Saturday

Dread

2009

A young student, Steve, becomes acquainted with an older student named Quaid, a sociopath who is obsessed with fear. Quaid performs experiments on people to see the results of forcing them to face their deepest fears.

Dread is based on a short story by Clive Barker, but it's an odd adaptation. For about the first third of the film it is almost completely faithful to the tone and content of its source, It establishes the exact same central premise described above, and uses the same two central characters, while elaborating on the original only to the extent necessary to create a feature-length film from a sketchy little story. Then, somewhere toward the middle of the film, the screenwriters decided that Barker didn't make the optimal use of his characters and his basic idea, so it spins the story off in a radically different, but equally horrifying direction.

There's a problem with that. Oh, there's no problem with changing the source. Poe's and Lovecraft's stories have formed the bases for plenty of movies which are only tangentially related to the original material, so there's no reason to expect different treatment for Barker, who is the Poe or Lovecraft of his own time. The problem resulted because the people making the changes failed to take into account that there's more to a good horror story than just the horrifying events. There can be, for example, a sense that the end of the story is somehow appropriate to the beginning. Barker had thought that though quite well. Quaid experiments on Steven, which drives Steven insane and, ultimately and ironically, forces Quaid to come face to face with his own fears, with extremely unpleasant consequences. Or is that what he had really wanted all along, at least on a subconscious level?

The movie goes in a completely different direction. Quaid remains in complete control throughout, and continues to torture people with their own fears until the bitter end, with the levels of depravity in his experiments continuing to escalate. In fact, the film ends with Quaid having been established as a potential horror icon, suitable for sequels and action figures. In other words, the film takes a thoughtful horror tale, kind of a Rod Serling story updated for our new era which has apotheosized sadism and torture, and turns it into a completely run-of-the-mill and trendy horror film which could be a Saw sequel with only some minor adaptations.

That's problem one. Problem two is that the film telegraphs its resolution to the audience in an extremely obvious manner, but doesn't allow its characters to see what is so patently clear to us. It should be completely obvious to the other characters in the film that Quaid is deeply disturbed and dangerous, yet they continue to associate with him and forgive him, as if his major displays of psychopathic behavior had been merely harmless examples of social faux pas, or perhaps manifestations of the marvelous diversity of the human race wherein friends forgive one another's petty eccentricities. If you or I had seen what they saw, we would have avoided Quaid after having see his extreme behavior. We might even have sought a restraining order if he continued to attempt to contact us. The other characters just seem to chalk his bursts of malevolence up to typical student hijinks, although perhaps a bit darker than the usual adolescent outbursts because of Quaid's troubled childhood. That isn't believable in context, and is just sloppy screenwriting.

And I guess you could say that it was also arrogant screenwriting, since the filmmakers decided to change what Barker had created, although the way Barker wrote it was perfectly fine to begin with! Oddly enough, the same thing happened with the first Candyman film, which was also based on a Barker story. While that earlier film had many positives, it also had gaping plot holes which were not present in the original story, but were created because the screenwriters tinkered with some details of the story without taking into account how the alterations would affect all the other details.

Although the Dread film does not succeed in terms of gripping storytelling or credible characterization, it does have some positives: grotesquely imaginative set pieces, a consistently ominous tone, and a few sequences with some genuine dramatic tension. Director Anthony DiBlasi did a significantly better job than screenwriter Anthony DiBlasi, so much so that I found myself impressed with the atmosphere created by the film, although I never really liked it or got into it.

  • Laura Donnelly (explanation: the character has a gigantic birthmark which covers the entire upper left side of her body)

 

  • * Yellow asterisk: funny (maybe).

  • * White asterisk: expanded format.

  • * Blue asterisk: not mine.

  • No asterisk: it probably sucks.

OTHER CRAP:

Catch the deluxe version of Other Crap in real time, with all the bells and whistles, here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The 1960s is the theme for this contribution.
 

Bye Bye Braverman

No nudity in Bye Bye Braverman (1968).

Phyllis Newman is in her underwear

Jessica Walter

and Zohra Lampert are some lovely eye candy.



 


Cleopatra

Cleopatra (1963) is the Elizabeth Taylor monstrosity. She looks good but I gather she was not most pleasant to work with.

No visible nudity by her

 

or some scantily-clad unknown dancers.


 


Flareup

The topless nudity in Flareup (1969) comes from some dancers.

Raquel Welch is also a dancer but the most we get is pokies and ample cleavage.

Kay Peters

and Sandra Giles are the eye candy.



 


Hot Rod Girls

I know almost nothing about Hot Rod Girls as it was an 'extra' on another DVD. No details were given nor are there any on the Internet. It might have even been made in the 50s, somebody might be able to tell from the cars. It has three girls breaking down in their car and so they get out to repair it. They then start taking off their clothes so they don't get dirty, as you do. The nudity is pasties only but it is an interesting clip.

 


Kiss Me Stupid

No visible nudity in Kiss Me, Stupid (1964)

Felecia Farr is hidden under a sheet.

Some lovely cleavage by Kim Novak.


 


Naked Moonshine

Naked Moonshine is another 'extra' on a DVD about which there is very little information. The story is about three girls who start making moonshine in their kitchen. This, of course, requires them to be topless.

Somebody has identified one of the women as Sharon Kent.


 


Our Man Flint

No nudity in Our Man Flint (1966) just lots of lovely women. They are:

Gianna Serra

Gila Golan

Helen Funai

Shelby Grant

and Sigrid Valdis, who some may remember from Hogan's Heroes.


 


The Speed Lovers

Again, no nudity in The Speed Lovers (1968). The lovely bikini-clad women are:

Carol Street

 

Peg O'Hara

and Sharon Sellinger

 There are some others who were named in the movie but were not mentioned in the  cast list.



 


Two Thousand Maniacs!

Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964) is a horror movie. Shelby Livingston is in her underwear.


The Wild Bunch

Plenty of breasts showing in The Wild Bunch (1969).

he only woman I could identify was Aurora Clavel

but there were quite a few more.


 



Tomorrow: more Silk Stalkings

 
 

A Dance to the Music of Time

1997

Claire Skinner film clip

samples below

 

Katy Cavanaugh film clip

samples below

unknown actresses film clips

samples below

 

 

 

The Killer Bra

2009

The Killer Bra is one of many shorts in Team Troma's 2009 DVD release, "Shameless, Tasteless: Trash Cinema From The Soviet Underground." Those titles pretty much tell the story.

Two young women fight over a bra at a store, and one is killed. The other one happily goes home with the bra.
Once home the girl finds the bra has a life and mind of it's own, as it seeks revenge for the victim by killing everyone in the apartment, one by one.

Silly but fun, it is exactly what it says: trash cinema.
 

Emily Dix Gergana Zabunova
 

Pics

A few caps/collages from film clips we've already seen

Heather Graham in The Hangover in HD

Paz de la Huerta in The Limits of Control

Arnelle Deutsch in Pigalle La Nuit S01E01 (720p)

Arnelle Deutsch in Pigalle La Nuit S01E01 (720p)

Sara Martins in Pigalle La Nuit S01E01 (720p)

Aude Pepin in Pigalle La Nuit S01E02 (720p)

Camille DePazzis in Pigalle La Nuit S01E02 (720p)

Marie Vinck in De Rodenburgs: Lien De Grave (720p)

 

Film Clips