Horror Film Review: A Nightmare On Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985, dir. Jack Sholder)

Posted on October 20, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

You’ll have to forgive me, but I watched A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984) back on September 6th, 2008. So it’s been awhile. Luckily, this film doesn’t really ask you to know anything about the original. Also on the plus side, I’ve reviewed Rock: It’s Your Decision (1982) and Law Enforcement Guide To Satanic Cults (1994) this year, so imaginary subtext is still fresh in my mind.

The movie opens up with Jesse Walsh (Mark Patton) riding the bus. Just in case we didn’t notice that Robert Englund is driving the bus, the movie makes sure we know right away that something isn’t right. They have Jesse looking like he doesn’t think very highly of himself in real life. Of course Freddy Kruger is driving the bus and a nightmare sequence ensues. Then we cut to Jesse waking up sweating. Heat plays a major role in this film because of course it does since Freddy was burned.

Unfortunately, Jesse does go downstairs to find that Fu Man Chews cereal is very real. That’s scary! This movie is cerebral. I remember the original also playing with what was real and imagined, but here it’s a little different. The things here are mostly real in that something really is happening in Jesse and it does have him take actions in the real world against his will. Freddy isn’t something that gets you in your dreams. In this sequel, Freddy is inside Jesse slowly but surely taking hold of him. Doesn’t really fit with the first one, but who cares. It’s much better than just getting a retread of the original.

Pretty quickly, Jesse and his girlfriend Lisa (Kim Myers) find a diary written by the girl from the first film. They find it because it turns out Jesse’s family has recently moved into the house from the first movie, unbeknownst to anyone but the dad. One of the things people might latch onto in the hopes of reading gay subtext into this movie here is the “No (out of town) Chicks” sign on his door. Yes, because kids in high school are totally not so juvenile to have something like that on their door. And just in case we don’t remember that kids at that age are that juvenile. When Jesse and his friend are forced to do pushups by their coach on the field because they were fighting, they of course assume the coach must be “queer” because they know he frequents an S&M club.

While we are here. I believe the cleaning the room scene pictured above means he’s gay about as much as I believe the girls from Teen Witch (1989) went home and made out with each other after the I Like Boys musical number.

As stupid as they are, these kind of scenes are all over 1980s movies. Remember this one from Risky Business (1983)?

Hell, going back to Teen Witch again. The infamous Top That! rap is just as goofy.

The first time we really see Freddy truly taking hold is when Jesse appears to leave his house in the middle of the night. He goes to the S&M club where his coach goes. It takes no time at all for the coach to spot him and punish him by making him run laps at the school gym. Of course they didn’t mention the coach was into S&M for anything. I can’t think of one off the top of my head, but movies from this period loved to throw in characters who were perceived sexual deviants, then punish or kill them in a manner similar to what turns them on. That’s what happens here to the coach. However, instead of Jesse waking up in his bed to find out the coach is dead the next day. He is actually brought home by the police, meaning it really happened. This obviously scares the crap out of Jesse.

And things only spin further and further out of control as Freddy manifests himself more and more in reality. This is another scene I’m sure is supposed to seal the deal on the gay subtext.

The gay is trying to get out of him so he flees being with his girlfriend to barge in on his friend. Of course he goes to his friend. This isn’t a big budget film we’re talking about here. The coach is dead, his parents think he’s on drugs, and Freddy just manifested himself while he was with Lisa. Who else is he going to go to but his friend? He’s the only other character of consequence left in the movie.

And this line that Jesse says shortly after coming into his friend’s room means a penis if you are in middle school. This is where the film does run into some issues for me. Up until now, the movie did a good job of showing Jesse slowing losing his mind as Freddy took further and further control, but now he literally appears to jump into reality as if Jesse were an incubator. It eventually kind of explains it, but I wish they could have smoothed this out a bit more. Especially seeing how good of a job I think Mark Patton did up till now with the character of Jesse.

After Freddy runs wild at a party, Lisa goes to where Freddy used to work. There was a scene earlier where Lisa took Jesse there.

This is where Lisa tries to get Jesse to fight Freddy’s control over him. In fact, we can hear Jesse sometimes and it’s clear that Freddy hasn’t destroyed Jesse quite yet. Or you can read this as reparative therapy with Lisa trying to call Jesse back to being straight. Even going so far as to kiss him because that’s never used in films to draw characters back from the dark side in a movie.

