4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!
This October, we’re using 4 Shots From 4 Films to look at some of the best years that horror has to offer!
4 Shots From 4 2002 Horror Films
28 Days Later (2002, dir by Danny Boyle)
Bubba Ho-Tep (2002, dir by Don Coscarelli)
Halloween Resurrection (2002, dir by Rick Rosenthal)
And now that you’ve re-read Arleigh’s review of the original Halloween, why not check out my review of the original Halloween II? This was originally published in 2012! After reading this, be sure to check back in about 90 minutes for Case’s review of Halloween 4! And then come back on Thursday for Halloween 5! (Where’s Halloween 3? It will be dealt with as soon as we finish the saga of Michael Myers…)
Last night, I watched Halloween II. No, I’m not referring to the rather disturbing Rob Zombie movie that came out in 2009. Instead, this Halloween II was the original sequel to the original Halloween. This version was written by John Carpenter and Debra Hill. It was released in 1981 and I saw it in 2012, via Cinemax.
Why Was I Watching It?
Because it’s October, of course! It’s horror month and Halloween is one of the great horror movies. Would Halloween II turn out to be another great horror movie? Well, to be honest, I figured it probably wouldn’t but I decided to watch it anyway.
What Was It About?
Halloween II picks up exactly from where the first Halloween ended. The sole surviving babysitter, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), is being rushed to the hospital by two paramedics, one nice (Lance Guest) and one kinda crude and pervy (Leo Rossi). …
While I was looking through YouTube for TV shows to use for this year’s horrorthon, I came across something called Darkroom. Apparently, Darkroom was a horror anthology series that aired for a few months in 1981.
So, I figured, why not share!
(Apparently, each episode of Darkroom was made up of two thirty-minute stories. For syndication purposes, it appears that the each 30 minute segment was considered to be a separate episode.)
Below is the first episode of Darkroom! It originally aired on Nov. 27th, 1981. In Closed Circuit, an aging anchorman discovers that he’s about to be replaced by a computer. In Stay Turned, We’ll Be Right Back, a man discovers that his radio can be used to contact the past and must decide whether or not to change history. The show is introduced and hosted by James Coburn.
Closed Circuit was directed by Rick Rosenthal, who directed Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween II. Stay Tuned is directed by Paul Lynch, who directed Jamie Lee Curtis in Prom Night.
First off, I am not about to review the Michael Bay film where Will Smith and Martin Lawrence shoot people and blow things up. Instead, this Bad Boys is a film from 1983 where Sean Penn doesn’t shoot anyone but that’s mostly because he can’t get his hands on a gun. And, at one point, a radio does blow up. So, perhaps this Bad Boys has more in common with the Michael Bay Bad Boys than I originally realized.
Anyway, Bad Boys is about Mick O’Brien (Sean Penn), who is a 16 year-old criminal from Chicago. One night, when one of his crimes goes wrong, Mick’s best friend (Alan Ruck) is killed and Mick accidentally runs over the brother of rival gang leader, Paco (Esai Morales). Mick is sent to juvenile detention where he and his sociopathic cellmate, Horowitz (Eric Gurry), team up to overthrow the two “leaders” of their block, Viking (Clancy Brown, with scary blonde hair) and Tweety (Robert Lee Rush). Meanwhile, Paco is arrested for raping Mick’s girlfriend, JC (Ally Sheedy), and soon finds himself living on the same cell block as Mick.
And it all leads to … violence!
(In the movies, everything leads to violence.)
Bad Boys is one of those films that seems to show up on cable at the most random of times. I’ve never quite understood why because it’s not like Bad Boys is a particularly great film. It’s hard to see anything about this film that would lead a programmer to say, “Let’s schedule 100 airings of Bad Boys!” If anything, it’s the epitome of a good but not that good film. On the one hand, you have to appreciate a film that attempts to take a serious look at both juvenile crime and the true life consequences of tossing every “lawbreaker” into a cell and locking the door. People fetishize the idea of punishing criminals but they rarely consider whether those punishments actually accomplish anything beyond satisfying society’s obsessive need for revenge. (And it’s interesting to note that the problems of 1983 are not that much different from the problems of 2015.) On the other hand, Bad Boys is way too long, heavy-handed, and repetitive. This was one of Sean Penn’s first roles and, much like the film itself, he’s good without being that good. Watching his performance, you get the feeling that James Dean would say, “Nice try.”
However, the film is saved by two actor. First off, there’s Clancy Brown as the stupid but intimidating Viking. With his bad skin, blonde hair, and a permanent snarl on his face, Brown makes Viking into a character who is both ludicrous and scary. And then there’s Eric Gurry as the small and demonic Horowitz. According to his imdb page, Gurry long ago retired from acting but anybody who sees Bad Boys will never forget him.
There’s something really sad about knowing that John Cusack does not like the 1985 teen comedy, Better Off Dead, despite the fact that he himself starred in the film.
Just how much he dislikes the film depends on who you talk to. I read an interview with the film’s director — the wonderfully named Savage Steve Holland — in which he said that Cusack approached him after a screening of the film and told him that he totally hated the film and would “never trust” Holland again. (What’s truly sad is that Holland also said that this encounter caused him to momentarily lose all interesting in film making.) However, a few years ago, Cusack said, while answering questions on Reddit, that he didn’t hate Better Off Dead, he just felt that it could be better and that he was glad that other people still like it. In another interview, Cusack said that the “absurdist humor” of Better Off Dead just wasn’t his thing.
John, I understand that you’re a serious actor and I’ve always had a lot of respect for the fact that you’re an outspoken liberal who is still intellectually honest enough to hold Obama up to the same standard to which you previously held Bush. But honestly, John, maybe you should loosen up just a little. Not all of your movies have to be The Butler! There’s nothing wrong with enjoying yourself onscreen. And there’s nothing wrong with entertaining an audience and leaving them happy. Better Off Dead may be one of more lightweight films that I’m reviewing for this Back to School series but it’s a lot of fun! It makes people smile. And you know what? A lot of those smiling people are going to be more willing to see you in a film like The Butler because they’ve also seen you in films like Better Off Dead.
Add to that, you give a pretty good performance in Better Off Dead. In fact, you provide the film with a much-needed center. A lot of the comedy in Better Off Dead may be absurd but John, your performance is so likable and so grounded that you keep the film from getting too weird. You do such a good job as Lane Myer and are so convincing as a well-meaning but dorky high school student who is trying to win back his ex-girlfriend (Amanda Wyss) by skiing down a mountain that it allows everyone else to be as weird as the film will allow. Without your excellent performance, John, the film would be a total mess.
Better Off Dead is essentially a collection of skits. There’s a plot but the plot is really only there as an excuse for the nonstop jokes. For instance, there’s Lane’s best friend, Charles (Curtis Armstrong, essentially playing the same character he played in Risky Business) who spends the entire film looking for things to snort and who, when standing atop of snowy mountain, says, “This is pure snow! Do you have any idea what the street value of this mountain is!?”
And then there’s Monique (Diane Franklin), the foreign exchange student who lives next door to Lane and who pretends that she can’t speak English because she’s trying to avoid being set up with creepy Ricky Smith (Daniel Schneider).
There’s Lane’s mother (Kim Darby), who cooks some of the strangest looking meals ever seen in an American film. There’s also Lane’s younger brother, who never speaks but who knows how to build a laser gun. Even Lane’s father (David Ogden Stiers). who seems relatively normal, still manages to destroy the garage door.
There’s the fact that Lane’s romantic rival is named Roy Stalin (Aaron Dozier). Is that not just the perfect name for a villain?
There’s my favorite scene in the entire film, where a geometry teacher (Vincent Schiavelli) explains a complicated problem to his class and the class responds by cheering him along. “Who wants to come up here and solve the problem?” the teacher asks. The entire class raises their hands and goes, “Me!”
There’s quotable and memorable lines like: “I’ve been going to this high school for seven and a half years. I’m no dummy,” ” Now that’s a real shame when folks be throwin’ away a perfectly good white boy like that,” and “Gee, I’m really sorry your mom blow up, Ricky.”
