The Long Kiss Goodnight

Pull out your Shane Black checklist ‘cause this one’s got ‘em all.  Black and white leads team up to combat evil.  Check.  White lead is crazy and black lead is more stable.  Check.  Secret government operations are the main driver of the plot.  Check.  Christmas setting.  Check.  Witty dialogue.  Check.  Frequent location hopping.  Check.

This is a B tier film for Black and director Renny Harlin though.  The major problem is the story is hard to follow and seems unnecessarily confusing.  It’s a total rip off of “The Bourne Identity” (the books, the Matt Damon movies hadn’t come out yet) involving a woman with amnesia discovering she used to be a government assassin.  When an old foe attempts to murder her she goes on a journey with a private investigator to dig up answers.

Geena Davis (The Fly) stars as Samantha Caine/Charly Baltimore (good name) and she does an alright job.  She has to play two vastly different characters, one a jolly corny school teacher and the other a take no shit stone cold killer, and mostly pulls it off.  What’s important is this was a high profile Hollywood action movie starring a woman which was practically nonexistent at the time.  And Davis is a solid actress who can tussle with the big boys when it comes to executing the tougher moments and be heartfelt with the tender ones.

Sam Jackson (Die Hard with a Vengeance) steals the show though as Mitch Henessey (another good name).  He has a rough past involving a stretch in prison and a lifetime of questionable choices.  But at his core he’s a decent man who’s trying to be a stand up father to his son and he genuinely wants to help this woman figure out who she really is.  At the same time he’s game for taking on the bad guys despite it being an extremely dangerous mission.  Jackson slips into this role so naturally with all his badass swagger it’s a lot of fun to watch.

When it comes to the action unfortunately it’s just ok.  They went for some large set pieces like a shootout in a huge multi-story train station and a massive bridge sequence finale involving cars, trucks, helicopters and some giant ass explosions.  I don’t know if it’s the way these scenes were shot or edited but they don’t have the impact they should.  It might be that I only have a basic understanding of what’s going on plot-wise so I’m not as invested.

I mean the movie’s kinda fun but it’s definitely missing coherence.  And while Black has good ideas, some of the most humorous dialogue he’s ever written and a cool as shit title there’s too much fat that should’ve been trimmed away.  For example Henessey becomes a superfluous character halfway through once Charly Baltimore’s assassin personality takes back over.  She remembers everything and is a warrior who can take care of herself.  She doesn’t need Henessey anymore and the movie acknowledges this by literally kicking him to the curb.  But she changes her mind and lets him tag along for the hell of it.

Oddly there’s also too little explanation.  It’s pretty frustrating to not have a grasp on where the characters are going and why they’re doing what they’re doing in any given scene.  I don’t know why this road trip with Caine and Henessey begins in the first place.  The destination is unknown until they’re already driving.

And there’s one particular part that hasn’t aged well at all.  Spoilers for this paragraph.  So it turns out the CIA plans to detonate a bomb in Niagara Falls, NY so they can prove there’s terrorist activity and get their funding increased.  They’ll just blame it on Islamic terrorists.  Now obviously the filmmakers couldn’t have predicted 9/11 but they got eerily close.  They even say about 4,000 people will die which isn’t too far off from the 3,000 that actually did.  Creepy.  The reason this is a negative for the film (albeit unintentional) is because all of a sudden I’m thinking about the horror of 9/11 when all I wanna do is enjoy a silly action movie.

So there’s no rush to get to this guy.  However, if you’re looking for a Christmas action picture to add to your rotation for the holidays this’ll fit the bill.  Otherwise everyone involved has made better stuff.  The big blockbuster Harlin and Davis did right before this, Cutthroat Island, is a much better picture in my opinion.

Anyway, Merry Christmas and happy holidays.  See you next year!

Hanukkah (2019)

As the movie says, “we need more Jewish horror films”, so we have this now.  But I’m gonna come right out and say this isn’t very good.  I appreciate what it’s trying to achieve but it falls really short of attempting to establish a holiday horror classic in the vein of Halloween, Black Christmas, My Bloody Valentine or even cult favorites like Silent Night, Deadly Night.

One huge problem is there isn’t much of a story.  The son of a serial killer, dubbed the Hanukiller by the media, grows up to take over where his father left off.  He seems to murder at random though and doesn’t only target who he deems to be bad Jews.  Other than that it’s your usual group of partying teens hanging out and getting picked off.

And these kids are some of the most obnoxious I’ve ever come across in a slasher picture.  They constantly bicker with each other over petty bullshit and spit out asinine jokes.  They’re hateful, thoughtless and uninteresting.  Plus they look like they range in age from teenager to middle aged and some have Russian accents and I don’t understand these people.

On top of this the filmmakers cranked up the debauchery.  There’s a ton of nudity and gore.  It’s all for entertainment’s sake and doesn’t necessarily feed into the infinitesimal story.  And some of the shit is torture porn which I’m not a fan of.  At the same time this is an area where they spent some money because those effects look pretty good.  There’s one gag in particular that’s sorta clever where the killer cuts off the top of a neo-Nazi’s skull (which has a tattoo of a swastika on it), peels off the skin, cleans it up and wears it as a kippah.

While that one idea is incredibly gruesome at least it’s a dark twist on something Jewish which the movie doesn’t take enough advantage of.  One of the most glaring examples is the generic title.  But I’ll give them credit for a few things like the badass looking boney menorahs, keeping the killer in the shadows so his brimmed hat and long trench coat give off an ominous vibe (and makes him look like The Undertaker), spinning a dreidel right before dispatching a victim and carving the scar of David into a corpse’s chest.  There’s also a part where the killer skins someone alive to remove their tattoos so the body becomes acceptable for burial in a Jewish cemetery.  Now I’m not Jewish so I’m sure there are a lot of other nods that went right over my head.

