Next week’s movies:

• Bruiser [Jori]
  
• Dark Shadows [Hunter]
• Earth vs. the Spider [The Drudgeon]
• The Gift [Lackey]
• Hard Rock Zombies [The Drudgeon]
• The House of the Devil [Lackey]
• Shadows [Jori]
• Terror in the Tropics [John Bruni]

Next week’s TV:

• Highschool of the Dead: Episodes 7-9 [The Drudgeon]
• The Walking Dead: S2E08 “Nebraska” [Blick Tolkien]

A fantastic soundtrack covered in a shit movie.

* * *

I saw this movie twice in the theaters. The first time I saw it, I thought it was great. The second time I saw it, I thought it was OK. After buying it on DVD and attempting to watch it again, I found it to be akin to masturbating with sand paper. I found myself thinking “How the hell could they allow this to be made?” Especially after 1994′s incredible Interview With The Vampire. It seemed like the powers that be at Warner Bros were TRYING to find ways to reverse everything that made Interview a pleasure to watch. It really is that bad!

But, before I rip into this piece of shit. I want to bring to light the three things I DID enjoy about Queen of The Damned.

1: The soundtrack – If there is only redeeming quality about this abomination, it’s the soundtrack. Being a huge fan of alternative rock and metal music, I really got into this album. All of the original tracks in the film were written by Korn frontman Jonathan Davis. Davis was also Lestat’s singing voice in the film, but unfortunately, he was unable to perform on the album due to contract limitations with Sony. So instead, we are given original tracks written by Davis and performed by the frontmen of some of the most popular alt rock and metal bands at the time such as David Draiman of Disturbed, Chester Bennington of Linkin Park, Wayne Static of Static-X, Jay Gordon of Orgy, and Marilyn Manson of…Marilyn Manson. I would totally recommend this album to anyone who’s a fan of any of the above listed bands, and of alternative and metal music.

2: Stuart Townsend as Lestat – As mentioned in my Interview With The Vampire review, I thought Tom Cruise made a wonderful Lestat. The same could be said for Stuart Townsend. Townsend plays Lestat very well considering what he’s given to work with. He embodies Lestat’s charm, confidence, and sensuality. He also plays Lestat the rock star very well. I still think that Cruise makes a better Lestat overall, but Townsend did nothing to disservice the character.

3:……….Ok, I have nothing for a third. I tried, people.

Queen of The Damned centers around Lestat de Lioncourt (Townsend) as he awakens from a self imposed slumber by the hustle and bustle of modern day New Orleans. One of the more interesting sounds contributing to his resurrection is a rock band who has taken up residence in Lestat’s old house. He outs himself to them and promises them fame and riches if they let him join the band. Along the way, we get a little bit of Lestat’s back story which involves how he was turned by the vampire Marius (Vincent Perez) into a vampire himself. We also see how Lestat comes across Queen Akasha (Aaliyah, in her final performance before her death) and manages to stir her from her slumber.

Will Lestat lead his band to superstardom without getting killed by vampires who are upset that he’s revealing all of their secrets in his lyrics? And what of Akasha?

The first major flaw in this movie is that they tried to take two books and condense them into a movie a little over an hour and a half long. Had they adapted The Vampire Lestat into a movie and just focused on telling Lestat’s story it would have worked out much better. But cutting down both books and trying to shoehorn them into a single film just doesn’t work. The novel Queen of The Damned is such a convoluted read as it is that to try and not only distill it down into its basest form, but combine it with another narrative, is a recipe for failure. The other major flaw for me was the exact opposite of what made Interview stand out for me. Queen of The Damned was too much like a typical modern horror movie. Lots of over the top special effects, and lots of excessive blood and gore. Not that there’s anything wrong with blood and gore, mind you, but part of what made Interview With The Vampire so enjoyable for me was its simplicity and its focus on atmosphere and storytelling over cheap scares and excessive violence.

Then there’s the acting. It’s not very good at all. The only actor I can stomach in this movie, as mentioned above, is Stuart Townsend. He plays a great Lestat. Everyone else was lacking to me.

I’ve seen worse horror movies. I’ve seen worse vampire movies (I’m looking at you, Vampiyaz), but Queen of The Damned is bad. Pretty fucking bad. It nowhere near lives up to the source material of Anne Rice’s novels, or to the movie it’s supposed to be a sequel to, Interview With The Vampire. The only reason I’d even remotely recommend this shitfest to someone is if they wanna see another take on Lestat in film besides Tom Cruise. Other then that, buy the soundtrack. Stay away from this film!

