p e n g u i n d e v i l

Ah yes, the fine line between what is and what could be and who we make ourselves and who we could be. These themes are pretty blatantly covered in a fun little movie I watched last night, Ink. There, the line between waking reality and sleeping dreams is certainly blurred over and over again as we follow Emma and John through their troubles and an assortment of folks who are invisible to the waking word guiding them through some crazy events.

Though it certainly isn’t in the same league as any of these, it is at times reminiscent of Night Watch, Dark City and The Matrix and it gave me occasional flashbacks to playing Myst. I didn’t think of it a copy of those though, as it seemed pretty original. Ink is the story of conflict between those who bring dreams and those who bring nightmares, played out via a strange big-nosed being named Ink who is desperate to belong, a little girl that he has abducted as a means of doing so, those who are trying to return her to the real world and a father who has lost his way. Sort of Sci-Fi and sort of fantasy, Ink is certainly a very low budget movie, which shows with the acting, the sets and the grainy “very digital” quality, but it has a fairly interesting storyline and plot and the special effects are pretty well done.





Though it begins with a boring segment of this bitter father who is too serious and disconnected to pay any attention to his daughter, after night falls things pick up. A group of folks with an unusual and interesting entrance go around to the sleeping people and give them pleasant dreams, after that appear some interesting looking fellows who give people nightmares…





Then comes Ink. He is a mysterious being who abducts the little girl, against strenuous objections from the dream bringer people. While Ink tends to remain somewhat mysterious and concealed, her protectors do not. Consisting of the cute girl who was watching over her when she was abducted, an irritating “Pathfinder” with electrical tape over his eyes (well, maybe not all of the effects are good) and a couple of others, they relentlessly pursue Ink as he carts the girl into his intriguing hallway and all over the place.





While the movie was entertaining enough, I really thought it was the special effects that held my attention as they were not overdone and they fit the movie quite well. Though, honestly, the reason for this might mainly be that the effects involve light and the parts of the movie that those scenes take place in are shot in very high contrast, which serves to blur the line between the efect and the rest of the film. Regardless, I still thought that they were interesting, original and looked good.





Certainly not for everyone, but Ink is a great example of how, if you have some good ideas, you can make an interesting film with decent effects on a very low budget.

Oh, how could I?

A week ago today, April 8th, was the Penguindevil’s 5th anniversary! With nary a posting to be found. As it is both finals week and tax week, my annual picks and summation post will have to wait a few more days. Sigh…

But I can bring up a funny little movie that I watched this week. While having one of those “fall asleep in front of a movie” evenings, I selected something suitably mindless for that… Hide and Creep! Oddly enough, I didn’t fall asleep once… Which means two things. One is that I only ended up with about 4 hours of sleep that night, and two, I actually watched the movie from beginning to end.

While I wouldn’t say that I recommend it, I also wouldn’t suggest avoiding it, either. Hide and Creep is a super-low budget (the production company is aptly named “Crewless”) zombie movie. Being also a bit of a comedy, with a bit of UFOish goings on, it was fairly entertaining. Starting off with two storylines, one the tale of a video store clerk beset upon by what is possibly the cheapest rendition of a zombie that I have ever seen (but so unapologetically lame and cheap of a zombie that it seems forgivable), and, two, a poor fellow who wakes up naked in a tree (where we are forced to start pondering either drunkenness of abduction, or both) who sets off in pursuit of his clothes and his “’64 and a half Mustang” (and potentially the girl he was with)…

These two tales converge in this small hick town in Alabama where zombies (yes, more of the same type as above) start appearing everywhere and the non-zom population begins to decline rapidly. Sadly, the sheriff is on vacation and the deputy is stuck in Florida so two groups of non-zom civilians struggle to make it through this mess. One group is the above mentioned folks who are “joined” by Barbara, the bitchy (but still somewhat charming) girl who works the phones at the police department and a Federal agent (again, the worst rendition of a federal agent that I have ever seen) who parachutes into town, and a second, more motivated group, consisting of Barbara’s brother and his hunting pals who end up driving all around the place shooting all the zombies that they can find in the head.

Hide and Creep is a fun and entertaining (and low-expectation) movie that features the requisite naked ladies (naked lady zombies, that is), references to anal probes, hordes of hungry zombies, corny newscasts, dopey hicks with guns and an arrogant video store clerk.

While it does have all of that going for it, and it most certainly does qualify as a zomedy, Hide and Creep is not (as “Kevin Smith” is quoted as saying on that poster over there) “even better than Shaun of the Dead”. Not in the slightest, really.

Nope.