Much has been said about Dimension’s marketing of “Below” (or lack thereof). The picture was virtually left to rot upon its release, like so many table scraps, while a full course meal of alternate Halloween fare (like big-budget spook stories “The Ring” and “Ghost Ship”) was first choice among October filmgoers. With a complete lack of support, Twohy was even forced to finance and create his own website for “Below”. What a bloody shame. This is a quality product - certainly not without its flaws, but artfully made and intriguingly mounted, and (although I haven’t yet seen it) probably a hell of a lot better than “Ghost Ship”, too.

The cast of “Below” is like a gallery of actors you’ll recognize, but can’t put a name to. I’ll help you out. Bruce Greenwood (a skilled veteran of Atom Egoyan films who was also Ashley Judd’s supposedly dead husband in “Double Jeopardy” and JFK in “Thirteen Days”) is Lt. Brice, who is appointed the new commanding officer of the U.S.S. Tiger Shark after the former captain suffers a watery demise. Matthew Davis (“Blue Crush”) is a young officer who questions the nature of the alleged drowning that claimed the Skipper’s life, while Olivia Williams (“Rushmore”) comes aboard as a nurse rescued from a torpedoed British hospital ship, Holt McCallany (“Fight Club”) performs yo-yo tricks as the muscular Lt. Loomis, and Scott Foley (that dude from “Felicity”) and two “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” alumni (Dexter Fletcher and Jason Flemyng) also wander the wet corridors. When unexplained, ghostly developments begin to spook the crew members, some begin to theorize that perhaps the Germans aren’t the only thing to be concerned about.

Twohy is a master of mood and visual aesthetics on a low budget, and here he establishes the U.S.S. Tiger Shark with some terrific tracking shots. The first travels from one sub compartment to the next, with the crew offering endless variables of one common expression to spread the word of their new British guests (“Three redcoats onboard, and one’s a skirt!”, and so on). The second takes place when a depth charge canister bounces along the hull of the submerged sub, and everyone inside listens in horror, awaiting the inevitable explosion. Later, the director plays some seriously spooky tricks with haunted record players, altered mirror reflections, and ominous dark figures in hallway corridors. The special effects (aside from a sequence with stingrays) are quite good, and help to punctuate the film’s strong sense of tension and atmosphere.

Problems with “Below” include a lack of clarity during a few pivotal action sequences, in which losing track of the supporting players in not uncommon. Also, it’s never entirely convincing that this submarine crew is a World War II submarine crew (the dialogue seems far too... modern). And even when “Below” falls back on familiar mystery and haunted house devices, it remains a genre film of rare class: creepy, accomplished and smarter than the rest. Give David Twohy a first-rate plot and marketing support, and next time around you might have a recipe for B-movie greatness.

I SPY


Starring Eddie Murphy, Owen Wilson,
Famke Janssen, Malcolm McDowell and Gary Cole
Director Betty Thomas
Canadian Classification PG
Released by Columbia Pictures - 10/02

“I Spy” is an amazing feat - on top of being an action-comedy that is completely and utterly generic, it fails to entertain for even a fleeting second on its own numbingly unoriginal terms. The film stars Eddie Murphy and Owen Wilson, who are both more than capable of making people laugh. But in “I Spy”, they don’t represent real characters as much as stale highlight reels of their previous work, resorting to familiar shtick that has worked in their past films. But here, it doesn’t work. The whole thing stinks of desperation.

Murphy plays Kelly Robinson, a cocky, smart-mouthed professional boxer who uses the word “ass” often as a suffix (“skanky-ass” and so on) and joins forces with secrent agent Alex Scott (Wilson) to capture an international arms dealer named Arnold Gundars (Malcolm McDowell), who is auctioning off a stealth aircraft to terrorists. Gundars is a boxing fanatic, and Robinson’s presence will ensure that he and Scott will be able to infiltrate the black tie affair that is a front for the weapons negotiations. Naturally, there’s also a fellow agent (Famke Janssen) with whom Alex is smitten. Yet another agent, the suave Carlos (played by Gary Cole, in the film’s most - or perhaps only - inspired performance), is a Bond wannabe with high-tech gadgets who provokes a jealous rage in Alex (“He’s not even Spanish!” he observes).

