Fantasy Watch: Dragonslayer (1981)

the rare fantasy movie that earns the art on the poster

Watched:  03/21/2025

Format:  YouTube

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Matthew Robbins

In an era before CGI, a lot of love, skill and money had to go into making FX movies, and it was often the difference between a Star Wars and a Starcrash.*  Dragonslayer (1981) was a VHS staple in our house back in the earliest days of home video when my folks thought *owning* a VCR was a crazy idea so we rented a VCR at the same time we rented a stack of movies from the grocery (shit was wild, kids).  

My opinion of the movie hasn't budged much since I watched it as a kid.  It's a gorgeous film with a miscast lead and spends too much time on being goofy at the beginning for the movie it wants to be at the end without enough connective tissue to make it all work.  Maybe because of The Once and Future King casting Arthur as a nerd, maybe because this movie has serious "Sorcerer's Apprentice" vibes, we're stuck with basically a nerd as our lead, which feels like it's a particular part of fantasy fiction.  Think of the near miss we likely had with Luke and Star Wars with writing, casting and editing (yes, we can always make any post a Mark Hamill appreciation post).  

I like the bones of the movie *a lot* - the lottery, the corrupt government, even a novice wizard trying to solve the dragon problem.  And, of course, the obviously female Valerian turning out to be a girl.  All good stuff.  I'd forgotten there's a whole bit about the church and the dipshit of a king sliding in and taking credit for the dragon's defeat.  That's some fascinatingly cutting social satire for a mainstream fantasy film.

But we're here for the dragon puppets, both Henson-y and stop-motion, and man, they still look amazing.  No kidding, because this was ILM in 1981 as all engines were really firing after Empire Strikes Back.  

Anyway, I like the film well enough, still.  I feel like they could have cut some business at the beginning, but I get why they did this for a more general audience and because fantasy fiction has a tendency to want to dick around before we get to the dark part.

I am sure the fact this was not CGI, even if it was computer-assisted will blow the minds of the youths, but I think it's a great example of state-of-the-art practical FX as I remember them as a kid.  And maybe why Star Wars, Dark Crystal and other contemporaries seemed so special.  This movie looks like a million bucks, and once you're in it, I think it's not half-bad.

I did read that Caitlin Clarke, who plays Valerian, passed back in 2004.  Y'all raise a glass to her.

*that said, I will defend Starcrash with my dying breath 

80's Watch: Arthur (1981)

Watched:  03/20/2025

Format:  DVD

Viewing:  First

Director:  Steve Gordon

Both Jamie and I were convinced we'd already seen Arthur (1981), but both of us realized at some point, maybe a 1/3rd of the way through the movie, that we must have started the movie and never finished it.  This doesn't happen very often, but it does happen.  SimonUK had popped around, promising not to bring a horror film, and this was his selection.

Anyway, Arthur was sort of a big deal when I was very young, but because it was about a raging alcoholic, I missed it.  Not that I think I would have understood it as a child.  Now, in 1981, that didn't stop The Chipmunks from including Arthur's Theme on The Chipmunks Go Hollywood.

And in this way, as a child, I knew all the words to Arthur's Theme.

In some ways, it's very much a classic comedy - something that would have been made during the Depression as a screwball comedy.  It's rich wackiness against rich stiffs and a working-class girl who meets a guy who so wealthy he can make all of her dreams come true.  

It also would make an interesting modern remake of sorts, as the signs of Arthur's stalled maturity materialize in a fantasy setting of random collectibles, train sets, etc... and it's not too hard to imagine that in 2025 terms, along with maybe a guy who won't lay off the weed.

Moore's performance is at an 11 at the start, which is a lot.   He's intentionally unlikable in his way, and it's not until Hobson enters as Arthur's butler/ father-figure that we see Arthur less through the eyes of people who are just temporarily dealing with him and instead with someone who cares about him.  What blew my mind was the timing of Hobson in pop culture (not quite a Wooster and Jeeves, but close), and the complete re-imagining of Alfred in the Batman comics that would occur with Frank Miller a few years later.  And, yeah, I can name another poor-little-rich-boy who also may be frozen in adolescence who sees his butler as his father...

I'm not sure John Gielgud as Hobson saves the movie, because it doesn't need that, but he absolutely wins the movie.  I think the scene with Moore and Susan's father under the moose head is one of the best comedy bits I've seen in a while.  And Liza is at her best - she's great in this as the waitress who dreams of being an actor.  She's really funny, as is Barney Martin as her father.  Or Ted Ross as Bitterman, the chauffeur.  

Anyway, I agree with Simon that the script is actually really solid, and I'll add it accomplishes the difficult task of making a lout loveable and believable when he does show he can do something when he cares.

I think the last time we got a comedy like this - that wasn't a very self-aware remake - may have been Billy Madison, which is just mind boggling.

Hackman Watch: Hoosiers (1986)

Watched:  03/17/2025

Format:  Prime

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  David Anspaugh

So, this movie was a staple for us middle-school basketball boys in the 1980's.  I watched it a lot during a certain period in my life, but I don't think I've seen it since those magical days of knowing "I am not very good at this, but I am tall".  We are now, of course, further from the release of the film than the movie was from the period in which it occurs.  Because I am old.  And tired.

