BMT Live! – Page 9 – Bad Movie Twins

Hunter Killer Recap

Jamie

When an American submarine sinks and the Russian President is taken hostage in a military coup a new submarine captain Joe Glass is sent to take part in a daring rescue. Will he be able to quell the rebellion and prevent a nuclear war before it’s too late? Find out in… Hunter Killer.

How?! Up in the Barents Sea, American and Russian subs are mysteriously sunk. In a *wink* *wink* coincidence the Russian President is traveling to a naval base sparking a national security crisis in the US. In response, another submarine, the USS Arkansas with its totally green greasemonkey captain Joe Glass, is sent to investigate. He’s all like “thank God I got my lucky coin or else I might be in trouble,” and he flips the coin and smiles at the camera. Simultaneously the US sends in a Special Ops team to check out the naval base and generally waste our time because we don’t care about that storyline. Anyway, when the USS Arkansas gets to the sunk US submarine they find everyone dead, but they hear survivors on the Russian sub. Before they can get them though they are attacked by another Russian sub and only survive through some nifty maneuvers and some help from a lucky coin. With the foe dispatched they are able to rescue the Russian submariners and find that it includes a very prominent Russian captain. Meanwhile, it turns out that there is a coup afoot at the naval base and a totally evil Defense Minister wants to start a war. Uh oh! In order to prevent this tragedy the USS Arkansas is ordered to the naval base to try to rescue the Russian President. Good thing they have that Russian captain on board because otherwise the mission is impossible. Anyway, the Special Ops team goes in guns blazing (obviously) and get the Russian President. They run real fast like Americans and get him into the submarine. As they cruise away, though, they are found by a Russian destroyer and things are looking grim. If only they had someone on board that the Russians loved and respected. Enter the Russian captain and President who are like “please don’t blow us up,” and the destroyer is like “fine.” The Russian Defense Minister is like, “not fine” and shoots giant ballistic missiles at the submarine, but the destroyer somehow knocks them out of the sky and blows up the naval base… which is totally unbelievable until you remember that Captain Glass has that lucky coin. It can do anything. Everyone hugs at the end and each country and their people have new found respect for each other. THE END.

Why?! There isn’t really a why to a lot of the movie. At least on the American side of things. I guess duty to one’s country? The crux of the film is a vast Russian conspiracy aimed at installing the Defense Minister as a de facto dictator. They set up a Russian sub to blow up in the vicinity of an American sub (making it look like an attack) and then attack and destroy the American sub as retaliation. At the same time they sequester the Russian President and start giving order (under the guise that the President is in fact giving the orders himself from the naval base). Once war occurs the Defense Minister will take the reins.

Who?! Obviously musician Common is one of the main actors in the film and that’s great. I’d also like to congratulate President Dover on her election as President of the United States of BMT. It feels like the right time for a change of administration. Finally two people involved in the film died before its release. Michael Nyqvist (who played the Russian Captain Andropov) and a producer John Thompson both died of cancer. Sad.

What?! I was really hoping that Butler’s lucky coin would be used as some kind of Chekov’s lucky coin. Like he gets cornered and distracts someone by flipping it or it stops a bullet or something equally cliche. Alas, it wasn’t to be. It was almost a red herring in how much they built up the lucky coin but he just kind of flips it a few times and it doesn’t even do anything magical. Come on, I want you to use it to plug a hole in the submarine or something.

Where?! A mix of Washington D.C. and Russia (or at least the waters around Russia). Very clear and nicely spelled out with some intertitles. I also want to point out that there was a brief Seal Team training scene in Tajikistan. I would have assumed this would be the only chance for us to get that location but apparently the film Spies Like Us is even more prominently set there. B+.

When?! Always hard in theaters to catch an exact date like this. It might be there (could have even been obviously displayed in the intertitles), but I didn’t catch it and I’ll have to figure it out when I buy the movie on DVD and watch it until the disc wears out. F.

This is a movie for dumb people but sometimes people want to be dumb even if you aren’t dumb, but in fact are big-brain smart people… you know? It has everything I want out of a submarine film: leaks, crush depth, fish in the water, wrenches, people getting crushed by torpedoes, depth charges (in modern day!), long speeches by a submarine captain, a submarine sitting on the ocean floor, a lucky coin, a military coup, things on fire, and a mini sub (babbyyyyyyyy). It is very much like me from the future wrote this fim… wait, did I come from the future and write this film? Anyway, I thought this movie was stupid silly fun that fit perfectly in that 35% RT range (but probably should have been higher?). I unabashedly enjoyed my experience. Oh and it seem like a ripoff of a little known Gary Busey film called Steel Sharks which is weird. And I’m being serious. This film is very similar to that film somehow. Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone. I hunt and I kill bad movies for fun and for reals. I need a hunter killer up in here, let’s get into this BMT Live!!

The Good – The sub action is actually quite good, and comprises enough of the film to make me wonder “wait … did I just like this film” as I left the theater.. I don’t have the vast experiences with sub movies like Jamie, but I found myself extremely entertained in the back half of the film. I agree with most reviews that say this harkens back to some of the late-80s / early-90s idea of what an action film should be. Very self-contained and successful in its limited scope. I liked a good number of the actors involved, even if Gary Oldman did just yell incoherently 95% of the time. I was 100% sure he was going to be a twist bad guy, then he wasn’t, which was a pleasant surprise.

P’s View on the Preview – I had to scramble to get the preview settled, but I became interested partly in the director, who is kind of a strange choice in that he doesn’t seem to have made a big budget US film before. Besides that I’m all about the sub action. The less time I’m on the sub doing sub things the less happy I am.

The Bad – The entire extraction team subplot was pointless. They could have, effectively, done the same thing with a Hollywood satellite handwave and a team from Butler’s sub. Everything was coming up Gerard to a ridiculous degree. He basically flipped 20 coins and they all came up heads, and when people looked at him and were like “how did you know?” he just did a little Michael Jordan shoulder shrug and was like “I didn’t” (but you kind of know he did). You never felt much weight to his decisions because he always made the correct one and it worked out for him flawlessly. To that end basically no one died on the sub which meant there was no drama. And the politics of the film felt off, like originally it was very anti-Russia, but they cut it to go the opposite way to make it semi-pro-Russia realizing the original cut would feel too overtly political.

You Just Got Schooled – I couldn’t find a funny review of the film to watch or anything. But I did find this funny video of Gerard Butler explaining Scottish slang. Seems like a nice guy. But … does anyone else think he has a little bit of a Blake Bortles moonface going? He probably just lays off the beer for a month prior to any role he takes where he needs to actually look … not like Blake Bortles. Actually, have they ever considered having Gerard Butler play Blake Bortles in a biopic?

The BMT – Every Gerard Butler bad movie is a jewel to be treasured in BMT. I have no animosity towards the man, it is just that his action films are often just trite shadows of other action films. And thus they are very often excellent to watch for BMT. The BMeTric is going to go up, that is inevitable, so it’ll be a fine addition, despite the Rotten Tomatoes score being a little higher than we expected.

Welcome to Earf – Michael Nyqvist is both in Hunter Killer and Abduction starring Taylor Lautner, who was in The Ridiculous Six starring Adam Sandler, who was in Jack and Jill with Al Pacino, who was in 88 Minutes with Leelee Sobieski, who was in Here on Earth. Welcome to Earf!! For the record, Butler is also pretty easy as he was in London Has Fallen with Morgan Freeman who has been part of a cycle before.

StreetCreditReport.com – Amazingly there are a few lists that already include this film. Here and here. Otherwise this probably is most famous for being delayed quite a few times. And then again for being the yearly Gerard Butler film that comes out in October and is not very good.

BMT Live Theater Review – I do love my Vue now. I ventured off to the Westfield Vue in Shepherd’s Bush for this viewing and much to my chagrin it cost me 13 pounds. Bah, where is my 5 pound showing Vue?! Anyways, I managed to catch, I think, the third to last showing in London for the film, but there were more people there than I expect. The tension was palpable, with some of the crowd even gasping in shock at some of the more tense moments. Imagine if I actually watched one of these films with like … people in the theater. What a shock that would be. B experience, docked for me not managing to get my 5 pound Monday on, and for lack of a crowd dampening the mood.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Hunter Killer Quiz

Quizzes for BMT Lives are always tough. It is a challenge to try and recall what happened in a film you really only get to see once on the big screen. But let’s give it a show. Man the torpedoes boy, it’s time for a quiz!

Pop Quiz Hot Shot!

1) When we meet our dashing new captain, what is he doing? And why does that make you love him so goddamned much?!

2) What makes Gerard Bulter’s character unique as a submarine captain? Hint, it has something to do with the coin he carries around with him. Partial credit if you can just indicate what the coin is.

3) What is the bad guy’s plans in the end, what are they after?

