Review – Halloween H20

Obviously not as good as the original, but on the other hand at least not as bad as the last couple of sequels (not that that’s saying much). Jamie Lee Curtis returns for the first time since #2 as the emotionally-scarred Laurie, who despite a faked death and another name change is still being pursued by her psychotic brother. The end, with its obligatory multiple “deaths” for the monster, is typically tedious. But otherwise this isn’t too bad as slasher sequels go. Mildly amusing

Review – Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers

This one has trouble deciding whether it wants to be a serious supernatural thriller or just another cheap  slasher outing. In the end it doesn’t function especially well as either one, lacking a plot strong enough to pull off the former and coming up too short in the nudity and gore departments (though it does feature a little of each) to succeed on the latter count. Further, as is common with high-number sequels, this movie just seems to lack raison d’etre as much as anything else. What a shame this had to be Donald Pleasance’s last film. See if desperate

Review – Halloween

One of the great progenitors of the slasher genre, Carpenter’s early masterpiece still holds up pretty well even after 20 years. Just about every member of my age group has some story about being scared witless by Halloween when it first came out (or when they first saw it on cable). The movie’s mix of teenage angst and sexuality, combined with a hearty dose of the urban-legendary Boogeyman, assures it a proper place in the history of horror flicks. Buy the tape

Review – Godzilla, King of the Monsters

Fans of the happy-go-lucky giant lizard who bravely defends Earth against the likes of Ghidorah, doing a gleeful little hornpipe after vanquishing his foes, will scarcely recognize the nightmare creature in this, the first Godzilla movie ever. The black and white film gives the movie an almost documentary feel in places, and it’s not hard to view this as at least a half-hearted attempt at some serious social commentary about the dangers of nuclear war and science-run-riot. The version most commonly available here in the States is a peculiar melange of the original Japanese version, dubbed and un-dubbed, and filler scenes shot with Raymond Burr to help explain the plot for the American audiences (not to mention providing the film with a caucasian hero). Someday I’d like to see a print that doesn’t include a bunch of Burr talking to actors that we only see from the back (because they’re standing in for the actors in the original Japanese version and, presumably, the Japanese actors weren’t available to have pithy conversations with an American actor just for the sake of the US release). Worth seeing

Review – The X Files

At one point I set myself up with the goal of seeing at least one film beginning with each letter of the alphabet within the space of a single year. For most letters, this wasn’t much of a challenge at all. X, on the other hand, had me pretty desperate by the end of October. Part of the hype on this TV-series-spawn was that it had been deliberately designed so that even folks who didn’t follow the small-screen adventures of the fearless paranormal agents could still appreciate the movie. I’m not sure that I disagree with this as a basic premise, though certainly there were some in-jokes from the series (things that the only X Files watcher in the room caught and nobody else got). Rather, I tend to believe that the need for a firm grounding in the first five seasons of the popular Fox network program had more to do with building up a tolerance for plot-free meandering from one semi-bizarre situation to another. Want to have some fun with this film? Watch carefully and try and count all the other sci fi and horror movies they’re ripping off. See if desperate

Review – The Manchurian Candidate

On the all-time list of political thrillers, this one has to be one of the top ten (if not in fact number one). This film would be legendary even if it stopped right after the famous garden club a la brainwashing lecture sequences. And of course it doesn’t stop there. It’s a little rough in spots, and it owes a lot to the book, but otherwise this one is a must see. Buy the tape

Review – G.I. Jane

Contest: what’s worse, the tediousness of the message, Demi Moore’s acting, or how broken the cinematographer’s light meter is? Decisions, decisions. Wish I’d skipped it