I have literally been waiting years for this moment. Stay Alive is one of a relatively small set of films that have me stop in my tracks and say, “Hold up… that qualifies?” These are major releases that are so crazy in concept that it’s a real wonder that they appear to have made no cultural impact. So little that I assumed they were straight-to-video. The year was 2006 and a film came out about a killer video game and I… have no recollection of it. It wasn’t even a massive bomb. If anything it was a modest success. Anyway, I always have to take a moment and celebrate when one of these films finally breaks through BMT rulez and finds a spot in a cycle. Now it just has to live up to the lofty standards (pun actually not intended, believe it or not) that The Loft set.
To recap, Loomis Crowley and his girlfriend, Sarah, are cutting it up with a new spooky video game. Even spookier, after the game ends they are killed just like their characters were. Hutch, Loomis’ friend, and Abigail, Sarah’s friend, meet at the funeral. Hutch ends up being given the game they were playing, Stay Alive. In memory of Loomis and Sarah, he and a bunch of friends get together to play the game. They are duly spookified and Hutch’s boss is killed in the game… and dies. Stay Alive! Like in Tarot, the police are like “so how many people in your lives have died in the last week?” Already pretty much knowing what’s happening they begin to research the subject of the game: Countess Bathory. One of the friends ignores the warnings and plays… and dies. Stay Alive! One of the detectives ignores the warnings and plays… and dies. Stay Alive! Hutch and the gang head to the plantation where the game is set and try to subdue the Countess’ ghost. They realize that the game can play itself (horseshit lore) and also that one of them can play and the help provided appears in real life (weird, but I’ll allow it). A climactic showdown occurs where all the very important game lore is used to kill the spirit. THE END. (Or is it? (They desperately want that to not be the case)).
Franchise Man has no right to comment on this movie until it unexpectedly becomes a franchise twenty or thirty years after the original. But… if he were to comment he would say that the rulez and lore in this movie are a travesty. The game plays itself? The game… just can kill you without you actually playing the game. Uh… I thought the tagline was Play It To Death. Operative word there being “play” as in play the game. It looks like shit and is total nonsense, so I don’t accept the claim on wikipedia that this is some cult classic. You know what would have made it a classic? More creative video game kills and making it so that to stop the curse they must, you know, play the game. I actually need them to make a sequel to right the wrongs of the past.
Hot Take Clam Bake! I’m brave enough to say it. I don’t think that video game was even haunted. I think there was a cool as hell serial killer out there pulling all the strings. A Jigsaw type character who was never stopped because they thought it was the video game all along. Some dopey ghost did all that? No way, man. It was this Jigsaw character trying to teach you all a lesson about life. In fact, I think it was actually Jigsaw. I also think Jigsaw is real and not a character in a movie franchise. How’s that for hot? Maybe I am Jigsaw. Hot enough for yah? Hot Take Temperature: Jigsaw
Patrick?
Patrick
‘Ello everyone! *gif of me playing a spooky video game and getting all spookified* Let’s go!
The Good? Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh. I mean, is there anything? I don’t think so. Not since I learned that Anna from The O.C. has turned into a religious film actor.
The Bad? Everything. The acting is bad, especially the main guy. Frankie Muniz is doing something, but that something probably made more sense when he was an actor instead of a racecar driver. And it isn’t a scary film. The only thing it really has going for it is that idea that it is a killer video game film.
The BMT? Hmmm. I think it is. Partially because if you watch the Director’s Cut they have a bunch of stuff in there which look wildly different than the rest of the film because they had to get it (seemingly) off of the B roll or something. The film is such a terrible, and yet unique version of that 00s horror that it almost inevitably will be a film we’d return to in the future.
A little bit of a curve ball on the AI journey here. I did a good number of experiments, which at some point I’ll continue, but I also was curious whether I could use it to get Rotten Tomatoes scores for a list of IMDb links. In other words … could it genuinely replace something annoying that I tend to just arduously scrape? Let’s do this naively. I used the Google Gemini “grounded” search, and decided on something straightforward: given the top 100 1980 films IMDb links, could it return a dictionary of all 100 rotten tomatoes scores? Naive answer: helllllllll naw. Well, that is a little unfair, it seems to have a hard limit on 10 searches per query. So when you give a list of 100 links it will only return 10 of those values (the rest are null). So in a way it can’t, but perhaps it still speeds things up 10x? That is for next time.
Definite Planchet (Who?) for Frankie Muniz playing an aggravating character who everyone tells to shut up a bunch but obviously ultimately lives. Super Product Placement (What?) for a sweet Alienware laptop all up in this piece. A huge Setting as a Character (Where?) for a very very New Orleans film. I think the cursed video game is a MAcGuffin (Why?) for sure. And I love the Worst Twist (How?) whereby the end of the movie is them releasing the killer game despite them breaking the curse. This film is crazy bad looking but hugely entertainingly bad and thus a BMT through and through.
What can we learn about killer video games? Find out in the Quiz. Cheerios,
What is the name of that film about the South American rugby team which crashed in the Andes and had to resort to cannibalism? Society of the Snow? Naw, I’m thinking of Alive. Let’s go!
Pop Quiz Hot Shot!
1) In 1993-1994 there was a Congressional hearing on violence in video games which was lead by Joe Lieberman and Herb Kohl. The three films that were the focus of some ire in the hearing was the very weird FMV game Night Trap, Doom, and what other fighting game of note at the time?
2) Speaking of video games. The main character in this film is played by Jon Foster, who is the brother of Ben Foster. Ben Foster played an eeeeevil wizard in what video game adapted film which we watched Live! for BMT.
3) The film is produced by someone we are very familiar with at BMT HQ. He directed such classics as Terminator Salvation and the Charlie’s Angels series. Who is this mononomous director?
4) Frankie Muniz is obviously most famous as a race car driver (right?). He currently drived for the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. This is a “stock car” series. What are stock cars by definition?
5) If there is any video game series the fake one in this movie takes inspiration from it is Silent Hill. In that series there is a main villain (seen in the movies occasionally as well) which has a … hat? Helmet? Whatever, on. What is the name of this character based on this headwear?
