Friday the 13th: Looking at the franchise

I watched the FANTASTIC documentary CRYSTAL LAKE MEMORIES and thought, "Hey, I should watch all the FRIDAY THE 13TH movies!" I thought it might be a fun idea. I proved myself wrong.

CRYSTAL LAKE MEMORIES (2013) 
Six hours and forty minutes of awesome interviews and footage! I have to say that this is one of the best horror documentaries I've seen. Someone said it was too long and I say, "No." :) They covered things expertly and I loved every hour of what was presented. The behind the scenes footage and stories were priceless. Awesome stuff.

 

 

Firstly...I love any of the intro title sequences that feature the logo exploding. HA! BOOM! WHY?! heheheheh


NOTE: I'm watching these, then writing a quickie blurb about each to capture my general thoughts. The blurs will most likely contain spoiler points for the films.




FRIDAY THE 13th 
By far one of the strongest offerings. It's a tight, fun WHO DUNNIT story with some grand gags and  fun edits. The film presents a cast of characters that - while at times rather wooden - provide people that you actually care about to a certain extent.






I particularly like the blinding fade up to white after each kill. I remember it being SUPER intense when I saw it in the theater when it first came out. Everyone was blind for a moment. I was surprised to see how the cuts (...so to speak :::grin::...) came so rapidly after the kills here. There were no lingering moments over the bloody scene. We also have the famous JACK-IN-THE-BOX corpses as well - falling and slipping into view RIGHT when people go by! heh A tradition carried over in PART II.   One of the best FRIDAYs.

 

FRIDAY THE 13th Part II
Another strong showing for sure. They upped the production, but kept the fun and inventive deaths up. The actors are, again, pretty good for a slasher film. It became clear that I would have been fine if parts one, two, and three were the only FRIDAY THE 13TH films that were made.

The characters were really likeable in here. They had substance and you cared about their well being for the most part. There was a constant sense of menace as well which really added to the tension. The writing is solid. I really enjoyed this one as well.

Rolling right along.....
 

FRIDAY THE 13th Part III
I thought the series took a major drop here. The film was in 3D and it seemed like they were more concerned about getting their money's worth out of the 3D camera than making an effort on the story or character development. I didn't like the look of Jason more in this one than part two, however. He was larger and more menacing than part two's bag headed hillbilly.

FRIDAY THE 13th Part IV: The Final Chapter
Here we pick up right after part three. Like within a few hours at most. As if they heard what I was mumbling while watching part III, they pack this one with character development. And, yes, it's too much. :) However, when things actually get rolling, it's a lot of fun.
We get to see twins, more awesome Jason body hanging skills, Chrispin Glover dancing up a storm, and SO MANY THINGS going through WINDOWS!!!
And of course, it's "the final chapter", so Jason dies and that's that.  heh  Corey Feldman's character Tommy shaves his head to confuse Jason - making him think it just may be himself as a child? Ok...sure...Jason supernatural slasher monster man is who we're talking about here. Why not? He thinks Corey Feldman is himself as a child. Sure. Tommy wacks Jason in the skull with a machete, then proceeds to do what ANYONE in their right mind would do if they had Jason down for the count in front of them after surviving his assault - he takes the machete to him over and over again screaming "DIE!" The only part of this film that actually made a TON of sense.

 

FRIDAY THE 13th: A New Beginning - SPOILERS, remember?!
I'm sorry - this was fucking awful.  HA! 
Grown up Tommy is struggling in a halfway house for people with mental issues. Ok...points for trying, I guess. A cast of flat, cardboard stereotypes parade around until "Jason" starts killing them off. THE WORST Friday Final Girl and a child have to face off against "Jason". Then, hey....Tommy is back and he helps to fight "Jason", too. And....they WIN! Oh..no..."Jason" is STILL ALIVE! OH! NO! THEY WIN AGAIN! Whew! "Jason" falls to his death. But...WOW! Shocking! It's not really Jason! It's an ambulance driver who saw his estranged, murdered son at the half way house.

You know. The same ambulance driver that kept giving ultra-strange looks when "a crazy murderer" was mentioned.

