Tag Archives: before they were famous

DVD D.O.A.: Shitty Sequels

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The law of diminishing returns rules hard in horrordom; sequels almost always gradually degrade in a nice neat arc.

See?

Though every now and then there’s a nice kink in the drop off (Friday VI, Elm Street 3, Halloween 4)… Those aside, let’s whatever-the-opposite-of-celebrate-is (mourn?) the sequels that NEVER should’ve happened…

I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer (2006)

This sensationally dumb third entry in the I Know What You Did saga abandoned Jennifer Love Hewitt and her substantial cleavage for pastures new.

Colorado. Lots of slicker-clad fishermen found round there.

A quartet of teens whose prank went askew are literally haunted by the killer Fisherman who turns out to be a ghost.

It’s cheap, offensively simplistic and actually has a couple of surplus characters who could’ve been great mystery killers. But no. A fucking urban legend ghost outcome fills a gap in the script so huge and sucksome that it threatens to pull the whole of existence through it.

Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)

In spite of a so-so idea at its core, nobody wants Halloween III. It’s the Smelly Cat of the Halloween series. It’s Andrew Ridgeley. It’s that guy who left the Backstreet Boys. It’s the fat one from Wilson Phillips*.

An eeeeeevil toymaker creates masks that kill their pre-pubescent owners when activated by the insanity-inducing Silver Shamrock advert and it’s FUCKING HORRIBLE TUNE.

“Three more days to Halloween, Halloween, Halloween…” Aaaarrgghhh!!!

Michael Myers was NEEDED to come and kill whoever came up with that.

What mystifies me more is that when they released the first Halloween DVD box, they omitted Halloween 6 but not this one, even though it has fuck all to do with MM (apart from being seen on a TV screen in an almost-bemusing post-modern manoeuvre).

“The” Final Destination (2009)

Sometimes, people should know when to stop.

Even the artwork for this instalment shows that the franchise was less about characters and more about death by this point, about as far removed from the original concept as possible.

In this one – supposed to be the last word at the time – a retread of Final Destination 2‘s pile-up occurs at a Texas racetrack, leaving a quartet of thoroughly boring ‘teenagers’ (none of whom have parents, jobs, occupations) to stand by while a string of strangers meet grim ends before Death comes knockin’ at their door.

It’s crass, suspiciously cheap-looking and about as deep as a kids’ paddling pool, but also packs a mean streak that has several ‘characters’ who aren’t even given names and it doesn’t matter how nice you might be, something undeservedly nasty is going to happen to you.

The silver lining is that Final Destination 5 was a vast improvement. And it had the awesome ‘Devour’ by Shinedown on it.

American Psycho II: All-American Girl (2002)

Time for a shot of plain weirdness. This made-for-DVD sequel posits that Mila Kunis is a bigger sociopath than Patrick Bateman ever was and actually stabbed him to death after he killed her babysitter years before.

Masquerading as a co-ed, she enrols in a criminology course taught by – smirk – William Shatner and proceeds to kill anyone who stands between her and getting to Quantico.

The tagline “Angrier. Deadlier. Sexier.” pretty much tells you all you need to know: this is nothing more than a moronic attempt to wring some sleaze out of the cult phenomenon of Brett Easton Ellis’ original novel.

Kunis is clearly embarrassed to have been a part of it, but not as embarrassed as you’ll be watching it.

Wrong Turn 3: Left for Dead (2009)

This should really have been called Wrong Turn 3: How to Lose All Sense of Credibility in 3 Easy Films.

Wrong Turn 2 may have played for gory laughs but at least it remained interesting and partially invested in its own universe of backwoods inbreds killing cityfolk for grub but the following entry is just the bastard offspring of outsourced cheapness.

There’s only two cannibal loons this time, both looking more rubbery than ever before as they hunt down a group of convicts whose bus went off the road in West Virginia Bulgaria.

Awful reliance on crappy looking CGI, 100% unsympathetic characters and acting out of an infomercial with added profanity and a couple of T&A shots. A box-ticking exercise if ever there was one and Wrong Turn 4 looks to be even worse.

