Movies

2016 Kaedrin Movie Awards

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Welcome to the eleventh annual Kaedrin Movie Awards! Eleven years! Over a decade of conceptual continuity! The idea is to recognize films for various achievements that don’t always reflect well on top 10 lists or traditional awards. There are lots of formal award categories and nominees listed below, but once those are announced, we’ll also leave some room for Arbitrary Awards that are more freeform. Finally, we’ll post a traditional top 10 list (usually sometime in mid-February). But first up is the awards! [Previous Installments here: 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015]

Standard disclaimers apply: It must be a 2016 movie (with the one caveat that some 2015 films were not accessible until 2016 and are thus eligible under fiat) and I obviously have to have seen the movie. As of this writing, I’ve seen 68 movies that would be considered a 2016 release. Significantly less than your typical critic, but more than your average moviegoer and enough to populate these awards. Obviously this is a personal exercise that is subjective in nature, but the world would be a boring place indeed if we all loved the same things for the same reasons, right? Sound good? Let’s get this party going:

Best Villain/Badass

Another middling year for villainy. I didn’t have any problem populating the list, but true standouts were rare. Special note here to Captain America: Civil War, which blurred the lines between villain and hero enough that I just didn’t include it in either category (I suppose I could have nominated the Zemo character, but… I’m not going to). As usual, my picks in this category are limited to individuals, not groups (i.e. no vampires or zombies as a general menace, etc…) or ideas.

Best Hero/Badass

A moderate year for heroism, but again, standouts are rare. Another nod to Captain America: Civil War, not nominated for reasons already explained. Again limited to individuals and not groups.

Best Comedic Performance

This category is sometimes difficult to populate because comedy so often comes in the form of an ensemble, but we had a pretty great year of comic performances (albeit, mostly unconventional ones), even if I have some duplication going on here.

Breakthrough Performance

Always an interesting category to populate. Sometimes, it’s not so much about someone’s industry breakthrough, but a more personal breakthrough. This can happen even with established actors. This year, we’ve got more of a moderate crop of young up-and-comers. The main criteria for this category was if I watched a movie, then immediately looking up the actor/actress on IMDB to see what else they’ve done (or where they came from). A somewhat vague category, but that’s why these awards are fun.

Most Visually Stunning

Sometimes even bad movies can look really great… and we’ve got a light year here, but still plenty of good choices.

Best Sci-Fi or Horror Film

I like to give a little love to my favorite genres, hence this category. When I started this category, I always had trouble finding good SF movies, so I had to pad out the category with horror. But we’ve seen an astonishing increase in good SF in recent years, mostly micro-budget independent stuff, but this year has been a bit slower in that respect, even if we’ve got a really solid SF contender!

Best Sequel/Reboot

Often a difficult category to populate, but after a few stellar years of Hollywood output, we dropped off the “they made a sequel to what?” cliff this year. That said, a few things managed to stand out:

Biggest Disappointment

A category usually dominated by sequels, and what do you know, all of these are sequels (or whatever the heck you consider Suicide Squad) . This category is definitely weird in that sometimes I actually enjoy some of these movies… but my expectations were just too high when I saw them. Related reading: Joe Posnanski’s Plus-Minus Scale (these movies scored especially poor on that scale).

Best Action Sequences

This award isn’t for individual action sequences, but rather an overall estimation of each film, and this has been a decent but not overwhelmingly awesome year for action.

Best Plot Twist/Surprise

Well, I suppose even listing nominees here constitutes something of a spoiler, but it’s a risk we’ll have to take, right?

Best High Concept Film

A nebulous category, to be sure, but a fun one because these are generally interesting movies. Lots of borderline cases this year, but a few strong standouts…

2016’s 2015 Movie of the Year

There are always movies I miss out on, whether due to availability or laziness, but when I do catch up with them, I’m often taken with them. Sometimes a very difficult category to populate, maybe because I didn’t see much, or didn’t like it, or just plain forgot that I saw it (which, to be fair, probably says something about the movie’s chances). Still, a pretty respectable list this year, with plenty to choose from.

So The Witch leads the way with 5 nominations, with Rogue One, Kill Zone 2, and 10 Cloverfield Lane not far behind with 4 nominations each. The numbers expand dramatically from there, with 9 movies soaking up 3 nominations, and lots of movies getting 1 or 2 nominations. Overall, 43 different movies were nominated this year (not counting the last category, which would put me at 48. Also worth noting that 5 of the 43 were the disappointing movies…) making this a very broad year with few films really standing out… in these categories, at least. Stay tuned for the winners, which will be announced in 1-2 weeks. I still have a few movies to catch up with, so you may even see a winner that wasn’t nominated (it’s happened before!)

* This is the actual title of the movie. Someone actually thought that up, and then more people actually approved it and put hundreds of millions dollars behind it.

Update: So I just saw The Handmaiden and yep, it steps into two awards, easily. You will probably hear more about it later in the Kaedrin Movie Award season…

2016 Year End Movie Cramming

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As our planet completes its orbital cycle, most critics and publications have already published their “Best of 2016” lists and other such reminiscences. Here at Kaedrin, we love movies, but we’re beholden to no one and do not conform to your silly timelines. Also, I’m like, just a guy who likes movies a lot. I don’t have critic credentials, have access to screeners, or any other such luxuries. So my top 10 movie lists tend to come out in February, not long before the Oscars. This gives me time to catch up with some movies that only had qualifying runs in NY/LA theaters or some indies that are only now coming to streaming availability. It has nothing to do with laziness, I swears. Anyway, my January tends to be chock full of the previous year’s movies. As of Christmas*, I had seen about 45 movies that would be considered a 2016 release (are you on Letterboxd? We should follow each other.) This might be a hair behind the past few years’ pace, but it’s basically on par. By the end of January, I’ll probably have seen 70-80 movies from 2016 and have a pretty solid top 10. There’s still lots of ground to cover, so let’s create a list of films I want to see. As per usual, much of this is dependent on availability, so I most likely won’t get to every one of these, but it’s a good place to start:

