In the Lobby

Archive for September, 2009

I typically stay away from the online message boards – even those that tend to attract a smarter, more informed group of fans. Mostly because the comments are almost always slanted to the negative and to me that gets tired quickly. If I was as chronically disappointed in movies as much as some people seem to be, and if I discovered that I took zero joy in anticipating them, I’d just walk away and find something new to do with my time. I don’t care how often I’ve been burned by lousy movies (and that’d be a lot, by the way), my enthusiasm for what’s around the corner never dims. Call it a gift! True, there’s plenty of movies that I end up disliking but I’m rarely down on a movie prior to seeing it. Sure to raise the usual advance ire among fans is the new trailer for the Nightmare on Elm Street remake.

Taking the positive point of view, I’m gonna say it looks damn sharp. But then, all of Platinum Dunes’ films look sharp. There’s some people who hate PD’s string of remakes and on some level I can see the reason for the animosity. For me, though, the only one I’ve really and truly disliked has been The Hitcher (2007). I enjoyed their versions of Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Friday the 13th but not so much as remakes but as new chapters in their respective franchises. I don’t think either film holds a candle to the originals but I do think that they compare well to most of the sequels. Others may disagree but I can’t go along with the idea that PD’s TCM is so much worse than Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III or Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation. And likewise, was PD’s Friday the 13th remake a bigger blight on the series than Jason Takes Manhattan or Jason X - or even Freddy vs. Jason? It’s faint praise to say so but I don’t think so. My favorite PD remake to date has been their reworking of Amityville Horror – a film that’s pretty cheesy to begin with and so in turn it didn’t suffer much from the PD treatment.

As for A Nightmare on Elm Street, I rate the new film’s chances of being good as fairly high. The original was one of the first R-rated movies I saw in the theater so I have plenty of affection for it but the series itself was never a big favorite of mine. After the buzz of Craven’s film, watching Freddy get turned into a MTV-era icon wasn’t so appealing. Of course, I have a soft spot for those sequels now but at the time each new Nightmare hit it was like “why can’t they stick to making a serious Elm St. like the first one?” And with this new film, it looks like – if nothing else – that they’re trying to make Freddy scary again. Is it too slick, is it too much of a retread of the original, is Jackie Earle Haley an effective Freddy? I don’t know. I do know that it’s an adjustment to see someone else as Freddy. Robert Englund truly owned that role so anyone is going to have a hard time replacing him. Even just to see Freddy standing in silhouette is to register something as being off about him. But I would hope that in the context of the film, Haley’s portrayal will prove to be a strong one. Whether it is or isn’t, though, the idea floated by some fans that they should’ve just brought Englund back is a pretty dense one. To relaunch a series for a new generation but keep the 62-year-old Englund in Freddy’s sweater would’ve been a dipshit move.

And if this looks terrible to you, well, tell yourself it’s only a dream.

When writing my review of the new sci-fi horror film Pandorum, I felt I had to note how poorly I thought the movie was marketed. The final one-sheet for the film was terrible – just a man in darkness peeling the skin off his arm. As a stand-alone image, it’s kind of gross but not in a “I want to see more” way – unless you’re the kind of person who’s automatically going to see any genre film regardless of how it looks up front. Or unless you’re really jacked to see some skin peeling.

But after posting my review, I was reminded that there were a series of teaser posters for Pandorum that took a much more funky, surreal approach:

I don’t know if these were any more enticing to the average moviegoer (probably not – and doesn’t that last one look like Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler?) but I do think they were more eye-catching, at least. But the fact that they vanished from theater lobbies to make room for this:

…wasn’t a great move. Having seen the movie, I think it’s a shame that they couldn’t figure out a better way to sell what’s actually a pretty cool film. Of course, it wouldn’t be the first time a worthwhile movie went ignored in theaters but Pandorum seems to have invited failure more than most. Click over to Shock Till You Drop to read my full review.