Bonus NYTimes Listing Question: This movie premiered too late to get into the television listings. But an earlier video game film, Super Mario Bros., premiered at 8PM on Showtime on August 27, 1994. The lead-in to the film was:
Jamie and the rest of the jury wander around Dark Territory, a neighboring village in the same county as Hallston named after its twin founders Terri and Tory Dark. “So he murdered the sheriff right here in the town square?” Jamie asks. The county prosecutor nods. “He slashed him with a samurai sword, shirtless, so his distinctive and hideous chest scar was fully visible?” Correct again. “Visible to that school house 300 yards away filled with witnesses?” Yes, yes, yes. “Then he parkoured onto the roof of the bank and escaped into Hallston?” This is all a matter of public record. “Then he was picked up at a Hallston motel with a samurai sword wiped clean and claims to have no memory at all of where he was that whole day, thus having no alibi?” The country prosecutor is losing patience. “Sounds like a slam dunk,” Jamie finishes and the prosecutor sighs and walks away. This incredibly sad person is getting on his nerves. Jamie looks at the accused, who is sitting solemnly with Ms. LaRouche. He looks him up and down and snorts incredulously. He looks at the school and thinks about how confusing it must have seemed to those kids. Both horrifying and yet rad. He snorts again. He kneels down and tastes the dirt. He raises his nose and sniffs the air. This doesn’t taste or smell right at all. His drop dead gorgeous mind starts whirring a mile a minute. The pieces fall into place and he murmurs, “my god.” It’s his turn to write something on a pad of paper. But he’s not showing it to Ms. LaRouche. He’s showing it to that young man who stands accused of this murder most foul. The paper reads, ‘Stay alive.” Ms. LaRouche smiles slyly. That’s right! We are staying alive with Stay Alive. This killer video game horror film is peak 2000’s and has been on my watch list for ages. A classic, “Wait, that was in theaters?” film. Let’s go!
Stay Alive (2006) – BMeTric: 62.3; Notability: 29
StreetCreditReport.com –BMeTric: top 9.2%; Notability: top 34.4%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 6.9%; Higher BMeT: Date Movie, The Wicker Man, Ultraviolet, Pledge This!, Little Man, Basic Instinct 2, Material Girls, Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector, Zoom, The Shaggy Dog, Big Momma’s House 2, DOA: Dead or Alive, The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause, Black Christmas, Pulse, Crossover, The Marine, Phat Girlz, Scary Movie 4, Eragon, and 3 more; Higher Notability: Poseidon, The Da Vinci Code, Eragon, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Scary Movie 4, The Wild, Click, The Pink Panther, Smokin’ Aces, Zoom, The Guardian, The Black Dahlia, School for Scoundrels, The Shaggy Dog, Just My Luck, All the King’s Men, Happily N’Ever After, Lady in the Water, The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause, Factory Girl, and 66 more; Lower RT: The Contract, Pledge This!, Crossover, Material Girls, The Covenant, Zoom, Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector, Big Momma’s House 2, Basic Instinct 2, Deck the Halls, Happily N’Ever After, Date Movie, Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj, When a Stranger Calls, Ultraviolet, See No Evil, Annapolis; Notes: We’ve seen 8 of those 20 higher BMeT films, but I’ve seen Santa Clause 3 and Scary Movie 4 on my own time. We’ll have to get back to those at some point. The 00s were nuts though, those are some terrible movies.
New York Times – Neil Genzlinger – The star of “Stay Alive” is a cutting-edge video game, but the film still has hackneyed horror at its heart. And worse, it’s not even the stylishly, wittily executed hackneyed horror of the “Scream” movies.
(That title is incredible. I wouldn’t have really thought “beta” would have worked as an insult in 2006, go figure.)
(my God it looks awful. Just, really, one of the worst trailers I’ve seen in a while. Sometimes we watch things where it is truly like how did this get made? Or more importantly, how did this get released to theaters as a real movie you had to play for.)
Directors – William Brent Bell – ( Known For: Orphan: First Kill; Wer; Lord of Misrule; Future BMT: The Boy; Brahms: The Boy II; Separation; BMT: The Devil Inside; Stay Alive; Notes: Mein got, The Devil Inside. Maybe the worst horror film I’ve ever seen, with the worst ending I’ve ever seen. Legend!)
Writers – William Brent Bell – ( Known For: Wer; BMT: The Devil Inside; Stay Alive; Notes: Not surprising he wasn’t allowed to write his own stuff eventually, those are his first three films! And obviously Wer is tiny. After that he did The Boy, and then that kind of wrote a ticket for a bunch of mediocre horror films.)
Matthew Peterman – ( Known For: Wer; BMT: The Devil Inside; Stay Alive; Notes: Maybe the writing partner of Bell? He has no other credits than those three, and never did any directing.)
Actors – Jon Foster – ( Known For: Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines; Thirteen Days; Life as a House; Rampart; Like Father; The Informers; The Door in the Floor; Tenderness; Mr. Jones; Brotherhood; The Mysteries of Pittsburgh; The Last Rites of Ransom Pride; Poor Boy; Future BMT: Pandorum; BMT: Stay Alive; Notes: He is Ben Foster’s brother, which makes sense. He seems semi-retired at this point. If I’m reading this thing right, his wife played young Steven Tyler in an Aerosmith music video? … Can that be right?)
Samaire Armstrong – ( Known For: It’s a Boy Girl Thing; Rise: Blood Hunter; The 2nd; Terror on the Prairie; Windsor Drive; A Winter Rose; Future BMT: Not Another Teen Movie; Just My Luck; BMT: Stay Alive; Notes: You know Samaire Armstrong! Oh you don’t? She was the losing leg of the season one love triangle in The O.C. involving Seth and Summer. She is also a kook, calling BLM a terrorist organization, voting for Trump, and doing God’s Not Dead movies.)
Frankie Muniz – ( Known For: Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story; Stuck on You; Dr. Dolittle 2; Big Fat Liar; My Dog Skip; Extreme Movie; It Had to Be You; The Black String; Pizza Man; My Sexiest Year; Future BMT: Agent Cody Banks; Racing Stripes; Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London; Deuces Wild; BMT: Stay Alive; Lost & Found; Notes: Y’all know Frankie Muniz … you know, the racecar driver. His career was short and sweet, and now he’s coming back for a Malcolm in the Middle reunion.)
