CCH Pounder

  • Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight (1995)

    Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight (1995)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, October 2020) There’s a curious absence of anything interesting to say about Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight. Yes, it’s a spinoff from the then-popular Tales from the Crypt TV show, which updated Creepshow-style macabre humour. But once you get past this pedigree and overly cute framing device, there isn’t much left to talk about. The story has something to do with a good-versus-evil fight coming down to a New Mexico boarding house, the good sealing the house against Evil, but Evil tricking people inside the house into doing its bidding. It has early roles for Jada Pinkett (not yet—Smith), Thomas Haden Church and CCH Pounder, although it’s a bald Billy Zane who steals the show as velvet-voiced Evil. Otherwise, though, this is strictly formulaic stuff, with very little in terms of writing or direction to distinguish itself from many very similar horror movies from the 1990s. The bulk of Demon Knight mercifully drops the Cryptkeeper’s pun-overloaded patter, but doesn’t replace it with anything more interesting. The pacing isn’t particularly fast-paced (there’s a good 45 minutes in which nothing much happens, in the interest of padding this to a feature-film length), the tone is bland and the gore effects are unremarkable by the standards of the genre. It does raise the question as to why anyone would want to watch this, and the answer may be familiarity: Demon Knight is a comfortable kind of horror film, the likes of which you can leave running without paying much attention to it, knowing where it’s going and how it’s getting there.

  • Orphan (2009)

    Orphan (2009)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, May 2015) Jamie Collet-Serra doesn’t have the name recognition of other directors, but a quick look at his short filmography already reveals a propensity for stylish thrillers with an element of pure madness –an insane twist, tortured plotting, preposterous revelations and/or a healthy helping of Liam Neeson.  Neeson may not be in Orphan, but the film is otherwise right in line with his subsequent Unknown or Non-Stop.  It’s, in some ways, a standard evil-child horror film: After a family adopts a young girl, they come to realize that the girl is evil beyond her years, and that they are all in danger.  So far so good (albeit boo for the anti-adoption agitprop), except for the last-third twist, which turns the film gleefully insane even as it answers the objection “Gee, that’s an awfully precocious hellion!”  The conclusion is purely out of slasher movies, but the rest of the film is generally well-executed, with enough thrills and portentous gloom to keep things interesting.  Isabelle Fuhrman is fantastic as the pint-sized antagonist, whereas Vera Farmiga (who can be unremarkable at times) here scores a gripping performance.  CCH Pounder also makes an impression, even though her role isn’t much more than a disposable expositionary device.  Orphan may be striking because of its twist, but it’s competently made and while it’s not destined to be a classic, it’s a good-enough thriller/hybrid, the likes of which we should see more often.