1974-1983... er... 2003 in review
Posted: Wed Dec 31, 2003 7:44 am
I may get more out of this round-up than I bargained for--I can't help but notice that my reactions have frequently gone right out the majority window... sticking up for widely-hated films, blasting some popular favorites--but my book will always be known as "Calling Them As I See Them."
No great revelation at this point that the theme of 2003 was an intense attempt at reviving the late 70s and early 80s in the departments of insanity and gore. So why do some such films strike me as mere "rehashes" and others score as "tributes?" Well, since I was fortunate enough to see most of the key films of this era on the big screen, nothing from there will ever hit me as completely "new" again. The elements of the era are like the elements of a song--and you can do a "cover" which startles me with unusual, unexpected notes (Blue Swede tackling "Hooked On A Feeling")... or you can be the Britney Spears version of Mick Jagger (to misquote Andrew Dice Clay, "the man is rolling over in his grave and he ain't even dead yet!").
So maybe I'm an old man, and maybe I'll make you cringe this year. And some titles are "technically" older, but 2003 is the year they got their big-screen exposure in these parts. Nevertheless... here we go!
THE BEST
Can't get off to a better start than FINAL DESTINATION 2. This was a wonderfully sick gore comedy with one of the most pronounced mean streaks I've ever seen in a "mainstream" release--and I liked it better than the first one.
SPIDER gave us all the intense drama and fine acting one expects from a David Cronenberg film--it's depressing and it doesn't invite frequent repeat viewings, but it needs to be seen straight through to the end for a patented sucker punch.
THE EYE had plenty of familiar story elements, but they way they were handled? Wow. One of the best scares of the year ("Why are you sitting in my chair?")
GOTHIKA scored with the Dark Castle atmosphere and general craziness even if the story didn't always hold together. To me, this was the film that FEARDOTCOM could and should have been. And yes, we're reaching back to the 60s here--it's not technically a William Castle remake, but the is-she-or-isn't-she-an-ax-murderess plot is appropriately nostalgic.
The best just kept getting better... the sprawling 28 DAYS LATER manages to be a Romero tribute without being a Romero ripoff, even if the "Z" word isn't entirely accurate. Nice to see it score a hit, too!
Not a horror movie? Hey, when the ghost-zombie pirates throw Kiera Knightley up on deck while revealing their true nature, what would YOU call PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN? Great fun, no matter how you slice it.
The one that almost walked away with everything for me was IDENTITY--another one they like to drop on the "mystery" shelf. But once you're there, you know it's a legitimate horror movie--and yeah, you know SOMETHING'S coming, but nobody could have completely guessed what it was. Before this one ends, you're compelled to take the supernatural seriously!
But I had no greater time at the movies this year than I did with CABIN FEVER. Talk about a "cover" that hits unexpected notes? Primed for an EVIL DEAD rehash (while avoiding as much hype as possible), I sure as hell wasn't expecting the LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT soundtrack to hit... and things just got crazier and crazier from there--invoking all the best horror films of the time without settling on a simple imitation of a single one--and managing to tell its story from beginning to end regardless. The non-horror equivalent, for me, would be KILL BILL V. 1 (hated by many, but constantly stunning as I saw it).
THE MIDDLE GROUND
Here's where most of the 70s stuff hits--and I notice that the specific remakes were always a bit less effective than the tribute films...
DARKNESS FALLS started the year off with a generic "boogeyman" film toned-down to a PG-13. Nothing impressive, but nothing painful, either--some good gimmick bits and plenty of energy kept it from being the dead-end the similar THEY turned out to be.
DREAMCATCHER started off as a surprisingly effective adaptation of a difficult Stephen King book--and then flushed the whole thing down the crapper (reference intentional) with the most mind-blowingly awful ending conceivable. Was this Lawrence Kasdan's fault? William Goldman's? Well, it sure wasn't the ending KING came up with, and that's all I can say about that...
The long-delayed HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES tried too hard to be nostalgic and up-to-date at the same time with the annoying music-video stylization and the predictable, repetitious "jumps." On the other hand, Sid Haig's Captain Spaulding was my absolute favorite character of the year and he (along with other supporting elements) makes it worthy of attention.
WILLARD also had great characters played by Crispin Glover and R. Lee Ermey--this valiant effort was undone mainly by the fact that Willard himself was too wiggy to sympathize with--even from the very beginning. Great rat work, though...
JEEPERS CREEPERS 2 was one I expected to thoroughly hate, but it went back to "monster movie" basics and always had something to pay attention to--when the atmosphere ran out, there were some great gore effects, then some decent action, and, of course, Ray Wise with the post-puncher. Awful script, but it works visually, regardless.
