I put Boy A on the back burner because I found better nude scenes in two remakes of Asian horror films.

Pulse 2

2008

Spoilers

Pulse was an English-language remake of an Asian horror film. Mankind was threatened when the dead found a way to return to our plane of existence through cell phones and the wireless internet.

In Pulse 2, mankind has been almost completely destroyed by the soulless ghosts. The cities and all hotbeds of technology are ruled by the ghosts. The only safe places for humans are those where cell phone signals can't reach. The storyline is about two divorced parents fighting over their child. Oh, sure, mothers usually end up with custody, but in this instance her case is a bit weaker than usual, given that she is dead. That's a partial spoiler. At the beginning of the film neither we nor she are aware that she has joined the choir invisible, and we follow her pursuit from her point of view.

How could she not know she was dead? The ghosts, you see have their own issues. They don't like to be dead, and they have found that wireless technology allows them to fight back to our world, and even to get their spirits inside the body of a living person. It seems at first that they have successfully re-entered the living plane. Unfortunately for them, after all that work they have various experiences which demonstrate that they are still dead. In the mother's case, for example, she gets cut several times with a knife, but does not bleed. C'est le morte!

The living father makes every effort to get his little girl someplace where the mother can't reach her. He hears of an area in the Midwest somewhere which is a safe harbor, and he makes his way there in his SUV ...

This straight-to-vid film is a blend of positives and negatives.

On the negative side:

• There are some inconsistencies in the film's reality. (For example, why does the electrical grid still work? There are street lamps and neon lights working in the deserted cities. Are ghosts maintaining the power plants?)
• The special effects are very poor. Too many scenes are done with green-screen effects, and not the high tech kind we have seen in movies like Sin City. The results look more like the hosted TV horror shows from the sixties, where it was obvious that the Chiller or Mr. Inviso was acting in front of a green screen because he and the background seemed to be different colors or textures or to be moving at different speeds. This sort of problem would not normally be a matter of great concern to me, but in this film the effects are so poor that they break the fourth wall and pull us out of the story because we constantly notice the technical problems.
• The only person who can save the world is Future Elmo, and only if he is wearing some 3-D glasses left over from the original screening of Creature from the Black Lagoon. (See below.)

On the positive side:

• The film maintains a spooky atmosphere in general, and has several genuinely tense/scary scenes.
• I award a gold star for a daring surprise ending. It was totally appropriate within the film's context, but I never thought they would have the cojones to kill the good guy brutally in the middle of a sentimental scene.
• There is an inventive nude scene from Boti Bliss, who plays the father's girlfriend. Sequels to remakes of Asian horror films will not soon make my list of favorite cinema experiences, but I was impressed with this unusual and oddly erotic scene. Film clips here. Captures below.

Mirrors

2008

It doesn't seem likely that Hollywood will soon run out of Asian horror films to remake. After all, Asia has some eleven trillion people, and their only source of amusement is scarin' the livin' bejeesus out of one another.

Unlike Pulse 2, which looks to have been made with a budget of some eighty five cents, Mirrors gives the big studio treatment to Asian horror with elaborate sets, big explosions, slick CGI, a major star (Kiefer Sutherland) ... the whole nine yards. All that lipstick doesn't make the pig any prettier, however, and this script is an ugly pig.

Kiefer plays a suspended Federal agent named Jack Bauer who ...

OK, he doesn't really, but he does. He's actually a suspended NYPD detective with another name, but there is absolutely no difference between this character and Jack Bauer, so I'm not going to pretend there is. This is an episode of 24 except that the enemy is a supernatural demon instead of al-Qaida. Jack goes around setting up perimeters and saying things like "Please don't make me threaten you" to get innocent people to give up info faster, and when he gets an emergency phone call in the middle of traffic, he says "Goddammit" and spins a 180 in Manhattan traffic so he can high-tail it back to the place where he's needed ... because HE'S RUNNING OUT OF TIME! Then, at the end of the film, he kidnaps a sweet little old nun at gunpoint - "Because my family is not going to die today" and he's RUNNING OUT OF TIME. He then ties the old biddy up and sacrifices her saintly ass to the demon, after which he blows up an entire Manhattan block. At times it seems less like 24 than a sequel to Team America, World Police, except the Eiffel Tower somehow remains intact because Jack Bauer destroys New York instead of Paris. But he gets the job done, Goddammit!

Just what is the job he has to do? Well, take the basic plot of The Shining and relocate the Overlook from an elaborate mountain resort which is completely abandoned in Winter to an elaborate New York City department store which was completely abandoned after a big fire.

• That department store was built on the site of an insane asylum where experimental procedures ...
• And the people involved in those procedures ...
• Jack Bauer has been suspended from secret agent duties, so he's hired to be the caretaker of the Overlook Department Store. Soon he starts to see ...
• His wife and son are terrified of him because he's acting so crazy, and ...

Well, I think you have the idea.

Things get crazy at the end, and Jack Bauer has to rush to the rescue to save his family. In other words, he basically has to fill both the Jack Nicholson role and the Scatman Carothers role from The Shining. They couldn't hire another actor because they were RUNNING OUT OF TIME!

It's all predictable if you've ever seen either an episode of 24 or any horror movie at any time (especially The Shining), but I give the film a lukewarm recommendation for two reasons:

1. It has a really excellent Twilight Zone ending which makes perfect sense but I never saw coming. For my money, the ending redeemed the entire film.

2. It has Amy Smart stark naked in good light. That is an element which will cause me to forgive the flaws of pretty much any film not involving David Spade. Oh, who am I kidding? I would probably watch Joe Dirt again if the unrated DVD included an Amy Smart nude scene. Film clip here. Captures below.

 

 

Into The Woods

2008 or 2009

Actually this movie hasn't even been cut together yet and does not appear on IMDb, but the producer/director, who is also the kingpin of Falcon Films, sent in these captures and/or promo stills. Some of them are far better than DVD quality, some even better than Blu-Ray, because they are stills taken on the set. Some of the other pics are not as good, but on balance it's a nice assortment

The actress is Nancy Feliciano.