I'll say it:  Hoosiers (1986) is an odd movie.  It stars three actors who were big at the time - Gene Hackman, Barbara Hershey and Dennis Hopper - but almost everyone else is local Indiana talent.  It's also a basketball movie that focuses on the coach and gives backstory to 1.5 players out of 8.  I couldn't tell you the names of half the players.  One of our main players, the star, has maybe three lines. It also has the burden of having some unspoken issues with race that just sail on by, and were uncomfortable when I saw it as a kid in 1986.

Hackman is, of course, perfect.  As a basketball coach dealing with a past where he had a moment of absolute failure - take heed fans of Bobby McKnight - he's getting a second chance to do what he loves.  It just happens to be out here in the middle of nowhere with half the players he needs and placed in a small town that thinks coaching is a democracy.  

80's Panic Watch: Mazes and Monsters (1982)

Watched:  03/07/2025

Format:  Peacock

Viewing:  Second

Director:  Steven Hillard Stern

For any younger readers hitting this site, you may be vaguely aware of the Satanic Panic of the 1970's-1990's.  But it was real and really annoying.  I was a kid living on the edge of the Bible Belt in the 1980's, but I think the wide-eyed and whispered warnings one would get about the dangers of playing the fairly recent phenomenon of Dungeons & Dragons were everywhere.  And I don't know how much of the made-for-TV movie, Mazes and Monsters (1982), was inspired by the urban legends and actual events, and how much someone named Barb relating the plot of this movie to their friend, Donna, inspired some of those urban legends.*

I know I run on about context in which movies appeared, but I think with this one, if you don't know the context of how D&D freaked people out in the 1980's, you may believe this is just a movie, and not an important cultural conversation, and therefore loses the punch of being a part of a national conversation drummed up by folks who need a strawman to combat.  In the 1970's a real kid had gone missing, and it was believed he'd freaked out from playing D&D and was lost in steam tunnels somewhere - not that he was suffering from mental illness and had left the state (which is what really happened).

Keep in mind, in the 1950's it was proposed - and believed for decades -that comics would make us all juvenile delinquents.  We do not always respond to things outside our experience in the best way.

The 1980's were a different time, where doing geek-things and admitting to it in public was a dicey proposition.  People were not as open about hobbies like D&D, consuming Star Trek, and comic book reading, as those things did carry a very real social stigma.  Plus, no one knew what you were talking about if you did bring it up.  SNL or other cultural touchstones usually mocked nerds (when that was a mean label) and that constructed their impressions of geek hobbies and those that pursued them.  Rather than fight those impressions, most folks just knew not to bring that stuff up in mixed company. It was very different from the "heavy metal music will make your kids evil/ kill themselves" that the metal-heads kind of embraced.**

The "comics are for geeks" stuff disappeared 25+ years ago, so it's hard to remember when Tony Stark has become a household name. Honestly, I'm still shocked that younger co-workers talk about their weekend D&D games in casual conversation, and maybe a little mad that they can.  Doing so in my youth would have led to lectures about how I was going to go crazy.

Fantasy Watch: Legend (1985)

Watched:  02/03/2025

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  Third, I believe

Director:  Ridley Scott

An absolute trainwreck of a movie, Legend (1985) is worth seeing mostly to say "wow, they had all these resources at their disposal, and this is what they did?"  

Unsurprisingly, this was also my impression of the movie when I saw it aged 10.  And knowing I saw it at age ten also reminds me my dear mother sat through this movie.  Sorry, KareBear!

Of course, in 1985, I was a Dungeons and Dragons kid, and was expecting more of a Conan style adventure, so was disappointed on that level.  But I did understand  we were looking at cutting edge sets, make-up and effects.  And especially now in the CGI fantasy world we see daily, this movie looks amazing - because it is practical and has real light, etc... and all that is really the thing to recommend it.

But...  The story was and is both overly complicated and mind-numbingly simple.  You can dress up anything in faux-Shakespeare or fantasy-novel-speak, but you're still just saying "Jack has to get the MacGuffin back - and the girl.  But that bad-guy stole them, and he's really tough and mean".  

I watched Legend again, I believe, in college (maybe high school) and liked it no better.  And then Jamie and I put it on probably 20 years ago, made it ten minutes in, and then tapped out.

But tonight we watched it from beginning-to-end, knowing this movie is bad.  But, wow...  is it a mess.

Visually?  Yes, it's a masterclass of 1980's optical and practical FX.  The make-up and creature effects are stellar.  If you want to put it on and listen to some music, you might have a good time.

I didn't, and don't, think this movie had characters.  It has impressions of characters.  It has vague archetypes.  Most surprising, no one really has an arc, they simply go through a little adventure where we're told that maybe the universe is at stake - but how, why or if we should care about this fact is all a little bit up in the air.  

What is the movie is trying to say?  I couldn't tell you.  Something about light and dark, not approaching wildlife, and that Mia Sara being the source of all of our problems.

