Tag 1990s

Ernest Scared Stupid (1991)

0 comments By andrewSMITH951 Filed in Horror Movie Reviews, Movie Reviews Tagged with , May 15th, 2013 @ 1:47 pm
  • AKA:

  • Director: John R. Cherry III

  • Writer: John R. Cherry III (story), Charles Gale (screenplay), Coke Sams (screenplay & story)

  • Starring: Jim Varney, Eartha Kitt, Austin Nagler, Shay Astar

  • Run Time: 91 mins

Ernest Scared Stupid (1991)

…

A long time ago, the town of Briarville was terrorised by an evil troll who stole the town’s children and turned them into little wooden carvings. But he was stopped by Ernest P. Worrell and enslaved beneath an oak tree, never to be disturbed again. Years later, Worrell’s bumbling great-grandson unwittingly helps a group of local children build a tree house on that very tree, inadvertently freeing the troll to continue his reign of terror and get revenge upon the Worrell family.

 

I may be lowering the tone of the site somewhat by reviewing this goofy 1991 family comedy-horror – after all, the Ernest films have been widely ridiculed and mocked by critics. For those who don’t know, Ernest P. Worrell was a bumbling, comedy character played by the late Jim Varney. He started off playing the character on commercials and television but then received his own films series based on his popularity in North America (nine films in total, although the joke character wore off significantly over the years). On a similar vein of comedy to Pee-Wee Herman, Ernest was designed to appeal to children and panders to the lowest common denominator of comedy: falling over a lot, acting silly, talking in daft voices, etc. The character was always seen in low paid jobs like janitors or cab drivers and got into disastrous situations which were way over his head. But he was a sincere oaf – a kid in an adult’s body.

The fourth of the slapstick series, Ernest Scared Stupid sees the lovable dim-wit doing his bit in the comedy-horror genre. It’s easily his best performance in the role and the best film in the series. Varney was a classically-trained Shakespearian actor before he donned the cap and assumed the character so you know that everything he hams up, he’s doing so deliberately. One of the trademarks of the role is his ‘multiple personality’ scenes in which he rapidly changes character from Ernest to an assortment of old ladies, Roman generals, lumberjacks, Ottoman warriors and more. It’s interesting to watch the character from an adult perspective, understanding just how well Varney manages to bring to life a variety of different accents and characters, albeit for a few fleeting moments.

Adults will find a few humorous references to other films (notably Ernest being trapped inside a garbage compactor which harks back to Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom). Plus the credits sequence features clips from a whole host of old school shockers like The Brain from Planet Arous and The Killer Shrews. Kids will love the silliness of it all, with Ernest running into doors, being thrown off moving trucks in oil drums and get into old school slapstick moments with cars, dumpsters and such like.

Taking the slapstick out of the equation, Ernest Scared Stupid is actually a great family-friendly horror film which really manages to strike the right spooky atmospheric vibes. As a horror film, it includes many of the usual clichés including the unbelieving townspeople, the resident nut job who knows more than they should (played here with relish by Eartha Kitt) and the array of stock characters who inhabit the town. The plot itself is rather threadbare and is more or less introduced right from the start so the rest of the film is just set piece after set piece. At least pacing of the film is spot on as Ernest lumbers from one predicament to the next, all leading up to a memorable finale as the townspeople attempt to defeat the troll and his children in the woods. The forest locations are superbly dark, fog-drenched, swampy places to add to the ambiance and there’s a terrific score to add to the Halloween spirit.

Big props need to be given to the Chiodo Brothers and make-up department here. The troll looks awesome, all dripping with slime and goo. He’s a nasty piece of work, aggressive and violent enough to pose a threat but not overtly horrifying to frighten the life out of the target audience. Late in the film, his ‘children’ come to life and again the make-up job is superb, giving each new troll a bit of character in the brief moments that they’re on screen.

 

Ernest Scared Stupid is perfect family Halloween foil: light-hearted, good-natured and with just enough chills and spills to entertain young children without scaring them too much (though one or two scenes are pretty tense). Yeah I admit, it’s not going to be everyone’s cup of tea but if you’ve got kids and its Halloween, put this on and watch them love it (and who knows, you may even find yourself smiling along)

 

 ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 

 

 

Mangler, The (1995)

0 comments By andrewSMITH951 Filed in Horror Movie Reviews, Movie Reviews Tagged with , March 5th, 2013 @ 9:54 pm
  • AKA:

  • Director: Tobe Hooper

  • Writer: Stephen King (short story), Tobe Hooper (screenplay), Stephen Brooks (screenplay), Peter Welbeck (screenplay)

  • Starring: Robert Englund, Ted Levine, Daniel Matmor, Jeremy Crutchley

  • Run Time: 106 mins

The Mangler (1995)

There is a fate worse than death

A cop investigates a brutal death at the local laundry company and finds that the big press machine nicknamed ‘The Mangler’ is actually possessed by an evil spirit that needs blood to keep its owner immortal.

 

A horror film about a killer laundry-folding machine? That’s what The Mangler is about! Adapted from a short story by legendary horror writer Stephen King, brought to the big screen by Tobe Hooper, the man behind The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and starring Freddy Krueger himself, Robert Englund, how could this fail? Well, let me repeat myself – it’s a horror film about a killer laundry-folding machine! That’s how it could fail.

