Marky Mark

For our interview with Mark Rosman, the director of these films, please click here.

Part two of my fabulous spring cleaning escapades is a set of three flicks that might otherwise have never entered the pages of this blog in a million years: the family-friendly fare directed by Mark Rosman (of The House on Sorority Row), who was kind enough to sit down for an interview on the podcast. We’re incredibly lucky we got a chance to speak with him, and it was the least I could do to rewatch his classic Disney/Duff flicks to prepare. Now that the statute of limitations has lifted on that interview, let’s see how these childhood classics hold up now that I’m old and world-weary.

The Perfect Man

Year: 2005

Director: Mark Rosman

Cast: Hilary Duff, Heather Locklear, Chris Noth

Run Time: 1 hour 40 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG

A teen girl is tired of her mom moving all the time after a series of bad breakups, so she invents a fictional secret admirer and catfishes her in order to get her to stay in one place.

Ah, there’s nothing like a pre-teen comedy centered around online fraud to get the laugh train rolling. Is it just me, or does the separation of a decade or two always make delightful movies seem so much more grim? Well, regardless of that trenchant observation, The Perfect Man is a fun romp through the angst and malaise of mid-2000’s teendom. If you can stifle your urge to smack Hilary Duff for complaining about the size of her family’s gargantuan apartment (which basically takes up an entire floor of a building and requires several long exterior tracking shots to navigate), there’s a snappy script and a silly sense of humor buried within the film.

A keen sense of directorial vision isn’t exactly a high priority in these types of films, but Mark Rosman successfully ushers it to safety. His presence can be felt in the roving camerawork that defines the film’s geography and the creative staging of the computer sequences, but for the most part he doesn’t try anything too fancy, preferring to let the story speak for itself. And while that story would hardly surprise any remotely awake audience member (the perfect man has been inside yourself all along…), it’s a charming and nostalgic trip back to the early days of the internet, where anything seemed possible and the world wide web was a wide open fantasy world ready to be explored, instead of just a repository for porn, kittens, and hateful YouTube comments.

It’s one of those films that you just need to let wash over you without a trace of cynicism. Luckily, the dialogue helps promote that, both with disarmingly intelligent Kevin Williamson-esque teenspeak and a series of witty, playful banter sequences, especially early on. Sure you can laugh at how Duff’s character thinks it’s appropriate to drop by her friend’s uncle’s apartment in the middle of the day or the arch selfishness present in every single decision she makes, but that’s all part of enjoying the experience.

A solid supporting cast likewise buoys the film, led by Rhea Pearlman in an undernourished but warmly human role as the mom’s best friend. While her talents may have been slightly wasted, people like Mike O’Malley and Chris Noth round out a credible group, and the teen cast (including Ben Feldman and Vanessa Lengies) provide excellent realistic urban foils for Duff’s squeaky clean Disney-informed performance. Even Heather Locklear sells us on the plight of her heartbroken character, though she may need to take her face to the shop to get it moving again.

Unlike the titular man, it’s not a perfect movie. There’s a frankly hideous gay stereotypes that prances through at shockingly regular intervals to completely lose his mind like a dog in heat any time a human man walks by, and there’s a bit of business with a fire escape and an orchid that could have used a great deal of polish, but when worst comes to worst, The Perfect Man pulls through. If youth-oriented, female-driven romantic comedies aren’t your bag, this film isn’t for you, but otherwise it’s a pleasant treat that doesn’t overtax the imagination. It’s a comfort film, like shoving macaroni and cheese into your eyes.

Rating: 6/10

Life-Size

Year: 2000

Director: Mark Rosman

Cast: Tyra Banks, Lindsay Lohan, Jere Burns

Run Time: 1 hour 41 minutes

MPAA Rating: G

When a young girl tries to use a magic spell to resurrect her mother, she accidentally brings her doll to life instead.

Of all the movies on this list, Life-Size can most easily be described s a cult classic, at least among members of my generation. The TV movie (which aired on the Disney Channel about 800 times a week in the early 2000’s) has burrowed its way deep into the subconscious cultural minds of the millennials. It was with no small measure of excitement that I revisited this film, and it was with profound disappointment that I received it, though I did bring back several valuable impressions that were completely missed by baby Brennan.

First off, this movie is dark. Beneath the wacky fish-out-of-water hijinks inherent in a doll joining the human world, there is a savagely strong riptide of bitter loss. Lindsay Lohan only had one shot at bringing her mother back and accidentally wasted it, so her performance is tinged by guilt and bitter despair. Family movies are expected to have “heart,” but the lessons garnered from this situation are rife with poignant, messy humanity in a disarmingly direct way. It’s about as surprising as, say, a Spongebob Squarepants episode where the undersea gang battle apartheid.

This depth and color of emotion is the film’s biggest strength. At its core, Life-Size is about learning to let go and not dwelling on the dead while forgetting to live. It even goes so far as to have Lohan’s football team lose the climactic game at the end, a narrative and physical impossibility in films of this ilk. It’s like Rosman forgot he was making a children’s movie and kept on careening straight back into cynical horror. But this is the really wonderful thing about Life-Size: It doesn’t treat children like blithering idiots. It has a discussion at their level about real issues that, unfortunate as it is, many of them may be facing. It’s brave, it’s real, and it makes an intelligent argument in favor of life.

And then there’s that Barbie stuff. I don’t mean to diminish what are a handful of decently amusing sequences, but the film doesn’t really engage with its concept as much as it could have. The script utilizes her doll identity as a means of combatting the expectation that women have to be perfect at everything (like I said, this flick is hella dark), but there’s a lot of potential comic energy that finds itself wasted. After a couple gags, her doll origins hardly come up, in favor of a rather forced and awkward family drama about Lohan being uncomfortable with the doll making moves on her dad. Also, the theme song “Be A Star” is bubbly, catchy stuff but in the world before autotune… Let’s just say I never thought I’d write that Tyra Banks should stick to acting.

By the end of the film, Life-Size has covered just about every emotional base it’s possible to cover on the Disney Channel, but it vanishes without a true delightful sparkle that would allow it to rise above its TV movie peers. It’s dashingly unique and heartfelt, but its humor is much too ordinary for its far-out conceit. It’ll always be worth a watch if it pops up on your TV station, but otherwise it’s not worth actively seeking out again.

