Census Bloodbath: Cadet Killy

Year: 1981

Director: Eric Weston

Cast: Clint Howard, R. G. Armstrong, Joe Cortese

Run Time: 1 hour 29 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

I might as well just stop Census Bloodbath right here and now, because Evilspeak is possibly the most 80's movie ever made. Of course, I must continue - my contract with the Dark Ones has very little wiggle room. But this film is so exhaustingly, damnably culled from the darkest depths of the decade that it pushes beyond the envelope of camp into the dark, impenetrable void beyond.

Combining Video Nasty status-earning gore with the waning specter of Brian de Palma's Carrie, the caveman-like fascination 80's screenwriters had with rudimentary computer technology, and the burgeoning Satanic Panic, Evilspeak is an indelibly strange amalgamation. If it only included a pair of roller blades and maybe some Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, it would be the indisputable king of 80's horror.

All hail the goblin king.

Evilspeak tells the story of Stanley Coopersmith (Clint Howard), a cadet at West Andover Military Academy, which I guess unofficially continues my Back to Skull college slasher marathon. Every single person in the world hates Coopersmith. He's basically the Justin Bieber of the Massachusets military. 

The school bullies, led by the vicious Bubba (Don Stark) despise him because he is chubby and clumsy and school rules force him to play on their soccer team. Their bone-chillingly clever, incisive nickname for him is "Cooperdick." Keep it up, fellas. You're doing God's work. The Coach (Claude Earl Jones of Dark Night of the Scarecrow and Miracle Mile) hates him because he keeps losing games. The head of the school hates him because he is a poor orphan welfare case and a symbol of the school's financial erosion.

Coopersmith's only friends are his classmate Kowalski (Haywood Nelson of What's Happening!) and the school's cook, a gruff but understanding man named Jake (Lenny Montana of Blood Song). But after relentless torment at the hands of everybody and their mother and their kitchen sink, he's understandably a little irate at humanity in general. When he is sentenced to clean up the chapel basement as punishment for something he didn't do (I mean, seriously), he finds a Satanic book left behind by the excommunicated Spanish Satanist Father Lorenzo Esteban (Richard Moll of House).

He loads the text of the book into his trusty computer, and it becomes an expert on the rites of Black Mass. He fashions a secret room in a convenient basement cave, fills it with the entire candle stock of Pier One, and sets out to see if he can summon that pesky Devil. While he searches for the blood of a consecrated host ("Gotta have it," he sighs, like he's buying pomegranate juice at the supermarket), the computer gets possessed by the vengeful spirit of Esteban, who seeks revenge for something or other.

Maybe he's mad he didn't snag some of that Apple stock before he died.

For just about its entirety, Evilspeak is a supernatural bullying drama rather than a slasher movie, only picking up any sort of body count during its final sequence. So as a candidate for Census Bloodbath it's not exactly prime, but as a candidate for cheesy Satanic horror it's... still not exactly prime. There's a great deal of amusement to be found in the computer graphics which have aged worse than the horse-drawn carriage, but beyond that the film is plodding. Despite matching the classic Carrie in its slow-burn buildup to an explosion of carnage, it lacks that film's sense of gravitas and thematic resonance.

For the bulk of its run time, Evilspeak devotes itself to a depiction of bullying unrivaled in even the most hardcore John Hughes films as Bubba and his crew prank, injure, and verbally assault Coopersmith. They toss his hat out the window, sabotage his class project, and (last but not least) slaughter his dog. It's unrelenting and mean-spirited, doing a good job of depicting just how bad a situation the act of bullying can cause, but not providing much reason to enjoy the act of watching the film.

It's a nice bit of representation to have a lead character who's a little dumpy, so I respect that, but the tone of the film is just a bit too morbid. Not even unintentionally campy moments like a character vowing to "extract revenge," the music evoking Tom and Jerry whenever the janitor comes onscreen, or the bullies attempting to seem threatening at a roller disco can save Evilspeak from its dismal fog.

Not even THIS scene can - OK, this scene is pretty cool.

The saving grace of Evilspeak is its ending. The supernatural horror steadily builds up in the background in the form of some surprisingly effective low-key fright gags until it screams like a kettle, pulling out all the stops and dumping the entire remainder of its budget.

Many of the movies persecuted in Britain as Video Nasties live on the strength of one particular scene and this film is no different. This grand explosion of a finale features decapitations galore in a burning church, an evil heard of pigs mauling a soccer team, and a bully's still-being heart ripped from his chest. It's, in a word, awesome, and the one reason I would recommend this film to anyone.

You'll have a devil of a time.

If you're stalwart enough to survive the dreary excesses of the first half of the film, Evilspeak can be immensely rewarding. And its attempts at depicting the mistreatment of young cadets is admittedly impactful. Although I wish that it was more than a cut-and-dry Satanic revenge story and had more thematic meat on its bones, the flick is chock full of top notch Magic Computer nonsense and surprisingly decent grue when the time comes.

I'm afraid I have to halfheartedly recommend it. Do with that what you must.

