Achievement – Page 4 – Bad Movie Twins

Saw II Quiz

Saw II is mostly plotless, so what fun facts could we possibly glean from it for a quiz? I guess we’ll see.

Pop Quiz Hot Shot!

1) Apparently a scene of an elevator was a reused scene from a 2000 sci-fi film. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects in 2001, losing to Gladiator. And while not a direct adaptation, it is easy to mistake the film as being part of a famous Universal series. What was this film?

2) The soundtrack features a song by Queens of the Stone Age. Their second major Billboard hit was Little Sister heavily featuring the cowbell. So much so that Will Ferrell performed with them when they played the song on SNL. In the More Cowbell sketch featuring Christopher Walken as fictional music producer Bruce Dickinson, what was the band and song being played?

3) Tobin Bell has a crazy career with his breakout role coming in his 60s as Jigsaw in the Saw Franchise. One of his minor roles was as Ted Kaczynski in the TV Movie Unabomber: The True Story. The Unabomber famously took part in Henry Murray’s unethical human psychology experiments as a 17-year-old, and some speculate he further participated in what theoretical CIA led brainwashing program?

4) Billy the Puppet is the little doll that really really wants to play a game. He is considered to be a ventriloquist dummy. What comedian had luminary dummies named “Peanut”, “Walter”, “Jose Jalapeño”, “Bubba J”, and “Achmed the Dead Terrorist”?

5) Saw II features Donnie Wahlberg who, of course, was (is?) a main member of New Kids on the Block. NKotB had three number 1 hit singles (that’s three more than I expected), the last of which shares a name with a TGIF show. What is that hit single?

Bonus NYTimes Listing Question: We talking about Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part II? Oh, we aren’t. Anyways, this was another after midnight treat on April 24, 1991 when TCMPII played at 2:45AM on Showtime:

What is that movie?

Answers

Saw III Preview

In the following weeks, Patrick and Kyle hatch a plan to catch whoever it was that was watching them. Perhaps this mysterious person had some insight into their predicament. They would have included Jamie in the plans, but without any jorts to wear he sat around in his deafness, covered in mud and wearing only a shirt. “He could at least wear a shirt that wasn’t skin-tight,” grumbled Kyle. They hear Jamie whine from the other room, “are you talking about me? Are you talking about my tight shirt? It’s the only one I have where the v-neck is deep enough. You can’t expect me to be deaf and unfashionable.” They move further away from Jamie’s lair to continue hatching the plan. “Remember how we caught Santa Claus?” Patrick asks, but Kyle gives him a blank look. “Oh right, that was with Jamie. Shit.” This is going terribly. Suddenly the hairs on Patrick’s neck stand up again and he shushes Kyle. “Do you feel that?” He asks and Kyle nods his head vigorously. The feeling was right behind them… as if whoever it was was actually watching Jamie and not them at all. They sneak around the side of the house and look through the window. Kyle quickly turns away and tries to stop Patrick. His eyes are wide at what he just saw. “Don’t. Please,” he begs, “it’s horrible. You won’t be able to shake what you have seen.” But this only intrigues Patrick. Sure he liked seeing romantic things or funny things, but there was something almost irresistible about seeing something horrific on occasion. He pushes Kyle out of the way and takes a gander through the window. “My god,” he whispers, his face frozen in a mask of terror at what he saw too. That’s right! We are watching Saw II (and Saw III). This entire venture has been to try to get some franchises going that have somehow escaped our prying eyes. No more! Let’s go!

Saw III (2006) – BMeTric: 27.7; Notability: 37

StreetCreditReport.com – BMeTric: top 28.0%; Notability: top 26.8%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 27.8%; Higher BMeT: Date Movie, The Wicker Man, Ultraviolet, Pledge This!, Material Girls, Little Man, Basic Instinct 2, Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector, Zoom, The Shaggy Dog, The Marine, Big Momma’s House 2, DOA: Dead or Alive, The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause, Pulse, Black Christmas, Crossover, Phat Girlz, Eragon, Scary Movie 4, and 50 more; Higher Notability: Poseidon, Eragon, The Da Vinci Code, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Scary Movie 4, The Wild, The Pink Panther, Click, Smokin’ Aces, The Guardian, The Black Dahlia, All the King’s Men, Zoom, Just My Luck, School for Scoundrels, The Shaggy Dog, Happily N’Ever After, Lady in the Water, The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause, Factory Girl, and 47 more; Lower RT: The Contract, Pledge This!, Crossover, Material Girls, The Covenant, Zoom, Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector, Big Momma’s House 2, Deck the Halls, Basic Instinct 2, Happily N’Ever After, Date Movie, Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj, Ultraviolet, When a Stranger Calls, Annapolis, Stay Alive, See No Evil, Pulse, The Grudge 2, and 49 more; Notes: Only 8 of the top 20 by BMeT and I think only 4 of the top 20 by RT. Quite a sparse year for us somehow. Even looking through just nothing really jumps out as a must see beyond The Wicker Man. Bizarre.

New York Times – The “Saw” franchise rasps on with “Saw III,” a deadening barrage of grungy rooms, mortified flesh and elaborate torture. … The most depressing thing about this series is not the creativity of the bloodletting but the bleak view of human nature, specifically our talent for ruining the present to avenge the past. In the opening scene, a man frees himself from an ankle restraint by pulverizing his foot with a brick; fortunately, all we have to do is get up and leave.- Jeannette Catsoulis

(Yeah, so isn’t this often the case. Jamie’s favorite example is in the book Sliver the author basically keeps saying: hey don’t you just want to spy on people and peep on them? And as you are reading the reader is, I imagine, mostly like “no you weirdo.” Saw is similar. It is like “What choice would you make? Kill four people who harmed your family, or forgive them and live your life.” And I’m like … uh, forgive? Why would I murder some people? And yet these questions are often asked as if it is the trolly problem or something. The choices in Saw are rarely difficult: save people and be a good person. And yet everyone in these films suffer from a severe case of garbage-person-itis it would seem. Go figure.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLLDDSknHaI/

(Do you want to play a game? Not really. Also these games seem dumb. As usual it is like: if you want to live all you have to do is melt all your fingers off with acid. And I would be like … no thanks. This trailer is also very close to the joke Jamie makes about the films: “Want to hear my impression of the Saw films? ARGGGHHHHHHH ARGH ARRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHH”. Aggravating.)

Directors – Darren Lynn Bousman – ( Known For: Repo! The Genetic Opera; Mother’s Day; Tales of Halloween; 11-11-11; Death of Me; St. Agatha; The Barrens; Abattoir; The Cello; Alleluia! The Devil’s Carnival; Future BMT: Saw IV; Spiral; BMT: Saw II; Saw III; Notes: Oh snap, I didn’t even realize above that he directed two through four. That’s wild. All of them sucked apparently. Got nixed on the writing credit this time it seems.)

Writers – Leigh Whannell – ( Known For: Saw; Insidious; The Invisible Man; Upgrade; Insidious: Chapter 3; Saw X; Cooties; The Mule; Future BMT: Insidious: Chapter 2; Saw IV; Saw V; Saw VI; Saw 3D; Dead Silence; Jigsaw; Insidious: The Last Key; Spiral; Insidious: The Red Door; BMT: Saw II; Saw III; Notes: He back baby. I wonder how many of these he has sole writing credit on.)

James Wan – ( Known For: Aquaman; Saw; The Conjuring 2; M3GAN; The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It; Malignant; Annabelle Comes Home; Saw X; The Nun II; Future BMT: Insidious: Chapter 2; Saw IV; Saw V; Saw VI; Saw 3D; Dead Silence; Jigsaw; Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom; Spiral; BMT: Saw II; Saw III; The Nun; Notes: Only story credit, but kind of weird he didn’t get one for the second and then pops back in for the third. I wonder if it points to them trying to get the franchise back on track … didn’t seem to work. Don’t worry, soon they’ll realize that all they need to be is as extreme as possible and they are good to go.)

Actors – Tobin Bell – ( Known For: Goodfellas; Saw; The Firm; Manhattan; Tootsie; In the Line of Fire; Mississippi Burning; The Road to El Dorado; The Quick and the Dead; Saw X; Sophie’s Choice; The Verdict; Malice; 12 Feet Deep; Boogeyman 2; An Innocent Man; The 4th Floor; Boogeyman 3; The Call; Belzebuth; Future BMT: Saw IV; Saw V; Saw VI; Saw 3D; Jigsaw; Boiling Point; Loose Cannons; BMT: Saw II; Saw III; Notes: Helllllll yeah Tobin. He was nearly 50 when he really broke into film. There is very little about what he did prior to getting bit roles in 1979, but at that point he was already well into his 30s, so maybe he was getting an advanced degree or was a teacher or something? Wild career.)

Shawnee Smith – ( Known For: Saw; The Island; Leaving Las Vegas; Saw X; Annie; The Blob; Summer School; The Grudge 3; Breakfast of Champions; Grace Unplugged; Jayne Mansfield’s Car; Bloodline Killer; Female Perversions; Carnival of Souls; Kill Speed; A Slipping-Down Life; The Low Life; Dogtown; Men; Christmas vs. The Walters; Future BMT: Saw IV; Saw VI; Who’s Harry Crumb?; Desperate Hours; Believe; BMT: Armageddon; Saw II; Saw III; Iron Eagle; Notes: She was a kid actor (and acted in Iron Eagle, amazing). The actors in the franchise are so interesting, she was around 35 when she was in the first one. She’s old enough to have been a young 24 year old actress in an episode of Murder She Wrote.)