You're supposed to think Jason here is Tommy because Tommy is straight up nuts in this movie as well. But, you never really think that because the writing and acting are so comically wonky most of the time that you never really make those sorts of connections. heh

Thennnn....at the end end end...Tommy pulls out a mask...hears someone walking down the hall. Awful Friday Final Girl (Melanie Kinnaman) hears a window break in Tommy's room and rushes in to see...a broken window. She mutters, "Oh no...", then Tommy slips up behind her in the mask holding a massive knife...and we have a slow push into the blank eyes behind the mask. Lame.

Not sure where any of that shit came from, either. Do you think they would let that shite stay in the hospital room where a survivor of a fake Jason attack and a REAL Jason attack was being held?

Melanie Kinnaman was by far the most bitter and pissed off of all the people in the CRYSTAL LAKE MEMORIES documentary. She was complaining and pissy and generally unpleasant during her part. When I saw it, I thought she was just an awful person, but after seeing this piece of crap, I'm sure she was just angry that the film sucked so bad.

At least they came a bit closer on ethnic casting here - four actors of color. Sadly, one is a pleather clad dude that lives in his van. :::sigh:::

 

THOUGHT BREAK:
It's interesting to watch these films in a row like this. You start seeing the same things over and over again. You see where they might be trying to do something different, but you also see where they have failed to do so and how the series kept slipping deeper and deeper into a pit of, "Man...FRIDAY THE 13th parts one and two were really good. :::sigh::: I miss those good ones."

My head hurts, but I'm moving on....

FRIDAY THE 13th Part VI: Jason Lives
Well, it seems that they decided to just skip the events of PART V with this one. Tommy didn't kill the last final girl? Did he just...say..."BOO! Naw...it's just me, Tommy. Not Jason. Or a crazy ambulance driver.
PART VI starts SUPER strong! Tommy heads to Jason's grave with a mental patient buddy to get some grave disturbing therapy in. He's going to dig up Jason...and send him to hell. Presumably by...dumping gasoline all over the body and burning it to ashes...in a rain storm. He digs Jason up and goes a bit crazier after seeing the rotten body - taking a broken bit of fencing and stabbing Jason's corpse with it over and over as he hears the events of PART VI echo in his head.

Then...two lightning strikes bring Jason's corpse back to life! Now this I love. In the CRYSTAL LAKE MEMORIES doc - which I'll now refer to as CLM, they mentioned wanting to go into a bit more gothic horror to bring Jason back into the mix. I love this idea. Why the hell not?!  Make him mythical and monstrous! Very cool.

And, that's where the cool stops for me. As I watch these, I'm starting to see how I...don't really like them. heheheh

We have counselors and a new camp on the site of the old Crystal Lake, so that's SOMETHING related to the old movies. But the characters are canon fodder and are super basic and silly as usual. There's a seemingly endless loop of Tommy running into the town sheriff, his daughter, and his deputy. Tommy rants about Jason being alive. Then the sheriff deals with him by either trying to get him to leave town or locking him up. I wanna say it happens about 37 times. :::grin:::  Meanwhile, a series of cardboard cutouts get killed by Jason. Children actually show up to the camp this time and the cardboard cutout counselors...kinda take care of them. When they aren't goofing around or playing cards.

And we get a car chase. Then another Tommy lockup. Sheriff guy is sure Tommy is the nutter killing people...until he and his men start getting dispatched by Jason. Then Tommy faces off against Jason and chains him to a boulder which gets dumped into the lake. Sheriff guy's daughter has to save Tommy and uses an outboard motor to fight Jason. The motor....in full throttle...doesn't actually GO anywhere. It just spins violently into Jason's face sending bits of gore and clouds of blood drifting through the water. BUT....do the spinning blades of doom shred Jason's head down to a neck nub? Nope! With numerous shots of the thing tearing into him, we're left with a floating Jason underwater...with no facial damage at all. Even the mask is still on. And we push into his eye...looking around....with water sounds....but the shot is clearly not underwater.

We also get some Alice Cooper originals that...are special.

Yeah...I think the series is kinda shit from here on out, but I'm intent on pushing through!

