Reviewing Jane: I Am Half Agony, Half Hope

In which we review every film adapted from or inspired by the works of Jane Austen.

Year: 2004
Director: Beeban Kidron
Cast: Renée Zellweger, Colin Firth, Hugh Grant
Run Time: 1 hour 48 minutes
MPAA Rating: R

As you may remember, the original Bridget Jones's Diary was ostensibly based on Pride and Prejudice, a connection I found dubious considering that naming a character Darcy doesn't mean you've read Jane Austen. But three years later came Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, which was even more ostensibly based on Austen's final novel Persuasion. Time to repeat the refrain. Having a couple get back together after a period of time doesn't. mean. you've. read. Jane! Freaking! Austen!

But people aren't exactly out here adapting Persuasion left and right, so we take what we get with this one.

So the film opens on Bridget Jones (Renée Zellweger) happily in love with Mark Darcy (Colin Firth), but because she is an insecure mess who's incapable of holding a cogent thought in her head for more than two seconds without going ballistic or falling into a mud puddle, of course this goes terribly wrong. It would appear that Mark is having an affair with his secretary Rebecca (Jacinda Barrett), and her anger is fueled by the fact that she expected a proposal that never happened (six weeks into this relationship, mind you) so she dumps him and throws herself into work, a travel show that brings her into close context with her misogynistic ex-boss/ex-lover Daniel (Hugh Grant).

A love triangle almost ensues.

Roll credits!

Is it clear I didn't like this movie? If not, allow me to highlight my point further. A lot of the problems inherent to the original Bridget Jones are alive and well here, to the point that the rigorously anti-funny opening scene is repeated beat by exhausting beat. Come to think of it, the clumsy third act climactic fight between Grant and Firth is also repeated in full.

And do we get another scoop of terrible gay jokes dumped on top of the script? You betcha! And this time we're taking down history's iconic artist Michelangelo by calling him a "poof," because it's fun when you slur titanic cultural figures and reduce them to their sexuality, something which would have been highly dangerous to openly exhibit at the time yaaaaaaay! Oh, and how could we not be racist to huge swaths of the Asian population and use an entire foreign country and its people as a prop to further along a white woman's romantic journey?

Oh and you know we're not going to be able to escape the gags about the beautiful Zellweger being a fat pig who deserves to be mocked by everyone in her life and the public at large! For a movie squarely intended to land in the "chick flick" category, Bridget Jones sure just hates women. It's exhausting!

Good thing Colin Firth has almost exclusively played gay from this point on, because this just isn't working for him.

The sad thing is, this is actually a major improvement over the first film all things considered. Director Beeban Kidron (who also made the terrific To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar) actually knows how to shoot a movie, and the rich fantasy life that Bridget leads actually is incorporated into the visual schema in ways the original movie only sporadically attempted to. Her thoughts take the form of text and images inlaid onto the screen or transposed onto signs and buildings in real life, and it creates a lush bedrock of imagery upon which this crap sandwich is plated.

Also a plus, Hugh Grant is barely in this movie. I have nothing against the man himself, but his character is such a toxic despicable presence that his reduced screentime also slashes the proportion of this movie's most severely hateful and outdated humor.

This absolutely isn't a movie I'd recommend. To anyone. But if somehow you have a stomach of steel and enjoyed the original film, this one will give you more of the same, but with a little more focus and intentionality, and I guess that might be a good thing.

TL;DR: Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason is a massive improvement on the original, but that one was terrible so that makes this one only OK.
Rating: 4/10
Word Count: 722
Reviews In This Series
Bridget Jones's Diary (Maguire, 2001)
Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (Kidron, 2004)

Other Films Based on Persuasion

Persuasion (Michell, 1995)

Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (Kidron, 2004)

Persuasion (Shergold, 2007)

Reviewing Jane: What A Shame, For I Dearly Love To Laugh

In which we review every film adapted from or inspired by the works of Jane Austen, as I read through her extended bibliography for the first time.

