Blogtober Epilogue: I Think It Was Our Most Horrible Yet!

Hello again, and welcome back to our last review in this year's Blogtober!  It's sad to see Halloween gone for another year, but we're gonna try to focus on the future right now.

The November 1st movie is something of a yearly tradition for me.  With Halloween over and Christmas looming ahead, it can be difficult to transition straight from one holiday feeling to the next.  Luckily there's one movie that specifically helps with this problem.

THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS (1993)

Blogtober Qualifications: Monsters, skeletons, the Boogeyman, a literal Halloweentown

Yeah, you knew what it'd be.

Halloween has come to a close for another year, and the residents of Halloweentown are celebrating all the work they put in this year.  For the record, Halloweentown seems to be an otherworldly place, the sole purpose of which is to bring Halloween to the world every year.

One resident of the town doesn't quite join in on the festivities, however: the Pumpkin King, Jack Skellington (voiced by Chris Sarandon).  Jack, you see, is actually kind of depressed.  He's been at the Halloween game for a long time, and just doesn't feel the thrill of it anymore.  He desperately seeks a new experience.

Seemingly completely by chance, Jack discovers the existence of Christmastown, which is exactly what it sounds like.  This place is unlike anything Jack has ever seen, and he quickly becomes enamored with the idea of Christmas.  He returns to Halloweentown to share what he's learned and, before long, the townsfolk decide that it might be a good idea to make Christmas themselves this year...

So.  Yes.  There's a very real possibility that you've already seen this movie.  It wouldn't be too surprising, considering the fame it's garnered for itself over the past ten years or so.  Ironically, it was more of a cult movie for a good while.  I can vividly remember a time when I was the only person I knew that had even heard of it, much less liked it.

By now, though, it's exploded in popularity.  It's not quite as in vogue as it was a few years ago, when everybody was into it, but you still find merch and fanart everywhere.  The funny thing is, popular internet opinion seems to suggest that I should hate these "new fans."  I've been here since the beginning, but they're just jumping on a bandwagon, right?  How dare they come in so much later, suddenly the biggest fans in the world?

Now, I can understand this feeling.  When you have something that you care about, that everyone else ignores, you become that much more attached to it.  And then, if everyone else suddenly shows interest in that thing, it can cause some serious whiplash.  You tell yourself they don't really understand it.  That they're only interested now because it's become popular.  And worst of all, you become afraid that people will think that you are only interested now because it's become popular.  You wish you could wear some sort of badge that says "Longtime Fan" or something.  I get it, I do.  

The most recent thing this happened with for me was JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, when the new anime adaptation began a few years ago.  I had been a JoJo fan for years by that point, but now everyone was a JoJo fan.  On the one hand it's a good thing, right?  We're getting licensed games in North America!  Sure, I had already imported the Japanese version of the game, but I bought it again in English.  But now JoJo isn't "mine" anymore, is it?  It's not that thing that I can point to and go "Yes, this is mine.  You may not understand it, but it's mine."  I went through all those emotions I talked about in the previous paragraph.  But I came to a conclusion at the time, and I've tried to live by it ever since.

It is never a bad thing for the things you love to be getting appreciation.

Best case scenario, it takes off like gangbusters, they make new stuff, or just newly-released versions.  Maybe it'll get an awesome sequel or follow-up, or get adapted into a new medium, and maybe it'll all just rock.

Worst case scenario, they try to do what I just said, screw it up, and it goes away again.  Sure, it sucks, but you just ignore the bad stuff and continue loving what you love.  And I bet that thing now has more fans than it had before.

In the case of JoJo, we got a sweet new anime (which will hopefully debut a new season soon), the entire series is being released in English, finally (originally only Part 3 got an English release), and in awesome new hardbound versions, no less.  It's, honestly, a great time to be a fan of the series. 

So no, your pet fandom suddenly becoming bigger isn't really worth complaining about, as long as it's being respected.

Anyway, enough of that rabbit hole.  I'll talk about JoJo at length sometime in the future, I'm sure, maybe a full series retrospective.  But for now, let's get back to Nightmare Before Christmas.

Honestly, though, what needs to be said?  You've probably already seen it.  If you haven't, and you have any interest whatsoever, you should.  You probably at least know some of the songs, so you can go ahead and sing along.

I love stop-motion.  We currently live in what is essentially the renaissance of stop-motion movies.  Just look at all the great ones that have come out in the past decade: Coraline, Paranorman, Frankenweenie.  I haven't seen The Boxtrolls or Kubo & the Two Strings, but I plan to fix that quite soon.  And every single one of those movies has The Nightmare Before Christmas to thank.

And not just because a lot of them are made by the same people.  Nightmare was daring at the time, a dark fantasy that skewed towards older kids, created with what was essentially becoming an "obsolete" technology.  And yet, it became something special.  I wouldn't be surprised one bit if every single one of those movies I listed before were made possible because of Nightmare's surge in popularity.  Sure, Corpse Bride was lackluster, but it wasn't lackluster enough to derail the train.

And sure, most of those newer movies are better than Nightmare (not Corpse Bride), but none of them are anything like it.  There's honestly nothing else like it.  The world that it presents is unique, it's quirky, and it's dripping with Halloween feeling.  And then, AND THEN, we take the biggest risk of all: we completely abandon that and instead focus on Christmas, and the dichotomy of the two holidays being essentially right next to each other.

It asks a question that was honestly begging to be asked: What if Halloween tried to do the job of Christmas?  What would the most wonderful time of the year look like through the lens of the macabre?  It's a real treat to watch.

On top of that, this movie, in my mind at least, created the idea of different holidays having a soul and a presence of their very own.  It made Halloween and Christmas (and others) linchpins of the universe.  I'm sure that things "felt like" Halloween and Christmas before this movie, but this created the idea that it could be something tangible, something that we can take a little piece of in our hands and carry it with us.

The cast of characters is great.  Jack Skellington's design is top-notch, and it's funny when you realize that, in anything else, he'd be a villain.  And yet he's not; instead, he's a charismatic, passionate leader of the people who just wants to experience something great.  Sally (voiced by Catherine O'Hara) the patchwork doll is a surprisingly deep character, mischievous one minute and contemplative the next.  And Oogie Boogie (voiced by Ken Page) is a great villain, greedy, chaotic, and disgusting, but still fun to watch.  He also has a great villain song.

Speaking of songs, almost all of them are great.  There's one or two that don't quite hit the bar for me, but all of the rest are catchy and memorable.  If any song from this soundtrack starts playing, I will sing along with it, even the couple I'm not that big on.

Now, I don't want you coming away with the idea that I think this is a perfect movie, because it's not.  As I said before, the stop-motion genre (if you want to call it that) has produced some seriously, seriously good movies in the years since, and so it becomes more difficult to look past Nightmare's few flaws.  And yes, they're few, and they're minor, but they're there.

Still, Nightmare more than holds its own in the modern day stop-motion arena.  Hell, it may still be my favorite, even if it gets by just a bit on nostalgia. I've said it before and I'll say it again: if you've never seen this movie, and you have any idea that it might be the kind of thing you enjoy, it is absolutely worth your time.

And with that, we bring to a close the final review of Blogtober.  We're still not quite done, though, because tomorrow I'll be writing one final post to end it.  It'll be a "closing ceremonies" of a sort, where I'll be reflecting on how this October went, what movies I liked the best, and just generally looking back on what it was like to work on this project, and what it meant to me.  If you've enjoyed listening to me ramble so far, I hope you'll join me again.

Until next time!

Current interests:
Listening - Multiple

Playing - Super Mario Odyssey (2017)

Reading - The Complete Books of Blood (Clive Barker, 1984)

Watching - Kamen Rider Kiva (2008)

Blogtober Chapter 31: Carly Beth, I'm Sorry, But This Face Is Your Face Now

Happy Halloween!  Okay, so it's mostly over now, but I hope your day went great.  I actually meant to have this post up earlier, but I had some other things going on (like procrastination). But it's here now!