And, of course, there’s that paperboy who wants his two dollars…
Seriously, John, Better Off Dead might not be your favorite movie but it’s really not that bad!
Want to see just how not bad Better Off Dead really is? Watch it below!
Last night, I watched Halloween II. No, I’m not referring to the rather disturbing Rob Zombie movie that came out in 2009. Instead, this Halloween II was the original sequel to the original Halloween. This version was written by John Carpenter and Debra Hill. It was released in 1981 and I saw it in 2012, via Cinemax.
Why Was I Watching It?
Because it’s October, of course! It’s horror month and Halloween is one of the great horror movies. Would Halloween II turn out to be another great horror movie? Well, to be honest, I figured it probably wouldn’t but I decided to watch it anyway.
What Was It About?
Halloween II picks up exactly from where the first Halloween ended. The sole surviving babysitter, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), is being rushed to the hospital by two paramedics, one nice (Lance Guest) and one kinda crude and pervy (Leo Rossi). Two guesses which one of our two paramedics eventually ends up dead. Meanwhile, Michael Myers has apparently survived being shot six times and falling out of a second story window and he’s still wandering around Haddonfield, Indiana. Best of all, Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasence) is still running around all over the place, telling anyone who will listen that it wasn’t his idea to allow Michael to be released. (In one of the film’s best running jokes, everyone responds to Loomis’ protestations by saying stuff like, “Damn you for letting him out!” “Uhmm, I didn’t…” Dr. Loomis mutters at one point.) It quickly becomes apparent that Michael’s rampage wasn’t quite as random as it seemed in the first film. He’s after Laurie and, once he breaks into the local hospital, it seems like he might very well get her. Why? Because, for the most part, it appears that every single citizen of Haddonfield is a total and complete moron.
What Worked?
Halloween II is actually one the better of the slasher sequels of the early 80s. While it can’t compare to the first Halloween, it’s still a fairly suspenseful little film and Michael Myers is just as frightening as ever. However, what truly makes this film memorable, is Donald Pleasence’s unhinged performance as Dr. Loomis. Whereas in the first film, Pleasence played Loomis as just being somewhat testy and annoyed, his performance here suggests that, in the minute or so between shooting Michael and then looking out the window at the end of the first film, Loomis has managed to totally lose his mind. Pleasence gives one of the most mannered, over the top performances in film history in Halloween II and it works perfectly. Whenever the film starts to drag, Pleasence shows up and injects a nice bit of crazy into the proceedings. My favorite moment comes when Loomis suddenly yells at a policeman, “What is it you guys you usually do? FIRE A WARNING SHOT!?”
Lance Guest, who plays the nice paramedic, was really quite likable. I know there’s some debate as to the ultimate fate of his character but I chose to believe that he survived.
The Halloween theme music is still probably one of the most effective horror soundtracks to have not been composed by Goblin or Riz Ortolani. When it came on the TV last night, our cat Doc actually got scared and ran out of the room.
What Didn’t Work?
It’s not the first Halloween.
While the film nominally stars Jamie Lee Curtis, Laurie spends most of the film catatonic and she never really gets to do much other than run from Michael. Say what you will about how Laurie kept dropping her weapons at the end of the first Halloween, she still at least fought back. In Halloween II, Laurie is reduced to being a stereotypical victim.
“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments
I have to admit that I kinda related to the three nurses who were on call at the hospital. I related to Karen (Pamela Susan Shoop) because, like her, I have, in the past, shown a weakness for bad boys who insist on making out in a hot tub even while there’s a merciless serial killer wandering about. I related to Jill (Tawny Moyer) because, like her, I tend to look at my nails whenever I get bored at work. Most of all, I related to Janet (Ana Alicia), because she couldn’t figure out how to use a walkie talkie. (And, seriously, what type of name is walkie-talkie anyway? It sounds like a cutesy robot.)
So, as opposed to most other slasher films, I was able to find instant empathy with not one but three characters! Unfortunately, all three of those nurses were dead by the end of the film so, seriously … agck!
Through the Shattered Lens 