Category: Repeat Offenders

When it's primarily the pre-teen set that's buying tickets, five years can be a long time between films. Many a GREMLINS t-shirt was outgrown between 1984 and 1989. The result? This worthwhile sequel came and went without nary a mogwai chirp. It's a shame because THE NEW BATCH is everything a sequel ought to be and much more. It brings back the elements from the original that we are nostalgic for (though admittedly it is FELDMAN-less) while expanding it's universe and upping the ante at every turn. G2 goes one further still, by splicing it's DNA into nearly every known genre and becoming a different beast altogether. By films end, it becomes a whirlwind collage of self references, fourth wall obliteration and non-stop cinephilia. (more…)

As the Christmas snow powders the sleepy streets of Kingston Falls, inventor Randall Peltzer (HOYT AXTON) returns from a business trip with an exotic mogwai he picked up in New York's Chinatown for his son Billy (ZACH GALLIGAN). Billy is delighted by the furry little creature his father has dubbed Gizmo, and sort of half-listens to the three caveats that govern the gift of the mogwai: don't expose it to bright light; don't get it wet; and never EVER feed it after midnight. (more…)

 

Here's a strange little horror anthology geared toward the Nickelodeon set. It's wraparound tale involves three kids in a backyard tent (one of whom is SEAN ASTIN) swapping scary stories and trying to gross each other out with adolescent humor. The structure is an oddity as we begin with various blink and you'll miss them vignettes about well known urban legends, like the dog in the microwave, then move on to two excessively long tales that fill out the bulk of the film. The first concerns a tormented boy who finds a monster in the boy's lavatory at school. Although it's played as broadly as possible, it's easy to imagine a child thinking twice about using a bathroom stall after viewing. It's given some buoyancy thanks to stand out performances from greats JAMES KAREN & CLU GULAGER (RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD) and KATHLEEN FREEMAN(GREMLINS 2 THE NEW BATCH). The second and most memorable tale introduces us to the most unlikable protagonist this side of 1981'S THE PIT. Gordy Belcher is an overweight social pariah who spends his days creating tiny dioramas of dead flies. He's impossible to sympathize with, but bizarrely fascinating anyway. He has a constantly constipated expression unless he's witnessing somebody in anguish, in which case he howls with delight. His private war with a crypt keeper like farmer ends when the farmer offers him an olive branch in the form of magic manure that escalates growth in plant-life. Gordy's tiny insect obsessions dine on the doo and greet him at the foot of his bed in new gargantuan form ready to extract long overdue revenge.

INDELIBLE SCENE(S)

• The appearances of Seaver siblings TRACEY GOLD, JEREMY MILLER and yes, a sense of humor intact KIRK CAMERON!
• TWIN PEAKS alum DANA ASHBROOK and KIMMY ROBERTSON also appear!
• The Janitor putting on his mask
• Gordy laughs at a near fatal car crash
• The fly on a crucifix in the tiny church
• Girl munching into Gordy's homemade fly cookie
• Gordy's new appendages

 

A young Dennis Quiad stars in this genre hodge-podge as down on his luck psychic saxophonist Alex Gardner. His once mentor Paul Novotny (MAX VON SYDOW) along with love interest KATE CAPSHAW convince him to work on an experiment that will allow him to enter other people's dreams and cure them of unwanted nightmares. High on the "to do" list is a young boy (TINA YOTHER's brother COREY) whose dreams were terrifying enough to kill the last psychic who ventured into his noggin, followed by the president of the United States whose dreams of nuclear Armageddon are feared to be prophetic. The flies in this ointment are the reliably sinister CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER and a creepy competive fellow psychic named Tommy Ray (played with zeal by DAVID PATRICK KELLY who is famously responsible for that sing-song chant from THE WARRIORS). In a film whose major concern is nuclear annihilation, it's amusing to note that the biggest scares come from a somewhat silly imaginary being known as the Snakeman. Through a dream realm that is equal parts Dr. Suess and Dr. Caligari, Quiad does battle with the sometimes stop-motion animated creature and is visibly unnerved by the experience. This fact is not lost on enemy Tommy Ray who uses this fear to his advantage in the future. DREAMSCAPE certainly has enough plates in the air so it's all the more impressive when they all land together beautifully in the crashing finale, a buffet of radio active mutants, glowing eyed dogs, neon numchucks and the return of Snakeman!

INDELIBLE SCENE(S): 

• Opening dream with the President's wife trying in vain to outrun a mushroom cloud
• The Woody Allen-like, circus music infueled infidelity dream
• "That's my dad, he won't help."
• The twisty non-stop staircase
• George Wendt as a novelist
• The post apocalyptic train ride

 

Don't you love it when bad things happen to bad people? It's a major flaw in the universe that this does not occur more often. A wonderful aspect of the cinema is that it can easily create the moral universe that we all secretly yearn for. Case in point, DOLLS. Meet Little Judy Bower (CARRIE LORRAINE) an adorable dickens who is strapped with two atrociously mean spirited guardians. Her father (IAN PATRICK WILLIAMS) is a gold digging condescending Prig and her new step mother (played to a campy hilt by CAROLYN PURDY-GORDON) is a shrill, haggy, grade "A" bitch. After their car gets stuck in the mud, the three find themselves fortuitously located in front of a crusty old mansion framed by requisite lightning bolts. Once inside they meet a sweet, yet strangely sinister elderly couple (GUY ROLFE & HILARY MASON) whose pregnant glances toward each other might as well be yellow canary feathers hanging out of their mouths. They are soon joined by the affable Ralph (STEPHEN LEE) and two rude, sly, opportunistic Brit punk Rockers he was kind enough to give a lift to (one of whom, BUNTY BAILEY is the chick from the A-ha video!). Did I mention the house is filled floor to ceiling with dolls? They're everywhere and they're the scary old-fashioned kind; this is way before BRATZ. Anyway, that night, "The longest night ever," is a night of wonder and mystery for those who keep their inner child well fed, and a night of murderous blood soaked reckoning for those who are assholes.

If you've ever wondered what it would be like to get trapped inside a pop-up fairy tale book, this may be the closest equivalent. STUART GORDON the director responsible for breathing life into the dead with legendary results in RE-ANIMATOR grants the same favor to the creepy little playthings that line many a child's bureau. In an early fantasy sequence, Judy's beloved teddy bear shows his true colors when he splits apart at the seams and begins mauling the deserving adults. It not only sets the stage for black humor and pre-adolescent revenge wish fulfillment, but also perfectly captures the movie's being as a whole, a cuddly charming toy with hidden claws.

INDELIBLE SCENE(S)

• Teddy shrugging after his double homicide
• The "Take on me" girl takes her eyes out
• Toy soldier attack
• PURDY finds she's not alone in bed
• The BOY TOY belt
• Punch speaks!
• Judy's bloody slippers

A bunch of "lucky" kids win a contest. The prize? Abu Ghraib style psychological torture and the chance to have their very souls judged by a megalomaniac and his mutant band of Tang colored goons. In case you've repressed the level of abject terror to be found behind the walls of the factory, we leave you with these choice lyrics crooned by the Charon like guide as they plunge down his psychedelic river Styx…

There's no earthly way of knowing
which direction we are going
There's no knowing where we're rowing
Or which way the river's flowing

Is it raining, is it snowing
Is a hurricane a-blowing

Not a speck of light is showing
So the danger must be growing
Are the fires of Hell a-glowing
Is the grisly reaper mowing

Yes, the danger must be growing
For the rowers keep on rowing
And they're certainly not showing
Any signs that they are slowing

INDELIBLE SCENE(S):

• Angela's Ashes home life means four grandparents per bed ala' BOB&CAROL&TED&ALICE
• Mr. Slugworth in general
• Umpa Lumpas in general
• Wonka in general
• The hellish boat ride that showcased the decapitation of a live chicken
• Death or near death by chocolate, bad egg appraisal, fan blades, television shrinkage and Gobstopper
• Wonka's meany act followed by the revelation that it was all just an elaborate mind fuck

Most horror flicks are satisfied with the humble goal of tossing about a few chills. The more ostentatious may even try to snatch a good night's sleep from the viewer. This Titanic beast wants the whole bag of marbles and it's not going to rest until every inch of peaceful space in your brain is demolished. THE EXORCIST has extracted not nights, but years of sleep deprivation from its ill prepared audience. It has given rise to vomiting, fainting and perhaps most frighteningly, church attendance. Who can explain the mystery of its power? It's indisputable that all involved, director, writer and cast were all at the top of their game, but it almost seems as if the film built its own damn self with bricks forcibly pried from our collective unconscious.

It's about a little girl who's possessed by the devil, a scary idea for sure, but many other films have attempted this plot and delivered nothing. (I'm looking at YOU, many other films!) Why won't this movie step down? Why won't it behave? After decades you'd think it's power would have waned some or at least by now we could laugh at it like so many other bugaboos from our past and say, "I was scared of that? What was I thinking?" No such luck. This baby won't budge.

It may be because it's about so much more then just that little girl. It never flinches juggling ideas about good, evil, guilt, morality, life, death, and the simple truths about human existence that most popular entertainment beats back with a stick. Above all else though, this shit is scary. The enemy is not the begrudged victim of a prank gone wrong but evil itself. I'm talking old as time, famine, cancer, Auschwitz, JENNA ELFMAN type evil. I have heard atheists claim to be immune to the horrors found here. If that's the case, then that's their best selling point and it should be used more often as a recruitment tool.

