Movie Review: Monster High: Scaremester & New Ghoul @ School

Monster High: Scaremester & New Ghoul @ School
Mattel Entertainment, Wildbrain Entertainment,  USA 2010, 2014.

DVD named "Monster High Fang-tastic Double Pack: Scaremester & New Ghoul @ School" contains stories based on Mattel's doll series.

New Ghoul @ School

Frankie Stein is a new student in Monster High. She has trouble finding friends, but eventually she gets two friends vegetarian vampire Draculaura and werewolf Clawdeen. Frankie gets on the bad side of school's diva Cleo De Nile. Frankie tries to attend clubs but always tries too much to be something that she isn't and fails. She wants to join the fearleading team (cheerleaders) but Cleo is their captain and the results are catastrophic. You better keep it real, girl! (Also knowing a famous pop star doesn't hurt).

Cleo, Ghoulia & Frankie

New best friends

Clawdeen, Frankie & Draculaura.. and some guy wearing a sack

Voice actors: Kate Higgins, Salli Saffioti, Debi Derryberry, Laura Bailey, Yuri Lowenthal, Audu Paden, Troy Baker
Directors: Audu Paden, Eric Radomski

Scaremester consists of 18 short webisodes from season 3 and 4.

Dodgeskull
Bullyish Manny Taur doesn't want zombies on his Dodgeskull-team. Zombie girl Ghoulia challenges Manny to a match. As a double visual pun Manny has a red t-shirt (worn by a bull!) that reminds of his ancestral home.

Ghoulia

Heath Burns and Manny Taur

A Perfect Match
The girls are going to Fright Day night dance ball. No-one has asked yeti girl Abbey Bominable out so the girls suggest speed-dating. One of the failed candidates is an often seen background character, a tall cyclops boy.

Tall cyclops and Abbey

Hoodoo That Voodoo That You Do
Hoodude is a voodoo doll guy. If he holds an item belonging to someone else, that someone will feel the pain if Hoodude hurts himself. Mischievous kitty Toralei and other cat girls use that feature to play pranks.

Hoodude and Toralei

Unearthed Day
Plant girl Venus McFlytrap tries to teach students to recycle. The girls help by making fashion clothes out of trash.

Creature of the Year
Headless Headmistress Bloodgood asks Frankie & friends to select a teacher of the year but neither Mr. Hackington or Mr. Rotter are good candidates. Mr. Rotter looks like Lon Chaney Sr. in "Phantom of the Opera."

Cleo & Mr. Rotter

Undo the Voodoo
Hoodude is having a bad day and everybody suffers. Frankie asks Scarah Screams to read his mind and find out what's wrong.

Sad.

The Stitch-uation
A new hunky centaur-boy Archer comes to school. Toralei and Operetta (rockabilly daughter of Phantom of the Opera) try to flirt with him but he is not interested.

Archer

The Halls Have Eyes
Manny, flame guy Heath Burns and zombie dude Slo-Mo want to be safety officers of the school. Also gargoyle Rochelle wants to be a safety officer but her friends keep trying to corrupt her.

Rochelle

Angry Ghouls
Draculaura gets addicted to mobile game Angry Ghouls. The addiction spreads quickly and only robot girl Robecca can stop it. I think I have seen a similar game somewhere. It had something to do with birds and pigs.

Angry Ghouls

I Scream, You Scream
Cleo attends a cooking show but she forgets to memorize the recipes. Maybe Scarah Scream's telepathic skills will help.

Scarah Screams

Fierce Crush
Everybody has a boyfriend except Clawdeen's little sister Howleen Wolf.

Party Undead
It's Friday the 13th, 2013 and a big party night. Heath plays a video game and finds a sinister conspiracy.

We Are Monster High
New students come to school but the senior students seem to have something to hide. Unusual episode for it is shown from first-person perspective, basically welcoming the viewer to Monster High.

Eye of the Boo-Holder
Everyone is making projects for the Art Class. Who will create the best work?

Who's the Boo Girl
New student Jane Boolittle appears and does some anthropological observations.

Scream Spirit
New members of fearleading team need some coaching to utilize their skills. Notice that Manny's labyrinth shirt now points at the another direction.

Spot the eyeball dude in the crowd

Master of Hiss-Guise
Famous actress Elissabat visits the school incognito so no-one can recognize her (yeah, right!).