Despite the best efforts of the production designers and the cinematographer to give the laundry machine a distinctly evil appearance, at the end of the day it’s still a big lump of metal and it presses cloth for a living which doesn’t really get the goose bumps growing, does it? But then nothing in The Mangler has been conceived well, a messy melting pot of ideas which never clicks in any shape or form and its one glaring problem is the only reason why people will watch it – the idea of a killer laundry-folding machine! It’s stupid to think that anyone could have believed that this would make for a decent film but everyone involved here has an arrogant self-belief that they can make it work. Their blinkered devotion to the cause gives the hare-brained material an even sillier edge.

The first half of The Mangler isn’t too bad it has to be said. There’s a pretty gruesome death when a woman is crushed inside the machine and the plot, as it stands at this early point in the film, is reasonably believable. The idea of feeding people to a possessed machine to make its owner immortal wasn’t that far-fetched by any stretch of the imagination considering the lengths that other horror films have gone to provide a story. But instead of keeping this idea as grounded as possible, The Mangler loses its steady footing.

This semi-interesting plot is lost beneath a torrent of unnecessary sub-plots and strands which go nowhere and only pose more questions such as why do the townspeople have to sacrifice their first born to the machine? The film gets increasingly silly and more ridiculous, with refrigerators coming to life and attacking people, the attempts to exorcise the machine and then in the film’s finale, the machine itself starts to move around. Now I haven’t read the original short story so can’t really compare how well it has been adapted. But all I can say is that sometimes what works well on paper doesn’t work well with full blown visuals and the idea that this laundry machine can actually move would have been better left on the page (if it did move in the story). The sight of this machine chasing people around the building is a total joke and the special effects are atrocious. Watching a laundry machine chase people through dark tunnels really needed some cash behind it to work so this idea should have been binned and the story re-written if it needed to be.

Though the sight of this machine chasing people around proves to be an unintentional comic highlight, the film sadly lags whenever it is not doing anything remotely evil….which is unfortunately quite a lot of the time. At a brutal 106 minutes long, The Mangler outstays its welcome long before the end credits roll.  Hooper has no grasp of pace and seems content to pad out the film with as much as possible. A more efficient director could easily have skimmed twenty minutes or more from this without major alterations to the narrative – not that it could have been disjointed any more than it was.

At least the film features a couple of solid hands in lead roles. Robert Englund has an overplayed hoot under layers of prosthetics as the disfigured and crazy laundry owner, complete with eye-patch and leg braces. Ted Levine, fresh off success as Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs, plays the detective charged with solving the case. It’s hardly both actors’ best work but they’re not bad and at least give the film some level of competency that it doesn’t really warrant.

 

The Mangler may be worth a brief look for people who are curious to see how bad it really is but believe me when I say it, it is every bit as awful as you’ve been led to believe. The Mangler is further evidence of just how far Tobe Hooper has fallen from his 1974 genre-busting classic heyday– or is further proof that it was a fluke? What is more depressing is that this has since spawned a couple of non-related sequels. The mind boggles.

 

 ★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ 

 

 

Clown At Midnight, The (1999)

0 comments By andrewSMITH951 Filed in Horror Movie Reviews, Movie Reviews Tagged with , February 12th, 2013 @ 8:31 pm
  • AKA:

  • Director: Jean Pellerin

  • Writer: Kenneth J. Hall

  • Starring: Christopher Plummer, Margot Kidder, Sarah Lassez, James Duval

  • Run Time: 91 mins

The Clown At Midnight (1999)The lead singer of an opera house was brutally murdered after one of her fellow performers proclaimed his love for her and went into a jealous rage when he saw her with someone else. Years later and the singer’s daughter is now a college student who is now a part of a theatre group renovating the old opera house as part of a summer project. But the jilted killer is still lurking and proceeds to kill off the group one-by-one.

 

I had flashbacks to the entertaining Italian slasher Stagefright when I watched this. Not too many horror films are set in grand opera houses and it’s an underused setting in the genre. But forgetting the obvious comparisons with Stagefright, the most blatant bedfellow for The Clown At Midnight is Scream. Made in the wake of Wes Craven’s classic post-modern slasher, this one has all of the hallmarks of the teen slasher only without the self-referential nonsense and with more of an old school feel to it. Even the cover art for the UK DVD release looks like an unashamed knock-off, with glum-looking head shots of the young attractive cast plastered around the outline of the mysterious killer.

The Clown At Midnight is hardly the most memorable slasher out there but it’s actually half-decent for what it is. Derivative characters who are not unlike every other slasher character every conceived, a story which Stevie Wonder could see coming, twists and turns which would surprise no one and scares that wouldn’t frighten a patient waiting for a heart by-pass mean that the usual clichés are all present in abundance. This is a slasher after all and a sub-genre which is not known for its cutting edge take on new material. You’ll never once get behind any of the characters. You’ll never feel in danger for the Final Girl. You’ll expect everything to pan out in a linear manner and the film will gladly deliver those expectations.

But there are a few positives. For a start, the use of a clown as the killer is a bit of a cheap scare tactic. Most people hate clowns with a passion and so already there’ll be people squirming around in horror at the thought that their worst fears will be brought to life. This isn’t IT or Killer Klowns From Outer Space but those with a fear of clowns will most definitely not be sat comfortable throughout this one.

