REVIEW: Demons

Arsenio Hall used to have a talk show. On this show, somewhere during the opening monologue, he'd occasionally do a bit about "Things that make you go hmmm." I think there was a song about it sometime in the early nineties, perhaps MC Hammer, but "Demons" is the closest thing we have to a movie version -- an hour and a half of completely inexplicable behaviors, motivations, and occurences, all designed to leave you scratching your head. On the bright side, it's at least slightly entertaining towards the end, when all of the surreal things really build up and get weirder and weirder.

From the Bava/Argento/Fulci camp of Italian horror, we have this little masterpiece of strangeness in which a bunch of people are invited to a mysterious movie screening by a partially masked man (played by future horror director Michele Soavi), and then trapped in the theater by demon-zombies. I thought I'd have a go at explaining the finer points of the plot, like how the plight of the characters mimics the movie they're watching, and how there's this coked-up gang of car thieves that shows up, but it doesn't really matter. This isn't a good movie, no matter how you look at it, and I can't really understand the many positive reviews it's gotten. It's fun, I suppose, in the same way that sitting on a porch and drinking is fun: even though nothing of substance happens, beer makes it entertaining!

The only appeal that this movie has is that it's got a lot of weird touches and inconsistencies that make it kind of funny and entertaining, although those aren't even enough to merit a second viewing. Unfortunately, that's all I have to work with, so I'll just go over stuff that occurred to me, like the fact that there's a mannequin in gothic clothes carrying a samurai sword sitting on top of a motorcycle in the lobby of the theater -- and the fact that no one ever thought to use the sword against the demons until the last ten minutes of the movie. But I guess that's not really fair, since no one ever fought back against the demons in the first place, choosing the easier path of just not defending themselves whatsoever.

I also noticed that there was the least amount of characterization I have ever seen in a movie -- ever -- so that the only thing we knew about the characters were their names. I was entertained by the bitchy usherette's pilgrim-Santa's-helper outfit, and how steeped in 1980's style this whole movie is. Best of all, I was absolutely overjoyed when, out of nowhere, a helicopter fell through the ceiling of the theater, with no build-up, and virtually no follow-up -- I think it's great when screenwriter get stuck, and say to themselves, "What can we make come crashing through the ceiling?"

I can't say that I recommend this film, because I think it's pretty shoddy even as a low-grade horror movie; but I gotta say, it does have its perks, although I think I probably supplied as much of my own amusement as the film itself did. Unless you're a true believer, or a lover of surrealism, avoid this one.

ARE YOU ASTONISHED?

• For all its faults, "Demons" has Billy Idol and Rick Springfield on the soundtrack. And that rules!
• It never occurred to me that the people weren't fighting back until one of them seemingly accidentally swung a chair and knocked a demon over. Then, like a lightbulb, I thought: they should have tried that sooner.
• The scene where George and Cheryl ride over the seats on a motorcycle while killing zombies is a hoot! Keep an eye out for the leaping zombies, since they're the second-funniest thing in the movie.
  
• When they got in the chopper after it came through the roof, I seriously, seriously thought they were going to get in and fly out of the theater. They didn't, but for about 45 seconds it seemed like it was gonna happen, and I was prepared to piss myself. That would've totally made the rest of the movie worth it!
• How long were they in the theater? Five hours? Six? Then how come it's like Mad Max Does Germany when they got out? The city's in ruins, rampant with demons, fires everywhere, cars overturned, and Tina Turner owns Berlin.
  

REVIEW: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

I remember watching Kevin McCarthy try to run across a busy highway, dodging the grasp of the emotionless pod people back in the previous version of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," which is probably the only version of the material that can laugh off the silly title as being a product of its time. On a related note, Philip Kaufman's updated version is the only treatment that can point to 1978 for justification of starring Donald Sutherland.

For all of those viewers that complain when strange movie phenomena aren't adequately explained (zombie plagues, birds attacking humans en masse, etc.) Kaufman's film throws a dollop of exposition in during the credits: space bubbles. Space bubbles, you ask? Yes, bubbles that form on an alien planet, then float upwards into space, and back down to Earth, leaving soap scum on much of San Francisco's natural landscape. The soapy residue causes Earth plants to mutate and grow strange flowery blossoms, which somehow begin to infect the populace. How do they infect the populace? I have no idea. The whole space bubble thing was kind of throwing bones to the explainists watching, and the movie doesn't really develop it further. Granted, the plot doesn't really necessitate or even allow it, but it's bound to aggravate some people.

