Census Flashback: Skewing Younger

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

In anticipation of Solo: A Star Wars Story, which explores younger versions of characters you know and love, I'll be reviewing a movie that transposes last week's pick of The Phantom of the Opera into a teenage milieu. It's Phantom of the Mall: Eric's Revenge!

Year: 1989
Director: Richard Friedman
Cast: Derek Rydall, Jonathan Goldsmith, Kari Whitman
Run Time: 1 hour 31 minutes
MPAA Rating: R

The Phantom of the Opera musical was already about three years into its medium-defining run in 1989, so it makes sense that Hollywood would want to cash in on that ASAP. But that still doesn't excuse the fact that, even though the slasher subgenre was wheezing its death rattle, it used that precious last breath to cough out two rip-offs of that very same story. Last week we took a look at the chintzy and misguided Robert England period piece, but this week is an entirely different animal. Now Phantom of the Mall: Eric's Revenge is certainly chintzy and misguided, but there's still some spark that the po-faced straight adaptation lacks.

An actually handsome romantic lead doesn't hurt, either.

Phantom of the Mall positions itself as a mystery, but let's not pretend the plot is anything but straightforward and get the exposition out of the way that the movie wastes 40 minutes not telling you. The Midwood Mall - the brainchild of venal businessman Harv Posner (Jonathan Goldsmith, of two episodes of every 80's show you've ever heard of) and local mayor Karen Wilton (Morgan Fairchild, making her second Census Bloodbath appearance after the dreadful The Seduction) - has just opened up, bringing this small town into a world of economic opportunity. Well, for everyone except Eric Matthews (Derek Rydall), a presumed-dead teen whose family perished in a fire that just so happened to clear the plot of land the mall was built on. With a load of scars on his face, hate in his heart, and a Bowflex in his lair to give him that obligatory slasher villain murderstrength, Eric lurks in the underbelly of the mall vowing revenge on those who built it and taking down anyone who threatens his bereaved girlfriend Melody Austin (Kari Whitman of Masterblaster, a credit I'm sure she'd sooner have us forget).

Conveniently, Melody and her friends - the fashionplate Suzie (Kimber Sissons) and the goofball slacker Buzz (Pauly Shore) - have gotten jobs at the aforementioned mall where Eric is doing his phantoming. Oddly for a teen mall slasher, most of the victims are anonymous adult maintenance workers, but also on the potential platter of Meat are Harv's deadbeat greaser son Justin (Tom Fridley, who unforgettably played Cort in Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI), security guard Acardi (horror icon Ken Foree), and intrepid teen newspaper photographer Peter Baldwin (Rob Estes, a series regular on three seasons of Melrose Place, so my crush on him arrives 20 years later than the rest of the world), who has developed a bit of interest in Melody's horrible backstory, and a lot of interest in Melody's beautiful face.

Their love doesn't please Eric much, but really what does?

1989 slasher films don't tend to have a lot to offer in the field of gore, scares, creativity, acting, filmmaking, or reasons to exist, but there's one thing that they all have in common: an abundant supply of 80's cheese. The ridiculous fads and fashions that cropped up around the beginning of the decade had had many years to ferment, becoming as pungent and flavorful as possible in the process, and Phantom of the Mall has a delightful surplus of that excess. It also doesn't hurt that it's set in a mall, the ur-location of 80's cinema.

Everything in sight is a beautiful time capsule, from the music to the technology to the cast (see: Morgan Fairchild) to the outfits (see: Morgan Fairchild's oversized peach blazer that threatens to drown her in fabric). Although the slasher movie had long since run out of steam and couldn't deliver something you hadn't seen before, this was the perfect background onto which a film could regurgitate a decade of well-worn tropes and character archetypes.

Plus, even hough they lack creativity and even at times a coherent pool of victims, the kills - the counterpoint upon which any slasher must balance - are achieved with a crazed live-wire energy that more than makes up for the less than pristine gore. Most of these murders have a hilariously complex Rube Goldberg quality that calls to mind the best of the Final Destination franchise (one singular kill sequence involves a skateboard, a lasso, and an escalator), and their bizarre, unpredictable nature is captivating. Plus, lots of these moments are satisfyingly on-theme with their use of common mall objects and locations, and the ones that aren't are at least f**king bananas, like Eric planting a venomous cobra inside a toilet.

You know, like are found at your average mall pet store.

