Category Archives: Jamie Lee Curtis

Picture of the Day: ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK (1981)

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Today’s Picture of the Day comes from ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK (1981), John Carpenter’s classic action thriller which made Kurt Russell an action movie hero.

I’ve chosen this picture mostly because, and I think this is true for most of John Carpenter’s films, ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK has only gotten better with time. Like a lot of his other films in his early career, ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK was not critically acclaimed. With the exception of HALLOWEEN (1978), critics gave Carpenter’s work a hard time. There was very little love for this movie upon its initial release in 1981.

It also didn’t wow the masses, as it was made on a smaller budget than most of big budget action films of the time, and it looks it, and back then with its cheaper look it struggled to connect strongly with audiences of the time. On a purely action movie level, it was not able to compete with the likes of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981), for example.

But over the years, it has aged well, in spite of its “futuristic” science fiction plot— the action takes place in the “future” of 1997. Wow, that came and went quickly.

It has aged well because what was considered a “cheap” look in 1981, now looks artistic and special. I love the way New York City looks in this movie. The set design is dark and bleak, perfect for this story.

ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK is probably most famous for being the movie which changed Kurt Russell’s career, turned him from a child star in Disney films to bonefied action hero. It actually did more than that, as Russell took on all sorts of movie roles and pretty much became a household name after this film. Russell doesn’t disappoint. He’s terrific in this movie.

He almost didn’t get the part, as the producers didn’t feel he had the tough guy status to pull it off. Carpenter wrote the part with Clint Eastwood in mind, and Russell admits he played it as an homage to Eastwood. His performance works perfectly.

Russell plays Snake Plissken, a convict who is tasked with sneaking into the Manhattan Island maximum security prison and rescuing the abducted President of the United States, and unless he can get in and out in twenty-four hours, the authorities will kill him. The world which Carpenter creates inside that Manhattan prison, and the bizarre characters residing there, are the stuff of nightmares. It’s fabulous movie making.

ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK also features a tremendous cast besides Russell. There’s Adrienne Barbeau, pictured above with Russell, Lee Van Cleef, Ernest Borgnine, Donald Pleasence, Isaac Hayes, Harry Dean Stanton, Tom Atkins, Charles Cyphers, Season Hubley, and Jamie Lee Curtis provided both the voice of the computer and the opening voice-over narration.

Of course, my favorite part of this movie is the amazing score by John Carpenter. It’s one of his best. Then again, you can say that about nearly every film score he wrote.

About the only thing that still doesn’t work for me in this movie is the casting of Donald Pleasence as the President of the United States. I love Donald Pleasence, but he’s miscast here.

If you haven’t checked out ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK recently, do yourself a favor and give it a fresh viewing. It’s already considered a classic of the genre, a superb science fiction action movie from the glory days of John Carpenter’s early career, but it wasn’t always considered that way. It has stood the test of time, and what I am saying today is, that not only that, but it has gotten even better in recent years.

There’s an imagination and spirit in ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK that is present from start to finish, and it’s largely because of the talent of writer/director John Carpenter.

Snake Plissken? I thought you were dead.

Nope. He’s very much alive. And better than ever.

—END—

HALLOWEEN ENDS (2022) – Final Film in HALLOWEEN Franchise Much Better Than Expected

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HALLOWEEN ENDS… we can only hope!

Actually, I’m a big fan of the HALLOWEEN series and have been since seeing John Carpenter’s classic HALLOWEEN (1978) at the movies when it first came out, a long, long time ago. That first movie remains my favorite, and truth be told, most of the sequels and re-imaginings have been pretty bad, but I’ve enjoyed most of them, as guilty pleasures, I guess. I’ve had this conversation with friends, but one of the reasons I’ve always liked the HALLOWEEN movies even when they’re not that great is because of John Carpenter’s iconic HALLOWEEN music score. As soon as it starts playing on the soundtrack, I’m in!

And the music was about the only thing I liked about the reimagined sequel HALLOWEEN (2018) which brought back Jamie Lee Curtis to the series and told her character’s story about how she had been dealing with the fallout from Michael Myers for forty years, a film which pretty much ignored all the sequels and tried to be a sole sequel to the 1978 film. It was a worthy idea, but the script was pretty bad, and the film a disappointment.

I was one of the few people who actually enjoyed the sequel to that movie, HALLOWEEN KILLS (2021) more than the 2018 film.

Now comes the “final” installment in this new HALLOWEEN trilogy, HALLOWEEN ENDS— who is coming up with the titles to these movies?— and all three movies were directed by David Gordon Green.

HALLOWEEN ENDS is not getting good reviews, but I’ll cut right to the chase: I actually liked this one better than HALLOWEEN KILLS, which makes it my favorite of this new HALLOWEEN trilogy.

One of the biggest reasons I liked this one? It tries a lot that is new, and so if you are expecting two hours of Michael Myers vs. Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode, that’s not what you’re going to get. I’m sure some fans will be put off by this. I wasn’t, mostly because what was in its place were story elements that were all rather intriguing.

HALLOWEEN ENDS opens in the here and now in Haddonfield, Illinois, the small town which seems to have been forever cursed by Michael Myers, with a different take on the babysitting trope, as this time the babysitter is a young man, Corey (Rohan Campbell). Corey is babysitting a bratty little kid who tells Corey he’s not afraid because Michael Myers doesn’t kill kids; he kills babysitters! Ouch! Before the night is over, the boy locks Corey inside an attic room. When Corey kicks the door open, tragedy results, and the little tyke is killed in front of his parents’ eyes who have just returned home.

Cue opening credits.

Usually, introducing new story elements and characters isn’t the best idea in a third film in a series, as you want to know what’s going on with the characters from the first two installments, but it somehow works here in HALLOWEEN ENDS, and Corey becomes an intriguing character. Even with all the Michael Myers history, Corey is now considered the town psycho after he is not convicted of murder. He’s the recipient of massive hating and bullying, and he has a mother who would be right at home being best friends with Norman Bates’ mother.

One thing HALLOWEEN ENDS gets right is it paints a portrait of hatred and vindictiveness in our modern-day culture, and I think it nails this throughout the movie. It reminded me a little bit of what Sandra Bullock’s character went through in the excellent Netflix movie THE UNFORGIVABLE (2021), where Bullock played an ex-con where pretty much everyone in society decided her crime was unforgivable and treated her like dirt.

When we finally catch up with Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), she’s living with her granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak), and the two are trying to live their lives in Haddonfield after the events from the last movie where Allyson’s mom and Laurie’s daughter was murdered by Michael Myers. Laurie is writing her memoirs, and we learn that Michael Myers has disappeared.

When bullies actually push Corey off a bridge, he finds himself left for dead on the banks of the river. He makes his way into an underground tunnel and there discovers— you got it! Michael Myers has taken up residence underneath Haddonfield! When Myers attacks Corey, their eyes lock, and a strange thing happens. Is it a meeting of the minds? Does Myers see a fellow psycho? Or is the evil that inhabits Myers now transferred to Corey? Whatever the answer, Corey finds a newfound power, and an ally, and together they go on a vengeance killing spree.

Around this same time, Allyson meets Corey, thinks he’s cute, and pursues him, and the two characters grow close, finding common ground in their disdain for Haddonfield, and they speak openly of blowing everything up and then leaving for good. This story arc is rather interesting, as it brings together a Michael Myers disciple and Laurie’s granddaughter, now both working together for less than noble purposes.

Of course, Laurie disapproves, especially when she begins to receive Michael Myers’ vibes when she looks at Corey. As she says, she sees Myers’ eyes in Corey’s eyes. There’s a neat scene where Laurie looks out her window and sees Corey standing by some hanging laundry which mirrors a similar scene in the original HALLOWEEN.

Corey eventually wants more power, and battles Michael Myers and steals his mask, in effect becoming a new Michael Myers. But HALLOWEEN ENDS isn’t SON OF MICHAEL MYERS, and good old Michael isn’t interested in retiring just yet.

And Michael is old, as he should be in his 60s right about now, and the film stays true to that notion, and we see a killer who isn’t a young man anymore. That’s not to say he’s not in killing shape. He’s just a demonic killer who’s now in his 60s, which is something else about this movie that I liked.