As I stated at the beginning of the review, the opera house setting is a nice touch. There are countless hidden passageways and secret entrances for use in the plays that the opera house would have hosted but are now used for the sadistic purposes of the killer. The opening half does a good job of building up a decent level of suspense and mystery. It’s not hard to guess who the killer is – like the typical Scooby Doo episode, there are only so many people that it could be and once the cast start to thin out, it’s practically impossible not to see where the film is heading. During the second half, the suspense is ditched in favour of cheaper gore tactics. Those looking for an old school 80s throwback will be disappointed – The Clown At Midnight handles its gore like the majority of post-modern slashers – minimal.

Quite what Christopher Plummer is doing in something as low brow as this is a mystery but he’s the requisite experienced hand to steady the ship alongside the young cast. Plummer is head-and-shoulders above everyone else in the way of talent and he doesn’t even need to try to better them. Margot Kidder, most famous for her stint as Lois Lane in the Christopher Reeve Superman films, also stars but time hasn’t been good to her and she’s wasted in a pointless role, destined to be high profile fodder for the killer. The rest of the cast are your typical fresh-faced teenagers and whilst they’re all not particularly great in their one-dimensional roles (you know the type: the bitchy girl, the jock, the rebellious one, etc), they’re not overly terrible. It’s like an anti-version of Noah’s ark. Instead of taking two of everything, the script makes sure that only one representative from each of the typical school social groups is represented. Why not two bitchy girls? Or a whole group of rebellious teenagers? These films never fail to amuse me in that respect.

 

Non-horror buffs may want to give this one a miss, but The Clown At Midnight is solid viewing for slasher fans, if somewhat unoriginal and remarkable in the genre. It’s got the feel of an Americanised giallo (if that’s possible) which isn’t a bad thing in all honesty.

 

 ★★★★★☆☆☆☆☆ 

 

 

Stir of Echoes (1999)

0 comments By andrewSMITH951 Filed in Horror Movie Reviews, Movie Reviews Tagged with , February 11th, 2013 @ 12:28 am
  • AKA:

  • Director: David Koepp

  • Writer: David Koepp (screenplay), Richard Matheson (novel)

  • Starring: Kevin Bacon, Katherine Erbe, Zachary David Cope, Illeana Douglas

  • Run Time: 85 mins

Stir of Echoes (1999)

Some doors weren’t meant to be opened

Sceptical Tom Witzky allows his sister-in-law to hypnotise him at a party because he doesn’t believe she can do it and takes her up on a dare. She manages to but shortly afterwards Tom begins to hallucinate and has visions of a dead girl around his house. It seems as though something in his mind has been unlocked and he has become a receptor of supernatural forces. He begins a quest to find out what happened to the girl and why she is haunting his dreams and his house in order to put a stop to them.

 

Stir of Echoes had no chance to succeed at the box office because it was inevitably going to be compared to The Sixth Sense. Supernatural horror-thrillers had seen little mainstream success over the years and it was a relatively untapped genre. So when a couple of similar films came along at once, the later one was always going to be labelled as a clone or knock-off, even though Stir of Echoes was out the same year and thus went into development at the same time. Released at the wrong time in 1999 by coming hot on the heels of The Sixth Sense, audiences already had their supernatural thrill with M. Night Shyamalan’s overrated hit and thus Stir of Echoes only managed to gross in its entire run not even as much as the The Sixth Sense had grossed in its opening weekend alone. It’s a pity because Stir of Echoes is by far the better of the two in my eyes as it’s a more satisfying whole and more even film, constantly producing the goods instead of relying on one over-exposed twist.

I’ll go on record and state that ghost stories have never been my favourite sub-genre – see how few films I’ve reviewed from this sub-genre as proof. I tend to find their approaches to be somewhat slow and plodding and I really need to be in the right mood to watch one. They’re not exactly full of memorable moments as their effectiveness usually relies upon an assured build, cranking tension and atmosphere up as the film goes on. I’m a simply man of simple pleasures and prefer to see people ripped apart by monsters or psychos so patience sometimes is not my virtue when confronted with ghostly goings-on. However I must say that Stir of Echoes had been hooked all the way through.

The underlying story is predictable and Stir of Echoes proceeds along the lines of a typical murder-mystery, with various cryptic clues scattered around to assist Tom Witzky (Kevin Bacon) in solving the crime. The major problem here is with the finale and it was always going to be a let-down as we can see it coming a mile away courtesy of the familiar build-up. But thankfully the film has done a great job of keeping things flowing quickly that your interest will remain right until the last frame. A number of great scares are strewn throughout the film with the ghostly figure of the little girl popping up on a number of occasions in surprising locations. Never outright nasty, the film at least manages to keep a rather menacing tone going meaning you’re never sure whether the film is about to hit you with a brutal sucker punch or not.

The more effective scenes are those which involve little in the way of ‘boo’ scares and more in the way of eerie build-up. Bacon’s character, Tom Witky, begins having premonition dreams which leads to a number of creepy moments, in particular an effective sequence involving his neighbour, his son and a loaded gun which is a dream to begin with but then Witzky starts to notice all the details from the dream are happening in real life. The audience is on edge having already seen the outcome of the dream – will it occur in the real world in the same manner? The hypnosis scenes also draw the audience into the film. They are filmed as if we are present at the event, the camera acting as Witzky’s POV – as he closes his eyes, the screen goes blank and we can only hear what is going on. It’s a great scene and one which is made all the better for the actor behind Tom Witzky.