Basically, the entire theme of this movie is succeeding in spite of the limitations of being exactly what a late 80's slasher always was going to be. Those kills really are something, and they do tend to draw from a well of contemporary urban legend fears (the toilet snake, people! Not to mention the fact that Stranger Danger lurks around every corner here, with predatory men stalking the mall parking lot like it's a prison yard) that elevates them just slightly from typical slasher fare.

And when the movie really digs in, it goes nuts, splashing every dollar of its presumably modest budget right into your face. The third act pulls out all the stops in an orgy of 80's genre tropes, pulling from the best of the worst of horror, action, and soap operas of the time. There's a splashy car chase, a fight between the Phantom and one of the mall's many sex predators that involves at least a dozen spin-kicks, and a Dynasty-esque reveal involving Morgan Fairchild diva-ing it up in a sparkly dress. And there's literally a scene of someone jumping away from an explosion!

He's flying directly into the 80's slasher Hall of Fame.

As a campy, trashy experience, Phantom of the Mall is an especially epic good time. The ensemble of familiar character actor faces provides a reasonably reliable performance quality (Kari Whitman is probably the least recognizable of them, and for good reason, considering that she's by far the blandest presence in the film), the stupidity of translating Phantom into this milieu is wholeheartedly embraced, and the tropes it leans heavily on are some of my favorites. It's certainly no masterpiece, but for once a slasher movie has lived up to its epically ludicrous title, and that's not something to scoff at.

Killer: Eric Matthews (Derek Rydall)
Final Girl: Melody Austin (Kari Whitman)
Best Kill: There are a lot of fun elaborate kills here, but what could possibly beat a cobra rising from a toilet to bite a dude on the dick?
Sign of the Times: The arsonist the teens are hunting down looks exactly like George Michael, stubble, earring, and all.
Scariest Moment: Melody's sex dream about Eric turns into a hideous nightmare of fire and blood.
Weirdest Moment: Suzie finds an eyeball in her frozen yogurt.
Champion Dialogue: "He can ask me probing questions anytime."
Body Count: 9

1. Stanley is stabbed in the gut.
2. AC Repairman has his face shoved in a fan.
3. Devlin is crushed by a cart into a fuse box, electrocuting him until his eyeball pops out.
4. Piano Player is bit in the dick by a toilet cobra.
5. Justin has his neck snapped in an escalator.
6. Christopher is decapitated by a trash compactor.
7. Mayor Wilton is thrown out a window and impaled on a shard of glass.
8. Harv Posner is burned by a flamethrower and thrown onto propane tanks, which explode.
9. Eric perishes at the hands of his own bomb.

TL;DR: Phantom of the Mall: Eric's Revenge is a surprisingly delightful late entry in the slasher genre.
Rating: 7/10
Word Count: 1362

Census Bloodbath: Guten Morgan

Year: 1982

Director: David Schmoeller

Cast: Morgan Fairchild, Michael Sarrazin, Andrew Stevens

Run Time: 1 hour 44 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

When you're reviewing a Morgan Fairchild slasher movie, do you really need to go much further than the phrase "Morgan Fairchild slasher?" It's not good, folks. But oh, we do find ourselves in a pickle when David Schmoeller's name pops up on screen. Attention must always be paid to the director of Tourist Trap, even if the highest peak his career did ever manage to reach was Puppetmaster. So here we're stuck with The Seduction, an early entry into the erotic thriller genre that is neither erotic nor thrilling, so is it even a movie?

Unfortunately, it takes 104 minutes to prove that yes, in fact, it is.

The Seduction takes a very familiar tack to anyone who has watched early 80's porto-slashers as closely as I have. Los Angeles news anchor Jamie Douglas (Morgan Fairchild in her first feature film) has found herself a stalker in Derek (Andrew Stevens of 10 to Midnight), a photographer who seems to be her neighbor but the geography of the movie isn't exactly clear on that front. And thus does the movie announce itself as a Windows-esque obsession movie rather than an out-and-out slasher. Although he does torment Jamie with knives in tow, and she is reporting on a chain of serial murders that have literally nothing to do with the plot, the body count remains resolutely, frustratingly low.

Among the cast members that Derek refuses to kill are Jamie's best friend Robin (Colleen Camp in an early role), a struggling model and commercial actress with the greatest outfits ever designed by cocaine; her assistant Bobby (Kevin Brophy of Hell Night); and her boyfriend Brandon (Michael Sarrazin), who seems positively elderly when placed next to Morgan Fairchild. So yeah, Derek makes threatening phone calls and follows her around and does stalker stuff. You pretty much get it.

