"Accomplishments"
In theaters: The real stars of Gareth Edwards' The Creator are the folks at Industrial Light and Magic - there's a lot of visual world-building, and it looks amazing. The script, however, is rather undercooked and often derivative (Edwards' inspirations might include Neon Genesis Evangelion, Doctor Who, The Matrix, and most immediately, Space Sweepers). 40-odd years from now, where A.I. has become a race of sentient robots at war with the U.S., but living peacefully with humanity in New Asia, one American soldier (John David Washington) tries to save the A.I. weapon - a little girl with the power to end the war - who is a mirror image of his own unborn child. Liberally lathered with religious overtones, it has some of the feel of a thinking person's science-fiction, but it's a surprisingly military action story, and its philosophical concerns are pretty cursory, especially compared to, well, everything from Blade Runner to Ex Machina. The little girl's quite good though. And while the film no doubt went into production before the current kerfuffle regarding A.I., it does feel very strange (one might say immediately dated) to have A.I. as the scapegoated race in a sci-fi film, nominally standing for any minority or foreign creed in our own world, but accidentally(?) saying we shouldn't stand against the "A.I." of recent controversies. Well, perhaps the studio is happy to promote that, I don't know...
At home: It's the World of John Wick in the 1970s and Winston is a young man about to take over the The Continental. Like all prequels, there's a sense that we already know what will happen - can't be helped - but it's still interesting to see where the character came from (and Charon too) and who ran the plan before him (Mel Gibson playing a megalomaniac manager who dares break the hotel's most sacred rules). The three feature-length episodes are more plotty than the Wick movies - as TV normally is - but I wouldn't call that a bug. The non-stop action of the films set them apart from other movies in the genre, but also came with a price tag. The TV show still delivers Wick-style action, but also much more of a story. More than one, even - the police detective who follows her prey into the Continental, the theft of a coin press, the dojo owner who won't use a gun, etc. - and the con/heist elements in the main story are right up my alley. My favorite part is really the music, and I can't wait to find a playlist of all those 1970s hits and run them on a loop.
Raylan Givens is back, but cut off from Harlan in Justified: City Primeval, an 8-episode mini-series set in Detroit and based on an Elmore Leonard novel featuring Detective Raymond Cruz from Out of Sight (with Paul Calderón even reprising his role, even if the character's function is taken over by Raylan). Some fans of Justified will resent the fact that their favorite U.S. Marshall is out of his element and the lack of many of the elements and characters that made Justified such a good show. Me? I liked meeting up with an old friend. Raylan meets a new cast of characters and has to deal with 2023's idea of law enforcement. Just what is justifiable to catch the bad guys is still front and center, and our hero has done some thinking on the matter. The villain is a real psycho, kind of a mix of Justified's dumbass criminals and the frustratingly slick Boyd Crowder. He's fun and dangerous, and lucky too. Misunderstandings and people accidentally (or wilfully) acting against their best interests, is a staple. Happily, Raylan's mumbly teenage daughter isn't in every episode. A lot of these shows seem to end early so we can have long epilogues, for closure's sake. This one does that too - not a fan - though it's a trick to lull us into a false sense of an ending, when it's actually setting up another mini-series. A bit of fan service, this one, but bring it on. I'll watch it.
Wes Anderson returns to Roald Dahl with The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (and three other tales), and not by half. These shorts (Henry Sugar at 40 minutes, the rest at under 18, one wonders why they weren't combined into an anthology film) seem to be Dahl's stories verbatim, which is to say narrated (by Ralph Fiennes as Dahl, and then various characters) word-for-word, even as the action unfolds. Henry Sugar - the story of a rich gambler who tries to teach himself clairvoyance - has direct lineage with The Grand Budapest Hotel, being a story within a story within a story within, yep, another story. Impeccable production design create a world of stagecraft. The strong cast speak in a mile-a-minute deadpan (the actors are reused in different roles over the several shorts, adding to this theatricality). And while I can't be sure if this would work as full-length feature - it's a full meal as it is, so that might answer my previous question about anthologies - it's one of my favorite things Anderson has done. Which is something I've said of EVERY ONE of his movies, except Asteroid City, so good on him for sneaking it in the same year. The other shorts are all done in the same style. The Swan is a fanciful tale of bullying that manages an unspoken postscript by having the narrator and the child merge. The Rat Catcher is a ghoulish tale that uses some stop-motion (having you hunger for more), and uses Richard Ayoade at his fullest - is there a better actor to render Anderson's Dalh narration at breakneck speed and perfect diction? Poison is the closest to Henry Sugar in terms of production values (also, the Indian setting) and proves a subtle story about colonial paranoia; felt too short, but that's Dahl's fault, isn't it?
