Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon is a horror-comedy that's part mockumentary and part slasher. It's a pretty funny film, but there are a few key flaws that keep it from being truly great. The idea of the movie is quite clever; it's about a serial killer who hires a film crew to document him as he prepares for his newest reign of terror. However, the ending is weak and causes the film to fall apart, and ruins what could have been a horror movie that was a cut above the rest. But all that aside, the good moments in Behind the mask are excellent, and mostly outweigh the bad. It's rough around the edges, but it's a lot of fun.
A majority of the film is shot documentary-style, relying mostly on dialog and characters to move the story. This is really cool, because it's rare that a horror film ever spends much time fleshing out their characters. And while there's only a few characters that actually get any depth, it's still nice for a change to have a main character and a villain who aren't overused archetypes. The acting is really uneven, though. Leslie is played by a guy named Nathan Baesel, who sort of looks like Dane Cook, but unlike Dane Cook, this guy is actually funny. His performance is quite interesting; he plays the role seriously, but gives it the right amount of casualness to befit the film's comedic side. The comedic side of the character is ultimately his undoing, though, because the character of Leslie is a little too goofy to be taken seriously as a villain, and thus when Nathan finally dons the killer's mask, it's really hard to find him intimidating, even though the film clearly wants us to. The other main character is Taylor, the director of the documentary, and lead interviewer. She's fairly decent in her role, and at least doesn't ham up her role like everyone else in the film.
The supporting cast of characters are all intentionally stereotypes that parody the stereotypes in slasher movies. Accordingly, a lot of the acting from these characters is really bad. It's not the hilarious kind of bad acting, though. The supporting cast is mostly just annoying. Thankfully their screen time is limited, and most of the time they aren't talking. There's also a strange cameo from Zelda Rubinstein, the medium from "Poltergeist". She's barely on screen for two minutes, but even her performance is a bit lackluster. Fortunately we do get a fun performance from Robert Englund. He plays a brief role as a parody of Donald Pleasance's character from the "Halloween" series. Englund does a surprisingly good impression of Donald Pleasence, and while Englund doesn't get a whole lot of screen time, he's still a fun character to watch.
The problem with the main characters though, ties back to the weak ending I previously mentioned. There's a bit of a joke throughout the movie that the film crew documenting Leslie is very passive about his homicidal tendencies. They appear to be a bit apprehensive of him, but otherwise they have no problem with watching him set up his plans for his murder spree. Only until Leslie kills the first two of his teenage victims does Taylor the director suddenly grow a conscience and attempt to stop him, eventually guilting her camera crew into helping her stop him. This strikes me as odd, because Taylor and her crew didn't bat an eye when Leslie killed a librarian right in front of them. Why they suddenly started caring about Leslie's victims is beyond me. Taylor also tries to talk to Leslie's main victim early on in the film, to warn her about her impending doom or something, but again this seemingly comes out of nowhere; outside of those two instances, Taylor and her crew barely seem bothered by hanging out with a murderer.
The humor in Behind the Mask is great; it's heavily based on character quirks and the deconstruction of horror movies. Behind the Mask seemingly takes place in a universe where all of the major slasher film franchises were actual murder sprees. The whole point of the documentary portion of the film is to show how Leslie finishes up some of his last minute prep, while he explains how he has his entire killing spree planned out. It's quite funny to imagine Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees working on their cardio to prep for a murder spree, or meticulously nailing various windows and doors shut to ensure their victims can only leave through certain exits. It's hard to describe much of the humor besides those few examples, but the humor is definitely the film's strongest suit. If you enjoy movies like "This Is Spinal Tap" or "Waiting for Guffman", you're bound to get a few laughs here and there.
Unfortunately, despite the great humor, the film really falls short at the end, when it expects you to take it seriously. One of the major problems with the ending is the cinematography. Almost all of the film is shot documentary-style, except for the scene with the librarian, and a few times when Leslie is narrating his plans. Those scenes are shot in the conventional studio style, although it really only makes sense for the narration scenes. I could have looked past this, but when Taylor randomly decides to grow a conscious and save the teens from Leslie Vernon, she tells her camera crew to leave their equipment behind, and the rest of the film is shot like a regular movie. Logically, this makes sense, because no sane person would be carrying a video camera at that point. But this ruins the mockumentary tone, and sort of violates the fourth wall, like a toned down version of the ending of "Blazing Saddles". The movie had a vaguely realistic feel to it, and felt almost like a found footage film, and switching the camera's point of view feels a bit alienating.
From this point on, the film indicates that we're supposed to be scared, and that we're supposed to find these scenes suspenseful, because we supposedly can't anticipate Leslie's plans because of Taylor's sudden intervention. But there's no suspense or scares to be found, because everyone runs to or dies in nearly the exact same places Leslie said they would in the narration sequence earlier in the film. Even Leslie doesn't look that menacing; his mask is pretty creepy looking, but the rest of his outfit makes him look comically backwoods. This might have been funny if the third act was played with the same humor of the preceding hour of the movie, but we're clearly being told to find Leslie scary, and he's just not. (As a side note, the face paint Leslie uses under his mask makes him look like Alice Cooper, although I'm sure that was intentional. But even then, that makes him even less scary when he has his mask off.)
Towards the end of the third act, Taylor goes through the same character arc that Leslie said his final victim would go through. This is supposed to be symbolic or something, but it lacks any meaning because the audience was anticipating this, since Leslie previously narrated over a nearly identical scene. Taylor eventually faces down against Leslie in the exact same manner as he had predicted. Instead of this feeling like the film's events are coming full circle or something, it instead feels very repetitive, because as I've previously said, the entire third act was already played out in a narration sequence in the second act. The ending just doesn't work, because we've already saw the ending barely a half-hour prior.
Overall, this is a pretty good movie. The ending is lame, but the good mostly outweighs the bad. The funny moments are really funny, and even though the ending is lame, there have been far worse ending to movies. Heck, some of you may even find humor in the ending, even if they are trying to play it seriously. It's a hilariously dark and loving tribute to slasher movies of yore, and if you are a horror fan, it's worth checking out. It's not perfect, but for the most part it's hilarious, and if you can ignore disappointing ending, you'll probably enjoy the first two acts.
Enjoyment- 4/5
Quality- 3/5
IMDB Page- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0437857/
October 23, 2012
October 11, 2012
Movie Review- A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge
Horror movie sequels have a bad rap for spawning endless amounts of terrible sequels. But while most horror movie sequels don't do well critically, there tends to be an enjoyable camp value with many of them. Sure, it might not be as creepy or inventive as the first, but horror movie sequels can at least bring a laugh or two to horror fans. But there is a line that can easily be crossed; the comically over-the-top elements found in great "good-bad" horror movies can quickly turn from hilarious to mind-numbingly annoying. A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 crosses that line.
The idea of a demonic figure that kills you in your dreams, while a bit silly, lends itself to a lot of creative opportunities. Dreams and nightmares have no grounding in reality and could easily produce some great and terrifying results. The first film handles the premise pretty well, and although it's very dated by today's standards, the first NoES still manages have a couple of creepy scenes throughout. NoES2 decides to scrap most of the dream element and go for a possession-based horror movie. The plot this go-round revolves around a kid named Jesse, who moves into Nancy's house five years after the first movie. Freddy decides to possess Jesse, using him to randomly kill a few people, despite Freddy already being capable of killing people in their dreams, which is much more efficient. The movie tries to play up a psychological aspect, where Jesse questions whether he's the one killing people or not. This doesn't work, though, because we already know Freddy existed in the first film, and so there's no suspense when the mystery aspect was already answered in the preceding movie.
Another major flaw with the film is the subtitle, "Freddy's Revenge". This is a strange choice for a subtitle, because Freddy is merely returning, and not exacting revenge. The movie even tries to play up the revenge aspect, in that Freddy is possessing Jesse so he can kill people again. This makes no sense however, because the only person he would want revenge on is Nancy, because she sort of killed him in the first movie. Heck, the first NoES could have been called "Freddy's Revenge", because he's getting revenge by killing the children of the people who murdered him. There's no motivation for his killing spree this time, except for "because he's the bad guy". There's no connection to any of the characters from the last movie, except that it takes place in the same house as last time. Having someone live in Nancy's house again might have awoken Freddy's spirit, but if he were out for revenge, he would have gone after Nancy. It's established that Freddy can make Jesse travel long distances when possessing him, so why he didn't try to exact revenge when the theme and subtitle of the movie is literally "Revenge" is anyone's guess. Although it's probably because "A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy Kills Some People Because He's Evil" was a hard sell, and too difficult for the writer to work around. (In retrospect, Freddy might have been trying to get back into the real world using Jesse, but one would think being able to haunt dreams is a big advantage for a horror movie villain; you can't really do anything to him, and he pretty much has full control over you. And he takes a serious beating when he's dragged into reality in the first NoES, so I'm not sure why he'd want to return to human form. He's not really a smart one, that Freddy.)
If there's any reason to remember this film (and even then, it's hardly a reason), it's because of the unintentional homoeroticism. NoES2 is notorious amongst horror fans for its numerous scenes of half-dressed sweaty men running around, a dream sequence that appears to take place in a gay club, and a scene where Freddy murders a guy in a shower room after stripping him nude and whipping him in the butt with a towel. This doesn't really add much watchability to the film, but the shower room scene is so bizarre it's somewhat worth a chuckle. There's also a lot of painfully garish 80's fashion going on, so if you get a laugh out of overly feathered hair and loud clothing, it might be worth looking up a few scenes on Youtube.
The characters are all forgettable, but it's worth at least mentioning them. Jesse, the main character, is the flat, boring guy. Lisa, the love interest, is the flat, boring girl. All other characters get around five lines of dialog, and that's about it. There's a coach-type guy who's supposed to be a bad guy, but he dies early on in the movie. There's also some guy that's supposed to be the best friend character, but he's barely around, and he ends up dying before anything of interest is done with him. There's also Jesse's family, but their characters are so thin even a sitcom would reject them for being too archetypal.
Death scenes are a staple in slasher movies, and creativity really counts. As a whole, the Nightmare on Elm Street series has had some really interesting death scenes and some great special effects to go along with them. But NoES2 is surprisingly lacking. While I believe in quality over quantity in horror movies, and that less can often be more frightening, there really is a lack of death scenes, and the few that we get are really lame. Freddy whips a guy in the butt with a towel a few times and then claws his back and stabs one guy. That's really it. He kills a few people during a party sequence, but these are treated as generic background character deaths that aren't really focused on, so those don't really count. (Like how you never hear people commenting on the various anonymous deaths in Indiana Jones; you only ever hear about all the ones at the end when the major bad guy dies.) Speaking of villain deaths, Freddy gets an even weaker death than the last film. In probably the lamest part of the original NoES, Freddy gets killed off by being told he doesn't exist. This time, Freddy gets killed by getting kissed by Lisa, the romantic interest. This inexplicably causes Freddy to burst into flames, which somehow frees Jesse from his clutches. It makes even less sense than last time, and is somehow even stupider than getting zapped into thin air. There's also a strange scene early on the film in which Freddy somehow possesses Jesse's pet parakeet, causing the bird to fly around terrorizing Jesse's family, only to have him explode into flames moments later. In all honesty, the exploding parakeet is really the only memorable thing about this movie. The gay undertones have nothing on a fiery parakeet explosion.
Overall, this is not a very good movie. The idea of Freddy trying to possess someone is kind of lame, considering he usually kills people in their dreams, and thus has no need for a human form. The script is obviously rushed, as NoES2 came out exactly a year after the first movie debuted, and had a little more time been put into the story, we could have gotten a movie where Freddy-possession might actually made sense. Instead, we got a lackluster slasher with enough sweaty shirtless guys to put an action movie to shame. There's no point in seeing this movie, unless you're going through and watching all of the movies in the Nightmare on Elm Street series. If that's the case, may God have mercy on your soul. You may not survive the experience. If that's not the case, stick to the original. But if you have a strange urge to watch a horror movie sequel, Friday the 13th 2-4 are decent, and the first two Child's Play sequels are good for a laugh.
Enjoyment- 2/5
Quality- 2/5
IMDB Page- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089686/
The idea of a demonic figure that kills you in your dreams, while a bit silly, lends itself to a lot of creative opportunities. Dreams and nightmares have no grounding in reality and could easily produce some great and terrifying results. The first film handles the premise pretty well, and although it's very dated by today's standards, the first NoES still manages have a couple of creepy scenes throughout. NoES2 decides to scrap most of the dream element and go for a possession-based horror movie. The plot this go-round revolves around a kid named Jesse, who moves into Nancy's house five years after the first movie. Freddy decides to possess Jesse, using him to randomly kill a few people, despite Freddy already being capable of killing people in their dreams, which is much more efficient. The movie tries to play up a psychological aspect, where Jesse questions whether he's the one killing people or not. This doesn't work, though, because we already know Freddy existed in the first film, and so there's no suspense when the mystery aspect was already answered in the preceding movie.
Another major flaw with the film is the subtitle, "Freddy's Revenge". This is a strange choice for a subtitle, because Freddy is merely returning, and not exacting revenge. The movie even tries to play up the revenge aspect, in that Freddy is possessing Jesse so he can kill people again. This makes no sense however, because the only person he would want revenge on is Nancy, because she sort of killed him in the first movie. Heck, the first NoES could have been called "Freddy's Revenge", because he's getting revenge by killing the children of the people who murdered him. There's no motivation for his killing spree this time, except for "because he's the bad guy". There's no connection to any of the characters from the last movie, except that it takes place in the same house as last time. Having someone live in Nancy's house again might have awoken Freddy's spirit, but if he were out for revenge, he would have gone after Nancy. It's established that Freddy can make Jesse travel long distances when possessing him, so why he didn't try to exact revenge when the theme and subtitle of the movie is literally "Revenge" is anyone's guess. Although it's probably because "A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy Kills Some People Because He's Evil" was a hard sell, and too difficult for the writer to work around. (In retrospect, Freddy might have been trying to get back into the real world using Jesse, but one would think being able to haunt dreams is a big advantage for a horror movie villain; you can't really do anything to him, and he pretty much has full control over you. And he takes a serious beating when he's dragged into reality in the first NoES, so I'm not sure why he'd want to return to human form. He's not really a smart one, that Freddy.)
