How to Play the See No Evil (2006) Drinking Game

February 1, 2015 / swampflix / 4 Comments

One of the earliest (and trashiest) trends we’re developing here in Swampflix’s infancy is a focus on pro wrestling movies. We’ve even designated a Wrestling Cinema page, where you can find all reviews & articles for movies somehow related to pro wrestlers or to “sports entertainment” in general. I expect that over time (if it hasn’t happened already) we’ll end up spending way too much time & energy poring over the details of even the most dire entries in Wrestling Cinema, whether or not they deserve the effort. Spoiler: they typically don’t.

Even this early in our run, we’ve already spilled entirely too much ink on one particular Wrestling Cinema franchise: the pro wrestler Kane’s slasher vehicle See No Evil. Between our reviews of See No Evil (2006) & See No Evil 2 (2014), we’ve written ~1,500 words about a very simple set of films. The “tl;dr” version: the first one is surprisingly fun & nasty; the second one is a waste of your time. Even though we’ve already covered too much ground with the franchise at this point, there is one detail I feel we shouldn’t have skipped over: the See No Evil drinking game.

We’ve previously mentioned the awful dialogue, terrible acting, and “vile, hateful” teenage characters that populate the first See No Evil, but not in great detail. Instead of providing the teens meaningful exchanges or character arcs, most of the film’s dialogue consists of long strings of insults. Characters call each other “sluts” & “assholes” with an alarming frequency. The script’s dependency on insults would be an annoyance if the insults weren’t both so over-the-top in their prevalence and also surprisingly appropriate for the film’s overall nasty look & tone. The insults are so constant, so overwhelming that it becomes difficult to notice anything else (besides, you know, the brutal murders).

Which brings me to the rules of the See No Evil drinking game:
1) Drink whenever a character insults someone.

That’s it. You should have plenty to drink with just this one prompt. There may be some questions to suss out before the game begins like “Does it count if they insult an inanimate object or a building?” and “Does murdering someone count as an insult?” My own thoughts on that second question: in regards to this particular group of degenerates, murder might be more of a favor or a blessing.

Note: We only suggest playing this game with the first See No Evil movie. This is not only because the characters in See No Evil 2 are much kinder to each other, but also because we don’t recommend you watch the sequel at all.

Play safe!

-Brandon Ledet

See No Evil 2 (2014)

January 31, 2015 / swampflix / 1 Comment

A lot can change in 8 years. Technology & cultural tastes are especially vulnerable to the passage of time. Fashion, language, entertainment, and modes of communication & business can go through massive transformations in just 8 months, let alone 8 years. 2014’s See No Evil 2, the sequel to 2006’s See No Evil, makes the mistake of ignoring these transformations entirely. It sets the lackluster sequel on the same night as the gross-out slasher original, but makes no attempts at continuity in the characters’ appearances or electronics. In one movie, they’re texting on bejeweled flip phones and in the next they’re discussing what’s trending on Twitter. It’s jarring.

The continuity issues don’t stop there. The two films are vastly different in both the stories they tell & the tone they tell them in. At the end of See No Evil there are 3 survivors from the hotel massacre & the supernaturally strong serial killer, Jacob Goodnight (ugh), is ultimately defeated when his heart is impaled. See No Evil 2 is set in the morgue that accepts the bodies from the hotel & there are no survivors to speak of. The killer’s eye is still missing from an attack in the first film, but his not-impaled heart is still beating in an early ambulance scene. There’s also no mention of the fact that he literally has maggots for brains in the first film or that his favorite hobby is to collect eyeballs as trophies of his kills. The eyeball collecting is a curious detail to ignore, since the pun in the film’s title is almost entirely dependent upon it. Without the eyeballs there is very little connecting the two films besides the title and the Jacob Goodnight character. Even the actor/professional wrestler who plays Jacob Goodnight is billed differently in the two films. In See No Evil he is simply billed as his wrestling persona “Kane”. In See No Evil 2, he’s graduated to Glenn “Kane” Jacobs.

