GOD IS AN ASTRONAUT: THE NINTH CONFIGURATION (1980)

Horror is subjective. Filmmaker Darren Aronofsky once referred to his gut-wrenching drug drama Requiem for a Dream as a horror film. Same for Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood, or Frances Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. There need not be a supernatural presence, a masked antagonist, or a family of cannibals for something to be considered a horror film. Sometimes the characters within the story need to be ailing from horrific misdeeds, or actions, or turmoil within themselves. Sometimes the horror results from an act that our lead character regrets. Sometimes it results from a series of decisions that our lead makes, which set off a chain of events from which there is no coming back, and which will spell doom for everyone connected to him or her. And sometimes the horror comes from a severe religious conflict – a lack of faith by a formerly faithful person. For the second time, that first being The Exorcist, writer/director William Peter Blatty explores the idea of the loss of faith – how horrible it must be to question everything, to discount the notion that such things as “good” may exist in the world, and how hopeless it must be to feel so alone.

High in a mountainous region of the Pacific Northwest resides an old castle, which the American government has appropriated as a mental hospital – called “Center 18” – for its military personnel from the Vietnam War. A stoic and mysterious man named Colonel Hudson Kane (Stacy Keach, Road Games), a former member of a United States Marine Corps special unit, arrives at the castle for his assignment: while there under the guise of overseeing the treatment of all the patients, really he’s been sent to determine if any or all of the patients are actually faking their psychoses to avoid going back to Vietnam. While there he meets Colonel Fell (Ed Flanders, The Exorcist III), a fellow psychiatrist who will be on hand to help Kane settle into his new role. Upon meeting him, the crux of “Center 18” is explained: the confined men are allowed to indulge in their own self-created and ridiculous role-playing fantasies as a means of therapy, and Colonel Fell encourages Kane to play along. Kane agrees, and not just because as the acting psychiatrist he believes in the technique, but because, just maybe, he’s playing a role, too – perhaps he’d been playing one before he ever arrived.

As one might imagine, a cast of colorful characters reside at the castle: there’s Frankie Reno (Jason Miller, The Exorcist), a former lieutenant attempting to put together a Shakespearean stage adaptation …using a cast of dogs; there’s Spinell (Joe Spinell, Maniac), Reno’s number two; there’s Major Nammack (Moses Gunn, Roots), who can be spotted wearing a “Super Nammack” costume; and let’s not forget Fromme (Blatty himself) playing a “System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether”-ish character who earns the film’s first big laugh. This film-quoting, mischief-making band of men will be the ones providing the comic relief, but it will be Captain Billy Cutshaw (Scott Wilson, The Walking Dead), the former astronaut dealing with a crisis of faith, to whom Kane will gravitate, compelled by something unknown to get to the root of Cutshaw’s crisis and find a way to show him that there is good in the world. What occurs between them is an at-times preposterous ping pong game of philosophical debate, peppered with angered accusations, too-calm responses, and proclamations bordering on the absurd. (“The man in the moon fucked my sister!”) Cutshaw insists that no good – and hence, no god – exists in the world; only an instance of selfless self-sacrifice could ever convince him otherwise. Unmet demands that Kane cite just one example of such an instance seems only to bolster Cutshaw’s point. Cutshaw assumes himself to have won, but Kane won’t give in that easily. Though he shares the same jaded and depressing view of the world, he knows there’s enough goodness dwelling within it to cancel out the bad. He knows that the shepherd will sacrifice himself for the good of his flock. He just has to find a way to prove it.

The most remarkable thing about The Ninth Configuration is its blending together of multiple genres: drama, thriller, war, comedy, horror, existentialism, and for good measure, gothic mystery. It’d be difficult to point to one or two of these genres and say “it’s mostly this” because that’s utterly untrue. The film never stops being dramatic, comedic, thrilling, horrific, existential, or mysterious; instead, all of those genres work together in tandem to create the experience that is this wild, quirky, and inexplicable film culled entirely from the imagination of William Peter Blatty. At first based on an original novel called Twinkle, Twinkle, “Killer” Kane, it was then turned into a screenplay, which was then turned into a new novel, The Ninth Configuration. Rarely does it occur when there are two versions of the same book, by the same author, that are similar enough to be considered the same story, but different enough for those two stories to be told in such unique ways. The fate of the film, too, shares the fate of the book – several different cuts of the film have been circulating all over the world since its original theatrical debut, though the director’s preferred version wouldn’t “exist” until the 2001 DVD release by Warner Bros.

I say with distaste that the world will forever remember Scott Wilson as Herschel from The Walking Dead (and indeed, he was the best thing about it), but the actor has been a remarkable performer for nearly fifty(!) years, hitting the scene big with a one-two punch of In the Heat of the Night and In Cold Blood. In The Ninth Configuration, he’s given both his weightiest character and a rare lead role. Much like the dearly departed Robin Williams, Wilson retains that uncanny ability to make you laugh even as you can see in his eyes that he’s not laughing along with you. Though the most absurd dialogue flows from his mouth, there’s something festering inside him that hints at a profound sadness. His Cutshaw is haunted by the notion of being completely alone, and out there in the confines of space – the closest man will perhaps ever physically get to the perceived location of heaven – he wanted to feel closer to God. Instead, he felt more abandoned than ever. His mental breakdown unknowingly put him on the journey to meeting Keach’s Colonel Kane, a man who will prove to him that there is goodness in the world – even if he has to die trying.

Speaking of, Stacy Keach, playing “the greatest fucking psychiatrist since Jung,” is another actor rarely given a lead role, and he’s never been as good as he is here. For so much of the film, his performance is incredibly muted – almost artificially so – as if he’s just awoken from a very long sleep. But over time you will see him become reborn into something else – something more riveting, unhinged, exploding with passion. In one particular scene, he exudes such an immense magnitude of anger that his eyes fill with tears and his entire body shakes without control, and all while wearing a Nazi uniform. (It makes sense in context, trust me.) It’s an especially powerful scene in an especially powerful film. But then again, in the same film, he’s capable of delivering extremely melancholic monologues – musings on the very world to which he is trying to re-introduce his patients, but one that he himself doesn’t seem to entirely understand:

“Maybe we are just fish out of water. I just think about… sickness… cancer in children… earthquakes, war, painful death. Death. Just death. If these things are just part of our natural environment, why do we think of them as evil? Why do they horrify us so? Unless we were meant for someplace else. I don’t think evil grows out of madness. I think madness grows out of evil.”

Really, the entire cast work perfectly – each for their own parts, and as one unit of an ensemble: Jason Miller, Moses Gun, Tom Atkins, Robert Loggia, Richard Lynch, Neville Brand – it’s a who’s who of under-appreciated cult actors that should enthuse any appreciating film fan. (And let’s not forget Joe Spinell, who plays a character not present in any iteration of the literary story, but who flat-out told Blatty he wanted to be in the film, to which Blatty replied, “Well, all right,” and invited him to the set to ad-lib all his lines – hence his character’s name being “Spinell.”)

Nothing about The Ninth Configuration is extraneous or exploitative. Every scene – every exchange of dialogue, no matter how absurd – matters. It’s all urging the story toward its conclusion. One scene in particular between Miller and Keach – the “Hamlet theory” scene – really sums up the entire film. In the famous Shakespeare play, based on his eccentric behavior, there are two interpretations: either Hamlet is crazy, or he’s merely pretending to be. So the question posed to the two psychiatrists: is Hamlet crazy?

