Friday the 13th Part III.

Review #2437: Friday the 13th Part III.

Cast: 

Dana Kimmell (Chris Higgins), Paul Kratka (Rick Bombay), Tracie Savage (Debbie Klein), Jeffrey Rogers (Andy Beltrami), Catherine Parks (Vera Sanchez), Larry Zerner (Shelly), David Katims (Chuck Garth), Rachel Howard (Chili Jachson), Richard Brooker (Jason Voorhees), Nick Savage (Ali), Gloria Charles (Fox), and Kevin O'Brien (Loco) Directed by Steve Miner (#761 - Friday the 13th Part 2, #1148 - Halloween H20: 20 Years Later)

Review: 

Maybe someday I will be generous to the Friday the 13th series. Honestly, it has been so long since I saw the first movie that I only remember the lack of interest I had in the characters before they got killed in various ways involving blades and other things, although at least the first movie had Betsy Palmer for some sort of chance at respectability. No I don't care, the movie is not a quality slasher in enjoyment for me. Sorry. Of course, the second movie now was a Jason movie, complete with rushing it like it was a conveyor belt, with the first three movies coming out within a year of each other. There were a few changes from the second movie. There were a few changes from the second movie. Sure, Steve Miner would return to direct, but they could not recall the services of (final girl) Amy Steel due to an apparent issue with her agents. Scriptwriter Ron Kurz also turned down the project. Apparently there were ideas floated around about setting it in a psychiatric hospital or involving a final confrontation. Instead, Martin Kitrosser and Carol Watson were hired to write for the movie; Petru Popescu provided significant re-writes that ended up in the final script, but he was not given credit. Apparently, the real focus of the film was to make sure the 3D (as assisted with 3-Depix cameras from Marks Polarized Corporation) would look good on screen, with Popescu claiming that the casting sessions were targeting actors for their looks rather than their acting ability and David Katims was once quoted as saying "the writing and the acting didn't matter at all." With a budget of $2.2 million, the movie was a substantial success, making fifteen times its budget with audiences. In 1984, the intended final film of the series was released by Paramount. It may interest you to know that this is the first movie of the series to feature its killer with a hockey mask, since you might remember the last movie had a sack over his head.

Sure, you could watch a character play with a yo-yo that could make you remember the days of 3D. Or you could watch something that is not so needlessly padded. Sorry (not sorry), this movie sucks. I don't care if someone finds it goofy, this is just a boring film in the long run, and it isn't even because of the violence. It is as paper thin as the other two movies, and if I don't care one iota about the people in the film before they get turned into eye-popping targets for death, why should I care about the movie as a whole? What, is seeing an annoying character like Shelly get bounced supposed to be a highlight? (he starts out by faking that he is dead only to later on in the film actually get killed only for no one to believe him HAHAHAHA GET IT?). The final girl setup is unbelievably stupid, mainly because it lacks definition. You're supposed to believe that two years prior, the character ran into the woods, was attacked by Jason, had a struggle...and woke up right in her bedroom with no memory of what happened after being in the woods. Yes, Jason Vorhees, famously remembered for attacking folks in the woods without killing them (apparently, one idea floated by Popescu was that actually Jason raped her, which makes even less sense). Kimmell just can't sell it anyway, because everyone just seems to be on autopilot mode, where you just hear the lines and then you forget about it just as quickly. In general, there is nothing particularly appealing about the characters that makes me want to stick with them besides wondering what stupid 3D thing is going to happen next, but Jason is just going around killing people just...because. You could see that done better with Halloween II (1981), for crying out loud. As a whole, with middling characters that pad out a 95-minute runtime with lazy ambition and lame 3D ideas, the third movie manages to do exactly nothing fresh or interesting with a series that had little innovation in the first place.

Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.

Halloween H20: 20 Years Later.

Review #1148: Halloween H20: 20 Years Later.

Cast: 
Jamie Lee Curtis (Laurie Strode / Keri Tate), Chris Durand (Michael Myers), Michelle Williams (Molly Cartwell), Josh Hartnett (John Tate), Adam Arkin (Will Brennan), Jodi Lyn O'Keefe (Sarah Wainthrope), LL Cool J (Ronald "Ronny" Jones), Adam Hann-Byrd (Charlie Deveraux), Janet Leigh (Norma Watson), Nancy Stephens (Marion Chambers-Whittington), and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Jimmy Howell) Directed by Steve Miner (#761 - Friday the 13th Part 2)

Review: 
Hmm, a Halloween film review? Must be that time of season again - or perhaps there is a new Halloween film out, complete with ignoring continuity of the previous few films and having it star Jamie Lee Curtis being stalked by Michael Myers yet again. Obviously I wanted to be a bit thorough with this review and some of its background, so I hope you enjoy the final result.