Queen of The Damned gets a stake through the heart and a beheading!

She’s not done taking care of the children.

* * *

I’m beginning to get a bad taste in my mouth when it comes to Netflix and their instant streaming feature.  I don’t know what the deal is, but besides some issues with only dubbed versions available for a lot of foreign films, this time around was a head-scratcher.  It was subtitled alright, except we have to hear Cantonese dubbing (This is a Thai move)!  So now I’m not sure if the subtitles were really bad or if they were accurate and the dubbing was the killer.  Either way I would have enjoyed this far more if it weren’t for these idiotic issues.

Nantha’s brother Chai gets killed after getting involved with organized crime.  Left alone to take care of his children, she has no idea that she herself is in danger.  Being the only mother those kids really know, she takes that responsibility to heart.  After being murdered, she returns to take care of them and keep them safe because they are the next targets.  Add some revenge into the mix and we have a decent film.

Far from being your typical scary ghost, Nantha is sympathetic character everyone can root for.  She comes back from the dead (in the evenings) to make sure the children are fed, put to bed and most importantly continue her sewing and cooking work so that they have money for their basic needs.  Sure she kills anyone that would harm them, but you know you’d do the same thing for your family as well.  It’s a nice balance between kick ass kills and an emotional story.  She may have long black hair, but she is definitely not of the “Asian long haired scary ghost” variety.

Character development really helps keep you interested, especially since the children themselves are quite loveable.  Mischievous enough to be “normal” kids, but loving and well adjusted kids you wouldn’t mind babysitting sometimes.  The bond between all of them is apparent and helps bring about the emotional component necessary when watching a drama.  Unfortunately I was very disappointed with the director’s dismissive attitude towards the set itself.  Maybe plain old Thailand is boring and inconsequential to him, but I really wanted to see more of the scenery.  I think part of the director’s job needs to be about giving people a fresh perspective on seemingly ordinary things and places.  He just kind of whips through a lot of scenes and focuses a bit too much on the characters themselves – which isn’t necessarily a bad thing – without giving the viewer a chance to digest their surroundings.  Listen, it doesn’t have to be all “artsy fartsy” , but I’d like at least some sort of visual stimulation besides people’s faces.  (Lovely though they may be.)

I really wanted to give this a higher rating, but the awful dubbing and questionable subtitles really doesn’t allow for total immersion in the story.  It detracts too much to really make an impact.  It really serves as a testament to the great story and physical acting abilities that I was able to somehow wade through and find the gem that this film really is.  While I think this would be a great film to watch, I would suggest you stay away from the Netflix instant version and make the effort to find a disc with the proper language.

More of the same isn’t a bad thing in this case.

* * *

Premise

Guy Carrell is a newlywed who’s obsessed with catalepsy–a paralytic condition whose victims often appear to be dead, even though they’re not. Guy believes his father was mistakenly interred during a cataleptic attack (a belief his sister Kate vehemently denies), and is plagued by the fear that he, too, will suffer from it and be prematurely buried (dun dun dunnnn!) as a result. When Guy begins to experience strange hallucinations and fearsome encounters with a pair of local gravediggers, it turns out his fears may not be entirely irrational…

Review

Between 1960 and 1964, Roger Corman directed somewhere between seven and nine films based on the work of Edgar Allan Poe. (The number of films varies depending on who’s doing the counting; some people count The Terror and/or don’t count The Haunted Palace.) I don’t want to say that the movies are all alike, that if you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all, because that’s not really true. What I will say is that most if not all of them (I’ve seen, if I recall correctly, four of the seven-to-nine) are pretty much cut from the same cloth: what you can say about one of them can generally be applied to the series in general. I’ll defend Corman as being a better filmmaker than his reputation suggests, but I’ll also readily admit that he didn’t seem to have drawn from a particularly deep well of ideas. (For example, the main thing that may stand out about The Premature Burial is that it doesn’t star Vincent Price.) Which isn’t always a bad thing–it’s a fun movie (and I’ll gladly eat up ’60s AIP/Hammer Technicolor Gothics and ask for seconds), but there are times when the films do tend to feel a bit…samey

If there is one aspect of filmmaking at which Corman (along with longtime D.P. Floyd Crosby) could reasonably be described as a genius it’s in his use of Technicolor. The Premature Burial, like pretty much all of Corman’s color period pieces, is lush and beautiful almost to the point of being over-the-top. Apart from the occasional bit of obvious matte work, there isn’t much on display that betrays the film’s AIP budget; if there’s a second way in which Corman might be a genius it’s in penny-pinching.