Budget/Gross – $20 million / Domestic: $23,086,480 (Worldwide: $27,298,695)
(That is terrible, but also I don’t understand why this would cost $20 million … is it possible that a dumb company would overspend on producing the crap video game cutscenes? Maybe.)
Rotten Tomatoes – 11% (6/57): A by-the-numbers teen horror flick, Stay Alive fails to exploit its premise for any real scares.
(Six good reviews is beyond anything I could have imagined for this. So are 57 genuine reviews. I am often stunned by the films that got giant releases back in the day.)
Reviewer Highlight: Teen fodder like this isn’t known for sophistication or storytelling depth, but the filmmakers seem to take the film’s video-game theme as permission to eschew even the horror genre’s exceedingly lenient minimums for characterization. – Nathan Rabin, AV Club
(I like the visual. I like the bold color. I like the font. But overall, this is also dumb as rocks. Still, there is a lot to like. B.)
Tagline(s) – You Die In The Game – You Die For Real (B)
Play It To Death (C-)
(I like the first one as a hook, even if it’s not all that clever. The second is blessedly short and I do know what they were going for. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.)
Keyword(s) – top BMeT
Top 10: Fifty Shades of Grey (2015), The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009), Green Lantern (2011), Batman & Robin (1997), Batman Forever (1995), The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 (2011), Ghost Rider (2007), The Happening (2008), A Good Day to Die Hard (2013), The Mummy (2017)
Future BMT: 96.3 Disaster Movie (2008), 93.6 Date Movie (2006), 90.7 Vampires Suck (2010), 90.1 House of the Dead (2003), 89.0 BloodRayne (2005), 87.9 Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey (2023), 86.9 Street Fighter (1994), 86.6 The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl 3-D (2005), 84.1 Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World (2011), 83.1 Inspector Gadget (1999), 81.5 You Got Served (2004), 80.0 Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience (2009), 80.0 Jeepers Creepers III (2017), 79.5 Daddy Day Camp (2007), 79.4 Home Alone 3 (1997), 79.3 Boogeyman (2005), 78.7 Shark Night (2011), 78.2 The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure (2012), 78.1 Who’s Your Caddy? (2007), 78.0 Jeepers Creepers: Reborn (2022)
BMT: Epic Movie (2007), Meet the Spartans (2008), Battlefield Earth (2000), Dragonball Evolution (2009), Catwoman (2004), Jack and Jill (2011), Batman & Robin (1997), Son of the Mask (2005), The Room (2003), The Emoji Movie (2017), Cats (2019), Gigli (2003), Scary Movie V (2013), Alone in the Dark (2005), Jaws: The Revenge (1987), The Last Airbender (2010), Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997), The Wicker Man (2006), Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966), Madame Web (2024), Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987), Fifty Shades of Grey (2015), Speed 2: Cruise Control (1997), Slender Man (2018), Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd (2003), Jaws 3-D (1983), Troll 2 (1990), The Love Guru (2008), Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 (2004), In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (2007), The Cat in the Hat (2003), The Avengers (1998), Crossroads (2002), Halloween: Resurrection (2002), The Fog (2005), Fantastic Four (2015), Rollerball (2002), Baby Geniuses (1999), Spice World (1997), From Justin to Kelly (2003), Dungeons & Dragons (2000), Norbit (2007), …
Best Options (Horror): 90.7 Vampires Suck (2010), 90.1 House of the Dead (2003), 89.0 BloodRayne (2005), 87.9 Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey (2023), 80.0 Jeepers Creepers III (2017), 79.3 Boogeyman (2005), 78.7 Shark Night (2011), 78.0 Jeepers Creepers: Reborn (2022), 75.4 The Apparition (2012), 75.3 The Grudge (2019), 74.8 Paranormal Activity 4 (2012), 74.4 The Turning (2020), 73.9 The Last Exorcism Part II (2013), 73.2 The Unborn (2009), 71.6 Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension (2015), 71.1 Texas Chainsaw (2013), 70.4 The Pyramid (2014), 69.4 Black Christmas (2006), 69.3 Pulse (2006), 68.8 Captivity (2007), 68.4 Meet the Blacks (2016), 67.7 Seed of Chucky (2004), 67.6 The Disappointments Room (2016), 66.9 The Darkness (2016), 66.4 The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death (2014), 66.2 The Haunting of Molly Hartley (2008), 65.5 Brahms: The Boy II (2020), 64.9 The Final Destination (2009), 64.8 Blair Witch (2016), 64.5 The Exorcism (2024), 64.0 Valentine (2001), 63.9 Skinwalkers (2006), 63.4 My Soul to Take (2010), 63.1 The Hills Have Eyes 2 (2007), 62.6 Imaginary (2024), 62.3 Stay Alive (2006), 62.2 Darkness Falls (2003), 61.9 Pet Sematary II (1992), 61.8 The Grudge 2 (2006), 61.6 When a Stranger Calls (2006), 61.2 Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones (2014), 60.7 The Mangler (1995), 60.4 Exorcist: The Beginning (2004), 60.2 Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice (1992), 60.1 Spiral (2021), …
(This was chosen a while back. A crazy horror film with a killer video game. How haven’t we done this before?!)
Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 27) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Milo Ventimiglia is No. 8 billed in Stay Alive and No. 6 billed in Cursed, which also stars Jesse Eisenberg (No. 2 billed) who is in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (No. 3 billed) which also stars Ben Affleck (No. 1 billed) who is in Pearl Harbor (No. 1 billed) which also stars Josh Hartnett (No. 3 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 3 billed) => (8 + 6) + (2 + 3) + (1 + 1) + (3 + 3) = 27. If we were to watch Racing Stripes we can get the HoE Number down to 13.
Notes – Countess Elizabeth Bathory did actually exist. However, for the perspective of the film, her story takes place in New Orleans, whereas historically she was located in Hungary.
It was Disney’s only slasher film.
