My Bloody Valentine (1981)

1981
Directed by George Mihalka
Starring Paul Kelman, Lori Hallier, Neil Affleck, Don Francks, Cynthia Dale and Patricia Hamilton

Out of all the films that got released as part of the glorious early-'80s slasher craze, this one definitely qualifies as the most oddball.  Not from a plot standpoint; it hits every single note and hits it well.  It has more to do with the presentation.  There's no teenagers, high school reunions or woodsy locations to be found.  Instead, we've got a bunch of sweaty miners and other assorted hard-working manly men in the middle of a big mining town.  Which is made even better by the fact that every single plot point that typically appears in these movies is well-apparent despite the character switch.

Leave it to Canada.
My Bloody Valentine starts with your classic "sex kills" slasher movie segment, as a pair of miners descend into a shaft.  One of them removes her facemask, and yup, I said "her."  She soon starts stripteasing the other miner, and he responds by shoving his pickaxe directly into her chest.  Clearly, this guy doesn't know that you're supposed to shove some other pointy object in a hot chick's direction, but nobody's perfect.  Wow.  That might have been the single most crudely moronic joke I've made here on the blog.  A new high (low) has been reached!

Our group of characters from this point forward is introduced - the aforementioned collection of miners, along with their wives/girlfriends in the town of Valentine Bluffs.  Classic.  Also classic is the fact that we are in the preparation stages for a big Valentine's Day dance.  It is here where we get our expository "past evil" segment of the flick, as the town mayor lets it out that this is the first such dance to be held in a long time.  It seems that 20 years ago, some of the miners were buried in rubble due to the negligence of the supervisors who attended the dance.  Also classic.  NOT so classic is the twist that one of the miners caught in that rough situation survived via cannibalism.  This guy's specter hangs over the rest of the movie, as everyone questions whether or not Harry Warden has come back for more vengeance (he offed the two supervisors responsible for his misery in the flashback sequences that establish this back story).  All in all, it's pretty effective stuff.

What's NOT so effective is the whole love triangle story that overtakes the movie from this point forward.  Our protagonist of sorts is the extremely vanilla T.J. Hanniger (Kelman), the son of the mayor who has just returned to Valentine Bluffs.  His ex-girlfriend Sarah (Hallier) still harbors feelings for him, which results in her current beau Axel (Affleck) having all sorts of mean-strosity issues.  In between the murders, this is the story we're blessed with.  While it could have been pretty effective with some better scripting and acting, it's unfortunately very tepid, leaving us wondering when the next round of slash-n-dash is coming.

As for the murders themselves, they're a mixed bag.  Yes, folks, you know the drill from this point on, as a slasher dressed all in miner gear starts killing everyone involved with the dance in inventive ways.  The movie had some 9 minutes cut from its theatrical release in 1981 to avoid getting the MPAA's dreaded "X" rating, but fortunately the DVD that I have has everything restored.  They might not be quite on the level of Tom Savini, but we have some pretty visceral stuff.  The murderer's weapon of choice is (of course) a pickaxe, meaning that there is plenty of room available for some pretty nice graphic stuff.  The nail gun fu is probably the highlight, a foreshadowing of the ***** classic Nail Gun Massacre that would find release several years later. 

Well, let's wrap this dog and pony show up.  The killer is actually NOT Harry Warden, but is one of the principal lead characters in the traditional "wolf in sheep's clothing" role.  In this regard, this flick is actually more like a giallo thriller than a slasher movie.  I'll give the movie credit there.  The mystery killer thing is underdone in slasher movies, and some of the ones that DO use this trope (Friday the 13th Part V, anyone?) leave much to be desired when it comes to the surprise element.

If you can't tell, I'm not an especially big fan of this movie.  None of the characters stick out, including the eventual killer, while only a couple of the deaths are memorable in any regard.  Thus, I can't recommend this movie.  Finally, horror movie scholars out there are no doubt aware that there is a remake of this movie.  Now THAT I can recommend, partially because it's much bloodier and sleazier than this flick, and partially because it starts Jensen Ackles, who I want to play a cool-ass spy character that exists only on my laptop whenever I become Quentin Tarantino-famous.  Watch out for that Jack Dodds film franchise, kids.

** out of ****.  It's got its moments.  Unfortunately, they're just that.

The Five(ish) Most Expendable "Friday the 13th" Victim Characters

If you're a horror fan, you've undoubtedly heard the news that this is a pretty big year for Friday the 13th.  Not necessarily the film franchise itself - the actual day.  Yes, folks, we get three of 'em this year, the first of which was last Friday, and if you're a mutant like me you've undoubtedly had the single greatest slasher franchise of all time on the brain. 