Kane says yes.

Fell says no.

Miller’s Reno smiles at them. “You’re both wrong.”

For a film in which it seemed actors had played musical chairs with their roles before finally settling on the character each would be playing, everyone hits home with their respective contributions and every one of the supporting character actors seem to be having a lot of fun. What sounds like what must have been chaos (and according to Tom Atkins, many of the actors felt stranded in the middle of nowhere in their shooting locale of Budapest, taking to drinking and fucking around to blow off steam) results in strong ensemble work where everyone plays off each other extremely well.

One of the biggest disservices in life seems to be that, except for this film, as well as the very underrated The Exorcist III, William Peter Blatty has remained away from the director’s chair. Though he continued to write until his death last year, he was an extremely focused and particular filmmaker. In a way, only the author of the source novel(s) could have been the one to bring this story to visual life. The divergent tone – comedy one minute and tragedy the next – would have sent many filmmakers scurrying, and when the dark and effective scenes were afoot, Blatty had only small bouts of limited screen time to convey his point. A man who once considered joining the priesthood, Blatty’s body of work has a strong (but not preachy) religious tone. It was Father Karras in The Exorcist (Jason Miller in the film) who was suffering a crisis of faith, even as he was looking the devil right in the face. And it would soon be Detective Kinderman in Legion (George S. Scott in The Exorcist III) as he confronted the long-dead Gemini Killer, and who was also struggling to find goodness and decency in the world. Here, it’s Captain Cutshaw (who actually appears in The Exorcist – the astronaut at the cocktail party whom Regan tells, “You’re gonna die up there”), a fractured and terrified man who has let the evils of the world overtake him and shake his sense of faith.

There are as many scenes brimming with comedy as there are those filled with intense drama and disturbing content. Kane’s reoccurring dream of his twin brother, the once-titular “Killer Kane,” having killed a young Vietnamese soldier in the midst of the war – garroting him so fiercely that he inadvertently removes the boy’s head (“I cut off his head with a wire, but he kept talking.”) – is extremely disconcerting in its staging. And though it technically takes place in another film (Blatty’s own adaptation of Legion, retitled by the studio as The Exorcist III), he crafted perhaps the greatest and most effective jump scene likely since the ending of Carrie. In fact, it’s the lame and studio-mandated third-act exorcism that handicaps the original intended finale and results in preventing The Exorcist III from achieving the same level of perfection as its infamous predecessor. But it’s one image in particular, found at the top of this article, that will become synonymous with The Ninth Configuration – another dream, this one of Cutshaw, afraid of what he might find, or not find, on his voyage into space.

Anyone who knows me is aware that I’m not a religious person, but I do believe in “live and let live.” Believe in God, a god, or many gods, as much as you want, so long as you keep your faith and devotion an exclusive part of your life. Alternately, if you don’t accept that there’s another world beyond our own – one in the spiritual realm – that’s also your prerogative. But again, that is your belief to keep, so keep it as such. At times I’ve either bore witness to or participated myself in the sporadic “is there? vs. isn’t there?” debate, and eventually threw up my hands and said “I have no idea, and neither do you.” To claim you know there’s a God reeks of just as much arrogance as to claim you know there is not. In time, we’ll both find out. Like ghosts or reincarnation or fucking Bigfoot, those questions are bigger than me, and are not for me to answer.

I bring this up for one very significant reason: there’s a strong religious backbone throughout The Ninth Configuration – not in that corny Kirk Cameron kind of way, but in a more existential and philosophical way – an “important” kind of way. Ultimately, though the film is about the tortured Captain Cutshaw regaining the faith he lost, and though the dialogue revolves around the existence of God (whom Cutshaw refers to as “the all-knowing, all-powerful Foot”), really it comes down to that age-old conflict of good versus evil. From the point of view of a decidedly non-religious person, I state unequivocally that the film is intensely moving. I recall being brought to tears upon my very first viewing of it, which was years ago, courtesy of an old tattered VHS I had found in a junk shop somewhere and brought home strictly for the pedigree of talent involved. It’s since become one of my favorite films.

Considering The Ninth Configuration is attached to the same man who wrote the novel and subsequent screenplay for The Exorcist – still cited as the scariest film of all time, a multiple Academy-Award winner, a box-office smash – one would have assumed that the film had been treated with a comparable reverence and confidence during its initial release. Far more writers are given risky opportunities by major studios these days if their previous films have been proven moneymakers. Whether it’s a changing studio system, the bizarre uniqueness of the story, or just plain old bad luck for William Peter Blatty, The Ninth Configuration never achieved mainstream popularity, and it never will. But, in a home video market that’s dying a slow death, here’s hoping it manages to find a few more folks before retiring to that big “Center 18” in the sky (whether or not it exists).

LISTEN TO SATANIC DOO WOP

For fans of: Chelsea Wolfe, Amy Winehouse, Postmodern Jukebox, and Satan, the Prince of Darkness.

From Twin Temple's website:

Everybody knows that the Devil has all the best tunes. From Robert Johnson selling his soul at the crossroads to the blood-soaked black metal of Norway, Satan has long loomed large over the music world, striking fear into the hearts of the sanctimonious. But nothing that has gone before will prepare you for the arrival of Twin Temple: Los Angeles’ one and only purveyors of Satanic Doo-Wop. Devout Satanists and meticulous preservers of rock’n’roll’s ancient, timeless spirit, this black-clad and effortlessly stylish duo have created a sound that blends their Satanic ideology with the irresistible sass and melody of classic ‘50s and ‘60s rock ‘n’roll. The result is Twin Temple (Bring You Their Signature Sound…Satanic Doo-Wop), a debut album that not only serves to salute the Dark One, but also delivers some of the catchiest and coolest music to emerge from any genre in years.

BRAINSCAN (1994)

You can tell just from watching Brainscan that its makers were desperate to create their own money-printing Freddy Krueger slasher villain. Considering that Brainscan ultimately comes off sillier than Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare, the nadir of that series and ultimately the end result of a softening/sillying of its lead boogeyman that eventually killed the franchise, it’s no surprise audiences weren’t eager to see Brainscan’s lead techno-monster come back for additional installments.

Besides, it’s difficult to generate any real fear when your villain, called Trickster, resembles the lead singer of ‘80s Eurodisco band Silent Circle:

The ‘90s were a ripe time for film exploring mega-overblown concerns about computers. Just ask Brainscan lead boy Edward Furlong, who put himself on the map as the very first John Connor in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. But for every major title like that, there are dozens of B-movies that were begging audiences, “Be afraid of your personal computer!” The Ghost in the Machine explored similar tactics, as did an outlandish sequence in the otherwise sex thriller Disclosure, during which Michael Douglas, while VR-ing into a private network, is pursued by a Michael Myers-like 2D avatar of Demi Moore. Then there was Hackers, The Lawnmower Man, Johnny Mnemonic, Virtuosity, and more than one episode of The X-Files. And let’s not forget The Net, which, to its credit, started out as unbelievable tripe but eventually became sadly prophetic in our new age of rampant identity theft.

