Berserker (1987)

DECEMBER 30, 2019

GENRE: SLASHER
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

I can't remember if it made it into the movie adaptation, but one thing I loved in Sphere (the novel) was that the creatures that sprung from the subconscious of the characters had no insides, because while someone might have a strong mental image of a shark or jellyfish or whatever it was (hey it's been like 20 years, leave me alone) looked like on the outside, their mind wouldn't dream up the interior to go along with it, so it simply wasn't there. In other words, it had the right look, but nothing was actually holding it together - something one could also say about Berserker (aka Berserker: The Nordic Curse), a standard past-its-prime '80s slasher (1987 to be exact) that checks all the boxes but never quite felt alive to me.

And that's a shame, because the killer backstory is borderline insane: a berserker is a viking warrior who will dress in animal skins (and snouts) to hunt its victims, as opposed to your standard masked maniac. For a red herring, the movie employs an actual bear (Bart the bear, in fact - kind of a big star back then! He was also in Great Outdoors and The Bear) that we're led to believe is the actual killer since the death scenes are shot in closeup, so you just see a paw swipe someone or the jaws snarling or whatever. It's actually a cheat - when they finally reveal the killer near the end there isn't a single angle where one could believe it was anything but a guy in some loinclothes, but it's an amusing, ambitious attempt at least.

If only it was serving something more interesting! It's bad enough that our characters are right out of the stock slasher handbook, but they all kind of look alike too - there are three blonde women who could all be named Muffy and two blonde men who could be named Chad (as could the brunette guy, for that matter, but at least he's not blonde). Throw a redhead into the mix, damn you! And the movie commits the cardinal slasher sin of killing two of them off almost back to back after an interminable wait, then lets the others all run around for a while, alert to the danger. I can give it some points for not reducing everything to a Final Girl (in fact the men's survival rate is higher than the women's, also unusual), but there's no one else around except for two old-timers, a cop played by John Goff and a mountain man played by George "Buck" Flower, both of whom presumably went home every day and hoped to see a message from John Carpenter (and perhaps they did, since the Fog vets both ended up in They Live a year later!).

When these guys are on-screen, the movie picks up some; granted their conversations have almost zero bearing on anything (at one point they spend a good minute discussing when Flower's character first beat Goff at chess), but there's something dryly amusing about cutting away from attractive and horny 20somethings to let two veteran character actors shoot the shit. After Goff leaves Flower's place for the night we cut back to him every now and then finding signs of a struggle or something else amiss, hoping to find our protagonists before they're all killed and clearly knowing more about what might be going on than he was willing to admit to them earlier (BOTH men do the "don't go up there" routine, hilariously). As for Flower's character... well he disappears for a while, and if you have a guess why then congrats, you've seen a movie before!

(Spoiler for 30 year old movie: he's the killer.)

To be fair it's not a badly made movie; it actually looks pretty good (lots of fog and backlighting, if that's your bag) and the shots of the bear are mostly well integrated, so they weren't all amateurs stumbling their way to the finish line. In fact one of the actors went on to write and star in Iced the following year, so I'm already used to seeing this guy in badly made slashers and this ain't one of them. But all of the most memorable things have zero to do with the horror element; in five years all I'll remember is the jaw-droppingly awful pop songs on the soundtrack (one has a chorus that is primarily "You're a coooooool dude!"), weird homoerotic notes of the shirtless male heroes pouring beer on each other, and the fact that they're all traveling to a cabin that has one room so they're all sleeping (read: fooling around) a few inches away from each other with no privacy whatsoever.

The only exception is the closing shot, where we learn who our Berserker really is via a few dissolves between the muscle bound actor who played him in the kill scenes (when they weren't just using poor Bart) and Flower, who is decidedly less in shape (so it's kind of like a werewolf movie, but one where the werewolf would be mostly human and seemingly wouldn't require a different actor to play his non-werewolf self). Then it freeze-frames on Flower before the credits roll, and it's just a hilarious image that I hope remains burned into my mind for at least three more days. Berserker 2 could have been amazing if they picked up directly where this one left off (they certainly didn't need to introduce too many new characters for a followup since so many of them survived this one) and discarded the mystery angle to let ol' George really cut loose as the villain.

Vinegar Syndrome's blu-ray has the expected extras - a few interviews with cast members and the director (who also provides an intro), but all shot separately so they can't jog each others' memories when necessary or have fun reminiscing as a group, which is how the best of these things play out (see the one on Creepshow for a terrific example). And the commentary is by the Hysteria Continues guys, who are certainly fans of the slasher genre and have more appreciation for some of these lesser films (including this one) than I do, but they tend to run over the same points a lot to make up for the fact that they didn't make the movie and thus don't know too much about its production. And they've already done a few slashers from this era (Trapped Alive, Cutting Class, etc.) so if you've heard those you might experience deja vu since they discuss a lot of the same things (mainly, how the slasher film's glory days were over by then but these movies were still coming along for direct to video audiences, and that they might not be classics but have their merits). Like the movie itself, it's not that any of these things are badly done, it's just that you're going to spend some time thinking "haven't I already seen/listened to this?"

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Haunt (2019)

DECEMBER 23, 2019

GENRE: SLASHER, SURVIVAL
SOURCE: STREAMING (SHUDDER)

For as long as I can recall going to haunted houses and "horror nights" theme park makeovers in October, I've thought that they should make a movie where people got killed for real at one. Well, now that we've had a few, I don't think we need any more for a while. Haunt is a perfectly decent slasher, and more mainstream than most of the Shudder exclusives that they tout a lot, but it's too silly/thin a premise to sustain being done several times in such a short period. Over the past few years we've had Hell Fest, The Houses That October Built (and its sequel), Blood Fest... not to mention things like 31 that change up the setup (those folks were kidnapped and forced to run through the maze, as opposed to voluntary ticket buyers) but otherwise play out the same. We get it! We should stick to the normal houses in our own towns!

In Haunt's case, even some of the dynamic is the same as Hell Fest's, as our skittish heroine Harper is coaxed on by her roommate and partially willing to go along for the ride because of her burgeoning crush on a nice guy. And while there's no proving anything, it's worth noting that the Hell Fest script floated around for quite a while before finally being produced only a few months after Haunt was shot, and from what I understand they quickly put it together to get it out for last year's Halloween season. So it's not too farfetched to assume that Hell Fest's long development process got the script into the hands of people who'd go on to make Haunt instead, and once the HF holders caught wind of it, barrelled their version through whatever the holdups were to get it done and out first so that they wouldn't be seen as the ripoff, which would just be twisting the knife considering how long it had been in the works (it has been around at least as far back as 2011, when Neil Marshall was attached to direct it).

There are two key differences though, both of which can explain why I ultimately preferred Hell Fest to this one. One is that in that movie, they were being stalked by a sole killer in an open, normally running park, opening it up to different possibilities and adding the always fun "no one will believe our hero" scenario. This meant that the action was rather backloaded, yes, but it was something different, and the tradeoff that they had no real reason to be cautious or confused about the situation, allowing them to hurdle over a number of the logic issues. But here, our group drives to this place in the middle of nowhere and there's no one else around and it's very creepy i.e. they should have had warning bells go off in the first place, so it's not as interesting - it's just "yet another", instead.