For being such a low budget movie they managed to attract some names to be in it.  PJ Soles (Halloween, Carrie), Caroline Williams (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2), Charles Fleischer (A Nightmare on Elm Street, Zodiac), Dick Miller (Gremlins, The Terminator) and Sid Haig (The Devil’s Rejects, Foxy Brown) all make appearances.  This was Miller and Haig’s final film with Haig also producing.  He’s almost unrecognizable here though because he lost an insane amount of weight due to illness towards the end of his life.  He probably gives the best performance in the film as the Hanukiller and it’s a non-verbal one to boot.

Additionally Kane Hodder (stunts: Friday the 13^th Part VII, Demolition Man) gets a stunt credit and Harry Manfredini (Friday the 13^th) gets a music credit.  Eben McGarr used his connections as a horror event coordinator to secure all this well known talent and get the movie made.  It’s strange to me that this guy is such a horror fan because the film feels like it was done by someone who was told what slasher movies are like but hadn’t actually seen one before.  I think it goes beyond lack of filmmaking experience.

Sadly this isn’t the defining Jewish horror picture that I hoped it would be based on the premise and the poster.  It’s surprisingly aimless considering the relatively simple goal the filmmakers were aiming for.  It also has insufferable characters and shows off too much nasty carnage for my taste.  The prize is still up for grabs if anyone wants to tackle this category.

A Hidden Life

It’s been a long time but we finally got a pretty straight forward film from Terrance Malick.  It’s also a true story about an Austrian named Franz Jagerstatter who refused to fight for the Nazi’s during World War II and was imprisoned.  I had never heard of him before but apparently his story is well known in Catholic circles as a shining example of never giving in to evil, even temporarily, for one’s own survival.

Jagerstatter’s stance comes at a price beyond his own life though.  His wife, Fani, and their young children are harassed and shunned in their town of St. Radegund.  Their neighbors pick fights, steal their crops, spit on them and give them dirty ass looks.  The villagers think Franz isn’t being loyal to his country or rising to the call of duty.

The story eventually splits off into two with one thread following Franz’s stay in prison and the other showing Fani’s life at home without her beloved husband.  Both have it hard but Franz definitely has it worse.  He’s humiliated, beaten and tortured by the Nazi guards.  Meanwhile Fani has to continue to live in a town that hates her and her kids’ guts.  She also makes days long journeys to different cities pleading for her husband’s life to indifferent bureaucrats.

Many questions are raised such as is it right to stand up for what you believe in even if it means certain death?  Is it ok to go along with the program for a while purely to try to survive?  Is it wrong to knowingly leave your family behind for your beliefs?

These are hard fucking questions man and yea, the movie is really sad.  It’s almost nothing but tragedy after tragedy and Jagerstatter is unshakable in his position.  Like his lawyer keeps waving a piece of paper in front of him which would get him out of prison and into the hospital as an orderly but Franz refuses to sign.  I mean it’s no guarantee he would live to see the end of the war or that the Nazi’s would honor the thing but it’s a glimmer of hope that he never gives a microsecond of thought to.  That’s a helluva strong will.

Interestingly unlike Malick’s earlier WWII picture, The Thin Red Line, this doesn’t contain any actual war footage.  There’s no combat, gunfire, planes, tanks, bombs or anything.  It’s almost like the movie itself is protesting what a war film can be or show.  With all the Nazi imagery though there isn’t any mistaking this for something other than a war picture.  It’s just on a very human level with all the machinery stripped away and it’s incredibly effective.

And of course the cinematography is absolutely stunning with magnificent landscapes and sweeping camera movements to swim in.  Malick does a few different tricks here as well including going to a POV shot a couple of times and inserting real WWII footage.  Other than that it’s the usual insane editing that only makes sense to a small number of people in this world.  And while I’m not one of ‘em it’s still so cool to see every so often.

August Diehl (Allied) and Valerie Pachner as Franz and Fani do a wonderful job.  They have good chemistry when they share screen time making the turmoil that tears their lives apart impactful.  Diehl always has a confident but worrisome expression like he knows what he’s doing is right but the road is going to be extremely painful.  Pachner’s performance is equally impressive because Fani is apoplectic over the situation but has to keep her shit together so she can take care of her children and continue to advocate for Franz’s release.

Despite what I said in the opening Malick’s films are always linear (with the exception of Tree of Life and Voyage of Time) it’s just that they’re so damn hard to follow.  This is the first since The New World (which was about fifteen years ago) where there’s a clear narrative and you don’t have to rack your brain trying to figure out what the fuck is going on.  It’s really nice to pull back from the inner sanctum where Knight of Cups and Song to Song reside.

I recommend this one.  Beside the natural grimness that a WWII movie exudes it gives you plenty to think about.  The film pays homage to those who kept their moral compass in the darkest of days.  We usually hear about the heroes on the battlefields who undeniably deserve our gratitude, but there’s also those who fight evil in their own way by refusing to participate in sadistic bullshit.

Mish Mash 22 (Blood Beat, Demon Wind, Night Train to Terror, Psycho Cop Returns, The Suckling)

A buddy was kind enough to gift me some movies from the good folks at Vinegar Syndrome.  They restore and release bottom of the barrel type schlock across all genres but whatever problems the films have they always tend to be entertaining.  I’m glad someone is taking up this crusade because you never know when you’ll come across a diamond in the rough or have your imagination captured.  The Syndrome does an excellent job with their releases so if you haven’t checked them out give ‘em a look.