After the (nicely done) flower mutation montage, the plot opens up with Brooke Adams and Donald Sutherland as employees of the Health Department. Adams' boyfriend, who's usually something of an ass, overnight becomes very quiet, cold, and awkward...like four years of playing D&D packed into eight hours. It seems, at least according to Leonard Nimoy's psychiatrist character, that the same feeling is striking couples all over the city: their husbands/wives/partners aren't their husbands/wives/partners anymore. I guess that would sound scarier if it didn't occur so regularly due to non-alien-plague causes such as football season, sexual dysfunction, crumbled dreams, and marijuana. Jeff Goldblum shows up, again, in a role where he explores new boundaries of neurotic paranoia in an atmosphere where they're justified for once.

As much as I enjoyed this movie, I have to come clean: it just wasn't very scary. The alien soap was kind of creepy in a biological terror kind of way, and the hopelessness of their situation was somewhat effective, but it was undercut by the fact that becoming a pod person shut up Jeff Goldblum, which only seemed to improve everything. I can give the film high marks in a lot of areas: the acting was good, the music was 1978-effective, the sound design was notably fantastic, and it had a proper ending for the plot; but the low marks go to fright and writing, which are somewhat (although not exclusively) linked. After Adams' boyfriend was 'turned,' she remarked on it with concern bordering on panic to Sutherland; except that we also saw how he was acting, and it wasn't all that bizarre, and certainly not grounds for the degree of concern with which she reacted. Sometimes I'm cranky and cold in the morning, but I don't think my girlfriend should call in the National Guard. She should make me drink coffee.

The last complaint I have is (as I was mentioning before) the weird ambiguity with which the titular invasion is accomplished. See, the pod people are always carrying around and delivering clunky, baby-sized pods -- but to where? Presumably, the pods are what the people are...uh...budding from, although pod-bodies frequently pop up from wherever's the most convenient for the script, pod or not. It starts off with a tiny red flower being the infection carrier, but that's abandoned in favor of the pods, and then that's abandoned for contrived scares. I can stretch my imagination enough to see why these things are in place; being able to get converted anywhere at anytime gives the characters reason to never fall asleep, which is a reliable tension-building device. The flowers and possible poison are good for icky biological paranoia, and the pod-delivery gives the villains something to do other than stand around like a Rick Springfield concert. And what was the whole pod-producing factory at the end for, since it's already been well-established that they don't need pods to convert people? I don't mind being forgiving of a movie when I have to be, but when there are cheap tricks and constant rule-bending, it gets me more aggravated than Jeff Goldblum in a Transport-O-Pod.

This movie's got a lot of good stuff going for it, and it's definitely worth a scare or two. Unfortunately, it's only one or two.

ARE YOU ASTONISHED?

• Keifer was not the first Sutherland to pull an all-nighter for the greater good.
• The homeless man and his dog: isn't this kind of cross-breeding just open to a lot of logical issues? I mean, it's neat and all, but wouldn't this open the doors to Brooke Adams being a woman/weed hybrid? And Donald Sutherland being a man/moustache creature? It's wrong, all wrong!
• Further proof that Leonard Nimoy was born to play an alien.
• All right, so we've got space bubbles. And they float up, slowly, from the alien planet -- okay. And then they float gently down into our atmosphere, suffering nary an ill effect? They must be pretty durable after all those milennia space-bubbling through a vacuum, I suppose, although that makes me wonder why they continue to search for new life forms to take over if they're already virtually indestructable and cognizant. Maybe ennui.
  

REVIEW: Salem's Lot (1979)

"Salem's Lot" was one of those Sunday afternoon movies that I used to love when I was growing up -- in fact, it was the king of Sunday afternoon movies because it literally took all Sunday afternoon to watch the whole thing. It's a long one even without commercials, but when TBS interrupted the thing every ten minutes to plug the latest rerun of "Matlock," it just stretched and stretched. Actually getting through the whole movie in one sitting was like a marathon to a ten-year-old, and was treated like a rite of passage when I finally accomplished it. I remember trying to plan a day around it when I first discovered the listing in TV Guide -- church, Sunday school, lunch, action figures, cartoons, "Salem's Lot," and when it was finally over I had turned 19 and had a paper to write.

Actually, it's not all that long for a movie. The uncut running time is 183 minutes, which is a dash over three hours for those of you who are bad at math or deviants of the metric system. Three hours isn't a fatally long running time for a movie, but if you're a twelve-year-old who was raised on 84-minute slashfests like "Friday the 13th," it's fooooreeeeever. On top of that, it's really, really slow. It was originally aired as a mini-series, as most of Stephen King adaptations are, and the pace made sense in that respect; unfortunately, by the time it was playing on channels that I was tuning in to, it was usually aired as a big chunk and I wouldn't be surprised if I spent a good portion of my first viewing trying to defend a Lego Gotham City from the Lego Joker.

