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Reviews
Dr. Giggles (1992)
The doctor is out of his mind
That was the tagline, wasn't it? Maybe I'm misremembering but I really think that was the tagline not the one listed on the mainsite. Anyways, Dr. Giggles comes at dead end of the initial slasher age that started in the late 70's. They obviously had the formula down pat: the madman with a gimmick (the high pitched giggle fit doctor), the small town setting, the innocent final girl. Total formula played straight down the line. But by the early nineties the slasher genre was DOA (only to rise like a phoenix from the ashes of irony in the form of Scream). As it is, Dr. Giggles is a yeoman's effort. Nothing to ring the dinner bell about, but if you appreciate the genre you could do worse. The dirty old man in me really thought highly of Holly Marie Combs but you know, we were the same age back in '92 so that makes it alright, right? Five decidedly average stars.
Clerks II (2006)
Smith's Beaches
Smith as a filmmaker, besides a fixation on scatological humor and blue jokes, is obsessed with the definition of male friendships and what separates those friendships from men who want to screw each other. Most of his films contain a male tandem with whom only they can confide in. The women in their lives just don't understand them (even as Smith writes the women as jocular smut mouths no different from their male counterparts) the way their bosom buddies do. Chasing Amy goes so far as to have the male lead offer to have sex with both his pseudo-lesbian girlfriend and his in-the-closet best friend at the same time. The friend agrees. Amy, showing the only modicum of sense, storms out of the room. Thus leaving the two men to go back to repressing any physical feelings for each other. Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back is a running gag of homosexual tension, the comic version of the biblical Jonathan and David for the Catholic Smith. The duo even show up on VH1's I Love the 80's with a segment entitled "Guys we'd go gay for." Go gay for? Seemingly, they've been there and done that. The only film Smith's directed that escapes Smith's predilection toward examining male friendships/homosexuality is Jersey Girl, the one film he's made that's roundly dismissed by his predominately male viewership.
Which brings us to Clerks 2, twelve years burning down that road, the Quick Stop a heap of ash due to Randall leaving the coffee pot on overnight. The boys end up at Mooby's the least busy fast food restaurant ever, which leaves the guys with plenty of time to tilt at windmills verbally. Seems Dante has hitched his wagon to a woman of means who plans to ferry him down to Florida and set him up with his own car washing business. The woman is the controlling type and Dante is actually in love with the manager of Mooby's. This of course does not keep him from his dream of leaving the Garden State, no it's not until after the (homosexual) donkey show with the crew in prison that Dante realizes why he must stay. The bilious Randall finally opens up his heart in that jail cell (a place of male bonding if there ever was one) and pleads for Dante to stay, stopping just short of saying "You complete me." Of course Jay accuses them of being gay, but this is possibly the only interesting part of Clerks II, its exploration of straight blue collar men speaking of a bond generally left unsaid. Sure male relationships are explored in movies, but usually in the Peckinpah/Tarantino machismo style or in the whiny privileged light of indie cinema (say, Kicking and Screaming to pick a movie that came out around the time of the original Clerks). This would all be a lot more interesting if Smith wasn't satisfied to simply play in the sandbox of staid juvenilia and he didn't have such an inert sense of cinema. 4 stars.
Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)
Part deux
The young people return to Camp Crystal Lake (well, across the lake at the very least) no worse for the wear, dimly envisioning another seven sequels and a monster mash up with Freddy down the road. Even poor old coot Ralph is on the sore end of his warning that doom awaits those who enter. Ask not for whom the bell tolls, Ralph. As for the kids they frolic, smoke weed, copulate and die, generally in that order. Steve Miner makes Part 2 the most self-consciously stylish of the sequels using Jason's P.O.V. to directly implicate the audience in the violence, but also turning us into voyeurs, leering as the scantly clad Terri (is there a cinematic character with tighter shorts and tinier tops? Not that I'm complaining) goes skinny-dipping. Later she throws a towel on the leering camera (and by transference, us the audience) presumably so we can clean up after ourselves.
