2019 Documentary Feature

I'm really tired. This has been a year of highs and lows, and these last few months have been rough for me. Not as bad as last year, but it still wasn't that easy to handle, with anxiety being a constant menace, especially in terms of writing. Nevertheless, this is my yearly tradition, and since I cover every film I see, it would feel incomplete with the documentaries. So, here we are. Just a recap: I do all documentaries I saw this year, whether or not they actually came out this year. I rank them from highest to lowest recommendation. That said, I've laxed on other documentaries, at least as far as I can remember, and I don't feel like digging to find other documentaries I may missed. Again, anxiety, don't feel like writing. So, without further ado,

Apollo 11 (2019)

Yeah, yeah, big surprise this is my number one for the year. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landings, the documentarians decided instead to take hours of  achive footage from television broadcasts and the mission cameras (including previously unreleased 70 mm  from NASA's archives) to make a play-by-play recreation of the mission, from its launch from Cape Canaveral to its landing entirely from it, eschewing the normal documentary cliche's of talking heads and recreations. This makes for a very tense experience, which makes you feel like you are with Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins as they go on their mission. Even for a big space nut like me, I could feel tense as I went along, saw the clock, the distance, the velocity. It is easily the most captivating experience I've had in a theater in a while, documentary or otherwise.

Amazing Grace (2018)

This comes a close second though. Filmed all the way back in 1972, this film about Aretha Franklin's Amazing Grace live album performance at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles went through years of development due to technical difficulties and legal trouble, before it was released some months after Franklin's tragic death. Aretha Franklin is, of course, a talent of the ages, with an incredibly powerful voice that really grabs and holds your attention no matter what she is singing. This film really captures the feeling of being in the audience at that church, completely captivated by the performance and feeling the energy of it coming through. It's really hard to capture in words. I recommend watching the doc itself to see exactly what I mean by it

Fyre/Fyre Fraud (2019)

Yes, the year of two Fyre documentaries. Netflix had hyped their take for months. Then, a few days before it was released, Hulu dropped its own Fyre documentary. If you don't remember, Fyre Festival was a complete disaster of a music festival, conceived by con man Billy McFarlane and rapper and punchline Ja Rule to promote some app to have celebrities play at events, I think, which was supposed to be elite, but ended with FEMA tents and styrofoam boxes with sandwiches. Anyway, these two put together really give a full picture of the scale of failure that facilitated such a disaster of this scale. While compromised by their own producers and/or associations (which is why they're roughly equal on this list), it shows the chronology of hyping up this exclusive music festival on social media, getting interest despite suspicions, and the increasingly insane choices that went into planning and executing this festival, and just who the various characters were who made these decisions despite all opposition, all leading to the day when everything just went kaput. Really, both should be watched to gain a fuller context, of everything that went down. I look forward to another few years when narrative films are made based on this. It is too insane to be true. Yet it is.

They Shall Not Grow Old (2018)

Peter Jackson decided to upend the usual view of World War I as an ancient war recorded in black and white, by making feel real. Taking hours of footage and interviews archived in London's Imperial War Museum, Jackson colorized the footage to the finest detail, and set the interview audio over it, cutting both to make a general experience of the average British soldier within the trenches. It is highly emotional, especially both in the calm moments in the trenches and the brutal battles and the haunting imagery it invokes. It is clearly very personal to Jackson (whose grandfathers served in the war), and helps make history feel realer and more intimate than merely reading it on the page.

Red Gringo (2016)

I've been fascinated for a while by the story of Dean Reed, a Colorado born singer who ultimately defected to the Soviet Union and became something of a Red Elvis. This Chilean documentary primarily focuses on the period in-between, when he used his inexplicable Latin American success to pursue larger career opportunities in Chile. Interact with Reeds rise with the Chilean music listening public is his growing political awareness, especially with his friendship with socialist singer-songwriter Victor Jara and the election of socialist Salvatore Allende. Allende would signal a hope and dream of an equal, prosperous Chile. A dream undone by reactionary backlash and Allende's overthrow by General Augusto Pinochet, whose reign would see thousands imprisoned and killed (including Jara) and the Chilean economy wrecked by disastrous Chicago School economics. Disillusioned by Jara's death, Reed would leave for East Germany. The documentary is fascinating into that promising period of Chilean history and a fascinating historical figure that existed alongside it.

Milius (2013)

Regardless of what you think of his politics, John Milius is an incredibly fascinating filmmaker. His philosophy of machismo and conservative, pro-militarism oozed into every project he was involved with, from Dirty Harry to Conan the Barbarian to Red Dawn. This film so aptly captures the man, his movies, and how his quixotic, oddball personality and sometimes contradictory, but ultimately very reactionary politics were captured in his film. Even for someone with very left-leaning politics like me, it gives reason to show Milius as a filmmaker worth paying attention to, and his work an indication of brazen, outspoken personality

Iron Fists and Kung Fu Kicks (2019)

I'm a big fan of the documentaries of Mark Hartley, which take a look at the underreported parts of international film with a ton of energy and style which keeps the viewer interested, along with bizarre or intriguing anecdotes from some of the participants. This film from Serge Ou (apparently having the same producer as Hartley's documentaries) captures that same energy to discuss the history of kung fu movies. While light on the actual participants and sputtering out towards the end, the film manages to interweave the actual production of seminal kung fu films with the general direction of the Hong Kong film industry and some of its biggest stars, including Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan, doing so with gusto and style that keeps the viewer interested throughout, and shows why kung fu movies have had such an enduring appeal.

Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation! (2008)

An old favorite of mine, directed by the aforementioned Mark Hartley. Same deal as above, except with the low budget Australian "Ozploitation" movies of the 60's, 70's, and 80's. Always fascinating to watch, especially all the bizarre, diverse films to come from the Land Down Under, from horror to gross-out comedy and their influence, especially on American schlock connoisseurs like Quentin Tarantino. It really is NSFW, so be warned.

ReMastered: The Lion's Share (2019)

Earlier this year, I learned the interesting international history of the old song "The Lion Sleeps Tonight." It was, in fact, based on a song called "Mbube" by South African singer Solomon Linda, which was then covered by famed folk singer Pete Seeger as "Wimoweh" (Seeger had misheard the Zulu phrase in the song "Uyimbube" or "You are a lion"), and was given lyrics by George Weiss, and given to the Tokens to be released as the song well-known today. However, Linda himself would never see any money from the explosion of his song (despite attempts by Seeger to ensure that payment was sent), and despite Disney using the song in the Lion King franchise, the Linda struggled in poverty. The documentary covers this entire history, including a massive team-up of South African lawyers and politicians against the mega-Disney empire, and the bittersweet ending of royalties given to Linda's children. It is fascinating, and it ultimately leaves you upset at the byzantine wranglings and confusing precendents that prevent something that was seemingly so obvious (that the writer of the original melody and his descendants deserved a share of the song's massive success) from truly benefitting those that need it.

Studio 54(2018)

This is the lowest recommendation, because the first half was considerably weaker than the last one. This was mainly because the middle dragged with the standard depiction of the titular nightclub being a celebrity hangout during the late 1970's, which really adds nothing new to the thousands of similar celebratory depictions in other media. However, where it really shines is showing the relationship at the center of both Studio 54 as an institution and the documentary, that being the two co-founders, Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager. Seeing them deal with the law, the actual running of the nightclub, the fallout of their eventual arrest and sale of Studio 54, and their other ventures, showed a lot more of a interesting story that rarely explored, and has a lot more to say about the two and their vision than a standard depiction normally would.

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So, that's that. I do recommend all of these, since each cover their own topics well. Stay tuned for my list of 2019 films in the next few days.

Coming to a Video Screen Near You- A Million Little Pieces

    I was severely disappointed by the fact this was dumped onto VOD like last week's salami, because I was actually fairly intrigued by this film. If you don't know, A Million Little Pieces was a 2003 novel by James Frey, ostensibly about his extensive drug use and experience in rehab. The book would garner critical acclaim and financial success, especially after Oprah put the book onto her Book Club list in 2005, and had Frey on as a guest. It then emerged from investigations that he had fabricated siginficant parts of the book, including his arrest records and involvement in several incidents described. His subsequent appearance on Oprah saw her eviscerate him on air, his "memoir" was reclassified as fiction, and Frey himself would become a punchline for defrauding people, and would fade into obscurity (popping up only to make a YA slave factory and apparently came up with the initial concept for Queen and Slim). Now, I myself don't remember any of this, because I was 8, but the story has intrigued me for a while. The idea of a fake memoir, someone embellishing or fabricating their own life and selling it successfully is an intriguing notion. I feel that it taps into so many intriguing aspects of memory, fiction vs. fact, people's perceptions of real and fake. In this era of misinformation and fake news running rampant across the internet with little rebuttal, telling the story of a man who made up a memoir and successfully pitched it to the American public might had some relevance and might've been a biting look into media hype and how mistruths can spread. Unfortunately, director Sam Taylor-Johnson and her husband and star of the film, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, decided to take the memoir as it was, and ignore all this interesting material for the most mundane telling of this story.

    Based on James Frey's "memoirs" of the same name, the story follows Frey (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) as he is forced to go into rehab in Minneapolis by his brother Bob (Charlie Hunnam, doing this horrible what I think is supposed to be a Boston accent) after an incident where . While he is initially reserved and in denial of his extensive drug and alcohol abuse (even as he deals with no drinks or even anesthesia) , through the acts of people like Leonard (Billy Bob Thorton), Miles Davis (not that one, he plays a clarinet) (Charles Parnell), Joanne (Juliette Lewis), and Lilly (Odessa Young), he learns to overcome his struggle, and yadda, yadda, yadda, you know the rest.