Ray Milland is our leading man as Guy and while he’s not bad in the role, there’s something in his performance that just feels a bit…off…to me. I don’t know whether it’s an objective problem (maybe Milland is just a tiny bit miscast?), or if it’s just me (the role is so Vincent Price-y that it’s impossible not to fantasize about how he might have tackled the role). The rest of the cast fares a bit better, with the fantastic Hazel Court (in her first of three Corman/Poe appearances) as Guy’s new wife Emily, Heather Angel as the gloomy-and-doomy Kate, Alan Napier (Alfred in the Batman TV series) as Guy’s father-in-law Dr. Gault, and Richard Ney as Gault’s associate Miles Archer.

Overall I’d say the weakest aspect of the production is the script, written by the usually reliable Charles Beaumont (prolific contributor to The Twilight Zone) and Ray Russell (X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes and the short story that forms the basis of Mr. Sardonicus). It’s a bit too meandering in its early phases. It’s one thing for a film not to telegraph where it’s going; it’s another thing entirely for it to feel like the filmmakers have much idea themselves, and for the first act (and much of the second) The Premature Burial seems to suffer from the latter problem. The shift from Gothic mood piece to straight-up mystery is a bit jarring, or at least it was to me–although I’ve been known, in the past, to notice supposedly obvious plot twists. Once the narrative path is set, however, it’s a riveting exercise in suspense and atmosphere, culminating in a strong conclusion.

As much as I enjoyed The Premature Burial, I do have to admit that there’s not enough to distinguish it from Corman’s other (as Stephen King dubbed them) Poe-pictures. Fans of either Corman or the lush-Technicolor-Gothic subgenre will get the most out of it; otherwise, you might want to put it off in favor of The Masque of the Red Death or House of Usher.

The story continues, but too many boobs appear in one episode and they seem to be losing focus.

* * *

At the end of episode three Takashi and Rei have been separated from the rest of the group that are still on the bus with Shido and his group of students.  Now begins their journey to get back together.

Episode 04 – Running In The Dead

Episode four begins with a pretty long recap of all the shit that has been going down.  In between bits of the recapping they show some new stuff that is going on, but when the recap is finally over we see that Takashi and Rei are on the bike and riding through the city.  They decide to stop for some gas and while Takashi is inside the store, breaking the register to get money for the gas, Rei is attacked by a knife-wielding man.  Takashi comes out and a standoff ensues.  The man taunts Takashi and feels up Rei but ends up taking it too far because Takashi ends up pulling his gun and shoots him in the shoulder (this being the first living person that he has ever shot).

My biggest problem with this episode is the extended recap of what happened in the past three episodes.  Now I understand the need to remind you of what happened last week (assuming that you are watching this only once a week), but there is no need to remind us of the first and second episode.  At least they toss in a few new bits during that time.  Not the strongest episode but I do like how they are showing that the zombies aren’t the only thing that they have to worry about during all of this.

Things we learn this episode about these zombies.

Nothing.

Episode 05 – Streets Of The Dead

The episode starts with a plane trying to take off but the runway is full of zombies.  We then meet a female sniper named Rika Minami (Junko Takeuchi), who takes out the zombies so the plane can leave.  We learn that she is good friends with Shizuka who is still on the bus with the rest of the students.  On the bus Shido is giving a great speech about how they need to stick together and anyone that leaves is no longer considered an ally or worth saving.  Saeko, Takagi, Kohta and Shizuka decide that they want no part of the “cult” that Shido is starting and start to leave the bus.  Shido states that it’s fine for the kids to leave, but Shizuka, being the nurse, can’t leave.  Kohta gets angry and fires a nail at Shido, scratching his cheek.  They leave the bus and start trying to find a way across the bridge.  The big problem is that the cops aren’t letting people through that easy and the people are getting upset.  Finally Takashi and Rei meet up with the rest of the group and they find that Shizuka’s friend’s apartment is nearby.

Good episode overall.  Some of the best parts of the episode are when Shido is giving his speech to the kids on the bus and when he is compared to a cult leader, it just makes perfect sense.  The other part of this episode that I really liked was all the dealing with the people and cops on the bridge.  I could really see that happen in any country.  Everybody wants in but the cops have to be careful.  Very nicely stated in this episode.

Things we learn this episode about these zombies.

