the graveyarddirector: michael feifer // 2006
cinema 4 rating: 3
not that i was really looking forward to watching the ed gein video starring kane hodder, but nothing is better at lessening that apparent lack of optimism even more than having to endure this earlier attempt by that film's director -- since he was the producer on this thing too, perhaps michael feifer spent most of his time rounding up funds to make it, and didn't worry about spending one second on making the damn thing make sense -- the reason he didn't worry was because he had the writer of mansquito scripting it -- whew! what a relief, knowing your project is in the right hands -- there are an infinite amount of ways that a plot could come back around to make some small amount of sense, and this film misses them all -- there has to be some sort of award for that... or a guinness book entry -- despite the obvious deathgrip on the standard cliches of this sort of slasher nonsense, it seems there has been a small attempt on shaking that formula up a tad, even if it doesn't come off one bit -- it's one thing to have ambition (however lowbrow), it's another thing to back it up with actual talent or skill -- of course, i could be accused of that same crime... if i had ambition -- don't have to worry about the talent or skill columns -- there are five main female characters in this film: a blonde, a slutty ho-bird with a somewhat pointy beak who gets naked (thankfully and nicely) quite a bit before getting blanked... and three other girls so alike in basic appearance, even hearing their character's names now and then didn't ease up the confusion -- who just got killed? don't know, all these white brunettes look alike -- if i were fiefer, i would have had the same actress play all of the women, just to save money -- would have been funnier too -- same guy produced many of those nearly-softcore, truly abhorrent witchcraft films from the '90s -- clearly, we are in the hands of someone who is merely out to corral every dollar he can from those who like to rent crappy movies and then spend endless days on the internet whining about how crappy these films were, knowing full well what they were probably getting into when they rented the films in the first place -- here, i will come to the defense of those shabby folks, and state that, for me at least, even tuning into a film you are pretty sure is going to be crappy, holds a certain small anticipation that you might discover a hidden gem -- if we didn't do this, how would we have found our way to things like re-animator or the evil dead -- yes, the payoff quotient is rather minute, but... every once in a while -- scoff if you wish, but i hold a certain admiration for guys like feifer who have figured out the game in this way -- corman, arkoff, even the dude who throws shark hunter after shark attack after shark whatever after us -- it's not about the quality, it's about the quantity... and it's america, damn it! it's all about making money, not art -- as abbott and costello said: if you find a niche, you scratch it...
2 comments:
The writer of Mansquito? Oof! On a related note; it's sad to see Tibor Takacs has gone from The Gate and I, Madman to really, really bad Sci-Fi Original Movies.
Yes, I had hopes for the guy for a while. A short while. Honestly, the true star of those movies was effects whiz Randall William Cook, who went on to win a trio of Oscars for Peter Jackson. (He also played Dr. Kessler in I, Madman, hater of the "mousy browns.")
Still, were I Takacs, I would not turn down the work. It might be hack work, but he is in the biz still. If someone asked me to direct Ice Spiders, I'd jump at the chance.
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