Kick-Ass

Written by: Mark Millar, illustrated by John Romita, Jr.
Year of Publication: 2010
Number of Pages: 216 pages
Genre: Graphic novel, superhero, action

Summary: Have you ever wanted to be a superhero? David Lizewski did and makes his dream a reality. A bored, nerdy New York teenager, David's main interests in life are comic books and classmate Katie Deauxma, until he buys a scuba wetsuit off e-bay and, naming himself "Kick-Ass", sets out onto New York's mean streets to fight crime, despite having no powers and no special training. Needless to say, his first attempts are an abysmal failure and he is very badly beaten up. Following months of operations, therapy and three steel plates in his head, Kick-Ass is out once more and, after footage of him foiling a mugging is uploaded onto YouTube, finds himself a sudden celebrity. However, after meeting murderous ten year old vigilante Hit Girl and her father Big Daddy, David soon finds himself seriously out of his depth.

Opinions: This book started life as an eight issue comic book series based on Scottish writer Millar's own teenage dreams of being a superhero. The book is hugely entertaining with frequently hilarious foul-mouthed dialogue and complemented with great artwork. It won't be too everyone's taste since it is full of graphic, over the top violence. More than likely the book's main audience will be fans of the movie which was based on it and, while the film follows the storyline of the comic very closely, the comic is several shades darker than the film. David Lizewski is a likeable and sympathetic main character, but the most memorable character is the good natured but extremely violent Hit-Girl.
If you're a fan you'll also want to get down to your friendly neighbourhood comic book store to pick up Kick-Ass 2 the first issue of which is currently on sale.

The Prophecy

Year: 1995
Director: Gregory Widen
Screenplay: Gregory Widen
Starring: Christopher Walken, Elias Koteas, Virginia Madsen, Eric Stoltz, Viggo Mortensen
Running Time: 98 minutes
Genre: Horror, thriller, supernatural, religion

Summary: Just before he is to be ordained as a priest, Thomas Dagget (Koteas) experiences a nightmarish vision and loses his faith. Years later he is a homicide detective and assigned to the bizarre case of a corpse seemingly born with no eyes, and a hermaphrodite, he also has an ancient hand-written Bible with an extra chapter in the Book of Revelations. Translating the chapter, Dagget learns of a second war in Heaven due to some angels who were jealous of God elevating humanity over them. Dagget discovers that the leader of the rebel angels, the archangel Gabriel (Walken), who has an extreme disgust for humans - he refers to as "talking monkeys" - has arrived in a small Arizona town in search of an evil soul to use as a devestating weapon.

Opinions: This movie, which was also released as God's Army, is a striking mix of action, horror and theology. It benefits enormously from a very strong cast full of familiar faces from independent films, with Christopher Walken being a particular standout as the charismatic and malevolent archangel. It also provides a lead role for Elias Koteas, a talented and prolific actor who tends to be quite underrated. The film is well-written with the complex storyline unfolding with enough twists and turns to sustain interest and keep the viewer guessing without being unecessarily convoluted. It also has a strong thread of dark humour. Packed with originality and invention, it is certainly the best religious themed horror movie of recent years. The film's main problems are mainly down to it's low-budget, the special effects are at best adequate, although the film is wisely sparing in it's use of special effects, and it lacks a distinctive visual style, although some image are very effective - most notably a brief glimpse of Hell. Although the film was not a huge success on it's original release, it's reputation has grown and it has become something of a cult hit, and to date has been followed by four sequels.



Christopher Walken in The Prophecy

Kick-Ass

Year: 2010
Director: Matthew Vaughn
Screenplay: Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn, based on the comic-book by Mark Millar and John Romita, Jr.
Starring: Aaron Johnson, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Chloe Grace Moretz, Nicolas Cage, Mark Strong
Running Time: 117 minutes
Genre: Superhero, action, comedy

Summary: New York City, the present: Dave Lizewski (Johnson) is a teenage comic-book fan, who dreams of becoming a superhero. Despite having no training and no superpowers, he decides to turn his dreams into reality and, with a costume fashioned from a scuba diving suit, he dubs himself "Kick-Ass" and sets out to become a real-life superhero. However, his first attempts just result in him getting badly beaten up. However, one night his successful intervention in an assault is filmed and put on the YouTube site. Dave discovers that Kick-Ass is an internet celebrity. Then he meets fellow costumed hero Big Daddy (Cage) who, with the help of his violent, foul-mouthed eleven year old daughter, Hit Girl (Moretz), is fighting to bring down the city's most powerful organised crime ring.

Opinions: This movie is a lot of fun. It is packed with action and humour, and there are plenty of references to the world of comic-books and superheroes. The film, which is almost a parody of Batman and Spider-Man is very sympathetic with the costumed vigilantes but also features the dark and dangerous side as Kick-Ass very quickly finds himself way over his head. The film's storyline is not particularly unique with the idea of untrained superhero wannabes having been done several times before, but the film is stylish and entertaining enough that this doesn't matter. The film features some great performances in particular from Chloe Moretz turning in a startling performance as the ruthless Hit Girl who manages to be both likeable and terrifying. In the film's lead Johnson delivers a great comic peformance. The film is full of exagerrated comic-book style violence, which won't be to everyone's taste. The film knows it's target audience and fans of comic-book movies and action films are sure t find something to entertain them. As an unashamed comic book fan myself, I loved it.



