On tonight’s episode of The Hitchhiker, a woman who is having an affair with her sister’s husband (uh-oh, don’t do that) starts having surreal and increasingly frightening nightmares about a white horse. Is she being warned of her impending death?
This episode originally aired on October 5th, 1990.
WHACK! You just got hit in the head with a greeting card.
Bound By A Secret (2009) – This is a good one. It’s very refreshing to come across a Hallmark movie like this. It’s about an actress (Lesley Ann Warren) who quits her career and goes to visit her friend played by Meredith Baxter from Family Ties. I really want to find a movie where she plays a villain. I mean we have Michael Gross as a gun nut in the Tremors movies. I think she has the acting chops to pull it off. But getting back to this movie, there are four issues being faced by the characters. The actress is dying and Baxter’s daughter is actually hers biologically. Baxter is overprotective of her daughter and life in general. Amazingly for a Hallmark movie, they even use the way she treats her china as a metaphor for the way she treats her family. A nice touch that I didn’t expect in a TV Movie. The daughter’s problem is that her husband is out of work and is kind of proud. Think, kind of like the husband in The Crowd (1928), just not as extreme. It’s not tearing the family apart in the same way, but he doesn’t appreciate Baxter helping out. Things move forward, the secret comes out, and it works it’s way to the happy ending. The acting is solid and the script is good. It’s a well made film. This is a Hallmark movie that I can get behind.
Gourmet Detective: A Healthy Place to Die (2015) – This is another one I liked as much as Bound By A Secret. Yeah, I’m a little biased because I already like Brooke Burns. I enjoy watching her host The Chase. I think she does a good job. I think this is the first of these mystery movies they make for Hallmark that basically did it right. The other ones I’ve seen have issues that make it difficult to follow the story, or to even care. That’s that not present here. It’s just my issue with mysteries in general. I’m a simple person and these plots tend to be too much for me. It starts with a short setup, which I like. It’s almost like they were making a subtle jab at the excuses given in movies for why two people need to go off together. They don’t even try. Dylan Neal shows up at the police station. He mentions he’s going to a resort to give a talk on cooking. The chief basically then just tells Burns you don’t take vacation days, that’s pissing people off, so you’re going. End of story. That happens inside of a couple minutes. During a dinner scene at the resort we meet a reporter who isn’t well liked. Anyone who grew up watching Murder, She Wrote knows that means she’s marked for death. The rest is pretty standard stuff of leading us around till we finally settle on suspects they hope aren’t out of left field, but not incredibly obvious. I think the chemistry between Burns and Neal works. I also like that because of the way Burns is built and carries herself, we really do feel like we’re just watching two people working together. Rather than we’re watching a guy and girl work together. It’s a small thing, but it was just more reason for me to like this movie. I want to see the other one of these they did together.
My Gal Sunday (2014) – This one on the other hand, my recommendation is to pretend this doesn’t exist. And run far away from anyone who tries to get you to watch it. Honestly, I’m up to 27 Hallmark movies now and this is easily the worst I’ve seen. They might as well have called this The Mystery Cruise II because it has all the same problems as that film and more. It’s also based on a book by the same author. It has the same abrupt beginning. I really think what happened here is that someone picked up the book, didn’t actually read it, but skimmed it looking for key scenes, jotted them down, then wrote the screenplay. I can’t imagine much thought went into the adaptation. Abrupt beginnings are common in books. It works just fine in that medium. It doesn’t work in movies. It especially doesn’t work in TV Movies. An abrupt beginning like this one, which is cringe worthy for other reasons, makes you think you have come back from a commercial in the middle of a show. You could easily think you must have missed something, but no. The movie actually just started. Then it only gets worse. Things just jump around for lack of a better description so you have little chance of really following things or caring to follow things. There are flashbacks that are confusing. The director tries to add a little bit of an artsy transition into them, but it just makes things worse. And there’s no chemistry whatsoever. Sometimes the camera lingers on Rachel Blanchard’s face and what? Is she emoting? Did they forget to say cut? It’s stupid. If you manage to suffer through this whole thing then you are treated to one of the dumbest resolutions ever. If you get there, then you’ll know exactly what I am talking about, but please don’t. Spare yourself this abomination.
