Trolls World Tour (2020)

Please...help me!

Never has a movie been so painful to watch for me. The Amityville Haunting was dull, ignorant and had a strangely incestuous vibe; Disney's remake of The Lion King was a 260-million-dollar autopsy; Up (much to the disbelief of everyone around me) struck me as unbearably saccharine. Of course, the last few years have churned out an obscene number of merchandisable family movies: some were surprisingly enjoyable (The Lego Movie), others were the cinematic equivalent of a puppy massacre (The Emoji Movie). But never have I sat through a movie more vapid, vacant or insulting than Trolls World Tour. I managed to miss the first movie, but got roped into watching this one, and within minutes, my face was contorted into a shape reminiscent of Gordon Ramsay dredging his bare hand through a bucket of rancid shrimp chowder. It remained that way until long after the credits mercifully rolled.

What this film thinks I look like while watching

Trolls World Tour is worse than a Lifetime movie. It is worse than an after-school special. It is worse than any educational film ever played on a janky old VHS machine in a classroom. You see, Trolls has a very particular AND SCREAMINGLY OBVIOUS moral to it. It offers the absolute laziest allegory for racism and the pursuit of a multicultural environment I have ever witnessed. Basically, it turns out that the Trolls from the first movie are Pop Trolls, and that there are many other races of Troll in the world, all defined by their musical genre preference. Other tribes include Rock, Funk, Techno, Classical and Country, each of which has inherited a magical guitar string that represents their culture. Well, some of them did. We meet a number of other genre trolls, such as Reggae and K-Pop, who were apparently not important enough to get their own magic string.

Queen Barb is the head of the Rock Trolls very obviously modelled on Joan Jett, and for whatever reason, she has decided to indoctrinate all the other races with high-voltage rock, with the ultimate goal of a world of Rock Trolls. She rampages round Troll World, assaulting the residents with neon sound waves in order to snatch their strings away. Poppy (voiced irritatingly by Anna Kendrick) is now queen of the Pop Trolls, and sets out on a quest to be the most brightly-coloured SJW in history.

What I actually look like while watching

Now don't get me wrong - these are the sorts of setups that can engage young audiences with more adult topics like discrimination and acceptance, if handled appropriately. But too many family movies these days assume that kids are stupid, and insist on providing their audience with the moral in large print, audio and braille forms, and this is one of the worst offenders. It's apparently not enough for the plot to involve different races trying to remain separate while one character sees them all as one and the same; this movie is determined to be a 90-minute Michael Jackson Black or White music video. Poppy keeps spouting such obvious lines as "There's no difference between us, we're all Trolls!" and basically doing whatever she can to telegraph the point... well, at least when she's not being an empty-headed bitch. The idea that the five writers were sat on their solid-gold sofas somewhere, having been paid to write this trash, made me want to commit harakiri.

Not only is this the worst movie I have ever seen, Poppy is perhaps the worst character I have ever seen. She follows the modern cartoon trope of being loud, 'quirky' and hyperactive, but is emotionally empty. She is an absolute non-character, and when the movie gets to the essential "friends have a fight and go their separate ways" part, she furrows her brow as if we are supposed to believe she feels any emotions beyond self-fellatio. She treats everyone around her horribly, ignoring everything they say while purporting to be an amazing queen who is trying to save her people and unite the nations. Some cuck of a fellow troll called Branch (Justin Timberlake) nips at her heels the entire movie, and eventually professes his love for her, despite her being a cunt.

Ah's ain't no racial stereotype,
noooo Suh!

A llama-type creature that grew up among the Pop Trolls sets out too - again, for some reason - and finds out that he was born to the Funk Trolls but his egg was stolen before he hatched. Given how racially sensitive this shit movie is trying to be, I find it amusing that the character with Funk genetics is voiced by a black guy, has dreads and is a quadruped while all the other trolls are mostly human-like. This character stands out almost like Steve Martin in The Jerk, but supposedly in the name of acceptance. When he meets his birth parents, he is suddenly turned on the race he grew up with, because it turns out that the Pop Trolls stole the Funk Trolls' string years ago. You heard them -- THE WHITE MAN STOLE THE BLACK MAN'S STRING! Unbelievable.

If this wasn't sounding sickening enough to you yet, the human form of Ipicac syrup shows up, because apparently no American family movie can get by without some foreigner shaking things up with a Kent accent. Fucking James Corden voices some stupid fat character that carries around a gimp maggot, who will ultimately give us the first of two "friends have a fight and go their separate ways" skits.

The characters, plot and moral may remind me of Jeff Goldblum saying "that is one big pile of shit", but I'm not even close to done complaining about this celluloid abortion. What Trolls even more obviously than its racially inclusive message, is rip every ounce of nostalgia from our souls, sticks it in a blender and hits frappe. If The Lego Movie has taught other filmmakers anything, it's that pop culture references make a movie. It acts as a Jukebox Musical of the worst kind, filling itself out with heavily-autotuned covers of everyone's favourite songs. "Hey, you like Cyndi Lauper? Well here's her best song if it got sent through Brundle Fly's teleportation pod!" The whole thing goes exactly like that. The majority shareholder of this movie is Mr Horrendous Song-Covers, and every ounce of his input is obnoxiously bright and flashy like an arcade game, seemingly to distract the audience from the lack of substance with shiny things. What isn't horribly boring and vapid dialogue is uber-colourful and robotic music video. The fucking thing even resorts to a 30-second Hammer Time reference to endear us to it, but it made me feel like I would punch this movie if it were a person.

Why do I like you again?

I have never had cancer, but I'm certain that this movie caused some insidious DNA mutation in me. This movie actually made me feel like crying because of how bad it was. When Rolling Stone magazine finally recognises my brilliance and asks me in an interview what the two most painful experiences of my life were, I will reply, "Childbirth and Trolls World Tour". My eyes, ears and soul were violated by this movie, my intelligence had seven shades of shit beaten out of it by this movie, and the only thing this fucking movie taught me is that black people are actually troll llamas named Quincy.

Ju-On: The Grudge (2002)

Any basic kid of my generation remembers the craze of Japanese ghost women haunting their dreams in the early 2000s. I distinctly remember getting rather pissed one time off at two friends who slept over, and kept wailing into the night about Samara coming to get them. Ju-On: The Grudge and Ringu were two Japanese horror movies that soon got American remakes and exploded onto the Western mainstream, and both spawned an obscene number of sequels et al. I enjoyed all such movies back in the day, and after more than ten years, I decided to revisit Ju-On: The Grudge.