Then we get the ending of Ghostbusters (1984) in that Jesse emerges from the charred outer skin of Freddy. And then that little bit at the end of the movie just in case we weren’t sure that they were going to make more of these movies.

And I’m sure you can read this the way you can the ending of Taxi Driver (1976) in that Jesse has only resolved this episode, but hasn’t dealt with the real issue. And I’m just coming up with these things off the top of my head without actually referring to anyone else’s posts.

As a follow up to the original, I like it. They tried to do something different that still drew from the source material. I really did like Mark Patton’s performance in this.

As a horror movie in general. It’s not really scary in the traditional sense. You don’t perceive something or someplace as now being dangerous and a source of fear like a regular horror movie does. In that sense, it’s actually even scarier because Jesse does nothing, but is simply taken over just because. Near the end of last year my brain turned on me and I wound up in the emergency room. They didn’t know what was wrong with me and sent me home. It took around five days or so to come out of it. While I was in it, among other things, I honestly believed I was trapped in some sort of Matrix-like prison that just looked like reality. I kept looking for anything that could be a flaw in what my brain kept telling me wasn’t real. It’s an absolutely terrifying thing.

As for the supposed gay subtext in the movie. It’s just not there. You can add up all the scenes you want and apply any meanings you want to them, but it doesn’t means it’s there. I’m transgender and Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991) meant something to me as a kid. It doesn’t mean that the scenes where Robert Patrick is seen having transformed into a woman didn’t strike a note in me because they did. But it doesn’t mean that there is transgender subtext in it or anything that happens to have shapeshifting between genders. So please don’t take what I said as trying to take away something that might be special to you. I have no desire to do that. It’s just that you are reading your own meaning into it, not one that was hidden away and discovered by you.

Now I need to get back to something less serious. I’m in the middle of the first Mostly Ghostly movie and it’s not as stupid so far, but pretty close.

Hallmark Review: Jesse Stone: Lost In Paradise (2015, dir. Robert Harmon)

Posted on October 20, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

Well, it’s been 5 years since I last watched a Jesse Stone movie. That was Jesse Stone: No Remorse (2010). I remember that one being quite awful. This one isn’t. I hope this is a sign that Hallmark is pivoting when it comes to the material in their films. Yes, it’s just an average detective story, but it looks, feels, and uses much more adult material. Thank goodness! At times I feel like I’m watching Hallmark: The Heart Of Infantile Adults network. Yes, Jesse bitches a little bit about cellphones in this, but I buy that as part of his character, not as something put in to pander to people who don’t like cellphones. In fact, he really doesn’t complain about cellphones in general, but about texting.

The first question on your mind is probably whether you can jump into the series with this film. Yes, but you will feel like you have been dropped into a moving current. You really won’t be lost, but it seems to very much pick up where it left off. In this case, Jesse Stone (Tom Selleck) is working in Paradise, Massachusetts. The movie revolves around an unsolved killing that has been attributed to a man known as the Boston Ripper, played by Luke Perry. But it’s still an open case cause they really can’t quite pin it on him even though they have put him behind bars for three similar murders. Stone is curious to figure it out.

There’s also this subplot involving this girl that Stone finds on the street and helps out. It might have ties to earlier material, but the only tie to the material in this movie I noticed is that helping her is like preventing a possible future victim of someone like the Boston Ripper.

There’s honestly not much else to say. The case is somewhat interesting, but the movie really isn’t about the case in particular. It’s like the title suggests, Jesse Stone is lost in the metaphorical paradise and lives in the literal town of Paradise. It’s about a transitory period in his life. Heck, they even put up this title card at the start just in case you don’t pick up on that.

If you’re used to the usual Hallmark mystery movies, then this isn’t one of them. It’s a welcome change. Nothing special, but I recommend it.

Halloween Film Review: R.L. Stine’s Mostly Ghostly: Have You Met My Ghoulfriend? (2014, dir. Peter Hewitt)

Posted on October 20, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

You might have noticed that I referred to the recent R.L. Stine movie The Cabinet Of Souls as “Children’s Horror”, but call this one “Halloween Film Review”. That’s because this movie and that one are miles apart from each other. While The Cabinet Of Souls was geared towards children, it was still a legit horror movie with genuinely creepy bad guys who did truly evil things. As you may remember, we see Dr. Hysteria kill a kid right in front of us and then say, “you were a good worker.” This is a series of lame sketches that happen to involve supernatural forces. At least this time I recognize more of the Disney crew.

That’s Eric Allan Kramer from Good Luck, Charlie that plays the dad, or for bad movie lovers: Ator from Quest For The Mighty Sword (1990) AKA Troll 3. Calum Worthy from Austin & Ally is in this as the brother of the main character. Roshon Fegan I recognize from Shake It Up and he plays one of the ghosts from the first Mostly Ghostly movie. And for some reason they also roped Bella Thorne into this. I say it that way because she is barely in the movie. I know it’s cause her mom Tamera Thorne is a co-producer, but it’s a complete waste having her in this. Speaking of other well known actors who are barely in the movie. This was the last onscreen appearance of Joan Rivers. Who I believe is one scene.

The movie begins with our main character Max Doyle (Ryan Ochoa) walking past a graveyard. Apparently, he has some ring that protects him from this guy.

That’s Toni Basil who is going to give us a big exposition dump. I apologize, but after reviewing Slaughterhouse Rock, I will think every supernatural character who only exists to explain things is Toni Basil. This is actually some creature named Phears (Charlie Hewson). Because he plays on your worst fears of bad children’s cartoon villains. He resurrects Emma Twitchel (Caroline Lagerfelt) who was once the star of The Moscow Circus. What a star of The Moscow Circus is doing buried in an American suburban neighborhood might confuse me if I didn’t know that Bruce Lee is buried in Seattle. He then tells us, I mean her the backstory on why he needs her. It’s a lot of crap to say that there are two teenage ghosts, a world domination plan, and a magic ring that Max has that prevents it. Phears wants her to go and posses Max to drive him crazy since Phears himself can’t leave the cemetery. What follows is a bunch of stupid comedy sketches. Seriously, the film barely cares about it’s own plot.

Like this scene where the ghosts help lift Max up the rope during gym class. I’m sorry, they help him up Lester. The gym teacher names all of her equipment. The side horse is Jimmy, the medicine ball is Eric, and the high bar is Tiffany. That combined with the scene where one of the ghosts looks inside of him to find a sleeping woman means if I were in middle school I might think this movie has LGBT subtext in it. Has as much basis in reality as the Nightmare On Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985) stuff. I’ll review that soon.

As you can imagine, the rest of the film is just a series of stupid jokes revolving around being possessed and having two invisible people help out Max. It’s all super childish stuff.

The only other things I want to mention are technical.

When they look at this computer screen in the movie we see it as if we are the computer screen. Why?

Then there’s shots like these.

I can sort of understand the blurring on the ring, but what’s with the other ones? I seriously doubt anyone would be confused about where to look without the blurring.

The worst and best part is that the ending of this that seems to be setting itself up for another sequel. The worst part is that a sequel could still be in the works, but the best part is that maybe it isn’t since The Cabinet Of Souls is what they made this year. This one is a total skip.

Halloween Film Review: Halloweentown II: Kalabar’s Revenge (2001, dir. Mary Lambert)

Posted on October 19, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

First off, let me say that this is better than the first one. Also, while I still refer to it as a Halloween Film Review rather than Children’s Horror, this one is scarier than the original. The movie begins with a little recap of the first, but kept quite short, and in no time we already see something scarier than anything in the first film.

Forget about being paranoid about your kids using the Internet, there’s a literal face in a wall watching your daughter. That’s Marnie Piper (Kimberly J. Brown) back a little older and with certainly more knowledge about magic this time around. Her grandma played by Debbie Reynolds now lives with them. They are holding a Halloween party at the house.

That’s when Kal and his Dad enter the party. Basically, Marnie is turned on, shows him the magic room, and he steals a spell book. Then he returns back to Halloweentown. When Reynolds and Marnie go decide to take a quick trip to Halloweentown they find out that Bela Tarr has taken over the place.

Just kidding, there’s no whale around, but there is this.

Kal turns out to be the son of the villain from the first film. He has cast a spell on Halloweentown that turns the creatures there into caricatures of human beings. To fix this Reynolds and Marnie need to find something that Reynolds has lost. This means going to see a guy named Mr. Gort who apparently receives everything that is lost elsewhere.

The spell has already taken Mr. Gort and soon takes Reynolds as well. Basically, it’s the same setup as the first film again. It’s up to Marnie to find a spell that can undo all this and defeat Kal. This involves a lot of jumping around in time and practically torturing poor Mr. Gort.

While this is going on we find out that Kal’s dad is really just a bunch of frogs somehow put together using a spell. They refer to him as a golem.

Of course it all comes down to a standoff between Marnie and Kal at the party.

Then everything is restored in Halloweentown. Thankfully, that includes making the cab driver all bones again.

Better than the first, but still on the lackluster side. It kind of feels like a poor man’s Harry Potter. I have a feeling the two remaining films in the series are going to get worse.

Hallmark Review: Bridal Wave (2015, dir. Michael Scott)

Posted on October 18, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

Sorry if I forget some things, but last night after watching this movie I lost cellphone reception and thus went into a severe panic attack. Just kidding, I just said that to make the point that the losing cellphone reception thing to show how shallow and disconnected someone is in a movie is a cliche that is getting really really old. Also, I’ve been quite surprised. I can drive many miles out into the middle of nowhere and still get near perfect LTE where I live. In fact, I only know of two places where I lose cellphone reception. A room that is basically a bunker and one of my favorite parks that is in a canyon. At least this movie didn’t have people in wide flat open spaces losing GPS signals because the writers don’t know how that works.

With a title like Bridal Wave you might imagine that there must be some surfing going on here. That maybe someone is going to end up in a wedding dress on a surfboard. No such luck. This movie opens up at plastic surgeon’s office. We meet Dr. Phillip Hamilton (David Haydn-Jones) and his assistant Georgie Dwyer (Arielle Kebbel). Wait…that means!

Now we meet a girl who for her 21st birthday has just received a nose job. I’ll have to take this movie’s word at that because I look at this girl and think she has had some work done on her eyes instead.

As I’m sure you’ve guessed already, Georgie and Phillip are closer than just colleagues and are going to be married. Now we meet the parents. It’s not worth your time introducing them. All you need to know is that all the scenes with the parents make you think this is the first time either of them have met the other’s parents. And given a conversation at the end of this movie, I think that was done on purpose. That you are supposed to read it that way. This is a movie that has some uneven writing. This bit about the parents and two conversations at the end of the movie make perfect sense and are based in reality. However, the stuff in between falls back on stupid stereotypes yet again.

Of course that means we need to introduce the right guy. His name is Luke Griggs (Andrew W. Walker). How do we know he’s the right guy? Because we see him mention that he doesn’t own a cellphone anymore. While we are talking about cellphones. Kudos to this movie for not screwing up the fake video chat scenes the way A Ring By Spring did by accidentally leaving the the bit at the top of the screen that shows what we are seeing is a pre-recorded video.

The setup is that Phillip and Georgie have come to an island that has a hotel which is a popular place to have weddings. In other words, they see wave after wave of brides come through their place. Hence the title Bridal Wave. Griggs is an architect who lives right next door to the hotel and is a little teed off about it because of the loss of the natural beauty of the island. However, up until the end of the movie he kind of comes across like an angry old man waving his cane at the modern world. My favorite part of this is when to explain his point about how imperfections in a person are what make them perfect, he compares them to an outcropping of rocks. Yes, because human beings are exactly like inanimate objects.

This part happens during Luke and Georgie’s nature excursion. Phillip was called away to perform some surgeries because it was too hard to have both him and Luke in the movie at the same time and have Georgie still pick Luke. During this scene is when we get the ridiculous cellphone reception thing. We also get Luke being confused as to who might want to get their ears pinned back. I totally can’t think of anyone who might want that procedure done.

Everything else is standard stuff except for two conversations at the end of the movie. The first is when Georgie and Phillip finally sit down and talk about that they probably shouldn’t get married. The reasons they bring up make absolute perfect sense and don’t rely on BS. They do have feelings for each other and they work together so much and so well that marriage just seemed like the next logical thing for them. That’s why they really hadn’t met each other’s parents because they are so busy all the time that they kind of wind up in their own world. Makes sense!

The second conversation is when Luke sits down with the owner of the hotel. Luke basically says the hotel and the marriages don’t bother him, but what bothers him is that the design of the place robs people coming there of the beauty they should be getting by coming to this island. He wants to sell off his place next door, tear it down, and restore it to the way it looked before as a natural grotto to hold weddings in. Again, makes perfect sense!

Why couldn’t the whole movie be like that? Although just to pander to people who want one last laugh at Phillip because he must be superficial and shallow since he does plastic surgery.

After they cut to one year later to show Georgie and Luke getting married in the grotto, we see that Phillip is with a girl he gave a nose job.

This one is far far better than A Country Wedding, but it still uses too much stereotype BS. You can do better in general, and even from Hallmark.

Horror Film Review: Slaughterhouse Rock (1988, dir. Dimitri Logothetis)

Posted on October 17, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

Earlier this month Lisa posted a scene from Slaughterhouse Rock that she likes, but she said she hadn’t actually seen the movie. She might as well have slapped me across the face with a steel gauntlet. Well, I’ve seen Slaughterhouse Rock now. Twice in fact. Probably three if you count all the rewatching of segments I had to do while writing this review because I was still confused. I can assure you that scene is the most entertaining thing about this movie. Lisa is right, that scene does show parts from earlier in the film. I love that it even flashes back to pointless scenes like when one of the kids slips while climbing up onto Alcatraz Island. Or a quick shot of one of the girls talking in a restaurant. It’s like they reached that part of the film and ran out of money because they blew it on effects from earlier in the film. That, and it was probably in Toni Basil’s contract that they let her dance a little in this movie. Oh, by the way, this is one of two rock horror films that star Toni Basil. I already reviewed Rockula. Why are there two of these?

So let’s get this review over with so I can subject myself to more films of questionable quality. The film starts out with some dreamlike scary scenes that end with someone’s hand getting chopped off. Then a guy wakes up to find his hand missing. Of course he wakes up again because he was still in a dream. Cut to the opening title card. We find out that not only Toni Basil was involved in this, but Devo too. And then we find out that the cinematographer on this movie is Nicholas Von Sternberg. The son of famed director Josef Von Sternberg. I bring that up because the first film he is credited with shooting is Dolemite (1975). That film is famous for numerous reasons including the boom mic popping in from the top of the frame.

I mention it since I’m pretty sure there is a scene in this movie where the boom mic pops in on the left hand side of the shot. I wish I had watched a higher quality copy of this movie, but here’s the shot anyways.

But back to the story. That kid is Alex Gardner (Nicholas Celozzi) who has been having some weird dreams lately. Cut to the outside of a college building and we learn that Alcatraz has been closed down temporarily because of a tragic incident. A rock band called Body Bag broke off from the tour group and was later found dead. That’s Sammy Mitchell’s (Toni Basil) band. Since his dreams seem like they are taking place in a prison, his friends think there must be a connection. The next group of scenes are either stupid 1980’s teenagers in a horror movie stuff, creepy unreal stuff, or one of the very few shots in this movie that are actually of Alcatraz.

In here is one of the dumbest scenes in the movie. They obviously thought it was really cool and built atmosphere, but it’s actually just really frustrating and confusing like most of this movie. It takes place in a restaurant where the scene starts with this person picking up some food to take to a table. The camera moves in slow motion around this restaurant for what feels like an eternity. Then a voice kicks in. Who is saying it? Is it the people we are looking at? The camera is still moving so I guess it can’t be. It takes close to another 10 seconds before the camera slow motion moves some more and finally settles on a girl and Alex talking at a table. My god! Was it so hard to cut that shorter? This is especially frustrating because the rest of the scene is actually done rather well. It uses close ups of his eyes and other peoples faces combined with angles and playing with the sound to build up to a hand breaking through the wall behind him. None of which required that unnecessarily confusing roam through the restaurant. Likely, that stuff was padding. There’s a lot of stuff that feels like padding in this movie.

Now apparently these kids are taking some sort of class on the metaphysical in college because of course we can’t just have the kids go to Alcatraz of their own volition. No, Alex’s teacher finds out about his dreams after he freaks out in class. It’s her and this Nightmare On Elm Street (1984) scene that finally push them to take a small boat out to the island.

Once we arrive on the island then the film really starts to have issues. The problem is since this was obviously not shot on the island, what you are seeing are small separate sets. In a well directed movie, this wouldn’t necessarily be an issue, but here it is. You never really have a sense of space. How long is that hallway? Where is this exactly? Where is it in relation to the other sets? All of these problems are what make the film feel like a lot of just people walking and talking. To where? Who knows? And who cares.

After getting grabbed by a hand and pulled somewhere else, we meet Sammy Mitchell. She starts to tells us the story behind all of this and that she has been reaching out to him in order to bring him to the island. Expect there to be a reason she reached out to him specifically? Only in your dreams. We now learn about her fascination with the occult and that she let some demon out. Apparently, all the people who have died on the island are the source of his power and are trapped on the island by his power. She then explains how this guy allowed in something more evil than the guy could have imagined. Then it cuts away to someone else for a bit. We then come back to her, and he asks why she chose him. Her answer is that she needs a living being to open a door at the end of a tunnel in order to release all the souls trapped on the island. Now comes the stock footage dance that Lisa posted.

While all this is going on, we have the other kids wandering around the island. One of them includes Alex’s brother Richard (Tom Reilly). Richard becomes possessed by this demon. I love the scene with this one girl that he has shortly after getting taken over. It’s like that ridiculous dry hump sexual assault scene from the game Phantasmagoria. Only this scene actually makes some sense since the bad guy did have a history of that sort of thing whereas in the game it’s really random.

With Alex out of his body, the movie now has an excuse for how it can show us, and him, scenes from the past really explaining things. Okay, what’s going on is that apparently Alcatraz was a military outpost before it became a prison. And of course there was a really nasty guy who liked to hire girls, then eat them. After he couldn’t hire hookers and eat them anymore, he fed off the locals. The Native Americans finally got fed up with him and burned him. Unfortunately, he apparently had learned enough about magic that this didn’t do him in really. He had made a pact with the devil according to Sammy. I love the dialogue from the ghosts that almost sound like Sean Connery’s famous opening credits lines from Highlander (1986) that were recorded in a bathroom. Also, I love the quick anti-drug line they threw in with Basil’s exposition dump.

After Basil finally shuts up, although she keeps popping in from now on, the movie basically comes down to a D.W. Griffith cross cutting sequence. On one end you have people fighting the demon and on the other you have Alex (out of body) walking down the tunnel to open the door. Just as the camera seemed to take forever to move through the restaurant, Alex takes his sweet time walking through this tunnel. Almost like they shot all the other scenes of the kids fighting the demon, figured out how long they ran, then shot enough of Alex walking down the tunnel so they could keep cutting back to it. During this is where this lack of a sense of space really comes into play. The demon keeps pounding against a wall in some place and that somehow has an effect on Alex in the tunnel. The demon is hitting his hand against the wall, and then it cuts to Alex’s body to show his hand twist, which then seems to have an affect on his soul moving through the tunnel. It’s all very confusing, and since it’s the climax, it really damages the movie.

At the end, as far as I can tell, Basil joins souls with Alex in some fashion. There’s something there because he can suddenly play the piano at the end. I don’t care.

This film was disappointing. I wasn’t a fan of the opening stuff, but they should have stuck with it all the way through. Yes, they could have improved on the sense of space issue, but I could have forgiven that if I felt trapped and held in a suspenseful atmosphere. Instead, they had to explain things, bring in Toni Basil, the dance number, the ridiculous outfits on her, and comedy bits from other dead people.

In other words, you can skip this one. If you must have Toni Basil in a rock related horror film, then go with Rockula. It’s not great, but it’s better than this. Plus you also get Thomas Dolby and Bo Diddley in that one.

Hallmark Review: A Country Wedding (2015, dir. Anne Wheeler)

Posted on October 17, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

My Comcast connection is on the fritz so I am unable to get screenshots of these Hallmark movies for the time being. Or at least with this movie. That didn’t stop me for close to 100 reviews of Hallmark movies and there’s no need to show you anything from this awful thing.

A Country Wedding is about a guy named Bradley (Jesse Metcalfe). He’s a country musician. He’s going to get married to an actress who looks like she was attacked by a bottle of peroxide. Then there’s this lady who runs kind of a vet/ranch back where he grew up. She’s named Sarah (Autumn Reeser). She sees him on TV and decides to write him a letter. Apparently, when they were kids, they had a fake wedding. He gets the letter and decides to pay a visit since he needs to go back to his hometown anyways to dispose of his childhood home.

What we get when he arrives there is one of the most stock sleepwalking stereotype spewing bullshit Hallmark romances I have ever seen. Either it’s in the way they act or they come right out and say something stupid. It’s like when you hear someone who doesn’t let the fact that they really know nothing about film stop them from trashing it simply because they love books.

But this movie doesn’t stop there. It keeps cutting back to the peroxide lady just to remind us of how stupid they think we are by making her and everyone around her as empty, vapid, and dumb as they can. There’s one scene in particular with this ridiculously tall cake. You see it and immediately make the joke about “couldn’t it be taller” because you are making fun of the fact that they actually put it in the movie. But then the movie has one of the characters say that same line and mean it. That’s how dumb they think you are. This movie makes all sorts of unfounded assumptions about people who live in the city and are rich as well as people who live in rural communities and aren’t rich. They both come across as idiots because in this movie, if you live in a rural community, you are a backwards hick. And if you are rich and live in the city, then you are a rich city hick.

I need to wind this down because the more I think about it, the angrier I get. However, there is one more thing to mention. There’s a scene with Bradley and Sarah at a campfire. She makes some comment about his pristine white cowboy hat. He says it was picked out for him by his manager. She takes it and dirties it up to make it more like something a real cowboy would wear. In other words, she takes that hat and imbues it with meaning about their relationship in a scene that is supposed to be a nice honest moment between them. But then near the end of the film he throws that hat away into oblivion to represent finally breaking ties with his city life. Oops! Forgot you changed the meaning of that hat didn’t you?

Oh, and I guess I need to have this one final complaint. It’s a small one, but it just goes to show how ignorant they expect their audience to be. Sarah makes a comment about his Italian cowboy boots. She says, “they got cowboys in Italy?” Can you think of any other country outside of the United States that is more associated with cowboys in popular culture outside of the United States other than Italy? I’m not stupid enough to believe that this vet who lives in the country is that ignorant. And that’s just one in a long string of snide redneck insults she hurls his way. Not that his character is any better mind you. Nobody comes out looking good in this movie.

When I get this angry about a movie I really want to encourage people to see it and make up their own minds. I did have it embedded here at the time of posting, but this isn’t a Hallmark movie that looks like it’s going to disappear from their lineup anytime soon and it was taken down quickly. So I removed it. If you want to, then catch it the next time it’s on and make up your own mind.

Halloween Film Review: Halloweentown (1998, dir. Duwayne Dunham)

Posted on October 16, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

By the time this came out in 1998 I had long since stopped watching the Disney Channel or celebrating Halloween. And apparently, I didn’t miss much. I’m not sure how this spawned three sequels.

The movie begins with Gwen Cromwell Piper (Judith Hoag) telling her daughter she can’t go celebrate Halloween like all the other children. Now of course I figured it was because she didn’t want her daughter to be sacrificed to Satan and participate in a holiday that cannot be divorced from it’s Pagan origins. Law Enforcement Guide To Satanic Cults and Part 1 of The Pagan Invasion taught me that. However, it’s nothing fun like that. It’s just that they come from a family of witches and she married a human so she wants to raise them all like humans.

Enter Debbie Reynolds on The Magical School Bus, Marry Poppins style. After showing off to the kids magic grandma style, she leaves to go back to her home. By the way, have you ever noticed that in these kid friendly witch things, their powers are genetically inherited rather than acquired by invoking some sort of non-human entity?

Anyways, after the movie reminds us that Universal still has a trademark on the Wolfman, the kids follow Reynolds back onto the bus.

After seeing some supernatural creatures on the bus, they arrive in Hill Valley…I mean Halloweentown. The kids meet the mayor and that’s important, but who cares cause we now meet the cabby.

He’s like Manny from Grim Fandango! He is the best character in this whole movie. I really hope he’s in the sequels. I can’t say enough good things about him. Well, of course some bad things are happening in Halloweentown and Reynolds is trying to get the mayor to listen, but he doesn’t. The mother also shows up to complain and act worried about the kids. After showing off the town a bit, Reynolds comes to a theater.

I would say that means something bad is going on, but I’ve been told that’s what screenings of Oogieloves (2012) looked like.

But then this guy shows up and freezes Debbie Reynolds and the mom. This leaves the kids to run around town collecting ingredients for a spell to help them. Ultimately, it takes the whole family to deal with the evil. Blah, blah, blah. It’s not a bad setup, but they just don’t do much of anything with it. Disappointing.

Hallmark Review: Smart Cookies (2012, dir. Robert Iscove)

Posted on October 16, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

This is the second Hallmark movie in row I’ve watched where a woman in expensive clothes falls in mud. Why? I guess if kids can beatbox in R.L. Stine’s Monsterville: The Cabinet Of Souls, then this movie can also fall back really tired and old things such as rich peopling falling in mud.

That butt belongs to real estate agent Julie Sterling (Jessalyn Gilsig). This movie was made in 2012 and was meant to commemorate 100 years of the Girl Scouts. This movie doesn’t even try to give an excuse for Sterling to get involved with the Girl Scouts. Her boss played by Patricia Richardson just shows up in her office, says a girl scout troop needs a leader, and that she has to go be it for 90 days. End of story. I like it when a Hallmark movie doesn’t bullshit, but just says, this is a thing that’s happening, so onward with the movie. The Gourmet Detective: A Healthy Place To Die did that too.

