Don't Sweat The Small Stuff

Year: 2018

Director: Peyton Reed

Cast: Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Peña 

Run Time: 1 hour 58 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

So this is how the Marvel movie year ends, not with a bang but with Michelle Pfeiffer. A scant two months and change after Avengers: Infinity War ravaged theaters worldwide, we're getting Ant-Man and the Wasp, a wispy summer treat before the MCU goes dormant until 2019, giving us some much needed rest. In which time we'll be getting Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse, Teen Titans GO to the Movies, Venom, Aquaman, Hellboy, and X-Men: Dark Phoenix. 

Never say Hollywood doesn't try to capitalize on a trend.

So, we pick up nearly two years after the events of Captain America: Civil War (remember those? me neither). Ant-Man is on house arrest for violating the Sokovia Accords (yeah, I don't know), and he is three days away from being allowed to return to the world. Unfortunately, right about this time is when he discovers a quantum entanglement with Janet Van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer), the long-thought-dead wife of original Ant-Man Hank Pym (Michael Douglas). This reunites him with Hank and Hope Van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly, who for continuity's sake has to wear her original bowl cut wig in several scenes, causing me to giggle for about twenty minutes straight because I did not remember how stupid it looked and it really caught me by surprise), and they struggle to rebuild their relationship while figuring out how to rescue Janet from the quantum realm. I promise I reduced as much pseudo-science gobbledygook as I could from that paragraph. It was a Herculean effort.

While our heroes run through a video game-esque gauntlet of "Need Object A? Acquire Object B to gain access to Object C to get it," they must avoid the FBI officer Jimmy Woo (my boy Randall Park), the rogue tech black marketeer Sonny Burch (Walton Goggins), and Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), a girl whose particles keep expanding and contracting, allowing her to phase through objects, but keeping her in intense pain. She thinks she can cure her condition by sucking the science juice out of Michelle Pfeiffer, or something.

Though honestly, the pain seems like a fair trade for such a rad evil suit.

So far both Ant-Man movies have felt like a bit of a break from the MCU at large. The first one had a stronger separate core for its own story (namely, the heist element), whereas this one does have to deal largely with the implications left behind from a previous spinoff, but for the most part it's equally contained. The plot itself is a bit more sprawling, but it doesn't spill over into any other characters or plot lines, which is a welcome respite after the world-shattering character collisions of Infinity War  that required an MCU encyclopedia to get through.

And also much like the first one, there isn't a lot of meat on these bones. Anytime the story turns its focus to its feeble character drama, it becomes almost laughable. Lilly and Rudd's total lack of romantic chemistry exposes the mechanical artifice of the script. Whenever they exchange a glance or a kiss, you can hear the plot gears chunk into place. These things don't happen because they want them to, they happen because the narrative needs them to. The same goes for this film's wrinkle, the fact that Ant-Man's suit is a prototype and sometimes malfunctions, randomly changing his size at inopportune moments. But this happens only when its most convenient to the plot for a joke, and doesn't cause any major strife other than yet another one of the film's endless video game side missions.

"Alright, who ordered the plot contrivance?"

Honestly, I'd be more content if this was just a comedy about being on house arrest, because as usual the humor is by far the strongest element of the movie. The bulk of this is delivered by Michael Peña, who returns to once more prove that the entire movie lies in the palm of his hand, but we also, blissfully get an appearance by Randall Park. I've long been a proponent of Park, but this is the first side role he's gotten in a comedy where he really gets to shine, allowing his character's businesslike exterior and seriousness convert into awkward ineptitude and confusion at the drop of a hat. It's his best work in a long time, and he's always doing his best work.

Paul Rudd is of course on fire as well, but whenever he has to deal with Lilly and her bleating nothing of a character, he flounders a little bit. He flounders a lot bit during a scene where [SEMI-SPOILERS] he channels a woman's spirit into his body, which he plays like a high school freshman trying drag for the first time in drama class [SPOILERS OVER]. But come on. He's Paul Rudd. He acts his way back out of that paper bag over and over again. And then there's Michael Douglas, who at this point is just expensive window dressing. 

At least they fixed Hope's hair. This is an even bigger triumph than Jurassic World correcting Bryce Dallas Howard's footwear.

