Popcorn Kernels: Q4 2016 Review Purge, Vol. 2

It’s time to clear out more cobwebs from the ol’ backlog of 2016, to create a clean slate ready for Oscar season! So here are some reviews of flicks I watched in December 2016 that weren’t quite so vital to write about in full.

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale

Year: 2010
Director: Jalmari Helander
Cast: Jorma Tommila, Peeter Jakobi, Onni Tommila
Run Time: 1 hour 24 minutes
MPAA Rating: R

In a secluded Finish mountain village, a young boy must stop the evil original Santa Claus from being unleashed upon his friends by a nearby mountaintop dig.

I love me some Christmas horror. There’s something about subverting all the manufactured Hallmark cheeriness of the season that appeals to me, and it helps that I genuinely love the holiday itself. But I genuinely wasn’t prepared for Rare Exports, a Finnish Christmas fairy tale with an unusually somber tone. It’s a stab at Guillermo del Toro-esque weight and spectacle that doesn’t seem fitting of the down-and-dirty genre that brought us Jack Frost and Santa’s Slay.

That tone is what allows it to stand out from the crowd, as well as its focus on a type of rural mountain community not normally seen in Hollywood cinema. The realism with which it presents the struggles of the townsfolk, which are getting tougher around Christmastime even without the invasion of a killer Santa, is outstanding. But the unfortunate fact is that these things are exactly what prevent it from being a particularly great Christmas horror film. The intent is spectacular, but the execution is rather lackluster, holding off on horror for a pretty dull 45 minutes of setup and throttling the film’s chances for entertainment with an overserious tone.

Fortunately, when the horror does kick in, it centers on a truly uncanny image that overcomes the abrasive protagonists (who accidentally trap what they believe to be an employee of the dig site and almost instantly decide to prod him with sticks and hold him hostage – delightful!), the jumps in logic, and the rather silly denouement. That image is of a silent, naked old man who crouches in the shadows, unmoving. It’s a sight that chills the spine enough that it doesn’t thaw until the credits roll.

And, to be fair, the silly finale is a tremendous bit of fun that leads to a charming concluding punchline. It just doesn’t necessarily feel like a natural extension of the almost neorealist goings-on that propel the first half of the movie. Visually speaking, Rare Exports is well made (especially a wonderful bit of business with the recurring image of an advent calendar), and the actors are decent, but the tone and the pacing are just a little too wonky to wholeheartedly recommend.

Rare Exports won’t be entering my Christmas season rotation, but it’s at least an interesting curio that I don’t regret watching. It’s a slice of sub-del Toro fairy tale fruitcake with an uncanny confidence in its own construction.

Rating: 6/10

The Color Purple

Year: 1985
Director: Steven Spielberg
Cast: Danny Glover, Whoopi Goldberg, Oprah Winfrey
Run Time: 2 hours 34 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG

In the South in the early 1900’s, Celie is married off to an abusive husband and relies on the strength of the women in her life to survive.

You couldn’t pay me to even pretend I care more about Steven Spielberg’s serious movies. I’m a Jurassic Park and Indiana Jones kind of guy. I’ve never seen Lincoln or Schindler’s List and I’m happy to let it remain that way. However, attached as I am to a certain drama-loving individual, recently I was given the choice to sit through The Color Purple or face a life of loneliness and regret. I chose the former, and thus was I introduced to Spielberg’s very first foray into the world of prestige drama.

And while the length of this film is indefensible (I could cut at least half an hour without batting an eye), spending time with these characters really did help th efilm grow on me. It doesn’t hurt that this is still a Spielberg movie, so as miserable as the characters’ lives frequently are, it never descends into the ultragrim territory of, say, Precious. And damn, is he a fun director.

The Color Purple might be maudlin as all hell, especially in its third act (a joyful reunion is pockmarked by a woman wearing an enormous flowing cape, for crying out loud), but visually speaking the man knows exactly what he’s doing. Whether it be the way he uses silhouette to portray Celie’s journey and self-identity, the recurring motif that links the sky with freedom, or the decision to stage its grandest scene of female empowerment around a dinner table, it’s clear that a great deal of thought, skill, and care went into this production.

Plus, the story (based on the Alice Walker novel of the same name) is a delicate and earnest tale about women that is still one of the more powerful narratives about female connection and empowerment out there. Although most of the people Celie meets throughout her life start out as enemies or rivals, they slowly realize they share a bond of sisterhood that can never be taken away from them or defined by the male (and white)-dominated society they’re trapped in. It’s wonderful stuff, despite some of Spielberg’s more cartoonish additions (a bar fight scene with Oprah looks like it was lifted straight out of Looney Tunes). Whoopi Goldberg gives an indelible debut performance, giving you intimate access to Celie’s thoughts and feeling using just her marvelously expressive face, the story is uplifting but doesn’t shy away from cold reality, and it’s good enough to forgive that grotesquely bloated run time. If that’s not a mark of true quality, I don’t know what is.

Rating: 7/10

Headhunters

Year: 2011
Director: Morten Tyldum
Cast: Aksel Hennie, Synnøve Macody Lund, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau
Run Time: 1 hour 40 minutes
MPAA Rating: R

An art thief/corporate recruiter must escape from an implacable assassin.

I should probably expand my scope a little before I make this assertion, but as far as I can tell, I love Norwegian movies. From films like Cold Prey or Dead Snow, it seems like the entire country has been gobbling up American genre films for decades until deciding in a snap that they can make some themselves. And they’re better. I can now expand this theory from sci-fi/horror to the action/thriller genre as well. Passengers director Morten Tyldum’s adaption of Jo Nesbø’s best-selling novel Headhunters is – put simply – a high-octane treat.

Although it’s a simple, snappy little crime thriller, it benefits from its European flavor. First of all, the lead isn’t preposterously handsome and debonair. He’s a regular Joe (or Jo) who just happens to be very good at stealing art. His lack of perfection makes his predicament seem that much more dangerous, because you’re not so certain that he can Jason Statham his way out of trouble. Plus, there’s a certain blasé attitude toward nudity and violence that makes the whole thing feel more visceral and human. While the filmmaking itself is very polished, the people and circumstances are not, giving it an edge that it wields like a razor-sharp blade.