Join the Scream
Toralei is not a team-player but when she is taunted by the opponents she helps Monster High to win some games.

That's for the descriptions, now for some comments.

Monster High is a toy line with characters that are teen offspring of classic monsters, aimed to goth-oriented girls who like fashion dolls. However it is quite surprising that Mattel hasn't fully harnessed the potential and for example hasn't made a spin-off series for boys for example as the monsterific characters could also appeal to them if the focus was adjusted from fashion to for example adventure themes. Just saying, and I'm sure Mattel does their marketing decisions by reading obscure blogs such as this.

The franchise are backed by a series of movies and TV-specials. "New Ghoul" is a TV-special but the Scaremester episodes are part of the web series, that can be viewed on Monster High's Youtube channel. "New Ghoul" has also a more dramatic story, as the short episodes are more comedic in nature. The couple of minute long episodes are made with 2D-animation but longer films use CGI-animation. These episodes on the DVD were enjoyable, with a lot of references to classic horror, mainly Universal's. It seems that the makers have done their home work about the tropes associated to monsters and know types of monsters from different parts of the world. In the background you can spot amusing looking characters and even Claude Rains' Invisible Man. It can't be said to be scary although it plays with gothic imagery, skulls, bats, graveyards and dark dungeons. More it is school comedy with romantic subplots with focus of importance of being unique and accepting flaws in self and others. Most of the humour relies on humorous puns, no headstone is left unturned for making jokes. There are monsterified versions of contemporary phenomena such as pop star Justin Biter and popular phone iCoffin. The characters have their own personalities, that are usual in high school stories (nice girl, energetic girl, smart girl, diva, bully boy, ladies man, sensible girl and so on) but with some playful upturning of expectations. The smartest girl is a zombie, vampire hates blood and so on. However the last half of the episodes begin to suffer, as many characters come and go, being on focus for just one episode. This is not necessarily the fault of the series, but the selection of episodes in the disc. Also the theme song begins to annoy at some point. Otherwise it is fairly fun comedy with adorable monster characters.

Rating: Good

Movie Review: Beautiful Creatures (2013)

Beautiful Creatures (2013)
Alcon Entertainment, Belle Pictures, Warner Bros. Entertainment, USA, 2013. 

Based on novel by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl. 

Smalltown boy Ethan Wate (Alden Ehrenreich) has a recurrent nightmare of following a girl and then dying. Gatlin is a boring and ultra-religious place and Ethan wants something else so he reads books to dream about faraway places. Unfortunately most books in the town are banned. He has a pretty but dull and bigoted girlfriend Emily (Zoey Deutch). New mysterous girl Lena (Alice Englert) arrives to school. Her ancestors are rumoured to be devil worshippers. When Lena's car brokes down, Ethan gives her a lift to her home. Lena recommends Charles Bukowski's books to Ethan (how charmingly decadent!). However the towners are certain that Lena's arrival means that something evil is happening. 

Ethan

Lena

Savannah (Tiffany Boone) and Emily

Ethan wants to know Lena better. Lena lives with her uncle Macon Ravenwood (Jeremy Irons) who writes books that the towners want to ban. Macon does not like that Lena is seeing a mortal boy. Also Librarian Amma (Viola Davis) warns Ethan about the girl. Weird stuff happens.

Macon

Amma

Weird stuff happens.

Actually the weird stuff is magic related, lightning storms arise, dining table turns into a merry-go-round and a cartoon-like mini-cloud rains on Ethan. Lena's family are Casters (politically correct version of witches). They also bake tasty cookies (no, really!).

Mmm. Tasty cookies

Ethan thinks it is cool (the spell casting part that is). Lena's family is not evil, but Macon's half-sister Sarafine (Emma Thompson) is. The Casters have to follow either Light or Dark path (hello Star Wars!) when they turn sixteen and a curse prevents them from freely choosing their path. Lena's cousin Ridley (Emmy Rossum) turned wicked and Lena fears that she will too. The curse can be avoided but with a heavy price.