Rating: 5/10

A Cinderella Story

Year: 2004

Director: Mark Rosman

Cast: Hilary Duff, Chad Michael Murray, Dan Byrd

Run Time: 1 hour 35 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG

The Cinderella fairy tale is updated to tell the story of a young outcast who works at a diner and the handsome jock who falls in love with her online.

Oh, nostalgia. Where would we be without you? The golden glow of the endless summers of yesteryear creates a kind of superpower in people, making them invulnerable to the terrible movies they loved during their childhood. Sergio experienced this firsthand when I sat him down to watch A Cinderella Story (on VHS, no less), a movie (that he was seeing for the first time) that I still largely enjoy, but it, for all intents and purposes, not a masterpiece.

This is nothing against Mark Rosman, who ushers the film in and out of existence so efficiently that you half wonder if you accidentally pressed the fast-forward button on your remote. No, the biggest cross A Cinderella Story has to bear is its script, which is so achingly 2004 that your pants sag a little just from looking at the poster. It’s an unforgivably treacly teen soap marred by some legitimately embarrassing slapstick that’s enjoyable on many levels, but true quality only rarely rears its head.

Fortunately, most of the not-so-good remains genuinely arresting. Just like The Perfect Man, A Cinderella Story is a sort of time capsule to a more innocent age of the Internet, where computers were enormous and you could leave a cell phone behind at a school dance without noticing for days. And you can’t help but find yourself tickled by certain details of the storyline, like the fact that Chad Michael Murray is so thick that he doesn’t recognize Hilary without her masquerade mask on (even though her hair, lips, body, and voice remain exactly the same) or the idea that “Cinderella”’s father could somehow tragically perish in his own home during an earthquake that doesn’t even knock her stuffed animals off their shelves. Although, interestingly enough, this scene links A Cinderella Story with the horror masterpiece Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, which also incorporated the real-life Northridge earthquake into its story. Well, it’s interesting to me at least.

Another unintentionally hilarious conceit in the script is that gorgeous, blonde, convertible-driving Hilary Duff is somehow a nerdy outcast. Sure, her car could use a fresh coat of paint, but the way people go on about it, you’d think it was a 1972 Gremlin with the bumper taped on. And the main insult that flies her way is “diner girl,” because apparently it’s uncool to have a job. It’s like the screenwriter’s only human contact came from reruns of The Real Housewives. Or, to be fair, maybe people who live in the Valley really are just that terrible.

The only unforgivably bad elements of A Cinderella Story are the wicked stepsisters. Their vain, pugnacious screeching is absolutely murder to get through. The pair of them are introduced with an underwater fart gag and it only goes downhill from there. Luckily, their screen time is severely limited, or you’d have to chew a handful of Tums before putting the movie on.

But enough of that Negative Nancy crap, because the movie has an ace up its sleeve. The wicked stepmother, that paragon of sinister vanity, is played by Jennifer Coolidge, mistress of spinning twenty minutes or less of screen time into cinematic gold. She’s pure, hyperbolic evil, and consistently hilarious throughout the entire affair. Lin Shaye (of the Insidious franchise) also makes a brief but delightful appearance as the school’s daffy secretary.

I really enjoy A Cinderella Story for what it is. What it is isn’t a great film, but it’s a window into another time and I madly appreciate it for that. So you can feel free to utterly ignore my numerical score if that sounds up your alley. If not, stay away. Either way, you won’t regret it.

Rating: 4/10

Word Count: 1969

Endless Summer

Alrighty, buckaroos. It’s September and things have slowed to a crawl around here because the sheer mass of movies that I’ve watched (among other real life obligations) is dragging behind me like tin cans on a “Just Married” car. Try as I might to knock out full reviews for each of these suckers, I’m but one fallible human being trying to have a good time. So it’s high time for some spring cleaning. Or rather, end of summer cleaning. I’m opening the windows, letting in some air, and clearing off those cluttered shelves to make way for the rich splendor of the Halloween season, where we can once again kick things into high gear. Buckle your seatbelts, kiddos.

The Return of the Living Dead

Year: 1985

Director: Dan O'Bannon

Cast: Clu Gulager, James Karen, Thom Mathews

Run Time: 1 hour 31 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Despite the splendors of American Army engineering, a chemical agent at a medical warehouse leaks into the nearby cemetery where a group of punks are partying, causing zombies to rise.

80’s horror is kind of my thing, in case you hadn’t noticed. As an extension of that, I deserve a lifetime sentence in nerd hail for having waited so long to see The Return of the Living Dead. Having been written and directed by Dan O’Bannon (frequent John Carpenter collaborator and the man who wrote the story treatment for freaking Alien), and starring Clu Gulager (The Initiation, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2), James Karen (Poltergeist), Thom Mathews (the cutest Tommy Jarvis, from Friday the 13th Part VI), and Linnea Quigley (everything), I’m basically a Benedict Arnold to my cause, but I’ve rectified that now.

For its first thirty minutes or so, RotLD is unimpeachably the funniest horror comedy ever to walk this freshly-dug earth. The script is tight, fast-paced, and the tongue is so firmly in cheek that the teeth keep biting it every time they try to talk. The punk ensemble is a pitch perfect Greek Chorus of prickly delinquency led by a fearless Quigley with fire engine red toilet brush hair. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen Linnea crab walk her way over the hood of a car. The fact that she spends almost the entire remainder of the film naked certainly doesn’t tarnish the film’s cult reputation, but it’s also a dastardly hilarious shock gag that keeps on giving.

While the punks are pure bubblegum fun, the adult cast knows exactly what type of movie they’re making and have no qualms about pitching their performances up to the rafters. Karen and Gulager seem to be locked in a fierce battle to see who can burst their own blood vessels first, and the winner is us.

The set design is pretty top notch, too. Although the film never escapes the “this was made in somebody’s basement” feel, each element of the set is integrated into the storyline in a unique and clever way, from the eye test chart decorating the office wall to the pinned butterflies in the storage room.  Everything has a purpose, whether it’s a sight gag so subtle you’re liable to need further viewings to even notice it, or merely a feature that will come in handy later.