Seeing the new DVD release a number of weeks ago (in anticipation of seeing the Rob Lowe version of the material), I was happily surprised that the slow and steady pacing of the movie really worked in its favor. You're introduced to each of the many characters in the small town of Salem's Lot, and really get to spend some quality time with them and their nuances before they become undead. You see, something is amiss in the sleepy little town, with the arrival of writer Ben Mears, and the opening of the creepy new antique shop by the mysterious Mr. Straker and the absent Mr. Barlow. Soon enough, townsfolk are coming down with a strange, slow illness; children are missing from their homes, and dead people seem to be rising from the grave and seeking blood. In the most famous (and most parodied) scene, one of the missing Glick boys floats amidst a blanket of fog outside his brother's window, and ghoulishly asks his brother to let him in. It's kind of silly-looking now, especially since it's so recognizable, but it works fine in context.

Mr. Mears, played by "Starsky and Hutch" star David Soul, returns to his boyhood home of Salem's Lot to research the Marsden House -- the creepy old run-down house on top of the hill that every small town and every horror film has. Mears thinks that there's an evil associated with that house, and has some kind of theory that evil can be tied to a physical place. Unfortunately, he's not in grad school anymore, and he has more pressing problems with vampires eating his friends and all. It was nice to give the main character a kind of philosophical lense to look at the villains through, but in the end it didn't make much sense -- I'm not really sure what he was saying. Did he think the house caused vampires to come to Salem's Lot? Or was the house evil because of the vampires tended to like it there? Or was the point that it had no bearing on the evil? I don't know. The idea is more or less discarded, since the vampires chase him waaaay out of the house's zip code by the end of the movie. Hmm...unless...unless all of Guatemala is evil!

Like the slow pace, the other thing that really works well in the movie is that it's not funny. As a horror drama, it sticks with being a horror drama, and there's not a tinge of ironic humor in the script. It plays as a straight horror film, and treats the subject matter seriously even under the silliest circumstances; it's a better film for not asking the audience to laugh, instead asking to play along with the story. It's exactly that kind of mistake that many, many, many modern films make: reminding the audience that what they're watching is stupid. It's one thing for a movie to be playful and fun, but it's another to try to simultaneously be the material and be above the material. At the very least, "Salem's Lot" has the courage to be what it is, even if what it is turns out to be is Hutch beating up James Mason and a bald antique dealer.

"Salem's Lot" does have its shortcomings. For instance, the vampire Barlow and his keeper Straker (James Mason) -- what was their plan, again? Apparently, they move from sleepy little hamlet to sleepy little hamlet, setting up their antique shop, eating the town, and then moving on. Perhaps I'm being a little overly analytical about this, but isn't that a tad inefficient? I mean, do you know just how many forms you have to fill out when you set up a new business? Contrast that with the amount of time that it would take Barlow to suck Salem's Lot dry, and you'll see the flaw. That's not even including the people that get turned into vampires, who also need to feed, which would only suck through the town faster. What does Straker do when his boss is done, and the whole town is either dead or full of vampires? What happens when Barlow Antiques is reported to the Better Business Bureau? Answer me, movie!

Despite the dated look, and the occasionally foot-dragging pace, "Salem's Lot" is a pleasant-enough diversion for those weekend afternoons when you'd rather be sharing scary tales by a campfire, but are instead stuck with a DVD player and microwaveable s'mores.

ARE YOU ASTONISHED?

• If you've also seen "Fright Night," you know what happens to the James Mason character on the staircase.
  
• Note the very well done creepy shot towards the end of the film, when Mark is sitting on the floor in front of the coffin room -- and the bodies slowly start to shift over the course of a few seconds. Good background corpse acting.
  
• The theme music has about two hundred times the amount of energy as the rest of the movie. Sometimes, in its slowest moments, you can help the film by humming the music quietly to yourself.
  
• It's so commonplace in horror movies that it's hard to hold it against them: stupid people, and the dark, scary places that they shouldn't go into but they do.
  
• I'd like to talk a moment about Geoffrey Lewis, that beloved character actor that gives me the kind of heebie-jeebies that Christopher Walken gives to other people. This is a man that you'd recognize in some vague way, not in a what-movie-did-I-see-him-in way, but rather a isn't-he-the-janitor-at-my-high-school way. He's been in over 110 movies, seven of them with Clint Eastwood, and still looks like he's having trouble getting the trail-dust off of him. To see him as a vampire chanting "Look at me! Loooooook at meeee!" over and over again helped me fill the void in my subconscious mind that had prevented me from having truly terrifying nightmares.
  

