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Descending Into the Depths: Neil Maskell (left) and Michael Smiley get in over their heads in KILL LIST.

What starts out as common, garden-variety crime thriller turns… bizarre, and then frightening, in director Ben Wheatley’s twisty new film, KILL LIST. The tale of middle class hit-man Jay (Neil Maskell), who with colleague Gal (Michael Smiley) goes out for one more job and discovers blood oaths, strange rites, and disturbingly grateful targets have been thrown into the bargain, the film allows Wheatley to hook the rough-edged shooting style he explored in his debut effort, DOWN TERRACE, to a world that has room for both examinations of a tempestuous home life and the graphic shocks of classic horror. Think IN BRUGES meets THE WICKER MAN, then forget about all that and prepare to get righteously freaked-out.

Click on the player to hear my interview with Wheatley.

UNFORTUNATE TECHNICAL NOTE: Our usual podcast host has started giving us agita, apparently because we are just that popular, so we’ve temporarily switched to another service and had to downgrade our audio quality as a result. We’ll get this snag patched up and be back to the rich, beautiful sound you expect from MMP as soon as possible.

KILL LIST
Trailer

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Deal Me Some Death, Baby: Kate Beckinsale does even more of what she does in UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING.

The UNDERWORLD franchise’s relentless, death-dealing vampire, Selene (Kate Beckinsale), goes under ice at the beginning of UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING, and so does most of the series’ political intrigue, swapping out the power struggles from the previous entries in favor of even more chases, gunplay, and explosions — lots and lots of explosions. Awakened into a (nominally) future world where humanity has decimated the vampire covens and their natural enemy, the werewolf-like lycans, Selene finds herself protecting the fate of the young vamp/lycan hybrid Eve (India Eisley), and on the run from a sinister pharmaceutical corporation, all in glorious 3D. You will believe a metal-barbed whip can poke your eye out.

Cinefantastique Online’s Steve Biodrowski and Dan Persons set their logic centers to neutral and debate what’s fun (i.e. Kate Beckinsale in skin-tight leather) and what’s not (plot) in this fourth installment, and whether there’s any future to UNDERWORLD’s future. They also discuss their gut-reactions to the latest crop of genre trailers, and Steve talks a little about a safe-driving film with a surprising production credit. Plus: What’s coming in theaters.

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Mother and Child Reunion?: Fernanda Andrade (top) learns the risks of reconnecting with Suzan Crowley in THE DEVIL INSIDE.

What kind of film is worthy of the sacrificial lamb slot that is the first release of January? What sort of slipshod storytelling does it take for audience members to start hurling epithets at the screen as the credits crawl? How disposable is the project when the host of a podcast devoted to genre film repeatedly gets the title wrong? Why, that would be THE DEVIL WITHI… ’scuse us… THE DEVIL INSIDE, yet another attempt to recast horror through the blurry lens of the mockumentary.

Cinefantastique Online’s Steve Biodrowski and Dan Persons ring in the New Year by exploring DEVIL’s flawed theology, shallow characterizations, and ambiguous narrative gambits. And, with the help of input from theofantastique.com’s John W. Morehead, they discuss whether the recent rebirth of the exorcism genre is an accurate reflection of these anxious times. What’s revealed in discussion may surprise you — maybe even more than the film itself.

Also: Steve gives his capsule thoughts on the alien-invasion-in-Moscow flick, THE DARKEST HOUR, and Dan provides takes on THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN and the imaginative fantasy short,  A GOBLIN’S TALE. Plus: What’s coming in theaters.

Continue reading »]]> 2011: Definitely a good year for aliens. They waylaid a couple of fanboys, staged a showdown with cowboys, wrecked a tween’s film project, invaded LA, twice (must be the universal lure of In-N-Out Burger) — yessir, if you had more than four limbs and a palate for human flesh, you had a home in theaters over the past twelve months.

But the extraterrestrial infestation wasn’t really the big news in genre film for 2011. With an open couple of weeks before the final onslaught of major science-fiction, fantasy, and horror releases, Cinefantastique Online’s Steve Biodrowski, Lawrence French, and Dan Persons decided to look back over the year and pick out their favorites in ten categories*, including Best Performance, Best Use of 3D, and Best Film, among others. The selection they’ve come up with may well surprise you. (Hint: A certain film featuring big-ass robots does better than expected.)

Click on the player to hear the show.

*And yes, we acknowledge that this is a provisional list, given that such titles as TINTIN, THE DARKEST HOUR, AND MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – GHOST PROTOCOL have yet to screen.

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Wagner Moura in ELITE SQUAD: THE ENEMY WITHIN.

Like DIRTY HARRY with a social conscience, the Brazilian film ELITE SQUAD: THE ENEMY WITHIN manages to kick all kinds of righteous ass while delving into the pernicious effect of corruption on those allegedly pledged with looking after the public welfare. The follow-up to 2007′s ELITE SQUAD, ENEMY WITHIN picks up Rio de Janeiro’s hard-line Special Operations Captain Nascimento as he’s kicked upstairs to become the city’s Sub-Secretary of Intelligence and committed to upending the city’s cycle of crime by waging all-out war on the gangs who rule the slums.  Problem is: the war is too successful, and Nascimento finds his victory has released a wave of official corruption that puts him into conflict with his own colleagues.

Director José Padilha built his reputation with the incredible hostage documentary BUS 174, and here demonstrates that the skills that turned news footage into riveting drama are well suited to telling a fictional story that delves into the dark corners of Brazilian society while keeping the audience riveted with intense action.

Click on the player to hear my conversation with Padilha.

ELITE SQUAD: THE ENEMY WITHIN
Trailer

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Continue reading »]]> The lunatics have taken over the Gotham, and fans of the Dark Knight are all asking, “Why didn’t this happen sooner?” Their patience has been paid off in BATMAN: ARKHAM CITY, a new video game that takes the mayhem first encountered in BATMAN: ARKHAM ASYLUM and spreads it out into Gotham City proper, to considerable praise (and probably some orgasmic moans) from gameplayers everywhere. We got a few minutes with a representative from game designer Rocksteady Studios to find out what motivated the new game’s broader canvas, and explore what happens when chaos reigns in the Caped Crusader’s home turf (as if it doesn’t always).

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We're Getting the Atrocity Back Together: Ashlynn Yennie (left) lives the nightmare perpetrated by Laurence R. Harvey in THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE 2 (FULL SEQUENCE).

The tag line for Tom Six’s new THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE 2 (FULL SEQUENCE) is “100% Medically Inaccurate,” tipping those who witnessed the merciless onslaught that was THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE (FIRST SEQUENCE) that the follow-up is, if anything, going to be a further affront to everything that is pure, good, and sanitary in this world.

The tale of a mentally deranged parking attendant (Laurence R. Harvey), who is transported by repeated, obsessive viewings of the first HUMAN CENTIPEDE film — in which a mad, German doctor (is there any other kind?) stitches three unfortunate people together, mouth-to-anus, with the expected, alimentary repercussions — and decides to make his own, twelve-person (“full sequence”) version with the crude tools available to him, FULL SEQUENCE is an unstinting assault of gritty, black and white photography, and grotty gore effects, not to mention crowbar assaults, ball-peen hammer dentistry, staple-gun surgery, and live centipedes inserted in orifices where live centipedes should not go.  THE BLIND SIDE it ain’t, but that’s all to the good, in my humble opinion. If you’re the type who can get into Six’s “You think that’s too much? Try THIS!” aesthetic, you’ll no doubt find it an intense and weirdly gratifying ninety minutes. You sick little monkey, you.

Click on the player to hear my interview with Tom Six and Laurence R. Harvey.

THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE 2 (FULL SEQUENCE)
Trailer

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OFFICIAL WEBSITE

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Ryan Gosling (right) in DRIVE.

Somehow, it seems like it was only a matter of time before director Nicolas Winding Refn hitched his camera to a hurtling piece of American metal and did a full-on car chase film. In DRIVE, Ryan Gosling plays a guy named… wait for it… Driver, a stunt man with a freelance career in piloting getaway cars and dreams of breaking into the racing world. That is, if his dedicated agent (Bryan Cranston) can swing the breaks, and he isn’t waylaid by gangsters Ron Perlman and Albert Brooks or distracted by his beautiful next-door neighbor (Carey Mulligan) and her young son. It’s Refn, so moral ambiguities will abound, not to mention some incredibly mounted chases and unrestrained violence. Sum total: Action goodness with both brains and balls. Fine, fine stuff.

Click on the player to hear my interview with Refn.

DRIVE
Trailer

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OFFICIAL WEBSITE: drive-movie.com

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Fresh Meet: Sara Paxton is the deep blue plate special in SHARK KNIGHT... 'scuse us, SHARK NIGHT 3D.

Yes, we’re deliberately misspelling SHARK KNIGHT. Why? Well, because it’s Labor Day weekend, and also because it amuses us to think of an insatiable predator of the deep leering in towards a nubile, young twenty-something, unleashing his awful, toothy grin, and saying, “Why sssso sssserioussss?”

As for SHARK NIGHT 3D itself, listen in as Cinefantastique Online’s Steve Biodrowski and Dan Persons discuss what merits and demerits they can locate in this latest entry in the body-count genre of horror film. Then Steve will give his take on APOLLO 18, the found footage thriller about a secret mission to the moon where two astronauts discover that They Are Not Alone.

Plus: What’s coming in theaters and home video.

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Things That Go "Sallllleeee" in the Night: Bailee Madison goes demon hunting in DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK.

DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK, the title urges, but you know they’re lying. There are things hiding in the dark, little things, nasty things, things that want nothing better than to drag you down, down to the caverns where they dwell in order to, well, let’s just say you won’t need your library card anymore. Director Guillermo del Toro was so transfixed as child by the original telemovie that he re-wrote the tale with frequent partner Matthew Robbins, brought in comics-artist Troy Nixey to direct, and unleashed the darkness-loving creepies on estranged father Guy Pearce, conflicted girlfriend Katie Holmes, and most especially Bailee Madison as the young girl the demons most desperately covet.

Join Cinefantastique Online’s Steve Biodrowski, Lawrence French, and Dan Persons as they explore how the story survives the updating, consider whether the chills outweigh the plot holes, and discuss why, after all these years, people still don’t realize that when disembodied voices start whispering to you the dark, it’s time to GET THE HELL OUT OF THE HOUSE.

Also: Guillermo del Toro imparts some thoughts on the importance of storytelling; and what’s coming in theaters and home video.

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