    There are parts of this movie that are actually quite well done. There's some very good shots down that are surprisingly evocative, especially a parallel shot at the beginning and end. Billy Bob Thorton and Charles Parnell are also very good for the stock roles they end up giving. Thorton in particular has some great emotional moments that are really gripping.

     First and foremost, Aaron Taylor-Johnson is awful in this. Just horrible. His line delivery is muddled and incoherent, his physicality seems distractingly unnatural, and during the vaunted scenes of drug use, this physicality really doesn't work with stumbling and bumbling anywhere. I can tell he's trying to capture the angst and agony going through this character as he tries to recover, but it really, really doesn't work to convey that. James Frey comes off a cypher wandering through life. What doesn't help is that the film itself is mostly a generic, middle-of -the-road story of addiction, that largely goes through the motions stipulated by other works of fiction (and yes, I do consider the "memoir" fiction), done better in other films. Other than those shots I mentioned, it's filmed generically, it's written generically with bland speeches about overcoming, and mostly, it's just... generic. Not especially good, not especially bad, just .... there. When compared to films like Beautiful Boy (based on an actual true story) or Ben is Back, both from last year, this film, with its after-school preachiness and ridiculous scenes, comes off really dated and absurd. Which might make it entertaining if it weren't so dull. I completely zoned out of large parts of this film because it was so monotonous and unengaging, with so many speeches about overcoming and not a lot of actual overcoming. Finally, and this is a real life criticism, but that the fact the memoir was a proven fraud, casts a shadow over this film. They acknowledge it briefly with a quote at the beginning, but like I said in the intro, instead of treating it like the story of a man who tricked millions of people, we instead get the full, largely fabricated account of the fake memoir, by extension endorsing it. If it had actually happened, a lot of the earlier flaws might've been forgiven, but this is all made-up and the fact that filmmakers don't seem to want to acknowledge it really undercuts the power of the film and any help it may give to other addicts.

    I read a bunch of interviews with Sam and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and they seem very sincere in bringing this to the screen. The director, in particular, talked about people she had known who had struggled with addiction as a reason to make the film. I appreciate the reasons they had to go through with this project in spite of the controversy and years of production hell, but honestly, it's really hard not to think of it and the potentially more interesting story that might've been told around this book. At the end of the day, though, this was just mediocre. The fact of its very existence is probably much more interesting and thought-provoking than the film itself. It's not even bad in a particularly interesting way. It's bad in dullest manner. If you're interested, read up on the real story and especially The Smoking Gun's investigation into the inaccuracies and suspicious elements of the book, and see it with that mind. Otherwise, I can't quite think of a reason to see it. 

Current Film Reviews- Let It Snow

Alright, I got nothing for November, anxiety has wreaked havoc on my life, and the month's almost over, so I need something to make sure I follow through on my personal promise to release something each month. *Looks on Netflix*. Oh, hey, they finally made that film based on that book John Green co-wrote. Alright, some backstory. I first heard about this around the time The Fault in Our Stars came out, and I became intrigued by John Green and the particular genre he worked in. This project was in development, and I thought I would see it in 2015, when I read it. Well, it's four years later, and I've stopped caring, and as far as I can discern, no one has noticed that this came out, so.... screw it. I got nothing else to write about.

    Based on the novel of the same name co-written by Maureen Johnson, John Green, and Lauren Myracle, the film follows several plot threads that weave and intersect with each other at various points. You have the story of Julie Reyes (Isabelle Merced), who meets the pop star Stuart Bale (Shameik Moore), and shares a fairly good experience with him, despite her own problems at home. There's Dorrie (Liv Hewson), a waitress who's nervous because Kerry (Anna Akana), who she has a burgeoning relationship with, seems not to be interested when she and her group of cheerleaders head into the restaurant Dorrie works at. There's Dorrie's friends Addie (Odeya Rush), who is concerned that her boyfriend Jeb (Mason Gooding) is cheating on her (not to mention her bizarre encounters with a woman who wears tin foil (Joan Cusack) and Tobin (Mitchell Hope, and apparently not Charlie Heaton), who has to deal with his feelings for the Duke (Kiernan Shipka) who is close to JP (Matthew Noszka). Finally, there's Tobin's friend Keon (Jacob Batalon, who seems to specialize in playing wacky best friends), who wants to throw a party but gets into roadblocks along the way.

   The acting is pretty good around the board. They do well to serve the material that they are given, and imbue it with strong emotion and empathy. It really helps invest us in these characters and their various plights, whether serious or wacky. The stories are well done for the most part, and despite somewhat odd premises, manage to resolve themselves without any feeling rushed or undervalued as a result. It is also pretty funny in some parts, with some nice bits and dialogue that feels realistic for teenager to say, while still managing to be pretty funny. It probably helped that Kay Cannon, who directed the superb comedy Blockers last year, helped write the script. I did like the sense of being completely overwhelmed by snow, being from Colorado and having to deal with that every year.

   Because of the intersecting structure of the story, it can be hard to follow what is happening to whom. Sometimes, I'd mix up stories or get confused when something happened because it pertained to a different storyline that happened a while ago. I feel like a film like this shouldn't be that hard to follow, but I was constantly rewinding to see context, and I was still confused. It's also fairly slow, with a lot of padding that sometimes stops the film cold, and are just ... confusing. This is only an hour and a half, but the padding really makes it feel longer.

    I'm not the target audience for this film, but I'm close enough to that audience that I can say that I probably would've adored this film when I was in that age group. It's the kind of warm teen romantic comedies that I was always sort of a sucker for (I enjoyed the two John Green novels I've read). I can imagine that the audience this is aimed at will likely enjoy it, since it seems very congruent with the way they actually act. Again, not the target audience, so don't know that for certain. As for me at this time, it was good. Not great, not even really that good, but good. Nice little film to watch on a lazy day or celebrate Christmas. So, yeah, if you want to watch something like that and you have a Netflix account, this wouldn't be a bad choice.   

Masterpiece of Horror Theatre- The Thing (1982)

    Well, this is it both for this year, and this decade. So, to celebrate the end of era, I decided to go back to a film I did back when I was doing short versions of these on my Facebook page way back when. It has come to be one of my all time favorite horror movies. So, to close out the last Masterpiece of Horror Theatre review of the 2010's, here's John Carpenter's The Thing . (Apologies for the lateness. I haven't had a great couple weeks, and there is a lot to go into, especially the history, so I need a bit more time to process it all.)
     "Who Goes There" was first published in Astounding Science Fiction in 1938, written by the legendary editor of the magazine John W. Campbell (for context, he would go to discover authors like Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, L. Sprague de Camp, Theodore Sturgeon etc., among other... stuff, shall we say). The story of a group of Antarctic scientists fighting off a strange shapeshifting alien was well-regarded, and in 1951, producer Howard Hawks and director Christian Nyby loosely adapted into the film The Thing from Another World, which is regarded as a classic in 50's science fiction. In 1976, producers David Foster and Lawrence Thurman proposed a close adaptation of the original novella to Universal. Universal acquired the remake rights from Wilbur Stark, who owned several RKO Pictures, and began searching for directors. John Carpenter, who was heavily influenced by Hawks as a director and a fan of the original (having featured it briefly in the original Halloween) was approached as early as 1976 (while fresh off the success of Assault on Precinct 13) , but had to wait until Halloween was a big hit. Even then, being a huge Howard Hawks fan, he was reluctant to approach the project until reading the novella and finding a new angle to explore the story. The screenplay went through several writers (including Texas Chainsaw creators Tobe Hopper and Kim Heinkel, the former of who was attached to direct before Carpenter), before actor and writer Bill Lancaster (son of Burt, and known at the time as the writer of The Bad News Bears) came on, writing something very close to the original novella. As with most of his films, Carpenter himself would make some rewrites to the script. Many of Carpenter's collaborators would return for this film. His The Fog cinematographer Dean Cudley would make his debut in a Hollywood feature with this. Special effects creator Rob Bottin, whom Carpenter also worked with on The Fog, would do the legendary special effects. Escape from New York star Kurt Russell would headline the movie, along with newcomer Keith David. Unlike much of his filmography, Carpenter did not score this film, instead giving the duties to Italian composer Ennio Morricone (known for his collaborations with Sergio Leone, another director Carpenter admired), whose synthesizer score would define the film for many people. Bottin would work incredibly hard to bring the unique of a strange, shapeshifting alien to life, often working incredibly long hours, using a 35 person crew (including legendary special effects creator Stan Winston to help with the dog design), and was even hospitalized for exhaustion. The film was shot in the fall 1981 in Alaska and British Columbia, with interiors filmed in the Universal lot. Released on June 25th, 1982, it was drowned financially among the many other famous films released that year, including ET: The Extra-Terrestrial (indeed, some associated with the film have blamed it and its more optimistic view of aliens for The Thing's failure), Blade Runner, Poltergeist, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Conan (1982 was a really good year for genre films). Not helping was savaging by critics, who were aghast at the fairly bloody nature of the effect. Carpenter himself was especially hurt by The Thing from Another World director Christian Nyby lambasting the film as too gory. However, eventually, the home video market and television would give the film a new, younger audience, who would adopt the film as a classic of the horror genre. Over time, it would come to be regarded as one of the greatest horror movies ever made and a major influence on many horror and science fiction media (you might've seen this film shown in Stranger Things), and many directors who were still frightened by it. The film has even become a tradition for scientists stationed on the seventh continent. At the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, it is screened every February to commemorate the beginning of winter in the South Pole. Carpenter himself would come to call this his favorite of the movies he's made and the first of the Apocalypse Trilogy (with Prince of Darkness and In the Mouth of Madness) . For my part, it is not only one of my favorite horror movies, but one of my favorite films, period.