Nothing.

Episode 06 – In The Dead Of The Night

At the apartment where Shizuka’s friend stays, the girls decide to have some fun and get clean.  While they play around the boys are trying to get a gun locker open.  They found bullets so there must be guns around.  They get it open and Kohta loses his shit because there are a bunch of guns in there that are illegal to own, but he knows everything about all of them.  While that is going on the tension on the bridges is getting worse.  There are people that are rallying to be let in and the cops are starting to lose ground.  The main officer gets word that they can use whatever force is needed to make sure that everything is under control.  The officer goes up to the main protester and shoots him in the forehead causing people to realize that the cops now really mean business.  Back at the apartment the girls are done with their bath and Shizuka ends up groping Takashi and gives Kohta a kiss.  Takashi puts her to sleep and has a talk with Rei which causes him to get really mad and he tells Rei exactly how he feels.

This is the worst episode of the series so far.  The bridge scenes are great and they do a really good job of showing the lack of trust that people have for the police/government.  Then they turn around and have a ten minute session of naked girls grabbing each other (okay it is only Rei that is grabbing everyone’s boobs) but it just felt really pointless.  Maybe they were trying to show that even through all this shit they could still feel safe.  But even if that was the point it was way too long and drawn out.  Then again for an animated woman, Saeko is really hot and she can kick my ass any day.  (Is that normal?)

Things we learn this episode about these zombies.

Nothing.

The show is still really good, but with episode four being an extended recap and with episode six being pretty much a boob fest it’s starting to feel like they might be losing focus, especially with episode six.  The one thing that I would say to them (the writer/director) is, don’t sacrifice the great story and characters you created and water it down with boobs and ass shots.  It has enough going for it that they are really pointless.  A little T&A here and there is fine, but they seem to really be overdoing it right now.  Here’s hoping that the next three go back to the feel of the first three.

The Asylum actually makes a fun movie!  The world must be ending.

* * *

The movie starts with some Nazis moving a canister-thing onto a plane when the Americans start to attack.  Among the Nazis is Josef Mengele (Christopher Karl Johnson) and as the plane is taking off he hops aboard.  We then switch to modern times, in Antarctica, where two doctors, Paige (Dominique Swain) and Mark (Adam Burch), are “drilling into the ice.”  Something happens where they hit some metal and as they move the snow out of the way they uncover what seems to be the wing of a plane.  Just then they are knocked out by some Nazi soldiers in gas masks.  We then move, still in Antarctica, to a man, Lucas (Josh Allen), who sees one of his students almost drop a petri dish of a flesh eating virus.  He gets mad and confronts the man that brought the virus there, Adrian Reistad (Jake Busey).  After some heated words a girl rushes in and tells them that Paige and Mark haven’t reported in.  They go and check out where they last were and find blood and footprints.  Following the footprints they end up at a giant pit (and sadly there are no Tra-La-Logs) and they proceed down.  They get to the bottom and find that there is a forest and some buildings.  They approach one of the buildings and they are confronted by a bunch of Nazi soldiers and the angel of death himself, Josef Mengele.  Can a handful of doctors take out the coming Fourth Reich or will Mengele finally spread the master race across the world?

The acting in this movie is just rotten.  Now it’s nowhere near terrible as 2-Headed Shark attack, but it’s pretty close.  Actually I shouldn’t be so harsh overall.  Christopher Karl Johnson does a really good job with his portrayal of Mengele and Jake Busey plays one of the best evil men that I’ve seen in a long time.  When he wants something, there is nothing he won’t do to get it.  Now all the “good” guys are just pathetic when it comes to their acting, especially Josh Allen.  He tries to give this “speech” about how the bad guys are going to win if we don’t do anything and it’s about as encouraging as a really bad kick to the crotch.

Okay this movie is by The Asylum so by this time I know exactly what to expect.  Bad CG and some pretty decent blood effects.  That is exactly what I got this time around, except that the blood effects were a lot more involved this time and when they rip off a characters’ face it looks fucking cool.  Spoiler – When Cyber-Hitler shows up it is so fucking silly, but at the same time it is so fucking awesome.  It’s like they took Wolfenstein 3D and turned it real (or as real as they could get it).  Spoiler done.  Truly some good times with the effects this time around.

