[REC]3.

The third part of the series of "[REC]" films has been met with a great deal of hostility.  It was given a fair amount of thumbs downs from critics and fans alike.  It's more straightforward, and even drops the handheld first person view at some point.  I know from what I’ve read that it tries for a more “comedy” direction.  As the film starts, this is apparent, since it plays as if we have just put in a wedding video.

[...]

[‘View Photos’ is selected on the Wedding Video menu, and we are treated to a slideshow.]

Starkwell: Kinda funny I guess.

Lovelock: This is why wedding videos are dumb.

[...]

After a few minutes it cuts and switches to someone filming first person view outside the church, before the wedding.  Anyways, the first one started similarly and did not take long to get going.  Since this is apparently happening simultaneously with the first film, I imagine it’s going to explode in action soon, especially given the film’s wimpy 80 minute runtime.  It is kind of a smart idea to have a found footage film set at a wedding, given most weddings have videographers.

[...]

[Wedding Ceremony.]

Lovelock: BORING.

Starkwell: They’re establishing characters, dude.

Lovelock: If I wanted to watch a boring ceremony, I’d have watched the Royal Wedding.

Starkwell: If you’re going to make cultural references, try and be a bit more current.

Lovelock: BORING.

Starkwell: Last year called, it wants its pop culture reference back.

[...]

[Closeup on an old man with a mysterious bandaged wound on his hand.]

Lovelock: Ok.  Alright. Here we go.  This is good.

Starkwell: I told you it wouldn’t take long.

Lovelock: BORING.

[...]

We start seeing the wedding reception and it is GIGANTIC.  I imagine shooting this film must have been fun, since so far it just looks like they candidly shot a bunch of actors having a party.  They keep hinting at the fact that the bride is pregnant.  But she hasn’t had a chance to tell the groom yet.  We’re almost a quarter of the way through the run time, and all we’ve really seen so far is wedding footage.

[...]

[Hand Wound Guy vomits outside.  Camera man sees dudes in HASMAT gear.]

Starkwell: Why isn’t anyone concerned that there are about seven or eight dudes outside who look like they’re hunting E.T.?

Lovelock: Alcohol?

[...]

[Uncle Hand Wound jumps off of the balcony down to the dance floor and starts eating his wife.  Zombies start jumping out from everywhere and eating people.]

Starkwell: Well, you wanted it to get going…

Lovelock: Even I feel that’s a bit much.

[TITLE SHOT … CREEPY MUSIC … IT IS NO LONGER 1^ST PERSON VIEW]

Starkwell: Wait, if this is the movie what was all of that before?

Lovelock: A wedding video.  Idiot.

[...]

The movies presses forward at a fast pace. It’s pretty cookie cutter stuff at this point… which is too bad since the series had started off with such a nice and fresh take on the whole zombie thing (I mean, the first film was looked at as a new achievement in ZOMBIE). Now it kind of feels like one of its own mockbusters.  We’ve already seen a topless zombie and a fat person zombie.  They’re really hitting all of the clichés.

[...]

Starkwell: Mostly predictable, but competently done, well written, and well acted, at least.

Lovelock: Plus I’m having fun!

[...]

It’s picking up again in the story department.  A chunk of characters (including Groom) are now bunkered down in the church.  The zombies seem to be afraid of the church, which makes sense, since we know from the second film that they are all demonically possessed.  At least they haven’t gone and changed everything.

[...]

[The bride, who is hauled up somewhere else with the priest gets a speech about how this is GENESIS.]

Lovelock: Yeah, Mr. Priest, this is a prog rock band from the 70s… pfff…

Starkwell: I don’t think that’s what he meant.

Lovelock: Sega?

Starkwell: GROAN.

[...]

Starkwell: The bride’s makeup still looks perfect.  What the fuck?

[...]

There was one crazy shot where multiple zombies stood in front of a mirror and their reflection showed what they were… NAKED OLD decrepit DEMON things!  Starkwell and Lovelock both gasped and I’m pretty sure Lovelock farted nervously.  Lots of shit is happening, and at some point, some of the characters started fighting with armour and ancient weapons they picked up around the old church.