HALLOWEEN ENDS makes good on its title and goes out of its way to make sure that Michael Myers isn’t coming back ever again—almost to a laughable degree—but never say never. This is the movies, after all, and anything can happen in the movies.

Also, as Laurie says in her voice over narration from the memoir she’s writing, evil never really dies. It just changes shape, an intriguing notion and choice of words, since Michael Myers is often credited as The Shape in the HALLOWEEN movies. Which is a neat way of wrapping up this series, with the idea that Michael was just a temporary shape of evil, housing some demonic entity, which may in fact live on even after its host body has been destroyed.

I thought there was a lot to like about HALLOWEEN ENDS. The screenplay by Paul Brad Logan somehow kept this story fresh throughout. I really didn’t think I was going to enjoy the story about Corey, but it works. I also thought Logan nailed the hate and vindictiveness in our modern-day society. Townpeople call out Laurie and blame her for their woes, because she had the gall to irk Michael Myers, rather than just leaving him alone.

One thing that doesn’t work, however, is the notion that this is a long-standing battle between Laurie and Michael. Sure, he attacked her in the original movie, but if anyone was truly his adversary, it was his doctor, Doctor Loomis, played by the late great Donald Pleasence. The idea that Laurie and Michael are bitter adversaries really was concocted for this trilogy.

Jamie Lee Curtis is fine, playing Laurie for what seems to be the final time. But one of my favorite performances however belongs to Andi Matichak as Laurie’s granddaughter Allyson, who is a much more interesting character, and her flirtations with evil and “burning down” Haddonfield are some of the more interesting parts of the film. Rohan Campbell is also very good as Corey, the misunderstood youth who becomes a Michael Myers disciple.

David Gordon Green’s direction isn’t bad. The film takes its time, which might turn off audiences, but it didn’t bother me because the story was firing on all cylinders. How does it stand up as a horror movie? Not bad. It’s not all that scary, which is not a good thing. How does it rank as a HALLOWEEN movie? It’s the best of this latest trilogy, but it still pales in comparison to John Carpenter’s original.

That being said, it was still way better than I expected, and so I have few complaints about this one. If you’re going to call your movie HALLOWEEN ENDS and plan to end a franchise, this was certainly a fitting way to do it. Then again, maybe it was just that iconic music score working its magic again…

Either way, this series started back in 1978, and although this installment actually included some new ideas, most of the films have not, and so on that note, I think it’s time we put this series to bed. So while I like this one, I’m still hoping HALLOWEEN ENDS lives up to its name.

I give HALLOWEEN ENDS three stars.

—END—

RATING SYSTEM

Four stars- Excellent

Three stars- Very Good

Two stars- Fair

One star- Poor

Zero Stars- Awful

BUFFALOED (2019) – Spicy Comedy-Drama Showcase for Zoey Deutch

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Zoey Deutch in BUFFALOED (2019).

BUFFALOED (2019) is a spirited, in-your-face comedy-drama about a young woman whose hell-bent on out-hustling anyone and everyone around her as she pursues her dream of making money.

It features a tour de force performance by Zoey Deutch in the lead role and sharp funny writing by Brian Sacca. It doesn’t entirely work, but for the most part, it’s a film I liked a lot and recommend.

While made in 2019, BUFFALOED premiered on February 14, 2020, and is currently available to watch at home on Xfinity On Demand.

BUFFALOED is the story of Peg (Zoey Deutch), a young woman who from a very young age believed she had to hustle in order to make it big in life, and that’s because her dad died when she was young, and she found herself unhappy at home with her now single mom and older brother in their low-income home in Buffalo, NY, an area she describes as being dominated by Bills’ games and chicken.

When she gets accepted into college, she realizes there is no way she can pay for it and so she comes up with a scheme to scalp Bills’ tickets, a decision that lands her in jail. After serving her time, she’s contacted by debt collectors regarding the money she owes, and after a phone conversation in which she realizes she’s better at this process than the guy she’s talking to on the phone, she joins a sleazy debt collecting business run by the unsavory Wizz (Jai Courtney) with the challenge that she will become his number one debt collector.

It turns out to be true, but when Wizz fails to pay her what she is owed, she quits and launches her own debt collecting firm, hiring an eclectic crew of collectors, from people she met in prison to a Bible salesman who showed up at her door. Of course, Wizz doesn’t take kindly to the competition, and he declares an all out war on Peg and her business, a war that gets nasty, violent, and dangerous. Hence, the drama part of the story.

I have to say, I liked BUFFALOED a lot, for the two main reasons mentioned above, for Zoey Deutch’s performance and for the script by Brian Sacca.

By far, the best part of BUFFALOED is Zoey Deutch’s performance as Peg. From the opening seconds of the movie, where she screams out one giant expletive, she had me hooked, and she easily carries the rest of the movie on her back. Peg is an abrasive, obnoxious, and often raunchy young woman who is also incredibly persistent and driven, a perfect salesperson, who in this case sadly uses her talents to collect debts from people. In a lesser actor’s hands, she could have been a very unlikable character. That’s not the case here as Deutch imbues her with such oomph and drive she’s like a roller coaster ride. It nearly makes you sick but you go right back in line for more.

I first noticed Deutch in ZOMBIELAND: DOUBLE TAP (2019) where she played Jesse Eisenberg’s Columbus’ new girlfriend. She more than held her own alongside Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone, and Abigail Breslin. In fact, her performance was one of my favorite parts of that movie. She’s equally as memorable here in BUFFALOED. Zoey Deutch is an actor to watch.

I also enjoyed Jai Courtney as the villainous Wizz. While most of the film is played for laughs, Courtney’s Wizz is not. He’s a sexist bully who is an exceedingly annoying character, well-played by Courtney. While Jai Courtney has enjoyed some prominent movie roles, like Captain Boomerang in SUICIDE SQUAD (2016) and Kyle Reese in TERMINATOR GENISYS (2015), his work here in BUFFALOED may be the best thing I’ve seen him do yet.

Judy Greer plays Peg’s mom Kathy, and she’s excellent as always. She stands by her daughter even as Peg’s decisions continually hurt the family, but even she has limits, and one of the best scenes in the movie is when Kathy finally has had enough and admits to Peg she wishes she would just leave. Greer has been playing Scott Lang’s ex-wife Maggie in the ANT-MAN  movies, and she also starred as Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode’s adult daughter Karen in the recent HALLOWEEN (2018) movie.

I enjoyed the screenplay by Brian Sacca, who also stars in the movie as Sal, one of the debt collectors who works for Wizz. The strength of the screenplay is the rough and raunchy dialogue which scores high on the funny meter. I laughed a lot. It also does a fantastic job creating Peg’s character, helped of course by Zoey Deutch’s performance.

Where it doesn’t do as well however is the actual story. As much as I enjoyed the dialogue, I didn’t always believe what I was watching. For example, the plan by Peg to scalp Buffalo Bills tickets to make money for college seemed more a plot device to get her into prison than something she would actually do. And things come so easily for her later, I wasn’t always buying it.

The best part of the story and when the movie hits its stride is when Peg assembles her debt collecting staff. This array of characters are the liveliest in the movie, and I wish the story had spent more time on their antics and less on the bully tactics of Wiff and his cronies to stop them.

The love story between Peg and her attorney friend Graham (Jermaine Fowler) also didn’t really work for me, for a couple of reasons.  One, I didn’t think Graham was a particularly well-written character, as he was by far the least developed character in the movie. And also, I didn’t feel that Fowler and Deutch shared much onscreen chemistry together.

Also, for a movie that clocks in at a crisp 95 minutes, there were times, especially towards the end, where it actually dragged a bit.

Director Tanya Wexler captures the Buffalo blue-collar feel well enough, and for the most part the film possesses the same oomph as Deutch’s Peg, but it’s not quite a home run.

With the heavy-handedness of Wizz and his henchmen, the film tries to make a  statement about the debt collecting underworld, but it’s not as successful as it sets out to be. There are times where it aims for the relevance of THE BIG SHORT  (2015) and THE WOLF OF WALL STREET (2013) but it falls short of these aspirations.

Just before the end credits roll, for example, the films lists the sad statistics of how many Americans are now in debt and who now face the unceasing ire of debt collectors, a practice that remains largely unchecked and unpoliced by the U.S. government. While this statement definitely pertains to the movie’s plot, it almost seems like it belongs in a different movie, since so much of BUFFALOED was played for laughs.

For the most part, I enjoyed BUFFALOED. It’s a showcase for an up and coming actor, Zoey Deutch, and it’s got a lively and very funny script that will make you laugh even when it explores some of the darker sides of the shady practice known as debt collecting.

And it does it all with as much spice as your favorite buffalo hot sauce.

—END—

 

 

 

KNIVES OUT (2019) – Whodunit Mystery More Like Clue than Christie

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knives out

I suspect foul play!

So says Daniel Craig’s Detective Benoit Blanc in his sometimes effective Southern drawl in the new whodunit mystery KNIVES OUT (2019).

Actually it’s not much of a pronouncement. Nearly everyone in this movie has a motive for murder.

KNIVES OUT is a lively comedic whodunit that is receiving high praise from critics and fans alike. Sure, it’s energetic and punchy, throwing its audience nonstop curves, keeping everyone guessing, and it pays homage to the classic murder mysteries of yesteryear. But I found its tale of murder and family intrigue contrived from the get-go, and as such, I had much less fun with this one than a lot of other folks.

Acclaimed author Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) is found slain in the opening moments of the movie, and soon after, famous detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) is on the case, which is at first ruled a suicide, but as Blanc says, he suspects foul play. And of course he should, because the night before Thrombey’s death, he celebrated his 85th birthday at a lavish party at his home with his family, who all had contentious moments with him, some even ending in shouting matches.

It seems that many in his family had reasons for doing him in. There’s his oldest daughter Linda (Jamie Lee Curtis), her husband Richard (Don Johnson), his daughter Joni (Toni Collette), his youngest son Walt (Michael Shannon), and his grandson Ransom (Chris Evans). There are more suspects as well, including his young personal nurse Marta (Ana de Armas) who Blanc takes particular interest in, mostly because of her peculiar trait of vomiting whenever she tells a lie.

And that’s the plot, as Blanc questions the suspects , and the audience sees past events shown in flashback, as we all try to figure out just who murdered Harlan Thrombey. As mysteries go, it’s a good one, as there are so many possibilities, the answer is not easy to decipher. Then again, and this is the main problem I had with this film, it’s all so convoluted and contrived. It’s confusing on purpose, the goal of writer/director Rian Johnson being to construct a story that’s nearly impossible to figure out because that’s what whodunits are all about, the thinking being that it’s fun not to know who committed the crime. That’s the intention, but the result is less fun as it’s all very forced and simply not believable. At the end of the day, it’s all very cartoonish and comical. So, for me it played less like an Agatha Christie tale and more like an homage to the old CLUE (1985) movie.

The best part of KNIVES OUT is its all-star cast. Yet, while everyone in this film is very good, nobody steals the show or has moments which lift the material to higher levels.

Chris Evans gets the best lines in the movie as the unpredictable and fiery grandson Ransom Drysdale, the relative who seems to miff everyone in the family on a day-to-day basis.

Jamie Lee Curtis, Don Johnson, Toni Collette, and Michael Shannon all have their moments, but none of these folks get scene-stealing bits. As much as I did not like the reimagining of HALLOWEEN (2018), Curtis’ performance in that film was more notable than what she’s given to do here. Likewise, Michael Shannon has certainly enjoyed meatier roles. For example, his performance as George Westinghouse in THE CURRENT WAR (2017), which was just released in 2019, was much more impressive. Of these folks, I probably enjoyed Don Johnson the best.

Daniel Craig is OK as Detective Benoit Blanc, but he certainly didn’t wow me. I enjoyed his previous take on a Southern character better, as the explosive Joe Bang in the comedy LOGAN LUCKY (2017).

The majority of the movie centers around the character of Marta, and Ana de Armas is more than up to the task of handling the bulk of the screen time. Interestingly enough, de Armas and Daniel Craig will be reunited in the upcoming Bond movie NO TIME TO DIE, due out in April of 2020.

Writer/director Rian Johnson, known for such films as STAR WARS: EPISODE VIII- THE LAST JEDI (2018) and LOOPER (2012), infuses KNIVES OUT with nonstop quirkiness and oomph, but the result is mixed. It’s a case I think of trying to be too clever and cute. The entire film plays as if everyone in front of the camera and behind it is winking at the audience, inviting them into their playful whodunit world of mystery and murder, and the audience for the most part knows it’s in on the joke, that this story is played for fun and laughs. The trouble is this strategy only goes so far. The general mood of the entire film is gamesome, but the specific moments where the characters and the script should be drawing the audience in really aren’t there. The contrivances rule the day. The connections to the audience do not.

I saw KNIVES OUT in a packed theater. yet the audience was largely quiet. While folks seemed amused, it certainly wasn’t a laugh-out-loud kind of movie.

KNIVES OUT was enjoyable for me in a silly way that was never anything more than fluff and contrivances, the way I would feel after playing the game of Clue, not after reading an Agatha Christie novel.

—END—

 

 

 

 

 

HORROR MOVIES 2018 – Worst to First

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Jamie lee curtis halloween 2018

Jamie Lee Curtis as long suffering Laurie Strode striking back against Michael Myers in HALLOWEEN (2018)

2018 wasn’t really the best year for horror movies, at least not at the theater. Netflix actually had some of the better horror movies I saw this year. But at the theater it was slim pickings. Of the nearly 100 movies I saw at the move theater this year, only 12 were horror films, and a few of those weren’t really “horror” per se. Granted, there were a few clinkers I avoided all together, and so by design I saw fewer horror flicks in 2018.

Here we go, my list of HORROR MOVIES 2018, from worst to first:

12.THE NUN  – by far, the worst horror film I saw this year. I know, a lot of people liked this one, but the script with both its lame story and ridiculous dialogue was horrible. Shot on location in Romania, the film looks terrific, but that’s all it has going for it. Part of the CONJURING universe.

11.INSIDIOUS: THE LAST KEY – yet another INSIDIOUS prequel. I really wish they’d put this series to rest already. I do like Lin Shaye as demon hunter Elise Rainier, but since this character was killed off in the very first INSIDIOUS movie, the continuing back stories told in the prequels don’t really resonate.

10. JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM – not really a horror movie, but you do have those dinosaurs. Pretty bad entry in the JURASSIC series. Silly and oftentimes dull.

9. HALLOWEEN – after all the hype, this latest entry in the HALLOWEEN series was ultimately a disappointment. Ignoring every other movie in the series except for the original John Carpenter classic HALLOWEEN (1978) the film joins Laurie Strode 50 years later as she’s still dealing with the traumatic events of being stalked by Michael Myers on Halloween back in 1978. Jamie Lee Curtis returns to the series to play Laurie once again, and her scenes are by far the best in the movie- the best written and the best acted. The rest of the movie is surprisingly awful. Tells nearly the same story as HALLOWEEN H20: 20 YEARS LATER (1998).

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8. RAMPAGE – Again, not really a horror movie, but the film does feature giant animals battling each other. This ultra silly Dwayne Johnson vehicle has its moments, and it’s more fun than you might think.

7. HEREDITARY – I know, for a lot of horror fans, this was the best horror flick from 2018. I was lukewarm to it. I enjoyed it for nearly 2/3 of the way through, but its ending pretty much ruined it for me. There’s a lot to like about this horror movie, which for me, ultimately did not deliver.

6. OVERLORD – this horror move/World War II action adventure combo wasn’t half bad. On the eve of D-Day, a small group of American soldiers on a secret mission discover a horrific Nazi secret. Works better as an action film than a horror movie, as the horror elements don’t really show up till the end, and they’re not as horrifying as expected.

5. THE POSSESSION OF HANNAH GRACE – this demonic possession movie was better than I expected. The gimmick here is that the possessed being is a corpse rather than a living person. I know. That doesn’t sound like much of a gimmick. But it works here thanks to a compelling lead performance by Shay Mitchell as the woman in the morgue who encounters the angry demon.