Julie may not be good with kids, but she does come prepared with a purse big enough to hold a severed head in it. As I’m sure you already know, she isn’t assigned the “good” girl scouts, but the ones who really need help. Kind of like herself. Bailee Madison plays one of the scouts and once again she is cast just to be super cute.

While she is working with the scouts she is also trying to sell a house. That part is really just a barometer so we can tell at what stage in her character arc she is based on how her professional life is affected by her time with the kids. Also, it’s how she runs into a handy man played by Ty Olsson who kind of reminded me of tech journalist Patrick Norton. Only with more hair.

His performance really is the highlight of this film. Of course he is also the father of Bailee Madison’s character. He’s nice, he doesn’t act zany, he cares about his daughter, etc. He’s the best part of the movie.

Since the Girl Scouts are probably best known for their cookies. The end of the film becomes her troop facing off against the best scouts to sell the most cookies. The scenes where they are fighting each other in street for sales by changing their deal every few seconds till they finally capture the crowd are the majority of these parts. I wish they had cut some of the unnecessary adapting scenes such as the mud part and given us some scenes of her doing the work that the scouts are supposed to be doing. Instead, we get a brief flash of her coming out of a Kinkos type place and then the kids are complaining about her doing everything for them. Would have been nice if they had shown that rather than just telling us it happened.

Honestly, what this movie did for me is remind me of why I enjoyed watching Troop Beverly Hills (1989) as a kid. However, there is one last thing to mention and that is that for once in a long time, the romance part really takes a back seat to the stuff with the scouts. Yes, she warms up to the father and we can see that they are good friends and are going to see where that takes them, but it’s not forced down our throats. He never proposes at the end or anything. The end is her realizing that her boss has helped make her a better person by giving her these 90 days with the girls and that she would like to continue doing it.

Is it worth watching? Not really. It won’t kill ya, but I certainly wouldn’t seek it out.

Horror Film Review: Blades (1989, dir. Thomas R. Rondinella)

Posted on October 15, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

Recently Lisa reviewed Jaws. You know what she did probably without knowing it? She reviewed Blades. Seriously, it’s the same movie. Watch this. I’m going to take the second paragraph of her review and make it about Blades.

I mean, seriously, what’s there to say about this film? Blades is one of those movies that no one has seen and everyone has seen. And, even if everyone hasn’t seen the film, chances are they can still tell you about it. They know it’s a movie about a giant lawnmower that attacks Tall Grass Country Club, just as a big golfing tournament is starting. They know the club owner refuses to close the course, because he doesn’t want to lose the television exposure. They know that the final half of the film is two guys and a girl (Robert North, Victoria Scott, and Jeremy Whelan) driving around a golf course in a van, searching for a lawnmower. And they certainly know that, whenever you hear the rumble of an engine, it means that someone is about to get attacked.

See, it’s the same damn movie! And it’s damn entertaining! The reason it works so well is that they play it straight. The scene where Jeremy Whelan, who plays the Robert Shaw character named Deke Slade, tells the story about his father dying at the hands of a lawnmower, it’s done with all the seriousness that Shaw told his shark story.

Also, Robert North, who plays the Roy Scheider character named Roy Kent, always appears genuinely concerned for the lives of the people on the golf course.

It’s been awhile since I watched Jaws, but I swear I remember a scene on par with the most ridiculous scene in this movie. That’s where they deputize a bunch of people who go out on a big hunt for the killer lawnmower and catch one. Then our heroes go and cut it open to find that it doesn’t have inside of it any body parts to indicate that it’s the right mower.

So you want to see the killer mower? Here it is near the end of the film.

How does it end? The same way of course. Explosives get placed on the lawnmower and Roy hits a golf ball onto it that triggers them. Boom!

I could have explained in more detail, but seriously it’s the same movie as Jaws. All you need to know is that yes, it does a good job and I think it’s worth watching. I honestly look at it less as a parody or a spoof of Jaws than an homage to it that shows how well that formula works.

One of my favorite things is in the credits. The very first credit you see is a solo card crediting the gaffer Scott Buckler. Before anyone else on the movie, the gaffer gets top billing.

At the end of the credits they hint at a sequel called Hedges about a killer chainsaw. After a guy leaves his chainsaw outside we see it appear to come alive. Then we get this.