[...]

[Groom kills zombie with a huge fucking mace.]

Lovelock: Might be the most metal zombie kill we’ve ever seen.

Starkwell: That’s a pretty big category man.  Hard to remember them all.

Lovelock: I’ll certainly remember that one.

[...]

Lovelock: AT least they got good weather…

[It starts pouring.]

Lovelock: THAT’S IT.  The day is ruined.

Starkwell: Yeah, the rain did it.

Lovelock: I feel like I should have been found a way to squeeze a Billy Idol reference in here somewhere.

Starkwell: It’s probably for the best.

[...]

[The Bride, armed with a chainsaw and a recently ‘made-more-sexy-with-a-slit-down-the-side’ wedding dress, goes in to find her Groom, with the Best Man at her side.]

Starkwell: In case you’re bored, have some eye candy!

Lovelock: I’m not.  But thanks. 

[...]

There are some good kills, and enough gore to go around.  And it all looks pretty good.  Eventually they are reunited and make it out alive, thanks to the priest who performs some sort of mass exorcism over the speakers.  Hooray! 

[...]

[Somewhere out on the grass, Bride is bitten, Groom chops off her arm to attempt to stop the possession.]

Lovelock: “Hey I wonder, would that work?”

Starkwell: “Get Shorty”?

Lovelock: Bingo.

[She still turns.]

Lovelock: Guess not.

[Groom picks up Bride and carries her out, and they get blown to smithereens by HASMAT SWAT Team.]

Lovelock: If they had done that to Elliot and E.T. in "E.T.", it might have been a better film.

Starkwell: You’re an idiot.

[...]

Other than complaining for a little while about how she managed to stay conscious, upright and walking after having her arm chopped off with a dull sword, Starkwell and Lovelock seemed pleased.  Is it as good as the first two?  Resounding no.  Is it better than a million percent of the shit coming out in this, the most saturated of sub-genres?  Absolutely it is.  That’s maybe not a glowing review, but it’s still mighty positive, if you’re a glass half full kind of a dude.  In any case, Starkwell and Lovelock are screaming for the fourth and final film.

[REC]2.

I need to apologize in advance for the frantic, at times, incoherent nature of the Lovelock / Starkwell conversation documented for "[REC]2"… The movie is just so frantic and insane that I simply couldn’t keep up with everything.  I did my best.  So apparently the action here picks up right where the first film left off.  Starkwell and Lovelock have wanted to watch this one pretty much since ONE SECOND after the first film ended.  Because a fair amount of time has gone by, a good deal of hype has now built up.  This is unfortunate for Balaguero and Plaza, since the expectations are now through the roof.  Let’s see if they can meet this now impossibly high bar that they set.  The film starts with the closing shot from the first film and then immediately switches to the helmet cam view of a SWAT team member heading to investigate the quarantined building.

[...]

[SWAT team arrives in the building.]

Starkwell: Back in the ol’ stomping grounds. 

Lovelock: Remind me not to ever join the SWAT team.  In Spain.

Starkwell: Was that ever an option? 

[...]

It’s nice to see the old building again.  From the first seconds of the film, the atmosphere is tense, and Starkwell and Lovelock are on the edge of their seats. Many nervous farts and weird gasps were heard on several different occasions.  The SWAT team explored the building.  What’s really cool, is since all team members have helmet cams, the director can switch from one person’s view to another as he chooses.

[...]

[Music is coming from an apartment. Martos goes to investigate.]

Starkwell: So Martos is the first to go I guess…

[Zombie pops out bites Martos.  Martos turns immediately.]

Starkwell: I don’t remember them turning that quickly in the first film.

Lovelock: Details schmetails.

[Group Leader guy recites some weird exorcism type shit and Martos stands like a deer in the headlight.]

Starkwell: That’s new too…

Lovelock: AND it’s fucking rad.  And creepy.  I just pooped a little.

[Lovelock goes to change his pants during one of the “dialogue” scenes.]

[...]