Yeah, you get it.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't dislike Morgan Fairchild. I just think she only works as a reaction to who she used to be. She's great as a Chandler Bing's aging sexpot mother on Friends and in her cameo as maybe an actual angel in the gay comedy eCupid, and those roles wouldn't have existed if not for her early work, which they exist as a winking comment on. But let's admit that that early work isn't exactly the stuff of legend.

Transferring her skills from the TV drama Flamingo Road to the thriller genre involves a lot of sexy pouting in life-threatening situations and almost nothing else. She's easily outstripped by every other character, including Brandon - who is just a cardboard cutout of a vanilla extract ad. Honestly, Colleen Camp should have been the lead here, because she turns in a performance that's intriguingly prickly and angular, embodying the desperate need for attention and hardened, defensive exterior of someone who is totally failing at being famous. Even Kevin Brophy, who could rightfully call this a career high point, exudes charm and charisma in spades. They all run circles around Fairchild, who needed a couple more years under her belt to get perspective on what exactly her place was in the entertainment sphere.

ACTING!

The Seduction is at least trying for something in the scenes with Maxwell the cop (Return to Horror High's Vince Edwards), which comment on the fact that stalker situations weren't taken seriously in the 80's, just barely brushing up against how crimes against women were more normalized back in the day. But let's not pretend that The Seduction had some grand agenda here, it was just using real life facts to underscore how helpless and alone its sexy, sometimes topless protagonist truly is.

And there are a couple helpfully weird scenes that pique the interest every now and again. A pop psychologist character who appears randomly in one scene and never shows up again has a delightful turn, seeming to channel Zelda Rubinstein's future breakout role in Poltergeist. Plus. there's that line where Morgan Fairchild objects to getting a gun, because "what am I gonna do, pack a gun, take karate, and become some kind of street thug?" (Obviously her only reference for gang life is a bunch of early 80's TV movies). But these brief moments of incoherence don't make up for a total lack of interest in any of the proceedings onscreen.

I've already mentioned the fact that this film isn't in the least bit scary, and in spite of a couple nipples sprinkled in, eroticism is so far afield that it's sending postcards. There aren't even any kills to whittle down the surprisingly ample cast while we're waiting for the story to kick in! (spoiler: it never does) But on top of that, The Seduction isn't even particularly well-made. The final scene (AKA the only sequence where anything actually happens) is bizarrely edited, placing the killer inside the house to do a kill, then teleporting him back to his apartment so he can approach the house again to drum up some tension [sic]. It makes not the slightest bit of sense geographically or from a character standpoint, and the muddy cinematography elliptically swooping around to avoid showing gore they can't afford just makes the whole thing even more scattered.

If I wanted to watch a bunch of interchangeable men in tight pants and feathered hair run around not being scary, I would just watch an aerobics video. And if I want to watch an early 80's celebrity stalker slasher with an obnoxiously low body count, I would just put on The Fan. At least that movie has Lauren Bacall, a shirtless Michael Biehn, and some glittery musical numbers. The Seduction couldn't even dream of anything that interesting.

Killer: Derek (Andrew Stevens)

Final Girl: Jamie Douglas (Morgan Fairchild)

Best Kill: This really isn't much of a decision, so I shall abstain

Sign of the Times: Jamie has to use a phone booth to check her messages.

Scariest Moment: A threatening letter is slipped into Jamie's teleprompter and she automatically starts to read it aloud until she realizes what she's saying.

Weirdest Moment: A department store salesman attempts to sell Jamie a 55-pound solid silver cigarette lighter shaped like an elephant, and if it had come back in any capacity during the third act, this would have been a 10/10 movie.

Champion Dialogue: "What rattled your cage? Did you get a facial by mail or somethin'?"

Body Count: 2, oh so disappointingly

1. Brandon has a knife thrown into his back in a hot tub.
2. Derek is shot in the gut.

TL;DR: The Seduction isn't so much seductive as it is entirely stultifying.

Rating: 3/10

Word Count: 1122

Friends With Benefits

With the mass appeal of Friends, everybody wanted to jump on the bandwagon. A guest appearance next to the most famous sitcom "family" in the world could launch anybody's star into the atmosphere. Over its decade long history, plenty of big stars have come and gone in the purple apartment, but here are some of my favorites.

The Top Ten Friends Guest Stars

#10 Jill Goodacre as Jill Goodacre (Total Episodes: 1)

First Appearance: "The One with the Blackout" (S1:E7)

One of the few "big name" stars of the first season, Jill Goodacre got in on the fun before the world even knew how game-changing the show was eventually going to be. A model with very few acting credits to her name, she brought a friendly charisma to her cameo in one of the funniest Chandler storylines of the first season (except for Janice, of course).

