Zombieland

Wow guys, I can’t believe. I already reached my 200^th review. For today, I will treat this review with care because I’m going to look at a comedy that you guys should definitely check out for this month. I’m of course talking about none other than the 2009 comedy, “Zombieland.”

There’s no doubt about it: Zombies are funny. RogerEbert even said, “I think they stopped being scary for me along toward the end of "Night of the Living Dead." OK, maybe in a few others, like "28 Days Later."” They’re like the Energizer Bunnies of corpses, only there just to be smothered in blood. Would you have guessed that a funny movie like “Zombieland” could have been made about zombies? No thanks to the zombies.

The movie is narrated by our hero played by Jesse Eisenberg, named after his hometown of Columbus, Ohio, who is traveling back home across America which is now zombie-infested. The landscape is scattered with burned-out cars and corpses. He meets up with another survivor of the zombie attack, Tallahassee, played by Woody Harrelson. The two meet up, not without having a lot of disagreements, and eventually encounter two women survivors: the drop dead gorgeous Wichita (Emma Stone) and her little sister Little Rock (Abigail Breslin).

The plot comes down to a road movie where the Undead are the enemies, as a handful of zombies are shot, mashed, sledgehammered and otherwise troubled. Wichita and Little Rock apparently are con women, destroying the hopes of Columbus, who has a crush on Wichita. Eventually they all join in this odyssey to a Los Angeles amusement park, for no other reason but because there’s no better location to have a zombie movie than at a carnival. Even Ebert said, “Yes, even with a haunted house, the usual ominous calliope music and a zombie clown.” Columbus, like so many others, has Coulrophobia (fear of clowns), making Eisenberg a combination, since his mother throughout grade school had him playing clowns at children’s parties.

Every single one of these things could have been boring, but not here. Even Ebert said, “The filmmakers show invention and well-tuned comic timing, and above all, there's a cameo by Bill Murray that gets the single biggest laugh I've heard this year. The foursome hauls up at Murray's vast Beverly Hills mansion, so palatial it is surely a grand hotel, and finds him still in residence. More than that I will not say, except that not many zombie comedies can make me think simultaneously about "Psycho" and "Garfield."”

Eisenberg is a good actor and he plays a pleasant nerd who has collected a seemingly endless list of survival tactics in the United States of Zombies. Ebert stated, “These items are displayed in onscreen graphics that pop up for laughs and include a tribute to the Back Seat Rule of my Little Movie Glossary, which instructs us -- but I'm sure you remember.”

Woody Harrelson takes a large amount of enjoyment when he kills the zombies, often refusing to kill the zombies with a gun but instead uses car doors, tire irons and whatever else he can find. As usual, the zombies are stupid, clumsy fools who obediently line up to get killed.

This is how Ebert ended his review: “Vampires make a certain amount of sense to me, but zombies not so much. What's their purpose? Why do they always look so bad? Can there be a zombie with good skin? How can they be smart enough to determine that you're food and so dumb they don't perceive you're about to blast them? I ask these questions only because I need a few more words for this review. I will close by observing that Bill Murray is the first comedian since Jack Benny who can get a laugh simply by standing there.”

As everyone might have noticed, zombies have been getting a lot of attention in the media over the last few years especially with shows like “The Walking Dead.” That sitcom is really garnering the attention of zombies. With all these other famous Halloween creatures like werewolves and vampires; zombies seem to have more attention than before. But I digress, this is a funny movie that all of you should check out if you haven’t. You will laugh so much when watching this. I know I enjoyed myself watching this.

Thanks for joining in on my 200^th review. Stay tuned tomorrow for the next entry in “Halloween Month.”

Coraline

In continuation with scary animated movies, I will look at a movie that got my family back to going to the theater after a whole year of not going. I’m not kidding, all throughout the year of 2008, I hadn’t gone to the theater, but thanks to this film, we got back to going to the theater.  I’m talking about none other than the 2009 film, “Coraline.”

