Top Gun: Maverick

Ok, fine, yes I get it.  I get why this is one of the highest grossing films of all time.  It’s a ton of fun.  The original Top Gun is fun too but at least personally it was never one of my all time favs.  So when I heard about this sequel I didn’t care all that much.  Then I saw the trailer and the jet footage looked crazy and that’s what sold me.

We pick up however many years later and Maverick (Tom Cruise (The Color of Money)) is still in the air force where apparently his job is to push the speed limit of jets.  He finds out his program is being scrapped the day they were going to try to hit Mach 9.  If you know Mav you know he ain’t gonna let this shit ride so of course he takes the jet out against orders and pushes not for Mach 9 but for Mach 10.  Oh that rascal.  As he’s about to be discharged over this insubordination (which is amazing it took this long, how many of these damn stunts has he pulled over the years?) he’s informed he’s needed to train pilots for a dangerous mission blowing up a base that contains material slated for nuclear weapons.  I can’t remember if they actually say which country or organization they’re attacking but seems like the Russians to me.  The only way to complete the mission is to use slightly older jets for some reason and Mav gets the call.  Not because he’s the most qualified but because his ol’ buddy Iceman is now a high ranking Admiral and he insists Mav is the guy.  As you can imagine this sets up tension between Mav and his CO’s from the get go.  And the rest of the picture is training for the mission and the mission itself.  So basically the majority of the film is Top Gun.

The thing about this series is they’re not your typical action movie.  Hell, I don’t even think of them as action movies per se.  They’re more their own special offshoot almost like a kumite film.  You have a group that’s the best of the best at what they do and the bulk of the running time is spent training for a contest.  In this case it’s war and not hand to hand combat.  And there aren’t rounds and rankings.  And they’re not fighting for some monetary prize or the glory of being crowned winner of the tournament and oh nevermind.

Anyway, I like how they handle a few things.  One vitally important aspect is they get Maverick right.  He’s stuck at a relatively low level rank doing test flights and that makes sense.  Considering his tenure and experience he should be running the goddamn air force.  But he’s too rebellious to land in a higher up position and too good to drum out completely so he’s stuck.  It’s a bit sad that he never really matured in thirty six years but it works for the story.  He’s a lively guy who plays by his own rules and has an unbridled passion for flying and yea, that’s who I want to hang out with in a jet fighter movie.  It would’ve been boring if Mav had become a distinguished high ranking military official who had learned to tame his wild side and use moderate action.  No way man, I wanna see Mav strafe his superiors, piss off his students and do other reckless, but harmless, shit.  And that’s what we get.

Instead of bringing back Kelly McGillis Mav has a new/old love interest in Penny (Jennifer Connelly (Dark City)) and according to the web the previous film offhandedly mentions this character so, *sigh*, I guess it’s canon (*eye roll*).  They were together some years ago but it didn’t work out and now Mav is back in Fightertown USA (San Diego) and they hook up again.  Since they were an item previously that cuts through all the sappy meet cute crap and we can jump right into them re-establishing a connection.  Penny has a tweenage daughter who isn’t Mav’s and that’s another bit of smart writing because it shows that Mav gets back with Penny because he wants to and not because he feels guilty about abandoning his kid.  This makes the love between Mav and Penny feel more genuine.  All of this eliminates a cog in the legacy sequel machine and goes towards building this film’s own unique backstory.

Another big appeal is at least half the time this thing does kinda look like an 80’s movie and it’s gorgeous.  They’re mainly emulating Tony Scott’s style with setting suns, blaring light pouring in through blinds, smoky rooms, somewhat simple but very effective camera setups in places like the war room bathed in neon blue light and etc.  Oh, and they do a rad training montage of Mav smoking the other pilots when they first arrive.  All great stuff.  I wish (and hope) more movies rip off this style of using 80’s cinematography as a base line and then layering in modern day techniques.  For a long while now the opposite has been trendy with 80’s motifs peppered in on top of modern filmmaking and this is just one doofus’ opinion, but it would be nice to change things up.

Now there’s also the usual fair share of stupid movie-y stuff too like Maverick only getting the teaching job at Iceman’s behest when absolutely no one else wants him to do it, Mav butting heads hard with his CO throughout, Mav still can’t let go of Goose’s death and so on.  None of it is a deal breaker.

I have to say though Val Kilmer (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang) should not have made a cameo.  The guy’s still alive so I guess you had to put him in there but his scene where he reassures Mav he’s the right man to train elite pilots for a treacherous mission and to try to get him to be at peace with Goose’s demise is totally unnecessary.  I mean Mav starts to have this same exact conversation again a short time later with Penny underlining how pointless the previous scene is.

But hey, a legacy sequel’s gonna legacy sequel so additionally you got shit like shirtless sweaty dudes playing a team sport on a beach, Mav riding his motorcycle and a cocky asshole vying for top gun.  But the big boner is the inclusion of Rooster (Miles Teller (Bleed for This)), Goose’s son.  You guessed it, he’s in Mav’s class training for the deadly mission.  All this is fine.  It comes with the territory of films like these.  The one thing that irks the shit out of me though is when Rooster pulls the plug on the jukebox at the local bar and starts playing the piano.  He even plays the same fucking Jerry Lee Lewis song that his father played in the previous installment.  It couldn’t be a different song at least?  C’mon.

Anything bad or silly or whatever ends up not really mattering though because as I mentioned at the top the jet footage they got is fuckin’ awesome.  I can’t wrap my head around how much work it must’ve taken to not only get the pilots doing all the eye popping maneuvers but to also get a boatload of footage of the actors in the hot seat zooming around like a fucking boss.  Damn dude.