Also, Hell Fest's sole killer kept it firmly within the standard slasher template (which I love, warts and all). Here there's like a half dozen murderers working for this place, some of which you only see for the first time moments before they attack one of our heroes. I guess the idea is to make the odds feel insurmountable for our protagonists, but it just felt closer to cheating to me, as they could just keep throwing new killers at the kids until the 90 minute runtime was reached - I think it's only fair to establish just how many villains they had to get past in order to escape. It got pretty repetitive by the last half hour, I gotta say, and it denies us any real mega villain that we can really fear, as they're all kind of equal (and not particularly memorable). Like you know in Hellraiser III when they bring out those new Cenobites even though it's pretty much a Pinhead vehicle? Imagine if the movie was just those guys, and every time another one got killed a new, equally generic one would come along a few minutes later. That's what this is like.

All that said, it more or less gets the job done in a basic, no-frills kind of way. Our heroes are thankfully not obnoxious and have no in-group fighting to annoy me; I think the biggest drama is that the roommate loses Harper's mother's ring - when she's attacked! Harper is also a pretty great Final Girl - she's normal without being a wallflower (she actually makes the first move on the guy!) and doesn't need fifty attacks to finally fight back. I also liked Evan, the would-be boyfriend's best brah, who is introduced as kind of a dick (he spills a drink on Harper) but when they realize they're in real danger he's the most proactive about getting everyone out - he doesn't sell them out or leave them behind to save himself (which is what I expected him to do as soon as they arrived).

Indeed, the best thing about the movie is how it occasionally circumvents traditional cliches; the absolute highlight of the film is when Nate (the would-be boyfriend) does that thing where he reaches into a hole and pretends to get grabbed to scare his friends - a tired horror gag we've seen a million times, but then there's a fun twist to it that works really well. The final scene also does something like this, though obviously I won't be spoiling any details, and in this day and age I guess it also counts as a "twist" that our group doesn't all hate each other (indeed, later on I tried a random Christmas slasher on Prime and sure enough, the heroine's boyfriend had fooled around with one of her sorority sisters). The second best thing is that they don't waste too much time on the "is this actually happening or is it part of the act?" stuff, though perhaps if they HAD stretched that out a tad they wouldn't have had to run in circles (literally, at one point) to pad the rest of it out.

Considering it was from the writers of Quiet Place, and produced by Eli Roth, I guess I was expecting a little more from it, so I'd probably like it more a second time around if that were to happen. Again, it's an enjoyable enough movie, but it's not particularly novel or memorable either - the occasional "let's pull a switcheroo with this generic scare type moment" beats only make up a few seconds of a 90 minute movie, after all. But as I mentioned, a lot of Shudder's exclusive stuff tends to fall on the less mainstream side of things (like Prevenge and We Are The Flesh), so I think it's a good thing that they'll be the home to easy recommendable stuff like this in order to woo more casual horror fans. And if means more people might check out Hell Fest, even if just to compare, that's a good thing too!

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Black Christmas (2019)

DECEMBER 13, 2019

GENRE: SLASHER
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

As the world's biggest (but not lone, as I've recently discovered! Was such a relief!) fan of 2006's Black Xmas, the only thing that annoyed me about another remake is that when Black Christmas (2019) was announced earlier this year, it was met with a lot of optimism and excitement that was never afforded the previous incarnation. Where were you all in 2006, when even Bob Clark's blessing couldn't keep horror fans from raising their pitchforks and torches about that one? So that irked me a bit, but then again, there's a big difference between this one and the other two: this time, women were writing and directing, which meant not only a different perspective on the usual story, but a timely one as well.

As with Glen Morgan's version, Sophia Takal, directing from a script she wrote with April Wolfe, wisely borrows only the basic concept of Bob Clark's original and changes just about everything else. So while yes, this is indeed the third version of a movie about a group of sorority sisters who stay on campus during their holiday break and are menaced by a killer, it's in many ways even more removed from Clark's film than Morgan's was, and that's a good thing. There's the usual animosity online about them "ruining" the story or whatever, but as always I feel this is the best way to go, as I can forget about the film(s) that I love and focus exclusively on this one, judging it on its own highs and lows instead of how it compares to the others. They don't even really reference the others that much; the cat's name is "Claudette" (a variation on the male "Claude" from the original), a sorority house's number is 1974 (heh), and some of the kills are influenced by the others (a plastic bag and - yes! - an icicle), but that's it. No house mother, no creepy phone calls (texts instead), no Billy or Agnes... it's its own thing.

Our hero this time around is Riley (Imogen Poots), who embodies the usual Final Girl template but with a grim addition: she was sexually assaulted as a freshman (she's a senior now), with the attacker more or less getting a slap on the wrist. So she's become not only a bit more hesitant than you'd expect from a sorority girl, but also protective of the younger women who have pledged since, hoping to keep the same thing from happening to them at the hands of fraternity brothers. It's not long before things start weirding her out, but at first she is unable to tell if it's just the frat guys messing with her for spreading rumors about their "bro", or if it's something more sinister and dangerous. Of course, we know it's the latter thanks to a (pretty solid) opening scene kill and another one later (which plays out as an homage to another horror "3"), so thankfully it doesn't take too long to get her up to speed with us.

In fact I was kind of surprised when the shit really hit the fan. Rather than follow the usual slasher template and pick everyone off one by one before our final girl is even aware that she is in immediate danger, the killer attacks all three of our main heroes at once at around the halfway mark or so, allowing them to work together and fight off their attacker. It'd be too spoilery to talk specifics, alas, so I'll just say that it's very satisfying to watch Poots, Aleyse Shannon, and Lily Donoghue take on the killer together as sisters, rather than bog the film down with pointless in-group bickering or backstabbing as so many modern films do (even the 2006 one had some of this, though thankfully not much). These women really care about each other and have each others' backs, and it's incredibly refreshing to see.

(ALERT! If you haven't seen the trailer yet, please skip the next three paragraphs!!!)

And I say that as a white man, i.e. the type of person being targeted by the script. As you've seen in the marketing, it's not just one or two killers this time - it's a whole group of dudes in masks and robes, and yes they are obviously part of a fraternity. The how's and why's I'll leave to your imagination until you see the movie for yourself, but I don't think anyone would deny that this film was written as a response to the Brett Kavanaughs of the world (just to make it clear, one of the film's male characters even plainly says "I like beer"). So naturally, as a man, it's not always a fun watch, being reminded repeatedly that I might be perceived as a threat by one of its makers should they happen to be walking past me at night or sharing an elevator or (name literally anything you do during the day and there's a woman who has been made to feel unsafe doing it).

There's a scene right at the beginning that hit home; one of the girls is walking alone at night when she starts to suspect the guy behind her is following her and meaning to do her harm. After a few tentative looks behind her she starts to panic, grabs her keys and holds them out as a claw, ready to strike, and then... the guy just walks across the street into a house, having no intentions for her and presumably having no idea she was even scared of him in the first place. It's something that's happened to me; I am a rather fast walker and one day while walking on an otherwise empty side street I noticed a woman in front of me noticeably tense up and repeatedly look over at the store front window parallel to us, presumably to see my reflection and gauge my intentions. I felt horrible about it - but I also wondered how many times I've been in that same situation but *didn't* notice that someone in front of me was terrified to hear my lumbering steps behind them. As I am not a killer or rapist, I naturally don't walk around with the slightest notion that anyone would have a reason to be afraid of me, but ever since that day I keep it in mind, and either intentionally slow down or sit down if necessary and let them get the distance they want (seems like a better solution than yelling "Don't worry, I'm just trying to get to the movies so I have time to order a hot pretzel!", which, let's be honest, accounts for roughly 75% of the times I am putting a little extra spring in my step).