4. HELL FEST – another one that was better than expected. This one got off to an awful start with some sloppy direction and bad dialogue, but its standard tale of a crazed killer causing havoc at a Halloween amusement park gets better as it goes along, much, much better. Amy Forshyth is excellent as main character Natalie, the one girl in the group who’s not interested in horror or the supernatural but finds herself smack dab in the center of all it.

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3. THE MEG – this giant shark tale starring Jason Statham should have been stupid, but surprise! It’s actually pretty good. So much so that it was one of my favorite movies from last summer. No, it’s not JAWS (1975), but it’s the best of the recent shark movies, in spite of run-of-the-mill special effects.The strength of THE MEG is its surprisingly snappy script and exceptional performances by everyone involved, and seriously, you can’t really go wrong with a Jason Statham action movie, even if he’s battling a gigantic prehistoric shark.

2. ANNIHILATION – this film is way superior to the previous ten films on this list. This horror/science fiction flick about a group of women led by Natalie Portman on an expedition to investigate a bizarre phenomenon where the normal laws of nature don’t apply has three things going for it: the science fiction aspects will blow your mind, the horror scenes deliver, and its female cast is second to none. Exceptional science fiction horror.

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1. A QUIET PLACE – my pick for the best horror movie of 2018. Sure, its ending doesn’t make a lot of sense, but what comes before it works so well I let the weak conclusion slide. This tale of vicious alien creatures with exceptional hearing which hunt down humans whenever they hear them follows one family’s efforts to survive in this apocalyptic tale directed by John Krasinski, who also stars as the father in the family. Co-star Emily Blunt has one of the best scenes in the movie, a birthing scene. Yup, try giving birth silently as a hungry alien creature closes in for the kill. Scary stuff. Well done throughout. Also a lot of fun to see a movie that for nearly 45 minutes offers no sound on the soundtrack as the family has to survive silently. It was amazing how fast the silence caused people in the theater to stop munching on their popcorn.

There you have it. A look at the horror films from 2018.

Thanks for reading!

—Michael

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THANKSGIVING TURKEY AWARDS 2018

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Turkey

It’s Thanksgiving here in the U.S, that holiday where people kick back and relax, reflect on what they’re thankful for, and eat lots of food, especially turkey.

With that in mind, here are some Thanksgiving Turkey Movie Awards for 2018.  Of course, the year is not over, and so these lists are not final. There’s still room for more turkeys, so to speak.

Okay, let’s get right to it!

Here are my 2018 TURKEY AWARDS:

WORST MOVIE

(And again, this list is not final. There are still five weeks left before we close out 2018.)

Right now, my least favorite film of 2018 would be PEPPERMINT, a dreadful action film starring Jennifer Garner, followed closely by THE NUN, a flat-out awful horror movie, and THE HAPPYTIME MURDERS, a very unfunny comedy that wasted a cool concept. I mean, who wouldn’t want to see a raunchy R-rated Muppet comedy? But they blew it.

 

WORST ACTING PERFORMANCE

This is difficult because acting is not something that is lacking in today’s movies. Actors today perform at a level that I think generally speaking is much higher than actors in the past.  They convey emotions that come off as authentic more often than actors from  yesteryear. While there have been great actors in every generation, I think in terms of numbers, more actors today deliver performances that are spot on than ever before.

So, how to choose a poor performance when there really isn’t any? I’m going to cheat a bit. I’m going to go with the three main “actors” in Clint Eastwood’s THE 15:17 TO PARIS, and this is cheating because these three guys aren’t actors. Eastwood chose to cast the three real life men who thwarted a terrorist attack on a Paris train to play themselves in his retelling of this heroic tale. Decades from now, Eastwood’s decision may be deemed as genius, but right now, that’s not the case for the simple reason that those young men aren’t actors and as such were out-of-place in a movie, even playing themselves. As a result, their scenes were incredibly boring and lifeless.

 

WORST SCREENPLAY

THE HAPPYTIME MURDERS – This screenplay by Todd Berger couldn’t be less funny if it tried. They should have hired Fozzy Bear. Waka! Waka!

the happytime murders poster

There’s not much that’s happy in THE HAPPYTIME MURDERS (2018)

 

WORST DIRECTOR

Brian Henson, THE HAPPYTIME MURDERS. Henson has made real Muppet movies.  He should have known better and pulled off a far more successful movie. He dropped the ball with this one.

 

WORST HORROR MOVIE

THE NUN. Nun of this movie is worth your time.

 

WORST SEQUEL

INSIDIOUS: THE LAST KEY, followed by OCEAN’S 8, JURASSIC PARK: FALLEN KINGDOM, THE EQUALIZER 2, and MAMA MIA: HERE WE GO AGAIN! Not a good year for sequels. Then again, when is it ever a good year for sequels?

 

WORST SUPERHERO MOVIE

DEADPOOL 2 – now this is not really a bad movie. It’s simply the superhero film I liked the least in 2018.

So far.

 

And now for the THANKSGIVING AWARDS portion of the column. Movies I’m thankful for this year:

 

MARVEL

Three of the best films of the year so far have been Marvel Superhero movies: BLACK PANTHER, AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR, and ANT-MAN AND THE WASP. Yup, it’s been a marvelous year for superheroes!

 

DOCUMENTARIES

With WON’T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR? the documentary on the life of Mister Rogers leading the pack, 2018 has been a stellar year for documentaries.

 

MOVIES ABOUT WOMEN

It’s been a great year so far for movies starring women, written and directed by women, and that are telling stories about women.  Some of these movies include BOOK CLUB, EIGHTH GRADE, ANT-MAN AND THE WASP, ANNIHILATION, and LEAVE NO TRACE.

bookclub1

BOOK CLUB (2018) is one of my favorite movies of the year so far, thanks largely to its female cast which includes Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen, and Mary Steenburgen.

 

BEST HORROR MOVIE

A QUIET PLACE – smart horror at its best, even if its ending isn’t nearly as intelligent as the rest of the movie. The horror genre is alive and well.

 

BEST SUPERHERO MOVIE

BLACK PANTHER – this Marvel superhero movie transcends the genre and is so good it has no business being a superhero film. Marvel continues its run of incredibly entertaining movies.

black-panther-poster

 

CLASSIC ACTORS

Veteran movie actors have graced the screen throughout 2018, including Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Andy Garcia, Mary Steenburgen, Candice Bergen, Bruce Dern, Robert Redford, Jodie Foster, Ben Kingsley, Jamie Lee Curtis, Meryl Streep, and Cher.

 

BEST MOVIE

Sorry, but you’ll just have to wait until the end of the year for this revelation.

 

So, these are just a few of the movies I’m thankful for this year, along with some cinematic turkeys.

Thanks for reading, and wishing you a happy holiday season!

Gobble! Gobble!

—Michael

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LEADING LADIES: JAMIE LEE CURTIS

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jamie lee curtis halloween 1978

Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode in HALLOWEEN (1978)

Welcome back to LEADING LADIES, that column where we look at the careers of leading ladies in the movies, especially horror movies.

Up today it’s Jamie Lee Curtis.

Curtis of course burst onto the horror movie scene with her signature role of terrorized babysitter Laurie Strode in John Carpenter’s groundbreaking classic, HALLOWEEN (1978). And with some perfect symmetry, Curtis’ most recent role is once again Laurie Strode in the latest entry in the HALLOWEEN universe, once more titled, curiously enough, HALLOWEEN (2018). Curtis’ career has come full circle. Of course, she still has a whole lot more acting to do.

In HALLOWEEN (1978), Curtis was so memorable as Laurie Strode not because she screamed a lot.  She did not scream her way to fame a la Fay Wray fifty-five years earlier in KING KONG (1933). No, Curtis’ performance was noteworthy because she created in Laurie a vulnerable yet resilient character who faced doubts about dating and boys but was more than up to the task of protecting the children she babysat from masked killer Michael Myers.

The original HALLOWEEN is famous because of John Carpenter’s outstanding direction, along with his now iconic music score. I was 14 when HALLOWEEN came out, and I still remember all the hype and excitement surrounding it.  Sold out showings, and long lines of people waiting to see it, often spilling outside the theater into the parking lot. I also remember Siskel and Ebert’s initial review of the movie, a review in which they both praised Carpenter’s phenomenal direction. I don’t remember how at 14 my friends and I were able to buy tickets to this R rated feature, but somehow we did, as we saw this one at the theater.

I remember the theater erupting in screams during the movie. I also remember Jamie Lee Curtis.  When the movie was done, and I had returned home, I couldn’t get Carpenter’s music out of my head, and I recalled all the scares, and the image of Michael Myers with his now iconic mask, and this actress named Jamie Lee Curtis.  There was something about her that really resonated with me.  The best way I can describe it is I felt as if Laurie Strode was someone I knew in real life. As I’ve watched and re-watched HALLOWEEN over the years, I’ve attributed this feeling I had back in 1978 to a very authentic performance by Curtis.  I felt like I knew her because she acted like a real person.

Here’s a partial look at Curtis’ career, as we examine some of her 74 screen credits:

HALLOWEEN (1978) – Laurie Strode – Curtis’ signature film role was also her film debut.  She had appeared in numerous TV shows before this, including COLUMBO (1977) and CHARLIE’S ANGELS (1978) but this was the first time she appeared on the big screen. And she has never looked back.  Quite the film debut. In addition to the top-notch direction and music score by John Carpenter, and the presence of Donald Pleasence, Jamie Lee Curtis is easily one of the best parts of HALLOWEEN (1978).

THE FOG (1980) – Elizabeth Solley – Curtis stars in John Carpenter’s next horror movie following HALLOWEEN. At the time, Carpenter was a victim of his own success. THE FOG was not well-received by critics in 1980. Siskel and Ebert expressed their disappointment, citing that the film lacked a definitive threat, a la Michael Meyers. However, the movie’s reputation has strengthened over the decades. It’s now considered one of Carpenter’s best films. Not only that, but it’s high on a lot of people’s lists for best horror movies period.  I definitely like this one a lot.  I still prefer HALLOWEEN though. Curtis, for her part, is fine here, but her role is not the lead, and she makes much less of an impact than she did in HALLOWEEN.

jamie-lee-curtis-films_the-fog

Jamie Lee Curtis in THE FOG (1980)

PROM NIGHT (1980) – Kim – John Carpenter’s HALLOWEEN gave birth to the slasher movie, and suddenly everyone and their grandmother was making horror movies with masked knife-wielding killers terrorizing teenagers. This one’s not directed by Carpenter, but does star Jamie Lee Curtis. It did well on its initial release and has established a reputation as a decent slasher flick, but this one never did anything for me.  For me, not even the presence of Jamie Lee Curtis could save this HALLOWEEN rip-off.

TERROR TRAIN (1980) – Alana – another crazed killer attacking teenagers, this time on a train.

ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK (1981) – Narrator/Computer Voice (uncredited) – An uncredited Curtis provides the voice of the narrator and computer in this exciting futuristic crime thriller by John Carpenter, notable also for Kurt Russell’s memorable performance as Snake Plissken.

HALLOWEEN II (1981) – Laurie Strode – Inferior sequel to HALLOWEEN. Rick Rosenthal takes over the directing duties from John Carpenter, and his vision here is far less impressive.  Curtis is okay, but sadly, spends most of the movie confined to a hospital bed and in and out of a medicated stupor.  While this really is not a good movie, it is actually better than most of the later HALLOWEEN films, some of which are really, really bad.

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With Donald Pleasence in HALLOWEEN II (1981)

HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH (1983) – Curfew Announcer/Telephone Operator (uncredited) – A disaster upon its initial release, this was part of John Carpenter’s vision to create a HALLOWEEN series featuring different horror stories each year and not necessarily be about Michael Myers, but film audiences wanted Myers and didn’t really accept this movie. That being said, this one has enjoyed a growing reputation over the decades, and there are some (not me) who consider this to be the best of all the HALLOWEEN movies.

TRADING PLACES (1983) – Ophelia – This funny comedy by director John Landis stars Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy. Murphy, who was insanely popular at the time due to his stint on Saturday Night Live, is the main reason to see this one, but Jamie Lee Curtis is also hilarious in her role as prostitute Ophelia. She makes the jump into a non-horror movie quite nicely.

GRANDVIEW U.S.A. (1984) – Michelle “Mike” Cody – Drama in which Curtis co-stars with C. Thomas Howell and Patrick Swayze that asks the question, can the young folks from Grandview U.S.A. pursue their dreams and shed their small town roots? Nothing special.

A FISH CALLED WANDA (1988) – Wanda Gershwitz – co-stars with John Cleese, Kevin Kline, and Michael Palin in this uproarious comedy written by Cleese. Kline won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.

jamie lee curtis - fish called wanda

Michael Palin, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Kevin Kline in A FISH CALLED WANDA (1988)

FOREVER YOUNG (1992) – Claire Cooper – co-stars with Mel Gibson who plays a 1939 pilot awoken from a cryogenic sleep in 1992. Written by J.J. Abrams.

TRUE LIES (1994) – Helen Tasker – plays the wife of a spy, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, in this entertaining action comedy by director James Cameron.

FIERCE CREATURES (1997) – Willa Weston – Reunited with her co-stars from A FISH CALLED WANDA, John Cleese, Kevin Kline, and Michael Palin, this time with lesser results.

HALLOWEEN H20 – TWENTY YEARS LATER (1998) -Laurie Strode- Curtis returns to the HALLOWEEN series after a three film hiatus, and the emphasis returns to Laurie Strode, still dealing with the trauma caused by Michael Myers twenty years earlier. The masked killer of course once more sets his sights on terrorizing Laurie. Some girls have all the fun. This film was well-received when it first came out, but it hasn’t aged all that well. That being said, I still like this one a lot.

jamie lee curtis H20

Facing fear in HALLOWEEN H20 (1998)

HALLOWEEN: RESURRECTION (2002)- Laurie Strode – Curtis returns as Laurie Strode for about two seconds before her character is abruptly killed by Michael Myers in the most undramatic and anticlimactic of ways. By far, the absolute worst of all the HALLOWEEN movies.

FREAKY FRIDAY (2003) – Tess Coleman – co-stars with Lindsay Lohan in this remake of the Disney classic.

SCREAM QUEENS (TV Series) (2015-2016) – Dean Cathy Munsch- TV horror/comedy series about a— you got it— a crazed serial killer terrorizing, among other places, a college campus.

HALLOWEEN (2018) – Laurie Strode – Curtis comes full circle, playing Laurie Strode once again, this time in a movie that ignores every other HALLOWEEN movie in the series except the original. Lots of hype and box office success, but ultimately this one was a letdown. Curtis’ scenes and storyline are the best parts, as she is once again still dealing with the trauma from Michael Myer’s original attack, now forty years earlier. Everything else in this film is pretty bad. A major disappointment.

Jamie lee curtis halloween 2018

Taking on Michael Myers yet again in HALLOWEEN (2018)

And that wraps things up for this edition of LEADING LADIES.

Join me again next time when we check out the career of another Leading Lady.

Thanks for reading!

—Michael

 

 

 

HALLOWEEN (2018) – Jamie Lee Curtis Returns With a Vengeance, But Rest of Horror Flick Pretty Bad

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HALLOWEEN (2018)

The Jamie Lee Curtis story arc in HALLOWEEN (2018) is so good it almost saves the rest of the movie which sadly is rather— well, there’s no other way to say it, awful.

HALLOWEEN (2018) is the latest chapter in the Michael Myers saga, and before this film was released, I found myself shaking my head at the title. This is the eleventh film in the series and the third to be called HALLOWEEN. Granted, the second film entitled HALLOWEEN (2007) was Rob Zombie’s flawed reimagining of the original, but still, to call this movie HALLOWEEN seemed rather lazy.

However, when I saw the film’s trailer, which I really enjoyed, I decided to reserve judgement on the title because what I saw in the trailer looked so good.

HALLOWEEN (2018) completely ignores events in any of the sequels and re-imaginings and exists in a universe where only events from the original HALLOWEEN (1978) have occurred.

And so it has been forty years since Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) survived the brutal attack by masked killer Michael Myers on Halloween night, a night that saw three of her high school friends murdered. She has spent her remaining years dealing with the trauma, preparing for Myers’ eventual escape from the mental hospital, as she says here in the movie, so she can kill him.

