Chasing the Dragon (Chinese: 追龍), previously known as King of Drug Dealers, is a Hong Kong-Chinese action crime drama film directed by Jason Kwan and Wong Jing. The film stars Andy Lau reprising his role as Lee Rock (雷洛; based on Lui Lok) from the film series of the same name, Donnie Yen as Crippled Ho, based on real life gangster Ng Sek-ho. The film is about an illegal immigrant from Mainland China who sneaks into corrupt British-colonized Hong Kong in 1963 and transforms himself into a ruthless and emerging drug lord.
Crozz Design 1/6th scale HKSDP Mr Lui 高級督察呂sir Action Figure will come with: Head Sculpt, Action Figure body, Hands x 3 pairs, Long sleeve shirt (white), Black tie, Black pants, Black belt, Black shoes, Black socks, Black body armor, Pistol, Warrant card with holder
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I often argue with film critics about their evaluation of a film. That's normal. I know more than the so-called experts who sit in their offices getting paid to write about films that they watch for free. Don't tell me I only say that because I'm jealous. It's true, I am jealous of people in that position, but I'd still think they were wrong in their judgements if I were one of them. I'd be a rebel. That's probably why nobody has ever rung me up and offered me a job.
What makes me uncomfortable is when I argue with my fellow film fans about the quality of a film. I don't mean when there are differing opinions about a film and I take one side against the other. What I mean is when I praise a film and nobody agrees with me. This is such a film. Ever since I first saw it in the cinema I've loved it and spoken positively of it, but I haven't found a single person who agrees with me. Not one. On the other hand, nobody that I've spoken to has been able to give me constructive arguments to explain why they think it's bad. All that my friends say to me is either "It's rubbish" or "I watched it years ago and didn't like it".
Some reviewers call it a sequel to "American Werewolf in London", but that's not correct. It shares none of the original film's characters, although it copies a lot of the visual images. I consider it to be a parody, not a sequel. "American Werewolf in London" was a parody itself, so "American Werewolf in Paris" is a parody of a parody. Is that the problem? Is that why my fellow film fans don't get it?
"American Werewolf in London" is considered to be a cult film (whatever that means), which could also be a problem. My friends went to the cinema think it's somehow blasphemy to make a sequel or new version of a film they love so much, so they didn't give it a chance.
Let me state briefly what I like so much about "American Werewolf in Paris". If I get and constructive criticism I'll go into it in detail the next time I watch it.
I like the exaggerated gothic element of the opening scene.
Julie Delpy's acting is superb.
The contrast of the superficial American teenagers to the serious French community is amusing.
I love the blasphemous elements of the scene in the church. This is also aptly gothic in character.
Do you like "American Werewolf in Paris"? If so, please leave me a comment so that I know I'm not the only one. If not, please leave a comment and explain your reasons.
A 7% rating on Rotten Tomatoes? You have to be kidding me! How did that happen? The film critics whose reviews are used for the aggregate on the RT site need to be fired, or at the least they have to be reeducated by spending a year talking to real film fans. The public got it right. It was a huge box office success, just like the original film.
According to Wikipedia, "I still know hat you did last summer" has obtained a cult following. I still haven't been able to find a suitable definition of "cult" when referring to films. I really need to discuss the subject with my friends. I don't feel capable of creating a definition myself. I have an intuitive feeling of what's a cult film and what isn't, but I can't say why. Please leave a comment if you have a suggestion.
All I can say with certainty is that this is a fantastic film, one of the best horror films ever made.
If no one expects the Spanish Inquisition, how is anyone gonna deal with the French Inquisition? That's the challenge of Jacinto Molina's directorial debut, a vehicle for his on-screen alter ego, Paul Naschy. Filmed in Spain while longtime dictator Francisco Franco was still dead, the production probably was careful not to give Spanish Catholicism a bad name. Naschy plays itinerant judge Bernard de Fossey, a hammer to witches who takes too much pleasure in his work. He struggles to suppress the sexual arousal he feels reading accounts of witches consorting with the Devil, and takes his distress out on accused witches who are almost invariably attractive and tortured in the nude. Bernard's not after your typical hag; that would kill his buzz more than he actually wants it killed.
Bernard stirs up hysteria when he arrives in town, especially when the boyfriend of Catherine (Daniel Giordano), a comely local lass, is murdered by hooded highwaymen. Obsessed with getting justice, Catherine consults an actual witch (Tota Alba) who shows her how to get in touch with Satan, who may, if he's in the mood, give her the key to the mystery. It's not quite that mysterious to us, because we've seen how Bernard looks at Catherine -- and veteran Naschy fans may have noticed something familiar about one of the highwayman's leaping attack on the victim. Sure enough, under the influence of a potion -- if not also Satan! -- Catherine envisions Bernard removing the hood. She decides to take the fight to him, fulfilling his own fears of temptation, but events quickly spiral out of either person's control.
One of the subplots in Molina's screenplay follows Renover (Antonio Iranzo), a one-eyed professional informer who spreads rumors of witchcraft out of misogynist resentment of women who won't give the poor scumbag a chance. When his aggressive advances on Catherine's friends end with two women dead and himself mortally wounded, he uses his ante-mortem statement to denounce Catherine and her witchy mentor. Bernard actually has tried to protect Catherine from prosecution but has no choice now but to put her through an ordeal. He seems taken by surprise when Catherine confesses, and then denounces him, after which damning corroborating evidence promptly appears to seal his fate. While Catherine goes to her death screaming in terror, Bernard seems resigned to his fate, if not relieved by it.
For an actor-turned-director Naschy/Molina was unusually self-effacing. I don't know how many people knew that Naschy and Molina, who'd already written many Naschy pictures, were one and the same, but I'd expect exploitation film producers not to take chances and tout director Naschy as the next Cornell Wilde or something similar. Make what you will of his creative split personality, but Inquisicion is clearly an ambitious work for a first-time director. Visually it's quite attractive in the way of many Euro horror films that take advantage of ancient locations, but also effectively expressionist in cinematographer Miguel Fernandez Mila's use of lurid reds in Catherine's vision of the Sabbat (with Bernard as the Devil) and Bernard's vision of Catherine as a crimson temptress. As a writer, Molina plots things fairly well, though his conclusion, with Catherine's denunciation following Renover's fatal encounter, feels anticlimactic, if only because we expect something more hair-raising from Paul Naschy. That he closes the film that way suggests that, despite the sleaze of the torture scenes, Molina saw this as something more than the typical Naschy vehicle.
Naschy's film is a late entry in a continental cycle of witchfinding pictures, a subset of a larger "history of cruelty" genre. While its torture scenes put it in the exploitation category alongside pictures like Jess Franco's Bloody Judge, Inquisicion sustains a more subtle ambiguity on the subject of witchcraft and the devil. The old witch is plainly a witch in the most mundane sense, knowledgeable about potions and such, but we're left to judge for ourselves, prompted by the film's one voice of reason, whether Catherine saw the Devil or not -- or whether Bernard even was in on killing Catherine's lover. Our only evidence for his guilt is Catherine's vision, the authority of which we're forced to question. If Catherine's community is cursed by anything, it's by a common human malice and hypocrisy that consumes clergy and laypeople alike. Overall it's an impressive debut, though it came a little too late in the history of Spanish horror for Naschy to build on it as he might have had he stepped up a few years earlier. It still goes down as one of both Molina and Naschy's best efforts.
I usually don't go into "horror mode" during this time of year, but this autumn seemed to be an exception. Along with other horror flicks like The Babadook and 1408, I've been scratching an itch to watch some horror films, older and more modern, alike. This has included going back and watching the first three Halloween movies, all of which I had seen but not in many, many years.