Brainscan stands head and shoulders above these titles as being the absolute stupidest, but I’ll be — the filmmakers seem to be taking this concept seriously. I don’t know what’s stranger: that a humanoid manifestation of a murderous video game begins stalking an underage boy while simultaneously eating all his bananas, or that Frank Langella is in this at all.

If Brainscan has anything going for it, besides how hilariously dated it already is, it’s the grisly violence, which can come off at-odds when juxtaposed against a silly concept (and sillier villain). I almost wish it had been a box office hit because I’m dying to know what a Brainscan 6: Virtual Mortality would look like.

If you yearn for ‘90s horror cinema, you’re weird, but you’re also in luck, because Brainscan is the most ‘90s horror title there is: the computers are just blocky enough, the soundtrack just Butthole Surfers enough, and the visual effects just terrible enough to make you stand up and scream, “the ‘90s are back! Someone get me my cordless phone!”

HANGMAN (2017)

From the opening moments, you can just feel that Hangman is going to suck. Before you catch a single lousy performance, or a sampling of overwrought directing, the sense of mediocrity to come is innately palpable. You could call this snap reaction either snobbish elitism, preconceived notion, or uncanny intuition. I don’t care — whatever. Regardless, it’s not going to turn Hangman into anything other than the tired, silly, and twenty-years-late ripoff of Se7en that it’s obviously vying to be.

Not a single name in the cast gives you that hope of, “Hey, this could be good!” Karl Urban’s name is not synonymous with quality. Nor is that of Brittany Snow, who Prom-Night-remaked herself into the mainstream before ending up in almost exclusively quiet VOD releases (unless it’s a Pitch Perfect sequel) because she’s simply not a strong performer. And then, of course, there’s Al Pacino. Ironically, he and his counterpart, Robert De Niro, have been considered kindred spirits throughout their entire time in Hollywood: the actors (both of whom appeared in The Godfather II) became linked not just because of their cultural lineage and tough mafia guy personas, but because of their brooding intensities and dedications to their craft. (That Heat came along later and brought them together yet again, resulting in simply one of the all time greats, solidified this bond between them.) But, like De Niro, Pacino has been rubber stamping everything that’s come his way.

Hangman is no exception, and it’s really odd to see Pacino slumming it in this particular flick, being that it offers zero intrigue or uniqueness; there’s no obvious draw for him, and offers him absolutely nothing new. Was it the chance to play a cop, even though he’s already played a cop seven times before? The chance to play a homicide detective who regrets his past choices while hunting a serial killer? He did that in Insomnia. Another homicide detective chasing down a gimmicky serial killer? He did that too, in 88 Minutes. So why return to this well? The chance to, what, work with the venerable Karl Urban — the guy from Red? Or maybe he just wanted to vacation in beautiful Atlanta. No, wait — I’ve got it: it was the chance for Pacino to try on a southern accent that doesn’t sound at all convincing. And speaking of unconvincing, Pacino is flat-out bad here. Obviously, he’s made bad films in the past — name me one actor who hasn’t — but even in any of those bad films you can conjure, at least Pacino was good in them. In Hangman, he’s bad. It’s like he knew right off the bat that Hangman was doomed — in the hands of a workman director eager to show off every film school trick, and being released by a studio who needed to fill their February slot in the Redbox at the local ACME — so why bother putting in a good performance?

Hangman is every bit cop movie that you’ve come to expect. And if you’re hoping that it has that scene where a homicide detective shows up to a crime scene and asks the coroner examining the body, “Whaddya got?,” well, you’re in luck. Everything about Hangman is dull, and generic, and simply uninteresting. The only thing it tries to do that’s the least bit different is add a journalist into the mix who basically rides along with our detectives from crime scene to crime scene to obtain research and insights for an article she wants to write. And that I’ll totally buy. What I won’t buy is that this journalist follows the detectives directly into danger — into houses where suspects are hiding, where blood was spilled and where her ignorance could very well contaminate evidence, and where she actually puts herself in harm’s way to help catch a suspect. There’s nothing believable about this — and if this does actually go on in the real world of law enforcement, we have major problems.

The film only momentarily comes to life when the killer is prominently introduced in the last act (and to give Hangman credit, it at least takes another page out of Se7en and introduces a new character instead of hamfistedly and impossibly revealing the killer had been a main member of the cast). The killer, as played by the underrated Joe Anderson (The Grey), has awful motivations and his link to one of the main characters is hazy and unconvincing, but Anderson still manages to shine through all that and bring to the table something resembling an actual performance — which is more than can be said for anyone else in this garbage.

Potential viewers, you’ve seen Hangman a hundred times already — all of them, even the worst of them, much better than this. 

In fact:

_______

|            |

|            O

|           /|\

|            |

|           / \

__________

I  T    B L O W S

ONLY AS HEALTHY

I tried several times to call her, but after the first call, she wouldn't come to the phone any longer. 

I also sent flowers but with no luck. 

The smell of the flowers only made me sicker. 

The headaches got worse. 

I think I got stomach cancer. 

I shouldn't complain though. 

You're only as healthy, 

you're only as healthy as you feel. 

You're only as... 

healthy... 

as... 

you... 

feel.

THE CURSE OF DOWNERS GROVE (2015)

A high school student, clearly under the influence, climbs up a water tower.

His drunk compatriots cheer him from down below.

He begins shimmying across the very thin metal piping.

He slips. He falls. He smashes his head open on the hard ground.

Two girls step up, horrified. "It's the fucking curse!" one of them states.

Roll opening credits.

This is The Curse of Downers Grove, and it’s very, very stupid. (It's also "based on a true story," which means at one point a high school senior died through his or her own idiocy.)

Chrissie (Bella Heathcote, a 28-year-old still playing a high school senior) lives in Downers Grove, a town allegedly cursed, in that seniors on the cusp of graduating seem to die awful deaths. The curse isn't just something the kids whisper about, but the parents, too, seem well aware of it, so much that it gives Chrissie's mother (Helen Slater) pause for leaving her and her little brother alone for the week. 

She does though because the plot demands it.

At the urging of Chrissie's friend, Tracy, the two attend a party in the next town over where Chrissie meets Chuck (Kevin Zeggers, who at 31 is still playing high school seniors). Chuck is bad news, since every shot has him flashing smile-glares at the camera set to ominous music. After he sexually assaults her, Chrissie pokes him in the eye like Curly and peaces out, leaving Chuck to scream and get his ass handed to him by his father, played by a pantsless Tom Arnold. 

Conflict ensues because the plot demands it.

The film's marketing is quick to point out that The Curse of Downers Grove is co-written by American Psycho author Bret Easton Ellis, whose bland, sardonic prose ("The suburbs are the ghettos of the meaningless)" is all over this mess, along with his unsubtle methods for dissecting and exploring sub-cultures of society. It's desperate to put the suburbs under the microscope a la David Lynch's Blue Velvet and reveal it for all the hidden evils and depravity that allegedly thrive beneath the surface, only it fails by not doing a blessed thing with the concept beyond having high school kids act like total dicks while living in suburbia.