4) How many people were on the team operating surveillance, and how many died and how? In the most pointless garbage story of them all … I mean really, if you aren’t on a sub I don’t care about you.

5) Why can’t Gerard Butler just shoot up the defense minister at the end? Why the weird stuff about just having to wait until they get blasted apart?

Answers

Hunter Killer Preview

Jamie and the crew of the USS Rentacar arrive at the train station where they hope to catch the Little Old Librarian. “Which train is the one the terrorists take in the script?” Jamie asks Odin. “The 69:69 to Paris,” he replies. “Nice,” laughs the Predator in his Predator language and slams a spicy frito can of lime-a-rita mountain dew. “Come on that doesn’t even make…” Just then the 69:69 to Paris arrives and the world around Jamie seems to shift… something is seriously wrong. When it snaps back into place the space cops, Jamie, Vikling and his tribe, the entire student body of the Dracula School, The Predator, Captain Chip, a bunch of sexy hologram wolves, and the corpse of Frang pile onto the train. A bone-chilling laugh greets their arrival. “At every step you have shown how stupid you really are,” cackles the Little Old Librarian. “You’re the final piece of the puzzle. Now I will use your twin powers to use the Ivory Socket and control the world. Without Patrick you have no power to stop me, only power that I can exploit.” Jamie falls to his knees in despair. Could it be. Could his twin powers be useless to save the world after all? Suddenly he hears a small voice in his head, “You must still succeed.” He almost… recognizes the voice. Could it be? Without thinking he rushes at the Little Old Librarian knowing that he’ll be too late. He will be destroyed by his own twin powers. Suddenly she gets a distracted look in her eye and asks, “why are those wolves so sexy?” This slight delay gives Jamie just enough time to grab at the Ivory Socket. “Best twins ever,” he whispers as his hand grasps the socket. And then the universe was torn apart.

Patrick, Sticks, and Stones are in the z-movie multiverse version of Hawaii where all the ladies have big bazongas and they make the men go “whoa!”. Stones turns to Patrick. ‘Gosh dern it, use the Dongle! Use your powers! It’s the only way to make us real.” I turn to them tears streaming from my eyes feeling exploited and used. But before I can say a word one of the ladies with big bazongas lands a little aircraft nearby. “Thank God you’re here Sticks and Stones, there are terrorists and snakes and frisbees, oh my!” Their eyes turn pitch black and doll-like and they pull out their bazookas, “Anything I can do to help ma’am,” Stones says tipping his cowboy hat. As the two characters wreak havoc on z-Hawaii Patrick knows he can’t let these two madmen into the real world. Patrick sheds a single tear, for the trust broken, for the friendship lost, for the two people he saw so much of Rich and Poe in, the characters he now knows must be somewhere in a bad-movie multiverse. He zaps away, back among the blowing papers of z-LAPD precinct. How to use the Dongle though? All of a sudden Sticks and Stones appear in front of him, soaked in blood. “B-b-b-b-b-b-but how?!” Patrick cries. “We have a secret,” growled Sticks, “… we’re twins too”. No! What a twist! Patrick zaps to a terrible looking Mount Rushmore set, but Sticks and Stones follow. “Look into your heart gosh dern it, you know it to be true!” cries Stones. Patrick zaps across the world, across the z-movie multiverse, with Sticks and Stones taking chase. They end up back upon the Birdemic beach, winds whipping, all three combatants braced in a battle of Twin Powers. They are too powerful, Patrick knows it, without Jamie to aid in this ultimate twin fight he is going to be torn apart. He grasps the Obsidian Dongle and raises it into the air. “Best twins ever,” he whispers. And then the universe was torn apart.

They blink their eyes and look at each other. Sticks and Stones are gone. The entire crew of the USS Rentacar is gone. For some reason the corpse of Frang is still there filling the submarine they’ve found themselves with the overwhelming stench of decay. That’s right! We’re doing the final BMT Live of the year to watch the submarine instant classic Hunter Killer starring Gerard Butler. With Geostorm last year and Hunter Killer this year it seems like this is becoming an annual tradition that I’ll grow to love. Let’s go!

Hunter Killer (2018) – BMeTric: 3.8

(Pointless to actually show the graphs which will not show much as it literally just came out. We’ll see where it ends up, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it is just another Geostorm, which is just a shade above 50 BMeTric with a low 5 rating and 70K votes.)

RogerEbert.com – 2 stars – Butler’s performance—or lack thereof—keeps “Hunter Killer” from breaking any ground in the field of war movies. It’s also an odd time to release a movie that embraces collaborating with the Russians and painting bad and good guys with such broad strokes.

(Usually I would scoff at the political narrative being painted at the end there, but in this case it is pretty interesting. They filmed this ages ago (given Michael Nyqvist died in June 2017 at least over a year ago), so they likely realized oh so late that they had managed to produce an accidentally tone deaf film. Probably part of the reason the release has been moved around so much. Its release could literally be: bury this right when people have kind of forgotten the Russia stuff and are instead interested in the election. Although perhaps that is going a bit far, the release date has been known for six months. Still interesting.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnP_z3qXDCQ

(I have a feeling he doesn’t actually say “submerge the ship” in the movie. If he does that is a huge oversight. The character Butler plays literally has lived on submarines for his entire career. And I don’t think there is a reason to refer to a submarine as a ship instead of a boat. Main complaint: the trailer makes me think the film isn’t set entirely on a submarine, there are like … shootouts with marins and stuff, which doesn’t make me super happy.)

Directors – Donovan Marsh – (Known For: Spud; BMT: Hunter Killer; Notes: Looking at Spud I think it is safe to say Donovan Marsh is South African, and has garnered awards recognition there. I think this is his first non-South African production.)

Writers – Arne Schmidt (screenplay by) (as Arne L. Schmidt) – (Future BMT: Chain Reaction; BMT: Hunter Killer; Notes: Primarily a producer. He used to be a second unit director in the 70s, then produced action films like RoboCop, and this is only his second writing credit, and first non-story credit.)

Jamie Moss (screenplay by) – (Known For: Ghost in the Shell; Future BMT: Street Kings; BMT: Hunter Killer; Notes: Somewhat enigmatic career. Seems like a production house screenwriter, punching up Ellroy’s Street Kings before doing a bunch of uncredited work. He is writing Safe House 2.)

George Wallace and Don Keith (based on the novel “Firing Point” written by) – (BMT: Hunter Killer; Notes: Wallace was a 22 year veteran of nuclear submarines working on the USS John Adams and USS Woodrow Wilson. Keith is a co-writer for historical books, a journalist by trade he has co-written over 23 books in his career.)

Actors – Gerard Butler – (Known For: Den of Thieves; 300; How to Train Your Dragon; Olympus Has Fallen; How to Train Your Dragon 2; RocknRolla; Reign of Fire; Tomorrow Never Dies; Coriolanus; Nim’s Island; Beowulf & Grendel; Mrs Brown; Dear Frankie; Harrison’s Flowers; The Cherry Orchard; Future BMT: Dracula 2001; Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life; Tale of the Mummy; The Ugly Truth; A Family Man; The Game of Their Lives; Machine Gun Preacher; BMT: Movie 43; Geostorm; Gods of Egypt; The Bounty Hunter; Timeline; Gamer; Playing for Keeps; London Has Fallen; Hunter Killer; Razzie Notes: Nominee for Worst Actor in 2011 for The Bounty Hunter; and in 2017 for Gods of Egypt, and London Has Fallen; and Nominee for Worst Screen Couple/Worst Screen Ensemble for The Bounty Hunter in 2011; Notes: Scottish. I would describe his career as almost shameless. He’s been in every manner of action film and solidified his stature as a leading man for any kind of film. Bankable and reliable, I enjoy my yearly terrible Butler film.)

Gary Oldman – (Known For: The Dark Knight; The Dark Knight Rises; Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2; Dracula; Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire; Leon; Darkest Hour; The Hitman’s Bodyguard; Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban; Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix; Batman Begins; Le cinquième élément; Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy; True Romance; Lawless; The Book of Eli; RoboCop; Dawn of the Planet of the Apes; JFK; Air Force One; Future BMT: The Unborn; Lost in Space; Paranoia; Tau; Planet 51; Man Down; Criminal; Criminal Law; Quest for Camelot; Child 44; Hannibal; Romeo Is Bleeding; BMT: Red Riding Hood; The Scarlet Letter; Tiptoes; The Space Between Us; Hunter Killer; Razzie Notes: Nominee for Worst Screen Couple for The Scarlet Letter in 1996; Notes: It is shocking to me how many bad films Oldman has been in. He goes from major series (Batman, Harry Potter), to weirdo indie film (Tiptoes), to bad kids Sci-Fi (Lost in Space) to everything in between. Impressive (if kind of shockingly bad in parts) resume.)