A quick glance at Wikipedia tells me that there is a "director's cut" available that people are not as mad at, that actually lets the characters develop and reveal themselves and have motivations outside of the immediate crisis.  I am both intrigued by a version of this that isn't just people in costumes shouting over Tangerine Dream, and horrified at the idea of watching this movie ever again.  But it sounds like they trimmed out 30 or more minutes, and that tells me we accidentally left the story on the cutting room floor.

It's just a stunning disaster of a movie that may have been murdered in editing and sound design.  It fails basic tests like "hey, explain how and why these characters are now in this scene".  

As something that tried to go full Tolkien and create a new world based on familiar fantasy characters, it at least achieves a unique look, but then, if it had anything to say about it, forgot along the way.  The world is too empty - there's no sense of anything beyond the sets, which gives the film no stakes.  So what if this mile or two of woods is compromised?   "You can't have light without darkness" is a fine sentiment, if you want to spend any energy whatsoever giving that phrase meaning in the context of the movie, but here it just sounds like a 17 year old who just discovered the Doors.  

Anyway - if you think you need to watch this movie because it's been a while, I'd just watch any of the 1980's many, many fantasy movies other than this one.  Maybe even Krull.

Accidental Watch: The Chopping Mall (2025)

Watched:  01/26/2025

Format:  Shout! on YouTube

Viewing:  Not sure

Director:  Jim Wynorski

I saw this was streaming on YouTube - in real time - and turned it on, by chance, right at the beginning, and decided to stick with it just to watch the opening sequence.  And next thing I knew, credits were rolling on this cinema classic.

On it's face, The Chopping Mall (1986) is a simple story about why it's a bad idea to deploy robots armed with futuristic and lethal weaponry as mall security.  I mean, the room for lawsuits is breathtaking.

On another level, The Chopping Mall would make a fantastic pairing with Dawn of the Dead for a killer double-bill as it also uses horror to satirize the consumer experience.  This one also leans into horror films, Corman films (while being a Corman film), techno-shock media, and more.  And it has the best possible signal as to what we're in for at the beginning by starting the film with the characters, The Blands, from Eating Raoul watching a demo for the Killbots.

Here in 2025 - almost forty years later - it's an amazing time capsule of the 1980's in cinema and pop culture.  The film revels in B-movie violence, nudity and young people being dumb-as-@#$%.  It's also a reminder that Barbara Crampton does not age on the same timeline as the rest of us.  It's weird to say a movie in which heads explode on screen and 20-somethings are dispatched by rejected EPCOT trashcans is "joyful", but fun was had in the making of the movie.  After all, this is a movie that features a mall petshop called "Roger's Little Shop of Pets" (referring, of course, to executive producer Roger Corman's Little Shop of Horrors).    And, of course, gets a day or two out of Dick Miller to play his character from A Bucket of Blood.  

It's a movie where the sporting goods store in the mall carries M-16's, and elevators are controlled by computers.  And, is essentially about an orgy in a mall furniture store going sideways when lightning causes a power surge that sets off the Killbots.

Sadly - I can't find evidence that the robots from the movie survived after production.  It would be nice to know they're out there or could wind up in a movie museum.

Sure, 1986 put out intentionally meaningful films and crowd pleasers.  And this cost less than a million to produce (and takes place in the same mall used for 1985's Commando!), but in it's own way - I think is key to unlocking so much of what was happening in pop culture and media at the time.

Shame Watch: Zapped (1982)

I am not putting up the poster from this movie.  Here's Aames, Thomas and Baio

Watched:  12/06/2024

Format:  Amazon Prime

Viewing:  First

Director:  Robert J. Rosenthal

Kids, if you want to know how much the world has changed for both the worse and the better, and to ponder innumerable imponderables about what was happening in the 1980's... I would suggest you check out this movie to see what a massive gulf you're dealing with between the wild west of 1980's b-movies and 2020's moralizing.  

Except... it's a terrible movie, and don't watch it.

Zapped (1982) is trash.  It knows it's trash.  It's studio-produced and released trash, where, apparently, the studio made them do re-shoots to insert more nudity in the wake of Porky's massive success.  YMMV.

My memory of this movie is that it was on the shelf at every video store I ever went to, and featured Scott Baio and Willie Ames on the cover using magic powers to flip up the skirt of a girl.  As a kid living in the 1980's who sometimes had premium cable and who had friends who had fun channels, I was well aware of the horny teen sex romp, and the last thing I wanted to see was Chachi plus boobs, so it took til now to see this gem.

I regret it.  This movie was bad, gross, unfunny, and wildly sexist in a way that made you feel like you were looking into a whirlpool of misogyny.  

Aside from the aforementioned Charles in Charge-foreshadowing casting, it also has Scatman Crothers as a coach, and LaWanda Page - who I'd only seen on Sanford and Son.  It features a brief appearance by none other than Eddie Deezen.  And if you know Eddie's post-Grease work, you know that he is a mark of a great film.  The love interest was played by Felice Schachter, who was in those first prep-school seasons of The Facts of Life - and I'm as shocked as you are that I recognized her enough to look her up mid-movie to see where I knew her from.  And, we have Heather Thomas, who you may just feel bad for by the end of the movie as she's never set up to be a villain, exactly, but gets a comeuppance nonetheless, which is just...  cruel.

