Ray Liotta in a role that will surprise you.

Breaking Dumb.

THE CURSE OF LA LLORONA is not one of those horror movies where the first Act is ominous and it falls apart as it reels toward a dumb climax; no, this movie breaks dumb from its opening frames, with the very event that defines its curse – in 1673, a Mexican mother drowns her two children, after discovering her husband is having an affair—wait, wouldn’t it make more sense to drown your husband? Or even his lover? We shake our head and continue… it seems this curses the woman to roam the Earth as a ghost in a wedding dress (reason? No reason), seeking out other children to drown (reason? No reason).

There are many variants of this tale, but this is the version they present here. Apparently, Mexican mothers scare their children with La Llorona to keep them indoors.

LOS ANGELES 1973: Linda Cardellini is widowed social worker Anna, with two young kids Chris (Roman Christou) and Sam (Jaynee-Lynne Kinchen). Anna is sent to check on a mother whose kids have been missing school, and discovers the Mexican mother, Patricia (Patricia Velasquez), has locked the boys in a closet, claiming she is protecting them from a “weeping woman.” The kids are taken to hospital, the mother to a holding cell.

Later, Patricia’s kids are found drowned. Patricia blames Anna, and will later admit that she prayed to La Llorona to bring her own boys back and take Anna’s children instead. Oh, so the ghost answers prayers, as Llorona starts terrorizing Anna’s kids immediately, with every horror movie cliché ever: thumps, dripping water, cracked mirrors, dark rooms, orchestra stabs, wrist grabs, door slams, doors ajar, doors flying open, appearing around corners, through windows, at bath time; able to teleport, yet has trouble with locked doors…

Father Perez (Tony Amendola, from ANNABELLE, which is in THE CONJURING Universe) recommends Anna hire an ex-priest, Rafael (Raymond Cruz – Tuco from BREAKING BAD!) to sort out her supernatural meth cooking—I mean, occurrences.

•  There is contention on whether this movie IS, in fact, part of THE CONJURING universe, because its own director, Michael Chaves, denies it. Which raises the question: Is Father Perez here because he’s connecting the universes, or because there are No More Fucken Actors?
• Also: Rafael is an EX-priest and is now a shaman because…? Jesus was too weak, and the pagan arts are stronger against evil?

Yet even the intensity of Tuco can’t save this jumpscare slop. Maybe if he didn’t keep changing his story: at first, he says La Llorona has “attached herself to your family, not your house,” and then goes about guarding the house with his shaman talismans – eggs and rice and beans and oils – wait, is he purifying the house or cooking breakfast?

His efforts don’t seem to matter either way, as Llorona isn’t too focused on her job of drowning Anna’s kids. She physically puts her hands on Anna’s little girl, Sam, in the bathtub, starts drowning her – and then just stops; she grabs the children and flings them across rooms, then lets them run away; she winds down windows and slams doors and appears in any room they are in, yet never gets around to finishing the job. And despite all of Tuco’s amulets and incantations, Llorona just wanders the house freely, turning up in rooms protected by Tuco’s breakfast like none of it means squat.  Tuco says “the light keeps her away,” so lights hundreds of candles – which Llorona simply… blows out. (How about turning on an electric light, Edison?). No rules, no logic, no investment – it’s magic who cares fuck you.

LA LLORONA is produced by horror wonderboy James Wan, who brings along his eerie composer Joseph Bishara, but new writers Mikki Daughtry and Tobias Jaconis are not doing these veterans any favors, simply copying and pasting from Horror For Dummies.

This movie’s R-rating is solely due to the fact that children are imperiled. No swearing, nudity, or Disney messaging. A more horrifying plot would’ve been the social worker’s kids being run through the same system that the social worker puts other people’s kids through. When Llorona grabbed Anna’s boy, she left marks on his wrist, and Anna was investigated by her own company. There was no follow-through after Anna hired Tuco, but imagine if the filmmakers had followed that throughline – a hard X rating for Adult Bureaucracy, Psychologically Detrimental, and definitely Imperiling Children like no ghost could possibly imagine.

END

Bloody Hell!

There is one very provocative idea in DRACULA 2000 – all the rest is crap. The crap goes like this: In 2000, Dracula comes to New Orleans seeking the daughter of Van Helsing. Bland action movie ensues. Only redeeming factor is that every chick is groin-achingly hot.

The provocative idea is that Dracula is not a warrior impaler or a Count from Transylvania – he is the Apostle Judas Iscariot! More on this awesome audacity in a minute…

Gerard Butler is Dracula, Christopher Plummer is Van Helsing and Jonny Lee Miller is Van Helsing’s assistant, young action hero Simon.

Watching this movie in 2011 is confusing because we find ourselves rooting for the wrong stars, whose fortunes have seesawed since its release in 2000. Back then, Jonny Lee Miller was the hotboy, coming off the mind-scarring TRAINSPOTTING (1996) and the Victorian impertinence of PLUNKETT & MACLEANE (1999); while Gerard Butler was a handsome nobody with chiseled abs. Now Butler is the battle-worn Spartan, the Romantic Lead, the Man’s Man; while Miller has virtually abandoned the movie scene, slowly receding into TV wasteland, along with his hairline.