     The film opens with an alien spacecraft crashing to Earth, so.... yeah, you know what you're getting into. Soon after, American scientists including MacReady (Kurt Russell), Blair (Wilford Brimley), Childs (Keith David), and Dr. Cooper (Richard Dysart) take at an Antarctic base witness a man on a helicopter (Larry Franco, one of the producers) chasing a sled dog across the snowy plains, trying to shoot it. When the helicopter crashes, they confront the man, who yells in Norwegian, while the dogs warms up to them. When the Norwegian shoots at them, he is killed by station commander Garry (Donald Moffat). The scientists take the dog in, while MacReady and Cooper go to the Norwegian station to investigate. They find it abandoned, with a mysterious block of ice carved out, a heavily disfigured frozen corpse, and the frozen body of a strange creature. Blair performs an autopsy of the creature, only to find it having regular human organs. The dog soon arouses the fear of the other dogs at the station kennel, which causes it to reveal itself to be some eldritch abombination that kills and absorbs the other dogs, before Childs is able to put it down. Blair also autospies the dog to find whatever took it over can make a perfect imitation. As they use the Norwegian data to track down a dig site to a large alien ship (estimated to be 10,000 years old), Blair also discovers that the alien cells can absorb, assimilate, and imitate any other cell. And when Bennings (Peter Maloney) is absorbed, it can be any one of the crew, and they would never know who it was until it was too late....

    I honestly don't know where to start with the great things about this film. I suppose I could start with my own personal favorite thing about the film: The production design. The settings used, whether the cold sterility of the base, the harsh Antarctic landscape or the devastated Norwegian base, help add to the atmosphere of isolation and paranoia. You feel just as lonely as the characters in the film, watching them handle an impossible situation and slowly devolving and turning on each other as they try to figure out who might be the alien. The fact that it is primarily set at the base, and thus it becomes intimately familiar to viewer, adds to this, as even this becomes untrustworthy and isolated as the film goes on. The special effects are simply some of the best put to film. The alien is incredibly well designed, with a unique, ever-changing look which instills a lot of fear just looking at it, and especially watching it transform from seemingly innocuous organisms and see it brutally kill the people on the base. There is one particular transformation towards the end that is seared in my mind due to both the look of the alien and the sheer intensity of the scene. Oh, yeah, the disturbing effects and the viciousness by which they are used make incredibly scary. It is horrifying seeing this creature put out of nowhere, especially after tense scenes of the crew arguing and fighting, and they go on long enough that they instill themselves into your mind. Ironically, these keep you invested in the film itself, as the scale of the threat is abundantly clear. It is a creature that can be any living thing, that can take on its form to the smallest cell and absorb it. It can be anyone, and if it escapes the uncolonized Antarctica back to civilization, mankind is doomed. Despite it being a strange being with motives beyond the comprehension of mankind, one of the other best things of the film is the fact that the scientists act like scientists. They investigate, they hypothesize, they test, and it helps them combat the creature to the best of their abilities, while still being human enough that they still don't know whether their colleagues have become a creature beyond their understanding. It helps keeps us invested in the characters, while still fearing for their safety. I would use the term "Lovecraftian" as many others have (indeed, many have speculated "Who Goes There" was written in part because of Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness) to describe the overall feeling of the film. The idea of a being that is completely beyond human comprehension and dumb fleshbags unable to deal with it or get any help from elsewhere to really combat really fits into the Lovecraftian Cosmicist worldview. It is a nice metaphor for the helplessness of mankind in the face of a dangerous, unknown universe (or fickle, mercurial people) and the lack of a loving god to help us against it. Finally, the score by Ennio Morricone is iconic, of course, helping cement the atmosphere of sheer helplessness in the face of a menace beyond knowing.

     Not much here on the other hand. Some parts can get a bit confusing if you're not paying attention, and sometimes you confuse the names of characters, but you can follow each character, their roles, and what happens pretty well regardless.

     So, like I said, this is probably one of my all-time favorite horror films. I've seen it a few times since that first Facebook review years ago, and I'll probably watch it again for many more years. It is a great film. Not just a great horror or a great science fiction film. A great film, that works on so many levels, and reveals something about humanity that it is uncomfortable and disturbing to ponder. It is mandatory viewing for horror and science fiction fans, of course, but even if you don't like these genres (or are squimish about blood), it is well-crafted, well-written and well-acted enough to be worth at least one view (again, it is fairly bloody, so be warned). It is always a pleasure to watch this film.

    So, that concludes the Masterpiece of Horror Theatre for this year and this decade. I really hope you enjoy reading these as much as I enjoy writing them, and I hope it convinced you to seek out something new to watch for the Halloween season. I want to thank you all for reading these for all years, whether on Facebook or the Linkara rip-off videos I did also on Facebook, or on this blog, and I look forward to doing them again next year along with a very Summer of  Terror I plan for next year. I don't know what I have planned for November, but I hope you stay tuned for that. To close out, here's noted SF illustrator Wayne Barlowe doing a version of the creature from "Who Goes There"

   Happy Halloween, everyone
     

Masterpiece of Horror Theatre- Blood and Black Lace

        In the aftermath of World War II, the Italian film industry went through something of a renaissance with the advent of democracy. Movements like neorealism emerged under filmmakers like Federico Fellini and Roberto Rossellini and Hollywood productions flocked to the scenic Italy to make Sword-and-Sandal epics (the center being the Cinecitta Studio in Rome, sometimes called "Hollywood on the Tiber"). In this climate, genre films began to sneak their way in. Leading the charge was Mario Bava. A longtime figure in special effects and cameras since the time of Mussolini, he became a prolific cinematographer of some renown during the late 40's and early 50's, before getting his chance at directing an uncredited segment in 1954's Ulysses. Later in 1956, when director Richard Freda left the vampire film I vampiri due to a dispute with the producers, he stepped as an uncredited director to finish the film. He would do the same for several other films, including Italy's first science fiction film The Day the Sky Exploded, either ghost- or co-directing films. Finally, in 1960, he would make his solo directorial debut with the gothic horror film The Mask of the Demon, which was translated in the United States as Black Sunday by American International Pictures. After a few historical epics, he would direct The Girl Who Knew Too Much and Black Sabbath (which, yes, was the namesake of the band), both of which would help launch the giallo genre of Italian horror-murder thrillers. Because of the success he had with these films and this burgeoning genre, he was given creative freedom on the film. Already tired of the more murder mystery oriented direction of the other films, he took more emphasis on the killings part of the equation. The film, a West German co-production, was filmed in Rome over the course of 6 weeks. Because the dialogue (when translated into English to appeal to that audience) sounded stilted, actress Mary Arden rewrote it as they filmed. An original dub with the actors reprising themselves was rejected by the American distributors, who instead took a dub with the male voices by prominent voice actor Paul Frees. A moderate financial success in Italy and the US, it received mixed reviews in the US press. It has come to be seen as a classic of the giallo genre, and a big influence on the slasher genre.

      At a fashion house in Italy, a model Isabella (Francesca Ungaro) is killed by a mysterious person in a black coat and mask. She is found in a closet by the head of the fashion house, Countess Christina Como (Eva Bartok). Soon, Inspector Sylvester (Thomas Reiner) is sent to investigate, interviewing many of the people associated with the fashion house, including manager Max Morlan (Cameron Mitchell). However, another model Nicole (Arianna Gorinni) found Isabella's diary, and the killer is soon after her as well..

      This has incredible lighting and colors to it. It both emphasizes the rather bright colors and hues that populate the settings that the film takes place in, and the dark shadows underneath. Many great scenes have a distinct color to them which helps set up the mood of the scene, and builds up the inevitable killing. It gives the film a unique look. Even the clothes are bright, and stand out amongst the shadows that are all over the film. (I suppose, since it is a film about fashion, it makes sense). Especially the killer wearing all black. Along with this distinct look, the special effects are superb, with many scars and burns and injuries looking disturbingly realistic. This helps make the killing scenes a lot of more impact, especially the most disturbing ones, including when the killer shoves someone into a burning light. And, having been used to the slasher format of the 80's, the murder-mystery was intriguing and it keeps the viewer engaged with the film to figure out what happen.

    This isn't really the fault of the filmmakers, since their dub was overwritten, but it sounded off most of the time. Maybe because Paul Frees (a very talented voice actor, mind you, who I've enjoyed in many 60's era animated production) does get the timbre right for the characters. I also got a bit lost during parts of the movie, but I could still follow most of it coherently.

     This was an interesting film, and you can see the strong influence it had on slashers, especially the idea of a masked, silent killer slowly moving their way through victims. I highly recommend it for fans of slashers as well as Italian films, since this is very firmly Italian in setting and sensibility.

    So, to close out this year of Masterpiece, we will look at one of my favorite films: John Carpenter's The Thing.

Masterpiece of Horror Theatre- The Final Girls

      One of the screenwriters for the film, Joshua John Miller, was the son of Jason Miller, who was Father Karras in The Exorcist. Miller attributes the film's inspiration to watching his father die over and over on film, and the dissonance that invoked when his real father died in 2001. The film was ultimately optioned by Sony (after a brief period at New Line Cinema, who wanted to remove the emotional beats of the film), with screenplay by Miller and MA Fortin with director Todd Strauss-Schulson (whose biggest credit at that point was A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas. and would go on to direct this year's Isn't It Romantic). Originally an R-Rating, the director was forced to cut it down in a PG-13, which he was ultimately satisfied with (I'll get to that). The film was shot in Louisiana in 2014, before it's October 9th, 2015 release to critical success.