Wedding Planner Mystery (2014) – Jeez! What’s next Nail Technician Mystery or Retro Video Game Salesperson Mystery. Time is money. Don’t think of a title, just throw something onto the word “Murder” or “Mystery”. This is not My Gal Sunday. It’s not good, but it’s a far cry from that movie. It’s also a far cry from Gourmet Detective: A Healthy Place to Die. It’s about a wedding planner and there’s a mystery. Go figure! The wedding planner is played by Erica Durance of Smallville fame. I don’t think I’ve ever complained about the makeup in a movie, but here I go. Durance looks like a plastic doll. I thought maybe surgery, but I think it was just bad makeup cause a couple other of the young actresses also didn’t look good in the same way. Even the guys seemed to be wearing too much makeup. Also, one of the older ladies was wearing a lousy wig. Not like the Lies Between Friends wig, but it’s not good. The movie begins at a wedding and a bridesmaid dies in a car accident. Honestly, I can’t really tell you why Durance investigates. I guess it had something to do with alcohol being served at the wedding, but it just seems like she can’t mind her own damn business. What follows is just boring. In some ways, it’s more like an attempt at a romantic comedy between Durance and some paparazzi-ish reporter. None of it really works. Especially not the voice overs from Durance like she’s suddenly Sam Spade or something. She’s a wedding planner! I can’t recommend this one, but it’s not awful. I just can’t say that you will enjoy it.
When I first decided to devote some of October to featuring horror related TV shows, I knew that I’d have to include at least one episode of the classic Nickelodeon TV series Are You Afraid of the Dark? Back in the 90s, Are You Afraid of The Dark? was the best because it was a show about scary things but it was on Nickelodeon so you could watch it without having to worry about your mom coming in the room and making you change the channel.
This episode of Afraid of the Dark continues this sort of mini-vampire theme that we’ve got going. The Tale of the Nightly Neighbors was originally broadcast on October 3rd, 1992.
Atom Egoyan’s 2005 showbiz melodrama Where The Truth Lies is a historic film for me.
First off, it’s the first film that I ever saw at the wonderful Dallas Angelika theater, which would quickly become my favorite place to watch movies in the Dallas/Ft. Worth metroplex. And I have to say that, as much as I love the Alamo Drafthouse that opened up last year, the Angelika will always hold a special place in my heart.
Secondly, and perhaps even more importantly, Where The Truth Lies was the first NC-17 film that I ever actually watched in a theater. In fact, I went into Where The Truth Lies knowing next to nothing about it. I just saw that it was an NC-17 film that was playing in a “real” theater and that was pretty much all I needed to call up some friends and head down to Dallas.
I felt terrifically grown up until I tried to buy the ticket and I was asked to show ID. I handed over my driver’s license. The ticket seller stared down at it for what seemed like an eternity. She looked up at me and then back down at the license a few times. Finally, she said, “Are you sure you’re 19?”
“I’m going to be 20 in November,” I replied.
She squinted at me for a few minutes and then said, “If you say so,” before handing me my license and a ticket.
And so, on that day, I managed to cross one goal off my list (See an NC-17 movie in a theater) and replaced it with another (Buy a ticket for an R-rated or NC-17 movie without being asked for ID). I’m still working on that 2nd goal but I have to admit that I’m starting to dread the idea that one day, I’ll be able to pass for an adult.
But what about Where The Truth Lies?
Well, the main question that I had, in 2005, as I sat down to watch this movie was why exactly was it rated NC-17. Having watched the movie in the theater and then on cable a few times after, I still honestly have no idea why the rating was as harsh as it was. Yes, there’s a lot of sex in the movies. You see a lot of boobs and you see a lot of bare asses but — well, so what? It’s really nothing wore than what you have seen in countless red band trailers for various R-rated comedies. Add to that, in Where The Truth Lies, all of that skin is on display for a reason. The film may be explicit but it’s never gratuitous.
As for the film itself, it’s technically a murder mystery but the mystery is really only an excuse for Egoyan to take a look at the seamier side of show business. In the 1950s, entertainers Lanny Morris (Kevin Bacon) and Vince Collins (Colin Firth) are the nation’s top comedy team. However, after co-hosting a 39-hour polio telethon in Miami, Lanny and Vince fly to New Jersey to do a few shows at a hotel owned by a local mobster. When the naked body of Maureen O’Flaherty (Rachel Blanchard) is found in their room, the scandal destroys both of their careers.
Fifteen years later, in the early 1970s, Lanny Morris has written a book about his life and career. Vince decides to retaliate by writing his own book. Karen O’Connor (Alison Lohman) is hired to be his ghostwriter. Karen, however, has her reasons for being obsessed with Lanny and Vince and she is also determined to discover whether Maureen truly did die of a drug overdose or if she was murdered.