But even if the drama is firing on zero cylinders, the action is solid enough to provide a satisfying popcorn superhero romp. They really lean into our heroes' abilities to change size here, turning various small rooms and San Francisco cityscapes into wonderful Alice in Wonderland playsets, finding new, creative uses for everyday objects that is tremendously satisfying, even if it's not particularly groundbreaking.

Really, Ant-Man and the Wasp does what it needed to do. It provides us a (blissfully short, for one of these movies) two hours of distraction from the world outside (and, if you live near me, the blistering heat wave we got last Friday). It doesn't try your patience or test your brain in any way, it just lets you sink into a morass of fun, funny people doing spectacular things and not asking you to feel too much about it other than excitement. It won't go down in the pantheon of great summer movies, but it hits the spot, for sure.

TL;DR: Ant-Man and the Wasp is a forgettable popcorn movie, which is exactly what it needed to be.

Rating: 6/10

Word Count: 1048
Reviews In This Series
Guardians of the Galaxy (Gunn, 2014)
Avengers: Age of Ultron (Whedon, 2015)
Ant-Man (Reed, 2015)
Captain America: Civil War (Russo & Russo, 2016)
Doctor Strange (Derrickson, 2016)
Black Panther (Coogler, 2018)
Avengers: Infinity War (Russo & Russo, 2018)
Ant-Man and the Wasp (Reed, 2018)

Popcorn Kernels: Get To Da Choppa!

In which we review the Predator trilogy, because the forces of my life have conspired to make it a requirement to watch it. Keep an eye out for my Dread Central column and Geek K.O. podcast appearance, both about this franchise, both coming soon!

Predator

Year: 1987

Director: John McTiernan

Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers, Kevin Peter Hall 

Run Time: 1 hour 47 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

An elite military squad on a mission in the Central American jungle runs afoul of a bloodthirsty alien creature bent on hunting them down.

Predator sure is a boy movie, innit? This whole franchise has definitely been one of the biggest gaps in my genre film knowledge, and it probably stems all the way back to the fact that I didn't play with toy trucks as a tot. This movie is the cinema equivalent of a blue onesie patterned with footballs, assigning a great deal of meaning to the sheer act of existing as a biological male. We get doting closeups of biceps flexing during arm wrestling (mid-air arm wrestling I might add, the lamest way to go about that particular display), lots of sweaty yelling in sleeveless/fabricless/shameless military vests, and a whopping one female character who has maybe two lines.

You don't hire Arnold Schwarzenegger by accident. Predator knew what it was doing and it sure as hell went and did it. But I do have to say... The man certainly cuts a striking figure onscreen, but he's a liability the second he opens his mouth. And I'm not talking about his accent. Look, I super duper knew the man couldn't act, but watching Predator, it's not so much something you know as something you feel deep in your bones; a primordial, ancestral revulsion that leaves you quivering in your seat.

Simply put, Schwarzenegger is an enormous liability in this movie (in every sense of the word "enormous"). He has way too much dialogue that isn't quippy one liners, which he shoves out through gritted teeth like a constipated school principal. The rest of the cast is fine, although the only reason anybody but Shane Black is here is to wear a vest that shows off their biceps.

Honestly, I found Predator pretty boring. The non-action scenes are numerous and entirely indistinguishable. People mutter nonsense in an endless expanse of green jungle while walking around with machetes. It's not compelling visually or narratively, it just exists, in much wider swaths than one might hope. The action itself is totally fine though, especially when the gore quotient amps up about halfway through.

However, there is no denying that the Predator itself is an unholy triumph of monster-making ingenuity. Stan Winston sure as hell knew what he was doing when he put together the wholly inhuman look of the creature, both masked and unmasked. With the mask on, he cuts the figure of a space-age knight, and with it off he's an unnaturally fleshy collection of organic odds and ends that you just believe. That is the true triumph of Predator, and the reason the movie earned itself (god) five additional movies at this point. You don't get that without a cool monster, no way no how.

Rating: 5/10

Predator 2

Year: 1990

Director: Stephen Hopkins

Cast: Danny Glover, Gary Busey, Kevin Peter Hall 

Run Time: 1 hour 48 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

This time, Los Angeles!