The throaty croaking, the creaking woman with long black hair and cat screeches are so widely known of The Grudge, but what only fans will recognise it for is the episodic framing, eerie use of sweeping camera and minimal musical score, and overall excellence in creating suspense. For all the Scary Movie-style parody and social recognition that the franchise has attracted, Ju-On: The Grudge remains a quietly scary film that horror rookies will be scared by, and horror experts will be impressed by.

"Bubblegum!"

The story of Ju-On: The Grudge is centred on a particular house in suburban Japan. A typical Japanese family home with paper doors and minimal decoration, its boxy interiors capture the majority of the movie's action and fear. A catatonic old woman lives in the house, and very quickly, the family and acquaintances who set foot in the place are hunted down by a ghostly woman and disappear. What is essentially a basic setup is made more mysterious in its non-linear presentation, jumping around on the story's timeline to ultimately give us a complete jigsaw puzzle.

Get those nuts away from my face!

I've experienced a moderate body of Asian horror movies over the years, and would never claim to be an expert, or even an enthusiast, despite how highly I would recommend the movies I have seen and the genre they represent. I find Ju-On: The Grudge to be an easily watchable movie. I know of many people who really will not give their time to foreign movies, and I swear to God, if I had a nickel for every time I had heard, "If I wanted to read, I'd go to a library!" But I think that this movie is a fairly easy transition for a world cinema novice. Speech, of course, plays an important part, but a surprising amount of the movie is visual, and I believe transcends cultural and linguistic boundaries. Honestly, this could be a silent movie of the '20s with just a musical score and still work terrifically.

All this pussy and nobody's getting laid

As I said, I am no expert in Asian movies, and speak about three words of Japanese, but as an enthusiastic linguist of the English language, I can say that at times, the standard of acting is hard to judge due to the cadences of spoken Japanese. When compared to their corresponding subtitles, some regular spoken sequences can come across as over-acted to an English-speaking audience, but I understand that this could be due to the natural sound of the Japanese language. However, as I have observed with many a horror movie over the years, the actors are largely very convincing and engaging when acting frightened.


Director/writer Takashi Shimizu has fun within the visual and narrative boundaries he set for himself and his crew, and manages to communicate fear up-close and in long shots. Those iconic extreme close-ups of the faces of the ghosts' imminent victims are so well crafted and acted, and truly stand out as the highlights of the movie. The repeated sweeping tracking shots of victims as they succumb to the haunting are wonderfully simplistic while establishing key visual themes; by the third or fourth chapter of this chilling tale, we understand what is to come both visually and narratively, but that doesn't stop it from being absolutely terrifying when it arrives.

Helloooo? Avon calling!

As it happens, I did not find Ju-On: The Grudge as immediately terrifying as I either remembered or anticipated. I did not jump, and no scene gave me the chills or gave me trouble sleeping (as tall an order as that is for me these days), but as a film enthusiast, I really appreciate this picture. It clearly inspired enough tension and excitement in people to spew a whole gooey egg-nest from its cinematic loins, but the humility and understated charm of Shimizu's Ju-On: The Grudge is an entirely enjoyable and magnetic cinematic experience.

Jumanji: The Next Level (2019)

The second instalment of the Jumanji reboot turned out to be more enjoyable than I anticipated, and makes for a really nifty little family adventure movie during the winter holidays. Only weeks ago, I declared that the first chapter was 'giving me cancer' while my daughter watched on eagerly, and my main grievances were the waffer-theen stereotypes of characters that were defined by no more than two traits apiece, and the pacing of both narrative and comedy. I wasn't hyped to see this movie, and ended up having a lot more fun this time around.

So my first observation before watching was how and more importantly why the characters would play the game again. The setup had the advantage of the real-life characters being embodied by avatars that could remain consistent, so perhaps Jumanji would be found and unwittingly stumbled into by another group of kids. However, despite the same quartet landing in the jungles of Jumanji for a second time, the movie at least cares to give it some prompting: Spencer (Alex Wolff) has broken up with Martha (Morgan Turner) during their first year at separate colleges, and has hit that part of young adult life where he doesn't know who he is or what he is doing. What he does know is that living in the body of Dwayne Johnson for a brief period won him the girl the first time around, and even gave him a little sense of purpose. When he doesn't show up for the group's reunion brunch, they grow worried and go to his house, where they find he has rewired the game and started again.

This movie had all the potential to be a really dreary retread of its predecessor, and it pulls out several stops to avoid this, the first of which being the additional characters of Milo (Danny Glover), Grampa Eddie (Danny DeVito) and Ming (Awkwafina), the second of which being more body-swapping than you can shake a stick at. What I really loved about this movie was how much fun and freedom the actors were allowed by the script. Due to the game console being smashed, the kids don't get assigned their former avatars, and Eddie and Milo accidentally get sucked into playing too. Later, pools of glowing water are found to have crazy swapping powers, meaning that each actor gets to embody at least two of their costars over the course of the narrative. My personal favourite among these was Ming acting as DeVito: her voice and mannerisms are spot on, and every second was a joy to watch.

Of course, the real original '90s Jumanji fell into the fantasy narrative trope in which characters have to navigate a series of deadly encounters to reach safety, and the reboots are no different. This movie drops its momentum at one point with a few skits that only slow the progress, but generally has a decent flow and is largely exciting. A particular scene involving a maze of rope bridges that move like the staircases at Hogwarts stands out in terms of action and imagination, and the picture generally looks vibrant and fun.

One issue that the film carries on from its predecessor is a lack of game-oriented cinematography. The narratives make great use of the video game environment, with dialogue that reflects the tropes of non-player characters, but in many cases adopt a fairly standard action camera setup with quick cuts and conventional angles. It could have been fun to use more third-person angles that show characters from above and behind like video games tend to do, or perhaps oddities in the developing backdrops as the camera pans. Thinking in more gameish terms with the cinematography could really pull the other elements together and create a truly immersive gaming movie experience. 

The original set of kid and adult actors reprise their roles very nicely, with the particular zest that we have come to expect from Dwayne Johnson and Jack Black. Some great additions include Rory 'the Hound' McCann as the latest evil overlord threatening Jumanji's safety, and the aforementioned Awkwafina as Ming, who was truly entertaining. DeVito and Glover's characters bring a sense of sentimentality that the Williams Jumanji used to humanise an otherwise wacky story, and offer plenty of prime meat for the actors impersonating them to chew on. 