There is something to be said about doing another Halloween film, as this is the seventh film of this franchise that reached its highest point of suspense and terror with its original installment in 1978. Although I do find some enjoyment from some of the sequels that followed (whether for a few cheap scares or laughs), it is weird to see an attempt to try and capture the magic in the bottle once again after seeing how the franchise had progressed in the previous three installments, which reached the bottom of the barrel in scares. The fact that this film washes away the continuity of those films should mean that there is some hope for a good horror film that doesn't delve into a cheap shadow of what had made the original (and to a somewhat lesser extent, the sequel) so effective. Having Curtis back also pulls a point in that hopeful direction, since she had expressed in bringing back people from the original, such as John Carpenter. However, he expressed a demand for a starting fee of $10 million that was rejected, which led to him not directing. The film was based on a story by Kevin Williamson (writer of Scream who is credited as one of the executive producers for the film) that would develop into a screenplay written by Robert Zappia and Matt Greenberg, although Williamson would do un-credited re-writes for certain parts such as character dialogue, and it was his idea to come up with the story-line involving the paramedics that would be followed up in the sequel that was filmed after shooting had ended. The working title for the film was "Halloween 7: The Revenge of Laurie Strode", and there was a version of the script in which the events of 4-6 were actually acknowledged at one point, but somewhere along the way it was decided to go with a title that is actually more ridiculous to say out loud than reading it on a screen. But I suppose the idea for titles in this series were running low, owing to the films that followed - alongside the idea to release it in August, clearly the month one thinks of for horror films.

With all of this, how does the actual product pan out? On the one hand, it doesn't go as low as Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers in terms of execution, but there isn't anything here besides the climax that is particularly interesting, and it doesn't approach the levels of either the original, Halloween II, or even the fourth one, which was really more of a cheap thrill made ten years after the original. Ten years after that, and they still can't make a Halloween installment that actually has some sort of real scares or interesting side characters. Oddly enough, the easiest sticking point I have with this film involves Myers. For the second film (which the film doesn't ignore), he had burnt to a cinder, while having his eyes shot out. With this one, you see too much of him and his eyes (particularly when trying to fake out the audience), which only cheapens his presence for actual moments to try and spook the audience. This is made especially weird by the fact that there is a scene involving Myers in a CGI mask meant to cover up the original mask used for the scene. It's just weird in general that there were numerous masks used for the film in general, as if it was really hard to pick one and just stick with it. By the time the fourth or fifth jump scare happens, the film seems to glue itself into mediocrity. I suppose the best trick this movie has up its sleeve is to try and have jump scares and comic relief bits (such as LL Cool J talking to his off-screen wife about some ambitions to write romance novels) as if they will make up for the already stacked cliches that seem to date this film more than the original. Perhaps they wanted to out-do the original in cheesy dialogue. I can understand what they were trying to do with the focus on Laurie and her trauma and how it affects her after twenty years, especially with her son. However, the writing doesn't make this go anywhere besides cursory moments. However, the climax makes it nearly worth it in a ridiculous yet weirdly satisfying way, a venting out of frustration by Curtis' character that leads to an action that would have perfectly encapsulated the end of this franchise...but of course, that is not quite the case. At least its somewhat tolerable at 86 minutes.

Curtis, in her third go at the role, is the best part of the film. You can see her effort to try and give this role some sort of growth in the time elapsed since the original two films that make her someone worth following. It's easy to see why she wanted to be back for another one of these films (later expressing her love of the film despite calling it a payday movie), and she is easily the best part of the final showdown, taking control of how this film uses its one effective trick. The other actors aren't terrible, but most of them are fairly wooden, with the teenagers not being at all interesting to be with, especially with Hartnett. I suppose they thought it would be really clever to have Leigh (mother of Curtis) be in the film for a few scenes - complete with the same car used by her in Psycho (1960). At least we get to see Stephens (present in the first two films) in the opening sequence, the first in a few ways to invoke memories from the past - for better or worse. By the time Myers starts terrorizing this group, you don't really care who survives or not, and the deaths seem pretty hollow this time around. Maybe its the fact that there is no character in the vein of Dr. Loomis (played by Donald Pleasence until his death in 1995) besides a reference in the opening scene that makes this film feel hollow with its pursuits. Ultimately, this is a Halloween product that only serves as a pale shadow of the original two films that should have served as the end for this series.

But of course, that's not the case, is it...?

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

Friday the 13th Part 2.

Review #761: Friday the 13th Part 2.

Cast
Amy Steel (Ginny Field), John Furey (Paul Holt), Warrington Gillette (Jason Voorhees), Walt Gorney (Crazy Ralph), Stu Charno (Ted), Bill Randolph (Jeff), Marta Kober (Sandra Dier), and Adrienne King (Alice Hardy) Directed by Steve Miner.

Review
Yay, this one. 486 reviews after doing the first film in the franchise, I'm reviewing the sequel released barely less than a year after the original. Apparently the intention of the series would be focused on events occurring around Friday the 13th, but the idea was scrapped, with Jason becoming the killer, somehow being alive. If you're wondering, he doesn't wear his hockey mask in this one (saving that for the sequel), wearing instead a burlap sack, which either makes him slightly menacing or a farmer reject. I'd say the latter, but someone is bound to be scared by a burlap sack. The movie begins by recalling the events of the first film (5 minutes of it, anyway), because I guess someone didn't know what happened in the first film (but then again, why would they being going to a sequel?), ending with the only character from the first film getting killed by Jason, setting up our new cast to be killed...for the most part. The movie runs just a bit shorter than the original (8 minutes, but who's counting?), and I suppose that means the movie doesn't drag too much. There really isn't much to the characters or acting, but at least you'll get some slasher action, with the body count this time being at 9, complete with the characters you'd expect to die dying. The ending to the movie is somewhat baffling, considering the whereabouts of one character, considering that Jason...comes out of a window and then it cuts to Ginny being escorted out. It doesn't really have much quality in terms of film making, but it will most likely satisfy anybody looking for some sort of thrills in the first film with Jason as the villain.

Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.