The basic story is that Baio is a science nerd who accidentally manages to get himself telekinesis.  It leads to hi-jinks, from popping open sweaters to fixing gambling.  There's some Carrie references, from a mom who goes religious on him after he terrorizes her with a ventriloquist doll, to the prom ending not in murder, but everyone stripped down to their underwear. 

It's tedious.  But will stop for odd fantasy sequences, not the least of which is Scatman Cruthers getting high by accident and dreaming he's riding bikes with Einstein.  Because movie.  It is the best part of the whole film.

I didn't like this at all, am embarrassed I finished it, and I don't want to think about this movie anymore. 

There is a sequel, because of course there is.

The end.

De Palma Watch: Blow Out (1981)

Watched:  11/21/2024

Format:  Criterion 4K

Viewing:  third

Director:  Brian De Palma

De Palma is a fascinating subject himself in so many ways.  He bows at the alter of Hitchcock, he works within frameworks that are uniquely his own - and *boy howdy* are they on display here.  He seems to think the only way to get people to show up for the movie on time is a surplus of nudity before the action begins.  I'm not sure he writes great characters, but he does keep you engaged with plot and ideas.

Here in 2024, I don't know if I like watching his movies because I like a thriller, or if I like watching De Palma do his thing and try to puzzle it out.  Why not both, I guess?

I've started getting 4K discs, and... holy cats, was this a good movie for that.  Shot by Vilmos Zsigmond (check out this IMDB page), and with a healthy dash of De Palma's weirdo split focus (via bioptic lenses) and split screen stuff...  but, the depth of field, the gorgeous lighting, wild camera angles...  

Hallo-Re-Re-Re-Re-Watch: Ghostbusters (1984)

Watched:  10/21/2024

Format:  Alamo

Viewing: hahahahahaha

Director:  Ivan Reitman

Si invited me out to a Ghostbusters Party at The Alamo.  It was a good time!  They gave us a marshmallow, a tub of slime, a glow-in-the-dark thing to wave around for proton beams...  

I also realized I've seen Ghostbusters (1984) more than the average bear when I p-shaw-ed the guy who went up to the front as a "super fan" saying he'd seen the movie twenty times.  I also told the host I'd seen the movie opening day at age 9, and that apparently earned me some street cred.

It was a bit of a quote-along, jam-out to the songs thing, and super fun.  

A few years back, Si, Jamie and I did this as a podcast, so rather than me rehashing the movie in text, you can listen to that.

I guess my only real note is that Sigourney Weaver is a stone cold fox in this movie, and I'm not sure we're supposed to talk about that.

Weaver judges me for bringing it up

HalloWatch: Puppet Master (1989)

Watched:  10/15/2024

Format:  Peacock

Viewing:  First

Director:  David Schmoeller

It's important to note the budget for some of these movies.  

Puppet Master (1989) has a reported budget of $400,000.  That's about $1.12 million in 2024 dollars for a whole movie - or, roughly, the cost of bagels on an Avengers movie.  And, people still watch this thing.  So hopefully residuals are still making their way to folks who worked for cheap.

This movie is like someone took a bunch of ideas, threw them in a hat and then pulled them out whilst blind-folded.  And that isn't necessarily a complaint.  It's weird to see so many ideas in one movie, but they do work together.

The rough idea - for some reason a Puppet Master (William Hickey!) is tracked down at a hotel in the 1930's by Nazis?  He kills himself rather than give them the secret of how to imbue puppets with life.  

In the late 1980's, four psychics are summoned to the fancy hotel by a former colleague, Gallagher.  To be honest, I do not know why he summoned them as he then kills himself before they arrive.  One is sort of an everyman psychic, one is a fortune teller who gets glimpses of the future, and two seem to channel sex into their research, which is at least kind of novel.  Meanwhile, Gallagher's widow is hanging about.

There are spirit visions and glimpses of people's deaths yet to come.  A lot of rolling around on a bed.  And nobody seems to have liked Gallagher.  

Soon, the puppets who once were Hickey's pals are running around picking off the psychics.  And each puppet kind of has their thing.

It's probably telling that the stars of this movie mostly don't have many credits.  Hickey is a cameo and our star is really Paul Le Mat, who you'll keep squinting at, trying to remember what you know him from.  I put the movie on because it said it had Barbara Crampton, but she's in it for 30 seconds as a favor to someone, and it managed to sucker me into watching it, so... well done, film producers from 1988 or so.

The puppets are kind of neat.  It's all just... puppetry, but to its credit, it works.  The Pinhead fellow with human hands, Leach Girl, Blade...  just good ideas.  

But there's oddly almost no... feel to the movie.  They have this stunning location of the hotel, but seems like they had a few rooms somewhere, and decided to just light everything like a late 1980's TV show - ie: there are no shadows.  It's sort of weird, visually, in 2024 to see something speaking in TV-language of the era.  

The movie is just weird enough, by virtue of throwing ideas at you left and right, that it's not boring or repetitive.  But it can feel like someone was just writing things down with no clear goal where it was going.  And that's okay.  I just don't think there's anything remotely scary about this movie.  It's more... kind of interesting.  Some really oddball stuff out there winds up drumming up multiple sequels and a fanbase.