Derick Martini's direction and the Easton Ellis-co-written script seem to be battling for the most irritating and pretentious component of the film, and both are winning. A film whose concept is built on the grounds of a mysterious curse would rather spend time with boring, unscary, teen-rape drama, or teen boys getting in fights, than dedicate its running time to anything else. Including random scenes of something foreboding, only for one character to glance at another and say "It's the curse" seems to be as far as the film is willing to go to acknowledge it's based on an idea it completely abandons beyond cursory references to it. Where it lacks in the level of class and uniqueness presented in the suburban-set and far superior It Follows, it makes up for with lame and pedestrian editing techniques; i.e., inverting footage of characters and adding BUZZ noise - the ultimate effect being one cheap film-school trick away from exposing everyone's skeletons via x-ray as if this were a cartoon from the 1950s. And wait a minute, you mean to say this sequence over here shows someone in black and white, but someone's eyes are in color? Welcome to the “Neat Effects!” section of Shutterfly's website.

But that's not all! Quick cuts of barking dogs! Tombstones! Squawking birds! War-painted stabbing Indians! "It's the curse." Do you feel the fear?

Of course not. 

Martini is more interested in stealing quick-zoom, music-driven shots from Scorsese's playbook*, or trying to sell his film as "horror" while doing his best to circumvent any of its traditions and flat-out channel the aesthetic of Larry Clark, only to fail spectacularly. Or this might be because Easton Ellis is less interested in fleshing out his satirical look at horror and more interested in delicious, delicious irony: a quarterback gets his eye popped out; a drummer gets his wrist broken. Can you see all the futures being destroyed? Can you see that everyone is cursed? Do you even care? Though the script attempts to flesh out its characters beyond walking horror stereotypes, it ultimately, serves only to repeat the same tired ideas and personalities seen so many times before. If Chrissie questioning the existence of a God because bad things happen (like war!) isn't tired enough, spend some time with her smart alecky younger brother (Martin Sanjers), who has a serious crush on Chrissie's BFF and thinks the best way to express his affection for her is by leering like a pervert.

Further, the avoidance of "plot holes" are dealt with in the laziest ways possible. For instance, of course Chrissie's going to the cops to report her attempted rape. But, upon telling them the name of her would-be rapist, the two duty officers exchange a look before blatantly admitting that he's the son of a fellow officer (Tom Arnold), and they're not going to help her. (Tremendous poker faces,  fellas.) Obviously this cop/dad revelation is established early on so that it can return at a later time, and affect the conflict in a significant way haha just kidding. The writers just needed to plug that little hole. The very uncop-like Chuck Sr. may now get back to drinking on the couch with no pants and using way too much profanity.

Martini is too busy peppering every few scenes with AHHH! moments to wrangle any semblance of life from his cast, so every performance is mostly terrible, ranging from bland lifelessness to complete, over-the-top unconvincingness. Not helping is that the only person in the cast with any recognition is Tom Arnold, whose gleefully stupid appearances amount to only two scenes, both during which he's abusing his son in one way or another**. Heathcote as your lead does marginally well, unless she's providing Easton Ellis' go-to voice-over -- during these points, she sounds like she's about to roll over in bed and fall back asleep. One particular monologue that may be attempting to set up a red herring for "the curse" manages the impressive feat of offering lazy exposition as shamelessly forced as it is lifelessly recited: "I've been dreaming about Indians since I was a little girl. Maybe it's because our town was built on land that was stolen from the Indians in 1832. I can't help but wonder if this has something to do with the curse...but if that were case, then all of America would be cursed. Maybe we all are." Mm, maybe. As for Kevin Zeggers as Chuck, he's way evil and way unlikable! Watch as he drinks a beer and throws the bottle aside! Watch as he injects steroids into his muscles and throws the needle aside! Watch as he screams in fury as he lifts weights! Do not trust him! He's evil!

The Curse of Downers Grove really wants to posit the one and only question it thinks matters: what is the cause of the curse? Is it supernatural, or is it caused, of all things, by teenagers' freakishly uncontrollable angst-driven sexual urges? Can fate be escaped, or is it written in the stars and destined to occur?

Say, I have a question of my own: why is this being sold as a horror film instead of the tepid Lifetime Network nonsense that it actually is?

In the film's first act, Chrissie states, "Don't try to understand everything, because some things don't make sense."

If only I'd listened.

---

* FYI: Zooming in on Ray Liotta snorting cocaine to hard-hitting Muddy Waters > zooming in on Kevin Zeggers snorting cocaine to a song whose lyrics are "party ova here! party ova here! party ova here!"

** If there's one sole reason to ever sit through The Curse of Downers Grove, it's to see Tom Arnold's character beating the shit out of Chuck while asking him multitudes of questions as he does so, to which his son offers the most incorrect answer possible. ("What the fuck happened to your eye?"  "Nothing!" "Can you see?" No!" "Do you know what that does to your fucking football career?"  "No, I don't know!" "They don't even hire a fucking one-eyed mascot!" "I know!" "Dammit!") Then Zeggers gets thrown into a tub. It's glorious, and the anger of Tom Arnold during this sequence nearly matches my own experienced while suffering through the entire film.

ROAD GAMES (1981)

Director Richard Franklin was known in his native homeland of Australia as “Australia’s Hitchcock,” and that’s not because he was a filmmaker who made notable genre fare, but because, like another noted genre filmmaker, Brian De Palma, Franklin was fascinated by Hitchcock’s techniques and sensibilities and adopted them into his own work. His most direct tie to Hitchcock was his helming of Psycho 2, a belated sequel following 18 years after Hitchcock’s landmark horror shocker. A few years later, Franklin would take a script by well-known Australian screenwriter Everett de Roche (Razorback) and bring it to life as a Rear Window-meets-road-movie hybrid, imbuing it with Hitchcock’s famous themes of paranoia and isolation, along with his use of dark humor and quirky supporting characters.

Road Games gets mentioned a lot when notable 1980s horror titles are being rattled off, especially when that conversation is based around all the horror flicks Jamie Lee Curtis did in her youth to earn the moniker “Scream Queen,” but not only is she not present in a majority of the film, the horror is actually toned down quite a bit in favor of thrills, mystery, and black humor. And despite Road Games being an Australian production which happens to feature some American actors, along with being an obvious homage to Hitchcock, the film also fits right in with ’70s American cinema, unofficially known as the paranoid thriller era. Films like The Conversation, The French Connection, Marathon Man, and more were direct results of the Nixon/Watergate scandal, and the cinematic response was one that would also soon be revitalized by The X-Files, whittled down into one core lesson: trust no one. 

The reason Road Games fits in well with this movement is that for a good portion of the film, Stacy Keach’s Quid is doing nothing more than following his paranoid instincts on what he may have witnessed. It’s not a slam dunk for him from the beginning; he’s not convinced that he’s witnessed anything nefarious, or if he is convinced, he doesn’t have enough evidence to back it up. What he does figure out pretty quickly is that law officials are no help, and all the blokes and sheilas who overhear his frantic demands for help on the bar payphone are not only not overly concerned, but they look upon him with suspicion. There’s an indirect subplot involving a worker’s strike going on in Australia which has resulted in meat becoming scarce, but also leaving natives incredibly wary of people they don’t know. Obviously this doesn’t help matters — not only is Quid American, but he’s a long-haul truck who happens to have a trailer full of meat. Simply put, no one is eager to help him.

