Deep Rising (1998, directed by Stephen Sommers)

Posted on October 18, 2026 by Jedadiah Leland

A group of mercenaries led by Hanover (Wes Studi) hires Captain John Finnegan (Treat Williams) and his crew to pilot their boat across the South China Sea so that they can loot a luxury cruise ship on its maiden voyage. The ship has been sabotaged by its owner, Simon Canton (Anthony Heald), who is hoping to collect a big insurance payment after Hanover and his men sink the boat. But before Finnegan, Hanover, and everyone else arrives, an undersea monster attacks the cruise ship and most of the crew and passeners end up dead. Finnegan, his crew, the mercenaries, Canton, and professional thief Trillian St. James (Famke Janssen) find themselves trapped on the ship and fighting to survive the chaos.

A B-movie that was made with an A-budget, Deep Rising never gets enough respect for being an enjoyable if mindless monster film. When it was released, it was dismissed as just being another Alien rip-off. While it does have some Alien DNA, the film really has more in common with the monster movies of the 50s and 60s. Treat Williams even looks like a leading man from that era, and his performance suggests that he was in on the joke. Famke Janssen is incredibly sexy as the incredibly named Trillian St. James. Anthony Heald and Wes Studi play two very different villains, and Studi gets a great final scene. There are also plenty of disposable characters who get picked off one by one. Some people will be disappointed that Finnegan’s comic relief sidekick (played by Kevin J. O’Connor) was not one of those characters, but these films always need an annoying sidekick. Someone has to make the audience laugh before the monster jumps out of nowhere.

Deep Rising is a entertainingly simple monster movie that doesn’t ask too much of its audience and delivers an entertaining 106 minutes of creature mayhem.

Music Video of the Day: Anxiety (Get Nervous) by Pat Benatar (1982, directed by Mark Robinson)

Posted on October 18, 2026 by Jedadiah Leland

If you’re suffering from anxiety, it is nothing to be ashamed of. As today’s music video of the day shows, even Pat Benatar can get nervous! Of course, when your dentist is named Dr. Pain, who can blame you for getting nervous?

This video was directed by Mark Robinson, who also did videos for The Pretenders, Tina Turner, and Eddie Money.

Enjoy!

Leprechaun Returns (2018, directed by Steven Kostanski)

Posted on October 17, 2026 by Jedadiah Leland

In North Dakota, college student Lila Jenkins (Taylor Spreitler) and her friends are trying to greenify a house that was recently purchased by their sorority. It’s the same house where, 25 years ago, Lila’s late mother fought off a Leprechaun. Lila is the daughter of Jennifer Aniston’s character from the first film, and the fact that her mother is dead probably tells us how much interest Aniston has in returning to the franchise that made her a star. That’s some friend for you.

Mark Holton does return from the first film, recreating the character of Ozzie Jones. Ozzie gets sprayed by water from the well while dropping Lila off at the house. Later, the Leprechaun (now played by Linden Porco) bursts out of his abdomen. Ozzie may be dead, but his ghost still appears, which is good because Lila and her friends are going to need all the help they can get.

To date, this is the last Leprechaun film, and ironically, it’s also the only Leprechaun film to actually show any interest in maintaining continuity with the first one. It’s actually not terrible. The Leprechaun is talking and rhyming again, and some of the kills are memorably bloody. This is the only film I know of that features death by solar panel. It’s still missing Warwick Davis, though, and Davis really was what made the first few Leprechaun films memorable. Linden Porco’s not bad, but he doesn’t have the same joyous energy that Davis brought to the role. As for the human actors, none of them can really match up to Jennifer Aniston, Shevonne Durkin, or Ice-T.

Supposedly, Warwick Davis has said that he would now be willing to come back and play the Leprechaun in another film, assuming the money and the script were right. I hope he does. As bad as most of the Leprechaun films were, the character still deserves a proper sendoff.

Music Video of the Day: Braineaters by The Misfits (1983, directed by ????)

Posted on October 17, 2026 by Jedadiah Leland

It’s just a normal night as Danzig’s house in the video for Braineaters. Everyone comes for dinner and the chef comes out with a pot full of brains. If nothing else, this video is about as literal an adaptation of a song’s title as you are ever likely to see.

Enjoy!

X2 (2003, directed by Bryan Singer)

Posted on October 16, 2026 by Jedadiah Leland

After Nightcrawler (Alan Cumming) causes a national security crisis by teleporting into the White House, Colonel William Stryker (Brian Cox) is given the authority to invade Professor Xavier’s School and investigate its connection to the mutants. Stryker, who not only wants to investigate the mutants but also destroy them by manipulating the same technology that Xavier uses to find them, just happens to be an old enemy of Logan’s (Hugh Jackman). In fact, Stryker is responsible for Logan fusing the adamantium to his bones. That’s a hell of a coincidence.

A sequel to X-Men, X2 tells a bigger and more complex story than the first film. Professor Xavier’s students are spread out by the chaos. Rogue (Anna Paquin) sees prejudice firsthand when Bobby Drake (Shawn Ashmore) is betrayed by his own family. Pyro (Aaron Stanford) is tempted to reject the X-Men’s philosophy of coexistence. After being underused in the first film, both Scott (James Marsden) and Jean Grey (Famke Janssen) are key players here. Magneto (Ian McKellen) and Mystique (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) return, this time temporarily allying with Professor X (Patrick Stewart) to stop Stryker. Logan has his own reasons to go after Stryker. Surprisingly, X2 is not only bigger than the first film but it’s also better. The actors are more convincing in their roles, the action is more exciting, and director Bryan Singer capably juggles all of the different parts without losing the plot. He even manages to ably set up the Dark Phoenix Saga. In the first film, the X-Men had it almost too easy when it came to battling opponents like Toad and Sabretooth. This film has not only Brian Cox’s William Stryker but also Kelly Hu’s Deathstrike.

Those of us who were shocked when X-Men turned out to be good were even more shocked when X2 turned out to be even better. For a little while, it seemed like there would never be a bad X-Men movie! Later, that’s the way a lot of us would also feel about the Marvel movies. Those were good days.

Frankenstein (1992, directed by David Wickes)

Posted on October 16, 2026 by Jedadiah Leland

The crew of an icebound ship witnesses two men on dogsleds, apparently trying to kill each other. The sicklier of the men boards the ship and explains that his name is Victor Frankenstein (Patrick Bergin) and that he should not have tried to bring the dead back to life. As he tells the story of how he brought his Monster (Randy Quaid) to life, the film becomes a series of flashbacks.

Produced for TNT and playing up the costumes and the scenery at the expense of the story, this version of Frankenstein is the one that people forget about. This version emphasizes the psychic bond between the Monster and Victor. Whenever the Monster gets injured, Victor feels it, and that’s a problem because the Monster gets injured a lot, and Victor is already in ill health. Patrick Bergin plays Victor as a grandly romantic figure, which doesn’t make him particularly believable as a sickly and obsessed scientist. Randy Quaid is better as the Monster, especially in the scenes after the Monster is first brought to life and he’s still learning the basics. (I actually think Quaid’s performance is superior to Robert De Niro’s take on the character in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.) Finally, John Mills is memorable as the blind man who shows the Monster some kindness.

One thing that I will always remember about Frankenstein is the scene where the Monster tells Victor, “Ah wanna woman!” For months afterward, my friends and I would imitate Randy Quaid’s delivery of that line. Many actors have played the Monster in the years since, but none have topped “Ah wanna woman!”

Music Video of the Day: Lost In The Shadows by Lou Gramm (1987, directed by Joel Schumacher)

Posted on October 16, 2026 by Jedadiah Leland

Back in the 80s and most of the 90s, every movie came with an MTV-friendly music video. For The Lost Boys, it was this video for Lou Gramm’s Lost In The Shadows. Lou sings in what appears to be a wooden cage while scenes from the movie play. Music videos that acted as advertisements for movies were a big thing and I always looked forward to seeing them on MTV.

Lou Gramm was the lead singer of Foreigner when he recorded this song. He left Foreigner in 1990, rejoined in 1992, and then left again in 2003. He rejoined the band for a few performance in 2025 during Foreigner’s farewell tour. Lou has survived both drug addiction and a brain tumor and is still performing as a solo artist.

Enjoy!

Graphic Novel Review: Dazzler The Movie (1984, by Jim Shooter, Frank Springer, and Vince Colletta)

Posted on October 15, 2026 by Jedadiah Leland

During the day, Alison Blair is just your everyday aerobics instructor, leading exercise classes and getting hit on by sleazy Hollywood producers like Eric Beale. At night, she’s the Dazzler, an up-and-coming rock star who amazes her fans with the elaborate light shows at her concerts. What they don’t know is that Alison is a mutant and is creating the lights herself. Or, at least, they don’t know that until Alison’s boyfriend, over-the-hill singer Roman Nekobah, reveals the truth to the press. Roman thinks that it will make Alison a star. Instead, Alison finds herself hounded by the press, anti-mutant bigots, and the producers of a movie.

It really doesn’t get more 80s than this graphic novel about Dazzler. Unfortunately, this graphic novel was not a great moment in comic book history. Instead, it was just Alison in leotards and doing things with Roman that Jim Shooter and Marvel couldn’t get away with acknowledging in the monthly Dazzler comic book. A full page of art is devoted to just Alison undressing and looking at herself in the mirror. That was probably popular with readers of a certain age in 1984, but today, it’s just a reflection that there wasn’t much to Dazzler beyond how she looked. Not much happens plotwise. Eric Beale is a sleazy producer but he’s hardly a villain on the scale of Dr. Doom or even Sebastian Shaw. When writers and artists of the era complain about Jim Shooter’s commercialized vision for the company, Dazzler The Movie is a good example of what they were talking about.