Of course, consistency is not necessary to making an enjoyable slasher film starring a professional wrestler. It’s conceivably possible that the two drastically different See No Evil movies could peacefully co-exist as entertaining, loosely connected gore fests. As James pointed out in his review, the first See No Evil is surprisingly fun. It boasts “a sick charm because it knows exactly the kind of film it is and doesn’t pretend to be anything more.” See No Evil 2 unfortunately loses sight of the original’s tried-and-true cheap thrills slasher format and mistakenly attempts a slow burn suspense that is frankly beyond its limited reach. The first See No Evil is a surprisingly nasty gore fest overstuffed with vile, hateful characters that viciously get their comeuppance one at a time. See No Evil 2, by comparison, is overstuffed with bland couples sussing out their even blander relationship dynamics until they’re uneventfully killed off-screen. By the time a throat is finally slit in plain view an hour into the film & Goodnight discovers the morgue’s stash of bone saws, I felt like a sick bastard for cheering. Without any other entertaining element in play, I had a terrible case of unsatisfied bloodlust during most of the run time.

There are a few lonely bright spots in See No Evil 2. Kane, excuse me, Glen “Kane” Jacobs is visually terrifying enough in real life to be an imposing figure in a slasher movie without much help, something the first See No Evil uses to its advantage. See No Evil 2 goes the extra mile and costumes him in a plastic burn victim mask & black rubber apron that does wonders for his appearance. When he pauses to inspect his new, “improved” visage in a bathroom mirror he has a fairly hilarious “What have I become?” moment that I got a kick out of. The film’s central idea of throwing a surprise birthday party in a morgue also has an amusing charm to it, as does Kane taking chair shots to the head, something he’s been well-trained to do in the wrestling ring. Like most things in this franchise, though, the chair shots gag is exploited much more effectively in the first film, which makes the moment a little hollow. Similarly, by the time See No Evil 2’s sole over-the-top gore arrives in the last ten minutes (the killer is pumped full of vibrantly blue embalming fluid) the film had already asked for too much patience & instead of the “Awesome!” reaction it was looking for, I found myself thinking “Finally!”, something I didn’t experience with the first film.

Of course, it’s a little unfair to constantly compare the entertainment value of See No Evil 2 to that of its predecessor, but it’s a comparison that the film itself encourages often. There are frequent flashbacks & recaps of the first film in its sequel, unwisely reminding me that the product was actually fun at one time. In these recaps it becomes overwhelmingly clear just how different the two movies are. In 2006 See No Evil was imitating the recent successes of ultraviolent (in an icky way) horror flicks like Hostel & Saw, which allowed it to supplant minor details like a decent script or a reason to exist with detached eyeballs and buckets of gore. In the 8 years since its release Hollywood horror had softened greatly, aiming its sights on a PG-13 crowd, playing down bloodshed in order to sell more tickets. Instead of ignoring this trend like it ignored the continuity in the films’ story, the See No Evil franchise also softened in those 8 years. You can see the difference in See No Evil 2’s flashbacks, the dank squalor of the first film clashing with the clinical cleanliness of the second.

Although the films are ostensibly set on the same night, the 8 years that separate them are impossible to ignore. Updating See No Evil 2 for the watered-down 2014 slasher aesthetic was a huge mistake. It was a franchise well-suited for 2006’s often disgusting brand of gross-out gore & torture. Remove its mean streak and there’s not much left besides a bald, one-eyed wrestler in a plastic mask gloomily gazing in a bathroom mirror, asking himself “What have I become?”

-Brandon Ledet

Arakimentari (2004)

January 30, 2015 / swampflix / Leave a comment

A short, brisk documentary about Japanese artist Nobuyoshi Araki, Arakimentari tiptoes the same line as its subject: the division between fine art & shameless erotica. Araki, a photographer, is an excitable pervert even in his old age, rapidly firing off lofty platitudes about the visual appeal of vaginas & what it means to be an artist. The movie itself begins with the questions “What is a photographer? What is photography?” before diving head first into Araki’s unique world of daily self-documentation & bondage model photo shoots. As a total weirdo and a sexual deviant, Araki comes across here as the (much cheerier) Robert Crumb of photography.

