Oh man, so the Moon is falling and I think it fell down and bopped me on the head because I can’t remember a thing about it! Do you remember what happened in Moonfall?
Pop Quiz Hot Shot!
1) In the beginning our heroes are on a space mission when suddenly an amorphous blob attacks! It kills one of them, but Patrick Wilson saves the ship and lands it safely. But, answer me this, what was the purpose of the mission? Bonus points for naming the some they are singing while doing it.
2) Well, Patrick Wilson’s life is now ruined. Smash cut to 10 or so years later. He’s divorced, his ex-wife is re-married to Michael Pena, and … now I can’t remember. Why is his son going to jail? And why doesn’t he get bail?
3) The moon is falling (did I mention that yet?) and they have one shot to stop it. What is the plan? Why do they need Patrick Wilson for the mission?
4) Oh man there is a whole other story I’ve barely mentioned. Patrick Wilson’s son and Halle Berry’s son (plus a Chinese exchange student / nanny maybe?) are off to where? But where do they ultimately end up at the end of the film?
5) Give it to me, give me the exposition dump of why the moon is a superstructure and why there is an eeeeeeeevil AI trying to hurl it into the moon?
Bonus Question: In the after-mid-credits sequence (you didn’t stay? It was shown 45 minutes after the theater was cleaned) we blast lightyears away to meet whom?
Patrick looks at his watch. Jamie had been gambling for three hours and Patrick’s patience was wearing thin. Maybe they really did just need to straighten out Young Jamie and Patrick and head on back to the time machine. Jamie asks for more money and Patrick refuses. He was already down $350 and he wasn’t about to lose more. “Aw come on,” Jamie insists, “the dealer is palming cards and I think I can prove it if I just get a couple more chances.” Still Patrick shakes his head and starts to pull Jamie to the exit. “Fine,” Jamie yells, yanking his sleeve from Patrick’s grasp, “I’ll just have to pound some dweebs.” Oh boy, Jamie’s got a glint in his eye and is looking like he’s about to Walk Tall all over this underground casino. But before he can get his Walking Tall on (hard) a tall, handsome-as-all-heck man in a tuxedo intercepts him. “Hey, good chap, how about we place a wager between us and let everyone enjoy themselves.” Jamie tries to shrug him off, but the man doesn’t budge. “Double fine,” Jamie spits out, staring daggers at all the people who narrowly missed a Walking Tall barrage all over their faces. They sit down at a nearby table. The man orders a tea (stirred, not shaken) and introduces himself. “The name’s LePumice, Donovan LePumice. The game’s Hearts. The wager is your lives, Bad Movie Twins.” Jamie and Patrick gasp in surprise. Guess they aren’t the only ones time traveling lately and no wonder, trouble has followed them ever since they obtained the Dongle. A crowd gathers as Jamie shuffles. “I just want to let you know before we start,” Donovan LePumice says sauvly, “I’m going to shoot the moon and then I’m going to shoot you.” That’s right! BMT Live! The movies are back, Jack, and we waited with bated breath to see if Moonfall would get into BMT range. It was like a will-they-won’t-they sitcom of the 90’s as the sexual chemistry between Moonfall and BMT was palpable (almost pornagraphic) and fortunately we were able to give the people what they wanted as it dropped below 40%. We snatched up the opportunity with gusto. Let’s go!
Moonfall (2022) – BMeTric: 38.9; Notability: 28
StreetCreditReport.com –BMeTric: top 1.2%; Notability: top 0.0%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 31.2%; Higher BMeT: Brazen, The 355, The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild; Lower RT: Blacklight, Brazen, Alice, The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild, The 355; Notes: Kind of cool to see what is happening this early into the year. Also just consider that Notability isn’t really accurate within two or so years of a film coming out, that number will double I think. Would be interesting to try and find out (using wikipedia historical records), but difficult.
RogerEbert.com – 1.5 stars – Roland Emmerich destroys the world again with “Moonfall,” but this time his heart just isn’t in it. The German nihilist blockbuster filmmaker, who has rarely met a conspiracy theory he didn’t like, has become the “master of disaster” with films like “Independence Day,” and his own global warming epic, “The Day After Tomorrow.” But while his film “2012” in particular was overwhelming in its passion for turning mass death into a roller coaster thrill ride with two kids in the backseat, here is “Moonfall,” which proves a boring apocalypse movie is worse than one fixated on how we are all doomed.
(This is kind of a mishmash review, but it is as bad as I expected. The film is getting surprisingly okay reviews (more on that later), so seeing a definitive “this sucks” review is at least refreshing.)
(Leans right into the years long trend of covering classic songs into stylized versions for trailers. Honest opinion? Bad Moon Rising has never sounded worse, but this trailer makes the movie seem more fun than it apparently is.)
Directors – Roland Emmerich – ( Known For: Independence Day; Midway; Stargate; The Day After Tomorrow; The Patriot; White House Down; Anonymous; Stonewall; Moon 44; Making Contact; The Noah’s Ark Principle; Ghost Chase; BMT: Moonfall; 2012; Independence Day: Resurgence; Godzilla; 10,000 BC; Universal Soldier; Razzie Notes: Nominee for Worst Director, and Worst Screenplay for Independence Day: Resurgence in 2017; Nominee for Worst Director, and Worst Screenplay for Godzilla in 1999; and Nominee for Worst Written Film Grossing Over $100 Million for Independence Day in 1997; Notes: Wrote and Directed Stargate which is being remade with him writing and directing again. I wonder how many times a writer go to remake his own film.)
Writers – Roland Emmerich – ( Known For: Independence Day; Stargate; The Day After Tomorrow; Moon 44; Making Contact; The Noah’s Ark Principle; Ghost Chase; BMT: Moonfall; 2012; Independence Day: Resurgence; Godzilla; 10,000 BC; Razzie Notes: Nominee for Worst Director, and Worst Screenplay for Independence Day: Resurgence in 2017; Nominee for Worst Director, and Worst Screenplay for Godzilla in 1999; and Nominee for Worst Written Film Grossing Over $100 Million for Independence Day in 1997; Notes: Apparently got into movies after watching the original Star Wars film in Germany in the late 70s.)
Harald Kloser – ( BMT: Moonfall; 2012; 10,000 BC; Notes: Primarily a composer. All of the films he has written were also written and directed by Emmerich.)
Spenser Cohen – ( Known For: Extinction; BMT: Moonfall; Notes: Is credited as a writer on the upcoming Expendables 4 which surely won’t be a shoe-in BMT classic …)
Actors – Halle Berry – ( Known For: Kingsman: The Golden Circle; Cloud Atlas; X-Men; John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum; X-Men: Days of Future Past; X-Men: The Last Stand; Bruised; Die Another Day; Monster’s Ball; X2: X-Men United; Executive Decision; The Last Boy Scout; Robots; The Call; Boomerang; Jungle Fever; The Program; Kings; Bulworth; Dark Tide; Future BMT: The Flintstones; Gothika; Kidnap; B*A*P*S; Strictly Business; Father Hood; The Rich Man’s Wife; Race the Sun; BMT: Moonfall; Movie 43; Swordfish; New Year’s Eve; Catwoman; Perfect Stranger; Razzie Notes: Winner for Worst Actress for Catwoman in 2005; Nominee for Worst Actress in 2014 for Movie 43, and The Call; and Nominee for Worst Screen Couple for Catwoman in 2005; Notes: Famously won an Oscar for Monster’s Ball, but also won an Emmy for Introducing Dorothy Dandridge. Won the Miss Teen All-American Pageant in 1985.)
Patrick Wilson – ( Known For: Watchmen; Aquaman; Midway; Prometheus; The Conjuring; The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It; Insidious; The Assistant; Bone Tomahawk; The Founder; Little Children; Annabelle Comes Home; The Conjuring 2; The A-Team; The Switch; A Kind of Murder; Hard Candy; The Commuter; In the Tall Grass; Young Adult; Future BMT: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice; The Phantom of the Opera; Insidious: The Last Key; Insidious: Chapter 2; The Alamo; BMT: Moonfall; The Nun; Evening; Notes: Nominated for an Emmy for Angels in America. Started mostly in theater where he was nominated for two Tony awards.)
John Bradley – ( Known For: Marry Me; Anna Karenina; Man Up; American Satan; Patient Zero; Future BMT: The Brothers Grimsby; BMT: Moonfall; Notes: Apparently is a stand up comedian and drummer in addition to (most famously) appearing in Game of Thrones. He’s going to be in the upcoming Three-Body Problem television series.)
Budget/Gross – $138–146 million / Domestic: $11,909,256 (Worldwide: $15,862,113)
(This is obviously incomplete, but, no joke, this is one of the biggest bombs in history. It is up there with things like Mars Needs Moms apparently as far as getting a $10 million opening weekend on a $150+ budget.)
