Census Flashback: Toxic Masculinity

On our Fright Flashback/Census Bloodbath crossover, every week this summer we'll be exploring an 80's slasher film that is in some way a spiritual precursor to the weekend's upcoming blockbuster.

In anticipation of The Incredibles, which weirdly seems to be a remake of Mr. Mom featuring superheroes, I'll be reviewing Stepfather 2: Make Room for Daddy, another sequel with a twisted sense of fatherhood.

Year: 1989

Director: Jeff Burr

Cast: Terry O'Quinn, Meg Foster, Caroline Williams

Run Time: 1 hour 33 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

If there's one subgenre and time period in the world that would guarantee a sequel to an even mildly successful film, it was the slasher movie in the 1980's. If we could get a Death Nurse 2 or a Stripped to Kill II: Live Girls, it's certainly not surprising that the 1987 Hitchcockian thriller The Stepfather got a follow-up entry two years later. In fact, nothing is surprising about Stepfather 2: Make Room for Daddy, except the fact that it's maybe even sorta kinda good.

Also, maybe we should arrange another remake with Stanley Tucci, just sayin'.

You may recall that the previous Stepfather ended with the titular family-stealing slasher dying, but since when has that ever stopped a good horror villain? Terry O'Quinn returns to the franchise with a hand-waving scene that reveals he just got a nasty scar from being stabbed in the heart, 'twas only a flesh wound! Anyway, we catch up with him in a psych ward in Puget Sound (a psych ward which has a buzz saw that they let the patients use, because mental health care competency has apparently taken some huge strides between the 80's and now), a location which he easily escapes to build a new life for himself down in Loma Linda, California.

While he makes moves on Carol (Meg Foster), the lovely divorcée across the street, and attempts to assimilate himself into the lives of her and her son Todd (Jonathan Brandis), he must face obstacles to his new nuclear family. These obstacles include Carol's deadbeat ex-husband Phil (Mitchell Lawrence) and the nosy postal worker neighbor Matty (Caroline Williams of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2). 

And who WOULDN'T want to fill the gap in this holy trinity?

By the very nature of being a sequel, Stepfather 2 inherently subverts the plot of the original. Whereas that film was a thriller of domestic paranoia, following Jill Schoelen's efforts to expose the man in her house whom she suspects is a crazy evil killer man, in this film we sure as hell know he's a crazy evil killer man. Thus it becomes almost Psycho III-esque, where the tension transfers from siding with the victims and worrying about their fates to sympathizing with the killer himself. You watch as he attempts to rebuild his life and tie up any loose ends to his perfect marital bliss, and you're biting your knuckles along with him as various wrinkles threaten that delicate balance.

Plus, since the slasher subgenre had gotten more of its claws into the franchise, this is also accompanied by a bump in the body count, easily doubling the previous effort. You won't catch me complaining about that. Although the original Stepfather is certainly one of the more respectable 80's efforts, it's not one that particularly spoke to me, so I don't mind it being beefed up with some popcorn chills and spills.

Mind you, even the improved kill-pacing of this entry still doesn't provide for many particularly memorable murders. Stepfather 2 is a deeply generic slasher through and through, and the well of blood the genre had to offer had long since dried up by 1989. The film demurely hides its gore behind tasteful pans to pools of blood, as if that was what would get the goat of any audience member sitting in the theater for a movie with the subtitle Make Room for Daddy. Stepfather 2's refusal to cop to being a tawdry B-picture prevents it from rising too far above being merely "good," but for 1989, it was probably the best case scenario if we're being honest.

Though the fact that I can't really find a screenshot more eye-catching than this should speak volumes.

All that said, this is probably the best horror film director Jeff Burr ever made (though with the chopped-to-hell Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III kicking it right there on the CV, there's not a ton of competition). There are fun little moments like the neighborhood group therapy that devolves into a catty gossip session, or the Stepfather's quasi-Freddy quips that are funny yet still grounded enough in his character that they don't break whatever reality this film could conjure.

