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CRYPTZ
Produced and Directed by Danny Draven
Written by Scott Phillips
Edited by H.J. Picardi
Director of Photography - Michael KingTymes Skwair - Choice Skinner
Fuzzy Down - Rick Irvin
Likrish - Dennis Waller Jr.
Truck - ChynaTymes Skwair. Fuzzy Down. Kikrish. From the moment you hear the names of the cast, you know Danny Draven's CRYPTZ is a comedy, a genre I don't think Full Moon Pictures has ever delved into. Although there's been a great deal of humor in past Full Moon releases, most of those laughs weren't intentional.
As a general rule, horror and comedy rarely work together. For every EVIL DEAD 2 and ARACHNAPHOBIA, you get two JACK FROST's and BLOOD DINER's. The comedy falls flat. It's takes a backseat to everything else and becomes lost in a mire of uninteresting characters or flat action.
Somebody once said that "comedy is pain." In horror-comedy, that couldn't apply more. It's how characters deal with pain that makes us laugh.
Consider the two extremes in CRYPTZ.
In one scene Likrish has been given the smackdown and locked up in the CRYPTZ attic (Cryptz being a mystical strip joint where lady vampires reveal all). Too stupid to realize he's in trouble, Likrish mouths off in a Chris Tucker-like fashion. First off, Chris Tucker acting like Chris Tucker isn't all that funny. A pale Tucker impersonator is even worse.
Another sequence finds our hero, Tymes Skwair, with one of his tattoos sliced off. He spends the remainder of the movie holding his removed skin up to the bloody hole in his chest as if this will magically make it reattach. The rule in comedy, especially when dealing with characters possessing Gump-like IQ's, is that twice is tragedy, thrice comedy. The poor guy just doesn't get it, that lump of skin isn't going back. The humor is darkly twisted and disturbed, and doesn't rely on a Hollywood knock-off.
It might have been Roger Ebert who once stated that movie names can't be funny. He hasn't seen CRYPTZ. Tymes Skwair (pronounced Times Square) and the rest of his posse of wanna-be rappers sound like they want to be known as The Backstreet Boyz......and to drive the point home, that's "Boyz" with a "Z." I've never understood where many rap artists gets their names, and CRYPTZ plays up the ridiculous nature of monikers like "Puff Daddy", "Vanilla Ice", "MC Hammer", and "Master P" to the fullest.
The comedy in CRYPTZ might be uneven, but it's still an enjoyable movie. More lightweight than anything Draven has done in the past, but enjoyable nontheless. As a director, Draven maintains a number of his trademark directorial elements, including the misogynist attitude in his screenplay. Even his mother figures are nagging and shrewish. I'm beginning to wonder if the man is capable of showing female character in a positive light.
Somehow I find that last thought humorous too...
The DVD presentation of CRYPTZ follows the recent Full Moon trend of package newer material with old, in this case RAGDOLL. The result is that viewers don't receive more than a short making-of documentary and a commentary track, but the plus is they receive a second feature for free. Since Full Moon DVD releases are relatively inexpensive to start with, amassing a Full Moon library shouldn't take that long or bust your wallet.
www.dannydraven.com
www.fullmoonpictures.com