Sarafine

Ridley

Teen fantasy film is quite entertaining with a nice touch of Southern Gothic with Civil War reenactments and shady Louisiana forests. Although it represents the same supernatural teen romance genre as "Twilight" it manages to avoid being overly sappy (although there is still plenty of teen soap opera) and it has a bit more edge with less puritanic characters than in Twilight. It has some nice literary references and encourages reading challenged books. Also there is a running joke about wrongly spelled movie titles. However it is not perfect and has some serious flaws. At some points it feels that it is making heavy short cuts and leaving something out of the book (which I haven't read). Some sideplots were suddenly abandoned and for example the book banning plot had little to do with the actual conclusion. There are numerous characters that we are getting too little information about. Who are all these people? Ridley is depicted as Siren, are the other Casters also mythological creatures? The middle point where Lena is reading a grimoire wastes too much time and the story grinds to halt. The finale was still quite interesting and the target audience of young adult fantasy stories should be happy. What is nice that the visual style looks good and acting is great. Jeremy Irons and Emma Thompson and always good and Emma Rossum was a good femme fatale. The young actors are have good chemistry and probably have shining careers in the future.

Civil War reenactment has an important role in the story.

For some reason the Finnish DVD added random Swedish words into the subtitles.

This is the last of the witch themed movie reviews for now. Next time something else.

Rating: Average

Starring: Alden Ehrenreich, Alice Englert, Jeremy Irons, Viola Davis, Emmy Rossum, Thomas Mann, Emma Thompson, Eileen Atkins, Margo Martindale, Zoey Deutch, Tiffany Boone, Rachel Brosnahan, Kyle Gallner, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Robin Skye, Randy Redd, Lance E. Nichols, Leslie Castay, Sam Gilroy, Cindy Hogan, Gwendolyn Mulamba, Cole Burden, Billy Wheelan, Christopher Darby, Bryan Adrian, Camille Balsamo, Tim Bell, John R. Bennett II, Camille Blouin, Noelle Boggio, Colby Boothman, Beau Brasseaux, Cameron M. Brown, Edward J. Clare, Lindsay Clift, Jacob Coco, Milton Crosby, Erika Erica, J.D. Evermore, Lucy Faust, Andrea Frankle, Emily D. Haley, Charles Hunt, John C. Klein, Cynthia LeBlanc, Elton LeBlanc, Ryan Chase Lee, Wanda Leigh, Ada Michelle Loridans, Jamie Mackey, Treston Miles, Jeffery Nowell, Philippe Radelet, Erin Rementer, Codie Rimmer, Annette Doucet Sharpe, Russ Skains, Kay Smith, Jim Sojka, Jordan Sudduth, Nathan Alan Thomas, Jackie Tuttle, Joseph Uzzell, Justine Wachsberger, Julia Faye West, Rachel G. Whittle, Teri Wyble 

Director: Richard LaGravenese 

Movie Review: Maleficent

Maleficent

Roth Films, Walt Disney Pictures, USA, UK, 2014.

Young fairy girl Maleficent (Isobelle Molloy) lives in peaceful fairyland of Moors. Young boy Stefan (Michael Higgins) tries to steal a jewel but he steals Maleficent's heart instead. When Stefan (Sharlto Copley) grows up he becomes ambitious and forgets Maleficent. King Henry (Kenneth Cranham) starts a war against the fairies. Maleficent (Angelina Jolie) and the elves fight back and drive away the humans. Stefan wants to be the next king so he betrays Maleficent. Stefan gets the princess and the kingdom. Maleficent grows bitter and wants revenge. 

Young Maleficent

Maleficent

Stefan

When Princess Aurora is born three amusingly inept fairies (Lesley Manville, Imelda Staunton, Juno Temple) bring gifts to her. Maleficent crashes the party and casts the Sleeping Beauty- curse. What then happens is quite different than in the original story. The three fairies raise Aurora but actually it is Maleficent and her raven Diaval (Sam Riley) who protect the child Aurora from hurting herself until the curse can take its place. When getting to know Aurora (Elle Fanning) better Maleficent wants to cancel the curse but it is already too late. 

