Welcome to The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!!! It’s October- Horror Month!!! I will be reviewing many great and terrible films for your reading pleasure. My advice to you Gentle Readers: decorate your house, turn the lights down low, read my posts, like them, retweet them, tell your friends and family about them BECAUSE if you don’t demons will get you! Here we go!!!
I am watching a man have extreme explosive diarrhea and cough up furballs, when I think, some poor asshole paid to see this.
Escape From Tomorrow is a quasi horror film about a man on vacation with his family to Disneyworld and things go absurdly weird and boring. It’s black and white, which gives it a good eerie feel. It is, in fact, filmed entirely at Disney World and Disney Land. My expectations were raised- too bad for me.
The dad is fired in the first scene over the phone right before he takes his family to tour Disney World. Upon entering the monorail to the park, the dad ogles and passively stalks two girls. One of the ladies he ogles is Annet Mahendru – “Nina” – from The Americans and the other is a REALLY young lady. He ogles them both on the monorail, in line, and pretty much all over the park. His stalking is the only part of the movie that is moderately creepy and scary. At so many points in the show I thought, Dude, your children are right there! Gross!
They arrive at the most wonderful place on Earth to find people coughing. The dad goes on rides and hallucinates. You expect it to get scary and it fizzles out like a damp sparkler. Eventually the mom and dad go to different parts of the park and the Dad is left to stalk the two girls again, but he gets distracted and blacks out and wakes having sex with a woman who looks a lot like a sexy version of the wicked witch in Snow White – It’s weird. The story gets rapidly off the rails and you have to grab at plot points like wet tissue paper. There’s a “Cat Flu, a ridiculous scene inside of Epcot, and redneck in scooter; it’s truly nonsensical and dull. SNORE.
This is why the film fails to do anything but disappoint: he had done it- Randy Moore got into Disney and did pure guerilla filmmaking. However, he forgot to have one thing: a story. OOPS!!! Maybe he left the story at Universal Studios?! I hear the shark can really startle you on the tram! From written accounts, Moore was so worried that he would be sued, he edited the film in South Korea. What a waste of cash! Disney realized quickly what I did- the film sucks and isn’t worth the paper to file suit in Court.
There was ONE and ONLY one part of the film that was compelling. The dad had a drinking problem. He does drink …. A LOT, but the movie strays from that interesting plot point to go off on some boring surreal tangent. If the movie got away from the surreal bullshit and focused on the dad ruining his family and himself at Disney because of alcoholism, it would have been the most moving story about drinking since Leaving Las Vegas. Moore, however, squandered that great opportunity and will either learn from this mistake or go into Real Estate.
He did manage to film in Disney without anyone giving a shit, which is novel and a bit impressive. Also, I have to be stingy with my “As” and “Fs”. Therefore, I give
Here’s the trailer for Fences! Directed by Denzel Washington and based on a highly acclaimed play by August Wilson, Fences is expected to a be a huge Oscar contender. It’s due to be released on Christmas, at the height of Oscar season.
Here’s the trailer for the true crime film, King Cobra! Reportedly, this film features a totally insane performance from James Franco, which is something that I’m always interested in seeing.
I don’t know much about The Autopsy of Jane Doe but there are a few people, with whom I casually interact on twitter, who saw this film at TIFF two weeks ago and they swear it’s the scariest thing that they’ve ever seen.
Take that for what you will. I’ve lost track of how many horror films have been described as being “the scariest thing that has ever been seen.” Go read a few of Stephen King’s reviews and you’ll notice that he apparently thinks everything that has ever been written and/or filmed is “the scariest thing that he’s ever seen.”
Beware of hyperbole, I’m saying!
That said, here’s the trailer and it looks like the movie might be pretty scary…
There’s no way that I can do a post about the passing of Herschell Gordon Lewis without including this famous scene from Scum of the Earth. If you’ve ever gotten a DVD from Something Weird Video, you know this monologue by heart:
Here’s some of the trailers that have come out over the past two weeks! Sadly, none of those trailers involve kitties! Meh!
