John Rozum's Blog, page 25

31 Days of Halloween - Day 24 - Movie 2

I actually saw Halloween (2018) on Sunday, but didn't want to interrupt the Phantasm posts in order to post my response to it. So now that the Phantasm series has been completed here we go.

Ignoring all of the sequels and serving as a sequel only to the original film, Halloween is set 40 years later. Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) lives in a remote fortress where she has spent her entire life since her first encounter with Michael Myers (Nick Castle returning to the role, and James Jude Courtney providing the unmasked Michael's role) preparing for his eventual return. This has led to a sad and complicated life for her. She's twice divorced and mostly estranged from her daughter, but has a more positive relationship with her granddaughter. People think she's a bit of a nut, but when Michael escapes custody during a transfer to another hospital, she turns out to be the only person prepared to deal with him.

As I've stated previously here I'm not a huge fan of the original film. To me it's like a tv movie, and the "force of nature" that Carpenter claims he envisioned Michael Myers (or "The Shape" as he was being called back then) as "a force of nature," it's hard to take that seriously when the character is actually pretty inept, and about equal in fighting ability to Laurie Strode. The new film was enjoyable. There were nice homages to the original (and even Halloween III: Season of the Witch). It had some story issues, including one questionable plot point from the original film, which is Michael's ability to drive a car considering he's been institutionalized since he was a small boy. In this film, the scene's even more puzzling since he couldn't possibly have been sitting in the driver's seat either.

The filmmakers seem to have been a bit influenced by the Rob Zombie remake as well as the original movie. Carpenter's 1978 version was pretty bloodless. Zombie's was a bloodbath. This new film is pretty brutal, too. Myers also seems to be more in line with Zombie's hulking powerhouse more than Carpenter's Myers who struggled to get out of a closet. The characters seemed kind of sketched out versus being fully fleshed out, and unnecessary weight was put on characters who really didn't matter to the story as a whole, while more important characters didn't have much to do and vanished from the screen for long periods of time. Also, one character's motivation and actions almost derailed the movie for me being a bit hokey and far fetched for the non-campy nature of the rest of the film. Of course, also the way the movie ends was inevitable, but doesn't really take away from the experience. I don't regret seeing it, though I'm not really the audience this movie is catering too. In the end though, while there was plenty of blood, I would have liked a bit more meat.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 24 - Movie 1

Phantasm: Ravager (2016) is the fifth, and final, film in the series. The time-whimey dimension hopping aspect of the series comes front in center in this segment, which focuses on Reggie bouncing back and forth from several narratives. In one, we pick up shortly after the events of the previous film, with Reggie hunting for Mike and Jodie and the Tall Man while being pursued by a number of silver spheres. Following the pattern of previous episodes, Reggie picks up an unattainable woman and pulls her into the drama that he's involved in with supernatural forces.

There's also another time line, which is more in keeping with the nearly two decades that have transpired in the real world between this and the previous Phantasm world. In this one a discombobulated Reggie is rescues from a table where he's been lying for years, unconscious, with the top of his head thrust into one of the gateways to another dimension. Reggie is awakened by a group of freedom fighters, which includes Mike, Jody, and Rocky from the third film, in an Earth where the Tall Man has essentially won. Cities are now a burning wasteland occupied by the Tall Man's minions, and giant, Death Star sized spheres hover over the landscape. It is a bleak world, and one wonders if the freedom fighters can possibly win, and if they do, will there be anything left worth winning back.

The third narrative is the most interesting and completely colors the entire series. This one is set in the present day where Mike regularly visits Reggie at a nursing home where Reggie is being treated for dementia and nearing the end of his life. In this narrative, Mike has no experience with the Tall Man, other than Reggie's stories, which are taken as the product of his diminishing faculties. The worlds do all collide, and at the end, we're left with two bleak possibilities as to the true nature of the events in this series.

This is by no means a perfect film. It's obviously small budget is stretched with passable CGI which adds scope, and in terms of the weird fantasy established in earlier films, is not much of a detrimental element. The story would have benefitted with more scenes of the Tall Man, but Angus Scrimm was obviously in poor health during the filming and has limited, but memorable participation.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 24

Movies aren't the only venue for really creepy looking haunted houses. There are plenty to be found in cartoons as well. Casper may be a friendly ghost, but his cartoons had an abundance of not so friendly looking abodes as can be seen here.

Scooby-Doo also had some amazing, dilapidated structures as can be seen here and here. If you are daring enough to approach any of these buildings, you may find one of Mystery Inc.'s many eerie foes such as these creeps and these villains.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 23 - movie

Phantasm IV - Oblivion (1998) has the least going on in it of  any of the films this series, thus far, with the bulk of the film being made up of padding and flashbacks consisting of cut scenes from the first film.

Mike and Reggie are separated throughout most of the film. Mike spends what time he's not sitting in a car, or walking through a canyon, trying to come to terms with who he is now, now that he has one of the chrome spheres in his head, and yellow formaldehyde for blood. Is he still human, or one of the Tall Man's creatures? He has telekinetic powers, and the Tall Man, spends quite a bit of time waiting for Mike to accept his fate and to go join him. It's very much a Darth Vader/Luke Skywalker relationship now -- without lightsaber battles. Mike dimension hops a few times and sees the Tall Man's origin, which changes, nor really adds, nothing.

