Originally written July 21st, 2014.
My love of practical effects and prosthetic makeup is going to be the death of me some day. I recently saw a scene from Thir13en Ghosts on YouTube and decided to watch it solely on the awesome/gross effect of a guy getting bisected by a pane of glass. Robert Kurtzman of Wishmaster and Greg Nicotero of Army of Darkness were doing the special effects so it couldn’t be that bad, right?
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a major studio film with editing this bad before. This is Birdemic: Shock and Terror bad. But at least Birdemic has the excuse of being a zero-budget amateur production. The entire movie lurches blindly ahead like a rickety rollercoaster. Even in low-key dialog scenes the cutting is so frenetic that it’s a headache. There’s never that natural pause between dialog; it feels like the lines are all trying to force their way out of a door at once and then all come spewing out at once.
Editing needs to be paced properly so that things don’t feel rushed. There are numerous scenes of exposition that needed to be played slowly to ensure all the information is presented clearly, but the characters rush through everything so fast it leaves your head spinning. The action scenes are even worse. I think the director was trying to go for a music video feel, with lots of flashy jump cuts and things jumping at the screen, but it comes across as disorienting and obnoxious. It’s like someone trying to punch you in the face with a strobe light.
I’m all for unique editing styles. Edgar Wright pulls off jump cut sequences fantastically, and Event Horizon uses rapid-fire editing really well for its brief glimpses of hell. But both of those examples use the techniques sparingly. Thir13en Ghosts uses them the entire movie, and it’s an eyesore. It’s so difficult to tell what’s going on during the action sequences that anything of interest is immediately lost.
Despite the massive headache that is the editing, there are a few good things about the movie. There are some very creative ideas here and there, like the production design. The idea of having the house be a maze of shifting walls and stairs is pretty cool, and the glasshouse/clockwork design is stunning. The ghosts are really cool, too. We don’t get to see much of it, but the effects work from Kurtzman and Nicotero is top-notch. The naked ghost woman is really creepy, as is the guy covered in nails, and that guy with the cage on his head. It’s a shame the editing ruined everything, because visually, the movie had a lot going for it.
Overall, this movie is a complete wreck. When the movie isn’t jump-cutting your eyes into dust, it’s shoveling everything forwards at an unnecessary breakneck speed. There are momentary glimpses of a good movie trying to break through, like the bathroom scene and that “Black Zodiac” thing, but ultimately it’s all lost in the dang editing. The ghost designs are cool, and the effects work is great for 2001, but they get butchered to oblivion along with everything else. I haven’t seen the original 1960 film, but I have no doubt it’s better than the remake. So go watch that one instead and save your self the potential seizures.
November 3, 2015
Movie Review: The Lost Boys
Originally written September 8th, 2013.
The Lost Boys is a 1987 horror-comedy from director Joel Schumacher. Despite Schumacher’s checkered past with bat-related movies, The Lost Boys is actually a very fun and entertaining movie. It’s one of the few horror-comedies I’ve seen to properly balance scares and laughs, without one dominating the other. It’s also one of the only good vampire movies I’ve seen.
For starters, The Lost Boys is really, really funny. The relationship between Corey Haim and his brother is hilarious; after finding out his brother is a vampire, Haim’s first thought is to rat him out to their mom. Then there’s Corey Feldman, who plays a wannabe Van Helsing with a pseudo-Schwarzenegger voice. Plus the movie is very over-the-top 80’s, and if you get a kick out of the goofy hairstyles and clothes, you’ll appreciate this movie all the more.
The Lost Boys is really creepy when necessary, too. I normally don’t find vampires all that frightening, but Keifer Sutherland has a very intimidating presence, and the vampire attack scenes are shot very well, keeping the vampires hidden, leaving a lot to the imagination. The end is spectacularly creepy, too. Corey Haim and company have to fight off Keifer Sutherland’s vampire gang, leading to some excellently grotesque vampire deaths, and an awesome vampire duel between Sutherland and Corey Haim’s brother.
The movie is all around fun to watch, and while it is campy and has a bit of a deus ex machina ending, it’s still very funny and creepy, and a very entertaining movie. If you like horror-comedies, this is one of the best titles the genre has to offer.
The Lost Boys is a 1987 horror-comedy from director Joel Schumacher. Despite Schumacher’s checkered past with bat-related movies, The Lost Boys is actually a very fun and entertaining movie. It’s one of the few horror-comedies I’ve seen to properly balance scares and laughs, without one dominating the other. It’s also one of the only good vampire movies I’ve seen.
For starters, The Lost Boys is really, really funny. The relationship between Corey Haim and his brother is hilarious; after finding out his brother is a vampire, Haim’s first thought is to rat him out to their mom. Then there’s Corey Feldman, who plays a wannabe Van Helsing with a pseudo-Schwarzenegger voice. Plus the movie is very over-the-top 80’s, and if you get a kick out of the goofy hairstyles and clothes, you’ll appreciate this movie all the more.
The Lost Boys is really creepy when necessary, too. I normally don’t find vampires all that frightening, but Keifer Sutherland has a very intimidating presence, and the vampire attack scenes are shot very well, keeping the vampires hidden, leaving a lot to the imagination. The end is spectacularly creepy, too. Corey Haim and company have to fight off Keifer Sutherland’s vampire gang, leading to some excellently grotesque vampire deaths, and an awesome vampire duel between Sutherland and Corey Haim’s brother.
The movie is all around fun to watch, and while it is campy and has a bit of a deus ex machina ending, it’s still very funny and creepy, and a very entertaining movie. If you like horror-comedies, this is one of the best titles the genre has to offer.
October 23, 2012
Movie Review- Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon
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/
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 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/
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