Stay tuned for more sequels from hell. Hang on, that means I’ll be creating my OWN sequel to this… Hopefully it won’t suck nearly as hard.

* I liked all of Wilson Phillips – including Carnie.

The Weakest Link

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CHAIN LETTER

3 Stars  2010/18/84m

“Pass it on – or die.”

Director: Deon Taylor / Writers: Deon Taylor & Michael J. Pagan / Cast: Nikki Reed, Michael J. Pagan, Keith David, Cody Kasch, Cherilyn Wilson, Michael Bailey Smith, Brad Dourif, Betsy Russell, Matt Cohen, Noah Segan, Eliot Benjamin, Charles Fleischer.

Body Count: 7

Laughter Lines: “What about the internet? What about MyTube, YourSpace?”

“Ch-ch-ch-chain letters…” – remember that crummy daytime TV quiz? Kinda wish the same fate befell the contestants that drops into the laps of a group high school kids who randomly receive a chain letter – which is, in fact, an email – that warns of a horrible, bloody death should they fail to send it to a specified number of people. Chain Email doesn’t sound quite so sparky. Chain Mail?

As is so often the case, they’re presently learning about the dangers of technological progression from their intense teacher Dourif, just like the kids in Urban Legend are taking a class in urban legends or the myriad of ‘experiments in fear’ that any number of doomed college kids are dabbling in when they start getting offed.

Chain Letter serves up a series of brutal slayings courtesy of the Chain Man, a mystery killer who hunts them down if they delete or fail to forward the email within 24 hours. Beginning with a girl whose legs are each chained to the back of her parents’ cars. When they pull out of the drive and go in different directions… well, you can guess what happens.

After a couple of the group die gruesomely – really gruesomely – cops Keith David and Betsy Russell (the latter wasted in a thankless role that anyone could’ve phoned emailed in) begin investigating ideas of an anti-technology terrorist group, y’know the kind that targets gormless teenagers to make their point.

‘Cause EVERYONE cares about teenagers. How many times have we heard ‘no harm must come to the precious, adorable teenagers’ etc?

As it goes on, Chain Letter makes less and less sense: is it a slasher flick? Torture porn? Cop-hunts-killer thriller? Seems like no one can really decide but it bears most in common with a Saw-influenced take on the former, with lots of squealing dead teenagers, a smart girl trying to hold it together and solve the mystery before the killer comes after her but, as usual, no parents around when you’d expect them to be – like, when one of their kids dies and the other is likely to go next… further underscoring the fact that the terrorist group really picked a heartwrenching target group that the world clearly cares about losing.

Eventually, it sort of collapses under its own weight. I’m not sure if I stopped listening or zoned into another, less confusing dimension for a couple of moments, but there wasn’t really an explanation provided. There are some flashbacks which are supposed to “reveal” something to us but we couldn’t have known what they were in the first place and it reeks of an idea not thought out or one that quite arrogantly assumed it was good enough to warrant a sequel.

However, this problem is partially forgivable thanks to the neat twist, which loops back around to the beginning but leaves things on a downbeat note and the idea that the whole script was constructed around the twist and other elements were left to…well, the elements. Who cares if the rest of it doesn’t tie up – Lost managed alright?

Blurbs-of-interest: Deon Taylor co-directed 7eventy 5ive; Pagan was in See No Evil; Michael Bailey Smith was in Monster Man; Betsy Russell was in a few of the Saw films and Cheerleader Camp; Matt Cohen was in Boogeyman 2; Charles Fleischer was in the original A Nightmare on Elm Street and The Back Lot Murders; Brad Dourif is the voice of Chucky and was also in Color of Night, Dead Scared, Trauma, Urban Legend and the Halloween remakes; Keith David was later in Smiley.

Foresight not required

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FINAL DESTINATION 3

3.5 Stars  2006/15/89m

“This ride will be the death of you.”

Director: James Wong / Writers: Wong & Glen Morgan / Cast: Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Ryan Merriman, Kris Lemche, Amanda Crew, Alexz Johnson, Texas Battle, Sam Easton, Crystal Lowe, Chelan Simmons, Jesse Moss, Gina Holden.

Body Count: 7 (+ 7 on the rollercoaster)

The prospect of Final Destination 3 was a good one: the first two films were awesome, a neat pair, original director and writer returning – what could go wrong besides, y’know, all manner of mechanisms, sunbeds, power tools and gym equipment?

Originally intended to be the 3D one, the project was deemed impossible given the opening disaster would be set aboard a doomed rollercoaster ride but, for all intents and purposes, the script still suffers from the familiar shortcomings that most 3D have, i.e. hardly any character development whatsoever.

FD3 is almost a remake of the first film with a new catastrophe shoved in place of that plane crash: high school graduates at an amusement park board a towering rollercoaster which, in the premonition of, once again, an insta-psychic teen (Winstead), suffers a crash that kills all aboard.

The idea is awesome, the effects work above par but the disaster plays out just that little bit too unbelievably: the train seemingly goes around once unscathed before hitting an on-track object that breaks the wheels, damages to hydraulics, disabling the safety harnesses before half the cars career off the tracks and the trailing carriages grind to a halt, upside down at the top of the 360 loop.

I mean…c’mon, exactly at the top of the loop? And where do the extra corkscrews come from? What’s more, the character who inadvertently causes the incident is among those who leave the ride once premonishee Wendy freaks out and manages to ‘save’ nine others from the accident.

After a nicely done aftermath scene where we witness Wendy’s misery at losing her boyfriend, FD3 boards a carousel of repetition: Death comes along to hoover up the survivors in the order they were supposed to blah blah blah… But unlike the previous films, there’s little else, each scene is punctuated by interchanges between Wendy and fellow survivor Kevin, the only two who find something hinky in what happened.

Nobody else shows any gratitude whatsoever for having their life saved and, furthermore, given the massive evidence that Wendy is, like, psychic or some shit, none of them even consider that there’s any truth to what she’s telling them, the urban legend that was Flight 180 and a variety of other weird coincidences mentioned.

Instead, they idle on with their soon-to-be-over lives and become victims in what’s presently the most sadistic film of the franchise. Wendy herself exclaims that the demise of a classmate she and Kevin witness is incredibly vicious.

While the level of suffering is amped, the IQ of the characters slumps: the first to go in a double-whammy are two airhead chicks who strip off for a tanning bed session and end up burnt to death. It’d be alright if the girls were nasty bitches but despite being as dumb as a box of hair, they were nice girls who reached out to comfort Wendy. So we see them topless before they’re horribly killed off. Titillate > exterminate.

Fortunately, the rest of the kills are less cruel and far more creative, all of them linked without explanation to photographs Wendy took before the rollercoaster crash. Once again, what force is providing these hints? What force ‘gave’ Wendy the premonition? And what force that seems keen on helping them out do they not bother to investigate at all? Life? Visit a spiritualist, you morons!

As it goes, there’s death-at-the-drive-thru, a jock who shouts cliches like “winning’s all I know how to do!” before getting clamped to death, a gruesome but very well done nailgun incident and some great stunts in the finale at a bicentennial fayre. A couple of the lesser characters provoke interest, the goth duo of Ian and Erin would’ve made more intriguing leads than the template all-American teens of Wendy and Kevin, especially as Ian is the only one to put forward some theories on mortality.

Strangely and in spite of the knowledge gained from researching Flight 180 et al, when the death of one survivor is ‘skipped’ thanks to an intervention and then loops back around to finish him off, the main characters don’t notice: they think the fact that they’ve been skipped means it’s all over despite being first-hand eyewitnesses to the demise of someone else who was skipped!

OK, it sounds like I hated it, but really, I enjoy this one: it’s got a great idea at its core and some awesome creative kills; Winstead makes for a functional heroine – spending most of the movie with her classmates’ blood spattering over her face (you think after the first two she’d learn to stand further away from who’s ‘next’) – though not as plucky as either Ali Larter or A.J. Cook, and things end with a downbeat but very well-realised second disaster.