       Max Cartwright (Taissa Farmiga, sister of Vera) is the daughter of Amanda (Malin Akerman), who played the role of Nancy in the first of the popular Camp Bloodbath film franchise in the 80's, before becoming typecast. After one failed audition, the two get into a severe car accident, where Amanda is killed. Three years later, Max is still dealing with the aftermath of the incident, when she, as well as friends Gertie (Alia Shawkat) and Chris (Alexander Ludwig), when Gertie's stepbrother Duncan (Thomas Middleditch) invites all of them to a screening of Camp Bloodbath. While obviously reluctant, she and her group acquiesce. At the screening, however, a fire emerges, and the group, now including Vicki (Nina Dobrev), are forced to go through the screen using the fake machete to escape. They find themselves in a forest, when the van from the film, driven by Kurt( Adam DeVine) drives by. When he drives by every 92 minutes, it confirms to Duncan they have, in fact, been teleported to the film Camp Bloodbath.

     I reviewed Scream a while, and it wasn't that positive, but I conceded it was likely because it was a film of its era. The tropes it was mocking have been dissected and reevaluated over the years, and it was a film of that 90's. Given this is closer, (and the director did list Scream as an influence), it understands the audience better to know these slasher tropes, and doesn't just regurgitate them to the audience. It helps that there is the strong emotional core of Max seeing a younger version of her deceased mother and trying to save her life. That is basically the driving force of the film and the main conduit by which the audience can invest in the characters. I do like that they play around with various elements of film, from runtime, to flashbacks to tropes to ADR. It really helps build the world of the movie, while making the process of making films seem surreal when you really consider it. Some cast highlights include Farmiga, Akerman, Middleditch (I haven't seen many Silicon Valley episodes, but he's always good), and especially Kurt Devine, who relishes the role of the prickish, horny slasher victim with zest. There are some good jokes at the expense of slashers and their 80's setting. Finally, the Friday the 13th is very thorough. The filmmakers clearly love that series, and having now seen that series, there's a lot of nods and references, especially to the first two, and the recreation is pretty great (especially an 80's recreation of the 50's)

    Some of the jokes did fall flat, mostly the ones that did deal with the same material Scream did, at least in the morality of slashers (i.e. people who have sex tend to murdered). Again, I think this very much is just that this particular cliche has explored, parodied, and dissected enough that pointing it out seem rote (though they do integrate it into the plot and the ending pretty well). It also kind of dragged towards the middle. I think that the sequel bait, while apt for slasher, left the film with a bit of unsatisfying ending. I do wish there was a sequel.

     So, yeah, this was decently funny, and a good homage to the slasher genre. If you enjoy slashers, than this is definitely worth checking out. Otherwise, I can't say you'll enjoy it, but there are some good jokes here and there.

    Alright, this was an unscheduled change, because I realized there weren't a lot of post-2000's horror in the docket. Anyway, since we're on slashers, next week will be one of the biggest influences on the genre, Mario Bava's Blood and Black Lace.

Masterpiece of Horror Theatre- The Devil's Backbone

     Guillermo del Toro wrote the screenplay to this film in the mid-80's as a film student at University of Guadalajara. It was influenced by Del Toro's longtime fascination with ghost stories, including his interactions with apparations as a child and how his uncle became a ghost, and was originally set during the Mexican Revolution with a "Three-armed Christ". When his 1993 feature film debut Chronos was screened at the Miami Film Festival in 1994, del Toro ran into Spanish director and producer Pedro Almodóvar, who loved the film, and was willing to produce del Toro's next feature. Almodóvar and his brother Agustin produced the film through their company El Deseo. Despite this, del Toro went through some troubles before he could get into his passion project. His Hollywood debut, Mimic, was distasteful behind the scenes because of the interference of the producers: The Weinstein brothers. Not helping was when his father was kidnapped for ransom. Finally, he and the Almodovar brothers were able to move forward with the project after Mimic's release. By then, the story was shifted to Spain during the Spanish Civil War, and a ghost boy was made the focal point. Other influences included the Spanish graphic novel Paracuellos by Carlos Gimenez, who served as a storyboard artist. Made for $4.5 million, it would make $6.5 million, and become critically acclaimed, cementing Del Toro as one of the finest directors of his era. On del Toro's part, he says this and its spiritual successor Pan's Labyrinth are his favorite and most personal films.

     During the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930's, young Carlos (Fernando Tielve) is dropped off in a orphanage run by Republican sympathizers Dr. Casares (Federico Luppi) and Carmen (Marisa Paredes) after his father dies fighting the Nationalists. The groundskeeper Jacinto (Eduardo Noreiga) is involved with both Carmen and teacher Conchita (Irene Visendo), but secretly wants some gold he had found in the orphanage, and plans to destroy it to cover his tracks. While Carlos has trouble fitting, he soon befriends the bully Jaime (Íñigo Garcés), and has an encounter with an apparition. He soon learns of Santi (Junio Valverde), an orphan who seemingly died in an aborted bombing. However, Santi's story may have more to it.

  Starting off, the lighting in this movie is great. There's a surrealness to it, both in the scenes set in the hot sun and at night, which helps ground the viewer in the world the characters inhabit and the eventual supernatural elements which gradually reveal themselves over the course of the film. It also is just good to look, with enough realism that you are able to accept the scenario much as the characters in the film have. I liked how the political nature of the film is very subtle. The cruelty of the villain Jacinto is juxtaposed towards the cruelty of the fasicst allied nationalists, and the heroes are explicitly helpful and kind, as well as very strongly affiliated with the Loyalists/Republicans. The image of the defused bomb sitting in the orphanage was a fantastic center for the entire film, and helps with showing the shadow of war the characters constantly live under. And it has del Toro's tropes, which he always does masterfully, from the monstrous, but very handsome villain and the strange creature turning out to be less threatening than said villain. I liked that he can juggle multiple characters and plotlines without any of them feeling too rushed or I honestly think one should see this film to soak it in fully, because just describing it doesn't really put up the scale of this film, and how it really gives a great mood.

    I don't have many criticism. Maybe that it was a bit too long, but it never feels dragging and none of the scenes were unnecessary.

    This is del Toro. He's a personal hero of mine, and I've never disliked any of his films. I'd say I'd prefer Pan's Labyrinth, but that is a perfect film on all measures, and I prefer it over almost all films. That said, this is still a masterpiece, and anyone and everyone should watch it no matter if you like horror or not. It is great, and I am very glad I watched it.

   So, apologies for the lateness of this. I haven't had the best October, shall we say, and Saturday was especially hard, because of circumstances beyond my control. Anyway, tomorrow, we go from arthouse horror homage to Pleasantville horror homage, with The Final Girls.
      

Masterpiece of Horror Theatre- The People Under The Stairs

   In 1978, a pair of burglars broke into a Los Angeles home. When police investigated, they found the couple who owned the home had kept several children locked inside, never having seen the light. The story made enough of an impression on Wes Craven that he decided to make a film based around the premise of two burglars coming across a home where the children were kept in a dark basement. The main villains in the film were played by Everett McGill and Wendy Robie, who played a married couple on Twin Peaks. The house used in the film was the Thomas W. Phillips residence in Los Angeles. In a Fangoria interview, Craven said this was closer to his visceral horror flick The Hills Have Eyes, than other pictures had done up until them. With a modest $6 million dollar budget, it was a box office success, and widely regarded as one of Craven's finest.

   Poindexter "Fool" Williams (Brandon Adams) lives in a Los Angeles ghetto with his family, including sister Ruby (Kelly Jo Minter), who gave Poindexter the name "Fool," from tarot cards, and dying mother Mary (Connie Marie Brazelton). Sadly, they are about to evicted, because the mysterious owners of the complex, the Robesons (Everett McGill and Wendy Robie, referred to as Mommy and Daddy) want to demolish it and set up a wealthy condominium. The two are very abusive to their daughter Alice (AJ Langer). Ruby's friend Leroy (Ving Rhimes) gains an idea to rob the Robesons after finding out they own both a local liquor store and a lot of the apartments in the ghetto. Leroy coerces Fool into participating by pointing out the looming threat of eviction and his mother's cancer. They scope out the place, and when their associate Spencer (Jeremy Roberts) is able to get in, they sneak in as the family moves out for a bit. However, they soon find that the Robesons have a very dark secret. Something within their very walls and under their feet....

     I honestly don't know where to start, there's a lot to cover. I see what Craven means by how this was close to The Hills Have Eyes. However, I would also give say this was something of an urban riff on Texas Chainsaw. That film was, along with a visceral, violent horror film, a satire of the Nixon-era "Silent Majority", which at that time was represented by traditional, conservative white families, represented in that film by the cannibalistic, impoverished Sawyer clan. The Robeson's are also psychotic and cannibalistic, but they represent the other end of that spectrum, being very wealthy, secluded old money, but with the same amount of inbredding and corruption that degraded their minds over generations. Along with their child abuse and kidnapping, they also maliciously destroy the larger community around them by raising the rents of long-time residents and forcing them out to build office spaces and condos for "nice people" (their racism throughout the film makes it clear what they mean by that). There could be an entire essay about the film's portrayal of gentrification and its relationship to property and capitalism. The Robesons hoard all the money they gain from extorting their tenants, which seems to make them more corrupt and more greedy, even kidnapping children and holding them captive to try to satiate that greed. Of course, it isn't very subtle that these degraded old money cannibals also represent Reagan-era conservatism, with their strong Christianity and focus on "traditional values", which they impose on Alice. It really manages to bring all those ideas together and balances them out, managing to connect them all in a way that also serves the plot. And onto it as a horror film, it is incredibly. Very good jumpscares throughout, that stick with you. Very good tension building as Fool and Leroy try to explore and figure out what's happening. Very sympathetic heroes and very manical villains. Others have pointed out how the burglars are sympathetic here, and  the more evil is with the homeowners, as opposed to most movies in general (imagine Home Alone if Kevin was the villain....). Perfect lighting, with it enough dark to create atmosphere, but light enough to see. Incredible score. A great twist that you could not see coming. There's so much that just works.