Aurora

Thistletwit, Knotgrass and Flittle

Diaval and Maleficent

Reinterpretation of "Sleeping Beauty" is a charming fairy tale that makes an interesting twist to the well-known story. It is something Tim Burton could have made on his best days. The strongest role is Angelina Jolie's who ranges from wounded brave warrioress to mischievous evil witch to compassionate godmother. She is absolutely great and steals the show. The other actors do their best but are mainly supporting actors to Jolie's show. King Stefan becomes a Macbethian lunatic and Aurora is a sweet princess. The tone goes very emotional without forgetting humoristic reliefs obviously from the goofy three fairies but also dead-pan mirth from the raven-dude. It gives a good background story and motivation for one of the classic Disney villains, and also an alternative view of what happened. In the Disney style the fairyland has a population of happy and cute little creatures but also bigger and scarier creatures. It was also great how the bright and happy fantasy land turned darker when the curse was set. The effects are on par of the fantasy movie standard that "Lord of the Rings" has set, and so far it goes that couple of the wood fairies look like Ents. I also liked Lana Del Rey's version of "Once Upon a Dream" in the end.

Wood fairy

Rating: Very good

Starring: Angelina Jolie, Elle Fanning, Sharlto Copley, Lesley Manville, Imelda Staunton, Juno Temple, Sam Riley, Brenton Thwaites, Kenneth Cranham, Sarah Flind, Hannah New, Isobelle Molloy, Michael Higgins, Ella Purnell, Jackson Bews, Angus Wright, Oliver Maltman, Gary Cargill, John O'Toole, Harry Attwell, Anthony May, James Hicks, Stephan Chase, Mark Caven, Chris Leaney, Jamie Maclachlan, Shaun Smith, Vivienne Jolie-Pitt, Eleanor Worthington-Cox, John Macmillan, Tim Treloar, Peter G. Reed, Marama Corlett, Liam McKenna, Steven Cree, Janet McTeer 

Director: Robert Stromberg 

Movie Review: The Phantom of the Opera (1925/29)

The  Phantom of the Opera 

Universal Pictures, USA, 1925/29. 

Based on the novel by Gaston Leroux. 

This movie is part of Horror Classics 50 Movie Pack by Mill Creek Entertainment. The Mill Creek Version runs 107 minutes and it is the 1929 silent version without colour tinting.

The Paris Opera House built above old torture chambers and catacombs is sold to new owners. It is rumoured to be haunted by a phantom. The Phantom (Lon Chaney) occupies the opera box number five. The ballerinas get scared by a mysterious figure in the cellar. Joseph Buquet (Bernard Siegel) is the only one who has seen the phantom. The Phantom looks hideous and has no nose. The Phantom sends a letter where he wants singer Carlotta (Mary Fabian) to be replaced by Christine Daaé (Mary Philbin) or else. Carlotta's mother (Virginia Pearson who played Carlotta in 1925 version!) opposes but Carlotta fells suddenly "ill." 

The ballerinas get scared

Raoul

Christine

Raoul (Norman Kerry) wants to marry Christine but she wants to have a career in opera. The Phantom tells Christine that her success is his creation. Obey your Master! Next evening Carlotta defies the warnings and sings. Phantom's curse makes chandelier to fall down crushing some unlucky watchers. Masked Phantom invites Christine to visit the secret passages under the Opera House. The Phantom introduces himself as Erik and says that he loves her. Christine faints. 

The Phantom appears

Unmasking

Erik makes beautiful music and slowly Christine begins to like him. Despite warning Christine removes his mask and reveals his horribly disfigured face. Erik threatens to kill Christine if she sees Raoul again. However she secretly meets Raoul in masquerade and they plan to escape. Interestingly the masquerade scene is presented in colours. Also Erik participates the party dressed as Red Death (does anyone get some Edgar Allan Poe vibes?) and hears about the escape plan. Betrayed Erik goes into murderous mode using his oriental assassin skills. Luckily Secret policeman Ledoux (Arthur Edmund Carewe) knows some of the Phantom's secrets.

Red Death

Raoul and Christine

Ledoux

This is a great American silent movie horror classic. The ending is quite different than in the later adaptations, and compared to later films Erik looks the most horribly disfigured. In 1929 the film was re-edited and partly reshot to the version that is commonly seen. Also the 1929 version should be 96 minute (?) sound version of the film but oddly this Treeline/Mill Creek print is the silent version with re-edited footage. The 1929 version suffers from some overlong dance scenes and overall the direction is quite dragging. Lon Chaney's excellent performance and his effective makeup leaves the rest of the cast in his shadow. While I think that German horror films of the era such as "Nosferatu" and "Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" were artistically superior and better paced than "The  Phantom of the Opera", it is still an essential piece of film history. Also the film success and encouraged Universal Pictures to produce other legendary horror movies such as "Dracula", "Frankenstein" and The "Mummy."