Then the Leader Dude explains to them the origin of the plague, and some possessed girl.  And the Vatican.  And demons.  And stuff.  It’s all very scary.

[...]

[Turns out SWAT Leader Dude is a PRIEST!]

Lovelock: That’s why I don’t go to church.

Starkwell: Yeah that’s why… wait… that doesn’t even make any sense.

Lovelock: The devil can't possess me if I don’t buy the snake oil.

Starkwell: I’m pretty sure that isn’t how it works.

Lovelock: Well, also, I don't like all that Catholic guilt.

[...]

The zombies seem quite a bit more agile in this one than they did in the first one.  I think it would bother Starkwell more if the rest of the film wasn’t so, as Lovelock puts it, “BALLS TO THE WALL CRAZY.”  Some of the crazyballs so far have included, 'dead decomposing priests hiding in the ceiling', 'priest blowing zombie child brains out', and of course, 'first person view of dude going through the air ducts and finding a whole group of demon kids'.  I haven’t seen Lovelock fist pump this often in a while.

[...]

[SWAT Team kills a non zombie dude, sees a group of kids.]

Starkwell: Group of kids?  I hope this movie isn’t going all “Scooby-Doo” on us.

Lovelock: I don’t know, they just killed a human… I kind of hope those meddling kids put an end to the Priest and his wacky SWAT crazies.

Starkwell: Dude, the demons are the bad guys.

Lovelock: If you say so.

[...]

Then we see some of the characters from the first movie, now as zombies, and we get many more fist pumps from Lovelock.  Starkwell hesitated momentarily, but then decided it was safe for him too, to fist pump away.  But then it got REALLY chaotic and creepy, and when it eventually showed one of the dudes staring in a mirror and blowing his brains out, the room got quiet.  No more fist pumps.  They both sat quietly horrified and one hundred percent invested in the movie.

[...]

[The SWAT team camera feed suddenly fades to black and we cut to the Scooby Gang Kids’ camera feed, from earlier.  They are trying to blow up an inflatable sex doll.]

Starkwell: I don’t remember the “Scooby Gang” ever doing that.

Lovelock: Might have helped the old show.  Definitely would have helped those fucking movies they made with Buffy and Dude Shitface.

Starkwell: Who’s "Dude Shitface".

Lovelock: I don’t know… All the fucking dudes in those movies?

[...]

Lovelock: I liked this movie better when it was all SWAT team and action ‘splosions.

Starkwell: Dude, give it a chance.

[I can't believe Starkwell is saying that... Either way, the troop(s) are getting restless.]

[...]

[The kids argue with the Bomb Squad Guy telling them to leave the building.]

Starkwell: The kid finds a random gun on the floor and blood everywhere and he wants to stay?  He’s either brave or a real fucking moron.

[Somewhere in the argument, Angry Fireman Dude slaps The Kid in the face.]

Lovelock: There really aren’t enough smart-ass teenagers being slapped in films these days.

[They actually rewound and watched THE SLAP several times.  Each time the slap connected, Lovelock would say “IN THE FACE”.]

[...]

They got real quiet again when all Hell broke loose again.  This time, crazyballs included 'zombie dying from fireworks in the mouth', 'snipers shooting at the kids' and, of course, the second shot of 'DUDE WITH SANDWCH BAG falling down three flights and exploding with blood'.  SWAT Team meet up with Scooby Gang and take their camera.  It runs out of battery right as they find Angela from the first movie!  I swear I think I saw a single tear of joy streaming down Lovelock’s cheek.

[...]

[Priest talks to Demon, currently possessing Scooby Gang Tito, and he figures out where the Queen Demon is hiding.]

Lovelock: To the penthouse!

Starkwell: Isn’t that where they went at the start of the film?

Lovelock: You know what they say… "it’s always in the first place you look".

Starkwell: Is that really something they say?

Lovelock: Isn’t it?  Maybe it isn’t.

[...]

After some intense and scary NIGHT VISION sequences, they eventually find Queen Demon, and Angela shoots her in the face and blows up her head.

[...]

[TWIST! Angela is actually possessed by the Queen Demon.  She is the new Queen Demon.  And she escapes the building.]

Starkwell: GERrrrbeWAaaahDADOOoooo…. FwengggAH?!?!

[MIND BLOWN.  Then they show a flashback of the Queen Demon transferring itself to Angela.  It’s fucking revolting.]

Starkwell: Seriously… bravo.  Ummm… Lovelock?

[Turns out Lovelock pooped his pants again and had gone to change.]

[...]

Great sequel with an interesting set-up for the next (two) film(s).

[...]

Lovelock: What did I miss?

Demons.

Son of legendary Italian director Mario Bava, Lamberto Bava had large shoes to fill.  Whether or not he has ever really filled them, I will leave up to you to decide.  What I will now leave it up to Starkwell and Lovelock to decide what to think of and say about Lamberto’s often revered “Demons” from 1985.  It was co-written by Dario Argento, among other names, and judging by the music playing over the opening credits, we are in for one hell of a nutty ride.

[...]

[Girl sees weird cyborg man following her.]

Lovelock: Man, James Cameron TOTALLY ripped this off for “The Terminator”.

Starkwell: Dude, this was made after, I think you have this backwards.

Lovelock: It’s not a tumor!

Starkwell: Now you even have the wrong movie…

Lovelock: You sonofa bitch.

[...]

[Girls skip class to go to MYSTERY MOVIE.]

Starkwell: Why would a pimp bring two of his ‘girls’ to see a movie at some weird avant-garde theatre?

Lovelock: I don’t know, but given that they are the only African-American characters, it’s a little sketchy.

[...]

Starkwell: The movie within the movie looks has better production value than the actual movie.

[...]

The characters all seemed pretty despicable, the worst being the woman accompanying her blind husband to the film, who then proceeds to make out with and be fingered by a guy sitting beside her while her blind husband listens to the movie and asks “What’s going on?  Are you scared?”  Lovelock and Starkwell both wondered “Wait, does she know the guy, or is he just a stranger?”  It takes a while to get to the point, but basically the hooker that put on the demon mask before the movie is going to become a demon and ‘spread pestilence’.  Starkwell started on about themes of prostitutes spreading disease, but he quickly shut up when Lovelock kicked him in the nuts and the hooker exploded into a pussy demon.  Wait, that can’t be the right word.  I mean that she is a demon that oozes puss from her wound and mouth, not that she is a vagina demon of some kind.

[...]

[Girl tears through movie screen as she becomes a demon, audience is horrified.]

Starkwell: And like that, we are shown that the movie, has indeed sprung to life, come off of the screen, and entered reality.  The evil that –

Lovelock: SHUT UP.

[Crotchety old guy is the first to go.]

Lovelock: And that’s why you should never shush people at the movies.

Starkwell: Yeah that’s why.

[...]

Then there was a super cheesy metal song that started playing, and as all hell broke loose, Lovelock played air guitar and Starkwell played the air drums.  An underrated “air” instrument, he feels.

[...]

[All the characters start screaming that they need to STOP THE MOVIE.]

Starkwell: During most movies, that would be a great set-up for me to say something like “I know how they feel”, but I’d like to see this one through.

Lovelock: Can we talk about the bad over dubbing?

Starkwell: What is there to talk about?

Lovelock: Yeah, I guess I already said what needs to be said.  There's bad dubbing.

Starkwell: Why would they want to stop the movie?  If the movie is playing out in reality, wouldn’t they want to watch the movie to see if there’s a way to stop the evil?

Lovelock: That’s the kind of logic that escapes even the smartest of mobs.  This is definitely not the smartest of mobs.

[...]

They find a secret room hidden behind the walls and the women inexplicably go insane.  Then it cuts really quickly to them chilling out back in the theatre.  Then the worst punks ever, high off coke, beat up the two worst police officers ever and escape INTO the demon theatre.  Lovelock and Starkwell both laughed for several minutes.

[...]

[Teenage couple try to escape out of the air ducts.]

Starkwell: Why would she say “THIS WAS A GREAT IDEA”?

Lovelock: To emphasize to us, the viewer that it was, in fact, an awful idea.