If there's any reason to remember this film (and even then, it's hardly a reason), it's because of the unintentional homoeroticism. NoES2 is notorious amongst horror fans for its numerous scenes of half-dressed sweaty men running around, a dream sequence that appears to take place in a gay club, and a scene where Freddy murders a guy in a shower room after stripping him nude and whipping him in the butt with a towel. This doesn't really add much watchability to the film, but the shower room scene is so bizarre it's somewhat worth a chuckle. There's also a lot of painfully garish 80's fashion going on, so if you get a laugh out of overly feathered hair and loud clothing, it might be worth looking up a few scenes on Youtube.
The characters are all forgettable, but it's worth at least mentioning them. Jesse, the main character, is the flat, boring guy. Lisa, the love interest, is the flat, boring girl. All other characters get around five lines of dialog, and that's about it. There's a coach-type guy who's supposed to be a bad guy, but he dies early on in the movie. There's also some guy that's supposed to be the best friend character, but he's barely around, and he ends up dying before anything of interest is done with him. There's also Jesse's family, but their characters are so thin even a sitcom would reject them for being too archetypal.
Death scenes are a staple in slasher movies, and creativity really counts. As a whole, the Nightmare on Elm Street series has had some really interesting death scenes and some great special effects to go along with them. But NoES2 is surprisingly lacking. While I believe in quality over quantity in horror movies, and that less can often be more frightening, there really is a lack of death scenes, and the few that we get are really lame. Freddy whips a guy in the butt with a towel a few times and then claws his back and stabs one guy. That's really it. He kills a few people during a party sequence, but these are treated as generic background character deaths that aren't really focused on, so those don't really count. (Like how you never hear people commenting on the various anonymous deaths in Indiana Jones; you only ever hear about all the ones at the end when the major bad guy dies.) Speaking of villain deaths, Freddy gets an even weaker death than the last film. In probably the lamest part of the original NoES, Freddy gets killed off by being told he doesn't exist. This time, Freddy gets killed by getting kissed by Lisa, the romantic interest. This inexplicably causes Freddy to burst into flames, which somehow frees Jesse from his clutches. It makes even less sense than last time, and is somehow even stupider than getting zapped into thin air. There's also a strange scene early on the film in which Freddy somehow possesses Jesse's pet parakeet, causing the bird to fly around terrorizing Jesse's family, only to have him explode into flames moments later. In all honesty, the exploding parakeet is really the only memorable thing about this movie. The gay undertones have nothing on a fiery parakeet explosion.
Overall, this is not a very good movie. The idea of Freddy trying to possess someone is kind of lame, considering he usually kills people in their dreams, and thus has no need for a human form. The script is obviously rushed, as NoES2 came out exactly a year after the first movie debuted, and had a little more time been put into the story, we could have gotten a movie where Freddy-possession might actually made sense. Instead, we got a lackluster slasher with enough sweaty shirtless guys to put an action movie to shame. There's no point in seeing this movie, unless you're going through and watching all of the movies in the Nightmare on Elm Street series. If that's the case, may God have mercy on your soul. You may not survive the experience. If that's not the case, stick to the original. But if you have a strange urge to watch a horror movie sequel, Friday the 13th 2-4 are decent, and the first two Child's Play sequels are good for a laugh.
Enjoyment- 2/5
Quality- 2/5
IMDB Page- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089686/
October 2, 2012
Movie Review- Fright Night (2011)
Fright Night was a cheesy and forgettable horror movie from the 1980's. It had promise, but ultimately it fell flat because the characters and script were really weak. This was by no means a film that ever needed to be revisited again, as evidenced by the unpopularity of the 1988 sequel. But since the success of the Twilight movies, studios have been scrambling to produce as many vampire-related films as possible. And as a result, someone had the bright idea of revamping this dud. As is usual, the remake is worse. The 1985 version of the film certainly isn't the worst movie in the world, but the remake is absolutely atrocious.
The plot is exactly the same as the original, which is one of the core problems with this movie. It's just not that interesting. When I first heard about this movie, I thought it was more along the lines of Rear Window with vampires, a slow-burn type movie where Charley's realization that his neighbor is a vampire would be a big reveal or a unforeseen plot twist. Just like last time, the plot is as follows; Teenager Charley realizes his new neighbor Jerry is a vampire, and must enlist the help of a washed-up actor to rescue his romantic interest from Jerry's evil clutches. Again, there's virtually nothing to the plot outside of this, except the pacing is different this time. If there is anything nice to be said about this movie, it's that the pacing is better than the original's. The 1985 version had terrible pacing, and many scenes dragged on for far longer than necessary. At leas this time the plot runs a little a smoother, giving us a faster paced movie. This isn't much, but it's a nice touch.
In a B-Movie, characters are usually the least important part of the movie, but the remake of Fright Night is clearly not a B-Movie like the original. There's always an expectation of higher quality in current films, no matter what time period. We expect a movie from 2011 to be better in some way than the original from 1985. This is a silly expectation, but it's there nonetheless. I would have honestly expected the characters to have improved from the 26 year gap between the original and the remake. As I said, this isn't a B-Movie anymore, and I'd expect a little more than the bland characters that permeate this movie.
In the original Fright Night, our main character was Charley, a bland mix of various 80's stereotypes. This go-round Charley is an extremely obnoxious teenager from the tech generation. The character himself is not a particularly annoying character per se, but the actor playing him is unbearably irritating. Basically, Charley is still the same character from the original, but tweaked slightly to appeal to current audiences, but he's no longer played as a John Cusack knockoff. This go-round, Charley, played by Anton Yelchin, alternates on-and-off between being bland and being obnoxious. At times he's a harmless, albeit drab and generic, teenage character. But occasionally he switches gears and plays the character as a snarky, preppy type, even though the script seems to indicate otherwise.
The supporting cast suffers from the same problems as Anton. The script indicates that we're supposed to find these characters likable and relatable, but all of the actors alternate between being boring or being a jerk. But the main problem is that everyone in this movie gives a generally underwhelming performance. Most of the cast members have been in several other movies, so it's expected of them to being giving a good performance by now, but no one does. Much like Chris Sarandon in the original Fright Night, Colin Farrell fails to capture the needed elegance and creepiness necessary to play a vampire. Albeit his character is poorly written, Colin plays the character with a strange arrogance that feels really out of place for a vampire, as they're typically known for alluring and graceful personalities. Even David Tennant somehow gives a boring performance. Most of the time he seemed to be just standing around being British, as if his heart wasn't really in the role and he's only there for the money. (Come to think of it, that's probably the case with everyone involved with this film) His character was weak to begin with, but he doesn't give it any pizzazz, and fans of his work in Doctor Who are likely to be disappointed with his performance here.
Jerry the vampire is still as boring as ever, but the character lacks subtlety and is far more aggressive this time. He actively pursues Charley almost right off the bat, whereas the original Jerry didn't try to attack him until more than halfway through the film. Evil Ed, the Beavis lookalike from the original, is now just plain Ed, and his character is still thin as ever. Instead of just being some weird kid who abandons his friends for vampirism like in the original, Ed is now a pretentious nerd who abandons his friends for vampirism, and he does so even sooner than 1985 Ed. Strangely enough, Ed is the one who first discovers Jerry's secret, and it's only until he disappears that Charley actually starts to care and investigate his neighbor's nightly activities. Ed is also left out of the film almost completely after joining the legion of the undead. Whereas Ed got two fight scenes with some decent special effects, Ed shows back up in the remake for a boring and CG-ridden fight scene before biting the dust. In the remake, we also get the addition of two of Charley's friends, two guys who I assume are supposed to be preppy or something, but the film doesn't quite indicate. They're barely in the film, but their brief presence on screen is very annoying, and it adds nothing but some padding to the film's run time.
Peter Vincent, the washed-up actor from the 1985 film is in the remake as well, but this time he plays a Criss Angel-type magician from Las Vegas, and he's even blander than last time. But instead of his shoehorned-in "crisis of faith" subplot, this time Peter reveals that his parents were killed by a vampire (and conveniently it was Jerry that did it, too). I think this was supposed to give Peter a reason to fight Jerry, but he never seemed interested to begin with. Even Amy, Charley's girlfriend is worse than in the original. In the 1985 version, she was the generic romantic interest character, but in the update her character is now not only an uninteresting romantic interest, but she's also objectifying towards women. Whereas the 1985 Amy dressed modestly and mostly refused Charley's advances, she now is a tawdrier version of the character, wearing overly provocative outfits (and ones certainly not appropriate for a girl that's supposed to be sixteen), but she straight-up tries to seduce Charley halfway through the film. Strangely enough, that particular scene is very uncharacteristic for this regularly bland character, and makes the women-objectification all the more blatant.
Another strange facet of this film is the humor. The original Fright Night is often labelled as a horror comedy, which is strange because there's literally no humor in the conventional sense. There's potential for a few laughs at campy moments, depending on your sense of humor, but the script clearly was written to be taken seriously. The remake on the other hand, has many jokes abound. None of them are particularly funny, and most of them don't even make sense. And although humor is subjective, if you find humor in tasteless sex jokes and gratuitous swearing, then you're probably not old enough to be watching an R-rated horror movie to begin with.
And of course the worst part of this film are the special effects. The original Fright Night withheld the special effects until the end, and actually had some cool ideas that worked fairly well within the confines of the budget. But as with many modern movies, regardless of genre, Fright Night revels in cheap CG. The special effects don't really kick in until the third act of the film, but when they do, it's atrocious. The design for Jerry in his more vampiric form is absolutely ridiculous, looking like a cross between Mileena from Mortal Kombat and some sort of zombie. A good rule of thumb with horror is leaving things to the viewer's imagination, or at least keeping the appearance of the villain to a minimum. The remake says "Screw that!" and blasts us with horribly fake CG shots of Colin Farrell towards the end. Most notably, and most laughably, a scene in which a newly-turned vampire disintegrates explosively, strangely leaving behind one of he legs. But even better is Jerry's death scene. He gets dragged into the sun and his chest starts to disintegrate, exposing his beating CG heart like some sort of video game villain. Charley stakes Jerry, and Jerry bursts into flame. The resulting shot is worth looking up Youtube if you enjoy bad special effects. The shot of Jerry bursting into flame is unnecessarily in slow-motion and so horrendously fake-looking that it's the only laughable part of the movie.
Unfortunately, the rest of the special effects fail to transcend to the hilariously bad category, and stay stuck in the just plain bad category. This is chiefly visible in all the other death scenes. For some reason, the special effects team decided to use CG blood as opposed to using their creativity and shelling out some extra cash for fake blood. If there's one thing that looks horribly fake in CG, it's blood. It's hard to recreate the look of liquid in CG, and it's best left to animated films that specialize in that department. But unfortunately a bunch of hack visual artists were assigned to one of the laziest and most fake-looking shortcuts in the visual effects handbook.
Overall, I really disliked this movie. If there's anything positive to say of it, it's that I didn't like the original Fright Night all too much, so I didn't experience any "Oh no, they're ruining everything that was good about the original movie" moments, like fans of the original might have. (Yes, the original has fans. Or at least people that mildly enjoyed it. It's currently at a 7.0/10 on IMDB) But even if you ignore the original, Fright Night fails as its own movie. It's just not good. The story is bland, the acting is bland, and there's an endless amount of stupid moments littered throughout the movie. (Jerry has a secret hallway that looks like the inside of a hospital hidden behind his closet, for the purpose of detaining victims, Jerry has vampires buried in the walls of his basement for some reason, Charley gears up in a flame-retardant combat outfit and lights himself on fire to fight Jerry, etc.) It's mind-boggling how a movie as stupid as this can get produced, but at the same time, it's really irritating when you realize it was only made to cash in on another franchise. Although, in a nice twist of fate, the film bombed. Just because you can cash in on another franchise doesn't always mean you should.
Quality- 1/5
Enjoyment- 1/5
IMDB Page- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1438176/
September 19, 2012
Movie Review- Fright Night (1985)
There are many hidden gems to be found in the realm of 1980's horror films. Fright Night is not one of them. In theory, this should have been at least mildly entertaining. It's a horror-comedy about vampires. What could possibly go wrong? As is usual, the answer is everything.
From the start, Fright Night is doomed. The plot can easily be summed up as follows: After teenager Charley Brewster realizes his new neighbor is a vampire, he must enlist the help of a washed-up actor to save Charley's girlfriend from the bloodsucker's clutches. And that's literally it. No twists, no turns, no subplots, and certainly nothing interesting going on. The story often feels incomplete, and many scenes seem to drag on for no other reason than to pad the length of the movie.
The characters are also severely lacking. Normally this doesn't matter much in a horror film, as most characters are usually just there to die. But Fright Night insists that we care about these characters, to the point of trying to cram in character arcs in the 3rd act. But this is to no avail, because our cast is nothing more than a grab bag of 1980's character archetypes, most of whom strangely look like other (and better) actors. Our main character is an amalgamation of John Cusack types with a dash of Billy Peltzer from Gremlins. He's supposedly obsessed with horror movies, which I can only assume is because he always has his TV set to the late-night horror movie channel. Other than that, he's just like every other bland protagonist in 1980's teen movies.
For our side characters, we have the vague Sigourney Weaver lookalike as the girlfriend, who scoffs at Charley's tales of vampires living next door, until she randomly changes her mind and sticks with him wholeheartedly the rest of the film. Then there's the sidekick, Ed, who looks strangely like Beavis. Towards the end of the film, Ed randomly (and rather traitorously) lets himself be turned into a vampire, with the promise of no longer being picked on after joining the undead. This makes absolutely no sense, because his character is never once shown being bullied, and up until then seemed to be getting along quite well with everyone else. The last of our protagonists, Peter Vincent, is a washed up actor who runs a late night horror movie program on TV. He doesn't really do much other than serve as a sidekick after Ed turns evil, so there's not much worth mentioning. Our antagonist, a vampire named Jerry, is played with extreme blandness, on par with every other actor in this film. The actor playing him doesn't look very menacing in the first place, and he fails to make up for appearance with his acting.
The film is also billed as a horror-comedy, which is odd considering there's not a single joke in the whole film. The tone isn't even tongue-in-cheek. The closest Fright Night ever comes to being funny is the sidekick Ed, who is only funny because he looks eerily like Beavis, and that wasn't even intentional. On the subject of Ed, I'm pretty sure his character is meant to be humorous, but he never says anything that would qualify as a joke. There's no allusions to other horror films, no winks to the audience, no flat-out humorous dialog, and not even an ounce of slapstick in the fight scenes. And yet somehow this film is labelled a horror-comedy. By today's standards, the film is pretty dated, and that may get a laugh out of some people, but other than that this film legitimately tries to play itself serious.