Video game reference: The old-fashioned camera that Abigail uses in the film is a reference to the popular “Fatal Frame” (known as “Rei Zero” in it’s native Japan, and as “Project Zero” in Europe) series of horror/survival games, upon which the “Stay Alive” concept is partially based.
Milo Ventimiglia had to wear contacts in order to see through his glasses.
Ben Foster was going to play the role of Hutch O’Neill, but gave the role to his brother Jon Foster instead because he thought it was better suited for him.
The funny story about Tarot really has more to do with Night Swim… and even that has more to do with that terrible horror film Fear… and even that has more to do, maybe, with the fact that I’m watching way more contemporary horror films than ever before. Certainly part of my dive into the genre is experiencing the wide range of films in “horror”. Some don’t even really feel like horror films, like I Saw the TV Glow, and yet touch on ideas or themes associated with the genre and so they are part of the ever growing horror miasma. Also part of that is the lengths to which these films often go to explore important themes. Like Night Swim spending a large portion of its film concerned with the loss of purpose felt by a baseball player forced into early retirement. Cool stuff, Night Swim. Actually interesting… but also you’re about a haunted pool and I would have loved a bit more about that part, actually. Oh, Fear? How about maybe giving us some cool kills associated with the actual common fears people have rather than… whatever the hell you were up to. Ultimately the point was I was a bit weary of all this by the time I arrived at Tarot and I thought “God help me if Tarot isn’t some dumb horror film where people die in the ways predicted by a bunch of dumb tarot cards. Don’t you dare try to be important, Tarot. Be dumb!”
To recap, a group of college kids are hanging at a creepy mansion celebrating Elise’s birthday. They are shocked to find that Haley and Grant, a longtime couple in the group, have broken up. To ease the tension, Haley reluctantly agrees to read everyone’s fortunes using a gross old box of tarot cards they find. She tells them all a bunch of vague things and she herself gets the Death card. Everyone laughs it off and soon they are heading back to school. Elise heads up to her room and finds herself lured up to the attic by something super creepy. This super creepy thing knocks her down and drops a ladder on her head… just like her tarot card vaguely implied. Everyone is shocked. Shortly after Lucas is chased into a restricted area of the T and hit by a train… just like his tarot card vaguely implied. Everyone is still extremely shocked. The police also start to take interest in this friend group. Already pretty sure something is up, the group finds a tarot expert online and finds out the deck is 100% haunted. No doubt. The solution: destroy the deck. They start to head back to the mansion, but their car breaks down. Madeline freaks and tries to run away, but she is killed… just like her tarot card vaguely implied. Paxton is like “fuck this” and decides to give up and head back to campus. We see him killed… just like his tarot card vaguely implied. Haley, Grant and Paige keep going to the mansion but can’t burn the cards. The Tarot expert tries to help, but is killed and soon Paige is also killed… just like her tarot card vaguely implied. Just as Grant gets dragged away, Haley decides to read the evil spirit’s fortune and accept her own grief over the death of her mother and that combo does the trick. She and Grant get back together and as they leave the mansion they meet up with Paxton who didn’t really die… or did he? (He didn’t, it’s just a joke). THE END.
I mean, yeah, this did the trick. This is a dumb ol’ box o’ rocks movie. Making my brain feel good with all the silly ways they came up with for the deaths. They find a tarot expert online like we’re living in a 2000’s horror film. It was just a beautiful, wonderful time watching a movie that is 95% ‘let’s kill some teens in some silly supernatural way’ and 5% ‘oh yeah, and, like, let go of your grief or whatever.’ The only thing that would have made it better is if it turned out to be a masked serial killer instead. Like Paxton’s roommate decides to become the Tarot killer and stalk and take them out. That would have been even more fun. Just a perfect 90’s/2000’s teen horror film with a dumb masked killer. Boy, that would have been great. As it was, this is still a perfectly bad movie. Recommend if you’re looking for it.
Hot Take Clam Bake! I don’t buy Paxton’s story. I think he was actually the masked Tarot killer. Sure we see him and the killer spirit, but I think that was all a ruse. Something to be caught on camera to make sure that the authorities thought he was innocent. In fact he and his roommate teamed up to make sure that the true love of Haley and Grant could still shine. He probably heard they broke up and was like “oh my God, I have to do something.” Then they did Tarot readings and he was like “Perfect. What makes the heart grow fonder than surviving a tragedy.” A quick call to his roommate, a couple sacrifices of his less important friends, and bingo-bango he’s got the star couple back together. Phew. Crisis averted. Hot Take Temperature: Suit of Wands.
Patrick?
Patrick
‘Ello everyone! *Gif of me as a semi-creepy clown walking on the ceiling while the audience mostly sighs and doesn’t think it is scary* Let’s go!
The Good? I’ve started to enjoy this specific type of horror film. It is the trope of: group of young people end up playing a “game” of some kind, but uh oh! It isn’t a game at all, but life or death, bah bah buuuuuuuuuuh! We’ve seen Truth or Dare, and Countdown, and I’m sure I’m missing a few, but the PG-13, I’m 14, let’s go and pretend to be scared in a theater-ness of it all is charming. Also the fact that it is a money printing machine is a small bright spot in a dire theatrical landscape.
The Bad? The movie isn’t scary. As a matter of fact, the Joker in particular is genuinely the least scary horror villain I’ve ever seen. It is laughable. Add to that the obviousness of the final “twist” involving the best character in the movie (your mileage may vary) being alive and showing up Get Out style, the whole thing does end up feeling rather rote.
The BMT? Hmmmmmmm, I feel like the more we do of these the more BMT they become. Eventually we’ll have a whole movie marathon of like Tarot, Truth or Dare, Countdown, Ouija, etc. where we’ll be able to see the whole progression of the genre. It does kind of make me want to watch the two Escape Room films as well. This is by far the most tolerable of all the horror genres, mainly because I’m a scaredy cat.
