Shocktober Revisited: Never Sleep Again - The Elm Street Legacy

 Review originally appeared in 2010. Some amendments have been made to reflect the Blu-Ray edition.

 If anything good came of Platinum Dunes' remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street, it's that more attention shifted to the original film and its sequels. Not only did fans get A Nightmare on Elm Street on Blu-Ray (and let me tell you, the "arm stretching" scene looks even sillier in HD*), but the insanely comprehensive Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy arrived for Fred Heads to pore over. And boy howdy is there a lot to pore over.

That is, if you could find it. To date, I still can't find Never Sleep Again in stores. It just recently made it to Netflix, and I had to order my copy from Amazon, where it was on a "Ships in 1 to 3 weeks" back-order. Fortunately, I ordered from one of the Marketplace sellers - Moviemars - based in NC, and got it in about a week. However, it was totally worth the wait.

 2014 Note: At the time this was written, it was more difficult to find Never Sleep Again, but in the four years that followed, a second edition of the DVD and Blu-Ray were released, which are widely available. I currently own the Blu-Ray and recommend it wholeheartedly.

Surrounding the remakes of Halloween and Friday the 13th, retrospective documentaries were released for each: Halloween: 25 Years of Terror and His Name was Jason, which set the template for Never Sleep Again - interviews with cast, crew, fans, and creators of each film in the series. In fact, Never Sleep Again is co-directed by Daniel Farrands, who directed His Name Was Jason. Each set came in two discs - one disc was the documentary, and the other was extended interviews, set visits, recaps, or short featurettes on music, makeup, or fandom.

The difference between the all-encompassing docs for Friday the 13th / Halloween and A Nightmare on Elm Street is sheer depth of presentation. Halloween: 25 Years of Terror and His Name was Jason are 89 and 90 minutes respectively; Never Sleep Again is 4 hours long. That's just the documentary. I'm guessing the second disc has roughly 2-2 1/2 hours of additional material. And none of it drags.

 Directors Farrands and Andrew Kasch managed to get just about everyone involved in the Nightmare series to appear on camera** and talk about the films, and almost none of it rehashes information from the previous making-of's in the Nightmare on Elm Street boxed set or Infinifilm disc. Narrated by Heather Langenkamp, each film gets a good 30-40 minutes covering every aspect of the production from story to casting to production, release, controversy, and direction.

 There's a surprisingly comprehensive list of cast members who came back from the first seven films, including Mark Patton (Jesse in Freddy's Revenge), Danny Hassel (Dan in Nightmares 4 and 5), Ken Sagoes (Kincaid in Dream Warriors), Jsu Garcia (Rod in Nightmare 1), Alice Cooper (Freddy's father in Freddy's Dead), Mike Smith (Super Freddy in Dream Child), Lisa Zane (Maggie in Freddy's Dead), Zack Ward (Bobby in Freddy vs. Jason), Lisa Wilcox (Alice in Nightmares 4 and 5), Clu Gulager (Jesse's Dad in Freddy's Revenge) and even Charles Fleischer (Dr. King in Nightmare 1); people I've never heard talk about the Nightmare movies before. For crying out loud, the even talk to Dokken!

 Once and for all, there's a comprehensive discussion of the various iterations of Freddy vs. Jason in one place, complete with a breakdown of how the final script differed from the film - including reactions from some of the cast about changes that occurred between signing on and filming. Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash even comes up, and there's a pretty good explanation by former New Line executive Jeff Katz (who wrote the spec script for FvJvA) on why it never came to pass. Even Kane Hodder (Jason Vorhees from Friday the 13th part 7 to Jason X) chimes in about how he was in and out of the film without ever being given a specific reason.

 It was also interesting to hear Wes Craven talk about each of the sequels on the record, including (as one of the extras) the remake. Additionally, I have to say it's fascinating hearing the ways that Jack Sholder, Chuck Russell, Renny Harlin, Stephen Hopkins, Rachel Talalay, and Ronny Yu talk about their approaches to the film, and cast and writer experiences of working with each director, warts and all.

 My personal favorite section of the documentary was the discussion of Freddy's Nightmares, the ill-received anthology TV series that aired between The Dream Master and Freddy's Dead. Considering that almost no one ever talks about the series, it was fun to see William Malone (House on Haunted Hill), Mick Garris (Masters of Horror), David J. Schow (The Crow) and Tom McLoughlin (Friday the 13th Part 6) talk about making a very low budget show for syndication where the limits on gore and sexuality were, shall we say, lax. Nobody seems particularly proud of the end result, including former New Line CEO Robert Shaye, but that it was even mentioned - let alone get its own block of documentary - made me happy***.

 I haven't completely finished the second disc (in that I haven't watched all of "Horror's Hallowed Grounds: A Nightmare on Elm Street") but the extended interviews are great, the 10 minute recap of the Nightmare films - comprised of cast members performing memorable lines - is a lot of fun, the fan segment is cool, as are the various people who make glove replicas, the music section is cool, I liked the spin-off books (which also cover FvJvA), and a nice interview with The Angry Video Game Nerd about his Nightmare on Elm Street game review is included. Overall, it's just a solid package covering damn near everything you could want to know. Think of it as a documentary version of Peter Bracke's Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th.

 2014 Note: Speaking of which, Farrands and Kasch went on to "adapt" Bracke's book into a companion piece for the Friday the 13th series, which is comparably exhaustive (thereabouts seven hours) in its coverage of the films. It's also notable for an alternate version of the interviews from Freddy vs. Jason, focused more heavily on the Friday the 13th side.

 While I'm slightly biased as a massive Nightmare on Elm Street fan, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that even casual fans won't be bored watching this 4 hour documentary. There's never a point where the discussion isn't interesting or there's something new to learn (for example, I'd somehow never heard that Tron's David Warner was originally cast as Fred Krueger and had to drop out) and it's broken up in such a way that you can spread it out over a day or two. This is an absolute must-see for Nightmare fans, and a high recommendation for people who want to see what all the hoopla is about.


* That being said, everything else looks great. Don't let the cynics tell you that a low-budget movie from 1984 can't look good in High Definition. A Nightmare on Elm Street looks better than I'd ever imagined it could.
** Notable absences are Johnny Depp, Patricia Arquette, Ronee Blakely (Nancy's mother in part 1), Breckin Meyer (Freddy's Dead), Frank Darabont (who co-wrote Dream Warriors), Peter Jackson (who wrote the mythical and unproduced A Nightmare on Elm Street 6: The Dream Lovers) and strangely much of the cast of Freddy vs. Jason (including Katharine Isabelle, Kelly Rowland, Jason Ritter, and Ken Kirzinger), although there is a great joke involving Jason Mewes and the assumption he played Freeburg in Freddy vs. Jason.
2014 Note: During the commentary, it's explained that Depp and Arquette were willing to film interviews but could not find time in the schedules, and that Frank Darabont was filming the pilot for The Walking Dead during production of Never Sleep Again. While Darabont was unable to film an interview, he provided many stills and behind the scenes memorabilia for the production.
*** Craven and Shaye, among others, also address Dreamscape - which was released the same year as A Nightmare on Elm Street - for the first time I can remember.

2013 Recap: The Final Stretch Before the "Best Of" (Part Four)

 At long last, the recap of what constitutes "the middle" is nearly over. Comparing this project to last year's one post, title and quick synopsis / review, I think I'm happier to spend the time giving you a better idea of the strengths and weaknesses of each film, and explaining why they're worth seeing, but not quite the best movies I saw last year. Hopefully the feeling is mutual, but if not, I can go back to the old way next year.

New York (and Jersey) State of Mind.

