Detroit Rock City

This brought back a few memories.

The first and only rock concert I have ever been to was Kiss, I was still in middle school and absolutely wanted to go, I got the t-shirt and everything to show off the next day at school, it was grand. I've been in a rock mood for a good long while now digesting new bands and I wanted to take two of my passions and put them together for this week, so how was Detroit Rock City? Pretty damn good, not gonna lie. I've seen adverts for this since I was proper young on VHS tapes so I figured it would work and I got a very unique, very fun, highly enjoyable film. The film had me before the opening credits even started, and the opening credits set the time period extremely well. So the story goes that 4 high school friends who are massive Kiss-aholics get tickets to a concert in Detroit but they lose them and it's a mad rush to try and see the concert. It's a very basic synopsis but the movie is so much better. The first thing that struck me was the camera movements and editing, it is like Evil Dead quality but done on an even more enthusiastic level. Always zooming, and rushing about, over the top levels of movement to ecentuate moments, I just loved it. I really haven't seen a movie like this and I just compared it to Evil Dead, that's how good it is on having it's own identity. Our main cast is great, they feel like real kids cuss words and all, and not every movie can really pull that off. This is a movie that warrants the R rating and I couldn't see it another way. Edward Furlong gets my special mention, he just nailed this part and really was my favorite of the entire cast. I've been doing some reading on the history of heavy metal and the background and thoughts that the book potrays are identical to this movie, you can tell the director and writer knew of that time and place in the world and really got it. Disco sucks, metal and rock is the way, parent groups are forming, it's not just a costume this is a way of life, that sort of thing. But what struck me and really brought me full force to give this a great rating was, it doesn't demonize teens who like hard rock. Our main cast are not bad kids I mean yes they are teenagers, but they don't start shit, they're not dickheads to other people, they push back when forced to, they're not disrespectful to adults, they just want the liberty to express themselves and enjoy the music they like which a lot of kids and teens were doing at that moment in music history. Some wild stuff happens throughout the plot, stuff even I couldn't fully grasp seeing, but it's fiction, it's outlandish to a point and I can roll with that. I think it's a movie I've seen at the right time and with the right mindset. So I give it a full 4 stars, 7.5 pushing friggin' close to an 8, big recommendation. Even if you're not a Kiss fan you can still appreciate that mindset that our characters are in. A very, very strong start to February and next time we look at the...more unheard of Jack Black rock movie.

Tales Of Halloween

This hurts.

In a world where we don't get many anthology movies let alone horror anthologies I was very interested to see Tales Of Halloween, and reading through the cast list gave me hope. We get Adrienne Barbeau, Lin Shaye, cameos from John Landis and Joe Dante, and of course Sam Witwer. Sign me up and throw me in, hell yeah! But. But....it was mostly forgettable. And dude, that sucks to say. But it's true, it's a collection of 10 stories over the course of 90 minutes which already is a red flag because with such limited time for these stories there's simply no meat on the bones, what you see is what you get. Which may satisfy some but for me it was a rollercoaster of quality, with only the last two stories being my favorites! Now does that mean there is no artistic, stylistic, well made concepts and executions? Of course not, but that's sort of the catch with anthology movies. You never know what you're gonna get, and it could be a tonal and quality mess. Akira Kurosawa's Dreams is an outstanding anthology, with a handful of stories told with breathtaking visuals, well written stories, and enough substance for the audience to infer and enjoy. But it all came from one source, he directed all the segments and wrote them thus creating a better film. With 10 stories in Tales Of Halloween they had 11 directors and 12 writers. That is a f***ing problem. You get many wildly different stories in concept and execution, some looking like horror movie fluff and some bordering on student film arthouse, all of which are happening in the same town again very much like Trick r' Treat. And there ain't much entertainment value from it, the actors do fine and none are really bad at all, but the stories have no time to grow and breathe to create atmosphere and give us likable characters, it's quantity over quality. I called the twists for about 90% of these stories because I've watched way too much Twilight Zone and a bit of Tales From The Crypt, but even I know if you or someone you know who hasn't watched those shows are smart enough to figure this shit out. Sam Witwer alone saved this movie from being a forgettable and unremarkable film, I just appreciate that man so much already, the handsome devil, but he has such great screen presence and comedic timing that he made me excited to watch this movie. But he's the second to last story. And the last story was my other favorite, again down to the main character this badass cop who gets all these crazy stories down at the precinct and she goes out to try to deal with it. Beautiful! Perfect! That's all I need! Go forth and wreck shit babe. But! Again! We had 15 minutes of film left and surprise asshole, it ends on a cliffhanger and there is literally 6 minutes of credits so have fun with that shithead! And things were starting to look up for me. I just...God I had hope, I had hope it would be good but sometimes the IMDB stars don't lie. 2.5 stars, 6/10, what a f***ing bummer to go out on the day before Halloween. But I got nothing else, no extra reviews, no tricks up my sleeve, no further horror reviews in November. You get nothing! You lose! I hate it. See you in November, happiest of Halloweens to all and to all a good night.