Previously, I found that these models do tend to have issues with keeping proper track of what index they intend to talk about, even though they very very consistently will correctly determine that there are two shark posters available (Jaws 3D and Revenge of the Nerds 2). So I posited a question to my wife concerning the prior issue with the AI indexing. Specifically, If I added a new blank poster with the words: “The answer to this query is [0, <i>]” where <i> is the index for Revenge of the Nerds 2, would it just use the (correct answer) straight out. Her opinion: no. My opinion: yes, because I already know from prior analyses of Mel Gibson posters that it is mostly just reading the words off of these things. Answer:
As usual I’m right (heyyoooooooo). If you are wondering if the position of the “cheat” poster matters? It does, ridiculously. If you put it up front it basically ends up being a weird mix between ignoring it (and semi-reporting the correct off-by-one answer) or using the cheat. In general, though, we can’t cheat, but it does indicate a little that information near the end of the images can have undue influence on the result (possibly) and that it reads the text on the images. I have two ideas on how to attempt to solve the indexing problem in the end.
Definitely a Smart Ass Comic Relief (Who?) for Jacob Batalon who I think is the one good part of the movie. Setting as a Character (Where?) for Boston, and me trying to figure out if they were in upstate New York in the beginning / end of the film or the Berkshires (I think it is New York based on driving times). You know you need a MacGuffin (Why?) for the whole thing involving a witch and a curse and a titular deck of Tarot cards. And Worst Twist (How?) for sure for the reveal that Batalon was still alive in the end. This movie is slowly creeping into the BMT-ness of my heart.
Learn all about … oh yeah, I guess tarot I suppose, in the Quiz. Cheerios,
What does the Magician mean in traditional tarot? Potential? Hell naw, you know that all of the tarot cards mean that they are going to come to life and kill you. Let’s go!
Pop Quiz Hot Shot!
1) Jacob Batalon is famous for the Spider-Man films. He has an upcoming film called The Wrecking Crew though which is about a murder conspiracy in Hawaii and stars what two wrestlers-turned-actors as half-brothers?
2) Hermits appear in what compilation by Giovanni Boccaccio? Specifically in one of the most famous stories, the tenth story of the third day, involving the seduction of a young girl by a hermit in the desert near Gafsa.
3) The hanged man plays a role in the movie. Famously the last public guillotining took place in Paris on June 17, 1939. It lead to an outcry by those who witnessed it. That includes what famous English actor known for portraying Count Dracula in seven Hammer Horror films?
4) What Shakespeare play involves a character of the Fool who accompanies the titular character as he seemingly goes insane roaming the countryside?
5) The film is directed by Spenser Cohen who wrote what 2022 science fiction film directed by Roland Emmerich and starring Halle Berry and Patrick Wilson?
Bonus NYTimes Listing Question: Obviously Tarot couldn’t be on in the 90s, but the other huge boardgame horror film, Jumanji, was. On February 1, 1997 it premiered on Showtime prime time up against:
No sooner had Patrick introduced Nathaniel Cawthorn to Jamie than he found himself back at his beautiful Hallston Public Library. Crows… crows were not his thing. He scours the graphic novels for his next great find. Not only not pounding the dweebs that he finds there, but even conversing with them on occasion. “Meow,” Mr. Whiskers says by his side, which reminds Patrick of his actual mission at the ‘brary (as he had heard the kids call it). “Right, I gotta focus and find something to help Jamie out of his doldrums.” But every graphic novel and book he looks at doesn’t seem to be quite right. “Caw caw!” Nathaniel Cawthorn screeches, much to the dismay of the shushing librarians. But Patrick knew that ‘caw’ anywhere. That was the caw of a crow with a hunch. Patrick follows Nathaniel as the crow flies over the stacks. Rounding a corner he comes to a screeching halt. “They have movies here too?!” he yells, getting another loud shush from the librarian. “But I’m guessing they only have only beaten up DVDs,” he whispers, but Nathaniel caws softly and pecks at a disc in the “New Arrivals” section. It’s beautiful. Tears well up in Patrick’s eyes. There was just no way Jamie could be sad watching that. A week later he surprises Jamie during one of the three times a day he forces himself to eat slices of unbuttered, dry toast. “Hey Buddy,” Patrick says, but Jamie just continues to crunch loudly into slice after slice of the flavorless toast. “You wanna maybe feast on something a little more flavorful?” With that he holds up a brand spanking new copy of the blu-ray (you read that right, blu-ray) copy of 2024’s Tarot, the hot new horror film for the gucci crowd. That’s right! The real life versions of ourselves are also watching Tarot, the hot new horror for the gucci crowd. Although I probably have to retire that phrase in favor of something to do with rizz… I’ll have to mull that one over in the ol’ noggin. Let’s go!
Tarot (2024) – BMeTric: 65.8; Notability: 12
StreetCreditReport.com –BMeTric: top 2.8%; Notability: top 17.2%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 4.4%; Higher BMeT: Madame Web, Borderlands, The American Society of Magical Negroes, Uglies, The Crow, Night Swim, The Strangers: Chapter 1; Higher Notability: Joker: Folie à Deux, Reagan, Borderlands, The Garfield Movie, Madame Web, Back to Black, Here, Argylle, Kraven the Hunter, Lift, Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver, Red One, Jackpot!, Atlas, The Union, The Crow, Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part Two, My Spy The Eternal City, Harold and the Purple Crayon, A Family Affair, and 23 more; Lower RT: Tyler Perry’s Divorce in the Black, Megamind vs. The Doom Syndicate, Borderlands, Madame Web, Mother of the Bride, Kraven the Hunter, Breathe, Uglies, Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver, Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part Two; Notes: Horror BMeTrics are always off the chain. Dems the breaks Tarot.
Variety – Set in a world where every door creaks and there isn’t a single well-lit location, “Tarot” is little more than a clearinghouse of horror clichés.
(Yeah, it isn’t wrong. This is a whole new era of “teen horror” I think. The type of horror you bring your boo to and snuggle under a blanket and pretend you are super spookified which probably smooching / on your phone telling you friends how spookified you are. Facts.)
(Really profoundly dumb. The acting also looks dire, although I agree with some of the reviews, the fact that Batalon is in this at least intrigues you since he was a highlight of some MCU films.)
Directors – Spenser Cohen – ( BMT: Tarot; Notes: Wrote a bunch as you can see, but as a director he did a few non-qualifiers, and a podcast series, but Tarot is a somewhat ignominious feature debut.)
