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The Washingtonians (2007)
Director: Peter Medak
Screenplay: Richard Chizmar and Johnathon
Schaech
Based on a short story by Bentley
Little
Cast: Julia Tortolano as Amy
Franks; Venus Terzo as Pam Franks; Johnathon Schaech as Mike Franks; Myron
Natwick as Samuel Madison III; Esme Lambert as Nancy Arnold; Abraham Jedidiah
as Jared Barkish
A Night of a Thousand Horror (Shows) #28
[Spoiler Alert?]
Peter Medak qualifies for the Masters
of Horror directorial chair because of
The Changeling (1980), a taut and slow burn Canadian production which is
underrated, a haunted house story which works as a drama and as a chilling
supernatural story which uses subtlety for its impact. (I presume not for Species II (1998), the only other
horror feature in his career which I saw at a young age, to be honest,
alongside Species (1995) for the titillation
it promised, only for schlock and H.R.
Giger creature designs instead). Medak
in general has one of those fascinating filmographies I would like to see more
of. Hungarian born, his career includes extensive work in the British film
industry during the late sixties and seventies with recognisable movies. I'm
thinking in particular of The Ruling
Class (1972), an epic two-and-a-half hour long satire where Peter O'Toole plays New Age Jesus much
to the horror of stuffy British upper class society, a farce which has been
said to including anything from musical numbers to Nigel Green as The High Voltage Messiah. One of those careers that,
whilst The Changeling is one of the
best horror films of its era, is worth exploring in its own right in other
genres.
Sadly I can't say The Washingtonians was great despite
that introduction. It's premise is utterly silly but could've made an
interesting farce - imagining whether the founder of the United States of
America, George Washington, was a
cannibal. It's a heavy handed idea but one with potential, that the history one
hold as idealised is likely to soften the real historical events, even
completely go against them for the sake of myth, "printing the
legend" to quote The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962). Particularly
with individuals like Abraham Lincoln, an idealised hero who represents his
country's people centuries later contrasts the more complicated version who
actually lived. However I'd argue, even though it's been ten years or more
since I saw the episode, that The
Simpsons episode (guest starring Donald
Sunderland) about the founder of Springfield actually being an arsehole and Lisa Simpson having
to deal with this issue was a far more interesting depiction of this issue.
The Washingtonians instead is pretty obvious. A lot of the problems
with these lesser episodes of Season 2 are the bland families you're meant to
sympathise with in the leads, presuming that a mere happy family is enough to
connect to when, in reality, they should have more to them than merely an
innocent kid in potential peril and their parents being generically wholesome. Said
family are pitted against creepy older locals in a small town who are clearly
weird in their first scene, behaving so at the start during a funeral. It's
kind of obvious they're in on something from the start, and there's an
absurdity unused of lunatics in powdered wigs and wooden teeth trying to get
into a house and threatening to eat the occupants inside. A lot feels missing
as result A whole level of satire that
could've been crammed into less than fifty five minutes. A twist from the
original short story that isn't used for a dated joke from the period the
episode was made, which misses out another satirical spike. A whole level that could've happened, thinking
about it mid-viewing, if there was a plot twist that George Washington was actually innocent and the Washingtonians had
based their flesh eating cult on a fringe delusion. That Ravenous (1999) is a more rewarding take on pioneer era American
cannibalism when this was an episode that's not got a lot to say about.
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The Damned Thing (2006)
Director: Tobe Hooper
Screenplay: Richard Christian
Matheson
Based on a short story by Ambrose
Bierce
Cast: Sean Patrick Flanery as Sheriff
Kevin Reddle; Marisa Coughlan as Dina; Brendan Fletcher as Deputy Strauss; Alex
Ferris as Mikey Reddle; Brent Stait as John Reddle; Georgia Craig as Jodi
Reddle; Ted Raimi as Father Tulli
A Night of a Thousand Horror (Shows) #29
[Major spoiler warnings]
The attempt with The Damned Thing was admirable. But I
don't know what to say about Tobe
Hooper's second contribution to the Masters
of Horror series. The most noticeable thing is that it drastically alters
an Ambrose Bierce's story and turns
it into a curious mix between an environmental story and an apocalypse
narrative. Sheriff Kevin Reddle (Sean
Patrick Flanery), the central character, suffered trauma when his father on
his birthday suddenly snapped for no explainable reason, killing his wife and
trying to kill Kevin as a child before he was ripped to shreds by an invisible
force. This force is a curse on the men in the family, one when it goes after
the males over generations brings an evil influence on everyone surrounding
them, local communities turned towards irrational insanity and violence, both
self harm and aggression to others, that leads to destruction and mass death.
While its subtle in back-story,
the "damned thing" accidentally woken up by oil drilling and a force
which has hexed the generations of people in one family, it's vague without
reward. There's too many pieces missing that could've added a greater impact to
the material. Especially when the monster is revealed as a CGI oil slick
creature, there's a sense of too many plot points being unfocused and lacking,
a misbegotten narrative as a result which should've been feature length. It also
feels pointless for this to have even adapted the Bierce story as whilst that tale has enough material of interest in
itself, an invisible creature and the fall out of a death its caused, it feels utterly
pointless to have kept this potentially evolved predator in this episode when it's
trying to be more of a literal evil from the Earth.
I cannot argue that Hooper, an older man at this time,
showed so much energy with his frenzied production style here, the violent
editing and intensity much more controlled and effective here than in his
season one episode Dance of the Dead
(2005). There's an aggressive mood
which suits a director whose famous work always had a sense of the mad and
dangerous to it, heightened still here after three decades of it before. Particularly
as it means Ted Raimi, he of permanent
cameos in his brothers films for me, plays a priest who eventually starts
howling like a madman, I can appreciate the energy.The issue is that the plot
is a jumble which doesn't gel, something I have to wonder is the fault of
screenwriter Richard Christian Matheson,
as he also wrote Dance of the Dead
which was also failed in this area. The
Damned Thing because of this is a disappointment.
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| From http://images4.fanpop.com/image/photos/15700000/ 2x01-The-Damned-Thing-masters-of-horror-15714550-500-281.jpg |
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