REVIEW: Modern Vampires

Sometimes when you watch a film, you have to ask yourself, "Am I being fair to the movie?" As I've said before, I'm usually capable of finding something good about a movie, whether the rest of it stinks or not, and most of the time this involves a temporary lowering of my standards to match the standards of the film. In the case of "Modern Vampires," I had to go pretty low, but in the end admit that I did giggle a little at this horror-comedy. Just a little.

"Modern Vampires" concerns itself with the lives of modern vampires living the Paris Hilton lifestyle in Los Angeles -- sex and drugs, blood and nightclubs. Our "hero," Casper Van Dien's Dallas, is a vamp returning to L.A. to visit his old pals after being exiled by Robert Pastorelli's Count Dracula; in addition to his troubles with the Count, he's also got to deal with the Hollywood slasher Nico, a whoring vampire that he created years ago that's ended up drawing a lot of attention to their vampy lifestyle. On top of that, Professor Van Helsing is still on the trail, this time enlisting the Crips in his quest to avenge the vamping of his paralyzed son. All of this is played in a pretty goofy way, under the direction of Richard ("I'm Danny's Brother!") Elfman, who really seems like he wants the audience to be having a good time. For the record, I would have had a better time if he'd stayed with Oingo Boingo.

You can always tell that there are problems with a movie when reading a paragraph-long description of the events encompasses all the good stuff. Like "Hysterial," the stuff I liked in the movie was what you might call "conceptual humor." There are ideas that seem fun and interesting on the page, but they're just surrounded by dreck and poor execution. I would've really liked a movie about how an aging German man recruits inner-city gang members for his holy war against vampires! That would be funny. Somebody write that one! And I would have enjoyed a movie where a vampire's amnesia is broken by taking her to visit the family that she used to have before she was turned -- grounds for a tragedy, I say! And a revenge picture about a man who's forced to kill his own children after they've been transformed into the enemy! And....well, that's it. That's the good stuff. If you've enjoyed this paragraph, you don't need to watch the movie. I like to be a time-saver for those in need!

The movie's got those ideas, but it traps them in a goofy, stupid comedy that was born without a moral compass. It goes to great lengths to show us the vampire's hedonistic lifestyle: clubs where innocent people are stripped naked and tied up for the vampire's amusement, kidnapping and draining a victim via wrist-straws while the vampires read the newspaper, random murdering of retail saleswomen, and on and on and on. And these are the protagonists! Their behavior makes you feel more sympathy for Van Helsing's cause, which is strange because the script essentially makes him the enemy. Dallas' rationalization of giving Van Helsing's son a choice of dying from disease or becoming a vampire never confronts Van Helsing's more rational point of view that Dallas was turning his son into a serial murderer. Oh, and the vampire community is openly racist, and Van Helsing is a nazi. See what I'm saying?

As for lowering my standards, aside from ignoring the ethics alarm bells in my head, I had to downgrade my views on quality acting to "no one looks directly at the camera." Huzzah! That way I was able to ignore the fact that everyone's fangs prevented them from EVER closing their mouths. Unlike most vampire films where they have fangs that only extend when necessary, these vampires are sadly forced to grin like idiots for all eternity, making the same face as the people who sell things on infomercials. Or people that really want you to think that they're having a great time at your birthday party. Perhaps the actors just really wanted the director to think that they're happy being in this movie!

Another nagging question is: what's up with the casting? Casper Van Dien as Dallas I can understand. I bet he's really cheap since that Tarzan movie. Craig Ferguson (of "Drew Carey Show" fame) was probably on vacation or something, and had a few days to burn -- fine. But Kim Cattrall? I know this was before the whole "Sex in the City" thing heated up, but I thought she was better than the stupid accent and camped-out schtick that she's reduced to here. Robert Pastorelli couldn't be more miscast as Count Dracula, yes, the Count Dracula; perhaps this was the beginning of his drug abuse. Natasha Lyonne once had promise, and Natasha Gregson Wagner -- somehow, I'm not even sure why, but I thought she was a better actress. Maybe it was her breasts or something. The only two people in the whole movie that shouldn't have to cringe when resume-revising time comes are Rod Steiger, who actually acts in this film, and Gabriel Casseus, who is the only black character that's not a stereotype. Not that I'm suggesting that this be included on a resume, unless any of the above are applying for "Modern Vampires II."

I'd started out with the idea of writing a more positive review of the movie, but the more I think about it, the less worth watching it becomes. It did have some good points, and the whole style was 'stupid glee' which generally makes a movie more watchable; but if you're looking for a fun, hip vampire film, you're gonna have to look for something else.

ARE YOU ASTONISHED?

