SCREAMS AND NIGHTMARES: THE FILMS OF WES CRAVEN

SCREAMS AND NIGHTMARES: The Films of WES CRAVEN. Brian J. Robb. Overlook Press; 1998.

This well-written and heavily illustrated coffee table tome looks at the life, career and work of director Wes Craven, most famous, as the title suggests, for A Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream. Never in the top rank of film directors, Craven nevertheless amassed a number of credits and did some very influential movies. Craven first came to attention with the graphic thriller The Last House on the Left, a low-budget homage or rip-off of Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring, then suffered poverty and anonymity for many years until he hit the big time with Nightmare and Freddy Krueger. Craven never really wanted to be a horror director, but the field kept calling him back when he needed a paycheck and when fans began to appreciate his movies. Craven's work outside the horror field was limited, however, with one example being the Meryl Streep starrer Music of the Heart. Craven also produced several genre films, and directed telefilms and episodic television, such as the remake of The Twilight Zone. Screams and Nightmares doesn't delve much into Craven's personal life, which would probably be of minor interest to most readers anyway. Even if you're not a tremendous Craven fan, this book is engaging and Robb doesn't make the mistake of deifying the director and not finding fault with his work, which he seems to appreciate more than I do. Perhaps Craven's best directed film, of the ones I've seen so far, was Scream 2.

Verdict: Handsome horror tome with lots of photos. ***.

DEEP RISING

The monster tries to make a treat out of Treat Williams

DEEP RISING (1998). Writer/director: Stephen Sommers.

John Finnegan (Treat Williams) and his crew have been hired to take a group of men out to an unknown spot in the South Pacific. What Finnegan doesn't know is that they are heading for the huge cruise ship, the Argonautica, to loot it on its maiden voyage. But when these pirates arrive, they find that hardly anyone is left alive on the ship, discovering mostly bloody skeletons. Apparently a gargantuan, voracious sea creature with a zillion tentacles (with maws on the end of them) has devoured just about everyone -- hundreds of passengers -- and now wants to make dessert out of the pirates; Finnegan and his crew; a pretty thief named Trillian (Famke Janssen), who was locked in the hold; and the duplicitous, slimy owner Simon Canton (Anthony Heald), who wanted to blow up the ship for the insurance. Deep Rising has some excellent and very gruesome special effects, but its tone is too flippant by half, at times turning it into more of a black comedy than a horror film and dissipating the considerable tension. However, the movie is generally fast-paced, slick, creepy and exciting -- more of an action-disaster-creature flick than a horror film -- and features a highly dangerous and rather engaging monster. One scene wherein the survivors discover an abattoir filled with skeletons is especially macabre. Williams [Prince of the City] strikes the right note; Jannsen is competent; Heald is way over the top. Jason Flemyng makes an impression as Mulligan, the handsomest of the pirates; and Kevin J. O'Connor, despite how irritating this actor can be in certain roles (including this one), is good and strangely appealing as Finnegan's engineer, Joey. The few moments of humanism don't quite come off in a movie this callous. The ending left room for a sequel that never materialized. Sommers also wrote and directed the dreadful -- and dreadfully campy -- Van Helsing.

Verdict: Well, it's not It Came from Beneath the Sea, but what is? *** out of 4.

GODZILLA (1998)

The big guy stomps through Manhattan

GODZILLA (1998). Director: Roland Emmerich.

Supposedly Godzilla purists really hate this American version of the Big Green Galoot, but who cares? For all of its flaws -- and there are many -- this Godzilla is still much better and much more entertaining, and certainly better to look at, than most of the Japanese Godzilla films put together [admittedly I have not seen all of the modern-day Godzilla films, but the ones I have seen are not terribly good. Also I must qualify that the original Gojira is much better than the many sequels]. This Godzilla is a new species, a mutated hybrid created by atomic fall out. It still roars like the original Godzilla, more or less, but has a new sleek look instead of the dopey one generally used in the Japanese films. Godzilla has a terrific and dramatic opening theme by David Arnold, and one could argue that the rest of the movie doesn't measure up to it. However ...

The movie is done somewhat tongue-in-cheek, an approach that sort of makes all the dramatic build-up and top-notch special effects work seem a bit overdone, were the effects not so splendidly eye-popping at times. One very irritating element to the movie is that the stupid characters in the film worry about minor issues when there's a gargantuan monster on the loose. When Audrey (Maria Pitillo) and old boyfriend Niko (Matthew Broderick) run into each other, they hardly mention the monster even though it would be the uppermost thought of every person on Manhattan Island! In keeping with the unfortunate "lightness" of the tone, the deaths that had to be caused by the monster are underplayed to a ridiculous degree.

But Godzilla certainly has its moments. There's the great scene in Madison Square Garden when the big guy's eggs hatch (Godzilla reproduces asexually; no wonder he's ticked off!) and Broderick and company have to escape from dozens of mini-Godzillas before a bomb goes off! Then there's the climax with the furious Godzilla chasing the protagonists down the streets of Manhattan and onto a bridge where they nearly become his lunch. Nothing like these sequences has ever appeared in any other Godzilla films that I've seen. The monster's rampage through Manhattan when he first arrives is also memorable. Up against the monster, the actors in this, while mostly competent or better, haven't really got a chance.

Verdict: If thirty minutes or so had been left on the editing room floor, and some of the sillier scenes excised as well, this would have been a real contender. As it is, quite entertaining. ***.

BLADE

Wesley Snipes as vampire/vampire-hunter Blade

BLADE (1998). Director: Stephen Norrington.

The character of Blade first appeared in the Marvel comic book Tomb of Dracula. He was human, immune to vampire bites, and on a mission to find the particular vampire who turned his mother, even as he was in her belly, into a bloodsucker. Along the way he'd kill any vampire he encountered. Oddly, when this movie was made decades after Blade first appeared, they borrowed an idea from rival DC comics series "I, Vampire" from House of Mystery, in that like the hero of that series, the movie Blade is also a "good" vampire. A bigger problem is that this film isn't especially well directed, and the action scenes have no true punch, although there is a nifty sequence when skulls tear their way out of vampires' mouths. Wesley Snipes isn't much of an actor, and his performance seems to be a collection of grimaces. As his main adversary Deacon Frost, Stephen Dorff [Xlll] underplays too much and betrays no dramatic flair as the villain. Kris Kristofferson, without stretching overly much, probably gives the best performance as Blade's associate, Whistler. N'Busche Wright is also okay as a young doctor who becomes embroiled in dastardly events after being bitten. Blade is a somewhat noble figure who needs better treatment and a better actor. Unlike Tomb of Dracula, written by Marv Wolfman, the characterization in this film is minimal. Followed by two sequels.

Verdict: Stick with Dracula. **.

TWILIGHT (1998)

TWILIGHT (1998). Director: Robert Benton.

Private eye Harry Ross (Paul Newman) lives with his old friend Jack Ames (Gene Hackman) and Ames' wife Catherine (Susan Sarandon). Ames asks Harry to deliver a package to a man who turns up dead. Before long Harry is embroiled in a decades-old murder case that centers on the disappearance of Catherine's first husband. Others embroiled in the business include Harry's old buddy Raymond (James Garner) and his old gal pal Verna Hollander (Stockard Channing), a police lieutenant. Twilight is basically just a reworking of one of those old Ross Macdonald Lew Archer novels (two of which were filmed with Newman playing "Lew Harper") but it holds the attention, and is well-directed and well-acted by all . Newman even gets a bedroom scene with Sarandon.

Verdict: Pleasant time passer if you don't expect too much. ***.

EVEREST

EVEREST (1998). Directors: David Breashears, Greg MacGillivray, Stephen Judson.

Short documentary shown in IMAX theaters was filmed in 1996 at the same time that a fierce storm claimed the lives of five climbers. It shows several climbers attempting to reach the summit. One of whom, Ed Viesturs, actually leaves his wife to worry about him back in base camp as he makes the nine-week ascent during their honeymoon. His wife is a great sport, perhaps, but he's a self-centered jackass -- couldn't he wait a few months to go after his dream and spend his honeymoon with her? There are some great scenic shots in the movie -- narrated by Liam Neeson and a couple of the climbers -- but it has no real point of view or sense of irony. While one can admire people for wanting to pursue a dream against all odds, and reaching the summit is certainly an achievement of sorts, it's not as if anyone has found the cure for cancer on top of Mount Everest. As Michael Kodas' excellent book High Crimes: The Fate of Everest in An Age of Greed reveals, many people climb Everest not in a spirit of humanity and adventure but for personal glory at any cost, wanting something noteworthy to add to their resume when they go on to become motivational speakers and the like. Kodas writes that often climbers on Everest will callously pass by people who are dying and desperately need help because they're so anxious to realize their "dream" of attaining the summit after spending so much time, energy and money to get there; stopping to help someone might keep them from their goal. (Sir Edmund Hillary once opined that reaching the summit was hardly more important than saving someone's life!) While there may well have been genuine heroes on Everest who risked their lives to save someone else's, it's wrong to claim that every climber on Everest is a hero, whether he or she "summits" or not. Often these "heroes" are self-centered amateurs who risk toes, fingers, and a horrible death via falls, avalanche, freezing, or brain embolism, enduring weeks and weeks of torture, for five minutes on top of a summit whose view, while spectacular, may not be worth the human cost. Instead of a spirit of all-for-one-and-one-for-all, an attitude of every man or woman for him or herself is sometimes the rule. Life-saving equipment is often pilfered from climbers, endangering their lives, and unscrupulous "guides" take advantage of people who have no business being on Mount Everest. The lives of the Himalayan Sherpas who assist the climbers seem held in less regard than the lives of those they assist. Let's face it -- No one climbs Everest to make the world a better place. This documentary has some great photography, but it's totally superficial.

Verdict: Pretty and pretty mindless. Read Kodas' High Crimes instead. **1/2.