Blood Beat

All the movies on this list are very low budget and I don’t know what kind of numbers the productions were dealing with but this one and The Suckling (which we’ll get to) feel the cheapest.  A small group of actors in mainly one location, not a ton of effects, 4:3 aspect ratio and the running time is padded the hell out with a billion superfluous shots added to many scenes.

The story is about a demon samurai who kills people in Wisconsin and he has a psychic connection with some of the other characters.  I don’t understand (get used to that phrase ‘cause it’ll pop up a few times) the superpowers some characters possess but I think the samurai is probably an attempt to craft a new scary slasher icon which was an era that was just coming to a close when this was released.  It takes a while to get going but once it does the guy can’t stop killing.  The watch would be more enjoyable if the runtime wasn’t so bloated with scenes that go on for too long (and it’s only eighty seven mins!).

Overall it’s surprisingly memorable though and the sound design may be a strong reason why.  For the music they use a mix of up tempo classical string quartet pieces, pulsating synth and down tempo moody synth all of which works great.  The sound of wind blowing and heavy mask breathing are used extensively as well.  Some scenes play out with just the music or sound effects over the footage which elevates the material in an interesting way.

This and Demon Wind are the two I would recommend out of the five here if you’re willing to subject yourself to less than spectacular but still oddly charming filmmaking.

Demon Wind

A group of friends travel out to a cabin in the middle of nowhere to discover what happened to the protagonist’s grandparents many years ago.  When they arrive they find they can’t leave and must battle zombie demon creatures that will turn you into one if they so much as scratch you.

I immediately pegged this piece for exactly what it is, an Evil Dead wannabe.  It actually does a decent job of replicating that formula with a good amount of nice makeup effects and a relentless ratcheting up of dire circumstances.  It really feels like there’s no escape from the hell these folks stumbled into.  I don’t understand the ending at all though where the hero transforms into some conehead looking guy.

Whatever, kinda fun but ultimately I don’t know how often (if ever) I’m really going to revisit this when The Evil Dead is sooooo much better and there are two of ‘em (yea I know, Army of Darkness, but it’s pretty different than its predecessors and I’ve always categorized it in my mind as sort of a standalone anyway).  Also, not a great title.

Night Train to Terror

Board the night train where you’ll find an anthology picture featuring three tales.  God (Ferdy Mayne (The Fearless Vampire Killers)) and Lucifer (Tony Giorgio (The Godfather)) are riding together in a compartment and they fight over the souls of the people in the stories.  In the other cars there’s a rockin’ band with dancers kickin’ it to a bluesy tune that has sort of a throwback 50’s vibe.  Connection?  Not a clue.

The first segment is about a guy who gets recruited by a team of doctors to lure female victims to their hospital so they can dismember them and sell their body parts.  The second involves a group of people who engage in games of Russian roulette except they use creative methods like letting a gigantic fucking deadly flying insect loose in the room to see who it stings or lying underneath a swinging wrecking ball to see who it’ll land on and smash.  And the third episode features Satan (or Satan’s assistant?) disguised as a human who hangs out around LA, kills anyone who attempts to discover his secret and looks for slimeballs to enlist in his evil army.

All the descriptions above aren’t entirely accurate though because there are a million weird details that I’m not gonna bother with.  Figures because apparently each story was their own individual abandoned film that was edited down to about twenty mins.  It certainly feels that way.

So despite the fact that there’s plenty going on all the time it’s marred by constant bewilderment.  Each section is hard to follow and it only gets worse as the movie progresses.  The film’s difficult to enjoy as a result in spite of the intriguing story ideas.

Psycho Cop Returns

I’m gonna say right up front that I have not seen Psycho Cop so I could’ve made a big mistake.  Oh well, can’t do anything about it now.

For Psycho Cop Returns it seems they were going for a Die Hard parody of sorts with the plot involving douchbags throwing a bachelor party after hours in their high rise office building.  Who the hell does that?  They invite strippers, guzzle booze and generally act like jackasses all while the psycho cop picks them off one by one in the empty skyscraper.  They play up the comedy which isn’t a very successful blend of corny jokes and cringy frat house humor.  Unfortunately the deaths aren’t all that creative or hard hitting either but again, it’s supposed to be part comedy.

However, the biggest problem with the movie is they don’t take advantage of the cop angle nearly enough.  He’s just a crazy person in a police officer uniform committing standard slasher activities.  He slings a lot of cop puns but he doesn’t abuse his authority to commit crimes Bad Lieutenant style.  The only effort he makes is when he fools his victims for a moment into thinking he’s a legit cop who’s there to rescue them but soon after he reveals his true intentions.

By far the best part is the opening credits.  It’s a fast cutting montage of the psycho cop’s squad car filled to the brim with various body parts and there are pentagrams and “666” written in blood everywhere (I forgot to mention he’s also a Satanist) while a screeching guitar track blasts.  It’s pretty fuckin’ awesome.

Lastly, the film has a weird ending (spoilers) where they recreated the Rodney King beating except with the roles reversed.  A bar full of people witness the psycho cop beating up a woman so they come to her rescue and pound the shit outta that dude with blunt instruments while someone films.  Commentary on the times.