“I Spy” is based upon a 1960s TV series starring Robert Culp and Bill Cosby. I haven’t seen a single episode, but I understand the show was revolutionary for introducing an African American comedian into the television mainstage. “I Spy”, the movie, is about as far from revolutionary as a product of entertainment can be. More accurately, it’s banal and clichéd, with action sequences that aren’t exciting and buddy comedy banter that can’t distinguish itself from one of the most pedestrian scripts of the past year (and four screenwriters are credited for churning this puppy out!). The talented Owen Wilson, who has coasted on his affable goofball charm into Hollywood’s good graces, is reduced to playing the hapless foil to a typically delirious Eddie Murphy, who recycles all of his own trademarks (such as referring to himself in the third person) in an attempt to drudge some trace of humor from the lame epsionage-fueled script (the lifeless direction from Betty Thomas is the final nail in the movie’s dusty old coffin). Now, I like Owen Wilson. I (usually) like Eddie Murphy, despite his current, career-threatening slump. But in a movie like “I Spy”, all they can do is struggle to survive.

I suppose I chucked a few times. Also, “I Spy” isn’t offensively bad or anything - it just lays there, immobile. When that is the highest of praise one can offer, I suppose the movie is in trouble.

THE THING


Starring Kurt Russell, Wilford Brimley, Richard Dysart, Richard Masur, Donald Moffat, Keith David and Thomas Waites
Director John Carpenter
Canadian Classification 18A
Released by Universal Pictures - 1982

Normally, the rule of thumb in horror movies is to use atmosphere as opposed to gore, and suspense instead of splatter, in order to give the audience a good scare. “The Thing”, John Carpenter’s remake of the 1951 Howard Hawks classic “The Thing From Another World”, has both in spades. In fact, “The Thing” may boast the most horrifying scenes of graphic gore in all the annals of science-fiction cinema. While such excess bloodletting can pose a dilemma for films of this genre (which often resort to unimaginative gore to disguise other shortcomings), Carpenter strikes the right balance to stage a wildly effective tale of dread and paranoia. This is one of the scariest films ever made.

The setting is an American outpost in Antarctica, where a group of scientists find themselves under strenuous circumstances when an alien creature infiltrates their base. This is not just another case of “find it and kill it”, however; this particular alien can overtake and imitate anything it comes in contact with, leaving the men unsure about who is their human comrade and who is... the thing. Kurt Russell plays MacReady, the helicopter pilot who emerges from the group to take charge of the situation, but seems to possess few traits of heroism inherent in characters of his ilk. No, MacReady is just the most level-headed of the bunch, and the one we can trust with a flame-thrower. Russell is terrific as the no-nonsense anti-hero.

It’s amazing that John Carpenter was responsible for the relatively bloodless “Halloween” in 1978, and just a few years later created one of the most repulsive and unpleasant films of the past 20 years. From a startling scene in which the creature (in the guise of a friendly canine) mutates and imitates a kennel of dogs, to a shockingly gory moment involving defibrillators and a stomach full of gnashing teeth, “The Thing” shows no mercy. Rob Bottin (who also did incredible effects work on “The Howling”) fashions the monster so that it can resemble anyone and be anything, and with this conceptual basis, his creation becomes a landmark work of grotesque imagination. Bottin’s latex, petroleum jelly and additional cosmetic tools provide shocks ten times more effective than any CGI-reliant creature feature of modern horror cinema could manage. Will anyone ever forget the severed head that sprouts legs and scuttles across the floor? Not me.

Carpenter’s direction is airtight, and easily among his strongest and most assured work. During a sequence in which blood samples are drawn and tested for alien DNA, the suspense is so unbearable and the paranoia so palpable that you can hardly move. Ennio Morricone’s straightforward score, used in repetition, works your nerves and is highly successful in doing so, while Dean Cundey’s cinematography plunges you into the setting with a threatening opening sequence of the beautiful, tranquil Antarctic snowscape. If there is a weakness to “The Thing”, it is the lack of development among the supporting characters. Most have their own quirks, and are easier to distinguish from one another than most expendable ensembles in horror films along this vein, but it would still be nice if the secondary players were more fleshed-out. Among them is Richard Dysart as the unlucky doctor, Keith David as the pessimist, and oatmeal guru Wilford Brimley, who goes completely insane.

“The Thing” is a great scary movie that is not to be missed. Unless, of course, you have a weak stomach - in which case you should just forget you read this.