COLD CREEK MANOR? Still the 70s, but only in a TV-movie of the week sense. Fine cast, one great snake scene. But it's nothing more significant than THE STRANGE AND DEADLY OCCURRENCE.
The controversial TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE remake scored with intense horror/gore... and, again, R. Lee Ermey. Too bad it went on too long and sacrificed the crucial identity/unity of the family. Still--it was better than it had any right to be.
Perhaps if BUBBA HO-TEP hadn't been rammed down my throat for nearly a year before I saw it? Terrific performances, once again, but it simply wasn't the jawdropper I was practically ordered to think it was.
And two bits of fluff... SCARY MOVIE 3 tried to revive the AIRPLANE! style as opposed to the first two installments, with middling results that still beat the hell out of SM2. And THE HAUNTED MANSION at least had one legitimately scary scene that didn't play down to the Disney audience... not a "patch" on PIRATES, but where the hell was Don Knotts in this thing?
As for THE WORST?
Surprisingly few entries this time, and two that I'm willing to give another chance to, due to popular demand.
So many people loved WRONG TURN. To me, this was the "rehash" where CABIN FEVER was the "tribute." Bored me to utter tears for two-thirds of its running time before scoring a couple of good bits near the end. Am I TRULY missing something here?
FREDDY VS. JASON? Too much utter stupidity in the character/dialogue department, and Ronny Yu did better in the "franchise sequel" department with BRIDE OF CHUCKY. There was some good stuff in the final showdown, of course. Perhaps I'm asking too much of these characters, but I still maintain that Freddy used to be SCARY, and that, properly handled, he COULD have been scary again.
UNDERWORLD simply deadened me. If I want to watch werewolves and vampires at war, I don't want them using machine guns and posing in black leather, dammit!
The most pompous thud of the year was THE ORDER. What a chore made out of a legitimately intriguing idea. Again, if you want a sin-eater, go find that great NIGHT GALLERY episode.
And finally... do I even have to say it?
HOUSE OF THE DEAD qualifies as the very worst movie I have ever seen on the big screen in my entire life.
Okay--let's wrap up the odds and ends. Caught up with a few on video: MAY was extremely well-acted, but it was much more sad than scary--not my cup of tea at all. DAS EXPERIMENT may be "non-horror," but you HAVE to see this one for yourself. And yeah, there was another HELLRAISER sequel in there, with the promise of more to come. Another crash-and-burn franchise right up there with the CORN KIDS, now. And the bastards lied and never let me see ALIEN: THE DIRECTOR'S CUT on the big screen. Can't quite call PHONE BOOTH "horror," either--but it's a crackerjack suspenser all the way, even if it IS a Larry Cohen script from the 1970s!
In the rash of superhero epics, I'll take the weird, unconventional LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN and the truly insane HULK (one of my absolute favorites) over the more mainstream DAREDEVIL and X-2 any day.
Fantasy: BRUCE ALMIGHTY was funny when it was, well, funny. Then it got soppy. FINDING NEMO was the perfect family film everyone said it was--funny as heck, too. SINBAD: LEGEND OF THE SEVEN SEAS utterly blew it by refusing to be a Sinbad movie. THE MEDALLION was enjoyable Jackie Chan fantasy-fluff--it would make a perfect double-bill with the Bond spoof JOHNNY ENGLISH. And yep, RETURN OF THE KING blew 'em all away.
Where do I put LOONEY TUNES: BACK IN ACTION? I don't think of classic Warner Brothers cartoons as "fantasy" while I'm watching them, after all--they're a field unto themselves... but Joe Dante did a brilliant job with the format--and the live-action blend, as well. Criminal neglect on the part of U.S. audiences.
And sci-fi? Two MATRIX sequels too many, but the third was more fun to sit through than the second. SPY KIDS 3-D lost all of the clever writing, but it did have 3-D and some of Sylvester Stallone's funniest work in a while. T-3 was another "better than expected" comeback, even though it was less than utterly necessary. And speaking of time travel/seeing the future? Three more...
TIME CHANGER was the only entry in a disappointing "Christian sci-fi" year. None of the excesses of MEGIDDO--just a "fish out of water" story in which the guy you're supposed to identify with as he watches the moral decay of the future (since we don't acknowledge God anymore) acts like a donk throughout.
TIMELINE was a distressingly generic item based on a reportedly much more involving Michael Crichton book. Nothing more than a TV movie on the big screen again.
And PAYCHECK is still worth catching for some unassuming fun--this time, the concept outweighs the rather generic action.