Angus Macfadyen – ( Known For: Braveheart; Equilibrium; We Bought a Zoo; The Lost City of Z; Titus; Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood; Cradle Will Rock; .45; Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1; 3022; Robert the Bruce; Still Breathing; Hirokin: The Last Samurai; Steel Rain 2; Copperhead; Unnatural Causes; The Pleasure Drivers; The Brylcreem Boys; The Lost Language of Cranes; Fatwa; Future BMT: Saw IV; Saw VI; Warriors of Virtue; BMT: Saw III; Redline; Notes: Oh snap, this guy is in Horizon? Buckle up, I have three hours of a boring Western to watch. Scottish, and so yeah, famous for being Robert the Bruce in Braveheart.)

Budget/Gross – $10,000,000 / Domestic: $80,238,724 (Worldwide: $164,874,275)

(Prints. Money. Horror franchises are ridiculous, and it is kind of sad that something like this got famous and then people tried to emulate it because honestly it is not scary, not gross, and mostly just dumb. Hot take.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 29% (28/95): Saw III does little beyond repeating its predecessor’s tropes on a gorier level.

(Yes, and? Oh, yeah, right, that’s a bad thing. I 100% agree though, the franchise becomes less interesting and grosser the longer it goes on. The exception seems to be (and isn’t it always) once they take an extended break things can realign a bit with people realizing what is actually interesting about the films instead of focusing on one upping themselves.)

Reviewer Highlight: Saw III is gross and squirmy, but it’s got a lot of brains and heart to go along with its guts. Better than Saw and Saw II combined. – Steve Tilley, Toronto Sun

Poster – Death Spa 3: Blood Bath

(I actually don’t even understand this from the point of view of Saw… was the trap that someone had a saw attached to three teeth? Or maybe this was hanging in front of them and balanced in some way and Jigsaw was like “You want to play a game? You have to pull out all your teeth and attach it to the saw to keep it balanced or else it’ll fall and cut your femoral artery. You have 25 seconds.” C-)

Tagline(s) – This Halloween He’s Pulling Out All The Stops (C-)

(Hahahahahaha. Now that’s some funny shit.)

Keyword(s) – 1999-2007

Top 10: The Matrix Revolutions (2003), The Butterfly Effect (2004), The Da Vinci Code (2006), The Fast and the Furious (2001), Men in Black II (2002), Man on Fire (2004), Click (2006), Pearl Harbor (2001), Fantastic Four (2005), Kingdom of Heaven (2005)

Future BMT: 93.5 Date Movie (2006), 90.0 House of the Dead (2003), 88.9 BloodRayne (2005), 87.1 The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl 3-D (2005), 82.9 Inspector Gadget (1999), 81.8 The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas (2000), 81.4 You Got Served (2004), 79.3 Daddy Day Camp (2007), 79.1 Boogeyman (2005), 78.0 Who’s Your Caddy? (2007), 77.8 Nutty Professor II: The Klumps (2000), 72.6 Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector (2006), 72.4 Bewitched (2005), 72.2 Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde (2003), 72.1 Zoom (2006), 71.1 Soul Plane (2004), 70.6 The Shaggy Dog (2006), 70.3 Delta Farce (2007), 69.3 Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen (2004), 69.2 The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause (2006)

BMT: Epic Movie (2007), Battlefield Earth (2000), Catwoman (2004), Son of the Mask (2005), The Room (2003), Gigli (2003), Alone in the Dark (2005), The Wicker Man (2006), Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd (2003), Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 (2004), In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (2007), The Cat in the Hat (2003), Crossroads (2002), Halloween: Resurrection (2002), The Fog (2005), Dungeons & Dragons (2000), Rollerball (2002), Baby Geniuses (1999), Norbit (2007), The Master of Disguise (2002), I Know Who Killed Me (2007), Glitter (2001), Ultraviolet (2006), Bratz (2007), Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (2000), Dragon Wars: D-War (2007), Feardotcom (2002), The Adventures of Pluto Nash (2002), Jason X (2001), xXx: State of the Union (2005), Torque (2004), Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007), Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever (2002), Material Girls (2006), Universal Soldier: The Return (1999), Little Man (2006), Basic Instinct 2 (2006), Elektra (2005), …

(Ah yeah, I suppose people thought this was the worse of the two … I think I agree. Saw III has dumb people making dumb decisions and ruining their own lives mostly. The second one at least has some interesting ideas and played with time a bit.)

Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 17) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Tobin Bell is No. 1 billed in Saw III and No. 1 billed in Saw II, which also stars Donnie Wahlberg (No. 2 billed) who is in Righteous Kill (No. 6 billed) which also stars Al Pacino (No. 2 billed) who is in 88 Minutes (No. 1 billed) which also stars Leelee Sobieski (No. 3 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 1 billed) => (1 + 1) + (2 + 6) + (2 + 1) + (3 + 1) = 17. If we were to watch Saw V, and The Glass House we can get the HoE Number down to 17.

Notes – The producers of this film asked the producers of Scary Movie 4 (2006) if they could use their bathroom set for this film as it was an exact replica of the sets used in Saw (2004) and Saw II (2005). They were given permission to use it.

As with the previous two films, only the actors who appeared in the final scene were given the complete script.

The film’s most graphic scene – Jigsaw’s brain surgery – remained completely uncut by the MPAA. The filmmakers argued that it was no different from what people would see in any medical documentary on TV.

During the brain surgery scene prop master James R. Murray had to hold Bahar Soomekh’s arms still for the close-up shots because she was unable to steady herself and keep the tool under control.

Costas Mandylor’s character – Detective Hoffman – is named as a tribute to the first two films’ late producer Gregg Hoffman.

Saw II Preview

Saw II (2005) – BMeTric: 17.0; Notability: 37

StreetCreditReport.com – BMeTric: top 30.8%; Notability: top 23.2%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 33.2%; Higher BMeT: Son of the Mask, Alone in the Dark, BloodRayne, The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl 3-D, The Fog, xXx: State of the Union, Boogeyman, Elektra, A Sound of Thunder, Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, Bewitched, The Crow: Wicked Prayer, Are We There Yet?, In the Mix, The Dukes of Hazzard, Miss Congeniality 2: Armed & Fabulous, The Honeymooners, Dirty Love, Cursed, Stealth, and 57 more; Higher Notability: Kingdom of Heaven, Fantastic Four, Be Cool, Domino, Fun with Dick and Jane, Bewitched, xXx: State of the Union, Memoirs of a Geisha, Chicken Little, The Longest Yard, Son of the Mask, The Great Raid, Miss Congeniality 2: Armed & Fabulous, Stealth, Cursed, Flightplan, The Dukes of Hazzard, Æon Flux, The Ring Two, The Legend of Zorro, and 38 more; Lower RT: The Crow: Wicked Prayer, Alone in the Dark, BloodRayne, The Fog, Yours, Mine & Ours, Son of the Mask, Underclassman, A Sound of Thunder, The Perfect Man, Dirty Love, White Noise, Dirty Deeds, Cheaper by the Dozen 2, Man of the House, Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, Æon Flux, Elektra, Edison, Are We There Yet?, The Wedding Date, and 62 more; Notes: Horror films are strange beasts. On the one hand fans are usually the harshest critics and so a lot of them have gaudy BMeT numbers. But then fans of specific series end up loving them all. We’ve seen 12/20 of the top BMeT for the year, which is fun.

New York Times – Last year’s mercilessly unpleasant “Saw” was an unexpected Halloween treat for horror fans fed up with the genre’s recent shift toward tongue-in-cheek. “Saw II,” directed by a newcomer, Darren Lynn Bousman, delivers similar hard-core, practically humorless frights and hair-raising tension, but only after getting past a shaky beginning that plays more like a forensics-themed television show than a scary movie. … By the time the final twists start exposing themselves and the title tool makes a welcome cameo appearance, it’s fully apparent that this sequel is more trick than treat and doesn’t really compare to its fine predecessor – though it still manages to be eye-opening (and sometimes positively nauseating) in itself. – Laura Kern

(Yeah, the film seems like a CSI knock-off version of Saw. Saw is a weird film (in that the acting is well and truly dire) but is somewhat intriguing in stripping down horror to its basest pieces. Saw II takes all the bad bits and amplifies it, straining credulity in the end.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y979drB7EEI/

(ARRRRGH ARGH ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH. Classic Saw. These films are so bad and annoying haha. And this trailer makes this one look even worse than I would have imagined.)

Directors – Darren Lynn Bousman – ( Known For: Repo! The Genetic Opera; Mother’s Day; Tales of Halloween; 11-11-11; Death of Me; St. Agatha; The Barrens; Abattoir; The Cello; Alleluia! The Devil’s Carnival; Future BMT: Saw IV; Spiral; BMT: Saw II; Saw III; Notes: Can you guess what The Cello is about? Dang, yeah, it’s about a haunted cello, how did you know? The only other thing I’m going to say about this guy is that he needs a new haircut or imdb picture stat!)