But that is just scratching the surface of the shit women have to deal with on a daily basis, and naturally I'll never even begin to understand even half of it. Why do I bring this up in a slasher movie review? Well, because I think the filmmakers are tired of men not getting it, and using the slasher as a vessel to spell a few things out, with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer to make sure no one misses the point. In a genre filled with films that were read into (cue Carpenter laughing at Halloween having an anti-sex attitude), Sakal and Wolfe make it abundantly clear that this is about toxic masculinity, literally spelling it out in their own way (again, no specific spoilers beyond what's in the trailer), having grown tired of men like Kavanaugh getting away with what they do while women are harassed and labeled as "hysterical" when they call such men on their deplorable behavior. Ideally, the movie would be incredibly dated in ten years (sooner?) because these problems have finally been dealt with, but sadly I fear that it will continue to be relevant for a while.

Luckily, even if those issues are a thing of the past, it'll still largely work as a slasher, especially for younger crowds who might not be ready for the likes of Freddy or Jason just yet. Yes, it's a PG-13 film, but I rarely remembered that during my viewing, and in fact at one point the rating actually HELPS, as something happens off-screen that you might assume is because of its rating but ends up being a clever misdirect. The characters are all engaging, with no standard cliches - there's no "snotty girl" or "weird girl" or whatever; they're all just normal friends with believable, amiable chemistry. I wouldn't have minded more chase scenes, especially since they're not confined to the house (nor is the timeframe as compressed as the others - it takes place over several days), but they instead focus on moving things along and keeping the runtime from getting out of hand (it's barely over 90 minutes with credits, bless), so it's easily forgivable.

That said, I wouldn't have minded a little more time explaining, or at least building up to, the... thing. I can't say what it is, but you'll know exactly what I mean when you see the movie. It's admirably kind of an insane idea and introduces an element I certainly wasn't expecting (even from the spoiler-y trailers), but it's somewhat jarring in its execution; I liken it to watching Halloween and then skipping ahead to the final 15 minutes of Halloween 6, as it offers the same sort of "Wait, WHAT?" kind of reaction one might have if they were to do that. I assume it's part of the "let's skip being subtle" approach, and if so I can certainly appreciate the effort, but the idea itself just didn't really land for me. It's kind of like Us in that I'd rather know less, because once part of it is explained it opens the floodgates to other questions, ones for which there is no seeming answer. Plus, if they introduced it earlier, it'd give the chance a movie to get even weirder and more inventive - as it stands, there's so little left of the film it feels more like a deus ex machina. With the ads giving so much away, it's kind of the only surprise the movie had left, and there's not enough time to do it justice.

Otherwise, I, the white male enemy, enjoyed this new take on the basic story. I don't know if it'll be thrown into my Blu-ray player as often as the others, but I can easily recommend it to horror fans with open minds, and women who will appreciate the cathartic moments in the third act (in fact, this may be the only actual place where the PG-13 rating hampered the movie, as it would have been great to see the antagonists get gorier demises). The heavy handed way they go about delivering their message may be a turn off for some men (and self-loathing women, who are also represented here), but I found it fair game and very much justified - the last thing anyone should be complaining about is a modern horror movie with a point of view, especially one that differs from your own, as you should think of it as a fun way to maybe learn something. But even if you somehow are able to ignore its message, it's still an enjoyable holiday slasher; its missteps aren't enough to derail the whole thing, and its heart's in the right place, so overall I call it a win.

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Unmasked Part 25 (1989)

NOVEMBER 8, 2019

GENRE: COMEDIC, SLASHER
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

I remember reading about Unmasked Part 25 (aka Hand Of Death) in Fangoria as a young teen, wanting very much to see it but not being able to find it at any of my video stores. So over the years I kind of forgot about it, until Vinegar Syndrome announced they would be releasing it on Blu-ray for the first time, accompanied by a DVD copy since it never hit that format either (at least not in the US). And it had been so long that I had forgotten everything that Fangoria article (or review?) said that made me want to see it, so it was a nice blend of "I really want to see this movie" and "I have no idea what this movie is" - a pretty rare feat.

Luckily it's not a "go in blind" type so I can tell you what it is: a satirical take on the masked slasher movies of the '80s, in particular Jason Voorhees. Our killer, "Jackson", wears a hockey mask that doesn't really resemble Jason's (it kind of looks like the one on the *poster* for New Beginning though) but it's quite obvious he and he alone is the chief inspiration for the character here. They even set the events of the climax on Friday the 13th to hammer it home, ignoring whatever potential jokes they could get out of taking the piss on Freddy or Leatherface. Anyway, he's a Jason-like guy doing his Jason-like thing, but he's getting bored with it - he feels like he's in a rut and only killing randos because that's what is expected of him. But during his latest murder spree he meets a blind woman named Shelly, and rather than kill her (since she can't see, she's not instantly frightened of him) he strikes up a conversation with her and the two fall in love.

From then on it's kind of like Red Dragon's scenes with Reba McClane, as you're left with the rather uneasy feeling of kind of wanting this guy to find peace at last while also constantly worrying that he's going to kill this innocent woman we've gotten to know as opposed to the all-but anonymous jerks he usually offs. But the key difference is that director Anders Palm and writer Mark Cutforth find the humor in the concept, such as when she asks him to engage in rough sex with her and he's quite prudish about it, or when they go to a costume shop and he gets insulted by the idea of her wearing a mask (liking it to how she'd feel if he was pretending to be blind). Eventually his murderous urges start coming back and he feels compelled to do his thing, but for the most part, it's like a weird rom-com bookended by gory slasher scenes.

And yes, GORY. This was notoriously when the MPAA was at their worst for the slasher movies, leaving the likes of New Blood and Jason Takes Manhattan virtually bloodless, and this one was edited for release as well, but the difference is, the producers/studio didn't lose everything like they did for those F13 flicks, allowing Vinegar Syndrome to restore/release the film completely uncut. It was almost kind of disorienting to see how bloody it got at times, because I'm so used to everything from this era being sanitized, and as a bonus the splatter is actually quite well done for the most part, with lots and lots of prosthetics and blood bags doing their heroic duty as Jackson lays waste to two separate groups, with the occasional isolated murder here and there for good measure.

To be fair, the comedy is a bit dated, but it's important to keep in mind that the whole "meta horror" thing hadn't taken off yet. It's not a "spoof" of the films - there are no sight gags or even direct references to the movies we love (even the name Shelly is probably a coincidence, since it was used for a male character in F13 3 - wouldn't they go with Alice or Ginny?), it's closer to a "What if?" kind of scenario, one that might have worked even better if they straight up licensed the Jason character and used him this way. One thing that didn't quite work is that it takes place in London, with Jackson stalking someone's flat in the opening sequence, as opposed to the woods or an isolated home (he does go to one of those at the end, however - though it's more like "we have a really big yard" as opposed to "no one is around for miles"). So it throws off the "let's imagine Jason is getting tired of doing his thing" when he's completely out of his element - he should be kind of excited about the change of pace!

