Here’s Jon Hopkins haunting theme from the excellent science fiction film Monsters, featuring perhaps the climactic moment of the film. (Howard Waldrop and I reviewed it, and I highly recommend making an effort to see it.)
I defend this as Shoegazer mainly on feel; others may categorize it as electronica or ambient, but I think it falls between those two. Available on iTunes.
Last Saturday I was over at A.T. and Carol’s house watching a Japanese science fiction action film called Returner (imagine every big budget American science fiction film between 1980 and 2000 being jammed into a blender and set to frappe and you’ll have a pretty good idea of the plot elements). It was fine if you didn’t mind the complete lack of originality, but we watched it because I thought it might be the one I saw a clip from a year or two ago. The problem is, while my memory of the clip is fairly clear, I can’t remember sufficient details to find it via a Google search.
In the clip I saw, people were fighting some freaky looking monsters that were obviously some sort of CGI (about the same level of the CGI in Returner, i.e. better than the Skiffy Channel’s cheap monster movies, but not as good as a major U.S. release). I think the monsters were sort of pale and slightly taller than human sized (but not multistory kaiju sized monsters). It was live action, not anime. And they were fighting in some sort of open, brightly lit interior area, like an atrium, or foyer, or perhaps somewhere in a museum. And the monsters weren’t guys in suits and didn’t look anything like the monsters on Ultraman, etc.
This should be enough to find the clip again, but it doesn’t seem to be. Maybe it wasn’t a movie, but part of a TV show. And maybe it wasn’t from Japan, but Hong Kong or South Korea. Or maybe Taiwan. (But not the Philippines. Probably.) And maybe they weren’t monsters, but aliens. Or maybe demons. Beings from another dimension? And I thought I saw it on Fark, but couldn’t find it when I searched there. Maybe it was linked from comments in the thread?
Movies I know it’s not:
Any ideas? It’s driving me to distraction…
Last year when Howard Waldrop and I reviewed The Wolfman (executive summary: don’t waste your time), I offered up a list of other werewolf films that would be more worthy of viewing. Two of those, Ginger Snaps and Kibakichi, were films I hadn’t seen when I wrote that. I’ve now managed to see both, and can offer up judgment: Ginger Snaps is well worth seeing, but Kibakichi isn’t.
Ginger Snaps tells the story of the two Fitzgerald sisters, one (Ginger) hot, goth-y and redheaded, the other (Brigitte) dark and mousy, who go through their rebellious outsider phase by snapping artfully staged photographs of the other’s fake suicides, smoking, fighting with the stuck-up girls in field hockey, and generally behaving like teenage girls. Unfortunately for them, mutilated dogs have been showing up all around their neighborhood, and a late night encounter with what’s been killing them in a park leaves Ginger with wounds that heal entirely too quickly, newly grown patches of hair, a sudden taste for fresh blood, and the beginnings of a tail. And did I mention that the werewolf attack falls on the same day she get her first period?
Om Nom Nom
This is a very solid film with good acting, a clever script and firm direction. It can be enjoyed either as a straight werewolf film, or an extended (and unsettling) metaphor on the wrenching changes puberty inflicts upon the female body. (The film garnered a lot of comparisons with Carrie when it first came out.) Of werewolf films of recent memory, I would have to count this second only to Dog Soldiers.
Also, Katharine Isabelle looks really, really good just before she goes all four-legged.
On the other hand, Kibakichi is one of those films where all the best scenes are in the trailer. You would think that a Japanese film with werewolves, demons, samurai and Gatling guns would rock, but unfortunately Kibakichi has the quality of an exploitation film and the pace of a lush period drama, which is exactly the opposite of what you should be aiming for. The special effects range from the passable (they’ve mastered the art of copious geysers of blood) to the laughable, including one scene where the ghosts (demons? demon ghosts?) rip apart a gambler and its obvious that the attacking creatures are puppets on strings. (And at one point the titular protagonist is menaced by what look like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, except not nearly as convincing.) Plus the werewolf transformation scenes are sub-par. While not unremittingly awful, even gorehounds and Asian horror fans are likely to find it disappointing. It also has possibly the worst dubbing I’ve ever seen in a film.
Just like Howard and I liked it.
If it seems like I’m pimping Monsters a lot, it’s only because I am. It’s the sort of independent film that doesn’t have enough of an ad budget for people to hear about it without word of mouth. So I try to do my part to encourage people to see it if it’s playing in their area. Consider that a recommendation, and remember it for Hugo and Nebula voting.
Read the review, but the short version is that we really liked it. Here’s the short trailer:
The problem with that trailer is that it makers you think the movie is something from the “BOO shock” school of horror films, and it really isn’t.
And here’s an interview with director Gareth Edwards:
If it’s playing anywhere near you I would encourage you to see it.
New theme park? Meh.
How about a theme park with monsters? Now you’re starting to grab my attention.
How about theme parks with monsters so large you can stand in their mouth? Definitely seeing some action on the Cool Meter.
The twist: The theme park was built in 1552.
(Hat tip: The Inferior 4+1.)