We’ve an eclectic selection to peek at this time out… A 3D Thai horror… a couple of bits of Japanese Zombie goodness… a Korean action comedy… and an Indian action film featuring perhaps the goofiest Hindi martial art weapon ever invented…. (Flying Guillotine look out!… There’s a new silly weapon in town… )

So hurry along!! Plenty of room down front… just watch the sticky spots as you make your way to your seats and we’ll give these a quick look-see. Be nice…. and no throwing jelly beans at the screen!! Hehehehe!!

First up we have Thailand’s newest entry to the current 3D craze, “Dark Flight 407″. Looks to be a modern take on your typical Thai ghost story, but the involvement of some of the same creative people behind “The Art of the Devil” series has me thinking it’s going to be a bit gorier than the average ghost story… and nobody seems to beat the Thais when it comes to laying on the gore these days. Our synopsis goes like this: “It starts with a plane crash. Everyone on board is killed, except one. Sunee, a beautiful flight attendant, escapes death almost miraculously. After the investigation, it turns out that the plane has had several accidents before, and every time it was repaired and repainted to regain its normal condition. This confirms for Sunee that the strange hallucinations she saw while working on the plane were not the product of her imagination, but actually spirits of the passengers who died on it. Sunee finds a new job at another airline. She wants to start her life anew. But three years later, the nightmare catches up with her. She learns that the flight that she’ll operate on today will use the same aircraft that crashed three years ago. On this flight Sunee will face the terror that she cannot escape – on the plane that has become the prison for so many spirits and dead souls. This time, they’re determined to take her along on their last flight.”

Yep… don’t think I’ll wanna miss this one.

Next…. a bit of a change of pace with a look at the upcoming Korean action/ comedy/ romance film “Miss Conspirator” aka “미쓰 GO”. Yep… not a ghost or ghoul in sight. Strange I know, but your Favorite Catgirl does occasionally watch something else other than horror movies. This one is obviously trying hard to invoke the spirit of one of my earlier favorite Korean films, “My Wife Is Gangster”, and from what I can see of the Trailer, looks like it just might succeed in capturing that same fun mix of laughs and thrills mixed with a nice romance story to get the total package. Either way, I’m gonna be keepin’ my eyes peeled for it… and maybe you should too!!

Japan it seems, is continuing it’s fascination with all things “zombie” and has for us two more entries into the genre coming soon I hope to DVD. First there’s the haunting look at life after the Zombie Apocalypse in “Undertaker” aka “Sôginin – andâteikâ”, a film about a young boy, orphaned and alone, who grows to fill the newly “re-imagined” job description of “undertaker”… apparently a crazy cross between bounty hunter and mortician… someone hired to track down those members of your family who’ve “gone zombie” on you and put them to rest, bringing back something of them for you to properly bury and grieve for. It looks grim and depressing… but also very hauntingly sad and with real substance not usually seen in a simple zombie film. It’s got me interested enough to track it down… but until I do, at least I’ve got the Trailer for you all to see.

Not to be passed up… at least by lil’ ol’ me… is also the odd mixture of romance and Zombies promised by “Life Is Dead” aka “Raifu Izu Deddo”. Yep…. part typical Japanese High-school romance melodrama film… part zombie apocalypse… it’s just strange enough to make me wonder exactly how such a film might actually play out when put together. Guess I’ll find out soon….

Lastly this time out… one that manged to nearly sneak past me. The South Indian period action film “Urumi” aka “The Boy Who Would Kill Vasco da Gama”,  a Malayalam language historical epic film directed by Santosh Sivan and featuring the Urumi… the infamous “ribbon sword” used in the ancient warrior art of Kalaripayat. Originating in South India, it was most popular in the North Malabar Coast of Kerala and is often mentioned in the heroic folklore of the region. Picture if you will a super flexible razor blade nearly 5 and a half feet long… slap a handle on it and whip it around you like a ribbon to slice and dice your opponents to bloody lil’ shreds. Sound dangerous? Sound fairly stupid? No… wait… it’s both!!

Said to be one of the rarest weapons taught to Kalaripayat practitioners…. and with good reason… it’s definitely not a weapon for the timid. Or the guy afraid to cut himself shaving…. I’ve gotta grab myself a copy just to catch this wacky weapon in action…. I’m thinking it needs to be seen to be believed.

Well now… that’s certainly a nice pile to add to my list… and until next time, here’s hoping finding them is the easy part of my quest! “Meow, meow, for now!”

Our synopsis is a bit sketchy but here goes: “Randy, Tammy, Denisa and Josh are going on holiday to a resort at “Virgin Beach”, recently developed as a seaside tourist attraction. But nobody knows that in the ocean near these beaches lurks the Jenglot, a horrible water spirit responsible for maintaining the purity of the southern beaches. Angered by the behavior of the visitors to the resort, the Jenglot creeps forth from the sea and hunts down anyone who desecrates the sanctity of his beach.”

So…. take a big bunch of pretty Indonesian girls in bikinis… throw in a few hunky guys…. a little potty humor… and one goofy rubber sea monster and I’ll be darned if you haven’t got yourself a movie! Am I expecting a classic? Nawwwww… But, at least my sweetie says she game for all the pretty Asian girls in bikinis that want to cavort their way through a film for our entertainment… (Such a brazen tease!! I’ll be certain to get even with her later!!) As always, to catch a bit of the action yourself, you just have to “Read On” and let Neko tell you all about it!

Our story gets underway on a dark and lonely beach…. and a creepy shaman guy (played by Buanergis Muryono) at the surf’s edge is bathing the pitiful form of our title monster in soothing seawater, restoring it’s feeble strength by feeding it with his own blood. There’s some cryptic promise from him to our wee beastie that soon the time will be right and eternity will be his. Oh yeah… you just know that’s gonna cost somebody… big time!! It always does…

Then it’s our turn to shift focus and meet our group of young 20-somethings as they prepare themselves for a little “fun in the sun” on a weekend outing to the newest beach party hot spot, Virgin Beach. It’s the usual group… pretty darn well interchangeable with every other group of attractive young upscale Gen Y characters in every other Indonesian horror film this wee Catgirl has ever seen. We spend the first 10 minutes or so sorting out their roles: Drunken party boy Josh and his girlfriend Denisa… her cute friend Tammy and the buddy of Josh’s that they want to hook her up with, Randy. Add in Randy’s younger bro Kemal…. itching to go along for this wild weekend of debauchery and partying and you’ve got pretty much the standard “body count”… errr… I mean cast… for one of these sorts of films.

Get the sense that this one is pretty much a “by the numbers” exercise in Indonesian horror by director Rizal Mantovani? Yeah… that’s pretty much what it is. The one thing that might rescue things from obscurity… the legend of the Jenglot… should play center stage… but unfortunately for me, it really didn’t. It’s certainly a neat lil’ monster… looking to this lady like one of those old “Fiji mermaids” that used to be in sideshow carnivals here in the US. You know the ones I mean… weird lil’ mummified critters stitched together from tiny monkeys and big fish, stuffed and displayed for the amusement of a gullible clientele. I had hoped to learn some of the folklore behind this Indonesian version of the legend… but apparently all the time that could have been spent telling me that story was taken up with oodles of more screen time for pretty Indonesian models rubbing tanning oil on themselves. Sigh… No fair….