Jumanji: The Next Level delivers more than one might expect from a movie of its sort, and has a relentless sense of fun to it. Director and co-writer Jake Kasdan creates a really cool atmosphere and, aside from the odd slip-up here and there, knows exactly what kind of movie he's making. It's far from a perfect or artistically intriguing movie, but it never takes itself too seriously, ticks all the boxes and leaves its audience feeling exhilarated and thoroughly entertained.

The Lion King (2019)

The Lion King may have just scooped the medal for the Disney remake I have hated the most to date. It doesn't seem to have any relation with how much I loved its original, or even the level of effort put in by the many hardworking artists who produced the retread. This movie has undoubtedly achieved something monumental, and that is photorealism, but this is its Achilles heel.

When I first saw the trailer for this movie, the problem that stuck out at me was the impossibility of expressing emotion through the look of the animals. We all remember the original sequence that follows Mufasa's death, in which Scar tells Simba to run away. The traumatised little cub gives one last glimpse of fear, turns on his heels and runs. But all that this situation gives us this time around is a lion cub running, and this is how the entire show plays out. All emotion has to be conveyed either in dialogue or in narrative, and because this is not pulled off, the entire movie lacks any sense of urgency, momentum or feeling. Even the speech feels detached from the animals, often coming off as more of a voiceover than characters talking diegetically.

Simba's excited face

The opening sequence is a shot for shot remake of the original's, and serves splendidly as a showcase of the talent and progress that the Disney company consists of. It looks entirely authentic, with beautiful use of lighting and texture, and oddly for a special effects movie, it consistently peaks during its scenes of bright daylight. The actual look, movement and texture of the picture is second to none, and should be recognised, but every other element is weak and drags the whole product down.

Disney's biggest achievement to date

Despite the narrative being copied and pasted from the '90s, the dough has been slammed down on that countertop and stretched to near transparency. The journey of Simba's fur (not a burst of dust that spells out 'sex' in the night sky) to Rafiki's hands goes on for a couple of minutes, allowing us to witness its progress through the wind, the water, and the digestive tract of a giraffe. Trouble is that we gain nothing from this expansion, and such attempts to fill an extended run time causes the film to drag a lot more than it should. Disney Classics were almost always succinct, neatly crafted narratives that start and end exactly where they should, but the live action counterparts seem to think that it's not a movie if it's less than two hours long.

Casting choices for this picture have drawn some attention, and it has its strengths and weaknesses. Prominently, James Earl Jones becomes possibly the first person ever to play the same role in an original film and its remake by returning to voice Mufasa, which is fun, but too many times I found myself thinking I preferred the way he did it 20 years ago. Donald Glover gives perhaps the best performance as Simba, although his younger singing counterpart surprisingly struggles. Chiwetel Ejiofor is forgettable as Scar, John Oliver's Zazu is nowhere near as entertaining as Rowan Atkinson's, Seth Rogen is amusing as Pumbaa. The choice that really got under my skin was Beyonce, whose participation as Nala was stretched with the addition of lots of pointless lines, and was outstandingly poor. Beyonce is not an actress, and her delivery feels totally without direction and mismatched to the action. What really slaps me in the face, though, is the fact that she sings as Nala in Can You Feel the Love Tonight? (incidentally, I couldn't), and minutes later sings as a regular soundtrack contributor, which is nonsensical and sycophantic. They clearly went out of their way to give Mrs Carter a bigger role than she is capable of.

You may or may not have noticed a pattern emerging. Disney's glaring sense of political correctness is evident in the casting choices. I get the impression that the company was proactive about the inevitable SJW force that would stamp their feet at the prospect of westerners telling a story set in Africa, and decided to cushion that fall by hiring a predominantly black cast. After all, the Disney Store pulled Maui costumes from their stock because crybabies whined that they were appropriating other people's cultures.

Simba's scared face

After the opening number, the action begins to step out periodically in its own direction, but this leads to poorly staged musical numbers. Another strength of the Disney Classic is the arrangement and choreography of musical numbers, which are always so polished in their presentation. This movie all but erases Be Prepared, which certainly contributes to Scar's apparent lack of character and motive, and I Just Can't Wait to Be King consists almost entirely of the lion cubs running. No flair, no backup dancing from the other animals. Also missing, much to my dismay was Timon's hula dance, replaced with a weird meta performance of the first few bars of Be Our Guest. This moment felt so entirely out of left field, and is just one example of Timon and Pumbaa's sometimes odd comic relief.

My feelings are far from original, but I hate what Disney has become - a lazy money machine. All creativity seems to have been drained from the company, which dictates to the  passionate and talented artists who ultimately make the picture. The sequels and remakes have left me wrung down, brung down, hung up and all kinds of mean, nasty, ugly things. Despite its many ups and downs, Disney's origins are full of heart and passion, but its modern self has abandoned all principles. The Lion King remake is a prime example of its debauchery.

Toy Story 4 (2019)

You know how I found out about the passing of veteran entertainer Don Rickles? I saw Toy Story 4 and noticed that Potato Head was present throughout, but only spoke a single line (off screen) the entire time. By the time the credits rolled, I was busy googling whether or not Rickles was still alive, and found my answer way before the brief post-credits dedication to his memory. Rickles died in 2017, by which time voice recording had not yet begun, and it would seem that Pixar decided the most graceful way to deal with this issue was to steal an unused sound byte from a previous instalment and simply tack it on. This move sets the bar for the entire movie, which left me angry in a way unlike any movie in recent (or even more distant) memory.

Having heard from critics I respect that Toy Story 4 held up surprisingly well, I went in with middling expectations and by the 30 minute mark, I was absolutely over this shit. What I was faced with was 90 minutes of live vivisection of a childhood icon. I hope that by the end of this diatribe, I have successfully expressed my disdain for this picture, and haven't been sidetracked by animalistic rage and many four-letter words.

Y'know partner, this used to be a respectable franchise.

Unlike every other chapter, Toy Story 4 does not begin with a fantasy action sequence, but with some incident in Andy's childhood in which RC is somehow getting sucked into a storm drain outside while a Gumtree user rocks up to the house to collect a lamp he has purchased, which is apparently where Bo Peep originates, despite us never having seen her act as part of a lighting appliance. We don't kinow how or why RC ended up outside in torrential rain, but it serves to give Woody and Bo an odd farewell scene. Flash to nine years later, and the toys are in the possession of Bonnie, as the third film left them. The less than likeable kid is about to start kindergarten and Woody tags along to make sure things go well. The kid creates a crude figurine out of a plastic spork, pipecleaners and lolly sticks, the aptly named Forky, and brings it home, where Woody sets about trying to teach the developmentally stunted creature to live as a toy.

Of course, the toys have to have an adventure away from home, so the kid's parents suggest a road trip. The retarded spork acts like someone's senile parent, constantly wandering off, and eventually throws itself from the RV window, prompting Woody to follow, assuring the other toys that he is entirely capable of catching them up at their destination five miles down the road. On foot; on toy foot. Of course this is stupid, but how else are we going to send Woody off on his latest wild goose chase?

The substance of the movie, if it can be called that, is so unforgivably lazy: the previous scores are recycled, with the addition of a single uninspired song by Randy Newman; scenarios veiled as homage directly rip off preceding chapters; the new characters are inconsistent and not at all relatable. Toy Story 3 was a retread of Toy Story 2 in terms of plot, but it still showed creativity, poignancy, humour and thematic strength. Toy Story 4 feels a lot like the family film equivalent of Game of Thrones Season 8: it is entirely disinterested in engaging our minds or emotions, takes half-assed shortcuts, and seems to think that its validity relies on their ability to remind us how good the previous instalments of the same story were. Hey, remember how awesome Randy Newman's music wqas? Here it is, literally all over again. Hey, remember how the toys launched themselves in a conga missile through the catflap of Sid's house in a rescue attempt? Here is pretty much the same thing all over again.

My face throughout this movie

All characters but Woody are resigned to the background. Buzz is occupied with a stupid and nonsensical microplot that hangs on conscience and voicebox being synonymous in the toy world; Jesse and Bullseye have absolutely nothing to do, and favourite bit players such as Potato Head and Rex may as well not even be there. Bo Peep is given an inexplicable makeover, from her voice, to her origins, to her physical makeup. She was previously an entirely porcelain figure, but now her clothes are made of fabric and are removable. Her sheep now have names, and she drives some sort of vehicle disguised as a skunk. She claims she has been living her best life as a free and independent woman for the last nine years, but later laments that she spent years gathering dust on the shelf of an antique store. Everything is so confused and nonsensical, and it made my blood boil to watch.

The villain of this piece is the most underdeveloped and unstable of the series. A Gabby Gabby doll, who purports to date from the '50s, just like Woody - uhh, what?! - has never been loved because her voicebox never worked, and so her evil plan is to get Woody drunk at a bar, seduce him and allow him to wake up in a bathtub full of ice. Well, actually, she just straight up tells Woody that he is about to get organ trafficked, but after hearing her half-hearted spiel, Woody just relents and allows her to take his voicebox, and later wakes up having his back stitched up by a ventriloquist dummy. It was so dark in a way that hasn't fit the Toy Story tone since the very first movie, and struck me as kind of disturbing. Then it is never touched on again. Nothing about how they never needed their voicebox to be loved by a kid or anything. Woody just gets his fucking organs stolen by some mad doll, who then becomes a sympathetic anti-hero for the narrative, and gets a happy ending nothing like that awarded to Stinky Pete or to Lotso. The tone of this movie is up and down like a tart's drawers.

Another questionable addition is that of what I refer to as 'ghetto comedy'. You know, that kind of thing where a black character makes any loud and sarcastic comment, and it is played like it is funny, regardless of whether it actually is. Two stuffed animals from a carnival tag along with Woody for some reason, and serve no purpose other than to yell "Nawwww way, man!" every now and then.

The ending is perhaps one of the most maddening elements of the movie, so *spoiler alert*. When the rest of the toys finally reunite with Woody and Bo at the end of the ordeal, Woody does that weird thing that has become more prevalent as the Toy Storys have gone along, where there are long shots of his furrowed brow as he reflects on something that we cannot interpret. He then murmers a few words to other characters like "Are you sure?" and we just have to wait impatiently to find out exactly what he is referring to. This time, it turns out that Woody has decided that he doesn't need a kid anymore, and is instead going to become the Mickey to Bo's Mallory. That's right, he leaves all of his longtime friends behind in order to enjoy some porcelain pussy. What the actual fuck?!

I'm sure there are one or two other annoyances that have slipped through the cracks of my exhausted bullshit detector, but quite frankly, I feel that I have given this shite movie enough of my precious time for one day and one lifetime. I will never watch this movie again, and I hate to say that it takes twisted glee in slowly picking the stitches that Toy Story 3 had so neatly sewn. Fuck this movie.

The Rage: Carrie 2 (1999)

The Rage: Carrie 2 was probably one of the first sequels I ever saw to a classic horror movie. Carrie, as I have documented before but have yet to formally review, was a conquest of my early adolescence that bordered on obsession, and it remains one of my favourite horrors of all time. My stepsister showed me this sequel when I was about 14, and strangely, I have grown to love it. Years ago, it was a movie I would watch in deepest secrecy, for fear of word getting out that I actually enjoyed such an obviously inferior product; nowadays I adhere to the Dave Gorman school of thought when it comes to the concept of ‘guilty pleasures’ (look this up if you don’t catch my meaning – it’s most amusing and true). I used to love to ride this movie’s ass and say how dreadful it was, but my understanding of film grew at twice the rate of my every other form of maturation, hence my now differing opinion .

How do filmmakers usually achieve a sequel when the lead characters have already been killed off? They resurrect the characters; they repeat the events of the first movie with a new bunch of characters; they continue the story of those who may still be living. Enter Amy Irving, who wisely or not decided to reprise her role of Sue Snell, who is now a middle-aged woman, working as a high school counsellor, somewhat haunted by her involvement in the whole Carrie White debacle some twenty years earlier. That’s fine, but she wasn’t the one with a special power, and it wouldn’t be Carrie if it didn’t have telekinesis. Enter Emily Bergl as Rachel, an unusual looking grunge kid who lives with gnarly trucker foster parents thanks to her own mother’s incarceration at the local asylum. She embodies the ‘90s Nirvana mood – listening to Marilyn Manson and Billie Holliday, passing her evenings working in a photo hut, sneaking her beloved dog Walter into the house at night. She is so befitting the revival of the tormented high school girl.

Boy, didn't think the critics would hate it
this much!

It wouldn’t be a modern high school flick without cliques, which is the engine of this movie’s climax. Rachel is the usual grungy outcast, and her only friend Lisa (Mena Suvari) promptly kills herself in a spectacular effects sequence, having been dumped by a jock she questionably gave her virginity to the night before. The jocks keep a crass system, awarding points to each other according to the girls they sleep with, and Lisa is the game’s latest victim. When the jocks realise they could be in deep shit - having played around with underage girls, prompting one to commit suicide - they decide that ‘damage control’ is the way to go, and they set about making sure Lisa’s only friend won’t squeal on them.

In the midst of all this, one particularly upstanding jock, Jesse (Jason London) decides that what they are doing is wrong (several girls into his scoresheet, of course), and happens to grow close to Rachel. This attracts the cattiness of Tracy, the girl he has blown off, who also becomes determined to take revenge on Rachel. In a mere week, Rachel has gone from invisible virgin outcast with one living friend, to deflowered public enemy #1 with no living friends. High school, eh?

No way the chicks can resist our wet-look
hair gel and sweater vests, man!

Was there a part of you that ever felt like Chris and Billy got off easy in that spinning firey blaze of a car, or that Norma’s assumed unconscious death by smoke inhalation could have been more brutal? Fear not, friends, for this is a late ‘90s movie, and more blood must be spilled than from that suspended metal bucket. That means exploding eyeballs sharded with glass, and testicles ripped off with harpoons, and even a fatal stabbing by CD (guess the format knew it was doomed, wanted to take a bitch out with it!) The finale of the film is a thoroughly enjo

yable flaming bloodbath, and doesn’t it always suck that little bit more when the location being torched is a multi-million dollar mansion of a house, rather than a crappy old school gym?

So what’s the catch? What makes this Carrie 2? The big revelation is that after Carrie’s Daddy Ralph ran away (this is much more detailed in the novella than the 1976 film), one of the hussies he gave a damn-good Bible lesson to was Rachel’s mom, impregnating her with a telekinetic spawn ready to wreak havoc on her high school in later years. That Ralph! 

Ohhh no ya don't! If we have to endure Jason
London's horrible delivery, you do too!

This movie is by no means perfect, and there are still some parts that make me chuckle. Jason London’s delivery, having arrived at the finale party late and found nothing short of a mass teenage grave in flames, runs to Rachel saying, ‘They’re all dead – we gotta get outta here, let’s go’. As if he were a secretary announcing the name of the next patient the doctor was ready to see; totally casual. The asylum is staffed by the most incompetent nurses ever, who fail to notice a patient escaping, but grab another patient who was right next to the door at the same time and drag them off in a backwards-run. I mean, no need to soothe a mental patient dude, just grab them from behind unannounced and literally run with them. No biggy. It’s the small things that make the movie unintentionally funny, and the big things that make it unintentionally good.

Me, pretending to be outraged by this movie

For a number of years – ever since I grew to not hate myself for enjoying this film – I have been firm in my opinion that this would be a good movie, were it not the sequel to Carrie. If this could have just been The Rage, without any links to Brian DePalma’s movie or even Stephen King’s book, and been your average teen angst horror, it would have been great. But by adding that little subtitle, and insisting on trying to milk the bosom of a twenty-five year old movie, it throws away any such credibility.

Artistically, the movie is fairly sound. Some fun is had with black-and-white visuals, and distorted angles and frame speed, while the aforementioned suicide sequence still blows my mind to this day, and I wish the DVD had some kind of documentary that would explain their technique. Because I’m still not quite sure how they did it, and that is the kind of movie I admire. The music is a major strength, with a beautiful haunting theme melody that is performed alternately on piano, keyboard and electric guitar. It is grimy, atmospheric and so well suited. It is perhaps the best thing about this film. The script is nothing special, but it is surprisingly well acted – particularly by the younger members of the cast – and looking back, it fits very nicely into the young late ‘90s horror landscape. It’s very much worth an hour and forty of your time. Just try to forget the whole ‘it’s the sequel to Carrie’ thing.

Last House on the Left (2009)

Last House on the Left, by Wes Craven, is my favourite horror movie of all time, and any reader of my stuff knows that well. We are still in the midst of a decade-long trend of remaking classic horror movies, and in the grand scheme of things, I am sort of surprised right now that Last House got one before Carrie, Poltergeist or even The Exorcist (these were all terrible and should not have been attempted), due to its underground nature and mixed reception in modern day. But the centuries-old Virgin Spring story that Last House, among several other movies, is based upon still holds water, perhaps now more than ever. When I considered it in contrast to Denis Iliadis' 2009 remake, the original Last House was not what one would imagine when thinking of a horror movie: plenty of comic relief and dark humour, almost no on-screen gore and ungratuitous narrative. The new one takes on a far more classical 'horror' feel from the start, with dark misty visuals, more menacing characters and an obviously ominous set up.

The original Last House went like this: Mari, the daughter of a doctor, lives in the woods of Connecticut, and is celebrating her 17th birthday by heading into the city with her streetwise friend Phyllis, who Mari's mother dislikes and distrusts. On their way to a concert, they cross paths with a gang of escaped convicts while in pursuit of ganja, and get kidnapped, sexually abused and ultimately murdered in the woods near Mari's home. When the gang's car won't start, they seek shelter at the nearest house - and its occupants soon discover what has happened to their daughter, and seek to right some wrongs. This action was punctuated with upbeat folk music and a duo of dumb cops trying to stop the bad guys.

The remake opens with a play on the original loveable cops with two detestable assholes, who are escorting dangerous convict Krug to his new prison. His accessories Francis (Aaron Paul), girlfriend Sadie and son Justin run the cop car off the road and spring Krug. Then we meet the Collingwoods: teenage daughter Mari (Sara Paxton) is a determined competitive swimmer, under much encouragement from her mother, while Doc Collingwood (Tony Goldwyn) is a hands-on ER doctor/surgeon. They lost their son a year previously - Mari treasures a gold pendant that he had engraved for her, and Momma Collingwood frets over her one remaining child with appropriate neurosis.

They come to stay at their summer house in the woods, and Mari looks up old friend Paige, and hooks up with her at her job in a convenience store. The girls chat behind the counter and Mari's newfound aversion to marijuana is made evident. A shady young hoodlum overhears their conversation, and he invites them back to his motel room to buy some green. The girls get friendly with the boy, Justin, and end up partying awhile in the room, when Krug, Sadie and Francis come home, and decide that the girls' inate involvement in their crime spree means that they cannot leave.

This time around, Mari is the smart one, and in the course of her kidnapping, pulls off several intuitive tricks in escape attempts. Her ultimate survival just happens to hinge on her immense swimming ability - but let's face it, they wouldn't have bothered giving us this insight into her personal life if it weren't going to pay off later. This time around, Doc Collingwood's profession serves more purpose than to justify the family's large house. When his near-dead daughter ends up on the doorstep, he uses all his top ER tricks to save her life, all while touchingly talking to her like a loving father.

The gang are very modern, in that the girlfriend gets her tits out a lot, the sidekick is a small white thug, and the leader is absolutely unoriginal. In both looks and character, this Krug is unremarkable and although his team dynamic is largely unexplored, he is a psychological manipulator and a physical abuser. His control of his son is not reliant on heroin, but on emotion, and in amongst his physical assault of the girls, he rubs salt into the wounds with his psychological abuse. His written character is pretty good, but on screen it is not too memorable. David Hess as Krug is one of the most charismatic movie characters ever, and it's a tough act to follow.

The abuse that the girls suffer in the woods is far more in-your-face than in it was in the original, to a certain effect. The rape of Mari certainly turned my stomach, but I maintain that in a good narrative, such cruelties are necessary for us as an audience to feel the way the author intends us to about certain characters - consider Joffrey Baratheon in Game of Thrones to get my point. But a comparison can be drawn here: the 1972 version made my heart ache with its depiction of sexual assault, where the 2009 version made me feel sick. This evidences the primary difference between the two Last Houses: 1972 was a sorrowfully poetic movie, and the 2009 movie was a horror exploitation.

Hatchet III (2013)

I have written several times before of my love Adam Green's throwback slasher series Hatchet, and by this point, I would argue that it is also one of the most consistent series of its kind. Although I have been a fan of the first Hatchet movie for a lot longer than the others, and I've seen it a lot more than the others, I contend that every Hatchet installment is on par with its predecessor.

Hatchet is renowned for its FX, and in this third installment, it is not some elaborate death that is my

This sight is like freakin' Disneyland for Crowley

favourite, but in fact, a very subtle rebirth. By this point in the series, we know that Victor Crowley is a 'repeater', in that every time he is killed, he regenerates in the same form as the night he died. So when the police and coroners have come along to scoop the gloop of the previous night's shenanigans, and have the various pieces of Victor Crowley lumped in one huge body bag, the now lone coroner makes the mistake of turning his back to said bag with headphones in. The cramped body bag slowly deflates like a beach ball until entirely flat, and we just know who's on his way into town!

Having made mincemeat of Crowley, Marybeth rocks up in the local copshop armed and looking like Carrie on prom night. She is immediately detained and held in suspicion of leaving Honey Island Swamp smeared in human debris, much to the amused disbelief of several local hicks. Just like Giselle in Jeepers Creepers, this particular backwoods copshop has a police radio stalker in the form of Amanda (horror veteran Caroline Williams) who is the sheriff's ex-wife and a journalist who has spent years obsessing over the legend of Crowley and is desperate to prove his existence, which the latest massacre seems to evidence, in her opinion. She blags and bribes her way into grilling Marybeth about what happened, and eventually into breaking the suspect out of jail to supposedly put a stop to the latest slashfest.

Among the various police crew at the vast scene of the crime who are about to serve as Crowley's daily buffet of limbs, is coroner Andrew (once again the brilliant Parry Shen), whose character is not related to the recently-deceased tourguide Shaun or Reverand Zombie's employee Justin, but is played by the same actor. His colleague comments that two of the bodies he has recovered look just like Andrew, which the scene gets a good laugh at with the whole 'all Asians look the same' cliche. Andrew ends up one of the finale performers, but not before he gets pinned in the centre of major carnage.

Fuck yo' sista!

Amanda is one of those annoying horror characters who comes up with elaborate and unprecedented theories about how to defeat paranormal entities that basically always turn out to be wrong - and the theorists tend to find out the hard way! Naturally, Amanda drags several others into her ridiculous plight - one that maintains distance and hence survives is Sid Haig in a great cameo scene - leading to the logical but assumed death of both Marybeth and Crowley. Although we can't be sure that either are really dead by the end of the movie, it is hard to believe - even in Adam Green's world - that Marybeth will survive abdominal impalement on a tree branch. But as ever, there is no final overkill in terms of material, and by ending abruptly while the narrative is still midway back down the story arch. This makes for a good thrilling ending.

Oh no! Ma theory was wroowwng!

The third installment is not directed by Green this time around, but by BJ McDonnell, cameraman from the first two Hatchet movies. Having been elected by Green to direct the picture, McDonnell does a strong job of directing a very Greenesque movie that still feels individually crafted. It makes for a very natural extension of a strong franchise, sort of how Jeannot Szwarc did with Jaws II. It's exactly as fun, tense and utterly watchable as the first two Hatchets, so bravo BJ McDonnell.

Hatchet II (2010)

When it comes to post-millennial independent horror series, I don't think Adam Green's Hatchet can be beat. It's not just their technical and artistic proficiency, but the spirit behind them. Green, a kid of the slasher reign of the '80s, is one of those rare artists whose creativity is absorbed in childish imagine, bringing equal measure of excellence and adolescent thrill that no good horror fan has ever really grown out of.

In a Friedkin-style sound jump, Hatchet II jumps straight back in where the first left off, with Marybeth (now scream queen Danielle Harris) neck-deep in grimy swamp water at the hands of the still-not-fucking-dead Victor Crowley (Kane Hodder). A good old-fashioned thumb to the eyesocket sends him toppling overboard the boat and into the water with her, where she is inexplicably saved by old piss-drinker himself Jack Cracker.

He takes her back to his cabin and serves her a refreshing warm cup of piss (and this is before he realises he hates her!) When Marybeth reveals her recently-deceased pappy was Samson Dunston, old Jack cocks his shotgun and tells her to get the hell off his property, and that if she got any questions as to his sudden reversal of attitude toward her, to take it up with Reverend Zombie (Tony Todd).

She makes it back to town somehow, and drops in on Zombie, who reveals to her that her own beloved pappy was one of the three young hoodlums that threw firecrackers at the Crowley house that fateful Halloween night, and is basically directly responsible for the brick-shithouse of a mutant terrorising Honey Island Swamp. He summons his colleague Justin (the wonderful Parry Shen), who it turns out is the brother of Shaun, the hilarious fool whose illegal and "ONLY haunted swamp tour" *smacks with top hat* was the vehicle of the previous night's massacre - and whaddaya know, the guy is the spitting image of his recently-deceased tourguide brother.

Zombie sends him into town with a list of personnel to call to the shop, claiming if he is going to head out into the swamp, there are certain people he'd rather have there for backup. He also tells Marybeth that if she doesn't bring a relative (knowing full well that both her pappy and brother are dead), he will not agree to take her. So she enlists the reluctant help of Uncle Bob, and we are still not sure just what diabolical scheme is behind Zombie's insistence that her family member comes along for an imminent bloodbath.

Having had a fabulous but underexposed cameo in the first Hatchet, adding a few good points to its ensemble of horror icons, it is great to see Tony Todd take Zombie into a feature-length and central character in this sequel. He brings an interesting secondary villain role to the mix, and plays it sinister and yet oddly charismatic, to the point that we are never certain exactly what he's plotting. And naturally, after all of his scheming, he has wiggled his way to the front of the 'creatively horrible death' queue.

So an hour or so later a big old motley crew descend on the Zombie abode, ranging from beefy grey-bearded bikers with confederate flag patches on their denim waistcoats, to slutty girls, to unattractive redneck sex pests. They are all offered $500 a head to supposedly retrieve Zombie's boat, but he promises $5000 for the head of Crowley. Those who are not instantly scared off by the mention of Crowley swagger off into the swamp with guns a-blazin', certain that they needn't fear a 'children's story'. Famous last words.

The real joy of the Hatchet movies is their youthful vigour, with Adam Green at the helm. Dedicated to old-school effects and a zero-tolerance policy towards CGI, Green's series is characterised by its wickedly creative death scenes and its tongue-in-cheek freshman comedic style. For any good horror fan, it is the ultimately enjoyable combination, that makes for fully-loaded entertainment that allows us to laugh hysterically while marvelling in all the really gruesome FX.

Jaws 2 (1978)

After I had discovered Jaws, my Pop told me and my sister about Jaws 2 and Jaws 3. A good seven or

eight years later, he and his wife were at the beginning of an unprecedented divorce, and Pop took us to HMV to buy some DVDs to keep us occupied while he and his wife had terrible post-marital discussions (true story). We chose Jaws 2, Jaws 3 and Billy Elliot. I watched Jaws 2 a lot as an adolescent, and finally got a cheap copy of it this weekend, having burnt out the old copy years ago, and watched it for the first time with actual attention. You see, as a kid, I watched all of the Jaws movies, and pretty much zoned out during all of the long boring talky bits, and came back when the shark appeared. As I matured, I came to appreciate all the discreet details that made Jaws what it was, and in a lot of important ways, made Jaws 2 an almost worthy sequel.

Jeannot Szwarc directs this sequel (Spielberg's resistance to sequels of his own work, excepted only with The Lost World: Jurassic Park II, is famous), and his employment on this picture went down as somewhat controversial; Roy Scheider, forced into reprising Martin Brody by his five-picture contract with Universal, had an infamously aggressive working relationship with Szwarc, who comes across as a rather stubborn director to work with. But in the face of it all, Szwarc does a pretty sterling job of crafting a movie that feels like a natural extension of Spielberg's, with similar visuals, themes and a great musical contribution, again, by John Williams.

Four years after the ordeal on Amity Island, two divers are expired by an unseen aquatic evil, while their huge underwater camera spontaneously clicks its own shutter multiple times. Martin Brody is past his glory days as the hero of Amity, and doing his best to be a good chief to the Island, and a good husband to Ellen (Lorraine Gary), who is now on the town council and trying to sell the place to tourists. When several cool gory killings take place, and photos from that magic diver camera get developed, Brody becomes convinced that a shark is terrorising the Island once again, much to the repetitive and monumentally unwise denial of the incorrigible Larry Vaughn (Murray Hamilton), who apparently didn't learn his lesson back in 1975.

Meanwhile, Brody's son Michael is now a high schooler, and the local teens enjoy a cruising culture in boats the way most kids do in cars, making them the perfect bait for the latest great white lined up to feast upon some New England chowder. As with Jaws, Szwarc allows a good half of the movie to be allocated to setting scene and establishing characters, making both adults and teens surprisingly well-rounded characters. There are a good dozen teenagers who set out on doomed boat journeys, all of whom are very realistic, both in looks and in performances. Ann Dusenberry and Donna Wilkes, as Tina and Jackie respectively, are particular standouts in conveying histeria.

In spite of some silly moments - including the one in which the hydraulic innards of the pursuing

shark are very obviously visible - Jaws 2 is a solid picture, and marks the finish line of the success of the franchise. Joe Alves, who served as production designer on the first two Jaws movies and did an excellent job both times, went on to helm Jaws 3 as director, and somehow turned out one of the stupidest, most laughable pictures in movie history. Watching Jaws 2 and being reminded of Alves' involvement, I wonder where the hell it all went wrong for him. I must review Jaws 3 sometime in order to elaborate on exactly why it is such a dumb movie. I knew it when I was 13, and I definitely know it now.

The Hills Have Eyes 2 (2007)

REVIEW
THE HILLS HAVE EYES 2

Any reader of my stuff knows of my love for Wes Craven’s work, in particular his directorial debut Last House on the Left, which is my favourite horror ever. Any reader of my stuff also knows that the ‘70s are my time, and how many articles of that decade are very much up my street. Craven’s second horror The Hills Have Eyes (1977) came after an unsuccessful attempt to break out of the indie horror genre, and established him in the genre, at least until A Nightmare on Elm Street. People seem to completely forget my beloved Last House, which stings so much as it still comes across as Craven’s strongest movie ever. The remake of The Hills Have Eyes was a very passable noughties horror, made stronger by the likes of Ted Levine (AKA Buffalo Bill), but a patch on the original, which boasted teenage boys in short-shorts doing somersaults and Michael Berryman’s establishment into the horror genre, making the most of his genetic disorder.

The Hills Have Eyes 2 is a mediocre effort, particularly by Craven’s standard. Funny thing is, this one has major Craven power, with Wes and his son Jonathan (the kid whose balloon Krug pops with his cigar in Last House), concocting the script within a month. Unfortunately, this boast is evident. Wes wrote Last House in a similar timeframe, and allowing all of the admitted ad-lib that went on on-set, it was a far stronger script, and picture in general, back in 1971, with no permits, a meagre drip-fed budget, and no professional credentials. This isn’t to say, though, that The Hills 2 isn’t enjoyable.

I first saw this movie on late night TV years ago, and recently bought it in a cheap DVD shop. I suppose I spoiled the viewing pleasure a little by watching the Making Of featurette (a pathetic 12-odd-minute thing) before the actual film, thereby revealing all of the best jump scares. But this is a good starting point in a horror review – this movie relies a lot on jump scares, far more than the subgenre generally dictates. Hillbilly cannibals were practically invented by Craven, and have gone on to enjoy a prolific, decades-long career in horror, but the FX and utter grossness that they usually entail relieve the need for jump scares: being hunted down by super-strong beings who are also fuck-ugly is enough to put anybody’s teeth on edge.

A synopsis: National Guard recruits are training in the desert of New Mexico where they come across an abandoned camp that was supposed to have people in it, and a mysterious mirror reflecting SOS signals from the mountaintop. The original remake already detailed in its admittedly effective credit sequence the reckless nuclear testing that took place in this area and the devastating effect it had on the remaining occupants of the vicinity, but of course, these are horror characters who have never even heard of a horror movie, so clichés of the field are water off a duck’s back. I needn’t elaborate on the plot from here.

What I will say is that this is a very modern and diluted version of the Hills Have Eyes concept, and I guess Wes knew that when he volunteered his services to a studio in need of a lucrative movie franchise. Money makes the world go round, mein herr. The original movie, and even the remake, did not jump ship for the phoney paranormal technique, but built a tangible atmosphere of dread and fear. This remake should have done the same.

“Oh, my son and I could write that in a month,” quoth Wes to the production studio in need of a cash cow. I regret to say that this movie is unworthy of Craven. True, my like for his work grew lesser as his budget and mainstream acclaim grew, but The Hills 2 is so generic that it could have been one of those many debuts by an ‘80s kid filmmaker that grew up on Freddy.

Effects and make-up are good, as are sets when you find out what is real and what isn’t. The cast and crew alike endured unpleasant conditions to churn out a movie that is, to quote Lita Ford, ‘middle of the road, pansy-ass shit’. It is just one of those movies that teenagers for years to come will say, ‘Oh, how about this?’ to. A sleepover cult favourite for the future perhaps, but a blip on the modern horror landscape for now, it certainly is.

Jaws 3 (1983)

Where did it all go wrong for Joe Alves? His visual work was central to the success of Jaws and, to a considerable extent, Jaws 2. When Jaws 3 came around he landed the director's chair, and turned out a movie that is still hailed as one of the worst ever. It's questionable how much of this is his fault: the plot is silly, the script is terrible, and the visuals are some of the worst I have seen in any movie, but as director, it is all 'his' ideal, so officially he must take some of the heat for this.

SeaWorld's Worst Dolphin Feeder 1983

Michael Brody, son of Chief Martin and Ellen, and his little brother Sean, are the two common threads that run through the entire franchise, and despite all their collective trauma at the fins of killer sharks, only one of them seems to show any signs of wear and tear. Michael (this time Dennis Quaid) works in some senior role or other at SeaWorld, but seems to know nothing of even basic aquatic science, and can't even drop a fish right. His girlfriend Katherine is a marine biologist at the park, and when he lands a dream job, he implores Kat to 'give up your life and follow me'. Cute guy!

For whatever reason, Sean comes to visit, and the three get on like a house on fire, hanging in a local bar and indulging in plenty of 'champagne of the working classes' (i.e. beer). I'm not sure just how 'working class' being a doctor of marine biology is, but it's a fun analogy nonetheless! Sean meets a girl, Kelly (Lea Thompson), a water-skiier at Seaworld, and they hit it off.

Meanwhile, SeaWorld has been madeover since being taken over by business moghul Calvin Bouchard (Lou Gossett Jr.) and is now being reopened to the public to much media attention, following once again the classic Jaws theme of mass hysteria under high public scrutiny. SeaWorld is on the ocean, with pretty flimsy metal gates keeping the open water off-limits...or so we think! For whatever reason, a shark slips through the gate one night and finds itself locked in an all-you-can-eat buffet!

But this isn't any great white shark - this is a naturally-reared, wild North Atlantic great white shark...and it's up the duff! ('Oh, she was such a nice shark - how does that happen?!') First she takes out some SeaWorld operative who is charged with closing that damn gate, and then two rascals who sneak onto the property and venture out in the pissiest little rubber dinghy you ever saw! Credit to the fish, it takes out said dinghy in record time.

As one might imagine, all hell breaks loose when it becomes evident to SeaWorld guests that a killer shark is after them, causing Michael to crash no fewer than three vehicles, ruin a perfectly good picnic, and punch a man to carjack his quadbike - all in an effort to help! The second half's many underwater sequences pick all the stitches on the first half. Any veterans will recall that Jaws 3 was released as Jaws 3D, and the early-'80s film technology that went into achieving that brought overall production quality back several decades. Consider, for example, this CGI shot of a mini submersible turning in the water, with half of the craft dissolving as it goes:

Sadly for Alves, most of the live-action above-surface footage scrubs up into an almost-passable movie. Monster movies don't often require the laws of science to apply, but Jaws 3 takes the cake. As any good shark fan knows from Deep Blue Sea, sharks cannot swim backwards as it causes water to flood their gills and drown them. This young hussy of a shark, however, butt-slams her way through a bolted cage and proceeds to escape it backwards. She then goes on to roar underwater (an inaccuracy Jaws the Revenge took to another level by roaring out of water). Physical bloopers are scattered throughout the movie, while bad dialogue and puzzling theories throw us further off course.

Back when I first saw Jaws 3, at the age of 13, I thought it was a shit movie, and enjoyed taking the piss out of it with my family. As with Jaws 2, my DVD copy from back in the day got burned out many moons ago, so I bought a new copy the other day. I still think it is a shit movie, and it is not often that I have come to this conclusion after twelve-odd years of film education. I am often able to identify redeeming features in bad movies, but Jaws 3 has so very few, and if nothing else, it is good for the movie's long-term health for me to promote it as a shit movie that is worth seeing. It is a good laugh, but it is no Jaws.