WHAT TO DO IF YOU WAKE UP AT 3 A.M. AND THERE'S A COWBOY STANDING IN YOUR ROOM

INCONSIDERATE LOOMIS

TERMINATOR: DARK FATE (2019)

[Contains spoilers for the Terminator series.]

Following the first round of advanced screenings for Terminator: Dark Fate, there were, understandably, mixed opinions, though all of them echoed one general reaction: it was “the best Terminator sequel since Terminator 2: Judgment Day.” The major studios behind Dark Fate’s production, Paramount Pictures and 20th Century Fox, were probably ecstatic at this pull quote, because nothing sells a sequel better than a close association with the originals in terms of quality and audience expectations (see 2018’s Halloween). That new car smell wears off pretty quickly, however, once you realize making a Terminator sequel that’s better than all the non-Cameron sequels isn’t that high of a bar. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines was occasionally okay, even if it was nothing more than a soft retread of Judgment Day that mostly felt made for television. Terminator: Salvation had interesting ideas but was plagued with major script rewrites to cater to Christian Bale’s interest in playing John Connor, whose status as a cameo was beefed up to a major role following his involvement, and which threw off the tenor of the story. Then came Terminator: Genisys, which, holy shit, I don’t even know. I just know that it was dreadful, not helped by its lame PG-13 rating. By then, general audiences seemed very over the franchise, so even when it was announced that a new sequel was going into production that would retcon every sequel since Judgment Day, be directed by Deadpool’s Tim Miller, bring back Arnold Schwarzenegger, and also see the return of creator James Cameron in a consultant/producer role, the Internet barely cared. However, when it was revealed that Linda Hamilton, gone from the franchise since Judgment Day, would also be returning, the Internet finally raised an eyebrow. It would seem there was still interest after all.

Those initial reactions were right: Terminator: Dark Fate is, indeed, the best Terminator sequel since Judgment Day. It’s also an underwhelming effort that squanders the opportunity to wipe the slate clean in this franchise’s second attempt at a cinematic “okay, for serious this time…,” which it had previously wasted on Genisys. It also squanders the return of Linda Hamilton as the legendary Sarah Connor by misusing her character thanks to the very unexpected story changes that rock the established mythos – not because it was needed, but because it was easier than continuing the story arcs for every character left standing at the end of Judgment Day. The opening scene, utilizing the best use of de-aging techniques I’ve seen yet (seriously, one might think they were deleted scenes from Judgment Day’s production), is staged to be a shocker when a Terminator wearing Arnold’s face waltzes on screen and kills young John Connor. The sequence is meant to conjure the realization that shit’s about to get real. And it does—while also asking fans to make the hugest leap yet in terms of retconning a story by asking them to accept a major change in the series’ dynamic: 

For two films, the continued existence of John Connor would make or break the entire world.

But according to Dark Fate:

 ‾\_(ツ)_/‾ -{“Nah, don’t need him.”} 

That decision is a huge pill to swallow on its own, but there’s more: multiple Terminators (who for some reason looked like Arnold, which makes zero sense being that he was the protector in Judgment Day) were sent back during that particular timeline to make mincemeat of John Connor. I’d love to know what this particular Arnold-faced Terminator, a hunter killer machine imbued with all kinds of technology for seeking and destroying targeted prey, was up to while the T-1000 was blowing up half of Los Angeles – perhaps his CPU was ransomwared and he had to scrounge up the money to unlock himself. 

To its credit, Dark Fate tries to be different from what’s come before. The problem is this is a Part 6 that’s also a Part 3, and also the third Part 3 in this series. No studio will ever be daring enough to return the series to the grounded, gritty, grindhouse style of 1984’s The Terminator; no matter which studio had the rights, they were all intent to remake Judgment Day over and over instead. The first two Terminators are more than just great movies; they’re legendary watershed moments in cinema history and keepsakes that can’t be replicated. With Cameron having pushed special effects into new, uncharted territory, both of his Terminators invoked awed questions of, “How’d they DO that?” In this new era, the audience isn’t asking that question anymore because they already know the answer: CGI. And it’s so boring. Even though, according to this newest timeline, Terminator: Genisys no longer exists, the damage has already been done. Not only did it up the ante in terms of action extravaganza, leaning heavily on CGI, but it also used up another take on the same old story: trying to prevent a future war with sentient A.I. Rise Of The Machines claimed that Judgment Day was always inevitable. Genisys repackaged Skynet with a new name (that sequel’s title), a new global operating system that basically made Google and iPads the bad guy. Dark Fate says Judgment Day was avoided, but in effect, led to the creation of a new evil A.I. company called Legion with the same end result. It doesn’t matter if our heroes are battling Skynet, or Genisys, or Legion if it all feels like the same old shit, and it really does feel like the same old shit. Added to that, Genisys’ sins continue by also having squandered Arnold’s return to the series after a fifteen-year absence. For all these reasons, Dark Fate would play better if the previous sequel never existed, because even though it goes in a mostly different direction, their third acts feel almost identical when the spectacle hits the most ridiculous highs. Once a Humvee filled with people is pushed out of a midair Gulfstream and parachutes down into the Hoover Dam, where it then rides its falls all the way down to the bottom of the reservoir, coming to a rest underwater where the action continues, you can’t help but remember, in spite of all the spectacle and CGI and millions of dollars that sequence alone must’ve cost, how much better and more thrilling this series used to be back when it was just one plucky young girl fleeing from a robot in a factory, or when our heroic trio was being pursued by a liquid metal cop driving a tanker trunk down an L.A. highway. 

Though I’ll forever be an Arnold aficionado, my man love for him barely flared when his name appeared in the announcement for Dark Fate. No, I was much more eager to see Hamilton return to the series after her nearly thirty-year absence. Except for television work and obscure movies, Hamilton hasn’t appeared in anything prominent since 1997’s Dante’s Peak (where she played the hilariously named Rachel Wando). I wish I could say her return was a triumphant one, and even though she strikes an incredibly interesting image with her short-cropped silver hair and her aviators, her performance can be summed up by Dark Fate’s overall final product: okay, not bad, but should’ve been a lot better for what this was supposed to be. Thankfully, Mackenzie Davis as Grace, the new Terminator Protector, offers the film’s best performance, and not by default, but because of her actual thought-out, dedicated take on, essentially, the new Kyle Reese. Sadly, Natalie Reyes as Dani, “the new John [Connor],” barely registers as a presence let alone the future leader of the resistance against the robotic scourge. Her miscasting echoes that of Emilia Clarke’s miscasting as the rebooted Sarah Connor in Genisys. In The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day, I easily buy Hamilton’s pluckiness and her badass warrior take on the character, respectively. Reyes gives it her all, but she never feels comfortable in the role she was given. As for Arnold, well, it’s not that he offers a poor performance, because he’s basically been doing the same thing since Judgement Day – it’s more that the limits of the character don’t allow him to do anything new, and it’s not much of a novelty to watch anymore. Even sadder, Dark Fate, which rides a wave of well executed action sequences and mediocre drama, slows to a halt once his character appears in the third act, as the audience waits for his return to feel more than what it is, which by now is obligation. By now, his presence is expected, so much that he was literally CGI-ed into Terminator: Salvation, but again, there’s a problem: no one knows what to do with him anymore to make him more interesting than what’s already been done, and if that’s not happening, why include him at all?   

Terminator: Dark Fate also tries to be current and “woke,” but solely in an acceptably mainstream way: it suggests that women can be tough (which many male members felt was pandering, even though the strong female angle has been a mainstay of this genre since the 1970s), and that the leader of the resistance isn’t just a girl but a Mexican girl (whoa!). There is, however, one moment that works, and that’s when Davis’ Grace asks a prison guard at a Texas/Mexico detainment center where illegal border-crossers are held, and the guard replies, even in the midst of all the Terminator shit hitting the fan, “we call them detainees, not prisoners,” and Grace looks ready to backhand her simply for that response. 