Killer: Father Lorenzo Esteban (Richard Moll) and/or Lucifer (Himself), acting through a boxy computer and/or Stanley Coopersmith (Clint Howard)
Final Girl: Not even close.
Best Kill: As the wrist of a large crucifix begins to show a pulse, the nail through Christ's hand wriggles out and impales Reverend Jameson's forehead.

Sign of the Times: Literally anything that happens to any computer, which is pretty much everything.

Scariest Moment: A weird fetus creature in a jar begins to wriggle and escape during a dream sequence.
Weirdest Moment: Coopersmith asks his computer "What are the keys to the kingdom of Satan's magic?" and somehow expects an answer in the era before Google.
Champion Dialogue: "Don't they teach you damn fool cadets nothin' about pigs?"
Body Count: 13; not counting poor Freddy the dog.

1. Topless Sacrifice is decapitated with a sword.
2. Sarge's head is spun around backward.
3. Miss Friedemeyer is mauled by pigs in the shower.
4. Colonel Kincaid is impaled on a hanging chandelier.
5. Reverend Jameson is impaled in the forehead with a crucifix nail.
6. Cadet #1 burns to death.
7. Colonel Something or Other has a sword burst his skull.
8. Cadet #2 is mauled by pigs.
9. Cadet #3 is decapitated with a sword.
10. Cadet #4 is killed offscreen.
11. Coach is decapitated with a sword.
12. Cadet #5 is mauled by pigs.
13. Bubba is strangled and has his heart pulled out of his chest. 

TL;DR: Evilspeak is a mean-spirited slog that is occasionally livened up by some top notch practical effects.
Rating: 5/10
Word Count: 1229

Census Bloodbath: This Is The Part Where The Supposedly Dead Franchise Comes Back To Life

Year: 1985

Director: Danny Steinmann

Cast: John Shepherd, Melanie Kinnaman, Shavar Ross

Run Time: 1 hour 32 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

The year was 1984. After increasing moral outrage and MPAA sterilization, Paramount decided that a stake was going to be put in the Friday the 13th franchise's heart with Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter. That promise of pulling out all the stops for the last ever Jason movie caused that little film to bring in a box office 13 times larger than its budget. Whoops.

What was a savvy studio to do, having sent one of their biggest cash cows out to pasture? Well, a mere 11 months later Friday the 13th: A New Beginning plopped into theaters, so it's easy to guess what decision they made.

This is the least permanent setpiece in all of cinema.

For the record, in a review like this, with a movie this old and of this quality, spoilers don't exist. So if you truly and deeply care about not knowing the ending of a much maligned slasher sequel, please go watch it immediately so you can come back and see how remarkably astute and sharp-witted I am in my analysis. 

Luckily for Paramount, The Final Chapter afforded them a quick and dirty entry point into a sequel: the character of Tommy Jarvis (Corey Feldman), who went a little bonkers in the end of the last entry and got machete happy on the hockey masked serial killer that murdered his mother. Unfortunately Corey Feldman was in the middle of shooting a little-known adventure movie called The Goonies and was unavailable for most of the infinitely brief shooting schedule.

In response to this, director Danny Steinmann (of the 1980 proto-slasher The Unseen) stuck Feldman in a brief dream sequence in the film's opening, then launched the film into the future as teenage Tommy Jarvis (John Shepherd, who would later become a born again Christian, denounce the franchise, and take a bit part in The Hunt for Red October) is being taken to Pinehurst, a rehabilitation center for troubled youths located in the Crystal Lake township.

A place where he can acid wash his hair in peace.

Tommy is a skittish, untalkative boy who has a tendency to Kung Fu Grip the hell out of anybody who tries to sneak up on him. In short, somebody who actually needs psychological treatment and help from a halfway home like this.

Although he clearly doesn't need a personal trainer.

The other kids, though? Aside from Vic (Mark Venturini), who has some pretty deep-set rage issues, and Joey (Dominick Brascia, who would complete a Census Bloodbath hat trick with 1984's They're Playing With Fire and 1986's Evil Laugh in which he played Evil Laugher) who has some sort of coded form of Asperger's, all the teens in the home are just as sane as any other character in the Friday the 13th franchise. Which isn't saying a lot, I suppose, because they all suffer from sex addiction, Ill-Advised 80's Hair Disorder, and Temporary Deafness when there's a killer shanking someone with a railroad spike in the next room, but there's certainly no indication that they need to be in a treatment facility like this.

But for whatever reason, this teen Meat exists and for that we gotta Meet them. There's Tina (Debisue Voorhees, also of Innocent Prey and Appointment with Fear, who was almost certainly cast for her surname, although her willingness to go topless probably helped), the resident sex fiend; Eddie (John Robert Dixon), Tina's other half and wearer of hilariously low cut shirts, one of which goes almost all the way to his belt; Jake (Jerry Pavlon), who has a stutter; Violet (Tiffany Helm), who is the movie's appointed 80's Ambassador and looks like the love child of Madonna and a keytar; and Robin (Juliette Cummins, who went on to become a veritable Scream Queen in Psycho III, Deadly Dreams, and Slumber Party Massacre II), who is a human female, an empty shell who exists only to be punctured by machete.