The Suckling

Among this set The Suckling is the worst one which is too bad because it probably has the best title.  It’s about an aborted fetus that gets flushed down the toilet and grows into a mutant killer by way of toxic waste exposure in the sewer.  The thing enacts its revenge on the abortion clinic/brothel by tearing everyone inside limb from limb.

This one’s definitely the sleaziest entry with all the gruesome abortion stuff and the horrible way the prostitutes are treated.  It also has the worst acting, dialogue and creature effects.  The full sized monster suit actually doesn’t look half bad but everything else is very cheaply done.

I’m not sure what else to say except I don’t understand the beginning with one of the characters dreaming (maybe?) of getting drugged and having her throat slit.  I don’t get how that ties in.  Also, there are a few incredibly annoying characters that last almost the entire run so that was grating.

I dunno, it’s a creature slasher picture that’s not fantastic with an unpleasant concept at its core.

Harefooted Halloween: Sleepy Hollow

What I Liked: The movie is beautifully shot.  It has an almost film noir vibe with the basically black and white color palette.  Those pops of red when blood flies are striking and leave a lasting impression.  Plus the fog, constant overcast sky and ridiculous amount of lightning add so much great atmosphere.  This is another example of you could pause the film at any time and always have a gorgeous image on the screen.

Likewise the production design is off the charts.  All the period costumes, dwellings and the look of the headless horseman evoke eeriness to the nth degree.  And with the pumpkins, fall foliage and decapitated corpses this is like pure uncut Halloween.  It’s good shit.

It earns its R rating by not holding back on the blood and murdering.  The body count gets high which includes a little boy and a pregnant woman’s unborn child.  There are also a few disturbing images of a bat’s head and a crow’s foot being sliced off.  That shit bothers me more than any of the human casualties.

Danny Elfman’s fantastic soundtrack immerses you right into the gothic story.  The use of pipe organ is sort of an old trick due to Bach’s “Toccata and Fugue” historically being the standard bearer of horror themes but that doesn’t mean it isn’t an effective instrument.  And the copious amount of chorus makes the movie feel epic.

I appreciate that the headless horseman never loses sight of his mission.  When he targets his victim he doesn’t give a shit about anyone else even if they’re attacking him.  I mean he’ll lay a fucker out if they repeatedly get in his way but otherwise he’s focused like a T-800 on the task at hand.

What I Didn’t Like: Jesus the murder mystery plot is unfollowable.  I’ve seen this thing probably a dozen times now and I still have no fucking idea what the villain’s plan is.  I truly believe a whodunit is a type of picture you can’t make successfully and this falls in line with that.  The investigation comes and goes throughout too so I’m lost whenever it’s picked up again after a break.

There’s some slight steampunk gadgetry that Ichabod Crane (Johnny Depp (A Nightmare on Elm Street)) uses during his examinations and it’s just stupid looking.  Magnifying glasses and scalpels existed in 1799 so this crap that Crane pulls out of his bag is unnecessary.

I’m not a huge fan of the action.  The headless horseman’s movements are really martial arty and the two on one fight he has reminds me too much of The Phantom Menace.  He does all these twists and twirls and weapon flipping and shit and it’s incredibly out of place.  I don’t need my headless horseman to be fancy and graceful with his fighting skills.  He should be more brute force and sorta clunky because you know, no head and all.  It’s interesting that the decision was made to have the guy act like he totally has a head where he can tell exactly what’s going on around him no problem.  Sure he’s a supernatural being but if they could’ve found a way to make him vaguely senseless that might’ve yielded intriguing results.

The action isn’t cut that well either with too many edits in general.  You can tell what’s going on most of the time but the finale in particular gets pretty messy.

Christopher Walken (The Addiction) is miscast as the headless horseman.  He’s too recognizable and singular to be anyone other than Christopher fuckin’ Walken so to play a rather anonymous character makes his appearance stand out even greater.  If I’m being honest here it’s also kind of a waste of talent for the small amount of screen time he has and to have the man only yell and growl unintelligibly.  And those fake teeth always bothered me because they look like they don’t fit properly.  It seems like Walken can’t close his mouth and like they’re very uncomfortable.

Overall Impressions: Oh boy this is a tough one.  I wanna love this movie, I really do because it’s an awesome feast for the eyes, the ambience is incredible, the music is thrilling, the carnage is cool and the look of the headless horseman is so badass.  The technical work on this film is simply outstanding. 

But man, the story they went with is garbled.  It’s a bigger minus than I would’ve thought.  For example Ichabod visits a witch out in the woods and her cave home is amazing with plenty of twisted roots, candles, cobwebs, bones, etc. littered around giving the place a perfect spooky tone.  The witch herself transforms into some freaky spirit with black holes for eyes, cracking gray skin and long white hair.  Excellent job in the makeup and design departments but what the fuck is Crane doing there?  I don’t know because I can’t follow the story.  So while the scene is neat by itself it doesn’t carry a whole lot of weight in the context of the film.  And this is the picture in a nutshell.  Fucking killer ass visuals but I’m not that emotionally invested in the plot or the characters.

I’m not saying the movie’s worthless or an absolute jumble but it does have serious issues.  It’s gotta be the best of Tim Burton’s B tier though.  I’ll definitely continue to revisit it over the years because the look and feel is too good to shove aside.  The script and acting isn’t the dealbreaker it probably would be in most other situations.  You should check it out if you haven’t already especially if you’re searching for something to set the mood for Halloween season.

Harefooted Halloween: Feardotcom

What I Liked: Not a whole lot.

What I Didn’t Like: Let’s move on.

