Gremlins (1984)

Starring: Hoyt Axton, Zach Galligan, Phoebe Cates

Director: Joe Dante

IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087363/

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gremlins

Don't you hate it when all you want for Christmas is this...

...and you end up with this?

Well, that is pretty much what happens in "Gremlins," the 1984 classic produced by Steven Spielberg and written by Chris Columbus of later "Home Alone" fame, that introduced everyone to the fury little creatures that become a big problem.

The movie starts off with Randall "Rand" Peltzer (Hoyt Axton) shopping around for a Christmas gift for his son in a sketchy area of Chinatown (I guess Macy's is closed at that hour). He ends up in a shop where he finds a strange creature called a Mogwai. He is told that there are three important rules that must be followed in order to care for the creature:

1) It cannot be exposed to bright light

2) It cannot come into physical contact with water

3) Most important of all, it cannot be fed after midnight

Gee, I don't see any of these rules being broken during of the course of the movie, do you? He nicknames it Gizmo and the cute creature is a hit with his teenage son Billy (Zach Galligan). However, when Gizmo is accidentally exposed to water (what a shock), five new Mogwai are formed from him and are much more devious in nature. Using sneaky tactics, they manage to get a hold of food after midnight (double shock), and multiply into a whole army of Mogwai, now called Gremlins, who go about terrorizing the town.

The movie is, in short, fun. While technically classified as a horror comedy, it is more the latter than the former. The Gremlins are not so much scary as they are obnoxious (in a good way). While they do attack people and cause a few deaths, they spend most of their time trashing the places they go to and partying. For instance, they sabotage a local bar by drinking, smoking, throwing things around, shooting each other (yes, they have guns, don't ask me why), and acting generally very rowdy. It is actually more of a dark comedy than anything else, with the Gremlins and their victims dying in several gruesome yet funny fashions (which are fair tame by today's standards). I think my favorite part is when they tamper with the stairlift of the Scourge of the town, Mrs. Deagle (Polly Holiday), sending her flying out the window of her house. Yes, that sounds a bit cruel, but believe me, its funny when you see it.

The most stark example of this type of format is the now infamous scene where Billy's love interest, Kate (Phoebe Cates) tells about a tragedy from her past that explains why she dislikes Christmas. This scene was very controversial, with apparently both studio executives and even Spielberg himself being very unhappy with it, but director Joe Dante fought to keep it in and that is where it remained. To be honest, I thought the scene was a little out of place; most of the humor comes from cartoon violence, not from a girl's childhood trauma of losing a parent. But I guess that is why it works: it comes almost out of nowhere to hit you over the head and then it is never spoken of again. So even though it is a rather bizarre scene to include in a movie about creatures that look like an 80s version of Furby dolls, I am glad they kept it.

Despite the viciousness, the movie also has a bit of heart to it. The characters are all generally very likable; I especially liked the mom (Frances Lee McCain) for her ability to take out three of the little bastards all by herself. And the innocent Gizmo helps bring a level stability to the madness as the one Gremlin who tries to stop his evil counterparts. Despite his problems with the "Kate scene," it becomes quite clear upon viewing that Spielberg had influence over the making of the film. It has a strong "E.T."-like atmosphere, and at least two scenes make a referencing to that particular Spielberg picture. Overall, I say the movie does a good job of juggling the different emotions of happiness, creepiness, and hilarity all within a single story.

Well, I can't think of anything else to say, so I'll just leave it at that. It's a good movie, for the holidays or otherwise, and I recommend it.

Review: Silent Night, Deadly Night 2 (1987)

Director: Lee Harry

Starring: Eric Freeman, James Newman

Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093974/

"Red CAR. Good POINT."

-Ricky

Remember the first Silent Night, Deadly Night film? It was great. It was a total shlockfest of slasher clichés and it was absolutely wonderful at using them to create an entertaining cult horror film. Sure, it was stupid, but it was a fun kind of stupid. It was the kind of thing that was absolutely perfect to throw on and laugh at and have a ton of fun with. Unfortunately…it had a sequel.

Yes, the brilliantly titled Silent Night, Deadly Night 2 doesn’t even try to distinguish itself from the first film, and for good reason, as it really has nothing at all to offer besides a cheap ass internet meme that gets old after about 5 seconds. What a sack of shit, people; what a sack of shit! Let’s dig in and find out what makes this suck-tastic pile of Santa-droppings tick.

Our film starts off with our main character played by Eric Freeman, named Ricky, who is the brother of the guy from the original movie who killed everybody. He’s just…sitting there. This big black orderly comes in and starts setting up a tape recorder, doing everything as slowly and elaborately as possible. The first few minutes of the film are just the black guy setting the machine up while Freeman stares ominously at him. Gee, it’s almost like they were creating useless padding because they had no original material to use in their vapid, uncreative void of butt-clenching shitmongering that they just had to draw out every scene a lot longer than it should have been. Oh wait. THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT THEY WERE DOING.

This bald doctor guy comes in and tells the black orderly to leave, probably because his five-minute contract in the movie was up and the filmmakers couldn’t afford to pay him anymore – he is very adamant that the orderly leave the room. The doctor starts talking to Ricky about his crimes, telling Freeman that his time is very valuable, which I guess is ironic because this movie is a huge waste of said time, for anyone with half a brain at least.