I do wonder if this was made because someone say 1987's Dolls, a movie by Stuart Gordon of Re-Animator fame.  Dolls worked for me when I saw it on HBO or something in probably 1989.*  But Dolls was pretty creepy, if memory serves.  

Anyway - it was fine.  One more to check off the list.

*I wound up watching this with a good friend's mom.  I was at his house spending the night, and she'd wandered into the room as the movie started, and my pal fell asleep, and so I wound up watching this goofy movie in a super awkward context, as she was clearly watching it and I didn't know if I could just go to sleep or turn off the TV or what.  She also would go to movies with us and sit by herself so she could see, like, Dirty Harry: The Dead Pool.

HalloWatch: Night of the Demons (1988)

Watched:  10/15/2024

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  First

Director:  Kevin Tenney

This is usually the kind of movie I take in after Jamie's gone to bed, but she was, like "whatever you want to watch, man", and... ha ha.  

An intentionally trashy horror flick, I think they spent more time worrying about the opening animation than they did the content of the actual movie.  It's... fine?  It's just very in love with not being good, but isn't quite trashy enough to be as entertaining in that regard as it imagines.  It also becomes critic proof if you keep saying "it's supposed to be bad!  It's supposed to be trashy!"  

And yet.  

No, really, the movie is in on it's own joke of just being what it is.  I'm not sure if that's enough for me in 2024 at age 49, but I also know that was not the intention in 1988 when they were essentially making a party movie for teens and 20-somethings.  I just don't think there's enough here and don't quite get why the movie seems to be a thing (which is why I watched it).  

It had about four good things in a 90 minute movie, and that's not nothing!  But I also couldn't tell if some of the acting was just bad or a brilliant portrayal of bad acting.  That only Linnea Quigley really kept working after this for any length of time may be the tell.  That said - I liked Amelia Kinkade in a horro-movie Patricia Morrison kind of way.*  

It's just a very thin movie, and that's okay, but won't go down as the great discovery of 2024 for me.  This is several years after Evil Dead 1 and 2 at this point, and I think this movie could have been a lot more fun.  And given literally anyone a motivation.

*Kinkade went on to be a sort of animal psychic, and I salute anyone who makes a living chilling with animals, from zooloogist to psychic

Late-80's Hallo-Watch: Pumpkinhead (1988)

Watched:  10/13/2024

Format:  Amazon 

Viewing:  First

Director:  Stan Winston

I wasn't expecting Pumpkinhead (1988) to be good.  

Yet, I'd always meant to watch this movie.  I remember being 13 and the ad came on for "Pumpkinhead" and my brother and I looked at each other and laughed and laughed and laughed.  To this day, it sounds like naming a horror movie "Taters n' Gravy" to me.*

Pumpkinhead  looks good, but for Stan Winston's directorial debut, it's an awkward, tedious slog through flat characters and half-cooked ideas.  It's an 84 minute movie that has you looking at your watch and wondering when all of these people will be dispatched by the creature so you can finish the film.

The basic plot:  Lance Henriksen plays a guy in what I guess is maybe Appalachia? but is clearly the ranches outside of LA.  Some 20-somethings planning a weekend of riding dirtbikes(?) stop off at a fruit stand(?) and then go riding.  There's an accident and Henriksen's kid is killed by one of the bikers who jumps right into him.  

The guy who does the killing makes his group of 6 take-off where they have a sort of confrontation, and Jeff East - the guy who played young Clark Kent in Superman: The Movie! - and he squabble because the guy seems like he's going to kill everyone here to cover up the fact he killed the kid...  So the group more or less splinters.

Henriksen makes contact with a witch-type lady who has him bring forth Pumpkinhead, so he can get revenge.  And revenge it gets, generically picking people off, while the real idea is to slowly reveal more and more of the suit Stan Winston's team made, that is, in fact, pretty good.  By the last 1/5th of the film, we're seeing the suit in full glory, and it looks neat!

By this point, Jeff East and his girlfriend are obviously going to make it, and we've come to understand the cost of raising a Pumpkinhead is that you and it will be sort of symbiotic when it's convenient to the scene.

I don't know.  It's a slog and I didn't care for it.  But it's also not a movie people love - and yet, several sequels happened.  Stan Winston kept making cool effects but went on to direct A Gnome Named Gnorm, making children everywhere understand that sometimes God abandons you, and the evidence is everything about Gnorm the Gnome.  

*But the lasting legacy of the movie's title in my head is that...  my poor dad was in the room for the commercial at some point, and being shitty kids, we said "hey, that's your new name, Dad!  Pumpkinhead!"  And, lo, that lasted about a year before I became aware that deploying the name "Pumpkinhead" one more time guaranteed a foot connecting with my ass.

Hamilton HalloWatch: Children of the Corn (1984)

Watched:  10/13/2024

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  Second

Director:  Fritz Kiersh

This movie is boring.  

That's my memory of Children of the Corn (1984) from watching it in high school, and it's how I feel now.  And so I watched it again thinking - hey, I barely remember it and it seems like it should be exciting.  People love this movie!  