  • Tickled – A documentary where a journalist delves into the rough and tumble world of… online competitive tickling? This is exactly the sort of documentary that normally gets me, so it’s at the top of the list (and yes, I’ve now seen it, and it’s about much more than, uh, tickling; it’s also fantastic). (Available for purchase, should be rentable soon.)
  • Weiner – Documentary covering Anthony Weiner’s rise, fall, attempted comeback, and additionally collapse. Apparently notable for the amount of access the filmmakers had during his run for Mayor, especially when the scandals broke. (And yes, it’s an astounding document.) (Available on Showtime’s various streaming channels, I was able to watch it on Amazon with a 7 day free trial that I canceled the next day.)
  • Moana – Disney’s latest animated musical has been getting rave reviews and they’ve been on a bit of a hot streak recently, so this goes on the list. (Totally worth it, it’s a lot of fun…) (In theaters now.)
  • Hunt for the Wilderpeople – I didn’t know much about this except that it was the next film from Taika Waititi, who made one of last year’s favorites, What We Do in the Shadows, which is enough to make me want to see it. (And it’s great!) (Available for rental. Streaming on Hulu.)
  • Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World – Werner Herzog’s exploration of the Internet and technology, what’s not to like? (It’s decent, a bit unfocused, but interesting.) (Streaming on Netflix.)
  • La La Land – Director Damien Chazelle’s throwback musical about an aspiring actress falling for a jazz musician in LA. I am not much of a fan of musicals, but this looks to be a front-runner for this year’s Oscars and I’ve heard people say things like “This is a musical for people who say they don’t like musicals”. This makes me skeptical, but I’ll give it a shot. (And I really enjoyed it! Not sure if it’s top 10 material, but it’s fun!) (In theaters now)
  • Love & Friendship – So I’m not particularly into Jane Austen costume dramas and I’ve actually never seen a Whit Stillman movie, but I’ve heard good things about this from folks I trust, so on the list it goes. (And it’s quite good! It took me a bit to get into it, but by the end I was quite taken with it…) (Streaming on Amazon Prime.)
  • The Handmaiden – Chan-wook Park’s latest film about some sort of, um, handmaiden who is seeking to defraud her employer. Or something. Who cares, it’s Park Chan-wook, I’m in. (Releases on DVD/Streaming sometime late January)
  • Kill Zone 2 – AKA “SPL 2: A Time for Consequences”, this is a Tony Jaa action movie with some buzz behind it. I will watch this. (Available on Netflix Instant)
  • Swiss Army Man – Ah the Daniel Radcliffe farting corpse movie. Despite that pitch, it’s apparently a very good film, so I will be checking it out. (Available for rental or purchase on most services)
  • Finding Dory – Never saw Pixar’s latest in the theater, which needs to be rectified. (Available for rental on most services)
  • Pete’s Dragon – Live action remakes aren’t usually my jam, but I’m told this is worth checking out so I probably will… (Available for rental on most services)
  • The Jungle Book – Again, live action remake of an animated movie that I was never particularly in love with in the first place, but then, I hear good things… (Streaming on Netflix)
  • The Mermaid – Stephen Chow’s latest was apparently a huge hit in China… but it’s American release was suspiciously quiet. I will watch. (Available for rental or purchase on most services)
  • The Autopsy of Jane Doe – I know nothing about this except that it’s supposed to be one of the better obscure horror releases of the year. Sold. (Available for rental or purchase on most services)
  • Kubo and the Two Strings – Another animated movie that I skipped in theaters, but people keep raving about it, so I guess I should give it a shot… (Available for rental or purchase on most services)
  • De Palma – A documentary about Brian De Palma? Ok, sure, why not? (Streaming on Amazon Prime.)
  • The Fits – I don’t know much about this other than that it starts a young actress named Royalty Hightower, which is the best name ever. Also, it’s supposed to be good, so there’s that. (Streaming on Amazon Prime)
  • Elle – Paul Verhoeven’s latest and probably worth checking out solely because of that, but then, this has been getting mixed reviews, so there is that. Might not get to this one… (Availability unknown, which doesn’t help)
  • Moonlight – Critical darling of the year, it’s only playing in Philly and I’m not sure if I can get down there before it leaves theaters. Does not sound like my cup of tea, but seems worth the stretch. (In theaters now.)
  • Three – The latest from Kaedrin favorite Johnnie To, this one doesn’t appear to be available anywhere just yet… (Availability unknown)
  • The Love Witch – I have no idea what this thing is and I’ve read about it a few times but I still don’t have a clue, which does make me want to watch it, but I can’t seem to find it anywhere. (Availability unknown)
  • I Am Not a Serial Killer – I’ve heard good things about the book, so why not watch the movie? (Streaming on Netflix)

Phew, that’s 23 movies, which should keep me busy. I’m sure I’ll see some other things not on this list, and I most certainly will not get to all of these, but it’s a good start.

* I started writing this post a little before Christmas and meant to post it earlier last week, but this is a busy time of the year and yes, laziness was probably involved too. As such, a goodly portion of the above have already been watched – I’m now at 52 movies from 2016 and counting.

Rogue One

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The case against Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awakens boils down to its plot, a retread of the original Star Wars Death Star storyline. While I was more than willing to go with it, as it it does execute well (plus, as I mentioned at the time, it does “rhyme” with the original trilogy much better than the prequels), I do certainly feel like that plot point is getting a bit tired. Enter Rogue One, the first in a series of one-off “Star Wars Stories” that will be injected between the numbered outings. Once again, we’re focused on a Death Star plot… but this isn’t really a retread. It tells the story of how the Rebels managed to snag the original Death Star’s plans (and how they so quickly found its weakness). Spoilers aho!

As a child, Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) sees her mother killed and father, genius scientist Galen (Mads Mikkelsen), suborned by the Empire to complete the construction of some sort of mysterious superweapon (that we immediately know is the original Death Star). Jyn manages to escape and is rescued and raised by a splinter rebel faction led by Saw Guerrera (Forest Whitaker). Jump ahead a few years and Jyn is imprisoned by the Empire, though they luckily do not know her true identity. She is rescued by the Rebel Alliance, who needs her connections to that splinter faction, as they’ve captured a defector claiming to have a message from Galen Erso. At first reluctant, Jyn gets onboard and builds a team of rebels, including the spy Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), a reprogrammed Empire droid K-2SO (voiced by Alan Tudyk), a Zatoichi-like blind martial artist who is clearly not a Jedi named Chirrut Îmwe (Donnie Yen), and his machine-gun wielding friend Baze Malbus (Wen Jiang). Together they must find the Death Star plans and deliver them to the Rebel Alliance. Along the way, they are opposed by Empire apparatchik Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn) and his bosses, Darth Vader and Grand Moff Tarkin.

Phew. Everybody get that? For a general plot that is very simple at its core, they’ve certainly amped up the moving parts to imply complexity. Tons of new characters, lots of new planets, backstories, subplots, and so on. It’s a bit overstuffed and perhaps not every arc is completely earned, but they managed to pull it off, even if it sometimes feels a bit perfunctory. Still, for a movie that is technically a prequel where you know how it’s going to end up, this does a remarkably good job inserting itself into the series without distracting from the originals. This is a movie that engages and enriches the original. It doesn’t just retread things we already know or fill holes, it adds something meaningful to the series. It’s probably one of the better prequels ever made.

I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that almost all of these characters are new and relatively interesting. We recognize many side characters, but the core is all new and unknown to us. Again, we don’t necessarily get to spend enough time with each character’s backstory or subplot to completely earn the payoff, but it’s still a payoff. There are some standouts, namely Alan Tudyk’s voice acting for K-2SO, who gets a couple of great lines. I liked the idea of Forest Whitaker’s cave-dwelling terrorist gone half-mad with paranoia and yet, being on the “right side” of Star Wars history. Similarly, Diego Luna does some good work with his tortured spy who’s seen and done horrible things. Felicity Jones does well in the lead role, and once her character buys in, she displays enough charisma to get by. Donnie Yen and Wen Jiang make for a good team and are total badasses. The problem is, again, not enough time to really flesh out these characters, making the movie feel a bit overstuffed.

This movie is a little more consistent and even though, so we don’t quite get anything as great as BB-8 giving the flaming thumbs up in VIII, for instance, but we also don’t get as many head-scratchers (how exactly does Starkiller base work?) Ultimately, we care about the characters and they’re fun to be around, even if they don’t really go above and beyond in that respect (i.e. we’re just not given any reasons to really dislike the characters, which is a trap that they could have easily fallen into). The plot is simple, but it does add some interesting retcons that actually enhance the series (namely, why the Death Star is so vulnerable).

Visually, it’s a very impressive movie. Director Gareth Edwards seems to be good at that, and his action chops are up to par as well. I really enjoyed the action here, and the set pieces were varied enough that it never becomes repetitious or tedious. Edwards isn’t as great with story, but what’s here is light years beyond Godzilla or Monsters.