As if that wasn't enough to swallow, there's also Dr. Letter (Richard Young), the director of Pinehurst; Pam Roberts (Melanie Kinnaman), the assistant director; Reggie (Shavar Ross, later a recurring actor on Diff'rent Strokes), the hilariously overwritten minority and grandson of the caretaker; and Ethel (Carol Locatell) and Junior (Ron Sloan), the hillbilly garbage mom and son that live next door and arrive every now and then to provide their own very special (read: absolutely noxious) brand of comic relief.

You can practically smell them through the screen.

So that's quite the impressive cast (in terms of size and nothing else). And we're not even through with it, although I will stop the laundry listing. You see, this is the film that began the Friday the 13th bad habit of introducing side characters that are totally unconnected to the plot so they can perform one scene and then get bumped off. It's the worst kind of body count padding, because it's hard to care about the fate of some random hick who washed up onscreen during the middle of the second act.

Because of the sheer number of these types of scenes, it's nigh on impossible for A New Beginning to maintain a cohesive plot with any means of propulsion whatsoever. But, for what it's worth (not a lot), there is in fact a story buried in here.

After the angry Vic kills the supremely annoying Joey - one could say he's the Olaf of slasher characters - with an axe while he's chopping wood (the one and only moment in a later Friday the 13th sequel to truly surprise me, so kudos), Tommy is on edge and sees visions of Jason around every corner. When people around the center end up missing or dead, Tommy wonders if the man he hacked to death with a machete so many years ago could possibly have returned to exact his revenge.

Unfortunately Tommy just isn't nearly as interesting this time around as he was in The Final Chapter and would be again in Jason Lives. This is partially due to a bland performance from Mr. Shepherd, who can't even find the joy in getting to do cool karate moves (which he promptly forgets once it comes time to battle Jason - another bad habit of the franchise is people forgetting or not utilizing learned skills when it's crunch time.) and partially due to the fact that his character just straight-up vanishes for the bulk of the third act in support of a half-assed "is Tommy the killer?" mystery plotline.

Spoiler #1: Tommy is not the killer. Spoiler #2: His maskmaking skills also have no applicable use in this film.

The time has come. Do you want to know who the killer is? DO YOU?! WHO IS WEARING JASON'S MASK?! It's Jason, right? ...right?

Naw, it's Roy.

Who? Exactly.

Go ahead and control-F to search for any mention of Roy before this paragraph. Did you find anything? That's because Roy is an inconsequential minor character. A paramedic with two brief scenes. It turns out that he's the father of Joey, the boy who was killed by Vic in the beginning, and seeing his son's dead body sent him into a rage spiral and he decided to copycat Jason Voorhees in order to exact bloody vengeance.

Oops, there goes the can of worms.

First of all, audiences hated that it wasn't Jason behind the mask. There was a general outrage the likes of which had never been seen before in the horror community. It was like if George Lucas had put Hello Kitty stickers on Darth Vader's helmet in The Empire Strikes Back. Let me be the first to say that I personally have no qualms with Jason not being the killer. He wasn't the killer in the original movie, so it's not like there's no precedent. And it's still a fun bad movie about a guy in a hockey mask killing promiscuous teens, so it doesn't really matter what the dude's name is.

What does matter, however, is narrative logic, of which this film has not one iota. There's the fact that the killer is such a random side character, only the most sharp-eyed viewers will actually be able to remember his face when it's time for the big reveal. There's the fact that his revenge motive is utter hogwash because many of his numerous victims had nothing to do with Pinehurst at all and were in fact miles away from the property when they were murdered. There's the fact that he gets so in character as Jason, he apparently remembers Tommy Jarvis' attack and responds to him like an old enemy. There's the fact that Vic, the boy who killed his son, is never even killed.

And why the Jason thing in the first place? I mean, obviously they wanted to make another Friday the 13th movie, so that's why. But seriously. The filmmakers try to get around the bait-and-switch by making the mask's markings powder blue instead of the traditional red (which can be seen in Tommy's fantasy version of Jason), but there's only so far I'm willing to follow that idea down the rabbit hole.

See for yourself - Roy Jason

"Real" Jason

I am impressed that the film managed the internal continuity to separate the fake and real Jason, especially considering this is also the movie in which Jason tightens a strap by turning it both clockwise and counter-clockwise and a dead body appears in a bed in the space of a cut. But, moving on.

I don't ask a lot from these movies in terms of realistic psychology, but is that really the best copycat motive anyone could come up with? I know you had a month, but come on! I'd rather have Tommy Jarvis be the killer. I'd rather have it be Violet, turned to violence by her sinful rock n' roll music. Heck, I'd rather have it be Pamela Anderson, tired of being viewed as a sex object and ready to embark upon a new career path.

I would watch the hell out of that movie.