Writers – Leigh Whannell – ( Known For: Saw; Insidious; The Invisible Man; Upgrade; Insidious: Chapter 3; Saw X; Cooties; The Mule; Future BMT: Insidious: Chapter 2; Saw IV; Saw V; Saw VI; Saw 3D; Dead Silence; Jigsaw; Insidious: The Last Key; Spiral; Insidious: The Red Door; BMT: Saw II; Saw III; Notes: He’s in the original film and maybe it is because it is low budget, or maybe because he’s Australian, but he is dire in it. Amazing he also wrote Insidious.)

Darren Lynn Bousman – ( Known For: Tales of Halloween; 11-11-11; The Barrens; BMT: Saw II; Notes: Kind of strange he got a credit, it was basically his first feature credit, and he walked into an already established franchise.)

Actors – Donnie Wahlberg – ( Known For: The Sixth Sense; Ransom; What Doesn’t Kill You; Bullet; Marilyn Hotchkiss’ Ballroom Dancing & Charm School; 1 1/2 Ritter – Auf der Suche nach der hinreißenden Herzelinde; Body Count; Diamond Men; Tooken; Triggermen; Southie; Black Circle Boys; Bullfighter; Butter; Future BMT: Saw IV; Dead Silence; Annapolis; BMT: Saw II; Saw III; Dreamcatcher; Righteous Kill; Zookeeper; Notes: You know Donnie … of New Kids on the Block? … Mark’s older brother? … Blue Bloods star? There it is, yeah, he’s famous for being in Blue Bloods. And this I guess. And five seconds of The Sixth Sense.)

Beverley Mitchell – ( Known For: Extreme Movie; Snowmen; Dance Baby Dance; Future BMT: The Crow: City of Angels; BMT: Saw II; Notes: You might ask yourself, was she on nearly 250 episodes of 7th Heaven? Yes she was. And you best believe I’m watching Candy Cane Christmas someday, looks amazing.)

Franky G – ( Known For: The Italian Job; Dead Man Down; Confidence; Wonderland; The Devil’s Tomb; The Birthday Cake; Manito; 36 Saints; Future BMT: Saw 3D; BMT: Saw II; Saw III; Notes: Probably most famous for the tv show Power. Actual name: Frank Gonzalez.)

Budget/Gross – $4,000,000 / Domestic: $87,039,965 (Worldwide: $147,748,505)

(This is why you make horror films. This film is genuinely terrible and it made a 30x return or whatever. Printing money.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 37% (46/124): Saw II is likely to please the gore-happy fans of the original, though it may be too gruesome for those not familiar with first film’s premise.

(Who is going into Saw II being like “I wonder what this is about?” I don’t think any of the early Saw films satisfy the people actually looking for crazy stuff. Mostly, people are in situations where if they used their brains for five seconds they would get out of it. The needle bit in this one is maybe the worst of it though, so there is something there.)

Reviewer Highlight: Saw II has teeth, and this house-of-horrors franchise has legs, though they’re manacled to the radiator. – Kyle Smith, New York Post

Poster – Death Spa 2: Skin Peel

(God, if there were ever a set of posters that perfectly explained how much the Saw films are not my kind of films, these are the ones. Just like “you want to see people break their fingernails trying to get out of impossible traps?” and it’s like not really. It’s just so bland too. C+.)

Tagline(s) – Oh, yes. There will be blood. (B-)

(My word. I also had to look up and see which came first, this tagline or the film. This tagline predating There Will Be Blood. It appears to be a biblical quote, but really much funnier to think that PTA saw the poster for Saw II and was like “That would be a good title.” So I’ll be kind to it.)

Keyword(s) – 1999-2007

Best Options (franchise): 88.9 BloodRayne (2005), 81.8 The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas (2000), 81.4 You Got Served (2004), 79.3 Daddy Day Camp (2007), 79.1 Boogeyman (2005), 72.2 Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde (2003), 69.2 The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause (2006), 69.1 Black Christmas (2006), 67.5 Seed of Chucky (2004), 65.0 Scary Movie 4 (2006), 64.8 The Grudge 2 (2006), 64.3 Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj (2006), 61.0 Alvin and the Chipmunks (2007), 60.3 Exorcist: The Beginning (2004), 59.7 Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed (2004), 58.8 Scary Movie 2 (2001), 58.2 Scooby-Doo (2002), 55.0 Honey (2003), 51.5 Scary Movie 3 (2003), 49.4 The Omen (2006), 49.0 Thomas and the Magic Railroad (2000), 46.4 Daddy Day Care (2003), 44.7 The Hitcher (2007), 42.8 Jeepers Creepers 2 (2003), 41.0 Blade: Trinity (2004), 39.6 The Art of War (2000), 39.6 Beauty Shop (2005), 37.3 Saw IV (2007), 37.2 Just Visiting (2001), 37.0 The Amityville Horror (2005), 36.6 A Cinderella Story (2004), 36.4 Friday After Next (2002), 33.3 Rugrats Go Wild (2003), 33.3 House of 1000 Corpses (2003), 32.4 Pokémon 3 the Movie: Spell of the Unown (2000), 31.3 Arthur and the Invisibles (2006), 30.8 Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004), 30.3 Hannibal Rising (2007), 28.5 Next Friday (2000), 27.7 Saw III (2006), 27.7 Resident Evil: Extinction (2007), 27.6 Rush Hour 3 (2007), 26.6 TMNT (2007), 26.4 Pokémon the Movie 2000 (1999), 24.8 Meet the Fockers (2004), 24.6 Johnny English (2003), 22.7 Digimon: The Movie (2000), 21.8 The Punisher (2004), 21.6 Van Wilder (2002), 21.3 Star Trek: Nemesis (2002), 19.1 Step Up (2006), 17.0 The Da Vinci Code (2006), 17.0 Resident Evil (2002), 17.0 Saw II (2005), 17.0 Bad Boys II (2003), 16.9 The Chronicles of Riddick (2004), 14.8 The Matrix Revolutions (2003), 14.8 Final Destination (2000), 14.7 Underworld: Evolution (2006), 12.7 Hannibal (2001), 9.3 Underworld (2003), 3.1 The Butterfly Effect (2004)

(Pretty low. So, why did we do it? Well we wanted a horror franchise and this one has a ton of movies, so it was nice to knock off two now while the getting was good.)

Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 15) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Donnie Wahlberg is No. 2 billed in Saw II and No. 6 billed in Righteous Kill, which also stars Al Pacino (No. 2 billed) who is in 88 Minutes (No. 1 billed) which also stars Leelee Sobieski (No. 3 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 1 billed) => (2 + 6) + (2 + 1) + (3 + 1) = 15. There is no shorter path at the moment.

Notes – To conceal the ending, most of the actors were not given the last 25 pages of the script. Only the principal actors involved in the sequence knew.

It took four days for four people to replace all of the syringe tips with fiber tips for the “Needle Pit” trap.

The bathroom, which was the main set for Saw (2004), had to be recreated for this film.

Five alternate endings were shot.

Shawnee Smith was pregnant during filming, but kept it a secret from everyone, including the director, Darren Lynn Bousman. Her daughter gave the secret away one day during lunch, but only to Darren Lynn Bousman.

Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) Recap

Jamie

Oh hi, I didn’t see you there. It’s me… Franchise Man. Now you might be thinking “Wow, a Nightmare on Elm Street film, this must be a delight for the likes of a Franchise Man.” It’s true, but comes with some reservations. Back when I was a Franchise Lad and had only taken in such horror fare as The Faculty, Scream, and Final Destination, I found A Nightmare on Elm Street to not only be the scariest of the big three horror franchises, but the best. It just looked cool. Bloody body bag… bloody bed… bloody everything. But with every sequel Freddy annoyed me more and more and the whole thing started to look worse and worse. Friday the 13th might be shit, but it knows its shit and it’s a fun kind of shit. Nightmare always seemed to think it was cool even after it definitely wasn’t. And so that’s where we are with Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (which I had never seen) and the 2010 remake… hoping that with the return of Freddy to my life, my love for the series can also return.

To recap, our boy Kellen Lutz is having nightmares. His friends and frenemies alike are like “yo, you look terrible” and he starts talking about his dreams and eventually kills himself by slicing his neck open (but we know that really Freddy did it). At his funeral Kris sees some photos that she doesn’t remember taking with our boy Kellen Lutz. She starts to wonder whether this has anything to do with the dreams they all are having even though they didn’t know each other as kids… right, Mom? (spoiler alert: they did). Kris’ boyfriend tries to comfort Kris but it doesn’t help much when Freddy comes for her. He’s like “oh shit, they are going to think I murdered her” and he runs to warn Nancy and Quentin before they definitely think he murdered her and he dies in prison… but we know that Freddy did it. Nancy and Quentin begin a quest to uncover the truth about their history and the man known as… Freddy Krueger. Turns out that Freddy Krueger worked at a school they all went to and was accused of molesting them. In their horror the parents chased him down and burned him alive. This comes as a shock to the audience. They realize they are the only ones left of all the kids in the school and have to stay awake to try to stop this vengeful ghost. For a hot second they think Freddy Krueger was innocent and they just have to prove that, which would have been a bold step for this film to take, but alas they weren’t that bold and turns out he’s just angry because they told people about all the molesting. They concoct a plan for Nancy to pull Freddy out of the dream world since she was his favorite and this works. They kill Freddy and everything is fine again. THE END… or is it? (apparently not according to the end of the film, but we haven’t seen a Nightmare film since).

