Every Sunday, Gill delves into his archive of over 800 movie reviews and randomly selects three for your enjoyment! Here are this week’s…
The Brood
A movie about a woman who, through therapeutic roleplaying, psychicly controls a gang of deformed, snowsuit-wearing midget-children, causing them to kill the people who have wronged her in the past. The first hour or so of “The Brood” may be a bit plodding and, at times, hard to take seriously (as when Art Hindle’s character covers the bashed-in face of his daughter’s kindergarten teacher with a child’s drawing that reads “We plant pumpkin seeds”), but the movie has a killer last act that makes the wait well worth it. “The Brood” may not be anywhere near my favourite Cronenberg movie, but it’s still a good watch. Cronenberg sure knows how to weave a bizarre tale…
3 out of 5
Dead of Night
A true treasure of an old-school anthology horror film, the ghost stories in “Dead of Night” have such enduring themes that they can still be seen in horror movies today (evil ventriloquist dummies, for one). Fans of anthology horror films/shows are in for a treat with this gem. My only real complaint is the inclusion of the comedic ghosts-and-golf story, which seems completely out of place and disrupts the atmosphere of the rest of the film a bit. Other than that, it’s absolute gold.
4 out of 5
Prospero’s Books
Oh man, how can I even rate this assault on the senses? It’s as though Terry Gilliam got ergot poisoning and tried to adapt Shakespeare but failed. You know you’re in trouble when the movie opens with a young child swinging on a trapeze while pissing on an old man in a swimming pool. I’m serious, too. Visually, the movie is pretty amazing. Crazy costumes, wild sets, and bizarre editing make this a movie that, if it were at all coherent, could be passed off as a Julie Taymor film (though it really is a bit closer to Gilliam’s style, as I mentioned previously). Unfortunately, it’s just too frenetic and weird to make any sort of actual sense. And frankly, there’s just way too much swinging naked penis for my liking. Don’t watch this movie sober.
.5 out of 5
See you next Sunday for three more thrilling short reviews!