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Scream ‘cuz you know what he did that Halloween

July 28, 2019 Hud Leave a comment

SCREAM: RESURRECTION

2019/253m

“New season. New blood.”

Created by: / Cast: RJ Cyler, Jessica Sula, Keke Palmer, Giorgia Whigham, CJ Wallace, Guillian Yao Gioiello, Tyga, Tyler Posey, Mary J. Blige, Tony Todd, Paris Jackson, Roger Jackson (voice).

Body Count: 11

Laughter Lines: “Some dude turned him into a Pez dispenser.”

Leaving the town of Lakeshore in peace, and partially unresolved given the way Season 2 ended, the powers that be decided to reboot the TV format of Scream and take it to more urban surroundings, crop down the number of episodes, and… well, I have no idea what else. Some spoilers.

After the news about Harvey Weinstein broke, #MeToo, and various other black clouds gathered, the 2018 air date was delayed, eventually shifting from MTV for a get-it-over-stat run of airing the six episodes over three nights on VH1. Yeeps.

It could also be argued that the final product was so disappointing, everybody involved just wanted to wash their hands of it entirely.

Beginning with a nubile girl (MJ’s daughter, Paris) home alone getting a weird call, the opening scene proves to be a gag that introduces us to two trick or treating brothers who end up in trouble when they go looking for a stolen swag-bag of candy in the breaker’s yard inhabited by ‘Hookman’ (Tony Todd), who murders one, while the other escapes.

Eight years later (not five or ten for once!), surviving twin Deion (Cyler) is Weaver High School’s star football player, but also the plaything of a shady stalker, wearing the original Ghostface mask and making calls with the same voice: “Let’s see who you really are, Deion!” etc, etc.

The curse seems to leak out and infect a group of classmates when they share detention: The geek, the outspoken protester, her gay BFF, the goth, and the princess. Calling themselves The Deadfast Club before someone else comes up with it, they and some hangers-on are soon being slashed, injected, impaled, and litter-pick’d to death. Well, only the male ones. There’s curiously not a single female victim in Resurrection.

Keke Palmer is the brightest light here as social justice warrior Kym, who doesn’t shy away from calling things out: When the killer calls her and asks if she likes scary movies, she pointedly responds: “No I do not, ’cause everyone in them as stupid as hell.” The other five central players pale in comparison somewhat, a couple are able to add some depth to their knife-fodder roles but the by-numbers dialogue doesn’t allow them a lot of room to manoeuvre.

Goth-girl Beth is our Randy/Kirby stand-in, firing off Slasher 101 factoids all over the show, and it would seem this series might’ve challenged the conventions over who will survive, but given that the gay and Muslim kids are first to go from the main roster, has anything really progressed much? This isn’t the first slasher opus to try and switch up race roles, but is probably the most notable, which makes it more tragic that it was virtually written off and will doubtfully ever air again.

As we know with all horror tales involving twins, there’s going to be some switcheroo nonsense in there and it’s a groan-inducing moment when the truth finally seeps out, leading into an unmasking that’s particularly anti-climactic and ill-conceived, taking it about as far from the smart-ass post-modernism of the original Scream movie, which goes unmentioned, along with the events of the other two seasons. A throwaway line about the mask being similar to the one used in the Woodsboro killings? Nah. Zip.

The kids do their best to try and subvert expectations, but we’re 23 years after Scream and 40 years after Halloween and Friday the 13th now. Applying the rules of their parents and grandparents doesn’t fly and it’s bleakly ironic that Scream: Resurrection has become exactly the kind of material that the original movie took to task in unravelling.

Blurbs-of-interest: Keke Palmer was in both seasons of Scream Queens; Gideon Emery was in Train; Tony Todd was Candyman, in Final Destination‘s 1, 2, and 5; Hatchet and its first sequel, Hell Fest, iMurders, Jack the Reaper, Candy Corn, and Scarecrow Slayer.

Reviews

Many Happy Returns

July 8, 2019 Hud Leave a comment

HAPPY DEATH DAY 2U

2019/15/96m

“Death makes a killer comeback.”