Pre-hockey mask Jason makes his adult debut here and is particularly nasty as the sex=death focus of the series is established in full. One couple is skewered immediately post orgasm. A handicapped fella gets a machete to the face pre-sexafied, presumably sent blue balled to the afterlife. And dig how that wheelchair maintains its balance all the way down those stairs.
The lead this time a tomboyish female who fends off Jason using her child psych degree to fool him into acquiescence (well, sort of. It ultimately leads to another 'Carrie' ending rip-off). Jason, ever the good boy, is fooled by the girl donning his mother's sweater. He then sees his mother telling him to put down his weapon. This is used again in Freddy vs Jason, where Freddy impersonating mother again, resurrects Jason by admonishing him into raising from the dead. Jason, buddy, cut the umbilical cord.
Friday the 13th (1980)
So it begins...
The man behind the mask that launched a thousand sequels is not to be seen here but in embryonic form at 'Friday the 13th's 'Carrie' rip-off ending. Instead, it's mommie dearest slaughtering a camp full of young people somehow avenging her son Jason's death a quarter of a century earlier. I had not seen this film since junior high, one of the first horror films I ever watched, and it was an odd experience revisiting it now with so many horror films now under the bridge. For one thing, the sex saturation level is extremely low. We get some counselors dry humping at the beginning, a tame game of strip monopoly and Kevin Bacon and his paramour under the cover of darkness with very little nudity. The teens in this one are not as annoying as later efforts, here just part of the blank generation. The lone female survivor reminding me of Alyson Hannigan, minus the playful eyes. A steady, if not spectacular start to the most enduring slasher franchise of the eighties. 6 stars.
Masters of Horror: Incident on and Off a Mountain Road (2005)
Pretty okay
I've seen four of the Masters of Horror episodes thus far: "Cigarette Burns", "Dreams in the Witch House", "Sick Girl" and this film. Of them I find 'Cigarette Burns' fairly forgettable, 'Dreams...' the best of the bunch, 'Sick Girl' awful, a huge disappointment after Lucky McKee's 'May' and as for 'Incidents...' I thought it was kinda all right, to paraphrase Charlie Daniels. The story is simple enough: a young woman has an accident on country road and ends up being stalked by a crazy psycho. The gimmick is that the woman has more going on than the killer expects. The basis for the movie is from a Joe Lansdale story (who's early stuff I highly recommend if your into gonzo horror stories; check out "High Cotton" or "Bumper Crop") and it's an effective foundation for a film. But the high point is the lead performance by Bree Turner. I'd only seen her before in comedies, thought she was a pretty and competent actor. Here she proves she can carry a film and has range. I really hope she ends up getting a chance to carry a major film. Recommended. 7 stars.
Just My Luck (2006)
Why does this movie hate laughter
The worst type of film you can spend your time watching is an unfunny comedy. It becomes an endurance test, how much horrible word play, pseudo hip dialogue exchanges and ham fisted physical comedy can you withstand. Really a comedy, unlike other genres has only one goal: make the audience laugh. If you don't accomplish that, no matter how pretty the sets are, how much effort the actors give, it's all for naught. All this preamble for Just My Luck, because really there is not much to say about it. Lohan (so great in Mean Girls) seems to have let her cardboard cut out twin act in most of the scenes. Totally lacking any charisma. The story does her no favors being completely asinine. A good early indication of how wrong the movie is in its attempt at comedy is the opening scene where the young man tries to deliver the music CD to the music executive (I know these character have names, I just couldn't be bothered for a movie like this). Everything goes wrong for the character in this scene. An audience that has any reference for comedy will see every complication well before it happens. This kills a comedy. Laughter comes from unexpected events. Not a single thing in this movie happens that we are not all ready ahead of. Two stars.
Xtro (1982)
Difficult Pregnancy
This is a fairly awful 'Alien' rip off about extra-terrestrial's kidnapping a guy, sending the guy back-who is now at least part,if not completely alien-then having the guy infect his son. Having his son infect the babysitter. Having the baby sitter then lay eggs. Then having the son and the father leave. I think that covers it. Mainly it is an excuse for the alien/human things to dole out gruesome punishment on humans via biting, evil midget clowns and the occasional black panther attack (the animal, not the militant organization). This movie reaches out to a very unique niche audience: Those who wish to see a woman give birth to a fully grown man. Bonus points if you wish that fully grown man to look like an older Adrien Brody. If you count yourself among those who would like to see such matters, then this is the movie for you! For myself, 1 star, plus 2 more for Maryam d'Abo's rack.