And the finale.  Holy shit the finale.  The way it’s constructed is fantastic and natural.  The mission starts off smoothly where everyone’s hitting their targets and they’re making good time but then the enemy starts to fly after them and the ensuing chases are heart pumping.  It’s pretty incredible that I was able to keep track of what the hell was going on most of the time because it’s so fast paced and chaotic but man they do a bang up job keeping shit clear and direct.  And on top of everything they continue to raise the stakes and escalate the situation.  I won’t go into much more detail but the filmmakers very cleverly find a way to get Mav back into an old 80’s era fighter jet which is way outgunned compared to the faster, stronger, slicker modern jets the enemy engage him with.  It’s insanely exciting to watch and this entire finale, especially the tail end, is probably one of if not the best dogfight ever put to film.

You know, it’s interesting to compare this picture to comic book movies which are still enjoying unparalleled success today.  Most have some sort of aerial combat sequence involving two or more invincible characters or machines or combo thereof smashing into buildings destroying everything around them.  It’s a fantasy where everything’s made up so the rules are very flexible.  But Top Gun: Maverick is supposed to take place in the real world and they put on a fight in the air that’s at least just as thrilling as anything a comic book movie can dish out.  And yea I know this is still a movie where a bunch of this shit may or may not really be possible but stick with me for a minute.  I think a lot of folks found the display of jet show offery (almost all of which was done for real) a breath of fresh air.  These are your real life superheroes and I think this is part of what resonated with audiences so strongly.  Plus it’s shot well, cast well, acted well, scored well, etc.

So shit, I’m fully on board with Top Gun: Maverick.  It like kinda rules.  And it truly is about Maverick.  He’s a relic of the past showing he can be relevant today.  You may think he doesn’t have anything new to teach us but that’s not the case.  There’s some life in him yet.  This old dog will fly.  Fuckin’ A.

Year of the Dragon

Year of the Dragon is about a hard boiled cop named Stanley White (Mickey Rourke (Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man)) who’s recently given jurisdiction over NYC’s Chinatown.  He’s tired of how the gangs run the place so he wages war against them in the most brazen hard headed way possible.  At the same time a young Chinese crime boss, Joey Tai (John Lone (The Last Emperor)), makes his move to take over all of Chinatown.  So it turns into a battle of two guys who don’t exactly know what they’re doing and both sides suffer.

There are several things I really like and don’t like about this film.  For starters the cinematography (Alex Thompson (Legend, Cliffhanger, Demolition Man)) and production design (Wolf Kroeger (First Blood, The 13^th Warrior)) are pretty awesome with its gritty and grand feel.  The grimy sludgy noodle pits underneath Chinatown are some of the grossest and depressing environments put to film.  On the flipside Joey Tai travels to Thailand at one point and magnificent green mountains are captured in the background as he rides into a cartel stronghold with dozens of foot soldiers lining the pathway.  A reporter named Tracy Tzu (Ariane (King of New York)) who plays the love interest has a glamorous penthouse apartment with three TVs at the foot of the bed, no walls (even for the bathroom!), an all white color palette, huge arched windows and an insane almost 360 degree view of the Manhattan skyline and Brooklyn Bridge.  What’s probably the most impressive feat of all though is Chinatown is a set constructed in North Carolina.  Apparently it was built to exact specifications and I believe it because I was shocked to learn they largely didn’t shoot in the real place.  In fact it was so convincing and extraordinary it was reused on dozens of other productions.

Another great aspect is the story.  Pitting an up and comer gangster maneuvering for power against a rabid cop new to the beat working on eliminating all the gangs is an interesting setup.  I mean that’s some bad fuckin’ luck for Joey Tai though.  He thought he would only have to contend with his fellow mobsters but now he has to split his attention to fend off the cops as well.  He tries to handle the situation as best he can but what he anticipated being an already tricky coup turns into a nearly impossible one.

Lone is fantastic too as Tai.  So charismatic with a deep undercurrent of menace.  Even though he dresses well in suits and his hair is always perfect and he can be as suave as hell he’ll cut off a dude’s head if necessary.  The frustration he goes through is palpable as well because his scheme kicks off fine but quickly plummets off a cliff when White enters the frame.  And he can’t turn back.  Shit has been set in motion.  His fury builds and builds until he finally lets loose during the concluding showdown.

In the negative department the script has some issues.  Characters and devices aren’t tied together as well as they should be.  For example White employs an undercover cop early on in the investigation to infiltrate Tai’s organization but then they don’t deploy the operation until towards the end of the film.  It’s like the filmmakers forgot and suddenly remembered they had this thread in their back pocket.  Or there’s White’s marriage that’s falling apart despite him trying to convince his wife to stay with him.  He blows her off for work which isn’t good and we can see he’s clearly a workaholic.  But then he also has an affair with reporter Tracy which kinda comes out of nowhere.  And they inexplicably fall in love by the end when White’s done nothing but force himself on her and shove his dumbass way into her life.  These events come across more separate and not interconnected like they definitely are.

However, the biggest problem is the character of White.  It’s two fold.  One is I believe Mickey Rourke was miscast.  He’s too young for the role and he’s too soft spoken.  Sure he can get intense but in a quieter way.  The role required someone more grizzled, more like Gene Hackman who looks like he’s been through some shit already and can do a good yell.

The larger beef though is White is a major league asshole.  He’s racist, a terrible husband, sexually assaults (nearly rapes?) Tracy and is so fucking stupid he thinks he can go after the Chinese mob no problem.  It’ll be easy and they won’t retaliate.  His naiveté is infuriating to sit through because you know Joey Tai isn’t going to take White walking directly into mob headquarters and telling them it’s all over, the raiding of his gambling halls, the tapping of his phones, the placement of undercover cops, the numerous insults and everything else lying down.  White thinks he can go wherever he wants and do whatever he wants.  The sonuvabitch even moves into and sets up shop in Tracy’s apartment without her consent.  He constantly fights with everyone including his superiors and the police commissioner.  Plus the fuckin’ guy doesn’t even get results.  Maybe a fraction of his bullshit could be tolerated if he made an impact on the drug trade or put away top crime lords but nope.  He gets exactly bupkis done while making everyone else’s lives hell.  He’s an exasperating person to hang out with.