Aaron Johnson and Chloe Grace Moretz in Kick-Ass

Paranormal Activity

Year: 2009
Director: Oren Peli
Screenplay: Oren Peli
Starring: Katie Featherston, Micah Sloat, Mark Fredrichs, Amber Armstrong
Running Time: 86 minutes
Genre: Horror, supernatural, mockumentary

Summary: In San Diego, California, in 2006, a young couple Katie (Featherston) and Micah (Sloat) are troubled by an unseen supernatural force. Micah buys advanced cameras and audio-visual equipment in order to document the phenomenon. As the bizarre events escalate the couple's relationship begins to break down.

Opinions: This film is basically a "found footage" film. The entire movie purports to be the footage shot by Micah's cameras, similar in style to The Blair Witch Project (1999). Much of the film is taken up by static shots of the couple's bedroom at night, the camera positioned in such a way that the shot takes in both the bed and the open door directly beside it. The suspense comes from knowing something is about to happen but not when, and also having sudden loud noises in long, silent scenes. For the most part, the events are very subtle building up slowly from the comparative mildness of the early happenings. Due to the domestic setting, the film probably works better as home viewing than it does in the cinema. It also focuses on the reactions of the couple to the events, Katie just wants to leave it alone and doesn't want to antagonise the force, while Micah wants to contact it and fight it. The movie's main problems are to do with it's style more than anything else, mainly the fact that you wonder whether the couple would film so many of their conversations and arguements, and also the fact that even when they are supposed to be really scared they always remeber to bring the camera with them. However, the film does work well, and is genuinely chilling at times. It was followed by a sequel which was released in 2010.


Sleepless nights in Paranormal Activity

Let Me In

Year: 2010
Director: Matt Reeves
Screenplay: Matt Reeves, based on the novel and screenplay Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist
Starring: Kodi Smit-McPhee, Chloe Grace Moretz, Richard Jenkins, Elias Koteas, Cara Buono
Running Time: 116 minutes
Genre: Horror, drama

Summary: In March, 1983, in Los Alamos, New Mexico, twelve year old Owen (Smit-McPhee) lives with his religious, alcoholic mother (Buono), who largely ignores him, on a depressing housing estate. He is also frequenty bullied at school. One night he meets a new neighbour, Abby (Moretz), a seemingly ordinary twelve year old girl, who lives with an elderly man (Jenkins) assumed to be her father. A strong friendship soon blossoms between Owen and Abby until he learns that Abby is, in fact, a vampire, and her "father" is behind a brutal series of ritualistic killings in the local area which he has done to provide her with the blood she needs.

Opinions: The 2004 novel Let the Right One In by Swedish author John Ajvide Lindqvist has previously been adapted as a critically acclaimed and successful Swedish film directed by Tomas Alfredson, and now an English-language version has been made. It's hard not to feel cynical when a successful foreign language film is given an English-language remake, especially when it's only been a couple of years since the release of the Swedish film. In fact, Alfredson was, understandably, very angry at the news that his film was being remade on the grounds that he thought a film should only be remade if there was something wrong with the original and he didn't think that there was anything wrong ith his film, and he is perfectly correct that there is nothing wrong with the earlier film.
However, leaving that aside, Let Me In is a very good film in it's own right. For the most part it sticks very closely to the earlier film and fairly faithful to the original novel (both movie versions excise the novel's gruesome zombie sub-plot). The film has a good sense of time and place with striking visuals of the snow-bathed housing estate. Director Reeves, best known for the 2008 monster movie Cloverfield, delivers some striking scenes, in particular a sequence where the camera is in the back seat of a crashing car. He also has some of the more traditional horror movie scares happening in the background of scenes, and although there are computer generated special effects used, they are mostly fairly subtle. The movie's main strengths are in superb performances from Kodi Smit-McPhee and Chloe Moretz in the lead roles who make their characters if anything even more engaging and sympathetic then their Swedish counterparts.
While sticking a little bit too close to the original to really become it's own thing, this is a fine, well-made movie that deserves a wider audience than traditional horror audiences and should appeal to fans of the original as well as newcomers.