Where Road Games falters is with its pace. The first act unloads at a purposeful but ever-intriguing pace. Through Quid’s observations, we “meet” all the other characters on the road around him, and this isn’t for throwaway comedy, but because we will cross paths with these characters again later. It’s through this observational behavior (because what else is there to do on the road besides stare straight ahead and talk to a dingo?) that Quid thinks he may have witnessed a murder — or, at least, a potential murder. Quid fixates on the maybe-killer (Grant Page), who will be personified by his dirty black hippie van for most of the film. It’s when we’re approaching the middle of the second act, after Jamie Lee has hitched Quid for a ride (her nickname is “Hitch” throughout — which serves two purposes: character nickname and Hitchcock homage), where the pace starts to slow. Keach and Curtis have reasonably good on-screen chemistry, and watching them get to know each other is charming, but once Hitch mysteriously vanishes, and Quid begins to question what’s really going on is when Road Games slows to a near halt. After having built such good will with the audience, and provided them with reasons to be as intrigued with the plot as Quid is with that dirty green van, the air is let out of all the goings-on; even as Road Games struggles to get back on track, and it eventually does, too much time is spent waiting for that to happen.

Still, what allows Road Games to speed across the finish line as an overall entertaining contribution to the genre is its identity, helped by the quirky sensibilities of Richard Franklin. Had Road Games been just another slasher flick, but plagued with the same second-act slowdown, it would be just a footnote in the genre timeline. Even though Franklin’s intent was to homage one of the horror greats using an open-road concept, it’s his likeness — far less known to American audiences — that make Road Games a film that’s not willing to be outright dismissed. It’s a flawed film for sure, and some viewers might not have the patience to spend most of their time watching a man riding around in the cab of a truck, but there’s a reason why Road Games has stuck around for so long. Equal measures of mystery, thrills, intrigue, and black humor make Road Games stand out from the rest of its ’80s colleagues, even if it doesn’t play as well as some of them.

Road Games is an offbeat title and definitely not for everyone. The Hitchcock flair is certainly present, both in construction and realization, but also in its usage of black comedy. Though its considered one of the many titles that made Jamie Lee Curtis a “Scream Queen,” her appearance lasts no more than 25 minutes, leaving Keach to carry most of the screen time. (Okay, him and his dingo.) Its pace might be too glacial for some, and its odd tone may turn off those more used to traditional genre fare, but there’s something undeniably quirky about Road Games that makes it easily watchable. 

THE BLOB (1988)

Ah, The Blob. A film that harkens back to that magical time in horror history when films were remade because someone had a good idea and a good approach, instead of saying, "Well, it's been five years. Let's remake it again."

Long a childhood favorite of mine, for not only terrifying me to death and keeping me away from all kinds of drains for days, but also for introducing me to my first ever horror crush, Shawnee Smith, The Blob works as well now as it did then. Normally the things that would hold back a lesser picture, including the dated (but still perfectly acceptable) special effects and the hilarious fashions, The Blob has always been good enough to surpass those shortcomings caused by the passing of time and still present a fun, nasty, gooey, and ultimately harmless good time.

You all know this one: a meteor carrying a strange jell-o substance from space (or was it?) crash lands on Planet Earth and begins gooing up its inhabitants. Only one man it seems can stop them, even though dozens try. That man is the hilariously-haired Kevin Dillon and the still-adorable Shawnee Smith (call me!).

Because of the time in which it was made, The Blob relies solely on practical and in-camera effects, only resorting to opticals for a couple scenes. (They've been trying to get a new version of The Blob off the ground for years, and once it arrives, I can only imagine the absurd amount of CGI that will be sliming across silver screens everywhere.) To tell someone who's never seen it that a space-foreign (or is it???) slime begins to suck people into itself, where it strips flesh from their bones and causes the blob to increase in size and oh by the way it's actually scary at times—the end of that conversation doesn't bode well. Because of its concept, and because it’s an ‘80s flick, it’s easy to think that The Blob is a light, silly, and inconsequential good time, but it actually has a lot in common with John Carpenter’s The Thing, in that it goes for the throat in unexpected ways and highlights some pretty grisly practical effects. The Blob not only manages to work just with its concept, but in spite of it; it also has no qualms in breaking some serious horror-film taboos. It eats a kid! A kid! Take that, kid!

A wonderful cast of character actors fill the background, including a regular of Frank Darabont (co-writer on The Blob) named Jeffrey DeMunn, who appeared in both The Shawshank Redemption as the lawyer who sends Andy Dufresne to his fate, and one of the guards in The Green Mile. Oh, he also played Dale in The Walking Dead. Perhaps you've heard of it. And perhaps you knew he'd been acting for thirty years before he played a filthy man in a bucket hat for which he'll now always be known (on Twitter). (Bitter hipster fan-boy rant over.)

The Blob is a classic. It's rare to say that a remake of something is a classic, and also bests the original. But this edition of The Blob is, and has. 

[Reprinted from Daily Grindhouse.]

TALES FROM THE HOOD 2 (2018)

Of all the horror films in the world seemingly the least likely to receive a sequel, 1995’s Tales from the Hood tops that list. That it’s coming 23 years later adds to the already unexpected decision to revisit the concept of a racially- and socially-infused horror anthology for modern audiences. The creative team behind the original film, director/co-writers Rusty Cundieff and Darin Scott, and executive producer Spike Lee, all return for a second dose of anthological horror, this time hosted by genre legend Keith David (taking over for Clarence Williams III, who I assume opted not to return, but who did agree to appear in the creative duo's other anthological horror effort, American Nightmares, which according to general reputation is apparently even worse than what was to come).

From the get-go, Tales from the Hood 2 is established on a very shaky and corny premise: the mysterious Portifoy Simms (Keith David), who credits himself as the world’s foremost storyteller, is summoned by the U.S. government to tell stories to a robot (I’m not kidding) in order to enhance its decision-making capabilities. And also from the get-go, Tales from the Hood 2 isn’t willing to ease into its subtext: the man in charge of this secret robot, a stern, Mike Pence-looking Caucasian, is immediately racist directly to Simms’ face, even falling back on the clichéd use of “your kind.” Simms lets this go by mostly uncontested, because he knows his super scary stories are going to somehow ruin all the lives of evil racist white people everywhere, so with each dismissive and hateful comment, Simms has a story to go along with it. Said Evil White Racist Man is also a sexual harasser, which allows Tales from the Hood 2 to include a #MeToo reference with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer:

“He treats all the women who work here like that.”

“You too?”

“Me too.”

Clever, fellas. Real clever.

What makes Tales from the Hood 2 so disappointing is that, strictly from the standpoint of sheer entertainment, it looks cheap, not helped by its cast of total unknowns (and Keith David), but it also pales in comparison to its predecessor in every way. David is great as the storyteller, but never reaches the maddening heights of Clarence Williams III, who so attacked his role head-on that he would conjure heavy sheens of sweat during his most fiery moments. 