I do question why Spain's survival film Nowhere had to be set in a dystopian parallel reality where food shortages have let most of Europe to purge the elderly, children and pregnant women from the population. Killing kids? It's a little hard to believe, and I don't feel like I really need to buy the premise when it could have been a pregnant woman from an actual refugee population (except, you know, unless you REALLY wanted to employ a white woman) to be trapped alone in a half-submerged shipping container where things get more complicated by her having and taking care of the baby in those circumstances. I'm getting a strong pro-life propaganda vibe from this one, and for the exact plot to work, one mustn't question the science too much (not that I'm an expert on ocean currents or anything, but the Gulf Stream goes THE OTHER WAY). And it's too bad that I have those objects because it's otherwise a good entry in the genre, with a very desperate situation, a woman trying to make things work with what's in disparate shipping crates, and sometimes making dumb mistakes that make you shout at the screen. In other words, whatever its flaws or politics, it's engaging. And certainly points for having a non-shark marine threat in there. It makes me want to give it the benefit of the doubt, but I know I probably shouldn't.
My principal note about The Meg was that it wasn't crazy enough. Meg 2: The Trench is a little crazier, and it doesn't have much of the lamebrain comedy the original had, but it's still on par with it. Again we have obvious Chinese plug-ins - Wu Jing has recently become China's answer Gerard Butler, starring in various dumb blockbusters laced with shoddy CGl, and he does so here - and the effects are this close to direct-to-streaming schlock (at least some of the time). Statham and some of his old gang are back, this time with a 14-year-old in tow, and visiting the prehistoric world under the thermo-whatever layer, and fighting the people illegally exploiting it as well as the creatures that escape from it (including megs, but of course, not limited to giant sharks). It's big, dumb fun, like a waterpark Fast and Furious, and it doesn't really know about science, whether physics, marine biology or the science of common sense. But neither did the original (and given how derivative it was, I use that word not without some irony). Take a deep breath, enjoy the show, you won't remember much in the morning.
The way Jaws 2 introduces teenage characters, you'd think it was a common slasher film. And that's not too far from the truth, although probably too many survive. The original Jaws is iconic, and there's no recapturing that. At least Chief Brody is still here, and I'm interested in his PTSD. We miss Hooper and Quint, but it's not a bad idea to replace them with Brody's own family. The execution is lacking, however, Mrs. Brody does okay, but the kids are two-dimensional, and lost in a sea of similar cannon fodder. Can't believe the Mayor in Jaws is still the Mayor in Jaws, though his heart's not exactly in it. Who keeps electing this fool? Szwarc uses some of Spielberg's tricks, so he understands the basic grammar of a Jaws film, but we see a lot more of the shark. I don't know that it's a plus. Ultimately, Jaws 2 is a fine creature feature, nothing incredible, but still quite watchable. Most of my memories of it were actually from the Mad Magazine parody, which is perhaps all you need to know about its place in the canon.
I wasn't a big fan of the generic 1982 Slumber Party Massacre, but its sequel was so insane, I loved it immediately. That's the one to beat. 2021's reimagined Slumber Party falls somewhere between the two. As a SyFy original, it definitely feels like TV at times (the size of close-ups, the lack of any kind of foul language), but in terms of gory kill-gags, it's well into R-rated territory and more confidently filmic. If I don't give it my full-throated recommendation, it's because tonally, it'a little all over the place, and by the third act, a little predictable. However, it's got a lot of winning elements before then, constantly twisting the formula into new and clever shapes. You have to know that this franchise is female-driven par excellence. All the films have female writers and directors. The female gaze spin of the SPM 2 is back in this one, to absolutely ludicrous effect, with boys essentially being shot the way young starlets were in those old 80s slashers. At times, it broaches parody. But the starring women want to turn the tables on the Driller Killer and that takes us back to comedic, but sincere action thriller territory. It's fun, just not as original as it might have been even just a few years ago.
Despite the title and marketing, Massacre at Central High is more of a revenge thriller than a horror film. Set at a "country club high school" run by rich kid bullies, their actions are certainly horrible (including an attempted rape), but if the roving boys could have served as the "monster", the killer is after THEM, so it doesn't track. It's certainly interesting that once the bullies start to drop off, new ones fill the void and become targets. The absence of any adults until the last sequence at an alumni dance lends the movie a thematic relationship to Lord of the Flies in that sense, but it could just be accidental. The sappy music (which the director was apparently angry about) certainly doesn't help Massacre achieve horror status, even if there are lots of clever kills (I'm not saying they're all believable, however) and the kind of random nudity required of exploitation. Lots of vaguely recognizable faces at this school, but if several of the stars got more work later, it's not because of the acting in this one. It's a bit of a dog, but it almost made it.
After Scream, there were bound to be imitators, and I seem to remember that, at the time, I Know What You Did Last Summer was marketed as such. Well, maybe they threw a couple of pop culture references in there, and it IS a (mild) horror whodunit, but none of the meta elements that made Scream fresh and thrilling. Based on a book from the 70s, the script might have been tweaked post-Scream, but was already in development. But even if we're not judging it against that film, it's not very good, is it? It's got a couple of good kills, but in most cases, it cuts away from the violence. Heck, even the bit where Sarah Michelle Geller (who's much more interesting than Jennifer Love Hewitt's nominal heroine) loses her hair is timid - it's shorter and thinner, but still nice a scene later. But the movie cheats. The only way to explain some of the Fisherman's actions is to accept he's a supernatural entity, but at no point is that indicated. The soundtrack confidently throws 90s hits at you except... I've never heard ANY of these songs before, so maybe the confidence isn't warranted. And then you have Freddie Prinze Jr. who only works as a red herring because he can't act and that accidentally makes him sinister. Watchable for all the pretty people and some of the TV-strength scares, but it falls apart on close inspection.
Sammo Hung's Encounter of the Spooky Kind is the template for Mr. Vampire (his production, even if he didn't direct it nor star in it), and has many things in common with that better known flick. It doesn't just have a historical setting, he's also directed it to look like a Shaw Brothers picture - Lau Kar-leung seems a particular inspiration - belying its origins at Golden Harvest. In the story, Sammo plays a guileless bumpkin who gets haunted by various spirits and hopping vampires at the behest of a rival for his wife's attentions. Although, to be fair, he was already getting unwanted attention from ghosts before that, so the movie's not always structurally sound. But it's a fine excuse for weird imagery, furious "possessed" martial arts, and cool lo-fi effects (some of which I couldn't figure out, which is always a plus). Of course, some of the humor is broad - it's a Cantonese comedy - but there's more than enough ghoulish horror and great action for Western audiences to forgive it. What's less forgivable - and so full warning - is the death of a chicken on screen, and how badly the female characters are treated (it's not the focus and usually out of mind, but they're invariably shrewish, leaving a misogynistic taste in one's mouth).
With Mr. Vampire II, the franchise steps into the modern day, as a family of hopping vampires are unearthed by the world's worst archaeologists/treasure hunters and unleashed on Hong Kong. And it's a thoroughly ridiculous affair, part martial arts, part E.T. (the child vampire hides itself with living kids), part horror comedy, part outright parody. All those parts don't play well together, and the film fails structurally. It's impossible to like the archaeologists, but they're our only protagonists for the first half-hour. 10 minutes of the kid playing with others (oh, is THIS the movie now?). Our name star/hero Yuen Biao finally shows up at the 40-minute mark. There's some prowess to the action sequences, of course, but they're ultimately very silly, especially the slowed-down "sedative" fight. In terms of comedy, a lot of the obvious word play is lost in translation. And there's a lot of shouting, a pet peeve of mine when it comes to broader comedies. It's got some redeeming qualities, like the memorable premise, but it should have realized that its absurd anachronistic monsters were enough to get us into comedy territory, and not pushed it this far into silliness.
It's back to the past in Mr. Vampire III, which has the best chance of showing weird wuxia magic anyway, so that's where the franchise should stay. It does borrow a kid ghost from the second film, however, and to much better effect. In this one, Richard Ng plays a comedy Taoist priest who has magic powers, but is mostly faking hauntings with his two endearing ghost pals. Ng gives one of his best performances, funny but restrained, and bares all for his art. But if there's a comedy hero, comedy ghosts and a (pretty annoying actually) comedy villain (ok, foil), there are also straight versions of these two: Mr. Vampire steady Lam Ching-Ying is a powerful master Taoist fighting an evil witch with wild powers animating ghost brigands. It's a lot of fun and more than a little like Ghostbusters with wine jars acting as ghost traps. Though the action is strong and varied, and the gags land much of the time, it's the friendly ghosts and their fate you care most about. That's more to care about than the previous sequel ever gave us. Sammo Hung has a cameo. Weird missing scene to make sense of those puppies (probably a mercy). Definitely one of the good ones!
Barring a brief early fight with a fox spirit, you're almost halfway through Mr. Vampire Saga 4 (that's one way to change your numbering scheme) when horror elements rear their hopping heads. Until then, the movie is mostly concerned with duelling neighbors who can't stand each other - a monk and a Taoist vampire wrangler - and their young students who seem to be in a romcom set-up, but don't follow through on it. Then a vampire comes into their lives, infecting other characters until the houses are under siege, and the normal mix of martial arts and weird magic ensue, to the point where you wonder why we had to go through the Magical Picket Fences comedy of the first half. At least the second half is relentless, filled with action. One annoyance is the broad gay stereotype character who's just there to trigger gay panic jokes, more or less the eunuch character you find in the kind of wuxia tales this movie parodies, but oof. Mr. Vampire IV has some fun bits regardless.
Tales from the Crypt presents Demon Knight and it's a hoot! First of all, very memorable cast. Billy Zane is having a lot of fun as the Devil, adding a tempter of souls to what is otherwise an Evil Dead set-up - the demons strongly remind me of Deadites, and are really great make-up and animatronic effects - while William Sattler, who would be cast as the villain in most other things, is the eponymous Knight, protecting a vial of Christ's Blood. He and a bunch of quirky characters are trapped inside a church turned into a seedy hotel under siege by the monsters. Gross-out gore and shotgun action ensue. Plus, prime Jada Pinkett helping to change how African-Americans are used in horror films, CCH Pounder fighting demons, Thomas Haden Church douching it up, Dick Miller - cuz you GOTTA have Dick Miller - and maybe even an amusing cameo in the frame tale. Like I said, it's a lot of fun. Largely due to Zane's performance, but he doesn't have to be present for the movie to sing.
RPGs: While the template calls for it in the When Cosms Collide mega-adventure, I am purposefully pushing old school D&D tropes on Aysle in our biweekly Torg Eternity game. So this last session was a picaresque with what felt like old school "random encounters" (some will have a bearing on later events, some won't, guess which), some leading to peaceful interaction, some to combat, maybe a prophetic dream or two, and lots of campsite scenes where the characters learn a bit of magic or sword play from their friendly guide, not unlike those rest periods on the middle of nowhere so the magic-user could refill their spell slots, remember? In fact, I set up a little learning mechanic, where have the chance to learn new skills (like those elusive cantrips) on the road. So the PCs traversed (checks) 350 km over 6 days, learned a few things, might have gotten closer to their elusive prey. One difficulty this week was the absence of one of our players, whose character was consequently gobbled up by a reality quake (or Quakesand). One player made a show of trying to dig him out and holding out hope he was still alive, but generally, since the players know he'll be back, there wasn't much in-game grief. "It's not the first guy we lose," was heard at the table. Our Monster Hunter can be so callous sometimes (at all times?).
Best bits: The Tharkold "hangers" bit (above) had the desired effect - disturbing and repulsive. One player called it "going too far", which I think means Tharkold was rendered correctly. The drone built out of a human skull was ghoulish as well. You'd be surprised at how much teasing you can get out of a character failing their "skill learning" roll, especially if others are "quick learners". As Viking warriors retreat from a superior force armed with futuristic guns, the PCs shout "Cowards!!!". The Paladin is always calling rain and lightning down from the sky, so it's only natural that wet firewood starts causing the PCs problems. The Paladin also rolls a 73 on a Giant Wolf kill and his god Dunad blesses his armor on the spot. Now once per Act, he can grow to giant size to better smite the wicked (and since his Troll Boots only work on creatures on lower ground/underfoot, they've suddenly become a lot more useful).
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