Basically it's a sillier version of something like Behind the Mask, where your love of slashers - and familiarity with their tropes - plays a big part in how much you're enjoying the film. I mean if you absolutely hate "body count" movies (or worse, never saw one) you'd probably find this unbearable, unlike something like Scary Movie which can appeal to a wider audience - this is as niche as it gets. Even the lo-fi look (it was shot on Super 16, swoon!) and plentiful gore lend it credibility that even some straight slashers (especially modern ones) don't bother to earn, and yet it's all in service of a funny (if slightly worn thin by the end) joke. Vinegar's Blu looks fantastic and comes with a pair of commentaries, one with Palm and the other with Cutforth (both moderated by writers), plus the trailer that kind of misleads what the film is ("it's a movie, within a movie, within a movie!" - huh?) and also spoils the ending for some reason - below is a scene instead so you can get an idea of the humor without having the story spoiled. At any rate, it's a nice package for a film that fans - and the curious - would have been happy to finally have at all. No, it won't be for everyone, but if you're a fellow slasher enthusiast like me you'll certainly appreciate the effort.

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Pledge Night (1990)

OCTOBER 10, 2019

GENRE: SLASHER, SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

Since original slasher movies were no longer really hitting theaters by the late 80s, the few that were still being made (more or less exclusively for the video market) tend to be a bit "off" in one way or another. The lack of having to care about mainstream appeal, the drive to do something different in a genre few were still paying attention to... there were several reasons why these films don't bother to stick to the proven formula. And with Freddy escaping the pack to become the most commercially successful of the horror icons (hitting his box office peak in 1987-88), it's no surprise that the killer of Pledge Night, Sid (played by Joey Belladonna from Anthrax) is cut from similar cloth, i.e. he's horribly burned and has a tendency to say something "funny" before and/or after a kill.

But again, the movie's carving its own path, so he also doesn't show up for almost an hour (there are two killers - a crazed pledge at first, then Sid). The elements are all there for a standard kind of slasher movie; our protagonists are the pledges for a fraternity, on their final night of hazing before being sworn in as brothers, and the "little sisters" are hanging around to prepare the food and other things they need to do for their oft-disgusting trials - the fodder is established quite quickly. But writer/producer Joyce Snyder was more interested in showing what frat hazing was like than the killer stuff, despite the objections of director/editor Paul Ziller, making it come off as more of a comedy as there's almost nothing to even hint at this being a horror movie in the first 40 minutes or so. Naturally, that might be too much to ask for some folks.

In fact, even though it's a standard "victim of a prank comes back" type of backstory, they don't even show you that part until quite a ways into the runtime, as opposed to the opening scene like pretty much every other revenge slasher like this, which could have bought them some time. And with the relatively large cast, the late start for the carnage means the killer works his way through everyone fairly quickly once he finally gets going, so don't hope for much suspense or chase scenes (it's been a dire week for well paced slashers here at HMAD). It's almost like they just wanted to make a movie about hazing and got forced to add some horror elements in the last week of production.

That said, the hazing half of the movie actually kind of works on its own, despite the lack of slashing. Per Snyder, they're all real things that frat pledges have to go through, and they never make it look particularly fun - sleeping on the hard floor with no blankets, digesting things that probably shouldn't be digested, etc. There's even a bit where they pour honey on the pledges' faces and then drop cockroaches on them - and yes it's actually done for real on camera, making it the most horrifying thing in the movie by far. And it's not just a string of dares; they occasionally have to pep talk one another to get through the next step, allowing the movie to actually humanize (slightly) a frat guy, which is no easy task. The humor is a little dated of course, but it's earnest and in line with frat comedies of the 80s, so there's a sincerity that I found charming. And while they aren't exactly "woke" they're not horrible human beings either - only the head guy who was carrying out some of the harsher punishments (including an ass-branding) fell into "I want to see this guy die" territory; the others were all more or less in that sweet spot of "I don't love this guy so much that I'll be sad when he dies but I'm not rooting for his death either."

So it's a shame that Sid (the killer) doesn't have any real motive for killing them specifically, as they weren't the ones who killed him 20 years earlier. With the Freddy influence apparent I guess it's more of a "revenge on their kids" kinda deal, but with the only parent we see being the mother to the one person Sid doesn't want to harm (for very obvious plot reasons), if that was the intent it doesn't land. It actually worked better when it was Dan, the aforementioned first killer who is just a frat guy who snapped and started offing his brothers. With the simple "he's crazy" plot, it all works just fine - but suddenly Sid just tears through Dan's body (think Freddy's Revenge), and it's like you're watching the sequel already, where the human killer had been offed so they had to go the supernatural route for part 2.

Had the movie been paced normally, this might have worked just fine, but it's like we waited too long for Dan to start killing as is, only for him to be unceremoniously removed from the film in favor of a different killer. It feels like a bit of a reset, so by the time Sid hits his own groove, the movie's basically about to end. I wish Ziller had put his foot down and gotten to the horror sooner - I think this would be easier to recommend if not for Snyder (who put up the money as well) insisting that they basically make two different movies and stitch them together out of nowhere at the halfway point. Closest comparison I could make is From Dusk Till Dawn, but at least there the vampire twist was basically another obstacle between Seth and freedom - this lacks that kind of character journey to keep following.

Vinegar Syndrome's disc looks quite good and has some nice extras, so existing fans shouldn't be disappointed. It lacks a commentary unfortunately, but Ziller, Snyder, and some of the cast all appear in lengthy interviews, and there's a quick piece on how the shooting locations look today, plus the trailer, which unsurprisingly plays up the horror stuff as if it was a throughline for the entire movie as opposed to its final 25 minutes or so. Luckily, I was warned that it takes a while to get going, so I didn't mind it too much - I was more disappointed that the slasher stuff wasn't all that great once it finally started. It's kind of like Killer Party in that respect, but at least that movie's weirdo nonsense (not to mention earlier introduction of the supernatural plot) kept it better paced overall. So I dunno, it's kind of amusing, and there's nothing particularly bad about it, but it never fully finds its footing either. Your call!

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The Prey (1983)

OCTOBER 8, 2019

GENRE: SLASHER
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (SCREENER DISC)

The problem with my ongoing quest to see every slasher film produced in the 1980s is that I've seen all the ones that are good, I think - because otherwise I would have been compelled enough to see them by now, right? But at least those old ones that slipped through the cracks can usually offer something interesting, unlike a modern slasher shot for roughly the same money, on someone's iPhone, with After Effects blood FX. Such is the case with The Prey, which was shot in 1979 but not released until 1983, and has two versions available on Arrow's special edition Blu-ray - I remember reading somewhere along the line that it was a pretty dull entry in the "campers in the woods get killed by a mountain mutant" slasher sub-sub-genre, but I didn't know how wacky its production was, and learning about that was probably more entertaining than the film.

In fact I learned some of the backstory inadvertently, as soon as I popped the disc in. Since I got "check discs", which are essentially DVD-Rs with no labeling of use to anyone, and it's a two disc set, I grabbed one of the discs marked "The Prey" with a bunch of meaningless numbers after it, only to be greeted with a message saying that this was the international cut that the director didn't approve of, which seemed odd to me until I realized I had probably put the second disc in and should get the other. But I was already intrigued, so while the other one was loading up I looked online and saw that the "international cut" ran about 17 minutes longer and added a lengthy flashback that explained the killer's origins, while also removing "most of the film's nature footage". This of course meant nothing to me yet since I hadn't seen the film, so I filed the info away and didn't think much of it...

