Film Review: OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN (1983, George P. Cosmatos)

Stars: 3 of 5.
Running Time: 88 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Peter Weller (ROBOCOP, NAKED LUNCH, THE ADVENTURES OF BUCKAROO BANZAI), Kenneth Welsh (SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD, TWIN PEAKS, PERFECT), Maury Chaykin (TWINS, THE ADJUSTER, DANCES WITH WOLVES), Jennifer Dale (THE ADJUSTER, SUZANNE), Shannon Tweed (HOT DOG THE MOVIE, STEEL JUSTICE, ex-Playboy Playmate, and ex of Gene Simmons), Lawrence Dane (SCANNERS, BRIDE OF CHUCKY), Louis Del Grande (SCANNERS, ATLANTIC CITY). Produced by Pierre David and Claude Héroux (VIDEODROME, SCANNERS, THE BROOD, VISITING HOURS).
Tag-line: "Two forces have claimed the house. Only one will survive."
Best one-liner: "You never said anything about rubber gloves, you boneheaded fart."

It's like MOBY DICK, except instead of Captain Ahab, we have Peter Weller. And instead of a great white whale, we have a giant brown rat. And instead of the high seas, we have a New York apartment building (actually filmed in Montreal). It's a familiar tale. You know- He had it all. The perfect wife. The perfect job. The perfect kid. The perfect home.

Until... a mere rodent made his life into a living hell... a succession of grotesque blightings... an obsession beyond human comprehension...
I suppose, the main lesson here being, 'Don't fuck with a man's brownstone.' And so it's war. Peter Weller is taking this infestation personally.

Needless to say, only one of our two combatants will be left standing. But who? And at what cost?

Helmed by creature-feature conoisseur and ghost-director extraordinaire George Pan Cosmatos (RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II, COBRA, LEVIATHAN, and TOMBSTONE), OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN possesses that strangely sterile, alienating 'Canadian horror' vibe that Cronenberg has used to such great effect in films such as THE FLY, CRASH, and DEAD RINGERS.

Of course, this may have something to do with the producers, Pierre David and Claude Héroux, who produced most of Cronenberg's 70's and 80's output. The atmosphere certainly works: we have man, existing in the carefully constructed steel, glass, and concrete compartments he has created for himself. Tubes and vents ensure proper ventilation and waste disposal. Everything fits within the lines and the walls and the gridlike streets and life is good and– SCHLERP SCHLERP SCHLERP–

Next thing you know, the rat is leaving its creepy little footprints on your coffee table. You know, those terrifying, pink, viscous, semi-translucent, soggy fuckin' paws. It's eating your cereal, knockin' your phone off the hook, leavin' its hairs in your sandwich, playin' your piano, and tryin' to chomp your nuts as you're sittin' on the toilet.

My thoughts exactly, Peter Weller.

Filmed with PHASE IV-style macroscopic photography and hideous attention to detail, OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN dashes headlong into the claustrophic, nasty little world of vermin.

Sewer rat POV.

Peter Weller slowly descends into madness– the rat is one tough customer. Can't trap it. Can't poison it. Can't shoot it. Can't even sic the cat on it. Next thing you know, Pete's talking to the stuffed animals. He's reading MOBY DICK. His day job suffers. It's awesomely clichéd: oh, now he's hitting the bottle.

Next he's sifting through microfiche. He's researching the rat. He's discovering there's 24,000 reported rat bites a year. It's becoming an obsession. He loses touch with co-workers. At a company dinner, he just rattles off facts about rats, much to everyone's chagrin.

Including the chagrin of genius character actor, Kenneth Welsh.

He witnesses the miracle of rat birth. He watches Spencer Tracy in THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA. It's man versus nature versus man versus nature. "This isn't some ordinary rat I'm dealing with. It killed my cat." He screams "You want a war, I'll give you a war!" Weller is great. He's always great. He appears to be wearing the same nerdy glasses he later wears in NAKED LUNCH, and he's unraveling at the seams. There are other characters, I suppose, but this is a one man show.

Before you can say, "It's clobberin' time," Weller has devised a rat-smashing implement that can be best described as an 'atomic bear-trap war-club.'

