Category Archives: Lists

Title Recall: Serial Slashers

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More of those loveable title cards, this time from some of the series we love the most. And maybe not so much.

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THE slasher franchise of the 90s (and also 2011), Scream fell into a consistent fontage after the first movie (which oddly had the regular typeface on all the artwork), in 2 and 3, the part number was slashed across the screen after the initial double murder which kicks off each and every film and, in the 4th, it kind of morphs out of the ‘A’ – thus the film is really called Scre4m, which is stupid, but at least we haven’t yet have 5cream…

cotc-series2

Stephen King probably hasn’t bothered watching most of the Corn sequels (maybe that horrendous 2009 remake). Where are parts IV thru eight? On VHS or not owned at all. I don’t like III but it came in the box with the first two. What to say? Hmm… nothing much really. They’re quite dull, aren’t they?

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The original slasher movie, Psycho‘s shrieking-string opening credits end with the title card cracking up as per the sequels we see here, albeit in 1960-era editing simplicity. The ‘cracked up’ (oooh, clever!) logo remained unchanged all the way up to the 1990 final entry in the cannon, shortly before Anthony Perkins’ death.

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Despite being one of the more memorable body count franchises, Final Destination has always been a bit of a flawed title concept. Yes, it works with the plane crash-centered first one, but can there be more than one ‘final’ destination? Turns out, yes. And even when they tried to end it by sticking a giant ‘THE’ in front of it, the sequels kept coming… 3‘s tarot cards only serve to remind me that none of the idiots in any of these movies have ever consulted a psychic, and 5 looks a bit boring here, though a second later is explodes, like, totally in 3D!

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What have we learned from this batch? That some franchises are better managed in terms of their brand continuity than others. But nothing else.

Sequel Showdown: 6s, Sixes, and VIs

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The further you venture into the cave, the darker it gets… Or, the less franchises there are that reach that sacred sixth installment. In fact, there are but five slasher films (that I know of) that have reached this pinnacle, so this time we’ll take ’em one by one…

Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986)

Often held as the last true hurrah for the hockey masked one, writer/director Tom McLoughlin weaved a witty thread of comedy through Jason’s resurrection adventure, pleasantly elevating Jason Lives over and above the previous few entries.

Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)

“They saved the best for last.” No. No, they did not. The sixth and ‘final’ outing for Mssr. Krueger was chucked out with a 3D finale, and cameos from Alice Cooper, Roseanne, and Tom Arnold, but everything else is as forgettable as can be, from the dismal body count of THREE to Freddy’s quips, which by this point were more dated than disco.

One bizarre anecdote was that the films staggered US-UK releases were punctuated by the death of Freddy Mercury in November 1991, so TV adverts proclaiming “Freddy’s Dead!” were a tad lacking in the tact department.

Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995)

Largely unloved by fans of Mikey M., I actually wrung a fair amount of enjoyment from this one, which was the last of the original films to maintain a really ‘Halloweeny’ atmosphere – plus it was the possibly the first sequel I saw of the lot.

Children of the Corn 666: Isaac’s Return (1999)

John Franklin returned to his creepy role from the original film fifteen years previously, which would surely mean the corn sprogs would want him dead as he’s well into adulthood? Who knows with this series. Nancy Allen was in it, I’ve only seen it the once, but it was definitely better than the horrific TV movie/remake and the recent Genesis episode.

Curse of Chucky (2013)

Don Mancini has, for the time being, successfully resisted the remake-demons getting their paws on his property and, instead, a quasi-reboot was thrown together in the shape of this made for DVD flick, which opted for a back to basics approach with Chucky seen neither moving nor speaking for a good half of the running time. It seems to have done the trick.

The Finalists

Essentially, all five films are finalists, but it’s easy to eliminate Freddy’s Dead and Children of the Corn off the bat: Neither managed to ding the bell of decency.

Next out would be Chucky; it was a good film but the cut-price one-place/one-night setting made it drag just a little.