Director/Writer: Christopher Landon / Cast: Jessica Rothe, Israel Broussard, Phi Vu, Rachel Matthews, Ruby Modine, Suraj Sharma, Sarah Yarkin, Steve Zissis, Charles Aitken, Missy Yager, Jason Bayle.

Body Count: 18… sort of

Laughter Lines: “You smacked my dick. That’s rude.”

The day she thought was over …is starting again. Spoilers follow.

Happy Death Day was an unexpected smash in 2017, and just eighteen months later came the they’d-be-stupid-not-to sequel, which attempts to build on the mythos of the first rather than just replay it. Rather than just replay it. Rather than just replay it.

The consequence of these changes is that the film moves further away from its negligible slasher template towards more of a cutesy sci-fi romp with a killer operating in the background. Even so, there’s still a lot of fun to be had if you don’t rock up expecting slasher sequences galore. We get a few, mostly in the first half, but otherwise this is a different tale.

Carter’s roommate Ryan, seen repeatedly interrupting in their dorm room first time around, finds himself caught in a time loop of his own creation, with another version of himself behind the baby mask, seguing nicely into an explanation of Tree’s experience: Ryan and some classmates built a machine that basically caught her up in the loop and now, is sending her into a parallel universe where she’s looping again.

This time though, Lori is not the one with the knives out for her – and her mom is alive! Understandably moved by getting her mom back, Tree decides to stay in this new corner of the multiverse, but soon learns that she’s just living a life that isn’t hers. And she still has the wackadoo maniac to deal with – their identity is pretty obvious this time though.

As a comedy, HDD2U is gold. Bitchy sorority prez Danielle is back, this time as a kinder, dimmer version of herself, who confuses Anne Frank with Helen Keller and has a great scene pretending to be blind to distract the Dean while the others steal his keys to liberate the time-bending machine.

Those looking for slasher thrills may be best to cruise on by though. The PG-13 rating is in full force with little to no bloodletting, some cool demises for both the luckless extras caught up in Tree’s rinse and repeat nightmare, and the methods by which she chooses to off herself every time the day requires a reset. Stick around for the mid-credits scene which seems to push Happy Death Day 3 even further from the raft of dead bodies.

Blurbs-of-interest: Rothe, Broussard, Vu, Matthews, Modine, Aitken, Bayle and Rob Mello all reprise their roles from the first film. Sarah Yarkin was later in Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022).

Reviews

“Happy Birthday, Sucka!”

February 13, 2019 Hud Leave a comment

FADE TO BLACK

1980/18/98m

“Eric Binford lives for the movies… Sometimes he kills for them too!”

Director/Writer: Vernon Zimmerman / Cast: Dennis Christopher, Tim Thomerson, Gwynne Gilford, Linda Kerridge, Eve Brent, Norman Burton, Morgan Paull, James Luisi, Mickey Rourke, Peter Horton.

Body Count: 6

Awkward thriller-with-slasher-trim works mainly because of Dennis Christopher’s performance as Eric, an orphaned young man obsessed with the movie world and everything affiliated with it. Outside his dead end job, he takes abuse from his infirm aunt and eventually plucks up the courage to ask cute Monroe-a-like Kerridge out on a date, which she accepts, but is late for, contributing to his imminent meltdown.

He begins to dress up as various movie characters – Dracula, The Mummy, Hopalong Cassidy – and doing away with various people in his life who humiliate or embarrass him, including a young Mickey Rourke as an obnoxious co-worker. Also for the chop are a mouthy hooker, and the B-movie producer who steals Eric’s idea for a film.

A subplot concerning a criminal profiler and his relationship with a sexy cop gets in the way, but this leads to both parties eventually meeting at the Hollywood premiere finale, where things grind to a particularly abrupt halt with little resolution.

A good idea on paper, but possibly too much of a trivia-fest to register as the genre staple it aspires to be.

Blurbs-of-interest: Peter Horton was the lead in Children of the Corn; Tim Thomerson was later in Devil’s Prey.

Reviews

Rankfest: Child’s Play

December 30, 2018 Hud One comment

The interesting thing about the Child’s Play/Bride of/Seed of/Curse of/Management Appraisal of/Grocery List of Chucky movies is that none of them are legitimately bad. Sure, some went for a very campy approach with in-jokes surely only Don Mancini and Jennifer Tilly were in on, but if they weren’t scary, they were at the very least funny.