He's gotten to the point where he just sits in his home. In the dark. Wearing a woolen cap. Clutching his atomic bear-trap war-club. Waiting. Like a coiled spring. Waiting. Ready to snap.
There's a final showdown, of course. It's pretty satisfying. Only one of the two rivals will survive. Who will it be? Our hang-dog urban commando? Our twitchy, disease-spreading, four-legged fiend? Will it be "watch and weep, you furry fucker!" or will it be curtains for the man who thinks of his home as his castle? Well, watch the movie and find out.

Three stars. A fine, crittery, jittery time. Not a classic, but it's one of the best 'man versus rat' movies out there.

-Sean Gill

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Film Review: SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD (2010, George A. Romero)

Stars: 4.5 of 5.

Running Time: 90 minutes.

Tag-line: "Death isn't what it used to be."

Notable Cast or Crew: Kenneth Welsh (Windom Earle on TWIN PEAKS, PERFECT, DEATH WISH V, THE AVIATOR, TIMECOP), Alan Van Sprang (LAND OF THE DEAD, DIARY OF THE DEAD), Kathleen Munroe (NCIS, BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE), Devon Bostick (LAND OF THE DEAD, SAW IV), Richard Fitzpatrick (THE BOONDOCK SAINTS, 16 BLOCKS), Athena Karkanis (SAW IV, SAW VI), Stefano DiMatteo.

Best one-liner: "Would ya get some more bullets for this gun?" Better with an over-the-top Irish lilt.

Each time George A. Romero completes a new film (dating back to BRUISER in 2000, I'd say), and before I get the chance to see it, I've already heard the most horrible press- 'George has lost it,' this and that and the other. I get to wondering if maybe they're right, because, in my experience, many brilliant directors' oeuvres have been tarnished by age and a slew of late-in-the-game clunkers... Then I finally see the film in question, and I'm blown away. I'm sorry I ever doubted you, George. SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD is fantastic. It's a grandly misanthropic popcorn picture with likable characters, gooey thrills, terrific atmosphere, and a lot of (subtle) laughs. I haven't watched a new release with a silly grin on my face for the entire duration since Werner Herzog's BAD LIEUTENANT.

George submits, for our consideration, some truly ludicrous situations which, in the context of humorless modern horror, could at a cursory glance seem hackneyed, lazy, or worse. We have a contemporary 'Hatfields vs. McCoys'-style feud and some characters who initially appear to be card-board cut-outs (the 'Lesbian,' the 'Latino Catholic,' the 'Boy'). This is where we get the knee-jerk responses from the crowd who thinks that SAW is better example of the genre than CREEPSHOW. They won't get it. But by the time a squawking bird swoop is used for a laugh rather than a scare, or we receive the revelation that a certain character has an unexpected twin, you should realize what's going on here– yes, George is having a goddamned blast. He's playing with us. I'm reminded of the benevolent narrative silliness of everything from Robert Rodriguez's PLANET TERROR to John Carpenter's IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS to even Lynch & Frost's TWIN PEAKS. How many times can George tell us that, as a society, we're bigger, dopier, and more despicable assholes than zombies? Well, at least once more!

I don't wish to give away too much of the plot, but the majority of the proceedings take place on an island off the coast of Delaware, inexplicably (and delightfully) inhabited by two rival clans of Irishmen (the O'Flynns and the Muldoons) whose existences are firmly rooted in the 19th Century.

Daniel Fitzpatrick is phenomenal as the leader of the Muldoons- with electrifying shades of Lawrence Tierney.

At times, it's practically a Western- a stylistic choice amplified by the use of rural weaponry, six-shooters, and other vintage firearms. In a way, that's certainly true to the series' roots- one of the most stirring images of the original NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD is that of a Wild-West style 'zombie posse' wandering the countryside, impetuously blowing away the walking dead. Regardless, using the zombies as an excuse to once again point guns at one another, the O'Flynns and Muldoons take diametrically opposing views as to how the matter ought to be handled. The O'Flynns being of the "zombies should be shot in the head" school of thought, and the Muldoons being of the "zombies should be chained up and allowed to carry on in a perverse, macabre parody of their former lives" school of thought.

Wait, WHUTTTTT!?