Special effects are often the strongest suit of horror movies and can greatly improve the quality of an otherwise terrible film. This is almost true of Fright Night. Aside from a brief scene early in the film, Fright Night is a vampire film with a surprising lack of vampire-related special effects. Thankfully we do get a few good effects in during the end fight scene. At one point, Ed transforms into a wolf and is subsequently killed with a stair banister. He then slowly transforms back into a human, which is probably the only truly interesting effect in the movie. During the last few minutes of the film, Jerry the vampire briefly turns into a large bat, and while the creature is obviously on strings half of the time, the design of the creature is very convincing. We also get a bizarre melting-type death when Jerry's henchman gets stabbed with a stake and then sort of just turns into green goo. But despite the apparent effort put into the special effects, their time in the film is fleeting, and sadly crammed into the last 15 minutes of the movie.
Overall, this is a disappointing dud of a vampire movie. It fails to deliver the very few things it promised to begin with; cheap scares and a few laughs. Even as a B-Movie, the film is lacking. The acting is bad, but it never veers into the over-the-top territory. And while the plot and dialog are often lame, they're both coherent enough to still be taken seriously, so we don't get any goofy one-liners or ridiculously forced banter. But then again, this film never promised much to begin with. If you like B-Movies, you may still want to check this one out, if only for the special effects, but you can probably find the ending on Youtube and save yourself the trouble. They're really the only good part of this movie.
Enjoyment- 2/5
Quality- 2/5
IMDB Page- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089175/
From the start, Fright Night is doomed. The plot can easily be summed up as follows: After teenager Charley Brewster realizes his new neighbor is a vampire, he must enlist the help of a washed-up actor to save Charley's girlfriend from the bloodsucker's clutches. And that's literally it. No twists, no turns, no subplots, and certainly nothing interesting going on. The story often feels incomplete, and many scenes seem to drag on for no other reason than to pad the length of the movie.
The characters are also severely lacking. Normally this doesn't matter much in a horror film, as most characters are usually just there to die. But Fright Night insists that we care about these characters, to the point of trying to cram in character arcs in the 3rd act. But this is to no avail, because our cast is nothing more than a grab bag of 1980's character archetypes, most of whom strangely look like other (and better) actors. Our main character is an amalgamation of John Cusack types with a dash of Billy Peltzer from Gremlins. He's supposedly obsessed with horror movies, which I can only assume is because he always has his TV set to the late-night horror movie channel. Other than that, he's just like every other bland protagonist in 1980's teen movies.
For our side characters, we have the vague Sigourney Weaver lookalike as the girlfriend, who scoffs at Charley's tales of vampires living next door, until she randomly changes her mind and sticks with him wholeheartedly the rest of the film. Then there's the sidekick, Ed, who looks strangely like Beavis. Towards the end of the film, Ed randomly (and rather traitorously) lets himself be turned into a vampire, with the promise of no longer being picked on after joining the undead. This makes absolutely no sense, because his character is never once shown being bullied, and up until then seemed to be getting along quite well with everyone else. The last of our protagonists, Peter Vincent, is a washed up actor who runs a late night horror movie program on TV. He doesn't really do much other than serve as a sidekick after Ed turns evil, so there's not much worth mentioning. Our antagonist, a vampire named Jerry, is played with extreme blandness, on par with every other actor in this film. The actor playing him doesn't look very menacing in the first place, and he fails to make up for appearance with his acting.
The film is also billed as a horror-comedy, which is odd considering there's not a single joke in the whole film. The tone isn't even tongue-in-cheek. The closest Fright Night ever comes to being funny is the sidekick Ed, who is only funny because he looks eerily like Beavis, and that wasn't even intentional. On the subject of Ed, I'm pretty sure his character is meant to be humorous, but he never says anything that would qualify as a joke. There's no allusions to other horror films, no winks to the audience, no flat-out humorous dialog, and not even an ounce of slapstick in the fight scenes. And yet somehow this film is labelled a horror-comedy. By today's standards, the film is pretty dated, and that may get a laugh out of some people, but other than that this film legitimately tries to play itself serious.
Special effects are often the strongest suit of horror movies and can greatly improve the quality of an otherwise terrible film. This is almost true of Fright Night. Aside from a brief scene early in the film, Fright Night is a vampire film with a surprising lack of vampire-related special effects. Thankfully we do get a few good effects in during the end fight scene. At one point, Ed transforms into a wolf and is subsequently killed with a stair banister. He then slowly transforms back into a human, which is probably the only truly interesting effect in the movie. During the last few minutes of the film, Jerry the vampire briefly turns into a large bat, and while the creature is obviously on strings half of the time, the design of the creature is very convincing. We also get a bizarre melting-type death when Jerry's henchman gets stabbed with a stake and then sort of just turns into green goo. But despite the apparent effort put into the special effects, their time in the film is fleeting, and sadly crammed into the last 15 minutes of the movie.
Overall, this is a disappointing dud of a vampire movie. It fails to deliver the very few things it promised to begin with; cheap scares and a few laughs. Even as a B-Movie, the film is lacking. The acting is bad, but it never veers into the over-the-top territory. And while the plot and dialog are often lame, they're both coherent enough to still be taken seriously, so we don't get any goofy one-liners or ridiculously forced banter. But then again, this film never promised much to begin with. If you like B-Movies, you may still want to check this one out, if only for the special effects, but you can probably find the ending on Youtube and save yourself the trouble. They're really the only good part of this movie.
Enjoyment- 2/5
Quality- 2/5
IMDB Page- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089175/
September 14, 2012
Movie Review- Carrie (1976)
Carrie is a 1976 horror-thriller based on Stephen King's debut novel of the same name. Seeing as it was King's first book, it's certainly not his best; it's not particularly frightening, and the pacing seems off at times. Coincidentally, the movie suffers from many of the same problems as the book. But whereas the book is a fairly entertaining read, the movie is actually quite boring. But that being said, it's certainly not terrible, and at least tries to respect the source material.
The main problem with the film is the book it's based on. Carrie adapts the book as close as is cinematically possible. But the book constantly switches back and forth between the regular narrative and excerpts from various psychology books and magazines that mostly focus on Carrie's psyche and an attempt at discovering what happened on the night of her high school prom. This adds a strangely suspenseful angle to the book, by giving the reader brief glimpses of the ending, which builds up until we finally see what happens from the regular narrative standpoint. The film leaves these parts out, as it would have not translated well to film. Unfortunately this kills a lot of the suspense, and the movie's ending lacks the punch that the book had. And while the film version thankfully fixes some of the pacing problems with the book, it does so at the price of further killing the suspense.
If there is anything good to be said about the film, however, it's the acting. Sissy Spacek was the perfect choice for Carrie. She fits the description King gave her in the book, and she has the acting skills to pull the character off. And while the ending does lack suspense, we genuinely feel sorry when Carrie gets humiliated in front of her peers. Piper Laurie was also a great choice for Carrie's mother. While personally I didn't think she looked like how I envisioned the character, Laurie still does a great job of portraying a religious zealot without turning it comical.
Artistically, this is a very strange film as well. After reading Carrie, the only word I could think of describing it as was "strange". And the film adaptation is very strange, too, but not in the same way. There's a great deal of soft light used throughout the film, causing many scenes to look like watercolor paintings. There's also a strange overuse of low-angle and high-angle shots, which then typically end up zooming in on something. There are scenes of normal conversation that are filled with these shot sequences, and it becomes very annoying and distracting after a while. Perhaps the director was trying to go for some artistic angle I'm unaware of, but regardless I still think the cinematography is strange.
Both the book and movie versions of Carrie are famous for their ending, in which Carrie kills all her fellow students with telekinesis after having a bucket of pig blood poured onto her. The scene is so famous, in fact, that it was depicted on the film's poster and subsequent home video releases. But one people often forget is that the sequence is much shorter in the film, and a lot less creepy. The last third act of the book is spent on detailing the sheer amount of carnage that Carrie brings upon the town. She literally decimates half the town, after blowing up the school, blowing up a gas station, downing power lines, and cutting the water supply to all the town's fire hoses. In the film she sprays people with a fire hose and some people accidentally get electrocuted. Needless to say, the movie's ending seems a bit underwhelming.
In both versions, Carrie eventually comes home, where her crazed mother tries to kill her. The film version ends with Carrie's mother being killed with not-so-subtle religious undertones, and then Carrie's house collapses in on the both of them. There's a brief scene showing that one of the characters still lived, a cheap jump scare, and then the film's over. The book ends similarly, except without the overtones and Carrie dies in a parking lot instead of a collapsed house. Not much difference there, but it feels like the film should have scrapped the house-collapsing scene and used the money for a better prom massacre scene.
Overall, Carrie is a strange but faithful adaptation of the book. It tries really hard to be as good as the book, but fails for the most part. If you haven't read the book, you'll probably enjoy the movie a lot more, but if you have already read the book, it's still worth looking in to. I'm sure there are a lot of people who enjoyed the book more than I did, and so those people will probably like the movie a lot better, too. As is with most of the movies I review, I certainly didn't hate it, but I thought it could have been a lot better.
Enjoyment- 3/5
Quality- 4/5
IMDB Page- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074285/
The main problem with the film is the book it's based on. Carrie adapts the book as close as is cinematically possible. But the book constantly switches back and forth between the regular narrative and excerpts from various psychology books and magazines that mostly focus on Carrie's psyche and an attempt at discovering what happened on the night of her high school prom. This adds a strangely suspenseful angle to the book, by giving the reader brief glimpses of the ending, which builds up until we finally see what happens from the regular narrative standpoint. The film leaves these parts out, as it would have not translated well to film. Unfortunately this kills a lot of the suspense, and the movie's ending lacks the punch that the book had. And while the film version thankfully fixes some of the pacing problems with the book, it does so at the price of further killing the suspense.
If there is anything good to be said about the film, however, it's the acting. Sissy Spacek was the perfect choice for Carrie. She fits the description King gave her in the book, and she has the acting skills to pull the character off. And while the ending does lack suspense, we genuinely feel sorry when Carrie gets humiliated in front of her peers. Piper Laurie was also a great choice for Carrie's mother. While personally I didn't think she looked like how I envisioned the character, Laurie still does a great job of portraying a religious zealot without turning it comical.
Artistically, this is a very strange film as well. After reading Carrie, the only word I could think of describing it as was "strange". And the film adaptation is very strange, too, but not in the same way. There's a great deal of soft light used throughout the film, causing many scenes to look like watercolor paintings. There's also a strange overuse of low-angle and high-angle shots, which then typically end up zooming in on something. There are scenes of normal conversation that are filled with these shot sequences, and it becomes very annoying and distracting after a while. Perhaps the director was trying to go for some artistic angle I'm unaware of, but regardless I still think the cinematography is strange.
Both the book and movie versions of Carrie are famous for their ending, in which Carrie kills all her fellow students with telekinesis after having a bucket of pig blood poured onto her. The scene is so famous, in fact, that it was depicted on the film's poster and subsequent home video releases. But one people often forget is that the sequence is much shorter in the film, and a lot less creepy. The last third act of the book is spent on detailing the sheer amount of carnage that Carrie brings upon the town. She literally decimates half the town, after blowing up the school, blowing up a gas station, downing power lines, and cutting the water supply to all the town's fire hoses. In the film she sprays people with a fire hose and some people accidentally get electrocuted. Needless to say, the movie's ending seems a bit underwhelming.
In both versions, Carrie eventually comes home, where her crazed mother tries to kill her. The film version ends with Carrie's mother being killed with not-so-subtle religious undertones, and then Carrie's house collapses in on the both of them. There's a brief scene showing that one of the characters still lived, a cheap jump scare, and then the film's over. The book ends similarly, except without the overtones and Carrie dies in a parking lot instead of a collapsed house. Not much difference there, but it feels like the film should have scrapped the house-collapsing scene and used the money for a better prom massacre scene.
Overall, Carrie is a strange but faithful adaptation of the book. It tries really hard to be as good as the book, but fails for the most part. If you haven't read the book, you'll probably enjoy the movie a lot more, but if you have already read the book, it's still worth looking in to. I'm sure there are a lot of people who enjoyed the book more than I did, and so those people will probably like the movie a lot better, too. As is with most of the movies I review, I certainly didn't hate it, but I thought it could have been a lot better.
Enjoyment- 3/5
Quality- 4/5
IMDB Page- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074285/
August 1, 2012
Movie Review- Tales from the Hood
Tales from the Hood is a horror anthology film produced by Spike Lee. It features a primarily black cast, and mixes real-life horrors such as domestic abuse with a supernatural element. This is a really interesting idea for a horror movie, and it mostly hits the mark. While most horror anthology films feel like rejected Twilight Zone episodes crammed into a movie, Tales from the Hood feels more like rejects from Tales from the Dark Side (A 1980's Twilight Zone knockoff). The horror elements work for the most part, but the twist endings and attempts at discussing important issues come across as clunky and poorly planned, much like Tales from the Dark Side's more serious episodes.
The narrative that weaves the short stories together is a strange one. Three drug dealers go to a funeral home to pick up drugs from a mortician, who claims to have found a stack of drugs in a back alley. As the mortician leads the dealers through the funeral parlor, he tells them stories about the corpses that are currently residing in the funeral home. These stories segue into the different segments that comprise the film. Once they reach the back of the funeral home, we're given a rather unexpected twist ending. The twist ending doesn't make a lot of sense, because there was no subtle buildup to it, but it was still a great creepy ending to finish the film. The scenes in the funeral home aren't all that great, though. The mortician is incredibly hammy, drawing overly long breaths between sentences for dramatic effect, and trying to hoarsely whisper his lines in an attempt to be creepy. Other than that, this is a fairly solid narrative; it serves its purpose and ties all the segments together.
The first story of the film is probably the best of the four. The mortician shows the drug dealers the body of a man he claims died from insanity. This leads into a story about some corrupt policemen who kill a senator that was out to stop crooked cops. A rookie cop witnesses the event, and quits the force. Weeks later he hears a voice telling him to bring the cops to the senator's grave. The rookie does so, and when the police arrive, the body of the senator comes back from the dead and gets revenge on the cops that killed him. It's then revealed that this all happened inside the rookie's head and that he's now in a mental institution for murdering the policemen. Out of the four stories in the films, this is by far the most serious and suspenseful of them. The characters are set up fairly well within the short span of time, as is the suspense. The special effects are good too, although the last death scene is a bit strange. However, as with the rest of the film, there is an undertone of social issues (In this case, police brutality and corruption) that doesn't quite flow with the horror elements of the film.
