"KEEP BUSTIN'."

Porky’s II: The Next Day

tn_porkys2PORKY’S II: THE NEXT DAY is a weird one – a foolish but also pretty enjoyable shot at catching lightning in a bottle. On one hand the gang from part 1 kind of seem like they’re your buddies, so it feels natural to go back to school with them. On the other hand the fresh feel of the first one came from trying to make a different kind of movie, and from basing it on stories from Bob Clark’s youth. For this one, to a certain extent, he’s trying to make the same kind of movie, and making up new stories that might remind you of the real ones. So it’s kind of forced.

mp_porkys2It’s the sequel curse, really. People will be mad if you don’t reference stuff from the first one, but if you do they’ve already seen it so it’s not gonna be as great as they thought it would be. It’s like Pop Tarts – they’re fine and everything but every time I eat one I think “that’s right, I forgot, they’re kind of dry and flavorless.” That’s how it is in this sometimes. When it opens with Pee Wee waking up with a boner that’s a cute “we have to do this again” moment instead of an outrageous way to start out a movie. The sequel is Pop Tarts, the original is Toaster Strudel.

The plot of this time is a little more far-fetched, and that leads to both the movie’s strengths and it’s weaknesses. It’s not as real as part 1 because it’s more of a movie conflict: they end up taking on the school board, the religious right and even the Ku Klux Klan. But those storylines also make it kind of interesting because instead of just more horniness and giggling it deals with self righteous censors, corrupt politicians and prejudice against Seminoles. Plus horniness and giggling.

I think it also makes a point of making Wendy a much stronger character with pranking powers equal to a boy’s. She plans and executes the dismantling of a political career through the medium of classy-French-restaurant-slapstick (fake puke, garcons falling in fountains, etc.). That part’s too broad for me, with some laughs here and there. But I like the part where she reveals to Pee Wee, in a genuinely kind of sweet scene, that she’s not really the ho people say she is and that she had sex with him in the bus at the end of part 1 because she actually liked him.

The title implies a HALLOWEEN II (original version) approach, but after initially dealing with Pee Wee’s feelings it doesn’t really matter that it’s the next day, and continues into other days. Also, the establishment known as Porky’s is still demolished, and Porky himself is never seen. From what I’ve read it sounds like they wanted him to be one of the Klansmen, but he wouldn’t do nudity. Porky has standards.

Even after losing his virginity Pee Wee is still insecure, and keeps pretending he has a stable of women to hook the other guys up with. They know he’s full of shit but play along to embarrass him, then he tries to prank them and they try to prank him back. I like how in the scenes where they’re fucking with him they don’t pull it off perfectly. They keep almost cracking up, or you can see their faces smiling but turning away so he doesn’t see them. Still, they’re starting to be like the Impossible Mission Force of pranking, they get pretty elaborate. Alot of cloak and dagger shit goin on here.

My favorite part of the movie is the reaction the cops have to the guy in the excellent zombie makeup who’s supposed to scare people in the cemetery. Usually in a broad comedy like this everybody would be superstitious and think it was a real zombie, or they’d see the zombie and decide to stop drinking. In this one nobody who sees the zombie really reacts much, they just kind of stare at him wondering what his deal is.

Our pal Alan Ormsby (DERANGED, DEATHDREAM, THE SUBSTITUTE) is credited as co-writer along with Roger Swaybill and Bob Clark.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 28th, 2009 at 10:27 pm and is filed under Comedy/Laffs, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

13 Responses to “Porky’s II: The Next Day”

  1. Any delish bush shots in this one?

    Ummmmm…bush.

  2. Was it this one or the next one, or first one that had that retarded computer that voice reponsed telling them (mostly fat guy) that dynamite was best way to get into girls locker room. Honestly, that is all I remember from the 3 Porkys and I watched the first one 3+ times. And something dull with a cemetary. Right this minute…I’m still pissed off at all the faggots here about there lack of comments on JCVD vs their infinite comments on what horror should be watched so I’ll take my attitude and current resentment for any discussion of Porkys and fuck bac off to my hole where I’ll bitch like a cheerleader in Bring it On which was a fucking better movie than any of the Porkies on any scale. Fuck you all again, I’m not getting over JCDV’s monologue anytime tonight or prolly tomorrow either. Fuckers.

  3. FUCKING FAGGOTS

  4. Is it me being parochial here? Not sure. Fuck you Vern too then. But I feel bad suddenly that I’m extending my emotions to other reviews so I take back the faggot part and am just sticking by the bitching parts re JCVD. Porkies is worthy of review and to be perfectly fair – the reason I read you Vern and bought Seagology. Some sort of “awesome, this is the movies I want to see reviewed” followed by “awesome, this dude approaches it seriously” followed by “awesome he carries out. but fuck why does he tolerate this tard-ass community”. Indictment on myself – sure. Fuck myself too then. Just apologising for crossing reviews as my anger stems from this community’s reaction as well as reviews of and lack-therof of JCVD and several other movies.

    Just speaking for the masses… of other FUBAR tards. There’s maybe 9 of us and we 9 dun like it, that’s all I’m saying. Good reading aside from that Vern. Ta.

  5. not sure if i can quite make sense of all of that, and not sure if there is any point, but just in case it’s helpful i thought i would point out that the comments section is a relatively new addition to vern’s sight (maybe a couple/few months?), so any reviews posted before the comments section was added (eg. JCVD) is unlikely to many/any comments. cheers!

  6. unlikely to HAVE many/any comments

  7. Grim Grinning Chris

    September 29th, 2009 at 10:11 am

    And as these movies take place in the early 60s, there is no computer telling the guys anything, you must be thinking of a different movie.

  8. The one thing I could never figure out is how Meat managed to gain all that weight in one night. Did he swallow Orson Welles?

  9. I think the biggest failure of this one is they didn’t have any nude scenes as awesome as the shower scene in the first (and no, naked Klansmen doesn’t count)

  10. Marlow – Or shit man, that guy beaten to a bloody pulp (with bandages to show) in #1, and next day…all healed up, all the scars gone.

    It’s a Miracle!

    Also, saw some YouTube clip long ago where Siskel & Ebert called this one of the worst movies of 1983. Ouch.

  11. Off the top of my head, I can think of a few movies released in 1983 that were worse than PORKY’S 2:

    JAWS 3
    SMOKEY & THE BANDIT 3
    YELLOWBEARD
    D.C. CAB
    YENTL

    Of course, now that I’ve been included among the ranks of the “tard-ass community,” maybe this opinion should be taken with a grain of salt.

  12. Jareth Cutestory – They also named all those others too. :)

    Well except for YENTL. They liked that one.

    Hey, nobody’s perfect.

  13. I liked D.C. CAB! So much so that when I saw it again in the mid-1990s I was startled to see it was directed by Joel Schumacher. Same with THE LOST BOYS.

    No movie with Mr. T is ever completely bad. Including FREAKED and SPY HARD. Both under-rated movies.

    Sometimes Siskel & Ebert were snobs, and sometimes they came down out of their ivory tower and reviewed a movie on its own terms. As a kid I found myself agreeing with Ebert more than Siskel because he was more likely to take a science fiction or action movie and judge it by the standards of the genre instead of hating it for not being a depressing low-affect 1970s drama. (As an adult rewatching them on YouTube, I find it’s 50/50 as to whom I agree with more.)

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