The "Look out he's right there!!" tactic of suspenseful film
making can be effective for a little while, but I grow bored
with it extremely quickly.
Halloween (1978) Director: John Carpenter
I'll likely catch some flak for this, but Halloween is just mediocre to me.
If you're unfamiliar with the story, it tracks the disturbing tale of Michael Myers, who brutally and for no apparent reason killed his older sister when he was a mere six years old. After being locked in a mental institution for fifteen years, Myers escapes and returns to his home town, where he begins to act out his dark fixation with his sister's death again, this time on the local high schoolers. In particular, he stalks Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis), a bright and kindly senior who has no idea of Myers's twisted interest in her or his relentless psychopathy. Trying to chase down Myers is Doctor Loomis (Donald Pleasance), Myers's psychiatrist, who feels that Myers in an inhuman monster, completely beyond any sort of rehabilitation.
In watching this movie again, I can't help but feel that time has worn down its effect considerably. In its day, it was a great example of how suspense and dread can be built around a simple idea and some competent direction, despite very limited financial constraints. John Carpenter and Debra Hill put together a screenplay based on the basic premise of a murderous, eerily silent psychopath on the loose in a quiet, tranquil suburban neighborhood. They also used sparing narration about Myers himself, keeping him a nearly complete enigma as to his twisted motivations and homicidal compulsions. The movie also does a nice job in creating the setting, with an authentic small town and fairly realistic, everyday kinds of characters acting the ways that they might in real life, even if the dialogue and acting can be a tad clunky at times. The general feeling, though, does help ratchet up the stakes fairly well.
The simple, non-descript look of the murderous Myers reflects
many of the movie's key components. A killer who is as blank
a slate as any movie killer has ever been. It also speaks to the
straighforward style of the movie.
All the same, the very simplicity which Carpenter used so effectively also made the movie very easy to mimic in the years to come. By now, nearly forty years later, the concept of the "inhuman, mute psycho killer" has long since been played out. Even this original doesn't offer much by way of explanation of Myers's deeper psyche. Loomis is an effective character in building some sense of Myers's monstrous nature, but I feel that it could have gone even deeper and more disturbing, perhaps through just one or two anecdotes. For me, it's not enough for Loomis just to say, over and over, that Myers is "pure evil." I don't need a complete psychoanalysis of the guy, but at least one or two recollections of what Loomis has seen in his fifteen years working with the killer that made Loomis come to the conclusion that Myers is nto just a hopeless case but a complete abomination.
Then there is the scare factor. I suppose I've never much been one for jump scares, and Halloween relies on this element more than a few times. Admittedly, it does also have plenty of still, creepy imagery, with Myers simply standing in the middle of a street, wearing that iconic white mask, staring at future victims. Or even longer shots of him slowly stalking around the neighborhood. These sequences actually work quite well, though the effect wears of by movie's end. It also doesn't help that this is an approach that has been used, reused, and imitated countless times in the years since Halloween came out.
So the original quite simply doesn't do much for me. I know that this movie still has many loyal and dedicated fans, so there is clearly something still chilling and effective about it for those who keep going back to it again and again. It apparently just is not my kind of horror movie, though.
Most of Myers's many victims in the sequel are devoid of any
real personality to speak of. This keeps the stakes rather low
for much of the movie, with those slain being little more than
cardboard cutouts.
Halloween II (1981) Director: Rick Rosenthal
Though I wasn't dazzled by my rewatching of the original, I was committed to watching all three of the first Halloween films, so I sallied forth into the first sequel.
Though made and released three years after the first film, the story picks up quite literally where the original stopped. Myers has vanished after being shot multiple times by Doctor Loomis, and Laurie is taken to the local hospital to recover from her injuries at the hands of Myers. While the police and Loomis frantically search for Myers, the killer makes his way to the hospital where Laurie is being kept. As Myers eventually breaks into the hospital and methodically slays the staff, on his way to Laurie, we eventually learn that Laurie is actually Myers's younger sister. She had been adopted after the young Michael had been institutionalized, but now her older brother is after her in an attempt to once again act out his killing of their elder sister fifteen years earlier.
For what it is, Halloween II does just fine. Personally, though, it only served to confirm what I felt after watching the original - that this brand of horror movie just isn't my favorite. I do appreciate that the story adds just a little bit more back story to Myers, without spoiling the enigma of his evil nature with too much information. And the change in setting to a silent hospital ward at night was a wise move, offering a change of pace to the suburban neighborhood.
On the whole, though, the sequel is a slightly paler continuation of the original. It doesn't help that star Jamie Lee Curtis is barely a presence. She's knocked out in a hospital bed for the first hour or so of the movie. When she does eventually become mobile, it is only barely so, making her a forgettable character in many ways. There is also the odd character Jimmy, the handsome young EMT who immediately takes a shine to Laurie, who for whatever reason, quickly returns his playful affections, despite the fact that she is completely traumatized and doesn't know the first thing about him. And Jimmy's reactions to discovering slashed corpses around the hospital is almost hilariously subdued. As if Jimmy weren't enough, we also get his sleazebag partner, Budd, the tactless, oversexed jerk who is all about sleeping with one of the nurses. True to the already-established trope of the genre, these two get killed by Myers the moment they decide to get naked. This was just one of the many "how will this one get killed?" marks that Halloween II uses as its basic formula. Again, this is a type of movie that I lost interest in decades ago, so this sequel did very little to hold my interest.
So on I went to the third of the trilogy. Third in name, though not at all in story continuity.
Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) Director: Tommy Lee Wallace
In a highly risky and unprecedented move, the third Halloween movie broke completely from the story of the original two and presented its own thoroughly independent tale. It follows Doctor Daniel Challis as he slowly uncovers a hideous plot about to unfold on Halloween night. About a week before Halloween, a raving and injured patient is brought into Challis's hospital, where he is later killed by an immensely powerful assassin who then kills himself. Challis starts doing some detective work, with the help of the murdered man's daughter, and they trace the clues to the Silver Shamrock novelty company headquarters in Santa Mira, California. There, they discover that the town in completely dominated by the oversight of Silver Shamrock's founder, Conal Cochran. They also soon learn that Cochran, inspired by ancient pagan traditions of sacrifice on All Hallow's Eve, has imbued Silver Shamrock's millions of children's Halloween masks with occult magic. This spell will activate when children watch the company's commercial while watching the mask, thus killing them in grisly fashion, even turning their bodies into insects and reptiles. Challis manages to destroy the Silver Shamrock factory and seemingly the sinister Cochran. The film ends with Challis frantically calling the TV stations to get the commercial taken off the air; two of them pull the ad, but the third is still running when the movie ends.
This may be a bit odd, but despite this movie's many obvious flaws, I actually liked it more than the original two movies. The main reason is that I really enjoy the plot, which I find to be a rather creative one with a bit of sly social commentary. I also find the ending highly disturbing, just as a true horror tale should be. When I look at the main story arc, I think the mystery elements were done very well, with the strange deaths and gradual uncovering of clues not all coming together until the final act. Several of the deaths are also quite striking, with the most horrifying being the reveltaion about what the Silver Shamrock masks will do to the children, as we see happen to the young child Little Buddy, who is reduced to a pile of crawling roaches and snakes. I even like the notion of Cochran's button-down army and factory staff being composed of soulless androids. It may seem a bit too science-fiction for a horror tale, but it somehow had a logic that fit within the larger theme.
When we finally see exactly what the novelty masks are going
to do to the millions of children wearing them, it is a
genuinely horrifying scene. There aren't many overly gruesome
deaths in this movie, but a couple of them leave an impession.
I would be remiss if I didn't mention that John Carpenter's music score benefits this third movie as much, if not more than, any of the original trilogy of films. While his score for the first two quickly became iconic, I found his score for this third one just as evocative. Maybe even moreso, utilizing the synthesizer in more subdued ways than the sharp piano picking of the original theme.
The movie does have its obvious shortcomings. The dialogue is pretty awful in places. And the acting is shaky much of the time (although the key roles by Tom Atkins and Dan O'Herlihy are played extremely well). The romance between Dr. Challis and Ellie is completely forced and really had no place in the movie whatsoever, beyond an attempt to appeal to base sentimentality or sexual titilation. And there are a ton of little details, or lack thereof, that one could nitpick. But I didn't find that any of these oversights ever torpedo the main plot or the commentary on consumer culture.
This story probably would have been much stronger if two things had happened: one is that it hadn't presented itself as a "Halloween" movie. A little research shows that this was clearly why a large number of fans and critics back in 1982 had a problem with it - they came thinking they were getting the next chapter in the Michael Myers story, only to get a completely unrelated tale instead. The second is that it would have probably worked better as a 45-50-minute TV show, in the the vein of The Twilight Zone, Tales from the Darkside, Tales from the Crypt or some similar program. If they couldn't punch up the dialogue or iron out the many little plot oversights, then streamlining it would have done the story wonders.
I doubt that I'll be going back to watch any of these movies again, since I didn't find any of them to be spectacular horror films. Still, the third is the one that had always stayed with me since I first saw it nearly thirty years ago, and it is the one which I still enjoy the most.
An Outside Commentary While doing a bit of research, I came across this little article, published on comicbook.com only about a week ago. It argues that, on the whole, the thing that weakened the Halloween series over time was the presence of Michael Myers himself. I actually agrees with much of what the author posits, especially how Myers's very nature was only going to make him interesting for one or two movies. The thing that makes him a bit compelling - the very mystery around his motivation and the utter lack of a personality - could only carry a tale so far. This is probably why I became rather bored with the movies, though I did so much more quickly than the original two films' ardent fans.
Scooby Doo Mask Of The Blue Falcon 2012 Cast: Matthew Lillard, Frank Welker, Mindy Cohn, Diedrich Badder, Jeff Bennett, John DiMaggio, Tara Strong, Billy West Genre: Direct To DVD Animated Superhero Action Comedy Plot: The diabolical Mr Hyde has unleashed a horde of nightmare creatures on the Mega Mondo Pop Cartoon-a-Con where Shaggy & Scooby are planning to see the new Blue Falcon & Dynomutt movie. Now it's up to Mystery Incorporated to stop a mixed up madman, & save the day
'Hey, Scoob, Don't Be Afraid....' Scooby Doo has been one of Hanna-Barbera's go-to major success stories insofar as their properties and franchises go; since its debut during the 1960s, the series has spawned numerous spin-off series and big budget & direct- to- DVD feature-length movies in both animated and live-action form with some of them where Mystery Incorporated team up with a well-known celebrity or another Hanna-Barbera character to help unravel and solve the case. In addition to capturing and unmasking the evil doers and foiling their ghastly plans as well. Going into this film, I knew that I would like it, but never enjoy it fully: I'm not really into Scooby Doo a great deal, though I did enjoy the 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo. Yet I so enjoyed the Dynomutt: Dog Wonder episodes that aired on Cartoon Network and Boomerang channel, back in the 1990s. They were amusing and a whole of fun, courtesy of Dynomutt himself. The Blue Falcon and Dynomutt partnership is akin to Batman and Robin. I'm assuming here that Hanna-Barbera based their creation of Blue Falcon on Batman. Or to be precise, the '60s version of Batman as played by Adam West on the TV series. For those of you who haven't see it, it's a spoof on Batman and it's basically Scooby Doo meets Batman: the superhero theme mixed together with the mystery-solving antics of Scooby Doo and teenagers Shaggy Rogers, Velma Dinkley, Daphne Blake and Fred Rogers. Some people like Dynomutt, like me, whilst there are others who don't enjoy it. And so much to my pleasure and happiness, it turns out Scooby-Doo Mask of the Blue Falcon was an extremely entertaining and insightful Scooby animated movie. I also thought it was cool to make it more modern for the current generation, as well as include references to other Hanna- Barbera characters and being a fan of Hanna-Barbera's many classic shows, this brought a smile to my face. I also think this made the film even more enjoyable and as such, I became engrossed with the plot & the story held my attention all the way to the end. The story's main location is that of a comic book convention where an attack is looming on the horizon by a mysterious villain in disguise by the name of Mr Hyde and who is one of Blue Falcon & Dynomutt's arch enemies. Owen Garrison is an actor who plays Blue Falcon, who becomes resentful and bitter over the TV producers overlooking him in favour of a younger actor & the newer & modern-looking Blue Falcon. Luckily, he still has Shaggy and Scooby as his loyal & dedicated fans. Just like with the TV series, there are several red herring characters who are considered suspects and might be the real villain and have a motive for the crime, and yet turn out to be innocent and one character who is the eventual bad guy. The voice acting is terrific and in hearing Matthew Lillard's character Shaggy & his voice properly, he was fantastic. But then he did put on a great impression of that character in the Live-action Scooby Doo movies, even though I am not keen on those films, and when Casey Kasem got older, Hanna Barbera turned to Lillard as his (long-term) replacement. He sounds so alike Kasem's Shaggy. You also have the great Frank Welker still lending his vocals as Fred, as well as the talents of Jeff Bennett (Johnny Bravo), John DiMaggio & Billy West (Futurama), Tara Strong (The Rugrats) & Mindy Sterling, who you may recognise from the Austin Powers movies as Frau Farbissina, Dr Evil's right-hand woman. I do wish for a bit more of Blue Falcon and Dynomutt; that being said, I so thoroughly enjoyed this one from start to finish. The idea of having a darker incarnation of Blue Falcon and Dynomutt was a good move that made it even more entertaining and with Blue Falcon, he is a superhero character who is very serious and eager to get things done and who doesn't mess about. I liked all of the characters, but I was a bit mystified over Velma's uptight and negative attitude, which was not something I had expected from her and it did seem to be out of character. Yet for some reason, the writers decided to make her out that way, which kind of baffles me.
Final Verdict: At times humourous but as a whole, this is a feel-good Scooby movie with a great story that became more and more engrossing as it went on. The Hanna-Barbera character cameos were a nice touch also and it does bring back memories of Cartoon Network and Boomerang of yesteryear, way before those networks went downhill with their programming. Scooby-Doo Mask of the Blue Falcon is terrific Scooby- snacking fun and well worth it for any budding Hanna-Barbera, Scooby Doo or Saturday morning cartoon fan.
SCORING SILVER SHAMROCK: Celebrating Halloween III
John Carpenter was always the first to admit that HALLOWEEN II did not need to exist. He has often told of how he had no interest in directing it because he felt that the story had played itself out to the right conclusion in HALLOWEEN, and ultimately his screenwriting, composing and production duties on the movie represented a pay day above all else. When it came to HALLOWEEN III, the bold – and wise – decision to use the established franchise brand name as a means of trying something fresh failed to reap a satisfying amount of box office cash and earned scorn from fans apparently wanting only a redundant retread of the repetitive Michael Myers shtick rather than something (gasp!) original. When the series returned in 1988, it was mostly happy to settle back into that predictable, repetitive groove, occasionally throwing in some desperate guff linking Michael to the Druids (!) but otherwise offering the kind of unadventurous rehashing Carpenter was opposed to in the first place.
HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH is the best of the HALLOWEEN sequels, bar none. Built around an ingenious, marvellously cynical premise from the mind of QUATERMASS auteur Nigel Kneale, it holds up as a fabulous condemnation of the USA’s crass commercialisation of everything (not just Halloween) and as a surprisingly mean-spirited walk on the wild side. No other mainstream American horror film of the 80’s was so enthusiastic about portraying a Typical American Family as an obnoxiously shallow, abrasive unit totally deserving of their gruesome death, and no other American horror film in memory decided to bow out with a cliff-hanger ending implying that the film’s nefarious mastermind Conal Cochran (Dan O’Herlihy) has achieved his mission to wipe out America’s brats en masse via the hijacking of the medium (television) to which they are far too often glued in the absence of any other worthy stimulation. It’s a gruesome picture, it’s inventively bonkers and it isn’t afraid to be mordantly funny. It also has Tom Atkins at his moustache-wearing hunkiest, even if his sex scene with Stacey Nelkin couldn’t be any less erotic if they were both wearing Silver Shamrock masks.
One of the strongest suits of HALLOWEEN III is its original score composed by John Carpenter in association with Alan Howarth. By this time, Carpenter had become renowned as a filmmaker whose self-made distinctive electronic scores were a major part of his films’ effectiveness. Carpenter was consistently modest about his own musical capabilities, often reminding interviewers that he handled musical duties as a means of keeping things simple and cheap. As ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13, HALLOWEEN, THE FOG and ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK became fan favourites and box office hits it became apparent, however, that they were unimaginable without the Carpenter scores driving the action and ambience. When Carpenter crossed over into the big leagues, he handed scoring duties over to Ennio Morricone for THE THING and Jack Nitszche for STARMAN while also providing the scores for the first two HALLOWEEN sequels to provide an audio continuity with the 1978 original.
Although the soundtrack to HALLOWEEN III employs the same tools of the trade as the much-admired score for HALLOWEEN II (Linn drum machine, Arp sequencer, Prophet synths), it was notable for being the very first score that Carpenter and Howarth improvised, composed and recorded while watching a time-coded tape of the film itself on a monitor, thus creating the music directly in sync to the images unfolding. Carpenter has referred to this process as, alternatively, a “musical electronic colouring book” and, simply, a form of “instant gratification”. Howarth, who enjoyed a high profile start to his film career by working on the STAR TREK movies for Paramount, first worked with Carpenter on ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, establishing a fruitful relationship throughout the decade that ended with THEY LIVE. In 1988, the year of THEY LIVE’s release, Howarth took over solo scoring duties on the HALLOWEEN sequels, which relied a great deal on variously refined versions and adaptations of Carpenter’s original HALLOWEEN theme. (Note: if the groovy electronic guitar rendition of the theme for HALLOWEEN 6: THE CURSE OF MICHAEL MYERS doesn’t get your foot tapping, you clearly are not worthy of having your own set of ears).
HALLOWEEN III begins, just like its predecessors, with a lengthy fixed shot of a pumpkin. With the change of story direction, this time the pumpkin is in the form of an analog TV signal that, foreshadowing the devastating role television will play in Conal Cochran’s plot, transforms from a static image to an abrasive flickering symbol of doom. From this starting point, the score captures the overall paranoid ambience and theme of the movie perfectly, establishing the sense of electronic threat via the increasingly high pitched, piercing musical stings that gradually overwhelm the ominously pulsing two-note heartbeat underneath.
The score is characterised by slow-building ominousness, with Carpenter working at his most minimalist and the cold analog sound reflecting the soulless robots that are at the core of the film’s plot. The pervasive sense of understated menace occasionally breaks out into outright pulsing terror, perhaps best reflected in the outstanding “Chariots of Pumpkins”, which accompanies the pursuit of Grimbridge in the film’s early chase sequence and sets an insistent, repetitive tinkly motif against a driving, persistent beat. Given how recently the memorably boring British Oscar winner CHARIOTS OF FIRE had made composer Vangelis a household name thanks to his iconic theme, presumably Carpenter and Howarth named the track in wry homage. “First Chase” is similarly persistent and intense, though much of the soundtrack is about capturing a relentless sense of foreboding rather than outright peril.
Carpenter’s scores were characterised in this period by repetition, “stingers” –something he established with HALLOWEEN for the many shock-appearances of the unstoppable Michael Myers – and recurring motifs. HALLOWEEN III makes remarkable use of all of these things while taking the use of dissonance low purring synths to new levels of simmering malevolence. “A Pleasure Doing Business” is particularly evocative as its recurring throb is increasingly dominated by assorted shrill, abrasive elements within an escalating piece overwhelmed by a thumping, terrified heartbeat. On a similar level, “Starker and Marge” is built upon a relentless, shifting six note motif that oozes menace before it’s consumed by a shrill dirge that burns itself out in a suitably uneasy manner.
Some of the cues are uniquely strange and experimental. “Drive To Santa Mira” is more playful and ambiguous in its sense of inexplicable menace, reminiscent of the HALLOWEEN cue “Lights Out”, in which Laurie wanders around night-time Haddonfield, evocative of our heroes encountering the strangeness of Santa Mira for the first time and dominated by a particularly queasy church organ-style sound that makes us uncomfortable in a hard-to-gauge way. “Hello Grandma” is a stand out queue, representing the sequence in which Tom Atkins unwittingly beheads a sweet old lady who turns out to be one of Cochran’s robotic drones. This cue consists of around three minutes of ominousness in the form of a beautifully simple, eerily low key melody increasingly invaded by dissonance.
The score is, of course, punctuated in the movie and in the film’s soundtrack releases by the “Silver Shamrock” jingle, a convincingly obnoxious pastiche of hideous TV ad jingles, designed to invade our brains like an angry tumour just as Silver Shamrock itself literally melts the minds of its young consumers via the TV signal during the “Big Giveaway” at 9pm on Halloween night. Based on “London Bridge Is Falling Down”, this incessant countdown to the big night (“Eight more days to Halloween, Halloween, Halloween, Eight more days to Halloween, Silver Shamrock…” repeat one zillion times) is marvellously malevolent in its own ironically child-friendly way.
Dominated by its deep bass thuds and slow-burning electronic malice, the score for HALLOWEEN III is undoubtedly one of the major highlights of Carpenter’s musical career, and an appropriate conclusion to his involvement in the HALLOWEEN series. THE FOG may have a more melodic eerie beauty and the original HALLOWEEN may be far more immediately recognisable to the majority of viewers, but neither are as inventively unnerving as the soundscape crafted for this exceptional sequel. Amidst the legions of retro-fitted 21st century horror films featuring sinister throwback synth soundtracks, significant movies have been directly inspired by the HALLOWEEN III score, notably 2014’s THE GUEST, which its director narratively considered a combination of THE TERMINATOR and HALLOWEEN while noting how influential SEASON OF THE WITCH was to its audio.
HALLOWEEN III’s soundtrack has enjoyed assorted releases over the years, beginning with MCA’s 12 track original 1982 LP release, which was duplicated for Varese Sarabande’s identical 1989 CD issue. A “Complete Original Score” CD limited to 1000 copies and released by Alan Howarth Incorporated appeared in 2007 and featured 25 tracks, many of which are unique to this release. The most attractive and satisfying release thus far has been the 12 inch vinyl from Death Waltz Records. Death Waltz originally released the score in October 2012 with the original 12-track line-up on a limited edition orange and black vinyl with cover art by Jay Shaw and sleeve notes by Alan Howarth. It’s the October 2014 release, however, that offers the ultimate presentation, incorporating never previously released tracks, a fresh remaster from the original analog tapes and a gorgeous 400 gsm Gatefold sleeve. Unsurprisingly, the soundtrack sounds most at home on vinyl. The track listing for the Death Waltz release is listed below:
Side ASide B
Halloween III Main Titles (2.35) Silver Shamrock : One More Day (0.48) Chariots of Pumpkins (3.24)Santa Mira Nightfall (2.01) Gas Station (0.32)The Rock (3.29) Robot Kills Grimbridge (3.32)Buddy’s Death (1.34) Ellie Enters (1.00)Cochran Speaks (1.44) Microphone (0.53)Silver Shamrock: Happy Happy (0.48) Drive To Santa Mira (2.29)Challis Escapes (3.36) Challis and Starker (2.00)South Corridor (4.18) Marge Revealed (1.18)Titles and Chariots (Alt Mix) 6.18
Silver Shamrock: Two More Days (0.49) Robots at the Factory (2.04) First Chase (3.11) Hello Grandma (2.47)
HALLOWEEN ***** USA 1978 Dir: John Carpenter. 91 mins Those who got their knickers knotted by Rob Zombie’s HALLOWEEN remake duo have a short memory: John Carpenter’s original film is a scare machine precision-tooled from elements of earlier genre works. Its legendary opening alone (contrary to popular belief, the only time in the film in which we witness events through the eyes of Michael Myers) riffs on the subjective first scenes of PEEPING TOM and BLOOD AND LACE, while his debt to Argento’s DEEP RED and Bob Clark’s BLACK CHRISTMAS are both obvious. From the marvellously grim tableau that ends the prologue – suburban parents staring in disbelief at their knife-wielding child – the film is, of course, strong enough to survive its own endless cycle of sequels, imitations and rereleases. Whereas its own sequels were content to reinvent Michael Myers as a killer with a contrived family grudge, Carpenter establishes the character as a random, indestructible force of evil, his identity blurred into that of the fictional, all-purpose childhood monster “The Boogeyman” (a transformation reinforced by the final dialogue exchange). As the “inhumanly patient” Myers flees incarceration fifteen years after becoming infamous in his home town of Haddonfield, long-term psychiatrist Donald Pleasence (playing it with a canny combination of vulnerability, genuine fear and implied menace) faces up to his own professional failure and the realisation that, ultimately, Myers represents a force no one can contain. Myers stalks and / or kills some of the most endearing and empathetic characters in the slasher canon, notably sardonic smart-ass Nancy Loomis and jumpy yet perceptive wallflower Jamie Lee Curtis, whose loneliness allows her time to watch (just as Myers does) and acknowledge the threat facing her idyllic suburban existence. More than any of the sequels, this film portrays Myers as a potentially supernatural entity (often represented via a shadow on the wall or a ghostly face in the window) who enjoys scaring people more than killing them, relishing the chance to don a ghostly sheet and admiring his handiwork after one murder, like an artist operating at the peak of his powers. The script by Carpenter and Debra Hill is unusually witty: “Maybe someone around here gave him lessons” notes Pleasance wryly, highlighting the implausibility of Myers driving home after his escape. It also cleverly segues from the proliferation of wide tracking shots of open, sunlit spaces in the first half to the darkness-swamped, mounting claustrophobia of the final half hour, which evolves into a breathlessly tense, extended chase, trapping our trend-setting heroine (Curtis balancing near-hysteria and determined resilience as she fashions weapons out of everyday domestic objects) in a series of confined spaces. It’s comfortably familiar to genre fans these days, but HALLOWEEN deserves every bit of its lofty reputation as a holy slasher text.
HALLOWEEN II *** USA 1981 Dir: Rick Rosenthal. 92 mins A cynically conceived sequel reuniting most major HALLOWEEN personnel (co-writers Carpenter and HIll, cinematographer Dean Cundey, surviving cast members) and unusually picking up the action exactly where the original left off. Michael kills a few Haddonfield residents before tracking Laurie (Curtis in a wig striving to disguise the three years in between productions) at the local hospital. Replacing the old sci-fi movies punctuating the original, TV news broadcasts report on the town’s fresh crime scenes and the film offers a rare, effective focus on the aftermath of its predecessor’s events - one grimly ironic sequence involves the accidental demise of Ben Tramer, an unseen but significant character in HALLOWEEN, here the victim of the town descending into understandable hysteria. The Haddonfield street scenes are the best in the movie, as outraged locals react to news of the tragedies by desecrating the notorious Myers house (“This is a wake…one of their tribe was butchered…”). Pleasence’s Dr Loomis is briefly reunited with a grief stricken Sheriff Brackett (father to Nancy Loomis’ character) and Nancy Stephens’ Nurse Marion (later a victim in HALLOWEEN H20), who provides the film’s hokey, post-EMPIRE STRIKES BACK revelation about the family connection between heroine and killer. Sadly, the need to keep up with the bodycount-centered slasher cycle instigated by FRIDAY THE 13TH, sees HALLOWEEN II devolving into repetitive scenes of under-developed characters stalked and killed in dark corners of the hospital, while Laurie’s post-trauma mental and physical condition results in HALLOWEEN’s strongest character reduced to a whimpering, sometimes catatonic, mostly inactive near-victim. The murders are occasionally vicious (including a hot tub kill that quotes DEEP RED), the twist (echoing a key story beat of Jamie Lee’s PROM NIGHT) dilutes the more frightening notion of Michael as a random killer and the backdrop of Haddonfield Memorial proves a less effective than the Autumnal suburban streets. Despite strong moments, HALLOWEEN II isn’t as much fun as the cheesier hospital-based slasher fest X-RAY, though it does have uniquely eerie use of The Chordettes’ “Mr Sandman” at the very end.
HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH ***** USA 1983 Dir: Tommy Lee Wallace 99 mins Acknowledging that the Michael Myers “story” had played out by the end of HALLOWEEN (and that his own involvement with II was for purely financial reasons), John Carpenter boldly attempted to turn the HALLOWEEN franchise into an anthology showcasing different Halloween-set horror stories. The result alienated fans expecting another repetitive knife movie and largely ignored by audiences confused by the marketing. Original writer Nigel Kneale (of QUATERMASS fame) took his name off the credits when Carpenter added commercially essential head-rippings, eye gouging and even an implied drill-kill. Sporting the marvellously sour tagline “The night no one came home”, it unfolds in Santa Mira, where Celtic toy-making genius Dan O’Herlihy (he invented the sticky toilet paper gag and the “dead dwarf” joke, whatever that is!) resents America’s commercialisation of Halloween so much he is engineering the ultimate “joke on the children”. In other words, the revival of the much missed art of mass human sacrifice via the 20th century’s most odious soul-sucking medium: television. Cannily appropriating the aural landscape and ‘scope camerawork of the Myers Halloween films -with the most evocative synth soundtrack of any 80’s movie -, this throws in left-field ideas (a monotonously knitting old lady robot is a creepy detour) and gives Tom Atkins his finest screen showcase as an alcoholic, womanising hero last seen impotently yelling “You gotta believe me!” (in homage to INVASION OF THE BODYSNATCHERS) and “Stop it!!” in the nihilistic closing scene. The climax suggests a mass-séance created by a live network broadcast (later a core element of the Kneale-inspired GHOSTWATCH) annihilating America’s children, while the script sympathises with its own villain’s hatred of the USA’s crass adaptation of old traditions. The Typical American Family Unit are given short shrift in a “Test Room” sequence, in which a deliberately OTT, horrid sitcom family are briskly decimated, the camera lingering with relish on the brat’s cranium as it is pulped by a mess of worms, snakes and insects. It’s the highlight of a movie that, once regarded as a misfire, now increasingly looks like one of the best American horror films of the 1980’s.
HALLOWEEN 4: THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MYERS **** USA 1988 Dir: Dwight H Little. 88 mins Moustapha Akkad’s successful attempt to revive the Michael Myers legend (seven years after his last movie appearance and minus Carpenter) takes a back to basics approach, de-emphasising sex and gore, and building upon the original film’s notion of a credible small town under siege from an unstoppable boogeyman. It revives Myers via a throwaway slasher sequel gimmick (escaping with ease during a “routine” transfer) before catching up with the Haddonfield law enforcers, teens, kids and beer bellies. Danielle Harris is terrific as Myers’ new target - pre-pubescent daughter of Laurie Strode, whose character has died in the ten years since the events of parts one and two - and Ellie Cornell a naturalistic presence as her foster sister. The movie makes the mistake of staging a potentially awesome police station massacre off-screen, and has ridiculous scenes of local rednecks forming an incompetent lynch-mob, but Little vividly captures a sense of a haunted town and stages some ballsy, scary set pieces, including a great rooftop chase and a jolting twist ending bringing the series full circle to the prologue of the 1978 film. In truth, this would have been a great way for the series to permanently end. Other part 4 highlights: Kathleen Kinmont’s tarty, busty Sheriff’s daughter, Pleasance as a now-crazy, mildly scarred Loomis (“evil on two legs!”) and a wonderful title sequence montage that really captures the chilly Autumnal anticipation surrounding Halloween night. Alan Howarth, who worked on the scores of the preceding two films with Carpenter, does a superb job of alternating the maestro’s famous original themes with an evocative new soundscape.
Halloween 4: The Return Of Michael Myers (Trailer)
HALLOWEEN 5 *** USA 1989 Dir: Dominique Othenin-Girard. 97 mins. This hasty follow up to the popular part 4 has a great, unnerving pumpkin-carving title sequence and, although it lazily offers a plodding reprise of 4’s junior-final-girl-in-peril scenario, it does sustain an eerie mood. Facing a franchise need to keep Michael as the antagonist, the movie immediately undermines its predecessor’s twist ending by downplaying Jamie’s (Danielle Harris) murderous behaviour - though the now-mute pre-teen still has a psychic connection to her uncle Mike - and oddly depicts a wounded Myers nursed back to health by an ageing hermit, a la BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN. Haddonfield persists with Halloween celebrations, while returning Sheriff Beau Starr stupidly disbelieves Dr. Loomis’ dire warnings despite the fact that much of his town (and his own daughter) were slaughtered just a year earlier. Aiming for a Janet Leigh-style shock, the film cynically kills off plucky, likeable survivor Ellie Cornell in the first half-hour before regrettably introducing some of the most obnoxious characters in the franchise, including an odious Fonz-like narcissist, a shrill, hyperactive new teen lead (Wendy Kaplan) and the most cringe-inducing “comedy” cop duo since THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT. It’s a relief when they all die, though at least Girard revives the original’s concept of MIchael as a playful boogeyman with a fondness for spooking later victims: echoing the “Ghost” get-up of HALLOWEEN, at one point he wears the fright mask of Kaplan’s murdered boyfriend to trick her. It’s often dumb, and showcases an insulting array of cat-scares and fake-outs, but 5 at least strives for creepiness, and achieves it with an eerily shot extended woodland chase sequence, and an intense finale at the old Myers house in which Jamie is trapped inside a laundry shoot. The queasy highlight involves Harris lying in a child’s coffin (exhumed by Myers with her in mind) in a bid to reason with her uncle (“You’re just like me…”) The introduction of a mysterious man in black, sporting the same Druid wrist symbol that Myers now has, sets up a resonant, downbeat ending (though the guy is ultimately a walking plot device) while the always game Pleasence gives it his all and perishes for the second time in the series as he bashes Michael repeatedly with a 2” by 4”. Harris, terrorised, catatonic and suffering for the entire duration, gives by far the film’s best performance, and the final scenes of her, resigning herself to a horrible fate as he wanders around yet another decimated Haddonfield police station, are genuinely unsettling.
HALLOWEEN: THE CURSE OF MICHAEL MYERS ** USA 1995 Dir: Joe Chappelle. 85 mins As with JASON GOES TO HELL, the sixth HALLOWEEN movie handed the creative reins over to a young fanboy filmmaker keen to rejuvenate an increasingly stale franchise. In this case, screenwriter Daniel Farrands admirably picks up the many loose ends left by part 5, killing off Jamie Lloyd (no longer played by Danielle Harris), whose new born baby (apparently fathered by Michael in between films, the ickiest plot point of the whole series!) is wanted by a cult worshipping the Druid “Thorn” symbol seen on Michael’s wrist. Michael returns to Haddonfield, his intermittent rampages seemingly coinciding with the occasions on which the “Thorn” symbol appears as a constellation of stars - as opposed to….er, it being Halloween. The mystery man in black from part 5 is revealed to be Dr Loomis’ old medical colleague, who wants to harness the evil of Thorn to his own end. A visibly ailing Donald Pleasence gets to rant yet again about Michael’s “rage” in his final film, while a grown-up Tommy Doyle (Paul Rudd) makes for a feeble hero. The ambitious multiple plot threads dissolve into incoherence, and post-production studio tampering awkwardly amped up the routine slasher hijinks: horny teens, false scares, “homages” to the original (Michael admiring a fresh kill, cocking his head), elaborate gory deaths (even a ridiculous exploding head totally out of character to Myers), and a baffling finale in which characters repeatedly hit Michael over the head with heavy objects. It’s not without merit: Alan Howarth’s rousing electric guitar interpretation of the classic theme is awesome, and the bold opening stretch suggests the movie had real promise. Love the Greek chorus of Haddonfield’s radio station, where horny female listeners express their attraction to Myers (“He’s so untamed, he’s so uninhibited!”) and conspiracy nuts voice their opinion that the CIA are employing Myers as the ultimate assassin.
HALLOWEEN 6: THE CURSE OF MICHAEL MYERS (PRODUCER’S CUT) *** Available for many years as a bootleg VHS / DVD, the so-called “Producer’s Cut” of CURSE has a different title design and differs in many respects from the studio-altered theatrical version. Just as Dimension Films recut the similarly timed HELLRAISER: BLOODLINE (with that film’s director Kevin Yagher opting for an Alan Smithee credit), they were responsible for several changes here, including the addition of gaudy gore FX: the abusive step-dad gets a gratuitous exploding head fate in the theatrical cut. Most notably, Jamie is killed with farm machinery in the first reel of the released version, but in the original conception is simply stabbed, surviving most of the film in hospital. The alternate cut clarifies Michael’s role in the Thorn cult, expands on Tommy Doyle’s use of positive runes to fight Myers’ evil and also fleshes out the relationship between Dr Wynn and Loomis. The original ending is totally different to the messy finale of the theatrical version: we learn why the heroine’s son was hearing voices during the film, and also why Loomis was screaming off-camera: he realises he possesses the Thorn symbol and is thus destined to take over from Wynn as his new “caretaker”; Michael leaves in the “Man In Black” outfit. Although still deeply flawed, this version is the superior one, playing out far less awkwardly than the theatrical release and, for all its failures, representing a brave attempt to take the franchise away from the monotony of yet another Myers rampage.
HALLOWEEN H20 **** USA 1998 Dir: Steve Miner. 83 mins Perhaps the best of the post-SCREAM Hollywood slasher movie revival, this attempt to simultaneously revive the HALLOWEEN franchise and offer a 20th anniversary tribute to the Carpenter original is taut and suspenseful. Director Steve Miner is on familiar turf, having directed the second and third chapters of the rival FRIDAY THE 13TH franchise, and the film’s main coup pays off: Jamie Lee Curtis is outstanding as a credibly insecure, paranoid, alcoholic adult Laurie Strode, now a schoolteacher with a new name and a new life. The plot ignores every sequel except HALLOWEEN II, following Michael’s resumed pursuit of his sister, alongside her own teenage son (Josh Hartnett). In a nice touch, Nancy Stephens returns as Dr Loomis’ former assistant, killed at home in an intense opening sequence, and Miner - aping Carpenter’s use of the widescreen frame and Stedicam - stages dynamic set pieces, with stand-outs being a chilling near-miss in a public toilet and a nerve-wracking bit of business involving a dumb-waiter. The finale offers definitive franchise closure, conveying Laurie’s inevitable, disturbing transformation into a single-minded instrument of vengeance as relentless as Michael himself, pummelling him repeatedly with new-found defiance, and decapitating him at the first display of a vestige of humanity behind the mask. The final image of the axe-wielding, grim-faced Curtis would have made a marvellous conclusion to the series. Fortunately, the film avoids the self-conscious “post-modern” tropes of the SCREAM series, though there is a crudely shoe-horned clip from SCREAM 2 and a knowing cameo from Curtis’ mom Janet Leigh that provides an excuse for a bunch of PSYCHO jokes. Shame about Dimension’s annoying decision to replace stretches of John Ottman’s evocative original score with soundtrack excerpts from Marco Beltrami’s SCREAM score.
HALLOWEEN: RESURRECTION * USA 2002 Dir: Rick Rosenthal. 94 mins All the good work done by the smart, scary H20 is effectively destroyed within about two minutes of this insultingly dumb and rushed follow-up: Michael’s seemingly irreversible beheading is given a duff, swiftly explained “get out of jail” card that shows the film’s contempt for its own audience. HALLOWEEN II director Rosenthal was recruited to trudge through the slasher movie motions, bringing back a suitably haunted-looking Curtis for a thankless cameo as an institutionalised Laurie and callously ending her franchise presence for good with a feeble final confrontation with her brother. Subsequently, Michael returns to his original home, which is now host to reality TV guru Busta Rhyme’s “Dangertainment” live web-cast. The carnage is captured partially by various strategically placed web-cams, though not before a bunch of tedious fake scares in which Rhymes strives to boost viewing figures by roaming around in a Myers mask. Any HALLOWEEN movie featuring the title card “Starring Busta Rhymes” was always going to struggle and, although he is appalling and sadly prone to surviving mortal wounds (despite delivering the line “Trick or treat, motherfucker!”), he’s arguably no worse than much of the cast, including Tyra Banks, who has the screen presence of a freshly defiled corpse. Rosenthal quotes from his own HALLOWEEN movie (Myers “dies” a fiery death, someone slips in a pool of blood), steals his only decent murder from PEEPING TOM and fails to “resurrect” a script clearly conceived in a rush by committee. Worst. Halloween. Movie. Ever.
HALLOWEEN **** USA 2007 Dir: Rob Zombie. 109 mins Rob Zombie’s cinema career - and much of his music - acts as an unsubtle love letter to the exploitation cinema of the 1970’s he clearly adores, and he was an appropriate choice to join the 21st century craze of remaking 70’s horror landmarks, partly using it to indulge in his love of the era’s music, news events and genre icons. He spends over an hour expanding upon the event Carpenter conveyed in less than five minutes, compellingly following the 10 year old Michael Myers (an unnerving Daeg Faerch) as he rebels against the relentless abuse from his alcoholic stepfather (a suitably repulsive William Forsythe) and school bullies, by progressing from killing animals to murdering everyone at home except his baby sis Laurie and his loving stripper-mom (an excellent Sheri Moon Zombie). Malcolm McDowell offers a fun interpretation of a self-aggrandising Loomis, and there are scenes of raw power, notably Zombie’s breakdown as an incarcerated Michael kills a nurse at the sanatorium, signalling his point of no return despite Loomis’ efforts. The bodycount is vast (Michael kills almost as many people as a child than he does in the whole of the 1978 film) and the violence is characteristic of Zombie’s approach: brutal, joyless and, once Michael has grown up, doled out by a towering, brick shit-house reinvention of HALLOWEEN’s maniac. The second half is not quite as effective, as the script devolves into direct remake territory, speeding through the film-long modern-day narrative of the 1978 film, though the Zombie incarnations of Laurie, Annie (played, in a cute casting touch by a grown-up Danielle Harris) and Linda are well played. Flaws aside, it’s a rare late-franchise entry that looks and feels totally different to any previous episode, and at its best captures a true sense of threat and terror that has been almost entirely absent from the Myers films since the original.
HALLOWEEN II **** USA 2009 Dir: Rob Zombie. 101 mins Engaged to fast-track a sequel to the commercially successful (though critically revived) 2007 HALLOWEEN, writer-director Rob Zombie stripped away that film’s distracting cameos and was released from its awkward structure (existing somewhere between prequel, overly reverential remake and a pure “Rob Zombie” film). He expands on that film’s strengths, heightening the visceral attack scenes to reflect the ferocity and power of the reinvented Myers, while developing his amusing take on Dr Loomis. Refusing to take the formulaic sequel path pursued by the 1981 HALLOWEEN II (the only real connections are a hospital massacre at the start and clips from NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD), Zombie follows the miserable post-trauma life of Laurie (Scout Taylor-Compton) and fellow survivor Annie (Danielle Harris in her 4th HALLOWEEN series appearance, equal to Jamie Lee’s franchise toll). Laurie discovers the familial connection between her and Michael via Dr Loomis’ sensationalistic books while Myers himself (Tyler Mane), driven by the persistent presence of his dead mom (Sheri Moon-Zombie) returns to Haddonfield. There are flickers of welcome wit (notably Loomis on a chat show with Weird Al Yankovic) but for an R-rated major studio horror sequel, this is remarkably grim and misanthropic – shot in dirty, grainy 16 mm and favouring gruelling brutality over crowd-pleasing splatter and funhouse-scares. This Myers towers over everyone, wanders around minus the mask looking like some monstrous hobo and is portrayed as a brute with major rage issues, far from the playful quick-killer boogeyman of Carpenter’s film (in an explicit nod to the ’78 film, he is seen devouring a dog, too). McDowell, like Zombie, is let off the leash, no longer saddled with rehashing Donald Pleasance lines, and he gets the best of Zombie’s typically cynical dialogue (“Bad taste is the petrol that drives the American dream…”) as an irredeemable media whore. Remaining fascinated by trashy, hateful incidental characters (including a necrophiliac paramedic), Zombie is the only filmmaker who was able to put his own individual stamp on a HALLOWEEN sequel. The expansion of Brad Dourif’s incarnation of Sheriff Brackett gives the actor his warmest, most human role to date – his tortured depiction of a dismayed, rage-fuelled father after Annie’s death is one of the most extraordinary moments in the whole franchise. Also refreshing is the attempt to truly capture the scars of those who have eluded Myers’ rampage: Compton’s washed-up, unsympathetic portrayal of the drug-dependent Laurie one year on offers a Zombie-universe equivalent to Jamie Lee’s H20 turn, and for once we feel the widespread psychological and emotional cost of one of Haddonfield’s regular town massacres. Bowing out with a genuinely creepy, resonant ending riffing on the strongest aspect of HALLOWEEN 4 (and, to some extent, the final image of H20), Zombie should have been commended for turning a potentially bland cash-in into something surprisingly powerful and nightmarish.
She tells him that she was trying to get Ndidi to tell her some things but as soon as her father came in, she got scared and couldn't talk anymore.
She tells him to get Ndidi away from their father.
Obi calls Ndidi's phone
Ndidi hears his voice and starts talking to him like he's a customer.
He asks if their father is there.
She says yes.
He suggests they meet up.
She tells him to send her a message with his details so they can meet up and discuss Boku Naira.
After the call, Folake laughs and asks what sort of family theirs is.
Senami and Oviyon are still in a hotel room.
Oviyon is watching the video on Senami's phone.
He asks what happened to the people.
Senami says Kingsley took her to their graves.
She starts crying.
He holds her and says they both know she can't kill anyone.
He suggests she lies on the bed and he will sleep on the floor.
Obi and Folake wait for Ndidi in the dark.
She joins them and Obi asks for their father.
She says he went to see a man called Dr. Jide.
Obi is shocked.
Folake tells them to leave that issue for now.
Ndidi says she's tired and just want to leave their father and has been hoping that she finds her brother so he can take care of her.
Senami screams in her sleep.
Oviyon leaves the floor to join her on the bed.
He holds her and tells her she was just having a nightmare.
He remains with her as she goes back to sleep.
In the Morning, Oviyon and Senami wake up next to each other in bed.
They greet each other good morning and Senami asks if Oviyon slept well.
He says he couldn't as she was talking in her sleep.
She apologises to him.
He says it's okay.
Oviyon gets a call from Zosu who tells him that he followed Totai as he was going into the bush and Totai went to the shrine
Oviyon is surprised.
Zosu says Totai has been visiting Mausi's since they stole Sewedo from the shrine and he thinks Mausi must have sent him.
Oviyon thanks him and after the call, he tells Senami that Mausi sent Totai to attack them.
Neza brings food to Akweyon in the clinic.
Dr. Jide comes to check on her.
He introduces himself and Neza tells him that Akweyon doesn't talk.
Dr. Jide starts making gestures.
Neza asks what he's ups to.
Dr Jide says he's communicating in sign language.
Neza tells him to just check her.
Dr. Jide touches her with his stethoscope and Akweyon flinches.
He jokes that maybe it's because he's around.
He touches her face and jaw, telling her she will be alright.
Neza grabs him by the throat and shoves him against the wall asking why he's touching his woman that way.
Matron comes to break them apart and Dr. Jide runs off.
Zosu meets Totai in the bush and runs after him.
Totai says he is going somewhere
Zosu asks what Mausi gave him to eat.
Totai says he's the chosen one.
Zosu asks what he means.
Totai says the thing in him can't be seen with the ordinary eyes so Zosu needs to leave him alone.
He walks off.
Jonah comes to meet Fonton at home.
Fonton is holding the list from Peace's family.
He complains that it's too much and would cost about 100 thousand naira.
Jonah asks how soon they can get the items.
Fonton asks if he's seeing the same list.
Jonah says Peace is worth it and the list is even cheaper than he expected.
Fonton asks if Jonah has ever bought him even oil.
Jonah reminds him that he just gave him 50 thousand naira.
Fonton sulks.
Jonah tells him to look at the list and see what they can take out.
Fonton tells him to reduce the number of yams from 70 to 20.
Jonah says no.
Michael Wealth comes to look for Fonton.
Fonton meets him outside.
Michael gives him an envelope and Fonton complains the money is not enough.
Michael says it's the first instalment and by next week, Fonton will be very rich.
Michael says he's not impressed.
Michael says since Fonton has done so much for them, he wants to make him an ambassador for Boku Naira.
Fonton starts celebrating.
Obi comes to the clinic to see Jide.
He asks what game he's playing.
Dr. Jide asks what he means.
Obi asks what he's doing, having meetings with his father
Dr. Jide asks who his father is.
Obi says Clifford.
Dr. Jide says he didn't know about the relationship.
Obi advises him to stay away from him a keep his mouth shut.
Jide asks if it's a threat.
Obi reminds him that all he has done failed miserably so he shouldn't do that which will kill him off.
Fonton meets Seyive in the market to tells her to invest in Boku Naira.
He tells her to bring her entire salary and it will more than double in a few days.
Seyive says she is interested but doesn't have the money.
Fonton tells her to borrow some money.
Seyive says she will ask Doctor.
Senami comes to the shrine to see Mausi who is sitting outside with her laptop.
Mausi asks why she keeps barging in like she owns the place.
Senami says she knows what Mausi did and knows Mausi sent Totai to attack her.
Mausi asks if anyone died.
Senami says no.
Mausi says Senami wanted to know if she could kill people and she showed her.
Senami says Mausi didn't believe the video.
Mausi days Senami believed it and needed confirmation so she helped her get that confirmation, she had every opportunity to activate her alleged powers but she didn't do maybe she should relax and stop making noise.
My second review in a row of a Coen-Brothers-like film. But Suburbicon actually IS a Coen Brothers film (directed by George Clooney, who also co-wrote). Despite seeing numerous trailers (i.e. trying NOT to see them) and skimming a few reviews, I somehow managed to avoid knowing anything about this film. Even the fact that this is a very dark thriller (with some Coen-Brothers-like dark comedy thrown in) escaped my notice. Unfortunately, I can’t say the resulting surprise was entirely a pleasant one. The good news, though, is that my expectations were very low, thanks to the knowledge I did have: namely that Suburbicon is being panned by critics and viewers alike (an F score average from filmgoers over 50). I went anyway, because of Clooney, Damon and the Coen Brothers. And I’m glad I did (i.e. no F from me).
Matt Damon and Julianne Moore are the big stars of Suburbicon (sort of), with a major cameo (and a delicious one) by Oscar Isaac. But the real star is the young Noah Jupe as Nicky, a boy of about ten, living in the idyllic community of Suburbicon, who finds his world turned upside down when a black family moves in next door (okay, that’s a completely misleading statement, but it’s in keeping with what the townsfolk think about the presence of a black family in their all-white city of 60,000).
Nicky’s parents are Rose (Moore) and Gardner (Damon). Rose’s twin sister, Maggie, spends a lot of time at their house as well. One night (shortly after the arrival of the Mayers family next door), Nicky wakes up to find that two men have entered their home and are about to do something awful, though it will be only the beginning of the horrors Nicky will face in the days ahead. And that’s enough plot from me.
Suburbicon is not, by any stretch, one of the Coen Brothers best films (or one of Clooney’s best films). A lot has been said by critics about the film’s inaccurate heavy-handedness when it comes to racial satire and about its left-leaning cast and writers. I don’t think those complaints are fair to what the film is trying to do, unless the film is truly meant to be a satire of late 1950’s small-town USA life instead of a dark thriller. I viewed it as the latter, a thriller that incorporates social satire on the side. My disappointments have more to do with the lack of character development and an overall plot that just doesn’t have a lot to offer. And then there’s the dark comedy, which really doesn’t work at all.
Nevertheless, the bottom line is that I quite enjoyed watchingSuburbicon, so I can’t help but wonder why so many found it awful. The acting of those mentioned above was mostly excellent. The atmosphere was carefully developed (with lots of radio and TV) and it felt right. The cinematography wasn’t remarkable but it was okay. Same with the score. Flawed as it is,Suburbiconwas fun, in a twisted sort of way, so I’m giving it a solid ***. My mug is up.