Year: 2001

Director: Sharon Maguire

Cast: Renée Zellweger, Colin Firth, Hugh Grant

Run Time: 1 hour 37 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

When I announced that I would be doing a marathon of films inspired by the works of Jane Austen, I had quite a few friends eagerly ask if Bridget Jones's Diary would be included. And of course it would be! The famous British rom-com, based on the bestseller by Helen Fielding, is notoriously a riff on Pride and Prejudice, because people who love Jane Austen still haven't read more than the one book apparently. I was excited to finally catch up with this film, which is one I had never seen until this point. But as we shall learn, apparently I was in the right to postpone it as long as possible.

Pictured: Me, rightfully, hiding from this franchise.

In Bridget Jones's Diary, a thirtysomething "singleton" named Bridget Jones (Renée Zellweger, adopting a superbly flawed British accent) begins a diary for New Year's, documenting her efforts to lose weight, drink less, and find herself a man. While the diary is obvious an important framing conceit for the novel, it's more or less completely forgotten after a couple scenes, after two men almost instantly throw themselves at her. The first being her boss Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant, who also appeared in Sense and Sensibility), a charming rake who between this and Love, Actually is the king of British rom-coms about inappropriate office relationships.

The second man is a divorced lawyer, Mark Darcy (Colin Firth, and did you know he played another prominent Darcy? I don't remember in what, but it definitely rings a bell...) with whom she has a terrible first impression. And that's about it. The two men orbit her as she gets drunk repeatedly and makes a fool of herself, and eventually she ends up with one of them. 

Because the love triangle between Wickham, Lizzy, and Darcy is TOTALLY the thing one thinks of first when one remembers Pride and Prejudice.

OK, first things first. Naming a character "Darcy" does not a Jane Austen movie make. There is no attempt at lining this story up with the original text beyond the idea that it's possible to fall in love with someone even if they don't seem particularly nice at first. It's an even lazier adaptation than Unleashing Mr. Darcy, and that was a Hallmark movie about dog shows, for shit's sake. No, much more than Jane Austen, this film reminds me of a text from a different titanic literary figure: Roger Ebert and his tome I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie.

Sifting through the elements of Bridget Jones's Diary that make it a colossal irritant is a Herculean task, but let's throw a dart and pick an element at random. Like, say, the soundtrack, which at every turn makes the most immediately obvious choice like a Suicide Squad for the on-the-couch-with-Ben-and-Jerry's set. We begin with the requisite needle drop of "All by Myself," the anthem of single people in rom-coms, but "It's Raining Men," Aretha Franklin's "Respect," and two separate instances of "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" likewise flog subtlety to death. And then a scene with Bridget's mom is scored by "Me and Mrs. Jones" and you snap the DVD in half and throw it out the window.

This movie is marred at all levels by a complete lack of creativity. Plot beats so predictable you can convince your friends you're Nostradamus? Check. A character we're supposed to believe is "fat" and undesirable even though she weighs less than anybody you've seen all day? Check. A sexless and encouraging gay best friend (James Callis of Austenland, the only Austen connection this movie wasn't trying to milk for all it was worth, if only because the film hadn't been made yet)? Check.

What was Colin Firth's motivation for being in this movie? Check.

Bridget Jones is dramatically inert, with the men in her life not so much causing conflict as jockeying into position at the random whims of the screenwriter, one after the other. It doesn't help that Grant and Firth are both coasting entirely on their established screen personas and not locking into anything actually compelling or interesting about their characters on paper. The single biggest moment of tension in the movie involves Darcy running out on Bridget after reading her diary, a moment of drama more forced and drummed-up than a Bachelor promo on ABC which deflates within seconds in service of a "romantic" explanation featuring behavior that no human being on Earth would consider appropriate.