Plus, in the third act Stepfather 2 becomes an actually good film, depicting a wedding chapel battle that sees every piece of the Stepfather's story falling apart in a massive crescendo of confusion as Carol and Todd (who aren't as fleshed-out as they should have been) really coming into their own as a family unit amid a flurry of exciting, well-staged action.

Stepfather 2 isn't really anything more than a generic slasher, but it's like eating a cookie from a box you got at the grocery store. It isn't delicious, but it hits the spot. It checks all the boxes of what a movie like this needs to have, even if it isn't as bloody or as sexy as it could have been.

Killer: The Stepfather (Terry O'Quinn)

Final Girl: Carol Grayland (Meg Foster)

Best Kill: The doctor who gets a shiv in the back of the neck is the only gore moment that in any way feels even next door to showstopping.

Sign of the Times: The Stepfather scouts potential wives using a videotape dating service.

Scariest Moment: In the heat of the moment, Carol makes out with the Stepfather's giant chest scar.

Weirdest Moment: While eating cereal, the Stepfather takes a moment to lean his ear close to the snapping, crackling, and popping and grin to himself.

Champion Dialogue: "He likes me to hum when I kiss him down below."

Body Count: 6

1. Dr. Danvers is shivved in the back of the neck.
2. Smith is bludgeoned with his nightstick.
3. Random Dude has his hands smashed in a trunk and is killed offscreen.
4. Phil is slashed to death with a broken bottle.
5. Matty is strangled with a cloth bathrobe tie.
6. The Stepfather gets the claw end of a hammer buried in his chest.

TL;DR: Stepfather 2: Make Room for Daddy is a surprisingly decent late slasher sequel.
Rating: 6/10
Word Count: 1090
Reviews In This Series
The Stepfather (Ruben, 1987)
Stepfather 2: Make Room for Daddy (Burr, 1989)

The Night HE Came Home

Year: 2009

Director: Rob Zombie

Cast: Scout Taylor-Compton, Tyler Mane, Malcolm McDowell

Run Time: 1 hour 45 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Trick or treat, mother f**kers! It may have taken a year longer than it was supposed to, but my All Hallow’s Eve present for you all is the final entry in our Halloween marathon! To be completely honest, I would have gotten to it sooner, but I’ve seen Rob Zombie’s Halloween II before and knew better than to approach it unarmed. It took me so long to psychologically prepare that it was almost the next October, so I decided to save it up to use as an endcap to my all-too brief Exorcist marathon.

[EN: For the record, this review is of the Director’s Cut, which seems to be the version that’s most readily available these days.]

So, Halloween II. Back in the days when a remake could actually get a theatrical sequel, not that it happened much anyway. The only one I can recall is the prequel Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, and then a handful of DTV follow-ups to Fright Night and I Spit On Your Grave for some reason. I can see why Rob Zombie’s Halloween was one of the lucky few. As shrill and mean-spirited as it is, it struck a chord with the edgier youth demographic. It’s popular with a small but rabid group, and it’s the prerogative of the Akkad family to keep pumping these films out as long as there are wallets to receive them. But boy do I wish they hadn’t made Halloween II, because that story had nowhere to go and it does exactly that.

At least there’s no Ken Foree diarrhea scene.

In Halloween II, Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton) is living with the only other survivor of the Michal Myers (Tyler Mane) rampage two years ago – Annie (Danielle Harris) – and her dad, Sheriff Brackett (Brad Dourif). Still dealing with the trauma of that fateful Halloween night and newly reeling from the revelation in fame-hungry Dr. Loomis’ (Malcolm McDowell) tell-all book that she’s Michael Myers’ sister, Laurie goes through life vaulting between the equally pleasant poles of Nasal Shouting and Complete Emotional Breakdown. 