Unfortunately, Return of the Living Dead runs out of steam faster than me after foolishly assuming I can run a mile without warming up first. The characters are too thin to hang such a good movie on, and it ends up ripping right through them by the hallway point. The film never ever let up being entertaining, but its nonstop, careening clip flags in favor of a more standard house in siege movie that gives an inexplicably heavy level of focus to Miguel Nuñez (of Friday the 13th: A New Beginning, in which he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for the role of Demon, the enchilada-scarfing biker who gets impaled while Hershey squirting in an outhouse).

And while the lead zombie has an impressive visage and a terrifying mien, the effects in the film are surprisingly demure for an 80’s zombie epic. For all the obsession with brains, there’s hardly a flash of the pink stuff, and what little we’re left with doesn’t exactly hold up all these years later.

It’s a very cheap, unassuming, slapdash little movie, but that’s exactly what allowed it to harness the gonzo anti-establishment energy that drives its engine for so much of the time. Do I wish it were more consistent? Yes. Would it be better with a gore top-up? Undoubtedly. But it’s still Return of the Living Dead, and its ratty, clever, indefatigable energy refuses to be held down. Nor would I want it to be. Let your freak flag fly, baby.

Rating: 7/10

Night of the Creeps

Year: 1986

Director: Fred Dekker

Cast: Jason Lively, Tom Atkins, Steve Marshall

Run Time: 1 hour 28 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Two college freshmen accidentally unleash an alien experiment that turns people into evil zombies.

If I deserved a lifetime sentence in nerd jail for missing out on The Return of the Living Dead, having seen Night of the Creeps certainly qualifies me for parole on good behavior. The film, which has unfortunately almost been lost to the mists of time, is a true gem that deserves to be unearthed, packed with goodies from director Fred Dekker (of The Monster Squad, a much more recognized flick).

For starters, I’m a sucker for college movies and Night of the Creeps is an excellent depiction of the freshman year experience. Within relatable situations (crushing on the unattainable girl, rushing the unattainable frat, experiencing freedom for the very first time), Dekker (who also wrote the screenplay) etches out a genuine friendship between two teens, ride with rich humor and poignant humanity. With such a strong core to branch out from, Night of the Creeps is free to explore all sorts of crazy side streets and as such is one of the most explosively creative, jubilantly hilarious horror-comedies of the decade, hitting both sides of that hyphenate in nearly equal measure.

Admittedly though, one side does dominate through seer strength and willpower so let’s begin with that one: the comedy. There’s so much going on in the film (frat pranks, alien ray gun fights, parasitic zombie worms, a black and white sci-fi prologue, and even a mad axe-wielding slasher) that it would rattle with pure energy even without a strong creative vision. But Dekker must be French for “duct tape” because the man holds all the disparate elements together like a pro, infusing them with laugh-out-loud wit every step of the way. The film traffics in self-referential, winking humor in the vein of Jason Lives, but just like its plot, it can’t nail itself down to one single style. High camp, sophomoric frat comedy, goofy sight gags, and intellectual barbs are tossed into the mélange and blended expertly.

No single actor exemplifies this movie’s personality more than Tom Atkins (of Maniac Cop and Halloween III: Season of the Witch). Atkins swallows the script, digests it, and expels it from every pore of his body. His “Thrill Me,” catch phrase is iconic, but every aspect of his character (the detective investigating the strange happenings on campus) from his deadpan one-liner deliveries to his clipped, decisive movements and hyperbolically serious demeanor is explosively inexplicable and outrageously mirth-inducing. It is also thanks to Atkins that the horror portion of the film works even a quarter as well as it does.

The gravitas he lends to the proceedings allow the scarier moments to get under your skin and claw their way firmly around the base of your spine. Between him and the excellent special effects (which render what could have been totally silly parasite worms as utterly menacing, absolutely autonomous creatures with drive and sinister purpose), Night of the Creeps lands some square sucker punches when you least expect it.

And the filmmaking ain’t half bad, either. When you compare Night of the Creeps to Return of the Living Dead, another goofy horror flick directed by its writer, it’s light years head behind the camera. There’s some daring cinematography, including an immensely memorable spinning shot that outstrips any single visual moment in RotLD, and the lighting scheme (especially when it veers into pulpy pinks and blues) is quite dashing.

All in all, Night of the Creeps is an easy film to fall head over heels for. It’s a heap of fleshy, flashy fun, and it really deserves to stand shoulder to shoulder with classic titles like Evil Dead II and Ghostbusters, if I do say so myself. It’s my blog. Sue me.

Rating: 8/10

I Still Know What You Did Last Summer

Year: 1998

Director: Danny Cannon

Cast: Jennifer Love Hewitt, Freddie Prinze Jr., Brandy

Run Time: 1 hour 40 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Julie James is back and wetter than ever – on an island vacation ruined by monsoon weather, the rain slicker-clad killer returns to claim the lives of her and her friends.

I Know What You Did Last Summer is hardly a classic teen slasher, so the fact that it more or less instantly dove into the realm of ludicrous, crappy sequeldom shouldn’t come as a surprise. In a way, it almost improves the series, and in many ways it makes it a whole lot worse. The instant backslide into pulpy nonsense is fondly reminiscent of 80’s slasher dreck, but the film is so inextricably stupid that – like the Eskimos – I was forced to come up with 50 different words to differentiate the various gradations of stupid that I encountered. Here is but a small sample.

Idiotsplosive: This is a word for something that’s loudly, obnoxiously idiotic. You can’t possibly ignore it because it’s in your face with a bullhorn shouting “Here I am!’ and sharing Facebook posts about Donald Trump.

This word is the exclusive domain of characters like Jack Black cameoing as the local pothead. Yes, that Jack Black. He runs through nearly every scene in the first act, practically flapping his arms and shrieking inane stereotypes. It’s sheer bliss when he gets a set of hedge clippers buried in his chest. This word also handily describes the score, which is mostly content to busty itself combining rip-offs of Friday the 13th and The Exorcist, but the second anything remotely tense happens, gets overexcited and lets loose with a cacophony of bleats and squeals. Someone touches Julie’s shoulder? BWAMP! A mote of dust lands on a lamp in the foreground? BWLEH! It’s exhausting.

