Sorority Row (2009)/The House on Sorority Row (1983)

What separates a “good” Slasher film from a “terrible” one is the level of talent involved with the project – a genuinely talented filmmaker can take a fairly routine script and elevate it to a higher level.  Imagine if Psycho would have been directed by a studio hack instead of Alfred Hitchcock? It would not be regarded as the classic it is today and would, more than likely, been lost to time.  The House on Sorority Row and its remake, Sorority Row, are not in the same class as Psycho, but both are a cut (pun intended) above your standard Slasher movie. 

The most striking thing about both films is that they are fairly well directed and have some truly haunting visuals.  The House on Sorority Row is merely passable for its first seventy minutes, but is redeemed by its truly tense finale.  It ups the stakes by not only having the heroine (Katherine) fight off the killer, but doing so in a drugged out a state – she is injected with a tranquilizer by Dr. Beck, who wants to use her as bait to trap the killer. The movie effectively blurs the lines of reality; Katherine constantly has to fight off hallucinations brought on by the drug, while doing her best not to get caught by the killer.  Its fairly reminiscent of the dream sequence in the Brian DePalma movie, Sisters – this is not too surprising as the director, Mark Rosman, was an assistant to DePalma for a brief period of time. The House on Sorority Row also borrows heavily from the Bob Clark classic, Black Christmas, especially with the reveal that the killer has been living in the sorority house attic the entire time. The remake never matches the original's intensity, but there some genuinely eerie visuals - I especially like the shot of the girls walking through their sorority house to find it has been completely trashed and, thus, resembling a complete hell on earth. It's an appropriate setting for the heroine, Cassidy, to nearly lose her soul.  It's evident that the director, Stewart Hendler, knows his stuff. 

Sorority Row is a loose remake of the 1983 film – the plot point it lifts from the original movie is a sorority prank that goes horribly wrong.  In the original movie the prank involves the strict house mother, Mrs. Slater, who objects to the girls throwing a graduation party at the sorority house. The prank goes horribly awry, when Vicki, the party girl of the group, accidentally shoots Mrs. Slater with a gun. The girls, after deliberating for a few minutes, decide to cover up the murder and, for the time being, dump Mrs. Slater’s corpse into the swimming pool until they can figure out what to do with it. The girls go on with their graduation party, despite being completely on edge, and are picked off one by one by an unseen killer.  

In the  remake the prank is far more elaborate (and nonsensical) -  Megan wants to get revenge on her cheating boyfriend, Garrett, so she, along with her sorority sisters, come up with one of the most contrived revenge plans in film history:  Megan’s friend, and Garrett’s sister, “Chugs” gives Garrett a couple of pills to slip into Megan’s drink to make her more co-operative, and while the two of them are making love in her bedroom, Megan starts to have seizure and begins to foam from the mouth. Garrett thinks the drugs have killed her and rushes to get her sorority sisters. This is, of course, a ruse to teach Garrett a lesson.  Jessica, the alpha sister, convinces Garrett that they must cover up the "accident", and so they drive to an abandoned well to hide the “body.” Meanwhile, Megan tries to hold back her laughter. The rest of the girls are a bit disturbed by Garrett’s hysterical behavior and want to call the prank off, but Jessica talks them out of it. When they arrive at the abandoned well, Jessica suggests they look for sharp objects to chop up Megan’s body with, and, not surprisingly, everything goes to hell when Garrett impales Megan with a tire iron.  The girls decide to dump Megan’s body in the well with Cassidy being the only hold out in the group.  

This part of the movie is extremely flawed and strains credibility, for a couple of reasons:

1) How far was this prank supposed to go?  You would think that Megan faking a seizure and foaming at the mouth would have been adequate enough. Garrett is absolutely freaked out by this and is a blubbering mess. It is also revealed that Garrett’s cheating was a result of Megan cheating on him first. So neither party is entirely sympathetic.
2) Why do the other girls so along with Jessica?  The other girls (Cassidy, “Chugs,” Ellie, and Claire) are all unnerved by Garrett’s hysterical behavior, yet still go along with the prank because they don’t want to let Jessica down. This makes sense for the characters of Claire and Ellie, but Cassidy is a fairly strong willed, and compassionate, person, hence it is completely out of character for her to go along with the cruel prank. She most certainly would have blown the whistle once she realized how dangerous it was getting.  It makes even less sense for “Chugs,” considering that she is Garrett’s older sister and, despite him being a complete tool, does genuinely care for him. She should have stopped the prank once she saw the toll it was taken on her brother’s mental state.  Why does Megan lay still the entire time?
3) Why do the girls leave Garrett alone? Given Garrett’s state of mind, it would have made sense to have someone stay by his side the entire time, yet the girl’s leave him all alone, while they pretend to search for a “sharp object.”  This is maybe the most bone headed movie in movie history.  I understand that there is no movie without Megan’s accidental death, but it’s hard to suspend my disbelief for this scene. It is the weakest link in the entire movie and I nearly turned the movie off at that very moment. Thankfully, it does improve as it progresses.

Sorority Row, while based off the 1983 movie, greatly owes its structure to the 1997 Slasher, I Know What You Did Last Summer.  Both movies feature an accidental death and a cover up, and then flash forward to a year later (well, technically nine months in Sorority Row, but close enough). In The House on Sorority Row, the events happen over the course of one day. The heroines in both movies (Cassidy in Sorority Row/Julie in Last Summer) are adamant about calling the police after the accident has occurred, but are overruled by their friends. They are still racked with guilt over what happened the previous year and are reluctant to delve into their past (Cassidy reluctantly agrees to go to her sorority house’s graduation party, while Julie is reluctant to go back to her hometown after finishing her first year of college). The heroines in both movies have kept their distance from their one time close friends (Cassidy has moved out of the house and donates her time to charity work, while Julie has locked herself in her college dorm room). There's a lot of misdirection in both movies, especially in the reveal of the killer (though, the reveal in Sorority Row is more indebted to I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, only done in far more competent manner). In Sorority Row, the characters receive sinister texts from the killer, while in Last Summer, they receive letters. 

Sorority Row greatly benefits from its leading actress, Briana Evigan. She gives a very compassionate, and sincere, performance as Cassidy and helps elevate the movie from being unbearable to totally watchable.  Though, she is greatly assisted by Leah Pipes as the extremely bitchy, Jessica. There is a nice dynamic between the two characters – Cassidy is a borderline saint, while Jessica is a complete narcissist.  However, it is to the movie’s credit that even Jessica, despite her callous behavior, is a sympathetic character.  Her reason for wanting to cover up Megan’s death is that her boyfriend, Kyle, is the son of a Senator seeking the Vice-Presidential nomination, thus any scandal linked to him might ruin his bid.  The acting in the original is a bit spotty at times, but Kate McNeil gives a rather effective performance as Katherine - she extremely convincing in the movie's climax, where Katherine is on the verge of losing her mind. 