Kodi Smit-McPhee and Chloe Grace Moretz in Let Me In

Land of the Dead

Year: 2005
Director: George A. Romero
Screenplay: George A. Romero
Starring: Simon Baker, John Leguizamo, Dennis Hopper, Asia Argento, Robert Joy, Eugene Clark
Running Time: 93 minutes
Genre: Horror, action, survival

Summary: The dead have risen up and are attacking and eating the living. Anyone who dies becomes one of them, and anyone left alive after being botten by one will also shortly become one of them. The only way to destroy them is by destroying the brain, usually by shooting or stabbing in the head. The Earth has been pretty much completely overrun by these zombies. However, a community of survivors exist in a fortified enclve in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The community is ruled by the vicious and corrupt Kaufman (Hopper) who lives, along with the rest of the wealthy and elite in a luxurious high-rise apartment complex, while the rest of the people live in abject poverty, kept docile by the many vices that Kaufman lays on for the purpose. Frequently a team led by Riley Denbo (Baker) make forays into the outside world in a heavily equipped armoured vehicle known as "Dead Reckoning" in order to get urgently needed food and medical supplies. However, Riley is determined that this will be his last run. However, shortly after they return from their most recent expedition, Riley and his sidekick Charlie (Joy) are arrested after they break up an event involving two zombies fighting over a woman, Slack (Argento). Meanwhile Riley's second in command, Cholo DeMora (Leguizamo), whose dreams have been shattered when Kaufman denied him a place in the Fiddler's Green complex, has stolen Dead Reckoning and is threatening to open fire on the comples. However, in the city outside, one of the zombies (Clark) is beginning to show signs of regaining some of his human intelligence and is starting to organise the others.

Opinions: This film is the fourth in writer-director George A. Romero's Dead series and was preceded by Night of the Living Dead (1968), Dawn of the Dead (1978) and Day of the Dead (1986), and it has so far been followed by Diary of the Dead (2007) and Survival of the Dead (2010). It's fair to say that Romero's films have pretty much created the popular image of the movie zombie: a shambling mindless walking corpse forever chomping on the flesh of the living, which has now become one of the most popular horror movie tropes. The film, which was produced on a higher budget than any of the other Romero zombie films, is a fast-moving, action packed affair full of impressive special effects and well-designed action scenes. It is also full of gruesome set-pieces and the zombie make-up is suitably gross. However, as with the others in the series this movie is also quite satirical and full of quite savage social commentary, in particular the community's division between rich and poor, with the wealthy living in luxury more or less as if nothing has changed, while the poor live scrabbling for existence by any means necessary. In fact, the question could be who is worse: The zombies who are just acting on instincts and their own need for survival or the likes of Kaufman who casually exploit and destroy people for profit. The acting is good, with Dennis Hopper being particularly effective as the evil, but soft-spoken, Kaufman and Eugene Clark giving an affecting performance as the lead zombie. The movie's female lead is well played by Italian actress Asia Argento, whose father, legendary horror director Dario Argento, helped finance Romero's Dawn of the Dead. Despite the amount of gore and violence in the film, there is a strong vein of playfulness and humour running through it, and there are a number of in-jokes and references. Watch out for a cameo appearance by actor Simon Pegg and director Edgar Wright, whose Shaun of the Dead (2004) was heavily influenced by the Romero series.



Eugene Clark (centre) and friends in Land of the Dead

Burke & Hare

Year: 2010
Director: John Landis
Screenplay: Piers Ashworth and Nick Moorcroft
Starring: Simon Pegg, Andy Serkis, Isla Fisher, Tom Wilkinson, Jessica Hynes
Running Time: 100 minutes
Genre: Comedy, horror, period

Summary: It is the year 1828 and the city of Edinburgh is famous as a centre for science and medicine, and is home to two prestigious medical schools, one run by Doctor Robert Knox (Wilkinson) and the other by his arch-rival Doctor Monroe (Tim Curry). In order to keep these schools supplied with corpses to use as teaching aids, most of which are provided by the bodies of executed criminals. However, Monroe uses his political influence to have all the bodies of the recently executed automatically turned over to him. Deprived of the only legal means of obtaining fresh cadavers, Knox finds himself having to turn to the body-snatchers (also known as "resurrectionists") who steal bodies from graves and sell them, a potentially lucrative but also highly illegal profession. William Burke (Pegg) and William Hare (Serkis) are two Irish immigrants who attempt to make a living as con-men but without success, their only regular source of income being a boarding-house run by Hare's wife, Lucky (Hynes). When one of their lodgers dies, Burke and Hare realise that they can sell the body to Knox for a good price. Add to this is the fact that Knox always needs more bodies. The problem is that the cropses need to be as fresh and as intact as possible. The only solution is for them to provide the corpses themselves.

Opinions: This film is based on a true story which is still something of a legend in Edinburgh, although the film is very far from being historically accurate (one scene for example features another Edinburgh legend, Greyfriars Bobby, the little dog who spent fourteen years guarding the grave of his owner, depsite the fact that the dog wasn't born until 1855 - 16 years after the events of the film). However it is an entertaining film which manages to be funny throughout. The humour is mostly pretty broad and slapstick. The film is also very gory, which may put off some viewers, and some horror fans might be put off by the comedy element. The production design and sets are impressive creating an impressive vision of 1820s Edinburgh. It is also very well performed by a talented cast which is filled out by numerous cameos from well-known British actors and comedians. Focusing mostly on Burke and Hare themselves the movie makes them genuinely likeable and sympathetic characters, despite their murderous activities, and give Burke a moving romantic story with aspiring actress Ginny (Isla Fisher).
While far from being perfect, this film is both funny and dark.



Simon Pegg and Andy Serkis in Burke & Hare