I don’t know if the movie would’ve benefitted from being only about Joey Tai.  I like the idea of splitting time between a crusader cop and a ruthless bad guy gunning for the top spot.  But the script really needed another bunch of drafts.  The story isn’t quite ironed out enough and White needed to be altered a fair amount.  Having a complex character that stirs up conflicting emotions is fine but he’s too racist, sexist, fanatical and flat out jerky for me to embrace him.

Urban crime dramas like these are right in my wheelhouse so I want to love this film a lot more than I do.  I half love it.  And I’d still cautiously recommend it if you’re into film noir, 70’s grit pics and the like.  The relentless attitude makes some sense when you realize Michael Cimino (The Deer Hunter, Heaven’s Gate) directed and co-wrote it with Oliver Stone (JFK, Wall Street).  They’re kind of passionate guys.

Harefooted Halloween: Halloween Ends

What I Liked: They wanted to pass the torch (or knife I suppose) to a young fella to keep the homicides going because hey, Michael’s old.  Technically he’s not supernatural so it stands to reason.  And this isn’t a bad idea.  The filmmakers invest everything they got into this by building up backstory and having almost the entire movie be about the new guy, Corey Cunningham (Rohan Campbell (A Miracle on Christmas Lake)).  And then they wiz it all down their leg by the end.

What I Didn’t Like: A lot of the shit they threw in here doesn’t really make much sense.  First off it’s important to know this takes place four years after Kills.  Laurie’s (Jamie Lee Curtis (The Tailor of Panama)) not a survivalist armed to teeth waiting for Michael to return anymore.  She’s a regular person living in town now writing a book about her experiences.  The thing is Michael’s still at large having disappeared into the night at the end of the last film so I don’t know why she’s suddenly not all that worried about him anymore.  She patiently waited for him to come for her for forty goddamn years (which he did validating her extreme preparedness) but another four years is taking shit too far?  Everything’s ok now?  And the townspeople hate her because they think she’s somehow responsible for Michael’s actions.  This series got the progression of Laurie backwards.  She should be trying to live a normal life in the 2018 Halloween and then between Kills and Ends she shields herself in a fortified home packed to the gills with weapons.  Anyway, Laurie’s granddaughter, Allyson (Andi Matichak (Assimilate)), instantly falls in love with Corey the moment they meet.  Putting aside the two actors not having great chemistry together, this relationship comes across contrived with Allyson continuing to pursue the guy despite him admitting to murdering someone and not reporting it.  Michael has been living in a sewer pipe for the past four years with his mask still on and we don’t know why he stopped killing folks.  This is abrupt and out of character.  Corey befriends Michael and becomes partners in crime with him which is as weird as it sounds.  And I guess Michael listens to him and follows his commands?  The citizens of Haddonfield can sense Corey has turned evil (except Allyson) and yea, they’re right but they have no evidence he’s done anything wrong.  All the victims are such assholes who you want to see get maimed (a complete turnaround from Kills where too many nice innocent people died).  The action is edited horribly.  I don’t think it’s shot particularly well and during those scenes they follow the current trend of very dim lighting adding yet another layer of obstruction.

Overall Impressions: You have to ignore the title and all the marketing surrounding the movie hyping it as a culmination of this current set because it’s misleading to an extent.  In reality it’s completely separate from its predecessors in just about every way.  The impression I’m getting from most folks is they feel like they were fooled by a bait and switch with Michael being sidelined for the majority of the runtime and Corey taking over as the main character.  And I’ll admit I felt this way at first too.  But once you push beyond that and view it as a standalone entry I think you’ll come around to appreciating what the filmmakers tried to do, even if it ultimately fails.  Structuring a Halloween picture around someone or something other than Michael Myers is an idea worth delving into.  Ignoring the stupid half baked Thorn cult crap from a couple of the sequels they only truly attempted this one other time with part III and that didn’t go over so well.  And that seems to be happening again.

The biggest head scratcher in this whole thing is they setup Corey to be the new Michael, go right up to the finish line but then at the last second change their mind.  This makes the picture come off like a total waste of time.  If they were going to abandon the central plot point and have it be Michael by the end anyway then what the hell are we doing?  None of this mattered.

In this trilogy (really quadrilogy because the original ’78 installment is part of this) Ends is definitely the most noteworthy entry but I honestly don’t know if I like it better than Kills and that was dumb as shit.  The thing is Kills is way more in line with a traditional Halloween movie and there’s a certain comfort in that.  It’s almost more frustrating to sit through a film that is so confident and concentrated on a specific direction only to change course in the last moments.  On top of that the big showdown between Michael and Laurie feels tacked on and redundant.  It’s not like this is the first time they’ve squared off.  We’ve seen these two duke it out a few times over the years (including just two movies ago!) so yet another rematch isn’t something I care that much about.  Sadly the whole situation ends up being a lose-lose.

Other huge horror franchises have tinkered with the notion of transferring evil to a new host so it’s sorta remarkable it took a Halloween this long to go there (and even though magical shit isn’t supposed to exist in this specific universe individuals can still be corrupted in the real world).  In Jason Goes to Hell the spirit of Jason is passed via giant slug worm from one person to another turning them into monsters and in A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 Freddy recruits a high school teen to become his protégé.  But we don’t even have to go back that far.  Curiously the 2021 Candyman explores the same exact territory as Ends except does it much more effectively.

So I almost liked it.  Doing different stuff than the same old bullshit is fine and the angle they went with isn’t terrible.  But the execution takes a nosedive when they destroy what they took the time to build.  Look, none of the sequels, these or the others, come very close to being a worthy successor to the first.  And while they all have their own special issues Ends surprisingly has the most going for it.  Sure, the thing is kinda sloppily put together and I laughed out loud more than once at a part that wasn’t supposed to be funny but the concepts it lays out are somewhat intriguing.  I’m really interested to see how this particular installment plays years from now.

