Haeckel's Tale (2006, TV movie) - Another bland Masters entry

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Gothic elements fill this packed poster for John McNaughton's Haeckel's Tale

A man wishes his wife back from the dead, but his wish is stunted when he hears 'Haeckel's Tale', in which a curious young man discovers that the strange necromancer Montesquino can bring back people from the other side ...

 

Haeckel's Tale is written by Mick Garris (The Fly II (1989)), adapting a short story by Clive Barker (The Damnation Game (1985)) from anthology Dark Delicacies: Original Tales of Terror and the Macabre (2005), and directed by John McNaughton (Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)). It is part of Garris' Masters of Horror TV movie series as the 12th entry in the first of the show's two seasons.

Jon Polito (Son of Morning (2011)) is good (as always) as Montesquino in this adaptation that was supposed to be directed by George A. Romero. McNaughton seems unable to lift the task of making it come fully to life.

 

Related posts:

 

Other Masters of Horror TV movies: 2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

Fair Haired Child (2006, TV movie) - Malone turns out another weak Masters of Horror TV movie 

Dance of the Dead (2005) - Hooper's ugly Masters of Horror nonsense
Chocolate (2005) - Flavors, visions and eroticism in Garris' TV movie thriller
Deer Woman (2005) - Landis and son's solid Masters of Horror entry 
Cigarette Burns (2005) - Carpenter burns out in weird, tiresome TV movie   

 John McNaughton: Top 10: Best debut movies reviewed by Film Excess to date  

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986) - A deeply unsettling portrait 

 

McNaughton speaks about his films in an interview at Filmfest München from 2014 here

 

Cost: Unknown

Box office: None - TV movie

= Uncertain

[Haeckel's Tale was first shown 27 January (North America, Showtime channel) and runs 59 minutes. When Romero was unable to direct it as planned, Roger Corman was approached but also unavailable due to a health problem, and McNaughton was finally hired. Shooting took place in Vancouver, British Columbia. McNaughton returned with John from Cincinnati (2007, TV-series)). Steve Bacic (Killing Gunther (2017)), who plays the young man John Ralston, returned in Safe Harbor (2006, TV movie); Polito in Cutting Room (2006). 2,800+ IMDb users have given Haeckel's Tale a 6.1/10 average rating.]

 

What do you think of Haeckel's Tale? 

Death of a Salesman (1985), TV movie - Schlöndorff's great adaptation of Arthur Miller's masterpiece

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Dustin Hoffman as Willy Loman and John Malkovich as his son Biff on a DVD cover for Volker Schlöndorff's Death of a Salesman

QUICK REVIEW:

Farm-worker Biff returns home to visit his disappointed father, who is struggling with the bills and his sanity.

This Death of a Salesman adaptation is a CBS TV movie directed by great German filmmaker Volker Schlöndorff (The Tin Drum/Die Blechtrommel (1979)), based on playwright Arthur Miller's (A View from the Bridge (1955)) own teleplay adaptation of his legendary 1949 play of the same name.
The film presents great acting in every part: Particularly Dustin Hoffman (Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)), John Malkovich (Mulholland Falls  (1996)) and Charles Durning (Tootsie (1982)) as Willy's neighbor are eminent. Schlöndorff has staged the play with expansive, affecting colors and sets that enhance the super-reality of the stream-of-consciousness-based story. Miller's masterful script stands out as clear as lightning here as the almost unbearably intensive male tragedy that it is.
SPOILER Loman's death is, regrettably, inelegantly handled.
Still, Schlöndorff's film is a generally outstanding adaptation of one of the irrefutably best plays of all time.

Watch a student-made trailer for the film here, (an official trailer is not in Youtube currently)

Cost: 3 mil. $
Box office: Unknown 
= Unknown
[Death of a Salesman had its TV debut June 24 and runs 136 minutes. Hoffman was interested in mounting a movie adaptation with Miller's co-operation as writer-producer, and Schlöndorff was hired based on his expressionist ideas. The film came to be as the conclusion of the 1984 revival of the play on Broadway with most of the actors playing their characters again in the film. The film was made with the big screen in mind and shot in 20 days. Miller had been unhappy with the two previous adaptations of the play, but he was proud of this version. The film was shown theatrically in foreign countries and at several film festivals. You can read more of the making of the film in a New York Times article from the time of its making here. Hoffman won a Golden Globe for his acting in the film, and it also won 3 Emmys. Death of a Salesman is fresh at 100 % with an 8.4 critical average on Rotten Tomatoes, and 7,004 IMDb users have given it a 7.3 average rating.]

What do you think of Death of a Salesman? 

The Crow (1994) - Proyas' unpleasant, exploitative, shameless and ugly turkey

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+ 2nd Worst Movie of the Year

A foreboding poster for Alex Proyas' The Crow

The Crow is an adaptation of James O'Barr's 1989 comic book of the same name, written by John Shirley (Poltergeist: The Legacy (1996), TV-series) and David J. Schow (Critters 4 (1992)) and directed by Alex Proyas (Knowing (2009)).

One year after the murder of Eric Draven, a young rock musician, and his fiancée, he comes to life again because of a crow, who flies around the dreary metropolis and wants to avenge their deaths.

The Crow has been celebrated to a ridiculous degree, and it is also even getting a remake now. It is, to me, a wildly unpleasant and poor film. Considering the three highly dubious, main talents behind it listed above, it is not so very strange, I think.
It only heightens the unpleasantness of the film for me that its talented star Brandon Lee (Legacy of Rage (1986)), - the son of Bruce Lee (Fist of Fury (1972)), - was killed in a weapon's accident on the Crow set: A weapon was not properly checked before use, and Lee was shot in the abdomen, which caused his death. - Something that, of course, should never be able to happen. Still the death was ruled an accident, no-one was deemed liable, and the film was completed with a double, rewrites and some CGI covering up for Lee's absence. The film's studio Paramount wanted out of The Crow due to the death of its star and violent material, and Miramax instead went in and injected 8 mil. $ to finish the film.
- But, paradoxically, it seems that the reception of the film at the time and the its cult following since have embraced Lee's death and consider the awful Crow a more profound film because of it.
Nothing could, however, be farther from the truth.

The details:

The Crow is a cheap-looking, shameless exercise in exploitation of the teenage crowds of its time; it is a world-weary concoction, draped in goth- and grunge styles and music. This isn't just the epitome of 'the ugly 90s', it is also a badly written film, populated almost solely with unpleasant characters with few individuating traits, who all scream and swear continuously. It's filled with unpleasant violence and the occasional, more or less motivated explosions. And it's nearly always night in the Crow universe, and mostly raining as well, so that the general atmosphere and what you take from the film is simply just a heady mix of depressing garbage, all in all.
The production budget was essentially too little for this type of film, because the lack of funds and mismanaging of the funds they did have, give it a cheap look: We understand that it takes place in a major city, - but we only see very little of it, and there are never many people out. The lack of extras is a mystery: In the big city of The Crow, we don't just happen to meet the same 10-15 characters over and over again, - no, they genuinely seem to be the only ones there! - Because Proyas and co. neglected to make the city look alive. 
Lee's death was also partly due to the fact that the weapons' handling was put in the hands of an assistant, instead of the expert, who was send home, probably to save money. - Cheap, cheap cheap. The Crow reeks of cheap, repugnant movie-making.
The Crow is one-dimensional, weltschmerz-laden, ugly, pointless film-making. And it's is such a shame that Lee should end his far too young life on such a tawdry production.
If you decide to watch the film anyway, you might notice that The Dark Knight (2008) seems, oddly, to have been inspired by The Crow, as some designs (namely Lee's make-up, which is very similar to that of Heath Ledger's Joker, but also some masks in the film) and visuals are very similar in the infinitely superior Batman movie.

 

Related post:

 

1994 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

 

Brandon Lee in a still from Alex Proyas' The Crow - R.I.P.

Watch the trailer for the film here

Cost: 23 mil. $
Box office: 94 mil. $
= Big hit
[The Crow opened #1 in the US with 11.7 mil. $, - successfully tapping into the badly clad youths of the time, - and grossed 50.6 mil. $ (54 % of the total gross) in North America. It was even praised by scores of populist and/or drowsy critics.]

What do you think of The Crow?