 As much as I personally enjoyed Noah Baumbach's Frances Ha, it's been a struggle to recommend it to friends. I'm not really sure who will like it and who won't; Baumbach and Greta Gerwig's distinctly American version on the French New Wave might strike a lot of you as precious and contrived. Some might find it annoying and might be turned off completely by the title character (Gerwig) and her inability to commit to any one direction in life. I say this because that's consistently been the criticism from people who hate it (and I mean HATE). Others take umbrage with its adoption of the FNW aesthetic, arguing that the film is a weak imitator that can only be enjoyed by those who aren't versed in Truffuat or Godard or Malle. Maybe that's so, but I'm not convinced of that argument. Maybe Frances Ha has to catch you in just the right mood.

 It is true that Frances (the character) is an acquired taste: a late 20-something woman who drifts from roommate to roommate, convinced that she wants to dance but doesn't want to branch out and choreograph for herself. She needs money but doesn't seem interested in taking a job that's practically handed to her, and is willing to go back to her Alma mater and work as an RA / waitress while her best friend Sophie (Mickey Sumner) is planning to get married and move to Japan for work. Her roommate Benji (Michael Zegen) calls her "undateable," and on a whim she decides to fly to Paris, only to sleep through most of her two day vacation. So yes, there's a lot of Frances Ha that goes nowhere and if you don't take to Gerwig from the beginning, it might be a lost cause, because you're in for a long 86 minutes.

 On the other hand, if it does strike your fancy, you'll find a lot to enjoy in what is an essentially jubilant and upbeat take on the quarter-life crisis. Baumbach borrows music from The 400 Blows, Bed and Board, Contempt, and King of Hearts to set the tone, and the film is, to me, structured a bit like Vivre sa vie, although nowhere as depressing. Rather than break the film into chapters, Baumbach divides each  chronological section of Frances Ha using a title with Frances' current mailing address. Gerwig is in every scene of the movie, and while the character can sometimes be infuriating, her performance as Frances is always riveting. But I'm still not sure how many of you are going to take to the film, so if you watch it and hate it, don't say I didn't try to give you a head's up.

 Don Jon, the Jersey equivalent of Frances Ha (sort of but also not really) is the directorial debut of Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who also wrote and stars in the film. Like the titular character, Don Jon has confidence to spare, and the film is tremendously charming, which is a good thing. It stumbles a little bit on the back end (I'll get to that in a moment), but for most people you won't even think twice about it. The trailers have been misleading you into thinking it's just about Gordon-Levitt trying to date Scarlett Johansson while also having a porn addiction, but that's less of the story than you might be expecting.

The running theme(s) of Don Jon is mostly concerned with objectification and routine, specifically by Jon (Gordon-Levitt), who likes his life to follow a certain order. We never see the "work" part, but that's followed by going to the club with his boys, picking up a girl (always given a numerical score, and Jon only takes home 8's or better, which is why they call him the "Don"), watching porn, going to church, confession, dinner with the family, and then the gym (where he says the Lord's Prayer and his Hail Mary's while working out). Repeat. He likes his sex like he likes his porn, to follow a certain routine, but the sex never seems to match up to the porn, so he'll often get out of bed after hooking up with a girl and watch some pornography while she sleeps in the other room.

 This you probably knew from the trailer, and that he also meets Barbara Sugarman (Johansson), the rare "10" that Jon knows he wants immediately. But Barbara isn't so easily won over, and the "Don" has to play the long game to win her over, which begins disrupting his routine. She doesn't like that he cleans his own apartment. She wants him to go to school in order not to be a bartender forever. She really objects to the porn, but Jon keeps watching it on his phone (sometimes at school). But her friends like Jon and his family loves her, and most of the things she wants are improving his life, so how can he complain? He likes porn, she likes dumb romantic comedies (one of the ones they go to see in the movie stars Anne Hathaway and Channing Tatum in amusing cameos), what's the difference? It's all fantasy, right?

 And then Don Jon takes a left turn, introducing a character you don't see in the trailer and whose name you'd certainly recognize if I told you (her name is on the poster, by the way). That's where the movie starts to diverge from whatever you expected based on the trailer. I don't want to say too much because not knowing is Don Jon's greatest strength - leading you into thinking this is one kind of romantic comedy and then heading in another direction midway through. Let's just say that Jon's routine starts to come apart a little bit, and maybe that's not such a bad thing for the "Don."

 If anything, I wish Gordon-Levitt had been willing to go a little further than he does; I kept waiting to see where the story was going, to see what he had up his sleeve, only to realize that Don Jon was going to be far more conventional than I'd hoped for. The ending isn't bad, necessarily, but it's safer than I was expecting, more fitting of the typical "three act structure" romantic comedy that the movie seems to be poking fun at and less willing to really take the genre to task. Don't get me wrong, it doesn't end the way you'd assumed based on the trailer, but by mentioning that there's another character you haven't seen in the previews, you can probably guess what happens.

 Joseph Gordon-Levitt does a fine job directing, even if the writing is more conventional than the Cap'n would have liked. I'd also like to give him kudos for casting, especially with Jon's family. Not only was it nice to see Tony Danza and Glenne Headly again (I can't remember anything I've seen her in since Dick Tracy), but along with Brie Larson, they felt like a real family sitting down for dinner after church. Everybody has great chemistry and the fun is infectious, so I have the feeling you'll come out of Don Jon smiling, as long as you can handle fleeting glimpses of porn. Guys, I guess you should be prepared to address that question if you watch this on a date. That's your head's up.

Science Fiction Double Feature

Is Pacific Rim just a dumb, loud movie that caters to the twelve year old boy inside of 20-30 something nerds that like to see robots fighting monster? Probably. Are the characters, at best, wafer thin with ridiculous names you wouldn't say out loud even if you could remember them? Almost certainly. Did Guillermo del Toro decide to make a silly movie inspired by Japanese kaiju pictures when he left The Hobbit and At the Mountains of Madness was to dark and too scary for a major studio? Pretty much. Do I care? Not really.

 Pacific Rim is about as close as the Cap'n will ever get to watching a Transformers movie, and I've already watched it twice on Blu-Ray. That in addition to the first time I saw it, and I tend to show people who are on the fence about seeing it the fight in the middle of the movie where the kaiju attack Hong Kong and Gypsy Danger comes in to save the day. That scene is a good barometer of whether you're going to want to watch the rest or not, but the truth is that Pacific Rim lets del Toro indulge in his compulsive and obsessive world building (complete with body parts preserved in jars and parasites that live on the giant monsters and their usefulness to the black market) while also feeding a basic need for destruction on a massive scale and robots punching monsters, which is really why this film is a popular as it is for a very specific subset of geeks. I don't feel guilty about enjoying it, but I couldn't possibly defend it if challenged. It's a smart dumb movie, or vice versa. Take your pick.

 Gravity has some truly inspiring camera work and visual effects, and watching the movie is like riding on a roller coaster with more suspense than an Alfred Hitchcock masterpiece. I can totally understand why it took Alfonso Cuarón seven years to make this, and some of the camera work and (seemingly) unbroken takes are genuinely impressive. It was everyone's favorite movie this summer, the "must see" event that friends and family and audiences in general couldn't get enough of, and now I'm not hearing so much about it. It didn't make my "Best Of" at any point, really, despite its myriad of achievements and how gripping the entire film is. Why?

 Some people have trouble with the liberties taken with the science, but the whole Neil deGrasse Tyson tweeting brouhaha didn't phase me much. It's a movie and of course Cuarón was going to take some shortcuts to streamline the narrative, so things get a little fuzzy with the "scientifically accurate" part, although I can't honestly remember that being a bragging point. I think the problem, for me, goes to the story. It's far, far too simple, and no amount of visual flair or tension or long takes is going to overcome that fact that when Gravity is over, there's not a lot to hang on to. Yes, I thought the scene where Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is spinning and can't stop and Cuarón pulls all the way inside of her helmet and back out was really cool and I feel her dizziness and disorientation too, was great stuff. But I didn't care about her dead daughter, or when she detaches from Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) and he floats off to near certain doom. The isolation of space, the silence, was impressive, and Bullock's desperation to stay alive and to not die out there, I liked, but I couldn't tell you anything about why she needed to get back to Earth.

