Town Creek

A friend raved about this movie, which I'd not seen nor heard of. A good cast which surprised me, and a possible attempt at a series. The idea was not wholly original, but I've seen it more on tv and comic books than in movie format. Not bad, some great visuals with the horses, and some good make-up effects. Not as good as I'd hoped from my friends recommendation, but enjoyable enough.

I hadn't heard anything about this movie prior to today, but checking IMDb to see what the local cheap theater had to offer came up with this. Having no desire to see anything else that was playing, my wife and I decided to drop a couple bucks on it and we were not disappointed.

In general, I am not a fan of WW2, Holocaust, or Nazi related films simply due to the obvious nature of nearly every plot line related to them. Even Inglorious Basterds irritated me because of this. Thankfully, Blood Creek takes itself not very seriously and throws in lots of other random plot devices (Viking runes, zombies, the occult, the war in Iraq, etc.) that make little to no sense but serve the film well.

If you like crappy modern B style horror films (I saw another commenter mention Drag Me To Hell, which I also enjoyed more than just about any other "big" release I've seen this year), then you can't really go wrong here. Iffy acting, senseless plot, and bad CGI are not enough to defeat the high entertainment value of this fast-paced flick. If I had expectations for this, or had I paid $10 to see it, I would probably be pretty irritated. But if you can catch it at your cheapo second run theater, I can think of far worse ways to spend an hour and a half.

This is a horror movie about a Nazi necromancer, that means he can raise dead things to do his bidding. The actor interpreting the Nazi is Michael Fassbender. The director is Joel Schumacher. Now, with a premise like that, I expected a great movie, especially since I've read a review describing it in very positive words. Instead, I get a slight twist of a typical zombie/monster movie. I was disappointed.

What was amazing was how the movie started. Fassbender coming from Germany to the US, doing his nice guy voice (but with a German accent) explaining to a little girl how he can raise the dead, now that he had found a runic stone. Then a lot of detailed action and scenes explaining the story of the paramedic brother of a soldier lost in Iraq. Then suddenly the brother returns, all rags and long hair, asking for help to get guns and shoot people.

Then the film turns into the typical "group trapped with a monster and they have to kill him before it kills them" thing. The dichotomy between to two parts of the movie was shocking, like someone did two different films and then spliced them together, and therefore I can't really recommend the movie, except as a well done monster flick. Go in with low expectations and you might enjoy it fully.

Blood Creek is a solid if unspectacular genre effort from Joel Schumacher, of all people. Touting a great premise and intriguing cast, the film moves at a breakneck pace after a short prologue that takes place just before WWII. Henry Cavill (Stardust, Tristan + Isolde) and Dominic Purcell (Gravedancers, Blade Trinity) are fine as brothers forced to battle some serious evil in an undead Nazi occult agent played by the always great Michael Fassbender (Eden Lake, Inglorious Basterds). In addition, Emma Booth (The Boys Are Back, Clubland) and Shea Wigham (Splinter, Tigerland) both do well enough in supporting roles. The only major problem with the movie is that it ends up being not as awesome as you would think it'd be. Granted, it's still pretty fun, but the setup leads you to believe something much more intense and epic is about to take place. The possibility of a sequel is set up without coming off as crass and the ending doesn't make you feel like you've wasted your time, like a lot of other horror movies succeed in doing. All the effects work and blood/gore are well done and there's a memorable scene involving Fassbender controlling zombie horses. Yeah, you read that right. Zombie horses. Anyway, with every decent film Schumacher makes, the bad taste of his Batman whoopsies seem further and further away. Almost...

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

A few years before the outbreak of World War 2, the Third Reich send a professor to live with a poor German family who've relocated to Virginia in America. He reveals himself as a practitioner of the dark occult arts, who takes over their home and takes on a venomous blood lust to survive. Years later, two brothers are driven back to the house he stayed at on a mission of personal revenge, only to find the real perpetrator come back to life and try to exact his venom on them.

This is the 'latest' Joel Schumacher film that it would seem has actually been held back for two years and appears to have arrived straight to DVD on these shores. His last (and most recent) foray into the horror genre The Number 23 with Jim Carrey was a rockety, shambolic road indeed that showed a pretty decent (if never great) director veering off course a bit, but Blood Creek is sadly evidence of a past it hack who's gone over the hill.

An unfathomable mess, the story is a ridiculous, convoluted mess, opening in a pretentious black and white film noir style before flitting the story to the present day and back into colour again, with a plot that's lost you about twenty minutes in, marred with a blurry, slap shot filming style that's even with the even more shambolic story, before finally revealing a villain that seems like Freddy Kruegger with a liver problem.

It's all just a nonsensical, sad revalation of a director who's deteriorated into what could at best be called senility and at worst madness. *