I can’t say that I have much in particular to write about Headhunters, because it’s an elemental – almost primal – narrative, except to say that it’s a well-oiled machine. Every genre element is in the perfect position to keep your heart pumping along to its electric rhythm. It’s an exciting, harrowing, twisty, frequently gross tale of the lengths one man will go for survival. It has a James Bondian attitude toward women, which is always unfortunate, but it is what it is. And what it is is very captivating.

Rating: 7/10
Word Count: 1298

Census Bloodbath: As We Go On, We Remember All The Lives We Lost Together

I know a lot of my features have been leading up to this, so it can't come as a surprise, but... I'm graduating college today. As I prepare to be punted out onto the football field of life, let's take a moment to reflect on all those poor young souls whose futures were cut short in the name of the American slasher film. 

Year: 1981

Director: Herb Freed

Cast: Christopher George, Patch Mackenzie, E. Danny Murphy

Run Time: 1 hour 36 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Troma is not known for making good films. I've explored this to some length on Popcorn Culture when I reviewed the decadently unfunny Mother's Day, the clichéd and insipid Splatter University, and the dull as dishwater Girls School Screamers. But the thing about the company is that they throw themselves so wholeheartedly into churning out crap that you can't help but have the faintest glimmer of appreciation for them. 

And I mean the faintest.

1981's Graduation Day is an early Troma slasher, so it's thankfully free of the over-baked slapstick abortions that would soon typify the company's output, but it's still a bottom of the barrel entry with a scatterbrained plot, a dismal paucity of gore, and a nasty attitude problem. And yet there's that glimmer.

Glimmer doesn't cost a lot.

Graduation Day opens on a high school track and field event edited so choppily and rapidly that you need to slam the pause button to even see anything but a pulsating mass of color and fleshy form. It is so clearly playing off of the MTV aesthetic that it's legitimately shocking to find out that the film precedes the network by several months. I guess the dirty truth is that MTV ripped off of Graduation Day. Slashers are all about skeletons in closets, amirite?

God, it's gonna be one of those reviews, isn't it?

When promising young track star Laura Ramstead (Ruth Ann Llorens) is pushed to the edge of her endurance by Coach George Michaels (Christopher George of Pieces and Mortuary), a blood clot crashes into her brain like a shot put, sending her to an early grave after she passes the finish line.

Two months later, Laura's sister Anne (Patch Mackenzie) arrives from her Navy service in Guam for the high school's graduation ceremony, at which she is accepting an award on Laura's behalf. However, what is meant to be a solemn, but happy occasion is marred when the day before the ceremony, a killer in a fencing mask begins stalking and murdering the surviving members of the track team, timing his kills with a track stopwatch.

That's pretty much it for the plot, which consists almost entirely of lackluster stalking sequences, semi-creative kills, and utterly unnecessary side characters' antics, pitched between which are preposterously long swaths of filler that stop the film dead in its tracks. The most notable of these moments is the five minute-plus segment of the semi-known New Wave band performing their song "Gangsters of Rock" at a roller disco in that screeching goat style that only teenagers have the iron will to listen to, although other dead patches include a fully rendered gymnastics routine and the "Graduation Day Blues" hootenanny and harmonica jamboree.

"Felony" member or John Waters' long-lost son? The world may never know.

As you might have been able to surmise, Graduation Day is a tad bit disjointed. Each scene wholeheartedly rams into the next with all the finesse of a bumper car on PCP, rarely if ever having anything to do with the plot at hand. The heroine vanishes for a great portion of the middle of the film, the red herrings are thin on the ground, and there is no dimension whatsoever given to the vast majority of the overgrown potatoes that dare to call themselves "characters."

The more prominent of these figures include Kevin (E. Danny Murphy), Laura's ex-boyfriend who has taken her death hard, Principal Guglione (Michael Pataki of Halloween 4 and Sweet 16), who could hardly give a rat's ass that his students are going missing, and Mr. Roberts (Richard Balin), a lascivious music teacher who sleeps with Linnea Quigley and subsequently evaporates from the film. As the scriptless meanderings unspool across the screen, random squealers Joanne (Karen Abbott) and Doris (the Vanna White) wander in and out of situations, improvising incoherent babble like a drunken, giggling Greek chorus.

To call Graduation Day unprofessional would be an insult to amateurs. I've eaten croutons more professionally made than this film. The first and second acts are about as lively as microwaved roadkill, and the third act is even worse, lifting entire passages from the score of Psycho and rendering its military protagonist a screaming hysterical girl as she flails through an overlong denouement. The cinematography is murky at best, the gore is sparse and undercooked, the men of the film are uniformly disgusting, misogynist creatures, the editing works at far too fast a clip to maintain any semblance of tension, and most of the actors seem actively bored. 

Patch Mackenzie can only display emotions in brief, emphatic flashes, Christopher George obviously can't hear through the cloud of hair dye around his head so he shouts all his lines, and E. Danny Murphy alternates between sleepwalking and high-pitched kettle shrieking as he attempts to obscure the fact that he's clearly 10 years too old for the part behind a curtain of greasy ringlets. And let's just say that it's a good thing Vanna White found a steady job touching letters, because reading and speaking them is not her strong suit.

That pink blouse/shimmer belt combo is also not a strong suit. ...Geddit? ...Please don't leave, I'm only in the second year of this godforsaken decade project.

But no matter how many insults I can lob at Graduation Day, they just keep pinging off like bullets against Superman's chest. It is not, was not, and will never be a good movie, but there's just enough enjoyment to be eked out of the thing to not render it totally useless. First off, its utterly strange editing pattern is kind of endearing, like a first grader's drawing stuck to a fridge. It's admirably wonky, zipping back and forth between shots at a speed that defies the capacity of the human eye, launching from an inexplicable profusion of POV shots into a machine gun clatter barrage of flashback footage, half-glimpsed movement, and unknowable, subconsciously-received imagery. It's not successful, but at least it's trying something. 