Today's entry is a little special, because we aren't reviewing a movie, but a two-part episode of one of the two '90s horror shows for kids.  Yes, there were two horror shows for kids in the '90s.  Dang Mortal Kombat, corrupting our youth.

It's also a bit different because we don't have a poster or a DVD cover (though one exists) and we will instead be using a book cover.  Remember books?

Anyway, without further ado, let's hop to it.

GOOSEBUMPS: THE HAUNTED MASK PARTS 1 & 2 (1995)

Blogtober Qualifications: Halloween, masks, mean pranks, duck costumes???

Carly Beth Caldwell (Kathryn Long) is afraid of pretty much everything.  It doesn't help that everyone seems to love scaring her.  Also her mother made a plaster bust of Carly Beth's face in some vague crafts class, which, I mean, that has to be weird, right?  Also also, her mother bought Carly Beth a duck costume (???) for Halloween because of an offhand comment CB(as she will now be known) made earlier in the year.  I just...

Anyway, she's afraid of everything and the school kids love to prey on that because kids are horrible.  After a particularly mean-spirited prank involving a sandwich and a worm, CB decides that she's had enough.  "To Hell with the duck costume!" she proclaims (essentially), and she decides to put all of her savings ($30, not bad in '90s money) into the perfect horrific costume to scare everyone around.

Spoiler warning: things don't go so well.  She buys a scary mask from a new novelty shop that's just opened up.  Oh, and when I say "buys," I mean "steals, throwing the money behind her as a diversion while she runs away."  That's fine, though, cause the mask salesman is weird and creepy anyway.

To cut a long story short, CB puts on the mask, along with what are basically her normal clothes.  She also steals the plaster bust her mother made and uses it as some sort of scary totem.  She has a good time scaring people at first (and is actually pretty fun to watch), but it doesn't take long before she realizes that the mask is changing her.  Worse yet, she can't seem to take it off...

So something worth noting here is that, yes, I read the Goosebumps books and loved them.  My personal favorite of the books was Attack of the Mutant (which was later adapted into a badass PC game).  However, that being said, I never really watched the show.  This was mainly because it was never on at a convenient time where I lived.  There's also the fact that Are You Afraid of the Dark?, which played after school on my favorite channel (Nickelodeon, which would no longer be my favorite once I discovered Cartoon Network), filled my scary show quota well enough.  This may actually be the first time I've watched a full episode all the way through.

And honestly, I found it pretty enjoyable, all things considered.  I mean, it's not great, by any stretch.  Hell, it might not even be good, technically speaking.  But it's a lot more competent than I was expecting.

To put the old horse down right away, yes, the acting is pretty hokey.  But it's actually not as bad as you might think.

CB herself is a little wooden, but once she puts the mask on she's actually quite a treat to watch.  She seemed to be a bit less stiff behind the mask, and I enjoyed her antics.  It's also quite possible that it's a completely different person under the mask.  I did some research, but I couldn't find a definite answer either way.  I did find out that her actor, Kathryn Long, went on to become a professional ballerina.  That's genuinely pretty awesome, way to go.

Everyone else is actually fairly decent.  CB's best friend Sabrina (also played by a Kathryn, last name Short) is the weakest of the main kid actors, but

Wait, what?  The main character and her best friend are played by Kathryn Long and Kathryn Short?  How does that happen?  One of those castings had to be intentional, right?  Like they were picking between two girls for Sabrina and they had, say, Vernita Green and Kathryn Short.  And they were just "Well, it's obvious which one we pick, right?"

That is definitely what happened.  Moving on.

Honestly, the weakest acting job (from the named characters) would probably have to go to CB's mom.  Her name is Brenda Bazinet, and she's been in quite a few things since this, almost none of it noteworthy.  Still, I'll give her the benefit of the doubt and say she's just phoning it in here.  I mean, it's Goosebumps, who's even gonna see it?

Me, apparently.

So beyond all that, the story proceeds pretty much as you'd expect: kid does questionable things, bad things happen, kid learns lesson, twist ending.  Like I said, it's actually pretty enjoyable, but I wouldn't call it scary.  I mean, I know I'm an adult and everything, but I'm pretty sure there's only one scene in the whole two-parter that would scare even a child, and even that's a bit of a stretch.  Still, though, a good time, all told.

At the same time, there are a lot of little weird things that I noticed, and I'm going to rant about that now.  Enjoy.

So in the aforementioned worm sandwich scene, we're at the school lunch...yard... and everyone in the school is wearing a costume except the named characters.  At least two of these children are dressed as a clown.  Y'know, one of the old go-to costumes for any generic background kid.

Then there's the fact that everyone overreacts to the mask.  One mother and her children express an inordinate amount of distaste for the rubber visage.  CB then growls at the mother's daughter in order to scare her.  Because it's Halloween, right?  Well then the mother threatens to call the police.  Again, the crime is scaring someone on Halloween.

More mask shenanigans, people keep asking CB how she's "doing that with (her) voice," the implication being that her voice is somehow changing when the mask is on.  But it's literally just the actress (Long, Kathryn)... doing a slightly different voice?  Like, imagine a little girl imitating the Wicked Witch of the West, as they are wont to do.  It's just that.

For the record, the mask itself is just a rubber mask.  It's well-made, but you could grab something similar at any Party City.  I know it's a kids' show, but give me some glowing eyes or something.

We also have the strangest cliffhanger I've ever seen at the end of part one, and this is from a series infamous for bad cliffhangers.  Sabrina tells CB to take the mask off.  CB doesn't want to.  They awkwardly tussle over it.  To be continued.

Oh yeah, R.L. Stine himself keeps showing up to tell us how scary his story is, and it's like, dude, you must know better.

And finally, minor spoilers, but CB learns her lesson (I guess) and comes home, relieved to see her mother again.  Her mother asks her why she's home so late and what she's so upset about.  CB's response?

"Let's just say I learned a lot about myself tonight," or something along those lines.  And her mother just smiles and hugs her!

Okay, imagine this: you're a parent.  It's Halloween, and your teenage(?) daughter comes home late.  You have no idea where she's been, but she's clearly disheveled and in a fair amount of distress.  When asked about it, all she'll say is that she learned a lot about herself.  In what universe is the proper response smiles and hugs???

Anyway, I've digressed enough.  The point is that I actually enjoyed the show quite a bit.  Far as I can tell, this special basically created the TV series, so it's really not a surprise that the quality is high (again, relatively speaking).  If you have any nostalgic memories, or want to see what we got up to in the '90s, or just want some harmless spooky fun, definitely give it a watch.

And with that, Halloween comes to a close, but Blogtober is not quite over yet.  Tomorrow we have our epilogue, one final movie to help us transition from one season to the next.  Yeah, you've probably seen it, but it'll be a good time anyway.

Until next time!

Current interests:

Listening - Dio: Holy Diver (1983)

Playing - Super Mario Odyssey (2017)

Reading - The Complete Books of Blood (Clive Barker, 1984)

Watching - Kamen Rider Kiva (2008)

Blogtober Chapter 30: I'm Afraid Raising The Dead Ain't Within My Power

Ho boy.  Halloween is tomorrow, you guys.  I can almost taste it, and, surprisingly, it's cherry flavored.

Actually, that might be the Blow Pop I'm eating.

PUMPKINHEAD (1988)

Blogtober Qualifications: Demons, revenge, old witches, a complete misnomer of a title

Our story begins in 1957.  A young Ed Harley is being put to bed by his mother as his father latches the door for the night, curiously holding on to his hunting rifle.  Suddenly, a neighbor begins beating against the door, begging to be let in.  The father refuses, and Ed looks outside to see the neighbor being taken away by something in the night.

We then cut to the present (okay, 1988), and a now-adult Ed Harley (Lance Henriksen) now runs his own local grocery store, with his son Billy (Matthew Hurley).  Everything changes, however, when a group of careless teenagers accidentally cause an accident that leads to Billy's death.

Ed, full of anger and rage, seeks the aid of a local witch in order to take revenge on the teenagers.  This revenge comes in the form of Pumpkinhead, a demon of local legend, and the same creature Ed saw that night 30 years prior.

So today, obviously, we're talking about Pumpkinhead, a movie about a monster whose head is nothing like a pumpkin.  There's some mention about how he's called Pumpkinhead because the graveyard he rises from is in a pumpkin patch.  Still, it almost seems intentionally misleading.

But how's the movie?  Well, it's pretty okay, if I do say so m'self.  I like the story idea: a father who's just lost his son, seeking revenge against the people he blames for taking his son away.  And he seeks said revenge by summoning a demon.  Sure, it's a bit of an overreaction, but I can't honestly say I wouldn't do the same.  I mean, when summoning a demon is an option, it would probably be hard not to take it, y'know?

The progression of the plot itself isn't exactly original, but it's entertaining enough.  My one real complaint with it is the pacing.  Sometimes we have long stretches of the plot not really progressing, then two or three plot points (or kills) in a a short amount of time.  Still, overall, I enjoyed it.

Guess who's back, you guys!  That's right, Lance Henriksen joins the proud few that can claim to have been featured on Blogtober three times.  In fact, by my calculations, he's the only person I've featured in three unrelated things.  So good job, Lance Henriksen.

*scattered applause*

Another interesting thing is that he's actually playing a human this time.  He does a pretty good job here, especially in the scenes between him and his son.  It's really weird seeing him smile and laugh.  Y'know, like a human.  There are a couple weird moments with his performance where he suddenly throttles all the way into overacting territory, but these are few and far between.

All of the teenagers are bland, and I couldn't keep their names straight.  Even the "tough guy" character, the one who causes all the trouble in the first place, is pretty monotonous.  But hey, they're here to be killed anyway, so yay?

There's a hillbilly kid named Bunt played by Brian Bremer.  He's strangely creepy and he makes me uncomfortable.  I don't mean, like, scary uncomfortable.  Just if I was having a conversation with him I would rather not be.

And finally there's the witch Haggis, played by Florence Schauffler.  She's a pretty cliche witch character, but she does a pretty good job.

But wait, there's one more character: Pumpkinhead.  And let me tell you, he may not look like a pumpkin (still questioning that one), but he does look pretty freakin' sweet.  I mean, the design is actually a little lacking, he's basically just a xenomorph with eyes and without a carapace.  It's almost like the guy that directed this worked on Aliens or something.

Still, the execution of the monster is all kinds of awesome.  I haven't looked into it, but I'd guess it's part suit part puppet (again, like a xenomorph), but the devil is in the details here.  It's just a really impressive piece of work, and when we see its face in close-up late in the movie, it's pretty crazy how lifelike it is.  I hate to keep harping on this, but just imagine how it would look if they had used CG.

It's actually kind of unfortunate that the design isn't a bit more original.  It's decent, sure, but this is '80s horror we're talking about.  This was the renaissance of the iconic horror villain, and some of the greatest of all time were created in this decade: Jason, Freddy, Chucky, Pinhead.  Next to those titans, Pumpkinhead just can't stack up.

All told, Pumpkinhead (the movie) is a pretty good time.  It's not gonna change your world or anything, but it's a quick, relatively easygoing ride.  Heck, it's almost suitable for kids.  There's a few "F" words here and there, but very little gore and no nudity.  The most questionable aspect is Pumpkinhead itself, which younger kids (and some adults) may find a bit too much to handle.

I guess just warn them that he does not actually have a pumpkin for a head.  That can be a real disappointment.  Speaking from experience.

Tomorrow is Halloween, and we're actually going to be reviewing a couple episodes of a spooky TV show from my childhood.  Yeah, that one.

Until next time!

Current interests:

Listening - Dio: Sacred Heart (1985)

Playing - Super Mario Odyssey (2017)

Reading - The Complete Books of Blood (Clive Barker, 1984)

Watching - Garfield's Halloween Adventure (1985)

Blogtober Chapter 29: We Had Part Of A Slinky. But I Straightened It.

Two more days!  Two more days!

GHOSTBUSTERS II (1989)

Blogtober Qualifications: Ghosts, slime, Carpathian warlords, everyone telling you the sequel isn't as good as the original

*Spoiler warning for Ghostbusters (1984), but if you were paying attention you'd have already watched it*

Five years after the events of the first movie, things haven't been going as well as we were led to believe.  The Ghosbusters are out of business, no longer allowed to fight ghosts, and no one seems to believe in them anymore.  

Ray (Dan Aykroyd) and Winston (Ernie Hudson) are keeping the name alive, but they've been reduced to performing at birthday parties.  Egon (Harold Ramis) is off doing science stuff.  And Peter (Bill Murray) is hosting a cheap daytime television show featuring fraudulent psychics.

Before long, however, big trouble comes back. New York seems like it's heading towards the end of the world once again, and there's only one group of guys that can handle it.  At least, that's the hope.

So.  Whenever Ghostbusters II comes up in conversation, someone will invariably have the seemingly instinctive response of telling you that it sucks.  It's never quite descended to the level of outright hate, but it's "common knowledge" that Ghostbusters II is no good.

Ask me, that's completely unfair.

Does it reach the lofty heights of its forebear?  No.  Was it ever going to?  Probably not.  It's entirely possible nothing ever will.  But let's take a closer look.

All of the principal cast is back, less EPA agent Walter Peck.  Instead we have the mayor's assistant Jack Hardemeyer, played by Kurt Fuller, playing essentially the exact same role he plays in every other movie.  Seriously, you need an obviously sleazy dude in a suit in the 1980s?  You call Kurt Fuller.

Anyway, almost everyone else is the same, and they're all still great.  A few more small facets are added to each character here and there (Egon seems to have lightened up), but these are still the same characters.  This is a very good thing.  In fact, the argument could be made that this movie does a better job of showcasing the relationships between the Ghostbusters themselves.  There are multiple scenes of the four of them just talking and goofing around.  Winston, especially, feels a lot more like one of the group than he did in the first movie, which for my money is more than deserved.

Our one new major character is Dr. Janosz Poha, played by Peter MacNicol, and he's a great addition.  He's weird, and for most of the movie he's more or less a villain, but he's tons of fun to watch.  He clearly had a lot of fun with his character, and he gets some of the best little funny lines.

Okay, minor spoilers here, because this is where it gets serious.  The major complaint people have with this movie is that it's too similar to the first, which I guess I can kind of understand.  Hardemeyer is just Peck again, his relationship with Peter is the same.  The Ghostbusters find trouble and no one believes them, which leads to even more trouble, and they have to convince the mayor to back them up.  The Ghostbusters are incarcerated.  A giant thing stomps through New York.  Yes, if you want to boil things down, all of these things are similar to things that happened in the first movie.  But I have two counter-arguments.

Thing one is that most of these scenes, similar though they may seem at first blush, actually put a different spin on the scenes they're similar to.  When the Ghostbusters appeal to the mayor, he doesn't buy it, and refuses to support them.  Yeah, he eventually comes around, but the scene goes in a direction different from what you expect.  And the giant thing stomping through New York is on the side of the good guys this time around.  Taking a familiar element and putting a new spin on it is something sequels and follow-ups have been doing for eons, so I don't understand why this one gets so much guff for it.

Thing numero dos is the simple fact that something being similar to something else doesn't mean you can't enjoy it.  Certain things are similar, yes (though less than people would have you believe), but they're still enjoyable.  The characters are still likable, the comedy is still funny, and the world is still fascinating.  This is a setting in which I love learning more.  Oh, and the effects are still mostly great, so there's that too.

All that being said, I do have some complaints.  One similarity that does bother me is that Dana Barrett is once again at the center of all the paranormal goings-on.  Still, if I can play devil's advocate for a second, this is far from unique to Ghostbusters.  Have you ever played the Ace Attorney series of games?  If not, you should, but it's amazing in those games how often the same people are either wrongfully accused of murder, or witnesses in a murder trial.  And that's just the first thing I thought of.  Still, it is something that bothers me, even if I understand the necessity of it.

My other main complaint is with the main villain, Vigo the Carpathian, played by Wilhelm von Homburg.  There's not really anything wrong with him specifically, he just seems like a big step down in threat level from Gozer in the first movie.  We've gone from interdimensional Babylonian (well, Sumerian) god to a dude who killed a bunch of people (okay, a bunch of people), and whose ultimate goal is to take over the world... but first he has to possess a baby.  Still, he cuts an imposing figure. And, unlike Gozer, he's around for most of the movie.

So no, it's not perfect.  And no, it's not as good as the first.  But it is a more than adequate follow-up to it.  So much noise is made about how amazing 2009's Ghostbusters: The Video Game is, as well as IDW's Ghostbusters comic series.  Both of these are hailed by fans as "true follow-ups" to the original movie.  And yes, I agree with those opinions, but Ghostbusters II definitely deserves to be included in that group.  And believe me, the video game (which is great, don't get me wrong) rehashes a lot more from the first movie than Ghostbusters II does, but you never hear that as a complaint.  What even?

My point is, if you enjoyed Ghostbusters, you owe it to yourself to see the sequel.  And then play the video game, and then read the comics.  They are all more than worth your time.  We may never have gotten a third movie, but we did get a second one.

And don't you forget it.

Tomorrow we kick it in the '80s for the final time this year, and one actor makes their third appearance!

Until next time!

Current interests:
Listening - Dio: Sacred Heart (1985)
Playing - Super Mario Odyssey (2017)
Reading - The Complete Books of Blood (Clive Barker, 1984)
Watching - Kamen Rider Kiva (2008)

Blogtober Chapter 28: Many Shuvs And Zuuls Knew What It Was To Be Roasted In The Depths Of The Slor That Day, I Can Tell You!

Oh boy, I'm late today.  But that's okay, because today's film requires no introduction.  You've probably already seen it, and if you haven't, you should.

Unless you're under about 13 or so.  Probably get your parents' approval first.

GHOSTBUSTERS (1984)

Blogtober Qualifications: Ghosts, extradimensional beings, marshmallow monsters, generations of parents showing this movie to their kids then realizing that it's dirtier than they remember

Today we get the longest chapter title yet, as well as the longest qualifications list.  It's funny because the movie's title is only one word.

Okay, so I tried a few times to figure out how to write the summary for today's movie, but does it really need one?  At least, does it need a drawn-out one?

Ghosts start appearing in New York, and Drs. Peter Venkman (Bill Murray), Ray Stantz (Dan Aykroyd), and Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis) decide to go into business catching them.  That's really all you need to know.

There's other things going on, like Dana Barrett (Sigourney Weaver) and her neighbor Louis Tully (Rick Moranis) being haunted by demon dogs.  There's Janine Melnitz (Annie Potts), the Ghostbusters' snarky secretary.  There's the last addition to the Ghostbusters team, Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson), who's just a regular guy looking for a paycheck.  And there's EPA agent Walter Peck (William Atherton), trying desperately to get the Ghostbusters shut down.

You know all this, and, I say again, if you don't you should.  Go watch it now.  Why?  *claps hands*

Here's why.

I honestly feel silly even talking about the actors, because the entire principal cast is perfect.

Dan Aykroyd as Ray is probably my favorite of the Ghostbusters, if only because of how much he loves what he does.  His enthusiasm is infectious, almost like a little kid.

Harold Ramis as Egon is the biggest brain of the bunch, or at least the most technically inclined.  He features a perfect (I'm gonna be using that word a lot) combination of dry wit and awkwardness.

Winston, as mentioned above, is added later on in the movie, and he's definitely the new guy.  Unlike the original three, he isn't a doctor of anything, and is just a blue collar guy trying to get by.  He does a great job of serving as the team's anchor to the "normal" world.

I go back and forth on Peter Venkman.  As a kid I never realized just how sleazy he is, and as an adult I had to reevaluate his character.  It could be easy to say that he's just a slimeball and move on, but now I think there's more to it than that.  Despite his cynicism, Peter genuinely cares about his friends, especially Ray.  There's even small hints here and there that he can bring himself to care about people he doesn't know, if he can take the time to notice them.

Okay, so there's no denying that he's kind of manipulative when it comes to wooing women, and he's not a little pushy with Dana, who seems like she's clearly not interested.  But I almost wonder if even the sleaze isn't a front for him, as if his whole demeanor is intentionally foolish because it protects him.  And the fact of the matter (by the end) seems to be that Dana is interested.  I think it goes without saying that he is a good person, but I can never quite decide how deep you have to dig to find it.

Let's everyone welcome back Sigourney Weaver!  This is her second movie of the year here at Blogtober, and it's not a disappointment.  In fact, I still have to remind myself that Dana Barrett and Ellen Ripley are the same person.  That's the sign of a good actor.  Dana ultimately doesn't get to do all that much, but what little we get is fun to watch.  And spoilers, she winds up playing what amounts to another completely different character.  Lady's got some range.

Everyone else is great too, and it would be really easy for me to be here all day talking about them.  Janine is rude to everyone (except Egon, around whom her attitude completely changes), but she still shows signs of being kind and caring.  Louis is a total dope, but he knows about finances, and he knows it well.  He's really fun to watch.  And Peck is Peck.  He's slimy and vindictive, but not necessarily actually in the wrong (well, at first).

Seriously, few movies have a cast as consistently great as this one.

The story is a weird genre blend of  blue collar comedy and superhero origin story.  It was pretty novel at the time for featuring the forces of the supernatural and the undead being fought with weapons that are purely man-made and technological.  Usually movies portray this type of evil being fought with magical or holy means, so it was pretty original to see the heroes win with know-how and elbow grease.

The Ghostbusters are also one of many sets of four characters that can be perfectly matched up to the Ninja Turtles in terms of character.  Peter is Raphael, Ray is Michelangelo, Egon is Donatello, and Winston is Leonardo.  Yes, I know none of these personality types originate with the Ninja Turtles, but they are, to me, the most distilled and mainstream.  It's actually a minor hobby of mine to take groups of four characters and align them with the TMNT.  Try it out sometime.

If you haven't seen the movie (and you should), you won't believe this, but the effects still hold up.  All of them, even the ones that aren't practical (though pretty much everything is a blend of practical and visual).  They aren't perfect, but this movie is 33 years old at the time of this writing.  The fact that they hold up as well as they do is astounding.  It really speaks to what can be done when you care about how the effect actually comes across, rather than just doing it because you can.

No, Ghostbusters isn't perfect.  There are things here and there I would change or remove, mostly minor.  But it is a classic, and it more than deserves that moniker.  And hell, if it weren't for the existence of Back to the Future, Ghostbusters would be my favorite '80s action comedy (if you want to call it that).  Go watch it, even if you've seen it before.  Even if you just finished watching it, watch it again.  I don't think you'll regret it.

Tomorrow we're actually going to be talking about this same thing!  Except, wait, not quite.  It says here people don't like the next one.  That's weird.

Until next time!

Current interests:

Listening - Lazer Ryderz Soundtrack (2017)

Playing - Super Mario Odyssey (2017)

Reading - The Complete Books of Blood (Clive Barker, 1984)

Watching - Thunderbirds Are Go! (2015)

Blogtober Chapter 27: Demons To Some, Angels To Others

Aw yeah, here we go.

HELLRAISER (1987)

Blogtober Qualifications: Demons, undead, murder, just a ton of sharp implements 

Frank Cotton (Sean Chapman) is a man bored with the mundane world.  Believing himself to have experienced every form of pleasure the earthly realm has to offer, Frank now seeks experiences beyond that of mortal ken.  It is in his search that he comes across a mysterious puzzle box in a far-off bazaar.  Believing this to be exactly what he's been looking for, Frank opens the puzzle box... and is promptly dragged to Hell, to experience otherworldly pain (and pleasure) for the rest of eternity.

Some time later, on the other side of the world, Frank's brother Larry (Andrew Robinson) and his wife Julia (Clare Higgins) move into Larry's family's home, which is rundown and decrepit from disuse.  The two seem determined to make the place a home, however, in what seems to be a bid to fix problems in their marriage.  Meanwhile, Larry is trying to convince his daughter Kirsty (Ashley Laurence) to move back in with them, though Kirsty is determined to get by on her own.

Everything changes when a chance drop of Larry's blood begins reviving Frank, allowing him to escape from his freakish prison.  This doesn't go smoothly, however, and Frank is left as barely more than muscle and bones.  He needs victims to kill in order to reconstitute his form, but he's running out of time.  The denizens of Hell are very unhappy with his escape...

Here it is, you guys: this may well be my favorite horror movie of the 1980s.  It's weird, too, since it focuses a lot on gore and sex, which are two things I'm not overly fond of.  I guess I find the whole thing unsettling in just the right way.  Still, I'm gonna try my best to look at it with a critical eye, so let's do so now.

I'm gonna speed through the actors today, since just about everyone is slightly weird and awkward.

Frank is supposed to be this badass, worldly dude that women are drawn to, but I honestly don't buy it.  He's only in a couple scenes in his human form, though, so whatever.

Julia is rude and/or weird in every single scene.  Like, we genuinely don't get one scene (that I can recall) where she's not one or both of those things.  The weird thing is that I almost get the feeling that we're supposed to be feeling sorry for her.  But I don't.

Poor Larry.  If they were going for dweeb, they nailed it.  Moving on.

Kirsty is pretty good, I suppose.  She's likable and plays scared convincingly.  She also edges into action girl territory in the last act (complete with one-liners), which is pretty sweet.  She's also cute, in an '80s sort of way.

When Frank is in his undead monster form, he's played by Oliver Smith.  The effects are great (I'll come back to that), and he cuts an imposing figure, but boy his voice is silly.   It's one of those voices that's deep, but not really in a powerful way.  It's just I am deep voice yes.  Also some of his lines are cheesy.

On the other side of the track, we have Pinhead, played by Doug Bradley and oh boy is he awesome.  Like Monster Frank (from now on known as Frankster), his makeup effects are fantastic and he looks extremely intimidating.  Unlike Frankster, however, his voice rocks.  This is how you do a deep voice.  He's commanding and terrifying and jeezy creezy you do not want him to even notice you.

I've heard that Pinhead wasn't even meant to be a very important character, but he wound up coming back for every sequel.  He's just that cool.

The story, as you may already know, is based on director Clive Barker's original novella, The Hellbound Heart.  And let me tell you, it's a doozy.  It never quite jumps from the edge of insanity, but there are times where it dances perilously close.  It's very unique, and I've never really seen anything else like it, at least not through such an interesting lens.

Barker is well-known for his, let's say, appreciation for violence and sex, and often both at once.  All of that is on display here, but it never really feels cheap or pointless.  It all serves the story it's telling, and that story is one that's hard to look away from.  There are certain plot points that I felt could have been dealt with more quickly, and some scenes drag on a bit too long, but it never takes away from the whole package.

As mentioned previously, the practical effects in this movie are outstanding.  There are some (very) small flaws here and there that can't hide from a high definition eye, but it's amazing how much of it stands the test of time.  In no other scene is this more apparent than when Frankster is first resurrected.  Drops of Larry's blood on the floor begin to bubble and expand.  Undead arms, slick with slime, reach up out of the new pool of blood, seeking purchase on the floor.  Slowly, the arms push against the floor, forcing up out of the pool a necrotic head and upper body.

It's one of my favorite practical effects scenes of any movie, ever.  Easily in my top ten.  It really has to be seen to be believed.

Also apparently the film ran out of money, so all the animated visual effects had to be drawn by hand by a drunk Clive Barker and some dude.  All things considered, they did a pretty good job.

And that's Hellraiser.  It has a few flaws, sure, but it easily overcomes them.  It's very different from what I normally like, but maybe that's a good thing.  It makes me really uncomfortable, but I still can't help but love it.

Guess what!  Tomorrow, we won't be leaving the '80s!  We'll actually be hanging out in this decade for the next few days, so settle in.  Tomorrow specifically, we'll be looking at an all-time classic, and I can't wait.

Until next time!

Current interests:

Listening - King Crimson: In the Court of the Crimson King (1969)

Playing - Wolfenstein: The Old Blood (2015)

Reading - The Complete Books of Blood (Clive Barker, 1984)

Watching - Thunderbirds Are Go! (2015)

Blogtober Chapter 26: Where You're Going, Everyday's Halloween

Hello there!  Welcome back to Blogtober.  We're speeding ever closer to Halloween, and I couldn't be more excited.  Before that, though, I have some bad news and some good news.

First the bad news.  Today's planned review was originally planned to be a Japanese horror movie, something generally considered to be a modern classic.  Unfortunately, due to some unforeseen difficulties, I was unable to see that movie, so we won't be talking about it today (or this year).  I'm really sorry about it.

The good news is that we get to review the exact opposite thing: a mediocre '90s action movie.

Let's go!

SPAWN (1997)

Blogtober Qualifications: Demons, Hell, clowns, random green glow effects

Al Simmons (Michael Jai White) is a badass assassin working for corrupt... person (it's not clear if he's a businessman or a government official) Jason Wynn (Martin Sheen).  However, Simmons is upset that Wynn has been lying to him about how much collateral damage (meaning innocent lives) his missions are creating, and decides to quit.

Unfortunately, it's really difficult to retire from killing people for money.  Beyond that, Wynn has been making deals with literal devils, and Al's life is his latest bargaining chip.  Wynn betrays Al on what should be his last mission, burning him alive and blowing up the facility he's in.  Al Simmons is dead.

However, death is not the end for Al Simmons.  Instead, he wakes up in an alley in New York city, horribly burned.  Before long, he's approached by a crass, foul-mouthed clown (John Leguizamo), who offers to help Al get his life back, in exchange for one small thing.

Al just has to lead the forces of Hell in a war against Heaven.

In the interest of full disclosure, I'm gonna go ahead and admit that I have a soft spot in my heart for Spawn.  I saw this movie as a kid (who let that happen?), and collected Spawn action figures whenever I could get my hands on them.  I would sit and look at pictures of them on the Internet (we capitalized the "I" back then) for hours on end.  No joke.  So yeah, even though it's ridiculously grimdark, even though everything it did then has become cliche by now, even though it's absolutely dripping with '90s, I'll probably always like the character.

But the movie?  Eh, not so much.

We'll start with the actors like always, but there's really only four people that need to be talked about.

First is Spawn himself, Michael Jai White.  Now, I know nothing about MJW (as I'm sure his friends call him) as a person, but I've always kind of liked him. I'm not sure why.  When you think about it, he's the quintessential '90s action hero, so it's almost a shame he never really took off as one.  Hell, he's a better actor than JCVD!  Though, that might be damning with faint praise.

Next up is Jason Wynn, played by the Illusive Man himself, Martin Sheen.  Now let me tell you something right now, Martin Sheen is stone cold awesome.  He makes a perfect "boss villain with all the money" character, and this movie is no different.  Still, something tells me he doesn't quite get why he's in this movie in the first place, and I guess I can't really blame him.  Ah well, he's still fun to watch.

Someone I didn't get to mention in the summary is Cogliostro, played by Nicol Williamson, whom I've never heard of before.  Maybe he's someone important somewhere else, but here he's kind of phoning it in.  He's a poor man's Obi-Wan Kenobi, dressed as a poor man's Fourth Doctor.  The funny thing is that he was my favorite character as a kid.  Ouch.

And finally we have John Leguizamo as the clown (known as the Violator but shh that's a spoiler).  Okay, so on the one hand, this character is extremely annoying.  He's comic relief in a movie that doesn't need comic relief, and his comic relief isn't even funny.  He's also disgusting, and in a lot of ways ruins the movie.

On the other hand, it's amazing that this is John Leguizamo.  Like, genuinely, if you've ever seen him in anything else (which you probably haven't because why the hell would you), it is astounding that he was able to pull this off.  I mean, the character's terrible, but he plays it extremely well.  It's not his fault all of his dialog is awful.

The story is lame and cliche, and it takes what was honestly a generally creative comic book series (I'm not saying it was good, just that it was creative) and boiling it down to the film equivalent of boiled rice.  It's bland, it's not visually appealing, and, if you take away all the spice (the character of Spawn and his hellish origins), it's the same generic stuff you could get anywhere else.  It's not horrible, but it is horribly "of the time."

And now for what I know everyone wants me to talk about: the effects.  But I'm gonna go ahead and say that SOME of the effects are better than you remember.  Yes, the CG used to make the demon lord Malebolgia makes the cutscenes in Blood Omen look like Final Fantasy XV.  Yes, the scenes in hell are all poorly keyed, and the armies of Hellspawn are clearly just three or four sprites repeated ad infinitum.  Yes at some points the greenish glow that shows up around stuff from Hell is cut off too early.  All of that is true.

But what's also true is that some of it is actually okay.  Sure, the effects of the cape are pretty shoddy by today's standards, but it was genuinely the best that could be do at the time.  Besides, it only shows up about four times through the whole movie, which is its own problem.

Beyond that, though, are the practical effects.  They are, by and large, pretty great.  Spawn's costume, inaccurate though it is, is pretty sweet.  I mean, yeah, the '90s (and the '00s, and Man of Steel) were all about how superhero costumes couldn't have color.  That remains true here, but if you can look past that, the suit itself looks really, really good.

There's also the Violator, both as Clown Leguizamo and in his full-fledged demon form.  The clown's makeup and fat suit are so well done that it makes it even harder to believe that Leguizamo is in there.  And the demon form is a badass practical animatronic, I think?  In the '90s!  God, just think about the irony: the most advanced practical effects in history (at the time), and we were obsessed with replacing them with awful, awful, awful CG.  It's a downright shame.

And that was Spawn.  It's pretty lame, and a perfect representation of everything that was wrong with action movies in the '90s.  But I think the worst part is that, with a few (okay a lot) changes, it could've been halfway decent.  One thing's for sure: the character deserves better.

Tomorrow we take a brief respite from the '90s (but don't worry, we'll be back) and instead hop back ten years to take a look at the first in one of my favorite horror series.

Until next time!

Current interests:

Listening - Lazer Ryderz Soundtrack (2017)

Playing - Dead of Winter (2014)

Reading - B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth: End of Days (2016)

Watching - Thunderbirds Are Go! (2015)

Blogtober Chapter 25: I Was Never Very Good At Being Human

Hi again!  No big lead-in for this one, let's just hop right in!

DAYBREAKERS (2009)

Blogtober Qualifications: Vampires, blood, bat creatures, y'know what lots and lots of bats like really there's a ton of bats

In the far-flung future of 2019, humanity is nearing extinction.  This is mainly because, ten years ago, a plague struck, turning most of the world into vampires, and now those vampires have to eat.  As such, the surviving humans are rounded up and farmed for blood.  But the world is running out of humans.

Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke) is a vampire hematologist who is working hard to develop a blood substitute.  This is partially due to the world's blood shortage, but mainly has to do with the fact that Ed just doesn't like humans being imprisoned and farmed until death (go figure).  In fact, he apparently never drinks human blood.  His boss, Charles Bromley (Sam Neill), is breathing down his neck (so to speak) for Ed to quickly rush his current project into "human" trials.  It goes poorly, to say the least.

A chance encounter with a human named Audrey (Claudia Karvan) leads him to meet a former vampire who calls himself Elvis (Willem Dafoe).  Elvis has somehow cured his vampirism, and Ed takes it upon himself to figure out how he was cured, and how he can replicate it.

Okay, so here we have a movie that I was only vaguely familiar with.  It mainly went on the list because my wife found the idea of "the whole world is vampire" interesting.  And I have to say, I quickly became intrigued myself as we started watching.  So how did it turn out?

Well, for starters, let me just say that I like Ethan Hawke.  It's interesting, though, that I only see him in movies where it's the future and humanity has made a big change that causes "normal" humans to become second-class citizens.  He also gets ID-scanned a lot in movies, but I digress.  The point is that he does well here, though he's admittedly not asked to emote all that much.

Audrey is fine, and she gets a fair few badass moments, but honestly she didn't leave much of an impression. Still, she didn't bother me, so that's good in its own way.

Actual real-life vampire Willem Dafoe plays a human here, and does a pretty convincing job.  Two thumbs up.

Sam Neill is a corrupt corporate executive that I think we were genuinely meant to believe was not corrupt.  I dunno if it's his fault or the movie's, but I certainly never bought that for a second.

And rounding out the cast we have Ed's brother Frankie (Michael Dorman).  He's a soldier whose job it is to hunt down humans so they can be farmed.  He does fine in the role, I guess, though some of his delivery fell flat.  There's one scene where he's meant to reel in pain, and it really could've used another take.

I really like the world that's being presented here.  It plays out almost like a thought experiment: what would change if every human (more or less) turned into vampires?  Well, the filmmakers took that question and ran with it.  They clearly put a lot of thought into it, and there's tons of little details to look out for.  One thing no one apparently asked, however, was "shouldn't vampires be able to see in the dark," since in one scene a human gets a drop on a vampire just by turning the lights off.  It's honestly amazing that such a big oversight was allowed to happen, considering how much detail went into the rest of it.

Unfortunately, though, the movie doesn't really do anything with its own premise.  Sure, it's an interesting world, but it's ultimately just a story about a world wherein resources are dwindling, just through the lens of being about vampires.  For the sake of the story overall, you could've changed that one particular point and the only thing you'd lose is about twenty gallons of blood.

Still, that's not necessarily a deal breaker.  Lots of good stories are just old stories retold with a twist.  And this one is pretty engaging... until the end.  Prepare for some deja vu from the The Last Broadcast review.

So yeah, the whole thing falls apart around the ten to fifteen minute mark.  I won't go into detail, but there's a lot of pointless death, and no real resolution.  The surviving characters just ride off into the sunrise, having accomplished absolutely nothing.  And yet a voiceover tells us everything is great. Don't lie to me, movie, I just watched you.  I don't know if they were planning for sequels and so decided to leave it on a sort-of-cliffhanger or what.  All I know is that it's extremely unsatisfying.

That said, though, the movie is watchable.  Hell, it might be worth a look just to see the world that it presents, green-filtered though it is (seriously, ten years later and we were still trying to copy The Matrix).  The gore effects are fine, if taken to ridiculous extremes at times.  At one point my wife posited that a certain gory scene (right at the end, no surprise) might actually be intended as comedy.

That's probably not a good sign.

Tomorrow we travel to Japan for the first (and only) time this year.  We'll be watching the original version of a movie that was later remade for Western audiences.  No, not that one, the other one.