But the real problem is that the film is also comedically inert. The two biggest joke setpieces involve the most ludicrous contrivances just as a launchpad for aimless jokes with flabby, cliché punchlines (the most egregious being a party where the women are meant to dress like tarts, only the theme changed at the last minute so Bridget is dressed very sexy at what is now a genteel garden party - somehow this is shocking to a group of people who were perfectly willing to dress like tarts to begin with, if only the theme hadn't changed). The "humor" otherwise leans on its R-rating to do the heavy-lifting, scattering pointless F-bombs in every direction.

And this is a comedy movie from 2001, so of course there are the obligatory casual racist jokes and weird sexual assault overtones. Hooray!

Maybe this could all have been salvaged if the protagonist was in any way worth rooting for. While Renée Zellweger does her best despite drowning in that accent (in fact, I think she must be the only reason anybody liked this movie in the first place), Bridget Jones isn't a relatable mess. She's an abhorrent prick who drinks like a fish, misreads every possible social cue and rule of decorum, spits out homophobic insults, and makes sure she's the victim in every situation, even if she's the one who orchestrated her own downfall.

This movie was a real trial to get through, is what I'm saying. The only redeeming quality I can think of is that there's one point where her diary entries are displayed on the neon signs in Piccadilly Circus, a clever visual cue that reminds one of just how flat and boring the rest of the movie looks. So no. Not a good time, my friends.

TL;DR: Bridget Jones's Diary is a tedious, irritating lurch through the most odious rom-com tropes.

Rating: 2/10

Word Count: 1102
Reviews In This Series
Bridget Jones's Diary (Maguire, 2001)
Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (Kidron, 2004)

Other Films Based on Pride and Prejudice
Pride and Prejudice (Leonard, 1940)

Pride and Prejudice (miniseries - Langton, 1995)
Bridget Jones' Diary (Maguire, 2001)
Pride & Prejudice: A Latter-Day Comedy (Black, 2001)
Bride & Prejudice (Chadha, 2004)
Pride and Prejudice (Wright, 2005)
Unleashing Mr. Darcy (Winning, 2016)
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (Steers, 2016)
Before the Fall (Geisler, 2016)
Marrying Mr. Darcy (Monroe, 2018)
Christmas at Pemberley Manor (Theys, 2018)
Pride, Prejudice, and Mistletoe (McBrearty, 2018)

Pride & Prejudice: Atlanta (Baraka, 2019)

Everything's Weirder In Texas

Year: 1994

Director: Kim Henkel

Cast: Renée Zellweger, Matthew McCounaughey, Robert Jacks

Run Time: 1 hour 35 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

In the days since the turn of the century, classic horror franchises have been rebooted left and right. Because of the increasingly bizarre and gnarled nature of 80's horror sequels and their withered early 90's fruits, a fresh start tended to be the only option for those interested in continuing a series. Friday made it through 10 films before getting the remake treatment, each more incomprehensible than the last. Nightmare cartwheeled its manic way through 7 and Halloween solemnly marched through 8 before they were swept up in the craze.

And what of Texas Chainsaw? That beloved 1974 Tobe Hooper magnum opus? The illegitimate spawn of that franchise only lurched their way through a scant 4 before crashing and burning in despair. The film that put the final nail in that coffin is the inoperably perplexing Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation, which would lay the series to rest until its ignominious resurrection in 2003.

After Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, I didn't think any single film could possibly be more incomprehensible and irritating than that entry's indiscretions in the face of continuity. I was dreadfully, horribly wrong. For, you see, The Next Generation begins in a terrible, putrid place and goes even further downhill with every minute that ticks by. But let's start at the beginning. That fetid, rotten, terrible terrible place...

High school prom!

Even worse, the classic "flash photos of a corpse" opening is recreated while a mom takes prom pictures. If there's a better way to smear feces all over the legacy of the original Texas Chain Saw, it's... well, it's the rest of the film.

After a prom sequence so brief it feels more like a Vine than exposition, four teens set off unnecessarily on a drive through the Texan wilderness. This slate of queasy Meat includes Heather (Lisa Marie Newmyer), a whiny, jealous girl with an obsession for the macabre; Barry (Tyler Cone), her boyfriend and an overwhelmingly colossal douche, the type of person who'll feel up his girlfriend's best friend right in front of her; Sean (John Harrison), a bland stoner; and Jenny (Renée Zellweger, the first of two inexplicable future celebrities in this turkey), a nerdy, virginal waif with the personality of a paper bag.