Also distressing, especially given Edwards visual effects background, is the baffling choice to use CGI models for Grand Moff Tarkin (and one other character that shall remain nameless). This is something that has kinda worked in other movies (see Marvel’s use in Ant-Man and Civil War, though in both cases, what you’re seeing is younger versions of living actors – I guess the tech isn’t quite there for actors who have passed long ago…), but fails pretty miserably here. Individual moments or stills might work fine, but added up, the CGI never quite clears the uncanny valley. They get pretty far across… only to faceplant on the far edge of the valley… It becomes even more baffling given that they were able to cast some pretty great lookalikes (at least, close enough) for some of the other side characters, like Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly). O’Reilly played Mon Mothma in Episode III, which is interesting because that movie also features Wayne Pygram as Tarkin… and that looked fine!

Finally, I think they managed to pull off the darker, grittier vibe they were pulling for without distracting from its Star-Warsian nature, but once again, they don’t really have enough time to really nail these themes down. They walk the line well, though it would be nice, just once, for someone to say that a sequel or prequel will be “brighter and more fun” rather than “darker and grittier”.

So I’d call this movie a success. It’s not perfect, but most of my criticisms are relatively minor. That being said, let’s maybe lay off the Death Star focused storylines from now on, shall we? Maybe it’s just because there’ve been sooo many sequels in 2016 that failed so completely at this, but Rogue One walked a narrow tightrope on this movie and got to the other side. In general though, this fits well with the series. The original trilogy still resonates most with me, but I’d put Rogue One at least on par with VII, if not better. It’s certainly a massive improvement over the prequels, that’s for sure. I’m looking forward to more “Star Wars Stories”, and am obviously excited for VIII. We live in bountiful times for nerdy pursuits, which makes me happy.

Story of Your Arrival

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Ted Chiang’s 1998 novella Story of Your Life is an unlikely candidate for a movie adaptation. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it “unfilmable”, but its concentration on an unromanticized depiction of a mother’s relationship with her daughter, intercut with the mother’s pragmatic attempts to translate language from an alien species visiting earth, doesn’t seem particularly cinematic. So when I heard that director Denis Villeneuve was making an adaptation, I was curious to see what would come of it. Villeneuve has done well for himself in his past few outings, which gave a glimmer of hope that someone would get it right. Eric Heisserer wrote the screenplay, but his filmography did little to instill confidence. As it turns out, I’m quite pleased with the result. It’s a different story, to be sure, but that it captures even a little of what makes Chiang’s story so interesting is enough to make it one of the better films of the year (and one of the few movies to capture the experience of reading science fiction). It won’t really be possible to comment further without Spoilers, so here be your warning.

Arrival was marketed in a way that made it look like another alien invasion movie. Even the film’s title seems to indicate a shift in intent; Chiang’s story leans heavier on the mother/daughter relationship, and the title reinforces that. Arrival focuses more on the aliens and adds in a geopolitical subplot that isn’t present in the original story at all. The mother/daughter stuff is still there, and indeed, the opening of the movie leans heavily in that direction. But there are changes, changes that seem subtle at first, but which yield a very different outcome. Abigail Nussbaum noticed this too:

To someone familiar with the story, there is a hint early on in Arrival of its shift in priorities and premise. The film opens with a series of flashes to the relationship between linguist Louise Banks (Amy Adams) and her daughter Hannah, culminating in Hannah’s death, in her early adulthood, from a disease. In the story, Hannah dies in a climbing accident. The change initially seems pointless–or perhaps yet another indication that Hollywood thinks cancer is inherently more dramatic than any other form of tragedy–and then troubling. In the story, the point of Hannah’s death being accidental is that it is easily preventable. Someone with knowledge of the future–as Louise will eventually become–could keep it from happening by saying a few words. The point of “Story of Your Life” is to explain why Louise doesn’t do this. Making Hannah’s death something that Louise can’t prevent seems, in the film’s early minutes, like an odd bit of point-missing.

I don’t find the shift nearly as “troubling” as Nussbaum, nor is her interpretation and extrapolation of the story’s themes the only one (for instance, I don’t think we really know that her daughter’s death is easily preventable, but I think that ambiguity is the point and we are meant to consider that), but it does seem clear that Villeneuve and Heisserer deliberately made these changes to the story in order to emphasize some different themes.

This is always the trap of the adaptation. It’s possible to be too faithful to the original and generally doom yourself to an inferior experience. But if you stray too far, you end up with something completely disconnected from the original. The movie makes changes and is less ambiguous, but it does still inspire the same questions in my head. Chiang’s story is a subtle examination of free will and determinism, the movie is more forthright and lays things out clearer, but still raises those questions. And frankly, I don’t have the answers. I think that’s the point.

The film certainly isn’t perfect. Some of the exposition is awkwardly presented, in particular by our heroine’s scientist counterpart, Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner), who at one point delivers a voice-over that feels wholly out of place, even as it lays out some important ideas. Later he simply blurts out the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis that learning the structure of a language affects the way you think and perceive the world, which is the key to the entire story. This is par for the SF adaptation course though, and this movie actually comports itself well on that scale. Villeneuve does well visually too. Towards the beginning of the film, we spend a fair amount of time entering the ship, where physics works differently. It’s a nice visual representation of the linguistic shift of perspective the character is about to go through. Is it as good as Chiang’s use of past, present, and future tense in the story? Probably not, but it does represent some thought put into adapting those ideas.

The added geopoltical subplot feels like it was probably necessary in order to get this film made, and it proceeds along more conventional lines. That said, it is well executed and dovetails nicely with the final twist. Its message of unity and harmony is well timed with world events, which doesn’t hurt, and it never takes away from the core of the story. It also doesn’t turn this into an action movie, however much the marketing wants you to believe it would be so. This is much to its strength.

This is a good adaptation of a subtle and difficult story, and one of the best movies of the year. Filmic SF so rarely captures the sense of wonder present in so much of its written counterpart that even if the adaptation isn’t absolutely perfect, it still puts this movie in the top tier of SF films of all time (at least, in my book). You will probably see this near the top of my top 10 list this year, and I’m hoping it garners enough attention in Hollywood to yield more attempts at this sort of thing.

6WH: Speed Round

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Time flies when you’re terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought. We’ve gone six weeks and then some, and as per usual, there are plenty of movies that I’ve watched that I didn’t write about. This might have been because it didn’t fit in a given week’s theme, or maybe I just didn’t have that much to say about it. This year’s 6WH was somewhat more successful than the past couple of years. If I’m counting right, I will have watched 47 movies during the six weeks this year, a significant step up from the past two years (where I’ve only managed 36). And that’s not counting TV viewing either. Go me. So now we cover all those movies.

  • The Toolbox Murders – The first twenty or so minutes of this movie is unbelievably sleazy and brutal. It then settles into a more traditional exploitation mold before picking up a bit in the third act. It’s a hard movie to “like”, but it’s also hard to stop watching. As mentioned during Tobe Hooper week, it was a good candidate for a remake. **1/2
  • Alligator – A follow on viewing from the When Animals Attack week, this one takes that old urban legend about a baby alligator being flushed down the toilet and growing up in the sewers and amps it up by having the alligator survive by eating discarded lab rats injected with growth hormones. Thus we end up with an alligator the size of a car terrorizing Chicago. Pretty trashy stuff, but John Sayles’s script is a cut above your typical giant animal movie, and you’ve also got Robert Forster hamming it up. Worthy! **1/2
  • Young Frankenstein – So I like this movie, but I always feel like it’s the sort of thing I should like more. I laugh during the movie, but I always feel like I should be laughing more. Great production design and cinematography, but the thing that really makes this work is Gene Wilder. He single-handedly makes the movie, and without him I don’t think it would have worked. Then again, the whole cast is great, including the comedic trio of Madeline Kahn, Cloris Leachman (*horse whinny*), and Teri Garr, and good supporting roles for Marty Feldman as Igor (it’s pronounced eye-gore) and Peter Boyle as the monster. So not all Gene Wilder, but close enough. RIP Gene… ***

    Dignity.

  • Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film – It’s become something of an annual viewing for me and was instrumental in plucking out which slashers I should watch for this year’s Slasher week… It’s a good overview of the sub-genre and worth watching if that’s your thing. ***
  • Dark Night of the Scarecrow – At some point, I was going to do a killer scarecrow week, but my Netflix queue never quite aligned right and I only got to this one, about a mailman’s vendetta against the town simpleton. It’s like The Ox-Bow Incident, but if the wronged party came back as a scarecrow and took revenge upon the mob that killed him. I liked it, but its TV movie origins are a little too obvious. **1/2
  • Goosebumps – It’s easy to get bogged down in despair when watching lots of horror movies, so a good, old-fashioned, fun romp into monster-mash territory is always welcome. I never saw this when it came out because it seemed like soulless CGI horror and, alright, so it has some of that, but I really had a lot of fun with this and it’s certainly worth checking out. ***
  • Phantasmagoria – A feature-length documentary about the Phantasm films. Interviews with all the relevant cast and crew, lots of archival footage, and so on. Maybe a step above your typical retrospective, but probably only of interest to true Phans. Interestingly, this was directed by Jake West, who really needs to get off his keister and make another horror movie (Evil Aliens and Doghouse are both great fun)…
  • Haunter – What’s this? Vincenzo Natali made a movie in 2013 that I didn’t know about? Huh. He’s gone on to become more of a prized TV director of late (particularly on Hannibal, though also pitching in on Westworld, Luke Cage, and the forthcoming Star Trek: Discovery and American Gods), but his movies tend to be a little more difficult to pin down. This one is yet another take on the whole if-Groundhog-Day-was-horror thing and comports itself reasonably well. It’s not quite as weird as you’d expect from Natali, but it’s also not a straight arrow that’s easy to parse either. **1/2
  • Holidays – Horror anthology centered around each of the major holidays. A ripe unifying structure, but it falls down a bit on execution. The biggest director name here is probably Kevin Smith, but his horror chops are, er, lacking. Ultimately, I’m having trouble remembering most of the segments, which probably isn’t the greatest sign, but it wasn’t unwatchable either. **
  • Dracula’s Dog – AKA Zoltan: Hound of Dracula! I mean, yeah, I really wanted to like this but it is a bad movie. It could maybe veer into so-bad-it’s-good territory, but it feel short of even that for me. It’s just flabby nonsense, played straight. *
  • The Silence of the Lambs – We’ve all seen it and it’s awesome. I finally sat down to watch it with the Criterion commentary track, which is one of those cobbled-together mish-moshes of different people commenting. Still good, and yeah, it’s a classic that I’ve learned is a very rewatchable movie for me. ****
  • Psycho – It’s been a while since I’ve watched this and yes, it remains a classic. You could argue about some of the pacing or odd choices, but those are exactly what makes this movie so fantastic. ****
  • The Guest – Still a lot of fun, if not quite as great as You’re Next. But it’s on Netflix instant and it’s a solid 6WH watch. ***
  • The Addams Family – Not as taken with this as I was back when it came out, but it’s still got some really cool stuff, particularly the performances from Raul Julia, Anjelica Huston, and a young Christina Ricci. **1/2
  • Possession – Dear lord, what the hell did I just watch? The batshit insanity quotient just went way up in this year’s 6WH. Ostensibly about a bad divorce, it turns out that the woman’s new beau is, um, some sort of tentacled monster (apparently Andrzej Zulawski’s elevator pitch for the movie was “A film about a woman who fucks an octopus.”). Dial performances up to 11; Sam Niell is always great at playing unhinged and Isabelle Adjani is absolutely fearless (dat “miscarriage” scene). Frankly, I have no idea what to make of this movie. Watch it if you dare. Let’s bring back the batshit rating system: ???

    Possession

  • The Slashening – You know what you’re in for once that Troma logo comes up, and yes, this is a farcical take on the slasher, with some funny bits actually landing (though many do not). My favorite is when one girl is trying to get help and smears a message on the glass (the guy inside is playing video games with his headphones on and can’t hear her). After the killer dispatches her, we see him spray the window and wipe it clean. Brilliant. It gets better as it goes on, but this ain’t a classic. **1/2
  • Ghostbusters – Yes, I still love this movie. One thing about the whole reboot situation that was annoying was all the people who claimed that we should like the new one because the old one wasn’t that good, which is kinda silly. I still laugh a lot when I watch this movie, and it’s got a sneaking backbone of genuine horror love. ****
  • Scream: The TV Series – Season 1 – So I did finish the first season and it was pretty good! Perhaps a few too many “Don’t tell the cops” moments where our heroine goes off on her own to confront the killer’s latest scheme, but it all comports itself well enough. The ending reveals are a bit of a cheat, but they kinda work too. Not sure if I like the blatant cliffhanger setup for season 2 bit, but then, I will probably watch season 2 at some point, so there is that. ***
  • Slasher – And I finished this season too… It helps that this was only 8 episodes, especially since this does kinda go off the rails a few times as it moves on. It’s played straight the whole time, but the whole skeletons-in-every-closet theme gets old fast, and those skeletons get more and more ridiculous as time goes on. Compelling enough that I watched the whole season, but it flattens out a bit as it moves on… **1/2
  • Penny Dreadful – So I watched the first couple of episodes and I should totally love this, but I haven’t quite gotten there yet. Will definitely be giving it another chance, but I wasn’t immediately convinced. Still, it’s great to see Eva Green get something to do. She should be a bigger star these days. **1/2
  • Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI – My favorite of the Fridays, I don’t watch it every year, but I probably could. ***
  • Trick ‘r Treat – Haven’t watched it yet, but is on the docket for Halloween night, as has become tradition.
  • Halloween – Duh.

I may sneak in another movie or two, depending on timing, but all in all, it’s been a very successful six weeks. I hope you’ve enjoyed!

