others get a chance to do something on their own - Frankenstein will show him how to scare people, Mummy will show him how to inflict curses, etc. They all go horribly wrong, of course, but at least they are actually embracing what these characters are this time instead of just using them for fart gags.

They also take some shots at modern day "Everyone's a winner!" hand-holding, when Dracula takes the tyke to the camp where he learned the ropes of being a vampire - flying, catching rats, etc. There he is horrified to see that the little vampire children no longer hunt rats but merely pick them up off a T-ball post, and learn to "fly" by jumping off a 2 foot high ledge onto a safety net (with a harness), instead of diving off the 1000 foot high rickety tower as he did. Hell they could have used this as the focus for the entire movie and made the message "Stop babying your kids" instead of "It's OK if you're _____ (gay, weird, a vampire, whatever you want to plug in) because your family will love you anyway", but I appreciated the detour. There are also some good background gags for adults, something that I don't recall being in the original (favorite: an ad for a tour that will take you to all the best mythical locales: The Bermuda Triangle, Atlantis, and Detroit). There's even a Count Chocula reference!

And as a new dad (SORRY) I got a kick out of the earlier stuff, before the kid gets older (he's 5 for most of the movie, but we track him from birth to his first words and all that). Baby-proofing the castle was particularly fun, with one of those impossible baby gates being placed in front of what seems like a bottomless pit - it's not exactly genius comedy, but again - it was using the idea that these things are in fact monsters for more than just an inventive set design and color scheme. It even has a villain of sorts, a demon named Bela who terrorizes the kid and Drac's daughter Mavis during the finale, with all the monsters (and Johnny's human relatives) banding together to fight them off. It's not exactly scary, and Bela should have been introduced earlier, but it's still more in line with the finale I'd want from a movie about monsters than a rom-com-y race to the airport like the original.

Oh, and they toned down the fart/poop/etc jokes. There are a couple, and the kids ate up one of the demons being hit in the groin, but I go in expecting that sort of shit and I don't really care. It's not the focus - that's what's important, and while his other movies of late leave much to be desired I must laud Sandler for giving a little something for everyone this time around while also diving head first into the concept this time. Indeed, my biggest complaint about the original was that it seemed like a long set up for something better later, and here we are! I can't forgive them for not bringing back the weird sponge thing from the first movie though; they should have made him a primary character.

Don't get me wrong, if you downright HATED the first there's little here to change your mind, but if you're like me, who thought the first movie was infinitely better on paper than in execution, you will probably agree they got a lot closer to getting it right this time, and if you're a parent taking your kids to see it, I think you'll find yourself enjoying it to a degree. I mean I was by myself and really only going to get a new review up, and I was still laughing fairly frequently and not at all embarrassed to be there. When Will is old enough in a couple years, I won't dread him watching this one.

What say you?

*Even though it was almost entirely kids and their parents, my assigned seat was between a couple of college kids and another adult (she looked a few years younger than me) who was also by herself - and believe me if I was single I definitely would have chatted up the like-minded woman who would go to a movie by herself on a Friday night just to enjoy some monster jokes. But anyway - I like that us "old people" all had the same idea, to sit near the front and hope for the best. You know how they offer "Mommy & Me" screenings? They should do the opposite for kids' movies, have special adults only ones for us weirdos.

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