So while I'm totally fine with a non-Jason killer, this movie could have used a couple hundred more rewrites before its release, and it is certainly not helped by the deficit of decent gore effects. The film was too thrown together and cheap to afford the lovely designs of a master like Tom Savini and was one of the most neutered by the MPAA in the series thus far. The final nail in the coffin is Pam, the de facto Final Girl, one of the most ineffectual female characters to ever grace the silver screen, tripping her way across the flat forest floor, and generally turning into a useless, quivering heap whenever "Jason" is around.

So without a solid killer, a memorable heroine, or great grue, A New Beginning shouldn't have a leg to stand on. However, the film is so terrible and so firmly entrenched in the 80's that it's fabulously ripe to be mocked.

Every outfit and song comes from a time where the insides of people's closets could sear a cornea if you weren't wearing the proper eyewear. One of the early false scares involves a cat falling onto somebody from the ceiling of a restaurant. 

And the acting is the worst in the series - not exactly one known for Oscar-caliber talent in the first place. Mark Venturini approaches his character with all the delicacy, grace, and misplaced venom of Chris R from The Room, one of the greaser characters is played by a timid and effete man who exudes the awkwardness of a fifth grader in a turkey costume, and Melanie Kinnaman, our very own Final Girl, overacts like the worst of the silent film actresses of yesteryear, over-extending every limb like she's about to be tied to a railroad track.

Pictured: Pam in a more low key moment.

Luckily, one of the hallmarks that keeps the slasher-exploitation genre totally engaging is present in full force - awkwardly shoved in topless scenes. One, a teen sex scene, fits in perfectly with the genre and the franchise. The one where a waitress flashes herself in the bathroom proclaiming "It's showtime"? Not so much. And the scene where a bare-breasted Robin gets in bed, carefully positioning her blanket so as to not cover her nipples? Classic. Even Pam gets in on the fun, running around in a soaking wet see-through top for a solid ten minutes toward the end. 

A New Beginning takes place in a universe where bras have never been invented, possibly having been sucked into the wormhole created when it was announced that The Final Chapter would have a sequel. It's so misguidedly sleazy that it's impossible not to laugh.

Throw in the tacked on "Tommy is the bad guy" shock ending that would immediately be forgotten and you've got yourself a prime cocktail of awful. It's no good as a sequel to the beloved Part IV and it's just plum dumb, but at least it's got a lock on being one of the best bad pictures around.

Killer: Roy (Dick Wieand) as Jason Voorhees (Tom Morga)

Final Girl: Tommy Jarvis (John Shepherd) feat. Pam Roberts (Melanie Kinnaman)

Best Kill: Violet is killed while doing the robot in her room to this song.

Sign of the Times: Literally anything Violet ever says, wears, or does.

Scariest Moment: Corey Feldman's "scared" face in the dream sequence looks uncomfortably pleasure-filled.

Weirdest Moment: Demon and Anita flirt through the wall of an outhouse while he poops out his enchilada.

Champion Dialogue: "Crap, my ass!"

Body Count: 21; including the killer, 2 in a dream, and one person killed by somebody other than "Jason." Any way you slice it, it's the highest body count in the series so far.

1. Neil is stabbed in the gut with a machete in a dream.
2. Les gets a spike to the neck in a dream.
3. Joey is axed to death by Vic.
4. Vinnie gets a flare in the mouth.
5. Pete gets his throat slashed.
6. Billy gets axed in the head. 
7. Lana is axed in the tummy.
8. Raymond the Drifter is stabbed in the stomach.
9. Tina gets her eyes clipped with garden shears.
10. Eddie's head is crushed against a tree with a leather strap. 
11. Anita's throat is slit.
12. Demon is speared through an outhouse wall.
13. Junior is decapitated on his motorcycle.
14. Ethel is cleavered in the face and drowned in her stew.
15. Jake is cleavered in the face.
16. Robin is macheted in the chest through her bed.
17. Violet is macheted in the stomach. 
18. Duke the paramedic has his throat slit.
19. Matt gets a railroad spike through the head, pinning him to a tree.
20. George aka Gramps has his eyes gouged out.
21. Roy falls onto a bed of spikes. 

TL;DR: Friday the 13th: A New Beginning is hilariously awful, no two ways about it.

Rating: 6/10

Word Count: 2494

Reviews In This Series
Friday the 13th (Cunningham, 1980)
Friday the 13th Part 2 (Miner, 1981)
Friday the 13th Part 3: 3D (Miner, 1982)
Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (Zito, 1984)
Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (Steinmann, 1985)
Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (McLoughlin, 1986)
Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (Buechler, 1988)
Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (Hedden, 1989)
Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (Marcus, 1993)
Jason X (Isaac, 2001)
Freddy vs. Jason (Yu, 2003)
Friday the 13th (Nispel, 2009)

Census Bloodbath: I Is For Imagination

Welcome back to the Blogging From A to Z Challenge, which is not so slowly becoming my avenue for re-exploring the depths of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. Next up is a pleasant surprise that certainly isn't as bad as it should have been.

Year: 1988

Director: Renny Harlin

Cast: Robert Englund, Lisa Wilcox, Tuesday Knight

Run Time: 1 hour 33 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

After Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street slashed onto the scene in 1984, the tides of the slasher genre changed forever. After a hasty and bizarre followup with Freddy's Revenge, Dream Warriors righted the franchise in 1987 and put it back on track. Coming just barely more than a year afterward, A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master has every right to be a piece of idiotic tripe.

I'm fairly shocked and a little disappointed to say that The Dream Master is an all around tighter film than Dream Warriors, starting with a slightly more identifiable cast. Mind you, these are still as stock as 80's slasher characters can get, but you can sense that they have lives and personalities outside of the context of the film instead of merely being props helping to set up the next cool Freddy setpiece.

He doesn't need their help to be cool.

Along with the return of Dream Warriors veterans Kristen Parker (played not by Patricia Arquette, but Tuesday Knight, who manages the insurmountable feat of somehow being worse than the child actress she shares her first scene with), Joey (Rodney Eastman), and Kincaid (Ken Sagoes, who I still feel a roiling animosity toward), who all helpfully die within the first half hour (I cheered when Kincaid finally kicked the bucket. Good riddance. He could never say a sentence without mispronouncing a good 67% of the words.), we have a whole crop of new teens to play with.

First off there's Alice Johnson (Lisa Wilcox), a sweet redhead who has a tendency to daydream in an attempt to escape from the emotional abuse of her alcoholic father. Her gang includes her brother Rick (Andras Jones), a martial artist and Kristen's boyfriend; her best friend Debbie (Brooke Theiss), the living embodiment of the 80's with an obsession for lifting weights; Sheila (Toy Newkirk), a stereotype-busting character who happens to be female, black, a nerd, and almost universally beloved; and Dan (Danny Hassel), who is just the cutest patootie to ever patoot.

Well, hello there.

The trouble begins when Freddy (the ever-cooperative Robert Englund) rises from the grave to wreak havoc once again. After quickly and mercifully knocking off Joey and Kincaid, Freddy is down to his last victim, Kristen (the final child of the parents who murdered him so many years ago). Unfortunately, Kristen uses her dream powers to pull the hapless Alice into her dream before she is tossed the hell into a furnace in an extremely brave move on the screenwriters' part.

It seems that by dragging Alice into her dream and bestowing her power upon her in death, Kristen has provided Freddy an avenue into the dreams of Alice's friends, one which he exploits with gusto. This is the first film where it's clear that, despite Englund's still menacing performance, horror is definitively going to take a backseat in favor of darkly humorous gonzo setpieces.

We see Alice get sucked into a movie screen, a meatball pizza decorated with the souls of dead children, a nude pinup swimming in a waterbed, and puns galore.

Very cheesy puns.

But despite the more overtly comic tone, The Dream Master never loses its sense of itself as a piece of cinema. At least, in the way that effects-driven 80's slasher films can be considered cinematic. Utilizing dream logic in the best way possible, the film allows for an ecstatically creative series of scene transitions and camerawork that still manage to boggle the mind. 

The scene where Kristen is secretly dosed with sleeping pills is blessed with unforgettable whirling cinematography capturing the loopy desperation of the teen all in a single shot. And that's not the only visually stunning moment in the film, which is shockingly aesthetically literate for a horror flick released in 1988.

Not to mention, the whole thing is thematically tight.

Tight as these shades.

Lisa already lived in a world of dreams, so she can be considered a master of her domain. This gives her equal footing with Freddy and makes her a worthy adversary, especially once she begins collecting the talents and personalities of her friends as they are felled one by one. This idea is linked with Lisa taking off the photos that cover her bedroom mirror - one for each friend who dies - slowly revealing her entire face as she matures with time and becomes the Dream Master.

It sounds cheesy and it is. Especially during the final montage in which she dons leather, spikes, and a yin-yang headband to take on the dream demon. But within all of it is a heartfelt story of a teenage girl taking strength from her friends to fight back against the force that has claimed them.

The fact that it explores the sleep powers concept in a way that the clever but scattershot Dream Warriors never even could have dreamed of (pun intended) is just the cherry on top.

Shot through the heart! And you're to blame!

That last caption may have seemed like just another of my series of increasingly witty and impressive puns, but it also serves as an adequate transition to what is perhaps the films biggest weakness, depending on how you look at it.

Thanks to its wall to wall pop music, atrocious perms, deliriously colorful backgrounds, and John Hughes banter, the entire film is mired forever in the muck of 1988, inextricably tied with the decade that birthed it. For me, this will never be a problem, thanks to my love of the cheesy excesses of the time. But really, the whole thing plays out like a feature-length MTV hits show, complete with two stirring renditions of "Anything, Anything" by Dramarama.

But being full of 80's signifiers can't bring a movie this good down. With impeccable use of nightmare imagery, a surprisingly solid and consistent tonal register, and a villain who hasn't yet descended to the unbearably clownish depths that are soon in his future, The Dream Master is a darn excellent sequel, shocking me and everybody else by being more enjoyable that the general consensus pick, Dream Warriors.

I was just as surprised as you, hypothetical reader. But the numbers don't lie.

Assuming you can even see through the almost solid filter of 80's.