TerrorVision (1986)
Tackles the Tough Issues of the Day
On the surface this is a simple movie about an alien that comes out of a family's television and kills them. But there is something going on beneath this jovial veneer. For example, when the parents come home from their night on the town with another couple ready for a night of debauchery and wife swapping, their son informs them that an alien came out of the T.V. and ate grandpa. How does the mother react to this information? She wants to give the child pills. Pills! Child drugging is the answer for any nuisance that interferes with her lifestyle. Brain altering drugs is her solution to parenting, like so many other parents in America. For shame! TerrorVision takes a brave stand on this touchy issue.
The other controversial issue touched on in this edgy film is State's Rights. In the Grandfather's bunker a Confederate flag is hung with pride, while the American flag is used as a mere table cloth. Is the monster in this movie a symbol of an intrusion by the federal government? TerrorVision is desperately in need of a special edition DVD (Are you listening, Criterion?)to help examine exactly what political points the film makers were trying to get across. 5 stars for the movie. 1 star for the character of OD. And one extra star for Diane Franklin because she's so dang cute.
The Cutting Edge: Going for the Gold (2006)
I am not a 14 year old girl
But I wound up watching this movie on a Sunday afternoon and I enjoyed it. Admittedly, I ingested six Shiner Bock's before viewing and a couple while watching it. Still, I stand by my positive review. I'm not going to try to defend the film in any intellectual way. It's no Kurosawa or Truffaut piece of work. I can only defend it in the same way I would a Journey song: Yes, it's corny, but I am drunk so screw you. Is that too confrontational? I'm sorry, I'm drunk. Whoops, I just spilled my beer. Party foul. At this point I'd go into an irrational diatribe about the Mariner's inept hitting at too loud a volume. Where was I? Oh, yeah. I have to say, the criticism of Christy Carlson Romano acting seems out of place. She's given a character that has no internal logic by the writers and does the best that could be done with it. Her scene at the door where she confesses her love for her partner is particularly good, to my senses. Any way, I feel kind of unmasculine now so I'm going to go watch Commando for the seven hundredth time. 6 stars.
Metal: A Headbanger's Journey (2005)
Pretty much for Metal heads only
This is a documentary by an anthropologist / Metal fan to find out why people like metal and why it is maligned by pretty much everyone who doesn't like metal. The simple fact is that when you put on, say, Metallica's 'Whiplash' you either go "Yes, more please" or "What the hell is this noise?" Those that get it need no explanation, those that don't, no explanation will do. This documentary generally preaches to the converted and seems more like an excuse for this metal fan to interview a bunch of his hero's. The main highlights are the clips from "Heavy Metal Parking Lot" (THE greatest Metal documentary ever) with the dude who says "Punk sucks. It doesn't belong here, it belongs on F'ing Mars" while wearing zebra stripped pants and matching muscle shirt. The one truly great interview is with the band Mayhem. The one who's name I can't remember answers every question by cursing out the interviewer while his band mate, named Blasphemer, remains silent. Golden.
BloodRayne (2005)
"Discontinuity and ellipsis are at the heart of Malick's aesthetic, and disorientation is the norm." - Kent Jones on Malick's 'The New World'
Who knew Uwe Boll (who's name I always want to transpose with former Dallas Maverick center/bench warmer/useless stiff Uwe Blab) had so much in common with Malick. This is the third Boll film I've watched and it might be his best. At the very least it comes through in the grue factor. It's interesting to see so many actor's slumming it. Could there be that many actors with alimony checks due? At one point Michelle Rodriguez comes across a young woman who has been bitten by a vampire and calls for her vampire killing partners to come and see with a line reading that can only be classified as vaguely urgent. Everyone seems supremely disinterested, except perhaps the lead actress who just seems awkward. It does have geysers of blood, crushed heads and the such. So much so that it becomes boring. Uwe Boll is the best definition of deep hurting.
DVD Note: They have a feature on the DVD called 'Dinner with Uwe.' A young man and woman sit and eat dinner while Uwe talks about his film career. The young man and woman are never introduced. The young woman says nothing until Uwe brings up 'Kentucky Fried Movie' at which point she enthusiastically states "I love that movie!" What an odd bonus feature. I turned it off after five minutes, to leave myself a small bit of mystery. Who are these Uwe dinner companions? And why do they hate movies so, so much?
Alone in the Dark (2005)
Deep Hurting
Simplicity is the key to any good b-movie. John Sayles script for Alligator proves this. You go from A to B to C as simply as possible and revealing character along the way as smoothly as you can integrate it into the plot. Alone in the Dark decides to make a b-movie as convoluted as it possibly can. It starts with a minute and a half opening scroll giving out a mish mash of information. Then the Christian Slater character is given a ham fisted voice over to further hand out information to the audience. There is just way too much back story going on for a movie with such a simple premise. The movie is a boring grind. At some level exploitation movies can get by with being ridiculous with sheer visceral impact (i.e. Violence and T&A). Alone in the Dark even fails at this. The action is pedestrian, uninspiring lifts from superior movies. And the sex scene could be shown on the PAX network. Not even close to being bad enough to be fun. 1 star.
Cry Wolf (2005)
Like French Fries without Salt and Ketchup
Bland. Lacking. Not much fun and probably bad for you.
Some rich private school students grow bored playing "the lying game" amongst themselves and decide to involve the entire school. A young woman was killed off campus and the students send out an email with the information that it fits the m.o. of a serial killer. They believe they are playing a joke, but when the killer shows up on campus, they begin to wonder if someone in the group is taking it too far.
This movie isn't bad enough to hate. It reminded me of the old slasher film April Fools Day, although Cry Wolf isn't really a slasher film.
On a side note about the DVD. They have audition tapes of the actors and the young woman playing Mercedes is particularly good; charming and intriguing. But she barely registers in the movie itself. I don't know why that is.
Commando (1985)
Friends of Dorothy
As a young man coming of age in the 80's I had a steady diet of action films. Movies featuring elder statesmen such as Eastwood and Bronson, luminaries of the time like Arnold and Sly and even lesser ass kickers like Jeff Speakman. Many years later in college I came across an essay on the inherent homosexual subtext of many of the 80's action movies. I was shocked. These men were heroes. They defeated communism. They rammed their fist through Columbian drug dealers faces. But Gay? This was a hard teaching. Who could accept it?
But after many years of maturation and much prayer time, I've come to accept these out of the closet warriors for who they are. And Commando, thou are the gayest of them all. I feel no need to go through the overt homosexuality in this review, ruthlessreviews.com has ably already done that. I will simply say this is a brave and daring movie. A film of tolerance and hope. I give it a million billion stars.
BTW, my old VHS copy has a preview of Commando before the movie. What the hell is that for?
The Beast Within (1982)
Puberty with air bladder special effects
The Beast Within is a sliver of a good movie. It has the ideas. It has the actors (Ronny Cox, L.Q. Jones). It has the effects. It just doesn't put it all together into a enjoyable package. If given a extra 10 or 15 minutes to explain itself better and give more depth to some of the characters, this movie could have been something memorable.
The story starts off with a woman being raped by a creature from the woods. The movie then flashes forward 17 years to the offspring of this union (Michael) and his painful experience with puberty. The doctors can't explain it. The parents of Michael decide to go back to the scene of the rape to see if they can figure anything out. Michael follows them and begins attacking various people of the town. It turns out that Michael is possessed (I guess? It's not really explained) by the creature that raped his mother and is killing off those responsible for his death through his son. All of this culminates in a lengthy American Werewolf-like transformation scene.
All of this could have been an interesting mix of parents, puberty and Lovecraftian otherness. Instead it's a mess, a mere curiosity to 80's horror film fans only. This is a movie that deserves to be re-imagined. Think of what Stuart Gordon and Denis Paoli could do in an update of this movie.