Even though it pains me to say this (while also acknowledging that the world doesn’t need further Terminator sequels), the only path forward for this franchise is to start entirely from scratch – no Arnold, no Hamilton, no Cameron, and an entirely new storyline. To whichever studio is the next to land the rights, please, I beg you: hand over the reins to a new generation with new ideas, let them do what they do, and stop meddling. Otherwise, if there really is no fate but what we make for ourselves, then we are fated to see the same movie over and over until the franchise is dead for good.

EVILS OF THE NIGHT (1985)

Let me set the scene for you.

It’s night. It’s summertime (I guess). The moon is full and high in the sky. Cicadas sing their songs, unseen in the tall wheatgrass.

A handsome young couple begins to softly nuzzle in the woods near a calm lake. They’ll be getting married soon. They’re in love. A big wedding is planned. She wants the big affair. He doesn’t; he wants to elope. Their disagreement threatens to ruin their calm romantic night out.

“Let’s not fight,” says the boy. “I’ve got a better idea: two lips…gathered as one.” A soft Billy Joel-ish ballad begins to play as the camera moves in close on his hand unzipping her pants. In slow motion.

It was during this moment when I realized: Evils of the Night is just the greatest.

Boy, there’s nothing like the perfect bad movie — especially when it’s horror. Blood Rage — a new favorite — comes instantly to mind. There’s also Vampire’s Kiss, Squirm, The House Where Evil Dwells, Troll 2, along with —

I’ve wasted my life.

Evils of the Night is rather simply plotted: teens at a lake become victims one-by-one to a pair of auto repair guys being paid in gold coins by humanoid aliens to kidnap people for their blood. Evils of the Night features a lot of teens. A lot. If you can keep up with all the young people who are introduced, I applaud you. And because we’ve all seen horror movies, we all know what teenagers like to do: kiss, pet, get high, and be naked. Evils of the Night, itself wanting to be different from its ilk, sets off for daring new territory. Now the teenagers, in their throes pf passion, lick each other. Constantly. They lick every part: the neck, the chest, the Adam’s apple, or nipple (man or woman’s). Sometimes they like to lick all around each other’s mouths while kissing; like an eager child learning to ride a bike for the first time, the enthusiasm is there, but the skill is yet to be honed.

This makes Evils of the Night supreme, along with sample dialogue amusingly taken out of context:

• “Alright! Now we can get high!”
• “You gonna tease me all night, or can I get a little action this time?”
• “Where’s my surprise?” “First, let me clean the sand off.”
• “I’ve got to go see a man about a dog!” “What?” “I’ve gotta go to the john!”
• “No tongue, it makes me laugh.”
• “Why are you touching my nipples like that?” (asks a dude.)
• “Calm down — I’ll definitely call the police! Come on in.” ::a scream::

Even completely innocent lines of dialogue somehow become hilarious within the confines of this utter cinematic insanity:

• “Do we have any Pepsi left, Eddie?”

If you were to tell your mother that you were about to watch a film starring Aldo Ray, Julie Newmar, Tina Louise, John Carradine, and Neville Brand, she would probably say, “Ooh, can I watch it with you?”

Don’t let her.

Because amidst all the scenes of blood theft, murders, and John Carradine expositing to the other aliens exactly what it is the aliens are doing, even though you’d think they should know by now, since they’re aliens (“Just think, Cora: without these platelets, your bones will eventually grow fragile and break within a hundred years, but WITH them, you could live 200 years or more”), Evils of the Night also features: hilarious doggy style, unwitting necrophilia, teenagers running around in their underwear, hospitals inexplicably taken over by an alien race that no one seems to notice, sexy alien orderlies threatening to seduce each other in the hallway because they’re in between utilitarian alien tasks, suggestive and unsubtle banana consumption, duel lesbian suntan-lotion-rubbing, and finally, a crop of dry blonde hair swirling about in the gentle surface of the lake as she services her man underwater.

But above all of this madness, and all the things that make Evils of the Night so deliciously and ironically transcendent — the budget Cyndee Lauper knockoff soundtrack that goes ♬ “Boys will be boys, they will always be that way, boys will be boys, they just wanna play!” ♬; and the multiple scenes of aliens firing alien lasers from their special alien rings directly into the writhing bodies of underwear-clad teens — there lies the glue that holds all of Evils of the Night together. She is the heart and soul. For every wide-eyed look of shock and surprise levied directly into the camera, or every line of dialogue intended for her cast-mates, but aimed at space itself, you will know you are witnessing something unique, rare, and defining.