Despite the tongue-in-cheek title and marketing campaign (a sunglasses-wearing skull with a gold tooth, which returns for this entry as well), the first Tales from the Hood was not at all going for humor, unless of course you count the gallows kind. Corbin Bernsen’s segment from the original was funny because of the outlandish situation, not because the film at any point was elbowing you in the side and saying, “Eh? Eh??” Meanwhile, in Tales from the Hood 2, a racist white girl not meaning to be racist ends up having sex with a vintage racist doll called a Golly Gee meant to offensively represent an African American, which gropes at her ass in super close-up, only to have its devil spawn, which is many many more Golly Gee dolls. And then there’s the story about a Tinder-esque double-date spearheaded by two practiced rapists who plan on drugging their dates and recording the sex crimes they’re way too excited to commit before an obvious plot twist reveals their female dates to be vampires. Vampires who were ALSO PREYING ON VICTIMS. Can you stand the subtext? And are we really still doing vampire twist endings after previous anthology 20-year-old series like Tales from the Crypt and even Are You Afraid of the Dark? already did the same?

From the onset, the mere idea of a Tales from the Hood 2 didn’t seem like a good idea, but having seen the original somewhat recently really made me realize two things: one, it was far better than I remembered, and two, it handled prescient issues with a more sure footing and an appreciated sincerity. Sadly, even though it’s coming up on 23 years old, the stories from the original, which focused on black-on-black violence, racist police officers, and outwardly racist politicians still feels more applicable to our modern societal and political landscape than its brand new sequel, which feels dated right out of the box and in way too much of a hurry to tackle every social issue currently plaguing us.

I’m hopeful that the release of this title will attract an audience to its far superior predecessor, and I’m also hopeful that they won’t assume it looks like its sequel: a cheap looking production peppered with unsubtle storytelling and broad humor.

Tales of the Hood 2 has one thing going for it and it’s named Keith David; by film’s end, when he reveals himself to be the devil (or something — assumedly the same whatever something that Williams III was), you can’t help but smile at how silly it all is, but then that moment is ruined when you realize the previous 90 minutes, which was supposed to be horrifically fun but also socially responsible, was just as silly.

NIGHT DANGER

I love this.

TALES FROM THE HOOD (1995)

The granddaddy of all horror anthologies will always be the George A. Romero/Stephen King collaboration Creepshow, released in 1982, which was a loving homage to the EC Comics line of the 1950s. Borrowing its format from the previous Amicus anthological films, released under the branded titles of those same EC Comics (Tales from the Crypt and The Vault of Horror, specifically), Creepshow presented a handful of stories tied together by what’s become known as the “wraparound” story – at first an introduction to the anthological format, which is slowly revealed to be yet another story with a typically unfortunate resolution for its characters. Anthology films are a tough nut to crack, because their nature leaves them vulnerable to an inconsistent experience. The construction of mini stories will have them pitted against each other for best and worst, scariest and ickiest, etc. No one anthology can claim flawlessness. (Not even the aforementioned Creepshow, because the “meteor shit!” story starring not-at-all-an-actor Stephen King is still one of the worst things of all time.) Creepshow 2 would continue the legacy of its predecessor, dialing back on Romero’s purposeful comic book direction and focusing on a more straightforward horror experience while falling victim to a hampering amount of Capra-esque schmaltz.

Years later, and produced by Spike Lee, Tales from the Hood would come down the pike and result in — quite honestly — the best horror anthology since then...if not ever. Written by X-Files/Millennium writer favorite Darin Scott and director Rusty Cundieff, Tales from the Hood would borrow the same basic construction from the Amicus films of the early ‘70s, along with minor elements from a host of other anthologies, and infuse a detectably angry tone that examines an array of African-American issues. The segments touch on urban crime, drug use, and – depressingly relevant even today – racism within police and political culture. Tales from the Hood, unlike many other urban horror films, wasn’t intent on pandering. It didn’t play up to stereotypes or fall back on cliché. Every story contains both a darkness and a hard truth about being a black man, woman, or child in America. This approach can, at times, make it hard to watch. But, having said that, make no mistake: Tales from the Hood also wants to entertain – in the same way the anthological horrors before it endeavored to do.

“Welcome to My Mortuary” sees a trio of teens dropping by a rundown mortuary where its owner, the mysterious and eccentric Simms (with an incredible performance by Clarence Williams III), apparently has come across a load of drugs and is looking to sell. (Every time he refers to it as “the shit,” it’s undeniably hilarious.) Williams III serves as the de facto Crypt Keeper, in that as they descend deeper into the bowels of the house where “the shit” is stored, he pulls back the lid of a random coffin to reveal the corpse inside – and the insidious tale of horror that put them there. For anthologies that try to beef up their wraparound stories, they generally come off as perfunctory, but the concept of a mortician telling stories about the corpses in his funeral home is a stroke of genius and is the best use of the device I can think of in the genre.

“Rogue Cop Revelation” sees a “routine” pullover of a prominent black politician (played by Creepshow 2’s Tom Wright) by racist white cops (among them Wings Hauser) go very wrong. Similar to the very story from Creepshow 2 which starred Wright, his character is killed and his perpetrators flee, assuming they’ve gotten away from it, but he returns from the dead to set that record straight. And his undead politician manages to be more unnerving than his undead hitchhiker. (Maybe because said undead politician lacks a gigantic flailing puppet tongue.)

“Boys Do Get Bruised” (featuring a role for director Rusty Cundieff) is the only story that doesn’t lend itself specifically to the black experience, instead presenting a young boy named Walter who tells his teacher that “the monster” at his house hurts him at night, which is soon revealed to be an abusive stepfather (played by comedian David Alan Grier). Where it lacks in one regard, that being a uniquely African-American experience, it makes up for with an intense and unflinching look at in-home domestic abuse, with Grier playing an unbelievable and legitimately intimidating bastard. Though the intensity of the story is a little undone by its end, falling back on a sudden and inappropriate silliness, it still results in being the most realistic of the bunch, leaving it very difficult to watch.

“KKK Comeuppance” feels the most traditionally EC Comics – a take on the Zuni doll story from another horror anthology, Trilogy of Terror – which sees an openly racist politician wonderfully played by Corbin Bernsen being stalked through his newly acquired plantation home by a handful of “pickaninny” dolls allegedly possessed by the spirits of all the slaves who died there. As suggested by its name, this story is the most daring, with the audience seeing an obviously racist politician pander to his similarly racist would-be voters in public, producing campaign videos lambasting affirmative action and nearly using the word “spook” in front of reporters. This story’s moral/warning is the most direct, but if you still need convincing, then just wait for the (multiple) scenes where Bernsen’s politician beats paintings and dolls reflecting African Americans with an American flag. It ain’t exactly subtle, though not to the detriment of the film. Much of this story’s power comes from the audience constantly asking, “Should I be enjoying this?” — especially when Bernsen is chasing slave dolls around the house while shouting “you little nigglins!” In 1995, seeing a character portrayed as a former KKK member operating from a plantation house and referring to the black protestors on his lawn as a “damned minstrel show” running for political office might have seemed a bit too over the top – as how could anyone in his or her right mind ever vote for such a sleaze? – but then the 2016 election happened and a tidal wave of self-avowed white supremacists oozed from the cracks, so…let’s move on.