It also helps that Sorority Row has a sense a humor about itself. There are a lot of funny dialogue exchanges through out the movie, but my favorite one has to be:

Jessica: Please God, don’t let me get killed. Please God, don’t let me get killed.
Cassidy: Stop giving him ideas. 

Plus, any movie that casts Carrie Fisher as a shotgun wielding house mother can’t be all bad. The main flaw of the original is takes itself a bit too seriously and all the characters are rather dour. It gets a lot of stylistic points, but a sense of humor would have elevated it to classic status. 

Credits:

Sorority Row (2009)
Cast: Briana Evigan (Cassidy), Leah Pipes (Jessica), Rumer Willis (Ellie), Jamie Chung (Claire), Audrina Partridge (Megan), Margo Harshman (Charlene “Chugs”), Julian Morris (Andy), Caroline D’Amore (Maggie), Carrie Fisher (Mrs. Crenshaw), Matt O’ Leary (Garrett), Matt Lanter (Kyle), Maxx Hennard (Mickey), Nicole Moore (Joanna), Ken Bolden (Dr. Rosenberg), Rick Applegate (Senator Tyson).

Director: Stewart Hendler
Screenplay: Josh Stolberg, Pete Goldfinger
Running Time: 100 min

The House on Sorority Row (1983)
Cast:  Kate McNeil (Katherine), Eileen Davidson (Vicki), Janis Zido (Liz), Robin Meloy (Jeannie), Harley Jane Kozak (Diane), Jodi Draigie(Morgan), Ellen Dorsher (Stevie), Lois Kelso Hunt (Mrs. Slater), Christopher Nelson (Dr. Beck), Michael Kuhn (Peter), Michael Sergio (Rick), Charles Serio (Eric).
Director: Mark Rosman
Screenplay: Bobby Fine, Mark Rosman
Running Time: 91 min.

Area 51 (2015)

The Blair Witch Project is one of the worst things that ever happened to cinema, not only is it vastly overrated and irritating, but it spawned the whole found footage subgenre that has been plaguing the movie theatres for the last decade.  However, at least The Blair Witch Project had a clever marketing campaign (it was promoted as being real footage) that stirred up audience interest, the later found footage movies tend to relegated to DVD purgatory, until they are eventually picked up by Netflix.  There are a few found footage movies I do like (V/H/S, V/H/S 2, and Evidence), but these are the exceptions rather than the rule.  The V/H/S movies are an anthology series that have some genuinely creepy stories, effects, and editing.  Evidence has a framing device that justifies the found footage:  two detectives hope that videos taken by the victims at a murder scene can lead them to the killer. Also, a credible reason is given for the victims to continue recording, despite their lives being in jeopardy – they know their inevitable fates, but hope that their video footage can help apprehend the killer.  Though, in all honesty, Evidence is a pretty bad movie that I just have a soft spot for. 

Area 51 represents everything I find loathsome about the found footage genre –bland acting, an over use of the shaky cam to add “tension” to the proceedings, and totally irrational behavior by the lead characters.  The “plot” centers around three bros (Reid, Darrin, Ben) who hope to break into Area 51. They join up with an attractive woman, Jelena, whose father used to work at the facility, and all sorts of hilarity….er I mean horror ensues.  Of course, we already know that they are going to come to a bad end, because the movie tells us right off that bat– the movies opens with a documentary crew interviewing the relatives of the three men, bemoaning the fact that they might never see them again. Way to diffuse the suspense there, movie.   

Ben, the horniest one out of the lot, is reluctant to go along with the plan and threatens to back out on several occasions, only to have his mind changed by Reid, the weirdo of the group.  While Ben maybe a douche bag, he is the only one in the group that exercises common sense – hell, I think he might have been onto something when he suggested that instead of going to Area 51, they should spend the weekend in Vegas.  Ben, however, doesn’t actually sneak onto the base, he is the getaway driver. I was personally hoping that the movie would end with Reid and company running for their dear lives across the desert (while aliens and military men chased after them) only to find, to their abject horror, Ben had ditched them. The movie would then cut to Ben in Las Vegas, hitting on beautiful showgirls, and gambling all of his money away.  No such luck!  

I’m also baffled by Darrin’s behavior – he’s all gung ho about breaking into the base, until it is revealed that Jelena is going along. It is only then that he gets a bit apprehensive about the plan, but thankfully, stupidity triumphs and he listens to Reid.  Jelena is, I guess, there to supply the eye candy…..I really don’t know her function because she really adds nothing to the movie, other than, “Hey, this looks familiar.” Now, I’m sure a fan of Area 51 will argue that Jelena is the most important character in the movie, but the fact is that Reid could have sneaked into the base without her assistance. Plus, she is nothing but a burden once they get in.  

Reid, as you probably have guessed, is the ring leader and a complete nutcase – he is a recovering alien abductee.  He constantly jeopardizes the mission by either breaking into houses, or standing in the middle of the road.  I’m actually making this movie sound a lot more interesting that it really is. Trust me, watching Area 51 is on par with watching two hour movie about a tractor slowly driving down a road and occasionally stopping, while the driver takes a gulp of water. 

I would talk about the technical merits of the movie, but they are none. The camera is either constantly shaking, zooming in on things, or completely out of focus. It never remains still, because a steady camera simply isn't scary.  When the filmmakers REALLY want to amp up the terror, they turn on the night vision. OOOHHH!  


There are a lot of jump cuts in the movie, which is odd, because this is supposed to be “found footage,” which means it should be unedited. Plus, given the fact that there are hostile aliens in captivity at Area 51, you would think that there would be much tighter security on the base – the only real threat standing between Reid and his buddies from getting into the underground facility is the friggin’ night janitor. The security guards pose no threat, because they always have their backs turned towards our protagonists.  If only the janitor would have seen Reid hiding in that cubicle, then maybe, just maybe, tragedy could have been avoided.  

Credits
Cast: Reid Warner (Reid), Darrin Bragg (Darrin), Ben Rovner (Ben), Jelena Nik (Jelena), Roy Abramsohn (Jim Nelson), Frank Novak (himself), Glenn Campbell (himself ), Conception West (waitress), James Decker (Kooky Local).
Director: Oren Peli
Screenplay: Oren Peli, Christopher Denham.
Running Time: 91min.