Ok.. ok… at least we learn that the Jenglot is some sort of powerful spirit thingee that’s supposedly immortal and although they never really went out of their way to explain it, I hit on the idea that our creepy shaman guy was up to no good and looking for some vital element that would allow our sick lil’ flesh eating monster to perk up and last another lifetime or so. From most of what follows, I had assumed that missing element was loads and loads of human flesh. For a sick and dying lil’ monster, the Jenglot certainly has a lot of pep left when it comes to ripping apart beach-goers.

Given the body count that requires, our lil’ group grows a bit once they hit the beach, adding sultry Lulu owner of the bungalow they are staying in, and her sexy girlfriend Avi to the group. Ahhhh…. and naturally our young Kemal wastes no time hooking up with a pretty beach bunny named Ninning and bringing her along for the fun. Think we’re going to get to know these people really well? Think again. It’s a really short movie… about 77 minutes or so… and one heck of a list of people who have to get eaten before it ends. Luckily… the Jenglot is up to the task.

It sneaks around half the time like a monkey in an ill fitting rubber suit and the other half of the time acts like a sock puppet on somebody’s arm… not the greatest special effects monster ever done, but adequate enough for our needs. Oh, and our creepy shaman gets in on things too… slipping the Black Magic whammy on poor Tammy (for reasons we only find out about during our “twist ending”…)… as well as whupping on the odd teenager with a big ol’ stick with a nail sticking out of it. He’s a multi-talented bad guy, you see.

So exactly what is his dread plan? Well… it’s “Spoiler Alert” time then…. so don’t go sayin’ Neko didn’t warn ya!

Apparently… every generation our lil’ monster grows old, shrivels up, and eventually dies…. unless, that is, it can pass it’s spirit on to a new fresh body to continue it’s evil existence. Yeah, yeah…. and our evil shaman has picked out pretty Tammy as the Jenglot’s new “home”. So…. will Randy save her? I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting….

Sigh…. given that I hadn’t seen a fresh Indonesian horror film for a while, but I’m sad to say, “Jenglot Pantai Selatan” just didn’t reach the levels of horror goodness I has soooo wanted for my return to Indo Horror. At best Neko can really only give it 2 “Meows” out of 5 for it’s lackluster attempt. Had it spent a little more effort to tell me all about the amphibious spirit thingee that is the Jenglot of Indonesian folklore, I might have been more impressed. Just using it as a stock killing machine for the most part was certainly disappointing. The cast wasn’t amazing either… doing merely an adequate job of being “eye candy”, but never giving us any reason to root for them or sympathies with their horrible fates. There’s no real overt sexuality… it’s an Indonesian film after all…. and the gore, while adequate for the story purposes, usually consists of some fairly short confusing attack scenes in the water leaving corpses with their flesh stripped to the bone… effective but nothing amazing, effects and makeup wise. Ah well… at least I’ve a couple more films in this last pile to arrive from Malaysia, so who knows… maybe one of them will be the creepy lil’ gem I’m looking for.

The PMP Entertainment Malay DVD release for this one is almost an exact copy of the original Indonesian release… minus the added “making of” feature usually found on their discs. It’s PAL formatted, letterboxed and comes with excellent English subtitles for the nice price of 8$ US. Given that… it’s hard to feel cheated or disappointed toooo much. Certainly it’s a budget friendly lil’ DVD if you are as nutty for goofy Indonesian horror as this wee lady. Never a bad thing…..

Our Trailer? Yep Neko’s got you covered…. try this on on for size!!

My sweetheart Carolyn lived up to her promise and surprised yours truly with the sneakiest bit of “ninja girlfriend” action I’ve ever experienced in my whole life. After the last couple of days, Your Favorite Catgirl let her guard down…. expecting that maybe I’d get a nice “night out” some evening as my sweetie’s way of trying to reward me for my Valentines Day gift to her…. but it was then that she decided to strike… when I was least expecting it. The cunning sneak!!

Wanna here what super romantic way she decided to reward lil’ ol’ me? Then you have to hurry up and “Read On”…. silly!!

Now… it was a given that Carolyn would have to wrack her brain for some way to try and even the score… romance wise… after my big Valentines Day display of gratuitous love and affection. The only question was…. exactly what was she going to get up to…. and when?

After 3 days, I was beginning to think she’d decided to put it off till she could do something big and extravagant… and nobody likes “big and extravagant” like she does…. So I let my guard down figuring she’d get around to something nice…. eventually. That is, until I woke my groggy lil’ butt up this morning, that is….

On Saturday, yours truly usually gets to sleep in before having to work later in the afternoon…. luxuriating in the simple joy of gently waking up in a warm cozy bed all snuggled in close with Carolyn who doesn’t have to work Saturdays at all. But not today.

Instead I was roused from slumber by the smell of cocoa and bacon and the scent of toast wafting into the bedroom from our lil’ kitchen. As I woke… I instinctively swept my arm under the covers to find Carolyn missing and it took sleepy lil’ me a minute or so to figure the obvious connection between the wonderful smells of breakfast and her absence. As I sat up, trying hard to shake off the last dreamy vestiges of sleep, I suddenly became aware of a funny sensation on my left hand. Raising it up before my bleary eyes, what greeted me but the sudden unexpected appearance of a ring on my finger!!

Not just any ring mind you…. but the most delightful little sliver band in the form of a cat with chips of green tourmaline for eyes! Soooo… darn… cute!! And somehow…. in the middle of the night…. my sneaky lil’ sweetie had managed to ever so carefully slip it on my finger…. all without waking me. She must have worked at it forever… cuddled in close in the dark… just to surprise me with it this morning!!

“Finally up, eh?” she said from the doorway… a tray of breakfast goodies arranged with cups of steaming cocoa… “I guess I can turn the fan off then! I never thought you were going to wake up…. I was so close to just tossing Ting-ting in on the bed to get you moving, you lazy butt.”

She sat down on the bed with a sly smile and slid the tray to one side while slipping her hand into mine to run her fingers along the ring and asked ” You like it?”, before slipping in for a lingering kiss, “Happy anniversary, Miyu… I just want you to know how much I hope you’ll always want to be my special “kitten”, now and forever.”

What could I say? All I could do was give her the most incredible hug and nearly knocked our breakfast all over the bed with the exuberance of my happiness making my heart pound with the intensity of my feelings for her. She’s my precious angel… and always will be.

We spent the morning eating her breakfast surprise (which was actually pretty good too mind you…) while she gloated over the details of her late night “belling of the cat”. Seems it did indeed take quite a while for her to pull off, as she carefully removed the ring from it’s hiding place beneath her pillow… spent an agonizing hour gently slipping it into place on my finger… coaxing me back to sleep every time she nearly woke me up with soft back rubs and little snuggles and kisses. Apparently at one point I even woke up and started mumbling something to her, but I don’t really remember it…  Oh yes indeed, “ninja girlfriend’s” kung-fu is strong, o’ grasshopper…

Well…. I know it’s a bit early for another “Diary” entry here at the ol’ Litterbox, but I just had to share this one with you, Gentle Visitors…. I hope you don’t mind the extra silly gushing on my part this week, but I just couldn’t keep it all inside. (I’m pretty sure I’d have exploded into a big cloud of confetti if I’d nave tried…..