    I honestly don't know if there are any flaws. Maybe that some scenes do go on a bit long (especially during the second act, as Fool and Alice try to flee the house, and the ending), and I had kind of wished they had gone a bit more into the effects the Robesons had on the ghetto, and how they destroyed by their renting practices.  It was just handled so well that it could've worked even more had it been explored beyond Fool's family.

    I think this is one of my new favorite horror films. It really is truly something to behold, both managing to be biting social satire exploring the effects of gentrification, racism, and capitalism on the black community, and  a very terrifying horror film with some of the best scares and twists I've seen in a while. I highly recommend it to check out, especially if you like horror, but also for anyone wanting good fiction that explores this sorts of topics.

    Next week, it's Guillermo del Toro again, with The Devil's Backbone.

Masterpiece of Horror Theatre- Earth vs. the Flying Saucers

      In 1947, a businessman and pilot named Kenneth Arnold was flying near Mt. Rainier in Washington state when he came across a bunch of strange lights he compared to "saucers", among other things. The press would come to dub these objects "Flying Saucers". This sighting was one of many during the late 40's and 50's, when people around the world began to report seeing strange objects in the skies, which was soon attributed to beings from the stars. One of the biggest proponents of this was Marine aviator Maj. Donald Keyhoe, who wrote some bestsellers with information from official sources (though with differing interpretations of those sources and the eyewitnesses listed than either the Air Force or scientists probably would've) regarding the phenomenon. Of course, Hollywood smelt an opportunity, and made many alien invasion films during the period.With the (fairly dubious) prestige of Major Keyhoe, a film was made, "suggested" by his book, Flying Saucers from Outer Space. After going through titles like Attack of the Flying Saucers and Invasion of the Flying Saucers, the title Earth vs. the Flying Saucers just felt right, apparently. Ray Harryhausen did the effects for the film, and the producer was his regular one Charles Schneer. To help the film, Harryhausen sought the guidance of George Adamski (known for his... bizarre UFO sightings). The screenplay was written by Bernard Gordon (who had to take the alias Raymond T Marcus, due to being blacklisted), George Worthing Yates, and Curt Siodmak (known for writing The Wolf Man for Universal). Stock footage of the sinking of the HMS Barham and V-2 launches during World War II were among the effects used in the film to describe the alien attacks in the film. The film is regarded as something of a classic, with Tim Burton extensively homaging the film in Mars Attacks, but Harryhausen himself has admitted it was his least favorite of the films he had done.

      Flying saucers are everywhere, being seen by pilots, farmers, and all sorts of people. This includes Dr. Russell Marvin (Hugh Marlowe) and his wife Carol (Joan Taylor), who are driving to Project Skyhook, a military effort to launch satellites as the first shot in space exploration efforts (this was 1956, right before Sputnik). They decide to keep it secret, but is informed by Carol's father, General Hanley (Morris Ankrum) that many of the satellites have been fallen back to Earth, and the current launch goes disastrously. One of the flying saucers lands on Earth, and the occupants, after being attacked by the US military, attack back, and kidnap General Hanley. They subsequently reveal to Hanley (and later Marvin) that, after being encountered with hostility, they have decided to attack the Earth, and have mysterious designs for the sun. Now, it is a race to figure out what the aliens are going to do.

     The effects of the flying saucers are very well-done, while appearing very simply at first. It seems like it's just hung from a string, but if you look closely, you can see them being rotated very quickly. It gives them more of a realistic feeling, especially as they go around the sky, and very much when they land. The scene where the saucer is on the ground before the aliens attack was very tense primarily because of that effect and the weird distortion used for the force field. The alien suits are less than impressive (and phallic), but the make-up once they are unmasked is pretty good. The climax where various landmarks are destroyed with stop motion is practical effects is amazing, some of the best of the period that I've seen, I like the use of stock footage very subtly as an indication, especially the photo-negatives of sun (always good to see astronomical imagery) I also like that there is more of an international presence in the plot of the film (even if it focuses primarily on the US).

    The movie has something of a fast pace. It goes immediately from Dr. Marvin and Carol seeing the UFO to the UFO ruining the launch to the invasion starting. As a result, it gets a bit hard to follow, since you need to keep up with each and every detail in order to follow it. This especially applies to the ending, where the military has to deal with the aliens in Washington, but it doesn't really say how they are dealt with worldwide. I also wish the aliens had a better motivation, than just growing hostile immediately and wanting to rule the Earth. There's apparently a comic series that explores the film from their perspectives, so I might check that out. Also, for a film with this large a scale, it is way too short to really soak in the sheer terror of a menace to the entire planet.

   I kind of agree with Harryhausen that this is his weakest film. However, it's mostly in terms of plot. The effects are still top-notch, and I can see why the film became so iconic. If you like alien invasion film, science fiction films of the 50's, or the work of Ray Harryhausen, definitely give it a watch.

   Tomorrow, we return to Wes Craven with his 1991 cult classic The People Under the Stairs.

Masterpiece of Horror Theatre- Phantom of the Paradise

    This next film takes its inspiration from a variety of sources, including Gaston Leroux The Phantom of the Opera, Goethe's Faust, and Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Grey. Director Brian de Palma had already made a name in the industry by this time, primarily with small independent films (many of which starred a young up-and-comer named Robert De Niro), before garnering acclaim for Sisters in 1972. Singer-songwriter Paul Williams, who stars as the film's villain Swan, also scored the film. The film had a number of legal issues, including having to change the title from The Phantom to avoid confusion with the comic strip character of that name, and the inital name of the evil record company, Swan Song, due to Led Zeppelin's label having the same, which delay pre-production, such that it released in 1975, despite being completed in 1972 (Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling did narration for the film before his 1972 death). The film was a massive flop (except, oddly enough, in the city of Winnipeg in Manitoba, where it play continuous for 4 months), and was received with mixed reviews, though has gone through a critical reappraisal. After this film, De Palma was given the job of directing a film based on a bestseller from a new author. The author was Stephen King, and the book was Carrie.

     In search of a hot new thing to do in rock music to open his new extravagant music palace The Paradise, prolific producer Swan (Paul Williams) comes across a struggling singer-songwriter named Winslow Leach (William Finley) performing, and convinces his underling Philbin (George Memmoli) to sign Leach on, while secretly stealing his work from under him. So, Leach, while trying to talk to Swan, ends up getting kicked out of Death Records (owned by Swan), and tries to confront Swan at his house. There, he meets Phoenix (Jessica Harper), who, based on her lovely voice, he deems his muse. Ultimately, he attempts to crossdress to sneak, but it caught, and Swan frames him for drug dealing. He goes to prison and has his teeth removed and replaced with metal ones. He escapes in a delirious rage after learning his song is to open the Paradise. He breaks into Death Records, and tries to stop the printing of the record, but ends getting his face (and vocal cords) destroyed by the record press. He then jumps into the East River to avoid the police. Now donning a costume that looks vaguely like the Midnighter's costume from The Authority (ask your comic fan friend), he now seeks justice, but Swan convinces him to become resident songwriter, with his muse Phoenix even performing the songs. Of course, Swan has an agenda on his mind.

   The only other De Palma film I've seen is Scarface, and that showed his love of neon lights as a mood enhancer in full force. That particular aspect helps with providing a subtly alien atmosphere to the film. It is set in the bizarre, waywire world of the music industry, and the bright neon colors, from the sterile whites of Death Records' waiting room to the dark colors of the prison to the rainbow coloring of the Paradise, all help give the film a feeling of uneasiness much as the titular Phantom is experiencing as he navigates through a world hostile to him and what he represents. The more fantasy elements are well-handled. Very subtle with its Faust allusion and the depiction of the Devil. It gives the film its own distinct atmosphere, and makes it very memorable in terms of visuals. The music is very good. Going from 50's doo-wop to early 60's beach rock to 70's arena easily and with ease. Jessica Harper was a highlight, having an excellent voice and presence, and Paul Williams is a villain who relishes being evil and is having a great time. Finally, I do legitimately love the look of the Phantom. Just the way all the elements comes together really helps sell him as a victim of a capitalist machine uninterested in the authencity he brings to the table, but appropriating part of it.

    It took me a while to really get into this film, and that is primarily because of its tonal inconsistency. It goes from whimsical to comedic to scary back to whimsical in its first 40 minutes, and because of that, it's really hard to follow or keep up with. There's a lot of parodies and homages that tend to slow the film. Eventually, it stabilized, and that's when it started getting particularly good, but it really struggled to maintain that sort of interest for its first half.

     I think I kind of love this film. It took a bit while watching for it to click with me, but when it did, it was a fun, enthralling ride that keep me on my toes. If you like 70's music or Paul Williams, this is a must-watch. Really, it's a great musical, so I think most people will be able to get into it. Again, it takes a while to gain its footing, but when it does, it was a memorable experience.