Overall Impressions: There are a few quirky things about this guy and I’d like to go bullet points for a while, you all cool with that?  Good.  So:

·         The production design, cinematography and a few plot elements are heavily influenced by Se7en.  The lighting is dark, everything is very filthy, it’s almost always raining outside, the setting is a nameless city (although license plates indicate NY), dead bodies keep piling up mysteriously with cryptic messages sprawled on walls and etc.  Look Se7en is one of the best films ever made so I get that it inspired a lot of filmmakers but it’s such a specific style to mimic.  Pictures like The Glimmer Man, Kiss the Girls, Fallen, The Bone Collector and others tried to do the same with varying degrees of success.  I don’t remember this happening with other thrillers from the time like The Silence of the Lambs or whatever.

·         I find it amusing that the name of the website in the movie is feardotcom.com.  Apparently the filmmakers wanted it to be fear.com but were unable to wrangle it away from the owners.  The workaround to make it dotcom.com and keep it all one word like how you would type it in the address bar is both genius and hilariously stupid.

·         Is this movie considered part of the dot com bubble?  It could’ve been the final casualty.

·         Strange character actor Udo Kier (End of Days) makes a quick appearance in the beginning as the first victim (spoiler) and Stephen Dorff (The Gate) plays the main detective character making this a mini Blade reunion.  They don’t share any scenes though.  Well, not in the true sense anyway since one plays a corpse.

·         Of course with this coming out in 2002 and centered around internet technology it’s hard to take the piece that seriously.  For those old enough it could be a trip down memory lane of how websites used to look and operate and how pictures used to represent and talk about computers and stuff.  So with that and camcorders playing another large role the movie’s aged very poorly.

(Alright I’m moving out of bullet points now)

*Spoilers for the rest of this but the movie’s not very good and the final reveal is kinda peculiar* The enormous overarching issue with the film is it’s a shameless knock off of The Ring (it’s sort of a Nightmare on Elm Street rip off too but I’ll get to that).  Here’s a rundown of the similarities but fair warning that this will also be spoilers for The Ring.

(Going back to bullet points (sorry for this review being a bit of a mess))

·         Girl dies and uses then modern technology to enact her revenge.

·         If you log on to the website (feardotcom.com) you’re cursed.

·         Visitors to the website have visions of events related to the girl’s death that are also clues to uncovering who this person is and where you can find her.

·         After visiting the website you have 48 hours to live which parallels how long the girl was tortured for before she died.

·         A man, Mike (Stephen Dorff), and a woman, Terry (Natascha McElhone (The Truman Show)), team up to find a cure for the curse.

·         The girl’s corpse is found by Terry at the bottom of a pool of waste water.

·         Fake out ending where Mike and Terry think that finding the girl’s corpse will halt the curse but it doesn’t.

·         A discredited doctor was behind the girl’s murder.

·         The girl emerges from the computer screen during the finale.

Holy shit!  And the American remake of The Ring came out just two months later!  I mean come on.

The part about this having Nightmare on Elm Street qualities are Mike and Terry experience visions that aren’t real like seeing a little girl in an all white dress similar to the jump rope girls, Terry gets trapped in a demonic boiler room at one point and it’s indicated that some of the victims think they’re dying from their worst fears like insects or drowning but in reality they’re not.  At first I thought this was the concept they were going with, people killed by their worst fear, which is sorta neat but nope.

Admittedly this is a fascinating film to analyze because of how blatant its influences are.  The mashup of ideas could’ve worked better if they didn’t simply copy and paste so damn much (see the computer pun I snuck in there?).  The Se7en and Nightmare aspects are probably done well enough where they can get away with it but The Ring concept is too unique to lift completely intact so that really doesn’t come off too good.

I might recommend this strictly as a case study.  If you’re into breaking shit down, especially horror shit, it could be worth your while from an academic standpoint.

Harefooted Halloween: Butcher Boys (aka Boneboys)

What I Liked: Once the zaniness starts it doesn’t stop for even a second.  One minute this group of teens is bumming around the outskirts of San Antonio and the next they’re on the run from a gang of maniacs.  Civilization seems to have disappeared off the face of the planet with nothing but abandoned factories and warehouses left.  Then our protagonist gets trapped inside the bad guys’ lair that’s a fiendish nightmare of enslaved women, torture equipment, cannibalistic freaks and demented lunatics.  I was on edge the whole time.

Ali Faulkner (Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1) plays the lead Sissy and she does a really good job here.  She goes through some serious trauma of witnessing her friends getting killed and then being kidnapped and assaulted by the butcher boys.  Faulkner had to be distraught and seething for basically eighty of the eighty seven minute run time which couldn’t have been easy.

What I Didn’t Like: The crazy shit I mentioned earlier cuts both ways.  I mean I didn’t really have any idea what was going on basically the entire time.  Shit isn’t exactly explained and the movie moves at such a fast pace and throws so many ideas at you there aren’t quiet moments where the characters or story can breathe.  While the all consuming chaos is fun it leaves confusion and a certain emptiness in its wake.

The group of butcher boys we initially run into and spend the first two thirds of the film with have like a 50’s greaser look to them which is weird.  I don’t really get it.

For the first ten or fifteen minutes the editing is horrible with a lot of awkward cutaways and closeups.  Maybe the filmmakers wanted to match the bulk of the picture better by cutting the opening quicker but it just looks like shit.

The batch of teens that initially bite the dust are particularly annoying.  I had no problem with seeing them gutted.  Sissy and her brother are the only two who aren’t keying people’s cars or starting fights or you know, acting like pure assholes.