6WH: Season’s Readings

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Movies tend to be the focus of the Six Weeks of Halloween, but I like to mix things up with some seasonal-appropriate written tales of terror as well (with the occasional work of non-fiction thrown in for fun). It makes for a nice change of pace from my normal dorky reading diet, while still maintaining high levels of dorkocity, which is important. Some of these are arguably not horror, but they’re at least seasonal, which is the whole point. I’ve already written about one epic-length book I read this season, and here’s a few others:

  • NOS4A2 by Joe Hill – Vic McQueen discovers at an early age that she’s able to use her fancy Raleigh Tuff Burner bike to find whatever she desires by driving across a seemingly impossible covered bridge. It doesn’t matter how far away the object she seeks is located, she gets there in moments. Charlie Manx has a similar talent, though his magic vehicle is a 1938 Rolls-Royce Wraith, which he uses it to pick up young children and spirit them away to a horror-filled inscape he calls Christmasland, where he feeds on their life essence as a sort of vampire (the license plate on his car reads NOS4A2, a play on Nosferatu.) One day, in a fit of pique brought on by her feuding parents, Vic hops on her bike with the intention of seeking out trouble… and finds Manx. Due to sheer luck, she survives the encounter, but decades later, Vic’s son has disappeared and Vic has to confront Manx again. So Joe Hill is Stephen King’s son, and indeed, this book features a certain kinship with King’s brand of horror. There’s an archetypal quality to the supernatural elements of the story and the talismans that allow our characters to do the impossible. The book perhaps meanders a bit and lingers too long on certain aspects, making it feel a little loose and flabby, but it’s generally compelling, page turning stuff. It leans a little too heavily on dysfunctional relationships and pessimistic attitudes for my taste, but on the other hand, it never veers into full misery porn and what’s there does serve the story. Christmasland is a fascinating creation, clearly a worthy subversion of that holiday’s good cheer. I enjoyed this quite a bit. It’s a little too long, but it comports itself well.
  • The Long Halloween by Joeseph Loeb (writer) and Tim Sale (Illustrator) – Not at all horror, but certainly seasonal. It’s a 13 issue arc of Batman where the caped crusader works with Harvey Dent and Commissioner Gordon to try and catch a mysterious murder who kills on each major holiday. Along the way, we’re treated to various episodic encounters with Batman’s infamous rogues gallery of villains… I picked this book up back when I got all fired up about Batman comics earlier in the year, but saved it for Halloween… mostly because of the title. It’s an interesting story, even moreso since it appears to be the basis for Christopher Nolan’s films. Those movies and particularly Batman Begins are clearly not an adaptation as there are tons of major differences, by many elements of Nolan’s Batman seem to originate here. Notably the focus on various crime families, which was apparently new at the time these comics were being published in the late 90s. The murder mystery itself does feel a bit on the sloppy side, but it’s all executed well enough, and it’s neat that we get to touch base with tons of iconic Batman villains throughout. The artwork was effective enough and the pacing was pretty good for such a long arc. This clearly isn’t perfect, but I really enjoyed it, and the added dimension of its influence on the movies does give it some extra zip.
  • In the Flesh by Clive Barker – I believe that, with this volume, I’ve exhausted all of Barker’s “Books of Blood”, those long running series of short stories that lit the horror world on fire in the mid 80s. This is technically the fifth collection of stories (ironically, the first collection I read was Cabal, the sixth collection, not that it matters, since these are all disconnected short stories). This one only features four stories of moderate length (I believe they’d qualify for novellette or novella status), and they’re all decent. There is one standout, but the others tend to fall behind the stories in other volumes. The titular “In the Flesh” proceeds from the fascinating premise of a prisoner who committed murder with the objective of being incarcerated in a specific prison. You see, his grandfather was buried on the grounds after being executed decades earlier, but his spirit calls out to the new prisoner. The story is told from the prisoner’s cellmate, who gets wrapped up in the supernatural mumbo jumbo and eventually gets trapped in the afterlife. Or something. An interesting and creepy premise that sort of peters out in the end. This is an unfortunate theme in this particular collection, it seems. “The Forbidden” is arguably Barker’s best-known story from the Books of Blood, having been adapted into the movie Candyman. It features a university student visiting the slums in order to study the graffiti there. Most of the graffiti turns out to be boring and unenlightening, but then she stumbles on a particularly striking area depicting an urban legend known as the Candyman. This is probably the best overall story in the collection, though it does feel a bit overlong. Still, interesting stuff. “The Madonna” is about an abandonned pool complex. Some shady real estate developers are trying to figure out how to purchase it and make money off of it, but the otherworldly residents of the pools have other ideas. This one is also pretty effective, though again the ending is a little iffy. There’s some interesting themes here though, power and gender dysphoria among them. “Babel’s Children” is about a woman who stumbles upon a mysterious compound where, decades ago, a group of scientists and scholars were brought together to secretly rule the world. They are now elderly, sick of their task, and desire escape. This is mostly treated as mystery, but again, the ending leaves a bit to be desired and the whole idea is a little more on the silly side. Overall, this is a worthy read, but not quite up to par with the other Books of Blood collections.
  • And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie – Technically a murder mystery, but Agatha Christie’s classic is also an originator for many horror tropes. A group of seemingly unrelated people are lured to an island under different pretext. It turns out that all of them are responsible for the death of another person, but escaped justice through legal technicalities. One by one, they die in mysterious circumstances, seemingly to match the details of an old nursery rhyme. Extremely complex, but simple to follow, this story is very detailed and exquisitely designed from start to finish. It is, maybe, a bit difficult to come up to speed on the 10 strangers right away, but as the book proceeds to kill off each one, we learn more and more, and begin to suspect more and more. I believe the term of art for this is “locked room mystery”, as there’s no apparent explanation for how or why the 10 murders were accomplished. And the solution actually works (it may be slightly underwhelming to jaded modern eyes, but I was pretty happy with it). Its influence on the horror genre is clearly apparent, with many stories relying on a similar structure. I think you could even say that this influenced the modern body-count story (like slashers!) Regardless, it was quite an enjoyable book, all the moreso because it’s short and concise.
  • Horror Movie A Day: The Book by Brian W. Collins – I won’t say too much about this one since I have not gotten too far into it, but if you don’t know about Horror Movie A Day, this guy Brian Collins vowed to watch a horror movie every day (and write a review of said movie) and proceeded to do so for over 6 years. In this book, he’s chosen 365 of the more than 2500 movies he saw during that run, one for each day of the year, and written a quick overview of the movie (including a brief plot summary, an exerpt from his original review, and an updated commentary). Initial reading and scanning through the book indicates that Collins went for deep cuts here (rather than obvious horror classics), no doubt a welcome approach for horror hounds. I will almost certainly lean on this book when it comes to planning out next year’s Six Weeks of Halloween…

And that just about covers it. We’re in the final homestretch now, and all that remains is the customary Speed Round of movies I saw that didn’t conform to a weekly theme and, of course, the big day…

6WH: Week 6 – Blumhouse

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It’s always something of a curiosity when you see a trailer and it sez something like “From the producers of Paranormal Activity” or “From the production company that brought you Sinister” as if these things matter. But in some cases they do, and horror certainly has a history of that sort of thing. We just covered some of Universal’s Monsters, and Hammer Horror made a name for itself by doing something similar. William Castle was a reliable draw in his day and if you ever saw that Dimension Films produced a movie, you knew it would be disappointing (zing!) Enter Blumhouse, an independent production company founded by Jason Blum. His model is based on an idea we’ve all had (especially when you hear about how some $400 million movie bombs at the box office), which is that instead of betting it all on a handful of huge budget potential blockbusters, take that same amount of money and make dozens of smaller, more ideosyncratic films. As a genre, Horror is able to do well under those constraints, so most of what Blumhouse puts out fits in that mold. Most make their money back too, but it’s the handful of breakout successes that really buoyed the company. Notably, the Paranormal Activity movies have been a reliable source of success, and they use it to put out some weird, micro-budget stuff. I don’t know that there’s any sort of specific aesthetic theme here, but there’s definitely a group of horror filmmakers that are feeding off of each other, and Jason Blum is giving them a chance to shine. So I watched three Blumhouse movies this weekend, ranging from the wide-release suprise success, to smaller, more obscure films. I ended up enjoying these movies more than I ever thought I would, so maybe “From the producers of Paranormal Activity” does mean something…

  • You’re Next (trailer)
  • Rick & Morty’s Purge (clip)
  • The Day After the Purge (short)
  • The Purge – The Purge is an annual, government sanctioned 12-hour period in which any and all criminal activity (including murder!) becomes legal. James Sandin makes a healthy living selling security systems that lock down the house during the period, but when his dumbass son lets in a stranger being hunted by bloodthirsty purgers, we find out that his security systems are basically useless. Also classism.

    I am a villain!

    So yeah, this is one of the dumbest, yet catchiest ideas with which to base a horror franchise on. I mean, yeah, sure horror movies often rely on obvious symbolism and thematic parallels, but this is ridiculous. The concept feels like its making fun of itself and is incredibly ripe for parody. This first film plays it small scale though and essentially becomes a home invasion thriller. It takes a while to get going and the kids are really annoying, but the third act is actually a lot of fun. Well executed, small-scale action set pieces and plenty of gore.

    My, what a big ax you have

    There are some rather predictable twists and turns, but it’s all reasonably well executed. I’m told that the sequels take the series in a more bonkers direction, as befits the ludicrous premise, so I’ll probably make time for them in future 6 weeks marathons… For now, this was a decent enough watch, but nothing particularly special. **

  • Paranormal Activity (trailer)
  • Paranormal Pactivity (Robot Chicken)
  • Shining (fake trailer)
  • The Bay – A found footage film about an ecological disaster in a small Maryland town where normally small parasites are mutating and growing at abnormal speeds. So remember back when I said that most found footage loses the opportunity to really take advantage of the mock documentary format? This one kinda, sorta does it. But they’re only interviewing one person throughout the film, and she’s basically just providing a running commentary on what’s on screen. We do, however, get some talking heads, as that is part of the footage that has been “found”. So we get to see CDC video calls and doctors and oceanographers and whatnot, and it all works surprisingly well.

    I am an oceanographer

    Thematically, it’s a bit heavy handed, but after having just watched The Purge, it felt like an ambitious and subtle exploration of ecological concerns (ok, not really, but it’s not as egregious as some other efforts are). It’s found footage, but most of it is plausible and well shot. Minimal shaky cam here, and most of the movie looks pretty good. Its biggest flaw is that, well, there’s not really anywhere for the story to go, and thus it just sort of ends. Not badly, really. It just feels like one of those SNL skits where they have a neat idea and execute it well, get their laughs in, but have no idea how to finish it off. This movie gets its jump scares in, throws some light body horror your way, and then peters out… Still, it’s the journey, not the destination that matters here, and it’s a suitably creepy one. ***

  • The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror V: The Shinning
  • Mute Witness (trailer)
  • The Strangers (trailer)
  • Hush – Maddie is a deaf author who leads a reclusive life in the woods until a masked killer arrives at her doorstep for some good, old-fashioned home invasion horror. So this isn’t the most original premise, even for the sub-sub-genre of home invasion horror featuring a protagonist with a disability of some kind. We’ve been seeing stuff like this since at least Wait Until Dark (1967) and we’ve seen lots of variants (an obscure Kaedrin favorite is 1995’s Mute Witness). And yet, this proves to be a worthy entry in the canon and an exceptionally well executed spin on the typical tropes. Maddie (played by co-writer Kate Siegel) walks the horror protagonist line perfectly, not doing anything tremendously stupid while being plausibly resourceful. The killer (played by John Gallagher Jr., who seems like an unconventional choice but actually does well here) also works that line, being menacing and competent, but not omniscient or indestructible. You could argue that he’s a bit too reluctant to just start breaking windows, but I was able to go along with his clear desire to play cat and mouse games with his prey.

    Can you hear me? Oh, you cant, Im so sorry

    The movie wisely avoids giving him backstory (and it’s implied that he’s surprised by Maddie’s deafness, making it clear that he has no specific vendetta against her) and while he does play cat and mouse games, he does reveal himself in relatively short order (a bold choice that keeps things moving rather than devolving into indulgence). The film takes ample advantage of sound (and, importantly, the lack of sound), and that just ratchets up the tension considerably. Director Mike Flanagan (perhaps best known for that movie Oculus a few years back) clearly knows how to push the audience’s buttons. The film is mercifully short, but it doesn’t feel rushed or underbaked. It’s just well paced and tight. Look, I’m not going to call it a classic and it doesn’t feel like the sort of movie that I’d want to rewatch over and over again, but it’s a rock solid take on the sub-genre that was exactly what I needed at this point in the marathon. ***

Phew, it’s hard to believe that we’re in week six already! Time flies when you’re terrified out of your gourd. Still a couple of posts in the pipeline, so stay tuned for some more season’s readings and the usual Speed Round to close out the marathon…

6WH: Week 5.5 – Lesser Frankenstein

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Of all the Universal Monsters, Frankenstein’s creature is my favorite. This is due chiefly to the first two movies in the series, Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein (Both of which were covered in the Six Weeks of Halloween marathon a few years back). Alas, while I’ve seen many of the Universal Monster movies, I haven’t seen a ton of the sequels. They don’t all have the greatest reputation, but it still seems worth checking out. Turner Classic Movies went on a Frankenstein kick a couple weeks back and thus I took the opportunity to catch up.

  • Frankenstein’s Fiance (Robot Chicken)
  • Frankenhooker (trailer)
  • Young Frankenstein (trailer)
  • The Ghost of Frankenstein – Ygor survives the previous installment and seems committed to finding Frankenstein’s monster and reviving him. Town villagers believe they’re still cursed by Frankenstein’s unnatural experiments, so they round up their pitchforks, light some torches, and organize a good old-fashioned mob to go up and destroy Castle Frankenstein. As per usual, this is the action that actually frees the monster from the foundations of the building. Ygor quickly discovers him and ushers him away to meet with another Frankenstein scientist, who has the idea to replace the monster’s former criminal brain with a normal one. It all works out and everyone lives happily ever after. Or, uh, not at all. This is a mildly successful entry in the series, but ultimately nothing special. Great atmosphere, good performances from Bela Legosi (returning as Ygor) and though they couldn’t get Boris Karloff for the monster, they did get Lon Chaney Jr, who does an admirable job. Some nice moments here, but it never really coalesced for me. **
  • Futurama: The Honking (episode)
  • An American Werewolf in London (trailer)
  • Silver Bullet (Robot Chicken)
  • Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man – This film opens with two graverobbers breaking into Larry Talbot’s crypt and inadvertently reviving the Wolf Man from his tomb. Thus freed to live his cursed life again, Talbot seeks out the notebooks of Dr. Frankenstein so that he can find a scientific way to kill himself and end the curse. Along the way, he stumbles upon Frankenstein’s monster and enlists the help of a scientist to kill both monsters once and for all. The promise of seeing the monster at full strength proves too tempting for the scientist though, so he simply revives the monster. Local townspeople assemble their mob again, and save the day.

    The Wolfman and Frankenstein

    So this is the first actual Universal Monster crossover movie, even if most of the time is spent on the Wolfman’s troubles and Frankenstein’s monster doesn’t really do much until the end. Still, we do get to see some hot Frankenstein on Wolfman action towards the end, which delivers on the promise of the title, I guess. It’s not a spectacular movie, but the Wolfman’s plight is genuinely involving and we’re treated the the usual great atmosphere that all these films engender. Since Lon Chaney is busy reprising his role of the Wolfman, Frankenstein’s monster is switched again, this time to Bela Legosi, who does a pretty good job. At this point, though, the continuity of the Universal monsters series seems to be breaking down a bit. But who cares, Frankenstein’s monster fights the Wolfman, what else do you want? Again, mildly successful, but nothing particularly special. **

  • Vampire 8:00-9:00 PM (Robot Chicken)
  • The Monster Squad (trailer)
  • Is that a whip? (Robot Chicken)
  • House of Frankenstein – Ah, now here is a real monster mash movie, though again, the various monster storylines barely overlap. Mad scientist Dr. Gustav Niemann (played by Boris Karloff, who is returning to the series, but not as the monster) escapes from prison along with his hunchbacked assistant Daniel. Niemann seeks to, yes, discover the old notebooks of Dr. Frankenstein so the he can learn the secrets of life and death. Daniel assists because he wants Niemann to replace his hunchbacked body with a handsome, strong body. Dracula, the Wolfman, and Frankenstein all show up in this movie, but each basically gets their own separate segment, glued together by mad scientist Niemann. It doesn’t make a ton of sense and the continuity of the three series is way out of whack, but it nevertheless remains a lot of fun, and despite the lack of interaction between the fiends, I think this might be the best of the three sequels I watched this week. Dracula (played by John Carradine, who many argue rivals Bela Legosi’s original Dracula, and is indeed quite effective) gets the most screen time, but is basically finished off about a third into the movie.

    The Wolfman sez hi

    Lon Chaney’s Talbot gets a lot of screentime and has some good interactions with Niemann and Daniel (and the gypsy girl that travels along with them), but doesn’t get to do much as the Wolfman. Frankenstein’s monster sadly spends most of the movie strapped to a slab, but has a nice triumphant return at the end. Again, none of this is particularly well justified, but it’s a lot of fun, and using Niemann as the linking device essentially makes this a sorta road trip through Universal Monsterland, which is neat. While not really the equal of the original movies in any of the three series this continues, I managed to have fun with this. **1/2

I think I must’ve calculated the six weeks incorrectly, as it looks like we’re in for more like 7 weeks. Oh well! Stay tuned for Blumhouse movies this weekend…

6WH: Week 5 – Golden Age Slashers

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Slasher movies are formulaic and trashy, but longtime readers know that I love them (because I won’t shut up about them). They’re good, old-fashioned horror comfort food, like a warm blanket on a cold autumn night. Want a good overview of what makes a slasher a slasher? Check out Final Girl’s Slashers 101 comic book. Funny and informative (and it’s free!)

Final Girl is definitely qualified

Me too! On both counts! And yet, it’s been a while since I really dug into classic Golden Age Slashers (i.e. that 1980-1983 corridor where seemingly hundreds of slashers were made). Sure, I’ve caught up with one or two here or there, and I’ve hit up some neo-slashers and proto-slashers, but there have been a few seminal slashers that I’ve never managed to catch up with. It’s about time I rectified that oversight:

  • Thanksgiving (fake trailer)
  • Driving Lessons – Halloween Deleted Scene (short)
  • Jason’s Deceiving Speed (Robot Chicken)
  • The Slumber Party Massacre – An escaped mental patient terrorizes a high-school slumber party. I’ve definitely seen this before, back in the days of late night cable viewing, but I’m not sure I saw it all the way through. So this is a movie I want to like a lot more than I actually do, and I’m not entirely sure why. The movie is written and directed by two women (Rita Mae Brown and Amy Holden Jones, respectively) who claim to be feminists, and yet this is one of the more lurid slashers out there. Boobs everywhere. Then again, their influence certainly comes through in our maniac’s choice of weaponry, a giant corkscrew drill whose phallic symbolism couldn’t be more obvious and yet, it doesn’t come off as clumsy as it’s a neat, almost iconic visual.

    Behold my terrifying denim jacket
    Behold my terrifying denim jacket

    It’s clearly got some stuff on its mind, but then it also came out of Roger Corman’s stable, so the trashy elements are out in full force. It’s also a more comedic take on the sub-genre than you normally see. Some of the slasher conventions are skimped on a bit, particularly the historical component and the lack of any mystery as to who the killer is (he doesn’t even wear a mask and his jean jacket is the most terrifying thing about his getup; he’s not very intimidating), but other slashers have done well with similar oversights. I honestly don’t know why I didn’t connect with this as much as I really wanted to. I still think it’s really good, but not quite top tier. (There are, however, many who do put this in that top tier, and I can see why…) **1/2

  • It’s the Gifts That I Hate (Robot Chicken)
  • The Prowler (trailer)
  • The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror V: The Shinning
  • The Boogey Man – A little boy murders his mother’s boyfriend, and his little sister watches the whole thing in a mirror. 20 years later, still trying to confront what happened back then, she hallucinates the boyfriend in the mirror and smashes it with a chair. In doing so, she releases the boyfriend’s spirit, and he’s looking for revenge! So this one goes right for the supernatural jugular. It takes a while to get there, but it eventually hits its mark. The whole “spirit trapped in a mirror” bit is effective and they wring a lot of juice out of the little bits of mirror finding themselves scattered and thus providing our Boogey Man with a wide range of victims. Of course, you don’t actually see him, it’s all just levitating knives and pitchforks and whatnot, but that works well enough. He can also kinda, sorta possess people, and like, shine green light that makes people’s eyes bleed.

    Giving you the ol green eye.

    Or something. His powers aren’t exactly defined so well. The first half of the movie is far too clunky for it to be a classic, and while it picks up, it never really overcomes its limitations. A worthy watch for slasher fans, but again, not top tier. **

  • Hardly Working: Slasher (Short)
  • Horror Friends Forever (Robot Chicken)
  • April Fools Day (trailer)
  • He Knows You’re Alone – A serial killer specializing in brides-to-be stalks a woman as she prepares for her wedding. The woman’s ex is a persistent douche who won’t leave her alone, so he gets to help out. Meanwhile, a police detective (and fiance to the first victim) is hot on his trail. Now this is the stuff. It hits the conventions but never gets too lurid or too trashy, and the tactical execution is pretty solid too. It’s most famous for being the onscreen debut of Tom Hanks (who isn’t around for long, but he does get to extemporize on why people like to watch trashy horror movies), but you’ll actually recognize a bunch of the actors.

    Behold my terrifying denim jacket

    A lot of “that guys” show up here. Once again, the killer isn’t masked and the historical element is a bit lacking, but he’s a little better than the Slumber Party Massacre guy and the film does a great job with his many stalkery reveals. Overall, it’s a really fun slasher, and it feels less trashy than your typical entry while still working in the same arena. Not exactly fine cinema, but I really enjoyed it. ***

Whoa, week 5 is already down? Yikes, this is going fast! Not sure what’s up next, but I’ve got lots of stuff in the queue… In the meantime, check out Zack over at Film Thoughts, who is updating nearly every day…

6WH: Week 4.5 – 80s Halloween TV Episodes

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One of the dorky things I’ve been doing lately to ring in the season around my favorite holidays is to check out holiday-themed episodes of various TV shows. Because I’m a glutton for punishment, I decided to check out the Halloween episodes for a bunch of 80s shows. It turns out that I’m not the first dope to have this idea, but since I’ve already watched the shows, I figured I’d give my readers the skinny on a few of these shows (and there’s not total overlap, so there is that). It being the 80s, there are lots of recurring motifs and tropes that seem to have disappeared. Notably, many of these shows seem to feature a rational protagonist refusing to believe the seemingly supernatural happenings of the day and being vindicated right before having their legs cut out from under them by a piece of unexplained evidence. Most of the episodes follow this formula, and the ones that don’t tend to fall a bit flat. Anywho, enough preamble, let’s hop to it:

  • Quantum Leap – S3E5 – “The Boogieman – October 31, 1964” – First and foremost, the opening of quantum leap, where a disembodied female voice explains Dr. Sam Beckett’s predicament, is surprisingly effective and really generates empathy. I probably haven’t seen an episode of Quantum Leap in 25 years, but I was immediately back in the swing of things. It helps that this is probably the best of the Halloween episodes (though another one stuck out in my mind for reasons that will be discussed below). So Sam leaps into Joshua Rey, a horror novelist referred to as a second-rate H.P. Lovecraft (so… Brian Lumly? Zing!). He is, of course, dressed in a ridiculous getup and his house seems abnormally… Gothic.

    Sam Beckett as a second-rate HP Lovecraft

    It turns out that it’s Halloween and he’s working on Church’s haunted house and of course this is going to be the best one ever, right neighborhood boy? Right! Naturally, really bizarre things start happening and bodies are dropping like flies and a suspicious goat starts showing up and there’s a Black Mamba snake for some reason and Al and Ziggy are acting all funny and is the devil really the culprit here and oh look, all work and no play make Joshua a dull boy. This one has great Halloween atmosphere and thus makes for a good episode, and there’s enough tricksy stuff going on that you’re not quite sure what’s going to happen. Plus, we’re treated to two stingers, one about an unexplainable supernatural event, and the other a sorta cameo, both pretty good. I’m pleasantly surprised by how well Quantum Leap is holding up here. Not exactly “Golden Age of TV” stuff, but really fun and still emminently watchable. I’m told this fans consider this episode ccccurrrsed, as countless VCRs were destroyed in attempting to record or playback this episode. The author of that article mentions she had trouble with Hulu as well, but come on, it’s Hulu. Anyway, I had no troubles, and it’s worth watching.

  • Quantum Leap – S5E15 – “Blood Moon – March 10, 1975” – So this episode is one of the reasons I actually wanted to go through this whole rigamarole and watch these 80s shows. I have a very distinct memory of the stinger in this episode where the rational protagonist is suddenly confronted with something unexplainable. For some reason, I had attributed this in my head to MacGyver (more on him below), but it turns out that this Quantum Leap episode was what I was thinking of… Sam leaps into Nigel Corrington, who lives in an English castle and sleeps in a coffin and is thus, obviously, a vampire (Al is convinced, Sam is of course not). Indeed, it appears to be the night of The Blood Moon, a night that commemorates one of the earliest vampires, and Nigel is entertaining two visitors intent on observing the vampiric tradition of murdering Nigel’s freshly minted, commoner wife. Nice gothic atmosphere and an entertaining tale, also worth checking out. And that stinger is great fun!
  • Quantum Leap – S4E16 – “Ghost Ship – August 13, 1956” – Alright, so this one apparently isn’t an actual Halloween episode, but come on, Sam flies into the Bermuda Triangle in this one, and is there anything more 80s spooky than that? Of course the instruments go all haywire and Al has trouble maintaining contact with Ziggy (and, for that matter, Sam) and of course one of the passengers on the plan has her appendix burst, so it’s vitally urgent that they find their way to nearby Bermuda (and it’s hospital) rather than turning around and making the long trip back to the mainland. Again, nothing particularly Haloweeny about the episode, but it’s got the main formula in place, with plenty of spooky things happening and, of course, a neat little stinger that seemingly confirms the Burmuda Triangle’s bona fides. Another fun episode that is totally worth checking out.
  • MacGyver – S4E1 – The Secret of Parker House – This doesn’t explicitly take place on Halloween or anything, but it concerns a haunted house (and was aired on Halloween), so that seems like enough. So Mac is inexplicably friends with the rather daffy Penny Parker (played by Teri Hatcher), who has just inherited her aunt’s old mansion. It is, of course, rumored to be haunted. Some mysterious happenings, a convenient lightning strike, and a strange facial reconstruction later, and we find that it’s not quite haunted. It turns out that the house was built in prohibition days and had a hidden distillery, and a simpleton groundskeeper was hiding in there (and thus causing some mischief). It’s a decent little episode, and of course it turns out to be completely rational. Or does it! This doesn’t hold up as well as the Quantum Leap episodes, but it was a decent enough watch.
  • MacGyver – S5E6 – Halloween Knights – So this one actually does take place on Halloween and even features a costume party, but otherwise does not take on anything even remotely spooky. It turns out that one of MacGyver’s arch-nemesi, one Murdoc, wants to enlist MacGyver’s help in taking down his SPECTRE-like organization of killers (there’s a funny and goofy name for this that isn’t really worth looking up). Again, there’s a costume party and Mac gets dressed up in not one, but two costumes (including a Jester costume, which is fun), but the episode is frankly absurd. There’s this ridiculous obstacle course with motion detecting guns and of course Mac defeates this using SCIENCE, but whatever. The episode just kinda ends, no stinger, nothing spooky at all. Maybe a good MacGyver episode, but not a great Halloween episode…
  • Cheers – S3E4 – “Fairy Tales Can Come True” – It’s Halloween at Cheers, and the no-name regulars are giving Cliff a hard time because they never see him making the moves on women. But when he’s in costume as Ponce De Leon, he doesn’t seem to be as tongue tied or nervous as when he’s himself, and thus meets the woman of his dreams. Or something, as I don’t think she shows up again, but this is a nice enough episode, worth it for the costumes (but then, not really spooky either).
  • Cheers – S4E5 – “Diane’s Nightmare” – Diane dreams that “Andy Andy” has escaped from a mental institution and is coming to kill her (is he a guy from a previous episode? I don’t remember that, but it’s easy enough to follow.) Then she wakes up, and has to face “Andy Andy” again. It’s a neat little episode, not quite spooky but certainly on the spectrum and enough to make it a nice Halloween experience. These sitcom episodes don’t really follow the formula, but this one has a funny stinger at the end (albeit, not a supernatural one).
  • Cheers – S5E5 – “House of Horrors with Formal Dining and Used “ – Carla finds a great house in her price range. The only catch is that it’s built on top of a 17th century prison graveyard and the dead prisoners have vowed on their revenge. Being ever superstitious, Carla decides that if she can spend the night there without incident, all will be well, and Cliff helps out. A funny take on the tired premise, it works well enough for sure. No real reference to Halloween, but enough hints of murderous ghosts that it seems worthwhile.
  • Cheers – S10E7 – “Bar Wars V: The Final Judgement” – Another in a long line of prank episodes between the folks at Cheers and rival, Gary’s Olde Towne Tavern. This one involve’s Gary’s death and Sam’s refusal to believe it isn’t a prank, which it isn’t. Or is it? All the prank episodes are fun, and while this one takes place on Halloween, it only involves a couple of seasonal-related gags (albeit, pretty good ones). Good times, as usual with Cheers…

So there you have it. If you’re looking for some 80s Halloween chills, check out those Quantum Leap episodes (and there are a couple of others that I didn’t get to as well), as they hold up pretty well. MacGyver was less successful (though I didn’t watch the “Mac Wrastles Fucking Bigfoot” episode, so keep that in mind). Cheers is fun, but not particularly Halloweeny… I’m told there are lots of other 80s shows with great Halloween episodes, but I wasn’t able to get to them (maybe next year… if Netflix still has them)… Anywho, stay tuned for, well, I’m not sure what’s up for this weekend. Either old-school slashers or new school Blumhouse stuff… come back on Sunday to find out!