• I love the song that Wagner and van Dien were "listening to" when they first met. I loved how they were nodding their heads to completely separate beats. And neither of them matched the song that was playing.
• Why do you keep smiling at the end of the movie, Natasha Lyonne? What's so funny and joyful, Casper Van Dien? Why are your lower gums bleeding, Natasha Gregson-Wagner?
• Rod Steiger: "On the Waterfront," "Death of a Salesman," "Dr. Zhivago," "Modern Vampires." Which one of these is not like the others?
• Udo Kier: Taking movie roles because he can.
  

REVIEW: Taps

This being October, month of Halloween, I'd planned on exclusively reviewing horror movies and other films befitting the holiday season. Unfortunately, I forgot about that when I went to pick a movie to watch last night, and somehow managed to choose Harold Becker's "Taps," the 1981 military-academy-gone-awry movie starring George C. Scott with the youngsters Timothy Hutton, Sean Penn, and Tom Cruise in one of his rare 'villainous' roles. While it isn't a horror film, it was a nice change of pace to see something with a more serious bent to it. I guess I really don't have to see flesh-eating each night as I've been thinking I do.

The film takes place at the Bunker Hill Military Academy, where Hutton has been promoted to Cadet Major by his idol General Bache (Scott), thereby placing him in charge of the rest of the school's cadets, including fellow officers Penn and Cruise. It's one of those schools that usually gets in the paper for sexual harassment, or hazing, or not letting in women, or appearing in too many commercials for electric razors. Come to think of it, it's kind of like a high school student council, where the students actually follow Robert's Rules -- under threat of being shot.

(Robert's Rules = "I motion to move on with this review. John seconds that motion. All in favor? All not in favor? Moving on.")

The General gets the bad news that the school is being shut down by the board of trustees, demolished, and will be replaced by condos. This doesn't sit well with the General, who vows to fight the movement in the remaining year's time -- and Hutton, being the little idol-worshipper that he is, takes the General's idealism and romanticism a bit too much to heart. When his mentor is arrested, and the school is about to be shut down, Hutton organizes his cadets into a kiddie-army and, uh, occupies the grounds, issues demands, and does other terroristy things, in a last-ditch attempt to save his school. Of course, the school is surrounded by the police and the National Guard, and things slowly fall apart in ways that are both surprising and inevitable.

I was pretty surprised by this movie, because it's an Oh, That Movie -- the kind of movie that everyone seems to know the title of, but nothing else. I knew there was a movie called "Taps," and I knew that it had a bunch of young stars in a military setting. But I didn't know that it would be as good as it was; it's a tightly-paced suspense film, in the grand tradition of stand-off movies. I'm kind of a sucker for these -- I like trying to think my way through them, like it's a good logic puzzle. Unfortunately, movies rarely bow to logic, and this one's no exception. Trying to use it as a logic puzzle is kind of like playing chess with only half the pieces -- still fun, although you know that everything has been simplified. This becomes part of the movie's strength, relying on the parts that work and outright ignoring anything that would be an obstacle for the good stuff.

The performances are good across the leads, although not quite up to par with what the main actors would mature into. Hutton, who'd won an Oscar the year before for "Ordinary People," carries the film on his shoulders, as an overly-idealistic cadet whose dreams of honor and integrity are shattered by a reality where honor and integrity are only dreams. Penn, as his best friend, really isn't given all that much to do until he has an almost inexplicable tantrum in the middle of the film. Cruise does what Cruise does best: playing a cocky asshole. And what's worse than Tom Cruise playing a cocky asshole? Tom Cruise playing a cocky asshole in a bright red baret.

While it's a very well-executed film, there are those nagging questions. Now, I know (from watching a lot of movies) that cops are not supposed to negotiate with criminals. But in this picture, their demands are almost comical in their simplicity -- they want to meet the board of trustees, and discuss the selling of the school. That's not really much to ask, is it? I make harsher demands when I call Pizza Hut. The cops, being in a movie, will have no part in it, although they will do everything else under the sun to get the kids to surrender their weapons; they bus in parents, the National Guard, and even send veteran character actor Ronny Cox to negotiate -- and you know it's bad when they send in Ronny Cox. In fact, they send everyone to negotiate EXCEPT the damn board of trustees. That's strike one. Actually, that gets two strikes, considering that there are a lot of really young children in danger, which I'm sure would be a factor in negotiation attempts. It's a pretty easy choice to set up a meeting in order to keep numerous children out of danger. Strike three is all about Hutton's own plan; I just can't believe that he thinks it's going to work, even being a seventeen-year-old. I mean, so he talks to the board, and he saves the school -- "Taking over military academy by force in stand-off with National Guard" is the kind of thing you are legally required to include at the end of job applications.

Luckily, once you just accept these things and try not to think about how the entire rear flank of the grounds are unguarded, it's a good thriller. It's tightly edited, and the complete lack of music (other than the diegetic "Taps") gives it an atmosphere of realism that almost makes up for the script's flaws. Plus, you can watch the early efforts of two of our country's finest dramatic actors, and our cockiest asshole.