Infinidim: This is a word for something so richly, complexly stupid that it borders on incomprehensible.

This word was created for scenes like the opening red herring, which assume that nobody in the audience knows the capitol of Brazil and that no angry bystander will have irately shouted the correct answer before the reveal an hour later. This word also comes in handy for a film that bases two entirely separate scare scenes around clothes dryers. If you care to extrapolate from that, there’s rather slim pickings when it comes to decent frights in this flick, though one of its jump scares is suitably goosebump-inducing.

Stupidndous: This is a word for something so outrageously daft that it can’t help but be heaps of fun.

Here’s a line from I Still Know What You Did Last Summer: “That was like, heart attack time!” In short, this is a fantastic party movie if you’ve got a big bowl of popcorn and a pile of quip-ready friends. From the high camp of the killer’s reveal and the epilogue (“I love my electric toothbrush!”) to the nonsensical voodoo subplot and the daring decision to put Jennifer Love Hewitt in a sports bra while a hurricane rages around her, this movie does everything wrong in all the right ways.

Micromoronic: This is the word for when the stupid hasn’t entirely gone away, but has temporarily subsided to manageable levels.

Believe it or not, there’s a couple almost completely decent elements to ISKWYDLS. For one, the cinematography is gorgeous, capturing long summer nights with a crisp honey glow and shooting the hotel hallways with an almost (dare I say) Dean Cundey-esque precision to the placement of light and shadow. And I must admit that a stormy tropical island is a pretty awesome place to set a slasher movie, Brandy or no Brandy.

At the end of the day, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer is harmless. If you’re lactose intolerant, you won’t be able to stomach its lethal levels of cheese, but otherwise it’s a half-decent flick for a summer marathon as long as you never take it seriously. It’s not as well made as its predecessor, but it might just be more fun to watch, so take your pick.

Body Count: 9

1. Dave is hooked through the mouth.
2. Derek is hooked to death.
3. Housekeep has her throat slashed.
4. Titus is stabbed in the chest with hedge clippers.
5. Hotel Manager is knifed in the skull.
6. Tyrell is hooked through the neck.
7. Hestus is harpooned in the back.
8. Nancy is harpooned in the gut.
9. Will is hooked in the chest.

Rating: 5/10

Word Count: 2194
Reviews In This Series
I Know What You Did Last Summer (Gillespie, 1997)
I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (Cannon, 1998)

Census Bloodbath: Alma Murder

For our podcast episode about this very movie, please click here.

Year: 1987

Director: Bill Froehlich

Cast: Lori Lethin, Brendan Hughes, Alex Rocco

Run Time: 1 hour 35 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Well, it’s that time of year again. The sun is beating down, the kids are pulling themselves up by the backpack straps and heading back to school, and... I’m not one of them. That’s right, I’m just another college grad, facing the endless void of the unlimited future. Like so many film majors before me, I’m clinging desperately to my wall of DVDs, hoping they won’t fling me off into eternal limbo. But unlike those chuckleheads, I have supremely bad taste and I’ve chosen to commemorate Back to School week with the 1987 meta slasher classic Return to Horror High. Contrary to popular belief, this film is not a sequel to anything. It might not even technically qualify as a film, but hear me out here.

Return to Horror High is a very special brand of late 80’s slash-‘em-up. It was so far into the rapidly deflating slasher boom that hardly any of the films actually took themselves seriously anymore. 1987 was the year of A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, the film which saw Freddy’s full metamorphosis into quipping carnival huckster, and many contemporaneous flicks like Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers, Slumber Party Massacre II, and Cheerleader Camp followed suit with goofy, Hannah-Barbera antics. Horror high is silly enough to be lumped into that category, and yet it transcends it with some legitimately intriguing satire.

It’s still a shallow microbudget exploitation scudbucket, but it has a flash of intelligence that lodges it firmly between the superficial parody of a Shriek if You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th and the insightful skewering of Scream. Unlike any of its peers, it actually has something to unpack. Even if most of that is Styrofoam fluff, it’s a remarkable achievement.

I’ll elaborate, but I should probably explain the plot before this review turns into a Tolstoy novel.

Return to Horror High tells the story of Crippen High School, a campus that was rocked with a series of murders in 1982. When a film crew descends upon the now-abandoned campus to shoot a movie based on those very killings, they soon realize that whoever perpetrated them might never have left as they begin to disappear one by one. This story is told though evidence collected after the fact from the only survivor - the screenwriter Arthur Lyman (Richard Brestoff) – by the stoic Chief Dreyner (Pepper Martin of The Outing) and the sexily irreverent Officer Tyler (an exultant Maureen McCormick, finally free from the shackles of Marcia Brady) on the front lawn, which is strewn with dismembered bodies.

The cast and crew include Callie Cassidy (Lori Lethin of Bloody Birthday and The Prey) the effervescent leading ldy; Harry (actual notable Alex Rocco of The Godfather), the sleazebag producer with a bimbo in one hand and a sandwich in the same hand; Steven Blake (Brendan Hughes), a corn-fed and studly local cop who winds up with a role opposite Callie, who just might be interested in loving him; and Oliver (underrated character actor George Clooney), the leading man who gets whisked away on a cushy pilot gig and becomes the killer’s first victim.

There’s nothing better than watching Oscar-winning actors kick the bucket in movies that cost less than their most recent grocery run.

The truly flabbergasting thing about Horror High is that it’s actually consistently, intentionally funny. Its sense of humor might be too daffy for the more highbrow epicures among us, but if that describes you, how did you even find my blog in the first place? Crew members pile out of a bathroom stall like a clown car, the director and the FX guy get into a fight over a set of exploding breast implants, and the janitor mops up the blood after every kill. It’s like an Abbott and Costello routine gone haywire, mixed up with the already ever-present 80’s camp that looms throughout the film like the truly outrageous amount of smoke in its hallways (from the looks of things, their smoke machine budget probably outstripped their payroll budget, which would explain why Clooney is only in one scene).