Fifty Shades Darker
They’re back! And this time, Ana’s in charge.
Miss Sloane
The good news is that a flame-haired one, Jessica Chastain, is in this film. The bad new is that the script for this film was on last year’s Black List. The Black List is supposed to be a list of the best unmade scripts in Hollywood so why do Black List films almost always end up sucking?
Nocturnal Animals
I thought this movie had to be about kitties but instead, it’s about Jake Gyllenhall and Amy Adams! But the trailer still looks really good and supposedly this movie is going to win all sorts of Oscars!
Annabelle 2
The scary doll is back!
Christine
This looks like a great role for Rebecca Hall but will probably be too depressing for humans! Meh!
The Bye Bye Man
This could be scary but it’s coming out in January and nothing good comes out in January.
Smurfs: The Lost Village
I ate a smurf once. Meh!
The Eyes of My Mother
This looks scary!
Allied
Some people are saying this movie led to the upcoming divorce of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie! The flame-haired one says she’s Team Jolie all the way. Meh!
Passengers
Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence in the same movie!? And it’s from the director of The Imitation Game. Some people say that this is going to be a big Oscar contender! I think it needs more kitties.
Remember that old game where you would go up to a stranger’s house, ring the doorbell, and then run off? It’s one of those simple games that really shouldn’t be that much fun and yet, strangely, it is. The thrill of the game really doesn’t come from the fact that you’re making someone open the front door for no good reason. Instead, the thrill comes from seeing if you can run away before that door opens.
You Can’t Escape, the latest short film from Rubbish Rebel Media, opens with a child (Rayce Zatye) walking through an apparently suburban neighborhood and doing just that. He runs up to houses, he rings the doorbell, and then he runs off. As he does this, we can’t help but notice that the neighborhood appears to be deserted. Where are all the other people? Does anyone ever actually answer their door? From the way that the film is directed, we get the feeling that someone may be watching the child but who?
And when the child returns to his own house … well, I won’t spoil the film. Let’s just say that it concludes with a surreal bang.
You Can’t Escape lasts just a little over 2 minutes and the end leaves us with just as many questions as answers. That’s okay, though. The key to horror is the fact that not all questions have easy answers. Director Renner Zatye emphasizes atmosphere and, despite the film’s short length, he captures several uneasy images. The scenes of Racye Zatye walking through that deserted neighborhood are undeniably creepy. A scene where the child walks by several trees especially made me nervous. This is one of those films that asks you to consider what could be hiding behind those trees and whether or not you’re ever as safe as you think.
You Can’t Escape should be getting a release in a few months so be sure to keep an eye out for it!
(For the past three weeks, Lisa Marie has been in the process of reviewing 56 back to school films! She’s promised the rest of the TSL staff that this project will finally wrap up by the end of today, so that she can devote her time to helping to prepare the site for its annual October horrorthon! Will she make it or will she fail, lose her administrator privileges, and end up writing listicles for Buzzfeed? Keep reading the site to find out!)
Well, here we are! It’s taken nearly four weeks but we have reached the conclusion of Back to School Part II! I started this series by taking a look at Teenage Devil Dolls. Along the way, I’ve reviewed everything from Andy Warhol’s Vinyl, A Clockwork Orange, Animal House, and Can’t Hardly Wait to Hollywood Highand Keith. I’ve even found an excuse to review fourdifferentDegrassifilms! I’ve had a lot of fun but, with October approaching, I’m happy to be finishing up this series of reviews so that I can concentrate on the TSL’s annual horrorthon!
So, without further ado, let’s take a look at Richard Linklater’s Everybody Wants Some!!