Because L.A. is the urban jungle, geddit?

That's about as deep as Predator 2 ever gets, not really utilizing its arbitrary near-future setting to make much commentary other than "things is violent in the cities." Instead, we get a Predator film grafted onto a Lethal Weapon as Danny Glover stalks through the LA streets taking the law into his own hands when the titular extraterrestrial gets in the middle of a gang war that tears through the city streets. This is emphatically not a bad thing.

Sure, Predator 2 is stupid, but so is Predator 1, and at least this movie has a kick-ass lady cop with actual dialogue. This is probably the only time director Stephen Hopkins has actually improved a franchise, but I'll take it. Predator 2 is weirdly demure in its violence (the 90's were a rough time for gorehounds), but the action is varied and fun (an early street shootout has some delightful stunt car work), kicking up the energy with its loony antics. And the dialogue scenes benefit from actors with actual charisma, including the reliably weird Gary Busey and the sniveling worm that is every character Bill Paxton played in late 80's.

The Predator's weaponry has also received an upgrade, and although his invisibility booster is still annoyingly on-the-fritz (I understand he needs to be invisible for a long time because that's expensive as hell otherwise, but the brief glimpses we get of the Predator early on are annoyingly obvious audience pandering), his new space arsenal is a creative expansion of the universe of the first film. Here, the design team turns traditional hunting weapons like nets and spears into alien weapons of mass murderization, combining the primitive with the high tech in a satisfyingly brutal way.

As always, the Predator is the most important element of this film, and they do get it right. Sure, it's an empty 90's action flick, but that's a sweet spot for bad-good cinema, so you won't catch me complaining.

Rating: 6/10

Predators

Year: 2010

Director: Nimród Antal

Cast: Adrien Brody, Laurence Fishburne, Topher Grace

Run Time: 1 hour 47 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

A group of strangers find themselves fighting for their lives on a Predator hunting reserve.

Is Predator the only trilogy that improves as it goes along? OK, probably nobody would agree with me, but I've finally found an entry in this franchise that I like! Predators is a delightful popcorn thriller, dumping a fistful of character actors (also including Walton Goggins, Mahershala Ali, and Danny Trejo),  into a scenario that's part Cube, part Lost, and full of Predator mayhem. Yes, these folks are also randomly wandering through a jungle, but this time there's actually a mystery to solve outside of "what is shooting us with lasers?"

Predators throws a lot of bizarre, dime-store Annihilation imagery at its characters before it reveals what's actually going on (given the title of the movie, it shouldn't be too hard to figure out), and the dynamics of the characters as they're funneled through a gauntlet of sheer revulsion and terror is a fun way to spend the plotty bits. And the cast really is game for bringing these crude, one-dimensional characters to life. Goggins channels his skills at chaotic evil, Trejo does his Trejo thing, I actually really like Topher Grace and he turns in some solid comic relief, and Adrien Brody gains 25 pounds of muscle and dang if that isn't a good distraction from how boring his character is.

Predators does fall apart somewhere in the middle of the third act, where the plot starts taking twists and turns that come out of nowhere to jostle the movie off its track, then vanish without a trace. But before that it's a tremendously satisfying one-time watch. Its subtext about how all the human beings themselves are "predators" falls flat too, but I can't say I expected much to start with, and at least it's trying something.

Then there's the Predators themselves! The design of the new Super-Predator isn't a particularly inspiring piece of work, but for the most part the film uses improved CGI to smooth out the very few rough edges of the classic design, and this is the first movie where the Predator's heat vision isn't incredibly crude and annoying. You can actually see what the Predator is seeing instead of chunky blobs of red and yellow that you can assume are Arnold Schwarzenegger because the blob has biceps. 

All in all, Predators did it for me, and I'm not ashamed to admit that. At this rate, Predator 6: The Predating is gonna be an out-and-out masterpiece!

Rating: 7/10

Word Count: 1337

Reviews In This Series

Predator (McTiernan, 1987)

Predator 2 (Hopkins, 1990)

AvP: Alien vs. Predator (Anderson, 2004)

Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (Strause & Strause, 2007)

Predators (Antal, 2010)

The Predator (Black, 2018)

Census Bloodbath: G Is For Giggles

Today's Blogging From A to Z Challenge is a continuation of an old tradition - the return of Census Bloodbath! I've been meaning to get back to my bone-deep exploration of the 80's slasher genre and my new essay prompt about the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise is a great entry point.

