A Demonic Weekend in Poland: The Shrine

MIKE:  What's on the big screen tonight?

MAX:  Oh, just a film about some people who go to Poland.  They find a shrine. Well not a shrine actually...a statue

MIKE:  There is a big difference between the two, because a shrine is where you go worship, and a statue is just...a statue.  What's the movie called?

MAX:  The Shrine.

MIKE:  Da fuck?

MIKE:  The Shrine is a film that follows a young ambitious journalist, Carmen (Cindy Sampson)—hell-bent on finding the one story that will catapult her career—hot on the trail of a young man who has gone missing while back packing across Eastern Europe. Carmen convinces her boyfriend Marcus (Aaron Ashmore) and her plucky intern Sara (Meghan Heffern) to follow her to a small town in Poland, where she hopes to uncover the mystery as to why this boy and others (a small handful of people, mind you) have disappeared over the last 50 years. 

MAX:  Well, that is a very general synopsis of the movie, which is in itself, very general, at least in the first thirty minutes.  This story begins in a non-descript urban locale, with the three fairly non-descript characters you described.  Carmen, the cold career driven journalist, works at some magazine or newspaper, where she has an obedient intern who seems to do everything she says.  I definitely found it hard to believe that the intern girl Sara would be willing to follow cold career bitch Carmen all the way to Poland on her own dime, but since this is a movie, I guess it's easier just to accept that ridiculous premise.  Of course Carmen doesn't want to go without having someone along to snap photos of her ground-breaking story, so she manipulates her grumpy boyfriend Marcus (incidentally a photographer as luck would have it) into coming along as well.  Marcus is grumpy because Carmen only thinks about her career, so the solution that she proposes is for them to have a romantic trip together in Poland.  Seriously?  A romantic trip to Poland?  Oh, and I nearly forgot, Carmen and the intern don't tell anyone from the magazine staff where they’re going, because then the magazine staff would know where to look for them once they’re dead.  All of this set up is extremely dull and trite, and probably enough to sour you on the film, if you don't stick around to see what happens in the Polish village.

MIKE:  The Polish village is where things slowly become more interesting.  I say slowly, because you really have no fucking clue what's going on there.  They speak very little English, and though that does add to the suspense, I really wasn’t sold on the dread until the three Americans ventured forth towards the woods where the missing boy's journal ultimately leads them.  That's another thing.  Prior to them leaving, Carmen goes and visits the missing boy's mother, and while she is thumbing through his journal she sees his ghost who tells her NOT to follow him.  I'm not sure about you, but a grotesque ghost with a deformed bloody face is going to turn me off on an adventure to Poland.

MIKE:  I mean, what the hell is up with that?   She never even mentions it to her boyfriend or her intern.  It doesn't make any sense.  Is she THAT stupid?

MAX:  ................yeah.  That didn't make any sense.  Suffice it to say that the first third of this movie is basically throw-away.  Anyway, once the three Americans arrive in the village, I think the film picks up its pace.  There is a very xenophobic paranoia about these backwoods Eastern Europeans, with their strange pagan looking church and their stern frowning people.  The cloud of fog that hovers over the forest is also creepy, and leads the film into the direction of the supernatural realm.  The statue inside the fog is particularly horrific.  While it's easy to understand why one would want to stare at it, this is clearly not a wise idea.

MIKE:  Anyway, I feel like there are much better movies out there that deal with stories about strange things in dense fog, like The Fog.  I enjoy the concept very much, but what I don't enjoy are the stupid characters that go in ONE AT A TIME into this thick fog just to move the story along.  I mean, why is it when you see something supernatural most characters in a horror film go off on their own?  Is it really that hard for the monster/psycho to kill them off in a bunch?   I will say that the statue looked cool, and I loved the thumping bleeding heart in its hand.

MAX:  I did find it implausible how the girls basically wandered off one by one into the mist.  Although I think at this point in the movie I was more curious than annoyed.  Then once the Americans are captured and dragged into the dungeon, we know they've really messed up.  The people in the village definitely didn’t want them to look upon their sacred shrine, but why is that?  The ritual sacrifice we see them perform on Sara, involving the mask is gory and grotesque.  It reminded me of that scene Barbara Steele from Mario Bava's Black Sunday, but updated for a contemporary audience.  It's kind of funny how Carmen is looking on from her cell during that moment and trying to comfort the girl by saying, "I'm right here, Sara."  I'm not sure that really makes any difference to a person who is getting nails driven into their eyes.  Worst internship ever.