She’s plagued by nightmares, and of course Michael picks this moment to show up again, emerging from the backwoods looking beardy, filthy, and uncannily like Rob Zombie himself. He wreaks havoc by killing her new friends whose names I didn’t bother to learn, as well as some amusingly random townsfolk. So yeah, Michael is haunted by visions of his mom (Sheri Moon Zombie), who’s convincing him to kill people, kidnap his sister, and also hang with a dream horse, because hey- Rob Zombie had to fit his wife in there somewhere, I guess.

And she needed an excuse to dress like she was going to a Fleetwood Mac concert.

One thing I will say about Halloween II is that it improves greatly upon its predecessor, though that bar is so low you could crawl over it. But in attempting to craft his twisted new mythology for the Myers siblings, Zombie finally lets go of the alit vestiges of John Carpenter’s property, freeing himself from slavishly copying the original film, only with more Annoying. The unsettlingly brutal kills are toned down, as is the lewd clowning of every single character. In fact, everything is toned down, because Halloween II is barely a movie.

Once you get through the 25-minute dream sequence that opens the movie (it’s supposed to be jarring, but it’s mostly just an excuse to replace exposition with chase sequences and give Octavia Spencer one of her final sassy Black Coworker roles before she starred in The Help – this scene is so obviously not trying that her character is actually named “Octavia”), you’re stuck on a rockabilly merry-go-round for an hour, cycling endlessly between any of these three scenes:

1) Dr. Loomis is a giant, throbbing asshole to his publicist while on tour for his book, simultaneously adding nothing to the narrative and demolishing his character from the ground up.

2) Laurie Strode shrieks/cries/vomits at/on her friends/therapist/self.

3) Somebody around town does vulgar, despicable things for 2 ½ minutes, then Michael Myers teleports in and murders them.

The actual plot, insofar as this shattered pile of unfathomable motivations can be called a “plot,” doesn’t kick in until the final 20 minutes. It’s actually pretty reminiscent of the dire Halloween 5, down to the detail that the characters go to a pointless barn dance in the beginning of Act 3, only to lazily drift over to the true location of the finale. And then it’s just… over.

I guess I should thank it for not sticking around.

Although Halloween II is less grating overall than Halloween 2007, that doesn’t mean Zombie’s not up to his usual “Tobe Hooper turned up to 11” tricks. Every single cluttered, dingy set either looks like a punk club’s bathroom or an episode of Atlanta Trailer Park Hoarders. And every single character is an unlikeable fountain of vitriol, whether they’re facing a serial killer or eating pizza at the kitchen table. People in Halloween II don’t talk. They either shout or they whine or they die. There’s no in between, no calm before the storm. Everything is just storm.

It certainly doesn’t help that the ensemble has less of a grip on the material this time around. Harris and Taylor-Compton can’t find the shreds of humanity they clung to in their roles last time, because there aren’t any. And Malcolm McDowell is completely wasted in a role that violates continuity to resurrect him, only to have him do nothing useful at all (to be fair, that’s  pretty much what they did with Donald Pleasance the last three times). Then there’s Sheri Moon Zombie, who talks to her onscreen son like he’s a girlfriend she ran into a Starbucks. Even the infallible Brad Dourif can’t find his footing and serves up a huge tray of ham during a supposedly heartfelt moment.

While I could go on and on about the obvious metaphors, the mask that makes Myers look like Sideshow Bob, or the ultimate violation of the character by having him speak, and any number of vicious complaints, let’s end the review on an uncharacteristically positive note, shall we? Rob Zombie really does know how to shoot moonlit streets at night, and Halloween II is chock full of beautiful suburban imagery with pristine, almost elegant lighting. So that’s nice, I guess. It certainly helps in making this sequel much more bearable It’s undoubtedly a bad movie, but its bisected narrative helps it fly by and the jagged tonal edges are at least sanded down a little bit. ¡Viva Halloween II!