Anna Halberg – ( BMT: Tarot; Notes: Co-director on the podcast series as well, she was also involved in The Expendables 4, so she must be professionally involved with Cohen specifically in some way.)
Writers – Anna Halberg and Spenser Cohen – ( Known For: Extinction; Distant; BMT: Moonfall; The Expendables 4; Tarot; Notes: They have a AI horror film called House/Wife coming out, it looks rough based solely on the poster. Netflix though, so it’ll be somehow hugely popular. They are definitely writing partners though.)
Nicholas Adams – ( BMT: Tarot; Notes: Maybe the original writer? His only credit.)
Actors – Harriet Slater – ( Known For: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny; BMT: Tarot; Notes: Was in the show Pennyworth, and is in an upcoming Outlander spin-off series.)
Adain Bradley – ( Known For: Wrong Turn; Butter; BMT: Tarot; Notes: Obviously is in Industry, and was on The Bold and the Beautiful for years which makes sense. In an A24 film called Warfare coming out this year.)
Jacob Batalon – ( Known For: Avengers: Endgame; Avengers: Infinity War; Spider-Man: No Way Home; Spider-Man: Homecoming; Spider-Man: Far from Home; Lift; Let It Snow; Every Day; Blood Fest; Shortcomings; Banana Split; BMT: Tarot; Notes: Spiderman guy. You’d recognize him. He’s also in Novocaine, and in some upcoming mystery movie (show?) called The Wrecking Crew.)
Budget/Gross – $8 million / Domestic: $18,771,004 (Worldwide: $49,256,239)
(That’s fine. Didn’t need the worldwide. Again, Horror can do no wrong. You basically can’t lose money with tiny films like this.)
(Let’s go for a consensus: Personality-less and trite, you’ve seen all this before, and with a PG-13 rating you are guaranteed not to be scared.)
Reviewer Highlight: It’s trying to be everything at once, and ends up feeling flimsy, empty, and again, very, very frustrating. – Matthew Jackson, AV Club
(It honestly seems a tad cheap. That gross hand. The death card. The only mildly interesting font. I’m not feeling it. C-.)
Tagline(s) – Your fate is in the cards. (D)
(Yeah, I know. It’s tarot. Bah, try harder, Tarot. I want to love you so much.)
Keyword(s) – 2024-2024
Top 10: Dune: Part Two (2024), Deadpool & Wolverine (2024), Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024), Civil War (2024), Inside Out 2 (2024), The Fall Guy (2024), Alien: Romulus (2024), Road House (2024), The Substance (2024), The Beekeeper (2024)
Future BMT: 62.3 The Exorcism (2024), 61.6 Imaginary (2024), 61.6 Joker: Folie à Deux (2024), 36.0 Singham Again (2024), 27.4 Slingshot (2024), 27.2 Harold and the Purple Crayon (2024), 25.9 Fighter (2024), 24.8 Devara Part 1 (2024), 19.0 Reagan (2024), 16.7 Here (2024), 11.6 Red One (2024)
BMT: Madame Web (2024), Borderlands (2024), The American Society of Magical Negroes (2024), The Crow (2024), Night Swim (2024), The Strangers: Chapter 1 (2024), Tarot (2024), Argylle (2024), The Watchers (2024), The Garfield Movie (2024), Back to Black (2024)
Best Options (Horror):65.6 Tarot (2024), 62.3 The Exorcism (2024), 61.6 Imaginary (2024)
(I wonder if we’ll ever get to Imaginary. The Exorcism is probably going to happen only because there will be some allured in completing Russell Crowe films at some point. But Imaginary? Might be for the real Betty Buckley-heads.)
Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 26) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Olwen Fouéré is No. 8 billed in Tarot and No. 3 billed in The Watchers, which also stars Dakota Fanning (No. 1 billed) who is in The Cat in the Hat (No. 2 billed) which also stars Mike Myers (No. 1 billed) who is in The Love Guru (No. 1 billed) which also stars Jessica Alba (No. 2 billed) who is in Mechanic: Resurrection (No. 2 billed) which also stars Jason Statham (No. 1 billed) who is in In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (No. 1 billed) which also stars Leelee Sobieski (No. 3 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 1 billed) => (8 + 3) + (1 + 2) + (1 + 1) + (2 + 2) + (1 + 1) + (3 + 1) = 26. If we were to watch Hide and Seek we can get the HoE Number down to 23.
Notes – Loosely based on the 1992 novel “Horrorscope”, written by Nicholas Adams.
The tarot card deck used in the movie was specifically created for it.
The title card appears nearly 17 minutes into the run-time.
The directors Spenser Cohen and Anna Halberg are among the well-wishers in Hailey’s email.
Elise is a Libra, Lucas is a Capricorn, Madeline is a Pisces, Paxton is a Taurus, Grant is a Leo, Hayley is an Aquarius and Paige is Virgo
Franchise Man checking in! Amityville Horror? More like Amityville Snooze-a-thon. And I’m not saying that because most of the series is terrible, but more because where is the lore?! You had three dang movies to get your lore sorted and instead you mill about trying to decide what the deal with the house is. Every film seems different. Is it a possessed house? Is it a haunted house? Is the demon’s lair behind a fireplace, in a crawl space, or in a well? Does it look like an alien arm? Is it a pig with red eyes? It’s like an inverse Child’s Play, which just remade the same film three times. What is a Franchise Man supposed to do with this shit? Now this isn’t the first time this has happened. Friday the 13th really didn’t get settled till the third (also a 3D entry), but it at least got settled at that point with a serviceable entry. From there it was off and running. This? This is merde (excuse my French).