Year: 1987

Director: Chuck Russell

Cast: Heather Langenkamp, Robert Englund, Patricia Arquette

Run Time: 1 hour 36 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors opens with a solemn Edgar Allen Poe quote, so you know Wes Craven had something to do with it. Slasher movies were never more literary than when ole W-Crave was around. And in fact, he did produce this film and write the story treatment, after sitting out the first sequel (which ended up having absolutely squat to do with the rest of the series but is pleasingly homoerotic).

Craven's presence means that this is pretty much the best Nightmare sequel until New Nightmare came around in the same year I did - 1994. Although his raw power was diluted somewhat by co-writer Frank Darabont (yes, this guy) and director Chuck Russell (who would direct my favorite 80's remake, The Blob), Dream Warriors is a delightful and clever script that introduces the new, more comedic, elements of Freddy's character while still maintaining a solid aura of horror.

As perfectly evidenced by this still of Freddy slashing Zsa Zsa Gabour.

This is the film where Freddy truly gains his black humor and affinity for puns. Although people certainly do like to remember the original Nightmare as a laugh riot, that kind of thing really didn't come around until this sequel. It's quite similar to how people view The Evil Dead through the filter of Evil Dead II. Casual horror fans have very poor memories, it seems. Although at least they're watching Evil Dead.

That's one of the really interesting thing about slasher franchises. The most memorable aspects of key characters don't usually come in until the third entry in two of the genre cornerstones. Freddy didn't get his puns until Dream Warriors and Jason didn't get his mask until Part 3: 3D. I suppose the filmmakers know they have to shake things up at some point and why not now? When you're two movies in and swimming in the dough, you have all the confidence in the world to twist a thing or two around.

Freddy's newfound sense of humor represents the turn to self parody that inevitably strikes long-running horror franchises. Jason didn't chime in until Part VI and Michael was late to the game with Halloween H20 in 1998. Chucky lost his edge with the fourth film, Bride of Chucky, and Prom Night figured it out with The Last Kiss. 

Because, at some point, the basic trappings of the slasher genre are picked clean and you can't pull the same characters out of the gate for the eighth time over and expect the same kind of magic. The always intelligent Craven knew this and so he turned his bright eyed demon of the night into a clownish huckster, still a dark figure, but one whose work is immensely fun to watch. Freddy would eventually beach himself as the humor dried up during three more installments, but the clever sparkle is what helped teen horror fans fall even more in love with the character.

Either that or they're fans of phallic imagery. Come to think of it, maybe it's the second thing.

But anyway! The movie!

Our Meat this time around is a group of teens who are in a mental hospital due to insomnia-related illnesses and attempted suicide. What the doctors don't realize is that the injuries that they incur during the night aren't of their own doing, but rather the angry man with knives for fingers who haunts them every time they fall asleep.

The protagonist du jour is Kristen Baker (Patricia Arquette in her first film role), a spunky young blonde with the ability to pull people into her dreams, but her ragtag band of inmates includes Joey (Rodney Eastman, previously a featured extra in Chopping Mall), a kid who has lost the ability to speak due to Freddy-induced nightmares; Kincaid (Ken Sagoes, who I met at a convention. I am unhappy to report that he is a terrible, rude, cheap little man and as a result I perhaps unfairly hate his character), an angry young man who spends most of his time locked up alone in the "Quiet Room"; Taryn (Jennifer Rubin, who I also met and is lovely), a badass ex-heroin addict; Jennifer (Penelope Sudrow), a sweet young woman who wants to be a TV star; Phillip (Bradley Gregg), a marionette maker; and Will (Ira Heiden), a wheelchair-bound nerd who adores tabletop fantasy games.

With so many characters to keep track of, it's easy to see why it's a near impossibility that this film would have the terror and impact of the original. It's hard to fall in love with so many people at a time so, when they inevitably die, it has to be funny or else it's just kind of sad. Throw in the three-person hospital crew (One of whom is played by Laurence Fishburne. I'll pay you $500 dollars if you can sit through the entire movie without making a Matrix joke.) and add in a little Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp) to class up the proceedings, and you have a veritable parade of human flesh.

