Can you believe it? The first day of Horrorthon is nearly over! I’ve got tears in my mismatched eyes.
You may remember, from previous horrorthons, that I like to end each day in October by sharing a classic example of televised horror. Much as with the the horror movies that I share at the start of each day, it should be remembered that I’m a bit at the whim of YouTube here. If YouTube decides to yank down a video after I share it on this site, there’s nothing that I can do about it. That’s why I encourage everyone to watch these now! Don’t wait until 2024. Who knows if YouTube will even still be a thing in 2024?
Anyway, let’s start things off with The Curse of Degrassi!
This is a special episode of my favorite TV show of all, Degrassi! Originally airing on October 28th, 2008, The Curse of Degrassi features Degrassi’s main mean girl, Holy J Sinclair (Charlotte Arnold), getting possessed by the vengeful spirit of deceased school shooter, Rick Murray (Ephraim Ellis). Chaos follows! Fortunately, Spinner (Shane Kippel) is around to save the day. As any true Degrassi fan can tell you, only Spinner has a chance against the forces of the undead.
Enjoy!
(Before anyone asks, yes, I did share this same episode last October. What can I say? I really like Degrassi and forcing people to watch my favorite Canadian obsession is a bit of a tradition around here. We’re all about tradition here at the Shattered Lens.)
Well, can you believe it? Halloween is nearly over! In just four more hours, it will be midnight on the West Coast and October will officially be ended and so will our annual horrorthon. Thank you to everyone who contributed and read and commented this year! Y’all make all the hard work more than worth it!
Well, here’s our final excursion into the world of televised horror. Ready for it? I’m getting a little teary-eyed.
This is a special episode of my favorite TV show of all, Degrassi! Originally aired on October 28th, 2008, The Curse of Degrassi features Degrassi’s main mean girl, Holy J Sinclair (Charlotte Arnold), getting possessed by the vengeful spirit of deceased school shooter, Rick Murray (Ephraim Ellis). Chaos follows!
Before I get around to actually reviewing the 2009 made-for-Canadian-TV Degrassi Goes Hollywood, I should start out by admitting that if you’re not a Degrassi fanatic like I am, this review probably won’t make any sense. Then again, if you’re not a Degrassi fan, you probably wouldn’t be reading this review in the first place.
I should also address a rumor that is currently circulating around the TSL offices. Some of my fellow contributors seem to be under the impression that the only reason I announced that I would be reviewing 56 back to school films was so I would have an excuse to review the four Degrassi films. Nothing could be further from the truth! The reason I started this series of reviews was so that I’d have an excuse to review Andy Warhol’s Vinyl. The Degrassi films are just a nice side benefit.
Got it? Okay, let’s talk about Degrassi Goes Hollywood!
Degrassi Goes Hollywood premiered on August 14th, 2009 and it served as the finale of Degrassi‘s 8th season. As such, it also served as the conclusion for several long-running Degrassi plot lines, which I’ll get to in a minute. For the non-Degrassi fan, Degrassi Goes Hollywood is probably most interesting because it features Jason Mewes playing himself and coming across like a surprisingly normal human being.
To really understand Degrassi Goes Hollywood, you have to understand that Kevin Smith is a long-time and very outspoken fan of Degrassi. In fact, he even appeared, as himself, in seasons 4 and 5 of the show. In the world of Degrassi, Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes came to Canada so that they could film their latest film, Jay and Silent Bob Go Canadian, Eh? They filmed the majority of the film at Degrassi Community School and used several Degrassi students as extras. Kevin also served as the catalyst for the Joey/Caitlin break-up, which a lot of people have never forgiven him for. Myself, I would just point out that when Craig Manning stopped taking his medication and ended up living on the streets of Toronto, Kevin was the one who went on television and asked Craig to come home. So, Kevin wasn’t all bad!
(As I said, this review won’t make a damn bit of sense if you’ve never watched Degrassi.)
As Degrassi Goes Hollywood opens, we learn that Jason Mewes is about to make his directorial debut. His film, Mewesical High, is an autobiographical film about his youth in New Jersey and his love for a girl named Trixie. Jason wants to cast former Degrassi student Manny Santos (Cassie Steele) as his Trixie. However, the studio demands that Jason cast Paige Michalchuck (Lauren Collins) in the role. Believe it or not, Paige also went to Degrassi! She was in charge of the Spirit Squad and she and Manny once got into a memorable fight.
(Actually, Manny got into a lot of fights when she was a student at Degrassi. That was kind of her trademark.)