ARE YOU ASTONISHED?

• I kept waiting for Tom Cruise to ask Piggy for the conch shell. Sucks to your asth-mar, Tom Cruise!
• The ending scenes: is his going nutso just a little peculiar? Be honest. Couldn't he have waited until the Gulf War?
• I had thought Timothy Hutton invented that walk for his role on Nero Wolfe, but apparently that's how he actually walks.
  

REVIEW: Shivers

I have a lot of love for David Cronenberg. In a genre full of pointless movies, he at least tries to make films that are actually about something. It doesn't mean that his movies are always good, but at least they all seem to have a message, and that holds them head and shoulders above the majority of the dreck that gets released. Plus, I am constantly entertained by the fact that he looks and speaks with such weird, slow and cold authority, that he reminds me of what a serial killer might be like if he went to grad school for too long.

Last night I watched "Shivers," his first feature film, which is some kind of message about the sexual revolution. On an isolated island, a crazy doctor infects the populace with a parasitic worm that acts as "part aphrodisiac, part venereal disease." The doctor, apparently believing that the human race thought too much and boinked not enough, was launching a test run of his invention when he found out that it also made people angry and violent -- not quite what he wanted. Before you can say "plot device," the small island turns into one part sex-crazed orgy, one part mob of creepy old people, and two parts stupid doctor that doesn't know enough to leave.

For a first feature, the movie holds up pretty well, but again showcases why I don't like movies from the seventies: they're ugly. I just can't take the style of the era, with all the orange shag carpeting, minimalist decorating, and abundance of brown/orange/blue/white color schemes. I won't even get into the hair. Decade aside, there's just something about the performance of the lead doctor St. Luc that hurts the movie; he just kind of coasts through the movie, obviously too dazed on 'far out chill out' pills to think to himself, "Hm. There's a disease spreading in the building which has turned everyone into rapists and murderers. I should leave soon." Granted, he tries to hide with his girlfriend, the nurse, until it turns out that she's also infected. But it's the seventies, man! Everyone's got it!

Cronenberg's script effectively supplies a sense of paranoia, but isn't quite daring enough when it comes to letting the suspense stand. Basically, if you think a character's going to get infected, they will get infected within five minutes of that thought. If it's even slightly ambiguous about whether a character is infected, they are infected. Sometimes, the obviousness of the writing undercuts the power of the idea: anxiety about being part of a dangerous sexual revolution, and having your flesh gain too much control over your mind -- fear and control of flesh seems to be Cronenberg's main fetish. I can only hope he's writing a sequel in which Viagra is introduced into a closed community.

ARE YOU ASTONISHED?

• The nurse: is she attractive, or not? I spent several hours thinking about this. Even now that I've seen her naked, I still don't know.
  
• I'm guessing that the parasite is supposed to be phallic, but most of the time it looks vaguely poo-shaped. Then again, that is also a fetish to some people.
  
• Think of it: the whole world becomes a giant Studio 54 on a Friday night. I don't even want to think about what that smells like when Sunday rolls around.
  

REVIEW: Return of the Living Dead, Part 2

I always say that you can tell a lot about a movie by the way they title the sequel. Do they use the same title, but slap the digit "2" after it, or do they go for the ever-classier Roman Numeral "II"? Do they keep the original title, then add a hook-subtitle after a colon? Or do they just come up with something new and hope fans of the previous installment figure it out on their own?

Well, to illustrate my point (or not), we have "Return of the Living Dead, Part 2," that late-eighties classic zombie film that most people remember for inexplicably featuring the reanimated corpse of Michael Jackson. Yes, I said that. Pretty much casting aside the first "Return...," and ignoring the fairly huge ramifications of the first movie's ending, this one comes across as a lighter, brighter zombie comedy. Also, it's dumber. In fact, this movie's essentially made for the ten-year-olds in the crowd that weren't allowed to see it until they were too old to be in the target audience anyway. And by the point when they were allowed to see R-rated features, they probably discovered that they were better off playing outside than watching this anyhow.

Taking a page from Part One, the US government has been up to no good with its experiments again: cutting taxes for the rich, soaking the poor, dropping necessary social reforms, taking us into a war without merit, consistently using the presidential seal as a dodge to bleed the impover-- what? Oh, sorry. They reanimated the dead. And, in either A) the usual government style or B) the usual zombie film style, they lose one of the barrels that's filled with a corpse and the toxins that will bring him back as a brain-eating zombie. I don't think I'm going to ruin the film by saying that he gets loose, some living dead things show up, and it's left to an eleven-year-old, a teenage girl, and a TV repairman to save the quarantined town.