Rating: Good

Starring: Lon Chaney, Mary Philbin, Norman Kerry, Arthur Edmund Carewe, Gibson Gowland, John St. Polis, Snitz Edwards, Mary Fabian (1929 re-edited version only), Virginia Pearson (1929 re-edited version), Olive Ann Alcorn, Joseph Belmont, Alexander Bevani, Earl Gordon Bostwick, Edward Cecil, Ruth Clifford, Chester Conklin, Roy Coulson, Bruce Covington, Ward Crane, George Davis, Madame Fiorenza, Cesare Gravina, William Humphrey, Carla Laemmle, Edward Martindel (1929 re-edited version), Grace Marvin, John Miljan, Templar Saxe, Rolfe Sedan, Bernard Siegel, William Tracy, William Tyroler, Vola Vale, Ellinor Vanderveer, Anton Vaverka, George B. Williams, Ed Wolff, Edith Yorke 

Directors: Rupert Julian, Lon Chaney, Ernst Laemmle, Edward Sedgwick

Movie Review: The Haunting (1999)

The Haunting 

DreamWorks SKG, Roth-Arnold Productions, USA, UK, 1999. 

This is a remake of he Haunting (1963). Both are based on the 1959 novel, "The Haunting of Hill House" by Shirley Jackson. 

Eleanor's a.k.a Nell's (Lili Taylor) mother dies and her sister Jane (Virginia Madsen) and Jane's boyfriend Lou (Tom Irwin) want to evict Nell. Dr. David Marrow (Liam Neeson) invites Nell to participate in an insomnia study. However the real purpose of the experiment is about studying fear reactions. Talk about ethics! 

Nell

Hill House

Dr. David Marrow

The experiments will be conducted in eerie Hill House. Mr. Dudley (Bruce Dern) and Mrs. Dudley (Marian Seldes) are the housekeepers who prefer to leave the house before it gets dark. Two other participants are Theodora (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and Luke (Owen Wilson). Nell is a very reserved person, Theo is flirty and Luke is easygoing. 

Theo

Luke

Mary

Dr. Marrow and his assistants Todd (Todd Field) and Mary (Alix Koromzay) arrive. The house was built by millionaire Hugh Crain who loved children but never got his own. However he was not as nice guy as it first seems. At night the house starts to make weird noises. Nell begins to unravel the mystery of the house. The ghost of Hugh is waking up but no one believes Nell until it is too late. 

Evil eyes

Wood carvings are scared too

Magic Fingers from Hell

I would like to compare this with the 1963 version, but I don't have it. This is the other haunted house movie remake released in 1999, the other being "House on the Haunted Hill". Both of them used CGI effects heavy-handedly. Neither of them are good, but both have some good parts also. "The Haunting" has nice gothic atmosphere and good cinematography in the first half. The mansion's interiors look nice and massive. However as a horror film it is weak.The film smells of having disagreements in production, as the plot makes some weird leaps and some ideas of the first half are abandoned. For example Dr. Marrow's experiment seems to be based only on a vague ghost story he tells to Luke. Also Theo suddenly turns from  posh vamp to action heroine.

The mansion looks great

The main star of the movie is Lili Taylor who plays well a fragile but determined woman. The other actors have little to do in the movie. Owen Wilson does not wander far from his usual buddy-roles, side-plot regarding Catherine Zeta-Jones's vampiness is abandoned after the start, Liam Neeson's psychiatrist character is a bit downplayed and the other actors just quickly pop in. 

Rating: Average 

Starring:  Liam Neeson, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Owen Wilson, Lili Taylor, Bruce Dern, Marian Seldes, Alix Koromzay, Todd Field, Virginia Madsen, Michael Cavanaugh, Tom Irwin, Charles Gunning, Saul Priever, M.C. Gainey, Hadley Eure, Kadina de Elejalde, Alessandra Benjamin, Karen S. Gregan, Brandon Jarrett, Mary McNeal, Bill Minkin, Alix Koromza 

Voices of: Debi Derryberry, Jessica Evans, Sherry Lynn, Miles Marsico, Courtland Mead, Kelsey Mulrooney, Kyle McDougle, Hannah Swanson, Travis Tedford 

Director: Jan de Bont