#9 Giovanni Ribisi as Frank Buffay, Jr. (Total Episodes: 9)

First Appearance: "The One with the Bullies" (S2:E21)
Last Appearance: "The One Where Ross is Fine" (S10:E2)

Although Giovanni Ribisi has had roles in popular movies as widely varied as Lost in Translation, Avatar, and Ted, he will always be remembered, at least by me, as Phoebe's spacey brother Frank. Ribisi's startlingly odd performance provided an edginess to the show that certainly helped to propel it through its second season into its Golden Age.

#8 Morgan Fairchild as Nora Bing (Total Episodes: 5)

First Appearance: "The One with Mrs. Bing" (S1:E11)
Last Appearance: "The One After I Do" (S8:E1)

Morgan Fairchild is just plain regal is what she is. A television queen in her domain, she brings a smoky sensuality and riveting force to her character, Chandler's romance novel-writing mother. Her innate sexual power provides a hilarious antithesis to her son's gawky fumbling and self doubt.

#7 Alec Baldwin as Parker (Total Episodes: 2)

First Appearance: "The One with the Tea Leaves" (S8:E17)
Last Appearance: "The One in Massapequa" (S8:E18)

People were surprised when Alec Baldwin displayed his comedy prowess by starring in the class A sitcom 30 Rock, but they really shouldn't have been. Not when he proved it so extensively in season eight as Parker, Phoebe's endlessly enthusiastic and bubbly boyfriend. Some guest stars were just that - celebrities showing up on the show to play around. But by his second and final episode Alec Baldwin found himself fitting into the show's sharp comedy style like a glove.

#6 David Arquette as Malcolm (Total Episodes: 1)

First Appearance: "The One with the Jam" (S3:E3)

I have a perhaps unhealthy obsession with David Arquette. But don't let the fact that I own a framed picture of him and keep it on my bedside table distract you from his amusing cameo as a stalker who mistakes Phoebe for her twin sister Ursula. Despite his relationship with co-star Courteney Cox, he has a goofy chemistry with Lisa Kudrow that keeps the episode fresh and light, keeping the comedy at the forefront in what could have been an unintentionally dark subplot.

#5 Paul Rudd as Mike Hannigan (Total Episodes: 18)

First Appearance: "The One with the Pediatrician" (S9:E3)
Last Appearance: "The Last One: Part 2" (S10:E20)

Who doesn't love Paul Rudd? Phoebe Buffay certainly does and she married him to prove it! Although he was introduced late in the show, Rudd's character Mike is so endearing that by the end of the show he feels like part of the gang, a Herculean feat considering what a pop culture titan Friends had become by the end of its run.

#4 Brad Pitt as Will Colbert (Total Episodes: 1)

First Appearance: "The One with the Rumor" (S8:E9)

Although in retrospect it's a little bleak, the then-married Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston had a lot of fun as he played Will Colbert, an ex-fat high school classmate of Rachel's who hated her guts. Although their contentious split made her a tabloid superstar, it does somewhat diminish the humor although it's still a great inside joke in context.

#3 Jennifer Coolidge as Amanda Buffamonteezi (Total Episodes: 1)

First Appearance: "The One with Ross's Tan" (S10:E3)

Jennifer Coolidge has the Midas touch for comedy, turning everything she's in to gold. Not that Friends needed it, but her one episode stint as Amanda, an egocentric old roommate of Phoebe and Monica's who has developed a hilariously fake British accent. Seeing her dance with wild abandon is worth every cent it takes to buy a TV to watch it on.

#2 Bruce Willis as Paul Stevens (Total Episodes: 3)

First Appearance: "The One Where Ross Meets Elizabeth's Dad" (S6:E21)
Last Appearance: "The One with the Ring" (S6:E23)

Bruce Willis actually appeared on the show for free because he lost a bet to Matthew Perry on the set of The Whole Nine Yards. If that's not the most awesome story you've ever heard, I envy your life. His stint as the manly father of the student Ross is dating is one of his best comedy roles as he reveals his emotionally stunted inner self. Paul's the man!

#1 Danny DeVito as Roy (Total Episodes: 1)

First Appearance: "The One Where the Stripper Cries" (S10:E11)

If there ever was a role Danny DeVito was born for, it's... Well, it's Frank Reynolds in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. But his role as Phoebe's bachelor party stripper is a close second. Please, invite him to all my future events.

Word Count: 916