The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra (2001)

The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra is a tough movie to review. The things that are bad or wrong about the film are deliberately so, emulating the famously-bad horror and science fiction films from the 1950s. Spoofs and parodies have a mixed history in film, especially spoofs of science fiction/horror. On the one hand, you have examples of great parodies like Spaceballs or Scary Movie (the first one, before they lost the plot), spoofs that know to pick the high-points of the movies they’re based on, discarding the rest. On the other hand, some parodies try too hard to retain the plot of the source material, forgetting the comedy (like Dracula, Dead and Loving It). Thankfully, The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, while remaining close in tone and content to the genre of films it parodies, also manages to be very funny.

Everything about this film is deliberately amateurish, from the effects to the acting to the dialogue, and this is a big part of what makes The Lost Skeleton so funny. The funniest moments come from the dialogue, many lines (intentionally) unintentionally funny. Some examples: “My legs feel like two slow heavy things” or “Betty, you know what this meteor could mean to science. It could mean actual advances in the field of science.” This is great stuff and something you’d likely hear in classic 1950s horror/sci-fi.

The performances are a lot of fun, especially Animala (a woman made from four forest animals) and the Skeleton, a badly-manipulated puppet with clearly visible strings. All the actors are over-the-top, but what else would you expect? The one complaint I have about the film is that it’s occasionally too slow and some of the situations are too drawn out.

Someone happening onto this film, without knowing the context or history of science fiction, will likely be puzzled by the crudeness and low-budget nature of The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra. Fans of the genre, on the other hand, will have a lot of fun and find themselves quoting this film to bewildered friends.

The Departed (2006)

It’s rare for a remake, especially a remake of an acclaimed foreign film, to come close to the original in any way. Often Hollywood comes across a clever or interesting foreign film and tries to mainstream it, turning an idea that works extremely well in the original country but fails to translate to an American context.

I was fairly optimistic about The Departed, however. The original film, Infernal Affairs (2002), was what they call an instant classic, a Hong Kong gangster film that was both fresh and compelling. When I heard Martin Scorsese was filming the remake, substituting Irish gangsters for Hong Kong triads, I thought it had the potential to be an excellent film. Thankfully, Scorsese has delivered an interesting, entertaining film that manages to maintain faithful to the original film while standing as a separate entity.

The cast Scorsese assembled for The Departed is impressive, made all the more impressive by the fact these aren’t just names above the marquee: every actor delivers a solid, credible performance (save a slight tendency to chew the scenery from Jack Nicholson, a fact easily forgiven, however). Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio and Ray Winstone are particular standouts, with Alec Baldwin continuing his recent tradition of strong supporting roles.

Technically, The Departed is as good as any of Scorsese’s recent films. The editing is sharp and crisp, never letting the viewer grow complacent. The soundtrack is also spot-on, a nice combination of Irish-American punk courtesy of The Dropkick Murphys and old Scorsese standards.

Is this film better than Goodfellas, as some have claimed? I don’t think so, but that’s an impossible standard to maintain. What The Departed is, comparisons aside, is an entertaining and sharp American crime film filled with great performances and an involving narrative. What else would you expect from Martin Scorsese?

Cinderella (2006)

I must confess at the beginning of this review that I’m not totally sure why this film is called Cinderella. I can certainly make an argument for one or two possible explanations, but there’s nothing that stands out as a clear explanation. I was expecting a modern interpretation of the classic fairy tale but instead this Cinderella turned out to be another entry in the spectral avenger sub-genre of asian horror, albeit with some added depth and social commentary.

Cinderella starts well, with a strong modern gothic tone and lots of style but it falters somewhat through the middle. The film becomes too contemporary, too modern. I like a good mix of modern and gothic style, but in this case the bright, modern sequences water down the dark, creepy gothic atmosphere.

There’s a decent amount of depth to Cinderella, both in the performances and in the narrative. Plastic surgery plays a large part in the narrative and the film has strong opinions on the cost and nature of beauty. Along with this commentary, Cinderella also creates tension and horror through graphic scenes and descriptions of surgery.

In the end, however, Cinderella is an average entry into the rapidly-growing spectral avenger sub-genre. Will this film become the next Ringu or Ju-on? Probably not, but the interesting style and darkly unique subject matter helps separate Cinderella from the rest of the bunch.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006)

I left my screening of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning exactly as I’d entered it. I’d sat through 84 minutes of screaming and blood and ugliness and I thought how pointless this film was. The original remake from 2003 was bad enough, but at least it had a few scares and some creepy moments. The Beginning feels emptier than the remake, simply an excuse to make another Texas Chainsaw movie sandwiched into the facts of the 2003 version.

In a situation like this, even 30 years later, this film will be compared to the original, even to the three sequels to the original. The family and murders in The Beginning feel smaller than those in all the others. Even in the 2003 remake, the scope wasn’t so horribly limited. The idea of a family of murderers that have been killing for years, even decades, is a much more frightening idea than what’s portrayed here, a small family taking one step too far into psychosis. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the depiction of Leatherface in this film is also much less complex than seen previously. Here, he’s more pure evil as opposed to damaged psychotic.

There are some wasted actors in The Beginning, as well. Lee Tergesen is usually very strong but he’s lost here in a bit part as a biker and R. Lee Ermey seems to resort to wild-eyed bellowing in lieu of an actual performance.

The Texas Chainsaw Masscare: The Beginning had the potential to do something interesting or groundbreaking but the film ended up recycling old concepts and taking the easy route of gore without substance. Sure, the 1974 Texas Chain Saw Massacre was ugly and brutal and nihilistic, but this prequel of a remake is so far removed from the original that it’s barely recognisable. This is a copy of a copy of a copy, an empty shell of a movie, contrived and mercenary and pointless.