So when Miller pulls the action hero stunts here, snidely quips and turns up just in time to save damsels, we imagine Butler’s Dracula is going to make quick mincemeat of him and get down to the business of making women swoon with his Scottish brogue and chiseled abs. But Jonny gets the girl!

Van Helsing (Plummer) explains how he has tried for 100 years to kill “he who cannot be killed,” keeping himself alive by injecting himself with small doses of Dracula’s immortal blood. That’s why Dracula wants Van Helsing’s daughter, Mary (Justine Waddell) – she has vestiges of his blood in her. (Which makes us wonder, Why then, doesn’t he also want Van Helsing as another Teen Member of his Scooby Wagon? Sure, he wants to court Mary like a sensual lover, but both Mary and Van Helsing are equally repulsed by Dracula – why concentrate on bringing just the girl around? It’s probably easier to convince the old man to become a vampire, with promises of lustful tribades at his feet.)

To escape traps, Dracula can turn into a wolf, a bunch of tiny bats, or even liquid nitrogen fog. We are told how he detests all things Christian, like holy water, the crucifix and the Bible (Hey! *I* detest all things Christian too! Does that make me a vampire? How cool!), yet Simon cannot figure how silver – which kills vampires – figures into the equation.

Simon meets and vows to protect the perfect-featured Mary, who asks him, “Why are you doing this?” Oh, I dunno – maybe cos you’re hotter than a docker’s armpit! (Like any action hero, I sorely doubt he would be as protective of a 350-lb moose-face.)

When they confront him, Dracula fills in the Apostle backstory – and it’s the only interesting, original moment in the movie, as we see a flashback of Dracula as Judas at the Last Supper, then hanging himself, his 30 pieces of silver falling from his purse (SILVER!). As his body hangs in the noose – his eyes snap open.

Any Dracula aficionado will recognize familiar names and events at every turn, slightly tweaked to fit this bland reimagining; in lieu of storytelling, co-writers Joel Soisson and Patrick Lussier (also director) try to distract us with hotties at regular intervals, baring their fangs and promising to suck us dry – Jennifer Esposito‘s tousle of ass-length curls, Jeri Ryan‘s tight, voluptuous curves, Colleen Fitzpatrick‘s blond abandon, not to mention Justine Waddell’s innocent spinner schoolgirl smoothness. Does it work? What was the question again?

For someone who can’t be killed, Dracula is killed pretty easily, as he hangs by a cord from an arthouse crucifix, not dying, but not doing anything to escape either. Hey buddy, how about turning into those little bats or something? Nope – he just hangs there watching the sun rise, and dies flaming on like the Human Torch under its rays. It’s a long road to Sparta.

END

Doubtin’ The Fountain.

Raving beauty, rabid camera angling and startlingly somber performances almost save this movie from its own convoluted and ambitious storyline spiraling down the artsy-fartsy toilet.

The trailers for THE FOUNTAIN were extremely well done and conveyed the hero (Hugh Jackman) as traveling through time, pursuing his true love across the ages (Rachel Weisz) – then I watched the movie… and I lost track of which flash-forward was which time-backward in the first flash-sideways… so I read Roger Ebert’s review for a smidgen of probable comprehension and apparently, the movie is about one time-frame with two other “fantasies” piggybacking off the reality of the main story….

Er… then, uh…. Sigh.

If my description confuses you – wait till you see the movie.

Written by Darren Aronofsky and Ari Handel, and directed by Aronofsky, the “realistic” thread is the story of a scientist (Jackman) trying desperately to discover a cure for the necrotic effects of a brain tumor on his wife (Weisz). While she dies daily before his eyes, he loses his own health and sleep experimenting on apes.

Weisz keeps a diary concerning some mythical Fountain of Youth, which Jackman’s other characters pursue in other realities. I’m sure that the metaphors of the “imaginary” realities are profound, but it will require more than one viewing and about ten viewings of the “Making Of” reel to untangle those metaphors. The three “realities” are linked by the two main protagonists appearing as various characters in those realities; Jackman as a conquistador, Weisz as a Spanish queen, Jackman as a shaved-headed recluse in a space-bubble – wha-? I’m telling ya, this thing is WEIRD with a capital D.

It would be easy to dismiss THE FOUNTAIN as a failure, but then we are haunted by the fact that in misunderstanding Aronofsky’s vision or depth, we’ll be called ersatz reviewers and never be invited to another SPIDER-MAN screening.

Reviewer James Berardinelli hits the perfect note in describing the film thusly: “There’s little doubt this is an ambitious effort, but one can argue that Aronofsky’s vision has exceeded his ability to bring it to the screen within the allotted running time.”

This cucumber concurs, Mr. Berardinelli.

END