The next story could have easily been the best of the segments, but the ending ruined it. The mortician shows the dealers another casket, but this time we don't see the body. This time the story involves a little boy named Walter, who annoyingly whispers all his lines. His teacher suspects that Walter is a victim of domestic abuse, but Walter adamantly claims that he was hurt by a monster. When the teacher comes to visit Walter's home and speak with his parents, he's quickly thrown out by Walter's father, who turns out to be a monster. Ultimately Walter saves the day because he has magical powers that allow him to kill whatever he makes a drawing of. He crumples up the drawing, leaving the stepfather comically twisted into a pretzel. He lights the paper on fire, and we fade back to the mangled and burned corpse of the stepfather, in his casket at the funeral home. This could have been a very good sketch, but again the unpleasant undertones of social issues (this time domestic abuse) take away from the horror elements. The social issue aspect is never brought to light in any of the stories, and never discussed in any form, we're just left with unpleasant undertones.
The third story is the silliest out of the four. This time the mortician shows the dealers a voodoo doll. This segues into a story that involves a former KKK member who is running for governor in the south. He decides to take up residence in a former plantation that was once the scene of a massacre in the mid-1800's. There is apparently a local legend in the town that the spirits of the slaves who died in the massacre were put into voodoo dolls by a local magic practitioner, and the dolls are somewhere in the plantation. The politician refuses to believe the legend, until his PR assistant dies in a freak accident. Soon after, he starts seeing a doll all over his house. He eventually shoots it, but to no avail. A swarm of dolls appear and attack him, which is where the story ends. This is a really goofy segment. The main character is ridiculously bigoted and spews racial slurs constantly. The special effects are equally ridiculous. The puppets are completely mobile, and run around in some fairly decent stop-motion animation sequences, but it mostly looks like rejected footage from the Puppetmaster series. The ending is also very abrupt. Albeit, there wasn't a lot of room for the story to go from there, but it still felt like the story ended too quickly.
The last of the stories is by far the weirdest. The mortician shows the dealers the body of a man they once knew. This leads into a story about a man who is nearly killed in a gunfight, and sentenced to a life in prison. After a few years, he's offered a free pass out if he subjects himself to government testing. He's taken away to a surrealistic and strangely cartoonish testing facility, where's he put in a cage next a Neo-Nazi. The next day the man is taken to a room to be tested on by a female scientist who shouts most of her lines, and seems like she previously worked in community theater. The man is strapped to a table and subject to Clockwork Orange-style brainwashing, except he's forced to watch gang violence layered with rap music. The man is then put in a sensory deprivation room, where he hallucinates about everyone he's ever killed. He snaps back to reality, and in a strange twist is still in the gunfight from the beginning of the story, but this time he dies. The mortician finishes the tale, and it's revealed that the killers were the drug dealers. The film ends with the aforementioned plot twist.
Overall, this is a pretty decent film, but it suffers from shoehorned-in sociopolitical messages. If this were more of a thriller, the messages may have had more of an impact, but the importance is lost amongst goofy horror violence and terrible acting. The first segment is definitely the best, as it manages to create good suspense and some fairly decent characters within the time constraints. The sociopolitical themes are still prevalent, but it's the only segment where it actually fits in with the story. The twist ending at the end of the film is pretty good, too, if not a bit sudden. If you're looking for a change of pace in horror movies, this is good film to check out. But if you're interested in the horror anthology subgenre, the 1982 film Creepshow is a much better place to start.
Enjoyment- 3.5/5
Quality- 3/5
IMDB Page- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114609/
The narrative that weaves the short stories together is a strange one. Three drug dealers go to a funeral home to pick up drugs from a mortician, who claims to have found a stack of drugs in a back alley. As the mortician leads the dealers through the funeral parlor, he tells them stories about the corpses that are currently residing in the funeral home. These stories segue into the different segments that comprise the film. Once they reach the back of the funeral home, we're given a rather unexpected twist ending. The twist ending doesn't make a lot of sense, because there was no subtle buildup to it, but it was still a great creepy ending to finish the film. The scenes in the funeral home aren't all that great, though. The mortician is incredibly hammy, drawing overly long breaths between sentences for dramatic effect, and trying to hoarsely whisper his lines in an attempt to be creepy. Other than that, this is a fairly solid narrative; it serves its purpose and ties all the segments together.
The first story of the film is probably the best of the four. The mortician shows the drug dealers the body of a man he claims died from insanity. This leads into a story about some corrupt policemen who kill a senator that was out to stop crooked cops. A rookie cop witnesses the event, and quits the force. Weeks later he hears a voice telling him to bring the cops to the senator's grave. The rookie does so, and when the police arrive, the body of the senator comes back from the dead and gets revenge on the cops that killed him. It's then revealed that this all happened inside the rookie's head and that he's now in a mental institution for murdering the policemen. Out of the four stories in the films, this is by far the most serious and suspenseful of them. The characters are set up fairly well within the short span of time, as is the suspense. The special effects are good too, although the last death scene is a bit strange. However, as with the rest of the film, there is an undertone of social issues (In this case, police brutality and corruption) that doesn't quite flow with the horror elements of the film.
The next story could have easily been the best of the segments, but the ending ruined it. The mortician shows the dealers another casket, but this time we don't see the body. This time the story involves a little boy named Walter, who annoyingly whispers all his lines. His teacher suspects that Walter is a victim of domestic abuse, but Walter adamantly claims that he was hurt by a monster. When the teacher comes to visit Walter's home and speak with his parents, he's quickly thrown out by Walter's father, who turns out to be a monster. Ultimately Walter saves the day because he has magical powers that allow him to kill whatever he makes a drawing of. He crumples up the drawing, leaving the stepfather comically twisted into a pretzel. He lights the paper on fire, and we fade back to the mangled and burned corpse of the stepfather, in his casket at the funeral home. This could have been a very good sketch, but again the unpleasant undertones of social issues (this time domestic abuse) take away from the horror elements. The social issue aspect is never brought to light in any of the stories, and never discussed in any form, we're just left with unpleasant undertones.
The third story is the silliest out of the four. This time the mortician shows the dealers a voodoo doll. This segues into a story that involves a former KKK member who is running for governor in the south. He decides to take up residence in a former plantation that was once the scene of a massacre in the mid-1800's. There is apparently a local legend in the town that the spirits of the slaves who died in the massacre were put into voodoo dolls by a local magic practitioner, and the dolls are somewhere in the plantation. The politician refuses to believe the legend, until his PR assistant dies in a freak accident. Soon after, he starts seeing a doll all over his house. He eventually shoots it, but to no avail. A swarm of dolls appear and attack him, which is where the story ends. This is a really goofy segment. The main character is ridiculously bigoted and spews racial slurs constantly. The special effects are equally ridiculous. The puppets are completely mobile, and run around in some fairly decent stop-motion animation sequences, but it mostly looks like rejected footage from the Puppetmaster series. The ending is also very abrupt. Albeit, there wasn't a lot of room for the story to go from there, but it still felt like the story ended too quickly.
The last of the stories is by far the weirdest. The mortician shows the dealers the body of a man they once knew. This leads into a story about a man who is nearly killed in a gunfight, and sentenced to a life in prison. After a few years, he's offered a free pass out if he subjects himself to government testing. He's taken away to a surrealistic and strangely cartoonish testing facility, where's he put in a cage next a Neo-Nazi. The next day the man is taken to a room to be tested on by a female scientist who shouts most of her lines, and seems like she previously worked in community theater. The man is strapped to a table and subject to Clockwork Orange-style brainwashing, except he's forced to watch gang violence layered with rap music. The man is then put in a sensory deprivation room, where he hallucinates about everyone he's ever killed. He snaps back to reality, and in a strange twist is still in the gunfight from the beginning of the story, but this time he dies. The mortician finishes the tale, and it's revealed that the killers were the drug dealers. The film ends with the aforementioned plot twist.
Overall, this is a pretty decent film, but it suffers from shoehorned-in sociopolitical messages. If this were more of a thriller, the messages may have had more of an impact, but the importance is lost amongst goofy horror violence and terrible acting. The first segment is definitely the best, as it manages to create good suspense and some fairly decent characters within the time constraints. The sociopolitical themes are still prevalent, but it's the only segment where it actually fits in with the story. The twist ending at the end of the film is pretty good, too, if not a bit sudden. If you're looking for a change of pace in horror movies, this is good film to check out. But if you're interested in the horror anthology subgenre, the 1982 film Creepshow is a much better place to start.
Enjoyment- 3.5/5
Quality- 3/5
IMDB Page- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114609/
July 26, 2012
Movie Review- Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2
Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 is one of the strangest things ever committed to celluloid. It not only fails to resemble the original film in any shape or form (sans a rehash of the dinner scene), but it does so in such a bold manner it leaves the viewer dumbfounded long after viewing. The characters are utterly bizarre and the film itself feels very surreal; it constantly rides the line between horror and camp, but manages to keep the audience's suspension of disbelief despite the insanity on screen.
At first glance, the plot doesn't sound all that strange; a small-town DJ is kidnapped by Leatherface, and the father of the wheelchair kid from the first movie sets out for revenge. But the strangeness lies within the details. The hillbilly brother from the last movie is now a guy with a metal plate in his head who looks like Gollum but talks like Beetlejuice with a southern accent. The hillbilly guy also constantly picks at his metal plate with a heated coat-hanger. The cannibal family now lives in a network of underground tunnels, lined with weird trinkets and bones. Dennis Hopper chews scenery like crazy and has a chainsaw fight with Leatherface. Leatherface's dad from the previous film now runs a chili stand out in the open, and it's apparently made of people. There's so many strange quirks to this film, you could write an entire article about it.
Even if you put aside the differences between the first film and the sequel, none of this stuff makes any sense. None of the weirdness is ever played for comedic effect, which makes it even weirder. Most of the quirks aren't unintentionally funny, either. (Except for Leatherface. He's a complete goofball in this movie, and it's hilarious). The film could have easily played it towards the comedic side, and given a much more memorable film, but TCM2 takes itself so seriously it sucks all the fun out of a goofy screenplay, ruining all the potentially fun campy moments, and instead leaving us with several "What the heck just happened?" moments.
Another problem with this film is the violence. The original Texas Chainsaw Massacre relied heavily on suspense and atmosphere to give audiences the creeps. The sequel opts for unpleasantly gross violence and torment. Sure, the first film had a couple on-screen deaths, but the sequel is brimming with gross-out violence. The sequel still manages to be creepy though, but not in a good way. Whereas the first film relied on gritty cinematography and creepy locations to get a sleazy feel, the sequel uses constant threats of violence to get that feeling of unease. In fact, the majority of the second and third acts involve the heroine either captured in or running through the family's tunnel-hideout, which comes across as just mean-spirited.
Speaking of which, this isn't really much of a slasher film. The majority of the second and third act involve the
main character running around Leatherface's tunnel-home. There's very little supporting cast outside of Dennis Hopper and the villains. There's a couple minor characters that die, but we barely get to know them before they're offed. The rest of the movie mostly revolves around tormenting the lead. The end fight scene returns to the overly serious tone of the first half of the film, however. There's a chainsaw fight between Dennis Hopper and Leatherface that once again lacks any enjoyment because of the soullessly serious feel of the film. Leatherface's dad eventually blows everyone up with a grenade, except for the heroine and the hillbilly guy. A fight between the two ensues, and yet again it's shot in a grave and mean-spirited tone, which is no easy feat considering it takes place atop a Flintstones-esque hut on a plateau. (Because apparently the hillbillies store their dead grandma up their or something.)
Overall, this is an extremely bizarre piece of cinema. It takes itself way too seriously, despite the insanity of the characters. TCM2 often feels like it's going out of its way to gross out the audience, resulting in a very cold and mean feeling to much of the second and third acts. I didn't exactly have high hopes for this movie, but I certainly expected better than this. If you're a big fan of the first film, then I'd definitely skip this one. However if you like campy films, then you might want to check this one out. I didn't think the campiness was directed properly, but perhaps if you have a darker sense of humor, this might appeal to you.
Enjoyment- 2/5
Quality- 2/5
IMDB Page- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092076/
At first glance, the plot doesn't sound all that strange; a small-town DJ is kidnapped by Leatherface, and the father of the wheelchair kid from the first movie sets out for revenge. But the strangeness lies within the details. The hillbilly brother from the last movie is now a guy with a metal plate in his head who looks like Gollum but talks like Beetlejuice with a southern accent. The hillbilly guy also constantly picks at his metal plate with a heated coat-hanger. The cannibal family now lives in a network of underground tunnels, lined with weird trinkets and bones. Dennis Hopper chews scenery like crazy and has a chainsaw fight with Leatherface. Leatherface's dad from the previous film now runs a chili stand out in the open, and it's apparently made of people. There's so many strange quirks to this film, you could write an entire article about it.
Even if you put aside the differences between the first film and the sequel, none of this stuff makes any sense. None of the weirdness is ever played for comedic effect, which makes it even weirder. Most of the quirks aren't unintentionally funny, either. (Except for Leatherface. He's a complete goofball in this movie, and it's hilarious). The film could have easily played it towards the comedic side, and given a much more memorable film, but TCM2 takes itself so seriously it sucks all the fun out of a goofy screenplay, ruining all the potentially fun campy moments, and instead leaving us with several "What the heck just happened?" moments.
Another problem with this film is the violence. The original Texas Chainsaw Massacre relied heavily on suspense and atmosphere to give audiences the creeps. The sequel opts for unpleasantly gross violence and torment. Sure, the first film had a couple on-screen deaths, but the sequel is brimming with gross-out violence. The sequel still manages to be creepy though, but not in a good way. Whereas the first film relied on gritty cinematography and creepy locations to get a sleazy feel, the sequel uses constant threats of violence to get that feeling of unease. In fact, the majority of the second and third acts involve the heroine either captured in or running through the family's tunnel-hideout, which comes across as just mean-spirited.