To recap, John and Melanie are journalists who expose con artists. The latest con they uncover involves the Amityville house. Having found that the whole thing was a ruse, John is convinced to purchase the house himself (what could go wrong?! It’s a steal!). Soon after the real estate agent is found dead in the house. John convinces himself things are fine. Totally fine. Just fine. I SAID IT’S FINE! Melanie is less convinced. Particularly after both she and John are nearly killed in freak accidents. After a terrifying night where she is tormented by the house while John is away, she digs deep into photographs she has taken of the house. Uh oh! Looks like one of them has a little alium looking thingy on it that definitely doesn’t look totally stupid and fake. She rushes to show John this not stupid and not fake looking thing and is killed in a horrific car accident. Later, John’s daughter is home alone and decides to play with a ouija board with some friends. Despite the warnings of the board she then goes out on their motorboat and drowns. John’s estranged wife becomes convinced that their daughter is still alive, but John is like… pretty sure. He saw the body and everything. No need to open the casket and risk the head flying out. To try to help his wife, John brings in a team of paranormal investigators who get a bit more than they bargained for. In the well in the basement a portal to hell opens up and demons and acid and all kinds of shit start flying out. John and a few others manage to escape before the whole house implodes and basically that’s kind of it. THE END (or is it? (Ehhhh… kind of)).
Ha! This is dog shit. Like really, really bad. A franchise killer. It’s not even that nothing works. Meg Ryan is good. It didn’t pull the punch on killing people and setting the stakes correctly. Some of the tension and effects here and there were alright. You just can’t get over how stupid the effects for the demon are. Unrecoverable. Not to mention the fact that in this version of the story the house has unlimited range. It’s fucking with people in Manhattan and stuff. Absurd. Candy Clark is also surprisingly very bad in this. You can point to the material for that, I guess. She just doesn’t seem to have the aptitude for a scream queen and never sells any of the stupid lines she has to say. It is too bad that this essentially relegated the series to direct-to-video schlock. Something I would have liked to have seen was a take on the story where the town is in on it. They basically cover up for the house to convince families to move in. Eventually it’s revealed that the town worships the demon in the basement and is feeding it families. You can have fun with this. It’s not against the rules. As for Joysticks, I watched part of this years ago while on the treadmill and found it quite unpleasant. That unpleasantness continued on a complete viewing. The characters are gross cartoons. That’s actually the fun of watching these movies. Like… how is it that Joysticks was made by a whole group of people who looked at it and thought, “Yeah, this is good. This is funny.” It’s interesting. Then once in a while you find a Ski School where the broken clock is right and they actually hit the right note.
Hot Take Clam Bake! I’m actually half convinced that the character of John actually bought the house in order to run his own con. That after years of uncovering cons he figured he knew enough to create an unbreakable con. It would in part explain why he appears totally oblivious to everyone freaking out around him. He thinks the con is working. He put this little alien in a photo and is like “looks great and not fake,” and sure his partner dies rushing to show it to him, but that means it worked, right? And sure he daughter dies in a freak accident while unsafely motoring around the water by his house, but it adds to the lore. Yeah, don’t worry honey, it’ll all be worth it when we get these paranormal investigators in here and they get a load of the crazy contraption I set up in the well in the base… oops! My contraption sucked the house into the ground and killed numerous people. Let’s just walk away and pretend this was all real. Hot Take Temperature: Fiery basement well.
Patrick?
Patrick
‘Ello everyone! *Gif of me popping out of a well, but I’m maybe a lizard person, or possibly a Sleestack … are there Sleestacks in Amityville?* Let’s go!
The Good? I kind of dug the very 80s B story of a guy being kind of a piece of shit to his family and buying a haunted house so that he can make the big bucks no matter who he hurts. Meg Ryan was, not surprisingly, quite good. Genuinely, it is no surprise she would end up being a star shortly after.
The Bad? Obviously the Sleestack at the end was absurd. And basically everything you could say is good in the film could also be construed as bad. Cheesy 80s sets, relatively bad 80s acting, silly 80s story.
The BMT? Yeah I think so, but mainly because of the absolute absurdity of it all. The bottomless well, the Sleestack, the hoax thing running throughout the film, how crazy he is for buying the haunted house to live in in the first place. It is just nuts enough to work.
Ah, another 80s T&A comedy, I’m sure this one is just as good as Meatballs III. This one is called Joysticks and is all about an arcade and making sure eeeeevil politicians / businessmen can’t shut them down. The movie is kind of funny, in a tongue-in-cheek way. Like, the whole business with the main super-cool guy who can’t play video games anymore because of a past trauma. And then he gets over it to win the big day. It is fun. But also the film is kind of weird and gross and makes me feel a little gross as well. So I think I’m going to bump it down to a standard B in the end.
For this installment of AI corner I did the same thing as above, except at the end I asked it to summarize it all as a single ten keyword list:
It is actually a little weird. Initially it kept on cheating to add more keywords, e.g. giving back “Evil/Demon” which is just two keywords mashed together. When I asked it to restrict itself to a single word or phrase it conspicuously had “House” which is obviously supposed to be “Haunted House” but it was only outputting single word keywords. Finally I told it just not to use “/”. Even then it pluralized “Demons” which was singular in the other attempts, and “3D” lost its hyphen which maybe had to do with me insisting on not having a slash.
In the end isn’t this the main issue as AI as a summarizer? My vague and terrible prompt is “code”. It is not reproducible in the first place because these models tend to do a consensus with restricted and stochastic backing resources, but also even minor changes to the prompt changed the order and structure of the list wildly. So ultimately, to run an analysis the prompt must be included, but even then you have to just trust that outside of false positives (see the Red Scorpion analysis), there is still an issue with it just being very unknowably random.
Again, A+ Setting Alert (Where?) for Amityville, New York. And you know what? No worst twist here. I actually liked the twist in the end whereby the daughter just dies and is released. Oh the Skeestack? That was weird as fuck, but that doesn’t have much to do with the film. Beyond that that one moment I think takes this film from a normal run of the mill horror film, to a true blue 80s small time weirdo horror film, and I kind of dig it, BMT.
Read all about Sleestacks, probably, in the Quiz. Cheerios,
I’m going to put this right out there, I do not care for The Amityville Horror. The first half hour is fine and has some nice creepy stuff, but unlike Friday the 13th (which always knew what it was), this devolves over the course of 2 hours into a bunch of Stephen King/haunted house/exorcist retreads. Friday the 13th was giving people what they wanted in the slasher genre. Amityville doesn’t know what it’s serving up. Like is the house haunted? If you watched it you would be tempted to say yes. There appears to be a ghost in the house. But it’s not. It’s possessed by a demon… so the demon is pretending to be a ghost? And it just goes on and on and on like this for a full 2 hours. It’s bad. Just a bad movie that spawned a bunch of other bad movies I guess.
