Movie Review- Prince of Darkness

Prince of Darkness is an interesting but flawed effort from John Carpenter. This is the only horror movie as far as I am aware that incorporates quantum physics in its story. There is literally a quantum particle antichrist in this movie. I have never seen that in a movie before. There is also an odd plot point about messages sent from the future via dreams. I appreciate this unusual direction in what is otherwise a mundane devil-horror flick. The concepts are never quite as fleshed out as they could have been, but the idea is interesting nonetheless.

Bizarrely, the movie does not find its footing until the third act. Typically a bad movie will fall apart after the first act, but Prince of Darkness does the reverse and only becomes entertaining in the last 35 minutes or so. The preceding 70 minutes is mostly just people standing around in a church and staring at a jar of swirling green fog. The subatomic devil in a jar starts causing spooky mischief almost right off the bat, but none of it is particularly creepy. Some ants crawl on a TV and a homeless woman tries to give Donald Pleasance a cup full of bugs. Alice Cooper shows up for a brief and distracting cameo as a ghostly pale hobo that stabs a guy with part of a bicycle. The demonic jar leaks green goo on a radiologist. It feels like John Carpenter threw all of his stray ideas into the script and then just left them there unedited.

After an hour of weird goings-on, things actually get creepy. One of the 30something-playing-a-college-student gets possessed by the devil jar, because she had a bruise shaped like the Blue Oyster Cult logo (It makes no sense when the movie explains it, either). She turns into a grotesque Freddy Kruger lookalike and general pandemonium ensues. Maybe it's because the lighting is really eerie and shadowy during the finale, but the ending managed to elicit feeling of dread from me that few other horror movies ever have. The future-dream scenes have an unsettling 2nd generation videotape look that gave me the heebie-jeebies. The jar devil tries to emerge from a makeup kit mirror. Believe me, it's way creepier on screen.

I cannot entirely recommend Prince of Darkness because of its general lack of coherency, but there are a lot of interesting ideas at play in the film. If you are a die-hard horror fan, there is some definite value in the ending. Everyone else should probably skip it. This movie could really use a remake. If done right, it could be one incredibly scary film.

Movie Review- Body Heat

Body Heat is an excellent film noir throwback. The retro costumes, the saxophone-heavy score, and the dark, smoky visuals are all fantastically noir. Kathleen Turner is perfect as the femme fatale, and William Hurt is suitably plain as the hapless schmuck who gets caught up in her scheme. They even give Hurt a fedora. It's super 1940's at every turn.

Because the film borrows so much from old film noir, the plot feels very familiar to the point to being predictable. I didn't see the film's twist coming, but when it happened it still felt familiar. Despite that, the film is still enjoyable. The visuals are absolutely gorgeous. The strong use of colors and gauzy lighting are absolutely sumptuous. The scene where they first visit Turner's house is a cinematic treasure. The pacing in that scene is beyond perfect. Throwing a chair through a window has never been more cinematically sexy. 

Movie Review- Deadpool

Deadpool has its moments but is ultimately just another comic book movie that has been watered down, in this case with broad appeal humor, to bring in a larger audience. The movie probably would have been made if it wasn't watered down to the average moviegoers' taste first. If Deadpool stayed truer to comics, it would probably have bombed like Scott Pilgrim because it was too niche. Deadpool sacrifices the potential of a truly unique superhero film in favor of bland familiarity, because they gotta get those box office returns.

The Deadpool comics, like most superhero comics, vary wildly in quality depending on the writer. When done right, the character plays more like the personification of an Itchy & Scratchy cartoon, and it's hilarious. In the wrong hands, he is an insufferable snarky loudmouth that only appeals to casual comics fans. We got the insufferable one. And even worse, it's another damn origin story movie. I'm so sick of seeing this storyline that I'm ready to give an automatic 10/10 to the first superhero flick that does something different.

The film is a comedy, and the primary goal of a comedy is to evoke laughter. Do you enjoy Big Bang Theory's "just mention things geeks like" style of humor? Then you will enjoy Deadpool. Do you feel that just referencing things isn't inherently funny? That there has to at least be a joke present for a reference to work? Skip Deadpool and go watch something else. Do you like Seth MacFarlane's body of work? Go see Deadpool. Do you get tired of constant sex jokes? Psst... Deadpool is probably not for you. Deadpool somehow screws up the 4th Wall jokes, too. Those are usually funny in the comics, but here it felt more like "We get it, Green Lantern and X-Men Origins: Wolverine were terrible. Reference something else, please".

Despite its general lack of originality or humor, the movie does get a few things right. Ryan Reynolds absolutely nails the demented Bugs Bunny demeanor of Deadpool. His performance is right up there with Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark in terms of accuracy to the comics. If only they had given him better material to work with. I also enjoyed seeing Colossus portrayed as an goody two-shoes Boy Scout type. He was good comic foil to Deadpool's general profanity, even if the "Hey guys, Colossus has a metal penis" jokes stopped being funny after the first one.

The fact that a Deadpool movie even got made is astounding, but I shouldn't have been surprised that it had to be run through the audience palatability machine in order to be produced. Making an R-rated superhero movie is an risky move, and I can understand why the creative team veered more towards Seth Macfarlane-cum-Bazinga humor over the bizarre hyperviolent comic book parody of the best Deadpool comics. At least we got a Deadpool movie at all. With a sequel already in the works, perhaps the studio will let the creative team cut loose and get weird this time. And maybe they'll actually produce something funny.