threadbare earnestness is often lost in the script’s glee at skewering every possible genre convention. Should the lost skeleton arise for a third go ’round, a more subtle, bare-bones approach might make a big difference. PAUL CORUPE
WOOKALARMING
SQUEAL Kevin Oestenstad, Allison Batty and Stephen Dean
SPECTRE SPLINTER UNIT
GHOST HUNTERS INTERNATIONAL Starring Robb Demarest, Andy Andrews and Barry Fitzgerald
SyFy Overwhelmed by fascinating
reports of ghosts from around the globe, Grant Wilson and Jason Hawes, founders of The Atlantic Paranormal Society (TAPS) and stars of the original Ghost Hunters, dispatch a sec- ond unit – Ghost Hunters Inter- national – from their Rhode Island headquarters to investi- gate. From Chillingham Castle, purportedly England’s most haunted, to Citadel Râsnov, deep in the heart of Transylva- nia, the new team, led by Robb Demarest, travels to three dif-
ferent continents to check out allegations of ghosts and ghouls wherever they go bump in the night. As with the original Ghost Hunters, the team approaches their
work with as much scientific rigour as the field allows; even without their down-to-earth founders, they exude the same healthy scepti- cism that made the original show the cream of the spook-seeking crop. They’re not actors, which makes the obviously scripted parts of the show slightly awkward, but luckily these are kept to a mini- mum, and they’re both watchable and likeable when they’re simply doing their jobs. Using electronic voice phenomenon (EVP) recorders, heat-sensi-
tive cameras, and plain, old-fashioned common sense in some cases, the team often debunks “haunt- ings.” For example, one video of two glowing figures, captured on camera in the 1990s, is debunked when a team member dons a shellsuit and proves that the reflective material (at the same alley location, and on the same camera, no less) produces precisely the same effect. As always, the team eschews dodgy psychics and Grand Guignol-style spiri- tual melodrama for hard evidence. The first season of Ghost Hunters In-
ternational covers an intriguing selection of spooky yarns, from the grisly tale of Reichenstein Castle in Ger- many (involving a decapitated nobleman), to the Italian abbey of Lucedio, purportedly the site of centuries of satanic activity ignored or covered up by the Church. Paranormal reality TV is a very mixed bag, but this spin-off proves that Ghost Hunters continues to be, by far, the best of the bunch.
CLAIRE HORSNELL RM78 C I N E M A C A B R E
Directed by Tony Swansey Written and directed by Tony Swansey and Dennis Doornbos E1
Thirty years ago, a Don Knotts/Tim Conway murder mystery comedy
called The Private Eyes introduced the world to the wookalar: a green- skinned monster with the body of a man and the face of a pig that can suck your brains right out of your nose. While there have been movies about giant pigs (Razorback, Hogzilla, Pig Hunt, the upcoming Chaw), killers in pig masks (Motel Hell, Saw) and films where people are eaten by pigs (Pigs, Evilspeak, Hannibal), the wookalar gets no love. Currently, the closest thing we’ve
got to cinema du wookalar is Squeal, a no-budget torture porn flick where the twist is that the killer is a half man/half pig genetic experiment, which the prologue tells us escaped from the operating table. Then we meet our six victims, the members of a band – plus manager and groupies – on their way to a gig. They get lost in the country, their ride breaks down, and they yell at each other non-fucking stop – because that’s what constitutes drama when amateur actors are saddled with cliché characters in a lazy script. Things should get a lot more fun when the backwoods bacon-Bubba kidnaps ’em, but they don’t. Now they yell at each other while in cages and we wait for them to die in exactly the order you’d expect, with the biggest asshole first on the chopping block. A pig-man butchering humans could’ve made for an ironic torture
porn twist, but Squeal is absolutely humourless. Huge mistake. Al- though he’s occasionally frightening, the rest of this uninspired slog is either goofy or boring, right down to his unexplained pig-wife and pig-son (played by a little person instead of an actual child), who likes to wear clown makeup. Even as a gore show the film fails by going cheap on the effects.
One character is strung up and gutted, but the filmmakers don’t have the resources to do the effect properly, so they show it from behind. Weak. It’s impossible to give a snort about Squeal. But by hook or by crook,
one day we’ll get our wookalar movie, even if I have to make it my- self!
DAVE ALEXANDER ALICE IN CHAINS
THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ALICE CREED Starring Gemma Arterton, Martin Compston and Eddie Marsan
Written and directed by J Blakeson Anchor Bay
You’ll notice right off the bat that something is amiss here. Alice
Creed has not disappeared at all, she’s right there, on the poster as the star of the film. Alice being Bond Girl Gemma Arterton (Quantum
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