Genre Character of the Week: Douglas Quaid

For my birthday last weekend, my wife and kids took me out to see the new Colin Farrell film Total Recall, a remake of the 1990 Arnold Schwarzenegger film of the same name.  The movie was pretty cool, there were a lot fun action sequences and the scope of many of the sets did work better on the big screen than they might have on my television at home.  Unfortunately, I just kept thinking how much I preferred the original.

So today let’s look at one of my favorite genre characters, Douglas Quaid.  (Pictured left, and right)

Quaid (as played by Schwarzenegger) is a construction worker living on Mars (yes - I know he starts on Earth and then goes to Mars but I didn't want to do too many spoilers), or (as played by Colin Farrell) is a factory worker living in Australia (called The Colony in the film).  Basically he’s a regular Joe doing a hard days work for little pay and is married to a lovely wife who is subtly stressed by the filmmakers (of both versions) as being a little too good for him.

Quaid wishes his life had more to it, whether that be more excitement, more adventure or honestly, more anything.  So he takes advantage of the services of a local company called Rekall, which allows false memories to be transplanted into the mind therefore allowing the user to feel as if he or she had done everything or anything they can dream up.

Then, because it wouldn’t be a good story if everything went well, everything goes wrong.

Both films follow Quaid as he desperately attempts to understand why everyone around him (including his wife) seems to want to kill him and why he suddenly has the ability to kill with his bare hands.

What I love about the character is his journey of self discovery, and although this arc is done well in both films, I prefer the earlier one as the idea seemed fresh at the time and it was set on Mars.

In the new film, Quaid even mentions at one point that it would be nice if he were on Mars and I couldn’t help but lean over to my wife and say “I couldn’t agree more.”

Fright Night (2011)

Full disclosure here – I did a review of this film back when it came out in August (check it out here), but as this month I’m moving back and forth through my experiences with the originals and the reimaginings, I feel I’ve got enough to say about the title for this post.

The original Fright Night was one of those rare horror comedies I loved as a kid – they had a few laughs, some great scares and were great “gateway” films for newcomers who might not necessarily like horror. Fright Night was kind of a double treat, as it worked great for newcomers but was filled with horror movie references for the long-time fans of the genre.

The original film involved a kid named Charlie Brewster, who over the course of the movie discovers that his neighbour Jerry is a vampire. The problem? No one believes him, not his friends, family or anyone else. Eventually he goes to a late night cable TV horror host, Peter Vincent (named after Peter Cushing and Vincent Price and played amazingly by Roddy MacDowell) to help him defeat the creature before its too late. The movie mixed comedy and horror incredibly well, including one of my favourite interactions in horror movie history:

Charlie enters his living room, sees Jerry (the vampire) and is obviously startled

Charlie's Mom: Charlie, this is our next door neighbour, Jerry Dandridge

Jerry: Hello Charlie (approaches Charlie and offers his hand)

Charlie's Mom: Well Charlie, shake hands

Charlie: (Obviously shocked) What's he doing here?

Charlie's Mom: I Invited him over for a drink.

Charlie: You what!?!

Charlie's Mom: I invited him over, why?

Jerry: What's the matter Charlie? Afraid I'd never come over without being invited first?

(Jerry and Charlie's mom laugh)

Jerry: You're right, you're quite right, of course now that I've been made welcome I'll probably drop by quite a bit. In fact, any time I feel like it. (Smiling at Charlie's Mom) With your mother's kind permission, of course.

Charlie's Mom: Oh Jerry, any time.

The reimagining of the film made a few significant changes to the story: 1) The story is clearly set in a new suburban development in Las Vegas, rather than a suburb in “Anytown, USA”, 2) Jerry (the vampire) is now played by a younger actor (Colin Farrell), who plays up the dark and sexy aspect, 3) Peter Vincent is now a stage magician, rather than a late night horror host (probably because those don’t really exist anymore) and his look is largely modelled after Criss Angel, 4) The film focuses more on action and atmosphere, rather than the comedic aspects of the original.

In the end I really enjoyed the reimagining. It was a lot of fun, had a nice cameo for fans of the original and although the humour is toned down, it still functions well as a gateway film from mainstream to horror.

Movie Review: Fright Night (2011)

Hi everyone, I'm back!

Right now I've got a cast on my right arm but my fingers are free so I can type, slowly and with a lot of breaks, but I can do it!

On Saturday I went out with my youngest daughter and her friend to see the recent remake of the 1985 horror comedy film Fright Night.

Although I didn't see the original in theatres (I was nine-years-old at the time, so I had to wait to rent it), I definitely saw the film before finishing Elementary school and really liked it at the time. I guess the idea of a kid seeing monsters and having no adults believe him so he has to face the creature alone appealed to me.

Anyway, fast forward 27 years and I'm taking my 14-year-old daughter to see the new version. She had already seen the original, so we both knew what to expect overall.

Honestly - I found it to be a pretty entertaining film. Although it wasn't as graphic as the original, I liked the direction they took the film, Colin Farrell was great as the vampire and David Tennant stole the show as Peter Vincent.

I think the movie is a great gateway film to the horror genre, as it was scary, but more roller coaster-scary than get-under-your-skin-scary. It was a lot of fun and I'll definitely be adding it to my DVD collection in a few months.

My only advice? See it in 2D if you can as much of the film is set at night and the 3D glasses make the film difficult to see sometimes.

Things I've Noticed: Finding the right genre movie for Valentine's Day can be tricky

So here's how we do Valentine's Day 2011, Bookmonkey style.

Step 1) Take Valentine's day off, so that I can spend the day with my wife, and get a long weekend.

Step 2) Celebrate the fact that our younger daughter Kaia will have returned from her amazing school trip to Quebec City.

Step 3) Go out for breakfast - my favourite kind of meal to have at a restaurant.

Step 4) Pick the right movie. Every year I try my best to find a film that will fit into both my love of genre and fit with the day as well.

4a) Genre video games are not a substitute (Tip - no matter how awesome you think playing a video game wherein the lead "romantically" attempts to rescue a princess while making your lady love watch - this will not work out for you).

4b) Your wife's pick for most romantic genre film (David Cronenberg's The Fly) may work great for her, but may give you the heebie jeebies.

4c) Compromise is always a good way to go - for instance we could pick either a fantasy film or an SF film for me, as long as they star either Colin Farrell or Ryan Reynolds for her.

5) If the day doesn't go as well as planned - show your wife that you have been planning the event for days now, using this post as proof.