Oh, yeah, and how about Ricky’s acting? For those of you who are unfamiliar with Eric Freeman’s performance, well…it’s special. That’s the best way to put it. He constantly over-emotes and adds emphasis to lines that don’t need it, constantly moves his eyebrows up and down like he’s being electrocuted and randomly laughs and grins to himself for no apparent reason. It’s just downright insane, a true cinematic trainwreck if there ever was one. He makes Tommy Wiseau look like…well, any respectable actor…by comparison. His performance is just unsalvageable in every respect.

The doctor asks Freeman if he remembers what happened when he was a kid, to which the movie kindly interjects with a flashback of the entire scene from the first film where the Santa suit guy mugged and killed the kids’ parents. They just play the whole thing exactly as it was, except with dull narration and shittier music. And brace yourselves, audience, because this is what you’re in for in the next 40 minutes of movie! Nothing but flashbacks! You have got to be FUCKING kidding me, movie. I mean really? If I had paid money to see this in theater back in the day, I would have been livid! This is simply the pinnacle of phoned in, drooling-monkey filmmaking. It’s purely asinine.

After that we get, surprise, another flashback, this time of the incidents at the orphanage where the boys were tormented by Mother Superior, again with nothing but footage of the original film. Okay, what, did this kid just not have ANY memories of his own? Half the time we barely even see Ricky; it’s just about Billy from the first film. But this is a flashback told from Ricky’s perspective. Why would he remember some of this stuff that Billy went through? A lot of it doesn’t even have Ricky in the scene! What sense does that make?

Oh, and what’s next? MORE FLASHBACKS. It’s like they’re taunting me with how bad they can be. Did they just assume nobody coming into a movie titled “Silent Night, Deadly Night 2” had seen the previous film? I know this movie is a pile of ass scum compared to the original, which already was no prize-winning piece of cinema itself, but c’mon, at least give us something substantial…okay, okay, that’s not fair, I admit. Expecting too much from this movie is like expecting Shakespearean poetry from that kid who sat in the back of your Kindergarten class and ate paint chips off the wall instead of paying attention.

But seriously! They show a flashback of that scene from the original where the police almost opened fire on that suburban father dressed up as Santa, sneaking into his own house. Even Billy wasn’t there to see that; how would Ricky know about it in order to tell it in a flashback? Was he just like…supremely omniscient? Is he secretly a Lovecraftian-styled entity who can see all that has to do with killer Santa Clauses? Is he Yogth-Santa-Clausethoth the Great? Did he have bugs planted with the police to hear and see everything that went on that night? It’s seriously mindboggling. There’s so little actual human thought put into this movie’s construction that it becomes absolutely fascinating how inept it is at doing anything correctly.

So after the movie FINALLY decides to get off its ass and show us some original material, we see that Ricky grew up with a nice family and was A-OK. We see him watching another couple in the bushes and he sees that the guy attempts to rape her, because he’s drunk, I guess. Ricky’s response is completely natural and logical: He runs the douchebag over with his own red car, backs up and does it again about three or four more times. Of course the girl thanks him after that, because…I guess she wouldn’t run away screaming at the prospect of a guy brutally murdering her boyfriend, no matter how much of a piece of shit he was. Huh. I would have thought she would at least be scared out of her mind that there was a murderer there in the first place, but…okay, fine, I’m dropping it; expecting too much again.

We see another scene where Ricky comes across what looks like a fat version of Robert DeNiro beating up on this other guy who owes him money. Ricky says, overdubbed, that it sounded like a squirrel getting its nuts squeezed – what, does he know what that sounds like? He kills the guy with an umbrella through the chest, in what I think was the inspiration for the Umbrella Corporation from Resident Evil. At least something good came of this.

Then Ricky meets his girlfriend Jennifer, or something or other, and they hit it off because…well, you got me there. Maybe she’s attracted to his moving eyebrows; they’re the best actors in this fucking movie, anyway. They go to the movies where Jennifer expresses her concern over the loudmouthed asshole in the back who is impatient for the movie to start. She says "Are we going to have to listen to that for the next 2 hours?" Hey, bitch, don’t you give me that. I had to sit through 40 minutes of flashbacks to even get to this half-assed slop. Don't you give me any lip today.

While Ricky goes to take care of that guy – with the rest of the theater not noticing him as he murders the guy – a random new character with hair that looks like the rear end of a duck appears out of nowhere. He sort of springs out of the ground as if through a trap door, or like he's a new puppet introduced in a finger puppet show. Which would still be deeper and more enjoyable than this crap. And no, in case you were wondering, nothing about this character's appearance is ever really explained. Quell your disappointment now.

Apparently this is her ex-boyfriend, who wants her back even though he stood her up, cheated on her AND RUINED HER FAVORITE SWEATER! How heinous. One of those things doesn’t quite match the rest…do you think he did those three things in that exact order? Like she just came home and he was there with some other chick and…eugh, don’t really want to think about the rest of that one, especially if it has to do with “ruining a sweater.”

So he’s a douche. And Ricky kills him the next day by electrocuting him to death with a car battery…charming. He then kills Jennifer, too, because I guess he didn’t like how she had sex with another guy before him.

Then he pretty much snaps and goes on a rampage as he steals a gun from a cop with the aid of very, very poor editing. He shoots one guy for no reason other than because he shouted at him, and then moves onto the next house, where we see the birth of an Internet phenomenon. You can’t have a review of this movie without it, so let’s just get it over with:

Yeah, yeah, laugh it up; let’s move on. He lights a car on fire just by shooting at it a few times and then comes to this barricade of police, because I guess they really couldn’t handle one psycho with a gun without getting a whole roadblock of cars to stop him. Dumbasses. He threatens to shoot himself – foreseeing the reactions of people who would watch this movie – and the cops all freak out and start telling him not to be a fool, and not to take his life. Even though they were going to shoot him anyway. What a bunch of indecisive pussies.

So we go back to the mental hospital where it’s revealed that Ricky killed the doctor in the middle of his story? What? So he killed the guy but kept on talking anyway? That’s…really strange! He escapes, steals a Santa costume from some Salvation Army worker and goes to kill Mother Superior, who lives at apartment number 666. Isn’t a nun living in an apartment numbered ‘666’ kind of like a Buddhist living in a mansion full of money and women? He stalks around the house for a bit and rips off The Shining by axing through a door and grinning through it. Mother Superior uses the brilliant escape tactic of hiding behind a second door even though hiding behind the first one worked so well just seconds before. He throws her down the stairs but his axe gets stuck in her wheelchair. This raises the question of, why does he need that axe to kill this decrepit, wheelchair bound 90 year old woman anyway? It seems like he'd be able to do that just by flicking her with his index finger or something.

After the police finally arrive again, this time sobered up and not weeping over him, we get this great scene with the most fearsome utterance of any horror slasher ever:

Isn’t that just BONE CHILLING?!?!

Silent Night, Deadly Night 2 is awful! Truly awful in every sense of the word! There’s no logic to anything here, half of the film is made up of flashbacks and it fails to live up to any of the campy awesomeness of the first one, as really all it has going for it is the over the top acting, and, here at least, that’s a one-note joke if there ever was one. Granted, there was a reason for the excessive flashbacks, as the filmmakers had little money or sponsoring at all, but that doesn’t make this movie any better. It’s got its appeal to those fans of really, really bad movies, but…trust me when I say this movie isn’t worth your time. Even if you had seen every other movie in the history of the world besides this one, Silent Night, Deadly Night 2 would still be a steaming pile of suck with a side-dosage of lame to boot. Wretched beyond belief.

True Grit (1969)

Starring: John Wayne, Glen Campbell, Kim Darby

Directed by Henry Hathaway

IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065126/

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_Grit_(1969_film)

The Coen brothers' remake of "True Grit" will be coming out in theaters shortly and I hope to be able to see it (and possibly review it for this site). In the meantime, since I try to make it a habit to see the original films first, I decided to check out 1969's "True Grit", starring the legendary John Wayne. So how does this classic hold up? Well, let's just say that the Coens should feel free to make improvements on it, because that is what this film badly needs.

Based upon the novel of the same name by Charles Portis (no, I am not reading the book as well; there is all some much I can do to judge one story), the movie starts off at the home of a young girl named Mattie Ross, played by Kim Darby. Mattie is the main reason why I ultimately did not like this film. First of all, take a look at her:

[Insert lesbian/Justin Bieber haircut joke here]

Okay, looks aside, her character is awful! All she does is complain and boss people around, not so much in a bitchy way, but in a way that comes across as really uptight and overly precocious, like a little kid who thinks that she is always in the right and that anyone who disagrees with her is somehow not thinking properly and is uncivilized. To make matters worse, Darby simply cannot act; she reads her lines (keyword being "reads") in a monotone voice that has no conviction in it at all. Well, at least she got better as her career progressed and she did not end up playing a put-upon mother in a crappy "Halloween" squeal, right?.....right? (http://docuniverse.blogspot.com/2010/05/review-halloween-curse-of-michael-myers.html)

Anyway, she soon learns that her father has been killed by a man named Tom Chaney (Jeff Corey) whom the family was looking out for (no, he is not related to Dick Cheney, though that would be fun, wouldn't it?). She travels into town, acting overly precocious to everyone she meets, before she eventually converses with the Duke himself. And guess what?! He plays a cowboy in this movie! But this is not like the other cowboys that Wayne has played in the past. This one has an eyepatch. Don't you love diversity?! Okay, to be technical about it, he actually plays a deputy U.S. Marshall named Reuben "Rooster" J. Cogburn, an abrasive alcoholic who has a tendency to kill the fugitives he hunts. Hey, I am starting to like this movie now! Mattie decides that he is the right man for the job to track down Chaney. Cogburn is uninterested at first, but after getting some compensation and the promise to settle an old score with another outlaw, he agrees. They are joined by a Texas Ranger named Le Boeuf (singer Glen Campbell), and no, he has no connection to Shia LaBeouf...thank god. Granted, Le Boeuf is mildly annoying at the beginning, but he ends up getting really pissed off with Mattie, so I found a soft spot for him, even though that is a little unfair given that every character gets rightfully pissed off with Mattie at some point or another.

Besides Mattie, my other problem with this movie is that nothing really happens in it. There are these scenes of Mattie arguing with a guy (Strother Martin) in order to get him to pay her money which could have been done off-screen. Along with this, the first half of the film mostly consists of the three main characters negotiating prices with one another, Mattie acting annoying, and Cogburn and La Boeuf butting heads with one another, though Cogburn seems to dismiss his younger traveling companion for the most part. I can't really blame him; it's not really a contest when you have the official "Man" of cinema going against a country music singer who looks and talks less like Chuck Norris and more like Jon Voight's Joe Buck character from "Midnight Cowboy" (strangely, both this movie and "Grit" were released in the same year; coincidence?). My point being is that there is little action and the dialogue between the characters is for the most part disengaging.

