The House of the Devil

I've always been a sucker for horror movies from the 1970's.

The Exorcist, The Omen, Halloween...

Each of those movies had something that's usually missing in modern-horror films: tension and atmosphere.

So when a modern horror movie is actually able to hearken back to those better times, I make it a point to check it out.

Such was the case with The House of the Devil, which aired on HDNet Movies last Wednesday night before getting a very limited release in theaters this weekend.

The House of the Devil was made by Ti West, a low-budget director (The Trigger Man, Cabin Fever 2) who obviously feels the same way I do about horror movies. There must be loads tension and atmosphere, and West gives us just that during the first hour of his film. He also sets the film in the early 80's, a time when horror movies just felt smarter and people were less connected. IE, no cell phones.

The plot is simple and doesn't try to be original. A girl named Samantha (Jocelin Donahue, a dead ringer for Kate Bosworth), who needs money to move out of her shitty dorm and into an apartment, responds to an ad for a babysitter. But the job turns out to be something totally different than she originally thought. Turns out the Ulmans (Tom Noonan & Mary Woronov with their creep-o-meter jacked up) don't have a child, at least not one who needs babysitting. Instead, they want Samantha to watch over his mother.

Samantha almost leaves when she's thrown the curveball, but the Ulmans raise the rate, and money-hungry Samantha can't resist. "I'll basically get $400 for just watching TV", she tells her friend, Megan (Greta Gerwig), who's given her a ride to the house. After all, mother is said to be sleeping.

But is mother really sleeping? Is there even a mother at all? And is it a coincidence that all this is happening during a lunar eclipse?

Sounds like it could be the plot of any horror movie from the last 30 years, right?

But the difference with The House of the Devil is the execution. Pretty much nothing happens during the film's first hour. OK, something shocking does happen about twenty minutes in, and it's enough to keep us glued to the screen for the remainder of the slow build-up. And thankfully, Donahue is appealing enough to keep us entertained as she huffs her way through the house with boredom and then starts to get creeped out the longer she's in the house.

But other than one good shock and a slow middle portion, it's really just a set-up for the film's final twenty-five minutes.

And when those final twenty-five minutes arrive, you'll realize why the wait was worth it.

I also won't spoil any of the surprising details.

The House of the Devil transports viewers back to a simpler time when horror movies were smart and left the viewer on edge for long periods of time instead of trying to make them jump in their seats with loud noises and false alarms.

It might be a challenge to find the movie, but if you do, you can thank me later.

Baltimore deserves new arena -- and possibilities that come with it

It's not me, it's you.

I've been on a new arena kick lately, as the plans for a new Baltimore arena have been caught up in the red tape that seems to cover all of downtown.

The plans do seem to be moving along, albeit at a snail's pace, at least according to my old friend Chris Stoner's blog, Baltimore Sports & Life. But there's no denying that this new arena talk seems trapped in suspended animation.

I'm all for a 18-20K seat arena built at the current site of the First Mariner Arena. The light rail and metro subway already service the location and the proposed Red Line (I call it the Red Tape Line) would run close by.

And even though tearing down the First Mariner Arena would force out the arena's current tenants, most notably, the Baltimore Blast, I say it's high-time that Baltimore got a new arena. Besides, the Blast draw approximately 7K per game and the Towson Center at Towson University holds 5K. Cole Field House at the University of Maryland is currently sitting vacant and can accommodate many more fans.

The First Mariner Arena is 47 years old. It's a relic. Dozens of arenas across the country have been built and demolished during that time, and yet ours keeps chugging along, seemingly indestructible. It's actually still a profitable asset for the city, much in the way that an old car is still profitable for a driver. No car payments, great, but the gas mileage sucks.

The First Mariner Arena still attracts some decent concerts and other events. But it is what it is. A 11,000 seat dinosaur. With a stage.

A new arena would do so much more for the city, starting by helping revitalize the west side of downtown Baltimore. The Hippodrome remodeling project went a long way to restore the west side's past high-class heritage, but the sudden downturn in the economy froze the remainder of that urban renewal project.

