DYLAN DOG: DEAD OF NIGHT (2010) Halloween Month continues with a look at the luckless Brandon Routh’s turn as this film’s title character, Tiziano Sclavi’s horror hero from Italian comic books. Sclavi launched Dylan Dog’s series in October of 1986 and under various creative teams the series is still running.
(Years ago I reviewed the film version of Tiziano Sclavi’s Dellamorte Dellamore from 1994.)
Dylan Dog, an investigator of vampires, werewolves and other monsters, is an international cult hero beloved by comics fans around the world … which, of course, meant that any deviation from what the fan-boys wanted would cause them to hamstring the movie adaptation at the box office. The internet giveth and the internet taketh away.
In my opinion Dylan Dog: Dead of Night does not deserve its bad reputation. Compared to the many, many other films and television programs about heroic battlers of the paranormal this was certainly a top shelf production. The fact that this cinematic adaptation came along decades later than it should have is the main problem.
Let’s go by the numbers, knowing full well that budget and projected box office returns limited many of the creative decisions:
I. The Dylan Dog comic book was set in London (?). This movie was set in New Orleans, a change of locale that I actually like, given London’s overuse in horror films. Needless to say, this put the worst type of fan-boys in a VERY bad mood right off the bat.
II. The creative team behind Dylan Dog: Dead of Night kept the mood light. I agree with that choice given the inherent campiness and absurdity of an investigator who encounters werewolves, vampires, zombies, etc in horrific settings that are often reminiscent of Film Noir detective stories. The worst type of fan-boys bemoaned the “lack of the sad and serious tone of the comic books.”
III. In the comic book Dylan Dog’s sidekick in his investigations was Groucho, a Groucho Marx impersonator whose built-in craziness caused him to BE Groucho 24/7. For obvious legal and monetary reasons an American film version could not use Groucho as Dylan’s sidekick. The worst type of fan-boys were even more disenchanted.
IV. The cinematic sidekick for Dylan was a new creation – Marcus, played by Sam Huntington, who had previously appeared with star Brandon Routh in the ill-fated Superman Returns (2006).
(Poor Routh. If only he had also starred in Frank Miller’s 2008 movie The Spirit he could have notched an all-time Hat Trick for starring in unfortunate comic book adaptations. Talk about not even being able to win for losing.) Continue reading
ROCKTOBER BLOOD (1984) -This example of the Heavy Metal Horror films of the 1980s was produced, directed and written by Beverly and Ferd Sebastian, a well-known pair to all of us Bad Movie Geeks. The premise of this hilariously bad movie is that Heavy Metal star Billy Eye programs something sinister into his latest album by way of backward-masking. (Like “I buried Paul” and others) 
THINGS AREN’T WHAT THEY SEEM (2013) – A Liberal college professor finds her hatred of all Christian Conservatives to be ill-founded when she winds up interacting with her new neighbors from Kansas. 
It’s been just over two weeks since the finale of the 18 episode run of new Twin Peaks chapters on cable. Like many other fans I’m still digesting some of those new episodes in light of the gloriously dark and nightmarish conclusion, so this particular blog post applies ONLY to the original Twin Peaks television series, the 1992 film Fire Walk With Me and its deleted scenes from The Missing Pieces. 
Here at Balladeer’s Blog my love of enjoyably bad movies has been well established. You can count me as one of the many “Human Breens” as fans of filmmaker Neil Breen are called. 
As with the best of the bad auteurs Neil churns out productions that are uniquely his own. There is no mistaking a Neil Breen film with a film made by anyone else. Picture The Room’s Tommy Wiseau trying to make a David Lynch movie. But with a LOT more needless violence against laptop computers. 
DOUBLE DOWN (2005) – Neil Breen starred, wrote and directed this movie – and quite obviously he or an associate even wrote the IMDb description of the plot. That description calls Double Down “an edgy action thriller,” which would certainly come as a surprise to anyone who has actually SEEN the film. 
HIGH SCHOOL CAESAR (1960) – John Ashley, who was about as menacing as Ned Flanders, plays a bitter rich teenage punk who runs illegal operations at his high school like a junior version of organized crime. The title is a reference to Little Caesar, the gangster movie with Edward G Robinson. 
SHAKE, RATTLE AND ROCK! (1956) – In this hilarious movie Rock and Roll music is blamed for the Juvenile Delinquency epidemic of the 1950’s. Not only does one particularly irrational city ban rock music completely but it puts the local rock DJ on trial! 
MATEWAN (1987) – This John Sayles film examines the 1920 Matewan Massacre in the West Virginia coal fields. The workers were attempting to form a union and the owners – the kind of people that One percenter Carlos Slim’s New York Times has proclaimed to be “the conscience of the country” used hired thugs to harass – and even kill – the laborers. 
A THOUSAND DEATHS (2014) – This 22 minute suspense/ horror piece was directed by Adam Zanzie who also adapted the script from the 1899 short story by Jack London. Last Halloween Season I reviewed that short story 