Araki reached his peak cultural popularity in the 1990s & Arakimentari is smart to mimic a 90s aesthetic in the telling of his work. There’s a truly hip 90s NYC vibe in the movie’s long stretches where aggressive electronic music (provided by DJ Krush) plays over blindingly fast slide shows of Araki’s photography. The movie works best in these montages, allowing the art to speak for itself. Portraits, flowers, everyday objects, and muted landscapes mix with Araki’s obscene erotica in surreal bursts. Several photographers are interviewed to help provide context for Araki’s significance, but musician Björk is also included as a kind of Ambassador of 90s Cool. She explains that she found his work when she lived in London during that decade, describing what a powerful discovery it was at the time. Björk also points to the significance of Araki’s book about his deceased wife in a moment that gets a deservedly calmer, tenderer type of slideshow than the rest of his work does here.

Arakimentari is not a prying, tell-all type of documentary. It offers its subject’s life & work for review in the best light possible. It tells the story of an energetic degenerate with a photographic eye & a constant smile, without asking him to reveal too much about either himself or his detractors. Its best moments occur when the art is offered for viewing free of context, but Araki himself is an amusing character & deft storyteller that makes the rest of the run time worthwhile as well.

-Brandon Ledet

Knucklehead (2010)

January 30, 2015January 30, 2015 / swampflix / 1 Comment

Who is the target audience for Knucklehead? Is it for kids? There are plenty of fart jokes & slapstick antics, but there are also homosexual innuendos, religious mockery, and racial stereotypes. Is it for fans of professional wrestling? The movie features WWE superstar Paul Wight (aka Big Show/The Giant), but the fight scenes are too infantile to whet any wrestling fan’s appetite, the climactic fighting competition consisting of a half-assed wrestling montage accompanied by generic nu metal. But probably the most important question for the sake of this review is: Is this movie for anyone? The answer is definitely not.

The first time we meet the 7 foot, 450lbs hero at the center of Knucklehead, he is descending from the rafters during his orphanage’s rendition of The Wizard of Oz. He is playing the Good Witch, but the gentle giant soon ruins the production by clumsily destroying the set. Why is a full grown man still an orphan? Simply, the film explains no one wants to adopt a giant. It becomes apparent, however, that Walter’s below average intelligence & awful luck are the true reason. In his very next scene he burns down the orphanage’s kitchen by throwing grease on a raging fire. What a knucklehead! Inexplicably, the orphanage has no fire insurance and must raise the money quickly or all the poor orphans will be evicted. But in an act of divine intervention, Walter is pushed through a stained glass window at the exact moment that former MMA fighter turned promoter Eddie Sullivan is asking God to wash away his gambling debts. It’s a miracle! Eddie sees the potential in him and they soon embark on a road trip to New Orleans for the “Beatdown on the Bayou”, a fighting tournament with a $100,000 prize that will solve both their problems. Their journey basically amounts to a series of formulaic gags involving farts, poops, and urine (sometimes simultaneously), that are punctuated by lessons about family, determination, and faith.

It’s obvious the filmmakers were imitating the Farrelly Brothers with this attempt to mix sweet, light-hearted comedy with gross-out humor but, unlike the Farrellys, they don’t give us any characters to care about or any truly gross-out moments. I watched a human giant flatulate, act silly and beat people and I still wasn’t entertained. That’s pretty sad. Knucklehead does have some offensive moments, but not the good kind. As is standard for a lot of WWE entertainment, the minority characters are stereotypical and the butt of a lot of the jokes. We encounter a trucker smuggling Mexicans; a Jewish boxer Sugar Ray Rosenburg, the Monster of Matza, who Walter is convinced to beat down because “That guy hates Christmas”; and a smooth hustler black child that runs boxing fights out of his dad’s house. The movie pretends to have themes like the power of hope and believing in miracles but at its heart it is deeply cynical: Sister Francesca agrees to let Walter fight only after her cut of the purse is mentioned; Eddie’s love interest who works at the orphanage, Mary, reveals she used to be a stripper; a Jewish bookie runs fights out of a synagogue.

Will Patton, Dennis Farina, and Wendie Malick are all excellent character actors who have done great work in the past, but every time one of them was on the screen in Knucklehead I sat perplexed, asking “Why are you in this movie?” There is no point in hiring talented actors if there is nothing interesting for them to say. Case in point: Eddie’s statement “What do you mean the engine’s smoking?” as an engine is billowing smoke. Paul Wight is likable enough, but can’t be expected to carry a feature length film after the poop jokes outwear their welcome. Not even a mildly entertaining bear fight, reminiscent of Hercules in New York, can save this dumb, poorly written dud.

I feel like a Knucklehead for having sat through this movie.

Knucklehead is currently streaming on Netflix.

-James Cohn

Shrunken Heads (1994)

January 29, 2015 / swampflix / 1 Comment

Family members collaborate on films all the time, but when the Elfman family gets together for a film, things get really weird. Richard Elfman, the brilliant mind behind the film The Forbidden Zone, directed Shrunken Heads. Richard’s brother, Danny Elfman, composed the main title theme, and his son, Bodhi Elfman, plays the role of street punk Booger Martin. Add the sick mind of Charles Band to the mix, and you’ve got the perfect B movie.

Shrunken Heads is an abnormal superhero movie with elements of horror and dark comedy. A street gang viciously murders three boys from New York City, but it just so happens that the boys’ neighborhood pal, Mr. Sumatra (Julius Harris), is a Haitian witch doctor. He sneaks into the funeral home after the boys’ service comes to an end, saws off their heads & takes them back to his apartment to shrink them with magical powers. Sumatra is able to train the boys’ shrunken heads to use their new powers, and they begin to put an end to the crime in their neighborhood & take revenge on their killers. These three little heads float around the city streets like The Powerpuff Girls, killing all the bad guys & turning their victims into zombies. While doing his best to rid the streets of crime, Tommy (one of the heads), also tries to develop a relationship with his old girlfriend Sally, which is difficult since he’s dead & doesn’t have a body. Mr. Sumatra ends up being a love guru as well as a witch doctor and is responsible for one of my favorite quotes in the film: “Never have I seen or heard of a human head made so small to show affection of this sort.”

Being one of my favorite B movies of all time, I highly recommended Shrunken Heads to everyone because there really is a little something for everybody in this film. There’s action, comedy, drama, magic, love, lots of cool/cheesy special effects, and even a portrayal of the step-by-step process of making shrunken heads.

Shrunken Heads is currently available on Hulu.

-Britnee Lombas

Prêt-à-Porter (1994)

January 29, 2015February 28, 2015 / swampflix / 4 Comments

Robert Altman’s follow-up to the surprisingly potent (and far superior) Short Cuts, Prêt-à-Porter (Ready to Wear), applies the director’s casual, large-ensemble aesthetic to the colorful backdrop of Paris Fashion Week. Altman’s typically nonjudgmental tone is somewhat absent here as characters frequently devolve into the kind of self-parody you’d expect in a Christopher Guest mockumentary, but they’re more or less charming all the same. Prêt-à-Porter is a loose, amused take on the fashion industry that tries to succeed less on having something to say and more on having someone interesting say it.

In true Altman form, the cast is stacked: Sophia Loren, Kim Basinger, Forrest Whitaker, Rupert Everett, Julia Roberts, Lauren Bacall, Tim Robbins, Lyle Lovett, Tracey Ullman, Cher, Naomi Campbell, Teri Garr, and Harry Belafonte all participate in some capacity. By filming during Paris Fashion Week, Altman achieves an even larger ensemble cast of familiar faces than usual, which unfortunately may be the film’s greatest accomplishment. I was drawn to Prêt-à-Porter when I read that even Björk had a brief cameo as a runway model. “Brief” is even a generous word for it, as she merely passes across the screen in her Mother Nature Incarnate mode, the (real life) fashion line she’s modeling having something to do with snow & wilderness. The themes of different fashion lines are a consistent source of amusement for the film as they each intensely focus on a singular, seemingly empty idea: boots, subway cars, Scotland, etc. An American news reporter with a Southern accent works as an audience surrogate as she politely navigates the vapidity of each runway show. One campaign simply marketing nudity, the complete absence of fashion, finally prompts her “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore” Network moment & she storms off.

Prêt-à-Porter occupies a strange space between light ribbing and outright mockery. Parts of it feel like Altman’s fashion world version of Guest’s Best in Show, but it never completely tips in that direction. Other parts feel like an undercooked version of the everything-is-connected story Altman had told many times before in much better films. A couple hours loafing along with this impressive assortment of celebrities is not a particularly bad way to spend your time, especially if you have severe 90s nostalgia or an intense interest in the fashion industry, but it could’ve been a much better film if it pushed itself a little harder in any specific direction.

Prêt-à-Porter is currently streaming on Netflix.

-Brandon Ledet

See No Evil (2006)

January 29, 2015 / swampflix / 5 Comments

“Look into their eyes, can’t you see the sin?”

I approached See No Evil, one of the first films produced by World Wrestling Entertainment, the same way I approach most WWE programming lately: with lowered, realistic expectations. No one expects character development, plot progression, or Academy Award winning performances from a WWE produced slasher flick helmed by a former porn director. We expect lots of gore & bad acting and, thankfully, this modern B movie delivers both in abundance.

See No Evil’s paper thin plot centers around a group of eight delinquent teens who are sent to an abandoned hotel in hopes renovating it into a homeless shelter. Their punishment goes beyond manual labor when Jacob Goodnight, played by WWE superstar Kane, starts putting his hook through various parts of their bodies. The premise is absurd and you might ask yourself a few questions while watching: Why are the lights and water on when the place has been abandoned for years? Why are the teens given mops and brooms to renovate a giant hotel when it looks like it would take a team of hundreds? Asking this kind of questions is pointless because once Goodnight starts piling up the bodies you’ll have forgotten them. Sure, the sets are dreary and derivative of films like Hostel & Saw, the dialogue awful, the characters uniformly unlikable. Yet, despite all that, See No Evil has a sick charm because it knows exactly the kind of film it is and doesn’t pretend to be anything more.

It’s not hard to spot the allusions to other, better horror movies like Texas Chainsaw Massacre & Friday the 13th, but See No Evil‘s gnarly death scenes, the kind of scenes that make you squirm on your sofa & put your hands over your face, still stand out for their sheer gruesomeness. Besides your standard impaling and eye gouging, we are “treated” to a few images I wouldn’t want to spoil. The movie even has its clever moments like Goodnight rigging a bell trip wire to the hotel’s beds, alerting him to any fornicators, and his inevitable demise, which is as gruesome and ridiculous as any I’ve ever seen. Kane doesn’t have much to say but he does bring a presence to the role and at 84 minutes the film doesn’t outstay its welcome.

So, despite its genre trappings, WWE’s first slasher film is a success and a pretty damn fun watch. That’s if you don’t have weak stomach and are enticed by seeing a professional wrestler gouge people’s eyes out.

-James Cohn

Cake (2014)

January 29, 2015 / swampflix / Leave a comment

Over the weekend, I was able to make my way to the movie theater to see Cake. I didn’t know anything about the film until I came across the trailer last Friday. Where did this movie come from and why didn’t I hear anything about it? Maybe it’s because of a lack of advertising or the fact that I’m so behind with the times. I was so eager to watch it that I was first in line to see it Saturday morning. I was surrounded by tons of silver-haired old ladies, so I was pretty much in my element. The film brought out some inappropriate laughter, gasps, and lots of tears from just about everyone in the audience. Cake was a movie for real people about real people, and I absolutely loved it.

Jennifer Aniston really showed the world that she could be more than just a funny, flirty girl who stars in a rom-com every now and then. In this film, she plays the role of Claire Bennett, a pill-popper recovering from an unknown, tragic accident. Claire has such a horrible attitude that she drove just about all of her friends and family away. The only person in her life is her paid housekeeper, Silvana (Adriana Barazza). In her support group consisting of other women dealing with unhealthy addictions, one of the members, Nina (Anna Kendrick) commits suicide by jumping off a freeway. After having a few confrontations with Nina’s ghost, Claire develops an obsession with Nina’s family and suicide. This strange little obsession actually helps Claire come to terms with her personal tragedy and take initiative to get better.

Cake is simply a sweet story with a good bit of crude humor and lots of heart. After reading a couple of reviews about the movie, critics did not seem to enjoy the film’s slow pace, but I really enjoyed the way the movie dragged on with no straight-forward answers. It allowed me to develop a connection with Claire; she’s a nut job that I want to be best friends with. I personally know a few individuals that suffer from chronic pain and pill addiction, and I was shocked at how authentic Aniston’s performance was. It was so spot-on that it was scary. Eating her prescription meds like candy, grunting and complaining all the time, and acting like she has nothing to live for. Even if you have no interest in watching this type of film, it’s worth sitting through just to witness Aniston’s impeccable acting. Her performance really “takes the cake.”