The return of Nancy, the Final Girl from the original film, is another huge benefit to the success of this sequel. Despite still being a remarkably atrocious actress, Langenkamp has a charismatic magnetism that makes you want to love her. And having a Krueger survivor in the mix deepens the mythology and allows for a character to learn from her mistakes in the past and use it to save a new generation of Final Girls.

 Basically, Wes Craven should write all sequels. He knows what's up.

Although the kids are thinly characterized, they each have a particular weakness that can be overcome in their dreams. For example, the wheelchair kid can walk again and gains the powers of a magical Dungeons and Dragons wizard. And the heroin addict is beautiful, bad, and powerful. The introduction of this element, that which lends the film its title, provides a powerful thematic through line as the teens battle Freddy on his own terms in Dreamland.

He uses their weaknesses against them (the celebrity wannabe is thrust into her TV set - "Welcome to Prime Time, bitch!"), but they must find the internal strength to overcome them by utilizing their dream skills. It's a tremendously fun battle to watch and it resonates with teens across the world as they battle their own personal demons. Theirs might not be a burned man in a battered fedora, but every high school problem feels equally as dangerous and deadly as Freddy's razor glove when you're the one living through them.

With such a powerful theme to hang its hat on, the film is a remarkable success at combining comedy and horror, typically the two hardest genres to mix - like oil and water. The gonzo special effects of the Dream World are also a huge draw, although it's clear that the budget was poured directly into their realization, leaving the real world sets looking thin, cheap, and a little worse for the wear.

And no matter how many times I watch and enjoy this movie, I still can't force myself to truly believe that Patricia Arquette turns in a good performance. But despite its flaws, Dream Warriors is a fun tour of the new Freddy and the absolute best of the comedic Nightmare films.

Killer: Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund)

Final Girl: Kristen Parker (Patricia Arquette)

Best Kill: Freddy rips out a sleepwalker's tendons and uses them as marionette strings to walk him off the roof of the hospital.

Sign of the Times: Half of the soundtrack is by Dokken. The other half is by Cyndi Lauper's synth falling down the stairs.

Scariest Moment: Freddy turns a drug addict's needle scars into gaping mouths and stabs her with his hypodermic claws.

Weirdest Moment: The backstory in which it is discovered that Freddy is quite literally the "bastard son of 100 maniacs."

Champion Dialogue: "In my dreams, I am the Wizard Master!"

Body Count: 6; Not including Freddy because come on.

1. Phillip has his tendons pulled out and is used as a marionette, falling off of the tower when Freddy cuts his strings.
2. Jennifer is shoved into a TV set.
3. Taryn is stabbed with Freddy's needle claws, overdosing on heroin.
4. Will has his heart ripped out before he can use his wizard powers to good effect.
5. Donald Thompson is impaled on a car fin.
6. [Nancy Thompson is stabbed in the stomach.] 

TL;DR: A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors is less powerful and character-driven than the original, but its sense of humor and special effects extravaganzas make it a truly enjoyable sequel.

Rating: 8/10

Word Count: 1507

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)

Archive: November 17, 2012

10 Famous Actors You Didn’t Know Were in Slasher Movies

Crispin Glover

Famous for: Back to the Future, River’s Edge, Charlie’s Angels

Skeleton in the Closet: Friday the 13th Part IV: The Final Chapter (1984)

That’s right, Marty McFly’s father was a victim in Jason’s third (and definitely not final) bloodbath. Released but one year before Back to the Future, F13 4 featured Crispin Glover as Jimmy Mortimer, the virginal nerd who suffers from a relatively unique party foul - death by corkscrew.

Also check out this scene from the movie in which he proves firmly that this movie is set in the 80’s.