Common – (Known For: The Hate U Give; Smallfoot; John Wick: Chapter 2; Now You See Me; American Gangster; Girls Trip; Wanted; All About Nina; The Tale; Barbershop: A Fresh Cut; Selma; Rex; Date Night; Run All Night; Happy Feet Two; Just Wright; X/Y; Love Beats Rhymes; Future BMT: Suicide Squad; Every Secret Thing; Terminator Salvation; Entourage; The Odd Life of Timothy Green; Smokin’ Aces; Street Kings; LUV; Being Charlie; BMT: Movie 43; New Year’s Eve; Hunter Killer; Notes: Was a rapper in the mid-to-late 90s debuting as Common Sense in 1994. From Chicago, he then go into acting in the early 2000s and would guess, like Mos Def, ended up being more well known for than in the end.)

Budget/Gross – $40 million / N/A

(Almost inevitably a gigantic bomb. Only made $6 million opening weekend, so $15 million would be generous for domestic take. And worldwide it was only in theaters for a hot second, so likely very little from there as well.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 36% (29/80): Much like the submarine in its story, Hunter Killer cruises the murky action depths, following a perfunctory course into territory that’s been charted many times before.

(We were watching this keenly to see if it would qualify. I’m rather delighted that it looks like it will in the end. Getting a good-bad film at the end of October makes for a much more relaxing winter cycle. Reviewer Highlight: All the actors are sunk by playing caricatures prone to spitting out leaden, often unintentionally humorous dialogue. – Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times)

Poster – Hunter Killer for the Red October (A-)

hunter_killer_ver4

(Just fantastic. Yes it is clearly trying to connect this film to the classic Red October, but I don’t care. I do care that they used a terribly unoriginal font. That docks it a little.)

Tagline(s) – Start a Battle to Stop a War (A)

(I think I like this too. Gives some idea of the plot. It’s short and sweet and gives some clever juxtaposition. I could have gone for a little pun. But this is pretty solid.)

Keyword(s) – gunfight; Top Ten by BMeTric: 94.7 Catwoman (2004); 94.7 Battlefield Earth (2000); 88.8 Street Fighter (1994); 86.1 The Avengers (1998); 83.8 RoboCop 3 (1993); 82.5 Highlander II: The Quickening (1991); 81.7 Ultraviolet (2006); 81.2 Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot (1992); 80.7 xXx²: The Next Level (2005); 79.4 Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (2009);

(Gunfight eh. We’ll finish this off haaaaaaard. I would guess that Stop of My Mom Will Shoot will be on the table for a Stallone Day at the very least.)

Notes – One of Michael Nyqvist last films before his death in 2017. (You might know him as the main character in the original Girl with the Dragon Tattoo movie)

Leading actor, Gerard Butler, sailed aboard the USS Houston (SSN 713) from May 6th to May 9th with director Donovan Marsh for research purposes. They discovered some nuances of a real operating submarine and submarine crew in an attempt to make the movie/script more realistic. (Good, I want that shit to be real for reals)

On June 16, 2015 the Alaska Dispatch News (ADN) reported that after Alaska Governor Bill Walker signed legislation essentially ending the state’s film subsidy program the producers of Hunter-Killer canceled all previously planned efforts to film exteriors for the project in Alaska. (Boom, take that Alaska!)

While aboard the Houston, Butler slept in the XO’s quarters. The director, Donovan Marsh, slept in the enlisted crew’s quarters. (To get both experiences, I get it)

Tony Scott was at one point set to direct. (I.e. at one point someone said into the air “I wonder if Tony Scott would consider directing this”)

While the Russian Captain Andropov mentions his former trainees, one of the names is Alexei Vostrikov – this is Harrison Ford’s character from K-19: The Widowmaker (2002), also a submarine captain. (NO)

McG was also considered for director. (I.e. McG called them up and asked if he could direct the film please)

The Russian submarines are referred to as “Akula” in the film. This is the correct NATO reporting name for the Russian Shchuka-B class of submarine. However, there is a much larger ballistic missile submarine using the “Akula” name referred to by NATO as “Typhoon”. A fictitious “Typhoon VII” was the eponymous ship in “The Hunt for Red October”. Oddly enough the Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle (DSRV) used in both movies was called the Mystic and was actually out of service as of October 1st, 2008 making this either a goof on the part of the movie or dramatically changing the timeline out of the present day. (Alternative timelines bro. In this timeline Butler personally oversaw the rehaul of the Mystic DSRV thus making it available for use in the present day.)

The Predator Recap

Jamie

A former military sniper find himself embroiled in a galactic battle when a Predator crash lands near his black ops site. Things go from bad to worse when the battle follows him back home to where his young, autistic son lives. Can he defeat the Predator, protect his family, and save mankind before it’s too late? Find out in… The Predator.

How?! We open with a Predator crash landing in Mexico near where our hero, Quinn, is taking part in a black ops mission. He briefly does battle before escaping with some of the Predator technology, which he sends back home (into the unsuspecting hands of his autistic son, Rory). He is then taken by the US government to be questioned and eventually shipped off to a psychiatric ward with a bunch of other soldiers being held as insane by the US government. In the meantime the Predator has been taken to a top secret lab to be studied but awakens and destroys the lab. The prisoners on the bus escape and drive away to try to make sure Quinn’s family isn’t now the target of an escaped Predator. Arriving at the home of his estranged wife, Quinn finds that Rory has been totally deciphering the alien tech and has taken it out for a little spin on Halloween. This activates a homing beacon on the tech and leads to an even bigger Ultimate Predator to show up which is there to kill the first Predator (you following this? Me neither). It easily does so and our heroes escape only to be captured by the US government. They use Rory to find the crashed Predator ship and everyone converges on that location. Unfortunately the Ultimate Predator is like “Nope, I’m gonna blow it up and kill everyone,” and it does. The Ultimate Predator then shockingly (what a twist!) reveals that Rory’s autism actually represents the next step in human evolution and is the ultimate warrior for mankind. It take Rory captive to use in biological experimentation and starts to fly away, but Quinn being a badass jump on his ship and totes kills it and stuff. We then get a little sneak peak at the sequels when it’s revealed that the first Predator actually brought a weapon for mankind to use and it’s a super lame Predator suit that is going to suck for real. This may all sound fine to you but think of the massive coincidence that had to occur in this case: the Predator had to crash land on top of a US military sniper in the Mexican wilderness allowing for him to obtain alien technology to send back to his autistic son who happens to be the ultimate warrior and only human on Earth that can decipher the alien technology. That’s some straight magic destiny shit.

Why?! There actually is a lot more motivation that the original Predator where more or less the alien is a game hunter in it for the thrill of the hunt. This time the original Predator heads to Earth in hopes of delivering a weapon to help in the upcoming battle against the rest of the Predators. You see, climate change is making Earth hotter and thus more habitable for Predators. They’re gonna live here now, but I guess this original Predator is more accepting and doesn’t like this for some reason. So it brings a Predator suit that apparently will defeat climate change (the real bad guys in this whole scenario). So I guess it like… runs entirely on clean energy or something? They can’t possibly expect one man in a robot suit to fight an entire invading force of Predators, right?… RIGHT?

What?! The robot suit revealed at the end of the film is a perfect MacGuffin. Literally no one actually knows what it is and yet the government, our hero, and the Ultimate Predator are fighting and killing to get the thing as it mysteriously represents the only hope for mankind. For a moment in the theater I thought the box containing the MacGuffin would open and reveal a brief shot of the cryogenically frozen body of Arnold and that he would turn out to be the ultimate warrior that is the only hope for mankind and would come back to star in the sequel. I was crushed when it was a stupid robot suit.

Who?! There seems to be only one Easter Egg in the film in that Jake Busey plays the scientist studying the Predator, Sean Keyes. He is the son of Peter Keyes, the scientist in Predator 2 played by Busey’s real life father Gary Busey. We of course have never watched Predator 2 because we are dumb, but rest assured it will be watched for BMT (and soon, spoiler alert).

Where?! This was a point of contention. The film obviously starts in Mexico and proceeds to Chattanooga, TN. From there people only drive or take helicopter trips to further locations so I presumed they either stayed in TN or crossed the border into Georgia. Patrick noted that most cars had Georgia license plates and some promotional material boasted about how the production team mocked up a school in Vancouver to look like a school in Macon, Georgia so we can be pretty safe to assume it takes place there, but not particularly noticeable. It’s always hard for these BMT Live films. B-.

When?! This was much more obvious as part of the plot is that Rory is able to take the alien tech out and about because it’s Halloween and everyone is dressed up. A really perfect Secret Holiday film. One of the best of the year. A-.