    Next week, we return to the world of Ray Harryhausen with Earth vs. Flying Saucers

Masterpiece of Horror Theatre- Scream

     In August of 1990, a Shreveport, Louisiana man named Danny Rollings murdered 5 college students in Gainesville, Florida. The sheer grisly nature of the murders and the meticulousness by which they were committed caught national headlines. When the show Turning Point did an episode on the incident in 1994, it caught the attention of a struggling actor and screenwriter named Kevin Williamson. Williamson, then shopping around his script Killing Ms. Tingle (later Teaching Ms. Tingle, which was released in 1999 with Williamson himself as director), got inspired to write about a killer who stalks and taunts a young women in her home. Eventually, taking influence from his childhood love of slashers (especially the first Halloween), Williamson proceeded to add meta-elements alluding to the cliches of horror movies. Williamson's agent put the script, then titled Scary Movie, on sale in 1995, where it became the subject of a massive bidding war. Emerging victorious was Dimension Studios, a division of Miramax, owned by Harvey and Bob Weinstein. The Weinsteins, as per usual, made some changes to the script to increase the killings and give at least some of the killers motivations, but also remove some of the gorier moments. Wes Craven (already beginning to tire of the horror genre he had helped define for 20 years) read the script and had some interest, but was pre-occupied with a remake of The Haunting he was involved with. When that project fell apart (and star Drew Barrymore signed on), he subsequently accepted an offer by Bob Weinstein to helm the director's chair. At this time, the title was changed to Scream, an allusion to a song by Michael Jackson. Craven and Williamson resisted the change, marking one of several conflict they'd have with the Weinsteins during production (including whether to shoot in the US or Canada, a conflict that almost got Craven removed from the film). Ultimately, the film was shot in some California suburbs. For effects, the killer's mask was a 1991 design by Fun World, which was dubbed "Ghostface" before the debut of the film. The film used 50 gallons of fake blood. After further cuts to get an R rating, the film was finally released on December 20th, 1996 (meant to be for horror fans during the drought of the holiday season), and while the initial weekend earnings were disappointing, word of mouth made it a massive box office success. It was a critical success, but it was also embroiled in controversy due to some copycat murders and especially in the controversy over media violence after the Columbine Massacre.

    Teenager Casey Becker (Drew Barrymore) is idly making popcorn and preparing to watch a horror movie, when a mysterious caller (Roger L. Jackson) begins to pester her, asking her about various horror movies. The caller soon escalates the stakes, saying he's just outside, and showing Casey's boyfriend Steve Orth (Kevin Patrick Walls) tied up in his backyard. Eventually, the killer breaks in, and after a struggle, kills Becker and hangs her as a warning to others. The killings make local news, and in particular impacts Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) whose own mother was killed in a similar fashion only a year earlier, despite the killer, Cotton Weary (Liev Schreiber), on death row. While her father Neil (Lawrence Hecht) is out for work, Sidney is left home alone, her boyfriend Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich, and given the debt this has to Halloween, the name was likely intentional) sneaking in every now and again. The two pal around with friends Tatum Riley (Rose McGowan), Tatum's policeman brother Dewey (David Arquette),Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard, sadly not playing it in his Shaggy voice), and Randy Meeks (Jamie Kennedy, being obnoxious as per usual). One night, the killer targets Sidney in her home, but manages to evade him. As she is besieged by the media, including Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox), who wrote a sensationalist book about the murder of Sidney's mother, she must figure out who is trying to kill her, especially when the principal of the high school (Henry Winkler. Yes, the Fonz is in this) is killed.

     First and foremost, Wes Craven remains a very effective director of horror. He uses tracking shots, subtle blocking, and lighting to make the kills and attacks even scarier and more effective. It helps to make it effective as a slasher, and keep the viewer interested. The mystery of Ghostface does provide a compelling impetus for the plot, and it does pay off with a good twist that is well explained (and does tie into slasher tropes of all types.) Some of the kills are pretty creative, and some of the jokes funny.

     Perhaps the metaness of the film was fresh in 1996, because the slasher boom of the 80's was starting to subside by then, but a lot of the tropes satirized is so spelled out that it comes off as tedious. Characters will literally stop and explain horror movies and their tropes and how it relates to the plot. It ruins any of the meta subtext working or even the scariness itself working in its own right. Sometimes, they'll explain movies, despite them being well-known or at least somewhat known. At one point, they describe the film The Howling. There's the famous scene of Jamie Kennedy describing horror tropes, which completely stops the movie cold. This is a big enough problem, given the whole film is centered on this aspect, but it also doesn't help that Ghostface is just not very intimidating as a villain. His phone voice sounds like I do at 6 AM, when I've got 2 hours of sleep, and he runs around like he forgot his keys. Sometimes, his deaths are entirely accidental, and he just runs with it. I thought he was going to be like a Wile E. Coyote type using gadgets, and he kind of is, only Wile E. Coyote mostly used inventions, and didn't alternate techniques.

    This is a very 90's movie, with a very 90's sense of postmodernism and irony lathered all over it like barbeque sauce on a pair of ribs. In this case, it's a good period piece for that particular point in time, and how a horror movie used it to comment on its predecessors. So, even if I didn't necessarily care for the film, it works to give what was the new horror of the 90's. So, if you're interested in 90's films, it might be some good viewing. Otherwise, I can't say this was a particular good slasher or a good deconstruction. A lot of it was just too blunt or tedious to really work.

  Tomorrow, we look at Brian de Palma's reinterpretation of the Phantom of the Opera with Phantom of the Paradise.  

Masterpiece of Horror Theatre-- The Fly (1986)

     I don't think I've done a David Cronenberg film during the 6 years I've been doing this, and that's a huge blindspot, given his immense influence on the genre. Born in Toronto, he was inspired by college classmate David Secter's film Winter Keeps Us Warm to go into filmmaking, starting with small arthouse productions before going in partnership with fellow Canadian filmmaker Ivan Reitman, who produced his breakthrough 1975 film Shivers, the first to show his signature brand of body horror. By the 1980's, he had gotten more acclaim for surreal horror films like Videodrome, Scanners, and The Dead Zone. He was working on an early draft of Total Recall (adapted from Phillip K. Dick's story, "We Can Remember For You Wholesale") for producer Dino DeLaurentiis when he was approached to a remake of The Fly, which he had to turn down due to that prior commitment. The idea to remake The Fly originated from producer Kip Ohrman, who approached screenwriter Charles Edward Pogue (Psycho III, The Hounds of Baskerville) to write the project. Together with producer Stuart Cornfield, they pitched a remake idea to 20th Century Fox,  with the conceit that, unlike the original's sudden transformation, the remake would feature a gradual metamorphasis. Fox was impressed, but was unimpressed with Pogue's first draft. Cornfield was able to get Fox to distribute the film if they got a new producer. Mel Brooks (yes, that one) agreed to be that producer. (He produced a number of serious films, including David Lynch's Elephant Man, through his company Brooksfilms and kept his name off the credits so that people wouldn't expect a comedy, which he also did here). Eventually, Cronenberg left Total Recall over creative differences, and was able to accept the role as director, as well as completely rewriting Pogue's script, only keeping the element of gradual metamorphosis. A then-mostly unknown Jeff Goldblum was cast after many actors were approached or auditioned, in spite of the studio fearing that he couldn't carry a feature film by himself. Chris Walas, a special effects and make-up artist whose credits included Airplane, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Gremlins, did the effects for the film, including the legendary transformation sequences. Released in 1986, the film would gross $40 million at the box office, and would garner critical acclaim, and even an Oscar for Best Make-Up. The film still holds a 92% on Rotten Tomatoes, and the tagline "Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid" is now a cultural touchstone.

      Scientist Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) wants to impress journalist Ronnie Quaife (Geena Davis), so he shows her his newest project: a teleportation device. Brundle wants Quaife to remain silent on the issue, at least until he could test it appropriately. Quaife documents Brundle's experiments and eventually becomes romantically involved with Brundle, earning the ire of her jealous editor Stathis Borans (John Getz). After a failed experiment with a baboon and a successful one with the baboon's brother, Brundle decides to take the plunge himself, testing the device with himself inside. However, he doesn't seem to notice a fly coming into the other pod. And while he emerges fine, he starts to exhibit strange symptoms.....

     First, the special effects and production design of the film are stellar. Especially the teleportation and transformation sequences, and Goldblum's make-up. The pods look distinct, the computers look real. The dark corridors of the lab, lightened only by the lights of the teleportation or blue street lights, help set the mood of the film, especially at the end. The make-up and effects on Goldblum as he steadily transforms into a bizarre fly-human hybrid is very terrifying and visceral,, especially as it reaches its later stages. It is hard to watch because it is so disgusting (especially the skin). That in and of itself might've worked all to sell the horror on its own, but what really cements it is Goldblum's performance. Not only does he subtly show the personality changes the character goes through, but he shows a lot of physicality in his performance, making subtle changes to his gestures, movement, and voice as the transformation ramps up, and he has to deal with both wanting to change back and the increasing fly take-over of his mind and body. This kind of subtle acting shines through, even under the layers of make-up. I complained about the slow story in the original, but since this one has more of an emphasis on the gradual transformation, it works to build up the eventual monster, and the pain it causes both for Brundle and Quaife.  Finally, the score by Academy Award winner Howard Shore is very creepy and gives an impression

    If there was a problem, it's a bit too short. I feel more could've been done to show Goldblum's transformation before the physical changes become more and more prominent. The changes to his personality and physiology worked incredibly well, and I wish they had more scenes focusing on that, especially since it could showcase Goldblum's performance even more.