Starkwell: Well, at least they’ll be dead soon.

[...]

[Kathy splits in half, super demon comes out.]

Lovelock: I think there needs to be a scene like that in every movie.

Starkwell: Yeah… not sure you can squeeze that into any movie.

Lovelock: Name one.

Starkwell: “City Slickers”.

Lovelock: Oh man, easy!  Palance is dead with his eyes open, he splits in half, super demon comes out and they spend the rest of the movie fighting demons instead of driving cattle.  Boom.  Done.  Norman escapes with his life.

Starkwell: I don’t know if audiences would have gone for that.

Lovelock: Great gobs of gooseshit!

[...]

[Slow motion shot of dude #1 chopping off dude #2’s head.]

Starkwell: Samurai swords and motorcycles?  Is it possible this movie just got more ridiculous?

Lovelock: Samurai swords and motorcycles?  Is it possible this movie just got more FUCKING AMAZING?

Starkwell: So the coked out punks served no real purpose?

Lovelock: Dude, they let blind guy demon out of the theatre.  I assume that means that the city is on fire by now.

Starkwell: Good call, let’s hope you’re right.

[...]

Starkwell: Lucky for her, the random guy that wanted a piece of her turned out to be good with swords and grappling hooks.

[...]

[Terminator face returns to kill them.]

Lovelock: So it’s Phantom of the Opera?

Starkwell: It’s fucking stupid is what it is.

[...]

Starkwell: So they’re not going to tell us Terminator’s connection to all of this?  And what ever happened to the Super Demon that exploded out of Kathy’s back?

Lovelock: Dude, it’s called Demons, not Explanations.

[...]

They left it open for a sequel, which we know exists.  So maybe some of Starkwell’s questions will be answered then.  But I hope he isn’t going to sit with that confused look on his face until then, because that could get annoying.

[...]

[TWIST ENDING MAIN GIRL IS A DEMON.]

Lovelock: Hooray, everyone dies except motorcycle samurai!

Starkwell: I hope the sequel is all him all the time.

[...]

I’m sure it isn’t.  But let’s keep their hopes up anyways.

Prince of Darkness.

No one can deny that Carpenter is a master of the horror genre.  As much as I don’t appreciate all of his work (specifically some of his more recent ventures), you would be hard pressed to find anyone that isn’t at least somewhat scared by his earlier stuff.  1987’s “Prince of Darkness”, to me, is one of his more underrated pictures along with the Roddy Piper fuelled “They Live”.  After leaving half way through “Ghost of Mars”, Starkwell is pumped to see something else by the legendary director.  Lovelock just wants to see some action.

[...]

[Professor gives lecture.]

Starkwell: I realize that it’s probably a graduate level course, but those are some fairly old looking students.

Lovelock: If you can grow a moustache like that, the only class you should be in, is one that you are teaching, preferably on ‘How to Grow an Awesome Moustache’.

[...]

The story was slow moving, but very creepy.  Sometime after the Professor rounded up his best old students, he told them they were going somewhere secret to study something that he can’t tell them about yet. I think Lovelock yelled out “FIELD TRIP.”  After Moustache Brian seduces Red Head, he re-iterated “Field trip… with sexy complications.”

[...]

[Zombie Homeless dude kills Miscellaneous Nerd #3.]

Lovelock: That’s why I don’t go near homeless people in back alleys.

Starkwell: Yeah that’s why.

[...]

[Canister shoots slime directly into girl’s mouth.]

Lovelock: That’s why I keep my mouth closed when I stare up at a mystery evil slime.

Starkwell: Yeah that’s why.

[...]

After the slimy facial, things got even creepier.  Starkwell kept mentioning how the minimalist score made the atmosphere even more tense and horrifying.  Lovelock kept saying “you’re tense and horrifying.”  At one point a character called the priest “looney tunes” and said “this is caca” and became Lovelock’s favorite character ever.  Then he died almost immediately.  Lovelock was still totally pumped.

[...]

[Possessed Girl climbs on top of Asian Girl in her bed, then pukes in Asian Girl’s mouth.]