This is a lizard brain fun movie. I sat in the theater and was more or less fine with being there and watching this new addition to the Predator lore. It’s only on thinking back on the film that it starts to fall apart. The film is built on crazy coincidence, cliche, and childish humor. It’s like an early 2000’s action film mixed with a youtube video. It kinda sucks but you also don’t mind wasting your time watching it… like a youtube video. I guess what I’m saying is that it has the value of a youtube video… and that’s good but also terrible. Get it? Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Some people say that terrible movies are the next evolutionary step in great filmmaking … wait, that doesn’t make a lick of sense, what am I talking about? Oh yeah, the main plot point in The Predator. Let’s go!

The Good – The film at the very least attempts to advance the Predator franchise into interesting territory, with the ultimate conclusion being galactic war (funny enough … the exact same plan floated to resurrect the Independence Day franchise). Looking back at the original Predator you can tell Shane Black had an idea about the “band of soldiers” that haven’t really been replicated in other installments of the franchise, something that felt necessary, one valiant attempt. The action was, at times, decent, specifically the lab escape scene. Olivia Munn was fine, not great, but fine. The kid actor was far less annoying than you would think. The main villain was charming as well, kind of making fun of the machismo so many critics referenced in the good reviews.

P’s View on the Preview – Ah, we watched this film very closely and I think we can take credit for willing it below 40% ultimately. It started as fresh, well above 60% after the initial wave of reviews. When I first generated the preview it even had a different consensus written that made it out to be a fine addition to the franchise. They’ve since replaced it with one a bit more down on the whole thing. Ultimately, like Warcraft, this is mostly looking at one of the bigger releases of the year that ended up being bad and seeing what we think.

The Bad – Aggressively and proudly crude for the sake of being crude, which I thought came across as juvenile and annoying, and makes the film seem like a standard R-rated action-comedy. No charisma from the lead, bad acting across the board, specifically I thought Thomas Jane put together a flimsy, obvious, and generally annoying character. Keegan-Michael Key was only barely tolerable as well. The rest of the band of brothers was entirely forgettable, beyond Trevante Rhodes who was okay. The jingoist attitude towards soldiers was unbecoming and unnecessary. The main story (Predator trying to evolve using autism, the next evolution in humankind) is an atrocity and has been appropriately maligned by critics and fans alike. And finally, it jumps around way too much, you are all over the place, and not for a particularly good reason. There is so many small things wrong with this film it ultimately sinks under the weight of criticism. It is basically like: there is a little something for everyone to hate.

You Just Got Schooled – Initially for this film I wanted to rewatch Predator, but I’m kind of saving that for another time. Instead for homework I decided to watch the Red Letter Media re:View of Predator. For the most part this gives a general look at what made Predator a very good 80s action film: a limited story in a unique location with a charismatic lead and a tendency to go over the top with violence and crudeness. The new one? Basically tries to pretend that that last bit was the most important. It was not. The most important is the first: limit the story. Predator, Predators, and Predator 2 (to an extent) all focused on a very simple story: the predator has come a-hunting, y’all better get the f’ outta here! Why we end up jumping locations is beyond me. I’m looking forward to see if the RLM guys do an actual review of The Predator, because I imagine they’ll be quite disappointed in the “Shane Black Predator” given their views of the original.

The BMT – I think this was, weirdly, a once-in-a-lifetime event. The Predator was one of the bigger action films slated for the autumn, people were skeptical of the trailers but still seemed excited, and the crude R-rated action-comedies (don’t pretend it is anything else) tend to get apologized for for being good for what they are (and aren’t) trying to do. But somehow it sunk like a stone and ended up probably being the biggest action BMT of the year. Reminiscent of Independence Day 2, which was equally forgettable. Probably one of the more interesting Live’s we’ve done and gives a good reason for the BMT Lives to exist I think.

Welcome to Earf – Alright, so Olivia Munn is in The Predator and Mortdecai with Johnny Depp, who was in Transcendence with Morgan Freeman, who was the narrator for Conan the Barbarian (2011) with Ron Perlman, who was in In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale with Leelee Sobieski, who was in Here on Earth. Welcome to Earth!

StreetCreditReport.com – Just like with other Lives there isn’t much to say here, but I would expect the screenplay would get some nods for worst written film. Given the stellar track record of Shane Black as a director, he’ll also be a huge target for worst directed film. Overall, the film is big enough I would expected it’ll sneak into the bottom of a few worst of lists by the end of the year, overall the year has been pretty sparse regardless.

BMT Live Theater Review – After my terrible experience at Cineworld for Slender Man, I returned to my precious Vue. £7 showings all day every day, clean, and … well, they also had 30 minutes of adverts (as they say in foggy London town) prior to the show, but at least I can kind of think to myself “hey, the movie only cost £7 which for London is a steal”. Almost no one was in the showing, no one laughed at the many juvenile and crass jokes, and everything was appropriately muted … basically it is what you would expect from a terrible action film. Went to a late show, and then just stewed getting angrier and and angrier as I wandered home. C+, just what you would hope from a showing, but nothing hilarious to make it stand out either.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

The Predator Quiz

Have you ever found yourself out in the jungle mano a mano with a true Predator! Or in heat wave Los Angeles, mano a mono with a true Predator! Or with Aliens and Predators. Or like … a bunch of goddamned Predators? Well you ain’t seen nothing yet! Now there’s … like a big goddamned Predator! Nailed it.

Pop Quiz Hot Shot!

1) What mission was our main character on at the beginning of the film that was so rudely interrupted by the (good) Predator escape pod crash landing?

2) Why was Olivia Munn chosen to inspect the captured Predator?

3) Can you name all of the Loonies and why they are there? Descriptions will suffice.

4) And how did they all die (excepting the main character of course)?

5) Finally, why did the super Predator and regular Predator come to Earth?

Answers

The Predator Preview

As the Viking King Vikling celebrates Jamie’s victory over Vlurg with booze and wenches, Jamie drags the rotting corpse down to the seaside and throws it in as bait for Frang. Almost immediately there is a tug at the rope and with a jerk he is pulled into the raging ocean. Just as he is about to succumb to the pounding surf a mighty whale surfaces and eats Jamie in a single gulp. It smells like death in the belly of the beast. Attempting to crawl to the mouth, Jamie stumbles onto a rotting mound of flesh. It’s Frang! The whale must have eaten the monstrous shark months ago and Vikling never noticed. If Frang couldn’t get back out the mouth what hope does even a super muscly guy like Jamie have? Pounding his fists against the rotting flesh of Frang’s useless corpse, Jamie wails in anguish. “Have you forsaken me, Vikling?! Has everything you wanted dead not ended up dead?… At least… in the end. Not necessarily killed by me, but that’s mostly semantics, right?” Suddenly he realizes that a faint glow can be seen further down the gullet of the whale. Crawling towards it, dragging Frang behind him, he find a small encampment and fire. A humanoid monster is sitting there eating a small bit of food. “My God,” Jamie whispers in horror. “It’s a Predator.” Wanting to weep he takes solace in the fact that Patrick must be having even crazier adventures in the alternate universe he’s been sucked into.

Patrick is walking down the beach of terrible CGI birds following Sticks and Stones who have gone silent in the wake of the Z-Movie Multiverse revelation. Every so often he brushes aside one of the birds until … is that Jamie in the distance? Thank God he thinks and starts quicken his pace only to be thrown to the ground as the beach set begins to shift and chlorinated pool water sloshes over him, spilled from the “ocean”. Shoddy workmanship this, he thinks, who built this set? … Wait … presumably no one built the set. His eyes begin to blur, the birds becoming gigantic, filling his field of vision, until one grabs him in pixelated claws and begins to carry him off. He’s thousands of feet into the air, but … how could a z-movie afford just a spectacular effect? The bird explodes into a blob of pixelated blood, and Patrick crumples to the ground, the beach set righting itself, and the birds returning to normal size. “Gosh dern it,” says Stones, “it’s happening.” Stick nods, “Kid, you gotta keep your mind straight, you don’t belong here. This place will drive you mad.” “As sure a pig loves mud.” Stones chimes in. Patrick feels dizzy and his vision shifts again. He sees Jamie, but now a far distance away, talking to what appears to be a … giant bug? Jamie’s going to handle that one on his own, Patrick thinks, and then passes out.

That’s right! It’s impossible to pass up the chance at a major motion picture release that qualifies BMT. Not to mention one that is meant to reboot a major franchise, and one of the most anticipated action films of the year. Let’s go!

The Predator (2018) – BMeTric: 24.3

ThePredator_BMeT

ThePredator_RV

(Kind of heartening that it kind of dropped a ton even before most votes had been cast. Pretty hilarious still. It plays right into the 14-year-old boy demo though, so it’ll float around 6.0 I bet and never really get too far below that.)

RogerEbert.com – 3 stars – With a fantastic cast and razor-sharp pacing, the fact is that this is what you want from a movie called The Predator.