Rotten Tomatoes – 38% (66/172): Whether Moonfall is so bad it’s good or simply bad will depend on your tolerance for B-movie cheese — but either way, this is an Emmerich disaster thriller through and through.
(The actual percentage was 39.8% and then switched to 39.6% when I originally generated this … this is how fine this is. But hey, it qualified on Thursday. This is Bad Movie Thursday. It was a bad movie on Thursday. That’s all we needed to hear. Rules rules rules. Nice to see it going down though.)
Reviewer Highlight: You’re going for the CGI destruction anyway, and even on those rubbly grounds, Moonfall is a disappointment, flitting by its destroyed vistas with a weird impatience. – Joshua Rothkopf, Entertainment Weekly
(Uhhh, what is this depicting? I assume the sphere is the moon… surrounded by clouds? And then astronauts floating in… space or maybe on earth? This really is like one of those taglines where I say it only looks like a tagline. This looks like a poster, but I assure you it is not. Still fun font and somewhat aesthetically pleasing. C-.)
Tagline(s) – In 2022, Humanity will face the dark side of the Moon. (B+)
(Yes, please. Thank you. I mean that is a double entendre for the ages my friends. I wish it was a little less clunky and long, but boy does that hit me where it hurts. But I always knew that exploring the extremities of tagline pleasure would be like hooks in my flesh tearing me apart.)
Top 10: Moonfall (2022), The Suicide Squad (2021), Interstellar (2014), F9: The Fast Saga (2021), Watchmen (2009), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017), Transformers: The Last Knight (2017), Hidden Figures (2016), The Martian (2015), Oblivion (2013)
Future BMT: 66.8 Thunderbirds (2004), 61.0 Space Chimps (2008), 58.9 Apollo 18 (2011), 56.6 Land of the Lost (2009), 52.1 Green Lantern (2011), 44.9 Fantastic Four (2005), 44.7 Fly Me to the Moon 3D (2007), 42.9 Mission to Mars (2000), 42.2 Red Planet (2000), 32.1 Planet 51 (2009)
BMT: Moonfall (2022), Transformers: The Last Knight (2017), Armageddon (1998), X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019), Event Horizon (1997), Geostorm (2017), Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987), The Space Between Us (2017), Species II (1998), Virus (1999), The Astronaut’s Wife (1999), Escape from Planet Earth (2012)
Matches: Moonfall (2022), Interstellar (2014), The Martian (2015), Ad Astra (2019), X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019), Gravity (2013), Lucy in the Sky (2019), Apollo 13 (1995), Event Horizon (1997), Zathura: A Space Adventure (2005), Sunshine (2007), Moon (2009), Fantastic Four (2005), Deep Impact (1998), Stowaway (2021), First Man (2018), The Midnight Sky (2020), Planet of the Apes (2001), Terms of Endearment (1983), The Right Stuff (1983), Space Cowboys (2000), The Space Between Us (2017), SpaceCamp (1986), Red Planet (2000), Europa Report (2013), The Fantastic Four (1994), Species II (1998), 3022 (2019), Planet 51 (2009), Thunderbirds (2004), Apollo 18 (2011), Beyond the Stars (1989), The Astronaut’s Wife (1999), Escape from Planet Earth (2012), 400 Days (2015), Space Chimps (2008), The Astronaut Farmer (2006), Hangar 18 (1980), Approaching the Unknown (2016), Moontrap (1988), Capture the Flag (2015), Love (2011), The Aftermath (1982), Magellan (2017), Solar Crisis (1990), Space Warriors (2013), Dark Breed (1996), Inhumanwich! (2016), The Last Astronaut (2019), One Under the Sun (2017), 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover (2004), The Astronot (2018), Another Plan from Outer Space (2018), Hyper Space (1989), Speedwagon (2015)
(I kind of love this graphic because you can convince yourself that the reasoning behind why it climbs so swiftly in the late 90s is CGI. Should we be doing Mission to Mars and Red Planet together with one as a bonus? Seems like an opportunity there.)
Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 15) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Halle Berry is No. 1 billed in Moonfall and No. 1 billed in Perfect Stranger, which also stars Giovanni Ribisi (No. 3 billed) who is in Gone in Sixty Seconds (No. 2 billed) which also stars Nicolas Cage (No. 1 billed) who is in The Wicker Man (No. 1 billed) which also stars Leelee Sobieski (No. 5 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 1 billed) => (1 + 1) + (3 + 2) + (1 + 1) + (5 + 1) = 15. If we were to watch Insidious: Chapter 2, and Wicker Park we can get the HoE Number down to 11.
Notes – In the scene where KC is presenting information to a small group of people at a hotel, the wallpaper pattern in that hotel matches the iconic wallpaper pattern in The Shining. This seems to be a nod to the rumor that the moon landing was fake and directed by Stanley Kubrick (director of The Shining).
Josh Gad was originally cast as KC Houseman, but dropped out of the film due to scheduling conflicts.
Resident Evil is back, Jack! And this time it’s serious. Claire is heading back to Raccoon City to see her bro and look into some disturbing rumors about the Umbrella Corporation and her hometown. From there things go to shit and zombies are everywhere. Can they fend off the zombies before it’s too late? Find out in… Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City.
How?! Claire and Chris Redfield grew up in an orphanage in Raccoon City where they saw first hand some of the disturbing things going on in the town. While Chris went on to join the police force in town thanks to a mentor within the Umbrella Corporation, Claire escaped. But when she gets wind of how Umbrella poisoned everyone and then fled the town, leaving it all in ruins, she returns to uncover the truth. In a wild coincidence she arrives at the very moment that everything falls apart. People start to become zombies and her brother is sent out with a police force to check out some of the creepy goings-on at a secluded mansion. Claire makes her way to the police station where she find a rookie Leon and the cowardly police chief holed up trying to figure out what to do. The police chief had tried to escape town, but Umbrella has closed off the borders and is ready to destroy the town in order to contain the virus they have accidentally poisoned the town with (oops). They realize their only hope is to get to the police chopper and so the chief leads them to the orphanage, which is secretly connected to the mansion via a tunnel system. At the orphanage, Claire is reunited with Lisa Trevor, a girl horribly disfigured by Umbrella’s experimentation. Lisa saves Leon and Claire from a Licker (sorry cowardly police chief, you obvs had to die) and points them to the mansion. Meanwhile over at the mansion, everything has completely fallen apart. Numerous members of the police force die immediately and the chopper is destroyed. Turns out one of their team members, Wesker, is also a total traitor and he heads off to get his hands on the necessary evidence/virus materials to hand over to a mysterious organization. When he tries to kill the scientist responsible for the experiments and take the virus he is stopped by Chris. Unfortunately the scientist injects himself with a super duper virus and becomes a giant monster. Claire and Leon arrive and they team up with the good guys to escape on an underground train. They seem to be home free until the monster shows up (boo). But don’t worry, Leon has a rocket launcher. They escape just as the town is destroyed. THE END.
Why?! Survival. It’s a survival game after all. Umbrella’s motivation is corporate greed, baby. They want that sweet green while not paying to dispose of their industrial waste. Oh and also they want to make super soldiers, but can’t seem to figure it out without turning people into horrific mindless monsters. It’s funny that these super soldier mutant zombies are such a huge part of their business model that they are able to poison the whole town with its runoff. Not sure even the government needs a zombie virus at that scale.
Who?! Neal McDonough Alert! Don’t use that often enough. He’s one of the more fun parts of the second half of the film in that he turns into a giant monster which requires the CGI artists to render a giant monster that vaguely looks like Neal McDonough. Always funny looking. Like how the Hulk has to always look a little like Mark Ruffalo. Just one other oddity is that Marina Mazepa shows up here as Lisa Trevor… we just saw her as Mary in The Unholy. She’s really taking the contortionist horror corner right now.
What?! Mild product placement here and there. Pepsi seems to be the beverage of choice in Raccoon City. No wonder it’s a dying town. A-yo. I also liked the 1998 specific product placement dropped in as a wink to the audience. Like the PalmPilot that one character uses. There also was some hay made amongst fans about how Claire drove a Harley in the film… not sure why.
Where?! There has always been a bunch of theories of where Raccoon City is. In the novelization of the video game they apparently came out and said it was in Pennsylvania. Other theories placed it in Missouri. The first film series seem to place it in Michigan, or at least used Detroit as a backdrop. All this doesn’t matter as it’s a fake setting and I like precise, fake settings OK. A+ fake setting. Particularly since putting “Raccoon City” in the title of a film is ludicrous.