This is all established with dialogue as subtle as a meat hook, including - I wish I was kidding - "everyone knows he's a pothead and you guys are just friends!" After they get into a crash in the woods (echoing TCM III, though once the movie settles comfortably into a groove, it opts for a beat by beat riff on Part One), the kids wander their way through the First Act - a veritable avalanche of teenybopper horror tropes.

Including, but not limited to every single character being so venomously obnoxious you actively root for them all to die.

The woods are so foggy, it feels like a forest fire is raging just offscreen, the soundtrack could be sold as Now That's What I Call 90's Alt Rock Garbage - Volume 5, and the only even semi-effective scare involves a plastic garbage bag blowing in the wind. I'd say it's a metaphor for this film, but that's not being particularly fair to the garbage bag.

So the friends get picked off and - shock of shocks - Jenny is brought to dinner with Leatherface and his new family. At this point I am reluctantly resigned to accepting the fact that every time a Massacre is finished, a new cannibal family sprouts around the chainsaw-wielding killer like kudzu. At least his Family of the Week is fairly easy to keep track of.

There's Leatherface (Robert Jacks), of course; W. E. (Joe Stevens), who incessantly quotes famous authors because why not, even deranged cannibals can pick up a library card; and Darla (Tonie Perensky) a trashy realtor who flashes passersby for kicks and is dating into the family to fulfill her monumentally kinky S&M desires with Vilmer (Matthew McConaughey, who has since endeavored with all his might to make you forget this fact), a crazed tow truck worker with a remote-controlled robot leg. I assure you that wasn't a typo, although I pray it started off that way when the script was being written.

This is pretty much what McConaughey will do to you if you bring up this film in mixed company.

Once the teens reach the house, the film kicks back in, repeating the scares and kills from Part One with voracity. One might think that director-writer Kim Henkel, the co-writer of the original film, would manage to provide some unique insight or twist on the formula, but one would be wrong. One must learn sooner rather than later that it is not wise to grasp at straws when it comes to horror sequels. Or else One will wallow in an endless swamp of bitter disappointment.

The second act is saved only by the efforts of McConaughey, who fully commits himself to the role with the then-unpolished but ample talent that would later earn him his Academy Award. He shines among his drab family and at least he draws attention from the least powerful Leatherface performance in franchise canon - Jacks all too frequently falls back on shrieking in terror in lieu of a physical performance. 

And, yes, Zellweger too has since won herself some accolades, but here she is a wet mop, though admittedly she does bring an Every Teen quality to her unconfident performance. But you know who is a fan of Every Teen? Nobody, that's who. Not even other teens.

Not even Cher. But she's just mad that Jenny stole her dress.

The set design is, in a word, depressing. Gone are the rooms filled with animal bones and macabre skeletal furniture in favor of... a few overturned chairs? This is a horror film, not the Big Lots showroom. And the makeup is disheartening. The 90's were a treacherous, neutered time for horror films in general, but one would think the designer could have provided Leatherface with a mask that looked less like a slice of bologna. And don't even get me started on the Grandpa makeup!

Oh yes, he's back, and undeader than ever!

The only viable comparison I have come across is this kid at the Days of the Dead convention whose head was too small for the Michael Myers mask, puckering it into an absurd smirk.

Behold, the face of true evil.

Luckily the third act ramps up the garish absurdity to 11 and snaps off the dial. Between the leg remote fight, the abrupt appearance of an Illuminati leader with three nipples who licks Jenny's face, and the prim elderly couple drinking Bloody Marys in an RV, this film has to be seen to be believed. I was told going in that the film was unpredictable, but it delivers far more ludicrous plot development than any film could possibly contain within the known laws of physics.

It's loud, messy, over the top, and Leatherface is decked out in Rosie O'Donnell drag.