That's where a new arena comes in. It gives local businesses a shot in the arm. It brings in people who spend money in a neighborhood that looks more like a ghost town than a downtown. It'll force crime out of the area with more police patrol and security guards. It'll attract more homeowners to the area.

And it'll do what a new arena does best -- bring more top-tier events to Baltimore.

NCAA Tournament games. Better concerts. And dare I say, it might even attract a troubled NBA or NHL team.

You say the NBA or NHL will never work in Baltimore? Well, I'm tired of Baltimore being told that they can't have this or that.

After the NFL went out of their way to deny Baltimore a football team throughout the 80's and 90's, I've become greedy when it comes to my city. We should have it all. A comprehensive mass-transit system, a state of the art arena, and NBA and a NHL team, if we want one.

Yeah, I said it.

Google "Baltimore NHL or NBA team" and listen to people say it won't work. That we're too close to Washington DC or Philadelphia.

Pfft.

They said the same thing when we were trying to bring an NFL team back to Baltimore. Yet the Ravens have sold out every single game since they moved into M&T Bank Stadium.

That's right. Every. Single. Game.

Even with the Redskins 40 miles down the road and the Eagles 90 miles to the north. Oh and with more Steeler fans in the area than imaginable. Even with all that going against her, Baltimore still supports her own.

And I believe she'd be able to support an NBA or NHL team without a problem.

Baltimore is the 20th biggest city and metro area in the United States. It's one of the most affluent metro areas in the country. It has some of the country's biggest employers located within or near its borders. Social Security Administration, Johns Hopkins University, T. Rowe Price.

Baltimore can support at least one more pro team, if not two. All it takes is a new arena.

Build a new arena and Baltimore instantly becomes a contender for relocation the next time a NHL team in Phoenix or Nashville or an NBA team in New Orleans or Memphis has trouble at the gate.

Like they say in the movies...If you build it they will come.

But even without a NHL or NBA team, a new arena still makes sense for the city.

I'm just tired of being told we can't have what we want...what we deserve.

And Baltimore deserves a new arena and the possibilities that come along with it.

Don't you agree?

Trick r Treat

I always wondered why there aren't more Halloween-themed horror movies.

One thing that I loved about the original Halloween was the idea that all of it was taking place on Halloween night. Trick or treaters were out on the street, parties were taking place all over town, and yet in the middle of all that commotion, someone was being stalked by a behemoth in a William Shatner mask.

But despite the built-in creepy factor of movies set during Halloween night, there aren't many movies that take place during the holiday. Most horror movies are set around generic teenage rituals like the prom, a random house party, a school event, or nothing in particular at all. Hell, even the lamer-with-each-installment Halloween sequels and remakes are released at the end of summer (!) instead of being released at uh...Halloween?

Thankfully, Michael Dougherty (Superman Returns, X-Men 2) understood the need for movies taking place on Halloween night and made Trick r Treat. But the road from production to release was not an easy one. Maybe studio heads have something against Halloween-set horror movies. Who knows?

Trick r Treat was filmed and completed way back in 2006 and was originally intended for an October 2007 release. For whatever reason, Warner Bros. pulled it from that release date, perhaps fearing the stranglehold that the Saw films had on October release dates. But then 2008 came and went and still no release date was announced.

Finally, Trick r Treat saw its release come in the form of direct-to-video earlier this fall, something that's usually foreshadows a movie's quality. Meaning, there is none.

But Trick r Treat could quite possibly be the best direct-to-video movie of all time. And it still baffles me how studio heads could let this film, with its Halloween antics, fall through the cracks without an October theatrical release.

The film is an anthology, much in the vein of the Creepshow movies, or Tales from the Crypt. There are several stories being told at once, and sometimes they cross paths. This just adds to the feeling that there is a lot going on this Halloween night.

I won't say too much about the plot of each story because they are best to be discovered on your own, and much of the fun is seeing where they bleed into one another and how a character from one story shows up in another. But I will say that each story hearkens back to the days of childhood, where a scary story could terrify you, and keep you wanting more, all at once.

As for Halloween as a holiday, Dougherty nails it. He litters each scene with creepy Halloween imagery, be it dozens of glowing Jack-O-Lanterns, fog, leaf blown streets, a party in the woods, or an abandoned rock quarry. The film just oozes Halloween at every turn.

Surprisingly, some familiar faces also show up in the film. Brian Cox (Troy, The Bourne Identity), Anna Paquin (True Blood) and Dylan Baker (Spider-Man 2) all have major roles. And for a movie that was kicked to the direct-to-video curb, the film looks great. At no point do you feel like you're watching a low-budget horror movie. This is the real deal, folks.

So, unless your reading comprehension is pre-school level, I absolutely loved Trick r Treat. It could quite possibly be the best Halloween movie of all time, behind the original Halloween, of course.

Did I really just buy that?

I finally bought a Blu-Ray DVD player recently, after waiting out the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray war. So this past weekend, I decided to buy a good BR disc, one that would show off my new 7.1 Dolby Digital set-up as well as display a razor sharp image.

And as fate would have it, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was just released on DVD. So I bought it, knowing ahead of time that it would be a big dumb movie with lots of special effects. I also enjoyed the first movie a little more than I should have, and also have it on DVD, so what the hell.

I turned down my IQ-o-meter before throwing the disc into my DVD player and sat back ready to be entertained for 147 minutes.

Wait, 147 minutes? Are you kidding me?

Sadly no. And that is Revenge of the Fallen's major flaw -- it's just too damn loaded with nothingness. Sitting through this movie was like going to McDonald's and forgoing a combo meal for five milkshakes. You'll feel bloated when it's all over and done with, but you won't have any pleasant memories of the experience, and you'll be hungry for some sustenance in no time.

But that's what Michael Bay is, right? A flashy director who does and says nothing with his movies? I enjoyed his Bad Boys films, The Rock, and I'll even admit that Pearl Harbor isn't as bad as people make it out to be.

But even Bay reached a new low with Revenge of the Fallen.

Whereas the original Transformers movie was in itself a very bloated movie, it at least told a simple story that was pretty easy to follow. At its heart, it was a movie about a teenager and his first car. Everyone can understand that, right?

Well, in this movie, Bay and the film's writers, Ehren Kruger, Roberto Orci, and Alex Kurtzman (look up those guys on IMDb and be amazed at the movies they've written that haven't sucked) decided to throw the "less is more" mantra out of the window at the outset of production.

Not only does Shia LeBeouf's Sam Witwicky go to college in this film, he deals with his long-distance relationship with Mikaela (Megan Fox), he meets a new girl who may not be human, meets his comedic "relief" roommate, deals with his parents' separation anxiety, gets implanted with random robot knowledge, gets transported to Egypt, dies, and comes back to life.

That also doesn't factor into lots of screen time for the various military characters who are all brought back, and about a dozen expository speeches about Transformer-lore complete with flashbacks. None of it, however, makes any sense.

Oh, and then there are a couple of action sequences where you can't figure out what the hell is happening.

But maybe that was my problem...that I went into this movie expecting to watch an actual movie. Maybe I should have just skipped from scene to scene, jacked up the volume, and been blown away by the movie's awesome technical specs, which is the only thing it has going for it.

The movie is filmed in 5.1 True HD Dolby Digital, and it sounds...well, there hasn't been a word invented yet to describe the sound. Even if the movie did suck ass, it was at least a good movie to introduce me to the world of Blue-Ray. The visuals are just as impressive, with certain scenes filmed in an IMAX-mode, which ditches the black bars at the top and bottom of the screen and the picture gets, believe it or not, sharper.

So all in all, I guess it gets balanced out. I will never watch Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen from start to finish ever again. But I will put it in my DVD player from time to time and get blown away by the crazy-good A/V specs.