When?! Always a little hard to keep track of these things when you see them live in theaters, but I do believe the intertitle set this on September 30th, 1998… although can’t remember if that date was given pre-midnight and so most of the movie would have taken place on October 1st or something. All good though. Solid B+.
I was excited for this film. I thought the trailer was cool and I’m always secretly a little bit excited when there is the possibility of a new(ish) franchise on the horizon. Even that Tom Cruise Mummy film.. Give me Mummy 2! I’ll eat it up… give me more Tom Cruise as a mummy (spoiler alert Tom Cruise turns into a mummy in the film). Anyway, the beginning of Raccoon City doesn’t disappoint. I thought it was creepy and fun and brought the franchise back to its horror roots. It was also helped by the fact that it was evoking all kinds of memories about the original video game that I didn’t even know I remembered. Nostalgia fan service was working on me. But then it just kinda kept on going and going and never getting anywhere. More specifically never getting to the mansion. By the time we get there everything is going so fast with (at that point mostly unnecessary) fan service flying past that I almost wished they would have made a three hour movie rather than tried to cram everything together in 100 minutes… almost. By the time they get to the ending nothing makes sense, not least of which is their use of a Deus Ex Rocket Launcher to blow away the bad guy at point blank range while miraculously not harming any of our heroes. Nice first half, brutal second half, overall a little disappointing. Patrick?
Patrick
Hello everybody! One last Omicron filled theatrical experience for old times sake? Let’s go!
P’s View on the Preview – Ah, the last BMT Live of the year. I was really really hoping this would qualify because it really seems like a fun throwback bad blockbuster. And conveniently, considering I’ve never seen any of the Anderson Resident Evils, it is a totla reboot. People seemed down on the trailer, but it seemed decent enough. At least very fanservice-y which can be good. What was I expecting? Well I was hoping for it to be chockablock of Resident Evil refs. Because I actually have played the first two games.
The Good – I genuinely liked the first half of the film. It was, indeed, filled with decent Resident Evil references, and the zombie stuff was cool. It just felt like they did a very good job getting the core story of Resident Evil onto the screen. The Mansion in particular looked great … although you don’t get to spend much time in it. And I can never say now to a little Neal McDonough in my life. Best Bit: The set design, basically, very much fanservice oriented.
The Bad – The back half of the film is a mess including what I think might be the worst action scene I’ve ever seen (fighting zombies viewed solely with muzzle flashes and the light from a lighter … nonsense for minutes at a time). Also the motivation eventually gets really muddled since they have to get everyone to the same place (the train) by the end, but there isn’t a very good reason for the people in the police station to know about that or to get there. And as a horror film it just falls flat. Fatal Flaw: I think combining the first two games did a lot of harm to how they were trying to tell the story.
The BMT – I didn’t totally hate this film, but it certainly suffered from the same issues as most video game adaptations: poor motivation and muddled storytelling. I really wish it was just the first game because the mansion really did look cool. But alas, we can’t always get what we want. But sometimes, we just might get what we need (a bad movie to watch in theaters at the end of the year). Did it meet my expectations? It was actually quite a bit better than I expected. Still bad because it was two movies in one, but still, better than the rating would suggest.
Roast-radamus – One of the first Planchet (Who?) in a long while, with the rookie cop who just can’t do nothing right and everyone dunks on throughout the film (he even redeems himself right at the end like all good Planchets should). Definitely some funny Product Placement (What?) for Pepsi, all from 1998 very very specifically. A great A+ Fictional Setting (Where?) for Raccoon City. Obviously no good video game can do without a sweet MacGuffin (Why?) in the form of the super secret T-Virus that everyone wants to get their hands on. I think this is closest to BMT even though I’m really tempted to call it good.
Sequel, Prequel, Remake – I think the best bet for the franchise at this point is thinking through it as a television Reboot. The mansion really is too large to deal with in a single film and was always going to cause problems (even if you didn’t combine it with the second film). It just feels like to get the snake and the shark and the garden (with the creepy plant people) with all of the back ground would work well for an 8 episode show. Two episodes to set up why they are going to the mansion. Two episodes of initial exploration. Two episodes of generally fleshing out the lore and building up to the penultimate episode. And then a final reveal and initial confrontation, with the final episode being the boss battle and realization that it isn’t over. Just called Resident Evil. The second season is then subtitled RCPD and it includes flashbacks to establish background on Umbrella. It always should have been a television series. They even hired television actors for the movie! NOTE: I just learned there is a television show in the works at Netflix … I wonder if it was intended to supplement this film or is going to re-adapt the mansion.BMT Live Review – Since I’m back (baby), I went to the very nice Framingham Dine-In AMC at about 12:45PM. Got 30% off for the matinee and only four other people in the theater, although two of them were ultra annoying during the previews. Just talking full volume throughout. They’re just previews, but it was still very distracting as I was getting settled into the movie. Otherwise flawless experience. The theater is really nice. I don’t love “dine in” (as I find it distracting), but for the matinee since no one was eating it was fine. Probably the last theatrical experience for the next three months at least I would venture, but we’ll see. A.
Oh man. So there I was being a goober in a police station when all of a sudden a boatload of zombies attacked and bopped me right on the head. I don’t think I’m a zombie, but I did suffer a major concussion and now can’t remember a thing. Do you remember what happened in Resident Evil: Welcome to Racoon City?
Pop Quiz Hot Shot!
1) Why does Claire Redfield return to Raccoon City in the beginning of the film?
2) The goober rookie police officer Leon Kennedy is being needled by his coworkers in the diner at the beginning of the film. What did he allegedly do to deserve such treatment?
3) Albert Wesker is another cop and he has a fancy (for 1998) Palm Pilot (like device) showing him stuff. Where did he get the device and for what purpose?
4) Claire, Leon, and the chief (Chief Irons) all head off to the orphanage. Why?
5) In the lab what is Neal McDonough trying to get and why?
Bonus Question: Albert Wesker has some new cool shades and is hanging with Ada Wong. Why is Albert Wesker wearing those rad shades?
“So that’s the big L-O-V-E,” Kyle says in wonder, wiping tears from his eyes as he thinks fondly (and yet with sadness) of the fleeting love that Kelley and Sam shared. Jamie and Patrick nod. Patrick thinks of his wife and six children, Jamie of the demonic puzzle box that presumably still holds the many demons that he’s fallen in love with over the years. They all sigh at the wonder of life, love, and learning. “So how do I know if it’s for real or if I’m just getting weak at the knees for something that won’t last?” Kyle asks. Jamie and Patrick ponder the question that is at the crux of it all. Kyle suggests perhaps he wait until Rachel gets really sick and then he can prove to her that he’s in it for the long haul by leaving college to be by her side. Jamie and Patrick agree that it’s a good place to start. While Patrick’s own love story mirrored Here on Earth almost exactly (minus one very important aspect), not all of them had to be exactly like Here on Earth. “Think of any great romantic comedy. Head over Heels for example. It’s more about getting into some major jam and then showing that you are there for each other through thick and thin.” Kyle is sold, but now is in the same spot as Patrick. With such a boring existence protecting the Dongle there aren’t any jams in their near future. Suddenly the doorbell rings. Jamie checks the peephole. “Huh, it’s Lou. Another resident in the building. Part of the welcoming committee.” It won’t solve their immediate problem, but at least Lou won’t create some giant catastrophe for them. That’s right! We’re watching Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City as the last great chance to grab a BMT Live this year (probably). I thought the trailer looked good, but trailers aren’t everything (even when they should be). Let’s go!
Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2021) – BMeTric: 31.7; Notability: 21
StreetCreditReport.com –BMeTric: top 14.0%; Notability: top 8.4%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 16.2%; Higher BMeT: Space Jam: A New Legacy, Thunder Force, He’s All That, Cosmic Sin, Home Sweet Home Alone, Deadly Illusions, Music, Awake, The Misfits, Great White, Spiral, The Unholy, Tom and Jerry, Things Heard & Seen, After We Fell, Outside the Wire, Snake Eyes, Vanquish, Infinite, Out of Death, and 15 more; Higher Notability: Space Jam: A New Legacy, Tom and Jerry, Music, Chaos Walking, Infinite, The Addams Family 2, Home Sweet Home Alone, Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard, Red Notice, Dear Evan Hansen, Snake Eyes, Sweet Girl, Cherry, The Starling, Thunder Force, Reminiscence, The Birthday Cake, The Woman in the Window, Voyagers, Breaking News in Yuba County, and 1 more; Lower RT: After We Fell, Out of Death, Cosmic Sin, Vanquish, Music, Midnight in the Switchgrass, Breaking News in Yuba County, Demonic, Deadly Illusions, Infinite, Home Sweet Home Alone, Die in a Gunfight, Zone 414, The Virtuoso, The Misfits, Sweet Girl, The Starling, Every Breath You Take, Thunder Force, Chaos Walking, and 11 more; Notes: I’m not even going to put the plots in as they are pointless. Surprisingly modest here. I do think maybe I should do something to delineate qualifying and non-qualifying in the lists. More recent years have so many bad direct to VOD options available.