Until next time!

Current interests:
Listening - Dio: Holy Diver (1983)
Playing - Cuphead (2017)
Reading - B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth: The Exorcist (2016)
Watching - Thunderbirds Are Go! (2015)

Blogtober Chapter 24: It's Time Now, Boy.

Hello hello!  Sorry about the delay yesterday, but we'll be getting two reviews today to make up for it.  There has been a slight switch though, so yesterday's review will actually go up after this one, like, within half an hour after.  Thanks for your patience!

That being said, we're now officially in the last week of October!  It's amazing how quickly it's gone, but there's still plenty of movies to get through.  So let's do it to it!

PHANTASM III: LORD OF THE DEAD (1994)

Blogtober Qualifications: Zombies, yellow blood, tall men, ridiculous weapons

*Spoiler warnings for Phantasm (1979) and Phantasm II (1988)*

After the twist ending of Phantasm II, Mike (A. Michael Baldwin) and Reggie (Reggie Bannister) are, despite all appearances, not dead.  Everyone else is, however, with the exception of the series' main villain, the Tall Man (the late Angus Scrimm).

Before too long, though, Mike is kidnapped by the Tall Man and his minions, and Reggie, quadruple-barreled shotgun in hand, is off on a quest to find him.  Along the way he encounters a young boy named Tim (Kevin Connors), who has super powers.  Okay, not technically, but it's the only way to explain some of the things he's capable of.  The two later meet Rocky (Gloria Lynne Henry), an ex-soldier proficient with nunchaku (it was 1994, what do you expect?).  It's this motley crew that, for various reasons, set off to take down the Tall Man once and for all.  And maybe they'll be successful this time.

Probably not, though.

Okay, it's time for full disclosure.  Phantasm is one of my pet horror series.  You know how it is, you like the classics that everyone else loves, but certain ones just become special to you for some reason.  That's how Phantasm (and the Chucky and Hellraiser series) are for me.  The Phantasm movies are so weird, and sometimes downright dumb, but they're just so dang consistent with it all.  Something quirky or strange from one movie becomes lore in the next.  It knows it's bizarre and it revels in it.  Besides, name another film series that managed to have three actors appear in every movie.

Hell, Rocky only made it to thirty that way.

So yeah, I like Phantasm overall, but how is Phantasm III?  Well, it actually might be my favorite one so far.  Let's take a closer look.  First we'll get the actors over with real quick.

Angus Scrimm is as great as ever as the Tall Man.  It's hard to imagine what this series would be without him as the menacing villain, and it's nice to know that he got to reprise the role one last time (in 2016) before he passed away.

Mike doesn't get to do much throughout the movie, but he's still doing fine in the role.  Some interesting things are done with him, some hints for things to come.  It'll be interesting to see where they go.

Reggie is sleazier than ever, but I find myself incapable of disliking him.  Hell, consider all the things he goes through, usually to save or protect his friends.  And he's nobody special, just a no-name schlub who happens to have a nice car (and a big gun).  Maybe he's earned the right to be an ass every now and then.

Tim is one of the two new characters, and he actually does pretty well, considering the age of the actor playing him.  I'm not sure of his exact age, but he's obviously pretty young.  Don't get me wrong, he wouldn't win an Oscar, but he's never annoying, and his lines rarely fall flat.  It also helps that his character is not annoying at all, and in a lot of ways is more capable than Reggie or Mike.

Rocky was an interesting conundrum for me.  When the character was first introduced, I did not like her at all.  She'd fit in well in the troop of marines in Aliens, because she's super macho and tough.  Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with a tough female soldier type.  I think they just pushed it a bit into overboard territory here... that is, at first.  As the movie wore on and a few other little facets of her were shown off, I actually came to like her quite a bit.  She's kind to Tim and doesn't take any crap from Reggie.  In fact, the last interaction she has with Reggie made me laugh out loud.  So yeah, that took an interesting turn.

There's also these three criminal characters who are horrible horrible people, and they're clearly around just to get killed.  Good news there.

The story here is somewhat similar to the second movie, though with a bit more exploration into just what the Tall Man is and what he's trying to accomplish.  There's also a really interesting return appearance by a character from one of the earlier movie.  I liked how it was implemented, and it shed some light on a few things.

Like I said above, I also like some of the hints that were dropped about what the connection is between the Tall Man and Mike, and why Mike is so important.  It's very intriguing, and it feels like there's a plan in place for where the story will go.  I mean, there's not, but it's nice to feel like there is.

There's one other thing I want to bring up though.  Now, this is not a complaint, just an observation.  I get the strong indication that Don Coscarelli, the writer/director, had been reading Stephen King's Dark Tower series before making this movie.  Phantasm III came out three years after The Waste Lands, the most recent Dark Tower novel at the time, and I couldn't help but notice some similarities.

For starters, there's the general feeling of the two things, with characters wandering these bleak, sparsely-populated areas.  And then there's also the fact that the four main characters even match up to the Gunslinger's cadre, sort of.  If you want to assume that Reggie is Roland (the oldest and ostensibly most experienced one), Mike is Eddie (Mike is about as useful as someone going through withdrawal), Rocky is Detta/Odetta (the black female who switches between anger and kindness), and Tim is Jake (the kid who's a pretty good shot).

Okay, so it's not a perfect comparison, and I'm making some leaps in logic.  And again, it isn't a complaint, because if you're going to be inspired by something, The Dark Tower is a good one.  It's mostly just interesting how similar the two feel to me.

All that said, though, I really enjoyed Phantasm III.  Sure, there are goofy parts and awkward parts, and I'm pretty sure there's no ultimate plan for where the series is going at this point.  But what's here is just so dang entertaining I can't help but love it.  I am genuinely excited to watch part four next year.

Now stick around, because the review that was delayed yesterday will be up in just a few.  It's got vampires~

Until next time!

Current interests:

Listening - Dio: The Last in Line (1984)

Playing - Cuphead (2017)

Reading - B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth: The Exorcist (2016)

Watching - Thunderbirds Are Go! (2015)

Blogtober Chapter 23: Do You Suppose That I Would Allow Any Mortal To Stand In My Way?

Hello again and welcome back to Blogtober!  I'm running out of things to say in the intro again, so let's just get to the review!

SON OF DRACULA (1943)

Blogtober Qualifications: Vampires, death, madness, 40 minutes of runtime left when you're ready for it to be over

Okay, so normally I would write a synopsis here, but I honestly couldn't tell you very much about what happened.  I do know that Count Alucard has decided to come to the town(?) where the movie takes place, and he's very obviously suspicious, and pretty soon people start dying.

First let me just say that I love the classic Universal horror movies.  I haven't seen all of them, but I've severely enjoyed most of the ones I have.  My absolute favorite of the whole cycle (and one of my favorite horror movies period) is Son of Frankenstein.  I won't say much about it because I plan to review it in full someday, but let me just say this:

Son of Dracula is not Son of Frankenstein.  Hell, Son of Dracula isn't even Dracula's Daughter.

Dude, this movie is so dull.  Like really, genuinely boring.  It's not bad, but I almost wish it were, because at least then I could reap some enjoyment from the badness.  But no, this one's just nothing.  But why?

Well, for starters, I have no idea who the main character is supposed to be.  Characters flit in and out with almost no regularity, and by the end of it I'm pretty sure the main protagonist is the one character that's featured the least throughout the picture.  And there's way more characters than there need to be, which is clear because some of them are just there to be killed.  At least two people die immediately, but there's no tension or mystery about what's causing it.  It's painfully obvious that there's a vampire, and that vampire is Dracula, er, Alucard.