 

THOUGHT BREAK:

I know that in the Freddie Vs Jason film, there's something they do with Jason's fear being water. However, after watching these, you can see that Jason is clearly nonplussed by water - not giving shit one about it ever. He walks into it, attacks people in it, walks under it....
Anyway....



FRIDAY THE 13th Part VII: The New Blood
Ooooh boo-oy.....the one with the psychic girl.  :::stares blankly:::
I just saw a cat jump scare like no other. The cat was inside a closed closet on a shelf.
Psychic girl. :::sighs:::
Another girl in a tshirt and underwear tossed out of a window.

Jason looks great. His bones are showing and he looks like a great big monster. He's doing his keeping up with people who are running, even though he's just slowly...stepping....ahead...  But, that's fun in it's own right. But, yeah...the characters are cardboard as ever.

It's also SO clean. Maybe it's the version I'm watching on Amazon, but there are no actual moments of violence being shown, which is interesting. It's all quick edits around the act. The lead up, the sound effect, then a body dropping or being tossed.

Clearly, watching these back to back is completely souring me on the franchise beyond episode two. :::grin::: I do remember seeing this one in the theater with friends and having a blast. Especially when we were all waiting for THE SAW! A long pole with a circular saw blade on the end of it. When it made it's appearance, we all screamed, "THE SAW!!!!!" and the people around us cheered. Fun stuff. :)

Psychic girl. Attacks Jason...using her Father...who she killed with her powers...when she was a little girl. Yeah, it's been something like 20 years and the body is just a little dirty. And...WHY WOULD THE BODY STILL BE THERE?! heheheheh  "My husband was drowned in an accident. Yes, right here at the end of the dock. The body? Naw...just leave it there."   Shite writing.   :)

"AHOY THERE!"

FRIDAY THE 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan
Okie dokie.....here we go with more love for the series. :)

Man...I hate this series right now.

Another crazy messenger? "Young Jason" menacing someone who's parents were MAYBE children with Jason drown?  20-somethings being High School kids. More cardboard characters. Two chaperones for a Senor Class Trip...on a boat....to New York?!   And...I'm at the 36 minute mark and we're still not anywhere close to NYC. Scanning ahead, it looks like we hit around one hour, three minutes.  So...about 33 minute of Jason in New York. Should be called JASON TAKES A BOAT RIDE.

The days of Tom Savini's F/X magic - long gone.

Jason just WARPS places now. He attacks a girl in a disco area of the ship and literally warps from one part of the room to another repeatedly before finally appearing right beside her.






And...this young Jason. They got is bad eye on the wrong side. I mean...come on, man.






Boat engine room explodes killing the remaining senors in the senor class - about 45 people, and three senors and two teachers escape via life raft. They make it to New York, get off the boat, and are immediately mugged by two caricature Latino gang members. Our lead woman is kidnapped and taken away to be drugged and raped.

Then...who turns up? That's right. Jason. Lazy writers.

 Oh....and then we have to dramatically reveal that the FINAL GIRL's Uncle pushed her into Crystal Lake. THAT'S when Jason grabbed her a a kid and why she sees him all the time. Even though that Jason drowned in 1957 as a child. Thus, making this High School Senor Final Girl 42 or so.

Oops...we're on a subway now to escape Jason - the final two senors. Train full of people. Jason laser focused on the two and no one else. They use the third rail to fry him. He's up again. Time Square...still after those two. Jason break a radio of another "gang" and they threaten him. He lifts his mask and they flee comically, then he replaces the mask.

Fuck you, writers. hehehehehe

And we're out of New York topside and back into the sewers where are heroes are informed that...TOXIC WASTE! Whatever.

Final Girl tosses some into Jason's face and we get to see it. A nasty bit of business that was fun. Then as they try to escape, a toxic waste tsunami takes out Jason - melting him into fire mush as he remembers himself drowning in the lake...again. (OK! THAT IS CLEARLY NOT FUCKING WORKING! STOP IT!)  Then the dog that was lost AGES back in the mugging ally finds the two heroes. Then I mutter, "What a piece of shit..." under my breath as the credits roll and a HORRID theme plays.