Final Exam (1981)

The majority of Slasher movies are pure crap! The documentary Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film tries to offer up a defense for the subgenre, but the cold hard truth is that most criticisms of Slasher films are pretty valid. They are fairly indistinguishable from one another, devoid of any real suspense, and are extremely predictable.  That being said, it is hard to think of a movie (regardless of genre) that is as dull as Final Exam.  Sure, most Slasher movies are terrible, but they usually move at a fast pace and have a few likable characters in the cast;  Final Exam not only lacks both, but it is fairly bloodless, which means it won’t even appeal to gore fans.  The director, Jimmy Huston, said that he wanted to avoid the stereotypes of the genre by making the killings bloodless and having most of them occur off screen – it’s too bad his determination to avoid clichés didn’t carry over to the characters.  All the tropes of the genre are here in their full glory:  Courtney, the shy, virginal heroine; Lisa, the beautiful, but ditzy blonde (who is sleeping with her Chemistry Professor); Wild Man, the dumb jock; Mark, the star athlete (who hair is shaped like a helmet); and Radish, the awkward nerd (who has a morbid fascination with serial killers).

The first hour of the movie is nothing but talk, with the occasional shot of the killer lurking about thrown in for good measure; I normally wouldn’t fault a movie for wanting to develop its characters, but none of these people are remotely interesting. The performances are so over the top (with the exception of leading actress, Cecile Bagdadi) that the characters often come off as South Park caricatures than real people – this is especially true of Wild Man. The nonstop mugging by the supporting cast is not only obnoxious, but it tends to overwhelm Bagdadi’s more restrained performance, to the point that she is a non-entity. Though, the character of Courtney is a bit perplexing – she never joined a sorority because she doesn’t like the hazing, yet she is friends with Mark, the biggest douche bag on campus, and often finds his bullying of pledges humorous. In reality, a girl like Courtney wouldn’t want anything to do with Mark because he is the embodiment of everything wrong with the world. 

The character of Radish is equally perplexing; I initially thought the character was gay – his mannerisms and eccentricities are consistent with gay stereotypes of the 1980s – but then it is revealed that he harbors romantic feelings towards Courtney.  In an extremely awkward scene (which, to the movie’s credit, is played in a fairly realistic manner) Radish, after stumbling for the right words, tells Courtney that she is beautiful. Of course, this scene doesn’t lead to anything as (SPOILERS) Radish gets offed by the killer. The character of Radish is meant to be a bit of misdirection by the filmmakers - he is the one that discovers the corpses of Wild Man and Mark, and attempts to contact the police. However, the sheriff won't listen, because he assumes it's a prank - earlier in the movie, Mark's fraternity staged a fake mass shooting, and Radish, unaware that it was a ruse, called the sheriff down to the campus. This, naturally, pissed the sheriff off and he vowed not to be fooled by any more college pranks. When the sheriff refuses to listen, Radish decides to take charge of the situation and the audience assumes that he will be the hero of the movie. However, just seconds after he is finally given a character arc, Radish bites the dust.

I personally suspect that the movie initially began as an Animal House ripoff, but when the filmmakers realized how horribly unfunny their movie was, they opted to turn it into a Slasher movie. It would explain why much of the running time is devoted to the pranks that Mark’s fraternity plays on other college students.  The two most common complaints about Final Exam is that the killer doesn’t wear a mask and that the killer doesn’t have a back story, as if either would make a difference.  There is no logical reason for the killer to be wearing a mask, he’s not trying to hide his identity nor has his face been horribly scarred. In Slasher movies, the killer’s motivation is NOT important, it’s just a plot device that leads to the gore and nudity. If Michael Meyers is only after Laurie Strode, then why does he kill random people? Does Jason, supposedly, witnessing his mother being killed justify his killings in the next seven movies? 

The filmmakers try to spice things up with some unusual camera angles – a lunch tray is given a point of view shot – but these are more head scratching than tension building. My favorite shot has an extra centered in the foreground with her face in a medium closeup, while Courtney (frame right) is gathering up her belongings in the background. WHY? I don’t know! Maybe it’s so supposed to represent how Courtney views herself in the grand scheme of things; small and insignificant. Though, I think the more likely explanation was that Jimmy Huston was attempting a Citizen Kane- like shot and believed that this fit the bill. 

Also, what is up with the musical score? It’s more suitable for a TV about teenage pregnancy than a Slasher movie. I half expected the killer to have a heart to heart with his victims instead of brutally murdering them.

Credits 

Cast: Cecile Bagdadi (Courtney), Joel S. Rice (Radish), DeAnna Robbins (Lisa), Ralph Brown (Wild Man),Sherry Willis-Burch(Janet), John Fallon (Mark), Terry W. Farren (Gary), Timothy L. Raynor (Killer),Jerry Rushing (Coach), Sam Kilman (Sheriff), Don Hepner (Dr. Reynolds), Mary Ellen Withers (Elizabeth),Shannon Norfleet (Boy In Car), Carol Capka (Girl In Car).

Director: Jimmy Huston
Screenplay: Jimmy Huston.
Running Time: 90 min. 

Superstition (1982)

There is a scene in Superstition where an attractive brunette, Cheryl, hears a noise coming from the attic and, against her better judgment, separates from the rest of group so she can investigate it. This scene is completely bewildering as it occurs just as  Cheryl is about to leave the house with her sister, Ann. Cheryl has witnessed all kinds of spooky shit throughout the movie, and is all for leaving the house, yet instead of bolting out the front door (towards safety) she inexplicably decides that checking out the creepy attic, solo and without a flash light, is the better plan. She is practically begging to be killed.  Now, you are probably asking, “Isn’t this true of most horror movies?” Yes! The characters in horror movies often behave in an irrational manner as it helps the filmmakers set up a scare, but this rampant stupidity is practically an epidemic in Superstition – every ten minutes a character wanders into a dark, creepy room to investigate a noise and gets murdered for their effort.  The movie is more concerned with getting its horror set pieces right that, as a result, very little effort is put into telling a coherent story. 

This wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing if the movie had likable, or compelling, characters, but everyone in this movie is a cardboard cut out. Take the Leahy family for example – the only character with a distinguishable trait is the father George, who is an alcoholic. The mother, Melinda, is kind of just there; the only thing that distinguishes the two daughters, Sheryl and Ann, from one another is the color of their hair (Sheryl is an attractive brunette and Ann is an attractive blonde); and the son, Justin, is the only one in the family that wears glasses. That’s it! The family is not even the main focus of the movie - the main story centers on a young clergyman, Reverend David Thompson, and his investigation of a supposed haunted property that is owned by the church.  George Leahy, a struggling reverend, temporarily moves his family into a house on the property until he can land back on his feet. Also thrown into the mix is Inspector Sturgess, who is (surprise) skeptical of the supernatural. Albert Salmi, as the Inspector, is the only cast member that gives a convincing performance. 