Everbody Wants Some!! generated a small flurry of excitement when it was first released back in March. Not only was it Linklater’s first narrative film since the critically acclaimed Boyhood but it was also advertised as being a spiritual sequel to Dazed and Confused. Like Dazed and Confused, Everybody Wants Some!! was a period piece that would follow an ensemble of Texas teenagers over the course of one long weekend, the big difference being that Everybody Wants Some!! would take place in 1980 (as opposed to 1976) and it would deal with college freshmen (instead of high school juniors). There were even a few articles that pointed out that several of the actors in Everybody Wants Some!! physically resembled some of the actors in Dazed and Confused.
(Seriously, Glen Powell looks like he could be Matthew McConaughey’s younger brother.)
The film was well-reviewed by critics, even though few of the reviews were as rapturous as the reviews that greeted previous Linklater films like Boyhood and Before Midnight. As for the audience reaction … well, Everybody Wants Some!! was not exactly embraced by audiences. I saw it at the Alamo Drafthouse and the theater was nearly deserted. (Considering that the Alamo’s audience prides itself on embracing independent film, a near-empty theater for a showing of a Linklater film is not a good sign.) The few people in the theater seemed to feel that the film went on for too long and that it needed a stronger plot. That’s a complaint that I’ve heard a lot of people make against Everybody Wants Some!!
It’s not a complaint that I agree with. Those who complained that Everybody Wants Some!! was essentially plotless obviously haven’t seen many Richard Linklater films. Though Linklater has made his share of commercial films, his more personal work — like Everybody Wants Some!! — is often plotless. That’s actually one the keys to Linklater’s aesthetic. He’s more interested in recreating a specific time and place and observing how different characters react to their environment than he is in telling conventional stories. A film like Everybody Wants Some!! is less about telling a story with a definite beginning and end and more about capturing a very specific experience.
And, on that level, the film definitely succeeds. Watching Everybody Wants Some!!, you literally do feel as if you’ve stepped into a time machine and you’ve been transported to the past. Jake (Blake Jenner), a college freshman who is attending fictional Southeast Texas College on a scholarship, may be the main character but, ultimately, he’s not that important. More important is seeing how people lived, interacted, and thought in 1980. Everybody Wants Some!! is a time capsule film.
(Apparently, it’s a bit of an autobiographical film as well. Cinema snobs like me tend to forget that, before he became a filmmaker, Linklater was a jock who, like Jake, attended college on a baseball scholarship. As much as we may not want to admit it, not all artistic geniuses spent high school writing angsty poetry about eating disorders. Some of them played sports.)
Everybody Wants Some!! follows Jake and his fellow baseball players over the course of the weekend before classes begin. One night, they end up in a redneck bar. Another night, they end up at a punk club. They go to a drama department party. They practice baseball. They all drink. Some of them smoke weed. Some of them get laid. And, at the end of the weekend, two of them sit down in their first class of the semester and promptly fall asleep.
One problem that I did have with Everybody Wants Some!! is that, as good as job as it does of creating a time and place, it didn’t necessarily convince me that it was a time in which I would want to live in. As I stated earlier, Everybody Wants Some!! was promoted as being a spiritual sequel to Dazed and Confused. However, Dazed and Confused featured a greater variety of characters. Practically everyone of note in Everybody Wants Some!! is a member of the school’s baseball team. True, some of them are smarter than others. Some of them smoke weed. Some of them are ultra religious. But, ultimately, they’re all jocks and they’re all frat boys. How much you enjoy hanging out with these characters will depend on how much tolerance you have for jocks, frat boys, and their hyper-masculine rituals. Whenever I’ve seen Dazed and Confused, I’ve thought to myself that if I had been alive and in high school in 1976, I would have wanted to be friends with at least a few of the characters. On the other hand, if I had been alive and in college in 1980, I would have gone out of my way to avoid that baseball team.
(And, as a result, I probably would have missed a chance to meet Richard Linklater! There’s a lesson to be learned there.)
Ultimately, though, Everybody Wants Some!! succeeds because, even if the characters aren’t particularly likable, the film itself does capture the feeling and the excitement of having your entire future ahead of you. Admittedly, there’s a hint of melancholy running through the film. One character is revealed to be a 30-something imposter who regularly uses a false identity to enroll in different colleges because he loves to play baseball but he knows that he’ll never succeed in the major leagues. Throughout the film, there are hints that none of these baseball players are ever going to be as successful as they are during that one particular weekend. But, ultimately, the film tells us that the future doesn’t matter. What matters is that, for that one weekend, they had their entire future ahead of them and it seemed like anything was possible.
Everybody Wants Some!! may not be Linklater’s best but it definitely deserves to be seen!
(And that concludes Back to School! Thank you everyone for reading! Love you!)
(For the past three weeks, Lisa Marie has been in the process of reviewing 56 back to school films! She’s promised the rest of the TSL staff that this project will finally wrap up by the end of today, so that she can devote her time to helping to prepare the site for its annual October horrorthon! Will she make it or will she fail, lose her administrator privileges, and end up writing listicles for Buzzfeed? Keep reading the site to find out!)
When I was going to college, I was actually encouraged by quite a few people to join a sorority but I never did. What can I say? I fancied myself as being an artist and an intellectual. I had no interest in conformity and, to me, that’s what sororities and fraternities represented. Why would I want to waste my time with that when I could spend my time writing poems about death? (Add to that, why go through all the trouble of joining a sorority when I knew I could get into all the good parties, regardless of whether I was a member of one or not?)
Seriously!
So, I made my decision to never get involved in any of that and I think I probably made the right choice for me. But occasionally, I’ll see a film on Lifetime that will make me change my mind. It seems that every year, there’s a few dozen Lifetime movies that are about something strange happening in a sorority. In the world of Lifetime, sororities are full of dark secrets, constant melodrama, and, more often than not, a murder or two. Lifetime makes sorority life look … well, if not exactly fun, at least entertaining!
Consider for instance, the film Sorority Nightmare! Sorority Nightmare aired on July 21st and, in the best Lifetime tradition, it totally lives up to its name. All you need to know about Sorority Nightmare is right there in the title. It deals with a sorority and, oh my God, is this place ever a nightmare! (According to the imdb, the film’s non-Lifetime title is Twisted Sisters. That’s a good title because these sorority sisters sure are twisted!)
As the start of the film, first-year college student Sarah (Sierra McCormick) is a lot like me. She’s an intellectual, a free thinker. She’s not really interested in being a part of a sorority. She’d rather hang out with her snarky roommate, Jodi (Sarah Kapner). Add to that, Sarah still blames herself for the death of her older sister, Jill. Jill was driving Sarah home after Sarah got too drunk at a party. When Jill attempted to pose for a selfie while driving, she ended up crashing the car and dying in the process. Sarah survived but, for obvious reasons, she’s no longer interested in getting drunk at parties.
But, her mother was a member of Psi Kappa and she insists that Sarah actually check the place out. And since Sarah is a legacy, she’s asked to pledge. Even though it means losing whatever credibility she may have with Jodi, Sarah decides to join.
It quickly turns out that Psi Kappa is more of a cult than a sorority. The cult is led by Daisy (Cassidy Gifford), who is friendly, perky, intense, and more than a little frightening. Daisy not only decides that Sarah is her new best friend but she also suggests that maybe Sarah shouldn’t have any other friends. When Daisy isn’t trying to control everyone’s lives, she busy popping what she says are breath mints but are actually “diet pills.”
OH MY GOD, DAISY’S A SPEED FREAK!
Anyway, Sorority Nightmare pretty much plays out exactly how you would expect it to but that doesn’t matter. As played by Cassidy Gifford, Daisy is literally a force of nature. She’s a nonstop tornado of manipulation and malicousness and it’s a lot of fun to watch. Sorority Nightmare is one of those wonderfully over the top Lifetime films where it’s obvious that the cast and the crew is in on the joke. Sit back, don’t worry, and enjoy the melodrama!