The final story, “Hardcore Convert,” is by far the angriest and carries with it the most significant message of them all...and not one you'd expect. A young black youth nicknamed “Crazy K” is wounded in a street shootout, and after recuperating in prison, agrees to take part in a highly experimental rehabilitation program in exchange for early release. Heavily influenced by the horrors of Jacob’s Ladder, Hellraiser, and A Clockwork Orange, “Hardcore Convert” is little concerned with entertainment value and more focused on nauseating and angering its audience with very real historical images of the massacres committed against black men and women since their earliest days as natives in America, the message being – after all the horrors they have faced – black-on-black crime needs to stop before everyone wipes each other out. Because of the streets-based hook for this story, it also contains the most vibrant use of the film's soundtrack, including the track "Born 2 Die" by hip-hop group Spice 1, which plays during the aforementioned compilation of African-American lynchings and genocide.

Tales from the Hood concludes with a return to the wraparound story, which unfolds in a not-so-surprising way, but also unfolds with a degree of cartoonish insanity that, as the credits roll, will leave a smile on your face. In spite of the anger, frustration, and depravity you’ve already witnessed and experienced, overall, that was the point of Tales from the Hood in the first place – to entertain. And it certainly does.

I have no qualms with saying that Tales from the Hood – easily dismissible thanks to the influx of cheap and trashy urban horror films saturating the DTV market, including its own sequels – ranks as one of the best horror anthologies ever made. Funny when it wants to be, dark when it’s willing to go there, and depressingly more relevant than ever before, Tales from the Hood packs a punch to an almost punishing degree, as each story reveals not just a horror in the streets or of the unknown, but within the mortals who brought those stories to life and who, mostly, succumbed to their own morality. A pseudo-blaxploitation meets horror anthology, Tales from the Hood takes an old approach, injects it with some ingenuity, and creates from it an excellent addition to the genre that has the balls as well as the brains to speak some hard truths. If ever I'm in the mood for anthology horror, I reach for Tales from the Hood almost every time, because it's, quite frankly:

SPIRAL

GOD'S LONELY MAN

Loneliness has followed me my whole life. 

Everywhere. 

In bars, in cars, sidewalks, stores, everywhere. 

There's no escape. 

I'm God's lonely man.

Print source.

THE GREASY STRANGLER (2016)

Sometimes you watch a film. Sometimes a film happens to you. The latter is far less common, but when it does occur, it often makes for an unforgettable experience, regardless of whether you love it or hate it.

The Greasy Strangler is not a film you watch. It’s a film that happens to you.

A quasi would-be love child between Rubber and Wrong director Quentin Dupieux and Adult Swim icons Tim and Eric, The Greasy Strangler is earnestly, joyfully, and relentlessly insane — a smorgasbord of absurdism, gross-out humor, and violence so purposely stupid that it barely registers as offensive. (Oh, and let’s not forget all that disco.) Odd characters wearing odd clothes, saying and doing odd things, and looking like every repulsive “people of Walmart” meme you ever saw — that’s The Greasy Strangler.

Making his feature film directorial debut, Jim Hosking had absolutely no interest in transitioning from the world of short films into a project a bit more traditional. Along with co-writer Toby Harvard, Hosking has created one of the oddest and quirkiest films in recent and not-so-recent memory, filling it with a collection of absolutely loathsome and selfish characters engaging in a Fight Club-ish love/sex triangle so nauseating but conflictingly funny that it actually has the power to make every sexual act known to man kind of silly, and almost an embarrassing activity in which to engage even for the super beautiful.

And I haven’t even mentioned the fact that the patriarch of this queasy threesome, Big Ronnie (a very brave Michael St. Michaels) just also happens to cover himself in thick sheens of homemade grease before taking to the streets to strangle an array of people who apparently had it coming until their eyes pop out of their skulls like Judge Doom in the finale of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? The choosing of Ronnie’s victims are hilariously superficial, and despite being the walking humanoid opposite of Hannibal Lecter’s esteem, grace, and opulence, the good doctor would very much approve of Ronnie’s going after those who exhibited rudeness. There’s no motive to Ronnie’s choice of victim beyond they were dicks to him — either by their nature, or in response to how much of a dick Big Ronnie had been to them during a previous interaction. The motivelessness of Ronnie’s murders would hinder literally any other kind of film, but this is The Greasy Strangler we’re talking about — it simply doesn’t matter.

Caught in the middle is Big Ronnie’s son, Big Brayden (Sky Elobar, a doppelganger for Eric Wareheim of the before mentioned Tim and Eric comedy duo), who wrestles with whether or not to report to the authorities that his father is “The Greasy Strangler” — that is until he meets his “girlfriend” Janet (Elizabeth De Razzo), after whom Big Ronnie also begins lusting. It’s when the love triangle portion of the conflict comes into play that Big Brayden decides it’s time to act.

And so many old, red-tipped, uncircumcised dicks (“it looks like a big mouse head!”) will be flashed.

Attempting to properly review The Greasy Strangler to an unsuspecting readership is like trying to describe a Bosch painting to a person born blind. You can try — and it’ll take forever — but there’s no use. The only way to appreciate the majestic lunacy of The Greasy Strangler is to see it for yourself. 

Do you enjoy the exploits of Adult Swim? An unfettered fan of Check It Out with Dr. Steve Brule? Were you fascinated by the plotless/beplotted killer tire horror satire Rubber? Do you have a strong stomach and enjoy the sight of plump bodies in all kinds of sex positions? The Greasy Strangler might be your new favorite film; it might also be the absolute worst thing you ever see in your life, leaving you cursing the people who made it, distributed it, and recommended it (like me). A very adult version of Napoleon Dynamite but without the irritation (depending on your particular brand of humor, that is), let The Greasy Strangler happen to you and make up your own mind.

Just don’t forget to shower in the car wash afterward.

WTF

TERMINATOR: GENISYS (2015)

With the newest entry in the Terminator franchise, Terminator: Dark Fate, opening this weekend, let's do some time traveling ourselves and look at the previous piece-of-shit sequel, Terminator Genisys, which, according to Dark Fate, no longer exists. (Thank you!)

It's entirely possible that Terminator Genisys, essentially Terminator 5 no matter what anyone says, was never going to be a good film, regardless of who replaced Cameron as director or the immortal Michael Biehn as Kyle Reese. By now, it's unavoidable to recognize the irony in film after film being made in which people (and robots) rely on time travel to keep cleaning up their own messes, all while said films shit the bed and make things even more complicated. The finale of Terminator 2: Judgment Day was supposed to retcon Skynet and all its underlings entirely out of existence. Then they made three more Terminators. And this franchise doesn't lend itself to "what-if?" one-offs where different filmmakers apply their different stamps to see what sticks against the wall. The mythology of the series has become so important that there's no "ignoring" certain entries. Using the same characters and even the same actors will inevitably make any sequel the next chapter in one long killer-robot story. But by now, that story has overstayed its welcome. The first two Cameron films were landmark achievements in storytelling and visual effects. They didn't just spawn from the cinematic movement, but they defined what the movement was all about. They were, and are, important.

Terminator Genisys is not.