Overall Impressions: This was originally a Texas Chainsaw sequel script written by series writer and producer Kim Henkel.  I’m not sure what happened that caused this to be turned into its own thing but the end product is so close to something from that universe that I’m counting it as an honorary entry.  Don’t think fake diamond, think genuine cubic zirconia.

Interestingly the first part is really like a Judgment Night rip off with a vicious gang chasing innocent passersby through a seedy underbelly urban jungle.  But then the switch gets flipped and we’re most definitely in TCM land with maniacal off the wall characters and gruesome carnage.

Even with all the gore, brutal imagery and frightening ideas that keep piling on I found myself strangely enjoying it.  I wish it were more focused though because the butcher boys conjure up way too much mayhem to get a handle on anything.

If you’re a fan of the Texas Chains then I guess I cautiously recommend checking out this alternate reality curiosity.  All the TCM references and cameos are kinda neat to spot but they also blur the line even further about it not being an official entry.  Sure it doesn’t come remotely close to the excellence of the first two Chainsaws but even with its problems I think it’s probably better than the remakes/reboots from the past twenty years, except for possibly Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning.  It’s absolutely better than TCM: The Next Generation.  That I know.

Harefooted Halloween: Phenomena

What I Liked: Good pacing.  The story keeps moving and evolving subverting your expectations at every turn.  It starts out like a typical slasher picture with a girl’s boarding school setting but it doesn’t take long to chuck that out the window and go off in another direction entirely.  I mean check out this crazy six minute sequence of events: the protagonist Jennifer (Jennifer Connelly (Dark City)) sleep walks, witnesses a murder, falls from a balcony unharmed, walks into oncoming traffic, gets picked up by creepy molesters, jumps from their car, tumbles down a hill, encounters a monkey in the woods, the monkey takes her to meet a world famous entomologist (Donald Pleasance (Halloweens)).  Holy guaca-fuckin’-mole.

Even though this is about a girl who can communicate telepathically or emotionally somehow with insects there isn’t any gratuitous gross out bug stuff.  Sure there are some closeups but the filmmakers don’t linger on them daring you to look away.  The nastiest thing that happens isn’t insect related but instead Jennifer falls into a vat of sludge filled with decomposing human remains.  Bugs are in there breaking down the meat but I think we can all agree that’s not the grossest part of that situation.

Oh.  My.  God.  The soundtrack.  Hard rock/metal luminaries such as Iron Maiden, Motörhead and, of course, Goblin contribute heart pounding, fist pumping, ass kicking tunes.  It’s so over the top and sorta comical how the music doesn’t really fit the scenes but man is it memorable and cool as shit.  Fuck yea dude.

What I Didn’t Like: Too much deus ex machina bullshit.

There’s a monkey as a main character and it’s really weird how they use him in the story.  He’s there for two very specific purposes but unfortunately I can’t go into it because of spoilers.  Still I think he gets a strangely abundant amount of screen time.

Overall Impressions: This one is by Dario Argento and it’s my favorite of his so far.  Honestly I’m not a huge fan his two biggest pictures, Deep Red and Suspiria.  I always liked Tenebrae more and now Phenomena has pulled ahead.  It’s more disjointed than usual though with the movie throwing so many ideas at you.  For example Jennifer has a special connection with insects but she also sleepwalks and is the daughter of a famous actor which is a plot point and she teams up with a fly to try to catch the local murderer and do you see what I mean?  There’s just a lot here and amazingly it flows.  I gave into the whims and didn’t ask a lot of questions.

If you’re new to Italian horror I guess this is as good a place to start as any.  I’m sure most other folks will point you towards Suspiria or whatever but if you’re looking for something less abstract and with a quicker tempo try this one out.

Harefooted Halloween: The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane

What I Liked: Lots of tension throughout.  You know there’s something sinister going on with this little thirteen year old girl Rynn (Jodie Foster (Maverick)) but we’re kept in the dark for a long time.  She’s supposed to be living in this Maine country house with her father but he’s never around, she doesn’t go to school and acts very conspicuously with an excuse for everything.  And what the hell is in that cellar anyway?

Really nice acting work all around here but Foster’s performance is the highlight.  It’s also probably pretty realistic for a kid like this.  She has this deadpan stare that denotes superiority and disgust for those around her.  When she finally gets a friend in seventeen year old Mario (Scott Jacoby (Return to Horror High)) she starts to open up and let him into her world so she can warm up to the right person.  Foster has to deal with a lot of different emotions but also keep them suppressed most of the time which is a difficult task for any actor let alone such a young one.

The other quick mention acting wise I want to bring up is Martin Sheen (Firestarter) who plays a totally creepy ass pedophile.  He pivots back and forth between being disturbingly calm while making disgusting insinuations and abuzz with uncontainable energy like he can’t wait to pounce on his victim.  Very effective execution.

What I Didn’t Like: Foster’s hair with the long bangs looks absolutely terrible.  At first I couldn’t believe someone would give her a haircut like that but then I read it was actually a wig.  It’s distracting.

We could’ve been shown Rynn committing one more evil act.  There’s talk and suggestion but it just feels like the movie’s missing one tiny extra jab to push it over.

Overall Impressions: I would classify this as more of a thriller than a horror picture.  It’s a character study of this girl who’s too smart for her own good and only wants to be left alone.  The world won’t have it though so she does what she feels is necessary in order to survive.

The film is very play-like and takes place mostly in Rynn’s house.  It was eventually turned into a play twenty years later but the original source is a book of the same name written by Laird Koenig (Inchon).  I haven’t read it but from what I gather Rynn was lightened up a touch for the movie and made a bit more ambiguously malevolent.