Because of its ludicrous tone, Horror High allows itself a stroke of genius that many of its slasher brethren are denied: it turns its low budget into an asset rather than a liability. First on the chopping block are the kills, which have to share about a thimble of blood between them like it’s Christmas morning in a Dickensian orphanage. The film converts a great deal of these into sight gags, using match cuts to imply a bigger impact through a silly juxtaposition or using a silhouetted and/or offscreen kill as a punchline to another scene. SPOILERS [An attempt to explain it all away by having every death be a hoax goes totally awry in a nonsensical, almost psychedelic closing sequence, but I admire the screenwriters’ chutzpah in attempting to push the film so far over the top that the top is just a distant, happy memory.]

But the cleverest integration of its low budget mojo is also the film’s postmodern heart and soul. Utilizing its nature as a film within a film, Return to Horror High goes hog wild, unabashedly exposing its own lighting setups, revealing the edges of its sets, and generally reveling in its own artifice. And why not? The plot takes place on a film set, so nothing is off limits.  The scenes being shot are based on a true story, so they also serve as flashbacks, and any flaws in the scenes shot in “reality” can be explained away by the superficialities of life on a film set [as well as the fact that the story being told by Lyman may well be entirely fabricated]. Everything coils back in on itself like a bedazzled M. C. Escher piece and it’s mildly brilliant.

A slasher with any sort of brain in its head is like that horse that can do math. You wouldn’t notice in in a film of any other genre – rather, you’d expect it - but it’s something truly surprising and remarkable to behold under the circumstance. I just want to pet it and feed it a salt lick.

While Return to Horror High does have several layers to it (first and foremost a genuinely decent camp comedy horror flick, second a meta take on exploitation filmmaking), no matter how deep you strip mine, there’s not a shred of horror tension to be found in the entire thing (especially once you realize that not a single death is actually onscreen). That’s certainly not damning, especially considering how much of it undeniably works, but it definitely feels like there’s a final piece missing from the puzzle. Perhaps if the film’s denouement made more sense, or in fact any slight glimmer of sense at all, it would be rid of the somewhat bereaved quality it leaves the audience behind with, but as it stands it opens stronger than it closes. Kind of like when my mom packs my suitcase for me on a trip.

However, griping about Return to Horror High can be dangerous, because the film is a Rock Slide Zone of 80’s cheese. The noise of even a mild complaint instantly becomes buried beneath a teetering tower of relentlessly abysmal fashions, topsy turvy performances, and dazzlingly surreal scenes that defy the imagination. I’m hesitant to spoil the masses of riches that this film has to offer, so I’ll describe only one that you – dear reader – may test the water: Officer Tyler, drenched in blood, describes the carnage she just witnessed while fondling her own boob.

Marcia, Marcia, Marcia…

Return to Horror High certainly isn’t for everyone, but it’s one of the best bad movies of the late slasher cycle and it comes highly recommended from yours truly. It’s wacky, wet, and wild. You won’t experience anything even remotely similar to the classic slashers we know and love, but sometimes it’s nice to have a break and stare in incredulity at a screen for 90 minutes as something inutterably, ineffably, indelibly remarkable unfolds. Plus, if you’ve ever wanted to see George Clooney get ruthlessly murdered by a psycho in yellow dishwashing gloves, you’ll never have a better opportunity.

Killer: Principal Kastleman (Andy Romano) [But who actually dies?]

Final Girl: Callie Cassidy (Lori Lethin)

Best Kill: it’s not gory, or even particularly specific (Oliver is slammed against a door and blood pools – we don’t even glimpse a murder weapon) but seeing Clooney in a classically generic slasher sequence is a sight to behold.

Sign of the Times: Callie Cassidy investigates murders in a chic periwinkle jumpsuit.

Scariest Moment: In the film within the film, a Quasimodo-masked killer dissects a biology teacher.

Weirdest Moment: Steven tears the mask off an African-American janitor’s face to reveal the white principal and angrily shouts, “Kastleman, you honky!”

Champion Dialogue: “Would you care to walk around in the scene with your schlong hanging out? Only in your case, darling, it would be a schlort.”

Body Count: 10

1. Oliver is killed offscreen.
2. Actor is decapitated with an axe.
3. Grip is dragged into a sandbox.
4. Robbie is slashed with a fan.
5. Mr. Burnbaum is dissected in the film.
6. Blake’s neck is snapped in a dream.
7. Callie Cassidy is decapitated in a dream.
8. Freddy is killed offscreen.
9. Harry is decapitated.
10. Josh is decapitated.

TL;DR: Return to Horror High is a genuinely funny, if underfunded slasher satire.

Rating: 7/10

Word Count: 1600

Wes In Peace

I'm a lucky guy. It's not often that you get to meet your role models. It's not often that they turn out to be just as incredible as you imagined them to be. It's not often that they lived long enough to work for four decades, changing the genre you live and breathe irrevocably three distinct times in three separate decades.

Wes Craven was all that and more. He was a visionary, a teacher, a kind, generous, funny man. And he passed away this week at the ripe old age of 76. His loss is a devastating blow to the horror community, and to cinema at large. Without him, postmodernism would never have found its way to the silver screen. Without him, New Line Cinema  - the company that made Lord of the Rings - would be just another footnote in the annals of of failed distribution companies. Without him, 80's horror cinema would never have found its brain. 

And without him, I would absolutely not be the person that I am today. Scream was the film that ignited my passion for the genre that I work in, and I owe a massive debt of gratitude to Wes Craven, a debt which I repaid only a meager sliver of with my heartbroken obituary on Arrow in the Head. If you like, please feel free to explore my previous reviews and articles about the man who shaped my work and try to remember him any way you can. Through the good films and the bad, his world, his creativity, and his genius mean the world to me and I hope my massive, still growing oeuvre of admiration can speak that to you more than these simple paragraphs can.

Deadly Blessing

The Hills Have Eyes

The Hills Have Eyes Part II

The Last House on the Left

The Last House on the Left 2009 (producer)

Music of the Heart

My Soul to Take

A Nightmare on Elm Street

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (story treatment)

Red Eye

Scream

Scream 2

Scream 3

Scream 4

Shocker

Wes Craven's New Nightmare

C is for Craven

W is for Wes

Wes Is More

Word Count: 340

Two Buck Chuck

Year: 1990

Director: John Lafia

Cast: Alex Vincent, Christine Elise, Jenny Agutter

Run Time: 1 hour 24 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Horror sequels get a bad rap. They may be tawdry, craven, or eccentric, but that’s hardly a reason to love them any less. And out of the crop of sequels in a franchise (there’s almost always a franchise, if the first film earned a dime – sometimes even if it didn’t), part twos tend to be the most interesting. A part two is the horror sequel in its purest, most unrefined state. The original actors might still be hanging around (if they haven’t gotten famous, left Hollywood, or found religion) to make return appearances, there’s plenty of money in the coffer, and there’s almost total creative freedom – with only one prior, it’s harder to pick out a pattern to follow.

A first sequel can decide the course of an entire franchise. Friday the 13th Part 2 made the drowned child Jason Voorhees the villain, a putrescently awful idea that went on to make untold millions. Halloween II guaranteed that any attempt to anthologize the franchise without its trademark Boogeyman would be a non-starter. Saw II began the tradition of Jigsaw expanding his torture empire like a less morally bankrupt McDonald’s (zing!), Hatchet II introduced the use of cameras that cost more than five dollars (double zing!), and A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge… Well, people like to pretend that that one never happened.

Probe won me a point in horror trivia one month, though. #neverforget

So when it came time for Child’s Play to wrangle itself a part two (two years after its release – a little late for an 80’s horror sequel but these were the waning years of the age of slasher decadence), there was a whole horizon of hope and wonder spread in front of it. What Child’s Play captain Don Mancini (who has penned the script for every single film in the franchise and directed the most recent two films) elected to do was set his killer doll slowly down the path set by Freddy Krueger: from genuine menace to quipping prankster. Because the initial pedestal he had to fall from wasn’t quite so high, this transition was much smoother, but that’s a story for another time. For now, what we’re faced with is the new Chucky’s cocoon, a still horrific tale that’s certainly more vulgar and crass than its predecessor but equally more focused and thrilling.

In Child’s Play 2, young Andy Barclay (Alex Vincent) has been committed to the foster system following the institutionalization of his mother. The business with the killer doll Chucky (Brad Dourif) – who was possessed with the soul of the Lakeshore Strangler Charles Lee Ray – has been written off as a flight of childish fancy, nevermind the four corpses left in his wake. Andy has been taken in by Joanne (Jenny Agutter of An American Werewolf in London) and Phil Simpson (Gerrit Graham) as well as their teen foster daughter Kyle (Christine Elise), winner of this film’s Spirit of the 90’s ribbon with her leather hat thick gold chain, and cherry red lippy.

When executives of the Play Pals corporations rebuild the Chucky doll to dispel those hurtful rumors about his nasty habit of attempting to dismember loyal customers, things go about as well as you might expect. Chucky discovers Andy’s whereabouts and takes the place of Tommy – the Good Guy doll Andy has been using to get over his trauma – to infiltrate the house and find a quiet moment to play a round or two of Hide the Soul.

I mean, at least it’s better than Monopoly.

The most important topic when discussing Child’s Play 2 (as it is I suppose, with any of its sequels) is the film’s treatment of Chucky. A serial killing doll is a tough character to pull off at the best of times (why don’t people just set up a child gate or something? He’s two freaking feet tall!), and the turning point of the Chucky films was when they embraced their inherent camp value. However, this film struck a curiously perfect alchemical balance. Now that viewers already knew the extent of Chucky’s supernatural prowess thanks to the mostly played-straight Child’s Play, the doll was free to interact openly with his environment from square one. He still lurked in the shadows whens talking his prey, but this Chucky is a more mobile, active man about town.

Many horror enthusiasts would argue that bringing the villain out into the open dampens the cerebral chill of the unknown, that imagination is always worse than what we can see. They’re partially right. And in scenes like, say, Chucky spanking a teacher with a yardstick, it’s a little harder to take him seriously. But this film’s forays into camp territory are relatively infrequent, and the increased face time with Chucky also maximizes exposure to Brad Dourif’s paint-peeling performance of raw, unfettered malice. Chucky’s slightly improved animation effects also serve to make him a more credible menace, and when that doll roars with anger it will electrify your nerve endings like taking a dip with a toaster.

Don’t try this at home: professional blogger working in controlled conditions.

While Child’s Play 2 may lack Tom Holland’s flair for stacking a scene with gag after gag, it’s also the film in the franchise that most frequently and consistently wrings tension out of its scenario, losing the muddy mystery elements that bogged down the original script like a pair of concrete booties. Whether it’s a switcheroo kill where a weapon turns out to be harmless before Chucky strikes for real, the unendurably slow unveiling of Tommy’s deposed corpse (which was buried under the swing and gets revealed a little more with each kick), or just the world’s creepiest basement, this is an astonishingly well put-together work of early 90’s horror cinema. Mind you, that company includes Leprechaun, Dr. Giggles, and The Ice Cream Man, but I’m not kidding around here. This movie’s got legs.

The script also serves the tone well by consolidating the horror around a single-family home rather than a gritty urban crimescape. It allows for more interpersonal dynamics to flourish as the plot thickens (dad thinks Andy’s crazy and wants to return him like he’s a faulty vacuum, mom is struggling with the fact that she’s barren, etc.), and Andy and Kyle develop a very genuine sibling bond that benefits the emotional impact enormously. Kyle also provides the franchise with its first real crack at a bona fide Final Girl, rising to the challenge with vim, vigor, and punk rock attitude.

When the finale rolls around, just Kyle, Andy, Chucky, and an endless Mary Poppins grab bag of lovely, gooey special effects, it’s tremendously difficult not to have fallen head over heels for Child’s Play 2. Chucky has found his way six feet under once more (this guy has more lives than a cat, and they’re all shockingly gory considering that his only health care option is plastic surgery), but his brief new lease on life has reminded us that yes, killer dolls can be scary, yes, sequels can be great, and no, they don’t have to win Oscars to prove it

Child’s Play 2 isn’t the best film to ever happen to me, far from it. But it’s delightfully easy to enjoy, and that’s an astonishingly rare occurrence in the dark and divisive forest of endless horror franchise. I cherish what I can, and Child’s Play 2 is like finding a forgotten reassure in a dusty old toy box, just begging to be played with all over again.