So, surprise, surprise, it’s between two genre icons who have already bagged prizes in Rounds 2 and 4 respectively, but for being both witty and maintaining a ‘classics’ summer camp feel, it’s gotta be the J-man:

The Winner

Next time, all the sevens!

“Why won’t you just fucking die?”

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Not quite Trade-a-Life, but there are some films where somebody should cark it, and then doesn’t. Here are a few of them:

Scott from Bloodmoon (1989)

Set at the posh Winchester private school, you can bet your life that there would be no shortage of utter pricks flouncing about, and in the slasher movie realm, these horrible individuals should meet a grisly end. Not so in Bloodmoon, where ringleader of the twats, Scott, is not only having sex with the wife of a teacher (who turns out to be the killer), but is cruel to people, starts fights, gets by on being rich, and DOESN’T DIE! even when caught by the killer in bed with his missus! He just lets him go and shoots her instead. One of those movies where girls are done in on all sides but boys can act like total assholes and get away with it.

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Crissy from Prom Night (2008)

Queen Bee from Whatever High is hellbent on being crowned Prom Queen, but her dream is thwarted by the arrival of a loony killer who’s after boring final girl Donna. What’s more infuriating for her is that before she evacuates, she rips open the envelope to find one of her nicer rivals was to be crowned instead. Said nicer rival has been slashed to ribbons elsewhere while schemey, Mean Girl-lite Crissy strides out of there intact. Boo.

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Tracy from Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)

As they went on, the Elm Street films became less and less concerned with horror and more about cameos and tie-in merchandise. Such is the case in what was, at the time, the supposed last hurrah for Freddy Krueger, as he slashed his way through some teens from a halfway house after they venture into Springwood. There’s already a nominal final girl in Maggie (Lisa Zane), who turns out be to connected to Freddy, and Yaphet Kotto is around too, but why spare Tracy? The other victims – all boys – number a paltry three and the film really could’ve benefitted from another decent scene. Her survival is pretty pointless in a genre where it’s all about body count.

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Dr Reynolds / Pervy Teacher from Final Exam (1981)

According to myth, Dr Reynolds was to be offed in the script, but the budget was so tight they had to cut the scene. Instead, we’re left with a situation echoing that of Bloodmoon where the girl is punished with death after engaging in an affair with her married teacher and he lives to lecture another day!

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Paul from Halloween (1978)

What does Paul look like? Whoever he is, he was lucky to escape the same fate that ended Laurie’s crush on Ben Tramer. But wouldn’t it have been cool if El Jerko come to the Wallace house looking for Annie after she never turned up to collect him? Did he just forget about it and go out with his buddies? This is the solitary plus point that Rob Zombie’s version of the film gets; Paul did come over and he did run into Michael Myers and he did die.

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There’s nothing wrong or uncreative about playing the the fates of characters; in fact I’d encourage the makers of slasher films not to be predictable with who does or doesn’t buy the farm, but these guys, they really should’ve been found skewered in a corner somewhere as they kinda deserved it…

The Horror Movie Converter

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Too many films come out with plots that waste a perfectly good opportunity for horror. This will not do. Let’s run a few through the Vegan Voorhees Horror Convertatron 3000…

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FILM: One Direction: This Is Us

AS IT IS: Reportedly an “insight” into the “lives” of “boyband” One Direction. Directed by Morgan Spurlock. According to the poster, it’s not a movie, it’s “a motion picture event.” Rumour has it that if you play their albums backwards, you can hear Simon Cowell laughing.

WHAT IT SHOULD BE ABOUT: Jealous of all the attention afforded to Harry Styles, the glorified backing singers decide enough is enough and plot to kill him, only Harry Styles has other plans and defects to arch-rivals The Wanted, who begin a systematic plan of abducting and replacing the members of One Direction.

FILM: Twilight

AS IT IS: A really sullen, really boring girl moves to a really dismal, really boring town that’s inhabited by vampires. Only these vampires are vegetarian and, rather than eat people, they play baseball and glow in the sunlight.