And of course, Myers does escape and does return to Haddonfield, Illinois, to kill more teenagers on Halloween night, and to go after Laurie Strode once more, who after forty years of preparation, is more than up to the task of taking on the masked madman.

The best part of HALLOWEEN is the Laurie Strode story arc, and in fact it’s the only part of this sequel that’s worth watching. Her story is first-rate, as is Jamie Lee Curtis’ performance. It’s a shame the writers couldn’t come up with equally impressive stories for both Michael Myers and any of the other new characters.

But back to Laurie Strode. She’s agorophobic and lives in a secluded fortified compound. She’s estranged from her adult daughter Karen (Judy Greer), but she has a better relationship with her granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak), who’s now in high school and along with her friends are the new natural targets for Michael Myers. But even Allyson implores her grandmother to “get over it” and get on with her life.

But Laurie is wise not to, as Michael Myers returns to start another murder spree. The story told from Laurie’s perspective is completely believable, and her scenes where she takes on Myers are the best in the movie.

Jamie Lee Curtis is excellent here, and she pretty much alone saves this movie from being horrible.  She does this because the rest of the movie is pretty bad, and with Curtis’ effective performance and watchable storyline, things balance out.

So, why is the rest of the film so awful?

Let’s start with the Michael Myers character. If only the writers had spent as much care crafting Myers’ story as they did Laurie’s. His story here makes little sense. One of the biggest problems is the constant need by several characters in this movie to know more about Michael, in effect teasing the audience with their questions, and then the film gives us absolutely nothing for answers.

In John Carpenter’s original classic, we knew nothing about Michael Myers other than he was, as Donald Pleasence’s Dr. Sam Loomis constantly reminded us, “pure evil.” Myers was somehow for whatever reason the embodiment of evil. Not knowing more about him worked here because frankly it didn’t matter.

In the sequels, we learned all sorts of laughable reasons for his existence, from he was Laurie Strode’s brother to he was controlled by an evil cult going back to the time of the Druids. None of these plot points did the series or the character any favors. In short, there has never been a decent explanation for who Michael Myers was or what he did other than he was “death on two legs.”  And in Carpenter’s original movie this worked just fine.

Actually, the best explanation may have come in Rob Zombie’s 2007 reimagining, which revealed Michael’s traumatic childhood. What that flawed film failed to do however was connect the dots from bullied child to supernatural killer.

The problem with Myers in this new HALLOWEEN is that everyone and his grandmother keeps asking “what’s Michael Myers’ secret?” “What’s it like to be Michael Myers?” “Why won’t he talk?” And for answers, the film gives us nothing. If you’re going to give the audience nothing, don’t ask the questions!

That being said, I did enjoy how Michael Myers walked in this one, as he had a little more skip in his step—even at his advanced age!— than he did in the older films, where he would have lost a race to Kharis the Mummy!

The other huge problem with HALLOWEEN is the supporting characters are all for the most part, dreadful. It’s as if the writers spent all their time writing Laurie Strode and had nothing left in the tank for anyone else.

Judy Greer, a fine actress, who I’ve enjoyed in such films as CARRIE (2013), the recent PLANET OF THE APES movies and the ANT-MAN films, is wasted here in a whiny role as Laurie’s adult daughter Karen who criticizes her mom for obsessing over Michael Myers but herself can’t stop obsessing about her own childhood or lack thereof.

Newcomer Andi Matichak is okay as Laurie’s granddaughter Allyson, but it’s not really her story, and even though at times it seems as if she’s going to become a central character, she never really does.

I like Will Patton a lot and pretty much enjoy everything he does, and his performance here as Officer Hawkins is no exception.  Patton is very good as an officer facing his own demons, as we learn that he was one of the officers at the scene of the original 1978 Michael Myers murders.

But the writers botch this character as well, as he simply is not in this story enough to make an impact.

All of the teen characters are negligible and forgettable.

But the absolute worst character is Dr. Sartain (Haluk Bilginer) who is Myers’ current doctor and who calls himself a protegé of the deceased Dr. Loomis. Sartain’s motivations make no sense at all, and the plot twist involving his character is one of the most ridiculous plot points in the entire series. It’s awful.

The only other character who fares well is young Jibrail Nantambu who plays 10 year-old Julian who’s being babysat by Allyson’s friend Vicky (Virginia Gardner). Nantambu is only in a couple of scenes, but he steals them all, and is the only other lively part of this film other than Jamie Lee Curtis.  That being said, Virginia Gardner’s best scenes are the ones she shares with Nantambu.

Director David Gordon Green and Danny McBride wrote the deeply flawed screenplay. They get Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode right, but that’s all they get right. The other characters and the rest of the story is a mess.

The same can be said for Green’s direction.  Truth be told, I did enjoy all the scenes where he pays homage to the original HALLOWEEN. For example, the scene where Allyson sits in her high school class listening to a teacher— played by P.J. Soles, who played Laurie’s friend Lynda in the original—  drone on about fate is exactly like a similar scene in the original where Laurie sits in class listening to a similar lecture. Laurie looks out the window and see Michael Myers. Here, Allyson looks out the window and sees her grandmother.

Laurie falls from a balcony the same way Myers does at the end of the original, and likewise, just as Donald Pleasence’ Dr. Loomis looks down to see that Myers has disappeared, here, Myers looks down to see that Laurie has disappeared.

These scenes work well, However, the gas station scene which is supposed to pay homage to a similar scene from HALLOWEEN 4 – THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MYERS (1988) simply comes off as too derivative.

And what’s with Myer’s obsession with wearing a garage mechanic’s uniform? He wore similar garb in the original because he happened to kill a random man for his clothes, but in the sequels he seemingly has to find a way to wear the same kind of clothes all the time. Rather silly when you think about it.

The film tries to make a big deal about Myer’s mask. Everyone in the movie wants to know: What is it about this particular mask that sets off Michael Myers? Again, the film offer no answers.

Green also doesn’t give the film any decent pacing or true scares. It simply plays like your standard— and oftentimes bad— slasher horror film, complete with characters making bone-headed decisions.

John Carpenter’s original HALLOWEEN was ripe with suspense, including a final twenty minutes which was sweat-inducing. There’s no such suspense here.

Speaking of John Carpenter, he’s credited once more with scoring the music, and that is certainly a plus. His HALLOWEEN theme has never sounded better.

HALLOWEEN (2018) is a mixed bag of trick or treats. I loved the Laurie Strode storyline and Jamie Lee Curtis’ performance, but the rest of the film isn’t any better than HALLOWEEN’s worst sequels.

Somewhere druids are celebrating.

—END—

IN THE SPOOKLIGHT: HALLOWEEN H20: 20 YEARS LATER (1998)

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Here’s my latest IN THE SPOOKLIGHT column, on HALLOWEEN H20:  20 YEARS LATER (1998), one of the better films in the HALLOWEEN series.  This column is currently being published in the November 2015 issue of the HWA NEWSLETTER.

Enjoy!

—Michael

 

IN THE SPOOKLIGHThalloween-h20-poster

BY

MICHAEL ARRUDA

HALLOWEEN H20:  20 YEARS LATER (1998), in spite of its ridiculous title, is a pretty good horror movie.

It’s one of the better films in the HALLOWEEN franchise and it’s how the original series should have ended.  The powers that be should have quit while they were ahead, but unfortunately, they didn’t, and there would be one more movie, HALLOWEEN:  RESURRECTION (2002), which is the worst film in the series.

But HALLOWEEN H20:  20 YEARS LATER once you get past its title is one of the best films in the series.

It has a solid, logical story, which basically asks the question, how would Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) be handling life twenty years after the events of HALLOWEEN (1978).  What would her psychological and emotional state be like?  The answer, as you might expect is “not too good.”

Yes, it’s twenty years after the events of the first movie, and Laurie Strode is now the proud owner of a new identity.  She goes by the name of Keri Tate and is the dean of a private high school in California.  It’s a boarding school, and she lives there with her son John (Josh Hartnett), who goes to the school.  Laurie/Keri is also in a relationship with the school psychologist, Will Brennan (Adam Arkin), and all is well, except— it’s not well.  Laurie suffers from ongoing nightmares about Michael Myers, and she’s constantly worried that Myers will find her and her son John.

Trouble is, she’s right.  The film opens with Marion (Nancy Stephens), the nurse and Dr. Loomis’s (Donald Pleasance) assistant from the original HALLOWEEN, coming home to an intruder, none other than Michael Myers, who promptly kills her in a pre-credit sequence, but not before finding his sister Laurie’s file and learning where she’s been keeping herself the past twenty years.

It doesn’t take long for Michael to travel across the country— how does a guy who walks so slowly move so quickly?— and before you can say “Dr. Loomis” he’s at the school ready to wreak havoc with his sister once again.

HALLOWEEN H20:  20 YEARS LATER has one of the finer casts in the entire series.

Jamie Lee Curtis returns to the series after missing the previous four films, and it’s her best performance since the first movie.  A young Josh Hartnett plays her son John, and playing his girlfriend Molly is a young Michelle Williams, who would go on to star in the TV series DAWSON’S CREEK (1998-2003) and would later be nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for her role as Marilyn Monroe in MY WEEK WITH MARILYN (2011).

Adam Arkin is solid as psychologist Will Brennan, and LL Cool J hams it up as a wannabe writer security guard.  And yes, that is Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the pre-credit sequence as Jimmy, the neighbor who tries but fails to come to Nurse Marion’s assistance.

And for good measure Janet Leigh even shows up as her real life daughter Jamie Lee Curtis’ secretary, Norma, and there’s a nice PSYCHO homage for sharp viewers in Leigh’s final scene, involving the car she’s driving, its license plate, and the background music being played.

All the actors show up and do a phenomenal job in this one, but none more than Jamie Lee Curtis.  She takes this role seriously, and she’s the one who drives this movie along.  It’s her best performance since the first movie.

This is also the first of the Michael Myers HALLOWEEN films not to feature Donald Pleasance as Dr. Loomis, as Pleasance passed away during the filming of HALLOWEEN 6:  THE CURSE OF MICHAEL MYERS (1995).  And while Pleasance is definitely missed here, it was somewhat refreshing to see this film take a different direction, as truth be told, there are only so many times you can watch Pleasance run around in his signature trench coat calling “Michael!  Michael!”  And Curtis’ performance here goes a long way in helping the audience move on from Pleasance.

HALLOWEEN H20:  20 YEARS LATER has a smart and on the money script by Robert Zappia and Matt Greenberg.  It’s also very aware of what kind of movie it is, and it seems to have been influenced by the snappy self-aware style of SCREAM (1996) which had been released two years earlier.

Director Steve Miner gives this film lots of visual style and it contains some of the best cinematography in the series since John Carpenter’s work in the original.  It’s polished and slick.

One thing, however, that HALLOWEEN H20:  20 YEARS LATER is not is scary, and that’s always been a knock on this film for me.  It has its suspenseful moments, but scares?  Hardly.  Michael Myers barely makes an impact in this one.  HALLOWEEN H20:  20 YEARS LATER is pretty much Laurie Strode/Jamie Lee Curtis’ movie.  Don’t get me wrong, Curtis is excellent, and she more than carries this film to higher places than a film this late in a series deserves, but in terms of horror, it falls short, which is too bad because it has the makings of a classic.

Speaking of Michael Myers, he looks kind of goofy in this movie.  His mask looks like it’s been stretched out, and he’s just not as imposing a figure as he’s been in earlier movies.  He’s supposed to be older here—twenty years have passed, after all, and so he’d be 41- but it’s not like he’s an old man.  It’s just not a very intense performance.

HALLOWEEN H20:  20 YEARS LATER is a more literate chapter in the Halloween saga, and it boasts some of the series’ best acting.

Wish you could still have Halloween in November?  Well, you can.  Just check out HALLOWEEN H20:  20 YEARS LATER, and the best part is you don’t have to wait twenty years to do it.

—END—

THE HORROR JAR: The HALLOWEEN movies

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halloween_posterI wrote this HORROR JAR column on the HALLOWEEN movies for the Halloween issue of the Horror Writers Association Newsletter.  It’s up this month.

—Michael

 

THE HORROR JAR:  HALLOWEEN Series

By Michael Arruda

 

Welcome to THE HORROR JAR, the column that compiles lists of odds and ends about horror movies.  It runs regularly within the pages of my blog, THE BLOG OF MICHAEL ARRUDA, located at marruda3.wordpress.com.  For the first time ever, in celebration of this very special Halloween issue, THE HORROR JAR appears in the pages of the HWA NEWSLETTER.

Today we look at the HALLOWEEN movies, a series that began with John Carpenter’s groundbreaking low budget shocker back in 1978.

I still remember when HALLOWEEN first came out.  It really was something of a phenomenon.  I was at the movies with some friends, and this was 1978, so I was 14, and there was this huge line ahead of us which poured out of the building, when one of the ushers came outside to announce “HALLOWEEN is sold out! HALLOWEEN is sold out!”  People in line huffed and swore, and then to the delight of my friends and me who were not seeing HALLOWEEN, they left the line, enabling us to step right up and buy tickets for whatever movie we were seeing that night.

But I remember wondering, “What’s the story with this movie, HALLOWEEN?”  I had never seen so much buzz about a horror movie before.  I mean, there was JAWS a few years earlier, but I never considered that a true horror movie.  It was more a horrific adventure.  And then I started hearing all these things about HALLOWEEN, how scary it was, how good it was, and the next thing I knew I was seeing it myself, and yes, it was as scary as advertised.  What I don’t remember is how my friend and I got in to see it, because it was Rated R, and they used to check ids back then, and we were just 14.  I think we must have lucked out and had a high school student working the ticket line that night.

HALLOWEEN became a tremendous success and inspired a brand new subgenre of horror movie, the slasher flick.  It’s no accident that in spite of its low budget, it’s one of the best horror movies ever made.  John Carpenter held nothing back when he made this one, and nearly every scene he crafts in this movie is a good one. HALLOWEEN just might be Carpenter’s masterpiece.

In addition to his masterful direction, Carpenter also wrote the iconic music score, which adds so much to this movie it’s almost like an additional character.  In fact, the story goes that after an initial showing, a producer frowned upon the film and told Carpenter he needed to go back and edit it some more.  Carpenter made only one change:  he added his music score.  The same producer saw it again and loved it this time, thinking Carpenter had made major changes.

In HALLOWEEN, a group of babysitters are terrorized on Halloween night by masked killer Michael Myers who has escaped from an asylum after fifteen years of silent confinement.  He returns to his hometown where as a young boy he had murdered his own sister fifteen years earlier.  He’s pursued by his doctor, Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence) who hopes to prevent Michael from causing another bloodbath.  Easier said than done, because Michael Myers refuses to die.

HALLOWEEN inspired a bunch of sequels, none of which come close to matching the quality of the first film.  In fact, you could make the argument that there’s only been one very good HALLOWEEN movie, the first one.

Here they are, including the recent remakes by Rob Zombie, the movies in the HALLOWEEN franchise:

HALLOWEEN (1978)

Directed by John Carpenter

Screenplay by John Carpenter and Debra Hill

Music by John Carpenter

Dr. Sam Loomis:  Donald Pleasence

Laurie Strode:  Jamie Lee Curtis

Annie:  Nancy Loomis

Lynda:  P.J. Soles

Sheriff Brackett:  Charles Cyphers

Michael Myers:  Tony Moran

Running Time:  91 minutes

John Carpenter’s masterful direction makes this one a true horror classic.  So many neat touches.  My favorite is Michael Myers’ white mask emerging from the darkness behind Jamie Lee Curtis, who is impressive in her film debut as babysitter Laurie Strode.  Donald Pleasence acquits himself rather well as Dr. Loomis, the man in hot pursuit of the demonic Michael Myers, in a role originally offered to Peter Cushing and then later to Christopher Lee.  Both actors turned it down, a decision Lee has called one of his biggest regrets.  The Michael Myers’ mask is a re-vamped William Shatner STAR TREK mask, chosen by the props department because of their ultra-low budget.  John Carpenter also composed the memorable music score.

 

HALLOWEEN II (1981)

Directed by Rick Rosenthal

Screenplay by John Carpenter and Debra Hill

Music by John Carpenter and Alan Howarth

Dr. Sam Loomis:  Donald Pleasence

Laurie Strode:  Jamie Lee Curtis

The Shape:  Dick Warlock

Running Time:  92 minutes

Dreadful sequel to HALLOWEEN takes up right where the original left off, as Michael Myers continues his pursuit of Laurie Strode, while the tireless Dr. Loomis tries to stop him.  Without John Carpenter in the director’s chair, this one plays like a cheap imitation.

 

HALLOWEEN III:  THE SEASON OF THE WITCH (1983)

Directed by Tommy Lee Wallace

Screenplay by Tommy Lee Wallace

Music by John Carpenter and Alan Howarth

Dan Challis:  Tom Atkins

Cochran:  Dan O’Herlihy

Running Time:  98 minutes

This one has nothing to do with the Michael Myers storyline.  Instead, we have a mad toymaker who plots to kill children across the country on Halloween night by using demonic Halloween masks.  John Carpenter planned to make a different HALLOWEEN horror movie each year, each one with an entirely different story centered on Halloween, but this movie flopped at the box office, mostly because audiences were looking for Michael Myers, and the idea was abandoned. HALLOWEEN III is actually not that bad, as long as you go in expecting the worst!

 

HALLOWEEN 4:  THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MYERS (1988)

Directed by Dwight H. Little

Screenplay by Alan B. McElroy

Music by Alan Howarth

Dr. Sam Loomis:  Donald Pleasence

Rachel Carruthers:  Ellie Cornell

Jamie Lloyd:  Danielle Harris

Michael Myers:  George P. Wilbur

Running Time:  88 minutes

The title says it all, as Michael Myers is back, and he’s madder than ever!  In spite of the silly storyline, this has always been one of my favorite films in the HALLOWEEN series.  The plot takes place ten years after the events of the original film, as Michael Myers awakes from a coma and escapes from yet another institution when he learns that he has a niece living in Haddonfield, so naturally he wants to kill her.  I’ve never liked the direction the series took, that Myers simply wanted to kill his relatives.  He was much scarier in the original film where he was an unpredictable killing machine.  Why the obsession with his own family?  I always thought he simply hated women.

But this one is a lively film in the series, as director Dwight H. Little includes some impressive action scenes and suspense sequences, and the script by Alan B. McElroy remembers to have fun, like the scene where the armed vigilantes all jump into their pick-up trucks in an attempt to lynch Michael Myers.  Good luck with that!

It also helps that Donald Pleasence is back, reprising his role as the ever dedicated and relentless Dr. Sam Loomis, who will stop at nothing to hunt down and destroy Michael Myers.  Pleasence seems to have really grown into the role here, as this is probably his best performance in the series.  Young Danielle Harris in her film debut is also very good as little Jamie Lloyd, Myer’s niece who becomes his intended victim throughout the movie.   Interestingly enough, Harris would return to the series as an adult, as she would star in both of the Rob Zombie HALLOWEEN remakes as Annie Brackett.

HALLOWEEN 4 also has the best final scene in the series other than the original film.  It really works and stays with you long after the movie has ended.

It’s also the first film in the series not to involve John Carpenter at any level, since he was dissatisfied with the script and distanced himself from the project.

 

HALLOWEEN 5:  THE REVENGE OF MICHAEL MYERS (1989)

Directed by Dominique Othenin-Girard

Screenplay by Michael Jacobs, Dominique Othenin-Girard, and Shem Bitterman

Music by Alan Howarth

Dr. Sam Loomis:  Donald Pleasence

Jamie Lloyd:  Danielle Harris

Michael Myers:  Don Shanks

Running Time:  96 minutes

Direct sequel to HALLOWEEN 4, but this one is nowhere near as good.  It’s a much darker film than HALLOWEEN 4, but I’ve never warmed up to it.  Gone is any sense of fun the previous film had.  This one introduced the mysterious character of “The Man in Black” who’s certainly interesting, but it’s clear watching this movie that the writers had no idea who he really was, and they make the audience wait until the next film in the series to find out.

 

HALLOWEEN:  THE CURSE OF MICHAEL MYERS (1995)

Directed by Joe Chappelle

Screenplay by Daniel Farrands

Music by Alan Howarth and Paul Rabjohns

Dr. Sam Loomis:  Donald Pleasence

Tommy Doyle:  Paul Rudd

Dr. Terence Wynn:  Mitchell Ryan

Michael Myers:  George P. Wilbur

Running Time:  88 minutes

There’s very little right with this sixth film in the series, yet somehow I like it better than HALLOWEEN 5.  Director Joe Chappelle gives this one some style, and screenwriter Daniel Farrands has some neat ideas, but the true culprit here are a host of rewrites/re-edits that dramatically changed the plot in this one, and not for the better.  The identity of “The Man In Black” and his cult’s relationship with Michael Myers is laughable.  This movie also marks the final appearance of Donald Pleasence as Dr. Loomis in the series, as Pleasence died during filming.

 

HALLOWEEN H20:  20 YEARS LATER (1998)

Directed by Steve Miner

Screenplay by Robert Zappia and Matt Greenberg

Music by John Ottman and Jeremy Sweet

Laurie Strode: Jamie Lee Curtis

Will Brennan:  Adam Arkin

Molly Cartwell:  Michelle Williams

Norma Watson: Janet Leigh

John Tate:  Josh Hartnett

Ronny Jones:  LL Cool J

Jimmy Howell:  Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Michael Myers:  Chris Durand

Running Time:  86 minutes

Probably my favorite of the HALLOWEEN sequels, as it marked the return of Jamie Lee Curtis to the series.  Slick, polished, well-written production, this one has one of the better casts in the entire series, but it does tend to be a bit talky and struggles in the scares department.

 

HALLOWEEN:  RESURRECTION (2002)

Directed by Rick Rosenthal

Screenplay by Larry Brand and Sean Hood

Music by Danny Lux

Laurie Strode:  Jamie Lee Curtis

Michael Myers:  Brad Loree

Freddie Harris:  Busta Rhymes

Running Time:  94 minutes

Bottom of the barrel entry in the HALLOWEEN franchise.  By far, the worst film in the original series.  I thought this was as bad as things could get.  I was wrong.

 

HALLOWEEN (2007)

Directed by Rob Zombie

Screenplay by Rob Zombie

Music by Tyler Bates

Dr. Samuel Loomis:  Malcolm McDowell

Sheriff Lee Brackett:  Brad Dourif

Michael Myers:   Tyler Mane

Michael Myers, age 10:  Daeg Faerch

Running Time:  109 minutes

Dreadful re-imagining of the original HALLOWEEN by writer/director Rob Zombie.  Best part is the Michael Myers background story, and the performance by young Daeg Faerch as the ten year-old Michael.  The film explains how Michael Myers came to be better than any of the films before it.  However, the rest of the movie is horrible.  Malcolm McDowell, usually one of my favorite actors, is stoic and forgettable as Dr. Loomis.  In spite of a fun cast, this one is no fun at all.  It makes for a very long 109 minutes.  This movie has its fans, but I’m not one of them.

 

HALLOWEEN II (2009)

Directed by Rob Zombie

Screenplay by Rob Zombie

Music by Tyler Bates

Dr. Samuel Loomis:  Malcolm McDowell

Sheriff Lee Brackett:  Brad Dourif

Michael Myers:   Tyler Mane

Laurie Strode:  Scout Taylor-Compton

Running Time:  105 minutes

This sequel to Rob Zombie’s reimagining of HALLOWEEN is even worse than the first film, if such a thing is a possible.  Violence is way over the top and nonsensical.  Zombie seems to have forgotten his sense of storytelling in these two movies.

Well, there you have it:  the HALLOWEEN movies.

It’s really a shame that the HALLOWEEN series has come to a close on such a low note.  These latter movies are a far cry from John Carpenter’s original iconic classic from 1978.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this list, and I look forward to seeing you next time on another HORROR JAR, which you can read each month at THE BLOG OF MICHAEL ARRUDA at marruda3.wordpress.com, along with many other goodies and tidbits, both horror and otherwise.

Thanks for reading!

—Michael