Killer: Michael Myers (Tyler Mane)

Final Girl: Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton)

Best Kill: Michael Myers dies, meaning we won’t have to deal with this incarnation of him anymore.

Sign of the Times: The fact that this remake sequel even exists is a pretty clear sign it’s the 2000’s.

Scariest Moment: After a car crash, a paramedic spits blood from his mouth and shouts the F word for approximately five minutes, and you realize this is how the movie is gonna be the whole time.

Weirdest Moment: Weird Al Yankovic has a cameo in this movie

Champion Dialogue: “Bad taste is the petrol that drives the American dream.”

Body Count: 19

1. Coroner Hooks dies in a car crash.
2. Gary Scott is decapitated with a glass shard.
3. Nurse Octavia is stabbed to death.
4. Nurse has her eyes gouged out offscreen.
5. Buddy is axed in the back.
6. Floyd is impaled on antlers.
7. Sherman is stabbed to death.
8. Jazlean is stabbed to death. 
9. Howard has his face stamped in.
10. Lou has his head smashed into a wall.
11. Misty Dawn is repeatedly mashed into a glass case.
12. Wolfie is stabbed in the back.
13. Harley is strangled.
14. Deputy Neale has his neck snapped.
15. Annie is stabbed to death.
16. Mya is stabbed in the stomach.
17. Becks is thrown through a windshield.
18. Dr. Loomis is stabbed in the gut.
19. Michael Myers is shot to death.

TL;DR: Halloween II is boring, vulgar, and mishandled, but at least it's better than the last one.

Rating: 3/10

Word Count: 1366
Reviews In This Series
Halloween (Carpenter, 1978)
Halloween II (Rosenthal, 1981)
Halloween III: Season of the Witch (Wallace, 1982)
Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (Little, 1988)
Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (Othenin-Girard, 1989)
Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (Chappelle, 1995)
Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later (Miner, 1998)
Halloween: Resurrection (Rosenthal, 2002)
Halloween (Zombie, 2007)
Halloween II (Zombie, 2009)
Halloween (Green, 2018)

Halloween Kills (Green, 2021)

Census Bloodbath: Texas Battle Land

Year: 1986

Director: Tobe Hooper

Cast: Dennis Hopper, Caroline Williams, Jim Siedow

Run Time: 1 hour 41 minutes

MPAA Rating: UR

Is The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, coming out 12 years after the original film, one of the longest sequel gaps in recorded history? Actually, yes. It comes in at around number 21, beaten out by none other than the 46 year gap preceding Return to Oz, among a few additional elder statesmen of film franchises. But although it's not the most impressive hiatus in cinema history, I'd like to argue that it's one of the most impactful.

1974's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre saw Tobe Hooper as a hungry young filmmaker, eager to rattle the walls of the nihilistic and beaten-down 1970's with the oppressive heat of Texas. But as the years passed, the times drastically changed. Hooper failed to recapture the grubby magic of Texas Chain Saw in Salem's Lot and The Funhouse, saw creative control of Poltergeist wrested away from him by producer Steven Spielberg (exactly how much control he ceded is still the topic of furious debate and a topic far too complex for a mere frail parenthetical), and hit rock bottom with his high budget space vampire flop Lifeforce.

As Hooper's life-force (so to speak) was draining, the country itself was beginning to perk up. The economic downturn that permeated the previous decade had begun to reverse itself and the populace began to turn to rampant consumerism once more. Nuclear fears, Reagan's presidency, and the AIDS crisis were still occupying people's minds, but the nation had taken an upward tack that would spring them forth into the blissful 90's.

Even more significant to the film we are discussing today is the massive face-lift the horror genre had received since the original Chain Saw. The slasher boom had come and gone, rising like a phoenix from the ashes of Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter with the advent of the supernatural, heralded by A Nightmare on Elm Street and its soon-to-be comic superstar Freddy Krueger. The enduring popularity of the slasher formula ruled the silver screen, seeping into films to the point of exhaustion; by the mid-80's even ghost and exorcism stories had to have a supple teen cast picked off one by one and even movies completely outside the genre fell victim to this insidious disease.

The genre ushered into being by Texas Chain Saw soon found no use for its brutal, unappealing, nihilism and squalor, so Tobe Hooper was faced with a tough decision. A sequel to his immensely popular film could reboot his career, but there was just no space in the market for something so grim and intense. This post is getting a little long in the tooth and I haven't even mentioned a single character yet, so I'll cut to the chase. Let me direct your attention to the poster at the top of this post, then to the image below. Seem familiar?

Unless you have the attention span of a Drew Barrymore character, it should.

I hope it has become immediately obvious that Hooper decided to adopt a comedic tone with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. It's by no means an outright comedy, but it is light years more lighthearted than its predecessor. Filled to the brim with pop culture references (among other mentions, we get Rambo 3, the censored Beatles baby massacre cover, and enough rock and roll bands to fuel the cocaine market for a small country), silly props, and even - I kid you not - a couple puns. That's 100% more wordplay than The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

It's an interesting decision but by no means a bad one. Trying to recreate the original film's mood would be like Will Smith having a kid - it wouldn't turn out as good and nobody would want to see it. Especially with the amount of story beats that are copied from the original, it's a definite bonus to have a new tone to chew on - it keeps things lively and entertaining.

But for all the repetition this film has (including an almost word for word recreation of the dinner party scene), there is a heaping helping of brand new elements that keep the films firmly planted in its new wacky atmosphere. Our new Final Girl (if any Chain Saw chick could truly be considered one) is Stretch (Caroline Williams - a genre veteran with appearances in Stepfather 2, Halloween II, and Hatchet III to name just a few), an Oklahoma rock 'n roll DJ with a passion for just about anything other than being stuck in a rinky dink booth surrounded by old records.

After a pair of prank callers (Who are two of the most poisonously douchey characters in the history of cinema. Never have I wanted a set of opening scene characters to die more and I lived through the anthropomorphic nuclear waste that is Harold and Edna of Friday the 13th Part 3.) are chainsaw massacred while phoning into the station from North Texas, Stretch teams up with Lieutenant "Lefty" Enright (Dennis Hopper), the uncle of Sally and Franklin from the first film (Though later he acts like an older brother, so who can be sure? Not Hooper, if the amount of pot he smoked in the 80's has anything to say about it.).

Lefty has been searching for the mysterious cannibal family for over a decade and uses Stretch as bait to draw them out into the open.

A brilliant plan - that sequined jacket is visible from space.

One thing leads to another and Stretch is trapped underground with the villainous Sawyers in their new abode - an abandoned theme park. Returning by popular demand are a rather svelte looking Leatherface (Bill Johnson), his even more withered grandfather (Ken Evert), and his father the Cook (Jim Siedow, the only returning cast member). And although Leatherface's brother the Hitchhiker found himself on the wrong end of a Mack truck last go-around, he finds a surrogate in Chop-Top (Bill Moseley, another genre veteran also in Texas Chainsaw 3D, Halloween 2007, Army of Darkness, Silent Night, Deadly Night III, and perhaps most notably, Evil Bong), an equally crazy Sawyer brother newly returned from his stint in Vietnam.

Despite the immense shift in tone which, despite not being an outright laugh riot, is quietly successful in its own way, Hooper is up to his old tricks but with a little more stylistic panache. That is to say, this film is more overtly styled than Texas Chain Saw, not that the aesthetic is any better. Although comparing the visual schema of that film and its sequel is like comparing apples and ball gags - they're both highly effective but serve entirely different functions.

In this film, Hooper indulges in a color scheme beyond brown and grey, splashing vivid reds, blues, and greens across the frame in broad swaths. Especially in the terrifically manic nightmare theme park set that contains the third act, this creates a sense of carnival thrills and spills, rather making up for everything that 1981's The Funhouse isn't.