Corey Feldman 

Famous for: Stand By Me, The Goonies, The Lost Boys

Skeleton in the Closet: Friday the 13th Part IV: The Final Chapter (1984)

This was one star-studded movie. Corey Feldman, one of the 80’s biggest child stars originated the role of Tommy Jarvis, the only character to defeat Jason three consecutive times - this kid’s a big deal. After witnessing Jason’s latest murder spree, Tommy pulls a Britney, shaving his head, and going after the big man with his own machete.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Famous for: (500) Days of Summer, Inception, Looper, The Dark Night Rises

Skeleton in the Closet: Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998)

Filmed during the height of his 3rd Rock From the Sun fame, indie darling Joseph Gordon-Levitt had a stint as bad boy hockey player (I know, right?) Jimmy Howell in this sequel to Halloween II (nevermind the fact that there were four installments to the series in between the two films). I don’t want to post a picture and run the risk of causing this blog to become R-rated, but let’s just say he has an ice skate rather unceremoniously jammed into his face.

Kevin Bacon

Famous for: Mystic River, Apollo 13, Footloose, Animal House

Skeleton in the Closet: Friday the 13th (1980)

Kevin Bacon’s character, Jeff the horndog camp counselor was one of the first people to learn that the health insurance plan at Camp Crystal Lake doesn’t cover being impaled with an arrow.

Laurence Fishburne

Famous for: The Matrix Trilogy

Skeleton in the Closet: A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors(1987)

Before Morpheus was committed to his quest to find The One who could defeat the Matrix, he was a sassy orderly at the Westin Hills Psychiatric Hospital in Springwood Ohio, caring for the last of the Elm Street children. It was a very challenging position that involved delivering medication, enforcing lights out policy, and trying to protect the kids from being carved up by a clownishly wisecracking Freddy Krueger.

Jason Alexander

Famous for: Seinfeld

Skeleton in the Closet: The Burning (1981)

HAIR. BASEBALL. In 1981’s little-known slasher gem, The Burning, our friend best know as George Costanza could be seen as the resident cool guy at Camp Stonewater before the teenage populace was hunted down one by one (and occasionally by the raftful) by the Cropsy killer.

Paul Rudd

Famous for: Clueless, The 40-Year Old Virgin, Role Models, I Love You, Man

Skeleton in the Closet: Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995)

Oh, the things I would do for this man. Paul Rudd starred as a grown up Tommy Doyle, the babysittee from 1978’s Halloween. This was the last movie in the series before installments 3 to 6 were retconned by Halloween H20. Side note: Evidently the key to surviving a horror movie if you’re male is to be named Tommy. Take notes.

Johnny Depp

Famous for: 21 Jump Street, Pirates of the Caribbean, all Tim Burton movies, Sexiest Man Alive 2003 & 2009

Skeleton in the Closet: A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

Also starring: Glorious Depp Midriff. Before his fame began by wearing pale makeup and funny hats, Johnny Depp played the sexually frustrated jock boyfriend of the main character, Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp). I bet she’s really regretting the fact that her character turned down his advances. Even though sex=death in these kind of movies, it’d probably be worth it.

Brad Pitt

Famous for: Thelma & Louise, Seven, Interview with the Vampire, Ocean’s 11, Fight Club, Sexiest Man Alive 1995 & 2000

Skeleton in the Closet: Cutting Class (1989)

Don’t watch this movie. Seriously, I tried. The light filtering is all off and it all looks grubby and terrible. However, it’s a fun slasher romp for any Brad Pitt completist.

George Clooney

Famous for: ER, Batman & Robin, Leatherheads, Up in the Air, The Descendants, Sexiest Man Alive 1997 & 2006

Skeleton in the Closet: Return to Horror High (1987)

It is probably worth noting that the only three men to have ever been voted People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive twice are all on this list.

Make of that what you will.

George has a small role as the actor hired for his looks who leaves the movie set, only to be brutally murdered in an abandoned classroom.

Bonus Actress: Vanna White

Famous for: Wheel of Fortune

Skeleton in the Closet: Graduation Day (1981)

Vanna White had a minor role in Troma’s slasher snoozefest Graduation Day. Although this movie has one of the more bizarre endings of any film of the time period, it drags due to an 8-minute long rockabilly/roller disco break, awkward pacing, and weak kill scenes. Not to mention that in nearly every shot she is seen in, Vanna White is facing AWAY from the camera.

The funniest part of the movie is actually the DVD intro on the anniversary edition in which Troma executive Lloyd Kaufman says that his hat probably fell off because “[his] head is too big from giving so much head.”

This actually happened.

Word Count: 963