I told you. Unpredictable.

But the sheer insanity of the whole thing is the only element of the entire film with a whiff of originality to it. The film's watchability owes a great debt to its camp factor (aside from the two pre-celebrities, nothing else recommends The Next Generation) as it skyrockets, aiming to top each and every moment with yet another and another and don't forget the cherry on top.

It's the film that killed the series, but I can't say it didn't do so in style. I couldn't possibly ask anyone in good conscience to watch The Next Generation, but at least it earns its keep as a delightfully bad romp through one of the strangest horror franchises in the annals of cinema history.

PS: It delights me to no end to think that somewhere out there, it was someone's job to provide the sound for Vilmer's robot leg as he whirred around the room. Hollywood is a beautiful place.

TL;DR: Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation is shrilly bad, but delectably wacky.

Rating: 5/10

Body Count: 6; not counting the copious audience brain cells that withered and died while watching this.

1. "I'm Not Hurt" Boy has his neck snapped.
2. Sean is run over repeatedly by a tow truck.
3. Barry is hit in the head with a mallet.
4. W. E. is hit in the head with a sledgehammer.
5. Heather is impaled on a meat hook, set on fire, and has her skull crushed with a robot leg.
6. Vilmer has his head split open with a plane propeller. 

Word Count: 1448

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, 2018)

Bee-Stiality

Year: 2007

Director: Steve Hickner & Simon J. Smith

Cast: Jerry Seinfeld, Renée Zellweger, Matthew Broderick

Run Time: 1 hour 31 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG

apiphobia (n) A prounounced, irrational fear of bees.

I suffer from apiphobia, largely thanks to the childhood trauma of having a swarm of bees take residence inside my living room window. Turns out that'll do it. So it makes sense that I would have avoided the 2007 Jerry Seinfeld vehicle Bee Movie like the plague, despite its invitingly dumb title. As it happens, I had nothing to worry about.

The bees in Bee Movie bear about as much resemblance to the real life insects as a stiff, chunky collection of polygons resembles a human being. I was handily provided this frame of reference by the film's animators, upon whom I will not lay blame for the pronounced lack of craft that Bee Movie displays, rather supposing it to be one of the conditions of the transaction between Mr. Seinfeld and the Devil that allowed the film to be made in the first place.

In addition to walking around light one soul, that is.

Before we dig in any more, let's keep in mind that this is a movie geared toward children. I am well aware that I, and likely you - being able to read and all - are not in the demographic for this film. Children's entertainment must be judged on a different scale, much as they are produced on a different scale, the measurement for which seems to be "children are just tiny poop bags with eyes, right?"

Speaking from experience as a former child, although their standards for entertainment do tend to be much lower, youngsters are still capable of conscious thought and preference development. While it is true that they may amused enough by the heightened performances and bright colors of a movie like this, it is no accident that - when called upon to pick out a movie to watch, they'll always go for a Disney release or maybe even Shrek and Ice Age before freaking Bee Movie.

Bee Movie is not a staple on home video shelves (Do those even still exist? Am I aging out of the industry already?) for several very good reasons, chief among them being that it sucks. But we're not here to spew vitriol. We're here to review a movie and review it we shall.

Sometimes my commitment to reviewing every film I watch feels less like a sprightly challenge and more like furious self-flagellation.

So, the (urp) plot of Bee Movie. Recent college graduate Barry B. Benson (Jerry Seinfeld, who does not once sound like anything other than the 53-year-old man that he is) is a bee with a problem. Once he picks a job, he's stuck with doing the same task every day until he dies. After [CONTRIVANCE OMITTED], Barry ends up outside the hive for the first time, where he meets human florist Vanessa Bloome (Renée Zellweger). He instantly falls in love because Bee Movie has a startlingly laissez-faire perspective on inter-species romance for a PG-rated film.

After his trip, Barry begins to question the necessity of dedicating his life to becoming a mindless drone, unlike his friend Adam (Matthew Broderick), who is totally down to clown with the whole "mindless drudgery until you expire" thing because [LIFE LESSON ABOUT HOW SACRIFICING YOUR BLOOD TO OIL THE MACHINERY OF CAPITALISM IS A GOOD THING OMITTED].

As if that wasn't enough blisteringly obvious yet powerfully unsettling conflict, Barry also decides to sue the human race for stealing honey from beehives across the world. Due to an unforeseen loophole in the legal system (Think about it - what does the Constitution have to say about bee rights? It's a shocking oversight.), he succeeds in getting the case to court. If you ignore the facts that the fate of the entire human race can't be decided in by one solitary American judge, that bringing a live grizzly bear into a courtroom isn't exactly airtight evidence, and that any human hospital would be litigated into oblivion for medical malpractice after replacing Adam's stinger with a used cocktail sword, Bee Movie... you know what, it still doesn't seem like a coherent film, my apologies for leading you down this long and treacherous path. 

And I didn't even mention the scene that directly references The Graduate, a dangerous maneuver for a film of this caliber, reminding us of one of the enduring classics of modern cinema.

It's telling that Bee Movie is at its best when making weapons-grade dad puns based on words like "buzz" or "sting" or (duh) "bee."At this unpretentious, sophomoric level, it is at least engaging. Unfortunately, the film has a ruinous ambition to be much more than its humble stature. The basic puns are rattled off fairly quickly in the opening scenes and the jokes begin to be reluctantly squeezed out with great effort, like the last bit of toothpaste in the tube.

The film sputters when it decides to make a loathsome drag queen joke, then both engines go out and it enters free fall during the scene with Larry King as a bee. Keep in mind there's not a lot of material there to begin with, but any numbskull could come up with a couple terrible monikers for this character. Larry Queen? Buzzy King maybe? Its repertoire of low-hanging fruit exhausted, Bee Movie couldn't muster the strength for a joke even that feeble. No, this character is merely called "Bee Larry King." No fuss, no muss, all atrocious. And this is cleanly at the halfway point.

The film's most lasting humor comes from Patrick Warburton as Vanessa's douchey boyfriend Ken. This is a microscopic accomplishment considering that you could leave Warburton in a room by himself with an in-flight magazine and a tape recorder and he'd leave you with something more worthy of distribution than the entirety of the non-Ken scenes in the film.

With the brief flashes of wit slowly trailing off as the film goes on, it's like watching a stand-up comedian bleed to death onstage.

Come to think of it, that might actually be more entertaining.

Did you think that "bleeding to death" joke was in poor taste? Don't. Bee Movie wouldn't mind, it contains far darker humor than that. So dark in fact, that my friends and I began keeping a body count as a gag, but found it rising in earnest until it reached a point even higher than my most recent slasher movie.

This is a movie (for kids - always remember this is for kids) in which death is a very real and present force, Barry battles a stockboy with a knife, later survives an attack from a makeshift flamethrower, and characters trade witty repartee about a suicide pact. And don't let me let a minute go by without mentioning that the human and the bee have an (admittedly chaste, but stunningly creepy) intimate relationship. It's children's entertainment as curated by Buffalo Bill.

I'm really not kidding about this movie, you guys.

I've already been mean enough to the animation, but I'd also like to take a brief moment to mention how Vanessa's hair moves like it's been frozen in carbonite and the character that is supposed to be Sting (of course he's in this movie) looks more like a half-melted Tussaud statue of Neil Patrick Harris.

What the movie lacks in humor, quality, and entertainment, it does not make up for in coherence. The plot skips from beat to beat like a drummer with one arm, never quite landing anywhere long enough to establish anything worth following, completely devoid of connective tissue.

You know that scene in heist movies where the leader goes through the plan and the audience is shown a brief montage of what each step will look like when it happens? Well, there's a scene exactly like that, except that's the entire span of the heist. The plot buzzes by so quickly, it's impossible to gain a foothold on what exactly is happening or why exactly we should care. And the mechanics of the universe are so dubious (a man can hear a bee clear its throat from yards away, honey farm workers regularly talk about what chumps bees are) that they become all you can focus on as your desperate brain searches for something with which to occupy itself.