Ah well. I feel like I’ve been let down so many times recently with reboot and remakes and requels of horror films lately that I can’t even muster up enough energy. Especially for something like this. Why do you even make it? There are a few OK things. Like they remake the backstory so that they have all repressed the memories of their involvement with Freddy and when the first kid ends up going to therapy it triggers the memories of the others. OK fine. They also do a fun fake out that Freddy was innocent, which would have been insane. Cowards! But all the visual stuff is just remakes of the original. I think with all these films they have to stop just remaking stuff. Be bold and try to get to the core of why people liked this shit. Otherwise it’s just boring… like this one. Just as an aside, I watched New Nightmare for the first time before watching this film. At first I was unimpressed. By the end Craven won me over. He’s a weird director (not unlike Carpenter) so when you vibe with him it’s really fun. It got me in the end.

Hot Take Clam Bake! This is going to be controversial, but here it goes… even if Freddy Krueger turned out to be innocent of molesting all those children and was wrongfully burned to death, thus turning him into a vengeful ghost… [deep breath] I still think Freddy was kind of a bad dude. Hear me out. He’s a vengeful ghost. He kills teenagers in their sleep using a glove with knives attached to it. This is a weapon he didn’t even have back in his (alleged) molesting days. That’s not good behavior. Sure you might say that you have to separate the man from the vengeful ghost but hold up… you think he’s the only innocent person ever to be killed? You see any other Freddy Krugers running around like a bunch of murderous crybabies? I don’t think so. They don’t do that, because that ain’t right. Freddy Kruger: all around bad guy. Hot Take Temperature: The heat of a thousand Freddy Krugers.

Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Are we finally finishing up the final qualifying film of the big three horror mega-franchised?! Let’s go!

Oh snap. We finally did it. We’ve now watched all of the Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, and Halloween films. And yeah, I had to look up and check that we did the Friday the 13th remake. We did. Phew!

There are bits and pieces of this film I liked, although it does feel few and far between. The main thing I think I liked was just the idea that you can’t just stay up and avoid Freddy. That, effectively, once you get tired enough you will take micro-naps and it is in that in-between state where you’ll always be vulnerable to Freddy.

I didn’t really like the suggestion whereby they headfake a wait? Was Freddy innocent? Of course he wasn’t! But like … it kind of would have been cool if he was. The idea that Freddy is a child murderer and then ends up being a quippy weirdo in the original franchise is pretty unsettling. The idea that an innocent man is murdered by a town and it turns him into a dream walking murderer, pure evil and vengeance incarnate? Kind of a cool idea. The fans would have been quite upset though. So child molester it is!

Otherwise though, yet another hilariously brief borderline cameo performance by Kellen Lutz which I always like to see.

A brief moment where I’m like let me get this straight … these people own snowboards despite being decidedly blue collar and living in rural Ohio, I don’t buy it! That’s what occupies my mind during BMT. Honestly, it is what occupies my mind when I watch good movies too which is kind of dumb.

I really didn’t like Freddy in this, primarily because his makeup just looked bad.

And of course they did the cheesy headfake ending as well ripped straight from the original. I’m going to throw out a hottake … I didn’t like it in the original movie. I think horror films, especially slashers with Last Girls should give the audience a reprieve. The headfake ending steals that away and makes it feel truly pointless to battle Freddy since he’ll just come right back and torture you in your dreams anyways.

A small Product Placement (What?) for Dell. And a quite good Setting as a Character (Where?) for once again making it official that Elm St is somewhere in Ohio. And fine, Worst Twist (How?) for just doing the fake out twist ending again.

I’ll just end with a quick review of New Nightmare which I also watched. Kind of dumb, although I do get the meta movie with the original actress (who still had it I thought). I liked a bit where they took the lore (Freddy kind of being a trickster god or something, but Freddy is just one of his many manifestations, and he likes it, so he’s back). But ultimately it was too silly and light on new good kills to be satisfying. The best kill in the movie was pretty much just a copy of one from the original … which they also did in the remake. I get it … you can rotate a room.

Read about my remake in the quiz. Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) Quiz

Oh man, so get this. I was haunted in my dreams by a serial killer again. But he was like … worse looking and didn’t scare me as much. Anyways, he popped out from behind some steam pipes and bopped me right on the head. Now I don’t remember a thing. Do you remember what happened in Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)?

Pop Quiz Hot Shot!

1) Awwww and here I thought we’d be having a Kellen Lutz bonanza! Instead he’s the one who manifested Kreuger into the world again via the power of storytelling or whetever. Regardless, he ends up being the first victim. How does he die?

2) Well, surely Lutz’ girlfriend (just good friend?) will stick around to avenge his death! Whoops, nope, not her either. She’s now the second victim. How does she die?

3) Alright, so they are going to exonerate him after he defeats Freddy, right? WRONG. He’s dead. Where and how does he die?

4) Oh good, they’ve cracked the code on the Freddy mystery. Now all Quentin has to do is stay awake and wake up Nancy … aw fuck! Quentin you blew it! Ultimately how does he wake Nancy up?

5) And you know you can’t make a remake of a horror film without copying that sweet twist ending. This time how does Freddy reveal that the nightmare will never be over?

Bonus Question: I was dreaming a dream of fine things (well … all the sweet sequels I was going to write, the usual) when all of a sudden my agent pops up in my dream. What does he want?

Answers

Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) Preview

“Ahhhhhhhhh,” Kyle screams. “Ahhhhhhh, you’re super gross. Ahhhhhhh.” It’s the best he can muster given that he will assuredly die at the hands of the horrific winged rat that has come to murder him. Jorge runs screaming down a nearby corridor, which appears to distress the rat monster. It sighs. “No one comes back from the catacombs. Time works differently in the catacombs,” it mumbles. It turns back to Kyle. “So how is my beautiful boy? Have you made my meat friends beautiful for me?” Kyle stops screaming and looks around the room. There are large sculptures of bones, hair, and meat scattered about. They are oddly beautiful creatures. “Oh joy!” the rat monster exclaims, “they are beautiful indeed. Wonder of wonders. You are truly my beautiful boy, Kyle. And more than that. You are my beautiful friend.” Kyle is extremely confused. The rat monster continues to explain helpfully. “As promised I will give you back your meat friends for my meat friends and thank you. No one ever makes them for me. They always run screaming into the catacombs and time works differently there. They don’t come back. But your friends fainted after I snatched them and then you seemed to think I was someone else. Usually they just run into the catacombs and…” Kyle stops paying attention. It appears the catacombs are the way the prison has gotten rid of unwanted prisoners. Or perhaps they thought it was the monster. It’s a bit confusing really. Regardless, it appears that in his haze he had satisfied some contract with the monster and everything was actually OK. “Where are my… meat friends?” He asks. The rat monster brightens. “Oh, I stashed them over there,” it says, and points at the catacombs. Kyle sighs. This is going to be a nightmare. That’s right! We are entering the final nightmare by watching the Nightmare on Elm Street remake from 2010. Seems like a bad idea at the time and it was. Great. Let’s go!

A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) – BMeTric: 61.3; Notability: 51

StreetCreditReport.com – BMeTric: top 5.6%; Notability: top 9.2%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 10.2%; Higher BMeT: The Last Airbender, Vampires Suck, Birdemic: Shock and Terror, Skyline, Sex and the City 2, Furry Vengeance, Jonah Hex, Marmaduke, Gulliver’s Travels, Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore, Yogi Bear, Tekken, My Soul to Take, Tooth Fairy; Higher Notability: Clash of the Titans, The Wolfman, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Sex and the City 2, The Tourist, Valentine’s Day, Gulliver’s Travels, Marmaduke, Little Fockers, Tooth Fairy, The Last Airbender, Shanghai, Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore, Eat Pray Love, All Good Things, Jonah Hex, Burlesque, Takers, When in Rome, and 3 more; Lower RT: Tekken, Father of Invention, Passion Play, Twelve, Shanghai, Vampires Suck, Dylan Dog: Dead of Night, The Last Airbender, Waiting for Forever, The Tortured, 13, 6 Souls, Furry Vengeance, Crazy on the Outside, Saw 3D, Marmaduke, Little Fockers, Killers, Grown Ups, My Soul to Take, and 5 more; Notes: Let’s see. Another crazy high Notability and BMeTric. 7/14 for higher BMeTric, but get this … it was 7/7 for the top seven and then nothing for the next seven which is kind of funny. 9/20 for the top 20 Notabilities. The biggest crime is probably us not biting the bullet and doing all the Meet the Parents films.

RogerEbert.com – 1.0 stars – Forget about the plot, the actors and the director. What you require to make a new “Nightmare on Elm Street” are these three off-the-shelf sound effects: 1. A sudden, loud clanging noise mixed with a musical chord. 2. Snicker-snack sounds, which Freddy Krueger’s steel finger claws make every time they are seen. 3. A voice deepener, to drop Freddy’s speaking voice to an ominous level. … I stared at “A Nightmare on Elm Street” with weary resignation. The movie consists of a series of teenagers who are introduced, haunted by nightmares and then slashed to death by Freddy. So what? Are we supposed to be scared? Is the sudden clanging chord supposed to evoke a fearful Pavlovian response? For Rufus, maybe, but not for me. Here, boy.

