One of the funny things about digging through the annals of obscure horror cinema is when you stumble on an A-list superstar making an early career appearance before they were famous. Of course, I've already seen most of the biggest examples of this: Johnny Depp in A Nightmare on Elm Street, Kevin Bacon in Friday the 13th, Tom Hanks in He Knows You're Alone, Jennifer Aniston in Leprechaun, Jason Alexander and Holly Hunter in The Burning; the examples are numerous. But I haven't seen them all, in part because some of these aren't particularly any good. I should perhaps stop intentionally watching bad movies this year, but maybe these will be fun?

• Jack Chop (short)
• The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror V: Nightmare Cafeteria
• Slaughter High (trailer)
• Return to Horror High (George Clooney) - The trouble with "before they were famous" movies is that, often, the person who will go on to be famous is only in the movie for a short time, and this movie is a pretty good example of that. George Clooney shows up for the first ten minutes or so of this movie, but then he's unceremoniously killed off. During his short time onscreen, he does actually display some sense of charisma... that, or I'm just really suggestible. But seriously, there's a moment where he's walking up steps in a police officer uniform and messing with the film crew that feels like an ad lib that they kept in the movie because Clooney's a likable dude.
  
  Anyway, the other thing about this movie is that I sorta assumed it was a sequel (to a film called Horror High?), but as it turns out, that's not the case. There was some sort of massacre at a high school a while back, and now a low-budget horror movie crew is retelling the story at the very location in which the tragedy happens. There's actually a lot going on here. The film opens with the police trying to piece together what happened with the film production (apparently they're all dead). The lone survivor relays what happened, which we see in flashback. Then the film production itself is retelling the original tragedy... which are also portrayed as seamless flashbacks. It's flashbacks within flashbacks; we have to go deeper. An interesting idea, if not exactly well executed and rather confusing at the end. That ending has some cooky twists that don't make sense at all, but are kinda fun anyway and along the way, there's lots to enjoy here. There's plenty of humor on display (even if all of it doesn't land) and while Clooney is offed at the beginning, there's lots of other lower-tier faces that you might recognize. Alex Rocco, he actor who played Moe Greene in The Godfather, is hamming it up as the sleazy Hollywood producer. Maureen McCormick, of Brady Bunch fame, is having a good time as a police officer. And there are a couple other folks I recognized too. Look, it's not a good movie, and I don't think anyone would be watching this if it weren't for the Clooney bit part, but it's kinda fun. **
• American Pickers Texas (Robot Chicken)
• Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers (NSFW Trailer)
• The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (trailer)
• Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (Renée Zellweger and Matthew McConaughey) - Two for the price of one! Both Renée Zellweger and Matthew McConaughey play major roles in this rote retread featuring a quartet of kids on prom night getting lost and running afoul of (what one must assume is) the next generation of chainsaw wielding cannibals.
  
  This is clearly the worst movie of the weekend, with a plot that's just a mashup of Texas Chainsaw tropes and a few baffling non-sequiturs (Why is McConaughey's character... bionic? Who the hell is that businessman?) That being said, McConaughey brings a real villainous energy to the role. It's a shame that he mostly disowns the movie because his performance really does keep things lively, no matter how bad the rest of the movie is. Zellweger, too, is doing pretty well given the crappy material. Ultimately, this is another situation where I'm guessing that the movie would be forgotten if not for the before-they-were-stars component, though some of those bonkers decisions might garner enough of a cult following, I guess. *1/2
• "Gremlins 2" Brainstorm (Key & Peele)
• Critters (trailer)
• Critters 2 (trailer)
• Critters 3 (Leonardo DiCaprio) - A family on a road trip inadvertently picks up some Critter eggs and transports them to the big city, where they hatch and start wreaking havoc on an apartment building in the slums. I can kinda see what they were trying to do here - take the Critter threat away from the rural town setting and set them loose in a big city... but they clearly didn't have anywhere near the budget needed for the requisite mayhem. Heck, they don't seem to have enough budget to equal the first two installments, which had throngs (packs? herds? hordes?) of critters, while this one has exactly five. They still look great, and the movie does a reasonable job differentiating them (one is scarred by bleach and becomes the sorta unofficial leader; another is called "Blackie" for presumably racist reasons), giving them new powers (they have a Sonic-like ability to spin in place before launching an attack now), and coming up with creative ways of killing them.
  
  A larval Leonardo DiCaprio shows up as the stepson of the apartment's scumbag owner. Unlike the other stars in this post, he doesn't get to show much of his starpower here. He's not bad, to be sure, but it's not like you'd watch this and think "That kid's going places!" (like you might with McConaughey, Zellweger, or Clooney in the other movies). So this isn't as fun as the first two entries in the series (which I should probably revisit, since I really enjoyed them when I was a kid), but it's not unwatchable or anything. The very end of the film is a pretty blatant setup for a sequel, but it's actually kinda funny and so obvious that it works and... I kinda want to watch Critters 4 now (the two films were apparently greenlit and produced concurrently). You could do worse, but you really shouldn't be trying to do worse - just watch the first two and you'll probably be fine. **

So I had fun this weekend, but I think I'm ready for some actually decent movies, so hopefully we'll figure something out for next week's theme that will work a little better.

During last year's Six Weeks of Halloween marathon, I watched a record 61 movies. Part of that came at the expense of watching horror related television, despite some good stuff happening there. Since I've already been thrown off my pace this year by travel and other happenings, I might as well switch gears a bit and check out some new shows. I haven't delved particularly deep just yet, but I've been watching some stuff that I found interesting, so I figured I'd share some thoughts:

• Creepshow S1:E1 "Gray Matter/The House of the Head" - Shudder's new Creepshow series is dropping one episode at a time for... six weeks (culminating on Halloween itself). It looks like each episode will feature two segments (each about 20-25 minutes long). This first episode starts a bit slow but ends strong. The first segment, "Gray Matter", is based on a Stephen King short story, and it takes place during a big storm. A kid shows up at the local convenience store to pick up a case of cheap beer for his father, who has been drowning his sorrows in alcohol since his wife died. But grief has turned him into something altogether different... Some nice atmosphere and decent creature effects, but ultimately kinda straightforward. Enjoyable, but not going to light the world on fire. The second segment, "The House of the Head", is altogether more successful and effective. A little girl plays with dolls in her dollhouse, but a mysterious severed doll head shows up, and her dolls start moving on their own.
  