MIKE:  I'm not sure if I would have found comfort in Carmen's words either, since the bitch is the one who got my plucky ass into this.  New word of the day kiddies, "Plucky."  I will admit that the dungeon scene played out really well, and what I seriously enjoyed about this movie was that the towns people spoke only in Polish during those intense moments, so, unless you speak-a-dee Polsky, you had no clue why any of this was happening.  I think that was the only bit of brilliant writing/directing made in this film.  For the most part, however you're left scratching your head and saying things to yourself like, "Da fuck?" or "Co to kurwa jest?”

MAX:  That's an excellent point you make.  The omission of subtitles was definitely crucial in establishing the film's outcome.  Like you said, Carmen really was the person who, by virtue of her selfishness, dragged the others into the hellish mess in the first place.  Therefore it makes sense that she is the one who ultimately morphs into a demon of the statue's making.  I think her transformation in the mirror is very telling because it shows that maybe (in the metaphorical sense) this thing was living inside her all along.

MIKE:  The transformation scene was pretty good, and I tip my hat to those special effects guys who made it happen.  The scene takes place in a house, and instead of following Carmen around (you do a bit), you're really following Marcus as her transformation is taking place.  I thought it was hilarious how Marcus ties up the family in the house—trying to stop them from harming his sweet Carmen—and then you hear them screaming bloody murder off camera, because they are now easy prey for the Demon possessed Carmen.  Its like, "Oops.  My bad.  Didn't know my selfish bitch of a girlfriend was really a she-demon bitch from Hell."

MAX:  I agree, Marcus is a real tool.  It's ironic how much effort he goes through to make Carmen happy, when all she does is make trouble for him every step of the way.  Not only did I not feel sorry for his girlfriend, but I found it difficult to have empathy for him as well.  By the end of the movie when the villagers have successfully destroyed the demonic thing that Carmen has become, the xenophobic paranoia element is absent.  Now we know that the Polish people of the village observe those customs for a reason.  That it was really Marcus and his friends who were destructive.  I thought it was rather civil of the villagers to let Marcus walk out of there with his skin intact.  The village suffered quite a body count on behalf of his "my bad."

MIKE:  Ha-ha-ha!  Indeed.  I guess this is where we give our final opinion of the film.  The Shrine is another horror movie that does a really crappy job of character development, and I am sick and tired of the lame-ass excuse of, "Yeah, but it's a horror movie, and those people are just there to die."  Really?  This is a conceptual film--not a whole lot more than that--and for a concept like this to work really well then you need to have strong characters with real motivations.  The movie would have been better if Carmen was going to Poland to trace some sort of family heritage thing.  The Shrine fails to hook the audience in, gives us annoying characters that go willy-nilly along with anything just to keep the pencil-thin story moving, and ultimately I am left unsatisfied with the final product.  I will give it the slightest bit of kudos for an entertaining ending, but by that point I didn't really care if any of them lived or died.  I give this film two Bloody Nubs down.

MAX:  I agree with you about the pencil thin characters and I would like to see some newer horror films in which the characters have actual relationships with one and other.  I disagree that the film is a total failure though.  While it may not be much of a character driven piece, I think there is somewhat of a character arc (albeit a poor one) presented in Carmen.  There is a reason that it is she who turns into the creature as opposed to the two others.  I also really enjoyed the special effects in this picture.  I thought for that alone, it is a cut above others of its kind.  For a one time instant view on Netflix, this ain’t too bad in my opinion.  The movie certainly takes its time to get going, but once it gets there, I think it delivers a punch that both gore hounds and fans of demonic possession flicks will appreciate.  We kind of had to mention the ending in this case because it's the main thing that makes the movie worth watching.  I give The Shrine one bloody nub up for a fun twist ending and one down for the majority of the acting.

The Spectre of Darkness...The Woman in Black

MAX:  Hey, Mike.  Do you see that woman standing over there in the marsh?

MIKE:  There's a marsh outside our theater?

MAX:  Yeah! The marsh!  You never noticed that before?  Some kid drowned there one time!

MIKE:  I always thought we had a more urban location.  Huh.

MAX:  It's an urban-zoned marsh.  Anyway, you don't see that creepy woman who's standing out there, the woman in black?

MIKE:  Uh...no.  Do YOU see a woman in black out there?

MAX:  Yeah I see her, alright.  She's looking right at us.  Oh hold on, I got a text message, here.  Oh crap, my neighbor's house is on fire and their kid is trapped inside.  Isn't it weird that I got this text message right while I was looking at the woman in black?  Dude, are you sure you don't see her?

MIKE:  No, dude.  I REALLY don't see her.

MAX:  Well, now that you mention it, I guess I don't see her either.  Maybe my eyes were just playing tricks on me again.  Oh shit, wait a minute.  I know why we don't see her out there.

MIKE:  And WHY is that?

MAX:  She's standing right behind us.

 

MIKE:  Tonight's feature is one that Max and I have been looking forward to for the last several months.  A: It is the return of Hammer (you know, the same company that brought us all of those amazing Christopher Lee, Dracula movies).  B: It's a Victorian era Ghost story, so you know it is going to be aesthetically appealing. C: This is Daniel Radcliffe's first role in a film since he wrapped up the Harry Potter movies, so it would be a test of his acting skills to make us not think about that character the entire film. From the very opening scene I was hooked, and I was never let go from the nightmare ride that is The Woman in Black.  The story is pretty straight forward, but don't let that lull you into a false sense of security.  The premise is that if you see the woman in black (a ghost seeking vengeance for the death of her child) then a child will die.  Simple, right?  But what the writers do is take this outline and fill it with deep, rich characters, whom fill out their roles and bring depth to a horror movie in an age where horror films tend to lack any sort of substance, especially when it comes to character development.  The Woman in Black is an amazing ghost story that grips you with a cold dead hand and sends your flesh quivering in chills.

MAX:  If you really love scary movies, then you’re never too old for a great ghost flick, and this one pulls out all the stops.  With The Woman in Black, the new Hammer Studios has resurrected their unique blend of gothic sensibility and supernatural horror for the new millennium.  From the moment this film begins, we are transported into a rich aesthetic environment, which rivals the beauty of other modern gothic classics like Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow.   With creepy close ups on predatory toys, panoramic shots of the sickly marsh, and portrait-esue views of the rotting, old Victorian mansion, the cinematography in The Woman in Black left me completely spell bound.  Atmospheric horror is a dying art these days and I found this movie to be a very refreshing breath of cemetery air.

MIKE:  Indeed.  I haven't seen this type of camera work done in a horror film since some of Dario Argento's earlier work, or the clever subtle shots from John Carpenter's The Thing.  Nothing is ever really given away, and the use of close-ups to create that blurry back ground in which the ghost moves freely about in the shadows, just giving us enough to suspect that something might be there, was brilliant.  I found myself searching the darkness beyond Arthur Kipps (Daniel Radcliffe) when the camera was close in on him, because even in the distorted background there seemed to be something lurking just out of sight.  I felt that this movie's cinematography was as good as some of the Oscar nominated films of years past, especially better than some of the 2012 nominees.

MAX:  I really loved the distorted background that you mention.  As much as we feel we can predict when the Woman in Black will show up, we're never really able to, and that's what makes it so god damn terrifying when she springs out of nowhere and presses her palm on the glass of a window pane.  While these appearances of hers are used sparingly (she's in the movie enough to thrill and chill the audience, and not enough for us to get bored with her), we can always feel her presence throughout the film, even during the scenes where she isn't technically there.  Her tales of superstition rule the entire village like a dark, stormy cloud.  That impending sense of dread is never absent.

MIKE:  It's funny that you say you feel her presence even when she isn't in the scene, because in Arthur's flash backs to when his wife is giving birth to his son, it almost felt like the Woman in Black was there.  That's what's brilliant about the story and the way the movie handles it--the fear that the ghost creates resonates throughout the entire film and in every well-lit corner.  What really ties this movie up in a nice black bow, are the characters.  I tip my hat to the entire cast for their performances, and especially to Mr. Radcliffe, for making me forget about the Harry Potter films he's been in, and for getting me to believe that he really is mentally depressed, grief stricken Arthur Kipps.

MAX:  I agree that Radcliffe's performance was strong.  I think my main concern entering this film was that I wouldn’t be able to get past his previous incarnation as Harry Potter, but he didn't seem to carry that into this role.  Where the cast is concerned, I was particularly impressed with the performances of Ciaran Hinds and Janet McTeer as Mr. and Mrs. Daily.  Hinds plays a refined and likeable English gentleman with a firm head on his shoulders, who makes for a strong supporting character during Arthur's time of need.  Similarly, McTeer is completely convincing as his struggling wife, whose possessive fits of writing through the hand of her dead child are absolutely one hundred percent convincing.

MIKE:  I'm just going to say that none of the actors in this movie failed to deliver, and that every scene was as good as the next.  One of my favorite scenes is when Arthur Kipps is at the police station and he's talking to the constable, after he mentions that he has seen the woman in black the constable disappears into the back room, and then two boys show up with their younger sister, who is looking deathly pale.  The girl vomits blood all over Arthur Kipps and dies in his arms.  The special effects were great, and the fact that the director didn't shy away from the death scenes because they involved children, was even more brilliant.  I'm not saying that I like to see kids get hurt, but so many Hollywood films would cut away and not show you the tragic death as it happens.  I felt this helped the film to tug on the heartstrings of the audience--at least those that don't take pleasure in the maiming of small children.  Anyway, the make-up, sets, and special effects are handled with a care and precision that a lot of film makers just don't care about anymore--it's all about the gore and nothing else, and though I love a good bloody film, I don't like the sloppiness in which a lot of horror movies seem to handle these aspects.

MAX:  This is a very perceptive comment, and I agree that it was quite a bold decision regarding the children's deaths.  As soon as I saw the girl throw up blood onto Arthur Kipps, I knew that this was a film that was not going to shy away from the realities of its own subject matter.  The deaths that occur in this film are not at all gratuitous, but they are a reminder that children can perish, just like anyone else.  The loss of children and the lifelong grief of parents is a very serious matter that this film addresses, and while it's still a hell of a fun haunting movie, I think it is a cut above many others of its kind for the way in which it tackled this delicate and sensitive topic.

MIKE:  Is it possible for us to talk about the ending without giving away the ending?

MAX:  Probably not.  What I will say is that this is perhaps the only area where I took some issue with the film.  I think that perhaps they strove to make it a little neater and tidier than it needed to be.  But by the time a film like this concludes, I would say that is a fairly minor criticism.

MIKE:  It's like I wanted something a little different, yet I wasn't disappointed.  I'm not sure if the film could or should have ended any other way.

MAX:  Once again, without going too in depth and spoiling it, there were certainly indicators throughout the film that perhaps it would need to end the way that it did.  I think they were certainly justified in picking the ending they chose, regardless of how it left me feeling as an audience member.  It is certainly not a typical horror movie ending, but at the same time, this is not a typical horror movie, either.

MAX:  With that in mind, I think it's time for the both of us to weigh in with our bloody nubs of approval.  In my estimation, The Woman in Black was a treat well worth waiting for.  The new Hammer studios delivered us a film that harkens back to the time of fun loving, period horror with a dramatic and Victorian flair.  At the same time, it manages to tell an actual story, something that is sorely missing from much of today’s fright fare.  I give it two enthusiastic Bloody Nubs up.  This is a movie that I enjoyed so much I would go and pay to see it again while it's still in the theater.  I can't remember the last time I said that about a brand new horror movie.  It's definitely been a while.

MIKE:  The Woman in Black is a film from start to finish that I enjoyed.  I do not remember a horror movie in the last decade that has made me this excited, and this eager to want to pay money to watch it again.  I give The Woman in Black two very big Bloody Nubs up!

Ya'll Gonna Make Me Lose My Mind. Up in Here. In The Ward

MAX:  Hey! Haven't seen you in a while, Mike.

MIKE:  I was going to say the same thing to you!

MAX:  Where did you get that hospital gown, dude?  You need to tie that part up in the back.

MIKE:  Where did you get yours? You do realize that your gown is on backwards, right?

MAX:  Oh....right.  Thanks for pointing that out.  I've been rather forgetful since I underwent that radical treatment procedure.  Basically what they do is, they lock you in a padded room and make you watch this John Carpenter movie called The Ward on repeat for a week straight.

MIKE:  Really?  That sounds awful.

MAX:  Yeah it was.  So what's your story?

MIKE:  I was getting some.

MAX:  At a mental hospital?

MIKE:  I like crazy bitches.

MAX:  And....scene.

MAX:  The Ward (2010) is a new thriller from the original master of horror, John Carpenter.  Set in a mental hospital during the 1950's, a girl named, Kristen (Amber Heard), with a mysterious and troubling past, is desperate to escape from the women's ward, in fear that there may be a (dead) former patient, who is disposing of the other in-patient ladies, one at a time.  The more Kristen investigates this matter, the more she thinks that all the people around her may be hiding something.

MIKE:  The film’s opening shows promise; the old artist renderings of how the mentally unstable have been treated over the last few hundred years, shattering in slow moving shards across the screen, had an unnerving effect.  Though, arguably, I think the effect would have been more disturbing if the images remained intact and the credits just faded in and out, superimposed on the images.  Then we're watching this girl in a white gown run through the woods, and we see a local sheriff patrol on the hunt for her.  Kristen comes across an abandoned farm house and sets it on fire.  When the police arrive they take her to the mental hospital where she is placed in The Ward.  There the nightmares really begin--or did they?

MAX:  I agree that the opening shows a great deal of promise.  I really enjoyed the illustrated images of the plights that have been visited upon patients over the years at the hands of doctors.  Kind of reminded me of that time you and I wandered into the Scientologist run "Psychiatry Museum of Death" in Los Angeles.  While that museum was certainly heavy handed, to say the least, it can't be denied that psychiatry has had its share of abuses in history, which can make for chilling horror stories.  That being said, as much as the opening credits in this flick are foreboding, I would have to liken them to Dario Argento's Mother of Tears, where we are promised some serious demonic stuff (i.e. the illustrations of Hieronymus Bosch) and instead are given about two hours of not demonic crap.  In the case of The Ward, lets look at the first sequence you mentioned, where we are curiously observing Kristen in her white gown and wondering what she's going to do.  After a while she burns down a farm house and we realize that the men in white coats are coming to take her away (Ha-ha.)  Not particularly stirring, but we can assume that there's going to be a slow build.  Once inside the hospital, Kristen experiences flash backs that super obviously correlate to the farm house.  It's pretty safe to assume from the get-go that she was held captive there and molested and etc. etc.  The action within the hospital, which basically lasts for the duration of the film, is extremely monotonous, filled with bad dialogue and worse performances, offering very little of the ominous psychiatric practices alluded to in the opening credits. 

MIKE:  That's what I wanted: lot's more of those out-dated methodologies, and less cute actresses doing bad acting.  I won't say that the whole thing was terrible, I mean, a couple of the girls shine dimly as believable mental patients, and the nurse and doctor were good, but as a whole (especially when concerning the lead, Amber Heard) the acting is flat and unmoving.  I like stories that deal with the darker side of psychology, even when it's a bit fictitious (taking things with a grain of salt like we did with that Scientology museum), and you know how much I love a good ghost story, so you would think that if you mixed those to elements together you'd get a damn awesome horror flick.  Sadly, what you get is tasteless fluff. Did I mention that the movie is directed by one of my favorite horror directors, John Carpenter?  It's like getting a famous chef to do catering for your party, and what he serves for appetizers are corn chips and cheese whiz sauce.  So, disappointing.  Don't hate me Mr. Carpenter!

MAX:  Yes.  The famous chef with the cheese whiz appetizers is a good metaphor to use in this case.  It's awkward to criticize Carpenter, as he has made so many fantastic films, but the unfortunate truth is that this movie was a doozie.  I think even the very setting of a mental hospital allows for all kinds of interesting scenes in dark corridors, with long creepy hallways and strange voices in the shadows (think Session 9, which is sooo much scarier than this).  Alternately, in The Ward, all we see for the most part are bright lit shots of girls trying to act mental and scared at the same time.  Nothing really happens too much in this movie, and when it does, it's almost irrelevant, because so much of the "suspense build up" time has been spent on group therapy couches. The story is one part Girl Interrupted and one part Shutter Island with a little homage to Suspiria here and there.  In my opinion, this movie didn't know quite what it wanted to be, which is why in the end it doesn't really work out.  Personally, I didn't much care for the performances from the hospital staff.  I found the orderly to be very confusing, playing it alternately between somewhat sympathetic and pervy creep.  The nurse was obviously a total authoritarian, but not evil enough in her actions to make it convincing (that may have actually been more of a problem with the script).  Then there is the doctor, who once again, could be creepy, or just an unorthodox shrink who is super-committed to his practice.  Some of these questions I had about the hospital staff were answered to a degree in the conclusion of the film.  Although I'm not sure I really cared about anyone in the film by the time that came along.  Also, the biggest question I have is why the 1950s?  I wasn't really clear why this needed to be a period piece.

MIKE:  Well, I would like to assume that mental hospitals back then were very unpleasant places--historically they still were up through the 80's.  But the movie fails to deliver on those stories, and really fails to show those goods in action.  I mean, there was the scene with the shock treatment (two scenes really), and those were all right, but I wanted more of that abuse and negligence that these places had infamously become.  I would like to say that on the plus side of things the special effects were done well.  John Carpenter was never the overtly gory type of director, and I thought the make-up for the dead girl haunting the ward was really good.  Holy shit, did I love seeing her flesh crawl.

MAX:  Yes, you are correct.  I suppose that was the whole point.  The past brutalities of psychiatry, which as we've both established, weren't really delivered in entirety.  I didn't find the special effects to be particularly memorable, myself.  While I agree that Carpenter has never needed to rely on gore to get a good scare on, I felt like the death scenes were sort of half-assed and executed (so to speak) without too much thought.  The dead girl's face, when seen up close, did not impress me too much.  By the time her and Kristen are wrestling with each other she has just ceased to be scary.  Of course we understand the significance of the wrestling in the context of the film, but seriously, isn’t there some other way to do that?  As much as I love me some wrestling, I tend to think it's better left outside of horror movies.  Another disastrous occurrence like this was the werewolf wrestling match between Anthony Hopkins and Benicio Del Toro in The Wolfman remake.  I think wrestling between horror movie characters is an automatic suspense killer.  As one can probably gather from this rant, I was also not a big fan of Freddy vs. Jason, although I'd probably rather watch that than The Ward.

MIKE:  I hated Freddy Vs. Jason.  Seriously, nothing bored me more than that snoozer.

MIKE(continued):  Anyway, (SPOILER ALERT) I really enjoyed the way the needle through the eye was shot.  It wasn’t nearly as suspensful as that one scene in Dead and Buried (such an amazing movie), but the effects shot was still good.  I will agree that I am not really a big fan of monsters battling it out, unless it's a Gozilla flick.  Think back to those early Universal--and non-Universal movies--that thought it would be a great idea to watch Dracula battle the Wolf Man, or the Frankenstein monster, or the Lagoon Creature; those films are laughable at best, and just plain boring at their worst.  I'm not even a fan of the Underworld series.  I love werewolves, but pitting them against vampires, as though this feud has been going on for centuries, is tiresome and old. 

MAX:  EPIC SUB-TANGEANT ALERT.  There are some exceptions to the “battling it out” rule.  Godzilla and Mothra would be the most noteable, I agree.  Also, basically anything with the Universal Monsters was permissible.  I happen to kind of like the Underworld movies—it is a shameful, dirty secret of mine.  I think they are a whole lot of fun, but I do not consider them to be horror movies, basically on account of the fact that it is an action/versus sort of set up.  I thought Underworld Rise of the Lychens was particularly good.  It's the Braveheart of Werewolf Movies.  Anyway....tying back into The Ward, I thought the bit with the eye was alright, but not so much in the grand tradition of other eye torture sequences (Like Argento's Opera, for example.)  I'm not denying that there are worse horror movies out there than this one, but for a Carpenter flick, I think this ranks on the low end of what he's done.  I know that some of his fans feel that the criticisms of this film have been too harsh, but I would disagree.  I love watching Carpenter movies.  I keep The Fog on a constant rotation in my house.  Unfortunately, The Ward is the sort of film I wouldn't even watch a second time, not to mention, I would not want to screen it multiple times.  It's basically pretty forgettable.

MIKE:  This goes up there with Ghosts of Mars as one of Carpenter's worst movies.  You're right, I won't be adding this to my collection anytime soon (I love Carpenter films, people, but I refuse to buy Ghosts of Mars or The Ward).  I guess what I wanted more than anything, was for The Ward to be like The Fog or In the Mouth of Madness—you know, something that scared you and kept you on the edge of your seat.

MIKE:  I guess this leads to our conclusion.  The Ward is missing what I have always loved about Carpenter Films--suspense.  Instead he dishes up sloppy, cold second helpings of tired Twilight Zone-ish tricks (and I LOVE The Twilight Zone), supported doldrums acting that leaves a nasty aftertaste.  If you've never seen ANY of the movies that Max and I have listed that are similar to this one, then you just might enjoy this film.  But, like us, if you have seen all of those movies, then just stay clear of this buffet table.  I wish I could give this movie one nub up, but that would be a disservice to all of our readers.  Two Bloody Nubs down.

MAX:  I agree.  It was bad.  Two Bloody Nubs down.  I'd rather undergo shock treatment.  Or watch Frogs.