Now, the zombie genre is my favorite genre, so I'm a little bit biased when it comes to the hungry dead. I'm exceptionally forgiving when it comes to zombie films, but while this isn't the worst I've seen, it sure isn't among the greats. If "Return of the Living Dead" is a box of Band-Aids, then "Return of the Living Dead, Part 2" is a box of Plastic Health Strips, another inferior knock-off without the intelligence or wit of its predecessor. (METAPHOR!) In other words, it's the kind of movie people point at when they say that sequels are a bad idea. The film is set up as a horror flick, but from the five-minute mark you know that it's just a comedy with the trappings of a horror film. That's fine and all, except that it's a shitty comedy, too. Come to think of it, there's really no reason to see this unless you're a zombie completist like myself. Or a Michael Jackson completist. Or you're not a Michael Jackson completist, but just want to see him die, and Thriller isn't enough anymore.

The new DVD features a commentary track by the director, Ken Wiederhorn, as well as Thor van Lingen, the actor who played Billy the undead bully. I'd be going into more detail about what went wrong with this movie (bad acting, bad makeup, rehashing Part Uno for no reason) but because of DVD technology, the director himself can tell you just how much he didn't want to be making this movie. At least the grown-up Thor, who hasn't had a credit to his name since, provides reasonably interesting comments about how cool it was to be a thirteen-year-old zombie; also refreshingly, he doesn't seem to have any bitterness over not working in Hollywood afterwards unlike Chunk during the "Goonies" commentary. The DVD also mysteriously features a new score for the film (surprising to the director as well), which is conducted at about the same quality level as the movie. The original score can be heard on the French-language track. Actually, if you end up watching this, watch it in French. That way, the score is better, you won't know how bad most of the jokes are, and you'll probably be giggling enough to not notice the special effects.

ARE YOU ASTONISHED?

• Doesn't Billy the bully already look dead, before he's dead? It's a little anti-climactic when he actually dies.
  
• The last line in the movie: funny when I was 11, unforgivable at 25.
  
• I don't even need to mention that Michael Jackson's corpse dances across the screen, but I will.
• On Billy's nightstand, he's got a George 'The Animal' Steele WWF action figure. I had that one when I was Billy's age! Luckily, I didn't tamper with a cadaver, and have lived to outgrow the WWF.
  
• Aren't brains hard to get at? I know my skull is pretty tough, and it takes some serious force to get through it. More force than teeth. And since zombies that carry big jagged rocks or baseball bats are a lot scarier than ANY of the zombies in this movie, it's a surprising choice they made.
  

Note: Sometimes 'Bad' Movies Are Not Bad Movies

It seems like a fella's favorite movies just can't get a fair break these days. It's hard for me to even admit to some of the movies that I like without being jumped on for liking 'bad' movies. Now, to set the record straight about what kind of movies I watch, what kind of movies I like, and how I feel about them:

I'll throw in a question-and-answer format to make things a little easier, akin to many conversations that I've had with loved ones that I try to share with:

"This movie is so bad! Where do you find these? What? Well, yeah, I mean, it's entertaining and all...but...it's so bad! I know, I laughed at the jokes -- and yeah, the part with the head was kinda scary and gross, and I guess the disembodied head scene was supposed to be scary and gross, so...but it's such a terrible movie! What do you mean, do I think the jokes were intentional? Of course! But the movie is just...so bad!"

I hear this argument against movies just about every week. Sure, I know zombie cinema isn't quite held up there with great epics like "Lawrence of Arabia" and "Spartacus," but what makes a movie genuinely bad? Anyone? Class? Okay, I'll even put it in caps and center-align it for you, so you can look it up when you have trouble remembering it:

A BAD MOVIE IS A MOVIE THAT FAILS TO DO WHAT IT SETS OUT TO DO.

That's probably not enough. I'll put it in bold, too.

A BAD MOVIE IS A MOVIE THAT FAILS TO DO WHAT IT SETS OUT TO DO.

Now, there are some arguments that run tangent with this one, such as the argument of The Fallacy of Intention, which states that no matter what we think, we cannot truly know what the filmmaker was intending to do with the film. We only know what comes along with the text itself, what actually occurs in the film itself. That's usually enough to help judge the quality of what's onscreen. If, say, Michael Keaton's "Mr. Mom" had started in the beginning to be a desert epic, and then accidentally settled into domestic role-reversal comedy, we can reasonably say that it was a pretty shitty desert epic. Or at least a movie with serious tonal problems.