Harefooted Halloween: In Fabric

What I Liked: The concept of a haunted dress is fantastic.  It’s so simple and you could do a lot with how the dress affects whoever wears it.  The flowy red design with sleeves is also genius because the thing can appear sort of ghostly like a body without legs, hands or a head.  It marks the wearer with a rash-like lesion on the skin and gets into their head where they start to see things.

All the performances are good including Sidse Babett Knudsen (Westworld TV show) as the creepy sales woman who sells the dress in question but Marianne Jean-Baptiste (The Cell) is the standout.  She’s a single mom working as a bank teller looking for a new love.  She’s a very relatable level headed normal person who gets thrown into a waking nightmare of a situation with a dress ruining her life.  Jean-Baptiste is so natural and likable in the role that you want to see her survive the wrath of the cursed garment.

What I Didn’t Like: Ok, the real big problem I have is the execution of the idea.  I want it to be a straight forward evil dress picture similar to Christine (killer car) or The Lift (killer elevator) but instead this takes a more abstract approach.  You know, stuff like the shop that sells the dress are run by weirdos/witches in black dresses who masturbate to their pubic hair laden mannequins and they can cause the dress to move through intense ritual and half way through the movie we switch to a new set of characters and one of those characters puts people in a trance whenever he talks in laundry machine repair jargon and what the fuck am I even watching anymore?  At first I thought there was a damn good film in here but it needed a serious re-edit.  Maybe eliminate most of the bizzarro shop stuff, smooth out the choppy editing during the more exciting scenes and get a soundtrack that fits better (I do kinda like the music but it doesn’t work that well with the visuals).  But then the story shifts to a completely different and much less interesting group of victims and a re-edit isn’t possible anymore.  So a re-write is what’s really needed.  And this is immensely frustrating because writer/director Peter Strickland (Bjork: Biophilia Live) came up with a bunch of great stuff that’s ultimately wasted.  For instance the dress brings bad luck to whoever wears it so someone might get attacked by a dog or get a cut on their arm or lose their job.  These incidents pile up turning the victim’s life into a living hell.  Also, the dress can’t be destroyed by conventional means.  So when it clearly gets torn or burnt it shows up later as if brand new from Satan’s sweatshop.  And you can’t wash it.  If you try it’ll shake the laundry machine to pieces.  Man, what fucking awesome ideas.  They’re only touched on briefly though compared to the rest of the runtime which is filled with awkward conversations not about the dress, the goings on of the mysterious folks who run the clothing store and other happenings like the victims’ dreams.

Overall Impressions: Damn this fucker’s unfocused.  There’s good shit in here but it’s buried under a mountain of artsy bewilderment.  A lot of this stuff comes across like weird for weird’s sake too like when one of the characters has been terminated and hands over his ID card his boss eats it.  Sure, whatever.

I would love to see this concept done down the middle because there’s a lot of potential.  This could be miles better than it is.

Harefooted Halloween: The Unborn

What I Liked: Brooke Adams (Days of Heaven, The Dead Zone) goes all out with her performance.  As she learns the truth behind her pregnancy she gets more and more distraught and eventually completely flips her shit.  There’s a great part where she’s alone in her house and noises like the phone ringing and the car alarm drive her crazy so she tosses a brick through the car window and rips the wires out.  Then she goes looking for her cat’s toy and turns the house upside down trashing everything in sight.  When her visiting mother walks through the door she very calmly explains “Everything’s ok, I was just looking for something…”.  This snap to the opposite pole is funny but also effective.  Adams carries the movie with her dedication to the role of a mother to be starting off normal and descending into madness.

The film exploits fear for your child’s health and uncertainty about motherhood fairly well.  These are ancient sentiments that are innate in everyone so the themes work.  To go through the process of having a child you need to put your faith into the hands of experts, especially if you’ve been unsuccessful in that effort for a long time.  So when you start to think that trust has been betrayed it’s devastating.  As I get older I have to admit storylines like these hit harder for me.

Gary Numan did the score and it’s a pretty cool use of moody synths and drum machine.  Strangely at times it sounds more like an action movie soundtrack from the time period and unfortunately also has a weaker B movie vibe here and there.  But when it’s in the pocket it creates a nice ominous atmosphere.

What I Didn’t Like: The production has a cheaper feel in general.  They sprang for some effects towards the end and went for a neat looking hard car crash but other than that it’s mainly a pregnant woman losing her mind and uncovering a mystery from the confines of her house and doctor’s office.

Speaking of the effects they employ an animatronic/puppet baby for the finale and it doesn’t look so hot.  This is just a matter of they didn’t have the budget to pull off a convincing looking evil baby but still, the shit they make this guy do is comical.  I don’t want to say any more so you’ll be surprised in case you throw this one on.

Overall Impressions: This is an ok sort of Rosemary’s Baby knock off.  If it weren’t for Brooke Adams’ passionate performance this would be very tedious to sit through.  There are some parts that are unintentionally humorous, especially towards the end, that push this firmly into fun territory.  But there are also a few scenes that are genuinely creepy.  For example there’s an extremely disturbing part where another woman also thinks there’s something wrong with her baby and she stabs herself in her very pregnant belly with a knife in an attempt to kill it.  I mean my jaw fell to the floor when I saw they went for that full on.  Plus there’s a horrific abortion scene.

So you’ll get a mix of quality with this film.  Sometimes it’s actually pieced together well, other times it’s pretty damn schlocky and still other times there’s real deal unsettling shit.