WHAT IT SHOULD BE ABOUT: The vampires grow a pair and kill the fuck out of everyone in the town. Buffy comes along and kills the fuck out of them. Outcome: Town is less boring and vampires no longer reduced to ridiculous levels of anodyne patheticness.

FILM: Inception

AS IT IS: Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, that girl from Juno, and some other people who I don’t remember operate through multiple layers of dreams to plant seeds of an idea in the head of someone important who I also don’t remember. But is any of it real?

WHAT IT SHOULD BE ABOUT: Freddy Krueger, pissed at the bastardisation of any dream related film thatdoesn’tfeature him killing people and saying witty things about it, intrudes on DiCaprio and co’s little game and decides that, while they’re all trapped in said dreamland, he may as well slash them all to ribbons.

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So there we have it, three big films that could’ve been so much more just by bundling them up and cramming them through the Horror Movie Converter.

 

 

Shitty Sequels IV: Shit Floats

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SYT – Shitty Young Thing. Shitty in Pink. Sex and the Shitty… There are too many puns.

Last time – here, here, and here – the shittiest of shitty sequels were named and shamed for all to mock. Or protest in the name of. Or avoid. Whatever. Now, we’re back again, but will it be the end? Will the sequels ever be stopped!?

No.

Boogeyman 3 (2008)

First up is an odd one, for the original Boogeyman – barely a slasher film, barely a HORROR film when you think about it – was dire. Really, really bad. The stuff of CG-coated nightmares. Then came that sequel and almost everything about it was right. Thus, high(ish) hopes were set on the third outing, in which the Boogeyman invades a college dorm and the hysteria created by the deaths of collegiate teens amplifies his presence blah blah… Nice idea, cheap ass outcome. One of those films where hardly anything occurs outside of the studio set, so it’s rendered boring as hell. Miles ahead of the original, but this is one college course it will surely flunk.

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 ChromeSkull: Laid to Rest 2 (2011)

Tie this one with The Collection for heinous back-pedaling and re-branding, as the straight up killer-chases-girl shenanigans of the entertaining first film are tossed aft and replaced with some franchise-hungry conspiracy of bloodthirsty rich people nonsense that was already done and dusted in Hostel. And Turistas. And Paintball. And any number of other films where those wish means pay to watch young hotties cut up for their perverse pleasure. Danielle Harris’ cameo and a couple of familiar faces notwithstanding, just an ugly, depressing outing.

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Wrong Turn 5 (2012)

Wrong Turn 3 featured on an earlier edition of Shitty Sequels; the fourth film was a marginal improvement and I guess we all naively hoped that with the announcement of a sequel-to-the-prequel would continue to claw back the credibility of the original 2003 film.

No. Wrong Turn 5 makes the Child’s Play franchise look like a mature observation of a childhood disrupted by unfortunate external circumstances. Ludicrous situations, film sets that resemble dolls’ houses, high-pitched giggling killers, Pinhead! Just get a SatNav.

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The Graveyard (2006)

Unofficially, the third film in the Bloody Murder ‘series’, this one starts anew to some degree, with a past-event trauma that sees Puck from Glee impaled on a rusty piece of railing. X years later, the surviving friends reunite at Camp Placid Pines where they are picked off one by one by a vengeful killer.

As with Boogeyman, this was a ‘series’ where the first one sucked harder than a meth-starved hooker, but was saved in part by a vastly superior and fun sequel, only for it all to go to shit all over again with this inspid third, and so far final, entry. Bury it and salt the ground so it can never grow back.

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Texas Chainsaw 3D (2013)

And we save the most laughable  for last… News that Kim Henkel was going to breathe life back into his keepsake series was met with hope. Hope that was dashed, and then sawn to pieces by the arrival of this truly horrific excuse for a reboot, that incorporates apparent time-travel, characters who fail to age, blink-quick empathy, and no trace of irony as characters make all the mistakes we thought they’d quit making back in 1988.

 

 

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