Film Review: LITTLE WITCHES (1996, Jane Simpson)

Stars: 1 of 5.
Running Time: 90 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Mimi Rose, Jennifer Rubin (HELLRAISER, SCREAMERS), Sheeri Rappaport, Clea Duvall (THE FACULTY, GIRL INTERRUPTED), Jack Nance (ERASERHEAD, BARFLY), and Zelda Rubinstein (POLTERGIEST, TEEN WITCH).
Tag-line: "Forgive Me Father, For I Am Sin!"
Best one-liner: A girl exits the confessional: "What did she do?" –"What didn't she do!"

Even at 3:00 AM, under the shameful cover of darkness and sleep deprivation, LITTLE WITCHES was not a good idea. It's by Apix Entertainment, that bastion of low-budg skin flickery that brought us SCORNED and SCORNED 2, and let me tell you, these guys make Full Moon look like Janus Films.

A-pix? Like A-pics? Like "the first, superior film at a double feature?"

A hideously misguided, quasi-softcore rip-off of THE CRAFT, it's written by men but directed by a woman (Jane Simpson, sort of a latter-day Doris Wishman?). I often ill-advisedly brave these bottom of the barrel VHS classicks, but rarely do they result in such palpable discomfiture and near constant thumbings of the fast forward button. Why did I see this movie? Well, I saw David Lynch crony and lovable madman Jack Nance listed in the cast, I knew it featured eccentric horror legend and character actress extraordinaire Zelda Rubinstein, and, what can I say- I'm a sucker for a tag-line as ludicrous as "Forgive Me Father, For I Am Sin!" But the fact of the matter is that the quality index is skewed, and the film is absolutely lifeless. Even the "Oh my God naked Catholic schoolgirls!" demographic has got to be finding this duller than the most interminable and pandering of homilies. Which raises the point that perhaps it was created by Catholics, for wayward Catholics so that they'd find 'temptation,' as it were, to be more even more banal than the most torpid of masses.

Sure, there's scenes of Jack Nance taking confession and muttering "I want you to spend seven minutes contemplating the immensity of God,"

and that's all fine and good, but then it's followed by some sort of immensely awkward schoolgirl stripping sequence set to Mr. Jones and the Previous' "Who's Gonna Make it Rain?," a extended setpiece that's mechanical, graceless, and strangely corporate, despite the Troma-level budget.

The banality of sin?

Anyway, then Clea Duvall shows up and begins to really act in the midst of a lot of eyebrow-indicating and curious enunciations- apparently working under the assumption that she's appearing in an actual movie.

Zelda Rubinstein briefly materializes, phoning in the sort of mystical routine that had made her so well-known amongst genre enthusiasts. I mean, when Zelda Rubinstein (she who made an exceptionally sincere appearance in TEEN WITCH) is phoning it in, you've got some fundamental problems. (EDIT- pun not intentional.)

Long after I had lost all interest entirely and begun intermittently fast-forwarding, one image gave me pause: Jack Nance in fishing gear, as previously seen on TWIN PEAKS.

They even duplicate the gag where he keeps his bait and fishing materials in the kitchen (á la "There's a ffffffish in the perrrrrcolator.") I stuck around for his death scene (which included the line "Don't blaspheeeeeeeeme!"), but after that there was really no reason to stick around. I am a man of principals, however, so I fast-forwarded to the end, spying a sad-looking rubbery Satan, some naked black sabbath undulations, and an "Oh boy just when you thought it was over, gues what- it ain't!" ending. Whew. I don't know what I expected, but I guess I expected something slightly better than this. One star.

-Sean Gill

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Film Review: THE FACULTY (1998, Robert Rodriguez)

Stars: 3.75 of 5.
Running Time: 104 minutes.
Tag-line: "Six students are about to find out their teachers really are from another planet."
Notable Cast or Crew: Josh Hartnett, Elijah Wood, Robert Patrick, Clea DuVall, Laura Harris, Jordana Brewster, Shawn Hatosy, Salma Hayek, Famke Janssen, Piper Laurie, Christopher McDonald, Bebe Neuwirth, Usher Raymond, Jon Stewart, Daniel von Bargen, Summer Phoenix. Music by Marco Beltrami (THE HURT LOCKER, 3:10 TO YUMA). Written by Kevin Williamson (SCREAM, DAWSON'S CREEK).
Best one-liner: "Body Snatchers is a story somebody made up, dingus. It's located in the fiction section of the library." –"Yeah, so is Schindler's List." Whewww.