...until about four minutes into the film, after I had seen what seemed like the 47th shot of a wildlife critter (sometimes stock footage, sometimes seemingly shot for the production). It was then that I realized that maybe this so-called international cut might be the superior one, but I had to know what my slasher enthusiast ancestors dealt with in theaters or cable back then, and put myself in their shoes. The wildlife footage never ceased or even slowed as the film progressed - you're never more than about 30 seconds from another shot of an owl, or a vulture, or a bug, or just some flowers or trees. It's clearly padding since the film still doesn't even hit the 80 minute mark (credits run a bit slow too), but the secondary excuse is to try to draw a parallel between the predator/prey relationship between animals in the woods and the killer with his victims. It kind of works, but its minimal impact would be the same if there was just a handful of such shots bookending the film instead of several minutes' worth of the runtime.

Director Edwin Brown doesn't just rely on animals to get the movie up to feature length - we're also treated to things like the ranger character tuning his guitar, or his boss trying a sandwich, plus any number of (seemingly improvised, poorly) scenes where our heroes chitchat. There's nothing wrong with the blather in itself - the problem is that these practically muttered bits of dialogue are the focus of the scene, as opposed to something we are overhearing to show how oblivious the characters are to the dangerous killer watching them as they yammer on. The killer's presence is always announced with a heartbeat motif and POV shots, so we know when he's there or when we're just suffering through amateur actors trying their best to recreate the sort of "So you DO think about things like that, Laurie!" dialogue Brown half-remembered from Halloween a year before he shot this fluff.

As for the kills, Brown makes the rookie mistake of stringing most of them together in a brief span (maybe four minutes?) near the end of the film, instead of spacing them out, but I guess I can forgive that since Halloween was the only game in town at the time and they weren't exactly spread evenly. The difference is that Myers' presence and trick playing kept that film engaging and suspenseful - the laundry room sequence in Halloween is just as scary as any kill, after all - but this movie lacks that sort of thing, so it's just dull. At least the kills are kind of fun; there's an axe murder, a guy rappelling down a cliffside only to have his progress sped up by the killer cutting his rope, and - my favorite - one of the girls running, only to trigger a trap that loops her upside down and slams her into a tree, smashing her skull. It's clumsily staged, but since the one who got killed is more recognizable than the other, AND she neglected to have sex with her boyfriend earlier when the others were fooling around, so I thought she might be the final girl, making it a surprise that she died at all, let alone got the most memorable death.

Despite not loving the film by any means, I was still curious about the longer cut, so I watched it a couple hours later and was surprised to discover that it's actually a better version, and almost wish I had watched it first after all. Yes, it's longer, but they cut all of the animals out, which makes the film seem less aimless; it's still too slow but in a way that feels more like a failed attempt at building suspense as opposed to simply padding the film out however possible. The reason it ends up longer despite removing all of the padding is because it presents a 20 minute flashback sequence that explains who the killer was and how he ended up being burned - but the real reason for the sequence is because the UK distributor wanted more sex in the film. So they cast this sequence with adult film actors, and while the sex scenes aren't exactly hardcore, they're certainly more graphic than one might expect from a traditional slasher of the era. Ironically, Brown had come from an adult film background and was hoping to show he could do other things with this one, only for an uncredited filmmaker to go ahead and practically turn it into one behind his back.

It's also ironic that the director's preferred version is the weaker of the two, in my opinion. But if you love his cut (or both of them) you will be ecstatic to know how jam-packed Arrow's Blu is. Interviews with most of the surviving cast, two commentary tracks (plus an audio interview with Brown that is presented as a commentary), a THIRD cut that basically adds the gypsy/sex sequence to the version that has all of the animal footage, a Q&A from a convention screening, a visit of the shooting locations... even if I flat out loved the movie I don't know if I'd be able to get through it all in a timely manner. I've said it before, and I'll say it again here: every film deserves a special edition like this, so that the people who love it can get as much behind the scenes info as they desire. I may not be able to count myself among this movie's fanbase (it does exist; the convention-based bonus features prove it), but I'm happy for them that they don't have to go without, especially for a film that never even made it to DVD here in the US. Good on you, Arrow.

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Trapped Alive (1988)

JUNE 6, 2019

GENRE: SLASHER
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

By the mid '80s, the only non-supernatural slashers that were still getting wide theatrical releases were the franchise entries, with very few exceptions. But thanks to independent productions, the genre kept itself alive with dozens of movies like Trapped Alive (aka simply Trapped), which wasn't released until 1993, but was shot in 1988 in upper Wisconsin and apart from its low body count would have fit right in alongside its golden era peers. While a lot of the others of the time were chasing Freddy with supernatural elements, writer/director Leszek Burzynski was content to make his killer just your standard mountain man kind of hulking brute, stalking a handful of victims in a mine shaft without any further plot complications.

I remember reading about the movie in John Stanley's Creature Features book, which I read cover to cover when I got it around 1997 and maintained a list of movies that sounded worthy of my time. And even though he didn't have much good to say about this one, it still sounded up my alley: the protagonists are at odds with each other (it's a pair of young women and a trio of escaped convicts) but are facing a common enemy, the same "the enemy of my enemy is my friend, for now" plot that worked just fine for Carpenter and Romero, and the location was an abandoned mine, a la My Bloody Valentine which was then and is still one of my favorite slasher films ever. And I didn't agree with Stanley on a lot of things anyway, so I didn't want to take his word for it and skip it. Alas, even with six+ years of daily watching, I forgot all about it until Arrow announced a special edition Blu-ray, which hit shelves this week.

As it turns out, Stanley wasn't wrong - it's certainly not a must-see entry in the sub-genre. The pacing is deadly slow; the first legit kill occurs at the 57 minute mark, which would be OK (if still a bit odd) if he was at least stalking the folks and giving us a few quick glimpses at him here and there, but no - it's almost a spoiler to call the movie a slasher at all. Until he finally appears, it's more of a survival thriller, with our group trapped in this mine on a freezing night and trying to find their way out, with the added threat that the prisoners might just kill (or worse) our two heroines. It's almost like the killer is another obstacle as opposed to the primary threat, which isn't helped by the not-great acting, as they often don't even seem particularly frightened by him when he does appear.

But I was still engaged more than you'd think; for a regional production it's actually quite well made apart from those aforementioned weak actors. The mine - all built on sets - looks terrific and the DP shot the hell out of it, so it doesn't have that horrible low-budget lighting that kills the mood on so many similar films. And even though he doesn't appear enough, our miner killer has a great design; kind of a Madman Marz meets Hills Have Eyes mutant sorta thing, and I like that his preferred weapon wasn't the expected pickaxe but a large pincer like thing that he'd drop down and pull his victims up with. Basically, it felt like they were putting in a good effort to make something a little closer to Halloween than Friday the 13th Part Whatever, and while they missed that mark, I appreciate the attempt and found it easier to watch than, say, Memorial Valley Massacre or Iced (other 1988 slashers that were neither well done or seemingly attempting to be any good).