Come June, the Friday the 13th film series will effectively be 35 years old.  While we haven't had any news (that I'm aware of, anyway, but then again I'm nowhere near the upcoming movie hound that I used to be) about the next movie in the series about the most badass guy with mommy issues in the history of cinema, 2015 amounts to nothing short of a total celebration of this landmark in American horror.  And I'm not just talking about the big guy himself.  I love almost everything about this series, from the creepy backwoods locations to the "faux-Psycho" Harry Manfredini soundtracks to the victim characters and their propensity to engage in incredibly reckless behavior that leads to their untimely deaths. 

It's that latter group that we're going to take a look at today.  These films boast loads of great, memorable characters that stick out in your mind for all of the right and wrong reasons, but one of my favorite things about the series are those characters that get introduced...and then that's pretty much it.  Sometimes, the series goes "body count over substance," and while I'm all about emotional investment, sometimes it's just hilarious when a character gets introduced with what any stuffy English major thinks is the beginning of an arc only to get offed like minutes later.

Thus, I present...

THE FIVE(ISH) MOST EXPENDABLE FRIDAY THE 13TH VICTIM CHARACTERS

5. Vinnie and Pete from A New Beginning
Really, you could pretty much just list Friday the 13th: A New Beginning and be done with it.  The flick is infinitely fun to watch, but if you want to hop on the characters' bandwagons, this one is rough to watch as it brings characters out of the woodwork only to eliminate them with savage voracity minutes later.  Case in point - the two greasers who serve as (SPOILER ALERT) crazy Roy's initial victims on his revenge/all out kill-crazy rampage fest.  Immediately after Vic kills Joey, we're blessed with the bickering adventures of these two retro stylistos in the middle of the woods as their car breaks down, complete with Pete and his signature top 40 hit "Rad-a-Tooie."  There are definitely sequences that go on LONGER in this movie, but these two are the ones that stick out immediately as "cannon fodder" from the get go.

4. Dan and Judy from The New Blood
The crux of Jason's seventh go-round is a birthday party being thrown for Michael at his family's lakeside house, and almost all of the victims have something to do with either this bunch or psychic mover-and-shaker Tina Shepherd.  Except for these two.  Totally random campers who find themselves on a totally random patch of woods that the totally randomly revived Jason just so happens to happen across.  We get Dan doing his best Arnold Schwarzeneggar impression before heading out to get some firewood.  Of course, he's offed, but it's Judy's death that really let fans know that director John Carl Buechler wasn't messing around as he grabs her sleeping bag - Judy fully enclosed - and bashes it against a nearby tree.  To this date, one of the three or four best death scenes in any Friday flick, and legendary anciliary characters.

3. The Hitchhikers from Jason Goes to Hell
I always used to hate this movie, but a few more repeat viewings over the past couple Halloweens has changed my mind.  It's different, but it's also got plenty of chutzpah, and it's also got some of the most hilariously expendable victims that the series has graced our presence with.  In the first trimester of the movie, Jason (or rather his African-American stunt double) has made his way back to Crystal Lake, unbeknownst to the group of hitchhikers who catch a ride with our main protagonist Steven Freeman.  Almost immediately after finding a suitable site and planting their tent spikes, it begets one of the tastier bits of in the series compliments of Michelle Clunie, followed by one of the sickest kills in any movie I've seen.  Awesome stuff.

2. The WOULD-BE Hitchhiker/Banana Enthusiast from The Final Chapter
Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter is one of the greatest slasher films ever made, bar none.  It's fast-paced and brutal, with a group of characters ranging from funny (Jimmy and Ted) to genuinely intriguing (Corey Feldman as the improbable Jason killer Tommy Jarvis).  Hidden in all that, however, is thais lovely little aside just as the madness is getting started, as the group of vacationing teens head out to Crystal Lake and refuse to pick up to the slightly dumpy woman on the side of the road who wants a ride.  And she doesn't take insults from passer-bys lying down.  I'll admit to feeling pretty bad for this girl, as the fact that she doesn't get the ride leads to her untimely death, compliments of an awesome Ted Savini stabbing closeup.

1. The Random Evil Bikers from Part III
Here we go.  The solid gold Cadillac of expendable F13 victims.  The folks above were hastily introduced.  These guys, conversely, take over the movie for a stretch.  When we first meet Ali, Loco and Fox, they're customers at a convenience store who give our resident nerdy hero Shelly a hard-time in front of his would-be girlfriend.  This confrontation leads them to Higgins Haven where they have every intention of (I think) burning the barn down.  Only...it doesn't quite work out that way.  In a tense, epic sequence that lasts all of five minutes, all three of them get some glorious 3D death, and the characters that we spent the previous 10 minutes of our lives pontificating on what their epic back story was are gone.  More or less. (SPOILER ALERT)

Of course, those are just a few.  To be fair, this series was very successful at getting audiences to feel sympathy for some of its victim characters, particularly in the earlier films when Jason was human and the series wasn't intentionally poking fun at itself or its conventions yet.  Sometimes, however, it's good when the screenwriters and film-makers simply let loose and threw some bodies in there just for the fuck of it.  Variety is the spice of life, after all, and no series did it better than Friday the 13th.

As the year goes on, we're going to be looking at more hockey-masked madness from slightly askew angles.  Stay tuned.

The Top Five Episodes of "Night Gallery"

Anyone who is anyone knows about The Twilight Zone, the game-changing, sometimes mind-bending series created by Rod Serling that gave us enough twist endings to make M. Night Shyamalan cream in his pants.  And not even the annoying kind - the GOOD kind.  But the way I have it figured, every other internet nerd has already done some kind of TZ retrospective.  No, sir, what we're looking at today is Rod Serling's OTHER TV series - Night Gallery, which began with the 1969 pilot movie of the same name before being spun off into its own series a year later.

Now, I've already reviewed that movie (which gave one Mr. Steven Spielberg his big break in the entertainment business), and it's awesome.  The series, as a whole, is almost equally awesome.  They went for broke with the trippy, the bizarre, and the outright macabre, and more often than not hit that target.  Now, to be sure, the series had its fair share of clunkers, particularly the season 2 "blackout" comedic segments that padded the length of a few episodes, and the majority of the Season 3 30-minute episodes that occurred after Serling lost creative control and more or less disowned the series.  Still, the series definitely has some shows that qualify as must-see viewing.

Thus, I present the five episodes of Night Gallery that everyone should buy/rent/search out on Youtube.  Now that's a sterling recommendation.

1. "A Death in the Family"
I've seen some disturbing horror movies and stories before, but "A Death in the Family" has got damn near all of them beat.  The final two minutes or so of this yarn will stick with you long after those credits roll, and that's without a single drop of blood being spilled.  For the vast majority of its running time we only have two performers - E.G. Marshall as a gentle undertaker and Desi Arnaz Jr. as a runaway criminal who finds himself taking refuge at said undertaker's funeral home.  Only this...is no ordinary funeral home (/lightning crash).  The twist in this episode isn't one of those things that hits you over the head - it is gradually revealed, and audiences can take an educated guess as to where it's headed roughly halfway through.  But the final reveal still hits you in the guts like nothing else.  Check this one out, kids.  It's a winner.

2. "A Question of Fear"
Now HERE'S the classic case of a story that floors you with an unbelievable twist.  Leslie Nielsen stars as an Army Colonel who is afraid of nothing - even a haunted house that supposedly drives anyone who spends the night insane.  After accepting a $15,000 bet, the Colonel heads out to the house, where a night full of eerie chills ensues, only for the story to take a RADICAL shift halfway through and become about something else entirely, and one of the characters involved in making the bet turns out to be something that we would never suspect.  This story is a great example of having a message and not beating the audience over the head with it, something very much appreciated in Lick Ness Monster Land.

3. "Green Fingers"
This is the episode that I remember most vividly from actually watching it live on my local retro station.  Rod Serling wrote the script for this one, the story about a brutal tycoon (Cameron Mitchell) who is trying to force an old woman (Elsa Lanchester) off of her land to do some developing.  How bad does he want this to happen?  He hires someone to remove her from the premises forcefully.  The woman's near-obsessive talent for gardening is the focus of the episode, a talent that rears its head in the story's final trimester as Mitchell makes his way to back to the house to claim his property.  Why the guy's assistant drives away and leaves him hanging is never explained, but he's in for one big surprise...

4. "Keep in Touch, We'll Think of Something"
The insanely hot Joanna Pettet starred in four episodes of Night Gallery.  All of them were pretty good with the exception of Season 1's "The House," and this is my personal favorite.  Our main character is Erik Sutton (Alex Cord), a man who has been obsessed with the woman he has seen in his dreams ever since his college days.  When he sees the very same woman that he has imagined in real life so many times in the form of Pettet's character, it starts a chain reaction that results in...wait for it...another pretty damn cool ending reveal.  The real treat of this one is the dialogue sequence between Sutton and Pettet as everything gradually becomes clear, as the writing is absolutely electric stuff.

5. "Lindemann's Catch"
Atmosphere, atmosphere, atmosphere.  Perhaps more than any other story featured on the show, "Lindamann's Catch" has that in spades, with its constantly dimly lit boat compartments and soul-destroying early '70s synthy score.  The story is almost as good, as our titular (what a great word) Lindemann is a sea captain who brings aboard the best catch he's ever had - a beautiful mermaid.  Stuart Whitman is excellent as the borderline obsessive Lindemann who doesn't want to give up his new female companion, eventually finding a way to wish for his charge to gain a body.  Of course, the Monkey's Paw that is Rod Serling writing has different plans for both Lindemann and the mermaid.

Take my word for it, people, this series is well worth the $10 or so that you can grab the season sets for on Amazon.  Atmosphere, scares, twists, and a really badass opening theme equal total coolness, and a series that will stick with you long after that final ending credits sequence rolls.  Check these out.

Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings (1994)

1994
Directed by Jeff Burr
Starring Andrew Robinson Ami Dolenz, Soleil Moon Frye, Hill Harper and Linnea Quigley

This is yet another one of those flicks that used to beckon me from the video store aisle.  Just check out that video box art.  Perusing my local mom & pop video store as a kid was practically a hobby, and the "new release horror" section was always my favorite.  Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings.  Hell, I didn't even know that there was a Pumpkinhead I at the time.  A demon crawling out of the bottom of the box toward the viewer?  Count me in, although I was sufficiently terrified at that time to not even consider giving this movie a rental.

Flash-forward 10-odd years.  I'd seen the original movie by that point when I saw the mythical flick with the crazy box art come up on the AMC (because apparently this movie was a "Classic" - remember when that channel was primarily about movies as opposed to TV shows that are just so enjoyable in watching dark antiheroes spiral downward to some kind of bittersweet comeuppance? Those were some good days).  And...it kinda sucked.  It wasn't TERRIBLE or anything, but just kind of there, and aside from the presence of scream queen Linnea Quigley, that's an opinion that hasn't changed much for me after watching  my $2.22 DVD copy.

Now, the first movie is pretty damn good, with a DEADLY serious tone to its subject matter and Lance Henriksen turning in a tour de force performance as a father who wants vengeance for his son's death and lives to regret it.  That vengeance comes in the form of an indestructible monster that the local witch doctor is able to call upon.  This time around, our 1958 prologue introduces us to the concept of a weird-looking orphan named Tommy that the eccentric Mrs. Osie is taking care of.  A group of marauding teens happen across said orphan and begin chasing after him with whatever weapons are handy.  Long story short, they are successful...and ladies and gentlemen, that is a prologue.

Flash forward to the present day, where we meet our cast of teenage characters in the town of Ferren Woods.  Our "stars," as they are, are Sean Braddock (Robinson) and his daughter Jenny (Dolenz), recent transplants to town after the former got offered the job of town Sheriff.  A good deal of the preamble consists of Jenny making friends with the local trouble-making hooligans, and I'm guessing that this is the point that a lot of people decided to forget this movie existed the second they returned this video.  Retro-chic wardrobes aside, none of them are particularly memorable or nuanced, with only Danny Dixon (J. Trevor Edmond) standing out as someone with a vague personality. 

As the first act spirals out of control, the teens head out into the woods, where they happen across the same witch seen in the opening scenes.  There's a slightly convoluted series of events that leads to Danny stealing some vials of blood (don't ask) and accidentally-on-purpose resurrecting Tommy as the new Pumpkinhead.  There's your setup.  Commence series of deaths.  That's pretty much your story, kids. 

Well, that's not entirely accurate, as there is a side plot involving Danny's father - the town's Judge who was one of the people who murdered Tommy all those years ago.  Upon the resurrection, it's all of the people connected to the Judge who begin dying in slightly-better-than-boring ways, and Sean reinserts himself into the story by finding out some vital clues from Mrs. Osie about how to kill the Pumpkinhead.  The third act actually does pick up a little bit, particularly after Judge Dixon gets offed and the monster starts going after Danny and his friends.  Not quite enough to lull me out of the half-asleep state that I was in while watching the DVD, but it picks up nonetheless.

Time to wrap up this dog and pony show.  The original movie was something that grabbed my attention; Pumpkinhead II...well, it's just kinda there.  Particularly the characters.  Even Punky Brewster herself couldn't save this one, and that says something.  In addition, Tommy/Pumpkinhead himself doesn't look particularly menacing.  He's more laughable than anything else, and LOADS different from the Stan Winston-created masterpiece in the original.  Pacing-wise, it's also very stilted, going from start-to-stop like WWE booking.  With that, I'm all tapped out.

* 1/2 out of ****.  Vanilla to the core.  Avoid.