RogerEbert.com – 2.0 stars – There’s also a sense that all of this will mean even less to those who haven’t played those early games. My greatest rush came from recognizing locations that I’ve seen previously with a controller in my hand. That’s not quite filmmaking—it’s fan service. I want a “Resident Evil” movie that takes these legendary locations and characters and does something fresh and exciting with them. Start with the mythology instead of just ending with it too. And the truth is there’s almost no story to “Welcome to Raccoon City.” After setting up a bunch of familiar faces, Roberts is content to bounce them off some zombies to a predictable final act that brings out some of the iconic big bads from the games. It’s depressingly easy to chart where this film is going to go and who’s going to make it to the inevitable sequel. There’s one thing a great horror game can never be (and something one couldn’t really accuse the Anderson movies of being either): predictable.
(Yeah, the trailers I’ve seen certainly feel like they went heavy for the fan service this time. Worth a shot I would think. It isn’t crazy to suggest that is exactly what the original Mortal Kombat did right. They took a bunch of disparate pieces and made sure to hit the notes that fans would be delighted by. So maybe that’s what we got, something fans will be like “that’s pretty okay” and non-fans will be like “this is gobbledygook. )
(As a person who played the first two games, it seems quite good from a fan service perspective. Sure, some of the CGI maybe seems a bit bad / obscured by darkness, but I still thought that they at least seemed to stay true to form.)
Directors – Johannes Roberts – ( Known For: 47 Meters Down: Uncaged; 47 Meters Down; The Other Side of the Door; Storage 24; F; Forest of the Damned; Hellbreeder; Future BMT: The Strangers: Prey at Night; BMT: Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City; Notes: British. Definitely a horror guy, including a short series for telephones called When Evil Calls.)
Writers – Johannes Roberts – ( Known For: 47 Meters Down: Uncaged; 47 Meters Down; The Other Side of the Door; Storage 24; F; Forest of the Damned; Hellbreeder; BMT: Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City; Notes: Has directed almost all of the films he’s written. He has an upcoming film called The Pool about a rabid dog in pre-production. Sounds like Cujo basically.)
Actors – Kaya Scodelario – ( Known For: The Maze Runner; Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile; Moon; Crawl; Maze Runner: The Death Cure; Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials; Wuthering Heights; Now Is Good; Tiger House; The Truth About Emanuel; Spike Island; Shank; Twenty8k; Future BMT: Clash of the Titans; BMT: Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City; Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales; Notes: I knew that she was from Skins. She was in 26 episodes. She’s in a period piece about mermaids called The King’s Daughter which is coming out next year.)
Robbie Amell – ( Known For: The Babysitter; The DUFF; Code 8; The Babysitter: Killer Queen; When We First Met; ARQ; Desperados; Eat Wheaties!; Struck by Lightning; Left for Dead; Future BMT: Max; BMT: Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City; Cheaper by the Dozen 2; Nine Lives; Notes: He has starred in a ton of television including Alcatraz, 1600 Penn, Revenge, The Flash, and A Series of Unfortunate Events. Is starring in a film called Float next year which is a production based on a Wattpad story (i.e. fanfic?))
Hannah John-Kamen – ( Known For: Ready Player One; Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens; Ant-Man and the Wasp; SAS: Red Notice; Tomb Raider; BMT: Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City; Notes: She’s playing Red Sonja in the new Red Sonja film. Also mostly a television actor including as Ornela in Game of Thrones.)
Budget/Gross – $25 million / Domestic: $15,863,138 (Worldwide: $30,763,138)
(Not going to do well enough to guarantee a sequel, but also because of the pandemic they might think it is at least worth a shot to adapt a more original story next time. Only time will tell.)
Rotten Tomatoes – 29% (19/66): Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City is an affectionately faithful adaptation that further proves its source material is ill-suited to the big screen.
(Affectionately faithful is nice. I do feel like that is the way to do it if you insist on making a movie, even though it feels like a television series is obviously the way to actually adapt something like Resident Evil.)
Reviewer Highlight: Writer-director Johannes Roberts supplies plenty of fan service but scarce coherent plotting and even fewer scares. – Nick Schager, Variety
(I feel like modern posters are losing a bit of the joie de vivre of the past. This looks extremely CGI, like a video game cover rather than a real, live-action film poster. Font is classic and the red and white pop, but everything else is pretty dreary and bland. B-.)
Tagline(s) – Witness the Beginning of Evil. (D)
(Not actively bad, but that’s the only positive. What is this, Friday the 13th: A New Beginning? Would be impossible to count the number of films that this could be a tagline for.)
Top 10: Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021), Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2021), Black Widow (2021), Spider-Man (2002), The Suicide Squad (2021), Avengers: Endgame (2019), Ghostbusters (1984), The Last Son (2021), Joker (2019), Midsommar (2019)
Future BMT: 84.1 Halloween: Resurrection (2002), 72.9 The Last Exorcism Part II (2013), 71.3 Supergirl (1984), 70.5 Halloween II (2009), 69.3 Seed of Chucky (2004), 65.5 The Darkness (2016), 65.2 The Haunting of Molly Hartley (2008), 63.9 Blair Witch (2016), 62.5 My Soul to Take (2010), 60.4 Pet Sematary II (1992)
BMT: Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2021), The Mummy (2017), Rambo: Last Blood (2019), Hellboy (2019), Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014), Conan the Barbarian (2011), Friday the 13th (2009), Masters of the Universe (1987), Anaconda (1997), The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996), Scary Movie V (2013), The Haunting (1999), Queen of the Damned (2002), Truth or Dare (2018), Leprechaun (1993), Ghosts of Mars (2001), Sleepaway Camp (1983), Slender Man (2018), The Golden Child (1986), Cobra (1986), Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981), Dracula 2000 (2000), Friday the 13th Part III (1982), Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985), Ouija (2014), Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988), A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989), Virus (1999), I Know Who Killed Me (2007), The Devil Inside (2012), The Gallows (2015)
Matches: Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2021), Spider-Man (2002), The Last Son (2021), The Fifth Element (1997), 6 Underground (2019), Hereditary (2018), The Devil All the Time (2020), Legend (1985), It Chapter Two (2019), RoboCop (1987), Fear Street: Part One – 1994 (2021), Poltergeist (1982), Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014), Conan the Barbarian (2011), Evil Dead (2013), The Dark Tower (2017), Seed of Chucky (2004), Saturday the 14th (1981), Masters of the Universe (1987), The Haunting (1999), Drag Me to Hell (2009), Halloween (2007), The Fog (1980), The Taking of Deborah Logan (2014), Leprechaun (1993), Mirrors (2008), Gretel & Hansel (2020), 1408 (2007), Blair Witch (2016), Halloween II (2009), The Omen (2006), Sinister 2 (2015), The Lords of Salem (2012), Ouija (2014), Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988), Halloween: Resurrection (2002), The Prophecy (1995), Pumpkinhead (1988), Needful Things (1993), Waxwork II: Lost in Time (1992), … (and many more)
(I wonder why 2019 was all about “evil” movies? Anyways, weak keyword, but I couldn’t resist the A+ keyword. The other Resident Evil’s not being on the future BMT list suggests the keyword is even weaker than you would think in that people basically just don’t use it, even in obvious cases.)
Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 14) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Neal McDonough is No. 7 billed in Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City and No. 3 billed in Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, which also stars Chris Klein (No. 2 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 2 billed) => (7 + 3) + (2 + 2) = 14. There is no shorter path at the moment.
Notes – A reboot of the series was announced while Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016) was still in theaters.
Johannes Roberts told Screen Rant that the reboot would be “super, super scary” and more faithful to the games.
Greg Russo’s unused story and script, which he was developing with James Wan was inspired by Resident Evil VII: Biohazard (2017). Russo wanted to go back to scarier tone of original games and focus more on horror, just like Resident Evil 7 did.
Capcom gave the filmmakers their blueprints to recreate the main halls of the Spencer Mansion and the RPD (police station).
The film is based on and inspired by the first two video games.
The twelfth Resident Evil film count the animated CGI films Biohazard 4D: Executer (2000), Resident Evil: Degeneration (2008), Resident Evil: Damnation (2012), Resident Evil: Vendetta (2017) and Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness (2021) and the seventh live action Resident Evil film in the series.
The movie’s title appears in red bold letters. Color and font are identical to how the title appears in the first game.
Claire’s wearing a necklace. Its pendant is a dragonfly wing. In the video game Resident Evil: Code Veronica you have to collect multiple dragonfly wings to advance in the game.
Towards the end Claire is giving a set of keys that unlock a secret passage. There are four keys on the ring and they are modeled after the four keys required to access most of the locked doors in the police station in Resident Evil 2 game.
Leon kills mutated Birkin with a rocket launcher. It’s tradition in most Resident Evil video games to kill the final boss with a rocket launcher.
Wesker plays the piano to open a secret passage way. A similar event occurs in the original video game from 1996.
The movie set in 1998. Resident Evil (1996), first game of the franchise, set in the night of July 24-25, 1998.
Michael Myers is… oh… uh… nevermind. But it’s still Halloween and when Dr. Dan Challis sees something crazy happen at the hospital he works at, you better believe he’s on the case. His investigation takes him to a toy factory where he uncovers a deadly plot. Can he stop the crazy toy fiends before it’s too late? Find out in… Halloween III: Season of the Witch.
How?! Dr. Dan Challis is going through some stuff. He’s having trouble with his ex-wife, he’s a full-blown alcoholic, and yet, somehow he’s still a practicing doctor. One out of three ain’t bad. When a mysterious man comes into his ER one night and proceeds to be murdered by a strange, emotionless man who commits suicide by lighting himself on fire, Dr. Challis is intrigued. He’s even more intrigued when he gets a load of the man’s beautiful daughter, Ellie. You thinking what Dr. Challis is thinking? Road trip! They head off the last place Ellie’s dad was seen alive: Santa Mira, CA, home of Silver Shamrock, the maker of the most popular three Halloween masks. The masks are the talk of the world, particularly given the live, big giveaway planned for Halloween night. Anyway, once in town things start to go sideways. Not only is the town run like a police state where people are having mysterious accidents left and right, but when they go to tour the factory they are shocked to find Ellie’s father’s car there. Uh oh! Before they can get out of dodge, Ellie is kidnapped and Dan has to make his way back to the factory to save her. Of course he is immediately captured because (spoiler alert!) the whole place is run by automatons and you def can’t escape their robot clutches. Before he is to be killed, Dan is told the full plot: Cochran, the owner of the factory, has stolen a piece of stonehenge (yup) and is using its dark powers to energize microchips in the halloween masks. On the night of the giveaway they will be activated and all the children turned into gross bugs and snakes and stuff for ye old pagan ritual. Dan is horrified and luckily is able to escape his bonds and rescue Ellie. They then infiltrate the main command center where they activate the power of stonehenge and turn it against Cochran. Dope. On their way home Dan is trying to figure out how to stop the broadcast when Ellie turns out to be a total robot. Fiend! He destroys her and in a last ditch effort is able to stop most (but not all) the broadcasts. THE END.
Why?! Didn’t I just tell you? Stonehenge, pagan ritual, it’s witchcraft, baby! They are all witches… or… well, Cochran is a witch and the rest are robots. But that’s besides the point because the motivations in this thing are amazing. Oh and Dan just wants to get with Ellie and Ellie can’t seem to get enough of this mess of an alcoholic doctor. Good for both of them.
Who?! Halloween II’s Michael Myers, Dick Warlock, father of BIlly Warlock, shows up here as a robot assassin. That’s kind of fun. That also allows me to contemplate this entry’s monster: Cochran, played by Daniel O’Herlihy. He’s an Oscar nominee, so I’m sad to say the film that caught my eye in his filmography is 1986’s The Whoopie Boys… a film I only know because a poster for it shows up in Hot Rod. Largely forgettable in this, though. He comes off quite pleasant for a witch hellbent on sacrificing a whole bunch of kids to pagan gods.
What?! It’s actually a little hard to find real props from the film. Almost everything is replicas. The masks would be the real prize. There are three of them: a witch, a skull, and then a pumpkin (which looks way worse than the other two and no one would want). Somehow this is enough variety for the entire world to go crazy for them. They were created by Don Post, who pioneered latex masks. He made the Shatner mask that ultimately became the Michael Myers mask, which also proved very difficult to replicate.
Where?! This is set near San Francisco, with the factory in Santa Mira, California. It’s a made-up town that has shown up quite a bit in fiction. Makes sense as it sounds real. The town is an important setting with a crazy Irish-centric origin story and the like. Certainly fun so I’ll give it an A-.
When?! Another A+ for the franchise. Interestingly this takes place for a full week leading into Halloween night. The first two Halloween’s take place over a single Halloween night and I know at least a couple of the sequels take place just on Halloween (for that’s when Michael Myers awakens from his pagan slumber). So it would be curious if this is also an outlier in the series, since it takes place on several non-Halloween days.
I kinda came around to the consensus on this, similar to how I changed my tune a little on Halloween II. I think now I would say I like Halloween II a little less than I did originally and Halloween III a little more, but I still prefer the former to the latter. It’s an interesting film, though, and I think without the baggage of Halloween could have attained some level of cult status. It’s got some good gross out effects, some solid B acting, and a weird robot/witch storyline that would lend itself to people really falling in love with it. Not to mention that you can have a lot of fun comparing it to Willy Wonka. Cochran is an eeevil Wonka and his automatons are oompa-loompas… it’s a fun concept to think about. I personally think it lacks some pace and has some really obvious and glaring plot holes. So it’s hard to seriously consider it amongst the franchise behemoth that it carries in name only. Patrick?
Patrick
‘Ello everyone! We got Halloween! We got Celtic legends! We got … wait, is that old man supposed to be Michael Myers? I’m so confused. Let’s go!
P’s View of the Preview – Spoiler alert! I’ve seen this film. I may have even seen it a few times. It is a weird movie that is nothing like the other Halloween films, but I hope this time I’ll get a bit more out of it since I’ve seen most of the Halloween films at this point, and I’ve also watched a ton more horror films from the 70s and 80s at this point. What were my expectations? Maybe for it to be good? People think it is good online it seems. It seems hard to believe since I’ve seen it and it wasn’t good. But maybe once I appreciate the context more I’ll pick up some nuggets of joy.
The Good – There is something very interesting about the main character. Definitely a terrible family man. An alcoholic doctor. A sleeze. And, in the end (we hope) a hero. Truly a different type to the “final girl” that pervaded slashers at the time, but then again, weirdly, the film isn’t a slasher. And the lore! Amazingly the lore with Celtic legends and their connection to Halloween ended up being a huge part of Halloween four through six (at least). I did appreciate that a lot more this time around. Best Bit: I think the main character with all his various complications.
The Bad – I mean, the film is an odd one. It comes across as a cheap 1970s horror film from England or something. Looks cheap, with no scares. Makes not much sense, has weird characters, seems to look to a depressing ending as a potential redeeming feature (a la The Mist). And overall since they retreat directly to Myers in the sequels ends up seemingly out of place in the major franchise records. It is amazing that they didn’t just release the next movie as Halloween 3 and change the name to merely Season of the Witch, leaving the film as a fun factoid in the annals of horror history. Fatal Flaw: It just isn’t scary and cheap looking.
The BMT – Had to be done. Amusingly, it currently doesn’t qualify. But assuredly it did when we watched the film. So take that rulez! I don’t think this will be the most fun Halloween film to watch by a long shot though. The films get real weird first after this one (maybe because of this one, bringing in all of the Celtic/Halloween lore to the series). Still fun. Did it meet my expectations? Nope. I expected to come to the film with fresh eyes and be like “oh how little did I know back then!” But naw, the film just isn’t a particularly good horror film. Weird and fun in its own way. But not scary or even that eerie.
Roast-radamus – Halfway decent Product Placement (What?) for Miller, which people seem to be sucking down throughout the film. And a solid (and odd) Setting as a Character (Where?) for California, and Santa Mira specifically. And then the natural A+ Holiday Setting (When?) for Halloween. I think it is closest to Good despite what the recap above might suggect.
Sequel, Prequel, Remake – This film could have an interesting Reboot of sorts. Take it to something like Shudder, and reboot the series as Halloween Legacy or something. Go with the original vision: a series of tales, all taking place on Halloween, tied together via a general connection to the Celtic spookiness of the original pagan holiday. The second to last episode is Season of the Witch, which is effectively this story, except without the robots and masks. Instead it is a evil Willy Wonka basically. He makes Halloween candy. All of the kids love him. Every year he brings children to the factory for a tour, but this year something weird is happening. He seems insane. And the coup de grace? The whole affair for years and years would be to slowly poison the population with his candy. All it will take is a signal through everyone’s phone to kill them all and complete the ultimate bloodshed which will (in his mind) be such a great sacrifice to his pagan gods as to grant him immortality. Can Charlie and Grandpa Joe stop him before it’s too late? Probably, but you’ll have to subscribe to Shudder to find out. Halloween Legacy Episode 9: Season of the Witch. Not going to lie, I would watch it.
I think I’ll leave it without the schooled section in an attempt to catch up. Cheerios,
Oh man, so around Halloween I got this sweet pumpkin mask that definitely look like a big pile of shit, I loved it. But then this commercial came on, and my head turning into spiders and snakes and stuff! What a headache. Do you remember what happened in Halloween III: Season of the Witch?
Pop Quiz Hot Shot!
1) What are the three very special masks that Silver Shamrock is selling?
2) Our hero, Dan, meets a young lady, Ellie, in the course of his hospital rounds. How do they meet?
3) Well, it is time to investigate! So let’s head to Santa Mira and check into the local motel, The Rose of Shannon. Who else is staying in the lovely accommodations?
4) What do the Silver Shamrock masks do to their wearers?
5) During the course of the film how many people die?
Bonus Question: So what happened to all of the children and mask and stuff?
“Mr. Wrong,” Patrick finishes. With that he presses a button and the gigantic, useless box explodes to reveal its very not useless contents (what a twist!). Hundreds of Obsidian Dongles pour out. “You see,” Patrick explains, “once I saw the Rich & Poe book in the bookstore window I knew the Dongle wasn’t safe. I slipped it in the mail to my wife and told her to pack it up in this crate with numerous replicas. One of which you so conveniently stole from us.” He looks around in satisfaction, the Dongle nicely obfuscated by the sea of false Dongles. Manfred backs up in panic, attempting to use his false Dongle. “No, but… I quickened!” He screams in rage, still trying to use a power he never possessed. Patrick shakes his head. “Wrong again, Mr. Wrong.” At this point Manfred is picking up Dongle after Dongle, each one faker than the last. He sobs, lamenting his lost power as Patrick shakes his head in disgust. Time to wait and hope that Jamie triumphs over the cyborgs, but something told him that everything would be OK.
Jamie lifts the Obsidian Dongle from the safe and Kyle asks in a whisper how this could be. This world was a microcosm in and of itself and after decades living here it had carved itself into their image. Delivering unto them a Digital Dongle (all rights reserved). As the cyborgs bust into the back room their eyes widen for a moment before Jamie blasts them away.
Suddenly Jamie and Kyle wink into existence in the apartment, the power of cyberspace delivering them once again home. A tear trickles down Kyle’s face. “Never forget me,” he whispers. Patrick and Jamie embrace and then turn to Manfred. Sadly Patrick delivers justice, “Trick or treat, Manfred.” That’s right! As we head out of our 90’s extravaganza of friends we are transitioning to the year in retrospection. Just like 2020, this year proved difficult to collect an adequate roster of films, so we will be mixing in anniversaries (the first of which was 1996’s Mr. Wrong). But before that we will watch a Holiday Edition of BMT Live. While not a 2021 film, this Live is still with the spirit of the now in that it’ll celebrate Halloween with a film that just recently re-qualified for BMT. That would be Halloween III: Season of the Witch. Let’s go!
Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) – BMeTric: 64.5; Notability: 33
StreetCreditReport.com –BMeTric: top 0.4%; Notability: top 6.0%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 13.1%; Higher BMeT: Grease 2; Higher Notability: Young Doctors in Love, Firefox, Trail of the Pink Panther, Movie Madness, Hanky Panky, Grease 2, Monsignor, Making Love, Lookin’ to Get Out, The Man with the Deadly Lens, Death Wish II, The Toy, Yes, Giorgio, Fighting Back, Megaforce; Lower RT: Megaforce, Class Reunion, The Dorm That Dripped Blood, Movie Madness, Monsignor, The Toy, Zapped!, Friday the 13th: Part III, Five Days One Summer, Amityville II: The Possession, Parasite, The Beast Within, Losin’ It, Vigilante, Fighting Back, Summer Lovers, Trail of the Pink Panther, Young Doctors in Love, The Man with the Deadly Lens, Lookin’ to Get Out, and 6 more; Notes: The graph makes sense because I think this is a film which is slowly becoming more cult-classic as it ages. Weirdly high BMeTric while also barely qualifying.
RogerEbert.com – 1.5 stars – There are a lot of problems with “Halloween III,” but the most basic one is that I could never figure out what the villain wanted to accomplish if he got his way. His scheme is easy enough to figure: He wants to sell millions of Halloween masks to the nation’s kiddies and then brainwash them to put them on at the same time, whereupon laser beams at the base of the neck will fry the tykes. Meanwhile, he runs a factory that turns out lifelike robots. What’s his plan? Kill the kids and replace them with robots? Why?
(Actually I know this. He is an ancient member of a cult. And every certain number of years they need to make a sacrifice (using things like Stonehenge as a way to focus power) to continue their eternal life I’m pretty sure. The bad guy plans the ultimate sacrifice. To kill hundred, thousands, millions (?) of children across the United States at just the right moment. So no, nothing really to do with robots. The robots are, I think, just to make it all not need to be a large conspiracy. The bad guy is effectively doing it all himself.)
(Sufficiently mysterious. Loving the classic Carpenter synth track. Just … the masks look pretty dumb. It is a fundamental issue with the film I think.)
Directors – Tommy Lee Wallace – ( Known For: Fright Night Part 2; Vampires: Los Muertos; Aloha Summer; BMT: Halloween III: Season of the Witch; Notes: Allegedly has a movie he wrote and is directing in production. It seems like that is always the case, and as usual I’m skeptical.)
Writers – Tommy Lee Wallace – ( Known For: Fright Night Part 2; Vampires: Los Muertos; Far from Home; Future BMT: Amityville II: The Possession; BMT: Halloween III: Season of the Witch; Notes: Was married to Nancy Kynes (who starred in Halloween and was in this as well), and worked on multiple Carpenter films around this time.)
John Carpenter – ( Known For: Halloween; Halloween; Halloween H20: 20 Years Later; The Fog; They Live; Prince of Darkness; Escape from New York; Assault on Precinct 13; Escape from L.A.; Dark Star; Assault on Precinct 13; Eyes of Laura Mars; Black Moon Rising; Future BMT: Halloween Kills; Halloween; Halloween: Resurrection; Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers; Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers; Lockout; BMT: Halloween II; Halloween III: Season of the Witch; Ghosts of Mars; The Fog; Notes: Y’all know Carpenter. This was his attempt to move Halloween away from the trashy horror franchise quagmire of the 80s and into an anthology idea. Unfortunately, it didn’t work.)
Nigel Kneale – ( Known For: The Abominable Snowman; Quatermass and the Pit; The Quatermass Xperiment; First Men in the Moon; The Witches; Quatermass 2; Look Back in Anger; The Entertainer; H.M.S. Defiant; BMT: Halloween III: Season of the Witch; Notes: A ton of his credits are for various versions of Quatermass. A cursory glance suggests quite a few similarities between that original story and this film which is interesting.)
Actors – Tom Atkins – ( Known For: The Fog; Escape from New York; Creepshow; My Bloody Valentine; Lethal Weapon; Night of the Creeps; Trick; The Detective; Maniac Cop; The Ninth Configuration; The New Kids; Two Evil Eyes; Bob Roberts; The Owl and the Pussycat; Encounter; Bruiser; Where’s Poppa?; Amazing Racer; Special Delivery; Lemon Sky; Future BMT: Striking Distance; BMT: Halloween III: Season of the Witch; Drive Angry; Notes: A horror icon of the era. Still works at the age of 85, he has a movie coming out next year, Final Summer.)
Stacey Nelkin – ( Known For: Bullets Over Broadway; Up the Academy; Get Crazy; Serial; California Dreaming; Going Ape!; Everything Relative; Future BMT: Yellowbeard; BMT: Halloween III: Season of the Witch; Notes: Apparently she was the person who went out with Woody Allen as a teenager which inspired the plotline of Manhattan.)
Dan O’Herlihy – ( Known For: RoboCop; The Last Starfighter; Imitation of Life; Waterloo; Fail-Safe; 100 Rifles; The Dead; Macbeth; Odd Man Out; Robinson Crusoe; The Tamarind Seed; The Desert Fox; MacArthur; One Foot in Hell; The Cabinet of Caligari; The Black Shield of Falworth; Love, Cheat and Steal; The Blue Veil; Home Before Dark; Larceny; BMT: Halloween III: Season of the Witch; RoboCop 2; Notes: Nominated for an Oscar for Robinson Crusoe in 1955. His son Gavan was also an accomplished actor.)
Budget/Gross – $2.5 million / Domestic: $14,400,000 (Worldwide: $14,400,000)
(That is fine, but also obviously not what you are looking for at the time. At the time you are probably looking to get a huge multiplier on your budget for the classic low-budget franchise horror schlock. This merely made “some money”.)
Rotten Tomatoes – 39% (11/28): Its laudable deviation from series formula not withstanding, Halloween III: Season Of The Witch offers paltry thrills and dubious plotting.
(For the record, this barely qualifies and didn’t only a few months ago. But we jumped on it before it (inevitably) became unqualified again. Amazing how high the critical rating is at the moment for a film with terrible IMDb ratings.)
Reviewer Highlight: This movie is a dirty trick on all Halloween fans. – Aja Romano, Vox
(Most of this poster is terrible. It’s just a random shot from the film that makes no sense. I like the bit at the top though. Just make that the poster. If that was the poster I think it might have been like a B+. As it is, it’s just a C.)
Tagline(s) – The night no one comes home. (C-)
(These are words. I’m not sure they totally make sense. Certainly not in the context of the film, which is predicated on everyone gathering in their homes to watch a commercial at 9pm PST (midnight EST??). It’s short… that’s about it.)
Top 10: Halloween Kills (2021), Halloween (2018), Hocus Pocus (1993), Halloween II (1981), Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (2001), The Addams Family (1991), The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), The Crow (1994), Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998), Scary Movie (2000)
Future BMT: 83.9 Halloween: Resurrection (2002), 72.1 Bewitched (2005), 70.4 Halloween II (2009), 70.0 Texas Chainsaw (2013), 67.6 Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995), 64.6 The Crow: City of Angels (1996), 61.3 Skinwalkers (2006), 60.4 Pet Sematary II (1992), 60.0 Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989), 56.9 The Next Best Thing (2000)
BMT: Halloween II (1981), Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982), Thir13en Ghosts (2001), Batman Forever (1995), The Predator (2018), Deadly Friend (1986), Son of the Mask (2005), Boo! A Madea Halloween (2016), Made of Honour (2008), Town & Country (2001)
Matches: Halloween Kills (2021), Halloween (2018), The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), The Crow (1994), Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998), Scary Movie (2000), Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982), Halloween II (2009), Trick ‘r Treat (2007), Halloween: Resurrection (2002), Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988), Hubie Halloween (2020), Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995), Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989), Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019), Monster House (2006), Haunt (2019), Terrifier (2016), Idle Hands (1999), The Haddonfield Nightmare (2021), A Cinderella Story (2004), Hell House LLC (2015), Night of the Demons (1988), Tales of Halloween (2015), Once Bitten (1985), Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween (2018), Night of the Demons (2009), All Hallows’ Eve (2013), Fun Size (2012), When We First Met (2018), Ghost Squad (2015), Tyler Perry’s Boo 2! A Madea Halloween (2017), Pet Sematary II (1992), C.O.R.N. (2021), Boo! A Madea Halloween (2016), Bad Candy (2020), Fear PHarm (2020), Candy Corn (2019), Stan Helsing (2009), …
(Sooooo many films have the keyword matches, I limited it to just up to the last one I definitely recognized by name. We really need to start working through the franchise though, that would fill out the plot well.)
Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 17) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Tom Atkins is No. 1 billed in Halloween III: Season of the Witch and No. 8 billed in Drive Angry, which also stars Nicolas Cage (No. 1 billed) who is in The Wicker Man (No. 1 billed) which also stars Leelee Sobieski (No. 5 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 1 billed) => (1 + 8) + (1 + 1) + (5 + 1) = 17. If we were to watch Striking Distance, The Jackal, Nights in Rodanthe, and The Glass House we can get the HoE Number down to 22.
Notes – John Carpenter didn’t plan on having Michael Myers in every Halloween movie, only the first. He wanted a different Halloween related story each time. But after the first Halloween (1978) was a success, producers forced him to use Myers again. He did, but killed off Myers and Loomis to be done with them. Then he produced Season of the Witch to get back to his original plan. But at that point people were expecting Myers again so it failed. Carpenter then dropped the franchise and sold the rights years later because he wasn’t interested in doing more Myers. The new owners then brought Myers and Loomis back in 1988 with no explanation how they survived.
The movie’s novelization was published in 1982 by science-fiction writer Dennis Etchison under the pseudonym Jack Martin. Despite the movie’s critical failure, the book became a best-seller and was even reissued two years after the movie’s release, in 1984.
The song “London Bridge is Falling Down” was chosen as the Silver Shamrock jingle because this was in the public domain.
Using the original molds, the skull, witch, and jack-o’-lantern masks seen in the movie were mass-produced by Don Post Studios and sold in retail stores to promote the movie’s release.
During a reunion panel for the cast and crew of the movie in the Summer of 2015, Tom Atkins and Stacey Nelkin confirmed that the bedroom scene was one of the very first things that they shot together. Both found this humorous because Nelkin had been quickly cast as Ellie Grimbridge due to time restraints on the studio’s part and the two had barely gotten acquainted beforehand.
In an interview with the Pittsburgh Press newspaper shortly before the movie’s release, Tom Atkins told the hometown publication that he didn’t know how the movie was going to end because they “shot a couple of different endings”.
Tom Atkins and Garn Stephens (who played Marge Guttman) were husband and wife at the time.
The tagline “The night no one comes home” is a play on the original Halloween movie’s tagline “The night HE came home”.
Director Tommy Lee Wallace credits the concept of witchcraft in the computer age to producer Debra Hill.
Executive producer Irwin Yablans was against not using Michael Myers in this sequel, even though Myers and Loomis were killed off in the previous movie. He has said in interviews he had little to do with the finished movie, and basically received credit for his minor involvement. He also said he did receive a “fat cheque” for his trouble.
The cartoon playing on television in the bar is The Cigarette and the Weed (1981), directed by Ralph Bakshi, the director of Fritz the Cat (1972), Heavy Traffic (1973), Wizards (1977) and The Lord of the Rings (1978).
The movie is included on the film critic Roger Ebert’s “Most Hated” list.
“Season of the Witch” was the original working title of Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets (1973). “Season of the Witch” is also the name of a song by Donovan and the name for George A. Romero’s movie Season of the Witch (1972). Also the name of Nicolas Cage’s movie Season of the Witch (2011).
In “Halloween Kills” (2021), three of Michael Myers victims are displayed wearing the Silver Shamrock masks on a merry-go-round.
Welcome to the Space Jam… but tots on fleek for the gucci crowd. When LeBron James’ son is sucked into the Warner Bros. archive by an eeeevil algorithm, James has to team up with some Looney Toons to try to stop the dastardly plan. Can he beat the baddie at bball (and perhaps learn to be a better dad, awww) before it’s too late? Find out in Space Jam: A New Legacy.
How?! LeBron James is a bad dad. He’s all pressuring his son Dom to focus on basketball and not his real dumb dumb video games that never made anyone any money. Only basketball makes money. But Dom doesn’t just like video games, he like likes video games… like loves video games. He’s like a coding whiz and really wants to go to coding camp, but LeBron James is like “no, coding isn’t a real job like basketball.” Anyway, he feels bad for being a bad dad, so he takes Dom along to Warner Bros to check out a new offer: they want to use an algorithm to insert him into all kinds of sweet, sweet IP. LeBron is like no thanks, but the algorithm, which has taken on a life of its own and is named Al-G Rhythm, is not having it. He sucks LeBron and Dom into the Warner Bros computer and challenges LeBron to a basketball game. If he wins he gets to take over the world using LeBron’s brand. If he loses he sets them free. With that, LeBron is sent to Looney Tunes land where he meets up with Bugs Bunny. With Bugs’ help, LeBron gathers a team, although not exactly the team he was thinking. They are the rest of the Looney Tunes, who had been scattered across the universe by Al-G. LeBron is all “No, all fundamentals all day, no looney things or nothing,” and the Tunes agree (but they aren’t happy about it… kinda like Dom… hmmmmm). When the game starts, LeBron is shocked to see that Dom is the star of Al-G’s team and that the rest of the team are evil cartoon versions of his fellow NBA and WNBA superstars. They proceed to get shellacked and LeBron begins to learn and becomes a good dad. First he lets the Looney Tunes be real looney and they mount a comeback. Then, when Al-G starts to take it out on Dom, he apologizes and Dom forgives him. Finally, with the game on the line, LeBron decides to exploit a glitch in the system he learned from Dom. But it would kill him! So Bugs takes it instead and through the magic of being a great dad LeBron wins! In the end we see Bugs Bunny die and become a star in the sky (for real), LeBron drops Dom off at coding camp to become a great dad, and finally Bugs shows up because obviously he didn’t actually die. THE END.
Why?! Al-G is an algorithm that wants to have more influence on the world. For the moment he simply influences Warner Bros IP, but he wants to do more and he sees LeBron as the way to do that. He would hijack his followers and use his brand to take over the world (and maybe even break free of the confines of the WB computer? That part is a little fuzzy). So why doesn’t he just do that rather than challenge LeBron to basketball? That’s unclear. It has something to do with trapping a bunch of people in the WB computer for some reason, but otherwise I don’t know. Revenge? Anyway, LeBron just wants to be a great dad and teach everyone the fundamentals of basketball.
Who?! Obviously lots of athletes show up. LeBron is the main one, but then like Diana Turasi, Klay Thompson, Anthony Davis, etc. in cameos (and cameo might even be generous given how little they are in the film). It did get me curious as to how many roles LeBron James has had in major motion pictures. So far it’s three, with a fourth in the works. Interesting that MJ only did Space Jam and Kobe appeared once in a credited role (as himself). LeBron is already closer to Shaq than those guys in terms of acting.
What?! The film is more of a film placement within a WB commercial. Still, beyond that the products are almost too numerous to count. Nike is sprinkled everywhere, including a giant Nike swoosh that appears when cartoon LeBron smashes into Looney Tunes world. And then all kinds of video game stuff, like E3 and Nintendo, show up, including my personal fave: a flydigi controller for playing games on your phone. I just like when something weird shows up in a major movie like this and you can wonder why.
Where?! We open with an establishing shot of LeBron and all his greatest achievements, including The Decision, which seems to appear unironically. We go through Cleveland and Miami and all that, but obviously it takes place in the present day when LeBron is in LA. To be more specific, the film primarily takes place in a computer on the Warner Bros Studio lot. A.
When?! We actually do kinda get a date for this. It all takes place in the week leading up to E3, since Dom wants to attend E3’s video game design program for kids. That would place this in early June. Seeing as LeBron is just bumming around taking meetings at Warner Bros, I assume in this fictional universe the Lakers were eliminated early in the playoffs. Otherwise he should be in the middle of the finals. B
I’m not gonna sit here and pretend this is a good movie. We spend the first third of the film with Bad Dad LeBron basically listening to a pitch about Space Jam 2 and being like “dumb, no thanks.” Then the middle third is just animated LeBron bipping and bopping around with the Tunes. Finally, the last third gets us to the basketball game, which isn’t really basketball, but some other hip new DomBall or whatever. What I’m saying is that this is no doubt about it some dumb stuff. BUT, I think when you boil it down you just have to ask whether you like to watch the Looney Tunes do Looney Tunes things and whether you like to see Bad Dad LeBron become Better Dad LeBron. If neither of those things are to your liking (or if you are particularly bothered by product placement), then it’s not the film for you. I personally found that the weirder it got (looking at you Don Cheadle) the more I kinda liked it and the more they leaned into the cheesy dad stuff the more it worked overall. Unfortunately that was like 40 minutes of a 2 hour film. So still not great. Patrick?
Patrick
‘Ello everyone! We’ve got the looniest of tunes! We’ve got the kingliest of kings! We’ve got a kind-of-sort-of-not-really basketball game! We’ve got Space Jam: A New Legacy. Let’s go!
P’s View on the Preview – Needless to say the last two years have been sparse for BMT. We had to completely cancel BMT Live! last year because nothing was coming to theatres. This year we lucked out and several wide release films seem to be debuting same-day on streaming services. And HBO Max delivered us a qualifying Space Jam sequel from on high. Praise the Al-G Rhythm! What were my expectations? I knew quite a bit about the complaints concerning the film going into the viewing. Lucky for me I watched Space Jam maybe seven years ago and realized then that it is pretty boring. So I figured I would like this more than most people seem to, but also probably wouldn’t actually like it.
The Good – I actually didn’t mind the WB clips as much as others seemed to have online, they were so short with decent costumes and effects that they worked for me. I loved loved loved Don Cheadle as the villain Al-G Rhythm (get it?). He was having incredible amounts of fun and seemed to know how to play just the right amount of winking at the camera to make the story work better than it should have. And the Looney Tunes are fun, even if most of them didn’t have much to do. Best Bit: Don Cheadle by a long way.
The Bad – The beginning paints LeBron as a bad parent and that was kind of weird as it took a long time to get to the redemption bit. I also wish they had went the Space Jam route where you are supposed to imagine Michael Jordan lives in a two bedroom house in North Carolina or whatever, instead LeBron lives in the most enormously gaudy mansion imaginable. The middle bit suffers because LeBron spends most of it as a cartoon which seemed like a cop out for either time or money or both. And the final basketball game lacked any tension because it wasn’t actually basketball meaning you could score 1000 points in the blink of an eye. And for the climax of the film the Looney Tunes are only-decent-looking CGI instead of looking hand drawn. Oh, and, spoilers, they fake-kill Bugs Bunny? That was odd. Jesus, and I didn’t even get to the comicon-level costumes for the WB characters watching the final basketball game! There is a lot not to like about the film compared to Space Jam. Fatal Flaw: I think allowing LeBron to be a cartoon for the bulk of the film is its biggest crime.
The BMT – Compared to the original it lacks charm by dropping the ball four different times and on almost every level. But compared to the original it isn’t boring as well for the most part. Don Cheadle maybe saves the whole thing from being a complete catastrophe. I think I’m somewhat immune to the insane A+ Produce Placement from WB because I’ve seen both The Emoji Movie and Ralph Breaks the Internet which both effectively do the same thing, but even grosser since those only seem to serve mega-corporations. Did it meet my expectations? I did indeed like it more than a lot of people online I think. Basically I think this was a mid-30% on RT, not a mid-20% like it ended up being. Space Jam is an appropriate mid-40%. Would I watch a third Space Jam? … I guess.
Roast-radamus – I think there is definitely a Planchet (Who?) in Khris Davis who plays LeBron’s friend Malik whose sole purpose seems to be to be a goober and not do anything right. Let’s not even get started on Product Placement (What?) for the entirety of the WB cinematic library. And a nod for Worst Twist (How?) for the inevitable switcheroo of Dom James joining the Tune Squad and then getting to go to the E3 Game Dev Camp. It’ll obviously get play in the Live! section and it probably in the BMT category in the end.
Sequel, Prequel, Remake – Uh oh, looks like it is time for the return of the BMT Crossover Episode. In the second Space Jam we saw Al-G Rhythm defeated by LeBron and Dom James, but that doesn’t mean he’s gone. On no. He’s only laying in wait until a new superstar supreme enters his life. And you guessed it, that man is Sasha Petrosevitch. Al-G Rhythm plans on capturing the digital essence of Sasha and holding a worldwide Aikido tournament to, once again, win the hearts and minds of the world and ultimately rule it. Well, Sasha won’t be having that! He decides to go digital, and forms a rag tag group of WB properties to Aikido alongside him against the Goon Squad (composed of eeeeeeeevil versions of the only person that could possibly pose a threat to Sasha in martial arts skill … himself!). And you bettah belieb that he’s going to aikido chop his way to victory. It’s called Akido Jam: Half Past Digital.
Live Theatrical Review – Obviously I didn’t get to watch this in theaters, but instead on HBO Max. Does it feel different? Honestly, it kind of does. I’m not sure how I would have felt if I had shelled out 15 dollars to go sit in a theater with a bunch of annoying people to watch this film. I would have almost definitely walked out with that sick feeling of “what the hell am I doing with my life.” Is it really BMT Live! without that feeling? I did enjoy getting to watch a new film in the comfort of my home and the comfort of my own schedule though. And I’m not one to be precious about the theatrical experience, but it seems likely that if I had seen this film in theaters I would have had different feelings than “meh, whatever, it was okay right?”. B. I’ll have to watch a few more “theatrical” films outside of the theater before I can have a true verdict as to whether the feeling is the same, or whether it can’t really count as “Live” without being live.
Oh man, so I got disintegrated by an algorithm and put into a server at a giant production studio … that’s wild. In a way I was murdered and am now no more real than a robot … it is an existential nightmare. I don’t remember a thing about anything in my past “life”, especially anything about this film. Do you remember what happened in Space Jam: A New Legacy?
Pop Quiz Hot Shot!
1) The beginning of the film is alllllllll family drama because LeBron and his son Dom just don’t see eye-to-eye on what Dom should be doing this summer. What does LeBron want him to do, and what does he want to do?
2) The entire conflict of the film between Al-G Rhythm and LeBron is kicked off based on the sweet pitch by the algorithm for LeBron’s next big business opportunity. What is that opportunity?
3) Why is Bugs Bunny all alone in Tune World?
4) The Goon Squad is a team of monsters which are a mix of real NBA and WNBA players and animals/elements/other stuff. Where do they come from?
5) What is the “one weird trick that algorithms hate” that the Toon Squad needs to pull off in order to win the game?
Bad Movie Twins 