Gabe Bartalos Movies
- 2005
Filmmaker and artist Matthew Barney collaborated with his wife, noted musician Björk, for this ambitious experimental feature. Aboard a Japanese fishing vessel named the Nisshin Maru, a crew of laborers constructs "the Field," a sculptural mold in the shape of an oval that is filled with melted petroleum jelly. As the crew slaves over the project, a man and woman (played by Barney and Björk) are brought on board, and while the ship sets sail the couple prepare to be married in a traditional Japanese ceremony. As the pair are about to be wed, the captain of the Nisshin Maru (Susil Osoma) relates the history of his ship to them. That night, a massive storm at sea disturbs "the Field," and the petroleum jelly floods the room where the newlyweds are staying, forcing them to tear away their outer shells and reveal the animals which lurk within in order to survive. Drawing Restraint 9 was one of Matthew Barney's first major works after completing his widely acclaimed five-film series The Cremaster Cycle. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Matthew Barney, Björk, (more)
- 2005
Produced for cable's Sci-Fi Channel, Alien Express makes up in speed what it lacks in production finesse. Among the passengers on the maiden trip of a new, streamlined "bullet train" is a collection of millionaires, presidential candidates and beauty contest winners--not to mention a band of eco-terrorists who plan to hijack the train as it streaks nonstop from LA to Vegas at 100 mph. Making matters worse, if such a thing is possible, the train has been invaded by lizardish space aliens, who multiply at an astonishing rate and have a nasty habit of spittig toxing goo at the passengers. And oh, have we mentioned the suicide bomber in the baggage car? Thank heaven that all-purpose detective Vic Holden (Lou Diamond Phillips) is on board to (hopefully) save everyone--including his estranged wife--from villains foreign, domestic and extraterrestrial. Alien Express originally aired on August 13, 2005. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
With his acclaimed Cremaster Cycle and 2005 feature Drawing Restraint 9, avant-garde artist Matthew Barney established himself as a bold experimentalist who wasn't afraid to take a few risks for the sake of his art. Set into motion in the late '80s, Barney's Drawing Restraint series consists of works in which the artist attempts to create works while hindered by physical weights and barriers. The result, claims Barney are creations that are much more rewarding due to the difficulty it takes to render them. With Drawing Restraint 9, the artist teamed with his wife, Björk, to tell the tale of a couple who boards a Japanese whaling ship to partake in a series of obscure rituals -- including a ceremony that took place in a tank filled with 45,000 pounds of petroleum jelly. For fans longing to see how the innovative artist achieves his unique vision, this documentary by filmmaker Alison Chernick mixes clips from Drawing Restraint 9 with interviews and footage of Barney playing high-school football to create a comprehensive look at her subject's entire career. Additional conversations with Guggenheim curator Nancy Spector, New York Times art critic Michael Kimmelman, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art chief curator Yuko Hasegawa, and more, this portrait of Barney transcends the trappings of your typical making-of documentary. Björk and Mayumi Miyata collaborate to create the musical score. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Matthew Barney, Björk, (more)
The horror film Skinned Deep begins when a family suffers a flat tire on a barren stretch of road with only a diner dotting the landscape. They meet Granny, the seemingly nice old woman who runs the establishment, but they soon find that she is the leader of a deranged clan. The family is slain, with the exception of their teenage daughter, Tina whom one of the sons in the family, Brain (a boy with an externalized brain much larger than his head), takes a romantic interest in. Soon a group of bikers show up, forcing the girl to figure out which group of crazies she should throw in with in order to stay alive. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Karoline Brandt, Jay Dugre, (more)
The sixth movie in the seemingly endless Leprechaun series finds the title character revisiting the territory he menaced in the fifth outing. This time around, a group of inner-city friends go from rags to riches when they stumble upon some treasures. Little do they know that the booty belongs to the terrifying little green man and he wants it back. Decked out in bling-bling and smoking chronically, Leprechaun dispenses with the unsuspecting pals one by one. Warwick Davis once again reprises the title role, which he's assumed throughout the series, and instead of Ice-T, who co-starred in Leprechaun in the Hood, another rapper, Sticky Fingaz of Onyx, is onboard for this blood bath. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Warwick Davis, Tangi Miller, (more)
Cremaster 3 is the final installment of the five-part epic film cycle from director and sculpture artist Matthew Barney. Encompassing a dizzying number of themes, this elaborately stylized experimental film showcases Barney's affinity for architecture and sex. Much of the highly symbolic imagery involves Celtic mythology and phallic references, with Barney himself appearing as the Entered Apprentice and sculptor Richard Serra playing architect Hiram Abiff. Some of the settings include the Chrysler Building in New York City, the Saratoga race track, and the Guggenheim museum ( where much of Barney's work is actually shown). Spatially driven rather than narratively, the film is a display of visual effects and impulses with little to no dialogue. All five parts of the film cycle (titled out of sequence) can be seen at art galleries, though Barney has been known to give out video copies with the purchase of his sculptures. Cremaster 3 was shown in the Frontier program at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Serra, Matthew Barney, (more)
- 1999
Renowned experimental artist Matthew Barney directs this lyrical, challenging work about America, mythology, and death. Believing that his grandmother had an affair with Harry Houdini (Norman Mailer), noted murderer Gary Gilmore (Barney) wanders through the afterlife -- depicted here as a gold-colored honeycomb maze filled with two-stepping cowboys and rodeos -- hoping to find the magician. In the process, Barney constructs a personal narrative from elements and symbols of the American west. Cremaster 2 was shot on high-definition digital video and transferred to 35mm. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Norman Mailer, Matthew Barney, (more)
We've all heard of the luck of the Irish, but no one feels very lucky in Las Vegas when the Leprechaun visits Sin City in this, the third feature in the Leprechaun franchise. A Las Vegas pawnbroker buys a statue of a leprechaun from a hobo, but then makes the mistake of taking the gold medal hanging around the statue's neck. Turns out it's no statue after all, and taking away the charmed necklace brings the leprechaun back to life. The mean-spirited little man (played, once again, by Warwick Davis) kills the pawnbroker and sets out to find his pot of gold. However, he forgets that he's left behind a magic coin and when he returns to get it, he discovers it's gone, having been taken by a college student named Scott (John Gatins) who happened upon the shop. While the coin brings a bit of good luck to Scott, things change when he discovers he has a murderous leprechaun on his trail. Leprechaun 3's Las Vegas adventure was followed a year later by the even more unlikely Leprechaun 4: Leprechaun in Space. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Warwick Davis
- 1994
- R
A thwarted leprechaun exacts his bloody revenge in this darkly comic horror film. A thousand years ago in Ancient Erin, there lived a wee Leprechaun who searched for a comely bride. Legend has it that his proper bride would thrice sneeze. Poor Leprechaun did find his sneezing lass, but just before the third achoo, her daddy, the Leprechaun's slave, thwarts his plans. Angry, the wee man vows to exact his revenge upon the man's fairest ancestor 1,000 years hence. Time flies and the movie moves to modern California on St. Paddy's day. The Leprechaun returns to find the lovely Bridget sneezing. Once. Twice. Thrice. He captures hapless Colleen. To her rescue comes her fearless boyfriend Cody who steals a bit of gold from the Leprechaun. Enraged, the greedy greeny begins systematically killing people. Will Cody prevail? ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Warwick Davis, Charlie Heath, (more)
Cult director Frank Henenlotter does the seemingly impossible by breathing new life into this horror-comedy series about the twisted escapades of the Bradley Brothers: the deranged but sensitive Duane (Kevin Van Hentenryck) and his monstrously-deformed former Siamese twin Belial. The previous installment had the siblings settling a nasty dispute in a particularly grisly manner... but appearances can deceive, as the original Basket Case proved with its similar denouement, which the director casually ignored in order to move things along. This time, Duane and Belial are still a bit miffed at each other but eventually make cute when it's learned that Belial is going to be a daddy -- thanks to a stomach-churning tryst with the similarly-shaped mutant Eve in the previous chapter. Things seem to be returning to relative normalcy in their newfound home -- considering that said home is Granny Ruth's sanctuary for "Unique Individuals" whose curator (Annie Ross, reprising her role) offers bed and board to an ensemble of freaks with cartoonishly-large deformities. It is only when the entire group sets out for the Georgia clinic of Uncle Hal -- a specialist who is capable of delivering Eve's plentiful offspring -- that their revels come to an end, thanks to a redneck sheriff and his thick-headed deputies, who don't exactly take a shine to their kind. It's up to Belial to save the day, which he does with bloody gusto thanks to a mechanical exoskeleton built by Uncle Hal's ingenious multi-armed son. Despite falling into some of the same pitfalls as the previous film (namely the slightly-too-outrageous mutant makeup), this is a stylish coda to the series, with strong and very funny performances from the leads and some memorably grotesque moments -- especially a bizarre road-trip sing-along by the freaks and the jarring air of "cuteness" in the disgusting birth scene. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Annie Ross, Kevin Van Hentenryck, (more)
- 1990
- R
Adventurous viewers not repelled by the title of this horror exploitation-comedy from Frank Henenlotter (director of the splatter cult classic Basket Case) will find a fair share of laughs on display, thanks to Henenlotter's typically energetic devil-may-care brand of gruesome humor. James Lorinz tears up acres of scenery as Jeffrey Franken, a neurotic electrician and aspiring mad scientist, who goes completely 'round the bend after his slightly pudgy girlfriend (former Penthouse pet, Patty Mullen) is shredded by his latest invention, a remote-control lawn mower. Preserving her head in his mom's freezer, he sets out to acquire shapely female parts to rebuild the rest of her, focusing his search on the city's red-light district. After watching a news feature on crack addiction among local prostitutes, Franken hits on the solution and invents a formula for "supercrack," which triggers the spontaneous detonation of anyone who smokes it. After blowing apart a hotel roomful of unfortunate ladies, he spirits their scattered limbs home to his garage laboratory, where his patchwork creation is eventually brought to life in a