That's it, right? They finally saw the error of their ways and stopped making these here, right?

Nope. But this was the last film for Paramount Pictures. It went to NEW LINE after this. Still made over 14 million after spending 5 mill to make. Whew.


JASON GOES TO HELL: The Final Friday
Sadly, I guess NEW LINE isn't part of Amazon's Prime streaming freebies, so you had to pay for this. So...yeah...I went to YouTube and augmented what I saw in CLM for this one because I wasn't wasting money on it. hehehehe  In this one, they light Jason up with a SWAT team, then blow him to bits. His beating heart and the other parts are packed up. Then...the evil that is Jason possesses people.

:::sigh::::

"Not cool, guys. Not cool."

And there's Jason's sister. And....the evil is trying to bring Jason back...through the sister. Reborn? And....(much to Erin Gray's DIS-approval)...a evil creature spermy thing enters her dead body "EVIL DEAD STYLE" and Jason is reborn.... with his clothing and mask.....and all his injuries.....and then he gets stabbed by a magic knife or sword? And then he's dragged to hell by muppet hands. And then...Freddy's hand pops up and snags Jason's Mask and people go insane. 3 mill budget....and 15.9 mill intake. WHEW!

Eight years go by and fans are rewarded for their patience with JASON X...Jason in space. Robots, some creative deaths, and a SUPER JASON created via nano-tech. Only takes in around 6 mill instead of the last film's 12.9 mill win. Looked at as a bomb.

"MAKE IT STOOOOOOOP!"

And another I won't be revisiting - FREDDIE vs JASON. The 2003 mega-budget 30 mill movie that took in a whopping 114.9 million for a big 84.9 million intake. Freddy and Jason finally together and kicking each other's arses. How? Oh, they are both Hell Guys® and kill people, so they battle each other. How cares?! hehehehehe

And the remake? A massive bore. I'm that THAT much of a purist. It was worth a shot to re-do things. It might have been a great thing seeing how bad things got in the original run at one point. But, yeah...no. Re-make or not, it was just kind of a shite film. It was sad as well - in the doc, none of the actors really seemed to be too enthusiastic about their piece of the FRIDAY family. They knew it was a side note.

FINAL THOUGHTS:
All in all, it was fun revisiting the series via the wonders of AMAZON PRIME, but it really did sour me on the series as a whole. I remember the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET series running off the rails here and there, but all in all it was still highly entertaining for the most part.

There is still no topping Part One and Part Two. They were fantastic and charming and interesting and FUN above all. 

If you have not done a full rewatch of the series like this, give it a go. It might be eye opening for you. :)

THE GAME:
The FRIDAY THE 13th GAME looks interesting. The online experience allows you to be a counselor trying to hide away and not be found out or Jason looking for kills. There are all sorts of in-game nuggets like breath holding and warping Jason around, evidently.

Detention - rewatch and spoilers

If you're looking for something less spoiler filled, please jump out of here and over to my original review of the film found here: http://horrorsho.blogspot.com/2014/10/detention-2011.html 


_________________


I recently re-watched 2011s wild and wacky gem DETENTION Directed by Joseph Kahn and I still love the film to death. I was trying to sort out why and I believe the reason is obvious on my second viewing - it's the movie I would have loved to make. Horror, comedy, strange goings on, trippy meta plot twists. It's the Malcolm movie that was never made.


Kahn and Mark Palermo wrote the film and I bet they had a blast doing so. Packing comedy, horror, science fiction, and so many references to books, music, and decades of style and fashion into one film makes this a kinetic and ultra-fast paced wonderland of...stuff. However, maybe that's what turns people away from it?



Let the spoiling begin!

I love how the film starts out with a basic concept that we've seen time and time again - most recently in films like MOST LIKELY TO DIE. A strange looking killer dressed in ((insert kitschy costume here)) starts killing off people in interesting ways. We've seen it. Over and over. However even that execution is unique in Detention. Sweet camera moves, zippy writing, and interesting graphics whip through the movie scape like mad. The roller coaster ride concludes with an ultra-violent attack and a big finish that catapults us up and out to meet our main character, then zooming along to the credit sequence - a thing of beauty that makes me so happy. :)






The IMDB blurb for the film is incredibly boring and does NOT do justice to the plot:
As a copycat killer named after movie villain Cinderhella stalks the student body at Grizzly Lake High School, a group of co-eds band together to survive while serving detention.