There are a bunch of actors in Hollywood that I can guarantee are value for money in their films. They may not be the biggest paid names, and rarely headline their own big budget films, but they’re good quality supporting actors who are grossly underrated and really get into their roles, especially when they’re given the starring role of a smaller film like Stir of Echoes. Kevin Bacon is one such actor. He’s always worth a watch in whatever he’s in (OK so maybe the new ads he’s starring in on UK TV are a bit annoying) and Stir of Echoes is no exception. He channels the intensity, paranoia, frustration, confusion and near insanity of his character down to a tee. There are elements of Jack Nicholson’s character in The Shining here and Bacon does well to keep things on the ground without coming off as too over-the-top. Kathryn Erbe, who plays his wife in the film, is an excellent foil for him. The two have a good chemistry and create a believable and workable view of marriage and family life in which to unleash this ghostly menace. No pretentious teenager leads here. No caricatures. Just honest, hard-working family people we can associate with which really hammers home the horror of their situation when it all goes pear-shaped – just the way horror films should be.

 

Stir of Echoes is not appreciated enough and I wonder if that’s down to The Sixth Sense effect. Who knows what would have happened had the film releases been swapped around. Whilst this may not contain the shocking twist ending of its counterpart, it does a better all-round job of delivering the supernatural scares. The finale lets Stir of Echoes down but the rest of the film is chilling stuff.

 

 ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 

 

 

Ghoulies III: Ghoulies Go To College (1991)

0 comments By andrewSMITH951 Filed in Horror Movie Reviews, Movie Reviews Tagged with , January 10th, 2013 @ 11:44 pm
  • AKA:

  • Director: John Carl Buechler

  • Writer: Brent Olson, Luca Bercovici (characters), Jefery Levy (characters)

  • Starring: Kevin McCarthy, Evan MacKenzie, Griffin O'Neal, Thom Adcox-Hernandez

  • Run Time: 94 mins

Ghoulies III: Ghoulies Go To College (1991)

Everybody’s favorite troublemakers are on the loose again!

A college professor unleashes the Ghoulies from their bathroom prison when he reads out an enchantment from a comic book. Using them as his servants, he orders that they put a stop to prank week at the college, where rival frats continuously play jokes on one another in an attempt to win a crown.

 

Gremlins has a lot to answer for, spawning two successive similarly-themed ‘little monster’ franchises (Ghoulies and Critters) each of which have produced four films – no mean feat for any horror franchise (come to think of it, when Puppet Master currently stands at ten films plus a crossover with Demonic Toys, then any old franchise can sequelise itself into oblivion). In comparing the Gremlins-wannabes, the Ghoulies came off a lot worse than the Crites….and I mean a lot worse. Looking like sock puppets from the Victorian era that someone had found in a moth-ridden loft, the monsters looked every inch a pathetic bunch of no-hopers that wouldn’t scare a timid, ninety-year old granny who has had a few heart attacks and is clinging on to life. Someone saw some potential in them and after their disastrous first outing, even though the monsters were virtual spectators in their own film, they were back for the first sequel. Ghoulies II was just as awful as the first one, featuring marginally more Ghoulie action but they still looked like they’d been found in the rubbish dump. Not an auspicious start to a franchise.

The good news here is that Ghoulies III: Ghoulies Go To College is the best of the series by a long shot. That’s not too hard considering the low budget ridiculousness of the previous two films and the sheer ineptitude of the next sequel. Hardly considered scary, this one works best if you take it into consideration with the other screwball 80s horror-comedies that were being released straight-to-video at the time. Containing frat boy humour, lots of drinking, a bit of college girl nudity, some cheap gore and a general feeling of harmless fun, Ghoulies III: Ghoulies Go To College is best described as one of those juvenile American college comedies (National Lampoon’s Animal House, Porky’s, etc.) with some rubber monsters thrown into the mix. The entire plot revolves around two frat houses which are trying to one-up each other during prank week and the Ghoulies get involved. That’s literally it for story and what ensues is a cherry picking through the scrapbook of stereotypical college situations with little monsters causing havoc in each one. Sadly, the Ghoulies are once again given the shaft and they’re more background pests than outright threats.

There’s only three Ghoulies this time around and even though they look like shoddy stick puppets, they fair better than they’ve done in the previous outings, most likely due to the fact that there are fewer of them to animate. They look bigger than they did before, which gives them the impression of being overgrown kids when they dress up in frat gear. The bonus this time is that they talk. The little demons now fire off wisecracks and talk to each other instead of growling, leading to schoolboy humour-esque situations for example which they mimic the professor word for word. It’s hardly high-brow sophisticated comedy but it is daft and you’ll hate yourself for laughing along. The fact that they now talk leads to all manner of shenanigans, with the audience now able to listen to them joke amongst themselves whilst they perve on naked chicks or drink beer. And believe me, there’s plenty of naked chicks to go around, so much in fact that I must applaud the director for coming up with creative ways in which to justify it (like hell he does, he just constantly shows chicks taking showers).

Kevin McCarthy had fallen a long way since his glory days of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and he is given the thankless task of portraying Professor Ragnar, the man who controls the Ghoulies. McCarthy doesn’t give two hoots that he’s in something as terrible as this and ploughs on ahead with a crazed zest which puts many of his contemporaries to shame. If only everyone seemed to be having as much fun as him in their roles. Matthew Lillard, more famous as one of the killers in Scream (and of course, as Shaggy in Scooby Doo) makes his film debut here.

 

Ghoulies III: Ghoulies Go To College is hard not to like in a “I know this is total rubbish but what the hell” sort of way but it doesn’t take itself seriously, emits an innocent charm and despite the silliness and stupidity, it’s still watchable 80s junk which hopes you’ll jump along for the childish ride. You’ll probably go along with it too – I certainly did.

 

 ★★★★★☆☆☆☆☆ 

 

 

Jack Frost (1997)

0 comments By andrewSMITH951 Filed in Editor's Choice, Horror Movie Reviews, Movie Reviews Tagged with , , December 24th, 2012 @ 5:10 pm
  • AKA:

  • Director: Michael Cooney

  • Writer: Jeremy Paige (story), Michael Cooney (story)

  • Starring: Scott MacDonald, Christopher Allport, Stephen Mendel, F. William Parker

  • Run Time: 89 mins

Jack Frost (1997)

He’s chillin…and killin!

Serial killer Jack Frost is on his way to be executed when his prison transport is involved in a nasty accident with a lorry carrying some experiment genetic material. Covered in the chemicals, his DNA becomes mutated, turning him into a snowman and giving the ability to freeze and melt at will. With his new found abilities, Frost sets off to get revenge on the sheriff who busted him and anyone else who gets in his way.

 

If you’re looking for the mushy, kiddie Jack Frost film with Michael Keaton then you’ve come to the worst place possible. This is about as far away in the opposite direction that you could be. But I know which I’d rather be sitting down to watch and it doesn’t involve ex-Batmans! With such an absurd premise for a horror flick, how can you really go wrong with this Jack Frost? If you’ve even made it as far as to putting the VHS/DVD in your player or downloaded/streamed the film, then you’ve passed the test and can sit back and enjoy what low budget film making can offer when it’s at its most creatively ludicrous!

Jack Frost embraces it’s outlandish theme and milks it for all it’s worth. You’ll hate this if you have a low tolerance for cheese and camp but look beyond that and you’ll see a true love for the genre and a desire to make this as credible as possible – we are dealing with a killer snowman but the film knows that too and runs with the prospect. Admittedly it’s a one-note premise but the script keeps things zipping along briskly enough and goes through the requisite slasher elements like a do-it-yourself manual. Basically moving from one clichéd character to the next, Jack slices his way across the town in a variety of Christmas-themed set pieces and accompanied by festive music, the highlight of which probably being death by Christmas tree lights. There’s also an infamous scene in which a nubile young woman (played by Shannon Elizabeth) is on the wrong end of Jack’s carrot when he re-materializes himself in her bath. It all adds to the fun.

The actual snowman suit looks hilarious – no CGI here – and you would never have thought that something like that could be so deadly. There’s not a lot of movement in it so most of the shots of Jack are just of the snowman standing there. He’s got the ability to melt and re-freeze at will which leads for great POV shot as he trickles across the floor in water form. Director Michael Clooney recognises how limited the suit is and uses the camera as best as he can to hide its weaknesses, with the only real problems coming in the finale when the snowman is expected to do more than just stand around.  How do you kill a snowman anyway? If you melt him, he can re-freeze and come back to life. The characters in the film try almost everything including attacking him with hairdryers. In the end it comes down to anti-freeze to put an end to his frost ways. Or not as the sequel would prove.

Scott McDonald relishes the role of Jack Frost, briefly appearing in human form at the beginning but mainly cast for his sarcastic voice. Snowman Frost comes off as some ice-cold version of Freddy Krueger, firing off a series of puns and one-liners, most of which hit the mark but some of which are groan-worthy. Christopher Allport is a bit bland as the sheriff but can deadpan like the best of the film and makes sure that the ridiculous shenanigans seem funnier than they should be by his stoic reactions. There’s a killer snowman on the loose but it could be Jack the Ripper for the seriousness which with he takes his job. The rest of the townspeople are played up to be annoying caricatures and even the aforementioned Ms Elizabeth doesn’t appear fully nude in the bath scene, this coming before her big break in American Pie.

 

Destined to be a cult classic, Jack Frost is one of the few really cheap and tacky films that plays on its own ridiculous premise and turns it into something hilariously enjoyable. If you’re looking to a film about a killer snowman to try and be anything but cheesy fun, then get a damned life. It’s the festive horror flick which keeps on giving!

 

 ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 

 

 

Child’s Play 3 (1991)

0 comments By andrewSMITH951 Filed in Horror Movie Reviews, Movie Reviews Tagged with , October 31st, 2012 @ 5:49 pm
  • AKA:

  • Director: Jack Bender

  • Writer: Don Mancini

  • Starring: Justin Whalin, Perry Reeves, Jeremy Sylvers, Travis Fine

  • Run Time: 90 mins

Child's Play 3 (1991)

Look who’s stalking!

Years after the events with Chucky, Andy Barclay has grown up and is about to start military school. In the meantime, Play Pals decide to re-release the Good Guys doll line, thinking that enough time has passed since the original murders ruined their public image. Re-using old materials to create their dolls, one of the new dolls is possessed by the vengeful spirit of Charles Lee Ray who immediately seeks out Andy in the hope of finishing him off.

 

As with the first sequel, that’s about as much story as you’re going to get from Child’s Play 3. Let’s face it, there’s no real need to create anything complicated for the story to follow. Chucky has unfinished business with Andy and wants his soul so instead of rolling out yet another film with Andy as a child, Child’s Play 3 wisely decides to move the entire story forward a few years to try and give the audience a different spin on the tale. At least that was the idea but what we end up with is more damaging to the series than one could have expected. Perhaps the decision to rush it out nine months after the last sequel was a poor call and a bit more time spent in pre-production, especially on the screenplay, would have worked wonders.

Child’s Play 3 works to some extent but for the most it’s the weakest entry in the series. It’s nothing special simply because there are no great plot twists, no dramatic occurrences and no real changes in direction from the material that we’ve already had in the other two films. Though Andy is now a young adult, Chucky conveniently finds another child to attempt to swap bodies with and so this sequel just retreads the same story as the first two and simply places the story in a different setting. This time it’s a military academy and the object of his pursuit is a young boy named Tyler. This kid is annoying – the actor (Jeremy Sylvers) is a little too over-awed in the role and he’s also a little too old to believe in dolls. Compare him to Alex Vincent in the first two films and the difference in quality is staggering. Vincent was able to balance the precious innocence of his youth alongside a resolute, almost adult-like self-determination to stop Chucky to make a huge impression.

The story is little more than signposting to get from one death scene to the next and from early on, you know that’s little more than you’re going to get. Chucky’s resurrection into his new body isn’t well explained (at least it was the same doll in the first sequel) and the film skims over the requisite scenes of him working out what he needs to do in order to become human again. This allows him plenty of time to get doing what he does best and that’s kill people. The film is the bloodiest of the series to date, with Chucky going to work on everyone and anyone with whatever he could get his hands on. With the ante upped on the gore and set pieces, the slower-burning suspense and tension of the first two films is replaced with a quicker, more frenetic pace. In attempting to outdo the previous two films, the script here shows a bit too much of Chucky and not enough of the other characters we’re supposed to root for.

Chucky is now firmly in the role of anti-hero, a character that the audience knows that it shouldn’t be cheering on but they do because he’s fun to watch (and because the characters we’re supposed to empathise with are either dull as dishwater or total assholes). I’m sure you’ll feel guilty for cheering on such an evil, psychotic murderer but the way his character has easily been manipulated by the demands of the audience into such an anti-hero will leave a bitter taste in your mouth. Chucky gets to fire off his usual one-liners and witty remarks but you also know that he’s a truly nasty piece of work, killing people here not because they are getting in the way of his plan but simply because he gets kicks out of it. Brad Dourif returns to voice Chucky and he’s as excellent as ever.

Unfortunately it’s the entry which has been saddled with the most negative press due to the tragic death of young James Bulger in the UK, whose horrible murder was stupidly pinned upon his two killers apparently watching Child’s Play 3 numerous times – a fact which was proven untrue during the court case. But the damage had been done and despite being falsely labelled, it has never fully repaired its reputation. Granted it’s not the greatest entry in the series but there is a heck of a lot worse films out there in the market both in terms of film quality and brutal content.

 

Child’s Play 3 isn’t the greatest of slasher films, nor is it the worst by a long way. It’s pretty serviceable and at ninety minutes, it’s certainly a brisk film. You just come to expect more from a franchise which started out so superbly but has descended into little more than average within the space of three films. This is one toy that has outgrown it’s use.

 

 ★★★★★☆☆☆☆☆ 

 

 

Bug Buster (1998)

0 comments By andrewSMITH951 Filed in Horror Movie Reviews, Movie Reviews Tagged with , October 31st, 2012 @ 5:45 pm
  • AKA: Some Things Never Die

  • Director: Lorenzo Doumani

  • Writer: Malick Khoury

  • Starring: Randy Quaid, Brenda Epperson, Katherine Heigl, James Doohan

  • Run Time: 93 mins

Bug Buster (1998)

There’s something creepy in the neighbourhood…

A small lakeside community is plagued by killer cockroaches which can grow up to ten feet long. So the townspeople call in an over-the-top exterminator from TV to try and solve their bug problem.

 

If you ever wondered how badly George Takei and James Doohan needed work after their Star Trek films dried up then look no further than Bug Buster, a dopey ‘monsters on the loose in a small town’ flick which desperately tries to sell itself as the next big cult B-movie but fails in almost every aspect. Takei and Doohan are slumming badly in this hokey effort that assumes that being inept and goofy every two minutes is the key to becoming a funny horror parody.

There’s nothing to distinguish Bug Buster from the dozens of other creature feature films released in the 90s, save for the two Star Trek alumni present. It sticks rigidly to the traditional templates that these films follow and there’s little deviation from the well-walked path. Shady business dealings that need to go through regardless of the presence of the monster. Corrupt local authority figures desperately ignoring the threat of the menace. Townspeople that no one will believe until it’s too late. And you can keep going. Unfortunately whilst treading this path, the pace of the film is hellish slow. It takes ages to get into gear but stops and starts too many times.

When a film seems more concerned with referencing other films instead of getting its own house in order first, you know that there’s a definite sense of missed priorities. We know that the writers have seen Jaws because the film follows the typical monster-on-the-loose tropes but just to be on the safe side, it actually has the sheriff mention the film in speaking. There are also references to Outbreak, A Nightmare on Elm Street and strangely enough, The Wizard of Oz. It all adds up to make a mockery of the script, which flits between the moronic and the monotonous. You get the constant sense that Bug Buster is trying too hard to be liked.

How do the Star Trek alumni fare? Not great it has to be said. Takei is too eccentric and stereotypical as the slightly off-beat Japanese scientist and never actually shares a scene with anyone else in the film. He’s off in some lab somewhere and is being contacted by one of his students for help. Doohan, well, he’s even worse as the town sheriff. The Scooby-Doo style revelation at the end of the film is so badly under-acted and was begging for someone to do a moustache-twirling villain-like explain all diatribe. Doohan just isn’t comfortable trying to be an asshole and it shows with his weak delivery. I don’t think he was comfortable ‘interacting’ with the CGI bugs either, flailing his arms pathetically as a CGI bug attacks him late on. But hey, at eighty year old when he filmed this, I can’t knock him too much as he is given one of the bigger roles. But I think name value was more important when he was cast and the fact they could slap another Star Trek name on the cover was obviously higher on the attributes list than acting talent.

Topping off the scales of the bizarre casting is Randy Quaid. He’s clearly been at the coffee again and brings his usual brash, loudmouth, in your face attributes to the role of General George, the bug exterminator, and clearly some sort of poor man’s imitation of John Goodman’s character from Arachnophobia. At least Quaid is consistent in his performances so you know what you’re going to get. Quaid pops up quite often in the commercials on TV but doesn’t get to battle the bugs until the very end which is a bit of a shame. As manic and annoying as he can get, at least Quaid knows what he’s starring in and attempts to inject a bit of life. A young Katherine Heigl also stars.

The bugs themselves don’t get a lot of screen time, a mixture of CGI monstrosities and real-live bugs. There are a couple of scenes involving the real bugs which will have you squirming in your seat but all of the CGI moments are too badly rendered. Take for instance the giant ‘mother roach’ which attacks Doohan’s sheriff character late in the film and never once looks like it’s doing anything to him. There is plenty of and blood and goo but it’s more icky than outright horrible.

 

Bug Buster is simply bottom rung drivel. The cast is poor, the special effects are beyond awful and the film fails to provide any degree of entertainment save for the laughable sight of Takei and Doohan really badly needing a better paid gig.

 

 ★★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ 

 

 

Hellraiser: Bloodline (1996)

0 comments By andrewSMITH951 Filed in Horror Movie Reviews, Movie Reviews Tagged with , October 30th, 2012 @ 8:50 pm
  • AKA:

  • Director: Alan Smithee

  • Writer: Peter Atkins

  • Starring: Bruce Ramsay, Valentina Vargas, Doug Bradley, Charlotte Chatton

  • Run Time: 85 mins

Hellraiser - Bloodline (1996)

This year, the past, the present and the future will all meet at the crossroads of hell.

In 2127, Dr Merchant leads a team of scientists on board a space station in attempting to permanently close the gates of Hell for good, having been opened back in 18th century France by one of his ancestors. For centuries, his descendants have been trying to find a way to reverse the Lament Configuration Box and now he believes he has found a way. But Pinhead and the Cenobites do not want the gateway closing.

 

The last of the Hellraiser films to obtain a cinematic release, Hellraiser: Bloodline was a misguided attempt to revive the flagging fortunes of the series. Like many horror franchises (Leprechaun, Friday the 13th, even Critters), when all other potential storylines had been exhausted, there was always the opportunity to blast their villains into outer space. The third instalment wasn’t overly thrilling but that didn’t stop the money men from milking the cash cow. Director Kevin Yagher, going under the infamous Alan Smithee pseudonym to officially disown his film, was involved in many arguments with the studio over this sequel and it shows in the final product. Hellraiser: Bloodline isn’t perhaps the total dud that it’s made out to be.

The main problem with the Hellraiser sequels, save for the first one, is that they all progressively moved further away from the dark taboos that Clive Barker had dreamt up. The whole pleasure-pain and Heaven-Hell binaries, films full of sadism, torture and moral choices – these were exactly the sort of ingredients needed to make thought-provoking horror. With a greater focus on the ready-made horror icon Pinhead, the sequels shifted away from this, turning into little more than glorified supernatural slashers. Hellraiser: Bloodline is the perfect example of this – a film which is top heavy with Pinhead, features plenty of gruesome set pieces and a cast of undeveloped fodder to feed to the Cenobites when needed. There are still signs of Barker’s original visions but they’ve been papered over with generic horror clichés and turned into more of a fast food horror film than a thinking man’s.

The story on its own is decent. Seeing how the numerous generations of Merchants have tried to deal with the Lament Configuration Box sounds solid in theory but less so when it is all put together. The jumps from the past to the future are too frequent and the loose structure allows for little connection between the three separate stories. The two stories set in the past are much more interesting, particularly the one in France as its nice to see horror films set in period settings without the trappings of science, knowledge and a couple of bullets to deal with the monster. As the story moves forward in time, so the interest diminishes. The whole staging aboard on the space station in the final third just seems like a poor man’s retread of Alien, only with Cenobites stalking the soldiers in the dark. It’s hardly inspiring stuff and you’ll have seen it done before.