Director WILLIAM FRIEDKIN and writer PETER BLATTY are often busy trying to convince us that the film closes on a happy ending that reveals good's triumph over evil. I'll allow that the book does succeed at making this point, but as far as the film goes I'm not buying that haunted swamp land. I get that Father Karras (a supernaturally natural JASON MILLER) sacrifices himself to save Reagan (irreplaceable traumagod LINDA BLAIR) and that's no small shakes or anything, but for this viewer's psyche, it's too little too late. Evil can levitate, spew pea soup, twist it's head fully around and make aspersions towards good's mother's recreational time in hell, and good's snappy comeback is jumping out a window? It doesn't comfort me. It doesn't comfort me one bit.

INDELIBLE SCENE(S):

God, do I really have to bother? Head spinning, pea soup upchuck, the staircase, MAX VON SYDOW's Magritte inspired arrival, frickin' Captain Howdy all over the place. Pazzuzu waltzing around, Karras's freaked out dream about his mom. That horrible hospital head machine. Masturbation with a crucifix? "The sow is mine!"…the whole damn thing. The whole damn thing is indelible.

This review is part of the Final Girl Film Club, join the pow wow here: Final Girl Film Club

News anchor Jane Harris (LAUREN TEWES) is close to having a televised melt down. Everyday she has to report about a string of rape/murders and nobody, not her fellow anchors, not her producer, and certainly not the public at large seems to grasp the gravity of the situation. Are they all morons? Or perhaps they don't have first hand knowledge of the devastation an assault like that can cause. Jane knows. She lives with the walking reminder in the form of her deaf blind mute sister Tracy (JENNIFER JASON LEIGH),who became that way after just such an attack. Worse yet, it was a younger Jane's self-involvement that propelled the tragedy. Maybe if Jane could catch the killer she could redeem herself. But where to start? Where to find a clue? Well, there is that neighbor of hers, the one who she watched changing his blood soaked clothes in the parking garage, he'll do! We viewers know he actually IS the killer but our feminist heroine doesn't want to report it to the police just yet because her boyfriend told her that was dumb — so it's off to get more clues! (more…)

How's this for an opening? A photographer walks a deserted beach taking National Geographic like shots of seagulls and the like. He comes across a beautiful girl who resembles a 1950's pin-up. She offers to pose for him and the photos he takes become more and more erotic. She suddenly exposes her breasts and propositions him. His excitement is short lived as he's surrounded by variously garbed townspeople who then begin taking pictures of him. He is then savagely beaten, wrapped to a post with fish netting, and doused with gasoline, all while the object of his lust smiles approvingly. "Welcome to Potter's Bluff," one of them says as another lights a match and sets him afire. The townspeople then circle around him and watch as he burns. If this mortifying display was not enough, the victim later appears as a happy member of the malicious mob. (more…)

Perhaps it's best to start with the back-story on this chestnut. Some thirty or so years ago, three friends drag their friend Karen Aylwood into a chapel for an initiation into their cool kids secret society. Unbeknownst to them, one of those infrequent solar eclipses just happens to be going down, a lightening bolt hits the cathedral, and Karen disappears. Vanished… gone… see you never. Flash forward some thirty even odder years later, and the white bread Curtis family finds themselves in the market for an expansive English country rental. Karen's creepy mom (BETTE DAVIS) just happens to have such a manor, and during the awkward landlord/renter interview, she takes a shine to the eldest Curtis daughter Jan (LYNN-HOLLY JOHNSON of ICE CASTLES fame). Shortly after the Curtis clan moves in, Jan starts observing glowing lights in the woods, and the repeated pattern of triangles in the broken glass of bedroom window and one of her mom's tacky mirrors. Jan also starts seeing images of a blindfolded girl begging for her help (cough…KAREN), and declares that something is watching them from the woods, but this sort of falls on deaf ears. To make matters worse, little sister Elle (PARIS HILTON's other aunt KYLE RICHARDS), in a state of supernatural dyslexia, names her new puppy NERAK, and begins channeling the voice of the unseen watcher in the woods. Coincidentally, a solar eclipse just happens to be happening, and the action culminates when Jan convinces the three teens, now washed-up adults with trepidations, to return with her to the chapel where Karen went missing all those years ago.

INDELIBLE SCENE(S):

• Any with BETTE DAVIS; she is spot-on as a bereaved mother
• Jan takes a tumble in the lake
• Elle scrawl her new puppy's name on the basement window
• The final reunion in the chapel