Harefooted Halloween: The Dentist 2

What I liked: Some of the visuals this time are really cool.  It starts out with Dr. Alan Feinstone (Corbin Bernsen (Tales from the Hood)) fantasizing about mutilating his ex-wife’s mouth all over again in a blaring white dental exam room which makes the blood pop right out at you.  Then later he imagines his ex-wife again along with another one of his victims taunting him, one zombified with rotting flesh and no lips and the other has pointed metal shards jutting directly out of their gums for teeth and an elongated tongue.  This is the same unforgettable figure on the cover of one of the VHS boxes.  It’s this image that’s burned into my memory from encountering it countless times in the video store.

A model for closeup shots of people’s various mouths is used again and it looks a touch more convincing this time.  They really dig in there with a Novocain needle and a drill and they have blood squirting from where teeth are yanked out and cockroaches are crawling around inside and it looks just great.  So nasty.

What I Didn’t Like: The story is surprisingly confusing.  Feinstone breaks out of a mental hospital, makes his way to Paradise, MO, retrieves a safety deposit box full of cash and fake ID documents and settles into small town life.  Eventually he becomes the town dentist after killing the current one, albeit accidentally, and starts murdering folks when he thinks he’s been found out.  So I guess Feinstone had a backup plan to assume a new identity somewhere remote because he knew shit was eventually gonna go bad?  And I think it’s alluded to that he setup similar safety deposit boxes across the country.  But he also knows the bank manager in the small town under his new fake name somehow which is how he gets in good with the townspeople and they know he’s a dentist even though he doesn’t produce any credentials and goddamn…none of this shit is ever explained.

Bernsen only gets to become totally unhinged in the last act of the film.  Before that Feinstone tries to keep his insanity in check by cutting into his arm with a razor for temporary relief.  He still acts weird and hallucinates filth penetrating all corners of the world but he’s nothing like the nonstop crazy fucking asshole of the previous film.  When Bernsen is finally let loose he’s awesome.  He hams it up, laughs manically, flashes ominous scowls, wipes blood all over his face and wacky shit like that.  It’s just a shame we have to wait so long for that turn to happen.

Overall Impressions: This has a similar pacing issue as its predecessor where the stuff you came for is jammed in towards the end.  The difference is Feinstone is attempting to act normal here for the majority of the runtime instead of bouncing off the walls from the get-go.  And admittedly that makes for a bit of a slog.  The effects and some of the imagery are actually probably better executed but the story is completely nonsensical and not as straight forward as it should be.  If you really enjoyed the first movie though you’ll get a kick out of the sequel.

The Dentist series is definitely a bizarre one that’s off the beaten path.  Like I mentioned in my last review it’s a brilliantly natural concept for a horror movie because so many people hate going to the dentist.  However, I don’t know if there’s more than one picture’s worth of material to mine.  Feinstone is an irascibly entertaining character to hang out with for a little while but I don’t think he can carry a whole franchise.  He grates on you.  Two is more than enough.  Oh that reminds me, don’t forget to brush twice a day.

Harefooted Halloween: The Dentist

What I Liked: Corbin Bernsen (Major League) plays the deranged dentist Dr. Alan Feinstone and he delivers one of the most over the top mega acting performances I’ve ever seen.  From minute one he’s totally pissed about a stain the dry cleaners didn’t get out of his pink dress shirt and then yells at his wife for not noticing.  But he’ll turn on a dime and be friendly and seemingly in a good mood like when he’s chatting with one of his patients.  This guy is such an asshole where he constantly berates his poor staff, never thinks he’s in the wrong and it’s suggested he's doing something shady with his taxes as evidenced by an IRS agent (Earl Boen (Terminators)) snooping around.  But then on top of that he has hallucinations about everything around him being filthy (decaying teeth, greasy hands, etc.) and he sees himself as the only person standing between a clean pure world and a dirty rotting one.  A hard break from reality ensues after he catches his wife (Linda Hoffman (Face/Off)) blowing the pool guy.  Shit escalates rapidly in his mind to the point where he’s gotta kill everyone in his path.  I don’t know if Bernsen’s acting job is good necessarily because it’s very aggressive and kind of all over the map but it sure is entertaining.  For a low budget B horror picture like this where there isn’t a lot of nuance and mostly extremes of emotions it works.  I do like that he’s tortured by his own thoughts and detestable feelings at first about his wife cheating on him and then simply runs with the zaniness because he can’t control himself any longer.  But he’s not a sympathetic character at all.  He’s a monster who not only tortures his victims using anything he can find in his practice but he also sexually assaults a woman and holds his dental students at gun point ordering them to extract all the teeth in their volunteer patients’ mouths.  Over the course of two days he ruins a lot of people’s lives.

The effects are fairly decent for what they had to work with.  There are a few busted up mouths that Feinstone creates through pulling teeth, drilling, etc. and those are sorta cartoonishly grotesque but that’s the kinda movie we’re dealing with.  The real centerpiece is a model of the inside of a mouth effects master Kevin Yagher (A Nightmare on Elm Street 2-4) designed as a favor (he was out of their price range).  So they get to show nice closeups of teeth getting destroyed, a hypodermic needle piercing the gums and shit like that.

As silly as this film can get they do deliver on a dentist using the tools of his trade to maim and murder folks.  And the filmmakers were smart enough to throw in some other methods of destruction to keep you on your toes.

What I Didn’t Like: Pacing is an issue.  While we do eventually get to witness the dentist related carnage we all came for it takes a long while for it to happen.  It’s more than halfway through the runtime before Feinstone rips out a perfectly healthy tooth.  We get plenty of wacky shit before that though like Feinstone fantasizing about confronting the pool guy and his wife about their affair in the grossest way possible.  Bernsen’s performance is what makes you wanna stick with the story to see what else this fucking lunatic is gonna do.