(I kind of agree. The issue with the film is that it doesn’t really bring much new stuff to the table and what is new isn’t usually great. So why? Why remake the series. Why not just split off as a direct sequel to the original or something. I feel like Halloween ultimately had the write idea even if the execution left something to be desired.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNWZVIYGapI/

(Boom, the Ohio flag front and center. So they at least got that right. You have to firmly established what state this movie is in. Otherwise it is no fun. Oh, I remember seeing the makeup in like Entertainment Weekly or something and just being very unimpressed.)

Directors – Samuel Bayer – ( BMT: A Nightmare on Elm Street; Notes: From what I can tell he has over 100 directing credits and this is the only feature. They are basically all music videos.)

Writers – Wesley Strick – ( Known For: Cape Fear; Arachnophobia; Wolf; Return to Paradise; Final Analysis; True Believer; Love Is the Drug; Future BMT: The Saint; The Glass House; BMT: Doom; A Nightmare on Elm Street; The Loft; Notes: Wrote seven episodes of The Man in the High Castle more recently. His last feature was the BMT film The Loft.)

Eric Heisserer – ( Known For: Arrival; Bird Box; Lights Out; Final Destination 5; Extinction; Hours; Future BMT: The Thing; BMT: A Nightmare on Elm Street; Bloodshot; Notes: Apparently attached to a new Van Helsing film. Has written and developed the Shadow and Bone television show.)

Wes Craven – ( Known For: A Nightmare on Elm Street; The Hills Have Eyes; Freddy vs. Jason; The Last House on the Left; A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors; A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge; Paris, I Love You; New Nightmare; A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master; The Last House on the Left; The People Under the Stairs; The Hills Have Eyes; Swamp Thing; The Hills Have Eyes Part II; Deadly Blessing; Future BMT: The Hills Have Eyes 2; Pulse; My Soul to Take; Shocker; BMT: A Nightmare on Elm Street; Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare; A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child; Notes: Obviously a character credit only. I would probably think it is cool to finish Wes Craven’s filmography at some point … but I kind of don’t want to watch The Hills Have Eyes.)

Actors – Jackie Earle Haley – ( Known For: Shutter Island; Watchmen; Alita: Battle Angel; Lincoln; RoboCop; Little Children; Breaking Away; The Bad News Bears; The Birth of a Nation; Parkland; Criminal Activities; Winged Creatures; The Retirement Plan; Nemesis; The Day of the Locust; Damnation Alley; Losin’ It; Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence; The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training; My Father’s Dragon; Future BMT: Dark Shadows; Semi-Pro; All the King’s Men; BMT: London Has Fallen; The Dark Tower; A Nightmare on Elm Street; Hypnotic; Notes: Former child actor most notably for The Bad News Bears. He’s all over the place still, although I don’t recognize the four projects he has in production. Nominated for an Oscar for Little Children.)

Rooney Mara – ( Known For: The Social Network; Her; The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo; Lion; Side Effects; Nightmare Alley; Carol; Kubo and the Two Strings; A Ghost Story; Youth in Revolt; Women Talking; The Discovery; Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot; Trash; Ain’t Them Bodies Saints; Song to Song; Una; Mary Magdalene; The Secret Scripture; The Winning Season; Future BMT: Pan; BMT: A Nightmare on Elm Street; Notes: Wow that’s an impressive filmography light on qualifiers. She’s somehow related for both Rooney and Mara the owners of the Steelers and Jets.)

Kyle Gallner – ( Known For: American Sniper; Smile; Scream; Jennifer’s Body; Red Eye; Beautiful Creatures; The Finest Hours; Red State; Wet Hot American Summer; Dear White People; Just Before I Go; Smashed; Red; Ghosts of War; CBGB; The Cleansing Hour; Beautiful Boy; The Passenger; Dinner in America; Little Birds; BMT: A Nightmare on Elm Street; The Haunting in Connecticut; Notes: I mostly know him for Veronica Mars, season 2. Although now I do realize he’s the swimming kid who loses his buddy in Wet Hot American Summer.)

Budget/Gross – $35,000,000 / Domestic: $63,075,011 (Worldwide: $115,695,339)

(That’s actually not bad considering the budget. See? Horror prints money. Even bad horror. It is a wonder they didn’t just charge forward with a sequel.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 14% (26/184): Visually faithful but lacking the depth and subversive twists that made the original so memorable, the Nightmare on Elm Street remake lives up to its title in the worst possible way.

(Yeah, that is it right? The original had a few very in your face moments. The body bag, the electric claws, the rotating room, the man eating bed, the elastic wall, etc. A ton. This either copied all of those or just didn’t bring anything new or interesting to the table.)

Reviewer Highlight: Traffics in overly familiar scare tactics, setting up predictable false alarms and telegraphing in advance just when Freddy will pop into the frame and utter one of his labored witticisms. – A.O. Scott, New York Times

Poster – Frightmare on Sklog Street

(Sure why not. I’m not going to knock them going for a classic. A touch of font to spice it up. I’m cool with it. B+.)

Tagline(s) – Welcome to Your New Nightmare. (C-)

(Nah. You can’t take the title of the last movie and just use it as the tagline.)

Keyword(s) – 2007-2015

Top 10: Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011), The Hangover Part II (2011), X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), In Time (2011), Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011), Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009), 2012 (2009), Terminator Salvation (2009), Due Date (2010), Fifty Shades of Grey (2015)

Future BMT: 96.3 Disaster Movie (2008), 90.5 Vampires Suck (2010), 84.2 Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World (2011), 80.0 Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience (2009), 79.2 Daddy Day Camp (2007), 78.6 Shark Night (2011), 78.0 Who’s Your Caddy? (2007), 78.0 The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure (2012), 77.9 Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (2009), 77.5 Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked (2011), 77.1 Paranormal Activity 4 (2012), 75.2 The Apparition (2012), 75.0 Superhero Movie (2008), 74.4 God’s Not Dead (2014), 74.1 The Spirit (2008), 73.6 The Last Exorcism Part II (2013), 73.2 The Unborn (2009), 72.1 Dance Flick (2009), 71.3 Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension (2015), 70.9 Texas Chainsaw (2013)

BMT: Epic Movie (2007), Meet the Spartans (2008), Dragonball Evolution (2009), Jack and Jill (2011), Scary Movie V (2013), The Last Airbender (2010), Left Behind (2014), Fifty Shades of Grey (2015), The Love Guru (2008), In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (2007), Fantastic Four (2015), Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2011), Norbit (2007), Movie 43 (2013), I Know Who Killed Me (2007), Prom Night (2008), Bratz (2007), The Legend of Hercules (2014), Dragon Wars: D-War (2007), One Missed Call (2008), Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (2009), Skyline (2010), The Devil Inside (2012), Sex and the City 2 (2010), Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007), Kirk Cameron’s Saving Christmas (2014), Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 (2015), Furry Vengeance (2010), The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009), After Earth (2013), Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son (2011), The Gallows (2015), Jonah Hex (2010), …

Best Options (franchise): 84.2 Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World (2011), 79.2 Daddy Day Camp (2007), 77.9 Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (2009), 77.5 Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked (2011), 77.1 Paranormal Activity 4 (2012), 74.4 God’s Not Dead (2014), 71.3 Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension (2015), 70.9 Texas Chainsaw (2013), 64.8 The Final Destination (2009), 64.1 Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones (2014), 62.2 The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008), 61.3 Nightmare on Elm Street (2010), 61.2 Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip (2015), 61.0 Madea Goes to Jail (2009), 60.9 Alvin and the Chipmunks (2007), 58.5 Resident Evil: Retribution (2012), 57.9 The Transporter Refueled (2015), 55.2 Annabelle (2014), 53.3 Meet the Browns (2008), 53.0 Madea’s Witness Protection (2012), 51.1 Madea’s Big Happy Family (2011), 51.1 Little Fockers (2010), 50.9 Saw 3D (2010), …

(We could have done Paranormal Activity 4 but that would have been a disaster. This was an option that finished off a major franchise, didn’t have a ton of homework, and was considered terrible. By far the best option.)

Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 15) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Jackie Earle Haley is No. 1 billed in A Nightmare on Elm Street and No. 6 billed in Hypnotic, which also stars Ben Affleck (No. 1 billed) who is in Pearl Harbor (No. 1 billed) which also stars Josh Hartnett (No. 3 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 3 billed) => (1 + 6) + (1 + 1) + (3 + 3) = 15. There is no shorter path at the moment.

Notes – Freddy’s sweater was knitted by Judy Graham, the same woman who knitted Freddy’s sweater in the original A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984).

Kyle Gallner suffered a cut to his abdomen when the glove Jackie Earle Haley had been wearing failed to bend back down, leaving one of the knives still extended. Haley didn’t realize this until the scene was finished.

For his big scene in the opening sequence, Kellan Lutz chose not to sleep for a few days to get himself into character.

When Jackie Earle Haley was asked what put him in the right mindset to play Freddy Krueger, he said “sitting in the makeup chair for three hours. After that, you feel like you could kill someone.”

Freddy says that the human brain will still function well over seven minutes after death. This is actually true, the human brain will function nearly ten minutes after death. Note: This is not true. If the brain is still functioning, you are, by definition, not dead. You may dying, but those are not the same things.

Halloween Kills Recap

Jamie

You better believe it’s time to finally put to rest the Halloween series and end its BMT reign of terror. Much like Michael Myers it is an unstoppable force of lore. Even when you think they are rebooting the franchise they can’t escape the lore that weighs heavy on their souls. That sums up the first of the reboot films, once again titled Halloween, which appears to serve a singular purpose: to tell everyone that Laurie Strode is in fact NOT Michael Myers’ sister. Literally every other dumb thing in the franchise? We love it and you also love it so that’s how we’ll make the movie. We shall construct the entire film of references. Is it Spring? Cause I’m finding all these easter eggs in my movie. Yummy yummy. But you better forget Laurie Strode being Michael Myers’ sister. That’s not an easter egg. That’s duuuuuummmbbbbbbbb. Sorry, I didn’t even like the first film in this reboot… and that got great reviews! I’m sure the second will be better.

To recap, Michael Myers is back, Jack! This time he’s surviving a big ol’ fire and starting back up on his rampage. Laurie Strode is in the hospital and everyone just wants her to get better (awww). So when they hear that Myers actually survived they want to keep it from her. But her granddaughter Allyson is like ‘F that fo sho,” and joins up with Tommy Doyle (just can’t stop, won’t stop bringing everything back) to hunt him down. Once Laurie wakes up she finds out about Michael and is all like “He’s definitely coming here because he targets me for some unknown reason even though I’m not even his sister cause that would be dumb.” Everyone gets all jazzed to the point when a different escaped asylum patient stumbles his way into the hospital they all chase him to his death. It’s hilarious (no, no really. It’s unintentionally hilarious). Oh right, I forgot, Michael is still killing people this whole time, but it’s random. Tommy, Allyson and the gang catch up with him. Guess what? He kills some of them. They then track him to his old house where he kills them some more. Eventually Laurie’s daughter Karen is able to lure him to his “death.” So that’s about that. Or is it? It’s not, come on. He wakes up and kills a bunch more people. THE END.

Oh nooooo! It wasn’t better at all. In fact it was way worse. The scene in the middle of the film where a different escaped mental patient is being chased by a mob and eventually jumps to his death is peak unintentional comedy. They could have played it during I Think You Should Leave and I wouldn’t have blinked. The first film had me thinking “we get it, Laurie Strode isn’t Michael’s sister. Give it a rest,” and it’s like the filmmakers heard me and said “Oh yeah, watch this.” The entire second act of the film seems to be made expressly to hammer home that Laurie isn’t special at all. That everyone assumed Myers had a reason for his kills, but he doesn’t. Great… so why did you spend so much time going on about how everyone thinks Michael and Laurie are connected? Why in this world would that even be a thing? It feels very Scream-ish… as if the whole series of films exist in this world and so everyone is trying to guess Michael’s next move based on their years of accumulated knowledge about him… but he’s just an old dude who escaped once before and killed some people. The meta-ness of it broke my brain and my spirit. I really did not like this movie. What have you done to my sweet, dear Halloween. Don’t you remember when you were young and full of hilarious lore? Why have you forsaken me?!!!!

Hot Take Clam Bake! You guessed it. Halloween.. You doth protest too much. Methinks Laurie Strode is in fact Michael Myers’ sister. Let’s look at the facts. First, you protested far too much. I didn’t even think she was his sister until you brought it up. Second, we don’t have any proof that he isn’t her sister. Have you seen a genetic test? Didn’t think so. So why are you doth protesting so much? Are you afraid of what the truth will reveal? Finally, have you thought about how funny it would be if in the third film they were suddenly like “you know what… fuck… she actually is his sister.” Just for that it’s got to be true. It’s just too good. Hot Take Temperature: A house aflame.

Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Are we talking about people tricking fans into thinking Halloween was back Jack, when in reality it was just as out as it has ever been? Let’s go!

While watching the Rob Zombie Halloween I didn’t find that vision particularly compelling, but at least it was something. The second of his seemed to be intentionally provocative and a bit more annoying as he seemed to clearly not want to do a sequel.

But compared to this one? At least it had something to say. I guess a brief discussion of the first in the Green trilogy is warranted. That one positions itself as a direct sequel to the original (interesting) and explicitly throws out Laurie being Michael’s sister (excellent). After that though for the most part the film once again fails to have anything interesting to say. It tends to just reheat a bunch of leftovers from the now deprecated sequels (e.g. the gas station bathroom scene which is pretty much directly from the sixth I think). The only thing I would say is it ends on something of a high note as a coordinated effort by Laurie and her daughter manage to trick and trap Michael in a way that I found both surprising and delightful.

Now as for this one … it all turns to ashes in my mouth.

The movie is not scary, and seems to have too many characters moving all about Haddonfield with call backs to the original 70s film and the first Green film galore.

It then also has, bar none, perhaps the most embarrassing sequence in Halloween film history. This is for a franchise where the Cult of Thorn creates a zombie Michael Myers to yada yada yada something about Celtic lore and living forever maybe (or was that the third film …). The scene in the hospital where the mob is chasing the other mental patient who ultimately commits suicide … it is like a parody film. It is shot like shit, the music is shit, the idea is shit. If that bit wasn’t in the movie it is maybe passable, but right there the movie shows its hand a bit: when introducing novel elements to the franchise it flails about completely. It really can only reheat and reserve the elements we already know, and that is either inevitable for a franchise with 13 films now, or the unfortunate product of having Green as writer/director … his track record now suggests it might be the latter.

Anyways, the film was lame. So was Exorcist: Belieber. Why can’t people get these reboots even close to being right?

I did end up watching Halloween Ends. I have to say, at least it was somewhat inventive? I don’t really like what it was putting down. In a way, it is a bit like that Friday the 13th film where it turned out it was a copycat the whole time. It feels like a cheat to have a lot of the kills being done by not-Michael Myers. But I appreciate the interesting twist. It is an idea that skirts alongside the genetic connection with the niece in the original later sequels, but it is something I feel like the Halloween franchise needed to broach. It was okay.

Obviously an always great Settings as a Character (What?) for Haddonfield, Illinois. An A+ Holiday Film (When?) for Halloween of course. And a terrible no good Worst Twist (How?) for the dumb bit where people fuck around and find out that Michael Myers is an unstoppable killer and he kills everyone and gets away, dumb. I think this is a dumb Bad film, blah.

Read about the sequel in the Quiz. Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Halloween Kills Quiz

Oh, man so get this! I killed this guy (long story), but then he didn’t die, he instead totally survived the fire I set in my house. Lame. Well, he was peeved and later came and bopped me on the head. Now I don’t remember a thing. Do you remember what happened in Halloween Kills?

Pop Quiz Hot Shot!

1) The movie opens with an alternative version of the Halloween ending, picking up where the first movie left off. How was Michael caught shortly after the initial murders in this version?

2) We are soon introduced to the Haddonfield Survivors Club. How many members are they and how do they know Michael from the first film?

3) Who lives in the old Myers house now?

4) Throughout the film they keep on mistaking someone else for Michael. Who?

5) Well, what a twist! He isn’t after Laurie at all. He just wants to go home (awwwww). All those years ago, what was he looking out of his sister’s bedroom window?

Bonus Question: I just finished up a draft of my Hellraiser reboot, Hellraiser Kills, when my new agent Greg calls me. What does he want?

Answers

Halloween Kills Preview

Jane is just a plain ol’ girl living a plain ol’ life. Other than the fact that she’s the big time author of the tween rom com hit Holly Ween the Scream Queen. Oh, Holly is everything that she isn’t. Cool, calm, and beautiful. Sigh. One day she returns home to find her latest manuscript stolen and a note demanding that she hand over Holly in exchange for the book. But Holly isn’t real… is she? Only one way to find out. Returning home to the high school where she spent four mortifying years as Plain Jane Never-Been-Kissed she dons a Holly Ween disguise and reenters school as a 25-year-old senior who just got out of a 7 year coma. And wait… is she suddenly hot and cool? Must be just the disguise because she’ll never be anything but Plain Jane Never-Been-Kissed at heart… or will she? Cause in walks captain of the football team Brad who also just got out of a 7 year coma so is also 25-years-old. Just when he is about to ask her to the Homecoming Dance the book thieves take over the school demanding that Jane hand over Holly. Uh oh! She can’t have Brad finding out she’s actually Plain Jane! She’s got to think quickly! In a snap she gets the Homecoming committee to change the dance to a Halloween Costume Bash and dons a Plain Jane disguise. During the dance she is able to smooch Brad, convince the thieves that Holly is on her way, and set up a trap with the help of all her friends. Turns out that Holly was inside Jane the whole time and her new book Holly Ween Slays is a huge hit.

“Wow,” Jamie says, thinking that Holly Ween doesn’t just slay… Samantha does too. That’s right! We are watching the second (and only qualifying) entry in the new Halloween trilogy. Don’t be tricked by the title, though, as it seems from the reviews that this Halloween didn’t quite kill. Let’s go!