Lovelock: Worst slumber party ever.

[...]

[Possessed Girl climbs on top of Black Guy while Asian Girl holds him down.  She pukes in his mouth.]

Lovelock: Worst threesome ever.

[...]

In perhaps the worst escape attempt ever, Moustache Brian climbs out the window and into the alley, and then immediately climbs back into the window as Homeless Zombies close in on him in the alley.  Lovelock started to crack a joke, but then the Decomposing Blondie, pregnant with some kind of evil, makes icky slime noises as her skin melts and Lovelock pukes mid wisecrack.

[...]

[Possessed Decomposing Blondie picks up make up mirror.]

Lovelock: I don’t think make up is going to help at this point.

[...]

The movie wraps itself up, and the ending is scary, satisfying, depressing, yet hopeful.  Starkwell stood up and applauded.  Lovelock stood up to go change his underwear, and break all of the mirrors in the apartment.  Job well done, Mr. Carpenter.

Evil Dead II.

Before doing shitty super hero sequels (Spiderman!) and forgettable horror movies with no real story (Drag Me to Hell!), Sam Raimi was changing the face of horror comedy forever with his “Evil Dead” series.  As anticipation fills the room, I press play for the Widescreen Version.

[...]

[Introduction about Necronomicon.]

Starkwell: I feel like I’m watching one of those old National Film Board of Canada documentaries.

Lovelock: What like that lumberjack cartoon?

Starkwell: I think they were loggers... but no, not exactly.

[...]

[Ash play tape recorder, evil spirit take Linda.]

Lovelock: That’s why I never break into abandoned cabins, leaf through creepy books, and press play on old fashioned tape recorders.

Starkwell: Yeah, all of that.  That’s why.

Lovelock: Those are some pretty solid reasons.

Starkwell: You know, he didn’t give Linda much time to explain herself before lobbing her head off with a shovel.

Lovelock: Trouble in paradise.

[...]

The movie is so fast paced, the effects are so good, and Bruce Campbell kicks so much ass, that it was hard to keep up with what Starkwell and Lovelock were saying.  Most of it just sounded like two school girls giggling, as if they had just found out that the boy they liked liked them too, while the movie races forward at the pace of a “Looney Tunes” cartoon and never seems to let up.

[...]

[Headless Linda the zombie dances ballet.]

Starkwell: Stop motion animation, when done well, will always look scarier and creepier than even the best CGI.

Lovelock: Old school effects for the win.

Starkwell: It also helps that Campbell sells every single scene as hard as he does.

[...]

[Enter redneck characters.]

Starkwell: We may have just found the movie’s first flaw.

Lovelock: Yeah, I hate redneck characters too.

[Ash fights himself with his own hand.]

Starkwell: Oh, "Evil Dead 2", I can’t stay mad at you.

Lovelock: I think I want to make "Evil Dead 2" wallpaper for my house.

Starkwell: I want to make sheets, so that "Evil Dead 2" can keep me warm at night.  Forever.

[...]

[Cabin comes to life.  Ash laughs-to-scream.]

Starkwell: I know I always champion Vincent Price’s laugh-to-cry in “Last Man on Earth”, but that was pretty sensational.

[...]

Starkwell and Lovelock were speechless for a while, due to gruesome and unforgiving horror perfection.

[...]

[Redneck dies in cellar.]

Starkwell: So much blood, and yet, none got on her.

Lovelock: At this point, can you please just suspend your disbelief a little.

[...]

[Montage of Ash arming himself.]

Starkwell: Ladies and gentlemen, a legend is born.

[...]

Then Ash said “GROOVY” and they both stood up and cheered.  When he said “Swallow this”, I swear I think I saw a single tear going down Lovelock’s face.

[...]

[Final gory fight sequence.]

Starkwell: …

Lovelock: … [nervous fart]

[...]

Nearly twenty-five years old, and it still looks as good, scares as much and provides as much fun as the day it was first released.  I would tell you Starkwell and Lovelock’s reaction to the ending, but they’ve already run out into the streets going door to door to spread the good word.