Scarecrow (2002)
What did Argento do to deserve this?
This movie could be used in film classes in a "How Not to Script a B-Movie" course. There are inherent constrictions in a B-movie: Budgets are tight, Time is precious (Scarecrow was apparently shot in 8 days) and the actors are often green and inexperienced. The one aspect you have complete control over is writing the best script you can within the limitations set before you. Scarecrow's script seems to have been written in a drunken haze. I could go through about fifteen examples of the nonsensical scripting of this movie, but I'll just mention one: The Gravedigger. The character of the gravedigger is introduced about an hour into the movie. He seemingly has no connection to any of the other characters already in the movie. He is shown with his daughter, who also has no connection to anybody else in the movie. The gravedigger is given a couple scenes to act surly in and then is killed to pad out the body count. Why give the Gravedigger a daughter? Why give the daughter a boyfriend? Why introduce them so late in the movie? Why not try to make them part of the ongoing storyline? Scarecrow doesn't seem to care.
The "story" of Scarecrow goes something like this: Lester is a high school kid (played by and actor who'd I'd peg to be in his early 30's) who is picked on by the other kids. He is an artist who draws birds and has a crush on a classmate named Judy. His mom is a lush and the town whore. One of her reprobate boyfriends makes fun of his drawings (by calling him a "faggot" for drawing birds instead of "monsters and cowboys." If you have a high school student still drawing cowboys I'd think him to more likely be gay than a high school student who draws crows) and later, kills Lester, in a cornfield, under the titular scarecrow. Magically, Lester's soul goes into the scarecrow. Somehow, this transference changes Lester's soul from that of an artist into that of a wisecracking gymnast (I know some reviews have called the scarecrow a Kung-Fu scarecrow. I disagree. The scarecrow practically does a whole floor routine before jumping onto the truck during the climax of the movie). The scarecrow then goes on to kill those who tormented him, those who smoke pot in the corn field, those who dig graves, boyfriends of daughters of gravediggers, pretty much anyone who showed up on the movie set.
The bonus feature on the DVD should be mentioned. The director (a Frenchman) does an impromptu version of rap music, admits he enjoys not having executives around on set so he can screw his wife while working and gives a quote to live by (and I'm paraphrasing): "Life ez a bitch, but et has a great ass"
Number of Beers I drank while watching this movie: 5 Did it help: No Number of Beers needed to enjoy this movie: Whatever it takes to get to blackout drunk level.
Detour (2003)
Why did I like this movie?
Why did I like this movie? It can easily be dismissed as a 3rd rate The Hills Have Eyes rip off. The plot is simple: A group of friends (in reality a disparate group of characters who would never be friends) sidetrack a return from a rave to find a peyote field only to have their RV crash. They are then picked off by freakish desert dwellers.
This movie features the most absurd and annoying hip-hop character in movie history, Loopz (or Loops). If over the top was plateaued and somehow another crest of over the top could be seen, the character of Loops would be well past that level of over the top. Truly, he is detestable. Ideally, Loops is a character you'd gladly watch be strung up by his proverbial Buster Browns. But this jerk survives. So why did I like this movie? The other characters are a mish mash: two best friend party girls, a goth, the rich kid, the couple. The girls wear the tiniest shorts that can still be considered clothing, which is a positive, but they are laced with some atrocious dialogue. It's a credit to the actresses that somehow I didn't wish them a painful demise. The couple is blandly forgettable and disposed of early on. The goth chick is annoying and the rich kid is the poor man's (or homeless mans) Ron Livingstone. All and all, they add up to a very forgettable group, which is not surprising for a straight to video movie. So why did I like this movie? Maybe it was the scene where the hip-hop kid gives a heartfelt (thus rendering it laughable) send off to the dead goth chick. Maybe it was the absurd lesbian marriage discussion opening.Maybe it was the tiny shorts on all the female characters. All I know is that I was entertained by this unashamed B-movie. I'd give it a 6.5 out of 10.