What was the target audience for this film? I’m not sure what would be the right age to show kids this, but it’s definitely not a movie for Elementary School kids. Look, with the advent of all these websites where people post all sorts of videos, everyone has seen just about all types of videos. However, “Coraline” is scary because of the story it tells, which doesn’t happen very often. Not that many movies take us on some sort of a Haunted Mansion type of a ride like this one does.

Coraline Jones, voiced by the actress who started her career out from when she was a child, Dakota Fanning, is not the typical kid we’ve seen. She has some sort of a stuck-up behavior about herself and doesn’t really have any friends. What’s also strange is that the people she encounters are not really the people we meet every day, which is about her going through a painted door in her house that takes her to another place where she has parents who are exactly like her own, except they have buttons sewn over their eyes. She later becomes stuck to stay forever in this other place permanently.

We can sympathize with Coraline on her parental issues because her parents aren’t the best. They’re constantly working, arguing and don’t really give her the attention that a kid requires. They don’t even make eye contact or acknowledge when she has entered in a room. You can’t really blame her when she finds out about her Other Mother and Other Father who are on the other side waiting for her to give her all the attention that parents need to give children. The only thing for her to do, if she wants to stay there forever, is to sew the buttons over her eyes.

Roger Ebert noted in his review, “"Coraline" is the new film by Henry Selick, who made "The Nightmare Before Christmas" (1993) and again combines his mastery of stop-motion and other animation with 3-D. The 3-D creates a gloomier image (take off the glasses and the screen is bright), but then this is a gloomy film with weird characters doing nasty things. I've heard of eating chocolate-covered insects, but not when they're alive.” Believe it or not, I actually saw this film in 3D.

Ebert continued, “The ideal audience for this film would be admirers of film art itself, assuming such people exist. Selick creates an entirely original look and feel, uses the freedom of animation to elongate his characters into skeletal spectres looming over poor Coraline.” Her new friend is Wybie, voiced by Robert Bailey Jr., whose birth name is Wyborn, which Coraline realizes why he was given that name.

The Other Mother and Father, voiced by Teri Hatcher and former contributor on “The Daily Show” with now his own podcast, John Hodgman, (they both also voice Father and Mother) want to keep Coraline with them by forcing the buttons over her eyes. Their house, which is Coraline’s, has two old broads in the basement, voiced by Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French, who look like they were previously stage show actresses for really disturbing shows. The old man who lives upstairs is Mr. Bobinsky, voiced by Ian McShane, who must have also been a stage show actor who has trained a field of mice. One of the rooms in the house has giant insects living in them.

With all honesty, I don’t really know how the 3D really helped this movie out. I can’t really say it was noticeable, seeing that it was not really there all the time. If anyone was frightened by the way this movie looked through the trailers and previews, may give this movie a pass.

Sure, this may be something that people will want to see other than the light-hearted animated films that have been released a lot over the years. However, this may be a little too dark and insane for people to watch.

However, the look of the film was what really helped the movie out for me. I really liked how the animators made this movie and gave it such a nice drawing on it, despite the fact that was mainly done all through computers. I feel like that is basically what people really loved about this movie and didn’t really got into the story, but just loved how it was made.

I won’t lie. I was scared by this film as well. If you want to watch this film, be warned, this is really scary. Watch it alone if you want, but this isn’t really a family movie for all of you to see. However, still check it out because it’s definitely a movie for Halloween. Stay tuned tomorrow for the next entry in “Halloween Month.”

Quarantine 1 and 2

Today we’re really going to get scary, because I am going to review the American remake of the Spanish thriller [REC], “Quarantine,” released in 2008. This pretend-documentary horror movie, with its hand-held shaky-camera and tipsy point of view, is enjoying a rebirth almost a decade after “The Blair Witch Project” was released. Especially a little over a year after we saw “Diary of the Dead,” “Cloverfield” and even the low-budget “The Charmer.” Now “Quarantine” is telling their viewer that the scariest threat could not be being made in the Middle East but in the apartment next door.