Second, it's campy as all hell. This fact is frequently masked behind the sheen of technical incompetence, but enough of the potent stuff squeezes itself out to keep the film from tipping over the edge. The slasher hadn't quite reached its decadent era yet, so many of the kills are uneventful, but several of them are utterly unique, especially the scene where a jock is stabbed with a football attached to a javelin. You just don't get that every day.

He wide-received that pigskin right in his penalty zone.

Whether it's a gymnast being killed while shaving her legs in the sink, the camera lingering on the pert ass of a deceased victim, or the heavy woodland that seems to be located in the middle of school property, Graduation Day is a barrel of unintentional laughs. Not to mention that the dialogue and production design are out of this world, in the sense that they must have been improperly translated from Martian.

It's anticlimactic, it's erratic, and it's just plain weird so much of the time that you can't help but feel like you've stumbled across a psychedelic art piece that taps into that secret space between dreams and reality. Graduation Day challenges everything that we know about contemporary filmmaking, not in an experimental way, but in a manner reminiscent of a baby attempting to mimic its parents' voices. 

It's a deranged, bifurcated reflection of films like Friday the 13th as viewed through the dirty, coke-smeared looking glass of somebody who either knows nothing about life or way more than we can ever imagine. It's an experience, is what I'm saying, and while I don't have the patience to find it a true bad-good gem, it's a relentlessly compelling, awful, delirious, heart-wrenching, apocalyptic, quasi-satisfying film experience. Watch at your own risk.

Killer: [Kevin Badger (E. Danny Murphy)]

Final Girl: Anne Ramstead (Patch Mackenzie)

Best Kill: A pole vaulter falls onto a mat with spikes hidden inside.

Sign of the Times: This guy is straight.

Scariest Moment: Anne approaches Kevin's grandma, who appears to be dead. She is not. ...This isn't a particularly scary movie.

Weirdest Moment: The truck driver insists that he gets to cop a feel on Anne because he's "a taxpayer."

Champion Dialogue: "Sit on it and rotate!"
Body Count: 9

1. Laura's heart explodes while she's running track.
2. Paula has her throat slit.
3. Sally is stabbed in the neck with a saber.
4. Ralph has a football with a blade attached thrown into his chest.
5. Tony is decapitated with hedge clippers.
6. Dolores is decapitated with a sword.
7. Pete pole vaults onto a spiked mat.
8. Coach Michaels is shot to death.
9. Kevin is impaled on spikes. 

TL;DR: Graduation Day has a valuable campiness that is somewhat tempered by how extremely dull and erratic it is.
Rating: 4/10 (though my sliding scale for grading slashers is taking a lot of strain on this one - but what the heck, I'm in the graduation spirit)
Word Count: 1573

Census Bloodbath: Pranks For The Memories

Year: 1986

Director: Fred Walton

Cast: Deborah Foreman, Amy Steel, Clayton Rohner

Run Time: 1 hour 29 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Sad April Fool's Day! 

Just kidding! Happy April Fool's Day!

That's about all the pranking energy I have in me at this point, I'm afraid. As a kid, I was the best in the business, but I'm retired now. Luckily for us, today's slasher feature has us covered for all of our practical joking needs. April Fool's Day, released by Paramount in 1986, is a film birthed from a congregation of slasher royalty.

Friday the 13th producer Frank Mancuso, Jr. pulled together some of the biggest names in the business for April Fool's Day, including Nightmare on Elm Street composer Charles Bernstein, Fade to Black/The Funhouse/Friday the 13th 4, 5, & 6/Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo/Everything You've Ever Loved casting director Fern Champion, When A Stranger Calls director Fred Walton, and Friday the 13th Part 2 Final Girl Amy Steel. It's kind of like the Avengers for the slasher set, if you will.

Only they do battle with terrible 80's hairstyles instead of world-eating aliens.

April Fool's Day tells the story of one Muffy St. John (Deborah Foreman of 1988's Destroyer), a tragically rich young woman who hosts an April Fool's/birthday/spring break getaway weekend for her college friends at her secluded island mansion. After a prank unintentionally leads to a gory ferry accident, the constable and the ferry captain head to the mainland, leaving the unfortunate kids all alone for the weekend. Of course a mysterious someone begins picking them all off, but let's Meet the Meat before they're seasoned and sliced, shall we?

The group in April Fool's Day is considerably large, but each of the kiddos has a distinct, multi-faceted personality that renders them unique and compelling. The one thing this diverse group has in common is that none of them seem to like Muffy all that much. 

There's Nikki (Deborah Goodrich), the clever, promiscuous sexpot with a Mad Magazine sense of humor; Chaz (Clayton Rohner of I, Madman), Nikki's boyfriend, the kinda cute, really horny film major who doesn't take anything seriously; Arch (Thomas F. Wilson aka freaking Biff Tannen from Back to the Future), Chaz's bestest buddy, and one of those straight dudes who spends an improbable amount of time pretending he wants to bang his friend; Hal (Jay Baker), a kinda dorky Southern gold digger who fears for his own inheritance; Skip (Griffin O'Neal), Muffy's jovial stoner cousin; Nan (Leah Pinsent), a bookish, prudish, bubbly girl who packs a separate suitcase for her homework; Kit (Amy Steel), who, thanks to her androgynous name and veteran performer is without a doubt our Final Girl despite her only character trait being that she's a tad irritable; and Rob (Ken Olandt), Kit's boyfriend who feels like he isn't worthy because he goes to a state school. 

He's wrong. He's not worthy because of his terrible mullet.

Their interactions are underscored with a truly intriguing element of class anxiety. Most of the guests are sheltered and privileged in their own right, but many are envious of Muffy "On a Clear Day You Can See the Kennedys" St. John's considerable means, and Rob feels inadequate because of his lower socioeconomic status. It is perhaps too much to ask for a late-period slasher to explore this topic in a full, satisfying manner, let alone worm its way into a decent thesis, but April Fool's Day uses this unconsummated motif as a bedrock for incredibly solid characterizations.

The yuppie movement having come into full swing by the mid-80's, these obnoxious but lovable characters plant the film firmly in a historical context, far more than the typical slasher ephemera of feathered hair and neon legwarmers. Compounded with one character's expression of nuclear fears, and another's shamefully hidden abortion, April Fool's Day becomes a half-decent social piece on the futility and anxiety of the upper and middle class in the materialistic 1980's.