Compared to 2009’s soggy “The” Final Destination it’s a masterpiece, sitting awkwardly between the higher quality first two films, production-wise it can’t be faulted (OK, there’s a bit of questionable CG work), awaiting the release of the fifth film this summer. It’s just that little bit too bloodthirsty and…unforgiving? The DVD extras reveal that test screenings found the original ending was unfavourable and New Line execs voted to kill all that characters, which is a bit of a depressing state of affairs that even the nice kids won’t be spared.

Entertaining but over-serious and emotionally void.

“Quick! Hide it – nobody wants to be seen dead wearing that!”

Blurbs-of-interest: Texas Battle and Crystal Lowe were in Wrong Turn 2: Dead End; Lowe was also in Children of the Corn: Revelation and the Black Christmas remake, along with Mary Elizabeth Winstead, directed and produced by Glen Morgan and James Wong respectively, and also featuring Kristen Cloke from the first FD; Ryan Merriman was Deckard in Halloween: Resurrection; Kris Lemche was in My Little Eye; Gina Holden was in Harper’s Island. Chelan Simmons and Jesse Moss (Wendy’s short-lived beau) were both in Tucker and Dale vs Evil.

Erotic dancers. Trannies. Razor psycho. Canada.

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AMERICAN NIGHTMARE

3 Stars  1981/87m

“Pray you never have one.”

Director: Don McBrearty / Writers: John Sheppard, John Gault & Steven Blake / Cast: Lawrence S. Day, Lora Staley, Tom Harvey, Neil Dainard, Michael Ironside, Lenore Zann, Larry Aubrey, Alexandra Paul, Mike Coperman, Claudia Udy, Page Fletcher.

Body Count: 6

Dire-logue: “Somebody tries to kill me, I get a little nervous.”

Good old Canada, making a film called American Nightmare. Who did they think they were fooling, eh? Well, me I guess but I was only 3 in 1981 so it wasn’t a difficult feat.

Anyway, this little known flick (produced by Prom Night directed Paul Lynch) has quite a lot going on for such a timid creature. Day is a pianist who goes looking for his missing (read: murdered) little sister in ‘the city’ after she left home a year earlier, became an erotic dancer-slash-hooker and, well, vanished.

Seems that a razor-wielding psycho has it in for the girls who dance at Club 2000. Nothing’s called Blah 2000 anymore, is it? Feels like we live so futuristically. High on the killer’s list is the beautiful Louise, who reluctantly joins forces with the out-of-towner, who more than proves he can take care of himself in the big bad city.

The real ‘American nightmare’ comes in the form of the tone; almost exclusively set in the sleazy world of pimps and pornography. The camera exploits its victims as society and, ultimately, the killer has – putting them on show for the voyeuristic pleasures of the slobbering men who come to the shows – and then brutally slaying them.

The film holds more than a hint of misogyny and homophobia to it as all the female characters are shown nude and the only male victim is a gay transvestite – dubbed the ‘degenerates’ of society. The only victims are the girls and the gay – not even the pimps and pervert motel owners fall victim to the razor.

Thankfully, once the mystery has agreeably unfolded, the ‘sleaze’ and ‘degeneration’ binds itself neatly to the so-thought upstanding members of the city who have deep involvement in the murders.

There’s an amusing scene where genre-regular Lenore Zann is stalked by the killer, who hisses her name – Tina – from the shadows, just as Freddy Krueger would do in a few years’ time.

A very interesting and unfortunately rare piece of horror with a cringetastically good twist and a cast of good soon-to-be’s, including future Baywatch hottie Alexandra Paul.

Blurbs-of-interest: Michael Ironside was also in Visiting Hours, Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II, Children of the Corn: Revelation, Fallen Angels and Reeker; Zann was also in Visiting Hours, Happy Birthday to Me, and PrettyKill. The 2000 movie of the same name is not a remake.

Legacies of the 90s: Stab-a-thon Stars

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As Kevins Costner and Bacon, Holly Hunter, George Clooney and Tom Hanks paid their slasher movie dues in the films of the 80s, the 90s saw many a familiar face from teen-oriented TV shows rushing to board the terror train following Scream‘s unprecedented success.