She is beautiful. She is blonde. She is…Connie.

Essayed by professional actress G.T. Taylor, Connie is the horror heroine the genre had been looking for since 1978’s Laurie Strode. Someone cunning, intelligent, forthright, and brave. Someone willing to believe that mud and seaweed applied by two horny boys is great for the skin. Someone who daydreams about making love to Prince Andrew. Someone eager to host a hand-burning contest. Someone who shies at the mere idea of a penis.

The performance — one seemingly laden with lithium, helium, and delirium all at once — is one that went on to define the genre. This cinematic portrayal of good, fighting against all this evil, was a butterfly effect with neutron bomb-sized ramifications which would transform the genre, the medium, even the world from thence on, elevating it into the next plateau of awakening. You see, Connie is us; we are Connie. She embodies us all at our most vulnerable, but also at our most resilient. She’s taught us everything we’ll ever need to know about each other, and ourselves. She’s taught us never to give in, never to surrender. We will not go quietly into the night. We will not vanish without a fight. We’re going to live on. We’re going to survive. Tonight we celebrate…Connie.

Please, before we go, let us take a brief detour to IMDB for actress G.T. Taylor’s official filmography:

Very impressive.

  

The day I saw Evils of the Night, my life changed forever.

Because I’d met Connie, the blond-haired, pin-striped, kewpie-doll-voiced angel who proved she’d fight to the death with a power drill to save her friends, all while fantasizing about wanting…you know…an O.

Evils of the Night is not just a gift from the bad movie gods, but it’s one of the nicest times I’ve ever had.

OUT FOR BLOOD

MICROWAVE MASSACRE (1983)

Have you seen Microwave Massacre?

Jesus. It's terrible, isn't it?

Cut from the same cloth as Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, but with far more classless humor and dialogue, Microwave Massacre is a 76-minute eternity crafted entirely of terrible one-liners and even more terrible special effects. Boasting a healthy 3.6 on IMDB and a too-high 33% on the usually less-forgiving Rotten Tomatoes, Microwave Massacre is one of those films commonly accepted as "the worst of all time." Watching it, it's easy to see why.

Obviously intended as a starring vehicle for Rodney Dangerfield, who wisely said "no" to this thing louder than someone eats popcorn at the movies, your lead maniac is instead played by Jackie Vernon, who apparently existed only to ape Dangerfield's one-liner style but with absolutely none of the pulse.

Within the first five minutes, we get a man unpacking a full, uncooked crab out of his lunch box, an extremely stereotypical gay construction worker, and bare breasts shoved through a hole in a wall (not counting the padded-out opening credits sequence also complemented by a close-up on swaying breasts). And if you think this is just the film finding its footing before embarking on a more traditional, less exploitative path, well brother, you ain't seen Microwave Massacre.

Microwave Massacre is 76 minutes of Jackie Vernon making awful one-liners to himself, with no one else around to hear them, all while wrapping up body parts with tin foil and shoving them into his refrigerator. You'd think I was just exaggerating, but no, that's really all this is. Sure, he kills the occasional girl while making extremely derogatory and misogynistic comments toward/about them, but that doesn't exactly make the film sound any more appetizing. If it does, you're an asshole, and Microwave Massacre was made for you.

For those who have never seen Microwave Massacre and are considering a blind-buy, holy shit, I have no idea how to guide you. Do you like Troma? The Sharknado films? Are you a fool? If so, then I dunno--you might still hate it. But it'll be a good conversation starter when someone begins looking through your collection and inevitably stops on the spine and inquires, "Is this for real?"

As a film, Microwave Massacre deserves an utter zero, but I gave it a half-point because I laughed exactly once (the punchline for the drive-thru gag) and I was feeling charitable. 

Microwave Massacre deserves to be beaten and left for dead in a hole, but fans of terrible humor, DIY gore gags, and hating themselves might find some enjoyment.

IT KILLS HER

The best and my favorite of the series.