Well, so far this week I've discussed a few terrific films from what I'll call the "Golden Era of Horror/Sci-Fi Remakes (1978-1988)," so now it seems only proper to look at one from a little further down the line. THE FACULTY. This film is packed to the brim with things that I should hate- marketable young stars, jaw-droppingly pathetic CGI, and a self-reflexivity that's at best, bratty, and at worst, dangerous. (Dangerous in terms of what the 'Kevin Williamson model' would go on to inspire- and I feel like it's leaked out of 90's horror films and into 00's-10's corporate culture- I see so many advertisements and commercials these days possessing the "this is so bad but aren't we so clever for making it so bad *wink wink wink wink*" and the "if we acknowledge that it's bad, then we take the wind out of the sails of any actual criticism" aesthetic.)

A picture of Kevin Williamson.

Despite it all, however, THE FACULTY is a fairly likable movie. John Carpenter was a master craftsman, and, I daresay one of the cinema's best storytellers in the past twenty-five years. Howard Hawks was his hero, and you can feel Hawks' power coursing through Carpy's veins. Robert Rodriguez is cut from the same cloth, except for the fact that he worships Carpy. (At the tender age of thirteen, ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK inspired him to become a filmmaker.) And though Rodriguez's films can be absolutely kickass (though just as often can be exceedingly dopey), one can plainly see that some of the secrets of the masters are being lost in the 'trickle down,' as it were. The qualities, however, that intercede on occasion to save Rodriguez (and, to some extent, THE FACULTY) include his natural proclivity toward visceral, immersive editing (he almost exclusively edits his own pictures) and his unwavering dedication toward over-the-top imagery. (I must say that his wholehearted embracement of CGI disgusts me, but in the majority of his films, he does exercise at least some degree of restraint.) Regardless, on to the film:

Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. I have watched THE FACULTY on multiple occasions, I have derived enjoyment from the experience, and I plan, one day, to watch it again. I could plead ignorance, but I know better. I love THE THING '82, NIGHT OF THE CREEPS, and INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS '78, all of which THE FACULTY shamelessly rips off and then pretends that it's okay because there's a wink and a nod and a slick post-modernism. There's CGI so embarrassingly substandard that it borders on blasphemy. It's a rare special effect, indeed, which is so poor that you find yourself reaching for the cat o' nine tails so that you may flog yourself for daring to enjoy the movie which contained it, but THE FACULTY contains several such effects.

UH


How bout some groan-inducing homage to THE THING?


And as a side note, who do we blame for this cringeworthy (freeze frame/character name) 90's (and beyond) storytelling device? Do we blame Sergio Leone? He couldn't have known what it would come to...


And why they gotta do a 90's teen spin on the blood test scene from THE THING??

Then there's the matter of Alice Cooper's classic "I'm Eighteen" being limply covered by Creed. Perhaps the less said, the better, but it would seem that the hard rockin' gods are just as offended as the sci-fi actioner gods. And even John Hughes is pissed because (excluding Laura Harris' Southern-fried transfer student) the final survivors are THE EXACT SAME ARCHETYPES AS THE BREAKFAST CLUB.

What a weirdo

Of course, one could make the argument that these 'sins' I've outlined are some of the film's strengths, but allow me to tell where the film's assets truly lie- the title. Or, to be more specific: the title characters.

Infected by slug-like parasites from space, Robert Patrick is peppy, cheerful, and absolutely out of his fucking gourd. He's having more fun than the rest of the cast combined.


This is the kind of part he was born to play, so why the hell didn't he have more juicy, high-profile roles of this caliber?! (Well, I guess there's always COP LAND and THE DIG.) Not to be outdone, Piper Laurie's ready, able, and willing to kick it up a notch. At one point, she even gets a dated, silly SCARY-JUMP-CUT-ZOOM:


Rounding it out are a zany Jon Stewart (who makes one final appearance that's worth staying for the end credits):

a deranged, drunken Daniel von Bargen; and a glassy-eyed, spine-chilling Bebe Neuwirth.

So....almost four stars (I guess)... may my penance commence.

-Sean Gill

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