THE MOVIE MASOCHIST: It wasn't so bad

By JAMES FRANKLIN - McClatchy-Tribune News Service

E-Mail

Comments (0)

Text Size:

tool goes here

One would think a critic who chose to review only bad movies would always have at least one obvious target within spitting range. So in a movie landscape that's teeming with bad product, do you go after the holiday film starring Patrick Swayze or the low-budget indie that's part of a dubious horror film "festival"?

The answer: Always go with Swayze. Plus, a review of "Christmas in Wonderland," a holiday comedy featuring the star of "Roadhouse," would pretty much write itself.

Due to a misjudgment of potential quality, the movie reviewed here isn't close to being the worst one in theaters. "Mulberry Street," part of distributor After Dark Films' so-called "Horrorfest," is a resourceful little movie that applies serious intent and good filmmaking to a staggeringly dumb premise. It starts off well, gets more derivative as it goes along and finally becomes downright silly.

The film's distributor, After Dark, specializes in low-budget movies, most of them horror. Most notably, After Dark released "Captivity" last summer and generated controversy with its torture-porn ad campaign, which drew more interest than the movie itself. Most of After Dark's fare is the sort of thing destined to go straight to DVD or cable. If anything, Horrorfest seems designed to give these movies one brief gasp in theaters before they hit video store shelves or wind up on the Sci Fi Channel, in either case being quickly forgotten.

Thus, After Dark's strategy of combining several cheapies into an ersatz festival seemed like a butcher trying to sell a batch of spoiled hams for one low price. The customer points out that the product is tainted; the butcher responds, "But there are eight of them!"

Some theaters showed all the films during one marathon stretch; others rotated the list, showing different films on different days. Of the films in this year's Horrorfest, "Mulberry Street" had the most promisingly bad premise: a disease carried by rats turns New Yorkers into rodent-like creatures, complete with snouts, pointy ears and teeth.

These monsters, like zombies in countless horror films, are possessed by the urge to eat anyone they see. So far, so bad.

Except that the first half hour of "Mulberry Street" actually takes time to establish characters who seem like real people, not models who wandered in from an Abercrombie & Fitch photo shoot. The characters all live in the same Lower East Side apartment building, crammed into such tight spaces that they'd naturally get tangled up in each others' lives.

Clutch (Nick Damici) is a middle-aged ex-boxer with a daughter in the military. Kay (Bo Corre) is a single mom who lives upstairs with her teenage son. Coco (Ron Brice) is a gay tenant who, counter to stereotype, has a believable friendship with the macho Clutch. An old World War II vet who's tethered to an oxygen tank and his crabby buddy round out the group.

After carefully establishing these characters and how they interact, the story begins in earnest, which is a shame because it gradually discards these interesting people in favor of the usual horror tropes. Once people get infected and start turning ratty, "Mulberry Street" becomes the kind of chase-hide-kill zombie movie that's been made dozens of times.

In many ways it's unfair to pick on a no-budget movie that manages to exhibit some craft and intelligence. To make a feature film this well shot on a low budget that wouldn't cover the catering bill for "Evan Almighty" is an impressive achievement, to be sure. It's also frustrating because director Jim Mickle and company could have pulled off the rare feat of making a really good movie on the cheap had they just not dressed up actors in pointy ears and bloody snouts.

It wouldn't be surprising if this movie allows Mickle and lead actor/co-writer Damici to apply their talents to bigger, better things.

The chastened critic of bad movies, meanwhile, must look toward bigger, dumber things.

MULBERRY STREET

Rated R for graphic violence and being associated with After Dark Films.

No stars: Not so bad.

The rating system:

1 star: Lousy

2 stars: Horrible

3 stars: Painful

4 stars: Traumatic

The Movie Masochist is an emotionally wounded cinephile who lives in the United States. He watches bad movies so you don't have to. Discuss movies, argue with or simply flatter him at jfranklin@mcclatchy.com.