Something other than this.

So, no. I did not like Bee Movie. It is a hyperactive waste, the cinematic equivalent of a kid downing twenty Pixie Sticks and telling a bedtime story. Also Chris Rock is in it for twenty seconds. I'm not exactly a fan, so please take this with the gravity it deserves - I wish his part in the movie was bigger.

It might be true that you catch more flies with honey, but who would want flies in the first place?

TL;DR: Bee Movie is a frenetic, wildly strange, exceedingly dark waste of time.
Rating: 2/10
Body Count: 11; and I'm only barely kidding. Although the human deaths are merely conjecture - the characters never reappear in the film - every insect death is 100% real.

1. A worker bee dies offscreen.
2. A janitor is electrocuted while screwing in a light bulb and falls off a ladder.
3. A cricket freezes to death in a car's AC duct. 
4. A mosquito is slapped in a dream.
5. Vanessa dies in a fiery plane crash in a dream. 
6. A ladybug dies on the windshield of a moving car.
7. A cockroach is flung from a car's antenna.
8. A bug is squished.
9. A princess falls off her float at the Rose Parade.
10. A copilot is beaten senseless with a magazine.
11. A pilot is smashed against the cockpit wall by an inflatable raft.  

Word Count: 1624

Archive: January 26, 2013

14 More Celebrities You Didn’t Know Were in Slasher Movies

I had a ton of fun writing my original list, but as I thought about it, I realized there were a lot of omissions that I had overlooked at the time in my haste to discuss Johnny Depp’s midriff. So now I present an addendum.

Read on in horror and see all your favorite stars slum it. Hey, you gotta pay your dues.

Round 1: Leatherface Double Take - The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Franchise

Viggo Mortensen

Famous for: The Lord of the Rings, A History of Violence, The Road

Skeleton in the Closet: Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III(1990)

Our dear friend Aragorn is the first of many now-famous stars to have rubbed shoulders with our friend Leatherface. His character’s name also wins the award for Least Effort Put Into a Pun in a Horror Film: Tex. True story.

Renée Zellweger

Famous for: Jerry Maguire, Bridget Jones’s Diary, Chicago

Skeleton in the Closet: Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation(1994)

This woman has won an Oscar for her performance in Cold Mountain.

This woman has dated Jack White.

This woman was once engaged to Jim Carrey (OK, maybe that one’s not so good to brag about).

And months before she hit the big time, she starred in this grubby little horror reboot that almost never saw the light of day.

Matthew McConaughey

Famous for: How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, The Lincoln Lawyer, Magic Mike, People’s Sexiest Man Alive 2005

Skeleton in the Closet: Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (1994)

Twist ending: He’s insane. 

Following Renée’s footsteps, McConaughey starred in TCM:TNG, became famous shortly afterward, and became the bane of Hollywood reporters before the invention of spellcheck.

He actually fought to keep the film out of theaters, effectively killing any slim chance it had to make money.

Jessica Biel

Famous for: 7th Heaven, The A-Team, Valentine’s Day

Skeleton in the Closet: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)

This one isn’t too embarrassing, the movie was actually pretty good, and it’s only Jessica Biel. But still, worth noting.

Matt Bomer

Famous for: White Collar, Magic Mike

Skeleton in the Closet: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006)

And instantly legions of teenage girls become Leatherface fans.

Round 2: Rap ‘n Slash - A Brief History of Rappers in Horror Cinema

Ice-T

Famous for: “O.G: Original Gangster”, “6 ‘N the Mornin’ “, “Colors”

Skeleton in the Closet: Leprechaun in the Hood (2000)

Ice-T stars as rap producer Mack Daddy whose success comes about by harnessing the leprechaun’s magical flute, which makes people appreciate rap music. I can’t believe I just typed that sentence. 