 Gravity is wholly successful at being a movie you want to watch, and to experience, even if it seems thoroughly implausible at times. On an IMAX screen, I'm sure it felt like "you are there," particularly in those first person perspective shots of trying to grab the space station(s). It's a triumph visually and in design and execution. There are shots in the film that continue to impress me when I think about them now. But the longer I go since I've seen Gravity, the more fleeting my engagement with the predicament of Stone and Kowalski is, so while I remain dazzled with what Cuarón achieved visually, I'm less enthused about the whole package.

Based on a True Story but Actually (kind of), This Time.

 Previously on Cap'n Howdy's Blogorium... documentary recap! While not all of the movies covered in the recap were from 2013, it does reflect how I feel about Rewind This! and Bronies: The Extremely Unexpected Adult Fans of My Little Pony. This section should be about the documentaries I didn't get around to seeing but wanted to, like Blackfish, The Act of Killing, and Deceptive Practice: The Mysteries and Mentors of Ricky Jay, all of which I hope to watch in the new year. Maybe We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks, but I did just watch the fictionalized / Cumberbatch-ized version, The Fifth Estate (not in time for the recap) and it was just okay.

 What I left off of the documentary recap (for space, mostly) were two other documentaries I saw in 2013 - Evocateur: The Morton Downey Jr. Movie and Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th. I feel like the latter should (and probably will) get its own post some time soon, but I thought we could spend this time together covering them as I think you would enjoy one or the other based on its subject matter.

 I remember The Morton Downey Jr. Show existing, kind of; I was still pretty young and it ran for less than two years, but the cultural impact of his talk show paved the way for Jerry Springer's three ring circus a decade later. He also played a version of himself on one of my favorite Tales from the Crypt episodes, "Television Terror," so I was interested to learn more about the man who never quite moved out of his father's shadow. Also, Evocateur begins by drawing parallels between Glen Beck and Morton Downey Jr. with "man on the street" interviews with Tea Party Patriots members and Downey audience members. And then it ends with a Downey-fied version of The Rocky Horror Picture Show's "Science Fiction Double Feature." What's not to like?

 Well, Morton Downey Jr., for starters. Whether his TV act was just that (an act) or not, there does seem to be a great disparity between the activist of the 1960s who wrote a book of poetry and supported the Kennedy's and the foul mouthed, caustic, abrasive radio turned talk show host who berated his guests until they walked out. Meanwhile, he took his show on the road and recorded a folk album with a long time friend (from what you hear in the movie, it's pretty terrible). The documentary covers Downey from all angles - friends who knew him before and during the show, executives, producers, audience members, and impressively, some of the guests. Alan Dershowitz and Gloria Steinem appear on camera and seem to have fond memories of sparring with Downey on the air.

 Not appearing, but a large part of the discussion, is the Reverend Al Sharpton, whose continued presence on the show during the Tawana Brawley case helped increase the prominence both of him and Downey. The legendary brawl at the Apollo Theater during one of Downey's live tour is given a new perspective from the point of view of the show bodyguard, who considered it to be more of a "party" than a riot. Throughout the documentary there's a discussion of what was real and what was exaggerated on the show and whether its host even believed what he was saying. Interspersed between are animated segments that reminded me a bit of American: The Bill Hicks Story, as well as readings from his book "Quiet Thoughts" Make the Loudest Noise (published under Sean Morton Downey). There's never a dull moment in the documentary, and worth checking out.

 Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th is the follow-up to Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy from Daniel Farrands, and at nearly seven hours, it would be hard to argue that it wasn't exhaustive and thorough. I liked it, but not as much as Never Sleep Again, and it's not so much that I enjoy A Nightmare on Elm Street more, but that I feel like Friday the 13th has been covered more often in different places.

 To start with, the documentary's title comes from Peter Bracke's excellent oral history of the films (a coffee table book you can still find on Amazon, by the way), but in addition to that, unlike most of the Nightmare DVDs and Blu-Rays, the Friday the 13th films have always had some degree of "making of" documentaries for each film, so there's a built in familiarity with some of the stories being told (in comparison, the only part of Never Sleep Again that I knew very well was the section about the first film). Crystal Lake Memories also (sparingly) re-purposes footage from His Name Was Jason, a much shorter Friday the 13th series documentary also directed by Farrands, and for Freddy vs. Jason, portions of Never Sleep Again (although the focus skews heavily on Jason this time, understandably).

 There's still a LOT to learn here, and like Never Sleep Again, my least favorite Friday entries often produce the best stories (parts V, VIII, and the remake). If you're a fan of the series who hasn't read or seen tons of anecdotes about Friday the 13th, there's going to be a lot to love here (and if you're lucky, maybe you can score a copy with the bonus disc that includes another 4 1/2 hours of additional interviews), but die hard fans should know that there's a good deal of ground covered here you already know, as entertaining as it is to hear again.

Where Have You Been?

This last section is designed to cover directors I'd been waiting to see follow-up well known (or at least, well liked by me) films or, in the case of one of them, return to making a style of movies most thought he'd long abandoned. In any other sense, these films have almost nothing in common, but you have to close out somewhere, right?

 I had been waiting for a long time for Shane Black's next film after the riotous, irreverent, clever take on detective films, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and finally got it in the form of Iron Man Three earlier in 2013. Like Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, it takes place during Christmas, has deceptive narration, and doesn't take itself, the source material, or even the films that preceded it in the Marvel Universe too seriously. The last part was a serious sticking point for hard core Marvel fans, as Black's insouciant attitude towards The Mandarin soured many a fanboy and the internet is still screaming about how Black and Ben Kingsley "ruined" their favorite Iron Man villain.

 Black's sense of humor seems to mesh very well with Robert Downey Jr.'s "take nothing seriously" portrayal of Tony Stark, and the two were a fantastic pair in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang eight years ago, so I wasn't worried in the slightest about Iron Man Three. What surprised me was the other side of the coin: Stark is visibly traumatized by the battle at the end of The Avengers, has night terrors, and is obsessed with perfecting his armor in order to be ready for when (not if) it happens again. Instead of an alien invasion, Stark finds himself picking a fight with international terrorist The Mandarin (Kingsley) while Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) fends off the advances of Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), a scientist who has his own history with Tony. Along for the ride are Colonel James Rhodes (Don Cheadle), re-branded as the Iron Patriot, and one of Killian's former associates, Maya Hansen (Rebecca Hall), who is more than a little worried about her boss's association with The Mandarin.

 Much credit is due to Black for doing two things you should never do: 1) keeping Stark out of the Iron Man armor for most of the middle of the movie and 2) introducing a kid "sidekick" for Tony during the same stretch of film. Not only is Stark forced to be more resourceful, but we see how he deals with someone that, in a million years, Tony would never pair up with but has no choice. And rather than being the typical obnoxious child, Haley (Ty Simpkins) goes toe-to-toe with Tony and their bickering manages to avoid most of the problems with involving a kid in the story.

 The film is loosely adapted from the Extremis story in Iron Man, but it's probably going to be remembered less for the balance of action and comedy and more for the introduction of The Mandarin and the (SPOILER) subsequent revelation that he's just an actor playing the part of a terrorist. Comic fans hated Black taking down the Mandarin mythos and revealing him just to be some guy hired to be the face of the operation, and I get it. It's a huge bait-and-switch and no amount of theorizing that "Trevor Slattery" is "actually really The Mandarin doing a double fake-out" is going to assuage taking the piss out of the villain.

 All the same, I must say I really enjoyed Iron Man Three (spelled that way in the closing credits, which means it's how you should address it, mmkay?) and Black's foray into the Marvel Universe. Based on interviews where he was asked, it sounds like he doesn't really want to do any more Marvel movies, so I look forward to whatever he's up to next. Let's just not take another eight years, if that's cool.

 While on the subject of Marvel directors, Joss Whedon surprised everybody in 2013 by revealing he had, mostly in secret, already completed his next film, an adaptation of William Shakespeare's Much Ado about Nothing. Filmed entirely at his house (where he staged regular Shakespeare readings with friends) and starring vast swaths of cast members from the Whedon-verse, Much Ado About Nothing is a breezy, enchanting modern take on the Bard that, thanks in large part to its location, brings a sense of intimacy to the story. It's also a marked contrast to The Avengers and Serenty in scope, and closer in execution (if not tone) to his television work.

 For those who didn't read the play in high school, here's as quick of a recap as I can give: Don Pedro (Reed Diamond) has arrived at the home of Leonato (Clark Gregg) after a successful campaign in battle, bringing along his brother, Don John (Sean Maher), and associates Benedick (Alexis Denisof) and Claudio (Franz Kranz). Claudio is taken with Leonato's daughter, Hero (Jillian Morgese) and hopes to marry her with the help of Don Pedro, and Benedick is a self professed bachelor who likes nothing more than to bicker with Hero's cousin, Beatrice (Amy Acker). Leonato and Don Pedro decide to conspire to bring Benedick and Beatrice together, with the help Claudio, Hero, and the rest of the house. Everything seems to be going well until Don John and his friends Conrade (Riki Lindhome) and Borachio (Spencer Treat Clark) decide to disparage the honor of Hero and ruin the wedding, but with the assistance of two bumbling offices, Verges (Tom Lenk) and Dogberry (Nathan Fillion), all might not be lost...

 Whedon makes an interesting decision at the beginning of Much Ado About Nothing to explicitly show Beatrice and Benedick's romantic history preceding the story, which is (maybe) hinted at in the play but never stated. It adds an additional layer to the banter between Acker and Denisof (who already had great chemistry on Angel, sorry but I am a nerd). It takes a moment to adjust to Shakespearan dialogue in American dialect (the last time I heard it presented that way was in the awful 2000 version of Hamlet), but once you've settled in the presentation and black and white photography seem perfectly natural. Whedon once again indulges in including a song in the film ("Say No More") and while he didn't write it, for some reason I just can't get into the presentation of music in any of his projects, which makes a critical scene early in the film more of an annoyance for me than it should be. But that, I know, is completely my issue and won't affect many of you at all. Just know that "Once More with Feeling" and Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog are not my favorite Whedon related projects. Technically I suppose Much Ado About Nothing is supposed to be a 2012 film, but there wasn't anywhere I could see it before 2013, so that's how I'm counting it. It's a welcome change of pace from an always unpredictable voice in geekdom.

 As divisive as Iron Man Three and Frances Ha are likely to be (for different reasons), I think Nicolas Winding Refn's Only God Forgives is going to take the cake. If you hated Drive (and I know several people who were quite vocal in their disagreement over its place in my 2011 "Best Of" list), you're really going to hate Only God Forgives. If you liked Drive (as I did and continue to), there's still a very good chance you're going to hate Only God Forgives. It's even less direct in where it is going, even more abstract in its storytelling, and even more withdrawn in its performances. The subject matter is consistently brutal and borderline abhorrent, and the violence is more extreme. There are no characters worth pulling for, and nobody really wins in the end. So that's your warning. That said, I think I really liked it. Didn't love it, but I'm pretty sure I really like it.

 Only God Forgives has less of a story than Drive, and that's saying something. Where Drive was a neo-noir that followed the wrong character (traditionally speaking, the Bryan Cranston character should have been the protagonist based on most noir conventions), Only God Forgives is a revenge film where the person seeking revenge a) doesn't want to and b) is grossly outmatched in his opponent, but he's been coerced into doing it, so things probably won't end well.

 Julian (Ryan Gosling) lives in Thailand with his brother Billy (Tom Burke), and runs a boxing club that's also a front for drug deals. Julian fancies himself a fighter while Billy has tastes that run... dark. While out one night, Billy decides to hire an underage prostitute and then kills her, which brings the attention of Chang (Vithaya Pansringarm), the "Angel of Vengeance" of the police force. Chang brings the girl's father to the scene of the crime, and allows him to kill Billy as retribution, but then cuts off the father's hands for not protecting his daughter in the first place. Crystal (Kristin Scott Thomas), arrives not long thereafter, and immediately begins browbeating Julian about the death of his brother. She's their mother, and has an unhealthy (at best) relationship with her boys, and a particularly strange attachment to Billy (let's just say she brings up their respective, *ahem* lengths while at dinner with Julian and a stripper he's pretending is his girlfriend).

 When Julian isn't acting fast enough in taking revenge, Crystal hires his associates to do the job and kill both the father and Chang, and it doesn't end well. Chang is a brutally efficient killer with a stringent moral code. When he's done committing horrific acts of justice, he sings karaoke. Julian has premonitions of losing his beloved hands to Chang, but is pressed onward by his warped mother (also revealed to be the boss behind the drug dealing) to murder the police officer. Julian tries to fight him and loses (badly), but presses on, even though no good can come of this.

 Every character in Only God Forgives is unlikeable, from the practically comatose Julian to the loathsome Billy to the repressive to the point of extreme outbursts Chang. Crystal is probably the worst of all of them, egging Julian on to kill someone he can't hope to defeat, but she's seeking retribution for her dead son. Then again, Julian's in Thailand because Crystal asked him to kill his own father and he did it. Nothing about Only God Forgives is pleasant, but there's a strangely hypnotic quality in Refn's opaque presentation of what little story there is. It's a march towards inevitability, to be sure, but one that transfixes. And one that most of you will find every bit as loathsome and unappealing as its protagonists.

 Ryan Gosling is nearly motionless for long stretches, to the point of appearing catatonic. Pansringarm is stoic, even during moments of violence, and the juxtaposition in the karaoke lounge doesn't waver much from that. On the other hand, the nearly unrecognizable Kristin Scott Thomas oozes malice and manipulates everyone in her sight, breaking the formality. I don't suppose the droning score will help, or the mostly neon lighting, or the long opening section (in what is a fairly short movie) where nothing happens. The only appeal, I suppose, is if you desperately need to see Ryan Gosling get his ass handed to him, because that does happen. Otherwise, I would proceed with caution - this is going to be a seriously divisive film for years to come.

 On the opposite side of the spectrum, I never thought I'd seen the David Gordon Green who made George Washington, All the Real Girls, and Undertow again. After Pineapple Express, Green seemed to be enjoying making high concept lowbrow comedies that people really didn't warm to, like Your Highness and his ill-advised remake of Adventures in Babysitting, The Sitter. For a stretch there, one could assume he was happy making comedies for major studios. But then again, you know what they say about assuming...

 To everybody's surprise, Green announced he'd already finished a new movie, filmed on the low down, and would be releasing it in 2013. Prince Avalanche, based on a Swedish film called Either Way, is David Gordon Green returning to minimalist storytelling, to his independent roots inasmuch as that's possible, and it's a fine return to form. I also didn't know Either Way existed, so there was no basis for comparison in my mind while watching it, if that's a mitigating factor for anybody.

 In the summer of 1988, after wildfires ravaged the Texas country side, Alvin (Paul Rudd) is working on repainting the roads out in rural areas. He brought along his girlfriend's younger brother, Lance (Emile Hirsch), in part because he asked but also because Lance is a "city boy." Alvin is surprised and disappointed that Lance has no idea how to fish or fend for himself, but Lance is just interested in getting to the weekend so he can go back to town and get laid.

 That is, without spoiling anything (if that's possible), the plot of Prince Avalanche. While there are a handful of other characters (a Truck Driver played by Lance DeGault and a mysterious Lady played by Joyce Payne), the film is largely a two man show. But boy howdy is it a joy to watch Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch bounce off of each other for 90 minutes. Their relationship is predicated entirely on the fact that the older Alvin is dating the younger Lance's sister, and they listen with amusement to the other rambling on about their big plans. Alvin wants to learn German and move away, and he's saving up to make that happen, while Lance is excited to go to the not-quite Miss America pageant where he's pretty sure he can hook up with one of the losers.

 If you're in the mood for a small movie that's more character driven than narrative, I think you'll do very well to watch Prince Avalanche. With Rudd and Hirsch starring, I suppose it's somewhere between and "indie" movie and a major release (it's something I think we would have had at The Galaxy), and it's the best thing Green's done since Pineapple Express. And if you didn't like that, I'd happily tell you this is as good as All the Real Girls, if even more limited in scope. That's not a bad thing, by the way. Prince Avalanche also makes me want to seek out Either Way, which is something to do between now and Green's next film, Joe,  another drama with Nicolas Cage. Count me in.

 This is it. We've finally made it to the end of the middle, as strange as that sounds. All that remains now are the final twelve, the best of the best. My favorite movies of 2013, and as we've built towards them, you can imagine how enthused I am to share them with you. Most of them I've already seen more than once, and I've been driving my friends crazy for the last three months to see all of them. But that you must wait a little bit longer for. Not too long, but a little suspense will do you good...

Cap'n Howdy's (Back)Log: Documentary Recap!

   While it may come as a surprise to readers that the Cap'n spends time watching more than just schlock, more often than you'd expect I'll sit down and watch a documentary. What you may notice is that I don't often write about them, usually because I don't feel like rehashing what they're about. Ultimately, the question is whether there's something new to learn about the subject that you didn't already know (if you knew anything about it in the first place), and I suppose that most of the below succeed in that category to one degree or the other. In this instance, I'm including these mini-reviews to let you know they exist, because I hadn't seen or heard too much about them prior to screening.

Ecstasy of Order: The Tetris Masters - It's hard not to see this movie and draw parallels to The King of Kong, because they are, in essence, about the same thing. Tetris fan Pat Cotri discovers that while there are a number of rankings on various sites, there has never been a tournament to determine a champion for the game, so he organizes one and invites various "masters" from around the world to compete. Looming over the entire event is the question of whether Thor Aackerlund, the legendary wunderkind of the Nintendo World Championships of the 1990s, will return from a self-imposed exile in order to join the tournament.

 Where Ecstasy of Order differs from The King of Kong is that there's no "David vs. Goliath" angle, ala the Billy Mitchell / Steve Wiebe high score battle. These are evenly matched players who accomplished extraordinary feats with the game of Tetris (the NES version, for those curious), including the rumors that Thor not only reached "Max Score" but has more lines than anyone on the "Kill Screen," - the point at which lines begin to fall so fast it's nearly impossible to line them up.

 Rather than deal with human conflict, Ecstasy of Order centers around technique, about the approach to Tetris, and about the many ways players accomplish feats most of us didn't know where possible. It becomes a bit hypnotic, and that's well before the demonstration of the "invisible pieces" version of Tetris appears in the film. I won't reveal who does and doesn't make it to the tournament, let alone who wins, but I appreciated the level of respect among competitors. The title of Tetris Master is no misnomer in this case.


 Rewind This! - A documentary about VHS tapes and the people who love them? Yes indeed, my friends. Designed as a love letter of sorts to a (mostly) defunct staple of home video, Rewind This both covers the history of the videotape, its rise and fall, and the fanatics who go out of their way to collect the obscure and the bizarre releases that will in all likelihood never be released again. As somebody who grew up during the era of home video (and who has more than a few VHS tapes at home), it's nice to see that the love for the format still exists, even though tapes have a worse chance than vinyl of enduring over time. The very things that come up about why VHS is so endearing - the tracking lines, the wear over parts of the film replayed repeatedly - are the very reason that they don't last. Tapes wear out, break, and can sadly be erased at a moment's notice.

 Now that hasn't stopped me from keeping the ones I have (and coveting the one VCR I own that still works) but the truth is that it's harder to maintain this medium. The nostalgia factor and the access to titles that, quite frankly, have and probably will only exist on tape is the driving thrust behind the documentary (not to mention a continuing thread on series like Red Letter Media's "Best of the Worst" or Everything is Terrible), so it was nice to see a celebration like Rewind This!. VHS essentially launched home video, and it was (and, I suppose, is) the longest running format to date. After all, DVD barely made it ten years before Blu-Ray began chipping away, and who knows how long that has before digital or the next innovation takes over? Eventually we may come to a point where the tapes no longer play, and Rewind This! might go from a love letter to an archive of a lost era, but in the meantime, it really got me jazzed to fire up the VCR again...

 41 - I didn't know much about George H.W. Bush - as a President or as a man - when I watched 41 so in that regard this HBO documentary was informative. It's much more focused on Bush as the man rather than as the public servant, and surprisingly doesn't cover much of his time as President (or, for more obvious reasons, his period in the CIA). If you don't know much about him or his family history, it's certainly worth checking out, but don't expect much in the way of political gossiping, ala Clinton's My Life. Other than a very curt mention of how he "doesn't want to talk about" Ross Perot and the 1992 election, Bush is remarkably magnanimous towards most of the people he worked with. You also won't learn too much about what he thinks about George W. Bush, or Jeb for that matter, but there's plenty about the dogs. I don't mean to undersell the documentary as fluff, because it really isn't - you'll learn a lot about Bush's personal history and home life, but there's a limit to the political lessons to be gleaned from the experience.

 Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic - Showtime produced a rather thorough documentary about the life of Richard Pryor, from his earliest stages of comedy right up until his premature retirement due to advanced MS. I must admit to being surprised at how much of Pryor's career I wasn't aware of, in particular the period before he dropped out of comedy to reinvent himself in anonymity out west. There's a great deal more to the "freebasing" incident that led to burns all over Pryor's head and body than one would think based on more cursory career retrospectives, and certainly more about how he lived after MS sidelined him (something even a heart attack couldn't do earlier in his life). I'm not sure that I'd ever seen footage from the failed attempt at Live on the Sunset Strip that preceded the concert film we all know, but it's fascinating to see his awareness that it's just not happening. My only gripe is that among all of the other comedians, celebrities, friends, and lovers interviewed, I don't understand why Dave Chappelle was included if he only appears twice in the documentary, for a total of less than two minutes. Both times he appears the comments are more conjecture than insight, and it seems like a waste of Chappelle to bring him in only to add nothing.


Necessary Evil: Super Villains of DC Universe - My familiarity with the villainy of the DC Universe is mostly limited to Batman, with a smattering of Superman and Green Lantern antagonists thrown in for good measure. Other than knowing the names Manta Ray, Black Adam, Reverse Flash, and Gorilla Grodd, I don't know much of anything about them. I'd like to say this documentary helped, but while a lot of DC antagonists are included, the focus sways heavily on psychoanalytical reasons for villains to exist and how each DC hero's rogues gallery is uniquely suited towards them.

 This is not to say that the documentary, narrated by Christopher Lee, isn't interesting, but if you're looking for more than the most cursory discussion of major villains, you might wish that this could be spun off into a series. Lex Luthor and the Joker get most of the screen time, and that's not actually that much, because at a little over 100 minutes, there's more of a focus into breaking them down into types with the occasional brief overview of characters like Man-Bat or Harley Quinn (again, Batman characters I already knew about).

 I'm not certain who this documentary is for, either, considering that many of the participants - including DC executives, artists, writers, voice actors, and people who on the surface have next to nothing to do with the comics (WWE Superstar CM Punk shows up once specifically to mention Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight, and nothing else!) - talk about major characters as though fans have never heard of them. Doomsday's entire first appearance is covered, up to the death of Superman and an explanation of what happens if you kill Doomsday. Perhaps Necessary Evil was designed as a primer for readers of DC's new-ish "52" re-launch. I'm not sure. It's fun to watch, but I must admit that it amounts to little substance by the time it ends.


Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown - There's a lot of substance at hand in this documentary about one of the titans of horror writing. Yes, Stephen King sells more and Clive Barker is more disturbing, but the influence of H.P. Lovecraft permeates every crack and crevice, every darkened hallway of horror to this day. What I wasn't expecting from Fear of the Unknown, what turned out to be the most welcome, was how in depth the coverage of Lovecraft's personal life and how they influenced his writing. The documentary moves in a basically chronological fashion through his life, but takes detours to analyze major stories in depth with a who's who of writers, directors, and historians.

 Among the interviewees are Lovecraft biographer S.T. Joshi, writers Neil Gaiman, Ramsey Campbell, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Peter Straub, and directors John Carpenter, Stuart Gordon, and Guillermo del Toro, all of whom bring a wealth of knowledge about the author and his stories. Carpenter tells the story of how, as a child, he read The Rats in the Walls in a horror anthology and its lasting effect on him. Much to my surprise, the racist tendencies in Lovecraft's writing isn't glossed over and discussion and contextualization of his opinions on immigration appear throughout Fear of the Unknown, often with a more frank and less apologetic tone than might be expected. The analysis of the stories is most welcome and the participants go well beyond rehashing the Elder Gods mythos in bringing insight to Lovecraft's many phases of writing. Also, make sure to watch the extra interviews if you pick up the disc to hear Carpenter discuss In the Mouth of Madness, Gordon explain why his adaptation of Shadow Over Innsmouth is called Dagon, or about del Toro's (currently) aborted attempt to adapt At the Mountains of Madness.


Bronies: The Extremely Unexpected Adult Fans of My Little Pony - Well, maybe this should be called "the Extremely Unexpected Pre-teen to College-Aged Male Fans of My Little Pony," because at least at the outset, that's what Bronies seems to be about. This documentary is all over the place, and while I suppose it is enlightening, I'm not sure what audiences are supposed to take away from it, other than adults watch My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

(After doing a little research, it looks like the documentary was originally going to follow John de Lancie at conventions (he appears on the show as the voice of Discord) but when the Kickstarter campaign ended considerably more successful than anticipated, the scope changed. I'm not sure it was for the better.)

 Bronies is a schizophrenic film, one that starts with a montage of teenage guys talking about how weird it is that they like My Little Pony ("it's for little girls") and then later the persistent argument is that it shouldn't be weird but gee, isn't it so weird you guys? It's never a Trekkies level of "freak show" documentary* but I really think that if people didn't continually mention how weird people must think it is even though it's totally not and we should get over being prejudicial about the fact that adults watch cartoons for kids, the message might just sink in for itself. Seriously, all the documentary really needed was the scene where the dad of one Brony who doesn't know how to feel about his son liking the show talking to another dad who embraces his son's fandom. It says more than a dozen talking heads repeating ad nauseum that "there's nothing 'weird' about it" and that bullies should stop picking on Bronies. Yes, we got it. Please can we not keep reminding the audience that it's not weird that people are geeky about things. Most of them - particularly ones who are inclined to watch a documentary about Bronies - are going to move past the "weird" phase quickly.

 That said, the increased scope does mean that while the focus is all over the map, there is more of an international vibe to the film. Bronies follows an Israeli DJ who makes music based on the show, a couple in Germany who make their own figurines, a young man in England with Asperger's who travels to Manchester for his first convention, and stateside, a fan from a small town in North Carolina who is incessantly bullied for proudly displaying his fandom for the show. Hearing what the show means to all of them is worthwhile, and while I don't necessarily think it's "weird" for adults or young adults (we don't really meet adult fans until well into the movie) to like a cartoon, I get that My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is probably viewed differently than Invader Zim or SpongeBob Squarepants (shows that started airing when I was well into my twenties).

 Interviews with de Lancie and voice actor Tara Strong are valuable, as well as insight from creator Lauren Faust, but I think Bronies tries too hard to be too many things - a late inclusion that "oh yeah, adult women like My Little Pony: Friendship is magic, too!" seemed, well, odd, as though the focus needed to shift once more well into production. This is a side note, but I could tell it was a Kickstarter funded production when the movie ended with nine minutes to go, and sure enough, eight of those nine minutes were names of people who helped to fund Bronies. I hope they don't mind that I skimmed that part - normally I watch the entire credits of a film out of respect for the people who made it, but even the Cap'n has limits. Still, enlightening, I guess, in that I a) had no idea there was a new My Little Pony show (and I worked in a toy store!) and b) that it had unexpected adult fans. Good on you, Friendship is Magic!

* In truth, nothing is ever as strange as the Trek-themed dentist, and yes, I get that initially My Little Pony cosplay just looks like neon "furries," but I've seen weirder examples of fandom. Like Steampunk. Yeah. Steampunk Comic Book Cosplay. That is a real thing.

Shocktober Revisited: Halloween H20 and Halloween Resurrection

 Originally, I had planned a Retro Review for Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, but  after doing some cursory research on the film I realized that I don't remember Halloween 6 at all. I saw it once, in the fall of 1995, and was surprised to discover Paul Rudd played Tommy Doyle in the film. Until I watch The Curse of Michael Myers again (or can locate the "Producer's Cut" mentioned online), there's really no point in revisiting a film I can't recall.

 Which brings me to Halloween: H20 and Halloween Resurrection, two movies I've barely seen again since the first time I watched them. They did, however, leave a greater impression on my mind than Donald Pleasance's final film appearance, and since I enjoy one of them more than anyone else seems to and really hate the other one, it's fitting to comment on the close of the pre-remake sequels to John Carpenter's Halloween. This one-two punch will leave the Cap'n with only Halloween 3, 5, and 6 to cover in the Blogorium*.

For those of you looking for a series recap, here's one in 60 words or less: Michael Myers kills his family, goes to a sanitarium under the care of Doctor Loomis, escapes, tries to kill Laurie Strode, fails, tries again, is replaced by an evil toy mask manufacturer, returns, tries to kill Laurie's niece Jamie, fails, tries again, fails, tries again, succeeds, but is then foiled by Loomis and a grown up Tommy Doyle**.

 Then there was a three year break, leading us to 1998, twenty years after the first Halloween. We move from Haddonfield, Illinois to somewhere in Northern California, where Keri Tate (Jamie Lee Curtis) is the dean of a private school with her son John (Josh Hartnett) and boyfriend Will (Adam Arkin). The funniest thing is that Keri Tate is a dead-ringer for Laurie Strode, and we discover that (SPOILER ALERT) she IS Laurie Strode. Laurie faked her death to keep Michael from chasing her (which is good, because Michael instead decided to wipe out the rest of her blood relations), and she'd been pretty successful avoiding (SPOILER ALERT AGAIN) her brother for the last twenty years. That is, until Doctor Loomis (the late Donald Pleasance, heard in narration) dies and Michael just happens to find his house and discover exactly where Laurie is. He also kills some kid (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) with an ice skate.

 Anyway, school's out for fall break(?) and Laurie's colleague Norma Watson (Janet Leigh, who is Jamie Lee Curtis' mother, which is technically a SPOILER for family tree detectives. I won't spoil that her father is Tony Curtis. Oh, crap) drives off in a car that looks a lot like Marion Crane (Janet Leigh)'s car from Psycho***. Michael begins stalking the campus, killing off students dumb enough to watch Scream 2 (gee, I wonder why? We'll get to that in a second...), and John and Molly (Michelle Williams) find the bodies and become "next" on the kill list. Unless Laurie, Will, and security guard Ronny (L.L. Cool J) can stop Michael.

 Why am I being so glib about H20? Well, the more I think about the film - based on a treatment by Scream co-creator Kevin Williamson - the stupider it seems. It's funny, because I guess I overlooked how stupid and obvious these references were when I was 19 (something the people who saw it with me did not), and the Cap'n instead focused on the Laurie Strode / Michael Myers story line. To be fair, that is the only thing H20 has going for it: the film decides to pretend that Halloween 4, 5, and 6 never happened****, which you can debate the relative merits of, I guess, in order to focus on the lethal sibling rivalry. The ending, where (SPOILER ALERT) Laurie decapitates an ambulance driver Michael's head is still a satisfying close to their story, one that the following film manages to ruin in the first five minutes.

 It's worth noting that even at the time we were impressed that L.L. Cool J took five or six rounds to the chest from a revolver and walked away at the end of the film. I don't remember if they said he was wearing a vest, but why would a prep school security officer need to?

Anyway, back to the way that Resurrection mangles everything, even making people who didn't like H20 say "well, at least that one didn't kill Laurie Strode." Oh, (SPOILER ALERT). Yeah, in addition to retrofitting H20 so that Michael somehow does a switcheroo with an ambulance driver before Laurie can lop his head off with an axe, they leap forward in time to an asylum where Laurie's been locked up, waiting for Michael to wander in unabated. Sure enough, they tangle, she tries to kill him (hanging? maybe?) but he stabs her or something and she falls from the roof of the asylum in what is the least effective death of a Final Girl since Jason Vorhees followed Alice Hardy back to town for some apartment complex murderin'.

But wait! That's the BEGINNING of Halloween: Resurrection, a movie that gets EVEN WORSE before Busta Rhymes drops some Kung Fu on Michael Myers. That does happen, by the way, and you don't need a SPOILER ALERT because we both know you don't have to watch this film.

So what, pray tell, could the plot of the 8th Halloween film be if the villain kills the Final Girl in the opening of the film? How about a webcam reality show about some stupid contestants wandering around the Myers house? Sound good? Freddie Harris (Busta Rhymes) and Nora Winston (Tyra Banks) sure thought so, and their web company, DangerTainment, is sponsoring this MTV's Fear knock-off. A group of college students (including Katee Sackhoff, Sean Patrick Thomas, and Thomas Ian Nichols) who "won" the chance to be on this show, wander around the house looking for clues about Michael Myers. Want to guess who has nowhere else to go after he killed his sister? Want to guess who isn't happy to find people in his childhood home? Want to place bets on whether a charred Michael Myers opens his eye for the final stinger in this turdstorm of a sequel?

The 19 year-old Cap'n may have been kind to H20, but the 23 year-old knew he hated Resurrection well before the halfway point. I remember not liking Halloween 6, but that's not as clear to me as the hatred for the last gasp of the Halloween franchise after Miramax squeezed everything left out in 2002. In retrospect, had I watched Resurrection again before Rob Zombie's Halloween, I might have been kinder, even with all of the idiotic "I'm gonna skullfuck you" dialogue. It's like the Weinstein brothers perceived a certain formula from H20 (a handful of "hot" young actors from better movies*****, a popular rapper, some referential dialogue, and whatever the newest fad was) and recycled it into a crappier version, a xerox of Kevin Williamson's already growing stale pop culture screenplays.

 Halloween: Resurrection is what people are complaining about when they talk about how awful sequels are, and devoid of the one consistent narrative thread between the first seven films (okay, six, since Halloween III isn't about Michael or his family tree), there's nothing worth investing your time in. I honestly can't say I've seen a moment of the film since we saw it on the big screen, and I know I've watched parts of H20 on cable. If one was on, the other one must have been at some point. After part 8, there was a five year layover, and then Zombie took over. At the time I write this, Patrick Lussier and Todd Farmer (My Bloody Valentine 3-D, Drive Angry) have pitched a Halloween 3D to the Weinsteins that they may eventually get to after rebooting Hellraiser (you read that right), but for now, at least I can say that Rob Zombie's Halloween 2, for as many detractors as it has, is a MUCH better movie than Halloween Resurrection, and it's probably better than H20. Now who would've thought I'd ever say that?



*For write-ups of Halloween (kind of), Halloween II, Halloween IV: The Return of Michael Myers, Halloween the Remake and Halloween 2 the Remake, follow the respective links.
** This much I gathered from IMDB's coverage of Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers.
*** SPOILER: It IS Marion Crane's car from Psycho.
**** In the interest of fairness, Williamson's original draft did include 4,5, and 6 as continuity, and writers Robert Zappia and Matt Greenberg wisely dropped the subplot.
**** And by that I mean American Pie and Save the Last Dance, and eventually Sackhoff would be in Battlestar Galactica but I'm not giving Bob and Harvey any credit for that one...

Shocktober Revisited: Documentaries - Fangoria's Weekend of Horrors

  (Originally posted in July of 2011.)

 Many of you may not know this, but 2011 marks the 25th anniversary of the VHS release of Fangoria's Weekend of Horrors, a sixty minute documentary about the first ever Fangoria convention. Held in 1985, the first Weekend of Horrors was a gathering point in Los Angeles for horror enthusiasts, short film makers, and aspiring make up effects artists. Unlike UnConventional, a film I reviewed last year, the Weekend of Horrors doesn't feel sleazy or exploitative, despite promoting Fangoria throughout (it's co-director, Kerry O'Quinn, is actually the creator of Fangoria, along with Starlog).

 Compared to 2004's Unconventional, Weekend of Horrors feels relatively quaint: the enthusiasm of the fans is infectious, with many effusively gushing about their favorite monsters and why they're attracted to horror films. While there are merchandise tables - the site of a surprise appearance by Star Trek's Walter Koenig, wandering around the convention with his son - most of the tables that appear in the film are designed to showcase amateur makeup, monster, and effects work by fans of the genre.


 Like UnConventional, there is also an auction and a costume contest, but the costumes are all homemade and shall we say, less slutty. Instead of auctioning off Tiffany Shepis' underwear, the Fangoria fans bid on a shooting script for John Carpenter's Halloween, and judging by how little other items were going for, I'd be willing to bet someone went home with it on less than twenty dollars.

The main attraction of Fangoria's Weekend of Horrors is the guests of the convention, who range from Wes Craven and Robert Englund (there to support A Nightmare on Elm Street and the Craven-less Part 2: Freddy's Revenge) to a beardless Rick Baker, who brought along some ape effects from Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan. Tom Savini appears briefly during a montage; Elvira answers questions from the audience (Attack of the Killer Tomatoes was apparently the worst Movie Macabre film she ever aired); John Carl Buechler does a Q&A for Troll; Steve Miner and William Katt talk about House; Dan O'Bannon talks about Return of the Living Dead; Tobe Hooper appears to talk a bit about his films but also to preside over the Cinemagic Short Film Search Festival, where fans are awarded for their 8 and 16mm films.

With a magazine like Fangoria behind the event, it's no surprise that the emphasis is on special effects makeup, and many of the montages are devoted to masks from films like Friday the 13th and Creepshow (as well as a certain monster Tales from the Darkside fans will recognize immediately). Makeup effects artist Craig Reardon (Altered States, Poltergeist) gives People Magazine reporter Tony Lawrence a quick monster makeover in time for the costume contest. Special attention should also be given to Nora Salisbury, a fan who made her own Freddy Kreuger costume (with full head piece and glove) that's pretty impressive.

 For a sixty minute film, Weekend of Horrors does at time lean too heavily on scenes from films mentioned by guests (I still don't understand why the entire trailer for The Toxic Avenger needs to be there) and it takes a curious detour into promotional territory when Tobe Hooper finishes with the short film competition and begins talking about his remake of Invaders from Mars. There's a lengthy section devoted to behind the scenes footage, which does admittedly find a way to include Stan Winston in the film, but it's a jarring shift in the movie that sticks out when O'Quinn and Mike Hadley cut back to Dick Miller. Why this breaks up the previous montage, which includes interviews with Clu Gulager (Return of the Living Dead, Feast), producer Alex Gordon (Voodoo Woman, The Atomic Submarine), and composer Albert Glasser (The Cyclops, The Amazing Colossal Man), who talk, in part, about Roger Corman, is unclear.

 There's a bit of a "home movie" feel to Fangoria's Weekend of Horrors, but in a good way; it feels like a tape made to share the good time had by people there instead of a document of the lurid side of horror conventions (okay, I'll stop beating up on UnConventional), and I have to say it sure seemed like a great place to be in the summer(?) of 1985. People came from all around the country to share their enthusiasm for horror films, to show off what they could do, and to meet their heroes. I give O'Quinn and Hadley a lot of credit for conveying that sense of joy in such a concise package.

Shocktober Revisited: Documentaries - Going to PIeces; The Rise and Fall of the Slasher FIlm

 Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film is a pretty good documentary, if a little light on content. Truthfully, it's a pretty good overview of the genre (with the exception of never mentioning Black Christmas and only showing clips of it during a montage of kills), but you could make much longer pieces about any number of sub-sections they spend time on. Sure, there are plenty of lengthy docs about the Friday the 13th series and at least three really good Halloween documentaries, and more Tom Savini featurettes than you can shake a stick at. Still, there's some interesting stuff tucked into the middle section of the movie, including the first acknowledgment of Splatter University's existence I've seen. Some lesser discussed slasher and post-slasher movies get their due; movies like The Prowler, Sleepaway Camp, He Knows You're Alone, and April Fool's Day. Even something as shitty as Return to Horror High gets a quick mention.

As noted above, many devotees to the genre are going to wonder why certain movies don't get as much attention (Alice, Sweet Alice, Black Christmas, and a deeper investigation of Suspiria's influence) and the transitional music is a little distracting, even if it is by Harry Manfredini (he of the ch-ch-ch kill-kill-kill). There's sort of a lull between A Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream, but the movie is so front heavy you might not notice.

There's also the curious style of interviewing people: the director really must have wanted something different, because some interviewees are constantly walking or being circled by the camera (the editor of Fangoria and Greg Nicotero stand out) and the camera is sometimes uncomfortably close to people like Tom Savini and Robert Shaye of New Line. Still, the line up of people interviewed is pretty impressive. Of particular note are Felissa Rose (the original Angela from Sleepaway Camp) and Fred Walton, who defends April Fool's Day and its twist ending, insisting that Paramount decided to market the film as a slasher movie. Oh, and kudos to Going to Pieces covering the feminist angle on Slumber Party Massacre during the "Critic Bashing" section.

You may not have the same problem that I did with this, but the movie itself would not play from the dvd menu. In fact, nothing would; I had to press stop and then play again to get the film itself to play. None of the special features would play either, which bummed me out because there was a bonus interview with Bob Clark, director of Black Christmas (and, incidentally, A Christmas Story) which leads me to believe there was some coverage of Black Christmas cut from the film. Bummer.

At 88 minutes, Going to Pieces is possibly too short, but if you're a fan of slasher movies or want to give somebody a good primer on the genre, it's certainly worth watching. Some of the stories won't be new, but the inclusion of lesser known entries and the people who made them more than cover for old anecdotes. If you can get the dvd to play, it comes Recommended.

Now bring on the follow-ups!

Horror Fest VIII (Day One): Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan

To kick off the fest, it only made sense to start with the only part 8 I was willing to watch (sorry, Hellraiser: Hellworld) - Friday the 13^th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan. While not the wisest decision, Jason Takes Manhattan did at least start Horror Fest on a high spirited tone. It was only after we’d begun that I discovered two people had never seen a Friday the 13^th film before, so the Cap’n did have the common decency to apologize for starting them off with such a bad entry point.

 There aren’t a lot of seventh sequels out there, but one has to imagine that Jason Takes Manhattan would still take the cake for managing to disappoint fans of the Friday series. Paramount slashed the budget to the point that director Rob Hedden shot most of the film in Vancouver, had to change most of the major set pieces involving New York landmarks, and the “cruise ship” became more of the focus than what the title promised. The end result is more “Jason Takes a Cruise Ship and Eventually Gets to Times Square,” which is, let’s be fair, not the bill of goods we were sold in that fantastic teaser trailer.

 And yet, Jason Takes Manhattan has some enjoyable moments to be gleaned from its overlong run time and mostly bloodless kills. If you wanted a slasher movie that thoroughly covered all of your favorite character tropes and encapsulates what people think of when you say “80s”, Manhattan has it. Rocker with a boombox hooked up to her electric guitar? Jason can use that to kill you. Guy who looks like River Phoenix that films everything with a camcorder? Check. Bitchy prom queen doing coke with The Scorpion King’s Kelly Hu that knocks our Final Girl into the ocean? Yup, got that too. Creepy uncle with a leathery face and a stuffy suit? Yessir. A disco? Wait… a disco? Well, sure, why not?

 If left to just that, we might have a moderately entertaining movie, but thankfully Hedden managed to throw in a few curveballs to compensate for the watered down gore and lack of “Manhattan” in Jason Takes Manhattan. And I don’t even mean the scene with the punks or Jason in front of a giant hockey mask. Not even the toxic waste sewage flood that happens at midnight every night in New York. Obviously that has to happen or the C.H.U.D.s would pack up and leave.

 No, the real enjoyment to be gleaned from Jason Takes Manhattan come from pointless subplots like Rennie (Jensen Daggett)’s stupid dog, who vanishes for most of the middle of the film only to show up in the lifeboat just in time to leave the cruise ship that Jason managed to blow up (? Burn up?), or the ridiculous way she (Rennie, not the dog) is connected to Jason. Beyond that, Daggett’s frumpy outfit (consisting of too-high jeans, poofy shirt and overlong vest) make Rennie look ten years older than she actually was during the making of the film and fifteen years older than the high school graduate she was supposed to be. Oh yeah, did I mention that the cruise ship Lazarus is taking high school seniors on their graduation cruise from New Jersey to New York. Don’t ask how Jason got from Camp Crystal Lake to the ocean; what’s important is that when they reach international waters, his murder spree is no longer illegal.

 Also of note is the way that Jason wanders around the Lazarus, and by that I mean rather than moving around with some sense of purpose, Hedden simply has Kane Hodder open doors and poke his head in to see what’s going on before moving on. This may be the least effective Jason I’ve seen in any of the Friday the 13^th films, because he doesn’t seem to know what he’s supposed to be doing, and we’re talking about the same Jason who punches a guy’s head off in a boxing match later in the film. Oh, *SPOILER*. He does kill a guy with a hot sauna stone, which manages to set said victim’s intestines on fire, which looks cool even if it doesn’t make sense. As it’s one of the few kills we see in any detail, you have to take what you can get. It does seem like Jason’s strict moral code now extends to people who lose while sparring, people who play the guitar, and people that own diners. I’ll chalk that up to being resurrected by underwater electrocution, though.

 Special attention must be paid to Scott Reeves, playing Sean Robertson, the son of the Lazarus’ Captain. I understand he was a late replacement for another actor, but in nearly every scene Reeves can be observed looking off camera as though to be prompted for his next line before responding to another character. It prompted the running gag of someone saying “line?” as soon as anyone asked Reeves a question in Jason Takes Manhattan, and without fail he’d look past the other actor before saying anything. I could be nice and pretend that it was just a coincidence, but Jason Takes Manhattan isn’t deserving of that benefit of the doubt. While charming in its own stupid way, it’s not hard to understand why Paramount gave up on the series after eight films.

 Up next:  V/H/S 2!