The Asylum has finally released a movie that isn’t complete shit!  Then again with a title like Nazis At The Center Of The Earth you know exactly what you are in for.  I expected nothing more than what I got and that is completely fine in my book.  Then we have a great evil duo of Jake Busey and Christopher Karl Johnson who knock it out of the park.  This movie is just a lot of fun.  Get some popcorn, some friends, a few drinks and be ready for a blast.  It’s nice to see Nazisploitation making a comeback.  They are just a great villain that you can do countless things with, and this is proof.

You thought your mother was needy!

* * *

We can all agree that at some point in our adult lives our moms get a bit needy.  Sometimes we get awful people that don’t deserve that title, but even the best mother still has her days.  The month of May brings us Mother’s Day so we can all remember to thank her.  Because no matter how terrible some of them are, they at least gave birth to us.

Emily Dwyer (Jeanne Bates) is a sweet old lady who is a bit lonely.  After all her children are grown up and have lives of their own.  When she decides to take in a boarder it seems like a great idea at first.  Company and a bit of extra money?  Yes please!  I mean, what could possibly go wrong when Dee Snider’s look alike shows up at your door growling like Christian Bales?  Oh.  Yeah.  She turns into a cannibal and her poor son Clay (Mark Thomas Miller) has to put his life on hold to babysit mom and stop her from eating people.

You may notice that my plot synopsis is very different from Netflix and IMDB.  That might be because I actually watched the movie.  While described as a werewolf, the only thing remotely pointing to that direction is one scene where she wears a dollar store rubber mask.  There is no moon connection, and this happens to her every night.  The hungrier she gets, the more she transforms.  That’s a pretty loose interpretation right there.  Because no one ever turns into an animal at all (budget constraints, maybe?).  Just crappy make-up to signify the transformation from “normal” to hungry monster that needs to eat human flesh. 

Netflix also lists this a horror/comedy.  Wrong again.  I mean sure, you have to laugh at the terrible movie but this was not intended to be funny.  More than the horror elements, the second half of the movie focuses a lot on Clay’s role as his mother’s caregiver.  I imagine this makes a great metaphor for children of drug addicts.  (Although I’m pretty sure I’ve now put more thought into this than the filmmakers did.)  More than just a quirky situation where he has to make sure she doesn’t kill any more people, this is about the emotional toll it takes on Clay.  The ending is a downer, which makes me appreciate it more actually.  It makes sense, and also I prefer that to trite happy endings.

We have typical B-movie fare with community theater -grade acting and almost passable effects.  Bates as mom does very well and switches back and forth from sweet to monster with ease.  No one was really committed to their role though, which makes it hard to watch at times.  Art Evans as our resident cop is the most unconvincing detective I have ever seen.  He is stiff, whiny and generally acts like he’s terrified of forgetting his lines.

This is another disappointment because the seeds of a great movie were buried under too much mediocrity.  Although at least it will help us all appreciate our pain in the ass moms a bit more.  Because hey, she may ask you to do ridiculous things and insist on seeing you more often than you prefer.  But at least you don’t have to see her every night and cover up her murder spree.

A surprisingly good movie that (mostly) is still effective.

* * *

Morgan (Marjoe Gortner) and his two friends Davis (Chuck Courtney) and Brian (Jon Cypher) are taking a break from playing football (well Brian doesn’t actually play because he is more of the publicity man) and decide to go to a nearby island for some hunting.  While there Davis breaks from the other two and is attacked by some giant hornets and by the time Morgan gets there Davis is already dead.  Morgan runs to the nearest house to call for help.  Once there he looks inside the barn (?) where he is attacked by a giant rooster.  He barely makes it out alive and goes to the house.  The house is owned by Mr. and Mrs. Skinner (John McLiam and Ida Lupino), but Mr. Skinner is out and Mrs. Skinner doesn’t really seem like she wants to help very much.  With no other options Morgan just takes the body back to the mainland.  We next see a car driving pretty fast towards the same house.  In the car is business man (and total dick) Jack Bensington and his assistant (kinda) Lorna (Pamela Franklin).  They get to the house and we learn from Mrs. Skinner about the Food Of The Gods.  They found it bubbling from the ground and after learning that it wasn’t oil they decided to feed it to their chickens who started to grow to crazy size (well only the chicks did and the adults weren’t affected).  We then learn that the biggest problem is that rats have gotten into the FOTG and they are wreaking havoc.  With Jack wanting the FOTG for himself and the oversized rats running wild, can Morgan, Brian, Lorna and Mrs. Skinner survive long enough to get off the island?

