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Surgeons of Horror

~ Dissecting horror films

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Tag Archives: Lionsgate

Movie review: 3 From Hell

24 Thursday Oct 2019

Posted by surgeons of horror in MonsterFest, Movie review

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3 from hell, bill moseley, Lionsgate, richard brake, rob zombie, sheri moon zombie, sid haig

Last we left our intrepid psychopaths, the remnants of the Firefly family were driving headfirst into a hail of police gunfire, to their death, or so we thought.

As Rob Zombie’s latest B-Movie inspired flick kicks off we find out that Baby Firefly (Sheri-Moon Zombie), Otis B. Driftwood (Bill Mosley) and Captain Spaulding (Sid Haig) somehow survived their run in with the law, with 20 bullets a piece, and for the past 10 years have been rotting in jail, unable to relish in the full extent of their depravity.
The public perception has shifted in their favour with people from all walks of life calling to “free the 3”, their actions aimed not at the heinous acts against individuals but against the system that created them, though Warden Virgil Harper (Jeff Daniel Phillips) keeps a keen eye on them, antagonising them when appropriate.
Sadly, as you may or may not know, Sid Haig’s health had deteriorated by the time Zombie decided to pick back up with these characters, and as a result, Haig has only a brief scene with a reporter early on in the film before his Chaotic Clown Captain Spaulding is sentenced to death and exits the film.

So now, with Otis busting rocks on the side of the rock and Baby constantly harassed by her guards and other inmates the table has been set, we just wait to see how these killers get loose, and sure enough the empty place in our triumvirate of terror is filled by Otis’ half brother Winslow Foxworth Coltrane  or “The Wolf” as he likes to call himself (followed by a howl), busts Otis from his chain gang and the two high tail it out of there.

At this moment you would think we kick into high gear but it stills takes a surprisingly long time for adoptive brother and sister to be reunited, but at last, after a impromptu dinner party from hell at the Warden Harper’s home, Otis convinces the Warden to break Baby out himself.
Strangely once the gang are back together the film seems to throw out what story we’ve had so far and escape south of the border, down Mexico way where the final act can play out seemingly in isolation of anything else that’s happened, sans one death earlier in the film.

As usual the film is littered as Zombie’s movies usually are with “hey it’s that person” actors, Danny Trejo, Clint Howard and Dee Wallace to name a few and it seems like everyone’s having a good time on set which is always relieving to see after the studio nightmare that Zombie experienced on the Halloween remake. Here he’s back playing with some of his favourite toys but after The Devil’s Rejects, which many consider (myself included) to be Zombie’s high watermark, this film can’t help but pale in comparison.

Prognosis:

Initially what feels what might be the thrust of the film, the public’s relationship with mass murders, Charlie Manson, Ted Bundy, Natural Born Killers, the Crime Channel, is quickly dropped in favour of a muddled plot, that stalls time and time again.
The vibe feels torn between its previous two entries without ever reaching the heights or horrors of either.

Haig’s charismatic presence is sorely missed and his replacement just feels like Otis-Lite.
Despite this, it’s still an entertaining time hanging out with these characters even if there isn’t a plot to back them up.
I hope this isn’t the final chapter, not because I want more but because if Zombie’s going to raise these characters from the seeming dead I wish it was for a more worthy finale.

  • Oscar Jack

Check out the special halloween screenings on October 31st in cinemas across Australia & New Zealand curtesy of Fangoria x Monster Fest here.

Retrospective: Saw – 15 years on

19 Saturday Jan 2019

Posted by surgeons of horror in retrospective

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Cary Elwes, James Wan, Jigsaw, Leigh Whannell, Lionsgate, psychological thriller, Saw, Sundance Film Festival, Tobin Bell, Twisted Pictures

Strip away all the torture devices and wash away all the blood-soaked, gore-infested mayhem that the franchise has become synonymous for and some of you maybe questioning what’s left? But with James Wan and Leigh Whannell’s original film that kick-started the whole Jigsaw frenzy the audience were treated to an exercise in constrained drama, flickered with tense, psychological elements that quite rightly projected the writer and director partnership into the Hollywood limelight as a result.

Part of Saw’s brilliance comes from the low-budget constraints that were placed on the making of the movie. Once the creative duo realised that the cheapest way to shoot a movie would be to have two actors in one room, this germ of an idea developed into the final product and the birth of Jigsaw and his twisted vision of justice.

Apparently the Jigsaw character began when Whannell feared that he had a brain tumour and pondered the notion of what he would do or need to do if he were only to have a year or two to live. This was the leaping point into the dark recesses of Jigsaws’ mind.

It’s this tightly shot, well structured movie that allowed Wan to develop his technique for manipulating lights and shadow to trick and deceive the audiences’ eye. He would harness this skill further with his sophomore film Dead Silence before working on his masterpiece, The Conjuring.

It wasn’t that easy getting budget for the movie though. With no luck gaining interest from their homeland in Australia, Wan and Whannell tried to taut their project in Los Angeles, but even then had to shoot a short feature to provide a proof of concept before getting any decent interest.
You have to applaud their bravado to. So intent were they in getting their vision made, they insisted on having both directing and acting duties respectively. In the end it took newly formed production outfit, Twisted Pictures to give them their desires and have been behind every Saw movie since.

So with one half of the acting team already cast in Whannell as the photographer with a complex past, the team needed a decent actor opposite him as Dr. Lawrence Gordon, a Doctor with an equally dubious past. In steps Cary Elwes, normally associated with his comical roles but proved worthwhile in this serious performance, more than holding his own and providing gravitas to the scenario.

The masterstroke comes with the casting of Tobin Bell as Jigsaw aka John Kramer, who simply owns his role and has propelled himself into horror movie history with his performance as the disturbed yet brilliant mind behind the various traps and tortuous devices throughout all the Saw movies.

So with the narrative played out with Adam and Dr. Lawrence wake up in a bathroom, chained to the floor with nothing but a corpse, a revolver, and a tape recorder to guide them on a journey that will test their metal and push them to the very limits of their intellect and perception.

Saw would be released in front of a Sundance audience for its initial premiere where Lionsgate picked up the distribution rights and the rest is history.

Since then, Wan has established a firm career in the director’s chair to the point hat he has been given the chance to give DC movies some decent crowd with Aquaman, and Whannell more recently carved his own success with Upgrade.

So for those who may have been apprehensive about checking out the origins of Jigsaw, before the bloodbath began, I’d recommend going back to the original source as you maybe pleasantly surprised by this outing with a clever, psychological thriller that is an example of how to shoot a low-budget movie with a lot of smarts and a decent narrative to keep the audience hooked.

It still stands strong 15 years on and my bet is that this will still be the case in another 15 years.

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