Killer: Chucky (Brad Dourif)

Final Girl: Andy Barclay (Alex Vincent) feat. Kyle (Christine Elise)

Best Kill: After Grace Poole is stabbed, she lands on a photocopier which starts printing copies of her bloody face.

Sign of the Times: Kyle for President

Scariest Moment: Kyle slowly walks down the hall while the sewing machine furiously rattles.

Weirdest Moment: Kyle doesn’t bat an eye when she finds Andy tied to his bed.

Champion Dialogue: You’ve seen dolls that pee? This one bleeds.”

Body Count: 8

1. Worker #1 is electrocuted.
2. Mattson is smothered with a plastic bag.
3. Miss Kettlewell is stabbed with a basketball pump.
4. Phil has his neck broken in a fall.
5. Joanne is killed with her sewing machine offscreen.
6. Grace Poole is stabbed in the chest.
7. Worker #2 has his eyes gouged out by an assembly line machine.
8. Chucky is pelted with malfunctioning doll parts, melted, and exploded.

TL;DR: Child's Play 2 might not be high art, but it's a surprisingly tight and tense entry in the early 90's horror scene.

Rating: 7/10

Word Count: 1446
Reviews In This Series
Child's Play (Holland, 1988)
Child's Play 2 (Lafia, 1990)
Child's Play 3 (Bender, 1991)
Bride of Chucky (Yu, 1998)
Seed of Chucky (Mancini, 2004)
Curse of Chucky (Mancini, 2013)

A Brief Note From The Stone Age

Howdy, y’all!

Don’t ask me why I wrote that. It’s been a weird week, I don’t know. As you may or may not have noticed, things have been a teensy bit slower than usual over here at Popcorn Culture. With my apologies, please allow me to lapse into a brief personal note of explanation.

First off, I just moved into a new, much larger apartment, so all the time I spend unpacking and merrily spinning in open spaces eats into my writing time. (My good friend Hunter over at Kinemalogue has also recently upped sticks – he’ll be copying my outfits next, just you wait. Why not head over there and wish him congratulations?)

Second, I’ve been dealing with a mighty unfortunate photosensitivity/migraine disorder that prevents me from looking at the computer for more than about twenty minutes at a time. While myself and a team of trained tortoises specialists are working this problem out, I’ve been dealing with a lot of pain. Especially considering the fact that I already work on the computer quite a bit for Arrow in the Head, I’ve been finding other methods to write reviews: namely, writing them freehand in a notebook, then transferring them into my blog when it is safe to do so.

Obviously, this is a huge boon for future historians who will be putting together Brennan-related museum exhibits, but it’s hell on my productivity. I assure you I’m working hard (both for my own well-being and for yours) to see to it that neither my health nor my posting pace flags, but I beg of you. Give a guy a break.

I’ve watched way too many films recently for a single human being to process, even a healthy one, so as a peace offering, here is another slate of delectable mini-reviews for you to pursue at your leisure:

Taken

Year: 2009

Director: Pierre Morel

Cast: Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, Famke Janssen

Run Time: 1 hour 33 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

An ex-military operative turned overprotective father must tap into his old skills when his daughter is kidnapped on a European vacation.

Would you look at that, it’s another generally accepted modern classic that I’m late to, what with being far too busy mucking around in the tar pits of the early 80’s for something as low profile as the best American action flick of the year. Taken was a big surprise for everyone, most likely even Liam Neeson himself. A vehicle for an aging star that kept its hot young actress (Maggie Grace, fresh from Lost fame) offscreen for the bulk of its run time? By Hollywood’s myopic standards, this film should have been dead as one of Henry VIII’s ex-wives, but it takes a chance and owns it, crackling like a live wire.

The action itself is sublime, ushered to the screen by Luc Besson apprentice Pierre Morel. While every scene is guerrilla, MacGyver-esque thriller improvisation at its finest as Neeson takes every step possible to prevent his daughter from disappearing into a human trafficking ring within an estimated three-day time limit, there’s typically an additional frisson of tension layered on top of whatever Cool Thing he happens to be doing at the moment. His genuinely fleshed-out relationship with his daughter provides an emotional centerpoint for many high-octane moments, and in addition to that the sheer fearless audacity with which he charges into dangerous, unknown situations sends a tingle up the spine.

The key to this film is that Liam Neeson isn’t a beefed up superman. He is very skilled and utterly capable, but a fallible human being just like you and me. And Donald Trump. His age is hardly a factor in that (actually it just adds to how much of a badass he is). He’s just a regular father doing what any father would in his situation. He just happens to have a more suitable background for it than the average Joe Plumber.

This all works thanks to a sleek, punchy script by Besson and co-writer Robert Mark Kamen. It’s the perfect action set-up: tight, to the point, painted in clean, efficient, broad stokes that don’t forget to highlight each character’s individual attributes, interactions, dynamics, and contributions to the screenplay. Each story beat has an emotion attached to it, which is something that far too may slick action scenarists tend to forget.

The filmmaking itself has inherited a little too much of Jason Bourne’s handheld attention deficit disorder for its own good, but for the most part the action sequences accomplish what they set out to achieve: a gritty, realistic aesthetic without (mostly) sacrificing visual logic. 

The only true faults Taken has are minor quibbles. First, the actor playing Neeson’s liaison, who looks like a French Kevin Spacey, is more wooden than a Venetian gondola. Second, in several scenes (especially in the unrated cut), the film parlays a little too heavily with rah-rah militaristic jingoism. Action films have always been a haven for the politically conservative and I should hardly dream of taking that away from anybody, but whenever one gets a whiff of Eau de Guantanamo Bay, let’s just say it’s not a pleasant one.

But all that easily fades into the background of what is a just plain terrific action flick. It’s unflagging, unforgettable, and unmatched in the annals of modern American cinema. You could say I’m quite taken with it.

Rating: 8/10

Up in the Air

Year: 2009

Director: Jason Reitman

Cast: George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick

Run Time: 1 hour 49 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Ryan Bingman’s job is flying around the country firing people, but he faces a big change when a young corporate hotshot attempts to centralize his operation, cutting costs and ending his beloved jet-setting, companionless lifestyle.