Speaking of Alucard, he's played by Lon Chaney Jr..  Now, I like Lon Chaney Jr., he's one of the titans of this era of horror cinema.  He's also the only actor who can claim to have played all four of Universal's most classic monsters (wolf man, vampire, mummy, and Frankenstein's monster).  But here he's essentially being asked to replace Bela Lugosi in his most famous role. It's a character that demands gravitas and a commanding presence, and he just can't pull it off.

Don't get me wrong, no one can replace Bela Lugosi, but Chaney Jr. seems like he's not even trying.  At least, I choose to believe that he isn't trying, because I don't want to accept that he could fail that badly.

The other characters are all there, and they're all dull.  At least one of them serves absolutely no purpose whatsoever.  George Bailey's dad makes a small appearance, though, which is pretty cool.

The story is bland too.  It's a vampire story, and it does almost nothing new with the idea of a vampire story.  This is a spoiler, but it turns out that the female "victim" of Count Alucard has actually been playing him all along, and is planning to turn on him.  That's an interesting idea, but it lands like a sack of wet sand.  And yet, ironically for something with so little actually going on, the story is needlessly convoluted.  New random details are added here and there (why did we need the scene with the reading of the will?) and new characters pop up to fill a role that could have easily been filled with the characters we started with.  The movie doesn't even quite hit 90 minutes, and yet I feel like you could excise half an hour and ultimately be left with a better product.

I'm sorry if I'm coming across as overly negative, but I really don't know what else to say.  It isn't fair to compare this movie to Son of Frankenstein, but I can't help but do so.  As I mentioned before, I also can't help but compare it to the earlier Dracula's Daughter.  Sure, that movie was dull too, but at least the principle characters were interesting, and seeing their interactions was half the enjoyment.  This movie does not have that going for it.

If you're a Universal horror completist, you're going to see this no matter what I say.  Otherwise, it's not worth your time.

Tomorrow we stick with our theme of vampires, but we land a lot closer to modern day.  It's a movie I don't know all that much about, so it'll be interesting to see how I feel.

Until next time!

Current interests:

Listening - Lazer Ryderz Soundtrack (2017)

Playing - Sentinels of the Multiverse: The Video Game (2014)

Reading - B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth: The Exorcist (2016)

Watching - Unsolved Mysteries (1987)

Blogtober Chapter 22: Murders of A High Tech Age

Hello and welcome back to Blogtober, I hope you're still having a good time.  I certainly am.  In fact, I'm pretty sure I've written more this month than I have in the past five years.  But let's not talk about that right now.  Let's talk about today's movie!

THE LAST BROADCAST (1998)

Blogtober Qualifications: Folklore, found footage, murders, a budget of $900

Steven Avkast and Locus Wheeler were the hosts of a local cable access show in New Jersey, "Fact or Fiction."  In December of 1995 they, along with sound man Rein Clackin and local psychic Jim Suerd, planned a live telecast from the New Jersey Pine Barrens.  Ostensibly little more than a ratings stunt, the objective of the trip is to hunt down the notorious "Jersey Devil."  Instead, only Jim Suerd is ever seen alive again.

The remnants of the bodies of two of the other men are soon found, and Suerd is summarily tried and convicted of their murder.  But what really happened?

The Last Broadcast is a documentary by filmmaker David Leigh.  With the help of previously unseen video footage, Leigh attempts to uncover the truth about what, if anything, the intrepid men actually discovered... and what let to their deaths.

*Spoiler warning just in case.  If you don't want to know anything more, go watch the documentary

Good?  Okay.*

Okay, so it's not actually a documentary, it's an independent film.  It is, however, one of the very first films in the found footage genre.  It predates The Blair Witch Project by almost a full year, and I'd be amazed if the former weren't at least a partial influence on the latter.  But how is it?

Well, I'm actually really mixed on it.  I'll talk about positives for now, though.

I've decided not to name any actors to preserve the mystique, but it's just as well.  I won't be talking about anyone's acting or how well they do, since, honestly, the whole thing is pretty convincing.  I went into it knowing full well that it was all staged, and yet I still felt myself buying into the presentation.

Everything is awkward and uncomfortable in a perfectly 90s way, and the voice of the narrator (David Leigh, the in-universe "filmmaker") is perfect for what they're trying to accomplish.  It's the exact right type of monotone.  The movie is, in a lot of ways, ahead of its time, almost predicting the existence of things like Making A Murderer.

So yeah, it had my complete attention, and I was really intrigued to see what the conclusion would be.  With about fifteen minutes left to go, I had to pause the movie and go pick up my wife from the bus stop.

When I came back, everything had changed.

*MASSIVE ENDING SPOILER.  SERIOUSLY, I'LL BE TALKING ABOUT THE ENDING IN DETAIL.  YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.*

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Okay, so in the last 10 minutes or so, the whole movie changes.  All through the movie, we've been cutting back to this woman by the name of Michelle Monarch.  She's a data retrieval specialist, and her job through the whole thing has been to clean up the footage that was lost.  There's a lot of build-up over this one frame of the film that will show who (or what) the real killer is, and...

It turns out it's the narrator.  David Leigh, the guy making the documentary, was the murderer, and this one frame of film shows a clear view of his face.  We then completely stop the found footage approach and change to a (more or less) traditional filming method, showing David killing Michelle and driving her body out to the Pine Barrens to bury it.  This is interspersed with scenes of him filming himself for the documentary, scenes we had seen earlier in the movie, but now we're seeing them from a third-person perspective, and we can see the true, sinister goings-on.

This is so stupid.

Now, I'm not necessarily against the twist itself, although it is extremely contrived.  My problem is more in the execution.  I don't care how great your twist is (though again, this one isn't).  If you have to completely change everything about how your movie is presented just to feature the twist don't do it!  If you're such a great filmmaker/storyteller, come up with a better way to show off the twist.  There are so many ways it could have been done that didn't completely sacrifice the documentary nature of the movie.

So essentially what we have is 75 minutes or so of a really engaging faux-documentary, followed by 15 minutes of a poorly-shot movie, just because the filmmakers thought it would be a clever twist.  It doesn't work.  Put it in a different context.  Imagine that you're making a movie, and, for stylistic reasons, you film in in black and white.  Then, in the last fifteen minutes of the movie, when some big reveal is made, you switched it to color for no reason except that the twist is happening you guys!  Ironically, you could make an argument that the sudden colorization represents the truth being seen clearly for the first time.  And you would, because you're an indie filmmaker and you think you're clever.

And I think that's the biggest problem here, because I get the feeling like the filmmakers were trying to make a statement, something along the lines of "you can't trust the media" or "you can't trust technology," or both.  It's clear they felt you can't trust something, but the message falls flat.  So, in actuality, instead of a stupid ending because that's all they could think of, you have a stupid ending in the interest of cynical, paranoid fearmongering.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you should blindly trust anything, a certain degree of skepticism is required to get by in the modern age.  But this is just silly.  I know it's 1998 and the internet was still kind of new, but the level to which they vilify it is just ridiculous.  Five years after this movie came out, I would meet the woman who would become my wife, online.  Sure, ours isn't exactly a standard case, but imagine how different (and how much unhappier) my life would be if I had seen this movie and listened to it.

All that having been said, I feel like the movie is still worth seeing, bad ending and all.  Up to the point where the style changes, it's an engaging mystery tale, and I could honestly see myself watching it again, up to that point.

In the interest of being fair, the scene in which David kills Michelle by asphyxiation is extremely uncomfortable, and I was worried she was actually dying.  That's some pretty effective work right there.

It's just too bad they had to break the movie to show it.

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*SPOILERS END HERE*

Tomorrow we hop back to the 1940s for some old-school Universal monster fun.  Unfortunately, it isn't one of the classics.  We'll see how that goes.

Until next time!

Current interests:

Listening - Elton John: Greatest Hits 1970-2002

Playing - Banjo-Kazooie (1998)

Reading - B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth: The Exorcist (2016)

Watching - Thunderbirds Are Go! (2015)