The acting is the biggest flaw of the movie.  Most of the actors are really hammy or just come off as…well acting.  None of them are very believable and as the movie goes on you really don’t care if any of them actually survive.  Now Pamela Franklin is pretty good at times, but during the most crucial scenes she just falls completely flat.  Marjoe Gortner is another that does a decent job, but he has a habit of dropping the ball way too much.  The only one that really pulls off their role is Ralph Meeker.  His portrayal of the money hungry dickhead is pretty darn flawless.  He knows that he’s a dick and he really doesn’t give a shit.  He realizes that the Food Of The Gods can make him extremely rich and even when the rats start to attack he only has dollar signs in his eyes and tries to collect the FOTG.

Now the effects of the movie range from completely atrocious to superb.  The hornets are the worst of the bunch, being so bad that you can’t even tell that they are hornets until they actually tell you.  Another one of the terrible effects is when they destroy the dam.  The water comes flowing out and holy shit it looks pathetic, it’s something you really need to see to believe.  On the other side we have the other giant animal effects.  The giant rooster looks beautiful and the worms/maggots look perfect.  The biggest surprise to me was the giant rats.  When they first start attacking Mr. Skinner in his car, I was expecting some really terrible puppets, but when they burst through the window and it’s actually a full-sized rat head I was taken aback.  They do look a little cheesy by today’s standards, but they still work with full effect.  If you can get over the terrible hornets you can really enjoy the effects.

In the end this is still a really good movie.  The effects (for the most part) are still great and the storyline about the Earth fighting back is just a great one that can be told a million times and really won’t get old, and then you have Ralph Meeker who plays one of the best dicks to grace the screen.  But then you get the really bad effects and the rest of the cast who just can’t keep it together.  It’s a mixed bag and there will be times where you are just yelling at the screen for the poor acting, but then you will be cheering for the effects.  I liked it and would suggest to quite a few people, but just be cautious when you watch it.

Yawn.

* * *

Premise

A group of friends (well, maybe…in accordance with grand mediocre horror-movie tradition, they don’t seem to like each other much) who head off to a forest to track down a creepy-looking and supposedly haunted tree described in a journal that the film’s protagonist Sean inherited from his grandfather. They end up running afoul of Satinka, a vengeful Native American spirit who paralyzes people by poking them with twigs and then kills them. (Actually, I’ve simplified the mythology somewhat on the ground that, honestly, it’s not like this movie actually earned a detailed discussion of its backstory.)

Review

So far, so decent: good excuse to get up to the woods and show them off (and also show off a reasonably attractive cast). It does feel like the filmmakers are aiming for a bit of a Blair Witch type vibe here (even if it’s not found footage)–you know, people in a forest fucking with shit they don’t understand and getting in over their heads. Anyway, if the Blair Witch angle is deliberate, it’s a bit of a shame that the filmmakers don’t understand what makes Blair Witch work is the audience’s engagement with the characters. Specifically, the characters here are so sketchily drawn that it’s hard to give a damn about any of them–Sean and Satinka being the big exceptions. When Jennifer’s friend Kiyomi decides to drink tea made from an extremely poisonous plant (because, y’know, she so cray-zay), she doesn’t come off as endearingly wacky, she comes off as, well, stupid.

So it’s up to the cast to make us believe in the characters, and they’re just about good enough to scrape by. On the one hand, nobody’s reading lines off of cue cards or hilariously misdelivering their lines. (The worst performance comes from executive producer Naomi Ueno as Kiyomi.) On the other hand, it’s not like anybody’s actually convincing, either. The ensemble consistently comes off like they’re acting instead of being. Adam Green (no, not that Adam Green…at least, I hope not), who plays Josh, comes the closest to actually pulling it off.

On top of all this there’s the lackluster direction and design. I can see the merit of wanting to take A-horror-style aesthetic elements and apply them to American movies–William Malone does this very well–but like pretty much everyone else involved in this production, director Mauro Borelli simply can’t make it work. (For example, if your screenplay features several Native American characters, you might want to cast actors in those roles who can pass for Native American.) And the really damaging thing here is that almost nothing here is actually scary. The one or two conceptual elements that are actually horrific aren’t executed well, and the remaining 98% of the film is twigs sticking out of skin or jump scares: unexpected faces in rearview mirrors, people walking behind other people, that sort of thing–very little that’s actually scary.

Despite the thorough lambasting I just gave it, I don’t think Haunted Forest is an outright awful movie. I’ve certainly seen a lot worse recently (Mermaid in a Manhole, for instance). Yet there’s very little to recommend it, either: it’s more mediocre and bland than anything else. I didn’t even get a whole lot of entertainment out of making fun of it. Pass this one up.