I think the theme of all my mini-review sessions is “Brennan ignores important movies until the last possible second.” To review Up in the Air, we need to travel back to a very specific moment in time: Back before the Oscar buzz and eventual backlash, back to the middle of our nation’s period of economic turmoil, back to when Anna Kendrick was just that chick from Twilight. Alright, are we there? Let’s go.

Up in the Air tells a tale as old as time. Young idealism vs. old cynicism, single swinging vs. family values, George Clooney vs. commitment. You know, the classics. However, by setting its story smack dab in the middle of the most financially and emotionally unstable period of contemporary American history, the film finds a fresh take. Not only does George Clooney’s character constantly travel, separate from the ties of human connection, he makes his living off the backs of the fragile people he is casting carelessly off into the void. When he is forced to show Anna Kendrick’s Natalie the ropes, her ruthlessly pragmatic working style collides with his carefully curated “empathy.” They both begin to realize that everything they thought they knew about the world is completely wrong.

That meeting in the middle – a moral grey area – is another relatively unique perspective that Up in the Air brings to the table, all wrapped up in a thrilling, emotional comedy of errors about the trials and tribulation of the many different paths one can take to be a human being. Up in the Air is an upbeat, downtrodden look at how disparate lifestyles collide, how we all react to change, and how we can learn to pick ourselves up again. It’s perhaps less concerned with the plights of the laid-off workers than it claims to be, but as a backdrop of human self-doubt and upheaval, it’s certainly affecting. It might not be powerful enough to ruffle the hair of someone like Donald Trump (I’m sure he’s hiding one somewhere), but as a working-class American citizen, it’s eye-opening.

As a work of cinema, it’s rather stunning as well. The cinematography is sleek, stylish and weightless, rhythmically pattering through Ryan’s routines, ruthlessly emphasizing the chasm between Natalie’s job and her humanity with cavernous negative space. And following a fresh atypical beat from city to endless city, announced with relentlessly cheery block letters. It’s a fun, sprightly piece of comedy that’s pliable enough to hold the weight of the intense emotion it’s called upon to bear.

It could hardly be so successful without its cast, a carefully selected slate of A–grade veterans and newcomers alike. Anna Kendrick manages the woefully unenviable tasks of holding her own against George Clooney and, in fact, performs the most memorably powerful scene in the film, Vera Farmiga shines as Bingman’s coldly powerful female counterpart – exuding a sort of clockwork inhumanity masquerading as warmth, showing what he could become should he venture further down the rabbit hole - and of course Clooney himself is a godsend, full of cocksure braggadocio that slowly crumbles and twists away into he wind. Only a man as handsome and untouchable as Clooney could have pulled that part off in its beginning stages, but he knocks it out of the park when it comes time to show his vulnerable side, too

Up in the Air’s conclusion is a little rushed and sloppy, but all in all it’s a wonderful little film about people, work, and love. Oscarbait has never been more approachable.

Rating: 8/10


My Best Friend's Wedding

Year: 1997

Director:  P. J. Hogan

Cast: Julia Roberts, Dermot Mulroney, Cameron Diaz

Run Time: 1 hour 45 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

A prominent food critic realizes that she’s in love with her best friend of ten years… four days before his wedding.

Doesn’t that just sound like the plot of every single romantic comedy you’ve ever been shackled by the wrist to watch with a doe-eyed significant other? Now, it might be surprising considering my horror pedigree, but I’m far from averse to the sugary sweet romance genre. It’s not a huge leap from Karo syrup to corn. However, a log line like that doesn’t exactly inspire soaring confidence in a film.

So Imagine my surprise when My Best Friend’s Wedding turned out to be kind of delightful. From the old-fashioned opening credits (which featured a full, non-diegetic, choreographed doo-wop performance of “Wishin’ and Hopin’”) on, the film captures you with its charming flair, drawing you in before slipping in a subversive spin on the genre, slowly pulling you back into stark reality. Honestly, it’s a remarkable achievement in genre filmmaking, and it’s devilishly, almost terrifyingly sneaky in its second act, as Julia Roberts’ Julianne performs a series of increasingly despicable acts and descends into full-on Cruella DeVille territory.

Along with an inexplicable profusion of musical numbers (to the point that I half expected Julie Andrews to appear and sing some cheerful lessons – Lord knows Julia Roberts could have used some), My Best Friend’s Wedding also boasts a gay character that avoids over-the-top stereotyping, a veritable parade of delicious 90’s fashions, and a downright stunning performance from Cameron Diaz as the naïve, privileged fiancée. Diaz is utterly phenomenal in this film, exuding the exact kind of facile purity that Julianne expects from her one minute, then digging deep inside to reveal an unseen strength of character the next. A karaoke scene where she transforms from shy croaker to reluctant star of the show is possibly the finest work of her career, exposing a simultaneous vulnerability and lust for life that betrays just how much competition she’ll prove to be for poor, bitter Julia Roberts.

Of course, Roberts is also fantastic waggling her annoyingly perfect face at the camera like she owns the world. The amount to which she’s willing to concede to the amorality of Julianne is truly refreshing, especially buried as it is under all the typical Roberts-isms: her dazzling smile, her ludicrously curly hair, her disarmingly un-sophisticated laugh. The only weak link in the cast is Dermot Mulroney (of Insidious: Chapter 3) as the man of the hour, the titular Best Friend himself. Mulroney’s Michael is alarmingly devoid of inner life: it’s just cream filling beneath his white smile and toothbrush hair. This is partially the fault of the writing, but when he and Roberts are together, the film drags like a West Hollywood brunch.

There’s just no spark there. It’s hard enough the believe that these two have known each other for a decade (an issue the script attempts to address by having them remind each other of this fact every 2.5 minutes), let alone actually genuinely love another. She’s crème brûlée and he’s a slice of cheesecake without the graham cracker crust. Because of this, the third act sinks like a stone once the other, funnier character take on more secondary roles.

But until that point, My Best Friend’s Wedding is a charmingly witty, daringly different beast. I’m glad I was forced to watch it (for a podcast called Now Streaming, up this Wednesday!), and it’s a vital cornerstone in any romantic comedy education. Now if only they could dump Mulroney and make a movie where Julia Roberts and Cameron Diaz have wacky wedding hijinks, then we’d be talking.

Rating: 7/10

Word Count: 2175