Most of the characters are dicks.  Feinstone’s wife, the pool guy, his neighbor, Mark Ruffalo shows up as a slimy fashion model agent, they’re all jerks but the biggest piece of shit (besides Feinstone) is the IRS agent.  He’s not only lewd and obnoxious but he strikes a deal with Feinstone to make the tax investigation go away if he provides some free dental work.  That’s so fucking stupid.  So of course he gets his mouth fucked with pretty badly.

The score is a cheap toss off with bad synth strings and stabs.

Ken Foree (Dawn of the Dead) plays the cop investigating Feinstone’s trail of devastation and he feels wasted here.  It’s not a very big role and there isn’t anything special for him to do.  Oh well.

Overall Impressions: It may take a little while to kill people via dentistry but they definitely get there.  Feinstone’s psychosis triggered by his wife fooling around with another man wasn’t something I expected and I guess it’s a fine excuse for why he’s suddenly a maniac armed with nitrous oxide and a mouth clamp.

Fear of the dentist is extremely common and a natural to exploit for a horror movie.  Even if you don’t have that fear (I personally don’t) tooth pain is something we’ve all experienced so in theory the film should appeal to a wide audience.  However, between Bernsen’s exaggerated acting, the lower budget and not ideal pacing this is gonna be a hard sell for most folks.

Brian Yuzna and Stuart Gordon are a dynamic duo that brought us such revered classics as Re-Animator and From Beyond so if you’re into those this is probably worth checking out.  It’s nowhere near as imaginative or memorable as those though.  It might be good to watch before your next dentist appointment though.  Could make the visit more exciting.

Harefooted Halloween: Candyman (2021)

What I liked: Beautiful cinematography work (John Glueserian (Trial by Fire)).  The combination of a locked down camera and straight forward pans and glides adds a sense of weight to the visuals.  You can focus on the scenes without being distracted by jittering all the time.  The colors are vibrant and deep and makes the world feel amped up to a slight degree.  Use of mirrors and reflective surfaces play a big role and you can tell the filmmakers had fun figuring out ways to incorporate reflections either organically or stylistically into the shots.  You add all this up and there’s an almost Kubrickian quality to the way the film is presented with everything seeming a bit off.

And that leads to some good atmosphere.  The main gimmick of summoning Candyman by saying his name five times while looking in the mirror definitely creates serious tension and suspense.  They do this several times during the run and each one only gets more stressful.  Candyman creates immense havoc by daring folks to say his name, building fear among the characters, being a legit threat by brutally dispatching his victims and not to mention he could decide to show up in any reflective surface.  There’s not a lot of fooling around here which is great.  We slide into a wormhole of anxiety and madness at an exponential rate.

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (The Matrix Resurrections) gives a wonderful performance as the artist/painter Anthony McCoy being recruited and tortured by Candyman.  One bee sting slowly turns his hand into a scabby mess, then his arm, then his body and he knows it’s inescapable.  He’s caught in the Candyman’s grasp and continues to get harassed by him while compulsively painting darker pictures and trying to understand who this guy is.  Abdul-Mateen starts off charming and excited about his new artwork but then becomes distant and insensitive.  He does such a nice job of letting you know what he’s thinking by his facial expressions, body language and a few short sentences.  For instance there’s a scene where McCoy’s being interviewed in an art critic’s apartment and at first he fidgets uncomfortably but then once he receives some compliments on his macabre artwork he starts to half smile and get a wild look in his eye.  The tone of Abdul-Mateen’s mood is pitch perfect as a man who’s trying to be stoic but can barely tamp down the evil simmering up inside him.

Cool soundtrack (Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe) with a main theme that has a looping synth line that constantly adjusts its pattern.  Throw some faintly spooky voices underneath and you got yourself a memorable tune.

What I Didn’t Like: Unfortunately the story’s a little too confusing BUT only because of how it relates to the original film.  The myth and character of Candyman are changed around significantly enough that they should’ve had this be a straight reboot.  And they make it crystal clear that this is a sequel to the 1992 picture referencing the events and main character, Helen Lyle, throughout so there’s no going around that.  If they started over from scratch I don’t think I’d have this hang up.  Look, I applaud when anyone takes a new installment in a franchise and makes it their own (whether they succeed or fail in that attempt is a different story) but they hedged their bet here which may not have been the right move.

There are some awkward character choices that come across as contrived.  For example in the beginning one character abruptly asks his friends if they want to hear a scary story and they say no.  He then proceeds to turn off the lights and light candles before giving a somewhat retconned recap of the original film.  This lead in is ridiculously unnatural.  Or McCoy’s hand gets mangier and mangier after a Candyman bee stings it but he doesn’t go see a doctor until towards the end of the movie (there’s a plot reason for this but it’s still odd).  And we find out McCoy’s girlfriend’s father killed himself in front of her when she was a little girl but it’s never really explored or expanded on.  I guess that means she’s attracted to self-destructive people?

Overall Impressions: This is a very enjoyable picture with a lot to like.  Plus the commentary on racism and classism works well and is balanced out enough with the creepy shit that you don’t feel like you’re being lectured to.  Sure, there are some clunky aspects but they can be mostly overlooked.

What’s really interesting is how much of an amalgam of other horror films this reminds me of and I mean that in a good way.  It’s a little bit of Nightmare on Elm Street 2 with the villain grooming a protégé, a little bit of Poltergeist 3 with the mirror gags, a little bit of The Invisible Man and Nightmare on Elm Street with people being gutted invisibly by Candyman, a little bit of The Fly (1986) when McCoy pulls off one of his rotting fingernails and a little bit of The Shining with some of the shot compositions and general off kilter atmosphere.  All movies I love with elements from each woven together pretty seamlessly.  Sweet stuff.

Harefooted Halloween: The Omen (2006)

I’m going to forgo my usual format for this one because we have a very odd duck here.  Normally when people do a remake they keep the core concept but change the details and modify events, sometimes to a significant degree, and introduce or drop certain characters and etc.  It’s a new take, a new perspective, a new approach to the previous material which then becomes its own thing.  That’s the whole idea of re-doing a movie that already exists.  Well with the 2006 Omen they went in a different direction and just made the same exact film again.  Now it’s not a shot for shot remake like the 1998 Psycho (which I maintain is a fascinating experiment that someone had to do at least once) but it’s one step down from that (similar to the ’91 Father of the Bride remake).  All the events, characters, reveals and damn near every specific are the same as the 1976 Omen.

Ok yes, there are a few differences.  They added a couple of brief dream sequences, an extra death in the beginning and they start off with Roman priests talking about the coming of the antichrist because they saw a special grouping of comets in the night sky.  And the methods used to kill two characters are different.  Other than that though the ’76 and ’06 pictures are identical.  Hell, you could cut out the few new scenes they added and it wouldn’t make a difference to the plot.  It would also make the movie that much closer to its predecessor.

So I truly genuinely don’t understand what the thinking was.  If you’re not going to switch stuff up and put your own spin on the story then why bother?  What’s the appeal?  The original wasn’t lost to time or hard to get ahold of or a box office flop that basically nobody saw or anything like that.  Nor was it made so long ago that it was due for a rediscovery either.  The thing was only thirty years old when this remake came out.  Weird is an understatement.

With all of that said, how is it?  It’s good.  It’s a fine film because it’s just The Omen (check out my review if you want more of my thoughts on that version and therefore this one).  And well, if you’re gonna do something like this then I guess avoiding a shot for shot copy is smart.  While still tedious to a degree it’s less so and allows some leeway (however small).  The performances are adequate, the pacing is decent and every once in a while they throw in a neat visual despite the film having a mostly dreary greyish blueish slate type tone throughout (it was popular to suck a bunch of color out back then).  And sure, Mia Farrow (Rosemary’s Baby) as Mrs. Baylock might actually be better than Billie Whitelaw from the original.  And the famous beheading scene is accomplished through better effects as well.  No Jerry Goldsmith score though.  Only a generic sounding one so that’s a real minus.

Boy do I have some mixed feelings about this sucker.  I mean the movie isn’t bad at all but it doesn’t have any reason to exist.  It’s kinda fucked up.  Maybe the best thing I can say about it is it gave the folks who worked on it experience making a major Hollywood motion picture and hopefully they were able to build on that in their career.  Oh and the marketing move to release it on 06/06/06 was clever.  Clearly an opportunity they couldn’t pass up.  Maybe it was all worth it then?

Harefooted Halloween: Omen IV: The Awakening

What I Liked: Aiyee let’s skip to the next section.

What I Didn’t Like: While the script isn’t good really a bigger problem is this thing just isn’t directed well.  Dominique Othenin-Girard of Halloween 5 fame was initially hired to helm but quit half way through and was replaced by Jorge Montesi of Turbulence 3: Heavy Metal fame (that’s a very fun bad movie by the way, you should check it out).  And it’s not that you can clearly tell two different people put this together (although sometimes you do get that sense), it’s that the whole thing feels weird.  For example there are many fades into and out of black that make for awkward scene transitions.  I know this was a made for TV movie but there still isn’t a good flow to the material.  The score has this bizarre cartoony edge with xylophone in particular being clumsily employed.  Not only that but they put music in places that don’t need it.  And one of the other big issues is they directed Asia Vieira poorly who plays Satan’s eight year old daughter.  She always either has a slight frown or a slight smile and as a result she looks so damn strange and not in a good way.  In some scenes she acts fine and in others she overacts and I gotta believe all this is the directors giving incoherent guidance to this little girl.  Plus the costume choices are questionable.  Like look at these ugly ass outfits they dress her in.

Overall Impressions: Yea, it’s definitely cheap and not particularly well shot or edited or scored or acted but what bothers me the most is they made the same fuckin’ movie for a third time.  This is more or less parts 1 and 2 except the demon child is a girl instead of a boy and the parent who does all the detective work is the mother instead of the father/uncle.

They leave no doubt that this is a direct sequel to part 3 but I guess it was a long enough gap in between films (ten years) that they went for a reboot-quel.  That doesn’t make the movie any less frustrating though because they still had an opportunity to try to find a different angle to the story and didn’t take it.  They don’t even pretend that all the terrible shit that happens could be a coincidence of bad luck.  No, this girl is the devil and she or some supernatural force helps her destroy any enemy that comes close to figuring out the truth.  Similar to the other films these evil powers could benefit from being more subtle as opposed to I dunno, squashing a dude with a swinging wrecking ball.  That’s a touch heavy handed if you ask me.  Does every adversary have to be murdered?  What if they went catatonic or were maimed in some way?  That doesn’t cut it?

There’s also the extremely abrupt ending like in part 2.  A build up of tension is gathered slowly and weakly for almost the entire run with the mother putting the bits together.  Then in the last five minutes there’s a sudden flurry of action (that you wish was spread more throughout) and then the credits roll.

So part 4 here is at the bottom of the ranks in the series.  From a technical standpoint it’s a little interesting because the flaws are kind of obvious so I was sort of engaged in picking out all the confounding terrible decisions.  Other than that it’s the same shit but done worse-er (pretty sure not a word) than before.

Harefooted Halloween: Omen III: The Final Conflict (aka The Final Conflict)

What I Liked: Sam Neill (In the Mouth of Madness) gives an understated performance for the most part that affords Damien a quiet menace.  You can tell there’s something creepy about this guy just beneath the surface but you can’t put your finger on exactly what.  In one particularly impressive scene Neill orates a long monologue in his shrine to Satan (a large empty dark room ornamented with a huge statue of Jesus on the cross except he’s nailed in reverse with the front of his body against the cross) that goes on for three and a half minutes with only one cut where he complains how vile Jesus is and how Hell is misunderstood and the real paradise.  It’s a bit melodramatic but effective.

