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used to be common knowledge that a first time
filmmaker required a foolproof genre in order to
make his first film, insuring investors on some
kind of return on their gamble. The model used to
be people like George Romero with "Night
of the Living Dead", Tobe Hooper with
"The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", John
Carpenter with "Halloween"
and Sam Raimi with "The
Evil Dead". This model held up due to the
need for product, any product to fill the weather-beaten screens of the old drive-ins.
Quality was far from the point here, these films
were only required to fill 2 dimensions: screen
space and screen time, acting as dividers for ads
featuring dancing hot dogs.
The drive-in has been dead a
long time now, and home video did not really
replace it, since that market always placed
hopeful horror
Indies
like "Bad Taste" on the rack next to
something starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. As a
result, the drive-in films, both drecks and cult
classics, had to duke it out in the mainstream
markets, not merely with their own kind. Besides,
as Roger Corman has stated on many an occasion,
the big studios simply swallowed up his niche.
Blockbusters such as "Jaws", "Star
Wars" and the Indiana Jones series were big
scale exploitation films, and this was now where
the mainstream was flowing, and continues to flow.
Today, the first time
filmmaker doesn't want anything to do with
foolproof genres, the result of the shift in
Hollywood
and the rise of the Sundance Film Festival. To
separate from a Hollywood driven by exploitable
genre product, the first time filmmaker must make
a more personal statement, must produce the kind
of character driven, dialogue conscious,
structurally adventurous cinema
that Hollywood has left in its past.
But don't tell any of that to
writer/director Ryan Shifrin. Please, let him keep
believing that the drive-ins are still open til
dawn and are still serving dancing hot dogs and
flat soda by the gallon. Because he's made a
really great drive-in horror pic called
"Abominable" and he must have no idea
that there are no channels of distribution truly
available for this kind of openly trashy and silly
movie. Except perhaps the Sci Fi Channel, which is
where Shifrin's movie premiered in May.
To say that
"Abominable" is the best movie ever to
premiere on the basic cable channel is degrading
both to the movie and to Bigfoot. That's right.
This is a Bigfoot movie, and although the title
thinks it's an "abominable" snowman
movie, there is little confusion onscreen as the
script seems quite aware of the differences in
legends, and even invokes such trivial references
as "the flatwoods monster" to show that
it's hip to the whole Bigfoot subculture. There is
zero pretension in "Abominable" -- it's
a Bigfoot picture so you get lots of Bigfoot
killing, growling, mutilating, body slamming,
eating, running and smashing. You get Bigfoot
stalking hot young women who take showers in open
windows for him to get turned on or hungry,
whichever works for Bigfoot.
Lest you think there is no
plot or characters to be found, Mr. Shifrin has
provided just what you need in that department as
well. Here it is: Matt McCoy ("The Hand that
Rocks the Cradle") plays a wheelchair-bound
widower who chooses the completely wrong weekend
to revisit the site of his wife's death. (He's
wheelchair bound because he survived the rock
climbing fall that took the life of his wife). Almost
immediately after arriving at the appropriately
isolated cabin, McCoy soon realizes that a hairy
Bigfootian monster is roaming nearby. And to
complicate the second act, five fit young ladies
rent the cabin across the way to celebrate a
bachelorette's weekend in the woods.
Like James Stewart in
"Rear Window", McCoy watches it all via
binoculars and armed with only a computer,
telephone and some extreme sports gear. When you
add in Lance Henriksen ("Aliens")
and Jeffrey Combs ("Re-Animator")
as dim witted hunters, the late Paul Gleason
("The
Breakfast Club") as a local Sheriff, and
Dee Wallace-Stone ("The Howling"),
you've got a perfectly spiced and mixed dish of
monster movie mash. And this is exactly where I
find the most enjoyment from
"Abominable". Ryan Shifrin is a first
time filmmaker out to prove nothing; he only wants
to make a competent and exciting monster flick.
This is not to slight Shifrin's craft at all; in
fact, he has more craft then 10,000 Paul Thomas
Andersons. The "Rear Window" aspect is
used not just as a plot hook, but as a well
crafted device to create as much tension as
possible.
The main problem for the
director of any monster movie (just ask Steven
Spielberg about "Jaws") is how to hide
the monster from full view until the last reel. If
you see the monster too early or too much, it will
be nothing more than a man in a suit, or a puppet.
The fact that McCoy can only catch glimpses of
Bigfoot here and there between the trees is a
great idea for a monster movie, and Shifrin gets a
lot of his tension and scares out of this central
cinematic concept.
Not that this is a movie
about cinematic concepts. It's about Bigfoot, and
screaming and some great gore effects in a
cyclical pattern. There is only one scene where
you think that Shifrin has lost his tone and begun
to question himself as to why he has made a
Bigfoot movie instead of a more meaningful
Sundancey indie. You are two thirds into the movie
when the tension stops to include a long
"meaningful" monologue by McCoy
regarding the death of his wife. But then you
realize that Shifrin and McCoy also think that
this is crap and are playing it for our Mystery
Science Theater benefit. The monologue is one of
the funniest things in the movie and is absolutely
perfect tonally.
If, like me, you are a big
movie soundtrack fan, you may have guessed that
Ryan Shifrin is the son, daughter, nephew, cousin
or uncle of famed composer Lalo Shifrin, well
known for his unforgettable "Mission:
Impossible" theme as well the incredible
scores of movies like "Dirty Harry",
"Enter the Dragon" and "The
Amityville Horror". You would be right. Ryan
is his son. The young Shifrin was thus able to
employ the services of the elder Shifrin in
composing the score for his maiden effort. It's a
fantastic low budget score, with a very full
orchestrated sound that takes the movie completely
seriously and lifts it up several notches in
style, scope, budget, and suspense. It would've
been great to have seen this movie in the theater
and get the full effect of the score and sound
effects; I imagine it would be lots of fun. In
this case, nepotism is well deserved since the
young Mr. Shifrin appears quite capable in his own
right.
I'm generally not in favor of
sequels, but I doubt the unpretentious Ryan
Shifrin would mind shooting "Abominable
2". And if he doesn't mind, neither will I.
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