Retail Hell by Freeman Hall(Book Review)

I've been in the retail and/or service industry since I was 16. Not really by choice, it just kind of happened that way. I've also always wanted to be the next Stephen King or Steven Spielberg, so when I read that there was a book coming out by an aspiring screenwriter who was influenced by the Steve's, but was stuck in "retail hell" I figured this was right up my alley. And it was, to a certain extent anyways.

Subtitled "How I Sold My Soul To The Store Confessions Of A Tortured Sales Associate, the book is an amusing, and sometimes horrifying look at a life spent working in a mall. Anyone who works in retail, whether it's selling books, music, clothes, candy or anything else, will recognize the horrible situations and customers Hall writes about. In his case though, he's a guy selling purses (excuse me, Handbags as they are now called) at an upscale chain store in a Southern California mall. For legal reasons, he's re-named the store The Big Fancy, but as far as I can tell it's a Nordstrom. Over the course of the book, I have learned more than I ever wanted to know about high end purses, er, handbags. Why anyone would spend thousands of dollars on a place to keep your lipstick and a hanky, or to match your shoes is beyond me.

Almost every character in the book has a nickname, and any Retail Slave will identify with most of them. There's Satan, the store manager, and the department manager is The General. There are also customers known by names such as the Piggy Shopper (leaves merchandise wherever they fell like it), Picky Bitch, Crazy Lady, and Fashion Disaster. And of course there are the Nasty Ass Thieves (from shoplifting to switching tags), the Stalkers, the Jabberjaws (they just won't shut up!), Discount Rats ("is this on sale?") and the Bloodsuckers who will just suck the life out of you.

An aspiring screenwriter, Hall has divided the book into 3 "acts" and some stories are written as mini-screenplays. At just over 250 pages, it's a quick and enjoyable read. I've found myself in several of the situations he's written about here. He's got a sarcastic sense of humor, and some of my favorite parts of the book are the things he thinks, but doesn't say during his interactions with management and customers.

My major complaint about the book though is that the author has to constantly bring up the fact that he's gay. Fine, we get it. You are a male selling ladies handbags. But he has to remind us on seemingly every other page that he'd rather be measuring men's in-seams or hanging at the leather bar. None of that has to do with the subject at hand.

Anyone who has worked in retail should enjoy this book, and it would also make a good read for all those customers who sometimes make our days and nights a living hell. If you are offended by vulgar language though, you might want to skip it. This guy swears worse than a sailor. It might at least give some people a clue as to what it's like on the other side of the counter. I have plenty of stories myself, and maybe someday I'll share them in my own book.

Hall has a website at retail hell underground and also retail hell the book where people can shares stories of their very own retail hell on earth.

Paranormal Activity (Film Review)

When The Blair Witch Project came out 10 years ago, the marketing behind the movie was so well done that people actually thought the movie was real. The Internet was nowhere as big as it is now, but they used websites and word of mouth to generate so much hype it became a huge success. It also spawned a "found footage" sub-genre all it's own, with films such as Cloverfield, REC (and it's subpar US version Quarantine), and others.

Now comes Paranormal Activity, the little movie that could. For those who haven't heard the story behind this movie yet, here is a quick overview. Director Oren Peli shot the film back in 2007 in his house over the course of 7 days for roughly $11,500, which includes paying the two lead actors $500 each for their roles. It languished for awhile until Paramount decided to buy the rights to it, with the intention of re-making it with a big budget for a mainstream audience. Steven Spielberg saw the movie and convinced the powers to be to release it as it was, although he did suggest a different ending which was later shot and added (you can find the original ending on YouTube).

Just like they did with horror movies of the 70's and early 80's, they released it slowly across the country instead of opening it nationwide on the same day. Starting with midnight showings in college towns, they built the hype with word of mouth, web sites and blogs, and a new site called Demand It! where people could vote to have the movie come to their town. It has worked so well, that this little $11,000 movie that almost didn't get seen has now grossed over $86 million. The main actors are on the cover of this weeks Entertainment Weekly and have been making the rounds on the talk show circuit, and there is already the inevitable talk of a sequel.

The movie deals with a couple Katie (Katie Featherston) and Micah (Micah Sloat), who have come to believe their house is haunted and attempt to document it on video. The entire film is shot from the camera's point of view, and if the jerky footage from Blair Witch or Cloverfield left you nauseous, don't worry. Besides some movement when Micah is carrying it around the house or interviewing Katie, the camera is stable on a tri-pod, capturing what happens while they sleep. And that's where the scariest moments come from.

They consult a psychic, who tells Katie that it is useless to run or move away. The spirit will follow her wherever she goes. At first, Micah is skeptical that there even is a spirit in their house, but after some spooky things start happening while they are asleep that get captured on video, he begins to believe. He starts antagonizing the spirit and things start to quickly get worse.

Paranormal Activity plays on our fear of the dark and all those little noises we hear in the house late at night. We see the footage from their bedroom with a time code in the lower corner, and are privy to the things happening while they sleep. Thankfully the director fast forwards us to the good parts. ( I would like to know though where this guy got his tapes/memory sticks and batteries for his camera. This thing is on for what seems like 12 or more hours and it just keeps recording!)

While I love a good, gory over the top horror movie, there's something to be said for being subtle too. There's nothing really visually scary, just things heard or perceived. A lot is left to the imagination, and that can be even scarier. Something as simple as a slowly swinging door, or a light going on and off, or even just the complete silence when you just know something is about to happen is enough to make your hair stand on end. This isn't the "scariest movie ever" as some Internet postings claim, but there are at least two parts that will just scare the crap out of you.

The acting is fairly believable from two unknowns, but not great, especially during the daytime scenes, and there are some slow parts where not much seems to happen. It is good to see that a small, fairly original movie like this one can draw an audience and make huge profits. Maybe the studios will finally figure out we want to see more originality instead of endless sequels and unnecessary remakes.

If you are afraid of things that go bump in the night, don't watch this one alone. And you might want to leave a light on.

I Love You, Beth Cooper (DVD Review)

You can't really say that the death of John Hughes this past August left a hole in coming-of-age teen movie genre. Since Hughes hadn't directed a movie since 1991's Curly Sue, that hole had been there for a long time, filled with crap like American Pie and it's ilk.

I Love You, Beth Cooper has a Hughes connection, in that it was directed by Chris Columbus who also helmed Home Alone, which was written by Hughes. While this movie was written by Larry Doyle (adapted from his novel), almost every character and situation feels like it was ripped right out of a John Hughes movie. Bits and pieces of Some Kind Of Wonderful, Weird Science, Pretty In Pink, Sixteen Candles and even non-Hughes films such as My Bodyguard and Wayne's World appear everywhere.

The movie begins with an interesting "what if" premise. Taking the advice of his best friend Rich (Jack Carpenter), high school valedictorian Denis Cooverman (Paul Rust) decides to not live the rest of his life with regret over not making his feelings known to the girl of his dreams, so he professes his love for her by blurting out the title of the movie during his commencement speech. Much to Denis' surprise (and ours), Beth and her two friends show up at his house for his graduation party. She is of course followed by her extremely jealous boyfriend, and a night of car chases, drinking, vandalism, excrement jokes, wet towel fights and other "hilarity" ensues.

Hayden Panettiere plays Beth Cooper, the schools popular cheerleader (not much of a stretch from her TV character) and the object of Denis' affection. She's actually quite likable, and not exactly your typical stuck up rich girl. He's admired her from afar, sitting behind her in class all these years. He thinks he knows everything about her, knows her locker combination and has a blown up picture of her taped above his bed. I don't know about you, but this feels a little more creepy than just a simple crush. I found it weird later on in the movie then that he didn't even know what color her eyes were. He has built this image up in his head of her that no one could ever live up to, and the filmmakers should have explored that angle a little more than just a quick couple of scenes. Maybe as they got to actually know each other, he would realize that she was different than his expectations, and she wouldn't look at him as just the school nerd. But nope, they have to have the movie play out over the course of one evening and throw every conceivable gag into the mix, including a crazed raccoon.

Panettiere is very good in the title role, but almost everything else about this one just went wrong. Where John Hughes took high school stereotypes and made us see there was more to them (Breakfast Club for example), this movie does nothing to change our perceptions. All the stereotypes and teen movie cliches are here. Hot cheerleader? Check. Nerd who's in love with her? Check. His equally geeky best friend? Her muscle bound, overly jealous jock boyfriend? The loving, but oblivious parents? Check, check and check.

Even the music is cliched. Guess what song is used at the end of graduation? If you guessed "School's Out" by Alice Cooper, you are correct! Denis' parents make out to Foreigner's "Feels Like The First Time". And when Denis is finally alone with Beth, what song is on his iPod? Yup, "Beth" by KISS. At one point in the film, I thought to myself that the only thing missing was the nerdy girl who has a crush on Denis, but he's too focused on Beth to realize it. And sure enough, halfway through the movie, there she was. Even Beth's boyfriend acts and talks exactly like Chet (Bill Paxton) from Weird Science!

The DVD extras include some deleted scenes and an alternate ending that isn't any better than the one they kept, but does provide an interesting perspective.

I love you too, Beth Cooper, but I didn't like your movie. If you want to see one of Hayden Panettiere's boobs, or there's absolutely nothing else to watch, then pop this one in. Otherwise, stick to the originals.

Hit Hard by Joey Kramer (Book Review)

If you want to read an account of how a band can make it to the top, blow it all on the way to the bottom and make it back up again, check out Walk This Way: The Autobiography of Aerosmith, which came out back in 1993. It graphically detailed Aerosmith's history and exploits from not only the band's point of view, but the wives, girlfriends and others involved over the years. If you want to view it from the eyes of someone who was there the entire journey, then read Hit Hard: A Story Of Hitting Rock Bottom At The Top from drummer Joey Kramer. It's the first band member autobiography (singer Steven Tyler's book comes out next year).

The bands notorious drug and alcohol abuse and debauchery were well documented in the previous book and plenty of other sources. Kramer's book takes us down that same road, but also provides a more intimate look at a person that lived life hard and fast, and really should be dead by now. They were committed to music, but even more committed to drugs and alcohol.

Reading advance reviews before this book was published, I knew it wasn't going to be your typical tell-all rock bio, but more of a look at Kramer's upbringing which led to substance abuse, his journey to sobriety and eventual nervous breakdown after nine years of being clean. He makes it clear in the into to the book "Through the process of learning and self-discovery, I have managed to transform my relationship with myself, and, as a result, transform my closest and most painful relationships--Steven Tyler, my father and April (his future wife), those people whose judgment I turned into a weapon I stepped in the way of as on cue. I no longer have to see myself in that role as victim--a major pattern in my life that I really had to get to the bottom of and take responsibility for."

This book is Kramer's chance to share the story of Aerosmith, while telling of his personal struggles with addiction and mental illness that can maybe help some people dealing with the same issues. But if you are looking for an in-depth view of one of America's biggest bands, some insight into how the songs and albums came together, stories of the road, the groupies etc. you are not going to get it here, and that's unfortunate.

What we really get are bits and pieces of the whole story that make up the band. The book is 239 pages (plus about 16 extra pages of color photos), but it seems padded and strung together. It almost feels at times that Kramer wrote down snippets of things he remembered, and the editors just stitched them together. For example, one part reads "one of the new bands on the scene was KISS with the makeup and costumes and the fire swallowing. When Aerosmith and KISS played together, our roadies wound up pulling knives on each other" And that's it! No explanation over what the fight was about, or what happened because of it.

Another section says: "This was the year Joe's house burned down, Sid Vicious murdered his girlfriend, and Keith Moon went out with his overdose. Columbia Records was just about done with us after the fiasco with Draw The Line, but we went on the Bootleg Tour with AC/DC as our opening act anyway. We were based at the Whitehall Hotel in Chicago for a month, fanning out in a Learjet to do shows in the Midwest. At the Fort Wayne Coliseum, we were threatened with incitement to riot. "

or:
"Night in the Ruts was still not ready, but we went back on tour again. At the World Series Of Rock, fans camped out all around Cleveland Stadium the night before. There were several robberies and shootings, and one guy was killed. Backstage, Elyssa threw a glass of milk at Tom's wife, Terry, which started a fight that proved to be the last straw for all of us. Joe walked out. In August we canceled a world tour."

or:

"Before the year was out, Get a Grip was released, and we were on the road. The tour was a huge success, and the record sold 14 million copies, so I bought a house."

Most of the stories about the band are written in this steam of consciousness style, and it's frustrating. Fleshing these stories out would have made for a much better grasp on what was going on at the time. The entire recording of the 1st 3 albums are covered in just six pages. Kramer knew Steven Tallarico since Junior High, but eventually he is Steven Tyler with no explanation why. Kramer came up with the name Aerosmith in high school after listening to Aerial Ballet by Harry Nilsson, but never mentions how that became the bands name. Where there are names considered? What did the other members say about it? There are so many stories here that could be expounded on, but just aren't.

There are also many black and white photos interspersed throughout the text, some way out of context. For example, during a part in the book where the band wasn't even signed yet, there's a picture from the Draw The Line period. Parts of paragraphs are bolded to make certain passages stand out, but that gets old and gimmicky after awhile. And the editing is incredibly sloppy. Cymbal is spelled symbal (page 96) and other grammatical errors can be found throughout the book.

There are some nuggets of information here and there though, like the time the band wanted to purchase an airplane to fly from show to show. They had someone look at it, but the guy warned them against buying it. The plane ended up being used by Lynyrd Skynyrd, and we all know what happened there. There's also a story of Kramer and some friends going to Woodstock, and running into Steven Tyler in the middle of all those people, and an admission that early in the band's career they were backed by the mob in Boston.

And of course the stories of his drug and alcohol abuse figure prominently, what he can remember anyway. At one point he was snorting $5g worth of coke a week, and doing mescaline, hash, tuenols, quaaludes and seemingly anything else he could get his hands on. He was so drugged up, he left his wife at the hospital during the birth of their son and partied for an entire weekend. He recollects "getting high for days at a time, sitting in the same spot on Monday morning as I was on Friday night" and "Jack Daniels and rum on the the drum riser and coke lines on the amps, and God help a roadie who brushed it off or put his flashlight there. Joe and Steven would snort lines between songs, during songs...". He admits that "the only way I can keep the years straight is by remembering which car I was driving at the time."

Unfortunately, Kramer plays the victim card a little too much. Instead of owning up to his actions, he blames his parents, his wife, his band mates, his manager, his therapist and almost everyone else for his problems. Most parents in the 50's and 60's were overly strict with their kids. Get over it. Not everyone is a drugged out alcoholic because their father hit them with a belt when they came home after curfew.

Towards the end of the book though, it seems he's finally taken some responsibility and made peace with his ghosts, especially his father. He writes about being able to talk to him and come to some type of understanding about each other before he passed away. You have to give Kramer credit for his being open and honest in this book, and discussing the pain he's felt from perceived abuse, and dealing with depression and anxiety. He brings up a lot of things that some might have hidden or glossed over and it's not a pleasant read in parts.

It just seems like golden opportunity was missed to make us feel exactly what it was like to be part of one of the biggest American bands of the 1970's.

End Of An Era

I had originally planned to write this article today about a different subject (which I will address towards the end), but the events of the day also go with this title.

Two icons from my childhood, Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson both died today, within 5 hours and 5 miles from each other.

When I woke up this morning, they were already reporting that Farrah Fawcett had been given her last rites and had just hours to live. A couple of hours later she was gone.

I think my first memories of her were her appearances on The Six Million Dollar Man, my favorite show at the time, as Major Kelly Wood and also the movie Logan's Run. But most people knew her as Jill Munroe on Charlie's Angels. Although she was really only on the first season of the show, that and her famous poster shot her to super stardom.

And what a poster is was. Every red-blooded American boy growing up in the mid 1970's either owned the poster, or knew someone who had one. The red, one piece bathing suit, with just a hint of nipple (pretty exciting to a 10 year old boy at the time), the smile with those impossibly white teeth, and the feathered hair. Yeah, it was definitely the hair. Every girl in my school seemed to have or want that hairstyle, and I wasn't complaining. While my parents wouldn't allow me to have the poster, that image is burned into mine and probably all our minds forever and is what I will always think of first when I remember Farrah.

She wasn't even my favorite Angel. I was more of a Jaclyn Smith guy, but Farrah always seemed to be on all the shows I watched. Donny and Marie, Battle Of The Network Stars, Sonny & Cher, Brady Bunch Variety Hour and more.

The last couple of years were tough on her with the cancer, but at least now she's not feeling the pain anymore and is hopefully in a better place.

As I drove to work around 4:30 PM CST, news was breaking that Michael Jackson was in cardiac arrest and was being taken to a hospital. TMZ was reporting that, but Jackson reps were denying it. About an hour later word began spreading through the store I work at that he had died. It was kind of a surreal moment and it is still sinking in. We broke from our normal pre-programed music and played a cd of the Jackson 5 and his solo hits.

Michael Jackson's music was part of the soundtrack of my youth. The Jackson 5 and the Osmonds were two of the first pop groups that attracted my youthful ear. Like Farrah, Michael and his brothers seemed to be everywhere on TV. Sonny & Cher, Flip Wilson, American Bandstand, Soul Train etc. plus their cartoon show on Saturday mornings. I wasn't allowed to own any of their albums or 45's when I was young, but I at least got to watch the show and later the Jackson's variety show to hear their music. I still remember being at a sleepover with kids from school, and the one hosting the party had Michael's Ben album. We played that over and over that night, not knowing at the time it was an ode to a killer rat.

The Jacksons kept recording in the late '70's and early 80's and put out some of my favorite songs like "Blame It On The Boogie," "Can You Feel It," "This Place Hotel" (very Earth, Wind & Fire-ish), "Torture" and "State Of Shock" (Michael sharing vocals with Mick Jagger!).

I remember our middle school taking our class on a field trip to see The Wiz with Michael playing the Scarecrow. Critics derided it, but I loved it. Another memory I have is being on vacation with my family in the summer of 1982. We went to Texas to visit my relatives, Thriller was just hitting big and my cousins had it. My older cousin was driving already and we played the cassette non-stop wherever we went.

Michael and his brothers bridged the divide between black and white audiences. It was pop, dance, funk and rock all rolled into one. Unlike the untalented urban musicians of the last several decades, they played their own instruments, wrote at least some of their songs, didn't sample (steal) from other artists and performed actual songs, not just streaming rhymes over a beat. Michael did duets with Paul McCartney and had Eddie Van Halen play guitar on "Beat It", and Steve Stevens on "Dirty Diana".

Around this time it all started going downhill for him. He dubbed himself "The King Of Pop," drastically changed his look by bleaching his skin and having multiple plastic surgeries until he looked like a completely different person. His descent into weirdness has been well documented and I won't go into it here. He was about to embark on a 50 show "Farewell" series of shows starting July 13th.

There will be lots of speculation over the upcoming days and weeks about his death. While his personal life was full of weirdness, one can't deny he has left behind a huge legacy of music that will live on for a long, long time. I'll always remember that little boy on TV with the big afro, spinning and dancing and singing all those great songs.

My original intent for this End Of An Era post was to be about my personal Summerfest streak coming to an end. For those that don't live in the Milwaukee, WI area, Summerfest is the world's biggest music festival that's been held here on the lakefront every summer for over 40 years. For those that don't know me, I LOVE Summerfest. Since I went to my first one when I was 18 (I'm almost positive it was July 5th, 1988 and I saw Streets with Steve Walsh from Kansas on the Rock Stage), I've been hooked. Where else can you spend 11 straight days and nights, listening to national and local music acts for 12 hours over multiple stages, drinking Milwaukee's finest, eating great good and looking at beautiful women?

Over the past 21 years, I have made it to Summerfest all 11 days, every year. The last day I missed was July 8th, 1988. I remember vividly why I missed that day. It was all because of a girl named Jill Pedigrew. Steve Winwood was playing at Summerfest that night, but she wanted to go see Whitesnake at Alpine Valley. We weren't dating, and we never did date, but she hung around my circle of friends and for some reason wanted me to take her to the show. She was this beautiful blond with a great body, and I was thrilled to take her. The show was supposed to start at 8, and she was supposed to meet my at my house around 6. I sat on the porch, waiting and waiting. This was before cell phones, so you couldn't just call someone to find out where they were. She eventually showed up around 9PM with some excuse that I've forgotten over time. We ended up going to Big Boy, where she bought me dinner to "make up for it". We never went out again, and when I saw her years later in a theater lobby, looking hot as ever, she didn't seem to know me.

Until tonight, I have never missed a day, but I did come close. One year, I think it was 1993, I had tickets to see Pink Floyd in Madison that evening. I still went to Summerfest all afternoon, before heading to the show. Another night several years later, I had tickets to see Simon & Garfunkel at the Bradley Center. I went to Summerfest, left and went to see Paul & Art, then went back to Summerfest to see LeAnn Rimes. Other than those close calls, it's been straight from work or home to the festival and then back home when the grounds closed. Until tonight.

Tonight was opening night, and after 233 straight days of going, my streak is over. This economy and my job situation forced me to be unable to take time off and go. It just killed me not being able to be there tonight. I found myself looking at the clock and thinking what I'd be doing. Going through the gates and grabbing my first beer; getting some mozzarella marinara from Saz's or a hot dog from Martino's; heading down to the Marcus Amphitheater to try and find a ticket for Bon Jovi, and if I struck out, going to see local hero's Bad Boy open for Loverboy; watching the Big Bang fireworks and then staying for Loverboy, or checking out Robin Trower.

But as I sit here and type this, I'm watching footage on CNN of Micheal Jackson's body being transferred from a helicopter to a van to be driven to the coroner's office and I realize there are more important things in life than music, women and beer. So I miss a couple of days of Summerfest. At least I'm still alive. I'm sure when Micheal Jackson woke up this morning, he wasn't expecting to be dead by afternoon from cardiac arrest.

And besides, if the economy picks up and I find a better paying job, I can start a new streak next year, right?

DVD Review - Cold Prey II

It's very rare, especially in the horror genre, that a sequel is better than the original. The Devil's Rejects immediately comes to mind, but not much else. That's why Cold Prey II is such a pleasant surprise.

While the first film echoed The Shining in parts, this one takes it's cue from Halloween II, set in an almost empty hospital. The hospital staff consists of a doctor, a resident and a nurse, all taking care of a young boy and an old woman who is only on screen for some quick comic relief. Seems the hospital is closing, which explains the lack of people walking the halls.

Ingrid Bolsø Berdal is back as Jannicke, the only survivor from the first film (although the other 4 main cast members from the first do show back up as corpses). Found by a policeman (who is also dating the resident) sent to check out an abandoned car, she's brought back to the hospital where she tells the authorities what happened to her. The bodies of her friends as well as the supposedly dead body of the killer are brought back to the hospital, and you can pretty much guess what happens next.

Obviously the success of the first film led to a larger budget, and a bigger cast. The addition of a police force, and especially the police chief character really add to the movie. A scene between the chief and the doctor who delivered the missing boy from the first film flesh out the back story of who the killer is, and why he kills.

Even though the way the supposedly dead killer is brought back to life is ludicrous, this is still one enjoyable film. While it's well into the film before the carnage starts, the time is well spent on the characters, their relationships and slowly building the suspense. There's much more gore than the first one, and the ending is satisfying, and for the most part believable. I especially liked that the entire police force, small as it is, was involved. Usually in horror films, there's never any law enforcement presence to protect the victims, or it's just a lone cop who is eventually dispatched by the villain. Of course they help add to the body count too.

Plans are already under way for a third film in the series, this one a prequel. I'm sure a Hollywood version of the first will eventually see the light of day as well.

*** out of 4

DVD Review - Cold Prey

The current state of the US horror movie scene seems creatively bankrupt, with nothing by remakes, sequels and watered down PG-13 films coming out. Films from Japan, Hong Kong and Korea were fine for awhile, but one can only sit through so many ghost stories. Luckily the French have given us some really good and fresh new films the last several years, and now Norway joins them with the slasher film Cold Prey, or Fritt Vilt as it's known in it's native tongue.

Originally released in 2006, it finally saw a US DVD release earlier this year from Starz/Anchor Bay. The story centers around five people (two couples and a fifth wheel) who head to the mountains for a day of snowboarding. When the fifth wheel Morten Tobias breaks his leg, the group seeks shelter in an apparently abandoned ski lodge. As if their day hasn't gone bad enough, they soon will be picked off one by one by a pick-ax wielding madman.

This throwback to the slasher films of the 1980's brings nothing much new to the genre, but what it does bring is a likable and fairly believable cast of characters, and good pacing that builds the tension up to the finale. The opening car ride to the mountains gives us some insight into each character and since there are only 5 of them, and horror movie rules say that at least one has to survive the film, you can't start killing off the other 4 immediately.

Cold Prey is very well filmed, and makes great use of it's surroundings. Not many slasher films take place in the snow covered mountains, and director Roar Uthaug uses the blizzard conditions and isolation to his advantage. Maybe it's the blowing snow and hotel setting, but parts reminded me of The Shining.

But take the good filming and the snow out of the setting and it's just another run of the mill slasher film. The hulking killer is as big as Jason, and swings a mean pick-ax like the miner in My Bloody Valentine, but his back story is never really dealt with. Even with a quick "explanation" in the last couple of minutes, it explains nothing really about who he is and why he's there. And I'm not sure why this was released "Unrated" since there is no nudity and hardly any gore to speak of. In fact, the goriest part is when Morten breaks his leg. For some reason seeing a bone sticking out of a leg from an accident freaks me out more than seeing someone getting decapitated.

The extras on the DVD include an alternate ending that is not really alternate, it just adds some extra to the climax that wasn't filmed due to cost and time constraints. Unfortunately, they use storyboards to fill in the non-filmed scenes. And the "bloopers" reel isn't really made up of funny flubs, but mainly outtakes, of which one stands out where the killer practices swinging his weapon into the back of one of his victims. An alternate version of the opening car ride also makes for interesting viewing to see how that was edited down to the final version.

This is a decent film and worth watching, just don't expect anything much in the way of originality. Also, I recommend watching the movie with the English subtitles on, especially for the translation of news headlines and landmarks.

** 1/2 out of ****