Dazzler The Movie is mostly interesting as a roman à clef about how the character was created in the first place. Dazzler was developed by Marvel and Neil Bogart, the legendary (and legendarily erratic) manager of Casablanca Records. At first, Dazzler was going to be a multimedia project. Not only would there be the Dazzler comic book but there were plans to release Dazzler records and to have actual Dazzler concerts. A movie about Dazzler was a part of the plan but things fell through when Casablanca went bankrupt. Shooter continued to try to develop a Dazzler movie. When Bo Derek showed some interest, Dazzler was redesigned to resemble her. However, Bo insisted that the movie could only be directed by her husband, John Derek. After the box office failure of John and Bo’s version of Tarzan, the Ape Man, Marvel lost interest in the Dereks and the Dereks lost interest in Dazzler. It’s easy to see John Derek in the character of Eric Beale. Dazzler has a choice between selling out or continuing to do things her way and she decides that she doesn’t need an Eric Beale in her life.

The comic book lived on, though. Dazzler The Movie was Shooter’s attempt to draw more readers to the comic and to also express his hatred of Hollywood. It wasn’t much of a graphic novel. It was no God Loves, Man Kills. It didn’t get the acclaim of The Death of Captain Marvel. But it did keep Dazzler going. And she’s still going to this day.

Great Moments In Comic Book History #48: Kulan Gath Transforms Manhattan

Posted on October 15, 2026 by Jedadiah Leland

Kulan Gath, an evil sorcerer from the Hyborian Age who fought both Conan and Red Sonja, emerges from a magic amulet in Manhattan and casts a spell that turns the city into an ancient city, complete with warriors, wizards, and other mythical monsters. Because he was defeated by Spider-Man the last time he showed up in modern times, Gath is obsessed with capturing and sacrificing the web-slinger. He recruits and transforms members of the X-Men, Avengers, New Mutants, and the Morlocks and uses them to hunt down Spider-Man. Those whom Gath has not succeeded in capturing try to return Manhattan to normal.

Today, we know that any time a comic book takes a trip to an alternate reality or timeline, almost everyone is going to end up dead. It almost feels like it’s a way for comic book artists and writers to get out their frustration over not being able to permanently change any of the characters. We’re used to the big slaughters that take place, and it’s no longer a big deal to read that an alternate version of our favorite character was killed in battle.

I don’t know if people were used to it in 1985, when X-Men #190 and #191 told the story of Kulan Gath conquering Manhattan and featured one of the biggest bloodbaths in Marvel history. Over the course of two issues, nearly every prominent Marvel hero was either transformed into a grotesque creature or horribly killed. Rogue gets stabbed in the back. Colossus explodes. Selene loses her mouth, Even Spider-Man eventually ended up dying. Things got so extreme that Dr. Strange and Magik had to team up to change history to keep Kulan Gath from even emerging from that amulet in the first place. By the end of it, there were only six heroes left alive. When Storm, one of the survivors, said that humanity would never know that they had been saved by mutants, Captain America made a point to thank her. He says he knows it’s probably not enough. You’re right, Cap. It’s not. Did you see what they did to Spider-Man?

Written by Chris Claremont with art by John Romita, Jr. and Dan Green, the saga of Kulan Gath is a classic X-Men story. X-Men #191 was entitled “Raiders of the Lost Temple.” It could have just as easily been called “No One Lives.” I’m glad Dr. Strange was there to set everything right.

Previous Great Moments In Comic Book History:

Great Moments In Television History #45: A Game of Pool

Posted on October 15, 2026 by Jedadiah Leland

65 years ago, on October 13, 1961, Jesse Cardiff (played by Jack Klugman) faced off against the world’s greatest pool player, “Fats” Brown (Jonathan Winters). Jesse was eager to prove that he was even better than the legendary Fats. The only catch was that Fats was long dead and only visited from the afterlife so he could play Jesse. If Jesse won, he would be known as the greatest pool player who ever lived. If Fats won, Jesse would die. Jesse did win, but he found himself now fated to always have to play anyone who challenged him, even after he died. Fats Brown, meanwhile, went fishing.

It all happened on the 70th episode of The Twilight Zone. Written by George Clayton Johnson and directed by Buzz Kulik, “A Game of Pool” has never gotten as much attention as some other episodes, but it really is the epitome of a Twilight Zone episode. Jesse gets what he’s always wanted and discovers that everything comes with a price. Originally, this episode was meant to end with Jesse losing and Fats telling him that he would indeed die, but it would be far in the future with no one remembering or caring who he was. The version that aired had a more direct and less harsh ending.

“A Game of Pool” aired 65 years ago this week.

Previous Moments In Television History: