Movie Review: EXTRAORDINARY TALES

Gkids
2013
NR

“I don’t want my work to be lost forever. My work is eternal. I want that eternity. I want to be sure my words will survive me, that they will never be lost in time.”

• Five of Edgar Allan Poe’s best-known stories are brought to vivid life in this visually stunning, heart-pounding animated anthology featuring some of the most beloved figures in horror film history.

Edgar Allan Poe. Any aspiring fan of the dark and morbid tales of yore know the name. I’m pretty certain that a collection of his short stories and poems are issued to you the moment you show any interest in the Goth subculture. I know I was. I remember the first time I encountered the stories of E. A. Poe: it was 7th grade Lit.*, and my teacher Mr. Wilberding describing the story of “The Tell-Tale Heart”. Of course, these stories are golden oldies trotted out every Halloween season; I, however, think that–like Halloween itself–these should be celebrated and read year-round.

Which brings us to the anthology movie Extraordinary Tales. This is a movie that takes five well-known Edgar Allan Poe** stories and animates them, each of them with a different animation style, and narrated by a different actor who has ties to the horror community as well. As a long-time horror enthusiast, I felt obligated to give this thing a watch.

There’s a wrap-around story involving a raven (of course) that supposedly represents the spirit of Edgar Allan Poe, having a bit of an existential discussion with a graveyard statue, worrying about whether his stories will live on long after he’s dead and gone. We then begin with “The Fall Of The House Of Usher”, which is narrated by the late, great Christopher Lee. The animation is flat, with CGI that looks like the finest a Playstation One game can provide. It’s not bad, just “eh”. The second story is “The Tell-Tale Heart”, which is narrated by none other than Bela Lugosi. How did this happen, you may ask? After all, as the song goes, Bela Lugosi’s dead. He’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead. A long time ago, I might add. Well, this sounds like an old recording he did reading the story, and the old lo-fi scratchy sound of the recording actually enhances the animation style employed on this one. “The Facts In The Case Of M. Valdemar” is a nice creepy and ghoulish tale that is narrated by Julian Sands, who was in the movies Warlock and Arachnophobia. This one’s animated style recalls the classic pulp comics, with the main character animated to look like Vincent Price. Neat. “The Pit And The Pendulum” is narrated by Guillermo del Toro, and if I have to explain who he is, you’re reading the wrong blog. The animation style is standard CGI, and to be forthright, this isn’t my favorite short story of his to begin with. I realize Edgar Allan Poe took liberties with historical accuracy with this story (who doesn’t, really), but the situations still make no sense to me no matter how many times I read this. The visuals here didn’t help things. And finally, we end with perhaps my favorite of all of Edgar Allan Poe stories, “The masque Of The Red Death”. Here, there’s no narration, but does feature the voice work of one Roger Corman as Prince Prospero, in the tale of the rich and prosperous locked inside a castle and partying while a nasty plague ravages the country. Given that I happen to be writing this at the height of the Coronavirus pandemic and all the panic that comes with it, this has the added bonus of being a bit close to home.

As adaptations go, they’re pretty standard. I should point out that the stories themselves were truncated, so you don’t really get the full stories. And neither do the adaptations have enough time to let the stories breath, like with Roger Corman’s famous adaptations from the 1960s. But, Extraordinary Tales works as a good perfunctory introduction to the works of one of the more legendary American authors of the Romantic Gothic period. And anything that works as a gateway drug to becoming a reading junkie gets my enthusiastic support.

[*kids, back then, that was short for “Liturature”, and not “exciting”, or “excellent”, although for nerds like myself, you might say Lit. class was actually “lit”]

[**you can’t just say “Poe”; you need to say his full name for full effect]

Movie Review: HELLBOY: The Golden Army

Universal
2008
PG-13

“It is all the same to me, my heart is filled with dust and sand. But you should know, it is his destiny to bring about the destruction of the Earth. Not now, not tomorrow, but soon enough. Knowing that, you still want him to live?”

• The mystical world starts a rebellion against humanity in order to rule the Earth, so as Hellboy, Liz and Abe return, they must save the world. Now…as the creatures who inhabit the spiritual realm gear up to unleash the legendary unstoppable Golden Army for an all out attack on the human plane, the only group capable of saving the Earth is a tough-talking hellspawn and his team…plus a new ally by the name of Johann Krauss.

