JOHN CARPENTER'S THE FOG

 

 

The Fog is a 1980 horror flick directed by cult filmmaker John Carpenter. The film stars Hal Holbrook and eighties hotties Adrienne Barbeau, who was married to Carpenter at the time, and Jamie Lee Curtis (who had starred in Carpenter’s previous horror film Halloween, which is arguably his most popular film to date). The film is about a small coastal town terrorized by a mysterious fog that rolls into town one night and starts picking off the residents. Actually, John Carpenter once reportedly described this as his least favorite film, and, quite frankly, it’s not hard to see why. First off, this flick is really not all that “horrific” at least compared to the “slasher” flicks that came after it (which, ironically, Carpenter is accredited to starting with his Halloween flick) and/or the far more brutal horror flicks of recent years like the Hostel and Saw flicks. The special effects are rather cheesy even for 1980 (this was, of course, years before the advent of CGI). To be brutally honest, while I’m normally a fan of John Carpenter’s movies (or at least a good number of them anyway), I thought this was one of the most boring horror flicks I’ve ever seen. And, to tell the truth, I kind of cringed when Adrienne Barbeau--who plays a local husky-voiced DJ in the film--makes her little speech at the end when she warns others to “watch out for the fog” and whatnot. Probably the scariest part of the entire flick, at least for me, was at the very end when Hal Holbrook’s character--spoiler alert!--gets sliced in half by the head evil spirit or whatever the hell he was (and, there again, that was one of the cheesiest-looking “evil spirits” I’ve EVER seen in a horror flick). John Carpenter's The Fog might appeal more to those who would like to watch a more "traditional" horror story than the more graphic "slasher" flicks and/or more modern horror flicks like the aforementioned Hostel and Saw flicks and wouldn't mind the "dated" look of this film. However, fans of those more graphic horror flicks might find this one a bit too boring as I did. (No offense, John!) A sidenote: Earlier on this blog, I reviewed the 2005 remake of The Fog. Admittedly, I gave the remake a somewhat better review than I’ve given the original here, although I know a good number of “horror purists” would strongly disagree with me on this. But at least in the remake the special effects are a bit better--thanks, of course, to CGI!--and we get to see why the “evil spirits” within the fog have it in for the townspeople instead of just merely being told why (like, for instance, in the original at the beginning when that rather creepy old dude is telling that ghost story to those kids). Besides, this is MY movie review blog, so there!

 





A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET: FREDDY VS. FREDDY

 

 

A Nightmare On Elm Street is the brainchild of horror filmmaking legend Wes Craven who directed the 1984 first film. The film, of course, is about a disfigured supernatural-esque killer named Freddy Krueger--played by, of course, Robert Englund--who was burned alive after being accused of killing several children and being released on a technicality. Years later he attacks the teenaged children of those that burned him in their dreams. Wearing his trademarked fedora hat and red-and-green striped sweater, Freddy’s weapon-of-choice is a “special” glove with knives embedded in its fingers. After that film became a huge success at the all-important box office, there were over half-a-dozen equally-successful sequels which culminated in the film Freddy vs. Jason that pits Freddy against Jason Vorhees who was, of course, the killer in the Friday The 13^th horror film franchise. In 2010, Michael Bay (of Transformers fame) produced a remake of A Nightmare On Elm Street with Jackie Earle Haley (of the original Bad News Bears fame) in the role of Freddy. There are, as one might imagine, changes between the old Freddy and the new Freddy. Whereas the original Freddy was a child killer, the new Freddy is a child molester who gets burned alive by the parents of the children he molested. (Wes Craven reportedly initially wanted to make Freddy into a child molester, but he had a change of heart I guess because he might’ve thought that would’ve made Freddy appear less, for lack of a better word, likeable.) And, unlike the old Freddy, the children the new Freddy attacks in their dreams are the children he molested when they were younger. And, while the older Freddy’s face looked more cartoony, the new Freddy was made to look more like an actual burn victim. And perhaps the biggest change of all was that the new Freddy wasn’t as, shall we say, humorous as the old Freddy. That’s actually what separated Freddy Krueger from the other “slasher” flick killers such as the aforementioned Jason Vorhees and Halloween’s Michael Myers who were pretty much bulked-up hooded silent killers. And that’s why I--and undoubtedly many other diehard horror flick fans--will always regard Robert Englund as THE Freddy Krueger (although Jackie Earle Haley’s take on the character is pretty interesting). A sidenote: Interestingly enough, this isn’t the first time Jackie Earl Haley portrayed a child molester on-film. Before A Nightmare On Elm Street, he won accolades for playing one in the film Little Children (where Kate Winslet appeared starkers on-film for the umpteenth time!). I wonder, is he being typecast? Just asking! Also, Wes Craven reportedly expressed "reservations" about doing a remake of one of his most iconic movies while Robert Englund was reportedly all for them doing a remake. Make of THAT what you will!

 





STEPHEN KING'S GRAVEYARD SHIFT

 

Graveyard Shift is a 1990 horror flick based on one of Stephen King’s short stories of the same name. The plot is pretty simple enough (as is, of course, usually the case with horror flicks): workers get killed off by a huge bat-like creature at a rat-infested textile mill during the--that’s right!--graveyard shift. Frankly, there have only been a few movies based on Stephen King novels/stories that have been on par with the novels--Carrie, The Shining and Pet Cemetery come to mind--and Graveyard Shift doesn’t even come close to matching the quality of those films. In fact, this flick employs just about every horror flick cliché imaginable. For instance, when the main character first comes into town in search of employment and he enters a diner, he gets--surprise!--accosted by a group of dimwitted hooligans. And, from there, the clichés just keep coming (e.g. people keep disappearing mysteriously, the lone black guy in the film dies horribly, etc.)! However, that isn’t to say that aren’t some truly horrifying aspects to this film. For instance, Brad Dourif--who, as horror aficionados no doubt know, provided the voice of Chucky in the Child’s Play movies (as well as starring in the critically-acclaimed cinematic adaptations of the Lord Of The Rings novel trilogy)--plays a really creepy exterminator who starts the movie off by dumping rat feces into the local water supply. Nice! Anyway, there’s one scene in the flick when Brad is having a rather creepy conversation with the main character while he’s working the--of course!--graveyard shift and he tells how in Vietnam the Vietnam Cong would strap American POWs on the ground via stakes, cut a wound up above the prisoner’s abdomen and stick a rice ball into the open wound and let the rats feed. Yum! This was actually one of the creepiest scenes in the whole entire flick. As for the creature that’s doing the killing, it was actually pretty scary-looking. Keep in mind this was before the advent of CGI. Of course, even with CGI, sometimes the creatures in these flicks are a little less than horrifying. But, I must say, they actually did a pretty good job of making the bat-like creature--why they didn’t make it look more rat-looking is beyond me--look pretty damn realistic. I know if I ever came across that thing, I’d be getting the hell out of Dodge REAL damn quick! One thing that kind of bothered me is that the chick in the flick--who may or may not had been the main character’s love-interest in the film (the characters aren’t too fleshed-out in the film so it’s kind of hard to tell)--gets offed by the mill’s rather sadistic foreman who goes batcrap crazy (pardon the pun!) before being off himself by the creature. Another thing that got to me about this flick is that when people start being killed off by the creature no one really seems to notice or to care. And, when someone brings up the “disappearance” of a certain character, one of the other characters says something like, “Oh, they just left.” Overall, Graveyard Shift isn’t the worst horror flick ever produced (reread my earlier reviews of The Bleeding--which was hilariously bad!--and the blatant Friday the 13^th rip-offs the Bloody Murder films). Still, I was kind of surprised Stephen King allowed his name to be associated with this thing, which, of course, the producers of this flick probably did just to gain more attention to said flick, which, judging from the film’s rather lukewarm reception (it was a modest box office hit at best), that strategy apparently didn’t work none too well. In any case, as is usually the case with movies based on books and/or stories, do yourself a favor and read the original story published in King’s short story anthology Night Shift (which is one of my favorite Stephen King books of all-time). Of course, this film might be more "horrific" for those who are afraid of rats, especially since it looks like they used real live rats in this flick (whereas, again, nowadays they'd probably just CGI the whole thing). Just a suggestion!

GREEN LANTERN

 

 

Green Lantern is among a long list of movies based on comic books released in recent years. A lot of critics panned this film, although I can’t really see why. To me, it’s no better or worse than any other comic book flick I’ve seen. I mean, it’s pretty faithful to the comic book it’s based on unlike some other comic book-based flicks I’ve seen (cough . . . Iron Man!). For those who’ve never seen the flick or read the comic book, the plot pretty much goes like this: A hotshot pilot named Hal Jordan---played by Ryan Reynolds--comes across a crash-landed alien who hands him a ring with special powers before he dies of his injuries. It turns out the alien was a member of an intergalactic police corps of sorts called the Green Lanterns run by these rather strange beings who call themselves The Guardians. Hal at first is reluctant to join said intergalactic police corps believing he’s not worthy. However, Hal has a change of heart when Earth gets threatened by some powerful evil being (of course!) named Parallax--who was previously imprisoned by the very same Green Lantern who gave him the ring--threatens to destroy the Earth along with the rest of the universe. But first Hal has to fight a mad scientist-type named Professor Hammond who gets “infected” by Parallax and gets an overgrown head and the power of telekinesis that he uses for ill (of course!) and kidnaps Hal’s love-interest Carol--played by Blake Lively (who, I must say, looked pretty lovely in this flick!)--whom Hal rescues right before Parallax reaches Earth and . . . well, you probably already know the outcome, don’t you? Green Lantern, at least in my humble view, was actually a pretty decent superhero movie in spite of what many of the critics said about this film. True, the plot was somewhat hokey at times, but, then again, this IS a movie based on a comic book, so what in the hell do the critics expect? I also liked the CGI, which the critics also, er, criticized, including the Green Lantern costumes, which I thought were pretty cool-looking myself. All in all, I actually liked Green Lantern. One minor complaint I did have about the flick was that they didn’t feature the other Green Lanterns more. But maybe they’ll change that in the sequels of which they are planning on making even though Green Lantern didn’t “perform” as well at the box office as the studio had reportedly hoped (even though it purportedly made about $200 million overall at the all-important box office even though it purportedly cost about HALF that to make; go figure!).

 





THE TRANSPORTER 2

 

The Transporter 2 is, of course, the sequel to the earlier-reviewed The Transporter. It again stars action movie hero Jason Statham as a "transporter" named Frank. This time he's a chauffeur for a U.S. diplomat's family whose main job is driving their young son around. Of course, the young son gets kidnapped under Frank's watch and it's--of course!--up to Frank to get him back. There's a bit more to the "plot" than that, but, let's face it, the main reason to watch these flicks is to watch Jason Statham kick ass & take names (and, as in the first flick, does plenty of THAT!)! The bad guys in this flick seem to be a bit more, shall we say, cartoonish than in the first Transporter--like, for instance, there's a sexy female assassin who kills people while sporting sexy skimpy lingerie (which is, of course, one of my most favorite parts about the flick!)--and then there's, of course, the kid. Quite frankly, I don't think putting little kids in action flicks is a very good idea. I mean, does anyone recall the Arnold Schwarzenegger box office fiasco that was Last Action Hero? (I would've said Kindergarten Cop myself, but, for some reason, there's a lot of people who seemingly enjoy that damn movie!) In any case, do I feel Transporter 2 is "better" than the first one? Well, let's just say they both have their good points and leave it at that, okay? A sidenote: The director of this flick actually stated that the character Frank was gay (even though he had a sex scene with his female co-star in the first one). However, he later backtracked I guess because nobody is ready to have a full-on "gay" action hero. What does anyone else think?