Sure, that's in the film, but it leaves out UFO sightings, human test subjects, body and mind swapping, time travel, and more. I said in my original review for the film that this was a film for "smart people", but I didn't mean it in a swarmy or pretentious way. Not at all.

I was merely saying that there are folks who want the film described by IMDB. They want people to be shoved into a situation and killed off in creative ways as they watch on, eat their popcorn, and cheer on the violence. And, those films have their place for sure. People love them - that's why we have...what? 47 SAW films right now? They even stopped trying to craft a story with them now. They just drop people into a space and start strapping iron masks and four power strips worth of gadgets onto them before slipping them into something that compresses them after shooting fire into their butts....or whatever.

Detention has some of this basic, killer on the loose for sure. There are some comical killings in here that are really...out there. But, the addition of all the other elements makes this - again - more along the lines of REPO MAN from back in the day. A film cherished and viewed over...and over...and over again by my friends and I. Strangeness pours from Repo Man like water from a fountain and Detention has the same, wondrous sense of play and fun.

Time machine? Sure!
Mind swapping through time to win a talent show? YES!

The film presents a playground for the viewer to wander through. A place where anything can and will happen. I loved that.

The actors make the witty writing and shotgun deliveries work.

Shanley Caswell is gold, working the misunderstood, angry Riley lead role wonderfully as she clumps through her life on her bum leg - at odds with everyone and everything. She went on to be in the Conjuring in 2013.





Josh Hutcherson's cool, beloved Clapton Davis character only works because he seems to be that guy. The cool, good looking guy that everyone knows and likes. It seems his acting and good looks paid off - I see he's in all three of the HUNGER GAMES movies.






And Dane Cook is a fantastic "secret sauce" as he manages to rope it back a bit as the school Principal tossing angry, fruck my life quips at students here and there until the films titular detention wrap up.



Every character in the film - from the strange, outspoken Canadian GORD to the "Hipster Thief" - rocks their screen time no matter how long or short it is.

And lastly, the fucking style of the film makes me insanely jealous of the filmmaker's craft. It's just amazing. The cuts and camera angles are grand. The overall pace keeps rolling and rolling along and we only pause long enough for the occasional title card introducing another bizarre aspect of the story and it's characters.


Big props to Christopher Probst, the director of photography, as well. Fantastic work!



I was surprised to see....well...it TOTALLY makes sense, but....Joseph Kahn Directed the Taylor Swift BAD BLOOD video! HA!




It looks like he has another film due out in 2017 as well. A film called BODIED that IMDB has down as:  a progressive graduate student finds success and sparks outrage when his interest in battle rap as a thesis subject becomes a competitive obsession.

Sure!



The reviews for this make me sad, really. It's METACRITIC score is a mere 45 and IMDB has it at 5.8 out of 10. I'd easily give this a 9 out of 10 stars. No question.

Did you like HEATHERS,  REPO MAN, DEAD ALIVE (BRAINDEAD), TUCKER AND DALE v EVIL,  or JOHN DIES AT THE END? Then you need to track down DETENTION at once. It's currently on SHUDDER (US) and is also available on Amazon for streaming as well.

Seen it? Loved it? Hated it? Let me know! 

I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House

I made time to watch I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House and I'm glad I did. Let me start off by saying a BUNCH of people are going to HATE this film. It's been my experience that when a film is a slow, slow burn people detest it. When it takes it's time and drifts around a bit with no jump scares or super loud music ques to pop them away from time to time, they moan and grumble about it being boring like a petulant three year old in line at the grocery store.

However I love these films. I sink in and snuggle in to them like I'm huddled in a warm blanket. Films like The Innkeepers and other Ti West fair and lovely, novel-like dreams like The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh make me incredibly happy in their quiet, calm pace. It really is a little like reading a good book to me. I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House is just that in spades.


The film tells the tale of Lily (Ruth Wilson), a nurse taking care of an elderly writer named Iris Blum (the wondrous Paula Prentiss). The house was built ages ago and has a secret. Standard stuff here, of course, but the cast of six makes it interesting. It's a gothic haunted house tale, but the delivery is what makes it something I found to be all at once creepy and beautiful. Prose opens the story and should act like a weeding out process. If the glacier-like pace of the intro bothers you, just wrap it up and stop watching because the whole of the film is the same way really.

Lily putters around the house and takes care of Iris, but slowly comes to realize that there's something other than the two of them present in the home. A small mystery for Lily to look into while she tries to keep herself busy, things rapidly escalate and twist into something surprisingly effective.

And....thank you Oz Perkins for your grand story and simple direction. We're allowed to roam through the old house with Lily - sweeping along bright hallways and empty rooms, but are never smacked around with bombastic scores, audio assaults to underline horror elements, or hyper-kinetic camera moves to emphasize distress. We're just shown what we are meant to see. And that in and of itself is very creepy, brooding, and gloomy in a wondrous, gothic way. Netflix knocks out another fantastic original offering!

I was locked onto the screen the whole time - my phone face down and away so I would not miss a frame. It looks like five out of the eight reviews on METACRITIC (at the time of me writing this) agree that the film is well worth a watch with the other three seeming to be in the camp of the three year old I discussed in the opening paragraph. :::grin::: 

If you want a great story in the vein of classic haunted house stories of the past - along the lines of the fantastic works of M. R. James, please give I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House a watch and let me know what you think.  Currently available on NETFLIX.

Happy Birthday to Me

I usually do a spoiler free review, but I do plan on having a spoiler section in this review at the bottom of the page because it's warranted.

Now as I've said before, I'm a child of the 80s and grew up watching all the grand 80s horror on VHS back in the day. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME was one of the nuggets from the era. It's been ages since I've watched it, so I tossed it on today as background viewing while doing some basic production work. I have to say that I had forgotten just how good it was - both story wise and just as a film in general.

Happy Birthday to Me came out in 1981 - a huge year for horror, really. We had AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, THE HOWLING, THE BURNING, THE BEYOND, FRIDAY THE 13th Part II, THE PROWLER, BURIAL GROUND, THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY, and GHOST STORY to name a few. I believe this was a time of moving away from monsters and into the world of the slasher, but also trying to keep things smart and interesting. The early 70s had a series of "mean" and violent films. Items like LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, TEXAS CHAINSAW, and BLACK CHRISTMAS that really let the violence fly. However, there was another element that made it's way into the genre as well. A giallo element where the Who Done It aspects were played up. FRIDAY THE 13TH, ALICE, SWEET ALICE, WHEN A STRANGER CALLS, and the aforementioned BLACK CHRISTMAS played with the giallo who done it style is glorious ways. By the 80s, the trend was in full swing and movie after movie tried to outdo the twists and turns. Happy Birthday to Me follows in the wake wondrously.

The story is simple on the surface. A group of beautiful, well off college seniors gallivant around being the beautiful people they are. They live in beautiful homes and live beautiful lives and are all looking forward to their beautiful futures. However, someone is picking them off ten little Indians style and we're lead down a rabbit hole as we try to sort out just who the killer is as the lead, Virginia (Ginny) , starts to feel herself unraveling and remembering horrors from her past.

Now, I'm saving my spoilers for later. If you have not seen the film, DO NOT do a search for it or it will be ruined for sure. Of course, the film came out in 1981, so you most likely have either seen the film already or have seen some spoiler out in the world. The film offers something other than the end, however. The acting is rather good for one, with the likes of Melissa Sue Anderson (Little House on the Prairie)  and Glenn Ford working along side other staples of the 80s acting world and with a script that is strong and dialogue that never brings groans or laughs.  And the film does have a series of creative kills, but doesn't linger on the gore for long. It chooses to show a bit of splatter, but cuts away instead of reveling in the goo. I think that upped the level for me - taking it from "splatter flick" to more of a giallo mystery. It's definitely playing the giallo card in many ways! 

Check it out if you have not seen it. Like I said, on re-watch I remembered just how much I enjoyed what HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME brought to the table in the genre. 

Now, listen to the FANTASTIC Happy Birthday to Me theme. It still haunts me to this day. It's one of those iconic themes that is sprinkled throughout the film in a fun way and as the credits roll and it comes up....whew....

•••• Spoilers are below. Read on if you want to deep dive into the end of the film.  •••••

WOW! I had forgotten how the film ended! What a wondrous treat for me!!!!  Here I was, half watching while doing some low level production tasks and the end of the film comes looming up. I had remembered the very end scene with Virginia standing by all her dead friends, mother, and father with the sad little theme rolling and dusty party fading to black. However, I had forgotten the multiple twists - including the fantastic, Scooby Doo mask reveal! heheheheh 

So, watching...then Virginia uttering her little, "Now it's your turn you bitch..." line and I had to pay attention because I thought this might go into a final girl moment with someone who escaped death. But, NO! It's Virginia?!?!?! WHAT?!  So, being a horror fan, I switch gears into, "WAIT WHAAAAAAT?! Oh, it's not a final girl thing. It's an evil twin thing. COOL! I forgot!" More drama about the precious birthday, but I still didn't remember the full twists. We have our little knife skirmish, then BOOM! the Scooby Doo mask reveal! Again, I burst out with a comment - so happy about the way things were going in this marvelous third act.

We get a major update through exposition and flashback, but I thought it was done rather well. Quick and easy - wrapped up for us neatly. Then, ole nutsy Ann goes in for the kill, but is taken out by Virginia RIGHT before the cop investigating the disappearances stumbles in and utters, "What have you DONE?!" with Ginny finally over the edge and completely lost to the world due to what she's suffered through. Then...fade to black on Ginny - hands dripping with blood and murder weapon in hand - and in with the theme which is even more sad knowing that Ginny will probably spend the rest of her days in a padded cell.

WOW! Frucking DARK, man! hehehehe   I was blown away. It's really a fucked up little ending. hehehe  And, it explained things nicely. No, Ginny wasn't some bi-polar nutter. She was chloroformed repeatedly and Ann slipped in to kill. I loved that aspect. It explained a lot.

Was it a little WTF at the end? A bit. But, they really wrapped up a few things in a great way. We see Virginia's mother - drunk and angry hanging off the gate of the party her daughter wasn't invited to and we get to hear that she has a nasty bit of baggage in her past, but we don't know what it is at the time. The reveal and exposition at the end puts a lovely bow on that for us as Ann reveals that she and Virginia are half sisters.

Hell, I loved the whole of it!

What did you think? Are you a fan of this 80s classic? Let me know in the comments!

Do You Like Hitchcock?

I gave DO YOU LIKE HITCHCOCK? a re-watch and still enjoyed it. Sure, it's a little slow and character driven instead of action or violence driven, but I really dug it.







It's an odd little film about...well...Hitchcockian goings on, really. A man live across from a beautiful woman and finds himself snooping in on her life Rear Window style. When her mother ends up dead, he starts thinking that....just maybe...there's a Hitchcock plot happening right there in front of him. It's quirky. There are a bunch of strange "Argentoisms" in here that had me scratching my head. Some of the dialogue is just...wonky. Some of the pacing is slow. However, it has a sort of charm and likeability that is missing for me in films like The Card Player and Mother of Tears.

Now, this isn't standard Dario Argento stuff here. Sure, there's a killer and a mystery, but the killings are rather light - given up for more plot, character interaction and mystery. There are some grand tension bits in here and would have made old Hitch smile, I'm sure. Dario really made an effort to get some of the Hitchcock feel into the film and it shows.

Is it good? Yes. Yes, I believe it is. Especially if you're going for more character interaction and plot than gore. Dario gore fans will be sad and disappointed. The film is a nice little thriller with some great moments of tension. Don't b fooled by the giallo-riffic cover, either! This isn't all giallo slasher. It really is more like a Hitchcock film than a classic Argento film.

That's about it. Check it out!