Speaking of MVM, Cameron Mitchell shows up in this one too, albeit only for a few minutes as the father as one of the girls, who is throwing a big Christmas party when she leaves with her friend to go to their own thing (running afoul of the convicts en route). The Christmas element isn't QUITE prominent enough to dub this as a holiday slasher, but still - it gives the movie that extra little bit of atmosphere, and it's always fun to see Mitchell hamming it up in one of these things. He's also the only person in the movie I recognized, though IMDb tells me the guy who played the cop was in the woeful Class Reunion - maybe slashers weren't really his thing? His role in the movie is kind of amazing; he gets the call about the car going into the mine, and while looking around for it he meets a woman who lives nearby. She invites him in to use the phone and maybe, I dunno, 12 seconds later they're hopping in bed, mocking her husband sleeping in the next room and throwing in a pretty great "shaft" related pun for good measure. She pops up again later in a twist that won't surprise anyone, but it was still amusing to see it play out.

The bonus features on Arrow's disc are actually more fun than the movie, in particular the 20 or so minute local news program from the time the movie was shot, touting the "Hollywood comes to Wisconsin!" kind of excitement that no one will ever really feel anymore now that they make movies everywhere, all the time (and half of them aren't even as good as this). The plan for this team was to get a production studio up and running in their little Wisconsin town, and they followed it up with two movies I never heard of (The Chill Factor and The Inheritor) as well as Mindwarp, the Bruce Campbell/Angus Scrimm movie put out by Fangoria. They talk about this in detail on the retrospective, which is also quite good; they're proud of their work without touting the film as a masterpiece, which is always the right approach for these things. And there's a story about Michael Berryman that kind of blew my mind; he was originally hired to play the killer, but was fired for giving script notes! Not for nothing, but maybe he was right?

There are also three commentaries, one with the director, one with Hank Carlson, and another with the Hysteria Lives guys, who barely talk about the movie itself and talk about late 80s slashers in general (at least for as much of it that I listened to; I was getting tired of seeing the movie so many times in a short period so I only got through about half of it). Carlson's one is probably the best since he has a lot of fun anecdotes and the moderator (a former Fangoria scribe) has his own input, whereas the director's is a straight up Q&A where he tells a lot of the same stories he told on the retrospective (it's also not scene specific at all, adding to the Q&A feel). Carlson also provides an interview, and the included booklet has a fun essay by Zach Carlson (no relation, far as I know) about the film's woozy charms, as well as a touching tribute to actor Paul Dean (who passed away in 2012) written by his son. Dean played the killer after Berryman was canned, but was apparently more of an angel in real life - starting a shelter, raising funds for people in need, etc. He could also bench press 655 lbs, so... how is it that this is his only movie???

No one but slasher aficionados need apply, of course - the movie never quite gets going and its best moments are too spread out to make up for it. But I have to say I was happy to discover that it was the rare late '80s indie slasher that wasn't undone by an abundance of hateful characters or zero lack of atmosphere (many of them, including the aforementioned Memorial Valley Massacre, spend too much time in the daylight - this one's entirely at night). Instead, the filmmakers opted not to bite off more than they could chew, doing a few things well instead of a lot of things poorly. Thanks to the Christmas setting, I might even throw it on again this December on one of those nights where I just want to drink a (spiked) hot cocoa in my usually chilly living room and doze off watching something I've seen before. It just has that late night, local access vibe that I'm always nostalgic for, even if it's not exactly the best example.

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Brightburn (2019)

MAY 26, 2019

GENRE: ALIEN, SLASHER
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

As movie concepts go, "What if Kal-El became Michael Myers instead of Clark Kent?" is kind of a great one - it allows the filmmakers to use a story everyone knows and then pivot into something different. It's basically the same as Marvel's "What If?" series (as I'm not a big DC reader, I don't know if they had something similar - forgive me if they do), where you'd get something like "What if Spider-Man saved Uncle Ben?" or "What if the Fantastic Four all got the same powers?", and get a quick glimpse of what that'd be like, per the imagination of that issue's writer anyway. It's such an interesting idea that I almost wish Brightburn had made tens of millions of dollars this past weekend, because maybe it'd launch an anthology series of films that had the same core idea, and then one creative team would do something more exciting beyond the one line concept.

Because sadly, if you've seen the trailer for the film, you've basically seen every idea it has - there's really nothing to it beyond which I've already described. It takes the core origin of Superman that you've seen in any number of movies (including/perhaps especially Man of Steel, more on that soon) and gives you a Cliff's Notes version so that they can get to the R-rated switcheroom but then never gets any more ambitious after that. For those who have somehow never seen a Superman origin story, the setup is this: the childless owners of a farm (played by Elizabeth Banks and David Denman) find a crashed spaceship in the woods behind their house one night, and it has what looks like a human baby. They raise it as their own, and as he grows up he discovers he has powers: super strength, heat vision, flight, etc., but to them he's still their son and they want to protect him. In the DC comics and movies, he of course becomes Superman/Clark Kent, a man of justice and principal who uses his powers for good.

In Brightburn, he uses his powers to melt a guy's head, or fly someone up hundreds of feet into the air only to drop them. As to WHY he does these things, the movie never bothers to explain that, but unlike Michael Myers I feel this time we kind of should know what exactly turned him into a murderer. Since the origin is so clearly taken from Superman's, it's puzzling why this film's primary character (named Brandon Breyer) turns out so different from Clark Kent. If it's a nature vs nurture thing, fine, but as we don't ever see the home planet or even learn anything about it, we have to just assume it's an... evil planet? I guess? Banks and Denman are seen to be great and loving parents, even after he starts doing terrible things, so I guess we have to just assume that it's simply in his nature to be an alien killer, and the planet is playing a long con by dropping him to Earth and waiting 12 years for him to do anything murder-y.

It's one of the many things that the film could have taken the time to explore, or even hint at. Instead it just lets Brandon discover a power, use it to kill someone, lie about his whereabouts to his only somewhat suspicious parents, and then repeat the cycle again. Worse, there's no real connective tissue from one sequence to the next, as if everyone just kind of hit a mental reset button in between scenes. At one point early on, Brandon lashes out as his father for not letting him have a birthday gift (a rifle), ruining his birthday party and rightfully pissing the man off - but in the next scene everyone's hunky dory again. And it extends to the other characters too; Brandon visits a classmate who is already afraid of him, and when she mentions her mother not wanting him anywhere near her, he says he'll take care of it and disappears. You'd think the girl would warn her mother, or at least mention it to the cops when the woman turned up missing (it's the lady in the diner you've seen in the trailer), but nope! She's barely even mentioned again.

And that is very frustrating, because each scene on its own is fine, sometimes even quite good, especially when it concerns a character whose fate WASN'T spoiled in the damn trailer. But they don't really add up to much, so as the film went on I found myself less and less interested and basically just mentally checking off when each thing from the trailer happened and in turn what would be left ("Where's that bit where Banks runs to the door to see a cop just as Brandon flies by and whooshes him off? Oh, there it is."). Even the film's closing scene was given away in the spots, so it almost felt like I was watching an extended cut of a film I already saw instead of being engaged by a new story. Such a flimsy narrative can be saved by strong/memorable characters, but that's a miss too; characterization is so thin that at an hour into the movie, Banks' character comes home with a name tag on and it was the first time I was aware she even had a job (what exactly it is is still a mystery).