Just minutes into the first quarter, Damon Salvatore grabs the ball and runs with it.

* * *

The episode opens with hapless Caroline waking up with a nasty bite wound on her neck. Vampire bites on The Vampire Diaries aren’t sanitized, little fang pricks as on True Blood but messy, ragged tears. TVD doesn’t sexualize the drinking of blood the way the HBO show does. The blood drinking on TVD is depicted as violent, awful, and often painful. Also, unlike True Blood, TVD must adhere to broadcast standards, so Caroline spent the night with Damon, got bitten, didn’t realize it (apparently), had the wherewithal to put on a nightie, and then woke up to discover she was in bed with a vampire. Caroline’s magically appearing nightie is so minor (and necessary if The CW wanted to avoid an FCC investigation) that I really should get over it, but sometimes these little things just nag at me. I also have to wonder who washes Caroline’s bedding. Wouldn’t that bloody pillowcase make her mother suspicious?

Or maybe it’s just me.

As the title of the episode suggests, this episode revolves around the high school football team. Tyler Lockwood, town douchebag, decides to boost his bromance with Matt. In Tyler’s conception of friendship, it’s okay to use his friend’s messed up sister for sex, but Tyler can’t allow a new guy to move in on his friend’s ex-girlfriend. So he decides to show up Stefan with a display of alpha male assholiness. Stefan, however, displays astonishingly adept reflexes, a display which leads to Stefan earning a place on the school football team. Later, Tyler gets so frustrated with Stefan swooping in one afternoon and becoming the team’s star player that he deliberately injures Stefan on the field. When Stefan sets his own broken finger and it immediately returns to normal, the viewers see that vampires have miraculous healing powers.

The physical appearance of actors sometimes doesn’t matter. In the show, Elena is dark, not blonde as in the books. Bonnie is African-American, not a green-eyed redhead of Irish descent. Fine. But everything about the way the character of Tyler Lockwood is written both in the books and the show suggests that he should be a physically imposing thug. However, Michael Trevino, though muscular, is a tiny guy. The scenes of his threatening freshman Jeremy don’t really work with Steven McQueen looming above him. His somewhat rapey behavior toward Vicki doesn’t play well when Kayla Ewell towers over him.

Although the series hasn’t hit its stride yet, this episode represents an improvement over the first two, largely as a result of the development of the character of Damon Salvatore. The character emerges as one of the most charmingly complex on television in two nicely juxtaposed scenes at Elena’s dinner party. Elena has arranged for Bonnie and Stefan to have some quality bonding time over Italian take-out with the hope that Bonnie will get over her aversion to Stefan—the budding witch got the heebie-jeebies when she touched him and felt “death.” Elena’s plan goes smoothly until Damon uses his compulsion over Caroline to finagle an invitation into Elena’s house. (According to the rules of the series, vampires must be invited into a personal residence.)

During the dinner party, Damon engineers some alone time with Elena washing dishes, leaving the others in the living room. The scene with Elena and Damon shows that Elena, despite not knowing the full story of the brothers Salvatore, is not completely clueless and helpless. Moments earlier, Damon awkwardly and obviously worked Katherine in to the conversation at large. Once alone with him, Elena cuts through his bullshit and reveals to him that he’s unwittingly exposed that he loved Katherine himself. It’s the first time we learn of Damon’s feelings for Katherine and the first time Damon has an honest moment in the series. He tells Elena of Katherine’s death in a fire, and she expresses sympathy for his loss. Damon’s reaction is well done by Somerhalder, a brief crinkling of the forehead discloses how much Damon is affected. While Damon is trying to hide everything personal about himself, he can’t help but be moved when Elena becomes the first person to acknowledge his feelings for Katherine. Damon also offers Elena some much needed honesty when he advises her to quit cheerleading. He implicitly tells her that it’s okay for her to have different priorities and to be different after the death of her parents.