LL Cool J

Famous for: “Mama Said Knock You Out”, “Doin’ It”, “I Need Love”

Skeleton in the Closet: Halloween H20 (1998)

The Halloween franchise was getting pretty desperate at this point, already having retconned four films to bring back Jamie Lee Curtis, so it makes sense that they would use this kind of novelty casting.

Dirty little secret: The movie, directed by Friday the 13th: Part 2’s Steve Miner, is actually pretty darn good.

Busta Rhymes

Famous for: “I Know What You Want”, “Break Ya Neck”, “Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Could See”

Skeleton in the Closet: Halloween: Resurrection (2002)

Now this is desperate. Busta Rhymes stars as the obnoxious host of a web series who traps a group of teenagers in Michael Myers’ old house and broadcasts their brutal murders online. 

He seems like a standup fellow.

Honorable Mention: Tremaine “Trey Songz” Neverson, who appeared in Texas Chainsaw 3D (2013), earning him a place in both rounds 1 & 2. Unfortunately, his film is too recent to be considered for this category. Better luck next time.

Round 3: Bikini Death Toll - The (Not So) Final Girls

Tyra Banks

Famous for: America’s Next Top Model, The Tyra Banks Show

Skeleton in the Closet: Halloween: Resurrection (2002)

To top things off with what is one of the most awful movies in a franchise that previously featured the magic of Stonehenge turning children’s heads into bugs, Tyra Banks is here. She plays Busta Rhymes’ assistant, and isn’t even murdered onscreen. What a shame.

Amy Adams

Famous for: Enchanted, Julie & Julia, The Muppets, being perfect

Skeleton in the Closet: Psycho Beach Party (2000)

That’s her in the middle! Amy Adams is a gem in this quirky slasher sendup that’s actually pretty great. She is far too adorable to play her role, a sex-crazed vixen who tries to stab her best friends in the back and win the affections of Nicholas Brendon (whom she also appeared with in a season 4 episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer).

Katherine Heigl

Famous for: Grey’s Anatomy, Knocked Up, 27 Dresses

Skeleton in the Closet: Valentine (2001)

This was a good one. There’s some quality movies on this list, weirdly enough. At least on the very narrow adjusted scale of slasher grading. David Boreanaz (Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Angel) stars as the loveable alcoholic boyfriend, and Katherine Heigl is mowed down within the first ten minutes.

Not to be confused with the 2010 romantic comedy Valentine’s Day, although I’d love to see the look on that horrified Heigl fan’s face.

Round 4: OK Seriously? - These Guys?

Leslie Nielsen

Famous for: Airplane!, The Naked Gun series

Skeleton in the Closet: Prom Night (1980)

This actually happened. Nielsen is the fourth lucky star on this list to have worked alongside everyone’s favorite Scream Queen, Jamie Lee Curtis. If you don’t like Jamie Lee Curtis, you don’t exist.

In Prom Night, Nielsen plays the principal of the high school which is host to both the prom and a teenage blood bath. Did I mention he’s Curtis’s father? Glorious.

Also, be sure to check out the fantastically overlong dance breakdown in the middle of the film.

God, I love the 80’s.

Seann William Scott

Famous for: American Pie, Dude, Where’s My Car?, The Dukes of Hazzard

Skeleton in the Closet: Final Destination (2000)

Steve Stifler’s at it again in this zany teen comedy! After a botched European vacation, the Stiffmeister hangs around town with his wacky friends until he is abruptly decapitated by flying shrapnel.

David Copperfield

Famous for: being a magician

Skeleton in the Closet: Terror Train (1980)

Jamie Lee Curtis gets around. Terror Train is another entry on the list that is unexpectedly high quality. It might actually even be considered “good” in terms of actual real life movies.

Featuring a New Year’s train party/murderfest and about 10 minutes of David Copperfield alternately being creepy and showing off, Terror Trainperfectly sums up the slasher boom of the early 80’s.

In conclusion: Nobody is safe. One by one, the slasher genre will claim all of your favorite stars. You never know who might be next!

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