Whew. Still the best year for the genre since 1999. New hope for the new century.
So what's next? THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT, I guess.
Have a great 2004!
Shane "Remo D." Dallmann
No great revelation at this point that the theme of 2003 was an intense attempt at reviving the late 70s and early 80s in the departments of insanity and gore. So why do some such films strike me as mere "rehashes" and others score as "tributes?" Well, since I was fortunate enough to see most of the key films of this era on the big screen, nothing from there will ever hit me as completely "new" again. The elements of the era are like the elements of a song--and you can do a "cover" which startles me with unusual, unexpected notes (Blue Swede tackling "Hooked On A Feeling")... or you can be the Britney Spears version of Mick Jagger (to misquote Andrew Dice Clay, "the man is rolling over in his grave and he ain't even dead yet!").
So maybe I'm an old man, and maybe I'll make you cringe this year. And some titles are "technically" older, but 2003 is the year they got their big-screen exposure in these parts. Nevertheless... here we go!
THE BEST
Can't get off to a better start than FINAL DESTINATION 2. This was a wonderfully sick gore comedy with one of the most pronounced mean streaks I've ever seen in a "mainstream" release--and I liked it better than the first one.
SPIDER gave us all the intense drama and fine acting one expects from a David Cronenberg film--it's depressing and it doesn't invite frequent repeat viewings, but it needs to be seen straight through to the end for a patented sucker punch.
THE EYE had plenty of familiar story elements, but they way they were handled? Wow. One of the best scares of the year ("Why are you sitting in my chair?")
GOTHIKA scored with the Dark Castle atmosphere and general craziness even if the story didn't always hold together. To me, this was the film that FEARDOTCOM could and should have been. And yes, we're reaching back to the 60s here--it's not technically a William Castle remake, but the is-she-or-isn't-she-an-ax-murderess plot is appropriately nostalgic.
The best just kept getting better... the sprawling 28 DAYS LATER manages to be a Romero tribute without being a Romero ripoff, even if the "Z" word isn't entirely accurate. Nice to see it score a hit, too!
Not a horror movie? Hey, when the ghost-zombie pirates throw Kiera Knightley up on deck while revealing their true nature, what would YOU call PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN? Great fun, no matter how you slice it.
The one that almost walked away with everything for me was IDENTITY--another one they like to drop on the "mystery" shelf. But once you're there, you know it's a legitimate horror movie--and yeah, you know SOMETHING'S coming, but nobody could have completely guessed what it was. Before this one ends, you're compelled to take the supernatural seriously!
But I had no greater time at the movies this year than I did with CABIN FEVER. Talk about a "cover" that hits unexpected notes? Primed for an EVIL DEAD rehash (while avoiding as much hype as possible), I sure as hell wasn't expecting the LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT soundtrack to hit... and things just got crazier and crazier from there--invoking all the best horror films of the time without settling on a simple imitation of a single one--and managing to tell its story from beginning to end regardless. The non-horror equivalent, for me, would be KILL BILL V. 1 (hated by many, but constantly stunning as I saw it).
THE MIDDLE GROUND
Here's where most of the 70s stuff hits--and I notice that the specific remakes were always a bit less effective than the tribute films...
DARKNESS FALLS started the year off with a generic "boogeyman" film toned-down to a PG-13. Nothing impressive, but nothing painful, either--some good gimmick bits and plenty of energy kept it from being the dead-end the similar THEY turned out to be.
DREAMCATCHER started off as a surprisingly effective adaptation of a difficult Stephen King book--and then flushed the whole thing down the crapper (reference intentional) with the most mind-blowingly awful ending conceivable. Was this Lawrence Kasdan's fault? William Goldman's? Well, it sure wasn't the ending KING came up with, and that's all I can say about that...
The long-delayed HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES tried too hard to be nostalgic and up-to-date at the same time with the annoying music-video stylization and the predictable, repetitious "jumps." On the other hand, Sid Haig's Captain Spaulding was my absolute favorite character of the year and he (along with other supporting elements) makes it worthy of attention.
WILLARD also had great characters played by Crispin Glover and R. Lee Ermey--this valiant effort was undone mainly by the fact that Willard himself was too wiggy to sympathize with--even from the very beginning. Great rat work, though...
JEEPERS CREEPERS 2 was one I expected to thoroughly hate, but it went back to "monster movie" basics and always had something to pay attention to--when the atmosphere ran out, there were some great gore effects, then some decent action, and, of course, Ray Wise with the post-puncher. Awful script, but it works visually, regardless.
COLD CREEK MANOR? Still the 70s, but only in a TV-movie of the week sense. Fine cast, one great snake scene. But it's nothing more significant than THE STRANGE AND DEADLY OCCURRENCE.
The controversial TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE remake scored with intense horror/gore... and, again, R. Lee Ermey. Too bad it went on too long and sacrificed the crucial identity/unity of the family. Still--it was better than it had any right to be.
Perhaps if BUBBA HO-TEP hadn't been rammed down my throat for nearly a year before I saw it? Terrific performances, once again, but it simply wasn't the jawdropper I was practically ordered to think it was.
And two bits of fluff... SCARY MOVIE 3 tried to revive the AIRPLANE! style as opposed to the first two installments, with middling results that still beat the hell out of SM2. And THE HAUNTED MANSION at least had one legitimately scary scene that didn't play down to the Disney audience... not a "patch" on PIRATES, but where the hell was Don Knotts in this thing?
As for THE WORST?
Surprisingly few entries this time, and two that I'm willing to give another chance to, due to popular demand.
So many people loved WRONG TURN. To me, this was the "rehash" where CABIN FEVER was the "tribute." Bored me to utter tears for two-thirds of its running time before scoring a couple of good bits near the end. Am I TRULY missing something here?
FREDDY VS. JASON? Too much utter stupidity in the character/dialogue department, and Ronny Yu did better in the "franchise sequel" department with BRIDE OF CHUCKY. There was some good stuff in the final showdown, of course. Perhaps I'm asking too much of these characters, but I still maintain that Freddy used to be SCARY, and that, properly handled, he COULD have been scary again.
UNDERWORLD simply deadened me. If I want to watch werewolves and vampires at war, I don't want them using machine guns and posing in black leather, dammit!
The most pompous thud of the year was THE ORDER. What a chore made out of a legitimately intriguing idea. Again, if you want a sin-eater, go find that great NIGHT GALLERY episode.
And finally... do I even have to say it?
HOUSE OF THE DEAD qualifies as the very worst movie I have ever seen on the big screen in my entire life.
Okay--let's wrap up the odds and ends. Caught up with a few on video: MAY was extremely well-acted, but it was much more sad than scary--not my cup of tea at all. DAS EXPERIMENT may be "non-horror," but you HAVE to see this one for yourself. And yeah, there was another HELLRAISER sequel in there, with the promise of more to come. Another crash-and-burn franchise right up there with the CORN KIDS, now. And the bastards lied and never let me see ALIEN: THE DIRECTOR'S CUT on the big screen. Can't quite call PHONE BOOTH "horror," either--but it's a crackerjack suspenser all the way, even if it IS a Larry Cohen script from the 1970s!
In the rash of superhero epics, I'll take the weird, unconventional LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN and the truly insane HULK (one of my absolute favorites) over the more mainstream DAREDEVIL and X-2 any day.
Fantasy: BRUCE ALMIGHTY was funny when it was, well, funny. Then it got soppy. FINDING NEMO was the perfect family film everyone said it was--funny as heck, too. SINBAD: LEGEND OF THE SEVEN SEAS utterly blew it by refusing to be a Sinbad movie. THE MEDALLION was enjoyable Jackie Chan fantasy-fluff--it would make a perfect double-bill with the Bond spoof JOHNNY ENGLISH. And yep, RETURN OF THE KING blew 'em all away.
Where do I put LOONEY TUNES: BACK IN ACTION? I don't think of classic Warner Brothers cartoons as "fantasy" while I'm watching them, after all--they're a field unto themselves... but Joe Dante did a brilliant job with the format--and the live-action blend, as well. Criminal neglect on the part of U.S. audiences.
And sci-fi? Two MATRIX sequels too many, but the third was more fun to sit through than the second. SPY KIDS 3-D lost all of the clever writing, but it did have 3-D and some of Sylvester Stallone's funniest work in a while. T-3 was another "better than expected" comeback, even though it was less than utterly necessary. And speaking of time travel/seeing the future? Three more...
TIME CHANGER was the only entry in a disappointing "Christian sci-fi" year. None of the excesses of MEGIDDO--just a "fish out of water" story in which the guy you're supposed to identify with as he watches the moral decay of the future (since we don't acknowledge God anymore) acts like a donk throughout.
TIMELINE was a distressingly generic item based on a reportedly much more involving Michael Crichton book. Nothing more than a TV movie on the big screen again.
And PAYCHECK is still worth catching for some unassuming fun--this time, the concept outweighs the rather generic action.
Whew. Still the best year for the genre since 1999. New hope for the new century.
So what's next? THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT, I guess.
Have a great 2004!
Shane "Remo D." Dallmann