The Funhouse could have definitely used more chainsaws. Or more Dennis Hopper. Or more... anything that isn't me crying tears of boredom.

And in spite of everything, there are moments when Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 is actually scary. Because the franchise is so palpably deranged and twisted, these moments rely more on character dynamics than jump scares so it's a tremendous boon that the replacement actors are almost entirely top notch. Johnson obviously can't do quite as much with Leatherface as Hansen could, but his performance darn near cuts it close, adding an extra dimension to the character in what could have been a tremendously clumsy love subplot using naught but his eyes and tongue.

Likewise, Bill Moseley is an excellent addition to the family, revamping Edwin Neal's frenzied Hitchhiker for the modern age and seamlessly straddling the twin tones of comedy and horror, milking each one for everything they're worth. And the gore (of course there's gore now, it's 1986 for crying out loud) is spruced up by maestro of the macabre Tom Savini. It's perhaps not his best work, but Savini on autopilot is still Savini, which means that the effects could still run circles around the dime store VFX artists of whatever the hell else came out in 1986 (which includes Sorority House Massacre and Killer Party - not exactly firm competition. Supple, maybe. But not firm.)

On the other hand, we have Dennis Hopper. Though nobody who's ever seen a single work of cinema would consider his performance "great" (unless, that is, Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 is that single work of cinema), he brings a focused lunacy to the role that is captivating. This is a character that exists in quite a different universe than the rest of the film, brandishing chainsaws and screaming epithets at nobody in particular, oftentimes while standing alone in locations quite far from the action. He throws himself into the role headfirst, shaking up every idea one might have about the craft of filmmaking for better or for worse.

It's a legitimately tough call on that one.

So really, there's a lot to like about the film. However, it loses major points for its frequent reverting to tried and true story beats and the slower moments are a mite too slow, dragging the film like a half-open parachute. And although there's plenty to chew on about the effects of Vietnam and long-term poverty, the political fire isn't in Hooper's eyes as much as it was when he was 12 years younger.

But in spite of all that, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 is a rousing success, plying the audience with legitimately great performances of iconic characters, legitimately ludicrous performances from a well-known actor, and enough Savini-honed nightmare fuel to keep the whole thing going down smoothly.

Killer: Leatherface (Bill Johnson) & Co. Pretty much everybody kills everybody else.

Final Girl: Stretch (Caroline Williams)

Best Kill: Buzz proves that his name is appropriate by getting his skull cap sawed off.

Sign of the Times: A picture can say a thousand words. Two pictures can prove my point.

Scariest Moment: Leatherface lunges at Stretch from the station's record vault.

Weirdest Moment: Leatherface puts L.G.'s face on Stretch and ballroom dances with her in a meat locker.

Champion Dialogue: "Oh great grandma in chainsaw heaven, please don't hoodoo the boy."

Body Count: 8; Although y'all know several of them ain't gonna stick.

1. Buzz gets the top of his head sliced off with a chainsaw.
2. Rick "The Prick" is killed in a car crash.
3. L. G. is bashed in the head with a hammer and has his skin removed.
4. Drayton gets his butt chainsawed and blows himself up with a grenade offscreen.
5. Leatherface is chainsawed in the stomach and blown up with a grenade offscreen.
6. Lefty is blown up with a grenade offscreen.
7. Grandpa is blown up with a grenade offscreen.
8. Chop-Top is sliced in the torso with a chainsaw and falls into a turbine.

TL;DR: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 is perhaps even more insane than the first film, though absolutely not as effective.

Rating: 7/10

Word Count: 1861

Reviews In This Series
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (Hooper, 1974)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (Hooper, 1986)
Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (Burr, 1990)
Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (Henkel, 1994)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Nispel, 2003)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (Liebesman, 2006)
Texas Chainsaw 3D (Luessenhop, 2013)
Leatherface (Bustillo & Maury, 2017)