The little enclave soon finds itself intruded upon by a third party (in the grand Spaghetti Western tradition) who promise to, shall we say... shake things up. The third party in question is a squad of National Guardsmen (led by the excellent Alan Van Sprang as 'Sarge'), who were last seen robbing the shit out of our film student heroes in DIARY OF THE DEAD.

I feel as if anyone who saw DIARY must remember the devilish grin and fearsome countenance of Mr. Van Sprang as he cheerfully relieved the pompous kids of their belongings (at gunpoint). The brief scene certainly stuck in my mind as one of the highlights of DIARY (you can read my appreciation here), so you can imagine my delight when I discovered that he was (ostensibly) the protagonist of SURVIVAL.

There's a lot to like here. The RED camera-lensed visuals are astoundingly beautiful, and the atmosphere is top-notch.

Filmed off of Port Dover on the north side of Lake Erie, we're entreated to eerie, rustic, island imagery reminiscent of Carpenter's THE FOG.

There's slapstick worthy of Buster Keaton (and a dynamite gag perhaps worthy of the Looney Tunes). There's plenty of gore, and many creative zombie kills (which I shan't spoil here, but I will say that if you enjoyed Samuel the Amish zombie slayer in DIARY, you will find a lot to like here). One of my (slight) complaints is the preponderance of CGI gore, but when pressed on it at the Q&A, George revealed that in order to maintain creative control over projects these days, he must adhere to the strictest of shooting schedules, which means no time playing around with elaborate make-up effects that could malfunction and require multiple takes, costume resets, set cleaning, and the like. I'm not letting bad CGI off the hook- not by a long shot- but there certainly seem to be some limitations here that George must choose to live with if he's going to continue making movies in this climate, which marks just yet another dissatisfaction I have with the way that films are made (and distributed) these days. There is, however, a non-CGI reimagining of Captain Rhodes' (literally!) gut-wrenching demise in DAY OF THE DEAD which is certainly refreshing.

Anyway, I haven't even got to the best part yet- allow me to tell you about SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD's ace in the hole, the card up its sleeve, its crown jewel– shaggy Canadian veteran character actor Kenneth Welsh.

You may know him already as TWIN PEAKS' nefarious man of many disguises, Windom Earle. But here, as the sturdy, grizzled head of the O'Flynn clan, he is jaw-droppingly spectacular. He reaches heights of character acting that have been grasped previously by men named Busey, Dourif, and Henriksen. He's no spring chicken, but he can kick your ass- and then he'll say something sing-songily incorrigible right afterward.

It's the sort of cinematic badass whose every action has you laughing- not because it's funny, but because you believe every second of it. His 'viral-video-within-the-film' as "Captain Courageous" is a thing of lunatic beauty:

I don't want to say any more, but suffice it to say, I'm going to begin discovering the minutiae of this man's filmography...immediately.

In all, an excellent, excellent film. Zombie action and other such amusements, melodrama, atmosphere, and with the occasional, unexpected emotional weight to it. And don't be surprised if- when awards season rolls around- I'm still heralding this as one of the best of the year. I can't wait until the next one, George!

-Sean Gill

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Film Review: DEATH WISH V: THE FACE OF DEATH (1994, Allan A. Goldstein)

Stars: 4.2 of 5.
Running Time: 95 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Charles Bronson, Lesley-Ann Down (MUNCHIE STRIKES BACK), Michael Parks (THE HITMAN, THE RETURN OF JOSEY WALES 'Jean Renault' on TWIN PEAKS, 'Earl McGraw' in KILL BILL, PLANET TERROR, et al.), Saul Rubinek (UNFORGIVEN, TRUE ROMANCE), Miguel Sandoval (CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER, JURASSIC PARK, DO THE RIGHT THING), Kenneth Welsh ('Windom Earle' on TWIN PEAKS), Robert Joy (ATLANTIC CITY, LAND OF THE DEAD).
Tag-line: "No judge. No jury. No appeals. No deals."
Best one-liner: "Guns make you nervous?" –"Guns have their uses. Idiots with guns make me nervous."

Well, I've been sick this week, have fallen behind in my reviews, and now it looks like 'Batshit Craziness Week' may just turn into 'Batshit Craziness Fortnight,' so brace yourselves.

Charlie's back and he's pushin' 80; we got the Golan, lost the Globus– DEATH WISH is ready to take on the 90's. Well, you're probably wondering, how does the franchise hold up in the post-Cannon breakup era? The answer: excellently. Within, literally, the first ten seconds, we have three flaming hairdressers, a ton of models, some asscrack, and a touch of nipple. Golan, you dog!



Yup, we're at a fashion show. Well, why wouldn't we be at a fashion show?- this is a DEATH WISH movie, after all. Bronson's back in the Big Apple, and he's got yet another doomed ladyfriend, this time Lesley-Anne Down of MUNCHIE STRIKES BACK fame.

Munchie never pulled any shit like this.

Michael Parks is her rabid ex and the main villain of the piece.

He's so goddamned scary, I was hiding behind my couch for half the movie. Looking a bit like Clu Gulager, doing gleefully racist impersonations, and eagerly slicing up a fat man's guts with some kind of sewing machine, Parks plays your typical mobster/high fashion magnate. He and his cronies are laundering money, so they have to toss a bunch of mannequins and clothes into a vat of acid to make up for it or something?

I'm not sure that makes any sense, but I have complete faith in Golan, so I'm sure it's my fault for being confused. Then there's Chekhov's rule about vats of acid in Bronson movies: if there's a vat of acid in Act 1, Bronson will push some d-bag into it by Act 3. Anyway, at first you'll think that the fashion industry setting was chosen so that Golan could showcase his kickass flamboyance (see also: THE APPLE, SALSA), but as it turns out, I think it was chosen so that people could be tortured by the associated industrial machinery.

But I digress. Bronson's in the witness protection program now, working as a professor. This is brilliantly conveyed when Saul Rubinek says something like 'Ah, yes, remember when I put you in the witness protection program? How's that working out? Are you still a professor?' Rubinek, naturally, is playing himself, but he does it well enough that he nearly challenges Parks for 'Best Actor in DEATH WISH 5.' But there are actually some pretty solid performances here- Kenneth Welsh

(Windom Earle from TWIN PEAKS) as the beleaguered top cop, Miguel Sandoval as a possibly nefarious buddy, and Robert Joy as a killer dude in drag who's kinda like the poor man's John Glover/Klaus Kinski. (And it must be mentioned that by no means is that an insult- even the poor man's Glover/Kinski is better than 90% of actors working today.) Joy's main character trait is that- I shit you not- he suffers from a dandruff problem (his name is "Freddy Flakes"). In one mind-boggling sequence, Mr. Flakes disfigures Bronson's gal as Michael Parks distracts Bronson by blowing him kisses.


Again, though Bronson probably is incapable of understanding the concept of same-sex attraction, the chemistry is palpable. Parks even has difficulty tearing his eyes away from him as his rent gal pines for a smooch. Regardless, Joy brings his all- and then some- to the scene.

Not sure how a wig can have dandruff, but I'm goin' with it.


Flakes relaxing at home.

Described as a "very lethal guy," Bronson dispatches Freddy with extreme prejudice and a remote control soccer ball bomb, deliciously intoning "I'm gonna take care of your dan-druff problem for you!" This is full of those phrases that probably originated in the screenwriter's head as 'one-liners,' but once they roll off of Bronson's tongue, they achieve "It's MY CAR!" status. Like "I don't need anything...but YOU need a BATH!" or "You got a PROBLEM?":



We've got probably the most brutal hit and run in film history (which must be seen to be believed), the 'dummies flung from buildings' quotient filled (Bronson himself even gets to take a kickass leap!),

and ridiculous Italian stereotypes (cannolis, opera, spaghetts, and a woman named 'Mama' converge in a matter of seconds). Bronson gets to torture a dude with saran wrap:

and it all ends on an EXTERMINATOR 2-inspired freeze frame.

Bravo, gentlemen. A fitting swansong for a hero who inspired us, astonished us, and delighted us every time gunned down purse-snatchers, professed his love for chicken, or stuck his boot up the ass of some cheap punk who totally didn't see it coming.

He touched our hearts, he blew our minds, and then he blew the bad guys away- and I never got tired of seein' him do it.

-Sean Gill

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