Speaking of which, this isn't really much of a slasher film. The majority of the second and third act involve the
main character running around Leatherface's tunnel-home. There's very little supporting cast outside of Dennis Hopper and the villains. There's a couple minor characters that die, but we barely get to know them before they're offed. The rest of the movie mostly revolves around tormenting the lead. The end fight scene returns to the overly serious tone of the first half of the film, however. There's a chainsaw fight between Dennis Hopper and Leatherface that once again lacks any enjoyment because of the soullessly serious feel of the film. Leatherface's dad eventually blows everyone up with a grenade, except for the heroine and the hillbilly guy. A fight between the two ensues, and yet again it's shot in a grave and mean-spirited tone, which is no easy feat considering it takes place atop a Flintstones-esque hut on a plateau. (Because apparently the hillbillies store their dead grandma up their or something.)
Overall, this is an extremely bizarre piece of cinema. It takes itself way too seriously, despite the insanity of the characters. TCM2 often feels like it's going out of its way to gross out the audience, resulting in a very cold and mean feeling to much of the second and third acts. I didn't exactly have high hopes for this movie, but I certainly expected better than this. If you're a big fan of the first film, then I'd definitely skip this one. However if you like campy films, then you might want to check this one out. I didn't think the campiness was directed properly, but perhaps if you have a darker sense of humor, this might appeal to you.
Enjoyment- 2/5
Quality- 2/5
IMDB Page- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092076/
July 21, 2012
Movie Review- Night of the Creeps
Night of the Creeps is a mixed bag. For the most part, it's a very funny horror-comedy, but occasionally the film's true colors show through. Deep down, Night of the Creeps is a very pompous film; it's very self-referential, poking fun at different aspects of B-Movies and constantly gives a knowing wink to the audience, only to unintentionally suffer from the very aspects it was poking fun at. Despite these flaws, this is still a very fun and campy horror/comedy romp.
The script's plot is intentionally ludicrous; slug-like creatures from outer space attack a couple in the late 1950's, and the boyfriend is kept cryogenically frozen in a lab, only to be revived in a college prank nearly 30 years later. The slug-creatures apparently possess their victims, bringing them back to life as zombies. One character even remarks the situation as being like "a bad B-Movie", after finding the remains of one of the cryogenically frozen zombie's victims. Surprisingly most of the characters are flat archetypes, but there's one exception. One of the main characters is a grizzled cop who spouts nonsensical one-liners ("Miller time!") and has his own catchphrase, which he uses constantly. His character goes against the grain of the rest of the film. His character seems more fitting for a "Police Squad!"-type movie, not in a horror comedy about killer alien slugs. There's not much to be said about the other characters; the main character is the usual "I'm the relatable guy" type, and his sidekick is the annoying comic relief character. The sidekick's dialog is so over-the-top at times, it seems to be a parody of annoying sidekicks, though.
The humor here is very referential, and relies heavily on the viewer's knowledge of B-Movies. This isn't a parody or a send-up of horror movies however, even though it tries to act like one. This is just a very tongue-in-cheek horror-comedy, much like a precursor to the Scream movies, but with less direction in its humor. For example, there's recurring joke that different characters have the same surname as different horror movie directors (The main character's name Chris Romero, the love interest's name is Cynthia Cronenberg, there's a police officer named Sgt. Raimi, and so on). The dialog is also intentionally ridiculous, mostly coming from the annoying comic relief and the detective. But then at the same time the film has a straight-up parody opening, with a very ridiculous satire of 1950's science-fiction films. There's even a brief cameo by Dick Miller, a staple actor for any horror-comedy. The humor feels like it's all over the board, and that's because it is. Albeit the humor is usually funny, but some consistency would have been nice.
The main problem I had with this film, and really the only problem I have with it is the special effects aspect. For a film that makes fun of B-Movies constantly, and gives off a very smug "we're better than other horror movies because we're self-referential", it's really lacking in its special effects budget. The slug-aliens themselves look intentionally terrible, but everything else looks like they put effort into it. The zombie makeup and effects are ridiculously fake at times, and it doesn't seem to be on purpose, or else the film would have directed your attention towards that fact. For example, the end fight scene should have been really climactic and full of great special effects, because we spent the previous 70 minutes of the movie with a lot of buildup and almost no zombie or alien action up to that point. Instead we get shoddy-looking dummies in masks used for the impact shots, and really cheap looking makeup for the reaction shots any time a zombie is attacked. This culminates in a scene where the detective has to fight off several zombies, but we never get to see the fight. We hear the gunshots and cut to a brief bit with the main character. We cut back and the detective is standing over the twice-dead zombies. This could have been an interesting little gunfight scene, but instead we are left with an unsatisfactory reaction shot.
Despite all the flak I've given the film, it's still a fun watch. The opening sequence that parodies 1950's science-fiction films is absolutely hilarious. It's spot-on farce of the "meteorite lands near some teens in a car" plot device, and elements of the age-old "teens in the wood being stalked by a crazy guy" campfire story. The first two special effects in the film are pretty decent as well, which why I was so disappointed with the special effects at the end. Right before the sequence in the 1950's, we see some aliens aboard a space ship, trying to prevent one of their crew members from launching the space-slugs into Earth's orbit. The design for the aliens is really nifty looking (vaguely reminiscent of the cantina band aliens from Star Wars),and it's a shame we only get to see them during that one scene. We're introduced to the grizzled cop character in a dream sequence that contains the only other cool effect in the movie. The cop has a nightmare about the couple from the opening sequence, and upon finding their remains is confronted by the killer who for some reason looks like the Crypt Keeper from "Tales from the Crypt". We only see the killer briefly, but his design was really interesting. Strangely enough, when the killer is brought back to life via the space-slugs, the design for the killer/zombie is different than the one in the dream sequence.
Overall, this is a pretty entertaining movie. The jokes are funny for the most part, even if the characters spewing them are relatively flat. The special effects mostly lacking, but the two scenes that I previously mentioned are still really cool to look at. It's not a particularly suspenseful or creepy film, but it doesn't try to be. Night of the Creeps is more centered on the laughs. If you can tolerate some extremely tongue-in-cheek humor, than this is a film worth looking in to. If that's not really your thing, there are much better horror-comedies out there.
Enjoyment- 3.5/5
Quality- 3/5
IMDB Page- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091630/
The script's plot is intentionally ludicrous; slug-like creatures from outer space attack a couple in the late 1950's, and the boyfriend is kept cryogenically frozen in a lab, only to be revived in a college prank nearly 30 years later. The slug-creatures apparently possess their victims, bringing them back to life as zombies. One character even remarks the situation as being like "a bad B-Movie", after finding the remains of one of the cryogenically frozen zombie's victims. Surprisingly most of the characters are flat archetypes, but there's one exception. One of the main characters is a grizzled cop who spouts nonsensical one-liners ("Miller time!") and has his own catchphrase, which he uses constantly. His character goes against the grain of the rest of the film. His character seems more fitting for a "Police Squad!"-type movie, not in a horror comedy about killer alien slugs. There's not much to be said about the other characters; the main character is the usual "I'm the relatable guy" type, and his sidekick is the annoying comic relief character. The sidekick's dialog is so over-the-top at times, it seems to be a parody of annoying sidekicks, though.
The humor here is very referential, and relies heavily on the viewer's knowledge of B-Movies. This isn't a parody or a send-up of horror movies however, even though it tries to act like one. This is just a very tongue-in-cheek horror-comedy, much like a precursor to the Scream movies, but with less direction in its humor. For example, there's recurring joke that different characters have the same surname as different horror movie directors (The main character's name Chris Romero, the love interest's name is Cynthia Cronenberg, there's a police officer named Sgt. Raimi, and so on). The dialog is also intentionally ridiculous, mostly coming from the annoying comic relief and the detective. But then at the same time the film has a straight-up parody opening, with a very ridiculous satire of 1950's science-fiction films. There's even a brief cameo by Dick Miller, a staple actor for any horror-comedy. The humor feels like it's all over the board, and that's because it is. Albeit the humor is usually funny, but some consistency would have been nice.
The main problem I had with this film, and really the only problem I have with it is the special effects aspect. For a film that makes fun of B-Movies constantly, and gives off a very smug "we're better than other horror movies because we're self-referential", it's really lacking in its special effects budget. The slug-aliens themselves look intentionally terrible, but everything else looks like they put effort into it. The zombie makeup and effects are ridiculously fake at times, and it doesn't seem to be on purpose, or else the film would have directed your attention towards that fact. For example, the end fight scene should have been really climactic and full of great special effects, because we spent the previous 70 minutes of the movie with a lot of buildup and almost no zombie or alien action up to that point. Instead we get shoddy-looking dummies in masks used for the impact shots, and really cheap looking makeup for the reaction shots any time a zombie is attacked. This culminates in a scene where the detective has to fight off several zombies, but we never get to see the fight. We hear the gunshots and cut to a brief bit with the main character. We cut back and the detective is standing over the twice-dead zombies. This could have been an interesting little gunfight scene, but instead we are left with an unsatisfactory reaction shot.
Despite all the flak I've given the film, it's still a fun watch. The opening sequence that parodies 1950's science-fiction films is absolutely hilarious. It's spot-on farce of the "meteorite lands near some teens in a car" plot device, and elements of the age-old "teens in the wood being stalked by a crazy guy" campfire story. The first two special effects in the film are pretty decent as well, which why I was so disappointed with the special effects at the end. Right before the sequence in the 1950's, we see some aliens aboard a space ship, trying to prevent one of their crew members from launching the space-slugs into Earth's orbit. The design for the aliens is really nifty looking (vaguely reminiscent of the cantina band aliens from Star Wars),and it's a shame we only get to see them during that one scene. We're introduced to the grizzled cop character in a dream sequence that contains the only other cool effect in the movie. The cop has a nightmare about the couple from the opening sequence, and upon finding their remains is confronted by the killer who for some reason looks like the Crypt Keeper from "Tales from the Crypt". We only see the killer briefly, but his design was really interesting. Strangely enough, when the killer is brought back to life via the space-slugs, the design for the killer/zombie is different than the one in the dream sequence.
Overall, this is a pretty entertaining movie. The jokes are funny for the most part, even if the characters spewing them are relatively flat. The special effects mostly lacking, but the two scenes that I previously mentioned are still really cool to look at. It's not a particularly suspenseful or creepy film, but it doesn't try to be. Night of the Creeps is more centered on the laughs. If you can tolerate some extremely tongue-in-cheek humor, than this is a film worth looking in to. If that's not really your thing, there are much better horror-comedies out there.
Enjoyment- 3.5/5
Quality- 3/5
IMDB Page- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091630/
July 10, 2012
Movie Review- Stephen King's Sleepwalkers
Stephen King's Sleepwalkers is a horror of a horror movie. It's nonsensical and silly, and ridiculously campy at times. This normally would be the formula for a great B-Movie, but it doesn't work this time. As the name would suggest, this film is written by Stephen King. Coming from the guy who has written some of the most iconic horror novels of the 20th century, this mess of a screenplay leaves a lot to be desired.
The main problem with this film is the plot itself. The sleepwalkers are the main characters and villains of the film, but their presence and backstory is never explained, sans a few throwaway lines towards the middle, leaving us with some very confusing moments throughout the film. Apparently a mother-son sleepwalker duo has to consume the soul of a female virgin, and stupidly decide on an able-bodied 17-year-old, who ultimately ends up killing the both of them. Their plan to get the girl's soul is incredibly flawed complicated as well. For some reason they felt the need to move into a new home and register the son in school with false identifications, all to get to this one girl. Logically one would think the sleepwalkers would just go around the country feeding on little girls, sort of like vampires. This not only would be a safer bet for their set of rules, but save them a lot of trouble and help them avoid getting caught.
The characters are equally flawed and stupid. Not only are the sleepwalkers incompetent, but they have a creepy Oedipus complex thing going on, which is probably the only creepy part of this supposed horror movie. These scenes are completely unwarranted and add nothing to the plot, and seem to only be there to make the audience uncomfortable. The human characters are just as brainless. All of the protagonists fall prey to horror movie cliches, like poking the killer's body to make sure he's really dead. All of the characters are extremely flat as well. Our lead heroine gets the most screen time of the protagonists, but she still seems as thin as the paper her dialog was written on. A lot of the characters talk without ever saying anything important. There's a several points throughout the movie that could have had character development in them, but are instead pumped with filler dialog.
The special effects and death scenes in this film are both ridiculously stupid and ridiculously fake. The son sleepwalker spends the latter half of the film half-transformed into a sleepwalker, and looks like a reject from Cats: The Musical. When the duo finally reveals their true form, they look like the dog creatures from Ghostbusters, and the costumes look absolutely stupid. With the exception of a horribly fake hand-severing scene towards the middle of the film, all of the character deaths are crammed into the last 20 minutes. It's as if Stephen King forgot that his books usually have some violence in them, and decided to make up for lost time by making it stupidly over-the-top. There's bitten off fingers, broken limbs, gouged eyes, explosions, slashings, and a death by corncob. And in one of the strangest aspects of the film, the sleepwalkers' only weakness is cats. Yes, the sleepwalkers constantly remain in fear of cats, until they both get attacked by hordes of feral cats. But they don't get clawed to death as one my think; they burst into flame after being attacked, like a vampire exposed to sunlight.
The only interesting aspect of the movie is it's cast. There is an abundance of cameos in the third act of the film. Stephen King himself shows up in a shoehorned in role as a cemetery guard, who does nothing but act like his hillbilly character from "Creepshow". Among the less obvious cameos, however are horror directors Clive Barker and Tobe Hooper. John Landis also shows up for some reason, but I assume he's there because of his work on "An American Werewolf in London". There are a couple other familiar faces in the cast as well. Ron Perlman makes an early appearance as a police officer, but he's not on screen nearly long enough.
Overall, this is a very weird film. This is definitely not Stephen King's best work, and one he ought to look back on in embarrassment. The plot is very strange and silly, and the characters are painfully stupid at times. There's a lot of lame dialog and campy one-liners throughout, and it doesn't seem anything like the rest of Stephen King's work. It's definitely a film to pass unless you're a die-hard Stephen King fan. Not recommended.