Anyway I do recommend checking this picture out.  It ain’t blood and guts like The Brood or nothin’ so expectations will need to be calibrated.  A more sophisticated route is taken by leaving a decent amount to the imagination. 

Harefooted Halloween: Gretel & Hansel

What I Liked: The production design (Jeremy Red (Hard Candy)) and cinematography (Galo Olivares (camera operator on Roma)) are absolutely beautiful.  Lots of pale yellows and neon blues give a rosy yet grimy feel.  It’s not overly kaleidoscopic though which was a good decision for such gloomy, no wait…grim subject matter (see what I did there?).  And it’s very nice that there’s no terrible shaky cam to distract you either.  All the shots are clear and wonderfully composed.  There’s so much awesome eerie imagery to soak up and spooky atmosphere to get caught up in.

Alice Krige’s (Deadwood) performance as the witch is magnificent.  She rides the line of acting kind and charitable towards Hansel (Samuel Leakey (Twist)) and Gretel (Sophia Lillis (It (2017))) while at the same time emitting a serious creep factor.  Krige never lashes out and keeps it reserved the whole way which adds a sense of uneasiness to even the most humdrum scenes.

What I Didn’t Like: In general the script is kinda bad.  One of the problems is they had to stretch a relatively brief story into feature length and that mainly resulted in the witch having to keep up her ruse for an extended period.  I know she wants to fatten up the kids before she cooks them but the movie drags a bit towards the middle.  But before Hansel and Gretel even get to the witch there’s an odd scene where they run into a weirdo who tries to kill them.  He looks like a zombie or maybe he’s just sick or I dunno.  That felt totally out of place.  The rest of the issues are more routine type stuff like poor dialogue, unnecessary narration, story elements introduced only to serve the finale, messy backstories, etc.

Overall Impressions: If you think about it this is pretty much an impossible film to make.  The baseline story you’re working off is about a cannibalistic child murderer and then on top of that you wanna do a dark horror version.  I don’t know if anyone really wants to see that.  The concept is just too unpleasant for most folks to get behind.  I mean either you go all in with something deeply disturbing that’ll be extremely alienating or you pull back and play up the fantasy elements without putting the children in too much danger.  They chose the latter.  It’s your only option for a mainstream release.

Oz Perkins wrote and directed and has been transitioning more into those roles the past few years after starting out as an actor (Psycho II).  He also did The Blackcoat’s Daughter which is another methodical psychologically driven horror picture and I liked that better but Perkins shows a lot pf promise.  He seems to be trying to find different angles on horror instead of doing straight forward pieces.  We always need filmmakers like him to shake shit up so I’m interested in what he does in the future.

As for Gretel & Hansel it’s a tough recommendation.  There are awesome visuals and a cool performance by Krige but unfortunately it’s underwhelming in all other areas.

A Nightmare on Elm Street Series Wrap Up

Holy moly, that was a lot to get through.  But we’re not done yet!  There are a few items I wanted to mention before we move out of Elm Street.

Similar to the Alien series the Nightmare pictures were a launching pad for hot young directors.  Wes Craven had already been around a little while and made a splash with The Last House on the Left and The Hills Have Eyes.  He also just finished up the slightly higher profile offbeat camp-fest Swamp Thing.  Nightmare was the one that made him a superstar though.  And of course in the 90’s he crafted another gigantic hit with Scream.

Part 2 was helmed by Jack Sholder who didn’t become a mega director but he did follow up with several really fun pictures including the sci-fi Terminator-esque The Hidden and the action bonanza Renegades.

Chuck Russell did part 3 and went on to have a colorful career working on effects heavy projects such as the 1988 Blob, The Mask and the underrated Schwarzenegger classic Eraser.

Part 4 saw the rise of Renny Harlin who’s a personal favorite of mine.  He would eventually deliver the amped up shark adventure Deep Blue Sea, the comic book-y ultra cool ”Bourne Identity” (books) knock off The Long Kiss Goodnight and perhaps the most pirate-y movie ever made with Cutthroat Island.

Stephen Hopkins came on for part 5 and continued to do good work on Blown Away and some incredible work on Predator 2.

Series producer Rachel Talalay slid into the director’s chair for Freddy’s Dead and then put together an array of quirky films afterwards that include Tank Girl and Ghost in the Machine.  She moved over to be a prominent TV director working on everything from Ally McBeal to The Flash.

Ronny Yu cut his teeth in the Hong Kong cinema game in the 80’s and 90’s.  He didn’t do much after Freddy vs. Jason but he did make one of his best known films, Fearless with Jet Li.

Samuel Bayer was a long time commercial and music video director before doing the Nightmare remake.  After the hostile response to the film he went back to music videos.  His resume in that area though is unparalleled.  Some of the folks he’s worked with include Nirvana, The Ramones, Iron Maiden, Rush, David Bowie, Metallica, Sheryl Crow, Aerosmith, Green Day, The Strokes, Maroon 5 and Papa Roach.  Jesus.

Similarly the writers utilized to help build out the universe of the franchise is equally impressive.  Here’s a sampling: Wes Craven (you know), Frank Darabont (The Green Mile, The Walking Dead), Brian Helgeland (Payback, LA Confidential), Leslie Bohem (Dante’s Peak, Daylight), Michael De Luca (much more of a producer but he wrote In the Mouth of Madness and a bunch of episodes of Freddy’s Nightmares (don’t worry we’ll get there)), Wesley Strick (Arachnophobia, Cape Fear (1991)) and Eric Heisserer (Arrival, Bird Box).