  The head has murderous designs on the quaint family the little girl built up in the house, and she must figure out a way to help them. Now this is the stuff. You never see the dolls move, but the still shots you see are very effective and menacing. The little girl makes some interesting attempts to solve the problem, but because this is Creepshow, they don't really work out. Not exactly a bummer, but very creepy and entertaining...
• Creepshow S1:E2 "Bad Wolf Down/The Finger" - A platoon of American soldiers gets trapped behind enemy lines and takes refuge in a local police station. It appears that the Germans in the station have been slaughtered by some sort of wild animal. Surrounded by enemy soldiers, the Americans find a novel way to fight back. It's silly and fun and pretty much all you could ask for out of this one. "The Finger" is a little less successful, though it has some nice moments and the idea at its core works well enough. A man finds a finger on the ground and brings it home to research where it came from. Then the finger starts to grow, at first another finger, then a whole arm, then a whole little gremlin thing... that likes to watch soap operas and eat popcorn. Ultimately it just sorta peters out, but it comports itself well enough. As per usual, these anthology series are a bit uneven, but each story is short enough to keep interest going. I'm looking forward to watching more of these as the season progresses.
• The Twilight Zone S1:E1 "Where Is Everybody?" - I've obviously seen lots of episodes of the Twilight Zone, but I thought it might be fun to go back and start from the very beginning with this 1959 episode in which a man finds himself in an empty town and slowly grows crazy in the isolation. A neat little tale, not one of the best episodes to be sure, but short and sweet, and pretty indicative of the types of stuff we'll see in the rest of the series.
• The Twilight Zone S1:E2 "One for the Angels" - A street salesman (i.e. a pitch man) comes home one day to find that Death is waiting for him, sez he's scheduled to die that night, gives him time to set his affairs in order. The salesman attempts to appeal, settling on the idea that he'd like to make a really big pitch before he dies, you know, "one for the Angels!" Death agrees, but when the salesman attempts to welch on the deal, Death tells him that he's going to have to take someone else's life instead, and chooses a local neighborhood girl. Will the salesman be able to find a way to save the little girl? This is a really nice episode. I don't normally think of The Twilight Zone as being heartwarming, but this episode strikes the right balance. Great performances here too, which certainly helps sell the experience.
• The Twilight Zone S1:E3 "Mr. Denton on Doomsday" - A western about a town drunk and former quick draw champion whose past catches up with him, with a little help from the personification of Fate. Another neat little episode with a happy ending, but no less effective because of that.
• Evil S1:E1 "Pilot" - This new show from the creators of The Good Wife is about an investigator for the Catholic Church looking into reports of possession and miracles, etc... The first episode involves a defendant trying to use insanity/possession as a defense against murder charges. There are some effective little bits here and there, and I like the debunking aspects of the episode, but it also feels like they're trying to have their cake and eat it too. This sort of thing could potentially be worked out over time though, so maybe this will end up scratching that X-Files monster-of-the-week itch. It's an easygoing show akin to your typical CBS procedural, but with a more supernatural flair. Some bits are perhaps too on the nose, but it's a decent enough start. I'll probably watch more of this.

I'm definitely planning to dive deeper into The Haunting of Hill House this year, and may check out some other series if time permits...

Wherein I continue my slow, shambling stroll through the classic Universal Monster movie catalog. Or should I say, my slow, uncoordinated swim through the Creature from the Black Lagoon series, of which there are only really three entries and a massive trail of failed remakes and reboots. Naturally, there are tons of Gillman-like creatures peppering the pop culture landscape. Most recent and notable is Guillermo del Toro's Oscar Winning The Shape of Water, itself a failed reboot concept that del Toro was able to wrangle into something slightly different. Now that the whole Dark Universe concept has floundered, who knows when we'll see the next iteration of the Creature. But I suspect we will, someday. In the meantime, let's dive into the sequels:

• Creature from the Black Lagoon (trailer)
• The Lagoon Creature's Name (Robot Chicken)
• The Shape of Water (trailer)
• Revenge of the Creature - Another trip to the Amazon, another encounter with the Creature. This time, the Gillman is captured and transported back to a water-themed amusement park, presumably to be trained in dumb show tricks like jumping through hoops and kicking footbals or something. Naturally, the experiments go poorly and the Gillman escapes for the inevitable rampage. Lots of underwater photography (I want to say more than the original, though its been awhile since I watched it) and the Creature hiself looks as good as ever.
  
  Storywise, there's not really much here. The love triangle is not especially romantic and perfunctory at best, and the characters strike me as less effective versions of the same types from the first film. The Creature kidnaps our heroine not so much because of story reasons, but because that's what happened in the first film. The aforementioned inevitable rampage isn't particularly rampagey, and the Gillman seems a bit less badass in this sequel. Even the thematic component lacks here, with the broad ecological concerns of the first film replaced with the idea that animals don't like being in zoos (which is fine, but a step backwards for the series). A paint by numbers sequel that entertains well enough but doesn't really push any boundaries. I think the most interesting thing about this movie is that it features a very early appearance of Clint Eastwood as a scientist who forgot he has a mouse in his pocket. Which is cool, and all, but it's only about 30 seconds of screen time. **
• The Monster Squad (trailer)
• Creature Nightlife (Robot Chicken)
• The Host (X-Files)
• The Creature Walks Among Us - Another expedition, this time to the everglades, where they quickly find the creature but accidentally light him on fire. The third degree burns have mostly burned off the Gillman's scales, revealing what appears to be human skin, prompting questions about biological transformation and evolution. Credit where credit is due - this is not a tired retread of the previous two films, and indeed, it makes some interesting choices. In fact, the Gillman is notably less aggressive in this film, especially after his transformation (this despite appearing to be surprisingly jacked in his more human form).
  