If, say, "Return of the Living Dead" had funny parts that were funny, and gross parts that served the story as gross parts, then it's working. Period. Bad movies are movies that don't work. If "Return of the Living Dead" wasn't funny when it presented 'funny' parts, and the gross stuff wasn't really gross, then it would be a bad (or at least medicore) movie. I can say, then, with a great amount of conviction, that "Return of the Living Dead" is a good movie. It just happens to be a good zombie movie, sadly existing in a genre that's not very well-respected.

"This movie sucks! I can't believe you watched it more than once! The special effects are just terrible, and the actors seem like they stumbled in from an even worse movie! Okay, fine, I'll give you that -- it's got nice cinematography. And the colors are pretty."

Sometimes I do watch movies that are bad. It's unfortunate. I seek out obscure films, hoping to find something a little special, and it's inevitable that they will not all hold up under intense scrutiny. Considering that I'm always watching movies, which is a considerable time and money-draining experience, I like to make the best of things. It's a lot like having relationships with actual people; sometimes you have to overlook their flaws, and focus on what's good about them. If I didn't do that, cinema would be my most-hated enemy, and I wouldn't have any friends. I will paraphrase three people to make my point, and all three are respected film critics and historians:

1. The late Pauline Kael, of the New York Times:
   "Movies are so rarely great art, that if you can't appreciate great trash, there's little reason for us to go."
   
2. Joel Simon, of the Buffalo News, in his review of a John Carpenter film:
   "Unlike Spielberg, Carpenter couldn't cook Coq Au Vin on his best day -- but man, can he make a great greasy burrito!"
3. Joe Bob Briggs, world's foremost living drive-in movie critic from Grapevine, Texas: "I can find something to like about pretty much any movie, as long as it isn't boring."

I agree. The more that I can find to like about a movie, the less of a waste of time it is. I can still, despite the beliefs of many of my friends, discern between a film that is good and a film that has redeeming bits. For example, "Hysterical" is a really, really bad film -- but it's got three very funny jokes. See? I made a distinction. I can do that! "House of the Dead"? Terrible! But funny because it's terrible. The way that I look at things causes me to get so, so much more enjoyment out of movies than most people, who frequently waste their own time by focusing on the bad stuff.

"This movie is so bad it's good!"

For the last time, some movies are bad! Some movies are good! If a movie works as a film, then it is good, regardless of what it's about, what genre it's in, or who's in it. Bad is bad! Good is good!

Now, after that refresher lesson, I will state: no movie is so bad it is good. It may be enjoyable because it's bad, but that does not make it good. Now, a lot of the time, people will apologize for a film's flaws by saying that 'it's so bad it's good' -- except they don't mean that. They usually mean that they really like it despite its weaknesses, they still enjoy the parts that work. I don't care how many times anyone watches "Moonlight and Valentino," it is not now and never will be enjoyed for the same reasons that people watch "House of the Dead" for.

Finally, in case you're wondering, I do take this pretty seriously. Why, you're asking -- it's only movies, after all!

I take it seriously because it's extremely disrespectful to judge something or someone based on standards that don't actually apply to them. It's disrespectful to degrade someone's work because you generalize, and arbitrarily group it with things that it doesn't belong with, in a way that's wholly unfair. It's disrespectful to confuse personal preferences with actual quality. For instance, I don't like pop music as a whole, but I know that there is pop music out there that is good pop music. And that's all it's trying to do. If pop music isn't pushing back the boundaries of acoustic endeavors, well, it doesn't much matter -- it's just supposed to be entertaining to listen to. I can't ask it to be more than that, but if it does turn out better, then everybody wins!

In conclusion, if anyone ever calls "Return of the Living Dead" a bad movie, then I will absolutely kill them if they even try to defend "The Last Unicorn."

Welcome to Reviews To Astonish !

People that know me also know that I watch a lot of movies. And saying that I watch a lot of movies is like saying that the Grinch had a little anxiety about Christmas. The fact is that I almost never stop watching movies; at almost any given point in the evening, you can find me in my bedroom with a movie playing in the background, which makes it hard to find time to bathe.

And what happens to all this cinema that I absorb? It just builds up and builds up until I just can't resist explaining the backstory about how "Return of the Living Dead" was almost directed by Tobe Hooper instead of Dan O'Bannon, and how the original producers settled the title lawsuit with George Romero. And then whoever I'm telling the story to reminds me that yes, of course they know who George Romero is, because I wouldn't shut up about the mise en scene of "Day of the Dead." So you see, I have to start a website about movies, because if I didn't the innocents would end up suffering.

Here at Reviews to Astonish you'll eventually find lots and lots of movie reviews, and probably a lot of short essays and articles about movies in general. I have a lot of DVDs to watch, and heaven knows I like to talk about them.

So go get some popcorn, dim the lights, and get comfy in your computer chair...