While Brian Dennehy’s Emmy-nominated turn
as Gacy in the TV movie To Catch a Killer (1992) is tough to beat, Forsythe’s portrayal of the sex- ually deviant murderer is definitely chilling. The veteran actor depicts the balance of Gacy’s con- genial everyman façade and underlying menace so well that at last year’s Rue Morgue Festival of Fear, he admitted that upon finishing the film he dyed his hair blonde and listened to The Beach Boys to cleanse himself of the role. This well-told and engaging straight-to-DVD
drama, which is further elevated by a convincing performance by Jesse Moss (particularly as Jason spirals out of control under Gacy’s hold), is creepily reflective of the characteristics of the killer himself: seemingly run-of-the-mill, surpris- ingly disarming and, at its heart, downright frightening.
TREVOR TUMINSKI TYPE JOE NEGATIVE
THE BLEEDING Starring Michael Matthias, Rachelle Leah
and Michael Madsen Written by Lance Lane Directed by Charlie Picerni Anchor Bay
Vampire movies tend to
break one of two ways. You either have the vampire as a beautiful, misunderstood, angst-ridden immortal in the treacly and nauseating tradition devolving from Anne Rice to Twilight, or the nastier, pulpier vampire-as- slobbering-foreign-predator that must be destroyed at all costs. I overwhelmingly prefer
the latter category of bloodsucker, which is why I was sort of excited to watch The Bleeding. With a box cover that unapologetically promises vam- pires, guns, muscle cars, hot chicks, tough guys, gore, gunfights and explosions, it seemed to be exactly what I wanted out of a vampire movie. What I got was a clumsy mess that plays out like a fusion of Blade and The Fast and the Furious, made by someone with a crippling addiction to all-man channel Spike TV. Michael Matthias, looking like something lipo-
suctioned out of Vin Diesel, stars as Shawn Black, an ex-Army Ranger seeking to avenge the death of his parents, who discovers in passing that he is – wait for it – a vampire slayer – the Chosen One who can defeat vampire king Cain (Vinnie Jones), no less. Do I really need to go on? So our hero lumbers from scene to discon-
nected scene, bumping into cameo appearances by a stable of has-beens, never-weres and what- the-fucks. Armand Assante mumbles his way through a part that has nothing to do with the movie while LA Inker Kat Von D displays the sort
of thespian chops one expects from someone who’s famous for having tattoos. Michael Mad- sen has a little more fun with the role of a gun-toting preacher, but never quite manages to make us forget that he’s probably being paid in booze. Nothing that happens onscreen
is adequately explained, though we are treated to tons of exposi- tion about events we never actually see, most of it de- livered in Matthias’ wooden, cliché-riddled voice-over. But the worst thing about
The Bleeding is that there was probably a truly kick-
ass B-movie to be had here, if only the film was more self-aware. Having sub- jected myself to the utter embarrassment of its execution, I’m ready to switch gen- ders, gain 70 pounds and spend my nights reading Stephenie Meyer books by the light of an open refrigerator, sobbing be- tween mouthfuls of cookie dough ice cream while staring at a fading pin-up of David Bore- anaz.
JOSEPH O’BRIEN OFFICE SPACE
INTERPLANETARY Starring Mia Frost, Kyle Holman and Michael Shelton
Written and directed by Chance Shirley Shock-O-Rama Cinema
Remember when you were a kid and you’d
pop a fishbowl onto your head to pretend that you were an astronaut? And the cardboard box that the new refrigerator came in was your spaceship? And a stick with some coloured tape
magically became a ray gun that could zap scary space aliens back to Planet Zero? Science fiction and horror usually blend in-
credibly well, but for every Aliens, there are 100 shitty movies like Screamers, and the discrep- ancy in quality is usually directly associated with the budget. Whereas high-budget films are typ- ically laden with glossy, eye-popping special ef- fects, cash-strapped ones generally rely on lo-fi feats of movie magic, hence fishbowl space hel- mets and cardboard ships. Interplanetary def- initely falls into the latter category, but don’t write it off just yet. Set on Mars, it follows
a group of nine men and women who operate an off-world administrative centre for an enigmatic company known as the Interplanetary Corpora- tion. Workdays consist of
the kind of stereotypical shenanigans featured in a Dilbert comic as the staff deals with redun- dant bureaucracy, satirical office politics and subordinate brown-nosing. But it all changes when one of them uncovers an ancient Martian artifact, à la Total Recall, and they suddenly find themselves deemed expendable by the Corpo- ration, which has been breeding a batch of nasty man-eating aliens in a nearby secret lab. Yes, it’s marred by lame sets and a rubber-
suited alien that looks like it walked off the set of a 1949 Hollywood creature feature, but Inter- planetary also has a lot of smart, witty dialogue, a solid storyline and some good gore effects, particularly when the alien goes on a limb-tear- ing, spine-ripping, head-crushing rampage. The unique blend of horror, action, sci-fi and comedy
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The Last Victim: Jason (Jesse Moss, right) in an intense tête-à-tête with John Wayne Gacy (William Forsythe).
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