Our main character is Angela (Jennifer Carpenter from the Showtime series “Dexter”), a television news reporter who, along with her calm cameraman, Scott (Steve Harris), is looking at the firefighters for a special on night workers. Responding to a 911 call from a downtown apartment building, they arrive to find the residents frightened because of a sick neighbor. With Scott’s camera still recording, this strange situation escalates while the infection quickly spreads out to everyone and the authorities seal the building. John Erick Dowdle, the director of the movie, gets a tip of the hat because of the movie’s least believable incident is how fast the government responds.

Even though this does look familiar, “Quarantine” gives us quite a scare with solid acting and perfectly adjusted frights. Smartly working through the claustrophobic setting (and the adapted script from [REC]), Dowdle keeps the action going and the injuries disgusting.

In a press note, Carpenter admits, “I don’t see a lot of horror films. It takes a certain kind of stomach.” She’s right though, because it’s best not to watch this movie when you are eating or have just eaten.

Believe it or not, this film was so successful that it came out with a sequel in 2011, “Quarantine 2: Terminal,” which is the best possible recreation of a remake it could have been.

William Goss stated in his review, “The original [REC] was a brilliantly constructed found-footage horror film that took place entirely in a Barcelona apartment building as hyper-rabid neighbors began turning on one another. There was a sequel, [REC] 2, and a remake, Quarantine, which stuck well to the blueprints of the original and basically left success unmessed with. This sequel is not a remake of that sequel, though it decides to similarly expand on the first film’s mythos. The found-footage point of view and any familiar characters have been excised in favor of a relatively crafty repeat of the first film’s contagious claustrophobia.”

In this film, our characters are trapped inside a red-eye flight that is departing from LAX as the infection starts to spread to the other pets and passengers (the nice flight attendant (Mercedes Masohn), a possible love interest (Josh Cooke), the obnoxious guy (George Back), the old couple (Lynn Cole and Tom Thon), the bratty kid (Mattie Liptak), the even more obnoxious guy (Phillip Devona), the useful army medic going home (Noree Victoria), and so on) before an emergency landing forces the story to now go into a fast quarantined cargo handler.

Goss comments that, “The production has the look and feel of a ‘90s NBC miniseries (the virus-on-a-plane antics of Pandora’s Clock specifically come to mind) crossbred with the bloodier fare that populates Syfy’s schedule every Saturday night, although the ensemble work here is a bit better than that comparison might suggest.” The screenplay done by director John Pogue is inventive enough given the detained action (like one of the passengers is a golfer so that is reason enough to make him use a golf club as a weapon), and even though his introduction of infrared goggles is a clear effort to copy [REC]/”Quarantine’s” night-vision climax, few other moments feel as grateful to this film’s predecessor(s). Goss even says, “In fact, he even pulls off one nasty bit of business involving a needle and an eye that is perfectly squirm-inducing in a way that neither of those films even tried to be.”

At the risk of negative with faint praise, “Quarantine 2: Terminal” is about as good as something clearly meant what to be a direct-to-video sequel can be: a bit on the cheap side, barely original, but rarely lazy, as much of its in-name-only brotherhood.

So, if you are in the mood to be scared, then watch these two movies. They are definitely scary, and I know you will like them both. If not, then you’ll like the second one better, because I know I did. Just be careful though, because something like this could happen, but I’m not sure where.

Check in tomorrow for the next entry in “Halloween Month.”

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Well, I think I’ll look at another Tim Burton movie this month, which will be the third movie I will have reviewed this month. His films are so dark that they just seem right for this month. The film that I will look at is a film adaptation on a stage production. Let’s begin.

Tim Burton’s 2007 film adaptation of “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” is so proud of itself at the vision of such a story, and it should. When telling this story, half-measures will benefit him nothing. It looks like the bloodiest musical in stage history, now turned into the bloodiest in film history, and this isn’t a happy dance, but a dark revenge tragedy with heartbreak, havoc and delicious meat pies.

However, we do know watching this and feeling relived that Burton stayed true to the source material. This is one movie that is proof against a happy ending.

What it does have is a satisfactory mixed ending, which is better, where what must happens, does occur. We also have unforgiving performances by Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and Alan Rickman, with a menacing production design by Dante Ferretti, with the dark shadows of Dariusz Wolski’s cinematography, which allows Burton to show the 19^th Century London of Henry Mayhem’s Labour and the London Poor, which reported on the remains of London and was heavily influenced by Charles Dickens. What we did hear about the Calcutta would have been an improvement on London poverty back then.