It's based on a short story by King - that I never read - and I guess they needed a lot of filler.  It's mostly just Peter Horton and Hamilton wandering around so the characters can see what we already know.  Hamilton existing so Horton can explain what is happening.

That's terrible structure.  There's no suspense - we don't piece things together with the characters.  Instead, we're supposed to feel anxiety that they might get killed, which we know they won't until the last minute, if it's that kind of movie that decides we see the protagonists die at the end (it is not.  That's other folk-horror movies like Wicker Man).

The big twist is that there's a Lovecraftian horror living in the fields of corn, and - to be honest - that feels like a let-down rather than just insane Bible-thumping kids, while also feeling like a Disney Halloween movie gone off the rails.

People love this movie, but I think that's Gen-X Space Jam Fallacy.  As a kid - this is a pretty decent "my first Rated-R movie" horror as it's not exactly shocking, particularly bloody or scary.  But it does contain the idea that you, a powerless kid, could get wrapped up in a scary new dynamic under the Isaac's and Malachi's you know are out there.  As an adult, you can only think "these stupid kids would be dead inside a week when they realized they don't know how to eat on their own, what to do when they're sick, or when the snow comes down and there's no fuel.".

Also - surely someone would notice an entire town of people just stopped showing up.

Which is why Children of the Corn probably works as a short story, but not as a movie that gives you time to think about these things.

What it does have is Linda Hamilton.

the very corniness of this movie may be her undoing

Unfortunately, this is pre-James Cameron Linda Hamilton, so she's playing "lady/ girl" in this movie, and just has "victim/ hostage" written all over her as soon as the story really kicks in.  If I praised M3GAN for not shying away from a woman who is a childless robot-lady, then this movie is the opposite.  Hamilton is basically spending the whole movie convincing her already locked-in doctor boyfriend that he should be *more* her boyfriend.  And when she meets kids, you can hear the warming of her ovaries as she leaps into action being there for potentially murderous children.

Still, we're never mad about Linda Hamilton showing up.

The one line that made my ears perk up was Peter Horton rightfully pointing out that religion isn't bunk, but any religion that's devoid of love is a terrible idea.  Like... deep thoughts in the middle of a pretty silly movie.

Whether I like this movie or not, the legacy of this movie is probably pretty deep.  Us city-folk do not like driving through big empty places with the occasional human dotting the landscape, and this movie does not help (nor does getting stink-eye at the gas station in the middle of nowhere).  But it also maybe helped set the table not just for the ten sequels of this movie, but a lot of "city people are terrified of the country" movies that litter our horror movie landscape.

  

Hallo-Watch: Christine (1983)

Watched:  10/09/2024

Format:  Peacock

Viewing:  Third?  Fourth?

Director:  John Carpenter

This spooky season, I'm mostly trying to check off movies I should have already watched - also movies I haven't seen since I was a kid, so I don't remember the films well at all.  This isn't that - but Jamie had not seen Christine (1983), and I kind of consider it worth a viewing.  So it's her version of that, I suppose.

I read the Stephen King novel when I was in 6th grade.  But I didn't see the movie until some time later - maybe when I was fifteen.  I've seen it a couple of times since, including in a hotel room during a  conference over a decade ago.  It's a bizarre movie - how compelling should a movie about a haunted car be?  And yet.

Christine is a John Carpenter movie, and - I think - should be included in consideration of his run of solid work there in the 1980's.  I know Carpenter seems grumpy about all of the movies he did as a work-for-hire director, but the pairing of his sensibilities with King really does work.  I'd love to see someone re-do Christine without having to strip it down for a movie audience and make it as weird as the book, but as a movie - separate from the book but using the core of it - I think this movie works as a kind of horror, just not the horror of "oh no!  A car will get me!" that you might guess on first blush.

To me, the horror of the movie is not so much about a killer, possessed car - which, fair enough (that is a problem!).  Instead, it's about helplessly watching a friend go down due to a change in their life, be it addiction, a toxic partner, or some other obsession.  This is two lifelong pals who went two different directions, and one of them goes off the deep end, and the other has to deal with the fallout as that person hurts other people.  

Hallo-Watch: Re-Animator (1985)

Watched:  10/07/2024

Format:  Midnight Pulp on Amazon

Viewing:  First?

Director:  Stuart Gordon

In my post on From Beyond, I said I'd previously seen Re-Animator (1985), but in watching this - I had not actually seen this movie.  I'm wondering if I inadvertently watched the sequel.  Or not enough of the movie to actually remember it.  We'll find out when I take in the sequel.

This movie is chaotic, gory, fun, and speaks volumes about someone's ability to convince actors to walk around naked.  It's funny, bizarre, and I dug it.

A brilliant young scientist loses his mentor in Switzerland, coming to ye olde Miskatonic Medical School where he moves in with nice-guy med student, Dan, who is sleeping with the dean's daughter (Barbara Crampton, natch).  Herbert, the brilliant fellow, has invented a formula for bringing dead bodies back to life - demonstrating with Dan's pet cat (who, Herbert likely killed himself).  Meanwhile, Dr. Hill (Bob Gale) has made his career by stealing Herbert's mentor's work, and Herbert publicly calls him on it.  