I’ll give the filmmakers full credit for sticking to a plot about Damien searching for the recently born second coming and resorting to killing hundreds of babies (off camera).  The longer Jesus #2 is alive the weaker Damien grows so he doesn’t really have a choice if he wants to succeed in bringing about the end of the world.  It’s also refreshing that this storyline isn’t yet another installment of Damien simply preventing others from discovering who he really is.  He’s not so concerned with that this time because he’s already in charge of the monster conglomerate his uncle left him in the previous film and well on his way to amassing political power.  So I think he feels he’s kind of untouchable.  And who’s gonna buy he’s the antichrist anyway?  The accuser will sound like a loon.

What I Didn’t Like: While the story makes sense for an adult Damien to give himself an ambassadorship (he has the current ambassador to the UK kill himself in an overly elaborate suicide) as a stepping stone to the Senate and then eventually the White House it’s a little boring.  The mass baby homicide angle is audacious but it’s mostly talked about and kept off screen because well, you can’t actually show that shit and I know I sure as hell wouldn’t want to actually see that shit.  So it ends up being a lot of talking.  There’s another part of the story though that involves a group of priests getting ahold of the sacred daggers from the other films and they attempt to assassinate Damien.  Sounds cool right?  Unfortunately the execution isn’t great.  The priests come off sorta bumbling when they fail over and over.  These sections almost turn into a Wile E. Coyote cartoon where these fellas can’t even come close to getting the job done.

If you do the math this movie is supposed to take place in 2003 (the gap between part 2 and 3 is only three years but Damien jumps from age twelve to thirty two) but the filmmakers decided to ignore continuity by having it be then modern day late 70’s.  They make an effort to retcon this by saying Damien took over his uncle’s company seven years ago in 1971 which would make the current year 1978.  That means part 2 took place in 1958 and part 1 in 1953.  Would’ve been neat to see them give a go at a futuristic 2003 but alas they deny us.

Overall Impressions: We have another just fine Omen picture.  It’s not terribly exciting nor does it have an interesting visual style or contain much of anything that makes it stand out a great deal.  Sam Neill is the best thing about the movie where he delivers a pitch perfect performance for what the situation calls for.

And sadly it turns out I was correct about part 2 being unnecessary.  I know it would’ve felt weird to skip from Damien age five to age thirty two but nothing of any importance happens in those years.  What, his uncle finds out his true identity and doesn’t almost destroy him?  Yawn.  At least in this one he has real power and uses it to advance his scheme in an impactful way.  I won’t divulge if he succeeds or not though.

Harefooted Halloween: Damien: Omen II

What I Liked: Jonathan Scott-Taylor who plays tween aged Damien does a damn good job.  He puts on such an air of smugness you wanna strangle him.  His bratty whinny assholic disposition is perfect for the antichrist at this stage in the process because he hasn’t learned yet that charm is an important and potent ingredient to getting supporters on your side.  Scott-Taylor dances on what must’ve been a hard line to walk.  He’s trying to understand who he really is, how to deal with being pure evil but he also genuinely loves his aunt, uncle and cousin who raised him since age five so he’s actually a tirade of emotion and not devoid of it.  That was a nice decision.  Plus since he’s been living in the states since the events of the previous film he has a half British half American accent.  A good attention to detail that I wasn’t expecting.

What I Didn’t Like: There isn’t any mystery for us to solve this time.  It’s about Damien’s Uncle Richard (William Holden (The Bridge on the River Kwai)), brother of Gregory Peck’s character from the original, and others around him slowly discovering who this kid really is.  But we, the audience, know he’s the devil or the devil’s son or whatever so it isn’t that much fun for us.  The plot becomes mostly concerned with Damien and his henchmen (yes, multiple this round) bumping off folks who either discover the secret or come close to discovering it.  That’s ok but not too thrilling.

Damien has flat out supernatural abilities now similar to Carrie where he can kill people with his mind.  He also has strange invisible demonic forces and a raven to keep his path clear so he can continue on his merry way unobstructed.  This results in some Final Destination type deaths.  They’re not as fuckin’ ridiculous and elaborate as in those films but they’re in the same spirit.  You could chalk up everything that happens in the first picture to coincidence.  That movie heavily implies it’s not but they at least leave some room for doubt.  Here there’s no question.  When Damien causes a fireball to shoot out of nowhere or a train lever to switch into gear to start rolling down the tracks ambiguity is out the window.  That’s a sillier route to take.

This picture has the same issue as the first in that Damien and his cohorts needlessly attract attention to themselves by stacking up corpses.  Anyone that gets in their way boom, they’re dead.  Again, this tactic almost thwarts their plans for the apocalypse.  If they played it cooler and let more shit slide then Damien would come off like less of a weirdo and they’d have smoother sailing.

Unfortunately there’s no satisfying ending.  The build is soft where Uncle Richard takes a long time to realize what’s happening around him and then suddenly leaps to wanting to murder Damien.  So when it feels like things are finally starting to ramp up the movie just sorta stops.  The end point is logical on paper and they do throw in one final twist but it isn’t very impactful in practice.

Overall Impressions: This is basically a worse version of the original.  I mean it’s fine and watchable even if it is kinda sloppy in general.  There’s nothing about it that annoys me or insults me but at the same time there isn’t anything that excites me either.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the worst aspect of this entry is that it probably isn’t necessary.  We have two more sequels to explore in the series (along with the remake) and doing a pitstop to check in on Damien at age twelve seems redundant.  Let’s skip to him as an adult when he has much more autonomy over his life and decisions.  How will he navigate society with his diabolical powers and what path will he take to bring about the end of the world?  I would rather see that than an obnoxious kid showing up his teacher in history class by magically being able to rapid fire name any date in history that anything happened.  Funny scene but not exactly foreboding for your antichrist movie.