Yet, there is an excitement in the very heart of the film, because it has a strong life force. Its heroes, or anti-heroes, have been wounded to the core, its villains are cold and heartless, and they all play on a stage that doesn’t allow decency and mercy. The acting is good that it joins us in the foul story, which even contains a large amount humor – gruesome, to be sure. Roger Ebert even said in his review, “As a feast for the eyes and the imagination, "Sweeney Todd" is ... well, I was going to say, even more satisfying than a hot meat pie made out of your dad.”

The basic story is in London years ago lived a barber named Benjamin Barker (Johnny Depp) with his wife (Laura Michelle Kelly) and daughter (Jayne Wisener). Then the evil Judge Turpin, played by Alan Rickman, sentenced Barker on made up charges and had him transported to Australia, while kidnapping his wife and daughter. After Turpin steals Barker’s wife, destroying her life, the daughter Johanna grows up to be the judge’s ward and prisoner.

As the film starts, Benjamin escapes prison Down Under and sails into London with Anthony Hope, played by Jamie Campbell Bower. He runs through the street to find his old barbershop, where the landlady is still the dark-eyed beauty Mrs. Lovett, played by Helena Bonham Carter, who sells, as she puts it, the worst pies in London. She tells him what has happened to his family. He goes upstairs to where his old barbershop used to be, now in ruins, and changes his name to Sweeney Todd and starts his business again.

So deep in his anger he makes a change to the building structure: a sliding shaft that will drop his customers straight into the basement after he cuts their throats, so Mrs. Lovett can make them into her meat pies. Now she has on her menu the meatiest and most tender meat pies in London. Business grows, and sometimes satisfied customers to go upstairs for a haircut and now the next victim of being turned into a meat pie.

Ebert says in his review, “Burton fashions his musical in what can almost be described as an intimate style. No platoons of dancers in London squares, as in "Oliver!" This is a London of narrow alleys, streets shadowed by overhangs, close secrets. The Stephen Sondheim songs don't really lend themselves to full-throated performance, although that has been the practice on the stage. They are more plot-driven, confessional, anguished. Depp and Bonham Carter do their own singing, and very well, too, and as actors, they use the words to convey meaning as well as melody.”

There are also cast members that include Sacha Baron Cohen (who you might remember as “Borat”), as the rival Italian barber Pirelli, whose singing career ends rather quick in the film. And with Rickman as the evil judge and the very useful Timothy Spall as Beadle Bamford, his pawn. With Jayne Wisener as Johanna and Jamie Campbell Bower as Anthony, who become infatuated with one another and give some comfort after the last throat is cut.

I have to agree with Ebert says, “To an unusual degree, "Sweeney Todd" works on a quasi-realistic level and not as a musical fantasy. That's not to say we're to take it as fact, but that we can at least accept it on its own terms without the movie winking at us. It combines some of Tim Burton's favorite elements: The fantastic, the ghoulish, the bizarre, the unspeakable, the romantic and in Johnny Depp, he has an actor he has worked with since "Edward Scissorhands" and finds a perfect instrument.”

Helena Bonham Carter may be Burton’s mistress, but aside from that, she is perfectly cast, not as an inappropriate wife who sells fish kind but as a small beauty with dark, sad eyes and a moping mouth and a constant fantasy that she and the barber will someday live by the seaside. Not likely, I say.

In the end, if you haven’t seen this film, go see it, but be forewarned when I say that this is very dark and violent. It’s one of the most violent films I have ever seen, and possibly the darkest musical. Just be very careful when you are watching this film.

Stay tuned tomorrow for the next entry in “Halloween Month.”

Monster House

I think that I will switch gears and talk about an animated movie for “Halloween Month.” Yes, there are animated movies that are nice for kids to check out, depending on what it is. I don’t seem to review animated movies much, but today I will. Today’s review….the 2006 animated film, “Monster House.”