And of course jaw dropping special effects have been a mainstay of the series from the very start.  The two biggest shoutouts in this department go to David Miller (The Terminator, Tales from the Crypt, Friday the 13^th: A New Beginning) who made Freddy Krueger a reality through his brilliant makeup work on the first film (fun fact: melted cheese on a pizza was his inspiration for Krueger’s scorched flesh) and then Kevin Yagher (Child’s Play, Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey, Face/Off) who did an amazing job carrying the torch for most of the sequels.

This isn’t to discount everyone else in the other areas of production.  All the people who worked on these pictures did a wonderful job.  The series has a cohesion that carries through yet each picture offers a distinct feel.  It can’t be overstated that the technical work has been an inspiration for countless other filmmakers.

And then there’s the man himself, Robert Englund.  He’s arguably the heart and soul of this whole thing.  Freddy wouldn’t be the same if someone else had been cast.  Englund has a lot of thoughts on playing the character but here are some of the more noteworthy tidbits. He says there’s a dance to Krueger’s movements, how he turns and handles himself.  Once this is pointed out it’s easy to pick up on.  Sometimes he’s graceful and sometimes he lunges out of nowhere but there’s always a flair to it. 

Englund also talks about the knife glove having a weight to it (mainly in the first two movies (the original glove was stolen during the shooting of part 3 by someone working on Evil Dead II where you can see it hanging in the cabin’s shed)).  This causes Freddy to drop his right shoulder and give him an almost gunslinger posture.  Badass.

Obviously not everything was in Englund’s control like the crazy effects, the script and the final decisions made by the editor and director.  But he certainly wasn’t afraid to put his own spin on the character like when he brandishes his knives with the line “this is God” or the tongue wagging at his female victims or the infamous “welcome to prime time bitch!”  It’s a unique spontaneous combination of elements that makes Freddy Freddy.

The evolution from Fred to Freddy is another interesting aspect.  In the first two installments he’s Fred and doesn’t joke around a lot.  But in the third one he’s now more informally Freddy and he ain’t scared to crack some witticisms your way.  By the time we get to Freddy’s Dead he’s a straight up cartoon character.  It makes sense to get serious after that with New Nightmare but in Freddy vs. Jason I think they got the balance perfect.  For the remake they sadly made him so no nonsense he’s kinda boring.

Now how about a couple of bests and worsts?

The best deaths are the roach motel in Dream Master and Tina being dragged around the room in the first film.  One is wacky nuts while the other is gets under my skin nuts.

The worst death is the invisible martial arts fight which ironically is also in Dream Master.  That just feels like what it actually is, they ran out of money and still had more filming to do.  Honorable mention is the comic book death from Dream Child.  It’s not creepy in the slightest and slashing a paper cutout of the victim doesn’t make for riveting imagery.

The best film is the original hands down.  It’s the most well rounded.

The worst is the remake.  Nothing thrilling going on there.  In the series proper I’m gonna say Freddy’s Dead.  Even though it was intentionally lighter in tone and is legitimately funny at times it deviates too far from where I would like Freddy and the story to be.

For further viewing you can check out Freddy’s Nightmares which was a horror anthology TV show hosted by Freddy Krueger released in conjunction with part 4.  Englund reprises his role and makes cheesy puns during cutscenes in between an episode’s story.  It’s totally a Tales from the Crypt rip off except it came out a year before in 1988.  I’ve only seen the two episodes that come with the blu ray bundle of the films and it’s fine I guess.  Not as good as Tales.  I can’t imagine they had quite the same budget behind it but they did attract some extraordinary talent to write and direct a few episodes including Tobe Hooper (Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Poltergeist) and Dwight H. Little (Halloween 4, Marked for Death, Rapid Fire).

A Nightmare on Elm Street: Real Nightmares was a reality show from 2005 where people would confront their real life fears and it was hosted by Robert Englund as Freddy.  Episodes were shot but it never aired.  Probably because it was clearly a Fear Factor copycat.

And finally there are some documentaries.  Never Sleep Again goes through the making of each film and is nicely done with a lot of info.  I’d recommend that one if you want to dig deeper into the thought process behind the movies.  Just be aware it’s a bit lengthy at four hours long.

Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street is Mark Patton’s doc half about his life and half about his experience on Freddy’s Revenge and how society’s treatment towards gay people has impacted him.  In the scope of the Nightmare universe it’s a very specific topic to spend a lot of time on so you would need to decide if that’s something you’d like to delve into.  Patton examines the history of horror in gay culture and explores the Venn diagram of where horror films and the gay community converge.  While Patton has an agenda (mainly looking for closure on how he felt vilified by Freddy’s Revenge writer David Chaskin) I thought it was a pretty good watch that illuminated me to this particular cross section of fandom.

Also I Am Nancy is Heather Langenkamp’s doc on her exploration of the character Nancy Thompson.  Haven’t seen this one so I can’t comment.

Ooookay, those are the Nightmares on Elm Street.  Definitely an entertaining series that encompasses so much creativity and great filmmaking.  I recommend checking out all the movies (except the 2010 remake) if you’ve only made it to certain ones over the years.  Hell, three are under ninety mins and the rest barely get over that threshold (apart from New Nightmare which runs longer).  They’re easy watches but at the same time there’s a lot to analyze like the recurring use of red and green lighting, stripes in the set design and did you realize it took Freddy four damn films to finally pick off all the Elm Street kids?  Sweet dreams, bitch!