Enjoyment- 2/5
Quality- 1/5
IMDB Page- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105428/
The main problem with this film is the plot itself. The sleepwalkers are the main characters and villains of the film, but their presence and backstory is never explained, sans a few throwaway lines towards the middle, leaving us with some very confusing moments throughout the film. Apparently a mother-son sleepwalker duo has to consume the soul of a female virgin, and stupidly decide on an able-bodied 17-year-old, who ultimately ends up killing the both of them. Their plan to get the girl's soul is incredibly flawed complicated as well. For some reason they felt the need to move into a new home and register the son in school with false identifications, all to get to this one girl. Logically one would think the sleepwalkers would just go around the country feeding on little girls, sort of like vampires. This not only would be a safer bet for their set of rules, but save them a lot of trouble and help them avoid getting caught.
The characters are equally flawed and stupid. Not only are the sleepwalkers incompetent, but they have a creepy Oedipus complex thing going on, which is probably the only creepy part of this supposed horror movie. These scenes are completely unwarranted and add nothing to the plot, and seem to only be there to make the audience uncomfortable. The human characters are just as brainless. All of the protagonists fall prey to horror movie cliches, like poking the killer's body to make sure he's really dead. All of the characters are extremely flat as well. Our lead heroine gets the most screen time of the protagonists, but she still seems as thin as the paper her dialog was written on. A lot of the characters talk without ever saying anything important. There's a several points throughout the movie that could have had character development in them, but are instead pumped with filler dialog.
The special effects and death scenes in this film are both ridiculously stupid and ridiculously fake. The son sleepwalker spends the latter half of the film half-transformed into a sleepwalker, and looks like a reject from Cats: The Musical. When the duo finally reveals their true form, they look like the dog creatures from Ghostbusters, and the costumes look absolutely stupid. With the exception of a horribly fake hand-severing scene towards the middle of the film, all of the character deaths are crammed into the last 20 minutes. It's as if Stephen King forgot that his books usually have some violence in them, and decided to make up for lost time by making it stupidly over-the-top. There's bitten off fingers, broken limbs, gouged eyes, explosions, slashings, and a death by corncob. And in one of the strangest aspects of the film, the sleepwalkers' only weakness is cats. Yes, the sleepwalkers constantly remain in fear of cats, until they both get attacked by hordes of feral cats. But they don't get clawed to death as one my think; they burst into flame after being attacked, like a vampire exposed to sunlight.
The only interesting aspect of the movie is it's cast. There is an abundance of cameos in the third act of the film. Stephen King himself shows up in a shoehorned in role as a cemetery guard, who does nothing but act like his hillbilly character from "Creepshow". Among the less obvious cameos, however are horror directors Clive Barker and Tobe Hooper. John Landis also shows up for some reason, but I assume he's there because of his work on "An American Werewolf in London". There are a couple other familiar faces in the cast as well. Ron Perlman makes an early appearance as a police officer, but he's not on screen nearly long enough.
Overall, this is a very weird film. This is definitely not Stephen King's best work, and one he ought to look back on in embarrassment. The plot is very strange and silly, and the characters are painfully stupid at times. There's a lot of lame dialog and campy one-liners throughout, and it doesn't seem anything like the rest of Stephen King's work. It's definitely a film to pass unless you're a die-hard Stephen King fan. Not recommended.
Enjoyment- 2/5
Quality- 1/5
IMDB Page- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105428/
June 24, 2012
Movie Review- The Blob (1988)
The Blob was a movie that really could have used a do-over; he original 1958 film is a fun science fiction film, but the special effects and script are very dated and needed a bit of fine-tuning. It was movie in desperate need of a remake, and when the film's 30th anniversary rolled around, we finally got it. The 1988 remake is just as good if not better than the original. It has its flaws, but it manages to do the 1958 version justice. It's gory, intense and a lot more revved up than the original.
The plot is pretty basic, an alien life form lands on earth and eats people. It's not a very original premise, but considering it's based on a B-movie from the 1950's, I'll cut it some slack. There's also the generic "this seemingly unimportant scene in the first act that pays off later" scenes, and a lot of generic characters, but the movie has a very likable charm to it that washes away the camp of the remake. I'll also give it props for being one of the only movies ever to kill off a child. It's somewhat of an unspoken rule that kids under the age of 15 or so can't die in a movie unless it's some sort of drama, and the death is the focal point of the film. The Blob treats the kid as just another casualty, and it takes serious guts to do that in a movie.
The remake doesn't veer too far from the original film's plot, but there are a few changes. Our cast of characters is slightly different, thankfully no longer the silly 1950's character archetypes, and thankfully not any equally silly 1980's character archetypes. The only major plot change, and an unfortunate one, is the addition of a government conspiracy subplot. In the original film, nobody believed the protagonists about the blob, and they ended up having to draw a large crowd before anyone would listen to them and get something done. In the remake, the local authorities still don't listen to the heroes, but about halfway through the film a legion of guys in hazmat suits show up and quarantine the town. These guys actually listen to our heroes, but have sinister ulterior motives. In a disappointing twist, it's revealed that the blob is a failed result of the USA's attempt at germ warfare. In the original film, the blob is just deadly space goo, which is far creepier than overgrown pathogens.
The main attraction to this film, however, are the special effects. The original film had some very clever but campy special effects, mostly involving miniature angled sets and whatever kind of jelly the blob was made from. The remake doesn't hold back and gives us the grossest special effects in a science fiction movie this side of 1982's "The Thing". We get gruesome imagery of the blob melting people, pulling them down drains, and coming out of people's faces. The special effects for the actual blob are questionable, though. When it isn't eating people, the blob is moving around, and it more often than not looks like a pile of scrambled eggs. The blob in the original film was actually made from some sort of gelatinous mixture, but it's quite obvious that they used an abundance of latex for the remake. It's still pretty cool that we get to see the blob so much, but I wish it looked more like the creature in the original.
Overall, this is a solid remake of the original film, and for the most part is actually better than the original. The first half of the film is great, but it starts to get really campy once the government guys show up. That besides, this is still a very fun movie and a definite must for fans of creative special effects. It's not perfect, but it's a close as you're going to get with a movie about killer silly putty from space.
Enjoyment- 4/5
Quality- 3/5
IMDB Page- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094761/
The plot is pretty basic, an alien life form lands on earth and eats people. It's not a very original premise, but considering it's based on a B-movie from the 1950's, I'll cut it some slack. There's also the generic "this seemingly unimportant scene in the first act that pays off later" scenes, and a lot of generic characters, but the movie has a very likable charm to it that washes away the camp of the remake. I'll also give it props for being one of the only movies ever to kill off a child. It's somewhat of an unspoken rule that kids under the age of 15 or so can't die in a movie unless it's some sort of drama, and the death is the focal point of the film. The Blob treats the kid as just another casualty, and it takes serious guts to do that in a movie.
The remake doesn't veer too far from the original film's plot, but there are a few changes. Our cast of characters is slightly different, thankfully no longer the silly 1950's character archetypes, and thankfully not any equally silly 1980's character archetypes. The only major plot change, and an unfortunate one, is the addition of a government conspiracy subplot. In the original film, nobody believed the protagonists about the blob, and they ended up having to draw a large crowd before anyone would listen to them and get something done. In the remake, the local authorities still don't listen to the heroes, but about halfway through the film a legion of guys in hazmat suits show up and quarantine the town. These guys actually listen to our heroes, but have sinister ulterior motives. In a disappointing twist, it's revealed that the blob is a failed result of the USA's attempt at germ warfare. In the original film, the blob is just deadly space goo, which is far creepier than overgrown pathogens.
The main attraction to this film, however, are the special effects. The original film had some very clever but campy special effects, mostly involving miniature angled sets and whatever kind of jelly the blob was made from. The remake doesn't hold back and gives us the grossest special effects in a science fiction movie this side of 1982's "The Thing". We get gruesome imagery of the blob melting people, pulling them down drains, and coming out of people's faces. The special effects for the actual blob are questionable, though. When it isn't eating people, the blob is moving around, and it more often than not looks like a pile of scrambled eggs. The blob in the original film was actually made from some sort of gelatinous mixture, but it's quite obvious that they used an abundance of latex for the remake. It's still pretty cool that we get to see the blob so much, but I wish it looked more like the creature in the original.
Overall, this is a solid remake of the original film, and for the most part is actually better than the original. The first half of the film is great, but it starts to get really campy once the government guys show up. That besides, this is still a very fun movie and a definite must for fans of creative special effects. It's not perfect, but it's a close as you're going to get with a movie about killer silly putty from space.
Enjoyment- 4/5
Quality- 3/5
IMDB Page- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094761/
June 18, 2012
Movie Review- Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI
The title says it all; "Jason Lives". In one of the franchise's weakest moments, it resurrects a clearly-dead Jason for yet another film. This could have easily been a shoddy and unimaginative Friday sequel, but Jason Lives keeps its tongue firmly planted in cheek, keeping this film afloat with intentional jabs at the series. The occasional knowing wink saves this film from being terrible, and it also gives us arguably the funniest of the Friday the 13th movies.
Right off the bat, Jason Lives informs that this is going to be a very silly movie. Tommy Jarvis has come back to incinerate Jason's corpse. But Jason is inadvertently brought back to life by a lightning bolt, Frankenstein-style, despite the fact that Jason is clearly rotting and probably seized with rigor mortis. This doesn't stop the hockey masked fiend, as he punches straight through one of Tommy's friends, and starts on his usual rampage. Before that, however, we get a hilarious opening title sequence, which parodies the famous James Bond title sequences. The rest of the story is standard slasher fare, with Jason hacking people up as Tommy tries to warn the police. The random interjections of humor, however, really keep this film moving.
In terms of comedy, Jason Lives derives much of its humor from being over-the-top. It could even be described as a self-referential parody under the guise of a slasher film. It manages to keep some restraint, and actually tries to be scary at times, as opposed to going all out on the laughs. Along the way, we get subtle references to Boris Karloff, former Friday producer Sean S Cunningham, and Nightmare on Elm Street's Nancy. We also get some seemingly intentional insipid exposition at the beginning, and equally bland characters. Really, the only main characters here are Tommy and his love interest, everyone else is pretty much just there to die. This really helps the film, though, because it reduces time spent on character development, and gives us more hilariously wanton carnage.
The death scenes in Jason Lives are the pinnacle of goofy and cartoonish violence in slasher films. Jason punches through people, smashes someone into a wall so hard it leaves their face imprint, beheads three people at once, and literally snaps a guy in half. The special effects for the deaths are a bit lacking, except for the aforementioned face-smash and guy-snapping, but even then it's pretty obvious how the effects were pulled off. However the special effects and deaths aren't as important, because Jason's comedic timing is killer. In a prime example, he stalks a camp counselor from behind a window, pausing when she does, and so forth, much like a cartoon. It's moments like these that make this film much more of a comedy than a slasher film.
Overall, this is a very silly and fun slasher movie. Jason Lives doesn't take itself seriously, and gives us a very tongue-in-cheek horror movie. The humor is great, and the acting is hilariously terrible. Jason Lives is right up there with Part 3 as my favorite Friday the 13th movie, although Jason Live's humor was intentional. This is definitely an improvement over Part 5, but unfortunately the series never gets better past this one. Jason Lives is not scary in the least, but you'll be laughing the whole way through.
Enjoyment- 4/5
Quality- 2/5
IMDB Page- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091080/
June 8, 2012
Movie Review- Friday the 13th: A New Beginning
Friday the 13th: A New Beginning marks the gradual decline of the Friday the 13th series. People often bash this film for the exceptionally thin plot, the exceptionally thin characters, and lack of Jason. This might be one of the worst films in the franchise, but boy is it entertaining. Much like Part 3, which was often unintentionally hilarious, Part 5 is so contrived and over-the-top that the end result is a very entertaining slasher film.
The story picks up several years after Part 4, and Tommy Jarvis is now in a mental institution. Shortly after arriving, some kid gets ax-murdered by one of the patients after a dispute over a chocolate bar. That scene pretty much sets the tone for the rest of the film; extremely goofy and violent. Soon after, a copycat Jason goes around randomly killing people on his way to the mental institution. We then get a final showdown sequence, and after faux-Jason is dispatched, it's revealed that the killer was the father of the kid that got ax-murdered. It's a pretty lame twist, but at least there was a twist instead of the killer just being the crazed ax-murderer. A lot of people complain about this movie because Jason isn't actually in it. I personally thought this was a refreshing plot point. By slightly distancing itself from the other films, Part 5 prevents itself from copying the exact same plot of the previous 4, giving a bit of fresh air into the series.
The characters this time are thinner than ever. Several characters are introduced only to be killed five minutes later, and the only character with any depth is Tommy, but much of his character is just carried over from the previous film. That's not to say these characters aren't hilarious, though. All of the teens at the mental institution are comically over-the-top with their delivery, and because of the lack of character development, many of the characters seem to act at random, making for some very unexpected laughs here and there. The minor characters are hilarious, too. There's a foul-mouthed hillbilly and her son, who live next to the institution and do nothing but act like rednecks and swear. It's extremely juvenile but entertaining. There are also two greaser-looking kids who show up pretty early in the film. They get killed off quickly, but their time on screen is hilarious; one of the characters starts randomly singing to himself before getting killed by faux-Jason, and it's as funny as it is very unfitting for a slasher movie.
The death scenes are all very ridiculous and over the top in Part 5, which makes this film very enjoyable. There's a bizarre death by belt to the face, and an equally weird death by road flare to the mouth. There's a few generic axings and the obligatory "someone gets stabbed while in bed" scene. The makeup effects are pretty decent throughout, but for some reason we rarely seen any violence on screen. Most of what we see is the aftermath of the killing, which doesn't take nearly as much effort to pull off as a special effect. As someone who loves special effects, I couldn't help but feel slightly cheated.
Overall, this is a very campy and ridiculous slasher film. It doesn't feel like a Friday the 13th movie, but more of a parody of the series. The ridiculousness doesn't seem intentional however, and we're left with a slasher movie that doesn't realize how hilariously terrible it is. It's definitely a terrible movie, but it's just as enjoyable as the first four films, just not in the same way. This is definitely a film worth watching if you like the campier stuff.
Entertainment- 4/5
Quality- 2/5
IMDB Page- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089173/
The story picks up several years after Part 4, and Tommy Jarvis is now in a mental institution. Shortly after arriving, some kid gets ax-murdered by one of the patients after a dispute over a chocolate bar. That scene pretty much sets the tone for the rest of the film; extremely goofy and violent. Soon after, a copycat Jason goes around randomly killing people on his way to the mental institution. We then get a final showdown sequence, and after faux-Jason is dispatched, it's revealed that the killer was the father of the kid that got ax-murdered. It's a pretty lame twist, but at least there was a twist instead of the killer just being the crazed ax-murderer. A lot of people complain about this movie because Jason isn't actually in it. I personally thought this was a refreshing plot point. By slightly distancing itself from the other films, Part 5 prevents itself from copying the exact same plot of the previous 4, giving a bit of fresh air into the series.