It's a good thing, too, because as an out-and-out slasher film, April Fool's Day isn't exactly a peach. The dialogue and filmmaking are solid, and there's some decent atmosphere, but the Thought Police MPAA crackdown on slashers in the latter half of the decade stunts the film considerably. The one sex scene is about as un-exploitative as Nancy Drew's dream journal, and the gore is light, to say the least.

When your climactic gore reveal could be fixed up with some Tampax and a teaspoon of Alka-Seltzer, it might not be ready for prime time.

BUT! The tone is jovial and the atmosphere is decently spooky, in the best evocation of the spirit of April Fool's. While the kiddos have fun with dribble glasses and gimp masks, Bernstein's remarkably held-back synth music keeps the creep factor up for scenes that have actual, genuine tension from time to time. Though the kills may be muffled, the preceding moments can be deliciously tense and one sequence in a well actually manages to dredge up a goosebump or two.

And wait! There's more! The cast is packed with actors who had more than just a simulacrum of a career, so the performances are across the board pretty decent. The only weak links are the flaky Deborah Foreman as Muffy "It's OK, It's Perrier" St. John, who for the life of her can't figure out just what to do with her damn hands, flapping them wildly around her face like rabid bats, and (unfortunately) Amy Steel, who is brought down by a dull character and reduced to a kind of drowsy irritation for too many of her line readings. 

Kit only becomes interesting in a historical context when she comes on to Rob, providing the actress her second consecutive non-virginal Final Girl character. I don't know what it is about Ms. Steel, but directors love to film her jumping dudes' bones, and this scene is certainly more sultry than her chaste pre-coital scene with Paul in Friday the 13th. Despite her lackluster performance, this scene is more than enough to launch her into the Final Girl pantheon for defying stereotypes. Go Kit! Feminism!

On another note, the film is also quite well-shot, with picturesque scenery and nighttime lighting that manages to avoid drowning the frame in darkness. You'd think that slasher filmmakers would pick up a book or two on night cinematography when they prepare to shoot a film almost entirely after sunset. But you would be severely overestimating how much the people behind the camera cared about these things. Most of the time, I count myself lucky if I don't see a boom mike in frame, but here the cinematography is skilled and professional and I can't respect that enough.

Also whoever picked out that outfit deserves an Oscar.

Alright, here's where things get SPOILERific. If you care about the ending to a 30-year-old B-slasher, skip ahead to the image of the homoerotic frat bros.

As you might have been able to guess, the ending of April Fool's Day reveals that the Agatha Christie-esque body count antics are all one big prank. Muffy is performing a dry run for a murder mystery getaway weekend she plans to sell to the public, in which her evil twin Buffy escapes from an asylum and mows down the guests. Her friends are her unfortunate first victims. 

This ending is a sprightly reversal on slasher expectations from a team intimately familiar with the formula, but it also prevents the film from being a classic example of the form. For obvious reasons, all the deaths are kept offscreen, reducing the impact of the kills and irritating the horehounds in the audience. The film is clever enough to spring back from this deficiency, but it causes the third act to drag something fierce before the Final Girl sequence kicks in.

Speaking of the finale, the film's premise also prevents the Final Girl from fighting back against the killer. It wouldn't exactly be a classic prank if Kit stabbed Muffy in her smug face, so she is reduced to panicked running that is rendered interesting by some inspired set design, but doesn't have the dynamism of her chainsaw tussle with the truly dangerous Jason Voorhees. The final reveal is chilling thanks to some subtle, jarring sound design, but in the end its clever reversal is not quite worth the losses it inflicts on the film as a whole.

Welcome back, my love.

All in all, April Fool's Day isn't a film that I would recommend to a casual horror fan, but for those willing to explore its coy depths, it's a rewarding character slasher with a well-honed sense of fun. It won't change your perspective on the genre or anything, but it's a more than acceptable romp through the social climate of 1986 with some puckish mayhem thrown in for good measure.

Killer: [Buffy St. John (Deborah Foreman) but actually nobody]

Final Girl: Kit (Amy Steel)

Best Kill: Chaz is castrated while wearing a gimp mask, so that's fun.

Sign of the Times: As much as I love Chaz's baggy jacket/V-neck/patterned pajama pants combo, I'm pretty sure it's a capitol offense to wear it in today's fashion climate.

Scariest Moment: Arch is hung from a tree above a lunging snake.

Weirdest Moment: In an attempt to nail the classic Spring-Loaded Cat scare, April Fools Day launches a forlorn feline directly down onto poor Skip from the stratosphere.

Champion Dialogue: "Your fly's open and your Hostess Twinkie is hangin' out."

Body Count: 8 [But actually 0]

1. Skip is killed offscreen.
2. Arch is decapitated. 
3. Nan has her throat slit.
4. Chaz is castrated.
5. Nikki is stabbed to death.
6. Hal is hung.
7. Muffy is decapitated.
8. [Muffy has her throat slit.] 

TL;DR: April Fool's Day is a demure slasher, but makes up for it with great characters and a fairly suspenseful twist on the genre.

Rating: 7/10

Word Count: 1650

Census Bloodbath: For Goodness Sake

Year: 1989

Director: Monte Hellman

Cast: Samantha Scully, Bill Moseley, Richard Beymer

Run Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

The genesis of Silent Night, Deadly Night III: Better Watch Out! is about as ignominious as a direct-to-video sequel can get. When director Monte Hellman was approached by his friend, who was producing the film, he only agreed to it because he had a wild fever and thought he was going to die. As it happens, he did not - in fact - perish, and he ended up at the helm of a low rent sequel to a low rent recut of an OK slasher in 1989, the year of the subgenre's ignoble death.