(Wow, one of the rare top critics who gave this a halfway decent review. And I like to think this was in the spirit of Ebert who was an early pioneer of cutting some slack with the good-for-what-it-is type films (a viewpoint I mostly disagree with).)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaG1KZqrLvM

(So that was probably the best of the three trailers. The other two … looked not so great. And then the film … kind of mostly ended up being regarded as not so great. So it did kind of even out. I was expecting this to be high 50s on Rotten Tomatoes. The critics inability to tolerate things like cursing or violence or other nonsense for the sake of such things heartened me a bit. Making an R-rated movie because “that’s what Predator should be” is dumb and puts violence (unnecessarily) to the front of one’s mind. It certainly seemed to be the case here, but I guess I’ll see.)

Directors – Shane Black – (Known For: Iron Man 3; The Nice Guys; Kiss Kiss Bang Bang; BMT: The Predator; Razzie Notes: Nominee for Worst Screenplay for Last Action Hero in 1994; Notes: Kind of fun that he was in the original Predator as an actor. The films he’s directed had, thus far, been notable as critical darlings, but commercial flops.)

Writers – Fred Dekker (written by) – (Known For: The Monster Squad; House; Night of the Creeps; Ricochet; Future BMT: House II: The Second Story; Teen Agent; BMT: RoboCop 3; The Predator; Notes: Notably was a classmate of Black’s at UCLA, which is likely how he got The Monster Squad produced as writer-director.)

Shane Black (written by) – (Known For: Iron Man 3; The Nice Guys; Kiss Kiss Bang Bang; Lethal Weapon; The Monster Squad; Lethal Weapon 2; The Long Kiss Goodnight; The Last Boy Scout; Lethal Weapon 4; Lethal Weapon 3; Future BMT: Last Action Hero; BMT: The Predator; Razzie Notes: Nominee for Worst Screenplay for Last Action Hero in 1994; Notes: Sold Lethal Weapon when he was 22 and quickly became the highest paid screenwriter ever (selling The Long Kiss Goodnight for a reported $4 million). He took a seven year break in the late 90s.)

Jim Thomas and John Thomas (based on characters created by) – (Known For: Predator; Predators; Executive Decision; Future BMT: Mission to Mars; Predator 2; BMT: AVPR: Aliens vs Predator – Requiem; Wild Wild West; AVP: Alien vs. Predator; Behind Enemy Lines; The Predator; Razzie Notes: Winner for Worst Screenplay for Wild Wild West in 2000; Notes: Wrote the original Predator. This is the third of their films we’ve seen this year, and Predator 2 (which we’ve seen, but outside of BMT) will officially be done soon enough.)

Actors – Boyd Holbrook – (Known For: Gone Girl; Logan; A Walk Among the Tombstones; Run All Night; Out of the Furnace; Milk; Behind the Candelabra; Jane Got a Gun; Higher Ground; The Skeleton Twins; The Free World; Little Accidents; Future BMT: Morgan; The Reunion; The Oranges; Very Good Girls; BMT: The Host; The Predator; Notes: Born in Kentucky and became a model after being found in a playhouse there where he was working as a carpenter. Was engaged to Elizabeth Olsen for a time.)

Trevante Rhodes – (Known For: 12 Strong; Moonlight; Song to Song; Burning Sands; Future BMT: Open Windows; BMT: The Predator; Notes: Crazy good filmography thus far. Was a football player at the University of Texas.)

Jacob Tremblay – (Known For: Wonder; Room; Before I Wake; Future BMT: Shut In; Extraterrestrial; The Smurfs 2; The Book of Henry; BMT: The Predator; Notes: Both his older and younger sisters are quite prolific child actors. His younger sister was even in the amazing The Bye Bye Man last year!)

Budget/Gross – $88 million / N/A

(It made $24 million in its opening weekend and around $50 million worldwide. That $88 figure also possibly doesn’t include reshoots as I think it was announced before they announced the reshoot schedule … so it could be a bit more. It’ll be a flop, but kind of how Solo was a flop. Like … if they had just kept the budget under control a tight $150 million-ish worldwide wouldn’t be such a bummer … but it is, and that, honestly, looks optimistic at this point.)

#50 for the Creature Feature genre

thepredator_creaturefeature

(Alien V Predator is the highest grossing of the genre that we’ve seen thus far actually. Domestically it looks unlikely that this will top that given world of mouth. Just went back-to-back with Jaws: The Revenge, and we watched the entire Anaconda series earlier this year. Kind of the year for the creature feature. Major takeaway: these shouldn’t be considered horror films ever, none of them are scary.)

#30 for the Sci-Fi Chase genre

thepredator_scifichase

(Jumper is the highest grossing here around were Alien V Predator ended up, so, again, unlikely to beat it. I feel like a genre like this is definitely starting to get relegated to things like Netflix. Hell some of the best horror and sci-fi films have already been released straight-to-VOD this year. Strange times coming.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 34% (62/185): The Predator’s energetic blend of black humor and fast-paced action hits just hard enough to nudge this oft-waylaid franchise back on track while setting up sequels to come. (Original consensus at 41%)

The Predator has violence and quips to spare, but its chaotically hollow action adds up to another missed opportunity for a franchise increasingly defined by disappointment.

(I originally generated this when the film sat at 41% and looked like it would maybe just miss out on qualifying. It then dropped dramatically and now seems very unlikely to recover. The two consensuses are interesting, I’ve never actually noticed them change one before.)

Poster – A Definitely Hard-R Predator Film, Look at All That Gore! (C+)

predator

(I like the bold move with the orange and got some artistry, but I can’t get past the fact that it looks stupid, you know? Like, I would like it if it didn’t look extra dumb. Also gotta get some font work. Ever heard of it? Interestingly AvP: Requiem is the only other film in the series to also have a totally boring font. Appropriate.)

Tagline(s) – The Hunt has Evolved (B+)

(Alright. So I have to put my personal beliefs to the side for this one. Concise and hints at the plot. Also had a little double meaning in there to up the cleverness a tad. All in all pretty good… What this hints at though is a terrible movie that lazily uses the “evolution” ploy to claim that somehow this has totally amped up the ultimate predator into the EXTRA ULTIMATE PREDATOR, BRRROOOOOOOOO. So… that’s not super great.)

Keyword(s) – commando mission; Top Ten by BMeTric: 90.2 Alone in the Dark (2005); 68.8 The Marine (2006); 61.2 Transformers: The Last Knight (2017); 61.0 Doom (2005); 59.4 Monsters: Dark Continent (2014); 57.3 Suburban Commando (1991); 56.7 The Devil’s Tomb (2009); 54.7 Resident Evil: Retribution (2012); 53.1 Red Dawn (2012); 51.6 You Don’t Mess with the Zohan (2008);

(The Devil’s Tomb is some weird direct-to-DVD film starring Cuba Gooding Jr. and Ron Perlman. I feel like weird films like that deserve a voice somehow. They seem totally ignored in a very profound and sad way.)

Notes – The film was directed and co-written by Shane Black, as a sequel to Predator (1987), Predator 2 (1990) and Predators (2010). Shane Black had played Hawkins in the original film.

The film was originally conceived as a reboot of “Predator”, until Shane Black came aboard and confirmed he would be making a sequel instead, as he wanted to continue to explore the “Predator” mythology.

Jake Busey plays the son of Peter Keyes, the government official from Predator 2 (1990) who died during the hunt for the Predator. Peter Keyes was played by Gary Busey, who is Jake’s father in real life as well. (Huh, that is kind of fun)

Shane Black had gone on record stating he wanted this movie to be true to the spirit of the original, and for it to be R-rated, saying, “It’s an odd thing. Whether Deadpool (2016) helped is an open question, but I suspect it did. I made a condition of my participation with ‘Predator,’ that it be the same rating as the first movie, and the first movie was rated R. In other words, I don’t want to cut away every time the Predator does something violent. I was watching the American version of The Grudge (2004), which was PG-13, and I remember being so frustrated by the fact that everything that was scary in the Japanese version, they had to cut away from in the PG-13 American version.”

After the success of Iron Man 3 (2013), Shane Black was approached by 20th Century Fox with an Iron Man 3 (2013)-sized budget to direct a new “Predator” movie, and he could not resist. (I think people very much underestimate the effect of the MCU on making a lot of those films great. While they give young directors a chance to show off their stuff within a studio context, there always seems to be a lot of hand holding, and I wonder if it pumped up Black’s stock as a director too much.)

Arnold Schwarzenegger turned down the opportunity to return as Dutch. (That also would have been fun as a cameo. Arnold does pick a choose with this things, rumor is he is going to appear in the Terminator reboot).