  There is, of course, the requisite rampage towards the end, but besides the two main villains of the piece (a serial harasser and a cowardly, abusive scientist and husband that are both real turds, especially with respect to their treatment of our female hero), the Gillman's ire is mostly reserved for inanimate objects like gates and stone pillars. The ending is surprisingly affecting, with the Gillman, suffering from several bullet wounds, instinctively trying to retreat towards the water, a place where he can no longer survive. **1/2

I've been traveling, so this week's posts have been a little lighter than normal (actually pretty surprised I managed the two scheduled posts, even if they're not up to normal standards). I'm back now, so regularly scheduled 6WH activities can resume in full force. At this point, I'm not sure what the coming week will hold for me, but I have some ideas, so stay tuned!

There's a phenomenon known as Twin Films, wherein two films with suspiciously similar plots are released around the same time by two different studios. Canonical examples include Deep Impact and Armageddon (well, for people my age, I guess) and Dr. Strangelove and Fail Safe (to give a much earlier example).

In the midst of preparations for the 1978 Project, I noticed one such pair of films, this time concerning killer bees. Combining the 70s penchant for disaster films with the general fascination and panic around the Africanized Honey Bee, these are only two examples of many others tackling the vaunted killer bee (there's even another one from 1978, a TV movie called Terror Out of the Sky). I'm guessing they were also trying to capitalize on the When Animals Attack trend ignited by Jaws and its many imitators. But wait! There's more! The 70s also saw the rise of the eco-thriller, and these movies certainly glommed onto that trend as well..

• Nicolas Cage: No, not the bees! (clip)
• Animals Attack Trailers
• A Message from the Bees (Robot Chicken)
• The Bees - As killer bees migrate through South America and eventually reach the United States, researchers seek to understand and end the threat before the swarms attack high population cities. But the bees are changing, becoming more intelligent. Will our intrepid heroes figure out a way to defeat the vicious, unstoppable bees and their blasphemous hive minds? This one has a really poor reputation, but it showed up on Shudder last year and I caught the end of it, which made me want to revisit it this year. It's... not a good movie, but I suspect its blatant anti-corporatism and eco-thriller elements would go over reasonably well with certain audiences these days. I mean, this is some truly hamfisted stuff, but it sorta rockets past unbelievable and pedantic into so-bad-it's-good territory. Genre mainstay John Saxon (Black Christmas, Nightmare on Elm Street, Enter the Dragon) anchors the cast, delivering his hammy lines with the proper amount of authority. John Carradine lends some gravitas to the proceedings as well, and Angel Tompkins holds her own too (though at first, she's saddled with an... unlikely relationship partner). The plot gets more ridiculous as it goes on, mostly reserving its ire for greedy corporate types but also putting the United Nations and general governmental bureaucracy on full blast. By the time Saxon figures out the mutated hive mind's hyper-intelligent plans and starts relating it to the United Nations, it's almost laughable, though again, I feel like today's general climate of environmental advocacy might actually get an earnest kick out of this sort of wish fulfillment. Of the two movies in this post, this is clearly the lower budget take. Apparently it was completed first, but Warner Bros. paid the distributor to postpone the release to allow more room for The Swarm... I don't think that has any real impact on the legacy of either film, really, but it's interesting and does prove the Twin Movie theory (some things labeled as Twin Movies have more dubious connections). **
• Does God Hate Bees? (Robot Chicken)
• The Killer Bees: Home Invasion (SNL)
• The Burns and the Bees (The Simpsons)
• The Swarm - Producer/Director Irwin Allen led the charge on disaster films in the 1970s. After his initial successes, he announced a slew of projects, including this one, which lingered for years and eventually came out in 1978. It flopped hard and pretty much signaled the end of the disaster movie era. It's a lavish production though, featuring a star studded cast (including Michael Caine, Katherine Ross, Richard Chamberlain, Olivia de Havilland, amongst many others), lots of special effects and explosions. But it's also incredibly bloated and sloppy, with a sprawling but rather silly narrative about a scientist overseeing a military effort to combat the bees (this is basically the same thing as the other movie - deadly new strains of Africanized honey bees are coming to America and must be stopped!) Caine is always fun and does his best with poor material here, quickly flying off the handle every time he has to justify himself to the military. There's some pure entertainment value here in terms of spectacle, and the higher budget definitely helps, but the overlong running time really sinks this one. Both of these killer bee movies have a degree of sensationalism and panic about them that is fun, but the svelt 90 minute The Bees never really overstays its welcome the way that The Swarm does... *1/2

When I was a young, I distinctly remember seeing a sensationalist documentary about how the killer bees were gonna get us all, but we're still here, so I'm guessing we did something right. Anyway, stay tuned, for we've got a Creature Double Feature coming on Sunday... if I can find the time to write it, as I'm traveling at the moment (i.e. it may come a bit late).

Here's the thing. I'm not very kind to sequels. I enjoy novelty and originality, and sequels are almost by definition not doing that sort of thing. Now, this isn't to say that everything has to be groundbreaking or transcendent. A formulaic but well executed film works great for me; witness my love for the hallowed and well established conventions of the slasher film! Sequels, though, tend to have additional constraints that are difficult to overcome, namely their tendency to repeat themselves and to suffer in comparison to the original. There are exceptions, to be sure. For instance, my favorite Friday the 13th film is Part VI: Jason Lives! (the whole Friday series actually does a decent job introducing new elements into the relatively strict slasher formula, actually, but there's also an element of nostalgia that distorts my impressions that should be taken into account).

Given my general distaste for sequels, I naturally decided to spend all weekend watching sequels to utter classics that couldn't possibly live up to the expectations set by their predecessors. By most accounts, these... are not great movies. I may not have thought this through.

• The Omen (trailer)
• Lucy, Daughter of the Devil (short)
• Horror Movie Daycare (short)
• Damien: Omen II - The antichrist is growing up! Now thirteen years old, living with his aunt and uncle, and attending a military school. Occasionally, someone will catch on that Damien is evil... and then they fall prey to some sort of crazy accidental death (or, at least, one that appears to be so). And that's pretty much it for the plot here. Basically a retread of the first film, but this time Damien's innocence and vulnerability are lessened. There's a nugget of a cool idea here, which is a sorta coming of age story for the antichrist, but the film does not go into a lot of detail about that. A couple of times, I thought they would have Damien struggle a little more to come to terms with his destiny, but it's mostly just surface material. The accidents are more over-the-top (with the exception of the beheading in the first film) here, with the most notable set piece being a most excellent elevator gag.
  
  The cast is actually doing pretty good work here too. William Holden and Lee Grant do well as Damien's aunt and uncle, Lance Henriksen shows up as a military instructor who helps awaken Damien's latent antichrist powers or somesuch, and Jonathan Scott-Taylor presents Damien as the potentially evil little shit he is. It's repetitive and hokey, but I kinda enjoyed it for what it was. Nothing special, for sure, but if you liked the first, you won't have any real issues with this one. **1/2
• Psycho (trailer)
• Here's Your Problem... (Robot Chicken)
• American Psycho - Hip to be Square (clip)
• Psycho II - 22 years after the events of the first movie, and Norman Bates is being released from the mental institution. He moves back to his infamous motel and takes a job at the local diner. Nothing could go wrong here! Soon, a coworker moves in and he starts to get mysterious phone calls from what appears to be his long dead mother. Is Norman Bates still crazy!?
  
  Look, nothing can really compare with the original, and to be sure, I think this movie makes an admirable attempt to progress the story. It's actually a decent character-based drama. Director Richard Franklin does good Hitchock pastiche, and Anthony Perkins is still great reprising his role as Norman. There's a bit part for sweaty Dennis Franz that's fantastic, and some other supporting characters are well done. The second act is a little flabby and the movie is a bit too long, but there are some good twists and turns later on that keep things interesting. Like all the sequels in this post, this is completely unnecessary and pales in comparison to the original, but it has some redeeming factors and is maybe even a tad underrated. **1/2
• The Exorcist (amazing banned/unreleased trailer)
• Repossessed (trailer)
• The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror XXVIII: The Exor-Sis
• Exorcist II: The Heretic - Four years later, Regan MacNeil doesn't remember the events of the original film, but she does have disturbing dreams that indicate her exorcism may not hold. A Vatican investigator and a hypnotic research specialist team up to see if they can free Regan from the demon Pazuzu once and for all. As a sequel to The Exorcist, well, it's bad. Taken in context of director John Boorman's filmography (nestled between Deliverance, Zardoz, and Excalibur), it looks better. There's some really bizarre choices on display here, and a lot of the film centers on weird shared-hypnosis effects and, um, locusts.
  
  Boorman's got a keen eye and I like a good freakout as much as anyone, but the special effects struggle. There's goofy giant locust composite shots that don't work, a couple of people burn alive in strangely unconvincing shots, and there's a car crash that's just kinda sad. The plot isn't particularly coherent and goes down some rather strange avenues. Richard Burton's histrionic performance as the priest suits the film though, and Linda Blair does decent work as the troubled Regan. Both are asked to do ridiculous stuff, so their performances standout all the more because of that. The film certainly has its defenders (including, apparently, Martin Scorsese, though even he admits that the execution is lacking) and has garnered a bit of a cult following, and I can kinda see it, though it's not a cult I'll be joining anytime soon and the general reception remains one of profound disappointment. I can appreciate some of what's going on here, but it ultimately doesn't work. **

Phew, that was interesting, but I'm not rushing out to watch more sequels (though I remember The Exorcist III being pretty great - dat nurse scene!) I'll be traveling this week, so posting/watching will be light. If I find time, I might still get a couple posts up and I'm loading my laptop with stuff I can watch during the flight, but who knows how much I'll actually want to do...

I was pleasantly surprised by what is now referred to as It: Chapter One a couple of years ago. That film arrived in the midst of a semi-revival of Stephen King adaptations and its success (currently the highest grossing horror film of all time, though Jaws might take it if you adjust for inflation) guaranteed more King and, of course, the exciting conclusion to the It story, It Chapter Two. Unfortunately, by "exciting conclusion", what I actually mean is... "repetitive slog".

I have not read Stephen King's novel, but as I understand it, part of its power comes from its structure. Basically, he's telling the same story twice, in parallel, with the occasional interlude from Derry's history to break things up. The dual narrative concerns a group of kids confronting a demonic clown, and the grown up versions of same, fighting same. The first movie broke out of that mold by necessity, and it was probably the right decision. However, in the process of doing so, they were setting the sequel up for failure. I suppose the writers of this could have really strayed far from the source material to provide something more original, but it's not like that sort of approach is guaranteed either. And let's not forget that King's reputation for great setups leading to bad endings (actually a pretty good recurring meta-gag in It: Chapter Two, including a cameo from King himself). It's not that King's lazy or just couldn't think up a better ending; he seems to genuinely write himself into corners. Whatever the case, the filmmakers opted for a more straightforward adaptation of the Losers as adults returning to Derry to face off against Pennywise, so it's quite repetitive.

Like the first installment, this is a slick movie with great production value, fabulous casting, and generally good performances. Unlike the first movie, the scares here feel muted and perfunctory. The problem is that the kids at the end of the first movie figured out the trick to defeating Pennywise, so all the scares in this second installment are just going through the motions. The first movie relied a little too heavy on jump scares, audio stingers, and CGI, but ultimately worked because of the approach and good execution. This second movie leaned into all of those things people didn't like, but the approach isn't novel anymore and the execution is sporadic, so it all sorta falls flat.

The child actors in the first movie had a great chemistry together, and it really felt like you saw the bonding experience as it happened onscreen. In the second movie, all of that is gone, explained away by the conceit that when you move away from Derry you "forget" what happened there. What's more, it takes forever for the characters to get back on the same page, and the plot quickly separates the characters before they can reestablish any rhythm. The whole approach reminded me a little of a video game sequel where your once powerful protagonist has to start over and rebuild all their strengths and abilities. The second act of this movie is essentially a fetch quest, with each character going off on their own to find some sort of talisman, which naturally leads to encounters with Pennywise (which, again, generally feel muted because we've seen all this sort of thing before). Some of these segments are more successful (Bev's visit to her old apartment) than others (the one bizarrely goofy needle drop during what I think was supposed to be a jump scare?), but they take up way too much time and don't get us where we need to be.

The actors are all doing their best, but the material is holding them back. Bill Hader's deadpan humor is great. James McAvoy could have chewed up the scenery with his character's stutter, but wisely kept those hammy impulses in check. Jessica Chastain is always fantastic, but again, she's not given much to do here. Bill Skarsgård's portrayal of Pennywise is still a highlight of the film... when they're not CGIing him to death (and honestly, he's pretty good even then). The other actors are all doing good work here too, but the structure of the film is letting them down. They never manage to reestablish the chemistry present in the first film, and when the film really tries to do that at the end, it somehow feels rushed and incongruous. The film does feature lots of flashbacks to the characters as kids, which you'd think would help given the aforementioned chemistry and bonding, but it only serves to further highlight the flaws in the current day portions of the film.

The plot also includes a few other encounters with Pennywise that are experienced by folks around town. Some of these are straight from the book, such as the gay couple getting attacked by local homophobes and then literally becoming a meal for Pennywise. Others I'm not sure about. While some of this stuff is well done (and better executed than the stuff featuring the adult Losers, perhaps because these other characters don't know what they're up against), it's all completely superfluous. In a movie that's nearly three hours long, that sort of thing should have probably been minimized in favor of keeping the story moving.

Then there's the plan to defeat Pennywise. Despite having already figured out the secret to fighting Pennywise in the first film, the crew devises this elaborate scheme based on an old Native American ritual... that makes no sense. One of the Losers has done a bunch of research on the town and discovered this ritual that was used to fight Pennywise when he first arrived a couple hundred years ago... but no one seems to point out the obvious, which is: if this is what they used to fight Pennywise before, but Pennywise is still around, then the ritual clearly doesn't work. Again, the crew has already fought Pennywise as kids and figured out the secret (Pennywise ran away at the end, so I guess that wasn't entirely successful, but they figured out what was needed). The writers further rush the Losers into the confrontation in a way that feels contrived and clunky.

Speaking of Pennywise, one of the minor complaints from the first movie was that the extent and degree of his powers were unclear at best. This movie only further leans into this lack of clarity, which is part of what drives the lack of genuine scares in the film, and also makes the ending feel facile and unconvincing. On the other hand, the ending does kinda sorta make sense. I mean, it's essentially the same as the first film and I don't know why we had to wander through three hours of film to get to essentially the same place, but it works better than, say, a giant space turtle saving them (a probably exaggerated paraphrase of the book's ending, which, again, I have not read).

Perhaps I am being too hard on this movie. It's indulgent, bloated, and overlong, but it didn't feel like three hours either? There's some weird contradictory feelings this movie brings out in me. It's clearly too long, but it also feels like there's stuff missing? This is a repetitive story, but it doesn't work here while it did in the first movie? Ultimately, I did not particularly like this film. I'm always tough on sequels to start with, and this one was primed to annoy me with its inherently repetitious plot and general sense of just going-through-the-motions. None of this is a particular surprise, but while the first movie would up greatly exceeding my low expectations, this one couldn't even manage to clear the low expectation bar. Count me interested in whatever director Andy Muschietti tackles next though. The guy's got some chops, for sure, and to be fair, this second It movie may have been an insurmountable challenge to start with... Anyway, stay tuned, for on Sunday, we're going to post about more (probably disappointing) sequels to good movies.

The weather is turning, wind is blowing through leaf piles, wicker baskets are filled with mutant squash, people are mutilating pumpkins for fun, yards are filling up with cemetery furnishings like tombstones with ironic inscriptions, decorative corpses, and ornamental cobwebs, and of course, the pumpkin spice must flow. These and other nominally ghastly traditions suddenly becoming socially acceptable can mean only one thing: It's Halloweentime! Yes, it's the best time of the year, and to celebrate, we here at Kaedrin watch a crapton of horror movies over the course of the next six weeks. Why six weeks? Well, it used to be a lot better than most normal people's four week marathons... but now everyone else seems to have caught on and started in with the Halloween jam starting in September. These days, Pumpkin beer shows up in July. Not that I'm complaining (I mean, the start of summer is at least partly great because by then we're well on our way to Halloween).

This year's marathon starts off with a trio of silent horror movies. I tend to find these movies a tad staid, but it's always an interesting experience and often illustrates a direct line of influence to current horror trends. The excessive focus on visuals over all can also lead to indelible imagery that can't quite be replicated by sound films (not that they don't have their own visual impressiveness, it's just different). Don't worry, we've got plenty of time to descend into the more schlocky gore and so-bad-it's-good zaniness. But for now, let's strap on our monacle and observe some historically important cinema!

• Don't (fake trailer)
• The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror: Bad Dream House
• The Cabin in the Woods (trailer)
• The Bat - A violent criminal dressed up like a giant bat terrorizes a family renting an old mansion in search of a banker's hidden loot. Or something like that. Despite mostly taking place in one location, the plot is sometimes a bit hard to follow. Adapted from a play (which was itself adapted from a book), it's clear that the silent era constraints on this one were insurmountable (director Roland West would later remake the film as a talkie in 1930; apparently a more refined take, and there's also a 1959 remake starring none other than Vincent Price). That being said, there's a lot of interesting stuff going on here. The transfer I watched wasn't great quality, but the visuals were well done and memorable. It doesn't quite capture the the extreme angular German expressionism of the era (typified by The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari), but some of those elements are well represented nonetheless. The intertitles (while perhaps not up to the task of encapsulating the plot) are mostly on point and even quotable (the winner:"For twenty years I've stood by you through Socialism, Theosophism and Rheumatism - but I draw the line at Spookism!") It's an early example of the "old dark house" tale (though The Cat and the Canary did it better just a year later), complete with all the requisite tropes: dark shadows, silhouettes, mistaken identities, hidden passageways, red herrings galore, a screaming, slapstick maidservant, a racist portrayal of a Japanese manservant, a sassy, drunken aunt, and a dude running around in some sort of elaborate costume. In this case a bat, which apparently was one of the inspirations for Batman (indeed, there's even a sequence with a bat-signal).
  
  At first shrouded in shadow and silhouette, The Bat is great looking, and even once you get a closeup look of the costume, it's pretty neat. It's also something of a precursor to the slasher and its various influences (i.e. Giallos, Krimis, etc...) The visuals do create a nice atmosphere, but it's not especially scary. Some of the humor works well enough, but it's also quite broad and sometimes incongruous with the generally dark tone (I kinda loved the whole bear trap gag though). All of which is to say that, while interesting, there's not much here that hasn't been done better elsewhere, even if this may have done some things first. Worth it for students of cinema to see how it influenced later works, it's not really a movie for the normals. Still, I got a kick out of seeing all the tropes in their larval form. **
• The Phantom (Robot Chicken)
• The Phantom of the Opera's Girl Problems (short)
• The Phantom of the Opera (1962) (trailer)
• The Phantom of the Opera - I've obviously seen the famous reveal from this film and countless imitations and remakes and parodies over the years, but this is the first time I've watched this one from start to finish. Set at the famous Paris Opera House, allegedly haunted by a Phantom who leaves notes making demands of the new owners about who should be performing what and when. The Phantom clearly has a thing for one of the ingénues and promises her fame and fortune, whilst sabotaging her competition. Watching this one made me realize that the pacing of The Bat was actually pretty good, as it's much slower here. The shots are static and longer lasting, even the intertiles stay up on the screen for a beat or two longer (to my modern, continuous partial attention addled brain, it's a bit much). On the other hand, the clarity of what's going on is much better here, and of course there's some all-time classic moments. Notably the aforementioned reveal of the Phantom without his mask, which really is something, even today.
  
  I can't imagine what the crowds of the day thought of this reveal, but it must have been wild. The film has a few other standout visuals as well. The Paris Opera House is lovingly captured here, and there is one sequence in which the Phantom dressed up in red at a sorta costume ball descends the staircase that is quite memorable (the Amazon Prime version I watched featured the red color, which really makes it stand out in the otherwise black and white film). The film has its baffling moments (apparently the result of studio meddling, which is not just a modern phenomenon) and while the story is simple and clear, it doesn't entirely hold together on its own. But Lon Chaney's performance keeps the entire affair humming. While menacing and mean-spirited, he sometimes manages to imbue the Phantom with a sadness that would be worthy of pity if he wasn't constantly trying to kill people or kidnap women. His exaggerated physical movements and dramatic poses manage to imbue the film with a sense of dread that probably wouldn't be present otherwise. If this were to come out today, I think it would be a boon to the the hot take industrial complex and movie twitter would be unbearable for a while. Or not. Whatever, it's worth it for Chaney's performance alone and could serve as a decent introduction to silent film. **1/2
• The Grimmest Reaper (Robot Chicken)
• The Chickening (short)
• Final Destination 2 (trailer)
• The Phantom Carriage - In Swedish folklore, there's a legend that the last person to die on New Year's Eve, if they've lead a wicked life, is doomed to drive a spectral carriage, collecting the souls of the dead for a whole year. This film opens with a Salvation Army nurse on her deathbed, asking for a local drunk she'd been working to reform. Said local drunk is hiding out in a cemetery. When he refuses to visit the ailing nurse, his friends beat him up and leave him for dead, whereupon the Phantom Carriage arrives. There's a real Dickensian feel to the whole affair, as the drunk reflects on his life and bad decisions, and spoiler alert, what at first seems like it will be a really dark ending turns saccharine as the drunk repents and goes through a Scrooge-like transformation. It feels a bit rushed, I guess, but considering that this is a 1921 film, I'll cut it some slack. The whole holiday redemption theme works well enough, and it's got some great visual moments, including the spectral Phantom Carriage, which shows up translucent on screen and features the unsettling and now iconic image of the grim reaper, wearing a hooded robe and carrying a scythe.
  
  This movie was Ingmar Bergman's favorite film and clearly inspired his The Seventh Seal, amongst countless other films (notably including Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, which directly homaged the shot of a man chopping through a wooden door with an axe). Really glad I caught up with this one, and the Criterion Collection presentation is great. ***

I must admit that I cheated a little by starting this year's marathon early. I was away this weekend without access to the internets, etc... and I have another trip coming up that will probably cut down on the number of movies I watch this year (and I may skip a post or two). Otherwise, full bore til Halloween! Coming up: Tackling a current release and a trio of sequels to classics (that are, eh, not classics in themselves)...

Just clearing the baffles before embarking on this year's Six Weeks of Halloween horror movie marathon with some interesting links from the internets:

• 90 Branzinos Later: The Story Behind The Amazing Spider-Man’s Awkward Dinner - The amount of work that goes into a single shot of a bad movie is still pretty amazing (and far more impressive than most criticism of said bad movies, including mine).

  Consider the branzino. The Spider-Man scene originally called for Peter to be unnerved by the fish’s eye staring back up at him — something that’s not possible with the real-life dish, where the eyes melt in the oven. White found himself having to painstakingly remove one eye from each raw fish, then place it back in a roasted socket. The scene also needed one of Gwen’s little brothers to expertly debone the fish for Peter, a task that had to be as easy as possible for the child actor. White took a pair of scissors and made a few tiny, imperceptible cuts that allowed the kid to pull the bone out as if he were a Michelin-starred chef. He did this for every fish, for every take, alongside cooking the entrees for everyone else’s plate, as well. Sadly, neither moment made the final cut.

  To repeat, it's not even in the film. Crazy. See also: The Problem Solving of Filmmaking (linked in the previous Link Dump)
• The Day the World Didn’t End - You may have heard of the story about the Soviet officer who got a missile launch warning but basically saved the world by not acting on it; this is a more detailed account of that story, with context usually missing from the story.
• How To Make the Perfect Burger - Pretty much the platonic ideal of a How To Basic video. Perfect amount of innocuous content before it gets... weird. Wait for it. (I hope you like pickles.)
• The Most Gullible Man in Cambridge - An almost absurd story:

  Over the next four years, the law professor would be drawn into a “campaign of fraud, extortion, and false accusations,” as one of his lawyers would later say in legal proceedings. At one point, Hay’s family would be left suddenly homeless. At another, owing to what his lawyer has described as the “weaponiz[ation] of the university’s Title IX machinery against Hay,” he would find himself indefinitely suspended from his job. He would accrue over $300,000 in legal bills with no end to the litigation in sight. “Maria-Pia and Mischa want money,” Hay told me last summer, “but only for the sake of squeezing it out of people — it’s the exertion of power.”

• Very specific ways I eat snacks - Relatable.
• Yoba Skywalker Starwars goes to infinity and beyond | Monster Factory - You wouldn't think that two dorks making a custom character in Star Trek online would be great, but then, you'd be wrong.
• Steamed Hams But It's Directed By Quentin Tarantino - Goes on longer than you'd expect; gotta respect the committment to the bit.
• Quentin Tarantino's Best Scene Has Almost No Words and Just Nine Shots - Speaking of Tarantino, this deep dive into the opening shots of Jackie Brown is very good.

And that's all for now, stay tuned for some silent horror as the Six Weeks of Halloween kicks off next week!

Part of a deep dive into the films made in the year of my birth: 1978. This post is covering several films I watched while the idea was only gestating, so I'm going mostly off of memory here, except for a couple movies I only watched in the last week or so...

• The Shout - Hazy thriller in which an itinerant man (Alan Bates) injects himself into the lives of an experimental musician (John Hurt) and his wife (Suzannah York). Bates claims to have mystic aboriginal powers, notably the titular "Shout", which he says has the power to kill anyone who hears it. Hurt, being a musician, becomes enamored with this idea, but Bates is sorta using it to disrupt Hurt's marriage and you know what? The plot here is almost beside the point.
  
  This is much more of a mood piece, with an ambient soundtrack (provided by the less-famous members of the band Genesis) and bizarre framing device to set the tone. At times cryptic and hypnotic, but it can also sometimes feel pointless and hollow. Great performances all around, though Bates' quiet menace is clearly the standout, and the visuals work pretty well too. I have mixed feelings about this one. Not usually my sort of thing, but I still found it to be an interesting discovery. **
• The Last Waltz - Canadian-American rock group The Band ended their touring career with a spectacular blowout in 1976, featuring numerous celebrity guests including Bob Dylan, Neil Diamond, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Ringo Starr, and plenty of others. None other than Martin Scorsese filmed the concert and incorporated some interviews with The Band, releasing the whole package in this concert documentary. Generally, there's not a whole lot to do with a concert-based film, and while the interviews interspersed throughout are fine, they don't really sell the movie. The music itself is the real standout, and boy is it a spectacular series of guest appearances. I didn't really know what I was getting into with this, and half expected it to be a sorta talking-heads documentary where a bunch of famous musicians opined on The Band's influence, etc... But it turns out that they actually just join The Band onstage and play songs. And it's great! Scorsese clearly knows what he's doing and it it looks good too, but again, its not really the formal filmmaking that makes the movie; it's the sheer number of huge stars that show up at this show that makes the whole thing worthwhile. I really enjoyed it much more than I thought I would and I'm glad that someone of Scorsese's caliber was around to document it... but it's clearly a document and not an actual "experience". Of course, what document could ever really capture what this experience must have been like? ***
• Eyes of Laura Mars - A provocative fashion photographer (Faye Dunaway as the titular Laura Mars) begins having visions of murders seen through the eyes of a serial killer. The killer is orbiting Mars' life, killing those involved in her work. A young Tommy Lee Jones (sporting a bitchin' black turtleneck and jet black mane of hair) plays the police detective on the case. Rene Auberjonois and a larval Brad Dourif have worthy supporting roles. Tons of red herrings, approaching a sorta schlocky American take on Giallos, but not quite getting there, opting for more restraint and soft edges. It's got small doses of sleaze, but not enough to really catapult it into competition with Exploitation or Giallo (and by this, I don't mean that the film is any less valuable, and indeed it seems better received than it would have been if it really leaned into those elements). The final twist isn't that hard to see coming, but also somehow feels a little off, like it doesn't quite fit (that, at least, is very Giallo). Thematically, there's some exploration of art and influence in culture, both explicitly in the text (Laura Mars' work touches on the intersection between violence and sexuality in ways that are controversial) and implicitly in the way the story is told. The pacing drags for a while in the middle and I'm not entirely sure it sticks the landing, but it's still a fascinating little slice of 70s filmmaking. **1/2
• Game of Death - Bruce Lee's final film, he died during filming, leading filmmakers scrambling to assemble something usable from available footage. To accomplish this, the filmmakers use every trick in the book, ranging from mildly clever to face-palmingly dumb to breathtakingly tasteless. This is a movie that actually contains an actual shot of Bruce Lee's actual corpse. That's... disgusting. As a result of all this, the plot is disjointed at best, and Lee isn't in lots of the movie, or is shrouded in shadows or some other trick used to get around the lack of footage. All of which is a real shame because the films finale, set in a pagoda, features some great action setpieces.
  
  Basically a series of boss fights where Lee dons the famous yellow jumpsuit (homaged by Quentin Tarantino and Uma Thurman in Kill Bill: Vol. 1) and fights his way through several henchmen, including the, uh, much, much taller Kareem Abdul Jabbar. Ultimately the film is more interesting as the result of a historical trainwreck than as a film by itself. It's an ethically and morally corrupt attempt to cash-in on a dead movie star, but there are some transcendent moments in the film too. This makes traditional ratings here kinda hard, but let's just go **
• Xenogenesis (short) - A 12 minute short film co-directed by James Cameron and Randall Frakes, this is the sort of thing that fans of Cameron would get a kick out of. Some of his most famous ideas from The Terminator and Aliens have their roots here. It's also pretty clearly inspired by Star Wars (which came out the year before). As a piece of filmmaking, it's pretty clunky, starting with a big chunk of voiceover exposition laid over still shots of artwork, then moving to a live action encounter between a pair of explorers and a spaceship security robot thing. Some of the visuals are striking (sometimes approaching a sorta proto-TRONlook), and the technique on display is pretty good considering the shoestring budget. You'll recognize the robot as a similar design to the Hunter Killer tanks from The Terminator and the idea of a woman in an exoskeleton saving the day was clearly repurposed in Aliens. It's short and it works fine, but it's really only of interest to Cameron completists (but if you are one of those, then you'll enjoy this). **
• Snake in the Eagle's Shadow - After trying (and failing) to make Jackie Chan the next Bruce Lee, the studios let Chan do his own thing, which basically meant incorporating more comedic elements into his films. This movie is Chan's breakout effort, teaming up with legendary fight choreographer and director Woo-Ping Yuen (normal Americans probably know him best for his work on The Matrix, but he's huge in Martial Arts cinema). Chan plays an orphan adopted by a man who runs a martial arts school. Chan's character is a lovable, good-natured punching bag who is picked on by the rest of the school. One day he runs into an old man being attacked and rushes to help. Grateful, the old man teaches Chan the Snakefist style. Chan is then able to stand up to the bullies at his school, but then learns that adherents to the Eagle's Claw style are attempting to wipe out all the Snakefist masters, including his old friend.
  
  This is a standard Martial Arts plot and not really the point, but it's pretty well packed with excellent action set pieces and well choreographed fights. Woo-Ping Yuen's intricate style pairs well with Jackie Chan's trademark improvisational nonsense (well, that's a misnomer because Chan's trademark style is neither improvisational nor nonsense, but it appears that way and is a big part of his charm). This is clearly an early, not quite fully formed Jackie Chan, but it's still a great movie. The actor Siu-Tien Yuen plays the old man who trains Chan, and he's fantastic (and also, he's the real-life father of director Woo-Ping Yuen). Finally, this film has the greatest death scene in all of cinema history. Good stuff and maybe my favorite discovery yet. ***
• Drunken Master - Jackie Chan followed up his success by reteaming with both Woo-Ping Yuen and Siu-Tien Yuen for what might be his most famous early work, the one that really catapulted him into stardom. However, Chan's character is a bit less likable here, playing the spoiled son of a famous Kung Fu instructor. He causes trouble everywhere, in some cases justified (as when he defects a local merchant from another spoiled brat), and in others emphatically not (as when he tricks a girl into hugging and kissing him, though at least in this case the girl's mother kicks the crap out of him in a great scene). Fed up with his kids antics, the father sends him off to train with his great uncle, a teacher notorious for strict training methods and discipline. Eventually, Chan's character starts to wise up, learns his new teacher's secret style of "Drunken Boxing" and uses it to help defend the family clan from an assassin. Like Snake in the Eagle's Shadow, this is a very well executed martial arts movie. The trio of Jackie Chan, Woo-Ping Yuen, and Siu-Tien Yuen work really well together and that chemistry shows up onscreen. Filled with more of Chan's patented slapstick and intricate fight choreography, including the creative and entertaining Drunken Boxing style, this is another film with a high density of action sequences, and they're all fun to watch. Chan's character is a bit of a dolt, but it is fun watching him get beat up for it. It's funny, there was a recent story about how The Rock and Jason Statham have lines in their contract about how they can't lose a fight in a movie, the number of punches they can take, etc... Meanwhile, in the two Jackie Chan movies covered in this post, Chan is getting his butt kicked pretty consistently, which of course allows him an arc to grow and fight back. There's a few sequels to this movie, but I honestly enjoyed this one the best. Indeed, I'm not sure which of these I like better... ***

That's all for this first update. I'm sure I'll get to some 1978 stuff during the Six Weeks of Halloween horror movie marathon, but the next formal update will probably be sometime in November/December.

Last year, I made a resolution to watch 50 movies made before 1950. It was a fun and illuminating exercise, but I never really settled on a plan for this year (though I have noticed that my viewing has loosely gravitated towards something along the lines of a catch up on 1950-2000) because it's not like I always want to have some formal project or something. However, one thing that I thought might be interesting was to watch a bunch of movies made in the year of my birth: 1978. I've been further prompted along by film writer Catherine Stebbins' recent release of her Top 10 by Year for 1978, which is an interesting project (she's also made a fancy shmancy 'zine that's available for purchase). At the end of this, I won't be releasing a zine on etsy or anything, but maybe I can do something akin to the standard end of the year Kaedrin Movie Awards and Top 10 posts I've been doing for the past decade or so.

Obviously, I've already seen quite a few films from 1978 (as of right now 32, though some of those are included below because I only watched them recently), but there are tons of movies I have yet to see or maybe should revisit. So here's the current watchlist, broken out into small categories, because why not?

• Martial Arts - Game of Death, Drunken Master, Snake in the Eagle's Shadow
• Music/Musical - Grease, The Last Waltz
• Arthouse Auteurs - Days of Heaven, Autumn Sonata
• Crime & Punishment - Midnight Express, Blue Collar, The Boys from Brazil, Straight Time, The Silent Partner
• Horror Auteurs - The Fury, Someone's Watching Me!
• The Six Weeks of Halloween - Attack of the Killer Tomatoes!, Damien: Omen II, It Lives Again, Eyes of Laura Mars, Long Weekend, Faces of Death, The Evil, The Mafu Cage
• Mystery - Death on the Nile, Coma, The Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting
• Girl Power - Girlfriends, I Wanna Hold Your Hand
• Fantasy and Science Fiction - Heaven Can Wait, The Lord of the Rings, Message from Space
• Italian Trash - Starcrash, The Inglorious Bastards, Slave of the Cannibal God
• Exploitation - Death Force
• Killer Bees - The Swarm, The Bees

Alright, now that we're finding killer bee movies, let's just leave it at that. I will most likely not get to all of the above and will probably watch something not on the list at some point as well. As of now, no concrete timeline on this either, but it's a safe bet that I won't finish up until Spring at the earliest... But this is all good enough for now. Look for a quick update soon, but then we hit the Six Weeks of Halloween, which will certainly have some 1978 stuff, but lots more (as per usual)...