While Terminator Genisys does offer a reasonable amount of entertainment, and it's always fun to see Arnold take on one of his most famous characters in a different way, even if he's guilty of committing sacrilege as he does so, it had a responsibility to try and live up to the two landmark films it was attempting to reboot/recreate/retcon all at the same time. But it not only doesn't, it comes nowhere close. Terminator Genisys is the film that would exist in the satirical cinematic universe of something like Tropic Thunder, or even The Naked Gun, where of course a Terminator 5 would be ridiculous, and of course it would try to explain how a robot can age (it's real skin!) and of course it would be a little dumbed down and neutered to appeal to as many people as possible. (For example, in 1995, the sketch comedy series Mad TV made a fake trailer for a film called Apollo the 13th: Jason Takes NASA, in which Jason went to space. In 2001, New Line Cinema sent Jason to space...for real. When the order is parody first and reality later, that's bad!)  T2 had some pretty weighty themes about fate, about life and death, about the hard choices for the greater good. It wanted to entertain its audience, but it also wanted them to think. Meanwhile, the convolution of Genisys's plot feels manufactured, under the guise of being smart, as if its events and ramifications were made purposely complex in order to let its audience off the hook for trying to understand them, instead patting them on the head and saying, "Just enjoy all the carnage, m'kay?" Even the film's own director has said:

“Arnold has one of the most unpronounceable, impenetrable expositional lines in the movie when he says, ‘It’s possible to remember two time frames when you enter the quantum field during a nexus moment,’ and nobody has any idea what he’s talking about. But yes, it makes sense. We don’t expect anybody to get it—then Kyle turns to Sarah and says, ‘Can you make him stop talking like that?’ It’s a way to say, you don’t really have to get this. If you want to nerd out, it’s all there, I think it’s coherent. But hopefully we can move on.”

Movies!

Terminator Genisys is a greatest hits compilation performed by a shitty cover band. It's desperate to hit all the same beats that made the first two Terminator films so memorable and effective, but it doesn't really want to try earning them. It wants Sarah and Kyle to fall in love. It wants to show that even a cybernetic organism of living tissue over a metal endoskeleton can learn to be human. It wants to resurrect the T-1,000, a terminator even more famous and recognizable than Arnold's iteration. It wants to talk about fate. But it's in too much of a hurry to bask in the love established for those aspects from the first two films. It doesn't want to be patient and slowly but deliberately lead up to those revelations. Instead, Sarah and Kyle will be forced to naked-hug, which = express love. Instead, the T-800 will already show traits of a human being since he's been around forever and we can just skip all that "becoming" human stuff. Instead, the first appearance of this new-fangled version of the T-1,000 will feel obligatory. And forget fate--conversations about it can't be had when the plot is this impossible to decipher. Genisys thinks that by revisiting all these common themes from the first two films it will be grandfathered into their upper echelons of respectability, but it does nothing to earn that respect beyond riding the coattails of a legacy and calling it homage.

Following the casting announcement which hailed the return of Arnold to the franchise, each subsequent actor added to the project left people feeling, at the least, ambivalent, and at the most, irritated. Some were adamant that Emilia Clarke would make a good Sarah Connor, citing her role as Daenerys on Game of Thrones as evidence she could play a strong character (even though Daenerys had done nothing more than hire people stronger than herself to do all the heavy lifting--that and ride dragons). However, nearly everyone was dismayed that Jai Courtney, the anthropomorphic equivalent of anti-charisma, was to be featured it yet another franchise. Ironically, it would be the addition of actors worth a damn--Jason Clarke and J.K Simmons--that would result in further frustration, being that they were barely used enough to warrant their presence. Of course seeing Arnold is a delight--seeing him in any film is a delight--but when he's playing second fiddle to Courtney's block-of-wood acting prowess and Emilia Clarke trying not to look like a child with giant plastic guns, the film comes dangerously close to allowing its audience not to take anything seriously.

Not helping things is its unfortunate PG-13 rating, yet another effort on behalf of the studio to reach a new audience. The grisly grindhouseness of the original film is gone, along with the brutality and intensity. (There's not a drop of blood in this thing.) Also gone, probably for good: Arnold playing the villain. By now, his original incarnation of the T-800 has been Uncle Bobbed out of existence. Now, instead of the relentless and bloodthirsty terminator that can't be bargained or reasoned with, and will not stop--ever--he's become the uncool parent dropping off his daughter at school and making her look like an idiot because he doesn't know who Selina Gomez is. Sure, Freddy Krueger grew pretty lame after a while and ended up on kids' t-shirts and lunch boxes, but at least he still violently killed a lot of people in his very bloody, R-rated sequels. For a terminator, Schwarzenegger's T-800 doesn't do a whole lot of terminating. And it's become a rather toothless affair to witness.

Hollywood loves the adage of "never say never," so as long as there's still life in any ol' franchise, and Genisys made just enough money to prove that there is, they will never stop sending people back in time to fight robots alongside other robots. Paramount lost the rights to the Terminator franchise in 2019, at which point Cameron and Deadpool director Tim Miller joined forces to bring the world Terminator: Dark Fate (with Paramount back on board). Many folks seem to be assuming it's a given that since Cameron is involved as producer and co-writer, he'll make a film worthy of the Terminator brand. While of course that's possible, I'm not buying it. Let's not forget that Cameron previously went on record as saying he believed Genisys to be the third "official" sequel and a great movie. Let's also not forget he offered pre-release praise for the widely dismissed Rise of the Machines, which means his overview of the series is now suspect. Regardless of how Terminator: Dark Fate lands with audiences and critics, and regardless of whether or not it turns into a new planned trilogy spearheaded by Cameron and Miller, it's a near certainty that whoever holds the series rights is never going to make another worthy entry. It's also a near certainty they are never going to stop trying. Which is kind of sad, because each new entry that's supposed to recapture the magic of the first two Terminators is, ironically, so far removed from what made them great that it's become fairly evident those in charge have no idea what made them magical in the first place.

Much like Salvation before it, and as Dark Fate is planning, Genisys was supposed to kickstart a brand new Terminator trilogy for a new generation. This, obviously, won't come to pass. Regardless of the studio backing the film or the filmmaker chosen to take the helm, does the world really need any more Terminators? Surely there are people out there who would welcome additional forays into the world of Terminator 3.0, but then there are others out there who fondly remember having seen Cameron's original films (the first was a very adult, R-rated horror/slasher film--did you realize that?) and will decide, with their hard-earned dollars, that a rebooted Terminator franchise is very much obsolete.

HALLOWEEN SAFETY TIP

Always check your candy.

HALLOWS' EVE

Have a spook-o-blast-o-ween. Watch out for TERROR.

PLAYLIST: HORRIBLE SOUNDS OF HALLOWEEN

Of the many rituals I take part in to celebrate October and Halloween, spending weeks and months agonizing over the yearly Halloween playlist is one of them because I'm a psychopath and I put more effort into this than what it's ultimately worth.

In any case, here is this year's offering to the Halloween gods.

I try to make the annual Halloween playlist as unique and non-generic as possible. You won't find Thriller on here, nor Time Warp, Flying Purple People Eater, nor all those other severely overused titles that appear on every single so-called "ultimate" Halloween playlist. The idea is to find new music yearly that, to me, drips that lovely Halloween sound. Traditional songs, along with instrumentals, film scores, and creepy/ambient/avant-garde tracks -- these are the guidelines I follow with the occasional deviation. Two of the tracks I wanted to include aren't on Spotify so they appear below the main embed. Call them an addendum if you wish, but don't skip them. It's all part of the experience.

Also, if you're a repeat visitor to this blog (hey, thanks!) and you hit this playlist more than once, chances are it's already different from the last time you were here because I am never satisfied with anything. This is my curse.

Enjoy the spooks.

 

And for the finale: