Preview – Page 51 – Bad Movie Twins

Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood Preview

It’s baaaaaaa-aaaaaaack. That’s right! We’re watching some more of our favorite horror franchise: Friday the 13th. Last cycle we had to endure the fifth in the series, which was so bad that it almost destroyed my taste for all things Jason Vorhees… almost. For the StreetCreditReport.com cycle we have to jump to the eighth film in the franchise, Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, which often makes it to the top of the worst of the series lists. This is reflected in the RT score with a solid 2/22 (8%). This of course means that we have non-BMT homework for Part VI: Jason Lives (which is often considered one of the best in the series; 52% RT) and a BMT qualifying bonus film Part VII: The New Blood (30% RT) which we’ll present here first. We’re going to do it guys. We’re going to watch the entire series in a single year! Let’s go!

Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988) – BMeTric: 50.7

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(I find the rating plot in particular quite interesting. The film has transitioned from a purely bad-ratings film to a Popular Below Average film in the later years. This is more than regression to the mean to me, this is legitimately people going back and actually thinking this movie is better than the previous generation considered it (in my opinion). And it looks like it isn’t slowing, it is plausible that this movie will cross into average territory soon. Weird and wild stuff.)

Leonard Maltin – 1.5 stars – Makeup expert Buechler fails to inject much life into this endless series. Pretty, blonde Lincoln foolishly travels to Crystal Lake (with her mom and her shrink) where her talent for telekinesis beings the monstrous Jason back from his watery grave.

(He did not watch this film. This “review” is basically just regurgitates the plot and then bounces. I guess he calls it lifeless, but there is nothing else there. Whatever, as long as this film is better than number five I’ll be pretty okay with it. That isn’t such a tall order is it?)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7Hm9RNGo8A

(This is… not what I want out of my Friday the 13th films. Yeah, I guess it’s cool that Jason kinda meets his match with a telekinetic girl, but I’m in for the kills and the trills. Not Jason being pummeled left and right. Also, it seems like they might show us the final kill right in the trailer.)

Directors – John Carl Buechler – (BMT: Troll; Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood; Notes: Nominated for the Razzie Award in 1988 for Worst Visual Effects for The Garbage Pail Kids Movie. Started out in makeup and made his way to directing. Still does some work in visual effects and makeup to this day.)

Writers – Daryl Haney (written by) – (Known For: Masque of the Red Death; BMT: Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood; Fascination; Notes: Pitched the film as Jason vs. Carrie. Fired after his agent attempted to get him a significant raise. The script was finished by an uncredited rewriter.)

Manuel Fidello (written by) – (BMT: Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood; Notes: Clear pseudonym. Rumor is that this was a notable writer who didn’t want his name attached in any official capacity. Surprisingly all these years later no one has come out and said “Oh yeah, that was me actually.”)

Sean S. Cunningham and Victor Miller (characters) (uncredited) – (Their only credits are essentially all of the Friday the 13th films. We’ve discussed notes concerning them during previews for the previous films in the series)

Actors – Lar Park-Lincoln – (BMT: Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood; House II: The Second Story; Notes: Has worked in the industry for nearly 40 years, she even has a book Get Started Not Scammed to help young actors getting into the industry. She did quite a bit of television as well, including the tv series based off of Nightmare on Elm Street.)

Kevin Spirtas – (Known For: Daredevil; Apt Pupil; Defying Gravity; BMT: Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood; The Hills Have Eyes Part II; Notes: Was Hugh Jackman’s understudy for The Boy from Oz he has also been on numerous soap operas throughout his career.)

Susan Blu – (Known For: Cars; The Hunchback of Notre Dame; The Transformers: The Movie; Clifford’s Really Big Movie; BMT: Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood; Notes: Born in St. Paul MN, holla! She is a prolific voice actor, but appears to mainly be doing voice direction at this points. Makes sense as she is nearly 70 years old at this point. She was almost cast to voice Arcee in Transformers (she voiced her in the animated series), but was replaced at the last minute.)

Budget/Gross – $2.8 million / Domestic: $19,170,001

(Still going strong. It blows my mind that they never bothered to up the ante and get real actors and a real director and a real budget, but I guess when your profit is 1000% you don’t really care all that much.)

#45 for the Horror – Slasher genre

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(I’ve been ignoring the plot for the most part since we’ve seen this all before. Right around Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (considered one of the only good late-additions to the three horror mega franchises) and Halloween 4 (which I can personally say is a travesty). All of these films came at a time when slasher was getting a lot of play in theaters, but just as the box office per theater was a tumbling as well, which was probably a precursor to the brief collapse around 1995 of the genre as a whole)

Rotten Tomatoes – 30% (6/20): No consensus yet.

(Oooo I get to make one up: Overtly pointless, and intentionally antagonistic to hardcore fans. The New Blood might have tried to cross Carrie with a slasher film, but ends up looking like it needs a whole new injection of new blood to salvage the waning franchise. Woof, that was fun to write.)

Poster – Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Sklog (B+)

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(One thing to be said about the series is that they generally delivered when it came to the poster. Great (and artistic) spacing/symmetry in this one. Bold black-white-red coloring and classic font. Seems like they are misleading the audience a bit though. The title and art would suggest that the girl is “Jason” in this one… which we know is not true. Pretty good though.)

Tagline(s) – On Friday the 13th, Jason is back. But this time, someone’s waiting (B-)

(And where they have failed to deliver is the taglines. This one isn’t bad from a cadence point of view. Mildly clever and hints at the plot (notably different from what the poster itself suggests). But just way too long.)

Keyword(s) – serial murderer; Top Ten by BMeTric: 72.2 Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993); 69.0 Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989); 66.7 Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985); 50.7 Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988); 47.6 Friday the 13th (2009); 41.2 Freddy vs. Jason (2003); 41.1 Friday the 13th Part III (1982); 40.8 Prom Night (1980); 33.8 Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI (1986); 33.0 Borderland (2007);

(Friday the 13th not surprisingly is quite prevalent. I do like it when the movie we are doing is features. I’ll just have to watch Prom Night on my own I guess, it actually doesn’t qualify for BMT with 42% … maybe a few more DVD reviews will trickle in someday.)

Notes – This film was originally intended to bring Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger together onscreen for the first time. But when Paramount Pictures (at that time was holding the rights to the “Friday the 13th” film series) and New Line Cinema (who holds the rights to the “Nightmare On Elm Street” series) couldn’t agree behind the scenes, the script was rewritten to pit Jason up against the telekinetic Tina Shepard instead. (Ooooooooof. They eventually use that storyline in Freddy v Jason naturally, but still a pretty rough plan B)

Kane Hodder did all his own Jason stunts in this film, including falling through the stairway, and having the porch roof fall on his head.

Kerry Noonan, who played Paula in Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI (1986), read for the role of Tina, when she thought the title was “Birthday Bash.” She quickly realized that it was a Friday the 13th film and confessed that she’d starred in the last movie, so John Carl Buechler decided not to cast her. (Ha! Yet again just basically tiptoeing around having continuity between films)

Director John Carl Buechler has publicly fumed many times over the years about the number of edits required by the MPAA to avoid an “X” rating. The film had to be submitted nine times to the Motion Picture Association of America before being granted an “R” rating, and it stands as arguably the most heavily censored entry in the ‘Friday the 13th’ series. (Huh, methinks we’ll get some nudity in the film)

Director John Carl Buechler stated that he clashed with associate producer Barbara Sachs continuously over many ideas that he had for the film. This included showing Jason unmasked for quite a bit of the movie. She vetoed the idea, but he ended up going behind her back and filming it anyway. He also stated that the final sequence of Tina’s father coming out of the water was to be more elaborate and feature full prosthetics and a life size dummy. That sequence was completely over ruled and he ended up filming what he considers an inferior version of the sequence. (Huh, that end sequence sounds a bit like a travesty to me …)

John Carl Buechler was so impressed with Kane Hodder when he ate live worms on the set of Prison (1987), that he pushed for Paramount Pictures to let him cast Hodder in the role of Jason. If it had not been for Buechler’s persistence, the role of Jason Voorhees would have been reprised by C.J. Graham. (I kind of want to watch Prison now …)

In the documentary Friday the 13th Chronicles (2004) included with the Crystal Lake to Manhattan box set, the director John Carl Buechler stated that Jason spent 10 years chained and inert before the main action of this movie. (Very interesting. That, I think, make this movie set in the future! I would have to check when the first in intended to take place, but if it is around 1980 then this movie would take place in 1990 at least)

Redline Preview

There is something both gross and enthralling about the action film we chose for the StreetCreditReport.com cycle. The confluence of time and place that created the opportunity for the film to exist is pretty incredible. That’s right! We’re watching the totally forgotten underground racing film Redline! What makes the film really interesting is that the producer of the film was a player in the subprime mortgage crisis. In fact the entire production was funded by his company Quick Loan Funding which went bankrupt the very year that Redline came out, 2007. Even weirder was that this producer used his own cars in the production (allowing a number of his very expensive cars to be destroyed in the process… for fun I guess) and also his own girlfriend. You heard that right. He cast his girlfriend (a soap opera actress) in the leading role of a film that ultimately (and misguidedly) got released to >1000 theaters. Predictably this film bombed, his company went bankrupt, his girlfriend dumped him, and he personally declared bankruptcy in 2009. See? Gross and enthralling. That’s called street cred. Let’s go!

Redline (2007) – BMeTric: 60.4

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(This movie gets its BMeTric basically entirely from its Low Rating. I think there are a handful of different “trends” in these movies. This had regression to the mean, but is very poorly regarded. So over time it will seem less disliked, and ultimately, perhaps, suggests that we are not looking at a movie that is going to sustain its terribleness. After over a year of producing these graphs I have the ability to just kind of read them. I’m almost there … I am just one step away from predicting things based on this.)

Leonard Maltin – BOMB – Real estate developer Daniel Sadek financed, cowrote, produced, and provided his exotic car collection for this slow and curious Fast and the Furious wannabe. Gorgeous woman who happens to be an ace driver gets caught up in the world of illegal drag racing competitions in which filthy-rich men with nothing better to do wager big bucks on the outcome. When she’s not pushing the pedal to the metal, she fronts a band singing lyrics like, “I want to be your car so you can ride me tonight.” Steer clear of this one.

(I am mesmerized by the line “Gorgeous woman who happens to be an ace driver ..” … It is like they were desperately trying to drop one word from the book and finally asked “do we really need this ‘A’ in the Redline review?” This description though sounds like an earnest Torque which bodes extremely well.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-8qDoDrACw

(Holy shit. It is Torque but earnest. Who are all of these people, what was the graphics at the beginning and end (were they supposed to be like car brake lights, or stop lights?). The story sounds simple enough. I just hope it isn’t like Need For Speed which was … boring and kind of okay if you squinted a bit. This better be a goddamned travesty or I will never forgive it.)

Directors – Andy Cheng – (BMT: Redline; Notes: Wow, he is a member of Jackie Chan’s stunt team and now, as Chan has sustained serious injuries in the past, will stand in for him on occasion. Very interesting to see a one-and-done (although he does have a direct-to-DVD credit) stuntman director. Second-unit director for Red Riding Hood (BMT) and Twilight.)

Writers – Robert Foreman (screenplay) – (BMT: Redline; Notes: Uncredited as a Bartender in recent BMT Rumor Has It … Otherwise I can’t find anything about this guy.)

Daniel Sadek (story) – (BMT: Redline; Notes: So yeah, this guy is the producer who had a company called Quick Loan Funding. There is a whole discussion about why he doesn’t have a wikipedia page on Quora, there are insane stories about how that company totally went under in the 2008 sub-prime mortgage crash and the after effects. There is little information about him these days, and I’d rather not speculate. But let’s just say I use the word “gross” to describe the financing of this film multiple times in this preview …)

Actors – Nathan Phillips – (Known For: Snakes on a Plane; Wolf Creek; These Final Hours; Dying Breed; Balibo; BMT: Chernobyl Diaries; Redline; Surfer, Dude; Notes: I think I would only recognize him from Snakes on a Plane, although we are certainly going to watch Chernobyl Diaries at some point. Born in Australia, his most significant roles recently have been on television.)

Nadia Bjorlin – (BMT: Redline; Notes: Mostly known for her role as Chloe in Days of Our Lives. She was also a go-go dancer in Ricky Martin’s Shake Your Bon Bon music video (you can’t see her, I watched it))

Eddie Griffin – (Known For: How the Grinch Stole Christmas; The Last Boy Scout; Undercover Brother; Jason’s Lyric; The Wendell Baker Story; Brain Donors; BMT: Date Movie; Norbit (BMT Hall of Fame); Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo; Redline; Coneheads; The Mod Squad; Pinocchio (BMT); Scary Movie 3 (BMT); Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo; The Meteor Man; My Baby’s Daddy; House Party 3; The New Guy; American Hero; Double Take; Armageddon; Notes: He got married for the first time when he was just sixteen years old and has nine (!) children. His recent defense of Bill Cosby probably won’t help his career …)

Budget/Gross – $26 million / Domestic: $6,881,022 (Worldwide: $8,267,379)

(Yeah, super bad. Pretty much horrible. The good news? I’m willing to bet most of that was for the cars and since the producer sold them to himself to use in the film I’m betting he got a nice write off there. That’s nice.)

#25 for the Car Racing genre

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(There is basically no analogy. It made about as much money as Grandview U.S.A. … the big peak in 1995 is also a bit weird, Red Rock West, which made around $2 million, but Box Office Mojo reports its widest release as 22 theaters, making its per theater average incredible. Probably false. The genre was big pre-1990 and has become huge in the last ten years with the Fast and the Furious franchise. Not surprisingly this came just as the genre was going into a slumber, maybe because of the recession? Wrecking ridiculous looking cars might not go over so well when people’s lives are falling apart.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 0% (0/27): Redline has plenty of bad acting, laughable dialogue, and luxury cars.

(Good, I need some laughable dialogue. Bad acting is a boon. This is one of the worst reviewed films of all time, the 15th most reviews for a film with 0% on rotten tomatoes. This right here is basically the entire reason we are watching this film.)

Poster – Sklogline (B+)

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(This isn’t blowing any minds or anything, but it is astonishingly competent given the film. I like the bold red on black, it has one of the more interesting title fonts, and the spacing is good. The background cars seem a bit extraneous, but that’s pretty minor.)

Tagline(s) – Fear Nothing. Risk Everything. (B+)

(Again, astonishingly competent. Like the “nothing” and “everything” juxtaposition. The “fear” and “risk” highlights the racing and gambling aspects of the plot. Concise. Ratchet up the cleverness and uniqueness and we’d be looking at an A+.)

Keyword(s) – ferrari; Top Ten by BMeTric: 60.4 Redline (2007); 60.0 Alvin and the Chipmunks (2007); 58.0 The Counsellor (2013); 53.1 Death Tunnel (2005); 49.6 The Smurfs 2 (2013); 48.5 Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip (2015); 44.8 American Dreamz (2006); 41.6 Mr. Deeds (2002); 39.4 Playing for Keeps (2012); 32.4 Georgia Rule (2007);

(Number one, number one! Alvin and the Chipmunks get a lot of play there, that smells a bit like product placement. I totally forgot about The Counsellor as well, which is a film we are unlikely to ever see.)

Notes – For the film, Sadek donated his Porsche Carrera GT (which costs over $400,000) to be destroyed in a spectacular crash scene. The mangled remains were on display at the 2007 Los Angeles Auto Show. (Kind of gross. Truly the pinnacle of pre-subprime mortgage crash waste)

The comedian/actor Eddie Griffin destroyed a rare million-dollar Enzo Ferrari (which belonged to the film’s producer, Daniel Sadek) on Monday 3/26/07, when he crashed it into a barricade while promoting this movie. He was unhurt in the low-speed incident, at Irwindale Speedway, about 20 miles east of Los Angeles. He was practicing for a celebrity charity racing event tied to this upcoming film, causing $300,000 damage to the car (including labor and parts). Sadek estimated that the car was worth $1.1 million, and said he was just happy that Griffin was unharmed. (Sounds like perhaps a guy who just loves cars soooo much … he’d bilk people out of money preying on trash investments. Blah)

The title “Redline” was one of the working titles of The Fast and the Furious (2001).

Prior to the demise of his company, Quick Loan Funding, Sadek was forced to sell off all his car collection, including those featured in the film. One of them, the crash damaged Enzo was acquired by Texan dealer, Matt Groner of Matthews Auto Sales. As the main tub was intact with no chassis straitening, the Enzo only needed new authentic parts bolted in, worth $91,000. The car has since found a new owner. (Well, a happy ending there …)

In the opening sequence of the film, a building with a sign that reads “Quick Loan Funding” can be seen. This was the name of writer/producer Daniel Sadek’s company at the time. (groooooosss)

Most of the rest of the notes are about cars

Epic Movie Preview

My gawwwd! Is that Friedberg and Seltzer’s music? That’s right! We’re taking this Street Credit Report (dot com) cycle and punching ourselves in the face by watching one of the many ridiculously awful spoof films made by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. In this case we decided on Epic Movie because it’s not quite as small as some of the later films (former Obama aide Kal Penn is in it after all). For its street cred it stands at a brutal 2% on RT and #42 on the lowest rated films on imdb. However, it surprisingly wasn’t nominated for a Worst Picture Razzie in 2007, so perhaps it won’t totally destroy our will to live. Sigh. Who am I kidding? The Razzies don’t know shit. God help us and see you on the other side. Let’s go!

Epic Movie (2007) – BMeTric: 95.9 (#42 on IMDb bottom 100)

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(That’s it though, right? That steady sub-3.0. It doesn’t rise up, it didn’t drop down at any point. Ten years ago this came out and people were like “this is trash”. And throughout the years others heard that this movie was awful and they watched it and said “this is trash”. It is why this movie is probably legendary. I mean … legendary in that it will be just brutally unfunny and annoying. But legendary nonetheless.)

Leonard Maltin – BOMB – Four siblings find themselves meandering through lame slapstick parodies of recent epic movies and other obvious pop-culture targets. Typically tedious, unfunny hack job, with an array of cameo appearances including Crispin Glover, who (as a perverted, sadistic Willy Wonka) provides the film with its only moments of admittedly sordid energy. Kevin Hart appears uncredited.

(Secret Kevin Hart film, I like it. We’ve probably technically watched something like six Hart films at this point (although Scary Movie 3 and 4 are not actually recorded in the archive … oops). This will be and sounds like trash. I will watch out for Crispin Glover though, that could be fun.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=SN&feature=plcp&hl=fr&v=AZKIr7r6Op4

(Uggggggh. I remember when this trailer came out. What really does it for me is that the last joke of the entire trailer, where Superman is shot in the eye, is just horrible. It involves an actor I don’t know with such a throwaway garbage joke. The cast is pretty solid ultimately, and they should have kind of just focused on that I think … I don’t know, it looks horrible.)

Directors – Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer – (BMT: Epic Movie; Meet the Spartans; Disaster Movie; Date Movie; Vampires Suck; The Starving Games; Best Night Ever; Notes: Even their wikipedia says they make “parody movies that have received extremely unfavorable reviews”! They started directing after years of selling scripts that never got made (upwards of 40 they claim). Friedberg’s father (Rick Friedberg) gave them the in by introducing them to Leslie Nielson when making Bad Golf Made Easier)

Writers – Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer (written by) – (Known For: Scary Movie; BMT: Epic Movie; Meet the Spartans; Disaster Movie; Date Movie; Vampires Suck; The Starving Games; Scary Movie 4; Scary Movie 2; Spy Hard; Scary Movie 3; Best Night Ever; Notes: Their spec script called Scream If You Know What I Did Last Halloween was accepted after Spy Hard and reworked into Scary Movie. Sounds like the title to this film, weird that it wasn’t written by these two then.)

Friedberg and Seltzer Razzie Street Cred – Nominated in 2011 for the Razzie Award for Worst Director and Screenplay for Vampires Suck; and in 2009 for Disaster Movie, and Meet the Spartans; in 2008 just for Worst Screenplay for Epic Movie

Actors – Kal Penn – (Known For: Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle; Superman Returns; Speech & Debate; Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay; A Lot Like Love; A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas; The Namesake; BMT: Epic Movie; Son of the Mask; Van Wilder 2: The Rise of Taj; Deck the Halls; Malibu’s Most Wanted; Love Don’t Cost a Thing; The Girl in the Photographs; Man About Town; Van Wilder: Party Liaison; Notes: I remember him first from Van Wilder, and then Harold and Kumar, and finally House. He worked for the Obama administration and now is on the show Designated Survivor as the White House Press Secretary.)

Jennifer Coolidge – (Known For: American Pie; A Series of Unfortunate Events; Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day; Legally Blonde; American Reunion; American Pie 2; Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me; Zoolander; Robots; American Wedding; Best in Show; Mascots; Bad Lieutenant; Trial and Error; A Mighty Wind; BMT: Epic Movie; Date Movie; Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde; Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip; Pootie Tang; Down to Earth; A Cinderella Story; Igor; A Night at the Roxbury; Click; Austenland; Gentlemen Broncos; Notes: Has been in a few Christopher Guest movies. Otherwise I basically only know her from American Pie where she played Stifler’s Mom, and Legally Blond. An alumnus of The Groundlings.)

Fred Willard – (Known For: Harold & Kumar Get the Munchies; WALL·E; Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy; This Is Spinal Tap; Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me; Monster House; Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues; American Wedding; Best in Show; Youth in Revolt; Roxanne; Silver Streak; Mascots; Planes: Fire & Rescue; I Could Never Be Your Woman; A Mighty Wind; Waiting for Guffman; BMT: Epic Movie; Date Movie; Fifty Shades of Black; The Wedding Planner; Love Wrecked; Chicken Little; Idle Hands; How High; Movie Madness; Harold; Notes: Again, very notable for his work with Christopher Guest, but also a titan of comedy in general I would say. He was part of The Second City. Makes me think a good cycle would be something like The Second Shitty … amirite? Movies involving The Second City alums.)

Budget/Gross – $20 million / Domestic: $39,739,367 (Worldwide: $86,865,564)

(That’s solid. No wonder they’d go on to make two (!) spoof movies in 2008. At the time it must have seemed like they could just print money with these things. This garbage genre is somewhat saturated now though and I think must mainly go to VOD. I guess we’ll see with the next plot.)

#17 for the Comedy – Spoof genre

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(Just below A Haunted House seems okay. Obviously Fifty Shades of Black was the most recent big release. Kind of puts this haul in perspective, Fifty Shades sits at number 48 with only $11 million return, oof. This literally is the start of the genre saturation (as I guessed), and indeed the genre is straight dying. People lament the death of the spoof genre, but its been dead since the 80s. Scary Movie was an aberration. If only more things like Wet Hot American Summer existed, sigh.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 2% (1/64): A crude comedy with nothing new or insightful to say about the subjects it satirizes.

(Yup. Sounds about right. I’ll have to just psych myself into “everything is funny” mode for this. I remember watching InAPPropriate Comedy. This can’t be worse than that. I will survive.)

Poster – Epic Sklog? (U)

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(Ho-ly shit. That’s a U for Unacceptable. I do not accept that this is a poster that someone made for a film released to over a thousand theaters.)

Tagline(s) – We Know It’s Big. We Measured. (What the FFFFFFFFFFFFuuuu…)

(This is worse than the poster! Why are you doing this to us? What did we ever do to you?)

Keyword(s) – orphan; Top Ten by BMeTric: 95.9 Epic Movie (2007); 93.0 Dragonball Evolution (2009); 89.6 Alone in the Dark (2005); 86.0 Norbit (2007); 85.5 Fantastic Four (2015); 85.5 The Room (2003); 83.4 Super Mario Bros. (1993); 81.1 Prom Night (I) (2008); 77.9 Superhero Movie (2008); 71.4 The Next Karate Kid (1994);

(Ooooo The Next Karate Kid would be a nice one to do. Finally have an excuse to watch the third one too. I like this list because, I think, all of them nicely fit the keyword which is not always the case. Also, logging a 71.4 BMeTric as the tenth makes the list guaranteed to be amazing.)

Notes – Jayma Mays and Adam Campbell met on the set of the film, and they married in October 2007. (cool)

This film was not screened for critics. (Of course it wasn’t. It would be the biggest upset in film history if they screened this for critics)

The rest of the notes basically just explains all of the things this movie parodies … we get it, Glover impersonated Johnny Depp’s Willy Wonka.

Awards – Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actress (Carmen Electra)

Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Remake or Rip-Off

Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Screenplay (Jason Friedberg, Aaron Seltzer)

10,000 BC Preview

Well this does it for the punctuation cycle. Only one more punctuation mark to hit and it’s a simple one (the comma). We are officially transitioning to a cycle we’ve been looking forward to all year. We call it StreetCreditReports.com as we are aiming to hit nine films that garnered the coveted <10% on RT to continue to up our bad movie street cred. It’s particularly rare for such a rating to be achieved. In fact, I believe only two major films so far this year have achieved the feat: Fifty Shades Darker (BMT Live) and the Rings sequel. So to start it off we are doing a film that has literally been on our BMT potential list for years. I remember debating whether we should watch it back when I lived in Princeton. That was two moves ago and the website was naught but a sparkle in our collective eyes. That’s right! We’re watching 10,000 B.C. I feel like this could be Pathfinder but even more ridiculous. Be still my heart and let’s try to keep expectations low. Let’s go!

10,000 BC (2008) – BMeTric: 65.4

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(This guy just smashed the BMeTric immediately. Heartening. People just went “no!” and the movie just crashed and burned. As I said last week, usually films start strong and drop like a stone … I told you that’s how it actually works. This is also a ridiculously popular film. This is a Very Popular Bad Film. If it didn’t get like 100K votes this would be a normal like 40 BMeTric film, the votes though give it that boost. A BMeTric of 60+ promises a lot though. It better deliver.)

Leonard Maltin – 2 stars – Tale of prehistoric life follows a small group who leave their tribe of mammoth hunters in an effort to rescue others captured by slavers. This leads them to a pre-Egyptian city of ruthless pyramid-builders and much adventure. Earnest, well produced on rugged locations with occasionally good effect, but for the most part as ludicrous as other films of this type. Features cinema’s first superfluous saber-toothed tiger.

(“Films of this type” I think refers to Emmerich films. Honestly, sounds like a pretty fun film even though I know it is terrible. Can’t wait to see the tiger though. So many notes about it.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw7ow4AmPc8

(Ooooof the “AD” at the end! But that wasn’t the important bit of the trailer. That’s right … what a kick ass dumb solo they got going to end it! Does it work? Not totally. But still gave me an interesting trailer which honestly looks like Michael Bay meets Apocalypto … so like a good movie is a serious director was making it, but instead we have Roland Emmerich. So …)

Directors – Roland Emmerich – (Known For: Independence Day; The Day After Tomorrow; The Patriot; Stargate; White House Down; Anonymous; BMT: 10,000 BC; Godzilla; Independence Day: Resurgence (BMT); 2012 (BMT); Universal Soldier; Stonewall; Notes: Nominated in 2017 for the Razzie Award for Worst Director and Screenplay for Independence Day: Resurgence; and for Worst Director and Screenplay in 1999 for Godzilla; As an openly gay director he says he’s encountered homophobia in Hollywood, but as a director it hasn’t particularly hampered his career.)

Writers – Roland Emmerich (written by) – (Known For: Independence Day; The Day After Tomorrow; Stargate; BMT: 10,000 BC; Godzilla; Independence Day: Resurgence (BMT); 2012 (BMT); Notes: His sister Ute Emmerich is a producer on most (if not all) of his films. He has also written most of the films he’s directed.)

Harald Kloser (written by) – (BMT: 10,000 BC; 2012; Notes: Has composed the music for many of Emmerich’s films and that comprises most of his filmography. He’s flipped to (also) screenwriting later in his career and is also attached to Emmerich’s next film Moonfall.)

Actors – Camilla Belle – (Known For: The Lost World: Jurassic Park; A Little Princess; The Ballad of Jack and Rose; The American Side; À Deriva; BMT: 10,000 BC; The Patriot; When a Stranger Calls; Poison Ivy 2; Diablo; From Prada to Nada; Push; Cavemen; Practical Magic; Father of Invention; The Invisible Circus; The Quiet; Breakaway; Notes: Born a week before us. Her mother is Brazilian and despite being born and raised in Los Angeles grew up speaking portuguese. I’m going to be honest … I can’t for the life of me think of a movie where I would specifically have recognized her from.)

Steven Strait – (Known For: Sky High; Stop-Loss; City Island; BMT: 10,000 BC; The Covenant (BMT); Undiscovered; Notes: In the new (apparently quite good) sci-fi series The Expanse. We saw him in The Covenant which is probably his biggest role outside of 10,000 BC. Hasn’t had a big movie role in a while.)

Marco Khan – (Known For: The Promise; Iron Man; Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest; Camp X-Ray; Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World; BMT: 10,000 BC; God’s Not Dead; You Don’t Mess with the Zohan; 2012 (BMT); 15 Minutes; Click; Notes: Born in Tehran and educated in Italy he has been all over the place in his life, including owning and operating Italian restaurants for 12 years before getting into the entertainment industry.)

Budget/Gross – $105 million / Domestic: $94,784,201 (Worldwide: $269,784,201)

(That isn’t bad. Obviously you want more than $100 million, but these days that would be looked at as a pretty solid international success. Emmerich looks like he rarely does sequels so there wouldn’t have been any risk of that, but I can kind of see why he keeps getting money.)

#23 for the Adventure – Period genre

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(Fun plot. Period adventure films looks like it became hugely popular in the 2000s. Interestingly coincides with the gold rush of bad movies. Perhaps it is because such films became easier to produce around that time (with the ability to basically synthesize anything you want from costumes to fiberglass cars, etc.)? I think it’ll stick around though. Just look at something like Kong Island. That works really well as a period film, hearkening back to the time of pulp novel adventure (a la Indiana Jones). This sits near The Mummy 3 (ooof), and follows up the amazing recent addition of Hansel and Gretel! Let’s do it.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 8% (12/145): With attention strictly paid to style instead of substance, or historical accuracy, 10,000 B.C. is a visually impressive but narratively flimsy epic.

(I’m down, I have no problem with this. The only thing I’m getting worried about is that none of this is getting me very excited. Basically I think what is going to happen is we’ll watch this film and just kind of go “oh yeah, that wasn’t very good, but also innocuous”. I hope I am wrong because this is a movie I was looking forward to for a while now.)

Poster – Sklog Thousand BC (D+)

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(There are better posters than this one floating around out there, but I tend to default to the imdb poster and this is it. Horrible spacing, horrible symmetry, and no base coloring. Don’t like it much at all. Mediocre, but still OK font on the title. Little shout out to the release date which is provided with an “AD” at the end. Solid work on that at least, art department.)

Tagline(s) – It takes a hero to change the world (F)

(Hahahaha. What? That’s the best you could do? This might be the most cliche tagline we’ve ever had. This may as well be the default tagline for any film that comes out and the studio gets to opt whether to come up with something (anything!) better than it.)

Keyword(s) – hunter; Top Ten by BMeTric: 83.9 Jaws 3-D (1983); 75.3 Anaconda (1997); 70.8 A Sound of Thunder (2005); 70.1 Year One (2009); 68.5 Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid (2004); 65.4 10,000 BC (2008); 65.3 Eragon (2006); 60.0 Congo (1995); 57.5 The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising (2007); 54.3 Killers (2010);

(I LOVE THIS LIST. We’ve seen basically all of these films. Just need to smash both Anacondas (we’ve seen the first, but not for BMT … in theaters as eleven-year-olds). And then the last one will happen when we destroy one of the worst movies ever made Jaws: The Revenge starring Michael Caine’s paycheck.)

Notes – (at around 1h 10 mins) The film includes a glimpse of a map showing Atlantis off the coast of Spain. It’s a reference to Plato’s theory that the construction techniques used in Egypt were imported from the ancient lost civilization of Atlantis. (Were there even maps back then? … looked it up, that answer it is very unlikely anyone would have a map sophisticated enough to depict an island off the coast of Spain)

This film features some alleged historical controversies, including construction of the great pyramids 12,000 years ago (almost 7,500 years earlier), the existence of the Ben-Ben stone (the pyramidion stone missing from the top of the Khafre pyramid), the correlation between the position of the pyramids and the stars from the Orion constellation (associated by the Egyptians with the god Osiris), the Sphinx with a head of a lion allegedly correlated with the Leo constellation rising to the east (at the same time that Orion is in conjunction with the Giza pyramid complex), and the possible nonhuman origins of the first kings of Egypt. (fun facts)

D’Leh refers to one star as “the one that never moves.” That would be the North Star, which appears stationary in the northern night sky. In 10,000 BC the North Star was Vega, the fifth brightest star in the sky. It would’ve been very obvious in the dark sky. (hmmm … it never really occurred to me that the North Star would change, but it is so obvious now that I read this note)

D’Leh is “Held”, the German word for “hero”, backwards. Roland Emmerich chose the name as an Easter egg.(gross)

The constellation called the ‘sign of the warrior’ is actually Orion. It also played a key role in deciphering ancient signs in Stargate (1994).

(at around 40 mins) The computer-generated wet saber-tooth tiger was created by Double Negative. Creating it required combining several of the most challenging elements of visual effects: fur, wet fur, water, and creature animation.

Release prints were delivered to some theaters under the false title “King Dinosurs” (sic).

Not screened for critics; only a 20-minute excerpt was shown to journalists. (Not shocking)

That’s My Boy Preview

Lately we’ve been using the Games category to try to tally some of the BMT Calendar that will likely never end. However, with only two punctuation marks remaining we looked back towards the Razzie Award winners to get the apostrophe. That’s right! We’re watching That’s My Boy, one of the few unwatched Adam Sandler films that also happens to be nominated for seven Razzies, winning two (Screenplay and Actor). I recall thinking the film looked like it might be good as it followed some of Sandler’s worst efforts (Grown Ups, Just Go With It, and Jack and Jill). Alas, it continued a downward spiral that is still arguably continuing through his multi-film deal with Netflix. It’s been a long time coming, so let’s get right into it. Let’s go!

That’s My Boy (2012) – BMeTric: 47.5

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(What a twist! That is the opposite trend you usually see. Usually things start really high (from hardcore fans) and drop like a stone I feel like. Basically, people don’t like Sandler (shocking) and the passionate IMDb voters seem to just rock this film. It recovers really quickly. Regardless, nearly 50 BMeTric. This is a Very Popular Below Average film. Which for a comedy gives me a good feeling.)

Leonard Maltin – 2 stars – A middle school student and his teacher have an intimate relationship resulting in pregnancy, incarceration, and (years later) a unique father-son relationship. Formulaic Sandler vehicle is filled to the brim with sight gags, inside jokes, absurd, raunchy, and racist humor. This is either a guilty pleasure, if you find it funny, or a miserable experience otherwise.

(There is something odd about Sandler films (I loved The Waterboy, Happy Gilmore, and Billy Madison growing up) rewatching them with today’s sensibilities. The main observation is just how much people kick the crap out of each other and it is celebrated. A notorious example being I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry where Kevin James repeatedly assaults people and everyone acts as if he’s a stand up guy. Racism is also obviously on the table (never forget Rob Schneider playing an Asian stereotype in the same movie) and I am sure I will not fall in the guilty pleasure camp at this stage of my life.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPV2L2CGWdQ

(Man, Sandler loves his sports figure cameos (I see you Rex Ryan) and his product placement. His product placement is legendary, I can’t wait. The tattoo joke is solid, although as the youngest hedge fund managers in NYC you’d think he would at least start in on some laser removal.)

Directors – Sean Anders – (Known For: Sex Drive; Never Been Thawed; BMT: That’s My Boy; Daddy’s Home; Horrible Bosses 2; Notes: Nominated for the Razzie Award in 2013 for Worst Director for That’s My Boy; This is the only movie he directed that he didn’t also write. It seems like Sex Drive is what launched his career based on this variety article (mentioning a movie that I think never came out). I can’t find much else about him.)

Writers – David Caspe (written by) – (BMT: That’s My Boy; Notes: Won the Razzie Award in 2013 for Worst Screenplay for That’s My Boy; In the notes it mentioned this movie was on the 2009 Blacklist. It isn’t surprising that a movie from the Blacklist ended up as a mess, but it is heartening that this movie didn’t destroy this guy’s career, he’s the developer of the cult comedy Happy Endings and has been all over television since this movie debuted.)

Actors – Adam Sandler – (Known For: Big Daddy; Happy Gilmore; The Wedding Singer; Hotel Transylvania 2; 50 First Dates; Hotel Transylvania; Anger Management; Billy Madison; Reign Over Me; Punch-Drunk Love; Spanglish; Funny People; Top Five; Pauly Shore Is Dead; BMT: Jack and Jill (BMT); Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo; The Animal; The Ridiculous 6 (BMT); Zookeeper (BMT); Coneheads; Little Nicky; Grown Ups 2 (BMT); You Don’t Mess with the Zohan; The Hot Chick; Pixels (BMT); That’s My Boy; Eight Crazy Nights; Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo; Mr. Deeds; Mixed Nuts; The Do-Over; The Cobbler; Bulletproof; Grown Ups (BMT); I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry (BMT); The Waterboy; Bedtime Stories; Airheads; Shakes the Clown; Click; Just Go with It (BMT); The Longest Yard; Blended; Dirty Work; Men, Women & Children; Notes: Sandler’s filmography is interesting because we’ve seen him in eight BMT films, and almost all of them as the leading character! He just signed a new four picture deal with Netflix, so things like the Do-Over and Ridiculous 6 should be coming fast and furious. At some point the Razzies will have to either allow Netflix Originals, or we might have seen the last of Razzie Nominated Sandler (look at that cred!))

Sandler Razzie Cred – (Won: for Worst Actor in 2013 for That’s My Boy; in 2012 for Jack and Jill, and Just Go with It; and in 2000 for Big Daddy; for Worst Actress, Screenplay, and Screen Couple in 2012 for Jack and Jill; Nominated: for Worst Actor in 2016 for The Cobbler, and Pixels; in 2015 for Blended; in 2014 for Grown Ups 2; in 2008 for I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry; in 2003 for Eight Crazy Nights, and Mr. Deeds; in 2001 for Little Nicky;in 1999 for The Waterboy; and in 1997 for Bulletproof, and Happy Gilmore; for Worst Screenplay in 2014 for Grown Ups 2; in 2012 for Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star;in 2001 for Little Nicky; and in 2000 for Big Daddy; for Worst Screen Combo in 2016 for The Cobbler; in 2013 for That’s My Boy; in 2012 for Just Go with It; and in 2008 for I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry)

Andy Samberg – (Known For: Storks; Bad Neighbours; Friends with Benefits; Hotel Transylvania 2; Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping; Hotel Transylvania; I Love You, Man; Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs; Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist; Hot Rod; The To Do List; Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2; Brigsby Bear; Celeste & Jesse Forever; BMT: Space Chimps; Grown Ups 2 (BMT); That’s My Boy; The Watch; What’s Your Number?; Notes: Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Screen Couple in 2013 for That’s My Boy; I’ve loved Samberg all the way back to his Lonely Island days, I even remember the day he was announced as a cast member for SNL and being rather excited. I love him in Brooklyn 99 as well. I refuse to say bad things about him!)

Leighton Meester – (Known For: The Judge; Date Night; Going the Distance; Life Partners; Like Sunday, Like Rain; BMT: The Roommate (BMT); That’s My Boy; Monte Carlo; The Oranges; Hangman’s Curse; Country Strong; The Beautiful Ordinary; Notes: Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Screen Couple in 2013 for That’s My Boy; Gossip Girl represent! She started acting in Florida while living with her grandparents when her mother was serving jail time for involvement in a drug-smuggling ring! I would guess the first thing I remember her from was Entourage when she was just 18 years old.)

Budget/Gross – $70 million / Domestic: $36,931,089 (Worldwide: $57,719,093)

(What does this movie cost $70 million. The budgets for Adam Sandler films are some of the great mysteries of the universe. At the time this was a rare bomb for Sandler, and ultimately a trend. Blended didn’t do much better and after that kids’ films and sequels were his only real hits.)

#23 for the Wedding genre

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(Standard stuff, a nice little oscillation there a bit, but otherwise Wedding movies have always been big and seem like good bang for the buck too. Below License to Wed is indeed not great. There appears to be one big Wedding comedy a year … makes sense, people are always getting married.)

#27 for the Comedy – Fish-Out-of-Water Father genre

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(Came out right on a rise. We have watched so many of these films. The Are We There Yet? series and Old Dogs in particular recently. This comes in right around Delivery Man, and oddly that movie (which came out in 2013) is the last one listed for the genre on box office mojo. Has the genre died? Doesn’t really make sense, it was still making bank when they all disappeared. Stop slacking box office mojo.)

#21 for the Slacker / Stoner genre

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(Below 30 Minutes or Less is reeeeeally not great. Right at the peak of slacker/stoner genre it would seem. I want to make an argument about Democratic and Republican presidents, but the trough in 2005 just doesn’t work with the narrative. I’ll just end with mentioning Inherent Vice is the last one listed there … how weird.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 20% (23/113): While it does represent a new foray into raunch for the normally PG-13 Sandler, That’s My Boy finds him repeating himself to diminishing effect – and dragging Andy Samberg down with him.

(Noooooooo don’t drag Samberg down too. I’ve actually never really liked gross out comedies. They … well, gross me out. I have a soft spot for Sandler though weirdly, a guy who I think gets a lot of flack for doing a really good job making movies people like to watch (the horror!). I’ll give it a shot. Open mind time.)

Poster – That’s My Sklog (B-)

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(First, so easy to change the title. Second, I kind of like it, very bright and colorful, symmetric. My main complaint is that it is just kind of a picture of two people, not much else going on. At least there isn’t just a big swath of sky behind them.)

Tagline(s) – The story of a child… and his son. (D)

(Stupid. Yeah, I get it. Tells you nothing about how their relationship is unique (the son is only 12 years younger than the father and he is the product of teacher-student rape), or why I care.)

Keyword(s) – teacher student relationship; Top Ten by BMeTric: 93.0 Dragonball Evolution (2009); 78.3 Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (2009); 77.7 Jason X (2001); 72.6 Elektra (2005); 71.4 The Next Karate Kid (1994); 69.0 Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989); 68.5 Cell (I) (2016); 67.7 Supergirl (1984); 65.1 God’s Not Dead (2014); 64.9 Jennifer’s Body (2009);

(Jason X? What does that really even mean? What does Elektra really mean? Or Dragonball Z? This list is a lie! Or at least That’s My Boy goes a little beyond what they mean I think.)

Notes – When Andy Samberg actually got married he invited Adam Sandler to the wedding who showed up as his character in this movie, outfit and all. (I wouldn’t like that, not one bit. Although I guess comedians’ weddings are probably a bit different)

Eva Amurri Martino plays the younger version of her real-life mother Susan Sarandon. (Holy shit! I was going to say they did a really good job finding a young person to look like Susan Sarandon in the movie!)

Adam Sandler is only 12 years older than Andy Samberg, who plays his son in this movie, which makes perfect sense since Sandler’s character fathered him as a child. (A rare temporal consistency)

The film was originally rated NC-17 by the MPAA due to its explicit sexual content, making the film’s Adam Sandler’s only attempt at an NC-17 rated film. The film was later re-rated R on appeal. (I’m sure Sandler did not intend it to be rated NC-17)

Adam Sandler, Tim Herlihy, Robert Smigel, David Wain and Ken Marino all did uncredited rewrites of the script. (Some State guys in there which is fun)

The screenplay for this film was featured in the 2009 Blacklist; a list of the “most liked” unmade scripts of the year. (Nice to see its critical and financial failure didn’t effect the main screenwriter)

Awards – Won the Razzie Award for Worst Actor (Adam Sandler); and for Worst Screenplay (David Caspe)

Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Picture; Worst Director (Sean Anders); for Worst Supporting Actor (Nick Swardson and Vanilla Ice); for Worst Screen Couple; and for Worst Screen Ensemble

D-War: Dragon Wars Preview

Oh how cycles fly. We are coming up on the end of the punctuation cycle with only a couple options left. The rarest of the remaining choices is the hyphen/dash and lucky for us the SciFi/Fantasy entry provides a perfect film for that. That’s right, we’re (finally) watching D-War: Dragon Wars! This 2007 film is famous for its huge budget for a South Korean film (estimated at the time of the DVD release to be upwards of $100 million US) and its major release in the US market (over 2000 theaters). Despite a huge box office success in Korea and optimism for the US release, it ultimately bombed and was critically ridiculed. I remember hearing that it may be one of the worst films of all time, but hard to tell what its actual legacy is (because people have mostly forgotten about it). If our new and improved BMeTric has anything to say about it, we’re in for a wild ride! Let’s go!

D-War: Dragon Wars (2007) – BMeTric: 79.9

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(Ha! That drop is hilarious. I guess maybe people were super into this guy in South Korea and it opening first in South Korea I assume. The BMeTric is gaudy, basically right at 80. That is the 98th percentile! Pretty impressive stuff for what is essentially a foreign film.)

Leonard Maltin – 2 stars – With a reported budget of $70 million, South Korea’s biggest production ever is a dopey B monster movie elevated (only slightly) by some impressive effects. What story there is revolves around a 500-year-old battle that is being reborn in contemporary L.A., where a young boy is imbued with the spirit of an ancient warrior in order to take on dreaded serpentlike creatures. There’s some fun in watching a flying Korean zoo take hold of the town, but that’s about it.

(Wait… that’s the plot of this film? It sounds like a kids movie. Like Eragon or something. Everything you read about this film suggests that the effects are impressive enough to take a terrible film and make it watchable. It’s got a lot to live up to.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kgzOCLJ_HI

(That seriously looks like three different films. A kids film, a monster/action film, and a comedy film. All signs point to rididididididiculous. Also, about those effects… let’s just say I hope those were preliminary before they finalized them for theatrical release.)

Directors – Hyung-rae Shim – (BMT: Dragon Wars; Notes: Apparently this dude is a wildly popular South Korean comedian, but everything he’s in that’s crossed the Pacific has fallen flat so he’s unknown here.)

Writers – Hyung-rae Shim (written by) – (BMT: Dragon Wars; Notes: He seemingly didn’t pay his employees at his studio for a while and that was a big story in Korea, but then last year there was a report that China was funding a D-War sequel. So maybe he’s back, baby!)

Actors – Jason Behr – (Known For: Pleasantville; The Shipping News; BMT: Dragon Wars; Skinwalkers; The Grudge; Notes: Probably best known as a main character on Roswell. Hasn’t really acted much since he and his wife had a kid in 2013.)

Amanda Brooks – (BMT: Dragon Wars; The Canyons; My Best Friend’s Girl; Flightplan; Notes: Daughter of the songwriter of the titular song of You Light Up My Life. Critically panned and yet that song made the AFI’s list of top film songs of all time.)

Robert Forster – (Known For: The Case for Christ; Mulholland Drive; The Descendants; Jackie Brown; Olympus Has Fallen; Lucky Number Slevin; Me, Myself & Irene; Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle; The Black Hole; Middle Men; Like Mike; BMT: Dragon Wars; Psycho; Supernova; Rise; Survivor; Ghosts of Girlfriends Past; Firewall; The Delta Force; London Has Fallen; Autómata; Cleaner; Notes: Longtime character actor. Nominated for a Supporting Actor Oscar for Jackie Brown.)

Budget/Gross – $35 million / Domestic: $10,977,721 (Worldwide: $75,108,998)

(That budget is not real. This was the initial budget. They went way over during production on the CGI and at the time of theatrical release it’s been estimated at closer to $75 million (before additional DVD CGI work pushed that even higher). This was at best a break-even affair and a huge disappointment in the US market.)

#12 for the Dragon – Focal Point of Movie genre

(Uninteresting plot so I’ll leave that alone. Dead last in this non-genre is something special. Below 1981’s Dragonslayer. Amazing.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 29% (10/35): Dragon Wars’ special effects can’t make up for an unfocused script and stale acting.

(… Am I looking at the same special effects. They look like only slightly better A Sound of Thundaaaaah CGI. By which I mean it all looks like garbage. I guess I’ll see. Maybe it will look better in glorious 4K. Joking though, I’m watching this in like 480p, probably stream it on my phone on airplane WiFi to get that real grainy quality I like.)

Poster – S-War: Sklog Wars (D+)

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(Daaaang! Check out that Dutch angle. Even the title is angled. It’s also a little busy for my taste and the color scheme is pretty drab. The one positive is the unique font that would make S-War: Sklog Wars a tough photoshop.)

Tagline(s) – They’ve made our world their battleground (C-)

(This begs the question: where exactly are the dragons coming from? Apparently they are from a different world since they’re making our world their battleground. Please, please, please say they’re aliens.)

Keyword(s) – korean; Top Ten by BMeTric: 79.9 Dragon Wars (2007); 78.3 Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (2009); 51.2 The Truth About Charlie (2002); 51.0 The Hot Chick (2002); 42.0 G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013); 39.9 Mafia! (1998); 33.2 The Gambler (III) (2014); 29.6 Best of the Best II (1993); 25.8 Ape (1976); 23.4 Lucy (I) (2014);

(Ha! APE. That is the movie that appears on the cover of The Official Razzie Movie Guide. That would be a nice one to do in some ill-conceived pre-1980 cycle. Don’t tempt me, it is a terrible idea. Hilarious list though.)

Notes – This marked the first Korean production in nearly three decades to receive wide theatrical release in the United States. (… I wonder if it was the last one. The Host and Snowpiercer come to mind, but they didn’t get over 500 theaters widest)

The music associated with Muraki and his army makes extensive use of the “Dies irae” melody, a medieval chant traditionally used in ceremonies for the dead and, since the nineteenth century, in contexts evoking the macabre and supernatural.

The leader of the ‘Artox Army’ is actually speaking in English, as evidenced by his mouth movements, although it is significantly garbled. (These are words. They certainly sound like a fun fact even if I don’t really know what they mean)

Wagons East! Preview

This week we continue our quest to not screw ourselves over in the Chain Reaction category. We always seem like we paint ourselves into a corner only to miraculously escape (and then repaint ourselves into a corner immediately after). This week is no different as we found ourselves with few options coming from Are We Done Yet? featuring a pretty thin cast. Throwing caution to the wind we went ahead and used John C. McGinley to jump to one of the worst reviewed films of all time, John Candy’s last film Wagons East! Candy died a few days before filming was wrapped and it’s not known for much else besides being terrible. We used it for the exclamation point entry in the punctuation cycle, although there is a bit of controversy over whether that’s the true stylization of the title. Whatever. That’s what it is on the poster and DVD box. Good enough for me. Let’s go!

Wagons East! (1994) – BMeTric: 34.7

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(I declare this a little known terrible film. The BMeTric almost entirely comes from the fact that the rating is aggressively low. I’m also suspecting now that this is not going to be a classic BMT gem … the rating just meanders up with the number of votes. I’m getting a mighty bad feeling about this movie.)

RogerEbert.com – 0.5 stars – The loss of John Candy is made all the more poignant because “Wagons East!” is the last film he completed. It is possible he never appeared in a worse one. The producers claim he finished all his key scenes before his unexpected death on the location, but that’s hard to believe, because his character is an undefined, vague figure, and isn’t even required to be funny most of the time. That’s easy in this film, which is one of the least amusing comedies I’ve ever seen, right down there with “Clifford.”

(I had to include the Clifford bit because Clifford really is a wild ride and movie we should watch at some point. That feeling that this movie is just going to be boring and is going to make me sad is getting stronger. I’ll have to rock a little showing of The Great Outdoors and reminisce.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2exnr6xTIzM

(Hooooooo, boy. That looks like some rough stuff. Hopefully they were keeping all the good stuff for the big screen, but somehow I doubt it.)

Directors – Peter Markle – (Known For: Bat*21; BMT: Wagons East; Youngblood; Notes: He wrote Youngblood a story inspired … wait for it … from his experiences playing professional ice hockey including three years for the US National Team. Say what?! His stats, he went to Yale, played for the Rochester Mustangs, and indeed played for the national team. He didn’t play in the 1972 Olympics it looks like, although he is listed on the roster for the 1970 world championships. I love this note … so much.)

Writers – Matthew Carlson (screenplay) – (BMT: Wagons East; Notes: A pretty impressive television resume including The Wonder Years and Malcolm in the Middle. There isn’t much else about him, this was his only feature it seems.)

Jerry Abrahamson (story) – (BMT: Wagons East; Notes: There is literally nothing about this guy on the internet. I wonder if it is a made up name … IMDb I think only knows “uncredited” or pen names because people eventually reveal it in interviews and stuff. I bet it was Markle … I’m only half joking.)

Actors – John Candy – (Known For: Home Alone; The Blues Brothers; Spaceballs; Vacation; JFK; Little Shop of Horrors; Splash; Planes, Trains & Automobiles; Stripes; Cool Runnings; Heavy Metal; Uncle Buck; The Great Outdoors; The Rescuers Down Under; BMT: Nothing But Trouble (BMT); Wagons East; Hot to Trot; Cannonball Fever; Armed and Dangerous; 1941; Who’s Harry Crumb?; Rookie of the Year; Canadian Bacon; She’s Having a Baby; Career Opportunities; Summer Rental; Once Upon a Crime…; Brewster’s Millions; Notes: Nominated for the Razzie Award in 1992 for Worst Supporting Actress for Nothing But Trouble. Sigh. I loved Candy as a kid. Uncle Buck, The Great Outdoors, Cool Runnings, Stripes, Spaceballs, Home Alone …. Just a staple of my childhood. I remember being devastated when he died and always I thought I would watch his last film. But it was apparently terrible and I never got around to it. As I said .. sigh.)

Richard Lewis – (Known For: Robin Hood: Men in Tights; Leaving Las Vegas; She’s Funny That Way; Vamps; Drunks; BMT: Wagons East; Hugo Pool; Once Upon a Crime…; Notes: Lewis is great in Curb Your Enthusiasm. Otherwise I only really knew him from Robin Hood: Men in Tights.)

Also stars John C. McGinley – (Our eighth McGinley BMT! Highlander II: The Quickening; Are We Done Yet?; On Deadly Ground; Alex Cross; Get Carter; Wild Hogs; And most recently Car 54, Where Are You?)

Budget/Gross – N/A / Domestic: $4,412,297

(This is somehow far more than I would have expected. Obviously way too little since the undisclosed budget has to be more than $2 million.)

#50 for the Western genre

(They sure did follow the money huh? I guess that is the time to make a spoof film, but the western genre kind of went into the dark ages right after this and has only now just recovered. And … my God … how did this movie make more than The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford?! We don’t do many westerns, our last was Wild Bill.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 0% (0/29): Wagons East! is a witless, toothless satire of Westerns that falls far below the standard set by Blazing Saddles, and is notable only for being John Candy’s final screen performance.

(Oh that is right. One of the worst films ever reviews on rotten tomatoes. It is quite rare to get more than 25 reviews and stay perfect at 0%. Witless and toothless sounds like unfunny and boring. Ugh.)

Poster – Sklogans East! (C+)

wagons_east

(I’m not a huge fan of the coloring or framing, but it also doesn’t go against the philosophy… just not the best. A little too busy and the font isn’t super original. A little above “meh.”)

Tagline(s) – They came, they saw, they changed their minds. (A+)

(Classic. This is pretty much exactly what I would want in a tagline. It’s a clever take on a classic phrase, it’s not too long, original, and give a hint on the plot of the film: a group of people who came out west have decided it blows and want to go back East. Shockingly perfect.)

Keyword(s) – title spoken by character; Top Ten by BMeTric: 89.7 Catwoman (2004); 85.4 The Last Airbender (2010); 83.5 The Wicker Man (2006); 81.9 Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2011); 81.3 Norbit (2007); 81.1 Movie 43 (2013); 80.5 The Love Guru (2008); 78.9 Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966); 77.6 Super Mario Bros. (1993); 76.7 The Human Centipede (First Sequence) (2009);

(Nice list. We are going to see Manos: Hands of Fate soon enough I think. Super Mario Bros. is a film we’ve seen … a few times, so it’ll be a special day when we revisit the film with our BMT hats on. And yeah … I plan on never watching The Human Centipede, screw that.)

Notes – John Candy died during filming. His few remaining scenes were either not filmed, or were filmed using a stand-in, then re-written not to involve him. His second bar sequence re-uses footage from his earlier bar sequence. (Jeez. There are similar stories for Gladiator and very recently the Fast & Furious series. Amazing that they can do it)

John Candy didn’t want to make the film, but was contractually obliged to do it. (sucks, very similar to Theodore Rex in that way. I wonder if 1995 marked a high point in actor unfriendly contracts, seems interesting that two high profile bombs like Theodore Rex and Wagons East were made under duress)

Ends with “Dedicated to the memory of John Candy”.

Carolco’s last film to be distributed by TriStar Pictures. (They made Cutthroat Island the next year and went bankrupt. Also seems like a common theme, companies desperately trying to make films while stumbling their way into bankruptcy).

Rumor Has It… Preview

I can’t pretend like we’ve been looking forward to watching this film for years because we haven’t. We are simply watching it because it is one of the few examples of a film that employs the rare “…” in the actual title. And since we are trying to hit up nine different punctuation marks in titles we definitely need an ellipsis. That’s right! We’re watching Rumor Has It…! This is of course the sequel to The Graduate… kinda. Not the real sequel (because there actually was a book called Home School that was a sequel to the novel The Graduate), but just a film that suggests that certain characters are the “real” life inspirations for the characters in the original novel that then got adapted into the film. That’s basically the entirety of the plot and it sounds like the worst. Let’s go!

Rumor Has It… (2005) – BMeTric: 43.3

RumorHasIt_BMeT

RumorHasIt_RV

(Huh. I declare this a popular below-average film. But look at how it sustains itself at 5.5 … very interesting, kind of like it is a truly terrible movie, no regression to the mean. But I’m not sure I’ve seen such a profile for a slightly below average film yet. It really shot out to a pretty impressive 40 BMeTric as well. All around a pleasant surprise.)

Leonard Maltin – 1.5 stars – While home for her sister’s wedding, Aniston becomes convinced that her late mother, grandmother MacLaine, and future techno-magnate Costner inspired the Charles Webb novel that became The Graduate. Premise is icky (Aniston goes on a fling with a guy she initially thought was her father!) without being pointed. MacLaine gives it a shot with acerbic but unfunny rejoinders. If The Graduate didn’t still “live,” this would be pretty close to grave robbing.

(Now this is a movie Leonard watched. I could kind of predict his attitude: hates it for playing off a far more more interesting and successful film, but probably likes MacLaine in general and so resists writing the whole thing off. From what I remember that ickiness comes through even in the trailer, so I’m not really sure what they were thinking there.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMmamhnHZo4

(Oooof. Let’s just pour out a little bit in recognition that Adele’s song Rumor Has It would have been ALL OVER this trailer if this came out now. Also, Ruffalo playing the shy kind of weird guy … I forgot that used to kind of be this thing. He’s been the Hulk for so long it is hard to even process. The trailer is a throwback for a movie whose ultimate crime was that it feels like it should have come out in 1995)

Directors – Rob Reiner – (Known For: The Princess Bride; Stand by Me; This Is Spinal Tap; A Few Good Men; Misery; The Bucket List; Flipped; When Harry Met Sally…; The American President; LBJ; BMT: North (BMT); Rumor Has It…; Alex & Emma; The Story of Us; And So It Goes; Notes: Nominated for the Razzie Award in 1995 for Worst Director for North; I like Reiner, primarily because I could watch the first five movies on that list any day of the week, almost the epitome of the movies I started watching just as I was “getting into” film and starting to look to the immediate past. His next film has to do with journalists investigating the claim the Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction in the lead up to the Iraq War … yeah, he’s somewhat of a political activist.)

Writers – Ted Griffin (written by) (as T.M. Griffin) – (Known For: Ocean’s Eleven; Tower Heist; Matchstick Men; Ravenous; Best Laid Plans; BMT: Killers (BMT); Rumor Has It…; Solace; Notes: Not in the trivia: Reiner replaced Ted Griffin twelve days into principal photography. Can’t tell why, but Griffin never really directed a feature, so perhaps he realized he was in over his head.)

Actors – Jennifer Aniston – (Known For: Office Christmas Party; Storks; Office Space; We’re the Millers; The Iron Giant; Horrible Bosses; He’s Just Not That Into You; Marley & Me; Bruce Almighty; Cake; Wanderlust; The Switch; She’s Funny That Way; Life of Crime; Rock Star; The Good Girl; She’s the One; BMT: Leprechaun (BMT); Mac and Me (BMT); The Bounty Hunter (BMT); Rumor Has It…; Love Happens; The Break-Up; Mother’s Day (BMT); Along Came Polly; ‘Til There Was You; Horrible Bosses 2; Just Go with It (BMT); Notes: Nominated for the Razzie Award in 2011 for Worst Actress for The Switch, and The Bounty Hunter; Nominated for the Razzie Award in 2012 for Worst Screen Couple for Just Go with It, and in 2011 for The Bounty Hunter; Nominated for the Razzie Award in 1997 for Worst New Star; Obviously most well known for Friends. Her father, John Aniston, has been on Days of Our Lives since 1986 and has appeared in nearly 2500 episodes.)

Mark Ruffalo – (Known For: Avengers: Age of Ultron; Spotlight; Avengers Assemble; Shutter Island; Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind; Zodiac; Now You See Me; Iron Man Three; Begin Again; Collateral; Foxcatcher; 13 Going on 30; The Last Castle; Where the Wild Things Are; Date Night; Margaret; You Can Count on Me; The Kids Are All Right; Just Like Heaven; Thanks for Sharing; The Brothers Bloom; Infinitely Polar Bear; Blindness; BMT: View from the Top; Rumor Has It…; In the Cut; The Dentist; 54; Windtalkers; All the King’s Men; Now You See Me 2; Notes: Was to appear in Signs instead of Joaquin Phoenix, but he was diagnosed with a brain tumor and had to drop out. It was benign and after brain surgery he was fine.)

Shirley MacLaine – (Known For: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty; Steel Magnolias; Being There; Terms of Endearment; The Apartment; Ocean’s Eleven; Bernie; In Her Shoes; Postcards from the Edge; Artists and Models; Around the World in Eighty Days; Two Mules for Sister Sara; The Trouble with Harry; Defending Your Life; The Children’s Hour; Irma la Douce; The Turning Point; Some Came Running; Guarding Tess; BMT: Bewitched; Cannonball Run II; Rumor Has It…; Valentine’s Day (BMT); A Smile Like Yours; The Evening Star; Notes: Nominated for the Razzie Award in 1985 for Worst Actress for Cannonball Run II; Brother of Warren Beatty. Too much about her to even figure out what to say, but we’ll see her in Cannonball Run II for sure.)

Budget/Gross – $70 million / Domestic: $43,000,262 (Worldwide: $88,933,562)

#6 on the Worst Openings – Saturated chart

(Pretty rough stuff. Number six worst opening is nuts, just a little better than Hoot! … HOOT! We’ve seen the number 9 and 10 on the list, and Victor Frankenstein will be in the mix soon enough.)

#99 for the Romantic Comedy genre

romanticcomedy_99

(right above Mannequin. Norbit was the most recent one I’ve (re)watched at a dominating 29th. Romantic comedy really hit a peak from 2000-2010, and since then it has kind of dropped off the map. Perhaps previously it was the be-all-end-all of movies geared towards women? And now with the surge in alternatives romantic comedies are the first to get relegated to VOD? Plausible.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 20% (22/111): This riff on The Graduate has a solid cast, but is too lightweight to fully register.

(Solid cast, so not just Leonard seems to think so. The number of reviews is impressive. This was a big release on the year and it just crashed and burned. I suppose the note about changing directors at the last minute makes it all make a bit of sense though.)

Poster – Rumor Sklogs It … (D-)

rumor_has_it

(No bueno. Why is there sky in the background? Why is there so much white? Why is the spacing so weird? Why is any of this like this? Only good thing is that they at least tried a little bit on the font… otherwise this is a masterclass on what not to do.)

Tagline(s) – Based on a true rumor. (D)

(Hahaha. Rumor Has It… Based on a true rumor. It really has a nice ring to it. Amateur hour up in here. At least it’s short.)

Keyword(s) – biological father; Top Ten by BMeTric: 48.6 The Ten (2007); 43.3 Rumor Has It… (2005); 25.1 Daddy’s Home (2015); 19.9 The Fifth Estate (2013); 18.7 Dance with Me (1998); 18.2 Duets (2000); 17.9 Mamma Mia! (2008); 16.6 Delivery Man (2013); 10.9 Potiche (2010); 9.6 Dirty Girl (2010);

(None! None of the keywords were particularly good. At least this one had Mama Mia! This keyword should just be called Mama Mia!-esque.)

Notes – Early in the film’s pre-production stages, Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft were strongly considered for the roles of Beau Burroughs and Katherine Richelieu. But when Bancroft died and Hoffman had filming commitments for several other projects, the roles were given to Kevin Costner and Shirley MacLaine. (Oh shit, that would have actually have been cool … for ten minutes and then once the novelty wore off the movie would be just as big of a disaster)

Shirley MacLaine was originally offered the role of Elaine in The Graduate (1967), but turned it down.

Along with President Bill Clinton and Fidel Castro, the picture on the far left is Beau (Kevin Costner) with Rob Reiner (the director). Hugh M. Hefner was originally supposed to be pictured, but Hefner objected at the last minute; Reiner was added in digitally. (Ha)

The Huttinger family house is the same house from Father of the Bride (1991). (fun fact)

The film takes place in 1997. (A period piece!!!! Yes. I hope this is incredibly obvious for no reason)

With only a 35-year age difference between them, Shirley MacLaine was really too young to be playing the grandmother of Jennifer Aniston. (True, Aniston’s father is roughly the same age as MacLaine)

Friday the 13th: A New Beginning Preview

Uh oh, what you talking about, of course we are hitting up two films this week. Otherwise we wouldn’t see Jason X for years. We are returning to Crystal Lake (uh … again) to hit up the fifth in the Friday the 13th series, Friday the 13th: A New Beginning. See the preview for the fourth film … right before this. I bet there is even a link at the bottom of the page. These count as the coveted “:” entry in the cycle, which could have been any number of films. We had so much fun watching the first three entries in the sequel cycle that we couldn’t resist returning to the well for some more. At this rate we’ll be watching Jason X in no time. Let’s go!

Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985) – BMeTric: 60.8

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FridayThe13thANewBeginning_RV

(Genuinely terrible, especially when considering the previous installment. Kind of strange, but the reviews are also quite down. My guess: it is boring, stupid, and doesn’t have the same kill/Jason presence as the previous installments. I’m mostly interested to see how much of a reboot it is. This I would classify as a Popular and poorly rated film. The number of votes is impressive and despite the regression to the mean it is very much below average.)

Leonard Maltin – BOMB – A clever title (after … the final chapter) for more gore galore, a gruesome and disgusting as ever. Fifth in the series.

(As gruesome and disgusting as ever would be a good review for fans of the series I suppose. I bet he didn’t even watch this. He certainly gave zero details.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_q7Pz2HNJc

(Alright, that trailer wasn’t good. Just a bunch of voiceover, show a few kills, show most of the final fight (clearly). Looks cheap, and doesn’t look scary in the least. If we graded trailers this would get an F for just not getting me amped up for watching this movie.)

Directors – Danny Steinmann – (BMT: Friday the 13th: A New Beginning; Notes: Ha! His IMDb page crows about how his first film (High Rise) is a hardcore porn flick. He ended up getting into horror films, and this movie was supposed to be his break into the big time. After stories of the troubled set got out they all fell through and then a bicycle accident caused him to retire from directing.)

Writers – Victor Miller, Sean S. Cunningham (character creator) – (Not sure why Kurz lost his credit at this point, but these guys are the original creators and there isn’t much more to say. Read the preview for Part 2 and Part III if you want to know more.)

Martin Kitrosser (story & screenplay) – (BMT: Friday the 13th: A New Beginning; Friday the 13th Part III; Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter; Notes: Career script supervisor. His next movie? Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. He has a crazy impressive resume.)

David Cohen (story & screenplay) – (BMT: Friday the 13th: A New Beginning; Notes: Wrote only three movies. One of them, Hollywood Zap which he also directed, is described thusly: Story of two friends, one searching for his father, the other searching for the ultimate sexual video game competition. … … I think Steinmann might have gotten this guy from one of his porn movies.)

Danny Steinmann (screenplay) – (BMT: Friday the 13th: A New Beginning; Notes: As far as I can tell this basically ended his career in Hollywood. Let this sink in for a second: Steinmann and Cohen are the director and both main writers for this film and both evidently quite involved in the porn industry either before or after the film (maybe I’m overblowing Hollywood Zap’s porn credentials, but it sounds like a porno). And the reviews describe this as the most nudity filled of the series. Let the idea behind these hires sink in for a second … at least Kinnaman seemed game.)

John Shepherd (contributing writer) (uncredited) – (BMT: Friday the 13th: A New Beginning; Notes: I’m a tad bit skeptical about this only because he didn’t get an official credit for seven more years. I do wonder sometimes where information about uncredited work comes from. A producer now, he hasn’t written a screenplay in over 15 years.)

Actors – Melanie Kinnaman – (BMT: Friday the 13th: A New Beginning; Notes: Was supposed to also star in the sixth film, but at the last second they changed their mind about the direction of the series (this is a trend, I’m not sure any if the movies go beyond cameo for the leading role rolling over). Claims she spent most of fifth movie trying not to laugh because it was so ridiculous.)

John Shepherd – (Known For: The Hunt for Red October; Deep Cover; BMT: Friday the 13th: A New Beginning; Bless the Child; Down Periscope; Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius; Notes: He is now one of the main producers at MPower Pictures. I am 95% sure this is a company that does Christian productions, although it is hard to be sure. He appears to have retired from acting over a decade ago.)

Anthony Barrile – (Known For: Hamburger Hill; Kiss Me, Guido; BMT: Friday the 13th: A New Beginning; Notes: Performed with Ben Stiller as 12-year-olds as part of New York City’s Mini-Meri Players. About a decade ago sold a screenplay that was ultimately never produced.)

Budget/Gross – $2.2 million / Domestic: $21,930,418

(Just free money. Even back then low-budget horror was just like printing money. I suppose the issue is that the fans are brutal (along with the critics) so it is probably not the most credible genre to break into the business with. Otherwise … makes sense that is where something like Blumhouse initially focused, free money.)

#38 for the Horror – Slasher genre

slasher_38

(Again, I’ll mostly ignore the plot since we’ve seen it before. But more interesting is that this is just a shade higher than Friday the 13th Part 2, and Urban Legends: The Final Cut! Now that is a movie we have to watch some time.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 16% (3/19): No consensus yet.

(Making a consensus: More nudity than any of the others, but also dumber. Out of the entire series this manages to bring the least to the table. People call it dull, dumb, and no fun … can’t wait to judge for myself. I have a feeling this one contributes to the lore more than they are letting on.)

Poster – Friday the 13th: A Sklog Beginning (F)

friday_the_thirteenth_a_new_beginning

(I almost have to go back and chance Part IV’s poster to a D- because this is somehow, someway worse. Why a gradient, guys? It’s embarrassing.)

Tagline(s) – If Jason still haunts you, you’re not alone! (D+)

(What if Jason doesn’t haunt me because I watched him get killed in the last film? Should I still be interested? Clunky and not clever. A slight hint at the plot, but that’s all its got.)

Keyword(s) – murder; Top Ten by BMeTric: 92.8 Batman & Robin (1997); 90.7 Epic Movie (2007); 89.7 Catwoman (2004); 87.8 Battlefield Earth (2000); 86.5 Dragonball: Evolution (2009); 83.7 Fantastic Four (2015); 83.5 The Wicker Man (2006); 81.9 Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2011); 81.5 Alone in the Dark (2005); 81.1 Movie 43 (2013);

(We are …. Killing movies with murder in it. Batman & Robin though? Like Catwoman murder is primary to the story, but not really a lot of these. This is actually more like “the worst movies of the last 20 years”. But whatever.)

Notes – This is the first film in the series where Jason is actually referred to by his full name: Jason Voorhees. In Friday the 13th (1980) and Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981), he is only referred to as Jason, while he is not referred to by name at all in Friday the 13th Part III (1982). (Another landmark for the series. I’ve been trying to keep track of the metamorphosis of the character. First, he was a boy in a lake. Then a full grown man. Then he gets his mask. I think he maybe gets the machete as a more standard weapon in the fourth? Good to see they nail down the name here)

The film was originally written to have Corey Feldman as the star, reprising the role of Tommy Jarvis. However, he was already working on The Goonies (1985), therefore the script was rewritten to have Feldman’s appearance limited to a cameo. (Classic Friday the 13th. Can’t nail down a lead to reprise a role)

One month prior to the film’s release in the United States, the MPAA demanded that sixteen scenes featuring sex or graphic violence be edited in order to merit an “R” rating instead of an “X”. The film ultimately required nine trips to the MPAA before finally being granted an “R” rating. (Ooof. I hope we have the unrated version)

Although “Part V” appears on all promotional material, it does not appear in the actual film. The opening credits simply read: “Friday the 13th: A New Beginning”. (Got to get that exact title yo)

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter Preview

While we had looked forward to watching Hansel & Gretel for years, the horror/thriller entry in the punctuation film cycle is one that we’ve been looking forward to for a whole 2 months. That’s right! We are returning to Crystal Lake to hit up the fourth and fifth in the Friday the 13th series, Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter and Friday the 13th: A New Beginning. These count as the coveted “:” entry in the cycle, which could have been any number of films. We had so much fun watching the first three entries in the sequel cycle that we couldn’t resist returning to the well for some more. At this rate we’ll be watching Jason X in no time. Let’s go!

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984) – BMeTric: 28.4

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FridayThe13thTheFinalChapter_RV

(I do think this movie is benefiting from some reflection by the horror community. Perhaps it is a sense that it was the third installment to start where the previous left off and thus could be viewed as putting an appropriate button on the series. Specifically that the last three were a trilogy of the murderous rampage of Jason one weekend in New Jersey. And that nice little trilogy kind of ruined by the later installments, which can now mostly be ignored after what? Fifteen plus years since the last of this run of the character? I don’t know, that rise to near 6.0 IMDb score isn’t what I would personally call natural, it is more than regression to the mean.)

Leonard Maltin – BOMB – Why bother with a new script? Jason finally gets his — except that (title notwithstanding) the door is left open for yet another sequel!

(Ha! Leonard Maltin notoriously hates horror films, and for the initial three films the claim to fame was low budget, high body count, and inventive kills. Not exactly up his alley. But a BOMB is always fun.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBme5lOcZF4

(That is pretty spoilerific I must say. Gives away at least a bit of what? Like 6 of the kills? Suggests Jason dies, indicates who kills him, etc. But back then you’d see this like once and then see the movie a few weeks later so who’d remember. Kind of like the voiceover and the idea though.)

Directors – Joseph Zito – (Known For: The Prowler; BMT: Red Scorpion; Missing in Action; Invasion USA; Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter; Notes: Known for working with Chuck Norris and being heavily influential in the slasher genre with The Prowler (1975, so quite early). But most interesting to me? He did a year of pre-production on a live action Spider-Man that never came to be. Here’s a teaser trailer:

)

Writers – Victor Miller, Ron Kurz, Sean S. Cunningham (character creator) – (I’m going to just put this at the top. We’ve already covered these guys and they’re going to show up in every subsequent preview as well. Just go look at Part II or III if you want fun facts. They wrote the first film and are credited for the character exclusively after that)

Martin Kitrosser (character creator) – (BMT: Friday the 13th: A New Beginning; Friday the 13th Part III; Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter; Notes: Last time I mentioned he was a long time script supervisor who worked with Tarantino on his films. He wrote Part III and has character credits on The Final Chapter and A New Beginning. His directorial debut was the fifth Silent Night Deadly Night movie.)

Carol Watson (character creator) – (BMT: Friday the 13th Part III; Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter; Notes: Hard to find info given her generic name, but I do know she is a credited screenwriter for the second Meatballs movie (which doesn’t qualify for BMT unfortunately))

Barney Cohen (screenplay) – (BMT: Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter; Notes: Speaking of that 1986 Spider Man film! This guy was one of the screenwriters for that! He suggested that Doctor Octopus be called Doc Ock, have an assistant named Weiner, get bitten by a spider and claim to be the true Spider-Man, and that Weiner was Uncle Ben’s killer. Oh, and Doc Ock says “okey-dokey” throughout the script. Best IMDb note ever.)

Bruce Hidemi Sakow (story) – (BMT: Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter; Notes: A veteran screenwriter whose IMDb claims he’s sold fifteen scripts with four ultimately being produced. Basically Zito must have had complete control of this project because Sakow wrote one of his other projects Quarantine (which appears to have never been made) and apparently personally hired him to write this movie.)

Actors – Erich Anderson – (Known For: Unfaithful; Officer Downe; Without Limits; Bat*21; The Glass Shield; Infinity; Special; Auggie Rose; BMT: Missing in Action; Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter; Nightwatch; Notes: A character actor across television and film. He really has very little as far as things I know on his resume … besides Murder, She Wrote. In another life I would be a person who blogs every episode of Murder, She Wrote. That blog is live! The most recent post was about three weeks ago.)

Judie Aronson – (Known For: Weird Science; Kiss Kiss Bang Bang; Lisa Picard Is Famous; BMT: American Ninja; Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter; Hannibal; Notes: She got hypothermia while filming a scene in a lake for this movie. The stuntman playing Jason threatened to quit over the incident. Both the fourth and fifth films appear to have issues with the directing it would seem.)

Peter Barton – (Known For: Hell Night; BMT: Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter; Notes: Named one of the 10 sexiest guys in soaps by Playgirl. Might have to check out his turn in the revival of 60’s detective series Burke’s Law.)

Budget/Gross – $2.6 million / Domestic: $32,980,880 (N/A)

(Free money. Get yo free money. I wonder when the run will end. This is basically the fourth in a row where the return on investment was probably like 1000%, but at some point that has to end otherwise they would have just kept doing it right?)

#28 for the Horror – Slasher genre

slasher_28

(The plot is somewhat uninteresting because we’ve obviously seen this plot twice before for the other two Friday the 13ths we did for BMT. This is the beginning of the end for the series as this made less than its predecessor and no Jason movie (until they added the far more popular Freddy Kruger to the mix) made more than Friday the 13th Part III after. Kind of insane to think about actually)

Rotten Tomatoes – 25% (6/24): No consensus yet.

(I do love me some consensus making: Retroactively becoming a joke the fourth installment is shockingly coherent in context. It doesn’t mean it is good, and the subsequent flogging of the series reflects poorly on what could have been a clean ending to the series. Most reviews are from around now, so it really is colored by modern attitudes towards the franchise. But people seem fairly positive about the movie in its context, it just … wasn’t the final chapter.)

Poster – Friday the Sklogteenth: The Final Chapter (F)

friday_the_thirteenth_the_final_chapter

(Oh blah. They went from shockingly artistic for the first three films to “just throw some words on a page. People will come and watch anyway.” The font and the stark red on black would normally score points, but not with this.)

Tagline(s) – Three Times Before You Have Felt The Terror, Known The Madness, Lived The Horror. But This Is The One You’ve Been Screaming For. (F)

Friday April 13th is Jason’s Unlucky Day (A-)

(The first one is hardly a tagline except that they actually put that monstrosity on a poster! Gross. The second is actually pretty clever. Short, sweet, and clever. Hints that Jason will die. Only thing working against it is that it uses the release date in the title… slightly meta as it is clear that the story doesn’t take place on that date.)

Keyword(s) – morgue; Top Ten by BMeTric: 76.6 The Fog (2005); 73.9 Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007); 73.6 One Missed Call (2008); 72.9 Striptease (1996); 72.2 Halloween: Resurrection (2002); 69.2 Feardotcom (2002); 60.9 Black Christmas (2006); 56.6 Double Dragon (1994); 53.4 The Transporter Refueled (2015); 51.2 Rage (2014);

(Oooo digging this list. The Fog is amazing. One Missed Call is apparently legendary. Good mix of recent and different genres from the 90’s. Morgues man, I don’t remember it in Striptease, but whatevs.)

Notes – The strange dance which Jimbo performs at the party was contributed by actor, Crispin Glover, and was based on the eccentric way he actually danced in clubs. On the set, he was dancing to “Back in Black” by AC/DC, as the scene was filmed. In the film, an edited version of “Love Is a Lie”, by Lion, was dubbed into the scene. (Ooooo I love this fun fact. This reminds me of the Giovanni Ribisi dance from Tes and Million Ways to Die in the West)

Director Joseph Zito was opposed to using clips from previous installments at the beginning of the film. (Good on you Zito. Probably one of the weaker traits of the series is the way they kind of force-stitched everything together and wasted a whole chunk of time replaying a movie people probably already watched)

The video which Axel watches is called Aerobicise (1982), and stars Darcy DeMoss, who went on to play Nikki in Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives. (Also a great fun fact. I’m going to go ahead and muse about the shared Friday the 13th universe for a while)

During filming, Kimberly Beck, who plays Trish, experienced strange occurrences, including a man watching her while she ran in the park and strange phone calls at all hours. This stopped when production was over. (Actresses being stalked seemed to be a sinister running issue with this series. The actress from the first film was stalked and had to quit the series as well)

The nurse’s name tag reads “R. Morgan, RN,” an homage to actress Robbi Morgan, who played Annie in Friday the 13th (1980).

Corey Feldman was legitimately terrified during the window shot. As per series tradition, Jason was played by yet another stuntman in The Final Chapter, this time Ted White, a seasoned veteran of 40 years who had doubled for John Wayne and Clark Cable. He did not like Corey Feldman, calling him the “meanest goddamn little kid” he’d ever dealt with. When it came time to film the famous scene near the end when Jason reaches through a broken window to pull Tommy out of a house White got to act out his frustration. They had worked out the timing of when White would grab Feldman beforehand, but during filming White waited a couple of beats to the point that Feldman assumed the stunt had gone wrong. So, just as he let his guard down White grabbed him exactly as you see in the film, meaning Feldman’s screams of horror were completely authentic. (I didn’t like this note very much, but I left it in because of the “meanest little kid” thing which I find interesting. Maybe at some point we’ll do a famous child actors rotation and hit up Feldman’s other classic Meatballs 4)

This is the only film in the series to shoot new footage using sets and locations from a previous film. The beginning takes place on the set of Friday the 13th Part III (1982), before moving to a new location.