Sometimes it's just best to quit while you're behind.

Rutger Hauer in a 3D re-imagining of "Dracula" with a decent dose of T&A could work but for one thing: Dario Argento.

"Argento's Dracula 3-D" (2012)
directed by Dario Argento
written by Dario Argento, Enrique Cerezo, Franco Paolucci, and Antonio Tentori
starring Thomas Kretschmann, Marta Gastini, Asia Argento, Unax Ugalde, Miriam Giovanelli, and Rutger Hauer

How Is It?
It's about as sophomorically substandard as you have come to expect from Dario Argento, alas. Plodding, dull, cheap-looking, and frequently painful to watch. This is one of the worst films I have ever seen.

The Players
It is so hard for me to write this, but it was disappointing all around. Kretschmann as Dracula came across bored, as if he was simply going through the motions. Asia Argento was dutifully in her dad's movie. Gastini and Ugalde were wooden, and Hauer... oh dear. They were all there, but none of them looked present. The rest of the cast, on the other hand, chewed the scenery like it was going out of style. So in many ways, this was a typical Argento joint. Alas.

Behind The Camera
It was almost like watching a SyFy Original Motion Picture, just less fun and far less entertaining. A woeful script written by committee, nearly comically mediocre digital effects, low-end practical effects, sets and lighting that looked as if they barely tried at all, and a lack of apparent cohesive vision to the project are what hurt this film. In short, this movie died while it was being made. There was nothing new in it, and there wasn't even anything out of Argento's really old and dated bag of tricks that was done well. Overall, it was a lesson in incompetence.

The Verdict
Remember Argento's heyday thirty years ago. That's all there is to do at this point. Avoid this film at all costs.

Your suffering will be legendary... even for Hollywood.

Spoiled, dissatisfied rich California boys run down to Tijuana for some action but instead find a) they're just unhappy punks in Mexico too and b) a rather tidy-looking vagrant who gives them a puzzle box guaranteed to thrill. Things go downhill from there, for all of us.

“Hellraiser: Revelations” (2010)

directed by Victor Garcia

written by Gary J. Tunnicliffe

starring Nick Eversman, Jay Gillespie, Tracey Fairaway, Stephan Smith Collins

How is it?

Well, considering this is the ninth movie and the fifth consecutive direct-to-video release of the franchise, had a budget of about $300,000, was publicly and fiercely disavowed/disowned by Clive Barker, and did not feature Doug Bradley as Pinhead... you would be safe in assuming the answer is "Not too good."

The Players

As I often say, I'm sure they did the best they could with the script they had to work with. As an actor myself, I always try to give that when I can instead of disparaging the efforts of others. The acting was mostly decent... ish, mostly... kindasorta. It's just that the actors really didn't matter, not for this movie. You will find out way in a moment.

Behind the Camera

The company that owns the rights to Hellraiser had to make a movie because the rights were about to expire, and they wanted to do just enough to extend them. (That's what I read anyway.) So they scraped together some petty cash, had the former make-up effects guy of the previous DVD releases write up a script, and got a director, and viola! A movie is born. Yes, this movie was born simply to ensure they could make another Hellraiser movie later. So that's the background. Now on to the dissection.

The script's just a mess. It was overlong, had stilted dialogue in most scenes, featured genuinely unsympathetic characters that did some of the dumbest things, and it just didn't have a sense of pace. The Hellraiser universe is full of possibilities, but it gets hung up on the inability of most of Hollywood to be brave and try something different. Instead they just keep going back to the trough, the same old twists and turns and other known quantities, and calling it "new". There was nothing new done with what could have been an interesting story.

The directing was confusing. The framing and lighting of whatever action was going on on-screen was sometimes quite competent, even interesting here and there. Other times it was flat, bland, noticeably different. It made me ponder the hazards of second unit shooting on a shoestring budget and a short shooting schedule. (That's just a guess.) I have plenty of questions as to why Garcia made or allowed the actors to make certain performance decisions, though I suspect that again the script is the primary culprit there. Or time maybe constraints. Or maybe nobody in it really cared enough, given the miniscule budget and all.

I might ought not be, but I'll be generous and say everyone did the best they could with what they had to work with, which was a production company that wanted to spend as little money as humanly possible on a direct-to-video release so they could legally keep the rights to a franchise. I'll leave it at that.

The Verdict

It's genuinely saddening to see a legendary franchise actually hit the bottom the way Hellraiser has. This movie was made without a care in the world about whether or not it was any good or even decent. It was just business, the worst reason of all to make it, in my opinion.

And... Doug Bradley is Pinhead. Accept no substitutes.

We start at the bottom and work our way up.

Don't rent this movie.

Don't stream it online.

Don't watch it on cable tv.

Don't let this movie into your house.

Don't even pick up the box.

The cover art is the best thing about it.

“Neighbor” (2009)

written & directed by Robert A. Masciantonio

starring America Olivo and Christian Campbell

How Is It?

This is one of the ten worst films I have ever had the misfortune to watch in my life, and I've seen well over three thousand motion pictures. It really is that bad... and then some.

The Players

America Olivo as the unnamed “Neighbor” is the relative bright spot in this straight-to-DVD black hole. She's the only one who looks like a) she's having any fun at all and b) she's the only one who really knows what she's doing. That's offset by the character being wholly one-dimensional and only sporadically interesting, despite her efforts.

Christian Campbell plays the almost likeable but wholly unsympathetic nebbish, Don. Don's there because, well, the killer had to get into the house somehow and somebody had to be the eyes and ears of the audience within the story. Campbell does his best to play Don the Plot Device. I do believe Campbell could've carried more as an actor, but Don wasn't so much a character but a Method of Villain Delivery.

Pretty much everyone else in the movie comes across a either unsure/tentative or simply there because they got to be in a movie someone was making in the neighborhood. Those actors who looked as if they may have had a handle on things weren't in the film longer than a blink.

Behind the Camera

The writing is just awful. There's the merest skeleton of a plot almost there, but when it gets going, which it only does in fits and starts, it doesn't even do a mediocre job being generic. The characters have no depth and are completely unsympathetic and uninteresting. If it hadn't been for the technical work I know had to be done behind the scenes, I'd have thought they made up most of the dialogue as they went along. Knowing it was structured, scripted, and then shot by the same man makes it all the more depressing and irritating. It's sophomoric in every respect, and it's pretty boring on top of that.  This film is an example of how not to structure a film and write a screenplay. It's just dreadful. On the other hand...

The camera, lighting, sound, and so forth is close to average for a low budget film. There are some shots and scenes that are “off”, but I figure that's due to limitations of location space and not any technical deficiency on the part of the director. The scenes in the basement are the best directed, lit, miked, and all, because it's in a studio. (And it's a pretty decent studio, too.)

The Verdict

I'm all about “a good story, well told”. This film was neither... and with a vengeance. The story is garden variety slasher-in-the-house, and the big twist is the super-sadistic psycho killer is a fiendishly sexy, bizarre woman. The movie itself is more than a bit dull and boring, punctuated here and there with nonchalant murders and a decent attempt or two at torture porn. 

Avoid "Neighbor" at all costs.