Though Pinhead was grossly overused in the sequels (he wasn’t even given a name in the original), turning into another Freddy Krueger-like talking villain, it’s still nice to see him in his prime before the following sequels turned him into a running cameo. Doug Bradley is comfortable in the role at this point, relishing the lines he has to deliver and speaking with gusto and malice. The character gets some of his best lines in this one like “I am pain” and “Do I look like someone who cares what God thinks?” He still gets too much screen time but as he’s the best thing on display by a mile here, it’s the lesser of two evils. The rest of the cast are pretty dire although Valentina Vargas acts with her body at times.

The gory set pieces have been given the focus in this one. Whilst the original featured its fair share of flesh ripping, the sequels tried to out-do it in terms of gratuitousness. There’s a scene in which a pair of cops are hideously mauled together and their heads and bodies twisted and contorted together to form a single Cenobite. Later on, the twins absorb another victim. In the final third where the soldiers are picked off one-by-one, there are the usual chains and hooks as well as a fancy mirror death. It’s all very imaginative stuff but the deaths are quick. There’s no suffering. There’s no drawn out agony. Pinhead preaches a lot about suffering and pain yet his goons decide to kill their victims within a heart beat rather than draw out a long, lingering death. Kevin Yagher was a make-up effects guy before he stepped into the hot seat and it shows, delivering a series of sterling gore moments.

 

Hellraiser: Bloodline is nowhere near as bad as people would have you believe. There is enough gore, a quite high body count, plenty of flesh-ripping hooks and special effects to keep horror fans interested, and of course, there is always Pinhead. But messy editing, poor acting and a poor script spoil it. I would like to have seen Kevin Yagher’s original vision for the film as there was potential in here but the studios think they know best, not the guys who actually make the film.

 

 ★★★★★☆☆☆☆☆ 

 

 

Man’s Best Friend (1993)

0 comments By andrewSMITH951 Filed in Horror Movie Reviews, Movie Reviews Tagged with , October 30th, 2012 @ 7:36 pm
  • AKA:

  • Director: John Lafia

  • Writer: John Lafia

  • Starring: Ally Sheedy, Lance Henriksen, Robert Costanzo, Fredric Lehne

  • Run Time: 97 mins

Man's Best Friend (1993)

Companion. Protector. Killer.

A genetically mutated dog is accidentally released from the labs at EMAX when a nosey female reporter breaks in to uncover the illegal animal experiments going on. The dog takes a shine to her and follows her home where she soon decides to look after him. Endowed with greater intelligence, the ability to change its colour like a chameleon and enhanced strength, the dog at first becomes the ideal pet. But when its drugs start to wear off, the dog turns into a ferocious killer.

 

What do you get if you cross the ferociousness of Cujo with the cuddliness of Beethoven? The answer is Man’s Best Friend, a slobbering entry in the ‘nature runs amok’ sci-fi horror films of the past which stars one of man’s most loved domestic pets. I’ll get this off my chest now and state on the record that I hate dogs and am scared stiff of them. Small dogs I can handle to a degree, knowing that with my height and stature, I’d be able to deal with a Yorkshire terrier or poodle if one tried to have a go. However, the big dogs are what really scare the crap out of me. So the thought of a German Shepherd, a St Bernard, a Rottweiler or any number of insanely big dogs turning into rabid killing machines is to me, what spiders and snakes are for many other people. Man’s Best Friend is perhaps a little too ridiculous and over-the-top to be considered scary but the underlying themes are still enough to make me want to wear dark trousers if I had to watch it again.

Thankfully the makers of Man’s Best Friend take the ridiculous premise and manage to make the most of it, churning out a reasonably watchable film in the process which borders on slasher territory at times, substituting a machete-wielding, hockey-mask wearing psycho for a monstrous dog. The script makes a decent stab at creating a realistic canine killing machine. The enhanced intelligence and strength bits are fine to believe in but the whole notion of genetically engineering the dog so that it can turn into a chameleon is taking things too far. It’s a dog, not the Predator but the scenes of it blending into a background full of cardboard boxes and rust metal is not plausible in the slightest. Rest assured: you’ll be treated to the dog’s POV when it’s hunting people down. Maybe this is a dog version of Predator after all.

Max, the dog, is quite loveable when he isn’t killing people or thinking of killing people and he’s totally the sort of dog you’d love to take home. However he does like to kick off in style and isn’t afraid of sabotaging bike chains and the like to get the job done. There are a few dog clichés put in here – the paper boy, the mailman and of course, next door’s cat – and you’ll not exactly be shocked to find the outcome of any of those escapades. These are fine on their own as again, they’re all perfectly acceptable and recognisable things to play upon for dog lovers. But when the dog starts urinating and melting fire hydrants (and then people’s faces) with said urine, then things get a little out of a hand. Sometimes the script keeps things level-headed and decent but then in the next breath, it’s doing crazy things like this and being little daft for its own good.

Apart from Max, the cast isn’t too bad either. Ally Sheedy is basically reprising her Short Circuit role here, only with a killer dog instead of a killer robot. Lance Henriksen picks up another pay cheque (at least the man is feeding his family, you can credit him for that!) as the dodgy scientist. At least with a few familiar faces on board, the film doesn’t stray too far when the dog isn’t killing people.

 

You will have to suspend your disbelief for a fair chunk of its running time but Man’s Best Friend takes, what was on paper anyway, a pretty absurd idea and turns into a highly watchable sci-fi horror romp. I just wish they’d have put a ceiling over the silliness and kept it relatively believable. Invisible dogs with acid wee…..come on!

 

 ★★★★★☆☆☆☆☆ 

 

 

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