Archive for the ‘Horror’ Category
Thursday, July 20th, 2023
July 22, 1983
JAWS 3-D (viewed by me in its shameful flat version) is another summer of ’83 movie that I’ve previously reviewed. But that was 13 years ago, and if I’m doing a summer movie series I can’t really skip over a sequel to the movie that kinda invented the summer blockbuster. I also thought it would be a good marker on the timeline, much like how RETURN OF THE JEDI and STAYING ALIVE indicate how much culture had changed in the six years since STAR WARS and SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER. In eight years we went from a popular beach read elevated by a knockout directorial vision to a gimmicky studio product sequel with twice the budget but a fraction of the style or substance.
It’s tempting to see sequels as emblematic of the ‘80s, but the truth is I counted almost as many released in 1975 as in 1983*. I suppose a difference is that 8 of the 10 in ’75 were part 2s, whereas 1983 gave us such part 3s as this, RETURN OF THE JEDI, SUPERMAN III, AMITYVILLE 3-D, and SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT PART 3. THE OMEN, FRIDAY THE 13TH, HALLOWEEN and ROCKY series’ had also hit part three in 1981 or 1982. So maybe it really was a different movie landscape. The era of part threes, heading into part fours. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: 3D, Bess Armstrong, Carl Gottlieb, Dennis Quaid, Guerdon Trueblood, Harry Grant, Joe Alves, John Putch, Lea Thompson, Louis Gossett Jr., Michael Kane, part 3-Ds, Richard Matheson, SeaWorld, Simon MacCorkindale
Posted in Reviews, Horror | 18 Comments »
Wednesday, July 5th, 2023
I’ll tell you one thing I did 17 summers ago: I reviewed the straight to video sequel I’LL ALWAYS KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER (2006) for the Ain’t It Cool News, a popular movie websight of its time. So you could read that review if you want a young man’s perspective on the DTV finale to the I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER trilogy. It was a funnier review than this one will be. But now I’m all those summers wiser, I come to these things more prepared and with the advantage of chronological distance. This is my first time watching and writing about the three movies back to back – important summer holiday horror scholarship.
The first part of this series had a quick turnaround – part 2 came only 13 months after the first one. But it didn’t do as well, so they struggled to figure out a followup, and it took them 8 years to settle on what they did here. There are no returning cast members, but then again, they might not have wanted them. Outside of the SCREAM series you didn’t usually see the good guys return in a horror sequel, especially if they were no longer teenagers. So for this one they made up a new set of characters to go through similar events, this time in the sunny farm town of Broken Ridge, Colorado. (Actually filmed in Utah.) (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: 4th of July, Brooke Nevin, Clayton Taylor, Don Shanks, DTV sequels, KC Clyde, Michael D. Weiss, Seth Packard, slashers, Sylvain White, Torrey DeVitto, Weapon of Choice
Posted in Reviews, Horror | 14 Comments »
Tuesday, July 4th, 2023
I remember seeing I STILL KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER when it came out. I believe I enjoyed it for what it was – it had the appropriate ratio of competence to goofiness for a slick studio teen slasher sequel in the post-SCREAM era. I did not know or remember that it made less than the first film did on a bigger budget. Of course, this was 1998. They had not yet run over the home video industry, thrown it in the sea and vowed to never speak of it again, so that was where horror movies would thrive, and it at least made enough to justify a DTV sequel.
Things were different then. Horror was more disreputable, even when it was expensive and starred beautiful people from TV shows. Critics had taken to SCREAM, but of course they were gonna hate the goofily titled sequel to SCREAM’s less show-offy, more traditional cousin. But fuck ‘em. This is a solid slasher sequel. Not in the sense of “this is one of the all time great horror movies,” but in the franchise slasher sense of “we took this format and put some enjoyable spins on it and there are some cool touches and some enjoyably dumb ones so I can rewatch it every once in a while and still enjoy it.” That’s what I wanted, and this delivered. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: 4th of July, Bill Cobbs, Brandy Norwood, Danny Cannon, Freddie Prinze Jr., Jack Black, Jeffrey Combs, Jennifer Love Hewitt, John Frizzell, John Hawkes, Mekhi Phifer, Muse Watson, Rasool Jahan, slashers, Trey Callaway
Posted in Reviews, Horror | 10 Comments »
Monday, July 3rd, 2023
I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER is a major pillar in the late ‘90s streak of newfangled glossy studio teen slasher movies. It was released less than a year after SCREAM, two months before SCREAM 2, and three months before Dawson’s Creek started airing, so it was the first real test of whether or not SCREAM was a fluke for screenwriter Kevin Williamson. He’d already been hired and written this loose adaptation of the 1973 young adult suspense novel by Lois Duncan before SCREAM, but when that was a hit all the sudden it became a priority. Williamson was still involved, seeming to have a hand in choosing the director and cast, according to interviews.