The second half of the film improves a little bit, but not much. They finally find Chaney (shock, he is annoying as well), along with the posse that he was seeking refuge with, lead by the outlaw that Cogburn was looking for named Ned Pepper, played by a young Robert Duvall. I...don't get Duvall's character in this movie. He is built up as this really dangerous outlaw, but when we see him, he seems more like a negotiator than a deadly enemy. God damn, why does everyone keep negotiating in this film! It's a John Wayne movie, somebody shoot someone! Eventually, there actually is a big shootout between Cogburn and Pepper's posse. I admit that it is pretty fun...it also comes across as illogical and recklessly dangerous, but still fun. The rest of the film deals with plot holes and a rattlesnake and some other stuff that I will not bother going into.

There were some parts of the film I liked. The visuals are nice-looking and Elmer Bernstein's main theme is reminiscent of his earlier work in The Magnificent Seven, which if you have ever heard will know that it is awesome. And despite everything I have already mentioned, I also liked John Wayne. True, Cogburn is not that much different from some of the other characters he has played in the past, but this one somehow appears to be more charming and upbeat. It might be perhaps that Wayne was at the point in his career where he knew what the audience had come to expect from him, and he had learned enough to know how to do it. I also like his last scene in the movie...mmm I will keep quite about it in case you still want to see it for some reason. It is therefore unfortunate that this good performance has to be pigeonholed into this disappointment of a movie.

So is this a bad movie? I wouldn't go that far. I would just say that it is a mediocre one. There are some elements that work, but the lame supporting characters and a slow plot combine to make it so that even the Duke cannot save the picture. Obviously, this is a supposed to be a classic and a lot of people have a great deal of respect for it or are interested in seeing it, which is fine, but if you are only a causal film fan, I do not recommend it. Coen Brothers, your turn. You already disappointed me with your own "classic" (I recently watched the overrated "Miller's Crossing"), so you better make this new version of "Grit" a more enjoyable experience than the original was able to offer.

P.S. By the way, for those of you who are frequent visitors of this site, you will be horrified to know that Dennis Hopper is in this film as well. Wow, he really did used to show up everywhere! That being said, he is only on screen for about five minutes or so, during which he complains about being shot in the leg and rats out Ned and his posse before he gets his fingers chopped off and stabbed, dying from his wounds not long afterward. Was he the real reason the picture failed? Sure, why not? Better than having to complain about Mattie all the freakin' time!

Bad Santa (2003)

Starring: Bill Bob Thornton, Tony Cox, Brett Kelly

Directed by Terry Zwigoff

IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0307987/

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Santa

Here is your Christmas movie. And it seems fitting that this "honor" goes to one of the more popular holiday favorites of recent years, 2003's "Bad Santa".

The movie stars Billy Bob Thornton as Willie Stokes, the definitive example of a bad department store Santa. He loves booze, he loves women, and he hates his life. He is also a crook. Along with his dwarf friend Marcus (Tony Cox) as "Santa's Little Helper," he goes around year after year working at different department stores as a Santa before breaking into them and skipping town. The problem with all this is that he ends up blowing everything he "earns" on sex, alcohol, and lottery tickets. So when he gets a call from Marcus about a possible scheme in Phoenix, he jumps at the opportunity.

While there, he runs into a host of interesting characters. First is a dumb but sweet-hearted kid named Thurman Merman (Brett Kelly), who's name is not revealed until very late in the film because Willie never bothers to learn it, instead referring to him as "kid". Treating him like every other human being he encounters, Willie berates him with an endless stream of insults and obscenities, but the blank-eyed Thurman seems immune to his criticisms and he eventually warms up to him. Willie also forms a relationship with a sexy bartender (Lauren Graham) who takes an interest in him because she has a thing for Santas. Yes, that is exactly what it sounds like. However, she also finds him charming as a person...for some reason...and she and Thurman both help him turn his life around. He must also contend with the meek mall manager Bob Chipeska, played by John Ritter, who died before the film was released and whom it is dedicated to. Chipeska rightfully does not trust Willie, and secretly tries to dispose of him with the assistance of the store's tough head of security Gin Slagel, played by Bernie Mac (Jesus, the mortality rate the film's supporting cast is really low, isn't it?). However, Slagel has alternative motives for finding out about the scheme. Willie and Marcus must deal with this while the former also teaches Thurman about being tough, which concludes with Willie postponing his suicide attempt in order to physically attack a teenage bully. Nice guy.

This film is funny. Thornton has the appearance and the attitude of a guy who is at the bottom of the barrel and is the antagonist of all the qualities that he is supposed to represent as Saint Nicholas. At the same time, he manages to remain likable enough so that he does not become completely unsympathetic as a character, nor does it look entirely realistic when he inevitable becomes a nicer person as the movie progresses. The other characters are also amusing and there is also a lot of good back and forth banter between them, particularly between Thornton and Ritter, as well as Ritter and Mac.

Do I have any criticism for the film? Not a lot. I guess you can say that it is not really a sophisticated comedy; generally speaking, it really is Thornton getting drunk, yelling and swearing for almost two hours. That did not really bother me that much since I was more or less expecting that, though it did get a tad old after a while. The only other issues I had: some minor plot holes here and there and that the ending was also a little over-the-top.

All that being said, it was still a funny and enjoyable movie and I recommend it.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010)

Well, I'm back. Sorry for my long absence from this site; I have been pretty busy as of late. However, now that things have calmed down for me, I have decided to make a return. I can't promise that I will be doing this frequently, but if something comes along that I feel deserves to be reviewed, I will make an effort to do so.