Some have remained famous, lots of vanished from the radar and some probably didn’t expect any success at all when they signed on for three scenes and a murder in a video shelf flick they thought nobody would ever see. Bet they hope nobody asks about Teenage Death Camp Massacre VIII now…

stars1aSo, starting at the top left, Sarah Michelle Gellar, arguably the biggest teen star of the era thanks to her role as ass-kickin’ demon hunter Buffy the Vampire Slayer, she played the role of defenceless girly victim in both I Know What You Did Last Summer and Scream 2. She was also originally to play Sasha in Urban Legend before scheduling conflicts got the best of her. Apart from appearing in the first two Grudge movies, after marrying Last Summer co-star Freddie Prinze Jr., she’s disappeared a bit…

Seann William Scott, known as potty-mouthed Stifler in American Pie, became one of Death’s first screen victims in Final Destination but his career has flourished since. Katherine Heigl, recently surfing a wave of rom-coms after the success of Knocked Up, donned final girl shoes in Bride of Chucky and then “the Drew Barrymore role” for Valentine, which she seemed less than impressed with…

Puck from Glee (Mark Salling) looked a lot different (and significantly less buff) when he played Naomi Watts’ little brother in Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering. He later had a small role in the dull The Graveyard.

Another big name from the teen flick circuit, Joshua Jackson had been a fairly successful child star in all three Mighty Ducks movies and a leading role in Dawson’s Creek; aside from his role in Urban Legend and a cameo in Scream 2 (sharing a scene with Gellar), he also starred with Gellar, Ryan Philippe and Reese Witherspoon (who avoided horror at the time) in Cruel Intentions and almost-horror flick Gossip. He’s now in Fringe.

Eva Mendes joins Salling as another Corn almnus after debuting in Fields of Terror, the fifth in the series. She moved on to Urban Legends: Final Cut before mainstream Hollywood success followed. And who could forget Jack Black’s uncredited cameo as Titus the dreadlocked dope-smoking pool boy in I Still Know What You Did Last Summer? I bet he wishes he could!

Rounding off this box, Jennifer Love Hewitt, co-star to Neve Campbell in Party of Five, took the lead in both Last Summer films.

stars2aMrs Liev Schrieber, sometimes known as “Naomi Watts”, yet another survivor of the neverending Children of the Corn franchise, playing Salling’s big sis and eventual heroine. Josh Hartnett was Jamie Lee Curtis’ annoyingly slappable offspring in Halloween H20, in which he was smug boyfriend to Dawson’s Creek star Michelle Williams.

The late Brittany Murphy was on the verge of stardom when she played the heroine of Cherry Falls; and mini Aussie pop queen Kylie Minogue – relatively unknown in the US but with over 30 UK Top 10 hits to her name – was the ‘big star’ to be offed at the beginning of Australian Scream off-shoot Cut.

Like Josh Jackson, Joseph Gordon-Levitt was a child star in 3rd Rock from the Sun, he turned up in many an art project and a strangely small and thankless role as an early victim in Halloween H20. The beautiful Kelly Brook, now better known to horror fans as one of the naked porn stars ripped apart by dodgy-looking CGI piranhas, was an unlikely criminal psychology student in Ripper: Letter from Hell.

Lastly, James McAvoy and Isla Fisher turned up in the strangely eclectic German slasher film The Pool, which starred Cherry Falls‘ Kristin Miller. Both were gruesomely dispatched fairly early on but can look back and laugh now they’ve had admirable Hollywood careers.

And lastly, I couldn’t get a good shot of the lovely Anna Faris, who, before she became a comedy queen thanks to doing all four (ugh!) Scary Movie‘s, turned up in the type of film they parodied, Lovers Lane, where she played Janelle the plucky cheerleader, who just wanted to make new friends but got gutted with a hook for her trouble. Here she is on the cruddy UK cover with it’s naff international title…

So there we have it, the biggest faces of the 90s horror scene, eleven of them died (one of those twice!), none of them went topless (well, some of the guys did), and only one came back for a sequel! Ha ha @ Jennifer Love Hewitt!

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