Not to worry, this goofy Catgirl is going to get back soon with another review especially given that Malaysia has dropped another big package in my mailbox today too. So…. until my next day off on Monday, I leave you with another heart felt “Meow, meow, for now!!”

Our synopsis for it goes along these lines:  “Young surgeon Fang Lei (Zhou Xianxin) has been constantly tormented by weird dreams and incidences of sleepwalking since she experienced the tragic murder of both her parents as a child. One day, she meets by chance her best friend from her orphanage days, Angel (Gillian Chung), who is now married to Lei’s ex-boyfriend Zhou Feng (Wu Jianfei). When her next door neighbor Wang Quan (Victor Huang) becomes entangled in Lei’s complicated life, it seems to trigger a series of inexplicable and deadly things. First Zhou Feng goes missing, and then Lei finds herself being stalked by the creepy girl ghost from her childhood nightmares, all the while more people in those dreams begin to turn up dead for real. Is she the somnambulant murderer as she fears, or is there a more supernatural reason for it all?”

Well… that has a promising sound to it, but, as a Mainland Chinese film, I expected this one to be yet another of the recent “bait & switch” horror movies to come out of China the last year or so. Not that a truly good effort wouldn’t be worth a look mind you…. So with some measure of trepidation, I decided to give this one a chance. Ok then… without wasting any more time, let’s all see if it was worth my risk and maybe even yours… shall we?

It opens with promise, as we get a quick flashback to a young Fang Lei in a dream sequence… happy and carefree, flying her kite without any sign of the evil to come once that idyllic dream turns dark and somber… poor little girl. In those gloomy shades of blue that all night scenes in horror films seem to be in, our little Fang Lei is lured away from her play by an echoing voice calling her name over and over. Eventually she is frightened by the ominous arrival of a ghostly girl who follows her to her house and who proceeds to batter away at the locked door as poor Fang lei cowers in fear, digging painfully at her wrist to wake herself from her nightmare before it’s too late…. Unfortunately, that doesn’t help, and eventually the spirit batters it’s way inside to reveal to Fang Lei the bodies of her parents, both cruelly murdered, their bloody bodies pressed up against her as she screams in terror and awakens.

It’s a great lil’ sequence, and pretty much sets the tone for the “supernatural” elements of our tale as the rest of our film unreels. So what is that story? Pretty much it involves us closely following the now adult Fang Lei (played by Zhou Xianxin) as she struggles with the obvious psychological scars of her parents double murder all those years ago. Strangely enough, as perhaps the most defining moment of her life, it’s not really explained or even really touched on in our film. I would have expected there to have been more about it…. some idea who that murderer was… why they were killed… something. But, no. It was, for me anyway, the biggest lapse of logic in the film, especially given how things unwind later on, but that will have to wait a moment…

Our Fang Lei is certainly a strange woman. She’s subject to that recurring nightmare… she suffers from a very intense “obsessive compulsive disorder”… she noticeably “socially isolated”… and she physically hurts herself as a stress reaction…. so how in heck did she ever manage to become a doctor, let alone a surgeon? Beats me. Maybe the medical standards for doctors is easier in HK…. but she’d seem a risky choice for any hospital to have on staff. I’m just sayin….

She perks up a bit at the unexpected reunion with her closest childhood friend from her days at the orphanage, Angela (played by Gillian Chung, one time member of “The Twins” pop group…. and yes, that silly Edison Chen “sex scandal” thing from a few years back). Once inseparable friends, they’ve drifted apart as adults, but their chance meeting makes lonely Fang Lei happier than she’s been in a long while. Until, that is, she finds that Angela is now married to Lei’s ex-boyfriend and lover Zhou Feng (played by Wu Jianfei). Crap…. you just know that’s gonna be a problem, don’t you?

Again… Fang Lei’s relationship with Zhou Feng should be an important element to the story… and exactly why things didn’t work between them should be explained fully… but it really isn’t. There another quick fuzzy dream flashback about Fang Lei losing their baby… or maybe having an abortion… or something like that, but I have to say I’m still not clear on why they ended things. Either way… Zhou Feng is still smitten with her after all these years… and tries to meet with her secretly only to turn up missing. Fang Lei sees him murdered in a dream…. and there’s every reason to believe she’s not just dreaming it. Her dreadful nightmares intensify… and reality starts blurring as she begins to suffer the visitations of her childhood ghostly tormentor even when it’s certain that she’s awake. Plus… she begins to think it’s possible that she might just have been the one to kill Zhou while walking in her sleep….. Double crap!!

Next… our story throws in some added complications to muddy the waters. First… there’s hunky Doctor Li, her colleague at the hospital. He’s in love with her…. and wants to break through that shell of isolation she’s built around herself, but keeps getting put off. Oh, yeah… and he’s also become so darn obsessed with her that he becomes kind of a crazy stalker who nearly rapes our poor Fang Lei. Sound like a good potential murder suspect? Oh yeah….

But hey…. what about Fang’s new neighbor, sloppy interior decorator and architect Wang Quan (played by Victor Huang)? Love interest and hero or sneaky murderer in disguise? Our movie wants to keep you guessing on that…. Even once it seems he’s the only person really willing to take Fang Lei seriously when it comes to accepting her and all her quirks. In fact…. you still even wonder once he gets himself attacked by the killer and yet then conveniently can’t seem to identify who stabbed him in the shoulder with a scalpel, our killer’s weapon of choice. Suspicious, that….

Sooooo…. what about Zhou Feng himself? Is he really dead? There’s a scalpel in Fang Lei’s desk at the hospital with his rare blood type on it… but could he be the one “gaslighting” our heroine? This notion gets milked too before his body turns up, crammed into a crawlspace in the medical lab where he was killed. That gets him off the hook alright, but only serves to make us wonder more about Fang Lei’s fragile sanity. Except that she’s not entirely crazy….. as she faces down our mysterious ghost girl only to find out she’s not really a ghost after all!! Huh?!?

Hmmmm? But then what about Fang’s suspicions that she herself is the killer? Seems a logical guess given how downright mentally unstable she is and very little is done to dispel that idea in a viewers eyes either at one point it’s fairly certain she actually tried to kill Angela, her closest friend in the whole world by manual strangulation during a hypnosis session. Does all this anger and fear relate to her childhood trauma? Apparently… not. Nor does the film make any effort to involve the murder of her family as motive for these new killings. That crime is just completely unrelated to anything going on existing simply as a lame excuse for Fang to be so darn nutty and unbalanced.

Suitably confused yet? If not, by now you probably should be. This film has more “red herrings” and improbable psychological hokus-pokus than any two movies combined. It definitely pulls out all the ghostly trappings to want to be taken as a true ghost story, only to load in a whole lot of psychological mumbo-jumbo that pushes it towards Hitchcock’s “Psycho”, and then abandons that to flirt with being a simple murder mystery romance. Only at the very end do things get straightened out… and even then it’s merely as an afterthought, all the ghostly stuff debunked and one character basically filling everybody in as to the true murderers motives. Goodness, how I hate those sorts of finales…

So who is our killer? Can’t really tell you that without giving it all away and ruining things, but lets just say the true murderer’s reason for all this death and mayhem are pretty silly when you get right down to it. Given this… there is an ending… but just not a satisfying one to be had.