The characters this time are thinner than ever. Several characters are introduced only to be killed five minutes later, and the only character with any depth is Tommy, but much of his character is just carried over from the previous film. That's not to say these characters aren't hilarious, though. All of the teens at the mental institution are comically over-the-top with their delivery, and because of the lack of character development, many of the characters seem to act at random, making for some very unexpected laughs here and there. The minor characters are hilarious, too. There's a foul-mouthed hillbilly and her son, who live next to the institution and do nothing but act like rednecks and swear. It's extremely juvenile but entertaining. There are also two greaser-looking kids who show up pretty early in the film. They get killed off quickly, but their time on screen is hilarious; one of the characters starts randomly singing to himself before getting killed by faux-Jason, and it's as funny as it is very unfitting for a slasher movie.
The death scenes are all very ridiculous and over the top in Part 5, which makes this film very enjoyable. There's a bizarre death by belt to the face, and an equally weird death by road flare to the mouth. There's a few generic axings and the obligatory "someone gets stabbed while in bed" scene. The makeup effects are pretty decent throughout, but for some reason we rarely seen any violence on screen. Most of what we see is the aftermath of the killing, which doesn't take nearly as much effort to pull off as a special effect. As someone who loves special effects, I couldn't help but feel slightly cheated.
Overall, this is a very campy and ridiculous slasher film. It doesn't feel like a Friday the 13th movie, but more of a parody of the series. The ridiculousness doesn't seem intentional however, and we're left with a slasher movie that doesn't realize how hilariously terrible it is. It's definitely a terrible movie, but it's just as enjoyable as the first four films, just not in the same way. This is definitely a film worth watching if you like the campier stuff.
Entertainment- 4/5
Quality- 2/5
IMDB Page- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089173/
Movie Review- Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter
Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter is far from the last movie in the series, but it might as well be. The series really goes downhill from here, but this is a pretty nice end to the series if you ignore the eight films that followed this one. There's the right balance of scares and camp that were imbalanced in the previous two sequels. It's still not as good as the original, but it gets pretty close.
The story is still the typical "promiscuous teens die in the woods" storyline, but there's an addition of a young Corey Feldman that somewhat shakes things up. The pacing is still the same as the rest of the series, but this time we have a much shorter flashback to the previous films, this time it's a creepy montage set to the Jason campfire story from Part 2. The death scenes are also more frequent, and its well before the 45-minute mark before one of the main characters dies. We still have the typical cast of paper-thin twits, but Crispin Glover is one of the dumb teens, so that makes up for it.
Crispin Glover and Corey Feldman are the best part of the film, outside of the death scenes. Crispin delivers his usual weirdo performance, and in a notoriously goofy moment, does a really spastic dance-thing halfway through the film, and that alone makes the movie worth watching. Corey is a rare feat, a not-annoying child actor. He plays a strange little kid who's obsessed with monster masks and video games, and he gives off an equally strange performance to match the character. And he kills Jason, which is pretty cool, too.
The death scenes are really top-notch, too. Tom Savini returned to do the special effects, and it really shows. We get some really gross and brutal offings, ranging from a neck-stab while eating a banana, a meat cleaver to the face, and a harpoon gun to the crotch. Jason's face is also really well done, albeit weird-looking. He no longer looks like the mongoloid hillbilly from Part 2, nor does he look like the pig-man from Part 3. Instead we get a Jason that looks strangely like a zombie, which is a rather uncanny foreshadowing to the later films. Friday the 13th Part 4 doesn't hold back in the least, and it really helps make this film memorable.
There's not a whole lot wrong with this film to point out, unless I wanted to nitpick, but there are few weird plot holes. Part 4 doesn't take place anywhere near Camp Crystal Lake, so it raises the question why Jason chose to hunt down teenagers that were nowhere near his home. Jason also starts to seemingly exhibit teleportation powers, as he manages to pop up in places around the woods far faster than humanly possible. Jason's still human in Part 4, too, so this comes across as really ridiculous.
Overall, this is a great Friday the 13th sequel. It's not as much fun as Part 3, but it manages to properly balance between scary and campy, giving us a film that's on par in quality with the original. The previous storylines are all nicely interwoven and ties everything together for a nice finale. This wasn't the last film in the series, of course, but it ends the arcing storyline of the first four films, and paves the way for the Tommy Jarvis storyline in the next two films.
Entertainment- 4/5
Quality- 3/5
IMDB Page- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087298/
The story is still the typical "promiscuous teens die in the woods" storyline, but there's an addition of a young Corey Feldman that somewhat shakes things up. The pacing is still the same as the rest of the series, but this time we have a much shorter flashback to the previous films, this time it's a creepy montage set to the Jason campfire story from Part 2. The death scenes are also more frequent, and its well before the 45-minute mark before one of the main characters dies. We still have the typical cast of paper-thin twits, but Crispin Glover is one of the dumb teens, so that makes up for it.
Crispin Glover and Corey Feldman are the best part of the film, outside of the death scenes. Crispin delivers his usual weirdo performance, and in a notoriously goofy moment, does a really spastic dance-thing halfway through the film, and that alone makes the movie worth watching. Corey is a rare feat, a not-annoying child actor. He plays a strange little kid who's obsessed with monster masks and video games, and he gives off an equally strange performance to match the character. And he kills Jason, which is pretty cool, too.
The death scenes are really top-notch, too. Tom Savini returned to do the special effects, and it really shows. We get some really gross and brutal offings, ranging from a neck-stab while eating a banana, a meat cleaver to the face, and a harpoon gun to the crotch. Jason's face is also really well done, albeit weird-looking. He no longer looks like the mongoloid hillbilly from Part 2, nor does he look like the pig-man from Part 3. Instead we get a Jason that looks strangely like a zombie, which is a rather uncanny foreshadowing to the later films. Friday the 13th Part 4 doesn't hold back in the least, and it really helps make this film memorable.
There's not a whole lot wrong with this film to point out, unless I wanted to nitpick, but there are few weird plot holes. Part 4 doesn't take place anywhere near Camp Crystal Lake, so it raises the question why Jason chose to hunt down teenagers that were nowhere near his home. Jason also starts to seemingly exhibit teleportation powers, as he manages to pop up in places around the woods far faster than humanly possible. Jason's still human in Part 4, too, so this comes across as really ridiculous.
Overall, this is a great Friday the 13th sequel. It's not as much fun as Part 3, but it manages to properly balance between scary and campy, giving us a film that's on par in quality with the original. The previous storylines are all nicely interwoven and ties everything together for a nice finale. This wasn't the last film in the series, of course, but it ends the arcing storyline of the first four films, and paves the way for the Tommy Jarvis storyline in the next two films.
Entertainment- 4/5
Quality- 3/5
IMDB Page- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087298/
June 7, 2012
Movie Review- Friday the 13th Part 3
Friday the 13th Part 3 is best known for two things; it's the movie that gave Jason his iconic hockey mask, and it's only Friday the 13th movie that was shot in 3-D. And boy does this movie love 3-D effects. This is one of the campiest films in the series, and that makes it all the more enjoyable. The film still takes itself seriously and tries to be scary, and while it fails at that, it make the film a lot more entertaining.
The film is riddled with gratuitous 3-D effects, ranging from popping popcorn to flying eyeballs. I was not able to see this film in 3-D, but I imagine it would even more fun to see everything popping out of the screen. Even the opening titles fly out at the audience. Some might say the film goes overboard with the 3-D, but I think it makes film a lot more interesting.
The script is a lot better this time around, relatively speaking. There's still an extended recap of the previous film, just like in Part 2, but Part 3 is a longer film and uses its time wisely, so the film doesn't feel rushed like Part 2 did. The characters in this film are a lot more distinguishable than the previous two films, and while they still aren't very developed characters, at least the audience can tell them apart. There's an attempted subplot in which the comic relief character tries to woo one of his friends and get over his self-consciousness, but the plot doesn't really go anywhere because both of them end up dead before anything can happen. It's nice that the writers tried to add some drama to the film, even though it wasn't very good. There's also a few minor things throughout the first act that end up paying off at some point during the end, and it helps make the script seem competent, despite the campy storyline.
The death scenes are hilariously over-the-top, and that alone makes this film fun to watch. And while none of the main characters die until an hour into the film, the minor characters that get axed before then get the boot in some really creative ways. When it does get time to kill off the main cast, the film doesn't hold back; there's a death by spear gun and a guy who gets chopped in half mid-handstand to name a few. Most of these scenes are done with really silly special effects. You can often see the wires supporting various flying objects, and that makes it all the more campy. The special effects makeup for Jason isn't as good this time around, however. We no longer get the mongoloid hillbilly from Part 2, instead we get a vaguely pig-looking version of Jason. That's no big deal, though, since we finally get to see Jason in his now-famous hockey mask, which he wears for the last half-hour of the film.
The end fight scene is great, too. Jason is still human in this installment, and he really gets a beating. He's stabbed, hanged, and has a bookshelf dropped on him. He's finally dispatched with an ax to the head, but he still manages to keep going for several seconds afterwards. This has one of the best end fight scenes in the series, and it's definitely lives up to the buildup throughout the film.
Overall, this is one of silliest but most enjoyable movies in the Friday the 13th series. The death scenes are ridiculous, the acting is hammy, and the 3-D effects are everywhere. The best part about this film, though, is that it doesn't realize it's being campy. Friday the 13th Part 3 tries to be just as creepy and intense as its predecessors, but it miserably fails. The end result is one of the funniest slasher films out there, and one that's definitely worth the watch.
Entertainment- 4/5
Quality- 2/5
IMDB Page- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083972/
The film is riddled with gratuitous 3-D effects, ranging from popping popcorn to flying eyeballs. I was not able to see this film in 3-D, but I imagine it would even more fun to see everything popping out of the screen. Even the opening titles fly out at the audience. Some might say the film goes overboard with the 3-D, but I think it makes film a lot more interesting.
The script is a lot better this time around, relatively speaking. There's still an extended recap of the previous film, just like in Part 2, but Part 3 is a longer film and uses its time wisely, so the film doesn't feel rushed like Part 2 did. The characters in this film are a lot more distinguishable than the previous two films, and while they still aren't very developed characters, at least the audience can tell them apart. There's an attempted subplot in which the comic relief character tries to woo one of his friends and get over his self-consciousness, but the plot doesn't really go anywhere because both of them end up dead before anything can happen. It's nice that the writers tried to add some drama to the film, even though it wasn't very good. There's also a few minor things throughout the first act that end up paying off at some point during the end, and it helps make the script seem competent, despite the campy storyline.
The death scenes are hilariously over-the-top, and that alone makes this film fun to watch. And while none of the main characters die until an hour into the film, the minor characters that get axed before then get the boot in some really creative ways. When it does get time to kill off the main cast, the film doesn't hold back; there's a death by spear gun and a guy who gets chopped in half mid-handstand to name a few. Most of these scenes are done with really silly special effects. You can often see the wires supporting various flying objects, and that makes it all the more campy. The special effects makeup for Jason isn't as good this time around, however. We no longer get the mongoloid hillbilly from Part 2, instead we get a vaguely pig-looking version of Jason. That's no big deal, though, since we finally get to see Jason in his now-famous hockey mask, which he wears for the last half-hour of the film.
The end fight scene is great, too. Jason is still human in this installment, and he really gets a beating. He's stabbed, hanged, and has a bookshelf dropped on him. He's finally dispatched with an ax to the head, but he still manages to keep going for several seconds afterwards. This has one of the best end fight scenes in the series, and it's definitely lives up to the buildup throughout the film.
Overall, this is one of silliest but most enjoyable movies in the Friday the 13th series. The death scenes are ridiculous, the acting is hammy, and the 3-D effects are everywhere. The best part about this film, though, is that it doesn't realize it's being campy. Friday the 13th Part 3 tries to be just as creepy and intense as its predecessors, but it miserably fails. The end result is one of the funniest slasher films out there, and one that's definitely worth the watch.
Entertainment- 4/5
Quality- 2/5
IMDB Page- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083972/
Movie Review- Friday the 13th Part 2
Friday the 13th Part 2 is the shortest of the Friday the 13th films, barely clocking in at 86 minutes. It uses its time very poorly, leaving us with an uneven but still entertaining slasher film. It's a pretty generic story as far as sequels go, but in comparison to some of the later films in the franchise, this is definitely one of the better ones. It's also the last film in the franchise that tried to be even remotely realistic, so I'll give it points for that as well.
As I said, the pacing is really off because the script makes poor use of its time. The first 15 minutes of the movie are used for pointless flashbacks and to kill off Alice, the sole survivor of the last film. The rest of the movie plays out like the first Friday, but crammed into a shorter running time. This leads to some very disappointing moments. Jason isn't in this film nearly enough. Mrs. Voorhees was at least present throughout the first film, even if she was off-screen. There's not enough time to even remotely like the characters, either. I had no idea who anyone was throughout the film other than the stereotypes associated with their characters, and I really couldn't have cared less when they died. And if I'm going to harp on any plot holes, I'm going to bringing up the strangest of them. Jason uncharacteristically leaves Crystal Lake at the beginning of the film to kill Alice. This raises the question of how Jason was able to track her down, and how he managed to put a severed head in her fridge without her noticing. Granted, this is a slasher film, and they're not meant to be taken seriously, but this really took me out of the film.
In comparison to the original film, Friday the 13th Part 2 holds up fairly well as a sequel, but it borrows several elements from the first and doesn't feel very original. If anything, this film feels more like one of the numerous knockoffs that had started to show up. The cinematography still has that moving-camera going on, so we're never quite sure if we're watching the characters through Jason's eyes. The story arc is also very similar to that of the original, although the end fight scene is slightly more intense. The scene where Ginny tries to convince Jason that she's Mrs. Voorhees is pretty creepy, but there just aren't enough creepy moments to keep this film as fully afloat as it could have been. There are long stretches in the script where nothing really happens, and I often felt myself starting to get bored. Those first fifteen minutes really offset the rest of the film, and the time spent waiting for the main characters to die just doesn't have the payoff to counteract the wait.