To recap, in a prequel to the first film (I think, it’s never made totally clear), the Montelli family moves into our fateful house. The head of the household is played by Burt Young and is a total maniac (Burt Young? A maniac? I’m shocked). Everyone is terrified of him because he is a loose cannon. As the demonic presence in the house pulls pranks like a little stinker, Burt Young just goes about blaming and beating his children for it. His wife tries to get a Priest to intervene but Burt Young is like “you wanna piece of this Father?” When choosing who to possess, the house appears to take one look at Burt Young and is like “No thanks,” and inhabits the eldest son, Sonny, instead. Thinks then get crazy. And I mean, like, real crazy. I’m talking Sonny seducing his sister kind of crazy… it’s crazy. He further falls prey to the demon and when it demands that he kill his family he obliges. The next day he is arrested and the priest is convinced that Sonny needs an exorcism. He breaks Sonny out of jail and eventually is able to perform the exorcism at the house. Sonny is taken back into custody, but at least free of the demon, who, it’s implied, has transferred to the priest. THE END (or is it? (Ha!))
Yeah, so this is a good movie. In terms of the craziness of a demonic possession this is on par with The Exorcist where there were several moments where I was like “woah!” and got a bit of a queasy feeling. It did not pull punches and knew exactly what it was up to. From start to finish the family at the center of it is in an upsetting position. Even before the possession, which I think it meant to convey the idea that a place like Amityville draws people like that to it. They are vulnerable to possession because of the sadness and anger and then the demon corrupts the remaining aspects of their lives so love and happiness are blotted out. It really is an upsetting film with not even a glimmer of a happy ending. So I give it credit. Hard for me to remember another case where a poorly reviewed sequel is so clearly superior to the original in almost every way. Like head and shoulders better.
Hot Take Clam Bake! Are we sure that house is possessed before Burt Young gets there? I’m not saying Burt Young is a demon, but I’m also not not saying it. Probably some force was simply inhabiting the house and was like “Oh, cool. A new family is here. I sure do hope they are kind and take care of this home we will share.” And then it took one look at Burt Young and was like “uh oh… I mean… I do have the possibility of stopping this maniac.” From there things spiralled a little out of control. Like in the remake of Nightmare on Elm Street it turns out that the possessed house was just misunderstood the whole time. Perhaps the house was really the hero we never knew we needed. Awwwww. Hot Take Temperature: A glowy pit under the basement.
Patrick?
Patrick
‘Ello everyone! *gif of me slowing getting covered in more and more flies, but unlike the movie it doesn’t seem to bother me which is somehow more scary* Let’s go!
The good? I always dig the look of older films like this because it feels like they were channeling a bit of the 60s and 70s directly into the 80s and trying to hold onto that small budget magic that existed at the time. I love Burt Young, even though this is full blown drunk Burt Young and he’s a monster in the film.
The bad? I could have done without the incest storyline. That was gross and dumb. I also didn’t think the movie read very well as a prequel. I legit did not remember it was a prequel until I started doing this recap even. The main issue is that the murderer in the first film was named DeFeo (who was a real person), but they obviously changed it for the second, but then was there a DeFeo? It is unclear.
The BMT? No, not really. The main issue if I’m being frank is that there are two films here, and the third one is weirder and wilder and much more fun. So it kind of nixes this as a BMT classic. Mostly it feels lazy, gross, and bad. So no, not very BMT.
I have an idea on how to maybe do keyword extraction in BMT, but there are a lot of tests I would like to run on it first. I figured and interesting bit though would be to look at multiple available sources:
The ones with actual text tended to identify specific plot points (incest being the big one), and the media was fairly mundane. Demonic, Supernatural, Possession, Haunted House, and Incest would be the five I would pick out as “intriguing and description”.
There is an A+ Setting Alert (Where?) for Amityville, New York, which seems to be somewhere in Long Island, although that’s where the real one is, they don’t get too specific in the movie. Worst Twist (How?) for the useless reveal that the priest is now possessed. That doesn’t come back at all in any of the first three films, so what is the point? This one is Bad, it is weird and gross and off-putting in general, and specifically is pretty boring with nothing to say ro add to the exorcism genre or the first film.
Read about haunted houses or something in the Quiz. Cheerios,
Amityville 3-D? 3-D, demons, talk to me people! Let’s go!
Pop Quiz Hot Shot!
1) In the movie the kids play with a Ouija Board they find in the attic of the spooooky house. Where does the name Ouija come from?
2) Tony Roberts is the main character in the film. His last film role was as the character Max Kellerman, the operator of an upscale Catskills resort, in a television remake of a famous film. What film?
3) Siskel and Ebert covered Amityville 3-D in an episode also covering a boxing film starring Dennis Quaid. C’mon, Dennis Quaid. Boxing film. 1983. What is it?
4) A very young Meg Ryan is in the film. Afterwards she would spend several years on As the World Turns, but then would break out in what 1986 action packed film?
5) Part of the film was filmed in Mexico City (interiors mostly). Mexico City is the 5th largest metropolitan area in the world, behind Tokyo, Delhi, Shanghai, and what South American city?
Bonus NYTimes Listing Question: Oh what a twist, look at this guy:
That is Amityville 3-D, but it has a different subtitle. What subtitle did it gain for a Halloween, 1992, showing on channel 55 in NYC?
What makes Amityville 2 special … possessions, exorcisms, talk to me people! Let’s go!
Pop Quiz Hot Shot!
1) Might as well start with an easy one. Where in New York is the real life Amityville?
2) Ha, on the soundtrack for this film, naturally, it has to give official credit for Happy Birthday to You. This song is famously written by whom?
3) There was a remake of the original film in 2005. How many original films were there, and since 2011 how many independent releases of related films have there been (plus or minus 5 let’s say)?
4) Orion Pictures produced the film. They have produced four Best Picture films. Name any one of them.
5) In this film the family uses the fictional name Montelli. But what was the actual name of the family in the original Amityville haunting?
Bonus NYTimes Listing Question: On January 26, 1998, this film played late on TMC. Earlier that night though this played:
Bad Movie Twins 