As you can imagine, the resulting film isn't exactly an undiscovered gem of 80's horror. But at least it's in reluctant continuity with the first two films, stretching itself rather farther than other - more prominent - franchises managed to do (Halloween III is notorious for not being about Michael Myers at all, but an evil mask company powered by Stonehenge. And it only took Nightmare on Elm Street one movie to turn into a gay body horror parable.). I mean, the film is insane, completely twisting the character of Ricky to fit into the post-Nightmare supernatural model, giving him a brain-exposing helmet that looks like a macabre terrarium and transplanting him from Utah to Southern California. But yes, this is actually a storyline worthy of commendation.

What passed for continuity in the slasher genre could only have survived in a decade powered by copious amounts of cocaine.

The film (when it finally begins after an interminably dull opening dream sequence where we see a girl sleep for two minutes then walk slowly around a white room for twice that) revolves around the exploits of drunk-on-science Doctor Newbury (Richard Beymer), who has a coma patient/ex-Santa Claus axe murderer named Ricky Caldwell (Bill Moseley of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2) under his care. He experiments with a psychic blind girl named Laura (Samantha Scully) and attempts to use her dreams to access Ricky's subconscious memories*.

After a drunk hospital Santa carouses his way into Ricky's room on Christmas Eve, the catatonic serial killer is awoken by the twin naughty sins of yuletide inebriation and terrible puns ("Who's your favorite singer? Perry Coma?"). His seasonal rage is reignited and he uses his psychic link with Laura to follow her to her grandmother's place in Piru (this sequel is so firmly entrenched in its region, it would be commendable if it didn't so boldly fly in the face of the beautiful Utah scenery of the first film). With his brain firmly ensconced in its space-age chapeau and his trusty knife in hand, he skulks around Granny's (Elizabeth Hoffman) farm, putting Laura, her brother Chris (Eric DaRe of Twin Peaks), and his girlfriend Jerri (Laura Herring) at risk.

While Ricky's on the prowl, he is pursued by Dr. Newbury and the police Lieutenant Connely (Robert Culp). Either the budget was too limited or Robert Culp was too important, but these scenes almost entirely take place inside the car en route, presumably shot through in the course of one evening. So the film switches between dreary horror and the oddly homoerotic tensions between the two pursuers as the doctor spouts thoughtful monologues like he had eaten a thesaurus for lunch and it was beginning to disagree with him ("[blowing smoke up your ass] sounds like an enterprise of great pith and circumstance...").

*After the success of A Nightmare on Elm Street, these types of paranormal elements began creeping into the even the most stalwartly traditional of slasher franchises. Jason became a zombie and fought a telekinetic Final Girl. Michael became the victim of a druid cult. And the Prom Night franchise got crossfaded with the movie Carrie and featured a magical prom ghost for two of its middle entries.

What a magical decade.

Centering the plot around a family returning home for the holidays is a good move. It keeps the Christmas spirit intact because it's firmly entrenched in the plot itself. This is a great benefit because Ricky no longer takes on his Santa persona and the number of Christmas-related kills is nil. Come to think of it, the number of actual kills is just about nil as well, considering that just about every death takes place offscreen. There are some brief, half-hearted gore shots (some intestines and a surprisingly decent-looking severed head), but they take place long after the fact and are entirely separate from the action of the moment. They're more like a brief series of grisly tableaux than actual special effects integrated into the film itself.

Because of the dearth of decent special effects and the lethargic pacing of the plot itself, the film perfectly captures the feeling of slowly drifting off to sleep. This may have been what they were going for, I suppose, but I do not feel willing to bestow the benefit of the doubt upon a horror film with such anemic, plodding scares. Even the attack scenes in the finale are staged with deliberate pacing and stuffy presentationalism like a particularly arid episode of Masterpiece Theatre. Not even the music is attempting to spruce things up, largely sitting out the big scenes, and filling the moments in which it does appear with a shrilly sustained pitch like a hyperactive dog whistle. In fact, one kill is literally accompanied by the sound of crickets.

Silent Night Deadly Night III is mostly not even bad-good, which is a register with which this franchise has proven itself very familiar, so it's quite a disappointment. It's merely a perplexing botchery of the cabin in the woods genre. The paranormal elements are ill-established and have no payoff (also, Granny is psychic enough to know when the phone's about to ring but not deduce that the silent man stolidly eating mashed potatoes at her dinner table with his brain exposed is about to kill her), the kills are limp dishwater, and there's not even any exploitation of particular interest. Although Chris' bathtub scene and prodigious pelt of chest hair are charming in a soothingly retro sort of way.

A cheapo exploitation horror movie that sees fit to include a bath scene, yet neither kills the characters nor has them bang is a thorough waste of time.

Never forget this image when you're watching evil Leo be evil in Twin Peaks.

The mystical pure 80's factor is present in enough of the film to keep the suitably historical-minded engaged despite the extreme defecits of the plot and presentation. It comes through with especial strength in scenes like the lieutenant extolling the virtues of his car phone, Jerri offering Laura a naturally carbonated water with a look of reverent wonder on her face, and the fashion. 

Oh, the fashion! Chris, on top of looking like an anthropomorphic mop, drapes himself with denim to the point where I can only assume his underwear is likewise blue and scratchy. And Laura's outfit for a large portion of the film seems to be of a fashion movement entirely unknown to me called "business witch." 

Also, her earrings are, like, totally righteous.

On top of this, there are several (well, one or two) actively good elements of the film, though they rear their heads too rarely to actively applaud. First, the director seems to be somewhat present, unlike the previous films, festooning the movie with little visual fillips that are in a realm somewhere adjacent to cinema. My favorite of these moments is when Ricky gets up from his hospital bed, represented by a close-up of his IV unhooking. It's inelegant, but it evokes an image and an emotional response, something desperately lacking by most of the other moments.

And Scully is a decent Final Girl (the first legitimate character of that type in the series). She can't scream worth a lick, but there's a few lines of dialogue that feel lived-in and warm. Eric DaRe is another standout, his chemistry with the other actors proving to be a vital element in not wanting to drown oneself while watching the film.

Would you look at that? I'm ending on a high note. Silent Night, Deadly Night III: Better Watch Out! certainly doesn't deserve it, but hey. It's Christmastime.

Killer: Ricky Caldwell (Bill Moseley)

Final Girl: Laura Anderson (Samantha Scully)

Best Kill: Dr. Newbury is stabbed in the gut and during his death scene (like 20 minutes later) we get to see his intestines. This is the extent of interesting visuals in the film.