Also, while the gore gags are great (there's one involving a jaw that KNB, Savini, etc. must be jealous they didn't do first), the stalking parts aren't particularly scary or suspenseful, killing much of the "It's a superhero slasher" appeal for me. If you're a fan of the later Jason movies where you rooted for him and they doubled the body counts, you might be into it, but as I prefer the older ones where the filmmakers were still trying to have some real tension in there, I found it lacking in that department. There are some nice shots here and there, like one of Brandon standing (flying?) at a window as the drapes blow him in and out of visibility, but the stalking is pretty much always the same - he is standing in a spot, then he's gone, then he's right next to the target and kills them. The gimmick gets old after two kills, and the script never bothers to introduce any real wrinkles or surprises. Banks discovers a weakness, but it's a non-starter, and there are no equally powered heroes for him to fight or anything like that - he just does his thing over and over until the movie hits a 90 minute mark, at which point it ends.

So really, the only thing that really kept me engaged was my amusement that producer James Gunn (his brother and cousin wrote the script) convinced Sony to give him a few million bucks to make fun of Zack Snyder, his "partner" from Dawn of the Dead (Gunn's script was rewritten by others once Snyder came on board; I'm not sure if the two ever actually collaborated in a traditional way). Snyder's version of Superman has been (rightfully) criticized for being kind of an asshole, without much regard for the human beings around him, so it seemed to me like Gunn and his crew had the idea of taking it to the next level and turning him into an actual serial killer. Which is very funny, yes, but probably would have worked better as a Funny or Die short film or the one-shot comic book I described. For a feature film, as good as that joke may be, it ultimately wore too thin for me. It's a fine enough one-time watch I guess, but this concept deserved a lot more meat on the bone.

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Happy Death Day 2U (2019)

FEBRUARY 9, 2019

GENRE: SLASHER
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (ADVANCED SCREENING)

"I pray neither [Director Chris Landon] or anyone else messes things up with "Happier Death Day" or whatever."

That's the closing line of my review of the original Happy Death Day, and well... here we are. I got the title wrong, but Landon did indeed return for Happy Death Day 2U, which also reunites the entire original cast (save for a few one-sceners from the original like the cop who pulled Tree over for speeding) and picks up immediately where it left off. Luckily I was also wrong about how good it might be - it's not AS good as the surprisingly great original, and it barely even qualifies as a slasher movie this time around (more on that soon), but it's inventive and fun, and equally charming while also tugging at the heartstrings a bit, more than making up for the reduced novelty factor in the process.

(There are spoilers for the first third of the new film ahead, as well as for the entire original, so if you want to go in blind I'd skip this review, but if you haven't seen the original yet I IMPLORE you to do so before you watch the new film as it will not only be harder to follow, but you won't get nearly as much out of it on an emotional or comedic level).

The hardest part about sequels - especially to films as high concept as the original HDD - is that you usually have to focus on one aspect that made the original so memorable and enhance that (while introducing new elements), or else you end up with a glorified remake by trying to just do the same thing again. Given the way the original worked, Christopher Landon (who wrote solo this time around; the original screenplay was credited to Scott Lobdell, who is not involved with the followup) had a few options: take a page from the Final Destinations and introduce a new cast with someone else stuck in a similar situation, ditch the "Groundhog Day" element and make a more traditional slasher, or dive deep into the sci-fi stuff and background the killings that won't really matter anyway? If you've seen the trailer you'd know that he opted for the third choice, coming up with a film that has more DNA with Back to the Future II and My Science Project than Halloween II or whatever else you might have assumed it'd be compared to.

As I said, even though it's been a year and a half for us the movie doesn't jump forward in time - it actually starts a few minutes earlier than the end of the first, showing Ryan (Carter's clueless roommate) making his way from his car back to his dorm room, with just enough notable encounters (a barking dog, a near-miss with a skateboarder, etc) to give us the idea that maybe he will be stuck in a loop now. But now we learn more about him - he's a science major and working on some kind of energy machine in the campus' incredibly large lab, much to the chagrin of the dean who is trying to shut down the experiment. After we run through all of this setup, Babyface returns and kills him, at which point he wakes up in his car again and runs through the routine.

But this is, of course, the NEXT day, the one where Tree has finally escaped her loop, so when Ryan enters the room and starts asking about deja vu, she instantly realizes what is going on and together they figure out that his experiment must have been what caused her time loop in the first place. Things are further complicated when the three of them catch Ryan's killer and discover it's... Ryan? Yes, somehow the machine caused two parallel universes to overlap, putting two Ryans in one world in a variation on the butterfly effect, but in an attempt to fix that timeline Tree ends up getting sent back to "her" day again, where Carter doesn't really know her yet and her roommate is still alive and trying to kill her. Or is she?

It takes a bit, but Tree eventually realizes that while she is back to reliving that Monday/her birthday, it's one from one of those parallel universes, so things are slightly different. Her roommate is NOT trying to kill her this time (in fact she's carrying on the affair with the doctor, who doesn't even know who Tree is in this scenario), and Danielle is a nicer person - in fact so nice she's actually dating Carter, which naturally makes Tree even more desperate to get the hell back to her own timeline. But then she finds out about another thing that's different, and suddenly her choice isn't so easy - Carter aside, this world seems to be a better one for her, with the added bonus of no one trying to kill her. Don't worry, dark comedy fans - she still dies a lot in the film, but it's a plot motivated reason as opposed to failed attempts to outrun a masked killer.

As you might have gleamed from that information, the slasher element is heavily backgrounded this time, to the point where it barely even matters. The subplot about Ryan's killer is finished once Tree goes back a day and starts going through that one again, and in that universe the killer isn't really concerned with her (though they cross paths, naturally). Given the nature of the film's plot, there's very little wiggle room to introduce new characters, and even by this high-concept movie's standards it'd be a stretch to think someone else wanted to kill this version of Tree, so there's only a few chase/slasher kind of scenes, with long stretches in between them to boot. It's a character driven followup, which is rare for any genre but especially horror - it'd be like if Halloween II followed Laurie Strode's attempts to readjust to the world while Myers was just off chasing someone else most of the time.

So if you're only here for the horror, you're going to be disappointed. However, if you're one of those folks who walked out of the first movie wondering how it is she got stuck in a loop in the first place, you'll be delighted to know that this movie answers that question, with at least three scenes of a science student explaining science-y concepts to the clueless Tree (including one with everyone's favorite: someone poking a hole through a piece of paper). And if you loved Jessica Rothe as Tree, you'll be even happier - despite the Ryan-centric opening scene she's still very much front and center, and it's incredibly satisfying to watch her continue her personal journey in an organic way. The film's funniest sequence comes rather early, when she first wakes up in the day again and storms her way through the now familiar gauntlet, screaming at everyone and everything ("SPRINKLERS!") while a very confused Carter and Ryan follow behind her. Once again they use the "every time she dies her body gets weaker" subplot to give it some tension (though as with the original there's no real consistency to it - one day she's passing out from the damage her body is incurring, the next she's fully functional and just sort of worried about it), and it really works - Rothe totally sells the conflict of not knowing if this next death might be her last while also trying to make sure everyone is saved.