Soon, chaos ensues as they try out Herbert's formula down in the morgue, and then on someone they didn't intend to be a useful body.  

I dunno.  It's like trying to describe a riot in detail.  There's a lot going on.

Everyone gets their assignments.  Jeffrey Combs is great as Herbert, Bob Gale unhinged as Dr. Hill, Robert Sampson all in as Dean Halsey.  Crampton is lively as Megan Halsey.  

This movie is just crazy nonsense for 90 minutes, and I dug it.  I think as a kid this would have spooked the crap out of me.  As a jaded adult, I'm just sorta chuckling to myself about "wow, they're doing this" as Dr. Hill's decapitated body lugs around his head.  

I'm not sure there's a deeper meaning in the film than "whoops... do not reanimate the dead!" which - lesson learned, amigos!  But it doesn't mean I didn't enjoy the general tone and can-do-horror spirit of the thing.

The FX aren't as cool as From Beyond, but for something done on a budget, they really knock it out of the park.  Maybe minus the cat puppet, which is just good stuff.

Hallo-Horror Watch: From Beyond (1986)

Watched:  10/05/2024

Format:  Amazon Prime

Viewing:  First (all the way through)

Director:  Stuart Gordon

Thanks to seeing half of this movie in the mid-1980's, in later years when it came up in classes, I'd already know what the Pineal Gland is.  And, probably, set all sorts of toggles in my head thanks to Barbara Crampton.

There's no era that doesn't have it's own flavors of horror, and 1980's horror is best remembered for Freddy, Jason, etc...  But out there, Stuart Gordon was making stuff like Re-Animator and busily creating wild, weird stuff that was based more on concepts like HP Lovecraft for a modern audience than stalking teenagers.  I wasn't much of a horror kid so much as I was interested in, like, The Wolfman.  And I know I watched this movie for a bit sometime in the 1980's - right up to the hospital sequence, I think - because I don't remember that or the ending.  So I'm calling this my first full viewing.

This is based on Lovecraft's work of the same name, so it's generally about being unsettling, deeply weird and... madness.  Gotta have some madness.

From Beyond (1986) is about a young scientist (Jeffrey Coombs) who is working with a strange but brilliant scientist, Dr. Edward Pretorious (Ted Sorel) - and they manage to basically match the vibrations of our plane with that of one we really shouldn't have ever seen, full of archaic creatures and strange monsters.  Something goes wrong, and the young scientist is accused of murdering Pretorius, but his story of alien creatures killing Pretorius better matches the evidence (a bloodless, decapitated body) than "he got him with an axe".  Psychiatrist Dr. McMichaels (Crampton) is brought in, and wants to see what the guy was up to, so she works with him under police guard (Ken Foree!) to re-do the experiment.

What Gordon thought the effects of the "field" generated by the device were is up to speculation.  For some reason it seems to make the young scientist kind of crazy and his pineal gland grows into a weird, prehensile thing I'm sure is supposed to be phallic.  Crampton's character becomes...  sexy.  And poor Ken Foree just gets bit by a jellyfish.

I shall spoil no further.

The movie is weirdly fun for what it is.  I assume it kind of freaked me out as a kid with its mix of body horror, madness, dash of sex, some S&M for no reason, and no clear heroes in the thing.  But knowing Lovecraft a bit now, this is a reasonable adaptation of his vibe.  The special FX, make-up, etc... are all very good, minus a shot or two.  So if you dig old school practical and optical FX, this is a good one.  And the ideas of the film are appropriately chilling, with an ending that feels right.

Anyway - it was kind of great to see this as an adult and with more of film, literary and life experience under my belt.   

Hallowatch: The 'Burbs (1989)

Watched:  09/29/2024

Format:  YouTube (it's streaming free.  Go figure)

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Joe Dante

Selection:  Jamie

I saw this one in the theater back in the day, and then on VHS and cable after.  But it's been some time since I watched this movie.  And while I liked the movie, boy - does it land now in a different way after living on the same suburban street since 2006.  

My memory was correct that this movie was poorly received upon its release, and it's funny - I think it would do fairly well now with reviewers no longer cloistered in urban centers and insisting on certain lifestyles which would, frankly, make them miss the joke of the movie except as a faint echo of their streets as kids.  Criticism and reviews play an important role, but I think this is just one where the vibe of how the curators of public opinion missed the mark, and it's not a mistake the movie is well-remembered 35 years later.

The film isn't quite a horror film, it is a comedy - and the whole thing feels very Joe Dante.  There's a hyper-realism to the the suburban setting that keeps the movie with one foot firmly planted in realism (the world Carrie Fisher is trying to anchor) while nuttiness abounds.  And Tom Hanks is our POV into what it is to move back and forth between those worlds.

Hallowatch: The Midnight Hour (1985)

Watched:  09/29/2024

Format:  YouTube

Viewing:  First

Director:  Jack Bender

SimonUK has already delved into Halloween movies, and having had already seen everything over the years, he found an ABC TV movie from 1985.  That, in the spirit of 1980's, apparently originally aired the day after Halloween at the height of Reaganism (I did not like how TV was run in the 1980's).  

If I ever know The Midnight Hour (1985) existed - and it is likely that in 1985, I absolutely did not as I was watching mostly Mr. Ed and GI Joe - I have since forgotten it.  And I am pretty sure I would have remembered this.  

The basic idea is one that pops up from time-to-time, it's Halloween and someone unleashes dark magic along the way, meaning - in this movie - zombies, werewolves, vampires, etc...  appear in a Massachusetts town.  And, they sort of take over and turn folks into monsters along the way.  Minus one guy who looks a lot like John Hughes, but isn't him.

The movie has a weird clutch of actors you know or say "really?" about.  Kevin McCarthy and Dick Van Patten each show up for a few scenes as parents.  Levar Burton plays the 1980's staple of the guy who thinks "tonight, me and my lady will finally do it".  The lady is played by Shari Belafonte (daughter of Harry) is pretty good as his ladyfriend whose family is tied to witchcraft in the town going back 200 years.  Jonelle Allen, TV staple, plays her ancestor.  Peter Deluise is in it in a thankless role.  Kurtwood Smith gets two scenes as the town cop.  Cindy Morgan (RIP) plays the teacher who is... sleeping with Peter Deluise and shows off publicly?  The 1980's were wild.  This is a TV movie!

And Wolfman Jack, who never saw a gig he couldn't cash in on, is the DJ on the ever present local radio.  And, btw, the soundtrack on this is surprisingly solid, including Shari Belafonte trying to create a Halloween single called "Get Dead".  But otherwise, oldies hits popular in the 1980's.

The movie is *fun* rather than scary and has a storyline where I'm pretty sure our John Hughes stand-in/ hero bangs a ghost who looks like Betty Cooper.  Again, the 1980's were a different time.

What's curious is how much money it looks like this thing cost.  TV movies used to be fairly expensive affairs, and this is no exception.  It also is basically no better or worse than 80% of the movies people remember fondly from the 1980's, but for some reason, this thing has terrible reviews.  Probably because of the dance sequence and lack of visible boobs.  

It's fine.  I liked the light tone and the wistful approach taken to the romance storyline.  And that, basically, the townsfolk lose right up to the end, without even really knowing what's going on.  Also, it's free on YouTube and does nail the Halloween vibe.  A little spooky, a little horror-ish, a little silly, a little sexy... it's all in there.  Maybe not amazing, but it works.

Hamilton/ Ape Watch: King Kong Lives (1986)

Watched:  09/20/2024

Format:  Amazon

Viewing;  4th?

Director:  John Guillermin/ Charles McCracken

After watching Dante's Peak, I was wanting to see another Linda Hamilton film and talked Dug and K into watching King Kong Lives (1986), a move I am certain they regret.  

As a sort of low-level monster-kid of the 1980's, I was thrilled to get a chance to see a *new* King Kong movie, and so went to see the flick in the theater.  I loved the *idea* of King Kong, but had only seen pieces of the 1976 movie and none of the original.  But read a Kong book to two and had the basic idea down.  

And, this movie was part of my realization that not all movies are good.  Like, you go to the movies as a kid, and if you can follow the plot, it feels like a winner.*  But around this time, I was starting to understand not every movie is "good" or was made because it was a work of art.  And, right about the time I saw Kong and Lady Kong making goo-goo eyes at each other, I began realizing this movie was not destined to be the classic its predecessors had been.

JLC Watch: A Fish Called Wanda (1988)

Watched:  09/19/2024

Format:  AFS Cinema

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Charles Crichton

Simon and I decided to catch this one again at the cinema.  

I've always liked A Fish Called Wanda (1988), and while some items in the film aged poorly, it's still a very, very good comedy with some screwball bits that just kill.  I don't know how objective I am about the film as I saw it so young and, at the time, felt like I was watching something aimed, for once, at adults rather than an all-ages comedy, like I was used to.  I mean, this isn't far removed, chronologically, from the early Police Academy franchise, which is what an R-Rated comedy looked like in the US that I had previously been watching.

Yet, the film is intensely silly.  Everyone is firing on all cylinders, enough so that you can't single out anyone in the film, just your favorite bits or scenes.  The entire sequence in which Wanda sneaks into Archie's house to seduce him is *gold* and should be studied by academics. But it's not aimed at 13 year-olds.  The comedy comes from a different place that knows goofy, witty, sexy and fun without resorting to feeling like "insert funny sad trombone sound here" is appropriate.

Si and I saw the movie in a shockingly full theater for an 8:30 PM Thursday showing of a movie you can stream from your phone right now.  It was a mix of clear die-hards for the movie and people who'd never seen it, I'm guessing, from the gasps and laughing at surprise bits in the film.  And, all ages.  20-something hipsters and Grandmas who likely have seen it 25 times.

Was JLC a big reason why I came out to the theater for the movie?  You know that's the case.  But I had never seen the movie on the big screen, and or with a crowd, and it was a delight to do so.

Here's the Podcast from years ago when Jamie, Si and I talked about the film.