It’s great to see what nice voice acting, engaging characters, and beautiful animation can do in a film, isn’t it? When that is all put together, “Monster House” is enough of a horror film to satisfy a horror movie fan, and enough of a children’s film to have them entertained. Felix Vasquez Jr. said in his review, “I admit to writing off “Monster House” upon its arrival, only because while the film is wonderful, the story isn’t exactly original (ahem—Robert Wise’s “The Haunting”, anyone?), but the combination of a strong script, and truly down to Earth characters make “Monster House” a short but very entertaining piece of horror fantasy that reaches down into really human themes of loneliness, death, and puberty.” What you will enjoy about this film is that it’s in the same ballpark with other classics like “The Goonies” and “Monster Squad,” where a small group of kids that are outcasts that take on a daring challenge when no one will come in and help them out.

Then there are the classics: the love interest, our disinclined hero, his obese but comic-relief friend, and a teenage enemy who makes their plans difficult very often. Everything is here, a pattern from the films I mentioned right down into our creatively penniless civilization. DJ is the local kid who sits in front of his window and takes photos of his neighbor across the street, an old man named Mr. Nebbercracker who screams at kids to get off his lawn. One day DJ and his friend, Chowder, are playing basketball, and they lose their ball so DJ becomes brave and tries to get it back off of Nebbercracker’s lawn. Nebbercracker grabs DJ, but then he drops dead. After a few days of Nebbercracker being in the hospital, DJ is positive that the house is possessed, so he decides to go into the house to see what is going on and stop it.

Teaming up with a girl who has been eaten by the house, they decide to take this daring mission on saving the children in their neighborhood before Halloween arrives and a handful of children are eaten. “Monster House” has the feature of being blessed with three amazing performances by its laws. Mitchell Musso is great as DJ who has to find a way to get the house distracted so he can dig right into its core, while Sam Lerner steals much of the show as Chowder. Vasquez admits, “I loved Chowder and I can’t think of a reason why other people won’t.” Wearing a small red cape, Chowder gets himself into all kinds of trouble and quotes every one of the best one-liners.

With a combination of fear, and rich sensitivity, Chowder becomes a noticeable character, and Sam Locke is great as the courageous and clever Jenny, a survivor the house’s anger who decides to team up with DJ and Chowder to get revenge on the house. Of course an animated film could not be complete without an all-star cast. We have voice work done by Fred Willard, Catherine O’Hara, Kevin James, Jason Lee, John Heder, Kathleen Turner, and Steve Buscemi who voices Nebbercracker, while Maggie Gyllenhaal is memorable in her punk rock performance as Z, DJ’s irresponsible babysitter.

Vasquez ends his review by saying, ““Monster House” is an utterly simplistic but hilarious adventure that only a select group of its target audience will find entertainment with, and I don’t recommend bringing along anyone under the age of eight, because the fantastic animation manages to spawn an awfully horrific house that’s more demonic entity and less bricks and wood. I suspect, and hope that “Monster House” will become a Halloween classic, because it’s too fun to be forgotten. Sadly, “Monster House” is too short an experience for what I can consider one of the better animated films I’ve seen in a while.” This might be too scary for toddlers, but “Monster House” will satisfy a lot of the audience because of a great script, amazing performances, and beautiful animation.

If you have kids, then you can show this film to them, depending on whether they can handle scary animated movies. But this is a lot of fun for the whole family to watch. I saw this in the theater with my sister and two younger cousins, and we liked it a lot. I haven’t seen it since then, but if I ever caught it again on TV or rented anytime, I would definitely watch this again. Even if someone asked me to watch it with them, I wouldn’t say no.

Thanks for joining in on today’s entry. Stay tuned tomorrow for more scariness in “Halloween Month.”

Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events

For this entry of “Halloween Month,” I believe I will look at another novel adaptation. Let’s see…how about “Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events,” released in 2004? Now, I would just like to say that this is another series that I have never read, so please do not mind that I like this film. If I read this series, like I have with the Harry Potter series, I would have said that the books are better, which is always the case. I won’t doubt that, but I actually liked the surreal, creepy feel of the movie.