The death scenes are really lacking as well. Jason just kinda meanders about, waywardly killing people, and doesn't get around to killing any of the main characters until more than halfway through the film. There are a few deaths beforehand, but they were all minor characters with less than ten minutes of screen-time. Even when the deaths do occur, they leave much to be desired. Tom Savini didn't do the makeup for this film, and so the deaths here don't have the punch that the first film's did. There's a somewhat entertaining scene where Jason kills a guy in a wheelchair, but that's really the only memorable death in the movie. There's also a pretty goofy scene where Jason double-impales two camp counselors. It could have been a cool effect, but I thought it turned out kinda lame. Even Jason gets a lackluster defeat; he gets hit in the shoulder with a machete. That would probably kill someone, but it just isn't that creative of a way to defeat the villain. The only good part of the film in terms of makeup is the reveal of Jason's face at the end. He looks like a mongoloid version of Hagrid, but it's still a pretty creepy look, and the makeup still holds up today.
Overall, this is pretty standard slasher fare, and a pretty decent sequel. It's not as campy as some of the later installments, and it's not as creepy as the original. We're left with nearly the exact same movie as the first, but crammed into a shorter running time. But despite the shorter length, the film still drags in places, and the buildup to the main character's death doesn't a big enough payoff to justify the wait. It's certainly not a terrible movie, and there are a few entertaining moments, but don't go into the film expecting it to be as good as the original. If you enjoyed the first Friday the 13th, it's worth watching, but the casual viewer should steer clear.
Enjoyment- 3/5
Quality- 2.5/5
IMDB Page- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082418/
June 6, 2012
Movie Review- Friday the 13th (1980)
There's not much that can be said about the original Friday the 13th that hasn't been said already. Along with Halloween and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, this one of the pioneers of mainstream slasher films. Friday the 13th has hugely affected American pop-culture, with constant homages and parodies still seen today. Despite the commercial success of the franchise, the films have always been critically panned. But are they really that bad? Over the next week, I'll be reviewing this legendary horror franchise to determine such.
The original Friday the 13th might seem cliched by today's standards, but several of the film's plot devices and scare tactics were still fresh to an extent. There are "don't go in there!" moments, cheesy acting and dialog, and paper-thin characters galore. These were still inexcusable flaws thirty-two years ago, but these moments are pretty restrained and not painfully campy like those of later slasher films. There's still an air of creepiness to the film, despite the campy moments. The script manages to lull us in to a false sense of security, only to jolt us right back with a character's death. The cinematography also relies heavily on moving camera shots, which often feel like the point-of-view shots associated with the killer, so we can never be quite sure if the characters are being observed.
The story itself is pretty standard slasher fare, and probably the first in a long line of "promiscuous teens go to the woods and die" movies. The characters are also pretty dumb, and their levels of common sense seem to vary as necessary to the plot. The characters' personalities are as thin as you can get, and there's almost no character development as is typical of most slasher films. And despite the 95 minute run-time, I can't help but feel that we didn't get to see enough of the characters. They're on screen, but nothing really happens with them. Even the villain is given a disappointingly small amount of time. As most people forget, it was Jason Voorhees's mother who was the killer in the first film. Her motive of avenging her son's death makes sense, but this plot point is not touched upon enough to make it truly effective.
The death scenes are not entirely inventive, which is fine because our villain is human, but they lack a feel of originality. The generic kinfings and axings lack originality; you don't have to have fancy weaponry to make a memorable death scene, but the actual killing part can make or break a good death scene. For example, there are numerous deaths throughout Friday the 13th, but the only one that people remember is Kevin Bacon's death scene, where he's stabbed in the neck with an arrow; the murder weapon isn't all that original, but the special effect of the arrow coming out of his neck is a lot more interesting than a generic stabbing. That being said, the death scenes are really convincing, as is to be expected from makeup-maestro Tom Savini. Except for the really goofy-looking decapitation scene at the end, the makeup effects still hold up today.
Overall, there's not a lot I can say about this film, because there's been so much said about it already. Friday the 13th is riddled with cliches, and is just as cheesy as you would expect a slasher film to be. This movie is heavy on the violence and low on pretty much everything else, but therein lies the charm. It's also one of the only installments in the franchise that actually tried to make sense, so I'll give it points for that. If you're new to the slasher genre, or you just haven't gotten around to this campy classic, it's definitely worth the watch.
Enjoyment- 4.5/5
Quality- 3/5
IMDB Page- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080761/
The original Friday the 13th might seem cliched by today's standards, but several of the film's plot devices and scare tactics were still fresh to an extent. There are "don't go in there!" moments, cheesy acting and dialog, and paper-thin characters galore. These were still inexcusable flaws thirty-two years ago, but these moments are pretty restrained and not painfully campy like those of later slasher films. There's still an air of creepiness to the film, despite the campy moments. The script manages to lull us in to a false sense of security, only to jolt us right back with a character's death. The cinematography also relies heavily on moving camera shots, which often feel like the point-of-view shots associated with the killer, so we can never be quite sure if the characters are being observed.
The story itself is pretty standard slasher fare, and probably the first in a long line of "promiscuous teens go to the woods and die" movies. The characters are also pretty dumb, and their levels of common sense seem to vary as necessary to the plot. The characters' personalities are as thin as you can get, and there's almost no character development as is typical of most slasher films. And despite the 95 minute run-time, I can't help but feel that we didn't get to see enough of the characters. They're on screen, but nothing really happens with them. Even the villain is given a disappointingly small amount of time. As most people forget, it was Jason Voorhees's mother who was the killer in the first film. Her motive of avenging her son's death makes sense, but this plot point is not touched upon enough to make it truly effective.
The death scenes are not entirely inventive, which is fine because our villain is human, but they lack a feel of originality. The generic kinfings and axings lack originality; you don't have to have fancy weaponry to make a memorable death scene, but the actual killing part can make or break a good death scene. For example, there are numerous deaths throughout Friday the 13th, but the only one that people remember is Kevin Bacon's death scene, where he's stabbed in the neck with an arrow; the murder weapon isn't all that original, but the special effect of the arrow coming out of his neck is a lot more interesting than a generic stabbing. That being said, the death scenes are really convincing, as is to be expected from makeup-maestro Tom Savini. Except for the really goofy-looking decapitation scene at the end, the makeup effects still hold up today.
Overall, there's not a lot I can say about this film, because there's been so much said about it already. Friday the 13th is riddled with cliches, and is just as cheesy as you would expect a slasher film to be. This movie is heavy on the violence and low on pretty much everything else, but therein lies the charm. It's also one of the only installments in the franchise that actually tried to make sense, so I'll give it points for that. If you're new to the slasher genre, or you just haven't gotten around to this campy classic, it's definitely worth the watch.
Enjoyment- 4.5/5
Quality- 3/5
IMDB Page- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080761/
June 4, 2012
Movie Review- Night of the Living Dead (1990)
On paper, this movie sounds like a great idea. The original Night of the Living Dead reinvented the zombie genre, and the only major flaw in the film is the special effects, which were pretty lame. A remake of this film could have potentially taken the already violent film and make it even more gruesome with better special effects, and smooth over any of the minor problems in the original. With special-effects wizard Tom Savini directing, this seems like it would be a great remake. Heck, George Romero even wrote the screenplay. What could go wrong? Nearly everything, actually.
The main problem with this movie is that it's very distant from its predecessor.There was a lot of room to expand creatively on the original because of modern technology, but instead the film opts to outdo the original by trying to make everything bigger and more in-your-face. The story moves a lot faster, the characters' personalities are over-the-top, and there's a lot more zombie action. Again, this sounds great on paper, but the end result feel strangely hollow and watered down, despite the bigger budget that put into the film. There are also several from the original film that are reused here, but they never quite work given the new context.
The story definitely moves faster than the original, but unfortunately this kills the suspense. The famous opening sequence and accompanying line "They're coming to get you Barbara" are crammed into the opening title sequence, and from there we're treated to approximately eighty minutes of people nailing boards on doors and yelling at each other. The characters' personalities from the original film have been taken to the extreme, with the exception of Barbara; she becomes the complete antithesis of her character in the original, doing most of the zombie-killing in the movie. For example, Harry Cooper, the jerk from the original, is taken to the extreme. His character is nearly villainous, with almost no explanation for his behavior. At least in the original, they play up the fact that he's worried about his daughter. This plot point is rarely mention in the remake, leaving with a very evil and annoying version of the character.
With Tom Savini in the director's seat, one would think that this movie would at least have some good makeup effects for the zombies. Savini had previously worked on Dawn of the Dead, and one would think that he would produce similar results. Unfortunately Tom was not actually one of the makeup artists, and only worked as the director. So instead of some great gross-out effects and makeup, all we get are a bunch of lame zombies that look like a failed attempt at making an Evil Dead-themed Halloween mask. While one could argue that the zombies in this film are ones that just haven't started to decay, the only reason there needed to be a remake was to amp up the special effects. There's also very little on-screen violence. For a movie about zombies, there's almost no brutality towards them. There's the occasional gunshot to the head, but there's little to no bloodshed. Everything happens off-screen, and not in a "the real horror is what you imagined happened" kind of way. It's quite obvious that despite the increase in budget, it just wasn't enough to cover the special effects. Without good special effects in a zombie movie, you have to counter it with a strong story, like in the original. The remake however, can't combat this.
Another huge problem with this film is the ending. Up until the ending, this was a fairly close retelling of the original film, but the last fifteen minutes or so departs from the original completely. The 1968 version of Night of the Living Dead has one of the most famously pessimistic endings of all time, and none of the main characters make it out alive. But of course the remake tried to amp the ending up by giving us a very unnecessary look at the zombie-hunting group from the original film. In this version of the film, Barbara is the only one who makes it out alive. She somehow manages to hold off several zombies by wielding a gun at them until she is rescued by the zombie-hunting team.
Cut to the next day, and we see a very dumb look at what goes on in the zombie-hunting groups. Several of the zombies are tied up for shooting practice and forced to fight each other in a makeshift boxing ring. This scene drags on for far too long, and I get the feeling we're supposed feel sorry for the zombies, particularly because of a rather stupid line of dialog "They're us. They're us and we're them". I can only assume this was supposed to be a thought provoking line for the audience to think about after the movie. But ultimately the "maybe we're the monsters"-type message loses its impact because it was never touched on until then.
Overall, this is a very lackluster and ultimately unnecessary remake. The only thing that would have made this film worthwhile is if it had better makeup effects, but those too are lacking. This film tries to be bigger and better than the original, but fails to do so, leaving us with really lame special effects and a series of suspenseless jump scares. There are so many ways this film could have helped improve the original, but it tries to do its own thing while simultaneously bringing nothing new to the plate. If there is anything positive to be said, at least Barbara isn't the catatonic and blubbering mess that she was in the original. She's given a tougher, "we couldn't get Sigourney Weaver to sign on, so here's the best we could do"-type personality, but at least she's more interesting than the original Barbara. Other than that, this is a very trite and insipidly boring remake. There's not much substance to this film, and it's really not worth your time. Not recommended.
Enjoyment- 1/5
Quality- 2/5
IMDB Page- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100258/
May 23, 2012
Movie Review- Student Bodies
Student Bodies is essentially the Scary Movie of the 1980's. Much like Scary Movie, Student Bodies lacks subtlety, which is its key flaw. Unlike Scary Movie however, this films relies on Airplane!-style humor as opposed to gross-out humor. But comparisons aside, Student Bodies is a pretty entertaining, if not a bit uneven film.
A lot of comedy movies in the late 70's and early 80's all seem to derive their humor from silly dialog and slapstick, probably modeled after the success of the Zucker brothers' early work. Student Bodies tries to cash in on this style of humor, but it often misses the mark. The moments that do work are really funny, but the jokes that fizzle out really bring the film down. The best part of the whole film is the opening sequence in which the film's villain, The Breather, stalks and kills a babysitter with a paperclip. The humor has a nice blend of visual gags, spot-on parody of the slasher genre, and some general silliness. The rest of the movie tends to alternate between the three of these types of humor, and it doesn't always work.
In typical slasher movie fashion, all the victims are introduced only to be killed moments later, sometimes literally only given a few moments. The murder weapons are over-the-top, including eggplants and homemade bookends. But for some reason, only the girls get axed with these silly weapons. All the male students are killed by being stuffed into garbage bags. This is never really treated as a joke, and so it's confusing as to whether this was meant to be funny or not. A nice subtle touch, and one of the only ones in the whole film, is that almost every adult in the film wears the same rubber gloves as the killer. It's both a nice nod to the popular slasher film plot device, and it gets to be quite amusing after a while.
However, for every funny joke that Student Bodies supplies, there's a stupid one to cancel it out. There's a strange repeated gag in which the killer continually steps in used bubblegum, which I can only assume is meant to be hilarious, or it wouldn't have been repeated. There are also a few jokes that start to beat the audience over the head. There's an on-screen body count after someone dies, and while it is amusing at first, it starts to get really annoying as the body count increases. There's also a gag that involves an on-screen message that says "Door Unlocked" whenever someone foolishly leaves their door unlocked so the killer can get in. Like all of the repeated gags in this film, the initial joke is funny, but the humor quickly wears off.
The other main annoyance I had when this film is the villain, The Breather. Like his namesake, The Breather has a canned breathing sound effect overlaying his various appearances. As I previously said, the joke is only funny for a moment, but then the humor wears right off. The same goes for The Breather's voice; he sounds like a really bad Vincent Price imitation. And what's stranger is that once the killer's identity is revealed, the culprit sounds nothing like The Breather.
The ending is very strange as well. Our main heroine kills The Breather, but suddenly all the previous murder victims appear out of nowhere and start to chase her. It's eventually revealed that this whole movie had been a dream. This is a very uninspired plot point, and it's certainly not making fun of any horror movie that had been out at the time. The last five minutes of the movie tries to cram in another twist ending, but it fails as well.
Overall, this a fairly decent parody film. It occasionally hits the mark, but for every good joke, there's an equally dumb one. A lot of the jokes are run into the ground by the end of the film, and the ending itself is very disappointing. All that besides, the funny moments really are funny, and if you can look past some of the stupid gags, this a pretty entertaining film. If you enjoy Airplane!-style humor, this worth looking into.
Entertainment- 4/5
Quality- 2/5
IMDB Page- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083133/
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