Four years after the first Hellboy movie graced cinemas with a live-action version of Mike Mignola’s comic book creation, writer/director Guillermo del Toro brought us a sequel. It wasn’t supposed to take that long to make the sequel–the sequel itself was green-lit about a month after the first Hellboy was released. But, because of, shall we say, snafus, Columbia dropped the distribution rights, and was finally picked back up by Universal Studios, which, let’s face it, doesn’t always have the best interests in mind when it comes to their horror properties. But, at least it finally got made, and then released in 2008, a bit later than the projected 2006 date. Better late than never.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army, instead of featuring Nazis and mad scientists like the previous film, focuses the story on the dark roots of folklore and fairy tales, featuring some truly nightmarish yet utterly sympathetic enemies drawn from folk tales for the our heroes at the B.P.R.D. to go up against. Here, an elf prince is planning on breaking a Millennia-old truce between the humans and the magical creatures of myth and legend by reassembling the crown that controls the fabled Golden Army, something explained during the opening exposition dump flashback scene. He’s opposed by his twin sister, who escapes and seeks protection within the B.P.R.D. Meanwhile, Hellboy is having troubles of his own, both in his personal and professional life: His relationship with Liz is going through a rocky period, and due to some showboating during a recent incident involving tooth fairies, the Bureau’s brought in a specialist to keep him in check.

Personally, I enjoyed Hellboy II more than the first movie. Instead of just rehashing the plot of the first one, this one delved more into folklore and its horror roots, which I totally dig. The relationships between the main characters has advanced, further deepening the development. There’s a rather hilarious scene where Hellboy and Abe Sapien get drunk and bond over their individual relationship issues while playing cheesy love ballads. The movie also manages to make the antagonist a sympathetic character as well, providing depth and pathos to someone you know is doing something consider evil, but you can’t help but understand things from his perspective. The creature effects–and there are many–are top notch. But the best character of this movie happens to be the atmosphere and tone of the movie, which manages to attain that balance of horrorific yet whimsical that only del Toro seems to manage. Considering the film he made before Hellboy II was Pan’s Labyrinth, this seems the logical step for him to follow up.

Overall: If you’ve seen the first Hellboy, and haven’t seen this sequel yet, I am dumbfounded as to why not. Hellboy II: The Golden Army is a better sequel to an already great movie. If anything, rewatching this as much as I have, this just makes the fact that del Toro was never able to make the proper third movie in his Hellboy trilogy all the more tragic. Especially given what we got in its place. Highly recommended, this.

Movie Review: HELLBOY

Columbia
2004
PG-13

“Behind this door, a dark entity. Evil, ancient, and hungry.”
“Oh, well. Let me go in and say hi.”

• When a Nazi mystical experiment goes awry in 1944, the target of a wizard’s spell, the child of Satan, Hellboy, is wrenched from his home, and adopted by the U.S. agents who intercepted his arrival. Raised as a force of good, Hellboy grows up to be a full-fledged demon in the form of a man, complete with fierce red skin, a tail, a giant armored glove, and two large circles where his horns should be (if they ever grow back, Hellboy is quick to break them off). Now, the adult Hellboy, an investigator of the paranormal, is sent on a mission that brings him back in touch with the evil genius that started it all…that Nazi wizard. Accompanying him along the way are other agents, including Liz, a pyrokinetic woman Hellboy has feelings for, and Abe Sapien, a mysterious amphibian hominid…

Hellboy. Mmmm, Hellboy. Mike Mignola’s incredibly popular independent comic paranormal hero. Debuting in 1993, the various Hellboy comics told the ongoing tales of a half-demon paranormal investigator who was initially summoned from Hell by Nazis during World War II, but then rescued by Allied forces, and raised as a normal human boy by a professor, and now works for the United States Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, defending humanity against dangerous supernatural stuff.

Of course this would be perfect foder for Guillermo del Toro to make into a movie. And so he did, back in 2004.

2004 was a decent enough year for the comic book based movies. It gave us Hellboy, Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2, and in my not-so-humble opinion the best Punisher movie (change my mind). Hellboy was the first movie I went to see after getting back from being on the road for a month. It was much needed. And then I later went to see it again with Nex and Boz-Man. And I’ve been re-watching this ever since.

This 2004 Hellboy movie is near perfect. It effortlessly blends together Gothic atmosphere, horror, fantasy, action, and dark comedy in a way only del Toro can do. The cast is fantastic, giving life and personality to the characters: Ron Perlman, who was born to play the roll of the titular Hell Boy, the late, great John Hurt as his adoptive father and member of both the British Paranormal Society and the U.S. Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense, Doug Jones as Abe Sapien (with David Hyde Pierce voicing), Selma Blair as Hell Boy’s love interest and fire starter (twisted fire starter), Rupert Evans as Hell Boy’s assigned besty John Myers, and Karel Roden as Rasputin, that pesky Russian monk that is harder to kill than a cockroach. And let’s not forget Jeffrey Tambor as the put-upon director of the BPRD and cigar enthusiast.

The visuals are stunning. One might argue that the CG seems a bit cartoony; personally, I believe that enhances the comic book feel of the story. There’s a strong Lovecraftian element to the overall story that greatly appeals to me as a fan of the dark fantasy horror thing.

Overall: Hell Boy is a rare movie that manages to strike the perfect balance between being genuinely frighteningly horrific, while also being a touching character piece with some witty dialogue. In other words, it’s a Guillermo del Toro movie. I don’t know how he manages to do it, really. Forget that abomination that is the 2019 reboot. This is the only Hell Boy you need. Highly recommended.