The script itself is extremely lazy and muddled – often the filmmakers will introduce a story line and then completely abandon it.  Early on, there are two scenes that establish that David is attracted to the older daughter Sheryl – he is chatting her up while carrying boxes for her and is later shown checking her out as she struts past him wearing a bikini – yet nothing becomes of this. I initially thought that his attraction to Sheryl might lead to some friction between him and George, especially after Inspector Sturgess chides David about his “inappropriate” behavior. NOPE! George remains oblivious to David ogling his daughter.  Or, maybe the ghost of the witch, Elondra, would try to trick David by taking the form of Sheryl.  NOPE!   There is an awkward scene in which it is revealed that Sheryl absolutely resents her father. This scene happens towards the end of the movie and comes completely out of nowhere.  Up until this moment, Sheryl has had about five minutes of screen time,

and two lines of dialogue, therefore there is not even the slightest hint that she detests her father - but then, all of a sudden, she starts ranting at how incompetent he is. However, this display of anger (and personality) is short lived and she goes back to being a complete flat line. 

However, despite the nonsensical screenplay and the boring characters, the movie isn’t a complete waste of time. The scare scenes are fairly effective – the audience is never giving a good look at the witch's ghost, it is either kept in the shadows, or the movie will switch to its point of view. The only parts of the ghost that is kept in focus are its talon-like hands - it has a tendency to grab its victims and pull them out  of frame. There is also a fairly clever opening: a young couple are making out in a car on the haunted property, and we assume that they will come to a grisly end, then all of a sudden a ghoul bumps against the driver's window of the car. The guy drives off in a panic and it is revealed that it was all the work of a couple of pranksters. The young, horny couple make it out unscathed, while the pranksters get their comeuppance.  Superstition is not a particularly good movie, and is fairly dull at times, therefore, I recommend you watch in online and skip through all the filler (there's a death scene every five to ten minutes). 

Credits

Cast: James Houghton (Rev. David Thompson), Albert Salmi (Inspector Sturgess), Larry Pennell (George Leahy), Lynn Carlin(Melinda Leahy), Maylo McCaslin (Sheryl Leahy), Heidi Bohay (Ann Leahy), Billy Jayne (Justin Leahy), Jacquelyn Hyde(Elvira Sharack), Robert Symonds (Pike), Carole Goodman (Elondra), Stacy Keach, Sr. (Rev. Maier), Kim Marie (Mary), Johnny Doran (Charlie), Bennett Liss (Arty), Joshua Cadman (Romberg), Casey King (Hollister).

Director: James W. Roberson
Screenplay:  Galen Thompson
Running Time: 81 minutes

Idle Hands (1999)

In the movie industry, timing is everything. In case of Idle Hands, its release date couldn’t have come a more inopportune time, April 30, 1999 – ten days after the Columbine shootings.   The movie opened to poor reviews (16% rating on Rotten Tomatoes) and an even worse box office ($4 million gross against a $25 million dollar budget).  It was nearly impossible for many critics to separate the ending of this movie from the tragedy that occurred in Colorado.  Duane Dudek of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel wasn’t alone when he wrote, “This film smacks of poor judgment and bad taste, particularly in wake of the Littleton, Colo., killings.”   However, it would be disingenuous to blame Idle Hands' piss poor box office entirely on the critics, after all, Stephen Sommer’s The Mummy was released the following weekend; Star Wars, Episode I – The Phantom Menace hit theatres shortly afterwards, May 19,1999. The reality is that Idle Hands simply didn’t stand a chance against these two juggernauts and it quickly died at the box office.
Yet, there were a few brave souls that actually stood up for the movie, even if they didn’t particularly like it.  Roger Ebert, in his two and a half star review, wrote:
After the Colorado tragedy, some commentators have wondered if movies like this aren’t partly responsible. I don’t think we have to worry about Idle Hands. Kids understand this kind of macabre comedy – which is in the ancient horror spoof tradition- and they don’t take it seriously; any viewer capable of being influenced by such silly gags would have to be deeply disturbed already.

Right on, Mr. Ebert! While it’s true that many horror fans might see Idle Hands for the gore, the fact is that we are always on the side of the main characters – most critics overlooked this fact. Not to mention, it’s kind of hard to root for an evil hand.  It’s not surprising that Idle Hands has often been compared to Sam Raimi’s masterpiece, Evil Dead II, given that their premises are fairly identical – the protagonist’s (Ash in Evil Dead II, Anton in Idle Hands) right hand gets possessed by a demon and gets loped it– however, this subgenre of horror goes back to the early days of cinema, most notably Robert Florey’s underrated The Beast With Five Fingers (1946). Director Rodman Flender was an apprentice to Roger Corman and the legendary director’s influence shows in this the movie - Idle Hands has a similar structure to two of Corman’s earlier movies, Bucket of Blood and The Little Shop of Horrors. The three movies feature a similar, down on his luck, protagonist – Walter, a social inept busboy, in Bucket of Blood, Seymour, a clumsy stock boy in The Little Shop of Horrors, and Anton, a slacker stoner in Idle Hands. They all harbor a crush on an attractive brunette – Carla in Bucket of Blood, Audrey in The Little Shop of Horrors, and Molly in Idle Hands. However, Bucket of Blood and The Little Shop of Horrors are truly cynical movies and it’s clear that Corman views his characters in a contemptuous manner; both Walter and Seymour are given the deaths they truly deserve.  Idle Hands, despite its heavy gore and high body count, is a rather sweet natured movie and Flender has genuine affection for his characters.  For instance, it is revealed early on that one of Molly’s hobbies is writing song lyrics in a notebook that Anton happens to pick up after she has dropped it. It is this hobby that initially attracts Anton to Molly (well, and the fact that she looks like Jessica Alba).  He tells his friends Pnub and Mick, “Her songs are badass, man. She’s like a poet or something.” Now, in a lesser movie Molly’s song writing would be played for laughs – there would be a close up of Molly as she reads her (terrible) lyrics out loud, while  Anton, in a reverse shot, would be biting down on his lip, trying awfully hard to contain his laughter.  Here, Anton, finally having worked up the nerve to talk to Molly, enthusiastically starts singing Molly’s lyrics back to her, which gets her to laugh.

Devon Sawa is extremely effective in the role of Anton.  Anton spends his entire day getting high and burying himself in his headphones that he is completely oblivious to the serial killer plaguing his small town (a mailman, a bar maid, and two twin brothers have been murdered). When Pnub asks Anton if he ever watches the news, Anton responds, “I hate that fucking show!” He also fails to notice that his house is covered in blood stains – his parents were murdered the previous night.   Therefore, imagine Anton’s surprise when he learns that his right hand is responsible for all these deaths.  Anton doesn’t have any real ambitions in life, his dream life would be “to lie around in bed all day and watch TV, while some hot broad brings me food.”  Anton maybe a slacker, but he does have a conscience.  After Mick has unwitting released the severed hand from the microwave Anton nuked it in, he is determined to stop it – especially learning that its main target is Molly, who is at the Halloween Dance.   Mick tries to convince him that it is no longer his responsible and that he needs some “Anton time.”  This leads to the funniest exchange in the entire movie:

Anton: No,no, no, you know what? Not this time. Okay, I’m through with that, I mean, all I do is sit around all day, veg out, I watch TV, I smoke pot…….
Mick:  No, no! No Kevin Costner speech, let’s just go.