Although I will always hold Friday the 13th in my highest esteem among the slasher greats, A Nightmare on Elm Street has a surprising amount of pretty darn good entries in the franchise, certainly more than the notoriously inconsistent Jason flicks. I'm very grateful that I'm getting a chance to re-explore this journey through the evolution of Freddy, because I don't think I ever appreciated the amount of effort these films put into realizing their universe, however twisted and nonsensical it may have become.

Savor these precious positive comments. Because up next we have The Dream Child, a film seemingly edited by a pile of vomit.

But for now, we have The Dream Master and sweet, sweet, Alice. Happy thoughts!

Killer: Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund)

Final Girl: Alice Johnson (Lisa Wilcox)

Best Kill: Debbie has her arms broken by a barbell and slowly begins turning into a human-sized cockroach. It's intense.

Sign of the Times: The second Debbie walks onscreen you can taste the hairspray. It doesn't help that she immediately starts talking about Dynasty.
Scariest Moment: Freddy is torn apart by the released souls of his victims.
Weirdest Moment: Freddy is brought back to life by Jason, the Fire-Peeing Dog.

Champion Dialogue: "We have matching luggage again."
Body Count: 6

1. Kincaid is stabbed in the stomach.
2. Joey is drowned in his waterbed.
3. Kristen is thrown into a furnace.
4. Sheila has her bodily fluids sucked out during a test.
5. Rick has the glove launched into his stomach.
6. Debbie is turned into a cockroach and crushed inside a roach motel. 

TL;DR: A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master is a shockingly good third entry in a solid franchise that manages to bring something new to the table four years and three movies after Freddy's introduction.
Rating: 9/10
Word Count: 1407
Reviews In This Series
A Nightmare on Elm Street (Craven, 1984)
A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (Sholder, 1985)
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (Russell, 1987)
A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (Harlin, 1988)
A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (Hopkins, 1989)
Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (Talalay, 1991)
Wes Craven's New Nightmare (Craven, 1994)
Freddy vs. Jason (Yu, 2003)
A Nightmare on Elm Street (Bayer, 2010)

Census Bloodbath: Dead Teenagers

If you're new to Census Bloodbath, click here.

Year: 1984

Director: Joseph Zito

Cast: Kimberly Beck, Corey Feldman, Crispin Glover

Run Time: 1 hour 31 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Here we are at the end. The MPAA had just about had enough of Jason and his exploits and the parental dissent turned from a grumbling to a roar. Theaters began to close their doors to slasher films and the great splatter tentpole of the decade, Friday the 13th, made the announcement that this next film would be their last.

Of course we all know that's a crock of sh!t now, but it was a big deal, I'm telling you.

In a grand explosion of effort, the forces of slasherdom pulled together to produce the quintessential Crystal Lake film to say goodbye to the now beloved hockey masked antihero. Tom Savini returned, reportedly so he could kill his the monster of his creation. He hated the sequels and wanted to be there personally to oversee the death of Jason. Regardless, the presence of Savini and the filmmakers' desperate awareness that this was going to be their last chance to make a splash in the horror genre combined to form the most exploitative, goriest, and most fun entry yet.

Again, this obviously wasn't the end, but nobody knew this wouldn't the final film of the series. And in a way, it kind of is. After this, the sequels become considerably less airtight in regards to continuity (which is shocking for such a continuity anorexic franchise) and many consider the first four films to be the "real" essence of Friday the 13th. 

So. The fourth and last of the core Friday films. Here we are at the end.

As represented by the 80's, in which it wasn't considered a movie if something didn't explode.

The film opens with a much more competent recap than the stock footage unceremoniously thrust into the beginnings of the previous two entries. With clips from the previous three films set to Paul's campfire story from Part 2, this sort of "previously on Friday the 13th" segment is a relative masterpiece of coherence simply by not being immensely tedious (Especially at a marathon where you're forced to watch the films back to back).

This film opens the morning after the climactic events of Part 3 (which took place a day after the climactic events of Part 2, meaning this film takes place on Sunday the 15th, which I think is worth noting) as Jason is carted into the local morgue. Seeing as he's got a huge axe wound in his head, this would be a reasonable mistake.

Slimy autopsy technician Axel (Bruce Mahler) flirts with sexy Nurse Rose (Lisa Freeman) and thus begins a verbal ballet of epic proportions transcribed in dutiful detail in the Champion Dialogue section. Despite her initial objections, Nurse Rose hops on Axel the first chance she gets - when he's watching a steamy aerobics video next to the covered corpse of one Mr. Voorhees.

The combination of inexplicably porny workout videos and the imminent threat of premarital sex prove too much for the poor corpse and Jason leaps back to life, performing a brief showcase of Tom Savini's work as he hacks Axel's neck with a surgical saw and twists his head around before stabbing Nurse Rose with a scalpel.

That Jason. What a pain in the neck!

With those two out of the way, he makes his merry way back home to the shores of Camp Crystal Lake which by this point is more like a sea considering the amount of property that lies upon it. This time we arrive at the Jarvis household, a secluded woodland hideaway inhabited by Mrs. Jarvis (Joan Freeman), a doting mother; her teenage daughter Trish (Kimberly Beck); and her young son Tommy (Corey Feldman), who is an expert maskmaker, a skilled handyman, and also is Corey Feldman.

See?

Obviously that's not enough people for Jason's fourth and final outing, but there's a huge tray of Meat being delivered to the house next door. Although the film doesn't bother to name them until about half an hour in, I (being extraordinarily committed to y'all) have compiled them here.

There's Paul (Alan Hayes) and Sam (Judie Aronson), the requisite couple who seem even less necessary than usual because they're one of the few pairs of teens who don't actually bone (this film is notorious for containing the most nudity in a film franchise notorious for gratuitous nudity); Sara (Barbara Howard), Sam's best friend and Grade A virgin who'd be a shoo-in for Final Girl if it weren't for those pesky Jarvises; Doug (Peter Barton, who got to play opposite Linda Blair in the future Census Bloodbath entry Hell Night), the object of Sara's affections who has no objections to being such; Ted (Lawrence Monoson), the prankster and they couldn't even try to hide the fact that he's transparently named after the prankster from Part 2 (Whose name is stolen from Ned in the original. It's all very incestuous.); and Jimmy (Crispin Glover, proving that it's impossible for this movie to get any more 80's), the lovable and lonely (read: horny) nerd.

So that's 3 Jarvises, 6 randy teens, and to top things off we get two sexy twins (Camilla and Carey More) and Rob Dyer (Erich Anderson), the brother of Sandra from Part 2 (about whom I remember nothing) who's on a Jason hunt in the woods.

Now that's a party!

Come party with us.. Forever and ever and ever...

Basically the teens get freaky, go skinny dipping (legs and boobs akimbo), and swap partners faster than a square dancer on crack.

Although the teens can be hard to get track of, they're bumped off at a pretty steady pace that makes things much easier as time goes on. Between the mercurial teen relationships, Crispin Glover's rock steady and immensely sweet performance as the bumbling Jimmy (his death is the most heartbreaking - and don't pipe up about spoilers, this is Friday the 13th), and the most vibrant and fun character moments in the entire franchise, this does seem rather like what would happen if John Hughes decided to write a slasher film (seeing as this one seems to have been swept under the rug).

Really I have nothing groundbreaking to say about these sections because for once the disparate elements work in perfect harmony. The teen drama is alternately cheesy and sweet and outrageously raunchy in the best possible way and meshes weirdly perfectly with the darker register of some beautifully realized gore sequences. Tom Savini really pulled out the stops here and ironically, his massive success in this movie perpetuated the studio churning out more Jason vehicles than ever (the next film would follow this one by less than a year).

You have to be a special kind of awful to really be able to enjoy this photo but it's enough to bring tears to one's eyes to watch a master at work.

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter is the quintessential slasher movie. Teen partying. Future stars slumming it. Copious nudity (spread across two skinny dipping scenes, two shower scenes, a changing scene, various sex scenes, and we're just getting started). And plenty of Karo syrup, just for good measure (and to give a hearty middle finger to the MPAA).

Now the things that go into making it a great slasher don't necessarily make it a great movie, which by no means this is. But as a slasher connoisseur it's hard not to expect a certain level of outlandishly exploitative cheese. Slashers being what they were (namely, cheap ripoffs and quickie cash grabs) and the MPAA being what they were (terrible, deeply unhappy people), this is ultimately hard to come by (especially in the post-VHS Hell we now live in) so to find a movie that meets and exceeds expectations is a dream come true.

Allow me to linger on the death scenes for two more paragraphs, because these are what set the movie apart. Forget what I said about the characters, delightful though they are, because they clearly only exist so we can watch them be brutally murdered. Friday the 13th had that figured out by this point so they weren't even trying to give them any sort of depth beyond the basic archetypical characterizations already established within the confines of the franchise.

The creative deficit of Part 3 seems like a distant memory as we see a hitchhiker stabbed through the back of the throat while eating a banana, Paul gets a harpoon gun in the crotch, Jimmy gets a corkscrew in the hand and a machete in the face, one of the twins is thrown through a freaking window, and now this is just a laundry list but it's really just the best sort of gleefully gory mayhem. And Doug's death (his face is crushed against the shower wall) holds up tremendously well both as a shocking gore moment and as a tiny miracle of sound design.

Also an instant classic line. This movie's full of those.

The teens get inevitably whittled down as Trish and Tommy hole up in their home. Jason bursts through the window, but they fight back with the force of a thousand hurricanes. For you see, this is the first film where Jason really and truly dies. And boy does he die. Savini makes good on his promise to destroy his creation and the final sequence is just one long gore setpiece and magnum opus for the massively talented maestro of violence.

Oh, also Corey Feldman shaves his head so he can remind Jason of what he was like as a child or something and that doesn't make sense but it's still alright because everything about the scene is freaking awesome. I can only describe it in fanboy terms because this movie is impossible not to love if you're in any way a Jason enthusiast.

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter honestly would have been a great note to close on, but boy am I happy to carry on with the rest of this journey.

We'll follow Jason through Manhattan, into the bowels of Hell, and up into the vast reaches of Outer Space.

And Tommy Jarvis?

You ain't seen the last of him.

Killer: Jason Voorhees (Ted White)

Final Girl: Tommy Jarvis (Corey Feldman) feat. Trish Jarvis (Kimberly Beck)

Best Kill: Jason himself. He gets a hammer in the shoulder, a TV in the kisser, his hand is split in half, he gets a blade to the chest, and there's a sickening sequence of his face sliding down his own machete. Then he gets ruthlessly machete punched by Corey Feldman. What a way to go.

Sign of the Times: I have it on good authority (my notes) that Sara's shirt is very 80's. Unfortunately I remember exactly zero things about what it looked like. And this is the only picture I can find. 

I'll just have to trust Past Me on that one.

Scariest Moment: I'm gonna stick with Doug's death on this one.

Weirdest Moment: THIS

Champion Dialogue: The entire exchange between Axel and Nurse Rose. Ranked in order from least to most hilarious:

4. "For you I always have a headache."

3. "You are the Super Bowl of self abuse."

2. "Axel, I'm not going to fake any more orgasms for you."

1. "Holy Jesus jumping Christmas shit!"

Body Count: 14; for once including Jason himself.

1. Axel gets a bone saw to the throat and his head twisted around.
2. Nurse Rose is scalpeled in the abdomen.
3. Hitchhiker gets a knife through the back of her neck while eating a banana.
4. Samantha is knifed through the torso while laying in a raft.
5. Paul is speared in the groin.
6. Terri gets a spear in the back.
7. Mrs. Jarvis is killed offscreen.
8. Jimmy gets a corkscrew in the hand and a meat cleaver in the face.
9. Tina is thrown out of a window.
10. Ted gets a knife in the back of his head through a movie screen.
11. Doug's head is crushed against the shower wall.
12. Sara gets an axe thrown through her chest.
13. Rob is stabbed in the throat with a garden harrow.
14. Jason Voorhees is macheted in the face, among other things. 

TL;DR: Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter is the most perfect iteration of what the Jason saga could be.

Rating: 10/10

Word Count: 2067

Reviews In This Series

Friday the 13th (Cunningham, 1980)

Friday the 13th Part 2 (Miner, 1981)

Friday the 13th Part 3: 3D (Miner, 1982)

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (Zito, 1984)

Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (Steinmann, 1985)

Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (McLoughlin, 1986)

Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (Buechler, 1988)

Friday the 13th: Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (Hedden, 1989)

Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (Marcus, 1993)

Jason X (Isaac, 2001)

Freddy vs. Jason (Yu, 2003)

Friday the 13th (Nispel, 2009)

Alles Gute Zum Vatertag!

Happy Father's Day, everyone!

You really should call him.

Today's post has to be quick, because it's a holiday and also we have a visitor from Germany in the house and I don't want to be unhöflich.

In honor of the day, I will review one of my father's favorite movies, one which we watched together with my mother last night over dinner. (That's right, I come home to visit my parents. I'm a good son)

A Fish Called Wanda

Year: 1988

Director: Charles Crichton

Cast: John Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline
Run Time: 1 hour 48 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

I'm just gonna say it. A Fish Called Wanda has one of the tightest comic scripts of the decade, perhaps even the century. The storylines are balanced, thematically cohesive, have equal importance to the narrative and, most importantly, are consistently funny. On top of a routine heist movie framework filled with double crossings and disguises lies a blistering satire of English-American relations. It comes as no surprise that the script was penned by Monty Python alum (and co-star) John Cleese.

The story follows the dynamics of a group of bank robbers in London: George (Tom Georgeson) is the big cheese gangster. Ken (Michael Palin, another Monty Python alum) is his right hand man with a strong stutter and a stronger crush on Wanda (Jamie Lee Curtis), an American con artist who helps them pull off the heist. Her boyfriend Otto (Kevin Kline) is an American vulgarian and faux intellectual.

Wanda has been dating George for years and seeing Otto behind his back. After a series of double crossings George lands in jail, but not after hiding the jewels and giving Ken the key along with strict instructions to hide it in a safe place and arrange for the only witness's accidental death.

Basically, this movie is the Jamie Lee Curtis show, as Wanda pulls out a complex series of cons on each man in her crew as well as George's barrister, Archie (Cleese). Wanda is conniving, powerful, and fabulous, using her sexuality to achieve her goals. 

She is the ultimate feminist character. A strong confident woman, she is miles smarter than any of the men in her life. Even when she is less than successful at her con work, the boys fall for it hook, line, and sinker due to her manipulation of the way society views women.

Even though her wardrobe might as well have "IT'S 1988 HI" printed in glitter over the front, she has never been sexier or more diabolical. I love love love Jamie Lee Curtis and she is really given a chance to shine and play in this role, while still allowing her co-stars to turn in uniformly marvelous performances.

I'm hesitant to give a top rating to a film because nothing is perfect, but if any film comedy comes close, it's this one.

Thanks dad!

Rating: 9/10
Word Count: 487