hilarious lift from The Bride of Frankenstein. Apparently, her brain spent too much time bobbing in the same preservative bath used for the hooker-parts, since she is instantly compelled to peddle her assets on every street corner in town, resulting in the high-voltage deaths of several johns (who are not entirely dissatisfied with their choice of demise). Her exploits reach the attention of sadistic pimp Zorro (Joseph Gonzalez), who, obsessed with finding the person responsible for blowing up his women, tracks her back to Franken's lab for the inevitable (and quite disgusting) confrontation. Basically a collection of crude but hilarious sight gags (Franken's predilection for plunging a power drill into his own skull; the pimp knocked senseless by flying severed limbs) and goofy throwaway dialogue, this may offer guilty pleasures for fans of Henenlotter's comic theater of the absurd. Frankenhooker is available on video in R and unrated versions, some featuring a suitably tacky slipcase, which, when pressed, screeches the words "Wanna date?" ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Lorinz, Patty Mullen, (more)
Although it took eight years for cult director Frank Henenlotter to revisit the twisted world of Duane Bradley (Kevin Van Hentenryck) and his basket-bound, mutant former Siamese twin Belial, this sequel picks up the plot mere moments after the original Basket Case ended, finding the psychically-linked brothers mangled but very much alive after the rather aggressive tiff that pitched them out a Bowery flophouse window. They manage to elude the authorities, escape the hospital (to avoid having to explain the dozen-or-so murders committed by gnarled, lumpy Belial), and eventually find sanctuary at the palatial home of Granny Ruth (jazz songbird Annie Ross), an eccentric activist who rallies the cause of "Unique Individuals" like Belial who have been ostracized by society for their horrific appearance and behavior. (Unique, indeed... Ruth's tenants run the gamut from a boy with 18-inch teeth to a woman who looks like a
hammerhead shark in a summer frock.) Although the pair soon grow quite accustomed to their new home, they are eventually forced to confront their murderous past, thanks to a tabloid reporter and a cynical cop, both of whom come to regret sticking their noses into places where such appendages tend to get bitten off. Henenlotter deserves credit for exploring new terrain in this interesting follow-up, but his reliance on outrageous makeup effects diminishes the effectiveness of the "Monsters Are People Too" theme -- it's hard to work up much empathy toward Ruth's charges, depicted as mute automatons by actors wearing 70 pounds of foam latex on their heads. Not that Henenlotter doesn't return to grotesque form now and then -- particularly for the most disgusting love scene on record and the effective shock ending, which paves the way for yet another sequel. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
hammerhead shark in a summer frock.) Although the pair soon grow quite accustomed to their new home, they are eventually forced to confront their murderous past, thanks to a tabloid reporter and a cynical cop, both of whom come to regret sticking their noses into places where such appendages tend to get bitten off. Henenlotter deserves credit for exploring new terrain in this interesting follow-up, but his reliance on outrageous makeup effects diminishes the effectiveness of the "Monsters Are People Too" theme -- it's hard to work up much empathy toward Ruth's charges, depicted as mute automatons by actors wearing 70 pounds of foam latex on their heads. Not that Henenlotter doesn't return to grotesque form now and then -- particularly for the most disgusting love scene on record and the effective shock ending, which paves the way for yet another sequel. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kevin Van Hentenryck, Annie Ross, (more)
Basket Case director Frank Henenlotter explores another bizarre symbiotic human-monster relationship in this surreal horror comedy about a young man named Brian (Rick Herbst) who emerges from a night of bizarre hallucinations to find a jovial talking slug attached to his body. The creature, a brain-eating parasite called an "Aylmer" (but who prefers the simpler handle "Elmer") came calling after abandoning his former companions -- a European couple who tried to wean him from human brains by supplying him with sheep brains from the local butcher. Preferring prey of the bipedal variety (and a younger, more mobile host), Elmer hitches a ride with Brian, administering doses of a highly addictive psychedelic drug to keep him under control, and sends him out in search of human gray matter. Understandably, this drives a wedge in the relationship between Brian and his girlfriend, Barbara (Jennifer Lowry), who doesn't buy the monster story but nevertheless begins to recognize Brian's junkie behavior patterns. Fighting a losing battle against Elmer's magic juice (and trying to keep Elmer from munching down on Barbara's skull), Brian is forced into a hideous showdown for possession of his own mind. Clever highlights include horror host John Zacherle as the Bing Crosby-esque voice of Elmer and a cute cameo from Basket boy Kevin Van Hentenryck. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rick Herbst, Gordon MacDonald, (more)
- 1986
- R
A group of curious kids get into big trouble when they decide to explore a ramshackle mansion in this horror movie. They believe that the place is empty but too soon they discover it is inhabited by a wicked sorcerer who uses black magic and human sacrifice to try and revive his comatose bride. He is very close to success and only needs a few more sacrifices. How convenient that the hapless teens should arrive at that moment. He sends out his zombies to welcome them and bring them back. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Felix Ward, Alec Nemser, (more)