Meanwhile Reggie does even less, wanting to give up chasing after Mike and the Tall Man, but doing it anyway. To create the illusion that Reggie really needs to be in this film, he encounters a monster impersonating a police officer, and a damsel in distress, who ends up being a host to two spheres, and he fights some of the dwarf creatures, but that's pretty much it.

Even though this film was made with the shortest amount of time separating it from its predecessor, the inclusion of flashbacks to the time of the first film shows just how much the cast has aged in the twenty years since the original film was made. Unintentionally, the film is pervaded by a sadness for these characters who really seem to have thrown away their lives on their mad pursuit, because their visible aging shows just how long they've been at it. It would be almost 20 years before the final film would be made and released.

Opening Friday

This Friday will be the opening for the "Revenge of Frankenstein 200" show at The Dark Art Emporium in Long Beach, California. I'll be previewing the piece I did for the show here on Thursday. For details about the show visit the website.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 23

I love monsters. All kinds. Here are my favorite monsters of the movies, fiction, and folklore. Monsters have appeared throughout my work in vast numbers, most of them I make up, but often times I'll take one from mythology to craft a story around. For my 2013 Halloween Countdown I showcased many of the monsters that appeared in stories I wrote. You can find them here.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 22 - movie

Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead (1994) picks up right where the last one left off (even though 6 years have lapsed between when the films were made. This time A. Michael Baldwin returns as Mike. After waking from a two year coma, Mike is abducted by the resurrected Tall Man (Angus Scrimm) and Reggie (Reggie Bannister) sets off to rescue him. This time he has some help in the form of Mike's dead brother Jody (Bill Thornbury) now in the form of one of the Tall Man's spheres, and Tim (Kevin Connors) an orphaned kid with a penchant for weapons, and Rocky (Gloria Lynne Henry) a badass woman with her own vendetta against the Tall Man.

This time the Tall Man is harvesting brains for his spheres, and continuing to create his dwarf creatures. The group traps the Tall Man within a freezer, a sphere launches from within his head, but is caught and disposed in liquid nitrogen. In the end, Mike is discovered to have a sphere occupying his own head and departs with Jody telling Reggie not to follow. Tim and Reggie then are attacked by dozens of spheres, and before Tim can save Reggie, he's whisked away by one of the Tall Man's minions as the Tall Man reappears.

While still not as magnificent as the original film, this was a step up from the second film. Reggie and his new companions don't have the same chemistry that Reggie, Mike and Jody did in the original film, but they bring their own dynamic to the story, which is much needed since Mike becomes increasingly haunted and withdrawn, and Jody now has a role similar to the ghost of Obi-Wan Kenobi. Bringing him back in the manner that they did, brought back some of the anything goes storytelling that made the original so wonderful, and was lacking in the first sequel. It also allowed the introduction of a whole new plan for the Tall Man to mastermind.

Not close to perfect, this was still fun to watch.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 22

If there's any one author who embodies the Halloween spirit, it is this man here; Ray Bradbury. To me he's as much a part of the season as Jack O'Lanterns, ghosts and the colors orange and black. For years he was centrally represented in my outdoor yard decorations in the form of Jack O'Lantern filled Halloween Trees. Sadly, the house I'm currently occupying does not have any trees in our front yard, so that tradition has stopped until my next move. To learn more about Ray Bradbury's connection with Halloween read here.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 21 - movie 2

Again, I previously included Phantasm II back in 2011's Halloween Countdown. I really disliked it back then, but on a second viewing find it to be far more tolerable. I still have some of the same complaints such as the characters of Liz and Alchemy not really contributing much. Liz, at least starts out as a guiding factor to the plot, but once she's connected to Reggie and Mike, she has a lot less to do beyond being a captive, even though she is instrumental to the climactic showdown with the Tall Man. Alchemy is essentially there to be eye candy and to begin what will be a running character trait for Reggie, making him a horny dude constantly trying to sleep with the female characters in each subsequent installment. It's not a charming trait.

The plot is much more down to earth this time, as Mike (now played by James LeGros - less jarring for me this time, but I'd rather A. Michael Baldwin had returned as Mike) and Reggie pursue the Tall Man through the trail of towns that have fallen into becoming ghost towns in his wake of grave robbing. The chrome sphere is back as are the killer dwarves, the Tall man and the hemi 'Cuda, but the relentless inventiveness of the original is not present in this film. Instead, the established tropes of the first film are locked in place as being the key elements, and no new madness is introduced to supplement them.

It's a watchable sequel, but not a necessary addition to the fine film that the original Phantasm remains.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 21 - Movie 1

I first wrote about Phantasm (1979) way back in 2007, as part of that year's Halloween Countdown. I never wanted to repeat myself here, but since I decided I wanted to include Phantasm 3-5 in this year's countdown, I felt a need to revisit the first two.

My love for this film remains strong, from the beautiful 1971 Plymouth hemi 'Cuda, to the flying sphere, to the camaraderie between the three leads, who when I was young, seemed to be about the coolest people out there. They seem a little less cool now, but the dynamics of their relationship to one another is still really strong and what really drives this series.

I'm still amazed by all of the weird stuff that's just thrown up on screen, often without connection to anything else (such as Mike's visit to a psychic), and typically without any explanation (the fly). The only explanation we are given is that something weird is going on at Morningside Mortuary involving  the Tall Man and that he's stealing corpses, shrinking them down, packing them into barrels, and shipping them back to his own planet where they are reanimated as diminutive slave labor (due to the heavier gravity). Everything else is WTF dressing to move the plot and characters along.

It's a beautiful thing.