Set on two consecutive 4th of July holidays in the small fishing town of Southport, North Carolina, it’s the story of fresh high school graduates Julie James (Jennifer Love Hewitt, CAN’T HARDLY WAIT), Ray Bronson (Freddie Prinze Jr., DELGO), Barry Cox (Ryan Phillippe, 54) and Helen Shivers (Sarah Michelle Gellar, SOUTHLAND TALES) accidentally running over someone late at night while driving home from drinking on the beach. Worried about their lives being ruined by manslaughter charges, they decide that rather than report it they should dump the body in the water and swear to never speak of it again. As kids do. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: 4th of July, Anne Heche, Bridgette Wilson, Freddie Prinze Jr., J. Don Ferguson, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jim Gillespie, John Debney, Johnny Galecki, Jonathan Quint, Kevin Williamson, Lois Duncan, Muse Watson, Ryan Phillippe, Sarah Michelle Gellar, slashers
Posted in Reviews, Horror | 24 Comments »
Tuesday, June 13th, 2023
RENFIELD is a so-so movie with one element of excellence that kinda goes without saying, but I will say it. Later in the review.
This is basically a comedy-action vehicle for Dracula’s crazy bug-eating stooge Renfield, played here by Nicholas Hoult (CLASH OF THE TITANS). I guess you could say it follows in the tradition of the much dorkier VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN, and (sort of) I, FRANKENSTEIN, in that it’s riffing off of classic horror characters and putting them in a modern action/super hero type of context. But it’s different in that it’s a straight up comedy, complete with jokey first person narration and the hook “what if Dracula’s familiar started going to group therapy for co-dependency?” I guess you could say it’s kind of a ZOMBIELAND tone. I generally prefer ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER approach of using an absurd concept but committing to it as if it’s serious and trusting the audience to get it, but this is not my movie. It’s not up to me. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Awkwafina, Ben Schwartz, Caroline Williams, Chris McKay, Dracula, Nicholas Hoult, Nicolas Cage, Robert Kirkman, Ryan Ridley, Shoreh Aghdashloo, vampires
Posted in Reviews, Action, Comedy/Laffs, Horror | 22 Comments »
Tuesday, June 6th, 2023
INFLUENCER (2022) is an excellent horror/thriller that recently came to Shudder. A friend recommended it and I watched it blind, which was a good way to go. I’ll try to set the stage and then I’ll warn you when I’m going to get into specifics of the structure and plot that you might prefer to experience first hand.
It’s set in Thailand, but all the characters are westerners, most of them on vacation. The opening introduces us to Madison (Emily Tennant, SNIPER: ASSASSIN’S END), who narrates in the form of an Instagram video or social media post about her love of travel and adventure, of meeting new people and learning about new places. But we see she’s doing none of that – she’s almost entirely alone at a luxury resort, floating in the pool, getting a massage, lounging on scenic overlooks, occasionally smiling for selfies. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Cassandra Naud, Emily Tennant, influencers, Kurtis David Harder, Paul Spurrier, Rory J. Saper, Sara Canning, Shudder, Tesh Guttikonda
Posted in Reviews, Horror, Thriller | 11 Comments »
Thursday, June 1st, 2023
June 3, 1983
The summer of ’83 saw the release of many blockbuster sequels. There was the big space one, a comic book one, one or more James Bonds, also a PORKY’S, a PINK PANTHER, and a SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT. I suppose you could say there were two horror sequels, both continuing beloved classics from Universal Pictures. One of those involved a shark. The other was riskier. These people had the audacity to make a sequel to a hallowed decades-old classic, the mother of modern horror.
I reviewed PSYCHO II back in 2009, and I think that piece is a good summary of what the movie’s like. Even back then I got that it’s not just better than you’d think or surprisingly good, it’s a genuine classic among horror sequels. I didn’t see the movie until quite a few years after it came out, but having grown up in the ‘80s it used to be impossible to think of anything made in that period as worthy of a classic black and white film from 1960, directed by the iconic Alfred Hitchcock. You have your recency bias, but you also think of contemporary stuff as inherently lesser than the classics. In some of my really old reviews you can see me shit talking what I saw as the cheesy ‘80s, not understanding the reverence people younger than me were starting to have for that era. Now I get it, though. I just needed more distance. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Anthony Perkins, Dean Cundey, Dennis Franz, Hugh Gillin, Jerry Goldsmith, late sequel, Meg Tilly, Richard Franklin, Robert Loggia, slashers, Tom Holland, Vera Miles
Posted in Reviews, Horror | 23 Comments »
Monday, May 22nd, 2023
HOLD THE DARK – not to be confused with Julie Taymor’s musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark – is a made-for-Netflix movie from 2018. I guess time flies, because I didn’t realize it had been that many years I’d been meaning to see it. It was on my list because it’s the fourth film from director Jeremy Saulnier (MURDER PARTY, BLUE RUIN, GREEN ROOM), and it’s written by Macon Blair, who appeared in all of those as an actor (and directed the upcoming remake of THE TOXIC AVENGER).
The best label I can come up with to describe this one is an Alaskan Gothic. It’s quiet and gloomy, with lots of snow, tiny fire-lit cabins, death and superstition. A movie that gives you the feeling of cold, wet socks inside your boots, and wearing a heavy winter coat indoors. It starts with a little boy playing outside in the small Alaskan village of Keelut, and a wolf approaches. And then the kid is gone – apparently not the first child to disappear around here. His mother Medora (Riley Keough, MAD MAX: FURY ROAD) sends a letter to a wolf expert named Russell Core (Jeffrey Wright, SHAFT) who once had to kill a wolf and wrote about it in a book she read. She wants him to kill this wolf before her husband Vernon (The Northman himself, Alexander Skarsgard) gets back from the war. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alaska, Alexander Skarsgard, James Badge Dale, Jeffrey Wright, Jeremy Saulnier, Julian Black Antelope, Macon Blair, Riley Keough, Tantoo Cardinal, William Giraldi
Posted in Reviews, Horror, Thriller | 15 Comments »
Wednesday, May 3rd, 2023
While Ronny Yu was promoting FEARLESS, he talked up his next movie: a live action adaptation of the 2000 anime BLOOD: THE LAST VAMPIRE. So, a Hong Kong director in Hollywood remaking a Japanese movie originally made mostly in English because many of the characters were American. When Yu mentioned it while talking to Martial Arts Entertainment the interviewer asked if it was “sort of a wuxia movie.”
“Maybe. Sort of. You’re right!” Yu said. “It’s sort of cross-cultural, because the whole thing takes place in a U.S. Army base in Japan. Yeah. It’s like a cross-cultural wuxia.”
Alas, it was not to be… exactly. Instead of Yu it was made by French director Chris Nahon, known for helming one of Jet Li’s English language films, KISS OF THE DRAGON (2001). Yu was credited as a producer, but I’ve found no evidence of him staying on during filming in, say, a George Lucas or Steven Spielberg capacity. I suspect he left but got the credit because he’d done so much of the pre-production that Nahon built off of. Yu is not mentioned or shown in a 20 minute making-of featurette on the DVD and blu-ray, but I think it’s reasonable to assume Nahon kept a decent amount of what he put into place, since the sole credited writer Chris Chow and the cinematographer Hang-Sang Poon are both holdovers from FEARLESS. Yu was also still reported as director when Korean actress Jun Ji-hyun, credited as Gianna, was cast as the main character, Saya. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Allison Miller, Chris Nahon, Colin Salmon, Corey Yuen, Jun Ji-hyun, Khari Payton, Koyuki, Larry Lamb, Liam Cunningham, live action anime, Ronny Yu, vampires, Yasuaki Kurata
Posted in Reviews, Action, Horror, Martial Arts | 3 Comments »
Wednesday, May 3rd, 2023
BLOOD: THE LAST VAMPIRE (2000) is a 48-minute anime film, telling the straight forward tale of a being who looks like a Japanese school girl slaying vampires on an American military base in Japan. Though it became very successful and inspired many spin-offs, it was really kind of a practice film. It was conceived by “Team Oshii,” Mamoru (GHOST IN THE SHELL) Oshii’s production study group, which writer Kenji Kamiyama says in a making-of featurette “was designed to give us young directors the practical know-how to implement a project plan.” Kamiyama pitched a story about vampire hunters, Junichi Fujisaki had one about a young female warrior named Saya, and Oshii suggested they combine them. Hiroyuki Kitakubo was chosen as director, and he commissioned cartoonist/illustrator Katsuya Terada to design the characters.
It’s set in Tokyo in 1966, and begins with a moody scene on a moving subway. A young girl carrying a tube, like an art portfolio, looks across the empty car at a tired businessman. Suddenly the lights go out, and she runs at him and slashes him with the sword that was inside that case, splashing blood against the windows. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: anime, Hiroyuki Kitakubo, Junichi Fujisaki, Kenji Kamiyama, Saemi Nakamura, Team Oshii, vampires, Youki Kudoh
Posted in Reviews, Cartoons and Shit, Horror | 1 Comment »