In the end, Neko can only give “Nightmare” a mediocre 3 “Meows” out of 5. I have to say…. it’s certainly is a good looking film… with some legitimately creepy and eerie scenes that would have worked very well in a real ghost story. Here though, they are somewhat wasted and out of place… as a good suspense film wouldn’t have needed to lean so heavily on them to build tension and atmosphere. The background story for Fang was intriguing… and I only wish it had actually figured more into the solution to this one… I, for one, would have enjoyed knowing exactly why her parents were so brutally killed rather than have it just turn out to be so arbitrary to the story at hand. I can’t say “Nightmare” is a waste of time to see… but I can say it’s disappointing that it wasn’t much more cohesive of an overall plot. The acting was good by and large, with Zhou Xianxin carrying the lead role as our heroine Fang Lei well and convincingly. It was also good to see Gillian Chung again after her unfortunate forced absence from the Chinese cinema scene, although I feel she was wasted here and deserved a better role for her comeback… Still,  then those are the breaks, I suppose. Hopefully she’ll be back again soon with something substantial and more satisfying to those of us who remember her from her earlier days in HK film when her personal life was still her own.

The HK Region 3 DVD is fine, with good accurate English subtitles, although nothing special, and strangely enough behaved a bit weird when played in my region free Chinese player. Not certain why that was… but it needed a bit of prodding to get it to play. Going to have to look into that, as that might mean changes in DVD disc encoding with future Chinese releases are in the works, never a good thing for player compatibility. Just something for those of you out there to be aware of if wacky foreign films are also your thing….

Our Trailer? Hard to snag this one… it practically required your Favorite Catgirl to learn Chinese to find it, but here it goes, Hehehehe!!

This year marks 4 wonderful years we’ve been together, she and I. My best friend… my most tender lover… and the very “Heart & Soul” who makes me feel whole and happier than anybody could imagine in their wildest dreams. I find I just can’t picture my life without her in it. I’m hopelessly, utterly, and completely hers… now and always.

So how can a slightly goofy Catgirl show her sweetheart just how much she’s come to mean to her? Well…. it has to be special… it has to be personal… and definitely it has to be something I know nobody else would ever think to give her.

And… most importantly of all….  it has to be a surprise….

So just what silly and extreme resumes did yours truly have to invoke to achieve these goals? Guess you’ll need to “Read On” to find out….

It’s been a devil of a time this year trying to come up with just the perfect gift to celebrate our 4th year together. It might come as a surprise to some people, but for me, this is now…. officially…. my longest single romantic relationship…. ever. Yep… at 39, I can admit that up till now, I really haven’t been all that lucky in love.

The truth is… I’m a wee bit too odd for most people’s taste. Filled with lots of silly quirks, goofy notions, and far more stubborn about some things than a woman ought to be, over the years I’ve probably “turned off” more potential lovers than I’ve ever “turned on”. Yet all that while…. Carolyn was there, aware of all my flaws, and still aching to be more than just my best friend. I can’t believe how I nearly messed even that up when finally she worked up the courage to tell me how she really felt about us. Luckily though…. for once in my life… I didn’t mess things up and found something I never imagined I’d ever have.

Our relationship has only grown stronger as we’ve been together… and even though I keep expecting that wonderful “honeymoon” feeling to fade to comfortable routine, it really hasn’t. 4 years along, we still have that same passion that ignited between us from the very beginning and we each enjoy the romantic gestures and tokens  that all lovers in love share to mark the days.

Mind you… that can make “surprises” difficult to manage around the Holidays. I always know that Christmas, or my birthday, or Valentines Day is going to bring me another loving heart filled reminder of just how happy she is to finally be the one who gets to call me “hers”. Just as she always knows there will be something special from me meant just for her.

Only this time out…. I wanted to make it a “real” surprise. That meant getting truly sneaky……

So began a month long deception that would have impressed the planners of the D-Day Invasion of Normandy, Hehehehe!! As Valentines Day fell on a Tuesday this year, the easiest way to make Carolyn unaware of my secret plot was to come up with the perfect excuse why we couldn’t celebrate Valentines Day at all…. and that was to invoke a phony Valentines Day Catering Party at work. Hehehehe…. Patton had his “rubber tanks” and I had an entire kitchen staff willing to go so far as letting me arrange fake scheduling, post menus, and do all the planning for a “party” that would never happen. Not everybody was in on this mind you…. many of the front end people truly though we had the restaurant booked, and would tell anyone who asked all about our “private party” that evening. Sam was in on things of course… but then she had helped me come up with Carolyn’s real surprise.

You see… that particular evening our favorite tavern, right across the square from work, was having a Valentines Day “Lip-Sync” night. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of that…. I honestly hadn’t…. but it’s a lot like Karaoke. Instead of you singing to subtitled lyrics on a screen though, you get up on stage and do your best “Milli Vanilli” to your favorite song, lip-syncing to the original track. When done right… it looks pretty amazing. When done badly… well, it’s pretty funny… embarrassing, but funny. Sam had heard about it… and knowing I do that sort of thing at home…. thought it could be fun to do in public.

Ummmm. It didn’t grab me at first. In fact, the idea actually terrified me.

The truth is… I’m not much of a public performer. The idea of getting up in front of a bunch of people as the center of attention for something like that is about the scariest idea I could think of. I know…. I know… you are all saying “But Neko? What about all the cosplay stuff? Isn’t that performing? How do you manage that?”

Well… yes and no. You see… for me, cosplay has always been the “crutch” I use to do that sort of thing. Then I’m in disguise and able to “play” at being someone else… I get to concentrate on my “role” and forget that I’m the one on display. Even doing that took a while to get comfortable with when I first got into it. The notion of just ordinary me… lil’ Miyuki Lynn Carstairs…. up on stage in front of a room full of strangers… no way. I’d just wither away with nervousness. Or throw up… neither of which invokes the romantic feelings I wanted. I explained that to Sam, but she just laughed and said, “So then why not “dress up” and just do it like that….”

Simple. So darn simple I’d have never considered it if she hadn’t thought of it for me. With that solved… all I had was to treat this whole idea as just another “cosplay” and find my “character” to portray. It took a while for that…. I needed a song that was perfect… that summed up everything I felt about being together with Carolyn and it also had to be something I could do a costume for. She’s a big Motown fan… and luckily for me it only took a week before I stumbled on the perfect tune. 1966′s “I’ve Got A Feeling” by Barbara Randolph.

The next few weeks were spent secretly performing the song over and over at home…. stealing my moves from every Youtube video of the Supremes, Martha and the Vandellas, and Barbara Randolph herself that I could watch. When I could, I was prowling the vintage clothing stores and eBay looking for my costume. By the time Valentines Week arrived, I had things down pat…. and a sweet lil’ blue vintage halter dress that would have fit right in on any Motown stage. Somehow, I managed to keep all this a secret from Carolyn…. and to put the cherry on the top of my sweet, sweet deception, I let her know just how disappointed I was at having to work that party… and made very certain we could celebrate Valentines Day early on Sunday night instead by going out to dinner at our favorite Moroccan restaurant.

For Valentines itself…. I made certain to “give Sam the night off” so she at least could spend it with her guy. My “party” was to run till 11 pm, but as Kitchen Manager, naturally I’d be able to cut out early and leave the cleanup to the crew. I had Sam tell Carolyn that I’d try reeeeaaallly hard to meet her at the tavern for a couple of drinks before we went home. Sam let her know just how much I was upset about not being able to spend the evening with her… and made very certain she’d come along with her and her date to wait for me so I could at least salvage some of the evening. Little did she expect my real plans…..

Instead of actually going to work that evening, I had arranged a late appointment at my hair salon where I got my hair done up into the cutest 60′s bouffant bob. My hair has grown out quite a bit, and was just perfect for that sort of style.  After that, I snuck over to Sam’s apartment where I could get into my dress and makeup before taking a taxi over to the tavern early… well before Carolyn and Sam arrived. The DJ and staff were super excited to be in on things, and let me hang out in the back room behind the stage area out of sight until it was time.

I was sooooo damn nervous. Even with my costume… even with all of my practice, I was still scared to death. Every fiber of my being kept silently screaming at me to chicken out and make a run for it. Even now, I think if I’d had to wait too much longer I just might have. But… before that could happen, one of the bartenders poked his head in and told me Carolyn was here. Sam led her right to the table we’d planned up front near the dance floor where I’d be able to see her from stage. They had a couple of drinks… listened to the first couple of singers have a go, and then it was my turn.

The DJ told the crowd that it was time for a very special Valentine song for a very special lady in the audience… the lights went low, and with my stomach churning and my knees ready to buckle, a microphone prop was pushed into my shaky hands and I walked out and onto the stage.

The music started…. loud and pumping, and thankfully the spotlight was so bright I had trouble seeing much beyond the stage at all. I immediately caught Carolyn’s eye… saw the surprise on her face and began going through my practiced routine. My goodness…. it seemed like it took far longer than the 3 minutes or so that the song actually ran…. and how I didn’t just faint somewhere in the middle of it I’ll never know. By the end of it Carolyn was crying, her eyes shining in the near darkness beyond the spotlight and after I blew a kiss to the audience I stumbled down off the stage and met her at the edge of the dance floor falling into her arms as people began whistling and clapping like mad.

Carolyn kept hugging me so fiercely and whispering how much she loved my surprise, that I know she felt exactly how much I feel for her and what she means to me. The rest of the evening was a blur… filled with more drinks, dancing and fun until well past midnight. Eventually…. we left, slipping away back to our apartment where Carolyn showed lil’ ol’ me in no uncertain terms just how much she loves and treasures this wee lil’ kitten.

…. and to think Halloween has always been my favorite Holiday. Might just have to re-think that……

So that was my Valentines day…. and here’s hoping yours was as magical and special too, and if you haven’t found that special someone of your very own, here’s a Catgirl’s best wishes that soon you too will have a love that leaves you weak in the knees and burning with passion and all the best things love can offer. Till next time… I leave you with “our song” and plenty of hugs and kisses …. “Meow,meow, for now!!”

So what cinema goodies are on our schedule this week? Well… let’s not waste any more time and get right to it and find out!!

First up… it’s more zombie action, by way of Spain, in the latest sequel in the hugely successful “REC” franchise. Here’s the new Valentine’s Day themed English subtitled international Trailer for “REC 3: Genesis”, in theaters soon…. and then hopefully on DVD where a certain nutty Catgirl can find it!!

And…. if Zombies don’t float my boat, then there’s the newly released Trailer for Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov’s steampunk horror re-write of Civil War American history, “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” due in US theaters this Summer. Yep… good ol’ “Honest Abe” is gonna kick some serious vampire butt from the look of things…. and I don’t know about you, but this wee lady isn’t about to miss it.

There’s a new 3 part Sci-fi anthology coming soon too… from Korea, here’s our first look at “The Doomsday Book”. Due out sometime theatrically in March in it’s home country, I expect we’ll see some kind of DVD for it by late Summer….. Till then, this lil’ look will have to suffice to whet our appetites.

Long haired ghost Sadako…. from Japan’s “The Ring” series is creeping back too…. the latest Asian horror film to jump on that ever so tired 3D bandwagon in “Sadako 3D”. I’m sooooo darn torn over this one. On the one hand… I soooo like my long haired ghost stories, but on the other, I sooo darn hate 3D. Hmmmm? I guess it’s all gonna depend on how they release this one to DVD…. (Keepin’ my wee paws crossed it stays 2D….)

Ahhh…. and to finish us out this time, a look at the first teaser for Indonesian director Joko Anwar’s next film… “Modus Anomali”. It appears that this time out Joko is doing an English language film, and after his last couple of movies sooo intrigued me, I’m definitely not planning on missing this one. There’s a brief synopsis for it floating around, and it goes something like this: “During a vacation in the woods, a man tries to find his family who mysteriously disappear, while being hunted by a sadistic killer. His only clues are several alarm clocks which seem to tell him about a deadline to something he doesn’t know.”

Anyway… that ought to give you a wee bit of something to get your juices flowing in anticipation of upcoming movie goodness, and until next time… as always “Happy Valentines Day and meow, meow for now!!”

Our synopsis goes like this: “Ahmet, is a photographer planning to do a fashion shoot on location at a deserted former candle factory. But this factory has an unsavory reputation for strange accidents, and years ago many people died in a terrible fire on the premises which led to its closure. There’s also the disturbing story of a mentally disabled child who allegedly died in that same fire leading to the widespread belief that the building is cursed. As a set for a photo shoot, though, it certainly has atmosphere, as it’s partially destroyed, isolated, dark and sinister. And as Ahmet, along with his wife and assistant Selim, goes ahead with his plans, it leads to terrifying events that no-one could ever have seen coming.”

Well now… that certainly sounds like it just might fit the bill for an evening’s movie watching fun, and the Trailer looks creepy and interesting, so let’s waste no further time shall we it’s time for you all to “Read On” and find out all about it!

I haven’t watched a 3D film on DVD since the Hindi ghost story “Haunted”…. and there’s a very good reason why. It’s a gimmick… and one that, despite all the hoopla about how new advances in digital technology have finally brought this idea to perfection, always shows us how much they really…. really… soooo haven’t. In 3D, a film’s lighting is always made darker… with weird blurring, shadowing, and putrid coloring issues that rob the images of much of their value. It gets worse when you realize, that for the most part, the great majority of these films are still filled with nothing more than a collection of those stupid “throw things at the audience” shots just to be able to smirk and wink at how amazing and clever this all is. I’ve never once seen it used for anything but eye wrenching, headache inducing, nauseating cinema torture. I’ve said it here at the Litterbox before… please…. just cut this out. Do all us movie fans a favor…. Take this 3D fad out in the alley… shoot it in the head… stuff it in a trunk, drive it out to the lonely “Cornfield of Dumb Ideas” ,and bury it in a shallow grave once and for all. Seriously….. Then drive a stake through it’s heart and stuff it’s mouth with garlic just to be absolutely sure it will never rise again. Or… if you must do it some more… at least have the decency not to release it on DVD in 3D. A truly good film doesn’t need gimmicks…. and a bad film is never made better by using them. I so wish they had done that for “Cehennem”…. I really do.

Well…. with that rant out of the way… exactly how does “Cehennem” fare viewed merely as a horror film? Lets see. It starts out promisingly with a scared guy stumbling around the ruins of our candle factory… begging some invisible thing for his life. He wants more time…. and he’s certain he can find the people it wants… Yep, we’ve all heard that argument before. It never ends well, and it doesn’t this time either as our smoky ghostly thing swoops in and punishes our poor guy but good, burning and smacking him around before finally dragging him away screaming into the darkness never to be seen again. Who the heck was he? We never find out…. but don’t you worry, the story isn’t about that guy… it’s about Ahmet (played by Ogün Kaptanoglu) a freelance photographer, recently remarried and trying to make a name for himself in the industry. He’s got a fashion shoot to do… and wants to really make an impression by finding just the right locale to give the photos that extra special “look” bound to get him noticed by the movers and shakers. Luckily for him… the old abandoned candle factory outside Istanbul where his father once worked is just perfect for his needs.

Naturally… it’s the same ruin we just saw that poor guy meet his untimely end in and you just know that Ahmet’s in for some grief over this choice of locale for sure. Mind you… our hero already has some problems in his life. We find out fairly quickly that he’s recently divorced…. as we meet his ex-wife Esra (played by Pelin Ermiş) at the offices of the very magazine he’s doing the shoot for. There’s some odd vibe there… as she seems nice, and not at all angry with our boy Ahmet, even though she’s confused as to exactly why he left her to marry his new wife Selim. What was their problem? Don’t waste your time wondering too much about it, as it’s never really adequately addressed or explained in any way. Ahhh… and anyway… Ahmet’s moved on, with a new sexy wife Selim (played by Tuğba Melis), a fellow photography student at the University, who he seems crazy in love with. You’d think that would be something he could be happy about, right? Ummmm? Yeah. Seems there’s some problems here too. Her father is supposed to be really pissed off at Ahmet for marrying his daughter… something she did despite his opposition. So she really loves Ahmet that much? Awwwww…. sounds like they have something really special… right? Ummmm… then as our story gets moving along, why is she so cold to him all the time? Not to mention sneaking around behind his back for extramarital sex with any hunky guy who catches her eye? Darned if I know or understand…

Poor stupid Ahmet is clueless to it all… even when she starts an affair with Berk, the male model in his new fashion layout. Mind you… he’s getting a bit distracted by the odd hallucinations and visions that begin to plague him the very afternoon they do the shoot at the factory. From that point forward, he’s constantly trying to shake the grip of the little boy’s spirit as it tries to force him to find his parents…. who, it seems, were the ones who kept him chained as a prisoner in their attic before bringing him to the factory to roast him to death in one of the furnaces there. To get Ahmet to comply, the ghost starts plaguing those around him with the usual nasty ghostly hijinx you might expect. Well… at least it does after it roasts a beggar boy alive who trespasses into the abandoned factory looking for the lunches Ahmet and the rest left behind.

Ahhhhh…. and I have to say I was actually somewhat surprised by the very explicit nude sex scene between Selim and Berk right before our ghost slips in and kills them both in that flaming way it seems to like to kill folks. I can’t ever say I’ve seen anything that…. “Western”…. in a Turkish film before. I mean… they usually like their violence alright, but I’ve always thought nudity and sexuality were always somewhat taboo for films in Islamic Turkey. Perhaps it’s a new trend in Turkish cinema… included more for it’s shock value than anything else. I mean, it does help give the audience a reason to dislike her and almost begs for her to be punished for her causally cruel treatment of her husband…. and if slasher films have taught us nothing, it’s that naughty girls always die horribly as punishment for their sins. Maybe that’s why Turkish censors gave it a pass….. gotta love a “moral” lessons for the masses.

OK then…. it’s pretty clear that our angry spirit wants revenge on his parents. What’s Ahmet to do? Why enlist the help of his plucky ex-wife, Esra in tracking them down. First it’s off to the creepy apartment of a weird Medium to summon up visions of the past, explain the boy’s murder…. delineate the flaming powers of the ghost and how it can see through flames as well as attack with a cloud of choking smoke and cinders. But… where are the boy’s parents now all these years later? Wait a minute? Didn’t Ahmet’s dad work at the factory? Yeah… and once he tells them where they are living now, it’s really easy for Ahmet and Esra to drive over and “re-unite” them with their angry son’s spirit. Huh? That’s it, you ask?

Yeah… that is pretty much it. Well… with the last few minutes of “twist” hallucination about how Ahmet actually knew the boy when he was little… who his ex-wife Esra really is…. and then with a last scream, we can roll those credits…. after only 65 minutes or so of movie. Yeah… just 65 minutes. That ending just stinks of “Wait a moment guys… 3D movies are expensive and a real bitch to make, so lets just wrap this puppy up before we go broke…”. A shame… as there actually was a promising story here…. it simply feels though like the producers ran out of cash and quickly cobbled together an ending just so it could be released.

My verdict? Unfortunately this one can only muster 2 “Meows” out of 5 for me…. it just plain wasn’t that great a movie when all said and done. It’s got great potential as a story… but none of it felt all that “Turkish” and could just as well have been any direct-to-video B movie made in Europe or the US. The cast wasn’t bad, but then they weren’t given rolls that were really worth their time or efforts. Effects wise, it’s not bad… not up to the standards of say, “Industrial Lights & Magic”, but very good for most purposes and in no way an embarrassment for the filmmakers. All in all… it just fails on so many basic levels that it’s hard to pin any one of them as the lead culprit as to why I didn’t enjoy it that much.

The region 2 Turkish DVD is pretty good… with a PAL formatted wide-screen presentation, good accurate English subtitles as well as some in French, Spanish and Dutch. There’s a Trailer included as well as a “Making of” feature all of which make it a pretty attractive buy at around 15$ US. But still… this wee Catgirl wouldn’t really recommend it as a “must buy” to any but the most devoted foreign horror film junkies out there. Sigh…. I’m soooo hoping “Mussalat 2″ will be better once it comes to DVD…..

As always… there’s a Trailer and here it goes.

Not quite as many this time out… as I’ve been a busy, busy lady at work all this last week and unable to spend the time I usually do seeking them out… but no matter, Gentle Visitors… it’s the thrill of the  hunt that counts, right?

So without further dilly-dallying around let’s all get right to it then, shall we?

This week we start out with the English subtitled trailer to an odd little Serbian dark fairy tale horror/ comedy called “Crna Zorica” aka “Loveless Zoritsa”. From the synopsis… it certainly sounds like one of those odd little films I’ll just love.

“Zoritsa is a village girl who bears an extraordinary curse: Since her first love got mysteriously drawn in the river, men around her die in a strange way. The raged villagers name her “the kiss of death”. The case is in the hands of Mane, the stubborn, young, newcomer cop from Belgrade, temporarily working in the “haunted village”. Mane doesn’t believe in such “mumbo-jumbo” stories. Soon he will have to face the heavily armed villagers, but also to answer the crucial question: Is Zoritsa a serial killer or just a girl who yearns for love?”