Sign of the Times: Chris' badass gun-totin' one-liner is "Is it live, or is it Memorex?"

Scariest Moment: Laura tries to rush out the door, but is blocked by Chris and Jerri coming back inside. It's.... not the scariest film I've ever seen.

Weirdest Moment: When a gas station attendant is off being decapitated, his girlfriend talks dirty through the phone on the desk.

Champion Dialogue: "Who said you had to be the world's champion blind orphan?"

Body Count: 11; not including a nurse who dies in a dream or a man whose eyes are pecked out by a bird on TV. Kills that appear in flashback footage from Silent Night, Deadly Night are in italics.

1. Ellie Chapman Caldwell has her throat slit.
2. Hospital Santa is killed offscreen.
3. Receptionist is killed offscreen.
4. Father O'Brien Old Man Kelsey is shot to death. 
5. PT Cruiser Driver is killed offscreen.
6. Gas Station Greg is decapitated offscreen.
7. Granny is hung offscreen.
8. Dr. Newbury is stabbed in the gut.
9. Jerri is stabbed in the chest offscreen.
10. Chris is choked with a shotgun.
11. Ricky is shot and impaled on a pool cue. 

TL;DR: Silent Night, Deadly Night III: Better Watch Out! is a boring sequel that keeps its best moments offscreen.

Rating: 3/10

Word Count: 1635

Reviews In This Series

Silent Night, Deadly Night (Sellier Jr., 1984)

Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 (Harry, 1987)

Silent Night, Deadly Night III: Better Watch Out! (Hellman, 1989)

Silent Night, Deadly Night IV: Initiation (Yuzna, 1990)

Silent Night, Deadly Night V: The Toy Maker (Kitrosser, 1991)

Silent Night (Miller, 2012)

Census Bloodbath: Creep In Heavenly Peace

Year: 1987

Director: Lee Harry

Cast: Eric Freeman, James Newman, Elizabeth Kaitan

Run Time: 1 hour 28 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

I know it's December 26th, but why let the Christmas spirit die so soon? Just like the implacable killers of yore, let the festive activities return to life as we explore the improbable sequel to one of the most notorious slasher films ever created: Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2.

The mere existence of this film is a fluke. After a massive controversy got Silent Night, Deadly Night pulled from theaters, a studio bought the film negative and took to a team of editors, asking them to create a new film from the existing material. The editors asserted that this was pretty much impossible and suggested that they instead create a new framework storyline and use the existing footage as flashback material. They were given the studio's blessing along with a modest sum of money and thus Part 2 was born.

It is not, as you can imagine, a masterpiece.

This film was not the first film to use this gimmick, nor was it the last, but the fact remains that the first 45 minutes are just a parade of recycled material given the framework of Ricky (Eric Freeman), the younger brother from the first film, telling a psychiatrist (James L. Newman) about his older brother's killer Santa exploits. In a way, it kind of works. This sequence is just a TL;DR Cliff's Notes version of the original film full of rapid-fire kills, trimming the fat away from the pacing. Because of this hack and slash approach, much of the rapey nastiness of several sequences is also toned down, and you will never hear me complaining about a deficit of rapey nastiness.

The problem is that people who haven't seen SNDN won't really be able to make sense of the mishmash storytelling - the doctor himself doesn't even seem to completely follow. Given the fact that the character of Ricky is only in like twelve seconds of the first film, there's far too much time devoted to moments he couldn't possibly have known about and a lot of the character development is thrown out the window. Some names are changed too, but I'm not going to fly into a nerd rage about a Christmas slasher franchise, I'm really not. It's bad for the heart. But the flashback material inadequately coheres with the rest of the film, let me just give you that.

The other problem (you'll soon find out that this film is comprised of almost nothing but problems) is that those who have seen the film won't need to see these moments again. No new context is given for the recut footage other than a slightly shifted perspective. But the difference between "I killed 9 people" and "my brother killed 9 people" is too subtle a distinction for a film so hamhanded as this. The pacing of these scenes occasionally improve upon the original, but my best suggestion for watching this sequel is to wait a year after the first one before you pop this baby in, so the events of Silent Night, Deadly Night have faded from your mind and you won't be bored to tears, but you'll have enough prior knowledge to fill in the gaps.

Once this segment ends and the film proper begins rev into gear, the film idles as it finds itself in the middle of an entirely new story about Ricky's murderous Christmas exploits avenging his brother (tossed in among copious murderous flashbacks in which the color red triggers Ricky like a yuletide bull). This reset throws a wrench into the already ropy pacing, but it's merely a brief catch. It's like blowing bubbles through a trumpet (don't ask). The soap has to twist and wind its way through the pipes, then it has to pause for a moment, building strength before it can bloom into a decadent, messy spectacle of iridescent beauty.

This is just the calm before the storm, buddy.

Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 is bad. Damn bad. Don't let anybody try to convince you otherwise.  But it's the kind of pristine, gaudy piece of crap that keeps me watching these things. Many people are familiar with the Garbage Day scene thanks to its popularity as a viral YouTube sensation, but not even the vile depths of the Internet can prepare one for the movie theater scene (in which Ricky and his girlfriend Jennifer - Friday the 13th Part VII's Elizabeth Kaitan - go to the movies to see Silent Night, Deadly Night) or the jumper cable scene. Or the doctor commenting on the flashbacks like he's watching a movie ("It's fairly obvious where he was going."). Or the evil Charlie Brown music, the aged Mother Superior (Jean Miller) covered in boils, and the car crash meet cute. Or the anything. It's the gift that keeps on giving.

But all of these treasures would be nothing without Eric Freeman as the centerpiece. His elaborate, eyebrow-wiggling, non-acting is essential viewing for the bad movie fanatic. He's the whole package. Freeman is built like a brick house, which beefs up his rather chaste lovemaking sequence considerably. His laugh is practically a paternity test proving that he is responsible for Tommy Wiseau. And when his eyebrows aren't smugly waggling with every syllable like they're in the process of being electrocuted and trying to escape from his face, he delivers his lines like a concrete slab spitting out granite pebbles.

And he's one of the better ones. While Eric Freeman is busy performing like he's overdosing on Botox, the sparse sets and too-showy supporting actors do nothing to convince that this isn't merely a very long, very festive porn intro.

That takes some very dark turns.

There are only two actively good elements of the film, and neither are particularly commendable outside of the slasher grading curve. First, the victim of sexual assault in this film is not punished for being assaulted, which instantly makes this film less nasty-minded than its predecessor. Second, the kills are a cornucopia of cheesy, campy fun. Umbrellas, jumper cables, magnetic tape, and just about every part of a car are used to destroy unwary wrongdoers. Even when Ricky gets a gun (typically the signal for the most boring part of a slasher film), the kills are strange and creative enough to deserve praise.

But in spite of its tentatively positive and bad-good elements, Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 is bogged down by an enormous lack of technical distinction. The editing is choppy, the camerawork is surprisingly ambitious but low quality, and the film as a whole suffers for it. It's not dissimilar enough from the legitimately quite good original film (it shares its atonal structure and lack of a traditional Final Girl - oh, and about 45 minutes of footage) to feel like its own being and the parts that aren't original are fun but can't be called "good" cinema under any circumstances, at least if I want to remain un-excommunicated from polite society.

It's a fun flick with some bat guano crazy moments, but it's a terrible double bill with the original film. But while it fails in its sequel duties, it's technically not even supposed to exist in the first place so I suppose it can be forgiven. Despite its problems, I'm glad we exist in a world where a film like this can happen.

Killer: Ricky Caldwell (Eric Freeman)

Final Girl: Sister Mary (Nadya Wynd), but not really

Best Kill: A vicious loan shark is impaled with an umbrella which then opens, covered in his guts.

Sign of the Times: Jennifer's ex-boyfriend, Chip (who stood her up, cheated on her, and ruined her best sweater), looks like Billy Idol got hit by a van full of yuppies in the middle of bleaching his hair.

Scariest Moment: While watching a movie, a man leans over to his friend (played by cameoing director Lee Harry) repeatedly to make comments, only to discover that Eric has taken his seat.

Weirdest Moment: Ricky sees a man taking out the trash, shouts "GARBAGE DAY?!" and shoots him to death.

Champion Dialogue: "You tend to get paranoid when everyone around you gets dead."

Body Count: 24; Not including Ricky, who is given a traditional "killer's still alive" shot, or the toy Santa, snowman, and televisions set that are unceremoniously axed. The kills that appear in footage from Silent Night, Deadly Night are in italics.

1. Jim Chapman Caldwell is shot to death.
2. Ellie Chapman Caldwell has her throat slit. 
3. Andy is hung with Christmas lights.
4. Pamela is gutted with a box cutter.
5. Sims is hit in the head with the back of a claw hammer.
6. Helen is shot in the back with a bow and arrow. 
7. Denise is impaled on deer antlers.
8. Tommy is thrown through a window and impaled on the glass. 
9. Mac is beheaded with an axe while sledding.
10. Father O'Brien Old Man Kelsey is shot to death.
11. Officer Barnes is axed in the chest.
12. Billy Chapman Caldwell is shot to death. 
13. Eddie is run over repeatedly with his own car. 
14. Rocko is impaled with an umbrella, which then opens.
15. Loudmouth Moviegoer is killed offscreen.
16. Chip is electrocuted with a jumper cable on his tongue and his eyes explode.
17. Jennifer is strangled with a car antenna.
18. Cop is shot in the head with his own gun.
19. Complaining Neighbor is shot.
20. Garbage Neighbor is shot.
21. Driving Man crashes his car and it explodes.
22. Doc Henry is strangled with magnetic tape. 
23. Charity Santa is killed offscreen.
24. Mother Superior is decapitated with an axe. 

TL;DR: Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 is insane and inadequately differentiated from the first film, but full of fun campy moments like strange stocking stuffers.

Rating: 6/10

Word Count: 1631

Reviews In This Series

Silent Night, Deadly Night (Sellier Jr., 1984)

Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 (Harry, 1987)

Silent Night, Deadly Night III: Better Watch Out! (Hellman, 1989)

Silent Night, Deadly Night IV: Initiation (Yuzna, 1990)

Silent Night, Deadly Night V: The Toy Maker (Kitrosser, 1991)

Silent Night (Miller, 2012)

Census Bloodbath: All Is Calm, All Is Fright

Year: 1984

Director: Charles E. Sellier, Jr.

Cast: Robert Brian Wilson, Gilmer McCormick, Toni Nero

Run Time: 1 hour 19 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Merry Christmas, everybody! If you celebrate the holiday, I hope you have a great time ignoring your family to read this review. If you don't, hopefully a festive slasher feels enough like counter-programming that you'll stick around anyway. I oh so adore holiday horror, and the Christmas season is rife with gaudy gruesome flicks filled with puns like Santa's Slay, Black Christmas, Satan Claus, Santa Claws, The Gingerdead Man, and so many others that you would require a small nation's entire output of boxes and wrapping paper to slip them under the tree.

One of the most notorious of these titles is Silent Night, Deadly Night, the poster for which caused a national uproar as anxious mothers picketed and petitioned against its depiction of Santa Claus as an axe murderer. The upset was so thorough that Siskel and Ebert (who never shied away from declaiming splatter movies like a pair of tetchy schoolmarms) publicly shamed the crew by name on their show. After only two weeks, the film was pulled from theaters and thus a legend was born.

Obviously, those of us in the horror community will vehemently seek out any film decried in the public media, pushing implacably forward like the Terminator until we finally have a chance to view it. The thing about Silent Night, Deadly Night that sets it apart from many other shamed fright flicks is that it's actually pretty decent. It's by no means the best slasher ever made. It's not even the best slasher released on that day. But it's a gruesome holiday treat that, while it can be a tad mean-spirited from time to time, embraces the humor and fun present in the scenario and mixes it with some surprisingly affecting shocks.

Also the angry moms let the psycho santa flicks To All a Goodnight and Christmas Evil slip right by them four years previously, so let us never say that angry reactionaries are accurate and rational human beings.

The tale of Silent Night, Deadly Night begins with an extended, bifurcate prologue depicting the development of a young boy named Billy (played by Jonathon Best at Age 5, Danny Wagner at Age 8, and Robert Brian Wilson for the remainder of the film) and his fear of Christmas. After an ominous warning from his comatose grandfather (Will Hare) on Christmas Eve, Billy watches as his parents are brutally murdered by a robber dressed as Santa Claus. He and his little brother Ricky (Alex Burton) are then sent to an orphanage run by nuns, where Mother Superior (Lilyan Chauvin) teaches Billy all about the consequences of premarital sex and the value of punishment.

Billy thus grows up believing Santa Claus to be some sort of avenging angel, punishing the naughty with swift and brutal death. When he turns 18, the kindly Sister Margaret (Gilmer McCormick) helps him get a job as a stock boy at a toy store run by Mr. Sims (Britt Leach) and Mrs. Randall (Nancy Borgenicht of Halloween 4). He nurses a crush on pretty cashier Pamela (Toni Nero) and reluctantly works alongside the foulmouthed, penis-peddling Andy (Randy Stumpf). When the guy they hired to be Santa during the Christmas season calls in sick, Billy is chosen to don the outfit on Christmas Eve and after a couple drinks and a little provocation in the form of Andy nearly raping Pamela in the back room, Billy finds his personality completely subsumed by Santa's and goes on a merry killing spree.

As he wanders around the town murdering the naughty, Sister Margaret and Officer Barnes (Max Robinson of Halloween 5) attempt to track him down and protect Mother Superior and the kids at the orphanage. That's quite a lot to chew on for a 79-minute film, so for that reason the whole thing adopts a brisk pace that never lets up, save for the very end.

How is it possible to be bored with so many bosoms and axes afoot?

There's only one resolutely Christmasy death (Andy is hung with a string of lights), but in every set the halls are decked with holiday cheer, providing an ironic twinkling backdrop for the fairly decent slasher mayhem. At least in the unrated cut, there's plenty of drippy blood and unnecessary topless scenes to keep the slasher engine running well into the night until not a creature is stirring.

The cheesy music (although all the songs are Christmas-themed, the 80's can't resist poking its head in and the arrangements sound anywhere between the Cheers theme song and what can only be described as reggae electrosynth caroling) and the flop-sweaty exploitation (there's more boobs in this film than wreaths, and we're delivered this cheerily inane line as a couple makes out on a pool table: "2 ball in corner pocket.") are enough to keep spirits high, but it must be said that some scenes are a little tough to stomach.

Although thankfully no rape occurs during the course of the film, there are several protracted scenes that, if allowed to continue, would have gone all the way. Plotwise, this is ostensibly to trigger Billy's buried memories, but moviewise, it leaves a layer of grime caked over the whole thing that isn't entirely eradicable. But there are enough gritty or tense moments that play in that register and succeed (the robber Santa, for one, and the grandfather's stern admonition) that it evens out the rougher ones and allows Silent Night, Deadly Night to tend to be more frightening than the average slasher flick.

And who doesn't love creepy nuns?

The mostly smooth pacing gets a little wonky when the third act culminates in a race-to-save-the-day police thriller atmosphere, but it's still got plenty of camp involved that keeps interest up. One of Billy's favorite activities is to leap out of nowhere and scream "PUNISH!" while brandishing an axe, and if that's not the funnest thing to watch even 45 minutes later, maybe this film isn't for you.

Silent Night, Deadly Night is unique because of its in-depth look into the mind of a slasher villain, justifying his fervent opposition to promiscuity (because, let's face it, Jason and Michael might as well be the Virginity Police) and even grounding the campy Santa costume in some semblance of psychological reality. This is the most thoroughly thought-out holiday horror vehicle of the decade, and the fact that it is capable of giving the jitters is just one huge stocking stuffer.

There's no traditional Final Girl, mask, or filmic structure, but Silent Night, Deadly Night is a slasher for the ages. Its nastiness and uneven quality prevents me from unconditionally loving the thing, but when you're penning your letter to Old Saint Nick, it might do you well to include this DVD on your list if you're so inclined.

Killer: Billy Chapman (Robert Brian Wilson)

Final Girl: Sister Margaret (Gilmer McCormick)

Best Kill: Classic Scream Queen Linnea Quigley is impaled on one of those wall-mounted deer heads. Topless, because that's how the 80's worked.

Sign of the Times: Young Billy is punished with a truly unfortunate mullet.

Scariest Moment: Billy's catatonic grandfather bursts to life when they're alone together and warns him about the dangers of Santa Claus before laughing hysterically and slipping back into his stupor.

Weirdest Moment: When he meets a little girl who has done nothing naughty, Billy rewards her with a bloody box cutter.

Champion Dialogue: "Are you having a religious experience or did you pee your pants?"

Body Count: 13; not counting a snowman that gets decapitated.

1. Convenience Store Clerk is shot to death.
2. Jim Chapman is shot to death. 
3. Ellie Chapman has her throat slit.
4. Andy is hung with Christmas lights.
5. Pamela is gutted with a box cutter.
6. Sims is hit in the head with the back of a claw hammer.
7. Mrs. Randall is shot in the back with a bow and arrow.
8. Denise is impaled on deer antlers.
9. Tommy is thrown through a window and impaled on the glass.
10. Mac is beheaded with an axe while sledding.
11. Father O'Brien is shot to death.
12. Officer Barnes is axed in the chest.
13. Billy is shot to death. 

TL;DR: Silent Night, Deadly Night is uneven and a little nasty, but it's a fun slasher with a heaping helping of Christmas cheer.

Rating: 7/10

Word Count: 1403

Reviews In This Series

Silent Night, Deadly Night (Sellier Jr., 1984)

Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 (Harry, 1987)

Silent Night, Deadly Night III: Better Watch Out! (Hellman, 1989)

Silent Night, Deadly Night IV: Initiation (Yuzna, 1990)

Silent Night, Deadly Night V: The Toy Maker (Kitrosser, 1991)

Silent Night (Miller, 2012)