Mancini’s unwavering commitment to the series also deserves a lot of respect. Most creators turned away from their projects when they didn’t get the critical acclaim they hungered for, but Mancini stayed with Chucky, ensuring that the continuity of the films has been maintained almost flawlessly.

How do they stack up?

7th best: Seed of Chucky (2004)

Probably waiting a bit too long to cash-in on the success of Bride, this fifth go-round was only a modest success, and represents the only strand in the canon to go unresolved in the form of Glen/Glenda, the offspring of Chucky and Tiffany, who travels to Hollywood in the hope of finding them on the set of Chucky Goes Psycho, starring Jennifer Tilly.

A huge amount of in-the-know jokes abound at the expense of horror, making the film a comedy first. That said, in this sense it at least succeeds in being an absolute riot, with some hilarious setups and cameos.

Best bit: Chucky runs Britney Spears off the road: “Oops! I did it again!”

6th: Cult of Chucky (2017)

The enthusiasm with which Curse was met didn’t quite carry over into the next straight-to-DVD/VOD feature, which reverted to the comedy>horror structure, but at least moves the story forward significantly by the end.

The concept of Charles Lee Ray’s spirit inhabiting several dolls at once ices the film with an amusing blood-red frosting, allowing for a veritable Doomsday Book of gags, but some gruesome demises too. Mancini’s ability to bring back in characters from previous installments must be pretty much unequalled in horror.

Best bit: A twisted revisit to the ceiling mirror slaying from Bride.

5th: Curse of Chucky (2013)

I got to see the European premiere of this at FrightFest and it was definitely a crowd pleaser. An effort to take the concept back to its more sinister roots. Here, Chucky is delivered to the home of an old acquaintance and wreaks havoc during a wake.

The smart move here was keeping Chucky’s movements off camera for a good portion of the running time, rewinding things back to the is it/isn’t it questions posed by the original. It runs a little too long given the small cast and setting.

Best bit: “It’s a doll. What’s the worst that could happen?”

4th: Child’s Play 3 (1991)

There’s no such thing as bad publicity, the saying goes. In the early 90s, various UK tabloid “news”papers decided to blame the murder of a toddler on a film his pair of 10-year-old killers supposedly watched (but it later turned out, didn’t), rather than look to greater problems in society, parenting, or the kind of right-wing bullshit they pedalled every day. They also took credit for the film being banned, which it never was.

Teenage Andy is packed off to a military academy just as Good Guy dolls are ready to go back into production. Chucky succeeds in mailing himself to the academy and the usual occurs. The setting is original and there are some good ideas, but Mancini later admitted he was forced to churn out a script he wasn’t altogether satisfied with.

Best bit: Garbage disposal demise.

3rd: The Original (1988)

Third!? Yes. I’d already seen a couple of the sequels by the time this came around and I was slightly underwhelmed, expecting an overarching classic that the follow-ups were but poor imitations of. Hell, I saw Dolly Dearest before I saw this!

I guess like any first-in-a-series horror movie, there’s a restraint that is accompanied by the thicker depths of storytelling – the canvas needs to be established before we draw all over it. I just find Child’s Play a bit… inaccessible. Whereas, I can slot into any of the sequels at any given time, I feel I owe more to watching this one (and also the originals of any other given franchise).

2nd: Child’s Play 2 (1990)

My first foray into Chucky-dom was this one, played repeatedly on cable back in the 90s, which is probably the most straight-up slasher of the lot. I can never remember if it’s supposed to pick up straight after the first one, or a year or two later, but Alex Vincent has, of course, sprouted.

Chucky rampages through various unfortunates in his bid to ‘hide his soul’ in Andy, and in doing so notches up some of the more memorable sequences of the franchise: The mean teacher beaten with a ruler, that guy from Ally McBeal asphyxiated, and the gloopy factory finale, where the doll just keeeeeeps on comin’ back.

1st: Bride of Chucky (1998)

The combination of depleting box office returns and the scandal around the third movie pretty much finished off Chucky as a horror force in the 90s, but then Scream came and tossed the salad, giving a series about a killer doll plenty of self-referential gags to chew on and spit out. Best idea? Give Chucky a pal.

Casting Jennifer Tilly as Tiffany was a masterstroke and once dolled, it seems strange to imagine the series without her and Dourif bouncing off one another. Adding in John Ritter as an overbearing patriarch also lends well to the comedic feel employed by Ronny Yu’s direction, which helped him land the Freddy vs Jason gig a few years later.

Lists

A love letter from Glen Echo

November 15, 2018 Hud Leave a comment

BEHIND THE MASK: THE RISE OF LESLIE VERNON

2006/15/87m

“Freddy, Jason, Michael. We all need someone to look up to.”

Director/Writer: Scott Glosserman / Writer: David J. Stieve / Cast: Nathan Baesel, Angela Goethals, Robert Englund, Scott Wilson, Zelda Rubinstein, Bridgett Newton, Kate Lang Johnson, Ben Pace, Britain Spellings.

Body Count: 8

Laughter Lines: “Act normal… it’s the opposite of what you’re doing right now.”

Seen by hardly anybody upon its theatrical release, this genial little film follows a three-person documentary team who have been granted access to follow budding psycho killer Leslie Vernon in the weeks leading up to his big night of teen-slayage at an old farm in the Anywhere USA town of Glen Echo.

Taylor (Goethals, who was one of Macaulay Culkin’s big sisters in Home Alone) is the reporter, while Doug and Todd handle the visual and audio. Leading in with nods to the infamous murder sprees in Crystal Lake, NJ, Haddonfield, IL, and Springwood, OH, the filmmakers meet an amiable, chatty, handsome chap in Leslie, who is more than happy to have them document his preparation, including copious amounts of cardio to be able to keep up with fleeing teens, rigging the old farmhouse for the power to trip out, windows that won’t open, tree branches pre-sawn to prevent escape, etc.

Leslie introduces Taylor to his mentor, retired psycho Eugene and his perky wife, and takes the crew along to explain how he has chosen his ‘survivor girl’, virginal bookworm Kelly, who intends to go to the party at the old farm with some sexy young friends. Leslie goes so far as to comment on the type of victims he prefers – stoners who are usually too disoriented to run at any speed are “good for getting your numbers up”. The entire film barely misses a trick.

In addition to selecting his final girl, Leslie is thrilled to attract the attention of his own ‘Ahab’, Loomis-type psychiatrist Doc Halloran, a very dry Robert Englund, who is clearly relishing every second.

Elsewhere, Leslie guides Taylor around the rest of the farm, taking time to explain that, all being well, Kelly should eventually find the tool shed and arm herself with a big, hard axe: “She’s arming herself… with cock,” he says, stepping into psychoanalysis of the phallic weaponry, then the birth canal-like road to salvation when she comes through the trees of the orchard for their final showdown.

As the time draws nigh, Leslie becomes concerned that his companions might thwart his plans, accusing them of looking like they can’t just stand by and let it happen, which is when Behind the Mask switches from being a documentary to being a slasher film, forcing Taylor, Doug, and Todd into the narrative and putting them in harms way along with the gaggle of teens, who may not all be as cut n’ dried as Leslie led Taylor to believe…

Here, several critics accused the film of falling victim to the tropes it previously parodied, but up until this juncture, Glosserman and Stieve never opted to decry the rules of the genre, merely explain them in a comical way. Whereas Scary Movie and its various contemporaries could reasonably be accused of looking down on slasher films in a snarky way, Behind the Mask is merely looking at them, admiring them even, never throwing any accusations their way.

A few budgetary restrictions have an impact here and there, and it’s never clear what happens to Zelda Rubinstein’s character, but these are minimal flaws at best, and they don’t cost the film much. As it is, a criminally neglected gem, certainly one of the best slasher flicks of the 2000s and in need of the in-limbo sequel that’s been on the cards ever since the credits began to roll. This deserves an audience. A big one.

Blurbs-of-interest: Robert Englund appeared as Freddy Krueger in eight of the nine Nightmare on Elm Street movies, plus Hatchet, Heartstopper, The Phantom of the Opera, and Urban Legend; and Natty Knocks; Kane Hodder is the homeowner at 1428 Elm Street; Zelda Rubinstein was in Wishcraft.

Reviews

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