Sure, Ghost Rider (2007) was basically shit but as a fan of the character I didn’t want that to remain the sole attempt at a Ghost Rider movie. And now, happily, it looks like it won’t be (read Variety’s story on the sequel’s development here). Groan about the idea of a Ghost Rider 2 all you want but Ghost Rider is just too cool to let him wash out like a chump after just one trip to the big screen. I mean, really – they tried three times to get The Punisher right (and finally succeeded on the third attempt – too bad no one showed up to see it). Isn’t it only fair that Ghost Rider get a least a second chance?

That David Cronenberg’s 1986 remake of The Fly would be due for a remake of its own isn’t so surprising. But the idea that Cronenberg himself would be returning to write and potentially direct the remake himself (see The Hollywood Reporter’s story here) is a little astonishing. Cronenberg has been drawn back into the web of The Fly in recent years, working on the opera version of the film, but his willingness to make another movie based on the material is hard to figure. But since this is Cronenberg, who has yet to see his talents spiral down the drain, I think it’s safe to assume he’ll be coming back to The Fly armed with some visionary concept of how to reapproach it. And it should be remembered that Cronenberg himself didn’t write the ‘86 version – it was Charles Edward Pogue (even though Cronenberg did his own rewriting, I remember an interview at the time where Cronenberg said that most of the ideas in The Fly screenplay that people would likely peg as coming from him were actually in Pogue’s original draft) so we really haven’t seen a Cronenberg-penned Fly yet. I just wish that – as long as he’s up for the idea of remaking his films – he were also involved in the proposed remake of Videodrome. Now that’s a film that really needs his sensibilities to work. As for The Fly, the original (well, the original remake, I should say) probably isn’t even my top five favorite Cronenberg films (let me think about that…no, it’s not – but it’s close) but it’s still an amazing movie. Twenty-three years later, it’s still the movie that Cronenberg’s most known for. I can’t imagine that he feels the need to step back to The Fly just for commercial reasons – History of Violence and Eastern Promises were two of his finer movies and both seemed to do respectable business as well. But whatever the case, I’m ready to take another deep, penetrating dive into the plasma pool.

The popularity of theatrical horror was waning in the late ’80s and yet on television, the genre was thriving with original syndicated programming. The syndicated horror fare of the late ’80s/early ’90s – which included the likes of Tales from the Darkside, Monsters, Werewolf, Freddy’s Nightmares, and Forever Knight – remains fondly remembered by fans today. But of all the shows of that era, the most intriguing and creatively successful was arguably Friday the 13th: The Series. A spin-off of the movie franchise in name only, Friday the 13th: The Series created its own separate mythology.

Starting in 1987, Friday the 13th: The Series told the story of sage occult expert Jack Marshak (Chris Wiggins) who was teamed with a pair of cousins – Micki Foster (Robey) and Ryan Dallion (John D. LeMay) – in a quest to retrieve cursed antiques and store them safely in the vault of their shop, Curious Goods. With an anthology series-style concept that lent almost endless leeway to the show’s writers, Friday the 13th: The Series proved to have unusually long legs for a serialized horror show (compare its three-year run to that of Kolchak: The Night Stalker, which had to limp its way through a handful of episodes before cancellation).

But even fans of the series routinely dismiss Friday the 13th: The Series‘ third and final season as a drop in quality. LeMay left the series and was replaced by Steven Monarque as the more conventionally heroic Johnny Ventura (even the character’s name sounded like it belonged to an action hero) and with LeMay’s departure, much of the chemistry of the show left as well. But with that third season arriving on DVD today, I’d like to cite ten exceptional episodes as evidence as to why Season Three should be reappraised for hosting the series’ darkest and most mature round of stories.

10. Year of the Monkey (original air date: 1/15/90)
This episode boasted one of the most intriguing cursed objects of the series’ run – a trio of small monkey statues, embodying the old adage of ’see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.’ A wealthy Japanese industrialist on the brink of death uses these statues to test the honor of his three children and see who – if any – will be a fit heir to his empire. Tia Carrere plays the industrialist’s only daughter and the only one of his children who may resist the temptation the monkeys offer. A climatic samurai sword fight caps this unusual entry.

