The Creature

[Originally Posted 3 February 2014.]

…Marijuana.

We all know what it is and is used for Medical Purposes or for Getting High. Mainly Getting High. which is what inspired the Marihuana Tax Act. Back in 1937, Congress passed this to ban the use of Cannabis throughout the United States which was many started due to the notice of usage from many people, pushing as far back as 1860.

Now why is this relevent to my blog? Well…..This helped inspire a church group to create a little piece of film to release to the general public and I decided to take a look at this piece for my 50th review on It Came From the Drive In. So…What film was this?

Yep. The infamous 1930’s expoltation propoganda film that has been labeled as one of the worst films ever made. It has been gained a bit of a following as well as being Remade, Riffed, and Turned into a Muscial…Well, Let’s get started.

The film tells of a series of events involving some high school sudents who try Marijuana and eventually become addicted, and soon a series of unfortunate events follows after their first time using it. One of them being a kid who accidentally performs a hit-and-run. Another one involves a boy named Bill who starts to have an affair and ends with an untimely death. All of them being connected by a couple who serves the kids the drugs.

The film is told by a series of brachets similar to an Anthology film, partially telling the two stories in different parts. The other parts of the film consist of the couple and how they seem to drift apart from each other as the film progresses.

The Acting in the film was nothing really special or worthy of mentioning. They were all mediocore performances from a relatively unknown cast. Since the film was in an Anthology style of filming, It doesn’t really set up any kind of “Main Character” throughout the film. If there was a main character, I guess it would have to be the Drug Dealing Couple since they get the most screen-time out of the cast.

Much like any Propoganda film, they usually try to push a message into it. The one in this is very VERY obvious: Drugs are Bad. They usually adress the issue via the events of the film and they really try to push this over the edge and into your face at times. It didn’t really seem to persuade me, weither it be taking or avoiding the drugs mentioned.

One of the main reasons this film was popular was the unintentional comedy aspect that the film provided (Much like Ed Wood movies.) Probably from the campy performances throughout the film, the supposed effects from drug use and how it is seems to be overplayed. I didn’t really get that vibe from the movie. I saw it as mostly what it was: A Boring Attempt to tell people about the dangers of drugs.

FINAL THOUGHTS: This was Stupid. It wasn’t very persuading, the acting was very good, the plot of it was rather played up to seem important, and it came off as one of those Cornett PSAs you’d see from the 1950’s. I can’t recommend watching it, or avoiding it. It was just an odd piece of film history.

I decided to take a look at The Purge after it labeled itself “The Scariest Film of the Year”

Each Year, the United States Government actives the Purge which is a Twelve Hour Period where all criminal activity is legal and Medical, Police, and Fire Department Services are Unavailable.
The year is 2022 in Los Angeles, California. We follow James Sandin (Ethan Hawke) and his family as they try to survive this year’s Purge. During the Purge, James’ Son lets a Stranger covered in blood go into their incredibly locked up home. Suddenly, a group of people arrive at their home demanding the Stranger to come out of the house or they’ll get in and kill everyone inside.

The film is pretty much a basic Home Invasion film with the villains to be similar to the film The Strangers. It also tries to be a Social Allegory throughout it stating that Humans are Savage and we need the Purge to help us cope with that fact. There is also talk throughout the film stating of how bad the Purge is and stating that it could be about Money. It could be seen a strange Satire, but I saw it as a means to give backstory for the Purge.
The film does do a few things to set up how the Purge works, most of that is done in the Trailers. It seems like the Purge is used to be a means of Catharsis for the American People and so they can help vent out their rage and Negative thinking to make America seem like a very happy nation according to the “New Founding Fathers”. I will admit the idea of the Purge is incredibly similar to an episode of Star Trek called “The Return of the Achrons” which also has a society which has a 12 hour period of lawlessness and Violence.

James and his wife (Lena Headey) pretty much seem like characters that don’t really care much about the Purge and is established that they never go out during it. I found these two to be a bit uninteresting but the actors portraying them did a decent job with them.
The Son, Charlie, is the only one in the family who sees the Purge as a bad thing and is the one who pretty much starts off the film’s plot. (He, oddly, also looks a little bit like Egoraptor.)
The Daughter, Zoe, isn’t really interesting. She was mainly in the first half hour and then disappears and occasionally pops up in the film. She was mainly in the film due to a minor subplot involving her Boyfriend who is in the house to kill her dad.
Both of the kids aren’t really big characters and you could pretty much ignore them throughout the film.
The Stranger doesn’t have a personality aside from the fact he’s ( or was) in some form of Military (I assume this since he’s wearing Dog Tags.)

As for the “Villains”…
The Majority of them don’t talk. The leader of them is a Blonde Australian who doesn’t reveal anything about them or himself. He’s surprisingly polite and only wants to “Purge” the stranger and he will not leave until he does so, and he gets more violent and Angry as the film progresses. I think he was the best performance in the film. (Although I don’t really think that says much.)

Overall, the film was Boring. I wasn’t really enthralled, Scared, or Invested in the film. It came off as a film you could put on to maybe kill some time. I’ve seen a few Home Invasion films and this was one of the weaker ones. ( It could have been better. ) I can’t really compare to the other Home Invasion film that came out this year [ You’re Next ] So I’ll just end it here: Watch it if want to.

Well, I finally got the chance to see this movie. I’ve been waiting a while to see it due to when the film was released in theaters, I was reading the book. I don’t want to create a gigantic paragraph on the book since I’m just focusing on the film, So I’ll briefly sum up my thoughts on it: It was pretty good. Anyways here’s my review of the Adaptation to film.

A long time ago, a race of aliens dubbed “Buggers” invaded Earth and they lost to Human race. Ever since the attack, the International Fleet has been starting a program to train children to grow and become perfect soldiers for their fleet.
Andrew “Ender” Wiggin is a young boy attending an academy for the International Fleet. One day, Colonel Graff (Harrison Ford) arrives at his home to personally invite him to join Battle School to help the fleet stop the “Upcoming” Invasion of the Buggers.

The first thing I noticed about the film is they cut out ALOT from the book. Of course, this would normally do, but some of the more impactiful stuff was left out.

One of the more important aspects of the books that the movie left out was with a few of the character’s personalities. Ender was dumbed down incredibly and he came off as half as intelligent as he was in the book. (He was basically a Tactical Mastermind in the book, here he seemed like a generic kid.) Plus he was made a couple of years older than he was.
One of the more important characters that was cut severly from the book was Ender’s older brother, Peter. In the book, he played a part as one of Ender’s struggles throughout the book. Peter was basically a sociopath who endlessly tormented Ender before battle school and one of the struggles for Ender was not becoming a ruthless killer just like him. In the film, he’s only as five lines in the beginning and never comes back.
Another character that was cut down alot was Bonzo. He was basically one of the main antagonists in the book, and kept degrading Ender. He was cut down alot and some of his scenes were cut and he was very intimidating.

A bunch of the characters were changed throughout the film as well. (Again, many adaptations do this well.)

The actors in this seemed a bit boring and weren’t very entertaining. Ben Kingsley in it looked like he was trying to stay awake the whole time with his eyes wide open in all his scenes. Harrison Ford wasn’t very interesting as Graff and the actor who played Ender was ok, I could say the same thing for Abigail Breslin as Valentine, Ender’s Sister. (Oddly, their relationship seemed a bit incestuous. )

One of the things they had minor cuts to was the Mind Game Ender plays. The Mind Game, throughout the book, changes based on the emotions and events that Ender goes through throughout the course of the book. They did stick with it throughout the book and It looked pretty much like I imagined in the book,. (I imagined Ender playing it on an iPad.)

Since it’s a Sci-Fi film, the Special Effects are one of the more important aspects to this. The Effects seemed pretty standard to if you would compare it to stuff like Avatar or Tron Legacy. They should off the Battle School, many ships from the Fleet, and the Training Room. We do get to see one of the Buggers in the film, which did look like a cross mix of an Ant and a Moth. I’ll admit, the Special Effects looked decent, but I thought the Bugger looked really good.

Final Thoughts: I didn’t like it…at all. I didn’t really see any redeeming factors to it, aside from the Special Effects were decent. The film felt like it was a gigantic mixture of Starship Troopers, Lord of the Flies (the 1996 film), and the Last Starfighter thrown together with elements from the book. I’d recommend reading the book instead of seeing the film.