Sawa is very good at physical comedy - my favorite bit is when Anton and his possessed hand fight over the TV remote; Anton wants to watch cartoons, but The Hand keeps turning it to horror movies.

Pnub and Mick are just as lazy as Anton  - they’re main ambition is to watch TV, eat junk food, and get high.  This ambition (or lack of) stays with them even after they return from the dead –instead of going to heaven (which they describe as “uncool” and “too far away”), they decide to remain on earth and continue their slacker existence.  Mick criticizes Anton for not having any real goals in life, but he’s isn’t exactly one to talk.  Seth Green and Elden Henson real shine in these two roles, largely because of how understated much of their delivery is.  These two characters could have easily been insufferable, but in the hands of two pros like Green and Hensen they are agreeable. The two of them are even given  a character arc - they go from being Anton's useless best friends to being his guardian angels.

Jessica Alba possibly has the toughest job in the entire movie, because Molly is the least interesting character in the entire movie - when compared to the rest of the cast.  Molly is your quintessential “girl next door” type, which means the filmmakers are more interesting in showcasing her attractiveness than giving her a genuine personality;  Molly, despite crawling through a ventilation shaft and being tied to a roof of a car, still looks like she could grace the cover of a men’s magazine.  Alba is definitely well cast in the role and is actually pretty funny at times.  My favorite Molly moment comes when Anton, after The Hand has murdered Pnub and Mick, looks for his cat in the shrubbery outside Molly’s house after The Hand has thrown it there.  The Hand rings Molly’s doorbell, much to Anton’s embarrassment, and she answers the door.  Anton looks like complete crap – his clothes are torn and covered in blood – and Molly asks Anton what he is doing there.  Anton replies that he’s looking for his cat and then adds that they got into a fight.  Molly notice Anton’s messy appearance and, without a hint of irony, says, “You got your ass kicked!”  Later on, Anton and Molly are making out on her bed, but The Hand keeps trying to strangle her, so Anton ties it to her bedpost. Molly pauses for a second, laughs, and then tells Anton that he is kinky.  How can I forget her dance scene? I’m sure there are many men who would find it sexy, but I always found it funny – Molly sways her body back and forth, while waving her arms over her head in a totally arrhythmic manner.  This is one, of a few, Jessica Alba performances that I actually like – there’s no slumming on her part; she is extremely likable as Molly.

Vivica A. Fox is a hoot as Debi, a druid priestess who drives across country in an RV, hunting down the evil that possesses Anton’s Hand (“There is evil out there and I’m going to kick its ass”).   I also like Jack Noseworthy as Anton’s metal head, and lecherous, next door neighbor, Randy.  Anton assumes that Randy is an expert on Satanism because he listens to heavy metal music.  Randy tells Anton that “Idle hands are the devil’s playground” and advises him to take up a hobby that will help occupy his time – Anton, unwisely, chooses knitting.

Rodman Flender keeps things going at an efficient pace and even adds style to the proceedings. Flender often uses match on action editing and graphic matches to link scenes together; when Debi is driving her RV, the camera tilts down to a close up of one its tires, then it cuts to the close of a shopping cart wheel - the camera tilts up to reveal that Anton is pushing the cart. Later on, there is a long shot of The (now severed) Hand crawling down the road which then slowly dissolves to a long shot of a bowling lane where Randy is hanging out with his friends.  He also begins the movie with an extremely ambitious crane shot: the camera starts on a close up of a Jack O Lantern, glides through Anton’s front lawn (littered with tacky lawn ornaments), gives us a glance of the living room window (covered in Halloween decorations), and finally settles on the bedroom window of Anton’s parents, located on the second floor.  The movie then dissolves into a close up of Anton’s mother reading the newspaper in bed. It not only does a nice job of establishing the time of the year (Halloween), but gives the audience a nice sense of the foreboding - we know something bad is going to happen to Anton's parents.

Idle Hands is the kind of movie that the phrase “acquired taste” was invented for. If your idea of good time at the movie is My Big Fat Greek Wedding, or Frozen, then I humbly suggest you keep away from Idle Hands. If you have a sick sense of humor, like me, then you will probably enjoy it! It’s definitely worth checking out and is not nearly the disaster that most critics made it out to be.

Credits

Cast:  Devon Sawa (Anton), Seth Green (Mick), Elden Henson (Pnub), Jessica Alba (Molly), Vivica  A. Fox (Debi LeCure), Jack Noseworthy (Randy), Katie Wright (Tanya), Sean Whalen (McMay), Christopher Hart (The Hand), Nicholas Sadler (Ruck), Fred Willard (Dad Tobias), Connie Ray (Mom Tobias), Timothy Stack (Principal Tidwell), Steve Van Wormer (Curtis), Kelly Monaco (Tiffany).
Director: Rodman Flender
Screenplay: Terri Hughes, Ron Milbauer.
Running Time: 92 min.

Jaws 2 (1978)

I have a soft spot for Jaws 2. This is mainly due to the sense of nostalgia it evokes whenever I watch it, as opposed to it being a good movie. It was one of the very first movies my dad recorded on our VCR (in 1986) and, in fact, I saw Jaws 2 before I saw the original movie (we rented Jaws a few months later).  I was seven years-old at the time, therefore, I could have cared less about character development, or plotting, the only thing that mattered to me was the shark. As unnecessary sequels go, Jaws 2 isn’t bad, especially when compared to the countless Jaws rip-offs that were being produced at the same time (Orca, Grizzly, Humanoids from the Deep, and Barracuda, to name a few).  I would even argue that it is even better than the source material, Peter Benchley’s novel Jaws, which inspired the first movie.  Benchley’s novel is a truly dreadful piece of exploitation – it is equivalent to the kind of cinematic trash that Roger Corman was producing at New World Pictures at time – heavy on sex and violence (Hooper and Ellen have an affair), but light on story and characterizations.  It is absolutely miraculous how Steven Spielberg was able to take a piss poor novel and transform it into a cinematic masterpiece.  Jeannot Szwarc, the director of Jaws 2, deserves some credit for turning in a watchable movie, even if it greatly pales in comparison to its predecessor. 

Jaws 2 biggest flaw is that is a crowded movie. It is populated with characters completely devoid of any personality - I struggle to remember the names of the teenagers, with the exception of Tina, largely because she has a knack for being at right place at the right time; it is she and her boyfriend, Eddie, who witness the motorboat explosion and, later, stumble across the corpse of the half-eaten killer whale.  This is unfortunate, because it’s hard to care about the characters later on when they are being terrorized by the shark. There is also the unfortunate subplot involving Len Peterson, Ellen greedy boss and local developer, who opposes Chief Martin Brody. This is supposed to add friction to Martin and Ellen’s marriage, but only serves as meaningless filler.  Roy Scheider does his best to bring an air of credibility of the proceedings, but there are a few moments where even he is defeated by the material; his performance in the first film was much more naturalistic, here, he tends to overact at times.  

There’s also a sense of a déjà vu in the movie’s first half - Chief Brody suspects a shark is swimming in the waters of Amity, but is greeted with initial skepticism by the town leaders; you would think that Mayor Vaughn would have learned his lesson after the events in the first movie.  This also begs the question: Why center the sequel on Chief Brody?  It would make more sense for the movie to follow the exploits of Matt Hooper – he is an oceanographer, hence it is only natural that he would inevitably encounter another great white shark.

It’s also not surprising that the sequel is much more excessive in terms of the shark. In the first film, it wasn’t until the midway point that we were given a good look at the shark and, even then, it was fleeting. The sequel blows its wad in the first twenty minutes; the shark eats a water skier and then attacks the speedboat that was towing her.  In a laughable attempt at making the shark scarier, the filmmakers give it burn scars, the result of being in the middle of a boat explosion that it accidentally caused; the woman in the boat freaks out when she sees the shark, spills gasoline all over the boat and herself, and then fires a flare gun at the shark, which results in a big explosion.

Though, rather surprisingly, the death toll is relatively small (seven total) – this is an advantage in the movie’s favor. I recently watched the Roger Corman produced Sharktopus, and the move is devoid of any suspense largely because the body count (over 30) is so high that it becomes fairly redundant - every time the movie introduces a minor character they are promptly devoured. Indeed, most of the deaths are played for laughs. At least in Jaws 2, there is some element of suspense as to whether or not a character is going to survive. I still find the death of Marge to be a fairly shocking –after pulling Sean to safety she is swallowed whole by the shark. I also liked the fact that Sean is still traumatized by her death in the next scene as to just shaking it off; which is a tendency in most modern horror movies.  The last half hour is the strongest part  of the entire movie – the shark maybe a ridiculous at times, but at least the characters behave in a realistic fashion (no one cracks a stupid joke, there are no displays of bad assery), they are genuinely frightened and just want to survive.  The scene where the blonde girl, Lucy, starts praying may come off as maudlin, but it is perfectly believable, especially after having just witnessed her friend get devoured. 

Jaws 2 differentiates from its predecessor in that the second half is a race to the rescue, as opposed to being a hunting expedition.  In the first movie, the second half follows Brody, Quint, and Hooper as they hunt down the shark. The movie focuses entirely on their efforts to track down and kill the shark, without every once cutting back to the mainland – it effectively gives the audience a sense of isolation. These men are cut off from civilization and if anything goes wrong, no one will be able to save them.  Jaws 2, on the other hand, constantly cross cuts between Brody and the teenagers, and the “suspense” is built around whether or not Brody will arrive in time to save the teenagers from being devoured. It moves at a swift pace, but by constantly cutting back and forth between the two locations, it diffuses the tension – after each shark attack, the movie will cut back to Brody on the police launch, steadily on his way.  Brody gets sidelined for most of the second half; it’s only be sheer happenstance that he learns of the teenagers whereabouts.  It certainly doesn’t help that the teenagers are cardboard cutouts and lack the screen presence of the leads in the first movie.

I would like to think the scene with the beached killer whale corpse is a shot at the Jaws rip-off Orca; that movie begins with a killer whale killing a great white shark. It was producer Dino De Laurentis’ (still bitter that his King Kong remake made less money than Jaws) way of saying that Jaws was fun and stuff, but it was no match for Orca. Jaws 2, while definitely inferior to the first movie, is leagues a head of Orca.  Though, it is depressing to see that one of Jaws 2 biggest “scare” moments – the shark attacking the helicopter – is lifted from the movie Grizzly, another Jaws rip-off. In that film, the title monster (a fifteen foot grizzly bear) attacks a helicopter, though it only manages to spin it around a few times.

Jaws 2 proved to be enough of a hit that Universal green lit two more sequels (Jaws 3-D, and Jaws The Revenge), though it only did about 40% of the original movie.  It is an acceptable waste of time, especially on dull, Sunday afternoon. So, if it happens to be playing on your local TV station (do they still show movies?),  open up a six pack of beer and give it a watch. 

Credits

Cast:  Roy Scheider (Police Chief Martin Brody), Lorraine Gary (Ellen Brody), Murray Hamilton (Mayor Vaughn), Joseph Mascolo (Len Petersen), Jeffrey Kramer (Deputy Hendricks), Ann Dusenberry (Tina), Mark Gruner (Mike Brody), Marc Gilpin (Sean Brody), Collin Wilcox (Dr. Elkins), Gary Springer (Andy), Donna Wilkes (Jackie), Keith Gordon (Doug), David Elliott (Larry Vaughn, Jr.), Barry Coe (Tom), Gary Dubin (Eddie),  John Dukakis (Paul), G. Thomas Dunlap (Timmy), Cindy Grover (Lucy), Gigi Vorgan (Brooke), Billy Van Zandt (Bob),  Ben Marley (Patrick), Martha Swatek (Marge), Susan French (Grace), Jerry M. Baxter (Helicopter Pilot).

Director: Jeannot Szwarc
Screenplay: Carl Gottlieb, Howard Sackler.
Running Time: 116 min. 

Who Done It? (1942)

From 1940 to 1956, the comedy team of Abbott and Costello made 36 movies together. In that sixteen year span they made one genuine classic (Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein), some very good comedies (Hold That Ghost, Pardon My Sarong,The Time of Their Lives, Who Done It?, Buck Privates), and a few forgettable movies (Abbott & Costello Meet the Mummy, Mexican Hayride, Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff). However, it says a lot about their appeal that even their lesser movies are constantly amusing, if not particularly funny (I have a soft spot for Abbott & Costello Go to Mars). 

Who Done It? was the fourth (and last) movie Abbott and Costello made in 1942 and it is easily one of their better movies. It benefits greatly from a fine supporting cast (particularly William Bendix as a dimwitted detective and Mary Wickes as a lanky secretary) and some top notch direction by Erle C. Kenton – a gifted studio director whose best known for the horror classic Island of Lost Souls. Kenton keeps things moving at a swift pace and effectively builds tension by clouding the frame in shadows - the killer lurks about in the dark and there's always a sense that he could strike at any minute. 

I think one of the main reasons Abbott and Costello connected with World War II audiences was that they exemplified the every man; neither of them were particularly glamorous and they often began their movies working at a rather thankless job – in Who Done It?  they are a pair of soda jerks, Chick and Mervin, who work next in a drug store inside the local radio station; their true aspiration in life is to write radio mysteries.  When they learn that one of their customers, Juliet, is the secretary of Colonel Andrews, the executive director of the General Broadcasting System, Chick urges Mervin to put the moves on her in the hopes that it will lead to work. Mervin, however, proves to be no Romeo, but, thankfully, they manage to befriend Jimmy, an aspiring writer who also happens to be romantically linked to “Murder at Midnight” producer, Jane Little.  Jimmy gives them tickets to the “Murder at Midnight” broadcast, and everything seems to be looking up until Col. Andrews is murdered.  Chick and Mervin decide to solve the mysteries themselves, rather than call the police, and are confident that it will give them the national exposure that they truly deserve. When the real police show up, they naturally become the top suspects in the murder investigation.  Fortunately, Lt. Moran and his sidekick, Detective Brannigan, are dumber than Chick and Mervin – in one of the movie’s funniest moments Mervin manages to trick Brannigan into handcuffing himself.

Abbott and Costello were often paired with fairly likable juvenile leads: Richard Carlson and Evelyn Ankers in Hold That Ghost; Robert Paige and Virginia Bruce in Pardon My Sarong; and Patrick Knowles and Louise Allbritton in Who Done It?  The romantic leads tended to be stumbling blocks in the movies of other comedians; most notably, Bonnie Scotland, starring Laurel and Hardy. In that movie, not only are two romantic leads, Alan and Lorna, superfluous to the actual story, but the leading actress, June Lang, never actually meets the boys. Hell, the movie doesn’t even bother to resolve the Alan/Lorna story line.  Who Done It? is a rare instance where I wish the two juveniles would have been given more screen time.  Patric Knowles was, essentially, the poor man’s Errol Flynn, but he had a likable, easy going charm about him. Louise Allbritton was not your typical 1940s leading lady - her characters were fairly strong willed and  often carried themselves in a professional manner. In Who Done It?, Jane, rather than being a helpless damsel in distress, is rather proactive in solving the murder mystery.  It’s also refreshing that she is never put in the position of having to choose between Jimmy and her career in radio. 

Yet, despite the title and the synopsis I have laid out, the mystery is secondary to the comedy and is even forgotten about at times; there is a long stretch devoted to Mervin trying to contact the radio station after learning he has won $10,000 dollars on the radio program “Wheel of Fortune.” Every time he dials the number to the station, the operator keeps telling him, “The line is busy.”  This leads to a rather cartoonish gag in which he sprays a bottle of seltzer water in the payphone mouthpiece and it comes spurting out of the mouth piece on the other end, squirting the poor woman in the face.  If your main focus is on the murder mystery, then this scene will absolutely frustrate you – it goes on for nearly five minutes. 

Abbott and Costello were extremely popular on the radio (and later television), so it's not surprising that many of the laughs come from the dialogue. Here are some of my favorite bits: 

Detective Brannigan: (talking to a boy usher) Don’t you know it’s against the law to impersonate an officer?
Usher:  Then how do you get away with it?

Chick: (while pretending to be a detective) You know if we find the hand that fits the glove, we find the murderer.
Mervin:  (trying on the glove) And it fits me perfect.

Chick: (while Mervin is trying to contact station to claim his $10,000 prize) I’m going over here to figure out how to spend your money.

Credits
Cast:  Bud Abbott (Chick), Lou Costello (Mervin), Patric Knowles (Jimmy), Louise Allbritton (Jane), William Gargan (Lt. Lou Moran), William Bendix (Detective Brannigan), Thomas Gomez (Col. J.R. Andrews), Mary Wickes (Juliet), Don Porter (Art), Jerome Cowan (Marco).

Director: Erle C. Kenton
Screenplay: Stanley Roberts, Edmund Joseph, John Grant.
Running Time:  77 min. 

The Fog (2005): The Curse of the Terrible Remake

Remakes aren’t new to movies– they have been around since the invention of the medium. It is also a fallacy to suggest that the original is always better, as there are examples of a remake being just as good, if not better than the original; The Maltese Falcon (1941), The Ten Commandments (1956), and The Thing (1982), come to mind. Unfortunately, The Fog doesn’t belong in this category and, is in fact, one of the worst remakes of all time.  It is an extremely ill conceived remake, complete with an attractive, but bland, cast and some of the silliest looking CGI in film history.

The original movie, while not a classic, was still an effective horror movie filled with genuinely haunting visuals and a better than average cast; the only real misfire is Jamie Lee Curtis, who, as the hitchhiking artist, Elizabeth, is given very little to do.  The script is filled with holes, but John Carpenter’s efficient direction, plus Dean Cundey’s moody photography, help smooth things over.  The Fog was panned by critics when it came out, but its reputation has improved with passing of time.  The remake has been widely forgotten about and, despite being only a decade old, actually comes off as more dated than the original.

There are so many things wrong with the remake, but I will limit my criticisms down to three things:

1) Casting/Characters.
 It’s really hard to decide which piece of casting is worse- Tom Welling (as Nick Castle), or Selma Blair (as Stevie Wayne).  The original movie did a nice job of separating Stevie Wayne’s (Adrienne Barbeau) radio and real life personas – when she goes on the air, she adopts a much more soothing, and sexy, voice.  This nicely sets up the ending; when Stevie starts to suspect something is amiss she begins to use her actual voice and as the movie progresses, it becomes more frantic. The remake makes no distinction between the two – Selma Blair’s Stevie Wayne is just as sarcastic in her normal life as she is on the radio.  There's a lot of nice nuances in Barbeau's performance - just from  her standoffish attitude towards Dan the weatherman, we can deduce that she has just gone through a bitter divorce and wants to keep her distance. She has moved to Antonio Bay from the big city with her son, Andy, to begin a new life. This is also verified visually; the only interaction Stevie has with the other characters is via the telephone. None of this comes through in the remake, largely because Stevie is largely sidelined to make room for Elizabeth. The movie also has her in the same physical space as the rest of the cast during the climax. Stevie Wayne in the original movie was the glue that held everything together; she uses her vantage point (her radio station is located inside a light house) to warn her radio listeners about the fog and guides them to safety. She has no real function in the remake; she's just there.

Nick Castle is even more ill served, in the original, as played by Tom Atkins, he was a gruff, but rather intuitive fisherman; from what little evidence he has, he is able to deduce that the fog is of a supernatural origin.  In the 2005 movie, he is not only dull, but rather dim as well – he fails to recognize that the hitchhiker on the side of the road is his girlfriend, Elizabeth.  He is ready to have a tryst with Stevie Wayne when Elizabeth appears out of the blue (she has been in New York for last six months).  Maggie Grace is, essentially, inhabiting the role (Elizabeth) that Jamie Lee Curtis played in the original movie - and she is certainly given much more to do than Curtis – the problem is that neither the character nor the actress are particularly interesting to watch.  It is revealed that Elizabeth is a reincarnation of the lost love of one of the vengeful ghosts, Captain Blake.  This bit of exposition gets doled out throughout the movie, but there is really no substance to this actual storyline. Is it supposed to be romantic or tragic that Elizabeth is reunited with her past life lover?  The character never seems to struggle with these emotions.  It is reminiscent of The Mummy (1932), where the character of Helen is torn between her past love (Imhotep) and her modern day existence.  Helen genuinely struggles in her choice, whereas Elizabeth seems to choose Blake on a mere whim.  

Finally, there is Father Malone, a pivotal character in the original movie (wonderfully played by Hal Holbrook), who almost feels like an afterthought in the 2005 movie.  In the original movie, Father Malone is guilt-ridden by the sins committed by the town's forefathers; it’s him that discovers the journal of his grandfather. The journal reveals that they killed Blake, because he suffered from leprosy and wants to establish a leper colony near Antonio Bay. Father Malone character spends most of the movie brooding in anguish, but is given a redemptive arc when  he sacrifices himself to save the others.  In the remake, he just stumbles around in a drunken stupor and is killed in gruesome fashion. He's just another tally mark in the movie's body count.

2)      Endless Exposition/Pointless Subplots.
Watching the remake is on par with watching a person fold laundry for ninety minutes – it is extremely boring. The pacing of this movie is an absolute mess, this is largely due to the fact the exposition never stops; it isn’t until midway through the movie that Elizabeth discovers the journal of Patrick Malone, one of the conspirators  who killed Blake and his men.  When the movie should be shifting gears and ratcheting up the suspense, it instead flashbacks to Elizabeth’s previous life aboard the ship of lepers – it is extremely unnecessary given that we are already given this information at the movie’s beginning ; a beach comber approaches Elizabeth and gives her a pocket watch that he found on the beach. He warns her, “If you touch it, things will change.” Later on, Elizabeth tells Nick about a recurring dream she’s been having which ends with her drowning.  These are two incidents are enough to signal that Elizabeth is remembering a past life, but the filmmakers keep spoon feeding us this information. 

However, this isn’t nearly as irritating as the pointless subplots that the movie quickly discards minutes after having introduced them – the most obvious example being the videotape that shows the ghastly murder of Nick’s cousin, Sean.  Earlier in the movie, Sean and Nick’s friend, Spooner, are partying aboard his boat with two bikini clad woman. Spooner, rather conveniently, is videotaping the thing for all prosperity.  Sean and the two women are killed, but Spooner survives the night by locking himself in the freezer. Nick finds the video camera and has Elizabeth hide it in her handbag.  The authorities want to charge Spooner with murder, but thankfully Elizabeth has the video camera on hand to clear his name. NOPE! She proceeds to lose it in the ocean, when she falls off a plank in a boathouse.  Fortunately, nothing ever comes of these murder charges and Spooner is free to go.  The original avoided needless filler, but the remake is loaded with it. The failed tryst between Stevie Wayne and Nick is another example of this – nothing is ever made of it.  They do bump into each other in town and exchange a few words, but that’s about it.

What is the guiding logic to Blake’s revenge? In the original, it was fairly clear, “6 MUST DIE.” Six men were responsible for killing Blake and his crew, and they have come back to seek revenge. Here, it is implied that he is after the descendants of the town’s founding fathers; the four men who betrayed him.  If that’s the case, then why kill the two women aboard the boat and the weatherman?  Is everyone in town a descendant of the four conspirators?  What’s the point of the fog? In the original, Blake and crew were killed while a fog bank consumed the coastline. The founding fathers used it to their advantage and tricked Blake into crashing his clipper ship on the rocks by lighting a fire on the beach. They then plundered the ship and used the gold it was carrying to build the town of Antonio Bay.   In the remake, the four men board Blake’s ship and set fire to it. So, again, why the fog?

3)      The Special Effects.
The shots of the fog rolling along the coast in the original were genuinely creepy, in the remake they are laughable. This is one example where it would have been advantageous to use practical effects (smoke machines) instead of CGI – it is absolutely silly looking. We get endless shots of actors staring at what is obviously a green screen and not really certain just what their reaction should be. The most laughable moment comes when Stevie’s son, Andy, outruns the fog on the beach and just barely makes it inside his house.  Also, Blake and his ghostly crew can kill people merely by touching them – a hand pops out of the sink and grabs Andy’s babysitter, Connie, by the wrist, whose flesh slowly gets eaten away, until the only thing that is left of her is a skeleton.  If it’s that simple, then why isn’t this the M.O. of Blake and company? Also, if their touch is lethal, then how come the corpses of the two bikini-clad women were left virtually intact? I wouldn’t take issue with it if it weren’t for the fact that very little of this movie makes any sense.The scene of Elizabeth confronting the ghosts in the graveyard is eerily reminiscent of the Army of the Dead sequence in The Return of the King; this may seem like a compliment, but that is easily one of my least favorite scenes in the entire trilogy.

If there’s one positive thing that can be taken from the 2005 remake of The Fog it is this – it makes you appreciate the ingenuity of the 1980 original even more so. Sure, it’s a flawed movie, but it is infinitely better than its generic remake. 

Credits

The Fog (2005)
Cast: Maggie Grace (Elizabeth Williams), Tom Welling (Nick Castle), Selma Blair (Stevie Wayne), DeRay Davis (Spooner), Kenneth Welsh (Mayor Tom Malone), Adrian Hough (Father Malone), Cole Heppell  (Andy Wayne), Sara Botsford (Kathy Williams), Rade Sherbedgia (Captain William Blake), Mary Black (Aunt Connie), Sonja Bennett (Mandi), Meghan Heffern (Jennifer), Matthew Currie Holmes (Sean Castle), Jonathon Young (Dan the Weatherman), Alex Bruhanski (Hank Castle), Christian Bocher (Patrick Malone)

Director: Rupert Wainwright
Screenplay: Cooper Layne.
Running Time: 100 min.

The Fog (1980)
Cast: Hal Holbrook (Father Malone), Adrienne Barbeau (Stevie Wayne), Tom Atkins (Nick Castle), Jamie Lee Curtis (Elizabeth), Janet Leigh (Kathy Williams), John Houseman (Mr. Machen), Nancy Loomis (Sandy), Charles Cyphers (Dan), James Canning (Dick Baxter), Ty Mitchell (Andy), Regina Waldon (Mrs.Kobritz), John F. Goff(Al Williams), George “Buck” Flower (Tommy Wallace), Darwin Joston (Dr. Phibes), Rob Bottin (Blake).

Director: John Carpenter
Screenplay: John Carpenter, Debra Hill.
Running Time: 90 min.