-Britnee Lombas

Anna and the Moods (2007)

January 28, 2015 / swampflix / 3 Comments

It’s nearly impossible to be hard on Anna and the Moods, an animated short children’s film from 2007. It’s not perfect, but it is perfectly charming. Because the title character was voiced by the musician Björk I expected a story about a young girl singer in a rock band called The Moods. Instead I was treated to a quirky, compassionate take on puberty and what The Fresh Prince would call The “Parents Just Don’t Understand” Dilemma.

Anna and the Moods tells the story of a young girl who is expected to be consistently cheerful & obedient by her family, which she does willingly until she one day wakes up transformed. No longer a sentient beam of sunshine, Anna finds herself plagued by “moodicles” (hormone-induced moods). Her image shifts from that of a precious little girl to a moody goth teen and she decides to freak her parents out instead of playing to their expectations. She smokes cigars, commits petty crimes, listens to loud music, and develops a questionable taste in boys. Disturbed, Anna’s parents subject her to psychological evaluation, where a doctor, to their horror, diagnoses her as a “teenager”. Instead of prescribing her a solution to the newfound shifts in her mood, the doctor teaches Anna how to deal with flawed parenting. The movie takes a mischievous stance on the sudden changes that come with puberty, encouraging kids to misbehave, but also warning them that their parents are going to be jerks about it.

Directed by one of Björk’s former bandmates from the alt rock group The Sugarcubes, Anna and the Moods works with some hideously cheap CGI, but uses the handicap to its advantage. The characters look like snotty versions of Margaret Keane’s “big eyes” paintings and the whole picture has a bending, warped surreality to it that fits the puberty-altered mindset of its subject well. Monty Python veteran Terry Jones narrates with a perfectly measured children’s book tone that makes the movie’s less successful elements (like an unnecessary potshot at Michael Jackson) more than forgivable. It’s not a complicated or even a good-looking film, but as a short, fun trifle with an empathetic message & a sense of mischief, it’s sincerely entertaining.

-Brandon Ledet

Thief (1981)

January 27, 2015February 28, 2015 / swampflix / 3 Comments

“I am the last guy in the world that you want to fuck with.”

With the recent passing of Edgar Froese, founding member of influential German electronic band Tangerine Dream, it seemed appropriate to revisit one of the first films the band scored: the hardboiled crime thriller Thief. Thief follows professional safecracker Frank as he agrees to do one last high-risk diamond heist for the Mafia. Tangerine Dream’s score, with its layered soundscapes and pulsating synths is one of the first aspects of the film that jumps out at you. While not fashionable at the time (the film was nominated for a Razzie for Worst Musical Score), the moody soundtrack has an 80’s John Carpenter/Goblin vibe that has thankfully become trendy again and utilized in recent films such as Drive and The Guest.

The film’s score isn’t the only thing that feels ahead of its time. With Scarface & Die Hard several years away, the film’s violence, antihero protagonist, highly stylized cinematography, and overall bleakness are pretty revolutionary for 1981. Heavy praise for this effect should go to both director Michael Mann and cinematographer Donald Thorin. Mann knows how to make a damn good thriller and is helped tremendously by Thorin’s dark, brooding images. Thief was Mann’s’ directorial debut, but it is shot with confidence & style that makes it feel like a precursor to his later films Heat, Manhunter, and Collateral.

Heightening the neo noir style of Thief’s cinematography, the film’s screenplay is tense, gritty, and smart. James Caan gives a scenery-chewing performance as the film’s titular thief, Frank. Key scenes like a dazzling diamond heist and a shockingly candid diner conversation between Frank and a woman he barely knows are iconic. Caan himself cites the diner scene as the all-time personal favorite of his career.

The film is not without its misfires, mainly an underserved subplot involving Frank’s criminal father figure Olka (played by Willie Nelson) that doesn’t really go anywhere. James Belushi as Barry, Frank’s longtime partner, and Tuesday Weld as Jessie, Frank’s lover, both give flat, but passable performances that are easily overshadowed by Caan’s crazed, manic Frank. Viewers might also be put off by Frank’s nasty temper & casual racism and feel that he is undeserved of any potential happy ending (rightfully so in my opinion, which is partly why the film remains edgy today), but if you’re a fan of gritty crime movies that have brains & balls as well as slimeball protagonists, Thief is a flawed masterpiece that you should definitely check out.

Thief is currently streaming on Netflix.

-James Cohn