     I think I love this movie. It was so good, it's somewhat stunning. This movie is of course, something of a cultural milestone, but I didn't expect it to be this good and this powerful. This is quite a masterpiece, and I highly recommend to anyone, not just fans of horror and science fiction. Even if it is disgusting, the craftmanship is so well-done, it can be forgiven.

     Alright, we continue on Friday with the first Scream. 

Masterpieces of Horror Theatre- The Fly (1958)

       It's that time of year again! Yes, boils and ghouls, it's the annual Masterpieces of Horror Theatre, where we look at horror film past and present. And to begin the last one of these for the 2010's, we will discuss both the seminal 1958 horror film the Fly and its 1985 remake. (Just as a reminder, I don't spoil anything in the synopsis, but I do in the benefits/flaws sections.)

       French-British writer George Langelaan had an interesting life, serving as a spy during World War II, helping the French resistance, escaping a Nazi death camp, participating in the Normandy invasion, and being friends with occultist Aleister Crowley, among other things. However, his biggest legacy was his short horror story "The Fly", first published in Playboy magazine in 1957. The story of a scientist who becomes a monstrous hybrid of man and fly during a mishap with his teleportation device was noticed by Kurt Neumann, a German born director who had been working in Hollywood since the early 30's, focusing on B-movie pictures. He showed the story to Robert Lippert, the head of 20th Century Fox's subsidiary Regal Pictures, who decided to make the feature. While Lippert was initially announced as lead producer, Fox, fearing the repercussions of Lippert's then-conflict with the Screen Actor's Guild over residuals, replaced him with Neumann (who also directs the film) and made the film an official Fox release instead of a Regal one (though Lippert would remain an uncredited producer, and Regal, known for their low budget production style, would handle much of the film.) Screenwriter James Clavell (later a prolific screenwriter and director, known also for The Great Escape) stayed close to the original short story, only changing some elements. Fox boasted in publicity material that much of the equipment used in the film was army or air force surplus loaned to them. Make-up artist Ben Nye made a 20 pound fly head for actor Al Hedison (who would later go by his middle name David, and would be cast as James Bond BFF Felix Leiter in the 70's and 80's), which Nye would remain very proud of. Multiple sources list different budgets for the film, with one going as high as $495,000. Regardless, the film was a smash financially when it was released in July of 1958 (though Neumann would sadly not live to see it, having died a month later.) Though the critical reception was decidedly mixed upon release, it has come to be seen as a classic in the genre.

      At a Montreal laboratory, a night watchman (Torben Meyer) witnesses scientist Andre Delambre (Al or David Hedison, whichever works) crushed under a press, and his wife Helene (Patricia Owens) fleeing the scene. While Helene confesses the murder to Andre's brother François (Vincent Price), she becomes more erratic when interrogated by François and Inspector Charas (Herbert Marshall), and obsessed with flies, in particular a white headed fly. François knows how happy the couple and their child Phillippe (Charles Herbert) were, and in a bid to get the truth, claims to have the white headed fly, which prompts Helene to divulge the true circumstances of his death. Largely, how his tireless pursuit for an effective teleportation machine ultimately isolated him from his family, and lead him to a very... small place.

    First and foremost, this is a very immaculate production design. The house that serves as the primary setting, the laboratory, the outdoors, all of it looks great, and very appealing to the eye, which helps keep the viewer watching. This extends to the two big special effects of the film. The fly costume looks great, very terrifying to watch whenever it's on screen, especially the head and the claw arms. Apparently Hedison disliked the make-up, but it honestly works to make his performance a lot more physical, showing the angst as he struggles with his mind slipping and his grotesque appearance. The second big effect is Hedison's head in the fly's body, which, while only on screen for a moment, is quite terrifying, and leads to a horrific final scene. The terror is still present, even some 60 years later, and it is quite disturbing, especially since a lot of it is off screen. It is very suspenseful at times, particularly when Delambre is fully revealed as a monstrous hybrid.

     I could tell that this was particularly close to the source material, and that works against the film. The long build-up would likely work better in a short story, but the film drags a little as it goes into Andre slowly becoming estranged from his family and acting strangely, and Helene's obsession with the flies and where it leads. It's only an 1 hour and 33 minutes, so it doesn't get too tedious, but it does feel the mystery of it did need to be shortened a little. It is, after all, called The Fly, and people won't be confused by the infusion of a monster called the Fly.

     Right as I was watching the scene where the Fly monster is revealed, an actual fly landed outside my window. That was a funny little anecdote about the film. Anyway, this was pretty good and still very scary, despite being 60 years old with 60 year old effects. It was still very scary and somewhat depressing to watch, especially towards the end. I highly recommend it to horror fans and fans of old science fiction films all the same.

    So, tomorrow, I will take a look at David Cronenberg's version of these events.   

Current Film Reviews- The Goldfinch

     Hey, an Ansel Elgort feature that is being released in theaters.  Despite having now designated myself as his nemesis (which would mean something if he was aware of my existence), I didn't know whether or not to review this film. That is, until its debut at the Toronto International Film Festival, where it was scorched by critics. I knew the book was controversial when it won a Pulitzer, but even that didn't prepare me for the savaging this film got. And then and there, I decided to do this review. I'll say this: it didn't disappoint.

    Based on Donna Tartt's 2013 Pulitzer Prize winning novel of the same name, The Goldfinch tells the story of the life of Theodore Decker (Oakes Fegley  as a child; Ansel Elgort as an adult), who survives a terrorist attack on MoMA, which takes the life of his mother (Hailey Wist). However, as he stumbles through the wreckage, he comes across the mortally wounded Welty Blackwell (Robert Joy), who entrusts him with Carel Fabritus' 1654 painting The Goldfinch. Decker keeps the painting with him, as he journeys through life. From staying with family friend Samantha Barbour (Nicole Kidman) and her family, including his best friend Andy (Ryan Foust), and apprenticing with Backwell's partner James Hobart (Jeffrey Wright) as well as meeting Blackwell's niece Pippa (Aimee Laurence as a child; Ashleigh Cummings as an adult) before his deadbeat father (Luke Wilson, being very Luke Wilson-y) drags him to Las Vegas, where he befriends Ukranian expatriate Boris (Finn Wolfhard as a child, Aneurin Barnard as an adult). Through it all, he still has the painting, seemingly.

       This is going to be a very negative review,  but I'm obliged to at least point out things that work. There are some flashes where young Theo and his friends are having fun or enjoying each other's company which work and are actually mildly interesting. There's a shot here and there that kind of works. Occasionally, it gets bizarrely melodramatic, or overly serious enough to be unintentionally funny.

     The film this most reminded me of was M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening. Stiff acting all around; pretentious, absurd themes and dialogue; weird, out-of-place cartoon characters in otherwise stern serious work. This feels like a very bad late period Shyamalan movie (ironically, his own movie this year is actually better), and all the flaws that entails. It's a shame, because the director, John Crowley, did Brooklyn , which has the bright lighting, but had a charm and warmth to it, that this film severely needs. It takes itself way too seriously, with its themes of terrorism, abuse, the value of art, antiques, family but it never focuses on one theme long enough for any of it to matter or for it to have a coherent message. Like I said, sometimes, it's untentionally funny sometimes, it gets so melodramatic and offbeat. Bigger than that, though, is that the film is just boring. There is no narrative structure to it, so it's very hard to tell when it's going to end, and it just keeps going. It just goes on with dull acting and painfully boring dialogue. I almost fell asleep watching this a couple times. It crosses the threshold into terrible with its crushing length. 2 and a half hours! Virtually nothing happens in this, and it takes that long to tell this story.

     If I hadn't gotten a literal headache watching Godzilla:King of Monsters, this probably would be the worst movie I've seen this year. I struggle to find things that really work about this film. I considered just getting up and walking out, I was so un-invested in this film. It is simply terrible, and I can't think of any reason to see it. Even if the accidental humor intrigues you, it is so few and far between to really make this worth 2 and half hours, and it's mostly tedium in between. I was worried that I wouldn't have enough to write this before I saw the film. Now, I think I have too much, because there might be stuff I've forgotten!

   Anyway, thanks for reading, and join me on the 28th, for the start of my annual horror review, beginning with the 1958 version of The Fly.

Dailles and Nightlies- Crash (2004)

     When Green Book won best picture at the Oscars a couple months ago, the inevitable comparison was to the Best Picture winner at the 2005 ceremony, Crash. Both were dramas revolving around racism, involving the idea that racism was simple misunderstanding and that one could redeem themself of this bigotry. Because of that, both appealed to the liberal, yet very old and white Oscar voters. There was a massive backlash to the win for both (though, in Crash's case, the backlash, in part was because it beat out favorite LGBT+ romance Brokeback Mountain), and both are prime examples of the kind of insultingly simplistic racial dramas that tend to curry favor at the Academy Awards. As I enjoyed reading the reviews and retrospectives of Crash (cultural commentator Ta-Neshi Coates called it the "Worst Film of the Decade"), I came to the realization that I've never actually seen this film. I've seen clips of it, but never the entire thing. Well, this is a whole series for movies outside of recent releases or horror films, so why not explore this, and see if it really deserves its reputation (spoiler: it does)

     So, there is not really cohesive plot to this, but rather a group of interlocking narratives involving several characters. Graham Waters (Don Cheadle) is a detective investigating a crime scene, after getting involved in a fender bender while driving with his girlfriend Ria (Jennifer Espicito) with an Asian driver, resulting in a racial scuffle (setting the tone for all the dialogue in the film). The day before, carjackers Anthony (Chris "Ludacris" Bridges) and Peter (Larenz Tate) steal the car of DA Rick Cabot (Brendan Fraser) and his wife Jean (Sandra Bullock). Director Cameron Thayer (Terrence Howard) and his wife Christine (Thandie Newton) are pulled over by officers John Ryan (Matt Dillon) and Tom Hansen (Ryan Phillippe). Shop owner Farrad (Shaun Toub) and his daughter Dorri (Bahar Soomekh) are trying to buy a gun. Each of these stories intersects and shows how people can be subject to prej... I feel disgusted just finishing that sentence.