9. My Wife As A Dog (original air date: 2/19/90)
A singular example of the show delving into dark comedy (with a script written by Jim Henshaw, who was the executive story consultant for most of the series’ run), this episode featured the fourth and final F13 performance of the late character actor Denis Forest (who was to this show what Robert Culp was to The Outer Limits) as Aubrey Ross, a firefighter in the midst of a divorce and whose adored dog is dying. Thanks to the power of the leash, Aubrey discovers a solution to all his problems. Great woman-to-dog transformation at the end!

8. Mightier Than The Sword (original air date: 1/8/90)
This was the second of two Season 3 scripts penned by future L.A. Confidential screenwriter Brian Helgeland (who most recently scripted the upcoming film The Vampire’s Assistant). Mightier Than the Sword starred Colm Feore (who had previously been seen in the Season Two episode The Maestro and who is best known to genre fans as the memorable villain of Stephen King’s Storm of the Century). Here, Feore plays Alex Dent, a best-selling novelist, who has gained his success through a cursed fountain pen. This episode takes a twisted turn when Dent uses the power of the pen to write Micki as a murderess.

7. Repetition (original air date: 2/5/90)
This episode had nothing to do with the main cast (save for a brief appearance by Micki), exclusively focusing on the tale of Walter Cromwell (David Ferry), who we first see as an award-winning newspaper columnist. After Cromwell accidentally kills a young girl after falling asleep at the wheel of his car, the crime is unknown to anyone but the girl’s spirit is trapped in a cameo locket and begs to be released. Although through further killing, Cromwell is able to restore the girl to life, each subsequent life he takes also begs to be brought back – driving Cromwell to insanity and ruin. This episode was written by David Lynch’s daughter Jennifer and directed by F13 mainstay William Fruet (Spasms, Death Weekend, Funeral Home). Due to the absence of the main cast, many fans choose to ignore this episode but it’s one of the most dramatically accomplished hours of the show’s run.

6. Demon Hunter (original air date 10/2/89)
The series’ only full-on creature feature, depicting the hunt for a hulking demon with the final showdown taking place inside Curious Goods itself. Using a real-time format and digital clock read-out in the lower right-hand corner of the screen (beating 24 to the punch by twelve years!), this had a much more action-orientated feel than the usual F13 episode (ably directed by He Knows You’re Alone’s Armand Mastroianni – the undisputed MVP of Season Three – who also directed this season’s My Wife As A Dog, Mightier Than The Sword, The Charnel Pit, and Night Prey). Hardcore violence abounds in Demon Hunter, with a flashback scene of satanists getting machine-gunned to death (”You sick bastards!“). This episode also contains one of my favorite concluding Jack-isms, those wise final words delivered by Chris Wiggins which typically closed an episode: “If, of the many truths, you select one and follow it blindly – it will become a falsehood and you, a fanatic.”

5. The Long Road Home (original air date: 2/12/90)
Shows like The X-Files and Supernatural offered their own takes on the Texas Chainsaw Massacre school of backwoods terror (in Home and The Benders respectively) but Friday the 13th got there first with this episode that found Micki and Johnny at the mercy of two crazed brothers with a talent for taxidermy. If not for a bizarre climax that inexplicably had a stuffed corpse coming to life to pursue Micki and Johnny (with a shotgun!), this Ed Gein-style shout-out would’ve ranked higher as one of Season Three’s best. Besides the mostly real-world subject matter, this also broke from the show’s usual structure in that it begins with Micki and Johnny at the end of a mission, having successfully retrieved an object (a Chinese charm depicting a yin/yang symbol) and then encountering this episode’s malevolent brothers en route home in a random brush with a non-occult brand of evil. This also featured the most overt move of the season towards making Micki and Johnny into a romantic couple.

4. The Charnel Pit (original air date: 5/14/90)
Time travel was a staple of Friday the 13th: The Series (as seen in The Baron’s Bride, Eye of Death, and Hate On Your Dial) and this episode featured a cursed painting that – when blood was spilled on it – could send people back to 18th century France and into the chateau of the infamous Marquis de Sade (Neil Munro). In the modern day, Webster Eby (Vlasta Vrana), a college professor, is killing in order to communicate through the painting with the Marquis to gain historical insight. Rather than coming across as broadly evil, the Marquis is philosophical about his deeds – putting his heinous crimes in context. As he tells a close confidant: “Our crimes are small in this world, Latour. They’re merely picaresque.” The last episode of the series, The Charnel Pit saw the vault close for the last time with Jack noting that men need no cursed objects to find the evil within themselves (”Thoughts don’t cause pain, it’s what people do with them. If people are looking for evil, they’re going to find it.”). A fitting final statement for a show that was ended prematurely due to accusations from the religious right that it fed into a culture of violence. As Eby says, “A society that looks at itself honestly is healthy; one that denies its own evil breeds death and decay. You tell me which one we’re living in.”

3. Epitaph for a Lonely Soul (original air date: 1/22/90)
This tale of a mortician who’s able to raise the dead – and who does so solely in order to have a woman that’ll be his mate – ranks as arguably the most ghoulish hour of the series. But the middle-aged mortician (Neil Munro) at the center of this episode isn’t portrayed as a standard villain but instread as someone tragically reaching out for a last chance at companionship. By the conclusion, several lives are destroyed and the image of two resurrected girls choosing to perish again, embracing each other as they’re consumed in the midst of a blazing inferno, is one of the most chilling images of the series. Director Allan Kroeker (who also helmed this season’s The Long Road Home) is a still-active TV director, who – among his many credits – directed the best episode of Supernatural’s first season (the Grim Reaper-themed tale Faith).

2. Crippled Inside (original air date: 10/9/89)
Scripted by Brian Helgeland (L.A. Confidential, Mystic River), this episode put an early spotlight on Johnny and was one of the more morally complicated episodes in the series’ run. A teenage girl (Stephanie Morgenstern) who was crippled during a gang rape is offered a way to escape a lifetime of confinement by means of a cursed wheelchair. As the wheelchair allows her to send herself in spirit form to murder her attackers, each death she causes brings her closer to the full use of her legs. The question Johnny must deal with is whether or not it’s just to let this girl fulfill her revenge. In the end, Johnny is left with no comfort, futilely chopping at the wicker chair with an axe and not leaving a single mark on it. As a character who has benefited from the chair’s satanic power knowingly tells him: “It doesn’t matter, son. It’ll still be here after you and I are gone.”

1. Night Prey (original air date 11/13/89)
Opening with a morose Jack sitting alone on a park bench at dawn, musing about the hopelessly blurred lines between good and evil, Night Prey was as dark as Friday the 13th: The Series got. In the search for a cursed cross, Jack, Micki and Johnny find their hunt entangled with that of a man who’s spent decades pursuing the vampire who snatched his true love from him years ago. Michael Burgess is perfectly cast as the obsessed lover, bringing a palatable sense of grief to the role. And with a brief bout of vampire slaying, Jack proves to look the part of a natural-born Van Helsing – although in an act of mercy he also shows that he has no appetite for that sort of blood-thirsty brutality. With its moody atmospherics and envelope-pushing (for its time) depictions of sex and violence, Night Prey was the crown jewel of director Armand Mastroianni’s Season Three episodes and it also boasts one of the best scores from series composer Fred Mollin.

It’s true that Friday the 13th: The Series lacks the kind of sophistication we’ve come to expect from television today but for its time, it was an earnest, often times thoughtful, attempt to make a scary, dramatic program. It’s willingness to stretch and experiment in this third year proves that the show was not ready creatively to call it a day. It’s a shame that pressure from religious groups (and Paramount’s craven concession to that pressure) closed the door too soon on Curious Goods. Just as the store itself specialized in one of a kind items, so too was this show one of a kind. And, like many a precious antique, its value becomes more apparent as time goes on.