The stuff with the dean is kind of a misstep, however. It just adds a complication in a film that didn't really lack for them, and results in a lengthy chunk of the third act being devoted to our heroes trying to get the machine back from his office and into the lab so they could run one final test. There's some really bad comedy in there involving Danielle and there's no real tension to derive from it - we know damn well they're going to get it back, so why even bother with any of this? The experiment failing and/or Tree having to reset one last time to save this or that person gives it the stakes it needs to be engaging, so I don't know why we had to be subjected to this silliness, especially when it means less time spent on making the new slasher storyline more involving. Perhaps if they opted to let the Babyface catch on to the loop (let's not forget, they're actually completely separate elements even in the original) and make THAT the thing that threatens their ability to get the machine up and running, it'd be less of a departure (and simply be more satisfying, though if you're amused by Danielle and the Dean's antics I'm sure you'll be happy either way).

Otherwise, it's better than it has any right to be, and as a bonus it makes for a great double feature. Even though a year and change has gone by with this young cast, they do a great job with the makeup to look like no time has passed (and yes, Tree finally breaks down and yells about how sick of that shirt she is), so take that, Halloween II! But more importantly, the script has a number of payoffs and jokes that work much better with a fresh and thorough memory of the original - we watched them back to back at the Egyptian for this special event (with Rothe and Landon doing Q&A in between) and more than once there was a moment that I can guarantee wouldn't have landed as well had I just gone off my 16 month old memory of the first film. So I highly encourage a refresher if you have the time, in order to get the most out of it. And stick in your seats through the credits for a setup for a third film (pay close attention - there's an obvious "this is what HDD3 would be about" part, but a much more subtle hint about what it could REALLY be about), which I'll happily see just to enjoy Rothe's performance for another two hours, though I wouldn't be surprised if it drops the slasher element entirely by then.

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FTP: Boardinghouse (1982)

FEBRUARY 1, 2019

GENRE: SLASHER, SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

As a fan (well, "fan") of Sledgehammer and some other early shot on video oddities, I was excited when I won Boardinghouse at trivia a while back, because while it sounded like something I would enjoy I was also leery of blind buying the damn thing (especially on DVD, gross!). Now I could see it for free and not mind if it turned out to be really bad! But man, I wasn't prepared for just HOW bad it was; it actually took me several attempts just to finish it, and that was the 96 minute version - there's another that runs an hour longer, something I have to assume is akin to waterboarding or flying on Spirit Airlines. I know there's some appeal in seeing something this amateurish and weird, but whatever that je ne sais quoi is that makes the likes of Things and (to go out of horror) The Room into a compelling experience, it's definitely absent here.

I can give them some leeway on the removal of nearly an hour of footage - I can't imagine even something like The Godfather would be much use if more than a third of the film was lopped out. But thanks to MovieCensorship, a site that runs down the differences between two cuts of a movie, I know that a great deal of the footage is just padding or scenes running longer thanks to more cutaways and the like. Entries like "The shorter version cuts away a few seconds before she gets to the door" are common, so unless you believe that watching someone walk all of the way to a door is essential to the film's coherency or merit, I think you'll agree that this movie wasn't "ruined" by getting hacked up. Obviously some of that footage is meatier than the example, but after reading through the entry (which is very long since so many of the cuts are of a few seconds here and there) I am certain that the film couldn't be saved thanks to how it was made in the first place.

And no, I'm not referring to the shot on video aesthetic - it actually looks fine for that sort of thing, and in fact I've seen movies made twenty years later that looked much worse. No, the problem is that the director cast himself in the lead role of a guy who is a sex magnet for every woman in the film, which is icky and implausible in equal measures. And since it's a lot cheaper to film a guy being hit on by a lady or two than to have a big chase/kill scene, we spend most of the movie watching the women fawn all over this guy, and not nearly enough time on the killer doing his thing. So that leads to the other problem - it's one of the most meandering "slashers" I've ever seen; the setup is fine (the owner of the titular boarding house nabs a group of comely ladies who all move in around the same time but then start getting picked off one by one) but the killer takes too much damn time to do that. Instead we get scenes of the hero going to work, meeting clients, one of the girls working on an album, a pie fight, a pool party (including a bizarre catfight), and horrifying sex scenes.

I know all that makes it sound like a lot of fun but I assure you, the lack of any momentum makes these moments just as dull as everything else. I think the thing that makes The Room "work" is that it's actually kind of a threadbare story about a guy whose fiance is cheating on him with his buddy, but keeps tossing in all these non sequiturs to keep it lively. But most of the things this movie offers are exactly what you'd expect from a slasher - they're just too spread out and done too poorly for it to ever be any fun. In fact, the only amusement I ever got out of the damn thing (besides the electronic score, which occasionally sounds like an Asylum mockbuster of Halloween II's) was when they clearly edited something out, as a scene would just randomly fade out before any discernible point to it had been made; presumably they had to keep part of it for continuity or to avoid cutting an actor (read: friend of producer) out entirely. I can't help but wonder if they kept going and got the thing down to like 75 minutes if it would actually work?

P.S. The menu is horribly designed too. This whole affair was a waste of a trivia prize!

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FTP: The Hoarder (2015)

JANUARY 25, 2019

GENRE: SLASHER
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

The second lowest grossing film of all time is Storage 24, a movie about a monster killing all the randos in a storage facility, which grossed a total of 72 dollars during its theatrical "release" (one screen, but still - that's like six tickets!). The thing is, it's actually a pretty decent little movie (it's from Johannes Roberts, who has since gone on to bigger fortunes with 47 Meters Down and the Strangers sequel), and would be the one I recommend if you only could watch one horror movie about randos trapped in a storage unit. However, this one, The Hoarder, isn't all that bad either (and the title makes it a terrific place to start FTP reviews), offering up reasonable amounts of gore and a fairly decent twist in its sub-90 minutes.

Now, those things are nice but moot if you hated everyone in the movie, but that's thankfully not the case here which is what makes it worth a look as opposed to unwatchable dreck. Our characters (led by Mischa Barton) aren't the most savory lot in the world - Barton has a history of snooping on her boyfriends, there's a cop that's there to retrieve some bribe money, there's a prickly divorced couple splitting up their belongings, etc... - but they're not hateful or even all that obnoxious. They're flawed, and so even though there's no real sadness to seeing any of them get offed, I never found myself rooting for the killer either. Plus, the twist kicks it up a notch, and I give kudos to director Matt Winn for how he didn't cheat in the kills that occurred prior to the reveal. It's not a mindblowing twist, for the record - just one that gives it a little oomph at a point where the movie could have started getting too repetitive.

So it's a perfectly OK timekiller; the sort of thing you can safely watch at the end of the day and maybe pass out during (I didn't, for the record - I watched it midday!) without feeling too bad, but also not kick yourself for staying awake through and having to find something ELSE to doze off to instead. I wish there was a little more variety to the environment, but I guess it's more realistic that it'd be aisle after aisle of identical doors that lead into the various units, so I can't fault them for that (and to be fair they do utilize the basement and some offices to mix it up a bit). I wouldn't ever pay for it (this one was a trivia win, so all it "cost" me was whatever birthday I forgot in order to keep the full title of the 6th Puppet Master movie rattling around in my head), but if I was still watching/reviewing every day it wouldn't surprise me if this was one of the better movies I saw in a given week.

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