First off, for those who do not know the movie, here is the basic story: When their parents perish in a mysterious fire, the Baudelaire children – Violet (Emily Browning), Klaus (Liam Aiken), and baby Sunny (Kara and Shelby Hoffman) – are sent to live with their nearest relative, the sinister Count Olaf (“In Living Color” alumni who brought us an onslaught of memorable characters, including Fire Marshall Bill, Jim Carrey).

Caroline Westbrook stated in her review, “With no Harry Potter or Lord Of The Rings to bring fantastic seasonal cheer to multiplexes, the mantle of Big Christmas Film is this year passed to yet another adaptation of a kid-friendly book, namely the works of elusive author Lemony Snicket (actually San Franciscan scribe Daniel Handler).”

This depressing children’s book series by Daniel Handler has somehow sneakily gained a worldwide following with both children and adults, with 13 books on the shelves of every bookstore and library in the time it takes for J.K. Rowling to think up of another novel for the Harry Potter series. Brad Silberling’s work on this novel adaptation seems to surpass the early Potter movies (at the time when this was released), strengthened by a series of memorable performances and its atmospheric, Burtonesque visuals.

Silberling develops the tone early on, with a strangely intelligent opening sequence, and thanks to the following combination of sick comedy and nervous set-pieces, offers what you can enjoy afterwards. He’s also smart and well-organized enough to let the movie belong to its amazing children protagonists, rather than allowing it to become a runaway Jim Carrey vehicle. As the useless, murderous and terrible-disguise-wearing Olaf, his performance will neither let down his fans or his detractors – it’s promised to excite and annoy equally.

Westbrook stated in her review, “The film does suffer from a patchy, episodic script, though, which is a real shame given the florid style of the books. Scripter Robert Gordon shoehorns in the events of the first three novels, and it does make for an uneven tone.” The parts with Scottish comedian and musician Billy Connolly’s Uncle Monty, while an essential part of the series on the page, don’t really do much to further the plot. While one of the greatest actresses, Meryl Streep, is really good as the phobic Aunt Josephine you would wish that there was more of her. Other supporting actors – including Luiz Guzman and Jennifer Coolidge – are really underused you almost wondered why they were even in the movie at all. Other cast members include Catherine O’Hara, Dustin Hoffman, comedian Cedric the Entertainer, Timothy Spall, Craig Ferguson, and even the great British actor Jude Law as Lemony Snicket aka the Narrator.

Still, Westbrook is right in her review when she says, “Snicket-heads will naturally be thrilled to see their heroes recreated so deftly and vividly; the production design and costumes stay true to the spirit of the book and are impossible to fault. Those who have become accustomed to more epic Yuletide fare over the past few years may be harder to convince, but if you sit back, relax and just accept it for what it is - an enjoyable, escapist Gothic pantomime - you will go home happy.”

Final verdict is that Silberling does a good job introducing Snicket on the big screen for those who’ve never heard of him, in this impressive adaptation that’s always smart, even if it’s occasionally remarkable. Go see it if you have read the novels, but just be forewarned, this adaptation combined three of the books into one movie, so you might complain about the pacing of the movie, which I can understand.

Alright, stay tuned tomorrow for the next entry in “Halloween Month.”

Van Helsing

For today, I will review another movie that I like but everyone else seems to hate, the 2004 movie, “Van Helsing.” There have been a number of movies that have brought together two monsters, but “Van Helsing” has Frankenstein, his monster, Count Dracula, the Wolf Man, Igor (Kevin J.O’Connor), Van Helsing the vampire hunter, along with other werewolves, werebats and vampires, and even Mr. Hyde, who seems to think that he is the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Roger Ebert described this movie as a Greatest Hits compilation. The Frankenstein Monster is in here with spare parts put together and brought to life with electricity, plus a lot of CGI. The plot depends on Dracula trying to figure out the secret behind the Frankenstein Monster so that he can bring his handful of minions to life. Because Dracula, played by Richard Roxburgh, and his vampire brides are all dead, they are not able to give birth to human children, obviously.