Anyway, it's the season to be jolly, and you are probably curious about whether there will be a Christmas-themed review. Well, that's not going to happen...at least not at the moment (we still have 13 more days after all). However, I can give you the next best thing: a fantasy movie with blatant Christian overtones. That's right, you guessed it:

Starring: Georgie Henley, Skandar Keynes, Will Poulter

Directed by Michael Apted

IMDb:

Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chronicles_of_Narnia:_The_Voyage_of_the_Dawn_Treader

Okay, before we begin, I should make a few things clear. I did not really read the "The Chronicles of Narnia" book series when I was younger, and I have only seen the first of the three films that have come out so far. I have also not seen that particular movie since it first came out in theaters. Therefore, if I make any assumptions that come from my lack of knowledge of the books or the previous films, I apologize ahead of time. That being said, let's dive right in...no pun intended. You know, because it takes place at sea...okay, anyway....

The plot starts off with Edmond and Lucy (Skandar Keynes and Georgie Henley respectively) staying at their cousin Eustace's (Will Poulter) house while their older siblings are off doing different things. However, they soon find themselves transported to Narnia and reunited with Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes), who is on a mission to find a group of men known as the Seven Lost Lords of Narnia. As the plot develops, they come across mysterious green mist that is causing trouble throughout the different islands they encounter. It is then established that they must unite the seven swords of the different Lords, bring them to Aslan's table, and vanquish the evil presence.

No, not like that.

Mmm, close, but that is besides the point.

Okay, enough with the summery; let's get to the analysis. Here are the positives: the visuals, while nothing special, are very good. Lucy, my favorite character from the first film, remains a charming presence as she struggles to find her place in life as she enters adulthood. Edmund has also matured a bit since that time and though he has his own troubles of being in the shadow of Prince Caspian, he still comes across as likable. I guess I kind of liked the rat, Reepicheep (Simon Pegg, imagine that) as well, even if he did remind me of the Geico Gecko at one point. Not sure how that happened.

The biggest problem I had with the movie: Eustace. He is soooooooooooooo annoying, so so so annoying! Now, I understand that he was probably supposed to be this way in the books and to be fair Poulter does a geat job of bringing out the character's smart-ass behavior. That being said....he is still soooooooooooooo annoying! At one point, he is held at knife point and the other characters were told to drop their weapons or his throat will be slit...CALL HIS BLUFF! IT'S A WIN-WIN SITUATION! UGH! Well, I guess it does not really matter; as expected, he eventually gets becomes more likable (or at least more tolerable) as the film goes on because an amazing thing happens to him, he finds his inner courage, blah, blah, blah...

While I do not really have any specific problems with the film, though I do have general ones. Besides the ones I mentioned above, I thought the rest of the characters were kind of bland, particularly Prince Caspian. I do not know why, but he just did not impress me that much as a leader. There were also times when it felt like the film itself was more like a junior "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie in the same way that the first film felt more like a junior version of "The Lord of the Rings". That might be a little unfair given my lack of knowledge about the books and the timing of this films release, but that is just the way it turned out. As a result, these factors end make the film seem much longer than its nearly two hour running time.

*WARNING: MINOR SPOILER ALERT*

Despite what I said up above, the Christian overtones are kept to a minimum in this third-go-round, only being hinted at when the characters are discussing their faith that something good will come out of a tire situation. It becomes a lot more obvious at the end with the appearance of Aslan (a wonderful voice performance by Liam Neeson once again)and a gateway toward "his country". Obviously, one's personal beliefs may play a part in how you may view this scene. Although I am not personally a religious person, I thought it was well done; it was not in-your-face, but it was enough to get the message across concerning believing in one's self and the possibility of another world beyond our own.

*SPOILERS END HERE*

All that being said, this was a pretty good film. It was not as good as the first movie and there is nothing fantastic about it on a technological or substantive level. Still, it is a fairly enjoyable family movie that will leave you with feeling happier than when you entered. I do not strongly recommend it, but if you happen upon it at some point, either in theaters or elsewhere, I will not try to stop you.

Review: Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989)

Director: Rob Hedden

Starring: Jenson Dagget, Scott Reeves, Jason Voorhees

Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097388/

Whoo! Boy is that bad old 80s stench strong! It’s like when you leave food out for a few days and it starts to get all moldy and rotten; you know how it is. That’s basically what happened in the 80s when horror movies had run their course. And this movie is RIPE with that shit; I’ll tell you. Let’s just jump right into…Jason Takes Manhattan.

Yes, this was the 8^th Friday the 13^th sequel, because we really needed that many of them to begin with, and I have to say it’s just downright comical how many of these there were. I mean, this series was like the film version of that trailer trash family who lives in the trailer park that everyone else tries to avoid for fear of getting beat up. There were a ton of offspring produced at a rapid rate, sacrificing quality for quantity. In the end, there just wasn’t enough money to feed all those hungry mouths. And that metaphor applies to Friday the 13^th too, as this movie got the sloppy leftovers of everything the series did in the decade prior, leaving virtually no impression and coming out to mostly a lot of up-chucked 80s shit. Excited? Me neither! But we’re going to look at it anyway.

First of all, the title – Jason Takes Manhattan? That sounds like a Scooby Doo type scenario. It’s like, hey, kids, where’s Jason gonna go to next?! Manhattan? Oh, that wiley old dog. He’s just downright wacky with how far he travels and the mishaps he gets into! Tune in next week to watch him invade Paris. And what is this about taking Manhattan, anyway? Is he going on tour?

"Make sure to vote for me in the next election. Thank you, and to all a good night!"

Eugh. Anyway…the movie starts off with a nostalgic sounding 80s rock ballad over scenes of grungy, punky 80s Manhattan, dirty buildings, graffiti, Mohawks and all. Enjoy this while it lasts as it is the LAST YOU WILL SEE OF MANHATTAN FOR THE NEXT HOUR. Seriously, what’s the logic behind that? It’s false advertising! We begin the real “story” – hah – with a guy and girl sleeping together on a boat on Crystal Lake. After some foreplay, they stop having sex when they hear something outside. After that, the guy decides to tell her a scary story about Jason Voorhees’s origins, because that’s the perfect thing to do right in the middle of sex. I get the idea this guy is a real Casanova.

Chick: "What's wrong?"
Cheesy 80s Dude: "Well, my hair is so girly I look more like a woman than you do, and I'm in the 8th Friday the 13th sequel..."

He then takes this idea even further when he sneaks away to put on a Jason mask just to provide the movie’s way of getting Jason’s mask back on him later. Then the movie remembers it still needs Jason in the flick to begin with, and so we get…uh…well, this:

It’s a hastily written device to bring Jason back from the dead! They aren’t even trying to make it look plausible or make it fit into the plot at all anymore; they just go ahead and do whatever they want. That kind of nonchalance is hard to come by; the kind of stuff the Halloween and Child’s Play movies only dream about!

So our favorite hockey mask wearing big lug goes on a killing spree, because he hasn’t done that in the last five minutes. He kills the 80s hair-disaster and then goes after the girl, who has wisely chosen to hide in a confined space where he can easily trap her. Because I guess JUMPING OFF THE BOAT is out of the question. Or…doing anything else other than hiding in a place where he can easily trap her. Dumbass.

The next day, we see a shy, bashful girl named Rennie and an older woman, who is revealed to be her teacher from school, oddly enough. So she rides around and hangs out with her teacher? Why? And her teacher gives her a gift that turns out to be an ink pen that was rumored to be Stephen King’s at one time. Movie…name-dropping random horror icons won’t make this movie any scarier. It’s better just not to try. You’ll be less embarrassed that way…okay, I’m lying; no you won’t be. The story is basically that the graduating class from this high school is going to Manhattan by cruise ship. Or, alternately, ‘INSERT HALF ASSED SET-UP HERE FOR JASON TO GET SOME KILL POINTS.’ Full stop!

Then we get introduced to a bitter old white guy named Charles McCulloch, who is the principal of the school the kids are graduating from and apparently Rennie’s uncle, and who doesn’t approve of her going on this ship, because she’s afraid of the water, I guess. But Rennie says she’s going to do it anyway. And man, is her character boring. She doesn’t even really act so much as just…stand around and stare off into space, because I guess that shows that she’s traumatized, right? McCulloch is no better though, as although he does act, he doesn’t really do much besides shout in a gruff voice and point his finger while scowling.

The other passengers on the boat include this dorky kid – you can tell by the glasses –who loves carrying his camera around, a rock star chick who just plays her guitar anywhere she wants, a bunch of guys who do nothing but box, and two really popular high school prima donnas. Oh, and the Generic Horror Good Guy, here called Sean. Although he doesn’t really need a name, as you have seen this character in every movie from Nightmare on Elm Street to Boogeyman, and everything else in between. Chipper!

Rest in piece, electric guitar...you were truly the best actor in this movie.

So Jason kills the rock star chick first, which is a shame, as she might have provided some decent filler for the movie, but I guess she already played the two songs she knows, so they just killed her off. With her own electric guitar, at that! He kills one of the boxer kids with a hot coal, and the movie generally just kind of plods along. For some weird ass reason, the two popular girls take some animosity to Rennie, and decide to push her off the side of the boat because she’s afraid of water. Is there going to be any explanation of this, or any furthering of the conflict between these characters? Okay, okay, I’m an idiot for asking that in a Friday the 13^th movie, hold your rotten vegetables.

After that, Rennie goes into the bathroom to wash her hands when blood starts coming out of the faucet. I would make a comment about that, but frankly what happens after that is more interesting. I…would try to explain it to you, but frankly it left me speechless. So just look at these pictures:

I mean…what the hell? What kind of drugs was she on? What kind of drugs were the filmmakers on? I don’t even know what I’m looking at, honestly. Why the neon colored smoke? Did the director just have a smoke machine he was dying to try out before he let his daughter have it at her birthday party? It’s downright baffling. I mean…I just can’t wrap my head around this. What were they trying to get across? I need answers! I guess it’s supposed to be some kind of hallucination of Jason as a child, but…hello, try and make a little more fucking sense with your visuals, please! You could at least have a little coherence.

Jason kills more of the kids and starts to literally rock the boat as a big storm comes and sends everybody running around like chickens with their heads cut off. The ship eventually starts to flood and sink, so the five survivors, including the one black guy that Jason threw off the boat and…for some reason didn’t kill…as well as a dog, have to get on a lifeboat and start rowing. They eventually reach Manhattan through some pretty standard editing, and they start jumping for joy. And Jason arrives too, suddenly able to swim somehow, I guess. This does lead to the funniest scene in the movie, however:

As soon as our main characters arrive on the mainland, they’re mugged and Rennie is kidnapped, drugged and about to be raped by two scumbags. Oh, and they shoot at the dog, making it run away. People, welcome to New York! The land of promises! If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere…unless, however, you run into lowlife rapists in a dark alley or a supernatural killing machine wearing a hockey mask. Then you’re pretty much fucked.

This starts the movie’s meltdown, as our token black muscleman is decapitated by Jason in one punch. After they crash a car into a wall and set on fire, killing their teacher in the process, Rennie suddenly has a big plot-revealing flashback that shows her what happened. Apparently when she was a kid her uncle pushed her into the water to try and teach her how to swim, telling her that if she didn’t swim, Jason Voorhees would get her…which he did try to, almost drowning her. Man, what a dick this McCulloch guy is. I hope he dies soon…oh, he’s the next Jason victim, good, good. Justice has been served to those wronged by douchebags, yet again.

They get chased into the sewers, where they’re told by some construction worker who conveniently happened to be there that the sewers will flood with toxic acid in 10 minutes. Jason chases them around, but then the toxic acid comes and he pretty much melts. Like the witch from Wizard of Oz except this time with horrible 80s monster makeup:

It's like if Tom Savini's clay melted.

The movie ends with our two surviving characters finding the dog they lost earlier in the film and walking off into the Manhattan night as that same nostalgic 80s song plays again. Yep. Even though they’re hundreds of miles from home, everyone they knew is dead and they’ll likely be traumatized for life, at least they have their dog and their nostalgic 80s music. That makes everything OK.

God this movie was a headache. I do think there are a couple funny parts here and there, and Jason is always a lot of fun in general, but this movie just wasn’t good. They took way too long to get to Manhattan (the premise of the film), the kills are oddly restrained and the way it keeps trying to force the emotional side of the film with Rennie’s past is just so half-assed it literally hurts. People, this was a film franchise in remission. Tired, dated and soggy as hell. If you want to watch it, go ahead; it’s worth at least one viewing for curiosity’s sake. But after that you’re mostly just left with disappointment and embarrassment.

But seriously, what was up with that weird neon light…little kid…grabbing her neck scene…this:

…anyway? Somebody answer me!

Review: A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

Director: Samuel Bayer

Starring: Not Robert Englund

Website: http://www.nightmareonelmstreet.com/

"I was just trying to pet it."

-Freddy

A Nightmare on Elm Street? Cool! That’s the classic 80s film that spawned a pop culture icon in its main character Freddy Krueger. It’s campy and had very little of the budget it really wanted to enact its chosen nightmares, but it was charming and had a lot of bite to it. It was the kind of movie that…wait, what’s that? We’re…not talking about the classic 80s horror film, A Nightmare on Elm Street? Well, what the hell is it then? It’s the same title, and it’s the same lead character. Oh god, it’s a remake, isn’t it? They really did it, didn’t they?

Yes, despite the complete nonsensical choice of remaking a film that was more about its lead actor than the actual storyline, some two-bit Hollywood team decided that the original film just didn’t cut it anymore, even though its image is still featured in the pop culture lexicon and is still very well known by the general public. You could make the argument that it’s just a tasteful reimagining of the old film to pay tribute to it, but really what this movie is is a complete void of anything resembling plot or memorability. There’s just nothing to it. It’s a complete waste of time and I’ll tell you why.

The movie actually starts off pretty promising, with some opening credits that feature some cool lighting effects and shadow-play as some little kids play on a playground, with the words all scrawled in madcap, nonsensical scribbles. This could have been a really good music video for a Rob Zombie or Rammstein song or something, but the movie decides it wants to try and tell a story instead. Oh, and did I mention the producer is Michael Bay? That’s not exactly something to be proud of, movie. In fact it’s more like the embarrassing uncle who got locked up for touching a little girl, who you don’t mention anymore in family prayers and pretend he doesn’t exist.

We eventually cut to the first scene. This is in a diner where apparently the service is just pure crap, as we see the waitress completely ignoring the scruffy blond-haired patron who asks for more coffee. He gets up and is subsequently slashed by Freddy. Then he wakes up, as it was all a dream – although he does find some blood on his hand.

The waitress says, “You should stop falling asleep in here, or else you’ll get kicked out.”

Why? What do those two things have to do with one another?

We cut to some other douchebags in another booth who see a hot girl come in and sit down with the first guy, talking to him about dreams. They angrily leave the diner because of this...apparently it’s because one of the guys used to date the blonde girl, but still, leaving the fucking diner because of it? That’s pretty drastic, don’t you think? What if some of them were hungry and hadn’t eaten all day? Then we see the blond guy’s brilliant logic as he responds to the girl’s insistence that his dreams aren’t real by saying, and I’m quoting here, “They are real.”

Well, now I’m convinced!

The blond guy falls asleep again, I guess, and is killed by Freddy. We then cut to the title screen of the movie. Oh good, because I would have forgotten what movie this was if you didn’t show that. No, really; I would have forgotten. It’s that unremarkable.

We then cut to the kid’s funeral, in which we’re supposed to care because he was a good looking white kid in a horror movie – pfft, those are a dime a dozen these days. The blonde chick from before, whose name is Kris, is wearing perhaps the skimpiest funeral dress ever as she mourns this bland character. We see her falling back in with her ex-boyfriend, who sneaks in through the window of her house. Because that’s not 20 years outdated, right? She asks him to stay the night and – get this – he says he will! A guy accepting a girl’s offer to stay the night? PSHAW, THAT’S JUST UNHEARD OF. WHAT A SHOCKER.

Then just like in the original movie, she gets offed too. Freddy slashes her up and here we see another of this movie’s setbacks: Jackie Earl Haley as Freddy. He has no screen presence here! He’s trying and all, but really the writing is just so weak and his performance so bland that he has no real charisma. He’s just lame all around and not at all the hyperactive, witty and cunning devil that original slasher Robert Englund always portrayed. It’s one thing to take a different angle on the whole thing but another entirely to just half-ass it.

That's gonna hurt in the morning...

But yeah, Kris gets killed and the guy starts running for the door. He somehow sets off the house alarm by opening the door from the inside…don’t ask me how that works…and this somehow alerts the police right away, as they apparently gather all the info they need about the crime and know who the suspect is at the speed of light, as they start chasing him down like a dog. He sneaks into the window of the waitress from before – does this kid ever use the door? – and we find out it’s Nancy, in a reinterpretation of her character from the original film. He shouts at her for a while about dreams and nightmares and such, and then jumps back out the window and gets caught by the police.

He is put in a cell with some dude with tattoos and meanwhile, Nancy calls up Quentin, who she finally wants to talk to, after he offered her a sympathetic ear earlier. Uh, dude, I don’t think you really want to open that can of worms – those quiet girls are usually the craziest ones. She’ll probably start telling you about the collection of human hair she has under her vanity mirror, or something.

No, of course she just wants to talk about the dreams, which apparently they’re all having. I guess they’ve all been taking the same drug – Cheesy 80s Horror Icon Marijuana. The new brand all the cool kids are smoking. Apparently it’s a real killer.

"Hello, children, today we will be teaching How to Fuck Up a Horror Movie Remake 101...tune in later for more ineptitude."

They start to do what most characters in vapid, uninteresting modern ‘horror’ flicks do: look stuff up. I mean seriously, can you BE any more boring? Every fucking movie has these scenes! You know the ones. They’re the scenes where you get a mini-montage of the characters looking through books at their school library, trying to figure out what it could possibly be that is supernaturally ailing them. Because I guess the school library has a section on nightmarish dream demons, right next to the occult section they used in Jennifer’s Body – it’s all grouped into the fabled Implausibility Sector of the library.

And you know what else? I don’t think we should stop there! There must be some way we can make this movie even more by-the-numbers. Ooh, I got it. How about we show the scene of the lone character standing up in the empty room and being stalked by some supernatural unseen force while cheap-ass over-used operatic flourishes suck the life out of the whole thing? I know that seems like a petty thing to complain about, but it fits here – it really fucking fits. I mean I am positive I have seen these exact camera angles with that exact musical score in like five or six other movies. It’s just lazy filmmaking, is what it is.

So then, like in the original film again, that kid who got arrested is killed too, only this time he has a cellmate who rightfully gets pretty hysterical. Nancy and Quentin hear about it and start preparing to catch Freddy once and for all. But first, Nancy talks to her mother about Krueger, confused as to why she keeps finding old pictures of her and the other kids when she didn’t even know them until later in her life. Right on cue, we get the movie’s backstory. Listen up now, because it’s not quiiiiite the same story you remember…basically Freddy was a gardener at this daycare all the kids went to when they were 5, and they kept coming home with scratch marks on their back. Apparently Freddy took them to his ‘secret cave.’ The parents tell them that Freddy just disappeared, but since everyone already knows the original story, there’s no real suspense built up here.

Hey! You're getting blood all over the nice tile floors. Bitch.

After some more bullshit, they start tracking down everyone who used to be at their daycare. They find that most of them are dead, as we see one video of the movie’s token Asian kid of course making a web blog video, as all Asian kids do technological things all the time. He says he can’t sleep and is deeply troubled – why do I get the idea he’s actually talking about making this movie? Then Quentin has a daydream (for some reason while he’s swimming) and it is revealed to him what really happened, because I guess Freddy really needed to give them more information instead of just making them go crazy…oh fuck it. Like in the original, the parents all chased him down and burned him alive inside a warehouse.

I’m not going to nitpick too much at this, as it is pretty close to the original, except for one bit: When Krueger first goes into the warehouse, all the townspeople start shouting for him to come back out. Now, what is the logic in that? What’s he going to do in response? Obey them and come out quietly so they can beat him to death? “Okay, Mr. Angry Mob Leader, I’ll gladly come out so you can kill me! Top of the mornin’ to ya!” Silly. Man, I really want to finish this review; you have no idea. Let’s see if we can get it done quickly.

They go to the warehouse, discover some demeaning photos of Krueger and Nancy and start to act really overdramatic and in pain about what they apparently forgot when they were kids. I understand why but…is this even the same movie anymore? It’s like the beginning of some kind of psychiatrists’ promo video, right before they advertise where to call if you need rape crisis help, or something. Freddy comes, they fight and stuff, they kill him, THE END. FINALLY.

This movie is shit. Plain and simple. It has some good ideas here and there, a few good threads of plot that could have been elaborated on, and I liked the special effects well enough, but it’s just so dull and so underwhelming that it just doesn’t work. Jackie Earl Haley doesn’t do that good of a job, the script is hackneyed and underdeveloped and there just aren’t any surprises at all. It’s just not a good movie. And that’s all I have to say about that. Avoid this if at all possible, audience.