Halloween Kills (2021) – BMeTric: 50.6; Notability: 42

StreetCreditReport.com – BMeTric: top 8.4%; Notability: top 3.2%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 18.6%; Higher BMeT: Space Jam: A New Legacy, Home Sweet Home Alone, Cosmic Sin, Thunder Force, He’s All That, Deadly Illusions, Music, The Misfits, After We Fell, The Kissing Booth 3, Awake, Mother/Android, Apex, Spiral, Midnight in the Switchgrass, The Unholy, Tom & Jerry, Things Heard & Seen, Outside the Wire, Snake Eyes, and 1 more; Higher Notability: Space Jam: A New Legacy, Tom & Jerry, Chaos Walking, Music, Infinite, The Addams Family 2, Home Sweet Home Alone, Dear Evan Hansen; Lower RT: Cosmic Sin, Music, Midnight in the Switchgrass, After We Fell, Breaking News in Yuba County, Apex, Home Sweet Home Alone, Infinite, The Misfits, Intrusion, The Virtuoso, The Starling, Every Breath You Take, Deadly Illusions, Chaos Walking, Thunder Force, Awake, Sweet Girl, The Kissing Booth 3, Hypnotic, and 24 more; Notes: Wow, we really haven’t seen that many 2021 films, but I suppose that is because a lot of them are on streaming now. Remember Music … that’s a wild film.

RogerEbert.com – 2.0 stars – My feeling about David Gordon Green’s reboot of “Halloween” in 2018 was that the talented director fundamentally misunderstood what worked about the John Carpenter original, draining the project of actual tension, despite a few solid set pieces. Having seen his follow-up, “Halloween Kills,” I think I was right. This film muddies its entire concept with a bizarre, unrefined commentary on mob mentality that is quite simply some of the worst material in either Green’s career and the history of this rocky franchise (which is saying something if you’ve seen, say, “Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers”). It’s a shame too because, once again, there are set pieces that work—and the ones here are particularly brutal—but campy dialogue that calls attention to itself, too much fan service in the references department, sidelining Laurie Strode herself for most of the project, and truly inconsistent characters lead to a final result that definitely doesn’t kill. It barely even wounds.

(Wow … I actually agree. The first has a few interesting bits, but at the same time it mostly is a bunch of bits from the prior films strung together. The second is bad and has the single most embarrassing moment in the history of the franchise. Which, indeed, is saying something.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hL6R3HmQfPc/

(Immediately off to a bad start with the firefighter scene. I feel like if anything the first deftly replicated the less violent and more tense version that Rob Zombie abandoned. But not this one. Not at all.)

Directors – David Gordon Green – ( Known For: Pineapple Express; Halloween; Halloween Ends; Joe; Stronger; Prince Avalanche; Snow Angels; All the Real Girls; Undertow; George Washington; Manglehorn; Future BMT: Your Highness; The Sitter; Our Brand Is Crisis; BMT: Halloween Kills; The Exorcist: Believer; Notes: Now that he’s out for Exorcist: Deceiver I do wonder what he’ll be up to. Seems like maybe it is time for another smaller film … but something tells me he’s going to be roped into another big production where people mess with his film and it ends up sucking.)

Writers – John Carpenter – ( Known For: Halloween; Halloween; Escape from New York; They Live; The Fog; Assault on Precinct 13; Halloween H20: 20 Years Later; Escape from L.A.; Halloween Ends; Assault on Precinct 13; Prince of Darkness; Dark Star; Eyes of Laura Mars; Black Moon Rising; BMT: Halloween; Halloween II; Halloween Kills; Ghosts of Mars; Halloween: Resurrection; Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers; Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers; The Fog; Notes: Ha, we’ve seen all his BMT films. Surprisingly few, given how many bad Halloween films there are.)

Debra Hill – ( Known For: Halloween; Halloween; The Fog; Halloween H20: 20 Years Later; Escape from L.A.; Halloween Ends; BMT: Halloween; Halloween II; Halloween Kills; Halloween: Resurrection; Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers; Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers; The Fog; Notes: Worked with Carpenter for years, so naturally we also got her completely done for BMT as well.)

Scott Teems – ( Known For: The Quarry; That Evening Sun; Future BMT: Insidious: The Red Door; BMT: Halloween Kills; The Exorcist: Believer; Firestarter; Notes: Seems like just one of those guys brought in to write modern horror films.)

Danny McBride – ( Known For: Halloween; Halloween Ends; The Foot Fist Way; The Legacy of a Whitetail Deer Hunter; Future BMT: Your Highness; BMT: Halloween Kills; The Exorcist: Believer; Notes: Y’all know Danny McBride. Friends with Green, and they have written a bunch of modern horror now as well … to mixed effect.)

David Gordon Green – ( Known For: Halloween; Halloween Ends; Prince Avalanche; Snow Angels; All the Real Girls; Undertow; George Washington; Goat; BMT: Halloween Kills; The Exorcist: Believer; Notes: Yeah, at some point it seems like the horror films he writes and directs just lack soul.)

Actors – Jamie Lee Curtis – ( Known For: Knives Out; Everything Everywhere All at Once; Halloween; True Lies; Halloween; Trading Places; Escape from New York; A Fish Called Wanda; Freaky Friday; My Girl; The Fog; Halloween H20: 20 Years Later; Halloween Ends; Veronica Mars; Forever Young; The Tailor of Panama; Beverly Hills Chihuahua; Fierce Creatures; Prom Night; Blue Steel; Future BMT: You Again; My Girl 2; Drowning Mona; House Arrest; BMT: Halloween II; Halloween Kills; Halloween III: Season of the Witch; Christmas with the Kranks; Halloween: Resurrection; Haunted Mansion; Virus; Perfect; Notes: That’s Oscar winner Jamie Lee Curtis to you. The daughter of Tony Curtis, she is in many ways the original Scream Queen.)

Judy Greer – ( Known For: Ant-Man; Jurassic World; Dawn of the Planet of the Apes; Ant-Man and the Wasp; Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3; War for the Planet of the Apes; The Village; The Descendants; Love & Other Drugs; What Women Want; 13 Going on 30; Adaptation.; Tomorrowland; Three Kings; 27 Dresses; Halloween; Carrie; Halloween Ends; Jeff, Who Lives at Home; Where’d You Go, Bernadette; Future BMT: Entourage; Elizabethtown; Cursed; Love Happens; Men, Women & Children; Jawbreaker; American Dreamz; Playing with Fire; Kissing a Fool; BMT: Halloween Kills; The Wedding Planner; The 15:17 to Paris; Playing for Keeps; Marmaduke; Notes: I’ll always know her as Kitty from Arrested Development. Oh boy do I not want to watch the Entourage movie ever.)

Andi Matichak – ( Known For: Halloween; Halloween Ends; Naomi and Ely’s No Kiss List; Son; Assimilate; Miles; Foxhole; BMT: Halloween Kills; Notes: Yeah, doesn’t seem to have many other credits. Like she’s been in movies, but not much television and has nothing on the docket. Quite surprising. I thought she was fine in the whole trilogy.)

Budget/Gross – $20,000,000 / Domestic: $92,002,155 (Worldwide: $134,292,082)

(That is obviously quite good. I can’t imagine they are hugely disappointed with the trilogy as a whole, so it makes sense that they gave Green The Exorcist … seems like that was a mistake though.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 39% (108/278): Halloween Kills should satisfy fans in search of brute slasher thrills, but in terms of advancing the franchise, it’s a bit less than the sum of its bloody parts.

(Soooooooo close, but it did make it. And well deserved. I can’t imagine this really satisfies any slasher fans, so I don’t get that point.)

Reviewer Highlight: An indolent, narratively impoverished mess that substitutes corpses for characters and slogans for dialogue. – Jeannette Catsoulis, New York Times

Poster – Holly Ween Slays

(I do like how tactile it is. But a bit boring otherwise. Still… it’s doing its job. You have to give it credit from that aspect. B-)

Tagline(s) – Three generations Strode strong (Ha!)

(Wait… that’s not real, right? That’s not on the poster so normally I would delete it but this is so funny that I’ll just leave it here.)

Keyword(s) – 2015-2023

Top 10: Joker (2019), Avengers: Endgame (2019), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Deadpool (2016), Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens (2015), Parasite (2019), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), The Martian (2015), The Revenant (2015)

Future BMT: 85.1 Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey (2023), 79.3 Jeepers Creepers III (2017), 78.9 Black Christmas (2019), 76.1 Jeepers Creepers: Reborn (2022), 74.6 The Grudge (2020), 73.6 The Turning (2020), 71.2 Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension (2015), 70.7 Snatched (2017), 68.7 Norm of the North (2016), 68.6 Poltergeist (2015), 68.3 Meet the Blacks (2016), 67.0 Max Steel (2016), 66.4 The Disappointments Room (2016), 66.3 God’s Not Dead 2 (2016), 64.7 Brahms: The Boy II (2020), 64.5 Blair Witch (2016), 63.4 Hot Tub Time Machine 2 (2015), 62.8 Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul (2017), 61.2 Like a Boss (2020), 61.0 Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip (2015)

BMT: The Emoji Movie (2017), Fifty Shades of Grey (2015), Slender Man (2018), Fantastic Four (2015), Holmes & Watson (2018), Fifty Shades of Black (2016), Space Jam: A New Legacy (2021), Fifty Shades Freed (2018), Fifty Shades Darker (2017), Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 (2015), Rings (2017), The Bye Bye Man (2017), Zoolander 2 (2016), The Gallows (2015), The Boy Next Door (2015), The Ridiculous 6 (2015), Fantasy Island (2020), The Exorcist: Believer (2023), Firestarter (2022), Expend4bles (2023), Meg 2: The Trench (2023), Moonfall (2022), After We Fell (2021), Blacklight (2022), Independence Day: Resurgence (2016), Transformers: The Last Knight (2017), Morbius (2022), Hot Pursuit (2015), The 5th Wave (2016), Hellboy (2019), The Snowman (2017), Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2021), …

Best Options (franchise): 79.3 Jeepers Creepers III (2017), 78.9 Black Christmas (2019), 76.1 Jeepers Creepers: Reborn (2022), 74.6 The Grudge (2020), 71.2 Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension (2015), 64.5 Blair Witch (2016), 59.8 Spiral (2021), 52.3 Boo 2! A Madea Halloween (2017), 50.7 Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016), 50.6 Halloween Kills (2021), 48.2 Insidious: The Red Door (2023), 43.4 Jigsaw (2017), 42.8 Insidious: The Last Key (2018)

(I refused to watch Jeepers Creepers III ever. Which leaves not many actual franchise horror films which worked. Was exciting to catch up on Halloween though.)

Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 15) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Jamie Lee Curtis is No. 1 billed in Halloween Kills and No. 2 billed in Christmas with the Kranks, which also stars Tim Allen (No. 1 billed) who is in Jungle 2 Jungle (No. 1 billed) which also stars Leelee Sobieski (No. 9 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 1 billed) => (1 + 2) + (1 + 1) + (9 + 1) = 15. If we were to watch Love Happens, and The Black Dahlia we can get the HoE Number down to 13.

Notes – Jamie Lee Curtis, Charles Cyphers, Kyle Richards, Nancy Stephens, and Nick Castle were all in the original Halloween (1978) and all returned for this sequel. The characters of Tommy Doyle and Lonnie Elam from the original also returned, but were recast with Anthony Michael Hall and Robert Longstreet, because Brian Andrews has retired from acting since 2015, and Brent Le Page never acted again after the original Halloween.

David Gordon Green recalled that when they attempted to find a yearbook photo of one of Michael Myers’ victims from the 1978 film, he came across a yearbook photo of Bob Odenkirk that he thought resembled original actor John Michael Graham. The rights issues were resolved so that Green could use Odenkirk’s photo instead of the actual actor. Odenkirk is therefore credited as ‘Bob,’ despite not physically appearing in it.

In the flashback scene to 1978, Michael attacks deputy McCabe (Jim Cummings) with a rope. In the original Halloween (1978), Sheriff Leigh Brackett (Charles Cyphers) responded to an alarm in a hardware store, and reported that a rope, some Halloween masks and a set of knives were stolen.

Twelve pumpkins are featured in the opening title sequence with the last one indicating Halloween Kills as the twelfth Halloween film.

Early in the movie, the wagon stolen by Michael Myers from Dr. Loomis and Nurse Marion Chambers at the Smith Grove Sanitarium in Halloween (1978) can be seen parked behind Young Hawkins and Pete McCabe during one of the flashback sequences to 1978.

Five Nights at Freddy’s Recap

Jamie

As we churn through films (and particularly as the year’s crop gets decimated by the Good Review Plague sweeping the BMT movie fields) sometimes we have to look in the mirror and ask… wait… shouldn’t we just do the best (read: worst) movie available? It’s amazing to look back and see how we valiantly stayed the course through the storm that was straight-to-streaming releases. We (mostly) avoided dipping our toes too far onto that slippery slope and years later it looks like the storm may have passed and it’s a beautiful story of courage. But now it’s not the theaters that are too empty, but rather the pockets of the reviewers are too full (only kinda kidding). Luckily this time the changes we can implement involve watching better (read: worse) BMT films. So for “Achievement” we originally put in the remake of House Party. It vaguely fit the category and yet… why? If the crops are so lean, shouldn’t we pick the best fruit available instead of, you know, eating rotten fruit. A+ analogy.

To recap, Mike is having a tough time. His parents died leaving him in charge of his kid sister Abby. Add a conniving aunt looking to take custody of the girl and an inability to keep a job due to his obsession with the long past kidnapping of his younger brother and things are looking rough. In a last ditch effort to keep Abby he agrees to take a job as the night security guard at a defunct Chuck E. Cheese style restaurant called Freddy Fazbears’s Pizza. The place is creepy, filled with giant animatronic robots, and a police officer lady Vanessa is all up in his business, but as they say, “It’s a living.” (or is it… the opposite? Bum bum bum). As part of his obsession, Mike lucid dreams about the day his brother was kidnapped and finds that in Freddy’s he interacts with a bunch of kids that claim they can find his brother’s killer. Add on top of this that when he brings his sister he finds that the animatronic animals are actually “alive” and she can talk with them and they love her. We know this is bad news though, as the aunt hired a bunch of vandals to break into the Freddy’s and we see the robots rip them to shreds. Vanessa is pissed. He has to take this seriously. Mike leaves Abby with the aunt one of the nights and dreams about the kids. He accepts their offer to take Abby in exchange for having the younger brother back and in real life we see the robots (really the ghost kids) kidnap Abby. He returns to Freddy’s and is able to stop the robots, but his employment officer shows up and reveals that he’s the killer of the kids (and Mike’s brother) and that Vanessa is his daughter (what a twist!). He aims to kill them all, but Abby is able to draw pictures for the robots that reveal the evil of the man. They turn on him and everyone lives happily ever after (besides all the people who died). THE END.

Horror is in an interesting spot. This and M3gan were the two big smashes of the year and they are simply not scary. But I think that is kind of the point. They are baby horror. The audience isn’t there to throw up in the aisles. They are there to get a few scares while also getting their daily dose of memes (the FDA now recommends at least two memes a day for anyone under 17 years of age). So that’s one problem with the movie. The other is that the ending doesn’t make much sense. Matthew Lillard was obviously the bad guy (you don’t get MLil on board for nothing) but his motivation and plan are nonsense. Anyway, the point is that this is not a good horror film, nor is it a good film film, but… I still liked it. It’s fun. Interesting story, fun big robots (especially the cupcake), and Hutcherson does a good job. I had a good time watching it. I thought it was actually quite a bit better than M3gan because the setting, situation, and characters were more interesting and likable. So take that, M3gan! I like Five Nights at Freddy’s better!

Hot Take Clam Bake! It was all a dream, duh. You guys didn’t get that? I mean, the whole film is about a kid who lucid dreams about solving his kid brother’s murder. So you think he does that with the help of a bunch of ghosts in the Chuck E. Cheese machines? You think that makes sense? Dreams never really make sense when you think through the logic and details and check out the ending? Does Matthew Lillard’s motivations and plan make sense? Nope. It’s a dream. You just got tricked by a dumb dream movie. Hot Take Temperature: Pizza.

Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Are we talking about a plotless game being made into a film only fans of said game like because it isn’t scary and mostly confuses people? Let’s go!

Kind of fun.

But only kind of.

Because (checks notes) it isn’t scary and mostly confused me. Joking about the second, the story is really straightforward. But no, it isn’t scary.

I think I need to steal Jamie’s bit for a second. Hot take: this isn’t a horror film. As a matter of fact, I think a lot of horror films (of the bad variety mostly) aren’t really horror films. They are thrillers. M3gan fits the bill as well. It is like calling Meg 2: The Trench a horror film. Are creature features horror films? I guess. Is Jaws a horror film? I guess. But really they are something else because they aren’t meant to scare, but rather to shock and thrill. M3gan is like a techno-thriller, although that is a little closer because it gets close to slasher. But once you cross the rubicon and reach to expand your audience I think you can easily cross over from slasher (horror) to serial killer film (thriller). Is Silence of the Lambs a horror film? I guess it could be classified as such.

My point is that horror has become too large of a tent. We need to be much clearer about what we are getting. This film is closer to a serial killer thriller than a slasher I think, partially because the body count is too low, and partially because the primary focus of the film is the investigation and pursuit of a serial killer. As a serial killer thriller it also sucks because it doesn’t thrill and the serial killer isn’t interesting. It suddenly tacks into the supernatural, when the serial killer itself should be far more specifically what the film is about. Also, as a small supernatural-adjacent serial killer thriller The Black Phone is superior (and also distinctly flawed).

Come at me. I love genres, and I think there needs to be more of them. And when you cross genre bounds and become a mix (like a horror-comedy) either both sides of the genre equation have to be good (rare), or it has to be more specifically one (like Shaun of the Dead, which is obviously a comedy, not a horror film really). This is more of a thriller and it sucks at it really, but it takes way too long to get to the point where you realize it is a serial killer film anyways.

The actors are game though and the young cast in particular were fun. I would be interested to see any of them in anything else.

Let’s go with MacGuffin (Why?) for the missing brother which motivates the main character’s entire arc. And Worst Twist (How?) for the obvious reveal that the only other major character (played by Matthew Lillard) is the murderer, duh. This film is closest to Good I think, despite being not scary it is a halfway decent thriller film in the end.

I’m going to try and make a version of this movie that is more my speed in the Quiz. Cheerios,

The Sklogs