The Damon and Elena moment is interrupted when Bonnie enters to help with the clean-up, and the sequence cuts to Stefan and Caroline alone in the living room. Caroline, under Damon’s compulsion, prattles on about Elena’s past relationship with Matt. Stefan, however, understands the situation and cuts her off by commenting on her scarf. When he asks her to remove it, Caroline (in a nice moment by Candice Accola) displays her cognitive confusion. She knows she can’t remove it, but she doesn’t know why. Caroline’s vulnerability reminds the viewer that, as sympathetic as Damon is in the previous scene, he’s still a monster manipulating a young woman for his own mysterious ends. When Damon returns and compels Caroline to leave the room, Stefan calls him on it. “They are people, Damon. She’s not a puppet. She doesn’t exist for your amusement, for you to feed on whenever you want to.” Damon replies, “Sure she does. They all do. They’re whatever I want them to be. They’re mine for the taking.” According to Damon, this statement reflects his conception of what is normal. The contrast between the two brothers seems apparent here. Stephan views the world from a human and a humane perspective while Damon’s viewpoint is vampiric and sociopathic.

After the dinner party, the viewers see Elena and Stefan talking over the evening and moving quickly to heavy petting. Too quickly. It’s pretty early in the relationship (and the series) for them to be moving to the shirt-removal stage. However, when Stefan removes his shirt, he’s no longer the one Elena is straddling. It’s Damon. The scene cuts to Elena gasping awake in her darkened bedroom alone. Her make-out session with the Salvatore brothers was all a dream. A crow perches on her window sill to show that Damon manipulated Elena’s dream. (This is the last time we’ll see Damon’s crow in the series. The writers decided to drop the Damon/crow connection from the books.)

Although Stefan does not know of the offending dream, his observation of Damon’s compulsion of Caroline leads him to protect Elena by giving her a necklace filled with vervain, an herb which can block vampires’ attempts at coercion. In addition to the Salvatore brothers’ daylight rings, we now have a vervain-filled necklace—magic jewelry will play a large role in the series.

The special occasion for this episode is a school pep rally. There, a fight breaks out between Tyler and Jeremy. Stefan breaks it up, but Jeremy accidentally slashes Stefan across the hand with a bottle. When Elena goes to help him, he tries to hide his hand, but she forces him to open it, revealing blood but no cut. Elena gets her first hint that Stefan is not what he appears to be, but an encounter with Damon where he attempts to compel her without success (she wears the magic necklace and ends up smacking him) drives Stefan’s hand from her mind.

Damon confronts Stefan about the vervain and threatens Elena. Stefan suggests that Damon has a core of humanity that feels sympathy for Elena, that he is not the monster he pretends to be. Stefan claims that the fact that Damon hasn’t killed him despite every opportunity over the last 145 years proves that Damon still has human feelings. Damon’s response is to kill without remorse and with impunity the first person who comes along, the history teacher-football coach. To prove that he can.

In the books, Damon kills Mr. Tanner in self-defense. That is not the case here, and I wondered if the show runners were writing themselves into a corner by making Damon a cold-blooded killer. But I had to dismiss the notion almost as soon as it came to mind. Damon is anything but cold-blooded. The confrontation between Stefan and Damon shows Stefan digging into his brother’s giant exposed nerve, his love for Katherine. When Stefan says, “Katherine is dead. And you hate me because you loved her. And you torture me because you still do. And that, my brother, that is your humanity,” Damon can’t even look at his brother. Damon reacts like the unstable, seething mass of emotion he is, by trying to show that he has no emotions. Only when Damon’s denial settles in can he turn back to Stefan. Mr. Tanner’s death is a result of Damon’s need to prove his lack of humanity—to his brother and to himself.

In Stefan’s final voice over, the viewers learn that Damon has succeeded where his brother is concerned. Stefan states that he believes Damon really is a heartless monster. Not all voice-over narration is bad. Bad voice over usually entails pointless thematic pondering or exposition that should have been revealed through action or dialogue. Most of the voice-over narration in the early episodes of TVD is bad, but this voice over is an example of a good use of the technique because it displays dramatic irony. While Stefan denies his brother’s humanity, the viewers see it displayed as Damon watches over Elena as she sleeps, tenderly brushing the hair off her face. When Elena wakes up to turn off the light—she had fallen asleep writing in her diary—Damon has vanished. Of course, the viewer doesn’t know what Damon is thinking in this last scene, or, more precisely, who he is thinking of—Elena or her doppelganger, Katherine.

The character work done on Damon elevates this episode above its predecessors, and that character and all his charisma and contradictions will carry the series through the next few episodes. However, the viewers get some hints here that the characters of Elena and Stefan will not be completely overwhelmed. Both show a surprising parity in their interactions with him. Even though they are not as immediately compelling, the writers have shown that Elena and Stefan are capable of developing to help carry the weight of the series.

Taking part: Jason, Jori, Lackey, Zeb (Blick Tolkien) and Hunter.