No word on it’s release date… so a DVD is definitely a ways down the road. I just hope I’ll catch it when it does make an appearance.

Now, as I said before here at the ol’ Litterbox, in this wee Catgirl’s decidedly humble opinion… outside of nasty ol’ Zombies, there really is only one perfect group of villains for any movie… and that’s those wacky Nazis. I know…. I know… mostly all wiped out, arrested, executed, and purged from humanity at the end of WW2. But…. what if they weren’t all gone? What if those crazy evil buggers escaped… to the dark side of the Moon? Well then naturally they’d probably be there to this day…. still plotting their naughty, goofy world dominating plans like they are in the new micro budget Finnish film “Iron Sky”… finally to be released theatrically this February and it looks like we’re going to be in for some serious fun. It’s making me feel all warm and “Fahrvergnügen-y”…  

Then… in a couple of days (Feb 9th to be exact…) Korea is going to be releasing a “killer dog” movie… titled “The Howling”. Killer doggies? Hmmmmm? Well… Neko likes killer piggies, so I guess I’m on board for some more animal mayhem! Bring it on!!

Well…  as few as they are, those are the cream of the crop this week… so until next time, keep your own eyes peeled and if you see one I’ve missed, why then chime right in and tell me all about it…. inquiring Catgirls want to know…

“Meow, meow for now!!”

Our synopsis for this one is as follows: “Aswang” revolves around the legends of the abuwak race (Aswang). Throughout the generations their race has declined and the only way they can grow in numbers again is through the rare ability that only the soon-to-be “Queen of the abuwaks”, Hasmin (Lovi Poe) possesses. Abuwaks look human when they’re in their normal state, but they can fly, move underground, and they can even transform into raven type of bird. They are quick and strong, and they can attack and eat humans whether in complete darkness or broad daylight. Hasmin doesn’t like all of this, preferring to congregate with humans and even protecting them when her fellow creatures attack the village.

Meanwhile a hired killer named Daniel is forced by cruel circumstances from when he was very young into a life of violence that he has come to despise. Like Hasmin, he doesn’t really like killing the innocent, and this reluctance is what leads him to the abuwak lair, rumored to be somewhere in Pampanga. Along with two other killers, they travel to the village in pursuit of the two remaining members of a lawyer’s family that they massacred in Quezon City .”

Ok…. I’m interested enough to give this one a look-see… especially given how interesting the last few Philippine films made the Aswang out to be. Will it make me one happy Catgirl? You certainly know the drill by now….

So…. as our film gets underway we get a voice-over narration by our lead heroine Hasmin (played by Lovi Poe) about how her ancient race of creatures is in decline… how they’ve lost much of their power and numbers and how only she can be the salvation to their return. Then she and her younger sister promptly eat a poor defenseless farmer while his blind wife stands by unable to save him. It’s tragic… and sort of unintentionally funny… all at the same time. Did I mention that the “abuwaks” can tunnel around underground to attack their prey? Oh…. I did? Well…. did I mention it looks just like Bugs Bunny on his way to Pismo Beach for the annual Clam Festival? Oh yeah…. well it does…. complete with that raised trail of disturbed dirt that always marked Bugs’ way on his lil’ subterranean excursions. All courtesy of CGI of course…. but I’m fairly certain that the Pepsi I snorted out my nose laughing at the sight of it all wasn’t exactly the reaction the filmmakers had been shooting for. Maybe it’s scarier if you are Philippino…. I just don’t know. Either that… or perhaps Bugs Bunny is really a flesh eating fiendish “abuwak” in a clever disguise…..

OK…. well after making certain your Favorite Catgirl wasn’t going to accidentally die from inhaling my soda, we get back to our film and now it’s years later and in modern Manila where three suspicious looking people with guns, Gido (Marc Abaya), Queenie (Niña Jose), and Daniel (Paulo Avelino) are sitting around in a van waiting for the arrival of someone. Someone they need to kill…. Who might that be? Why the crusading lawyer opposing the shady land deal of their evil criminal employer “Boss Eddie” (played by Noni Buencamino). Once he arrives… the three spring into action tricking their way inside and quickly killing everybody they can…. but little do the know, it’s a school holiday and the Lawyer’s two kids Gabriel (played by Albie Casiño) and his little sister Ahnia (played by Jillian Ward) are upstairs. They hear the gunshots and creep downstairs to find their parents and house-staff dead, lying about in pools of their own blood.

Through luck, they avoid Queenie and Gido and make their way to dad’s car…. but get seen by Daniel who’s outside on guard. He could shoot them…. but this is where we get the clue that Daniel is really a decent guy trapped by terrible circumstance in a horrid profession he never wanted. He lets them go… unable to kill innocent unarmed children even if they are witnesses to his partners crimes. This doesn’t score him any points with Gido… nope, not at all.

What this does is send our kids fleeing to the provinces and the safety of an uncle’s home since the local police are corrupt and on Boss Eddie’s payroll. Gido sooooo wants to kill Daniel for letting them escape, but Boss Eddie gives him one more chance, sending the group in pursuit of the kids to finish the job. Where are they headed? Why the rural village of Pampanga, the one place in the whole Philippines most infested with shape-shifting, flesh munching monsters of course…. silly.

Once there… our kids meet the locals… and are nearly devoured by the tunneling abuwaks who are getting unusually fierce this year for some unknown reason. Yep… apparently there’s an “official” monster season in quaint Pampanga and this year it’s started early. Not to worry… out of nowhere pretty Hasmin shows up just in the nick of time to save our lil’ waifs and take them to the safety of the nearby home of her friend Guada (played by Gigi Escalante), our blind farmer’s wife from the flashback earlier. (Yes… yes…. Hasmin did eat her husband… but Guada’s blind so she doesn’t know that…. at least not yet…)

It isn’t hard to like Hasmin…. she’s exotic and pretty and has that whole miserably guilty vibe about her that tells you she’s really a very, very sweet person deep inside. For a cannibal monster girl that is… Problem is… she’s not a person…. she’s a monster… one that needs to eat human flesh to live. Oh…. and we quickly find out she’s a “special” lil’ monster girl too. For some inexplicable and unexplained  reason she’s the sole abuwak able to transform regular humans into abuwaks (It’s a creepy tongue thing… Brrr!!)…. therefore allowing them to increase their waning numbers and regain the power they once enjoyed as a race. Ok... so at least the abuwaks have a plan… a goofy one, but it’s a plan. Why she has to marry the hunchbacked “white eyebrow priest” guy Ipong Moises (played by Bembol Roco) to make it work, this wee Catgirl will never know…. Seriously, as the “leader” of the abuwaks, I suppose Ipong Moises gets whatever he wants, and if he wants the cutest abuwak girl in the clan for his bride then who am I to question it. But just thinking of how ugly their kids would be just scares me silly……

Eventually that plan for “racial revival” goes out the window once Hasmin and Daniel meet. She’s adorably mysterious, dangerous, and shy…. He’s hunky, dangerous, complicated, and troubled…. Oh… yeah and he’s human and she’s a monster, but darn it…. we all know where this is going to end up, right?

And… eventually it does. Mind you, there a lot of abuwak “politics” to wade through, Daniel’s tragic back-story about how he became a hired killer (somewhat goofy… but I’ll get to that momentarily), and the whole “chase and kill the kids” plot to work out before this one can end. Get the sense there’s just too darn much for the 111 minute runtime? Got the smell of “sequel” yet? Yeah…. that’s a big let down too. Seems Regal Films wants their own ” monster romance franchise”…. just like “Twilight”…. only in Tagalog and with weirder monsters. So yeah… by the finish of this one there really isn’t an ending. If it hasn’t occurred to you by now, Hasmin can turn Daniel into an abuwak with her special “Princess of the Abuwaks” power…. then they can save the lil’ kids, kill nasty ol’ Ipong Moises, Boss Eddie and his gang, and then fly off together into the moonlight to save Daniel’s mom from the other hired killers Boss Eddie sent after her back in Manila. But… that’s gonna have to happen in the sequel along with Hasmin’s niece Isobel going for her revenge against Hasmin for getting her Mom and most of the abuwaks killed. Ummm…. yeah…. roll those credits!!

Are you confused yet? Well… you shouldn’t be. Mostly “Aswang” has a very easy story to follow. A goofy and highly improbable one mind you… but an easy one. So what are the main plot quibbles? Well…. for an aswang film, this one is an odd bird indeed. The monsters… well they ain’t aswang at all. They are described as “human lizards… except that they never turn into lizards. Nope… they turn into crows. But…. ummm… I thought they could tunnel around? Yeah… they certainly can do that, even if it doesn’t look all that efficient or scary. Now…. in hand to hand combat they do have the edge of being strong… fast… and more than a match for a regular human being. Unless he’s got a gun. No magical protection against that… and no fast healing or the like either. Bullets will kill these guys dead just as easy as they do people. Whoops!! Outnumbered and outgunned by a veritable horde of us pesky humans….. So much for taking over the world then, eh?

Other problems involve Daniel’s back-story. He’s the son of a cop…. a cop killed by members of his own police force on Eddie’s payroll. Daniel grew up and became an assassin to track them all down and kill them in revenge. He gets them all…. except for Eddie who captures him and gives him a chance to “square things” for the gangsters he’s killed by working for him. Huh? What a stupid idea. Ok…Ok… now Eddie does threaten to kill his mom if he refuses, but ultimately Daniel had to know eventually Eddie would have him killed because he could never trust Daniel not to try again. A truly stupid bit of HK crime melodrama inspired plot that might fly in a Chinese film but that really doesn’t work here… Neither Neko nor my sweetie Carolyn bought this as character motivation at all.

So… what’s the overall verdict? Hmmmm… I suppose Neko would have to give “Aswang” a barely deserved 3 “Meows” out of 5. It’s good looking film, but just not a truly great piece of story telling. The effects here are good… even the “Bugs Bunny” tunneling… but nothing amazing or special. Our lead actress Lovi Poe looks great as Hasmin… and she’s obviously being groomed for bigger and better things in Pinoy cinema. (At least that’s how it looks to this wee Catgirl seeing as how she’s popping up in about a half dozen more films either currently in release or releasing soon.) I’m just thinking she’s going to need to consider seriously whether or not she wants to get locked into a franchise of these kind of movies. As a romance film… I’m afraid this one fails too. The spunky lil’ Malay film “Tolong! Awek Aku Pontianak” did this whole idea much simpler and with far greater success in my humble opinion. Much of a romance film falls to that mysterious quality of “chemistry” between the leads, and here I’m afraid, that was unfortunately never quite apparent. A real shame, and not the fault of either Miss Poe or her leading man, Paulo Avelino. Again… it’s “chemistry”… and either it’s there or it isn’t and no amount of acting skill or prowess can fake that. Ah well…. you win some, you lose some… maybe “Segundo Mano” will be better once I finally get to see that one….

The Philippine International Release DVD is as always an excellent one. It’s letterboxed in 4:3 NTSC All region format with excellent accurate English subs… even for the “Making of” featurette included in the extra. A class act all round, DVD wise. You should be able to grab a copy for around 15-20$ US if Pinoy horror is your thing.

As always… a nifty Trailer exists… and here it goes for you to enjoy!

No crazy genre movie escapes my ever vigilant searches for long…. and these are no exception!!

Hurry, hurry!! There’s lots of new Trailers on tap for this time out….

First up… another “shaky cam” horror goodie for the Argentinian Zombie horror “Incidente”… which from a quick peek, seems to be fairly well inspired by the Spanish success of the “Rec” film series. It’s been out for a while, and is making the festival circuits now looking to create some buzz…. and hopefully that will add up to it’s appearance on DVD soon.

India is still in there kicking too… as is evidenced by the addition of yet another horror film to my list of upcoming “must sees”... with “Siyaah”. The first teaser is now floating around, and it’s got me interested enough to keep an eager lil’ eye peeled. Love my ghost stories….

Malaysia…. now they seem to really want in on the horror movie fun these days. There are quite a few coming up, but as to wether I’ll be able to actually snag them for my very own remains to be seen. Many never… ever… make it to DVD, instead showing up only on VCD for local viewing, minus English subs of course. Others do turn up, only to be missing those important subs for those of us less than fluent in Malay. But still… I keep an eager eye open and my wee lil’ fingers crossed as more and more make it every month. Up first on my list, “Sumpahan Kum Kum”.

Next…. the confusingly named “Keramat”…. Confusing I say, as it has the same title as an Indonesian Horror film this wee Catgirl already acquired  some time ago. Gotta hate when they recycle titles…. tends to help hide a film away from nosy lil’ kittens like me when I’m lookin’ for new ones. But not this time…. So there!!

Then there’s “Sesuatu Yang Tertinggal”…. which looks like some sort of “haunted kids” kind of thing. Or maybe “haunted mirror”…. (Told ya this wee kitten was a bit hampered by her lack of Malay language skill… ) Either way… it certainly looks like my kind of creepy film, so it’s on my list.

Any more? Well… if there’s anything the Malay film audience likes more than their scary ghosts… it’s scary ghost comedies…. Like this new one, “Hantu Dalam Botol Kicap”. Lets see…. risque sexy humor, shamanism, broad slapstick, and possession…. Yep. Seems like it’s all there all right. Guess I won’t be able to pass that one up either.

“But Neko?”, I hear you all saying…. “Ummmm?…. Don’t you watch any of those goofy Indonesian horror movies anymore?” Why yes…. yes I do. The problem I have is finding them since my favorite domestic DVD source for those crazy films went into “Internet Limbo” and closed up shop last year. But… I still keep my eyes open, and it seems that our old friend Dewi Perssik still wants to be a movie star. To get there she’s willing to star in just about anything…. even a nutty Indonesian Mermaid horror movie… I kid you not!! “Arwah Kuntilanak Duyung” to be exact. So will I watch it? Sigh…. yes…. I probably will… if I can find it, that is. (Gosh darn it…. I’m such a geeky wee goof for these silly movies…. )

Well…. that’s certainly a sizable chunk of video Trailer goodness for now, and ought to give you plenty to look for if you too are also the bad movie fanatic that a certain silly lady seems to be…. So until next time, keep your own eyes peeled for video goodies and, “Meow, meow for now!!”