When she hears that Paige might be replaced in the film, Manny decides to go to California and fight for the role. Fortunately, her ex-boyfriend, Jay (Mike Lobel), just happens to have a school bus. So, he agrees to drive Manny to Hollywood. Accompanying them on the bus are the members of the Studz, one of Degrassi’s many bands. They want to convince Jason Mewes to use their music in the film.
Now, here’s where it is helpful to know your Degrassi history. The lead singer of Studz is Peter Stone (Jamie Johnston). When Peter first appeared on Degrassi, he was portrayed as being almost a sociopath. He even got Manny drunk and sent a topless video of her to everyone at the school. Manny spent two seasons hating on him but, oddly, in Degrassi Goes Hollywood, she has absolutely no trouble traveling from Canada to California with him. Degrassi is all about forgiveness.
Speaking of forgiveness, what about Jay!? In Degrassi Goes Hollywood, Jay is pretty much the hero of the film, the guy who convinces Manny to never give up on her dreams. That’s quite a change from how Jay was portrayed when he was first introduced in season 3. When Jay was first introduced, he was the local hoodlum who was always breaking into candy machines and who ordered his friends to steal everything from the school’s DVR to Mr. Simpson’s new laptop. Jay was subsequently kicked out of school after he pulled a prank that led to a school shooting. (If you’re wondering why Drake was in a wheelchair during his final few seasons on Degrassi, Jay was indirectly responsible.) Jay was then at the center of an outbreak of gonorrhea and subsequently helped to turn another character into a drug dealer. And, let’s not forget the time that he and Spinner nearly burned down the school…
Fortunately, Jay was played by Mike Lobel and he always played the role with an appealing sense of humor. You never got the feeling that Jay was truly evil. Instead, he was just a little hyperactive. Somehow, it seems appropriate that he would go from being the most evil character on the series to being one of its most memorable anti-heroes. He gets a lot of good scenes in Degrassi Goes Hollywood. He and Cassie Steele made for a fun couple.
Speaking of couples, the best thing about Degrassi Goes Hollywood is that, after four long seasons of heartbreak, it finally gives some closure to the Craig/Ellie storyline. Craig Manning (Jake Epstein) was the bipolar musical genius who left school to become a big star and who subsequently returned for two episodes, in which we discovered that he had developed a cocaine addiction. (The scene where he gets a nosebleed while performing is pure Degrassi nightmare fuel.) Ellie (Stacey Farber) was one of my favorite characters on Degrassi, mostly because we both have red hair and like to dress in black. Sadly, Ellie spent four seasons crushing on Craig, just to watch as he dated Manny, Ashley, and then Manny again.
In Degrassi Goes Hollywood, Ellie and Marco (Adamo Ruggero) are invited to Hollywood to hang out with Paige. And while Ellie tries to pretend that everything’s okay at home (despite the fact that her father is in the hospital, suffering from PTSD as a result of serving in Afghanistan), she just happens to go for a walk and randomly runs into Craig! And though they have their usual issues, the movie ends with Craig and Ellie finally kissing as something more than just friends.
AWWWWWWWWWWW!
Of course, it wouldn’t be Degrassi without drama. Paige and Marco fight over Paige’s diva attitude. Ellie gets drunk and walks out into the ocean. The school bus gets stolen while Jay, Manny, and Studz are visiting a redneck bar. It’s dangerous for Canadians in California!
But what’s important is that it all works out in the end and, even if it’s never specifically stated, I imagine that Mewesical High won all sorts of Oscars. Listen, if you’re a Degrassi fan, you’ll enjoy Degrassi Goes Hollywood. And, if you’re not into Degrassi, you probably stopped reading this review a while ago.
Would you believe that there’s a film that not only brilliantly satirizes and pays homage to the old slasher films of 80s but which also possesses the type of emotional depth that can bring very real tears to your eyes as you watch?
Well, there is and the name of that film is The Final Girls.
In the 1980s, a struggling actress named Amanda Cartwright (played by the always-wonderful Malin Akerman) found a certain amount of cult fame by appearing as a doomed camp counselor named Nancy in the slasher film, Camp Bloodbath. However, as often happens, playing an iconic role in a horror film has turned out to be as much of a curse as a blessing. As The Final Girls opens, Amanda has just finished yet another audition. As she drives home, she tells her teenage daughter, Max (Taissa Farmiga) that she will never escape being typecast as Nancy. Suddenly. they are blindsided by another car. Max is the only survivor.
Three years later, Max reluctantly agrees to attend a showing of Camp Bloodbath and Camp Bloodbath II: Cruel Summer. It’s not something that she wants to do but she’s talked into it by Duncan (Thomas Middleditch), the geeky stepbrother of her best friend Gertie (Alia Shawkat). Also attending the showing is Chris (Alexander Ludwig), who Max has a crush on, and Chris’s ex-girlfriend and self-described “mean girl,” Vicki (Nina Dobrev).
Some of the best scenes in The Final Girls occur while Max watches Camp Bloodbath. Not only is Camp Bloodbath a perfectly pitched homage/satire of old school slasher films (like Friday the 13th, to cite an obvious example) but Farmiga perfectly plays Max’s reaction to seeing her mother on screen. Max watches Camp Bloodbath with a heartfelt mix of sadness, pride, and eventual horror. (One of the film’s best moments is the way that Max slowly sinks down in her chair while watching her mother make out with another actor on the big screen. It’s a very human moment, one that is both poignant and funny at the same time.)
However, during the showing, a fire breaks out. In their efforts to escape the theater, Max and her friends find themselves literally sucked into the movie. That’s right — they are now inside the world of Camp Bloodbath. And though they can interact with the film’s characters (and, for that matter, with the film’s killer, Billy), they find it’s much more difficult to keep those characters from playing out their pre-ordained roles. Even after explaining to the camp counselors that doing anything the least bit sexual will cause Billy to come out of the woods and kill everyone, the counselors still find themselves incapable of changing their stereotypical slasher film behavior. It’s not really their fault, of course. As Duncan mentions, they’re just “badly written.”
While the rest of her friends simply want to survive the movie and somehow get back home, Max wants to spend time with her mom. (Except, of course, Nancy isn’t really her mom. Instead, Nancy is a character that her mom played in a movie that made before Max was even born.) And you know what? The scenes between Taissa Farmiga and Malin Akerman brought very real tears to my eyes. The scenes between Max and Nancy (and Max and Amanda) are so heartfelt and so full of sincere emotion that they elevate the entire film.
Without the relationship between Max and Amanda, The Final Girls would be a very clever homage to the old slasher movies. But what that relationship, The Final Girls becomes one of the best films of the year.
On November 3rd, The Final Girls will be released on DVD and Blu-ray. Be sure to keep an eye out for it.
“We are infinite.” — Charlie (Logan Lerman) in The Perks of Being A Wallflower (2012)
So, here’s the thing. In general, I try not to judge people. I have friends (and family) of all races, religion, and political ideologies. I may not always agree with you but I will always respect your right to disagree. With that being said, if you don’t love the 2012 film The Perks of Being a Wallflower, then I’m worried about you.
The Perks Of Being A Wallflower is based on a novel that I read and loved right before I entered high school. In fact, I loved the novel so much that I had my doubts about whether or not the film could do it justice. Of course, if I had been paying attention, I would have noticed that the film was directed by the same man who wrote the book, Stephen Chbosky. Everything that made Wallflower such a powerful book — the honesty, the understanding of teen angst, the underlying sadness — is perfectly captured in the film.
Wallflower tells the story of Charlie (Logan Lerman), a painfully shy and emotionally sensitive high school freshman. Charlie starts the school year under the weight of two tragedies — the suicide of his best friend and the death of his aunt. Because he’s so shy, Charlie struggles to fit in and make friends, though he does find a mentor of sorts in his English teacher, Mr. Anderson (Paul Rudd, playing the type of teacher that we all wish we could have had in high school).
Charlie, however, does not find a mentor in shop class, which is taught by Mr. Callahan (Tom Freaking Savini!). However, he does meet Patrick (Ezra Miller), a witty and cynical senior who, because he’s openly gay, is as much of an outcast as Charlie. Patrick introduces Charlie to Sam (Emma Watson). Charlie assumes that Sam and Patrick are dating (especially after he sees them dancing together) but later he learns that they are actually stepsiblings and that Patrick is secretly seeing a closeted jock named Brad (Johnny Simmons). That works out well for Charlie because he has a crush on the free-spirited Sam.
The rest of the film follows Charlie as he survives his first year in school and Patrick and Sam as they complete their final year. It’s a long but exciting year in which Charlie discovers everything from drugs to the mysteries of sex to the pleasures of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Even more importantly, it’s a year that forces Charlie to confront his own unresolved emotional issues.
Sensitively acted by the three leads and featuring a great soundtrack, The Perks of Being A Wallflower is one of the best films about growing up that I’ve ever seen. For me, there is no scene that best captures everything that’s great about being young than the scene where Sam, upon hearing David Bowie’s Heroes on the radio, demands to be driving through a tunnel. It’s a great scene from a great movie that celebrates both just how scary and amazing it is to have your entire life ahead of you and the special friendships that help us survive.
Through the Shattered Lens 