The film is deeply rooted in its characters and their way of life. Rebellious without a pause, their actions are misguided, but it’s all they know. Joe Cornish and the script allows this culture not to be a cliche, as it sometimes is, but to be a cruel reality of teens in Lambeth, a district of south London. Instead of overly simplifying this world, and by grounding it in reality, it effortlessly fist-bumps us into their world, which will make the alien invasion not as campy as it would sound. Cornish’s flair for suspense, humor, and monsters, is taken from the handbook of a Stuart Gordon or a Fred Dekker, with a little spice from Tales from the Hood.

The creatures are interesting and unique, while being a source for the film’s quirky take on defending the ‘hood. And of course, the creatures are all practical, which only secures our hearts for a creature feature of old. Still, the film is about the characters, and it’s new-comer John Boyega as Moses that is one of the more captivating creations and performances in a genre picture in years. We’re rarely allowed into Moses’ head, but when we do it becomes the film’s heart and soul. From a no good thug into a block legend, there’s some nods to another famous come-up from Tony Montana in Scarface. Boyega is damn awesome.

Attack the Block is one of those rare debuts, we rarely get, but always anticipate. Sharp, witty, mixed with a great script, great camerawork, and a sure-fire star-making turn by John Boyega, Joe Cornish has created a new classic. Allow it.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

A Cyclops, Witch Bitch, The Mummy, Lady Vampire, and more all duke it out in the flavor of those 1960s El Santo pictures, but far more cooler. Killer Film caught up with the director for a quick chat as he is finishing up the film, to talk about monsters and wrestling, as they go hand-in-hand in what is shaping up to be a fan favorite.

Jon: The website says Monster Brawl is stylized in the PPV Main Event, and while this seems like an obvious question, how did the film originate?

Jesse Thomas Cook: The film started out as a fun “who would win in a fight” scenario. Being able to combine the monster genre with MMA/wrestling seemed like an explosive recipe. Then it slowly developed into which monsters to include, who they would face, and establishing the venue and the tournament setup.

Jon: Here’s probably another obvious answer, but with the casting of Kevin Nash and Jimmy Hart, are you a fan of WWE?

Jesse Thomas Cook: Absolutely; although I approached the project from more of a horror/monster background and left a lot of the wrestling up to the stunt coordinator Leif Havdale, (who we always like to embarrass by reminding folks he was Robert Pattinson’s stunt double in Twilight) and the cast which was largely comprised of wrestlers.

Jon: It’s a big, loud, fun concept, but besides the one-on-one fights, what’s the real story fans will get in Monster Brawl?

Jesse Thomas Cook: We wanted to do something fun that would harken back to the days of Monster Squad. Something that would be accessible to everyone, no matter where you were from. I must say, everyone I’ve talked to is getting pretty annoyed by all the rape movies that are flooding the genre. Even I made a torture film called Scarce in 2008, and this time I wanted to make something I could be proud of. I have a son now too, so that’s changed my view on a lot of things.

What you’ll get with Monster Brawl is a PPV showdown featuring classic monsters and new spins on old monsters and the film is periodically sprinkled with origin stories highlighting each monster’s background. Plus all the fun wrestling stuff like trash talking, tale of the tapes, interviews, grand arena entrances and Jimmy Hart stealing the show.

Jon: Legendary genre actor Lance Henriksen (Millennium, Aliens, Terminator) was cast as the narrator. Talk about getting him involved.

Jesse Thomas Cook: We were fortunate enough to book Lance while he was in Toronto last August for Festival of Fear. He’s the voice of God and an icon and was so much fun to work with.

Jon: Even though you named them something a bit different, you got the classic monsters as wrestlers in zombies, cyclops, witches, and vampires. Was there any creatures you wanted but due to time or budget, it wasn’t feasible?

Jesse Thomas Cook: Yeah. We had a list of about 20 monsters at one point in time. The only one that was a sure-thing was Frankenstein. A lot of snarky hipsters will have a knee-jerk reaction like, “it’s Frankenstein’s monster, doofus.” We know. Go complain to Fred Dekker. We’re aware of the origins of the Frankenstein monster and actually have snippets from Mary Shelley’s book in the film, but in the end, do we want to appease a handful of hipsters or the entire world.

As for the others, we wanted a Yeti or a Sasquatch, that will come in a sequel. I mean at one point we had a Royal Rumble intermission that was Trolls vs. Zombies. A lot of it came down to wanting to have as wide of an appeal as possible. We also wanted there to be a strong female presence in the film, which is why the vampire is female and why Witch Bitch is included. Some we modified, for instance you can’t have the Creature from the Black Lagoon, since it’s a licensed character, so we invented Swamp Gut, who is a horrid hybrid of Toxic Avenger, Fin Man and Swamp Thing.

Jon: The look of the creatures are broad and fun, something I assume that helped the actors when performing stunts. Who did the make-up FX and can you talk about the creature’s designs?

Jesse Thomas Cook: The Gore Brothers did everything related to the monsters, creatures, gore gags, SPX and even basic actor makeup. They are a two-man army and did the job of 20 people. Some of the creature suits were tough for the actors, especially the Mummy and Swamp Gut. We had to set up a cooling station and keep the actors hydrated. Safety was always our biggest concern. But yes, the actors were able to transform into their characters because of the quality of the monster suits and makeup. We’re big fans of practical creatures and I feel these guys knocked it out of the park, considering the quotes we got elsewhere for just one monster was double our entire gore budget.

Jon: Finally, there hasn’t been much horror-themed wrestling movies outside of the campy stuff from Mexico in the late 1960s (Santo vs. the Vampire Women) and more recently Wrestlemaniac. But versus movies are a long proud horror tradition. What were your inspirations and what do you hope fans get after seeing Monster Brawl?

Jesse Thomas Cook: Monster Squad was a huge inspiration for our team. Growing up I was also a big fan of the Friday the 13th series, Evil Dead and Romero flicks. I was also a big wrestling nut in the late 80′s and early 90′s era, so you’ll see the wrestling in Brawl is inspired from that classic age. At the end of the day, Monster Brawl is a fun movie. So I hope people leave with a smile on their face.

Check out the film’s website while we wait for an official release date. Keep it here to Killer Film!

Jon: Let’s rewind back to 1994, Paul W.S. Anderson comes in with the Mortal Kombat script, so how did your team come up with how to do Goro?

Tom Woodruff: It was the producers who came to us, Lawrence Kasanoff that first contacted us. This was all pre-CG days, we wouldn’t have the opportunity today to do the creature practically. It’s funny, because I literally just saw the movie again, and I felt good on how Goro still looks up on the screen. He’s still one of the coolest thing I’ve done. The producers came to us and wanted it to be practical, state-of-the-art, and to push the technology you know – blah blah blah. Then they told us how much money and time we would have to do it, so it was really stretching the parameters at the time for what we could do.

Based on that, we knew that they wanted to self-contain Goro, and they wanted a big performance out of it. The big motor board we had smaller motors up in the head and the neck, but to power them appropriately we had larger scale versions in a big box that was connected to Goro via cables that was 6-inches in diameter. So there was this big umbilical cord coming out of his back to this card that was full of these high-speed motors. Those motors were controlled by by one of our motion control persons in order to puppeteer it.

Jon: Did any of this cause problems when Goro had to square off against Johnny Cage (Linden Ashby)?

Tom Woodruff: Well, it did as much as it could. We considered that one the hero version. We never really had a lot of contact fighting with that version. Certainly, that’s the version that takes the groin shot from Cage at the end there, and doubles over. We built eyes that could dilated and all of that facial expressions. Luckily, we cam up with a system that operated the arms, where whatever a puppeteer did with his arms, Goro would do. On a wider shot, with the fight with Art Lean (Kenneth Edwards), and some of the Johnny Cage stuff, we had a slightly lighter weight version to dance and bounce around as the fight choreographer laid out for me. I say light weight, but that was 125 lbs. version of Goro. Very heavy, and taxing.

Jon: Was Goro one of the hardest creatures you performed? I was this picture with that rig on your head, and you just looked worn out.

Tom Woodruff: Yeah! To this day, that was one of the most physically challenging suits we have ever built.

Jon: What was some of your inspirations for the look of Goro? It’s pretty faithful to the video game as I recall, did creators John Tobias and Ed Boon help?

Tom Woodruff: Only in as much as the producers directed. We had to keep it like the game they said. Was that Acclaim at the time? I don’t remember who released the game back then but they provided some art work and also a 5-foot standee of Goro, and we’re told to stay close to that. Proportionally, we changed some stuff to make it work. It was stocky in the original art, and we considered my arm placement to Goro’s upper arms, so we didn’t have to lengthen his torso, but in all of our earlier attempts there was no mechanical way of doing that, so we had to place his shoulders above mine, so that move was based on mechanics and practically.

Goro was originally a yellowish color, like the game, so we thought it would be fun to work in that color palette, but we were told to make it more like a dark skinned human type of tone.

Jon: As you said with the mechanics at the time, was any of the fight scenes cut because of that or was it filmed as scripted?

Tom Woodruff: Everything was filmed as scripted. For us, the disappointing thing was since it was a low budget movie, that means not a lot of money and also means you’re moving around really fast to get each shot in a shorter shooting schedule, there wasn’t a lot of time to develop nuances in the performance that we would have wanted. We had a little bit of practice that we did on our own, but once on set, we were running and gunning it. If it had been a slightly more relaxed production and time, a director like Paul [W.S. Anderson] could have got in with us to work out a better performance. To me, it didn’t feel as interactive, because of a lot of Goro’s coverage of him and another character together, where they could play off of each other .We had the capability. Outside of the lip-sync, everything else was live. There just wasn’t enough time to play with him on set.

Jon: Was Paul there for the LA shoot or was it second unit?

Tom Woodruff: No, it was Paul for all of it.

Jon: I heard you had to deconstruct Goro for a creature in Bedazzled?

Tom Woodruff: (laughs) Hmm, did we do that? Let me remember here…we used his legs for something. Maybe it was Bedazzled? Mechanically, for better or worse, mostly worse, he’s still intact. We had his muscle molds of his legs that we used for, yeah, for this Goat Demon in Bedazzled that were ultimately not used in the film. I mean there are times we reuse things, because most of the time it cuts back on time if we already have a like-minded mechanics for something. Yeah, that’s funny about Bedazzled. The truth got out somehow. (laughs)

Jon: Is that budgetary reasons to reuse prior mechanics like that or is it you just don’t have the storage space?

Tom Woodruff: It’s more about time. We do a handful of characters and we’re contracted to do a character with a certain amount of money, and we try to put the best creature on screen. It’s a generic enough muscle mass, it fits my legs, we use it to save time. It won’t cost them extra money. It’s good for us. We’re always like we may not make money on every show, but we want it to look as good as possible.

Jon: I believe Goro exists now as a fiber glass model…

Tom Woodruff: Yeah, we did that as one of our first displays. The actual suit would just rot away.

Jon: Well, I can’t wait to see Goro again in 1080p when the Blu-ray streets in here soon.

Tom Woodruff: Does it really? Wow, I haven’t heard that! Glad I did this interview. I’m so disappointed nobody contacted me because I have all of this great video that would have made a great DVD extra. What a shame. The fun part to me about re-releasing this stuff on Blu-ray, beside the upgraded picture quality, but an opportunity to put some cool, new behind-the-scenes stuff on it, which fans and buyers love. Well, I’m disappointed no one chose to follow up on this opportunity, like you did. I guess, hopefully, someone will think twice about this down the line instead of a quick remastering in HD.

Visit ADI’s (Amalgamated Dynamics, Inc.) official site here. Look for Mortal Kombat on Blu-ray for the first time in HD April 19th.

The project’s title was changed to “Monster Squad,” though it is not a remake of the 1987 Warners movie written by Shane Black (THR). Copeland is also attached to the remake of the 1986 film “Flight of the Navigator”. No word yet on when Warner Bros wants this film released, but there is speculation they want to start filming during summer of 2010.

What is Let the Right One In?

Jon: It’s a Swedish art-house vampire film directed by Tomas Alfredson that follows a lonely, bullied young boy named Oskar, who has a new neighbor. He’s a twelve year old named Eli that lives with her older guardian, and they are mostly night people. Soon, Oskar and Eli befriend each other, leading to Oskar’s conclusion; Eli is a vampire. The film tackles the vampire mythology in such a startling new way that Alfedson has created a genre-defying film.

Donny: Let the Right One In is the most original vampire movie to grace the silver screen in quite a long time.  Tomas Alfredson, an art-house director turns the vampire genre on its head with an amazing adaptation of John Ajvide Lindqvist’s stellar novel.  Graceful storytelling, amazing cinematography, and a beautifully stark landscape are the building blocks used by Alfredson to create a truly intoxicating film. 

How was the film?

Jon: I loved, loved, loved this film! Sometimes when a director outside of the horror genre creates a horror film, the end result is quite horrible. But director Tomas Alfredson treats each aspect of the film as if it was an A-list production and in the end, he has created possibly a new masterpiece. Every vampire cliché is, well, I hate to use the word reinvented, but Let the Right One In sort of puts a new spin on each part of the vampire mythology. The way Eli gets blood is startling simplistic but different at the same time. The relationship between Eli and Oskar is as mature, if not more so than anything I’ve seen this year.

The acting is superb. You’re dealing with mostly young actors, so the success of the story and believability is placed squarely on them. Lina Leandersson is absolutely amazing! Being her first film, there’s no evidence of being green. She completely inhabits Eli, so much so, I’m not sure if she is human. Joking aside, she’s calm, evil, and brilliant. It’s really a fantastic performance that is quite memorable. The boy who plays Oskar handles the task well too. Kare Hedebrant, this being his first film as well, handles the problem of showing Oskar’s inner rage and quite demeanor like a pro. I give all credit to Alfredson for finding these young actors (I heard it took him a year to find them). All of it pays off for the subtle things that might get pass you on first viewing. The nature of homosexuality is never fully brought up, but the actors handle such a controversial element as if it wasn’t there, leaving us with questions which should enhance your pleasure of the film.

The cinematography is excellent as well. From the snow-filled landscapes to the low lit apartment scenes, almost every scene is filmed in a medium shot. He rarely comes in for a close-up. There’s nothing flashy about this vampire film. It isn’t made for mass appeal and consumption. It’s an intelligent, brilliant take on the vampire mythos. Each scene a perfect set-up to the next shot. I don’t know if I would consider the film scary in any way, but the element of creepiness is in every scene, and you won’t soon forget some of the scenes. Crafted as an art film, but bloody enough to satisfy horror fans, Let the Right One In is the best thing to happen to the horror genre this year. I’ll stop gushing and simply recommend going to see as soon as possible. What did you think Donny?

Donny:  I was completely captivated from the first frame to the last.  Alfredson created a beautiful film that continues to haunt my memories days after watching it.  Like Jon said this film doesn’t copy genre conventions it defines them, and in doing so it creates a new world for the vampire to inhabit.  Instead of the standard blood-sucker flick Alfredson decided to create a film that deals with loneliness, loss, fear, revenge, and love while still offering up enough of the red stuff to keep the average horror fan satisfied. 

When I first heard about this film I was worried that it would turn out to be a subtitled movie of the week, mainly because children were at the heart of the story.  I love movies that focus on children (Goonies, E.T., Monster Squad), but I wasn’t excited about seeing a serious vampire movie centered on children.  Turns out I didn’t have anything to worry about because Let the Right One In is no movie of the week, in fact it is the best genre movie I’ve seen this year, hell it’s the best horror movie I’ve seen in quite a few years. 

Watching Oskar play with his knife threatening imaginary bullies instantly provided me with a picture of a lonely young man struggling to find his place in a vicious world.  A young man that finds solace in the company of an androgynous twelve year old that has been twelve for a very long time.  These children completely embody these roles.  It’s performances like these that deserve to take home Oscars.  Alfredson is a talented director that knows how to get what he wants out of even the most inexperienced actor, and he understands what it takes to make a beautiful film without sacrificing story in favor of dollar signs. Let the Right One In is more than a killer film, it’s a killer film that deserves to be seen, so if you’re reading this review find the nearest location showing this beautiful film and see it immediately.

What are your feelings on the upcoming US remake?

Donny:  Completely useless. 

Jon: Cloverfield‘s Matt Reeves is helming the remake. I do not know if they are going back to the novel or just doing a scene-for-scene remake. Good luck because they’ll need it. There is a few remake’s next year I’m excited to see, not to sound stereotypical, but I have no desire to see a remake of this film. It’s too perfect already. I can see them missing the point of the subtleness and ramping up the violence (from which the book had plenty of) and being what we call “Hollywoodized”. Do yourself a huge, gigantic favor and learn to enjoy films with subtitles because in the case of Let the Right One In, you could be missing a masterpiece if you’re afraid of subtitles.

Grade?

Jon: **** ½

Donny: *****

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Halloween is my favorite holiday, and every Halloween I pick some killer horror flicks to make this rockin’ holiday even better.  So check out my list below, and then comment on it, or list some of your own in our comments section.

Fright Night (1985) - This is one of my all time favorite vampire movies.  Similar to Hitchcock’s Rear Window, Fright Night is the story of a nosy neighbor that finds out the guy next door is a vampire.  Not just any vampire either, a super-cool vampire, with style, and a way with the ladies.  The effects on are awesome, and the soundtrack is amazing.  

Monster Squad (1987) - I watch this every year, and now I get to watch it with my son on my special edition DVD!  The flick, about a group of kids that start a monster club, and have to start fighting monsters that resemble the classic Universal Monsters is basically The Goonies for the horror crowd.  This is a Halloween classic that I can’t can’t get enough of.  

Trick or Treat (1986) – Ozzy and Gene Simons round out the cast of this cheesy heavy metal horror treat.  This flick has one of the best soundtracks on the planet, hot girls, and is never boring.  

Humanoids from the Deep (1980) - A true scifi/horror classic.  A small coastal town is attacked by a science experiment gone wrong.  These sea creatures have only two things on their minds, kill everyone they can, and rape all the women they can.  They don’t make them like this anymore.  

Creepshow (1982) - George Romero’s anthology classic based on the E.C. comics of the 50s’ is the be all end all of horror anthology movies.  Each and every story in this flick kicks major ass, and the comic book transitions are second to none.  The score for this flick is incredible as well, and worth tracking down.

The Return of the Living Dead (1985) - Dan O’Bannon’s classic horror comedy is regular Halloween viewing in my home.  O’Bannon paved the way for films like Shaun of the Dead, and did it with style.  How can you beet a flick that not only has punk rock zombies, but smoking hot buck naked punk rock zombies?  The soundtrack to this flick is my all time favorite, if you don’t own it you should be ashamed of yourself.

Murder Party (2007) - Jeremy Saulnier’s awesome flick about a group of artist intent on murdering someone in the name of art is essential Halloween viewing.  If you haven’t seen this flick, do yourself a favor and pick it up immediately.  Every character in this flick lives and breaths, and the filmmakers love of the genre is apparent on every frame.  

Halloween III: Season of the Witch - I know a lot of people don’t even count this flick as being part of the Halloween series, but I love it.  The masks are awesome, and the soundtrack is killer.  Long live the Silver Shamrock baby!