Where The Truth Lies is, in many ways, an uneven film but I like it. The mystery of who killed Maureen is intriguing and, unlike a lot of viewers (check out the film’s entry at the imdb if you really need to know how much some people hate this film), I actually appreciated Egoyan’s hallucinatory and disjointed approach to telling his story. Kevin Bacon and Colin Firth both give excellent performances, both cast in the type of roles that you might not normally expect to see them playing. As a character, Karen is frustratingly inconsistent but Alison Lohman does the best that she can with the role.
Finally, Where The Truth Lies does contain one undeniably brilliant scene, in which a drugged Karen watches as an actress dressed to look like Alice in Wonderland sings White Rabbit. It’s a wonderfully strange scene, all the more so become it comes almost out of nowhere.
Where The Truth Lies is not a perfect film but, for my first experience seeing an NC-17 film in a theater, it wasn’t bad at all.
(I originally posted a version of this review over at HorrorCritic.Com. I’m sharing it here because I think it makes a nice companion piece to both Ryan’s review of the original Carrie and Leonard’s review of the remake.)
Lately, the 1999 horror sequel The Rage: Carrie 2 has been showing up fairly frequently on Encore and I have spent many an insomnia-filled night watching a wild-eyed Rachel use her brain to kill every high school football player on the planet. It seemed like every time I came across Carrie 2, the film was already halfway over. For some reason, I always seemed to find the movie at the exact moment that Rachel was using a stack of CDs to decapitate some of the most obnoxious jocks to ever crawl out from underneath a cinematic rock. However, once I managed to catch Carrie 2 from the start, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that it’s actually a pretty good film and that — surprise! surprise! — it has a lot more than just bloody ,mayhem on its mind.
In Carrie 2, Rachel (well-played by Emily Bergl) is the half-sister of the original Carrie White. Like her sister, she can move things with her mind and, again much like Carrie, Rachel goes to a high school that is totally and completely dominated by jocks.
However, these are not just your typical high school football players. No, this is the most dangerous collection of clean-cut young sociopaths to be gathered in one place since the beer garden scene from Cabaret. With the exception of sensitive Jesse (played by Jason London, who is so handsome in this film that he looks like he belongs on the cover of a book), the entire football team is obsessed with seducing every virgin at the school. When Emily’s friend Lisa (played by Mena Suvari) is deflowered and then rejected by moronic jock Eric (Zachary Ty Bryan — yes, the oldest Home Improvement kid), she ends up killing herself in a scene that is surprisingly effective because of both Suvari’s sensitive performance and the fact that she was named Lisa.
Seriously, folks, be nice to the Lisas in your life.
Anyway, Rachel soon starts to investigate the circumstances behind Lisa’s suicide and this leads to the jocks hatching a ludicrously complex scheme to silence her. Much as in the first Carrie, it involves humiliating Rachel at the biggest party of the year and, just as in the first film, the end result is Rachel killing a lot of people.
I’m like a lot of filmgoers and horror fans in that I have gotten burned by so many bad sequels to classic movies that, as soon as I see a number in a title, warning flags go up. I tend to watch these films with the expectation that they’re going to both cheapen the original and not bring anything new to the table. However, Carrie 2, while hardly a perfect film, is an exception to the rule. No, it’s nowhere close to being as good as the original Carrie but, when taken on its own term, it’s an effective and entertaining movie.
Along with the strong performances from the entire cast (seriously, you will hate Zachary Ty Bryan’s character so much by the end of this movie), Carrie 2 is well-directed by veteran genre director Katt Shea. Wisely, Shea does not attempt to recreate the original film (despite the similarities in plot) but instead, she brings a unique, feminist perspective to the story. Under Shea’s direction, Emily Bergl makes Rachel into a strong, independent character. She may be victimized but — unlike Sissy Spacek in the original — she is never a victim.
There’s a lot of scenes that stick in my mind from Carrie 2. The film’s final massacre is outrageous and over-the-top and it’s all the more effective because of it. (It also features death by shattered lenses and I have to admit that this myopic reviewer always cringes whenever she sees that scene.) However, to me, Carrie 2 is most disturbing when it explores the pathology behind the film’s doomed football team. One need only watch the scene where the entire team gets their heads shaved, transforming them from being individuals into a mass of virtually indistinguishable teammates, to understand that Katt Shea was looking to accomplish more here than just making a run-of-the-mill horror sequel.
And, to a large extent, she succeeded.
Through the Shattered Lens 