Ebert put down in his review, “That they give birth at all is somewhat remarkable, although perhaps the process is unorthodox, since his dead offspring hang from a subterranean ceiling wrapped in cocoons that made me think, for some reason, of bagworms, which I spent many a summer hand-picking off the evergreens under the enthusiastic direction of my father.”

Van Helsing, played by the beloved Australian Broadway actor Hugh Jackman, is sometimes portrayed as young, and sometimes old in the Dracula movies. In this movie, he’s like a professional monster-killer with a hat that looks like something out of Phantom of the Opera, who works with a friar named Carl, played by David Wenham. His first mission is to find Mr. Hyde, played by Robbie Coltrane (Dr. Jekyll is played by Stephen Fisher), who now resides in the Notre Dame cathedral and goes out to murder. His task is not complete, so Van Helsing’s next stop is to get instructions and supplies of high-tech weapons from the religious version of Q from James Bond.

Next stop: Transylvania, where the movie starts with a skillful b&w sequence showing the town mob swinging pitchforks and torches and bullying Frankenstein’s Monster, played by Shuler Hensley, into a windmill, which catches on fire. For those of you who have seen the Frankenstein movies know that the monster survives, but the mob works itself up so much that when Van Helsing and Carl arrive in the village, they get almost hit with the pitchforks and torches for general reasons. What saves those two is an attack caused by the three vampiresses (Elena Anaya, Silvia Colloca and Josie Maran), who like to pick up their victims and fly off to suck their blood. Van Helsing fights them off with a flying device that fires arrows like a machinegun.

That leads them to meeting up with the beautiful Anna Valerious (Kate Beckinsale), who with her brother Velkan (Will Kemp) are the last of nine generations of a family that will never find peace until Dracula is dead. This is nice because if you kill Dracula, then every single vampire that he created will die with him. Anna is first suspicious of Van Helsing, but soon they work together, and the rest of the plot I will let you see for yourself because there is a lot of it.

Stephen Sommers directed this movie, whose career began calmly with films he directed like “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” and “Jungle Book.” Then he must of have been experimented on by Victor Frankenstein, played in this movie by Samuel West, because Sommers then went on to direct “Deep Rising,” “The Mummy,” and “The Mummy Returns.” Then came “Van Helsing,” which has the ultimate amount of CGI to make a world that is hectic and violent, bizarre and entertaining, and sometimes very beautiful.

CGI can get boring when it shows characters calling from such great heights and somehow surviving, or when they fly at the end of their ropes as well as Spider-Man, but without his superpowers. But they can also be used for visual likings, like here with cinematography by Allen Daviau, who did “E.T.,” and the production design by Allen Cameron together with Sommers’ imagination for a grand look. The best part is the masked ball in Budapest, which is half real (the musicians on the balls, the waiters on unicycles) and half put together by computer. It’s a great scene, and possibly looks nice on DVD, along with the amazing coach chase.

In his review, Ebert stated that “I also liked the movie's recreation of Victor Frankenstein's laboratory, which has been a favorite of production designers, art directors and set decorators since time immemorial (Mel Books' "Young Frankenstein" recycled the actual sets built for James Whale's "The Bride of Frankenstein").” Here Frankenstein’s home is a large gothic castle, just down the road from Dracula, and the machines picks up the Monsters to just large heights to have them hit by lightning bolts. There are also a lot of crypts, stygian passages, etc., and a library where the painting revolves, perhaps to pay homage to Brooks’ revolving bookcase.

The screenplay done by Sommers is humorous, but does restrict itself. The best ones are the quiet moments, like when the friar denies joining Van Helsing (saying “But I’m not a field man”) and when the Monster kind of recites the 23^rd Psalm.

At the beginning, we may be scared of Sommers because he’ll just give us an overdose of f/x, but by the end, he somehow succeeded by bringing together all the monsters and plot points into a high-voltage climax. “Van Helsing” is silly and amazing, and a lot of fun.

So I would definitely say that this gets a recommendation from me. Watch it, especially if you want to see your favorite horror monsters together in the movie. I know that other movies may have done it better, but this one you should check out. Stay tuned tomorrow for the next entry in "Halloween Month."