Adrien Brody expressed interest in reprising his role from Predators (2010). (Naw we’ve good)

Shane Black confirmed via twitter that the film will be rated R. He tweeted that “And, just to be clear… PG-13 is for pussies. Spines bleed… a lot.” Black also tweeted “I am standing on set next to a 7-foot tall gentleman in a Predator suit – so no, it is not all CGI.” This tweet confirmed that this movie will stay true to the original by having the Predator be played by a guy in a suit instead of CGI. (blah. How would Shane Black know that spines bleed a lot?)

Benicio Del Toro was originally supposed to star in the lead role but he was replaced by Boyd Holbrook due to scheduling conflicts. (Nooooooooooo. Benicio is like … an actor I know the name of!)

Shane Black revealed that the rough cut was so dark, it was nicknamed the Night Cut and led to reshooting the third act. (… dark shots are the worst)

When Casey Bracket (Munn) first enters the lab and is examining the recovered Predator items, one of the shelves in the background contains the Xenomorph Tail Spear from AVP: Alien vs. Predator (2004). (Fine. It is kind of canon after all … although I think I would consider it sub-A. Like I think they could scrub the AvP stuff without too much trouble at least)

The actor Steve Wilder Striege was originally cast as a minor character in this movie, but 20th Century Fox removed his scenes a few days before picture lock, when actress Olivia Munn informed the studio that he was arrested, charged and registered as a sex offender in 2010 after facing allegations that he attempted to lure a 14-year-old female into a sexual relationship via the internet. (Yeah … do there is a bit of controversy surrounding the film. Another moment where Shane Black sounds like a idiot)

Edward James Olmos’ scenes ended up on the cutting room floor. (I love me some Olmos, so that is too bad)

If you look closely to the school, the football field, and the barn that was filmed in this movie, you’ll recognize that it’s the same school, football field and barn that was used on the TV show Smallville. (fun fact)

The Predator shown in the teaser poster is actually the Crucified Predator from Predators (2010), identifiable by the damage to its Bio-Mask. (whaaaaaa?)

In the Halloween scene when Rory first wears the bio-mask the original predator suit that Jean-Claude Van-Damme wore for the 1st Predator film is seen. That suit was eventually abandoned when John McTiernan and Stan Winston decided to redesign the creature. (I’ll have to keep a look out, the thing looks ridiculous)

After the Loonies are escaping from the bus, they see some motorcycles parked nearby. McKenna yells “get to the choppers!”, a throwback to a line from Predator (1987) made famous by Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character Dutch. (NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO)

Slender Man Recap

Jamie

A group of teenage girls watch a video describing how to summon the Slender Man and (surprise surprise) accidentally summon Slender Man. Soon one of them is missing, another insane, and the remaining two are trying their damndest to stop the madness. Will they be able to stop the Slender Man before it’s too late? Find out in… Slender Man.

How?! A group of teenage girls stumble upon an online video claiming to summon a demon called Slender Man. Why do they click it? Because some guys they know claimed they were also summoning this Slender Fellow. Cool. They click the video and more or less watch The Ring starring Naomi Watts. Super spooked they decide not to talk about it ever again… that is until one of the girls goes missing, another goes insane, and the other two start to see Slender Chap lurking around every corner. They get in contact with someone online in order to try to make this weird Slender Dude go away (and bring back the other girl I guess), but it kinda gets them in even deeper and roping in one of the girl’s little sister. Eventually they realize that Slender Bloke is more of an idea than a real thing (you know?) and that they really can’t defeat him… so the whole movie is kinda useless other than to serve as a parable of sorts for the dangers of the internet. You wouldn’t get it cause you’re not young and hip like us. It’s an allegory and a metaphor, you know? Anyway, the one girl decides to sacrifice herself to Slender Man to save her sister and she gets absorbed into a tree. For real. THE END.

Why?! Wow… I’m rarely stumped by one of these questions. Ok, so… Slender Man is a demon so he’s just doing it because he’s evil. Easy enough. The girls summon Slender Man because… they hear that some other people are summoning Slender Man. Then they want to stop him so they don’t die. My God. The motivations in this film are tragic.

What?! I assume that they use certain phones and computers for all Slender Man activities but it’s hard to note those kinds of things in the theater. It wasn’t hard to remember the scene where Slender Man began to reach for one of the characters but then it turned out that he was just reaching for a nice refreshing Coca-Cola. That certainly was jarring, but not unexpected. Pepsi’s gross. Slender Man don’t play that.

Who?! I fully expected half the actresses in this film to be aspiring pop stars, but I was incorrect. Instead the most interesting thing about the film is the writing credit given to Victor Surge, the username of the guy who first submitted the Slender Man art to the website SomethingAwful back in the day. By all account this guy has no interest in engaging with his creation and more or less says that he doesn’t even really use the internet much… and yet there have been no less than four feature films made about Slender Man (this one obviously being the biggest) and a full season of a television show. He keeps getting credits. Weird and wild stuff.

Where?! Patrick pointed out to me that all the where and when details are actually shown in the trailer, which is pretty amazing. This film takes place in the small town of Winsford which is apparently in MA. We get some Revolutionary War talk in the middle of the film and also a 978 area code for a character’s phone number. Other than that nothing solid. My guess is that some license plates could be seen, just not easily in the theater where I can’t analyze each frame like it’s the Zapruder film. C+.

When?! Also in the trailer is a MISSING sign for one of the girls which clearly states that she went missing on May 30th, 2018. Makes sense as it’s near the end of the school year. This is a fabulous A-. I certainly wish they mentioned how much fun they had at their Memorial Day slumber party considering that is likely the weekend on which they first watched the video. But alas, guess they didn’t want an A.

This movie is straight terrible… I’m not sure I even need to say more. It feels like an unfinished film. Something that was recut or refilmed after bad previews or to get a PG-13 rating with little regard to the fact that the plot is straight garbage and bereft of any or all motivation or development for the characters. Not to mention that you have a movie monster with no interesting characteristics, no hope of being defeated, and no connection to the physical world… so why would I care about this Slender Guy? I want Bye Bye Man weird dog and coin shit. I want to have them find out that he’s the spirit of a guy who lost his daughter in a tragic boat accident and they have to go out on the misty lake to pull up her bones from the wreckage for a final burial (only to find that she was the demon all along!). I want a real horror film antagonist. Not this half-ass demon bullshit. Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! This week we watched a modern day urban legend … what’s that? No, we didn’t watch Urban Legend. Naw, this is a horror film for the technological age … what’s that? No, we’ve already seen FeardotCom. No, you know, the one with the updated boogeyman character … what’s that? Goddamnit, no, we watched The Bye Bye Man last year! Whatever, we watched Slender Man, I was talking about Slender Man. Let’s go!

The Good – Oooooof. There are some shots which are well done. You can kind of see that the director is the most competent part of this film. It manages to keep the tension cranked up to about 8/10 for the whole movie, which is far more than The Bye Bye Man could say. If it could have managed a few more scares people would have probably given it a break at least.

P’s View on the Preview – Obviously the main thing here was the comparisons to The Bye Bye Man. Back to back years you have very not-scary thin men haunting people in rural America? I mean … yes please. The only thing we were hoping for was for the Slender Man to be hilarious. Because The Bye Bye Man looked goofy. Yo looked goofy!

The Bad – He did not look sufficiently goofy. The acting throughout was terrible. No moment in the entire film was scary, not even the jump scares. This film is entirely derivative of other horror films, it is effectively The Ring Ring Man, because it is just the plot of The Ring applied using the bad guy from The Bye Bye Man. The Bye Bye Man was hilarious while this is simply a tragedy, a not-scary nothing movie. Boo! I say boo!

Get Yo Rant On – So yo, first The Bye Bye Man, and now this? Why all the hate on libraries all of a sudden. Naturally when you summon a demon you need to go to the local library to see what you can find. Under “The Bye Bye Man” there should be plenty about the weird albino drifter killing people with his dog. In Slender Man they naturally need to find a book on … demons or something, so they head to the local library. Natch. What’s this, The Super Thin Get-outta Here Man is here?! Who could have guessed it. But seriously … local libraries are struggling enough without today’s youth being afraid of accidentally seeing The Ring Me Once Man or whatever making it all spooky and stuff. Leave the local library alone horror films. End rant.

The BMT – Nope. Merely a not-Bye-Bye-Man which hurts my heart. Get out of here Slender Man you piece of not-scary garbage. Come back when you look goofy. That would have been your saving grace … like if you had a top hat and a slender dog and some like … weird rusty bike sounds plays when you were near. Now we’re cooking with fire!

Welcome to Earf – I needed a little help on this. Joey King was in Slender Man, but I didn’t remember that she was in Independence Day: Resurgence, which also stars Jeff Goldblum who was in Mortdecai with Johnny Depp, who was in Transcendence with Morgan Freeman who was the narrator of Conan the Barbarian (2011), which also starred Ron Perlman who was in In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale with Leelee Sobieski who was in Here on Earth. Welcome to Earf!

Theater reView – There isn’t much Street Cred yet so I’ll let that be for now, but I do think this will be the worst horror film of the year by leagues. As for my theatrical experience … uh, remind me never to go to a Cineworld again. Now, I thought that the one in Chelsea was just an anomaly. Overly expensive and dirty. Nope, that apparently is the norm. Vue is one million times better. First, Vue usually has sweet six pound viewings all of the time. It is clean, and nice, and their kiosks work. Cineworld is garbage. The audience was appropriately muted, and the theater was fine though, nice and packed for a Tuesday night showing of Slender Man.

And that is that. We did all our homework last year by watching The Bye Bye Man, so …

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Slender Man Quiz

I guess I could ask a couple of easy questions about Slender Man. Like … how would you describe the body type of Slender Man? (He is slender). And … what get gender is Slender Man? (He is in fact a man). But instead I’ll throw you a few curves.

Pop Quiz Hot Shot!

1) Why do our four heroines decide to bravely go onto the internet and watch a video about a very very slender man?

2) But wait … then why didn’t all of the guys start getting slenderized later in the movie as well?

3) The moment where things stopped being polite and started getting real was when Katie is kidnapped while on a school trip. Where did they go for this school trip?

4) In order to try and get Katie back the three remaining girls go into the local Spooky Forest and use some internet advice to try and get Slender Man off their backs (jeez dude, chill out, you have a real weird stalker vibe going on here). What do they have to do to escape insanity / kidnapping / death?

5) Why does Wren (Joey King) show Lizzie the Slender Man video? For the record their friend was already shown this video, everyone was being haunted, and their friend had gone missing … but yeah, show your friend’s little sister the video. By all means.

Answers

Slender Man Preview

In the guise of a big fat cat and craving lasagna, Jamie and his dog pal Odin are on their way out of Dracula School in an attempt to find Patrick. The plot to use the Ivory Socket waits for no cat and Jamie’s vampirism can be dealt with later. When they turn a corner they are confronted by Dr. Vampiro, the headmaster of the school! “Not so fast, fat cat! You’re not going anywhere until we know how to use the Ivory Socket.” They look for escape only to have their eyes alight on a Dance Dance Revolution machine in the corner of the student lounge. “Perhaps a dance-off to decide whether we can go or not,” Jamie suggests. “Ha,” Dr. Vampiro scoffs, taking off his coat, “that is super dumb… and not because it makes no sense that I would agree to such a thing, but because I’m a dance machine, don’t worry about it.” There isn’t anything kids and bored parents love more than a couple of animals boogying down and boy howdy do they. Jamie and Odin bip and bop across that machine with some seriously bodacious dance moves. But as Dr. Vampiro begins his seductive vampire dance Jamie realizes that he may not be a match for his supernatural dance powers. Could he lose a dance-off? He knows then and there that he must call upon his friend and ally, The Top Hat Man. “Top Hat Man I summon you and your Top Hat, man,” he states with eyes closed.

Stunned by what he’s just seen Patrick sits in the pile of garbage and contemplates the situation. A talking cat!?!? And what did it mean he didn’t belong there. Sweat beading on their foreheads Sticks and Stones turn around, finally completing the firebombing of the witch’s set, “What’s with that dern look on your face, it’s like you just saw a talking cat (!?!) or something,” Stones says. Patrick opens his mouth … but you know what, the experience wasn’t actually that remarkable, just kind of pointless and dull. “Where am I? Where is Jamie?” he says instead. “You listen to me punk,” Sticks growls, “all we know is what we were told: fetch the kid in the teenage witch set and bring him to the precinct set. You’re here alright, but we don’t know anything about any goddamned Jamie. Let’s move!” Sticks and Stones walk up to a series of doors in the false alleyway and whisper quietly to themselves. This had gone on long enough Patrick thought. What did he do the last time he lost Jamie? Oh yeah, he called on his friend and ally, The Top Hat Man. The Top Hat Man would know what to do. “Top Hat Man I summon you and your Top Hat, man,” he states with eyes closed.

That’s right! This week we’re watching Slender Man. After one of the slowest BMT years in history, we take a break from our Bring a Friend cycle to (finally) head back to the theater for some BMT Live fun. Ever since The Bye Bye Man stole our BMT hearts, we’ve been clamouring for something similarly dumb and not scary and hilarious. So when we saw previews for what looked like a terrible misguided attempt to cash in on what the kids are calling “The Internet,” we hoped and prayed for it to fail miserably with critics… and hoooo boy! It sure did. This film pits the Slenderest of Men against a bevy of teenage girls and I’m hoping that he has a tall slender top hat and like a slender greyhound friend. This better be the slenderest film ever released. Let’s go!

Slender Man (2018) – BMeTric: 51.0

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(Sometime I ignore “current” films in this section because the plot is somewhat boring … not so here! The rating of 2.9 is so absurdly low that I had to make note of it. If it stays that low this will be a 70+ BMeTric film soon enough which is pretty crazy. I think people just really hate the idea of the film, and it doesn’t help that the film is apparently a load of garbage.)

RogerEbert.com – 1.5 stars – I should have been the exact right viewer for “Slender Man.” And yet my mind wandered to memories of better, similar films, and it was really only in the moments when “Slender Man” went terribly wrong that it grabbed my attention. After all, nothing is scarier than bad filmmaking.

(Noice. Kind of reminds me of The Bye Bye Man maybe? That somehow the redeeming feature of the film was just how laughably bad some moments of the film are. Otherwise films like this are a dime a dozen these days.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySy8mcceTno

(Uh, having watched the film already (spoiler) but … that trailer describes a different movie. Actually, I can exactly see what the storyline was supposed to be. Their one friend gets taken, the three other characters offer themselves in her stead, she returns but isn’t the same, The Most Slender Man is still spookifying them because of the deal they struck … better than the chopped up film you’ll get, be warned.)

Directors – Sylvain White – (Known For: The Losers; Future BMT: Stomp the Yard; BMT: Slender Man; Notes: He did the direct-to-video addition I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer before landing his breakout film Stomp the Yard. Mostly directs television more recently.)

Writers – David Birke (written by) – (Known For: Elle; 13 Sins; Dahmer; BMT: Slender Man; Notes: Announced as the screenwriter for an upcoming Picture of Dorian Gray adaptation.)

Victor Surge (based on a character by) – (BMT: Slender Man; Notes: Know Your Meme. Is still answering questions to this day about this thing he created nearly 10 years ago on a whim, which is bonkers.)

Actors – Joey King – (Known For: The Dark Knight Rises; The Conjuring; Crazy, Stupid, Love.; Oz the Great and Powerful; White House Down; Going in Style; Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs; Horton Hears a Who!; Wish I Was Here; Ramona and Beezus; Quarantine; Reign Over Me; Future BMT: Wish Upon; Stonewall; The Kissing Booth; Family Weekend; The Sound and the Fury; BMT: Independence Day: Resurgence; Slender Man; Battle Los Angeles; Notes: The Kissing Booth is actually having a moment as it (1) is not considered to be very good by traditional film standards, but (2) is incredibly popular in the pre-teen girl demographic (as stated on the Bill Simmons podcast on several occasions). She’s even dating her Kissing Booth co-star in real life.)

Julia Goldani Telles – (Known For: Most Likely to Murder; BMT: Slender Man; Notes: Studies at Columbia, and has a co-starring role in the show The Affair.)

Jaz Sinclair – (Known For: Paper Towns; Future BMT: When the Bough Breaks; Fun Mom Dinner; BMT: Slender Man; Notes: She is going to star in the re-imagining of Sabrina the Teenage Witch which is coming out in October.)

Budget/Gross – $10–28 million / Domestic: $23,393,116 (Worldwide: $25,020,757)

(The gross is “so far” and I’m willing to bet the 28 million figure is with advertising, which isn’t usually included in these figures I think. It is going to be a modest success in the end I think, but I doubt we should be waiting for Slenderer Man … More Slender Man?)

#93 for the Horror – Supernatural genre

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(This is, in a way, still the cutting edge of horror, although I assume that will change soon enough. Basically Blumhouse ushered in the current era with the Paranormal Activity franchise which was the first of the genre to break $100 million in over 5 years (and on a microbudget no less). Silent Hill, Thirteen Ghosts, Ghost Ship, The Fog (2005), The Bye Bye Man are either good or hilarious so far, so I’m quite excited to see what Slender Man brings to the table.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 8% (4/48): Slender Man might be thin, but he’s positively robust compared to the flimsy assortment of scares generated by the would-be chiller that bears his name.

(Rough consensus right there. All I want in the world is for Slender Man to be hilarious like The Bye Bye Man. Please be hilarious. Reviewer Highlight – Slender Man feels as used up as any years-old meme, like trying to explain what’s funny about dat boi a decade late. – Andrew Whalen, Newsweek)

Poster – The Top Hat Man (A-)

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(Slender Man watching me through my foggy shower door. How creepy. I do like the simple artistry of it with the unique font and nice balance. A little more blue tint to the overall color, but otherwise this is pretty good to draw me in.)

Tagline(s) – None (F)

(Oooo, the slenderest of all taglines. Real meta, A+ tagline… psych! Unacceptable but not unexpected, Slender Man.)

Keyword(s) – woods; Top Ten by BMeTric: 90.2 Alone in the Dark (2005); 87.5 BloodRayne (2005); 86.0 In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (2007); 85.9 Troll 2 (1990); 82.6 The Legend of Hercules (2014); 80.4 Birdemic: Shock and Terror (2010); 80.0 Halloween: Resurrection (2002); 78.4 Jason X (2001); 78.0 The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009); 77.7 The Starving Games (2013);

(Birdemic is coming up, and I really hope We can do the Halloween franchise at some point. And who knows, maybe we’ll finally add the Twilight franchise to the list of BMT films.)

Notes – The father of the victim whose life was nearly claimed by two girls that worshipped the Slender Man spoke out against the film, citing how they felt disgraced by Hollywood making a film about events that led to tragedy. (I mean … fair)

During the post-production of Slender Man (2018), Sony and Screen Gems were reportedly extremely nervous about releasing the film, due to the ongoing court cases and negative publicity surrounding the Creepypasta legend. This caused the two companies to release the film with very little promotional materials to it, and it did not screen for critics. (I mean … fair)

The Slender Man first appeared on the “Something Awful” forums in a series of photographs edited to depict a tall, humanoid entity unnoticed by other people in the image but almost always surrounded by, or in close proximity to, children. Since then, many have speculated inspiration and origin of Slender Man in popular media, folk tales and ghost stories from hundreds of years ago, the earliest being a reference to Der Großmann in a German folk story written in 1702.

Both Chloe and Tom are shown dying in the trailer, yet neither death appears in the final cut of the movie. (Reshoots I guess. Interesting only because there aren’t very many notes, presumably because the film just came out)

Fifty Shades Freed Recap

If you’ve seen the movie, take the quiz. How much do you know about billionaire playboy Christian Grey?

Jamie

Anastasia and Christian are totes married and ready to settle down except a pesky stalker, a pregnancy, and the inability to be sane keep getting in the way. Can they figure out their marriage and dispose of the stalker before it’s too late? Find out in… Fifty Shades Freed.

How?! We are all jazzed for the wedding of the century. Anastasia and Christian are tying the knot and ready to not share each other with anyone ever again (who needs friends and family? Amirite?). Whisked away to France for a little smooching under the sun the honeymoon is ruined (ruined!) when Christian is informed that Eric, the skeevy ex-boss of Anastasia, has broken into his company and stolen documents. Uh oh! But you know what will pick you up? A little house hunting and doing well at your job that you totally earned through hard work and skill. Let’s do that for like a half hour. Only when Christian leaves for NYC and Anastasia gets attacked by Eric do things really pick up in the film… what’s that? No it doesn’t? Oh right, let’s go on vacation to Aspen for another half hour of the film. Just a little hiking in a luxury locale. Cool, cool, cool, cool. But after that totally dealing with this Debbie Downer Eric character… still not yet? Anastasia’s pregnant and Christian is none too pleased with that. He gets all drunk and sulky because he doesn’t want to share Anastasia with his baby. She’ll love the baby more than she loves him (as is a totally normal thing to worry about). Only as this drama really comes to a head do we find that Eric has kidnapped Christian’s sister Mia. While Anastasia gets the ransom money and attempts to convince Christian that she just needs it because he’s a monster that she has to leave, Christian understands intuitively that something must be up. They (finally) converge on Eric and totally shoot him and everyone is safe and the baby is born and there lives are great and well adjusted because they are normal people, don’t worry about it. THE END.

Why?! A question as old as time: what are the motivations of the characters in the Fifty Shades series. It’s obviously love (although a love I cannot understand). She can’t resist him, he can’t resist her. Everything that is done in the film is done for that love, even Christian’s crazy reasons why he doesn’t want to have a baby. There are a lot of reasons to be apprehensive about having a baby, but him being primarily concerned that he doesn’t want to share Anastasia with a baby is… fucking nuts. As for the antagonist, Eric, he grew up with Christian in foster care and I guess decided that he should have had Christian’s life and it drives him insane?… honestly the whole book/film seemed poorly thought through… which I guess was a good thing for us.

What?! It was hard to pick up on any product placement other than the fact that the film may as well have been called Audis Make Me Horny: The Movie. Allowing Anastasia to drive an Audi is the greatest gift Christian ever gives Anastasia… but that’s not hard because he’s basically a monster the rest of the time.

Who?! It would be the best if there was a Planchet in this films… a fat assistant that they make fun of all day. But alas. I also wish that someone played the President in this. Like Anastasia and Christian roll up to a plane and she’s like “Is this yours?” and Christian is like “No, it’s his.” and points to the President and it’s Air Force One. But instead I can only point out that Rita Ora has appeared in all of these films and is primarily a musician.

Where?! Seattle, baby! They leaned into the setting hard and I applaud it for that. I just which they spent a bit more time in the Space Needle, or on a ferry, or at Seattle Grace Hospital. As it is it could have been set in LA or San Fran without missing a beat. B.

When?! I’m gonna be honest. Since I streamed this film the quality was so low that I could not make out the date in the spots where I would usually find it. For example, cell phone screens were all fuzzy… and all in Spanish. F (for now).

This is straight trash that I couldn’t even bring myself to watch in theaters. I was so terrified by the thought of having to shadily sneak my way in and out like a pervert that I just streamed it on my magical dream machine from the comfort of my home. Is it worse than Fifty Shades Darker? In a lot of ways yes: it’s pretty easily the tamest of the bunch when it comes to being the erotic romance/thriller it hoped to be. I other ways no: Anastasia was a lot stronger in this one and at least something happened with the whole Eric situation. Overall this whole series is pretty much the ideal scenario for BMT. Much like Transformers it was a can’t miss entry. There was literally no way it could get good reviews. Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Two years ago we were shaded. Last year we went darker. This year we are free. We watched a heart-wrenching documentary on spousal abuse called Fifty Shades Freed. Anastasia, I’ll distract Christian, you destroy your phone and get out of Seattle! We are going to get through this together. Let’s go!

The Good (Sklogcabulary Quiz) – Anastasia Steele as a character shows good growth through the series, and in this she is a fine young woman just looking to fix a broken young man. The soundtrack, as usual, was bumping. The film at the very least pumped up the excitement for the finale. This is a more personal Sklocabulary Quiz this week:

The Full Tril-Oh-Geez (n.) – A trilogy where each film was watched for BMT during its year of release.

Unfortunately the Golden Tril-Oh-Geez has yet to be done. That is where we watch each leg in theaters. We sadly watched the original Fifty Shades of Grey a few months after its release in 2015. Perhaps our destiny is for BMT to end with a Golden Tril-Oh-Geez … well not today! We live to see another Thursday.

The Bad (Sklog-quel) – Christian Grey is as much of an abusive garbage man as he always is. While they pumped up the excitement, the film is basically incomprehensible and the somehow still boring. The sex scenes are the worst part of the film, which is obviously unacceptable. The film will make you say “Whaaaaaaat?” at least three times. The Sklog-quel I would like to see is obviously the prequel concerning the corruption of teenaged Christian Grey by Elena Lincoln. The main reason is that I’m obsessed with the idea of them casting someone to specifically play a young Kimmy B (that’s what we call Kim Basinger). I would also obviously throw $20 million at Dornan just to see if he’d be willing to play a 17-year-old version of himself. He is 35, he can do it, he’s got the range. You know you want it … you know the world wants it.

The BMT (Reviewer Highlight) – Ah the legacy. The legend of Fifty Shades will live on in BMT lore. It comprises an unreasonable number of our Live viewings, and in a way BMT grew up with it. It is also a modern interpretation of the early-90s erotic thriller, which Jamie and I have a strange affection for. The StreetCreditReport will come in bunches, but in time. Let me just leave you with another Reviewer Highlight: Might as well be called “So I Married a Sociopath.” – Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service.

Shockingly we somehow managed to find a film that was both in theaters and an adaptation of a book. Well, I read exactly ten pages of the first book before falling into a weeks long coma. I will not give it an adaptation grade, but I am sure it is an F. Spoiler … I couldn’t bring myself to go to the theater for this one, it was too embarrassing. I watched it by myself because my wife refused to watch it with me. Not only do I not blame her, I’m proud of her.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs