Expelled Grey Matter

Friday the 13th Part 2 may have been the better movie but it existed for one reason: the original Friday the 13th made a lot of money, and Paramount saw the usefulness of making cheap horror sequels and raking in the returns.  They weren't wrong, and throughout the 1980s it became a tradition to dish out another movie featuring a bunch of kids getting killed by Jason Voorhees.  The problem was that, creatively, the story was done after the first two movies.   That meant gimmicks to keep the audience coming back.  Director Steve Miner returns for the second sequel but, instead of making a decent suspense film, spent his time thinking of ways to poke stuff at the camera.  Even the cast while making it realized that the whole point was to get people in the theater to watch a 3-D movie.  Though forgotten today, Comin' at Ya, a 3-D western made in Spain, was a bit of a hit and kicked off a revival of the 3-D fad that had been popular nearly 30 years prior.  Producer Frank Mancuso,

Slaughterhouse is one of many low budget horror films made in the 1980s by a writer/director who managed to scrape the money together to make one film and then never did anything again.  In the case of Rick Roessler it appears it wasn't for lack of trying as he did intend for Slaughterhouse to have a sequel, and I'm sure it made money.  It just never happened. This is one of the many slashers that fell between the cracks.  In this case a big part of the problem is that this film is about five years too late to cash in on the genre.  It also feels like something that is older than it appears, as if the movie had sat on a shelf since the early 1980s.  It also has too much in common with The Texas Chain Saw Massacre , using many of the same set design choices of animal bones as decoration outside the slaughterhouse of the title as well as an opening line claiming that the events are based on a true story.  Slaughterhouse is also more comedic than the normal slasher and seems aware

Terry Gilliam had directed one movie - Jabberwocky  - outside of working with Monty Python prior to making Time Bandits .  His comic art, and his set design, were aspects that helped both Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Life of Brian stand out as comedy films, but it was no surprise that major studios had their doubts about producing his script for Time Bandits after the uneven comedy fantasy of Jabberwocky .   Nominally a children's movie, it was to feature a cast of dwarf actors and go to some dark places in its fantasy setting.  Lucky for Gilliam there was George Harrison.  Harrison had come to the Pythons' rescue with funding to make Life of Brian  and he did so again for Time Bandits .  The result was not only a unique fantasy film but a movie that would set Gilliam apart as a director, having both a certain aesthetic as well as subversive undertone to stories that would become more pronounced in his later movies.   Kevin (Craig Warnock) is an 11-year-old boy who loves

Aguirre, the Wrath of God was the first movie in which Werner Herzog cast Klaus Kinski as the lead.  He had previously had some contact with the actor when he had rented a room from Herzog's family and, after writing the script, thought he would be perfect for the lead role.  Kinski thought so as well and a long, contentious partnership between the two was begun. I don't know if Herzog was aware of Kinski's difficulties, but in his usual fashion he decided to make a movie about an ill-fated journey down the Amazon River from Peru to find the fabled city of El Dorado by taking his crew to Peru and floating down the Amazon River.  I have often wondered who was crazier, Herzog or Kinski, when it came to the two as collaborators and rivals.  Whatever the answer may be to that their partnership resulted in some of the best movies to grace the screen. Gonzalo Pizarro (Alejandro Repullés), governor of the Spanish colony of Peru, sets out with an army and a large party of Indian sl

Werner Herzog considers F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu, a Symphony of Terror to be the greatest German film ever made.  It's not a surprise that he set before himself the task of remaking the classic silent adaptation of Dracula in his own manner.  To make things even more difficult he cast his favorite fiend, Klaus Kinski, in the lead role that Max Schreck had played in the original.  The result is an interesting take on both the original film and the novel with an altered ending that has caused a bit of controversy. Jonathan Harker (Bruno Ganz) is tasked by Renfield (Roland Topor) to travel to Transylvania to meet with Count Dracula, who is interested in purchasing a house near Harker's in the town of Wismar.  Harker's wife Lucy (Isabelle Adjani) has had frightening dreams and begs Harker not to go, but he does as he is bid and, despite the warnings of the local Gypsies, makes his way to Dracula's castle.  Once there he finds himself prisoner in the castle and ill from

"Sometimes They Come Back" was one of Stephen King's early short stories and one of the most memorable from his Night Shift collection.  It is pure King, portraying bullies in their worst light and taking any romanticism out of small-town life.  Like all the best King short stories it works best on the page because, where King has a habit of filling his novels with bloat at often has trouble nailing the ending, he rarely has that same problem with his shorter works. The problem comes when someone decides to extend what would make a good story in an anthology movie or show to feature length, and that is what we have with the 1991 television movie adaptation of the story.  In fact, it was originally supposed to be one of the stories in Cat's Eye , but Dino de Laurentiis decided it would work better on its own. Jim Norman (Tim Matheson) is a teacher that suffered a nervous breakdown sometime in the past.  Against his better judgment he accepts a job in his hometown, a pl

If there is a horror trope that is more played out than zombies it is vampires.  I am more than happy with the Universal and Hammer films as well as a handful of others, but it is rare that I look forward to seeing another vampire film.  It is around 150 years since Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu introduced them to popular culture with Carmilla , and the only true innovation over that time has been altering the rules.  Even so, altering the rules often means returning to the ones set out by Le Fanu and Bram Stoker, as the movies tended to ignore the books and just come up with their own. There are times, though, where someone adds a new twist to the old story.  This is what Guillermo del Toro does in his feature film debut, Cronos .   Jesus Gris (Federico Luppi) operates an antique store in Mexico City, often with his granddaughter Aurora (Tamara Xanath) in tow.  Some of his items include those that were sold off as a lot in the 1930s and had belonged to an alchemist (Mario Iván Martínez) tha

I don't believe there is much confusion around Shadow of the Vampire , but I will reiterate that, though based on the making of Nosferatu, a Symphony of Terror this is a work of pure fiction.  It features portrayals of real people who were involved in the making of the movie, but Steve Katz based his script on a legend that Max Schreck, who portrayed Count Orlok in the 1922 film, was a real vampire.  It was based on specious information that Schreck made only the one movie and then disappeared.   These rumors arose long before the internet but still at a time when it was not too hard to verify information if one tried.  It was one of a number of rumors about Schreck, who was a bit of a loner and kept his private and public life separated.  Another was that he never existed and that Orlok was played by another actor named Alfred Abel.  That Schreck did exist and was a bit eccentric is not in question and it is not hard to find information about him, but the truth is Shadow of a Vam

It has reached a point for Sony that it would benefit them more to just turn over their Marvel properties, which seem to revolve solely around Spider-Man, to Disney.  Disney hasn't been doing great with the Marvel Cinematic Universe lately, but at least they occasionally figure out how to make the minor characters work.  Also, the only Sony films featuring a Marvel character that have done well are the Spider-Man movies that were made in tandem with Disney.  Sure, the Venom movies have been fun, but nothing that matches the main character in the series - a main character that the live-action movies take pains to ignore exists. Besides two Venom films Sony has given us Morbius and Madame Web, both major financial and critical disappointments.  It's not something that's even new with Sony; the two Amazing Spider-Man films were misfires after the studio got nervous and rebooted the series after Spider-Man 3  instead of letting Sam Raimi get his series back on track.  They also

While Godzilla vs. Biollante has become a favorite among fans it didn't set the Japanese box office on fire.  That, along with the fact that Toho couldn't get theatrical distribution in many countries including the U.S., frightened them a bit.  Because of this, and with the 50th anniversary of the studio coming up, it was decided to do another rematch with King Kong.  Problem is, unlike in the 1960s, King Kong was now owned by Turner Broadcasting, and they wanted 9 million dollars for the rights.  Being that it would have been two thirds of what was the final budget for this movie Toho did a poll to decide who Godzilla would go up against next.  The result was King Ghidorah. Only thing is returning director Kazuki Ômori didn't want King Ghidorah to be, in his words, was a silly space monster.  Since The Return of Godzilla had wiped the slate clean of every Showa film after the original that meant the origin of King Ghidorah, as well as Godzilla himself, could be altered. 

Wes Craven was one of the more frustrating horror directors.  He churned out a lot of movies, some for television, and kept doing so even when he had big hits.  After A Nightmare on Elm Street   came the TV movie Chiller , followed by the ridiculous Deadly Friend .  The only good movie he did for the rest of the decade was The Serpent and the Rainbow , an atypically strange film involving voodoo, before he brought us Mitch Pileggi as electric Freddy in Shocker . But, true to form, he pulled another strange movie out of his hat to open the 1990s with The People Under the Stairs .  Taking inspiration from a real-life incident in which a burglary call led to police finding a couple's children locked in their rooms, Craven came up with this urban fairytale of two monstrous landlords who get up to all sort of evil, including keeping a number of teenagers prisoner in their home.  Fool (Brandon Quintin Adams) is a young boy whose family is facing eviction from the dilapidated slum in whic

Few movies have any surprises in them these days and those that do are usually not of the good variety.  Housebound , the debut film of Gerard Johnstone of M3GAN fame, is one of the good ones.  Like all the best fright films from New Zealand this was made on a shoestring budget and with help from the New Zealand Film Commission, who has always seemed like a bunch of weird horror fans rather than some stuffy bureaucratic office.   Low budget means, as usual, an economic use of sets and places, and Housebound  is no different.  The title pretty much gives that away, but the special thing about this movie is that it begins as a haunted house film and evolves into something else as it goes along.  Add the usual dry Kiwi sense of humor and it turns into something special. Kylie (Morgana O'Reilly) is a young criminal who, after a failed ATM robbery, is put under house arrest with her mother Miriam (Rima Te Wiata) and stepfather Graeme (Ross Harper).  It's a home that she has always

David Fincher, upon completing Fight Club , decided he wanted to make something a little simpler.  David Koepp had a script about a woman and her daughter trapped inside a safe room when their house was invaded.  It's a good set-up, limits the filming locations and allows for a tight focus on both the action and the drama.  It also keeps the budget down, keeps the actors to a minimum and, despite a confined feeling for the audience, provides a number of possibilities for various scenarios.   Problem is things didn't go the way Fincher had planned.  Nicole Kidman, who was supposed to play the lead, was injured early on in filming.  Also, instead of using a real location, Fincher had the complete interior of the brownstone built on a stage, resulting in extra expense.  Still, it resulted in one of the highest grossing films of 2002 even if it did receive mixed reviews at the time and is pretty much forgotten now.  Meg Altman (Jodie Foster) is recently divorced and is looking for

Jodie Foster made a number of movies in 1975, from the family-friendly comedy Freaky Friday to the gangster film Bugsy Malone .  It meant that 1976, when all these movies hit the theaters one after another, Foster was everywhere and pretty much the next teen sensation.  She also did two of her most controversial films during that time, Taxi Driver and The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane .  Rynn Jacobs (Foster) is a 13-year-old girl with a poet father who is frequently away from the home.  This situation unfortunately gets attention in the small Massachusetts village where her father has leased a house for the next three years from Cora Hallet (Alexis Smith).  The worst of that attention comes from Cora's son Frank (Martin Sheen), who on Rynn's birthday shows up and tries to get a bit too friendly with her.  She does, however, find a true person to watch over her in Officer Miglioriti (Mort Shuman), who knows all too well Frank's history.  She is on no better terms with

It had been a while since the two-part finale to the original Hunger Games series and, though Suzanne Collins's prequel had sold well, it was no guarantee that a movie version would still attract an audience.  After all both the books and the movies were aimed at a young adult audience and, after this long of a gap, none of the original fans were young adults anymore.  Still, Francis Lawrence was back directing once again and, for those of us who got into the series as actual adults, the idea of getting some history and background of Panem, the games and Corialanus Snow was at least enticing.  My expectations were tempered due to the last two movies in the series.  The usual money grab of dividing the last book into two movies was done but it still managed to feel rushed.  While The Hunger Games: Catching Fire felt like a true adaptation of the novel the Mockingjay movies felt rushed despite the unnecessary two-part stretch, and emotionally they didn't hit the same way as the