    Good things, good things..... There are some decent performances, like Don Cheadle, Ludacris, and Brendan Fraser. It does manage to end most of the stories in a satisfactory manner, without any sort of dangling threads or plot holes. Sometimes, it gets so melodramatic, it's somewhat entertaining.

   First things first, the lighting in this film is horrible. It is often either too bright that it overwhelms the scene, or it is just dim enough that it makes the characters hard to see. The combination makes the film literally hard to watch sometimes. Sometimes, it leads to unintentional hilarity, as serious needle drop moments are staged like some bizarre parody. The big moment in this got a laugh from me. Well, both for the odd lighting which emphasized the wrong things, and how contrived the whole thing was. Which leads to my next problem: the plots in this are very contrived. Only a very specific set of circumstances can lead to the events that occur, and it really stretches disbelief, especially when this is allegedly set in a real-world setting. The way the plots intersect and weave are so absurd, it's almost comical. It's like one of those Gary Marshall holiday movies, where the varying plots are related in weird ways. Finally, of course, there is the writing and the message. Much has been written about this. How all the dialogue somehow finds its way to reveal racism, even when it makes absolutely no sense. How each character is just a vehicle and not a full character. How the characters do absolutely heinous things, but are redeemed in over-the-top ways that ultimately don't address the things they did or really tries to redeem (or even say that some people are beyond redemption). The thing I want to focus on is how... confused the message is. It's either a.) racism is just misunderstanding and can be solved by grandstanding acts, or, b.) it's institutional and possibly can't be solved. The movie ends with the big metaphoric snowstorm in LA, and with people arguing again, which seems to contradict the entire rest of the film.

    I haven't seen Brokeback Mountain, but I can postulate it is far better than this. This was just awful. I can totally see why someone would call this the "Worst Film of the Decade", and get mad this won an Oscar (though it is a superb example of Oscar Bait). I disagree that Green Book was a worse Best Picture win than this, because, in spite of its horrid messaging and bending of the truth, Green Book is mostly competent and well made. I wouldn't recommend watching this as a good movie, but there are moments of unintentional hilarity that can be gained from watching it and how deadly serious it takes itself.

     

Current Film Reviews- Fast and Furious Presents: Hobbs and Shaw

     So, I've never seen a Fast and Furious film. I may have seen part of the second one years ago, but I've never seen any full film from the franchise, despite its increasing acclaim as an internationally, intersectionally minded blockbuster franchise. I just don't really know where to start, given that the continuity of the films is famously bizarre, and its shift from street racing to international spy thrillers equally such. So, given this, I decided to do this review with that mindset. Having not seen any of the Fast and Furious films, does this spin-off stand up as its own film to a non-fan such as myself, who isn't immersed in this particular franchise.

     A group of MI6 agents try to capture a device containing a virus that could wipe out most of mankind (sadly, it is not called "Thanoslite"), from the terrorist organization Eteon. However, an Eteon operative named Brixton Lore (Idris Elba), with superhuman abilities, comes out to retrieve their device. He kills all the agents, except Hattie Shaw (Vanessa Kirby) who injects the virus capsules into herself before fleeing. Brixton promptly frames her for the attack. The CIA then recruits Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) and Hattie's brother Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) to find Hattie and bring her to justice. Of course, Brixton is on the trail, and complications arise.

    First, the chemistry between Dwayne Johnson and Jason Stathem basically is the entire film. I've heard that they get on pretty well in real life, and it does show. I could just see them trash talking each other for a feature-length film. It helps especially during some of the sequences where they are forced to work together. Most of the other actors do fine in their roles (Idris Elba seems to be having fun in this). The actions sequences are spectacular, with elaborate set pieces and a lot of activity going on, making all of them exciting and fun . This could be attributed to director David Letch, who did similar large scale action scenes with John Wick, Atomic Blonde, and Deadpool 2 (Funnily enough, Ryan Reynolds plays a small role in the film). Best of all, there is no reliance on continuity, aside from some nods or subtle references (I don't know how much the two interacted before in the franchise, but they clearly have some history), and the big theme of family that has been through the franchise. It works as a standalone action film, with a lot of heart and sentimentality. 

     This was way too long. An hour and a half long story extended to nearly 2 hours and 15 minutes. It really starts to grind down in the second act, as the action sequences seem to go on too long. I know people don't really care about the story, and I don't really either in this case, but there are a number of continuity errors and plot holes that were a little distracting, even in a movie like this.

    So, I can't speak to whether fans of the franchise will enjoy this, but just as a fun action movie, I enjoyed it. I had a lot of fun, and there was a large amount of heart to this. I might actually check out the others in this series if they're all this fun and jovial. Even if you've never seen another one of these, I think one could watch this, and follow it with ease.  

Summer of Terror- A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

      I talked about Platinum Dunes, and their horror remakes a bit last year. With the success of the Texas Chainsaw and Friday the 13th reboot, a reboot of A Nightmare on Elm Street was the logical next step.  Producers Brad Fuller and Michael Bay, as well as director Samuel Bayer (a music video director making his first and last feature film, at least as of this writing), screenwriters Wesley Strick (known for writing the 1991 remake of Cape Fear) and Eric Heisserer (who would write the script to Arrival) followed the approach Platinum Dunes took with Friday the 13th, and simply took the best elements of the series to try to capture its essence, in particular making Freddy a darker character. Notably, Freddy was made a child molester rather than killer, an idea Wes Craven had discarded for the first film, and given a redone design more realistic for a burn victim. However, they also decided to make a straight remake of the first film, unlike the composite Friday the 13th. While Craven himself was upset at not being consulted, Robert Englund was more supportive of the remake, feeling that CGI could better capture the dream sequences. Replacing Englund in the iconic role was Watchmen's Jackie Earle Haley (who had, incidentally, played a child molester in Little Children),who had auditioned for the first film, but was passed over for his friend Johnny Depp. The film was shot in two high schools in Illinois, specifically for their pools. Released on April 30th, 2010, the film would be box office success, but panned by both critics and audiences.

       The film opens with Dean Russell (Kellan Lutz) in some diner, where he falls asleep and encounters a mysterious man. He wakes up when friend Kris Fowler (Katie Cassidy) meets with him. When Kris leaves for a bit, Dean falls asleep, and the man (Freddy Krueger (Jackie Earle Haley)) slashes his throat, in front of Kris and their classmate Nancy Holbrook (Rooney Mara). At his funeral, Kris has her own dream of Freddy, and finds an old photo of her and Dean as pre-schoolers, even though they met in high school. Kris soon encounters Freddy in her dreams, and Freddy quickly murders her while her ex Jesse Braun (Thomas Dekker) watches. Jesse warns Nancy about Kris death, before his arrest, where Freddy kills him as well. Now, Nancy and friend Quentin Smith (Kyle Gallner) must find out their connection to this man they call Freddy and why he's going after them.

      First and foremost, I like Jackie Earle Haley as Freddy. He's definitely not doing an impression of Robert Englund, and tries to make the character his own. Haley's Freddy is more seething and methodical than the more proactive, cackling Freddy Englund did. Not saying it's necessarily better, but it is different, and Haley's presence as an actor really helps sell this performance. The fact that his appearance is more realistic also helps.  As a straight remake, it works, not entirely imitating the 1985 film but still having the basic elements. The practical effects were well-done.

     Instead of the elaborate, dreamlike, well, dream sequences from the franchise's past, we get really dark corridors and a really bad looking version of the boiler room. That also extends to the actual scares, which forgo the terrifying and interesting kills in favor of boring, poorly edited kills. This is really the central problem of the film: it feels less like a Nightmare film, and more like a Saw knock-off. Very little about it stands out amongst other slashers of the 2000's, and it might not have garnered much attention had it not been a remake of one of the most iconic horror films of all times. Out of all the movies, even the bad ones, there were memorable or interesting parts to them. I saw this film only last night, and I'm already beginning to forget large chunks of it. Even though I wrote a whole review on it, I'm going to forget I saw this film or even I do remember, I won't remember what happens in it.
   
     So, this really takes the spot as the worst one, but only because it is so bland and generic. If it were more hilariously or absurdly bad, it would at least be memorable, but unlike those entries, this just feels like a Nightmare film with all the edge, all the intrigue sanded out, replaced with generic Aught's era "scares", and bland Platinum Dunes production design. Definite skip.


     So, that ends Summer of Terror for this year. Overall, yeah, Nightmare on Elm Street definitely had more consistent quality in their films than Friday the 13th. I've liked a majority of the films in the franchise, and they are pretty interesting both as horror and just films in general. Like I said in this review proper, even the bad ones (except this) had moments that were interesting or warranted a second look. I can tell that the people making these had passion for the material, and were willing to make decision to explore the world of this franchise and its characters, even if it didn't always work. Of these, the first one is probably the best, followed by New Nightmare and the 3rd one. So, yeah, I recommend watching some of these, if only for the fantastic segments some of them have. I wish I could say good night or something, but it's the early afternoon when I'm writing this, so.... here's a photo I took of a Freddy sweater signed by Robert Englund at the Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle a few weeks ago: