Friday the 13th Part III Recap

Jamie

What?! Jason’s back (for the second time, not the third… or at least not as the killer… it’s weird) and ready to kill again. After surviving his machete wound from Part II, Jason is targeting a group of regional theater actors (I presume) that take an ill-timed vacation in the woods. Will these sexed-up, weed-smoking teenagers be able to survive their encounter with evil? Friday the 13th Part III!

Why?! I love horror films. The motivation is quite simple: Jason is made to kill and teenagers are made to try to survive (usually ineffectively). There are a couple of interesting subplots for the characters though. One is an aspiring actor, there is a couple that is young and pregnant, and the main girl organized the entire trip to try to confront her demons regarding a traumatic experience she had at the lake house. Coincidentally that traumatic experience involves Jason who just happened to wake up from a 5-year hiatus the day before the film takes place. Ouch. Bad luck.

How?! Uh… in like a thousand different ways. Jason’s MO is generally to sneak around a place and slit people’s throats or bury an axe or machete in their head. No different for this film. This is the entry where creative kills became a thing, particularly a harpoon death, death by red hot poker, a guy getting his head crushed and having an eye pop out, and easily the goriest scene of the franchise thus far where someone is chopped in half. Don’t worry though, most of these things are more hilarious than actually scary.

Who?! Friday the 13th hadn’t totally embraced how ridiculous they all were quite yet, so the jokesters in the first three films aren’t quite true Planchets. This film almost got there, though, with the character of Shelly. Shelly is a fat, fro-sporting aspiring actor (who is easily the worst actor in the film). He plays pranks by pretending to get killed and be a murderer. It would be meta and somewhat funny if the character wasn’t such a downer. He spends nearly the entire film being like “you all hate me cause I’m ugly and fat. Waaaaa!” At least be funny once in awhile, man. Otherwise it’s no fun for any of us.

Where?! It’s clear through the first three films that we are located at or very near to Crystal Lake. Several indications tell us that we’re in New Jersey in the first film, and it’s confirmed in the second film. Thank God, because this was the first film to be (very clearly) filmed in California. But it gets a New Jersey tally as it is near Crystal Lake. C-.

When?! As noted in Part II’s recap we know that this film takes place in 1984 and is set in June or July. We can be pretty sure this film starts on a Friday as the group of teenagers are off to the lake house for a weekend getaway (starring Selena Gomez). This leads to one of the most commonly cited timelines for the series with this film taking place on Friday, July 13th into the 14th. This means the first film takes place July 10th-13th. Apparently the move to July is rooted in the script which states explicitly that the film takes place on Friday the 13th (which could only occur in July). Fine whatever. I would prefer it was set in June and they didn’t worry about the exact days of the week, as June 13th is Jason’s birthday and it would make more sense that he kills on or around that anniversary. This timeline made me sad. C-.

Those are the W’s, but there are only three letters we care about here at HQ. Whether this film was B-M-T.

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Friday the 13th Part III? More like Copying Halloween Part III! That’s right, I watched the first three in arguably Hollywood’s worst horror mega-franchise, could three times be the charm? … In a way, but maybe not in the way you’d expect. Let’s get into it.

  • The Good – The lore in this series is strong and, when you compare it to Halloween, it definitely shows more promise than where Halloween 4, 5 and 6 ended up. Not exactly fair because I assume Friday the 13th Part 5 is really where things just go off the rails. Still, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this series. It gave me a new appreciation for the slasher genre (not joking) which I still didn’t quite understand with Halloween. We’ll get into that a bit later.
  • The Bad – The 3D nonsense was insane, you can kind of see how terrible and beholden they were to it at the time. I mean … Shelly. The franchise itself suffers from one big issue in parts 2 and III: they seem to go all out for the first kill and they just nothing but nothing for at least 30 minutes afterwards. Then they are stumbling all over themselves to kill off at least 10 people in the films. If I were to rank the classic tropes this movie created or fell into: (1) Terrible young actors, (2) obsession with gruesome kills over genuine tension, (3) too many kills such that the movie grinds to a halt to just murder people in clusters, (4) too many Chekov’s red hot pokers such that the movie became very linear and predictable. Again, we’ll get a bit more into the pros and cons in a bit.
  • The BMT – Honestly, no. Not any of the three. Shelly gets you close, but he’s just on the correct side of tongue in cheek I think. The budgets are too small, the lore is too good, and the films are just a bit too self aware. I assume that the fourth (the final chapter) kills Jason and I assume zombie Jason represents the franchise crossing the Rubicon. And seriously, I can’t wait to sit down and watch two or three more. I understand slasher obsession a bit now.

I’ve already written a lot, but here I think I need to go into a bit of Sklognalysis. The main reason being that the lore of this film is kind of incredible. The first three in this franchise see the evolution of the bad guy from Jason’s mother, to a bag-wearing monstrous mamma’s boy in the woods, to a psycho man in a mask. Each film involves a lake (from which one can oddly assume Jason draws his power), each film occurs in about a single day, each film has 10+ kills, each film has a variety of weapons, and each film culminates with a storm. The films start with a replay of the previous film, and in each a single person survives and has a horrible dream to end the film, and is driven insane and taken away by the perplexed police. In the recap for part 2 I rewrote this trilogy a bit, but even without the rewrite I think the franchise may stand alone in showing evolution while being true to its lore and predecessors. They evolve the killer while stopping short of explicitly falling back to supernatural explanation. I don’t know … I kind of loved this first trilogy, even if all three are objectively poorly made films. There is something about them. Lucky for everyone there is eight other main franchise films to destroy its legacy.

I am genuinely excited to watch the entire series and then watch the Crystal Lake Memories (it is a 7 hour long documentary!).

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Friday the 13th Part 2 Recap

Jamie

What?! Jason’s back!… er… I mean, Jason is here for the first time! It’s five years after the massacre at Crystal Lake committed by Jason’s mother and now Jason (back from the dead or whatever) is out for revenge. A new set of camp counselors are on the scene, but the result is basically the same. Can they survive the encounter with a new monster? Friday the 13th Part II!

Why?! The horror genre is interesting because the motivations have traditionally been vague or nonexistent, especially in the early franchises. Mike Myers was pure evil and out to kill his family, Freddy is pure evil and haunts the dreams of teenagers in his hometown, Leatherface is pure evil and kills those that stumble upon his crazy family. Friday the 13th is a bit different, whereby Jason’s mother kills all who attempt to reopen the camp where her son drowned through negligence. Part II continues the trend in that Jason isn’t just pure evil out to kill anyone who disturbs his peace at the camp, but rather he worships his (now dead) mother and kills those near the lake. He has no ability to discriminate between those that killed his mother five years ago and those that come to the lake in this film. As a result he goes on a rampage. It’s actually a pretty interesting backstory. The motivation for the campers is always the same: survive.

How?! Like, how did Jason kill the campers? In this one there isn’t a huge amount of variety. Mostly it’s stabbing people in the torso or neck. The best kill is the double spear kill through the bodies of two counselors making whoopee (and it gives me the opportunity to use the phrase “making whoopee.”). The third film is really when they started getting creative with the kills.

Who?! Each of the films has a Planchet of sorts. The guy who’s always joking around. This one is no different with Ted played by Stuart Charno, who has bright orange hair and is super skinny. Besides his jokes on jokes on jokes, the most interesting thing about the character is that he survives. Since the setting of the film is a functioning training camp there are like 25 people there. Instead of killing them all they wrote in the fact that most of the crew go out on the town the night of the massacre and don’t return until after the killing has stopped.

Where?! The first film pretty firmly establishes that the camp is located in New Jersey. The setting is bolstered in this one through the name of the training camp: Camp Packanack. This is clearly a play on Lake Packanack located in New Jersey. C+.

When?! The timeline for the series is legendarily screwed up. We know by reference that this film takes place five years after the first. It’s known from the fourth film (apparently) that the first film takes place in 1979. So we have the year of 1984 (which is fun because that means that the film was set in the future as it was released in 1982). I would presume that it’s June give that it’s a training camp for counselors for the upcoming camp season, but fans like to put it in July so that the third film takes place on Friday the 13th. Whatever. That’s what you can get from this film. Look towards Part III’s recap to get a better idea of the exact date. C-.

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Friday the 13th Part 2? More like Just Like Halloween 2! We watched the first trilogy of one of the three horror mega franchises, could it live up to the standard set by the first installment of Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street? Let’s just say it gets off to a rocky start. Let’s get into it!

  • The Good – If you like lots of kills, and inventive kills this is the franchise for you it turns out. Halloween had less kills and more tension, and Myers for the most part slashes people (it worked well when he was a kid, why change anything ten years later you know?), and Kruger has that whole supernatural dream thing going. But otherwise … this guy was probably actually my least favorite of the three.
  • The Bad – This installment is a mess. You want to think the ending is a dream? Then did Paul survive? If not what happened to him? Who is Jason, a grown up version of the boy in the lake? Did he not actually die? Is this another boy Mrs. Voorhees raised in the woods? What happened to the kids who went off to the townie bar, I presume they just survived. Why is this never mentioned ever again? For all the low budget gore and dozen or so kill shots, there are so many loose ends after the movie sprints through the last seven teenage deaths that it is a wonder the editor cobbled the madness together.
  • The BMT – Out of the three I honestly think the second is the worst, but no. Too low budget. They made these things on a dime at the time. The entire trilogy predates Elm Street so the only real comparisons you got are things like Halloween 2 which kind of also looks like crap. Elm Street stands with The Thing as far as practical effects are concerned, so for the slasher genre that was (unfortunately a terrible) turning point. Here though they grabbed good looking young actors off the street and filmed it over a weekend basically. And what they made is actually pretty impressive.

Quick Sklogification in honor of this movie just being a mess. Out of the many admirable things in this franchise, one of the best things is watching the evolution of the character of Jason and the lore surrounding the film. But it ended up leaving things a little messy upon reviewing. Is Jason the (un)dead boy from the first film? Is there a psychic aspect to the series with the multiple dream sequences throughout? It is hard to tell. So If I were to propose a rewrite of the original trilogy (and, no, I haven’t seen the remakes) it would go a little like this: Ten years after a massacre at Crystal Lake closed the camp for good a new camp director wants to push against the ghost stories and start anew. But uh-oh, Jason won’t allow this and a massacre on a fateful Friday the 13th occurs. Turns out the instigating event was the death of his mother Mrs. Voorhees at the camp when he was but a boy of ten and he massacred them all and fled to the woods presumed drowned and dead (a little twist on the plot of the original). The lone survivor of the present massacre is taken to a hospital for recovery thinking Jason was killed by a machete. Jason, adopting this machete as his weapon of choice, follows her to the hospital on Saturday the 14th and, as a nod to Halloween 2, goes on a late night murderous rampage through the hospital. Naturally there is a hockey goalie there getting bandaged up after a local game and Jason snags that along the way. The lone survivor is killed, and Jason, again presumed dead, ultimately slinks off into the woods. In the third installment a manhunt has begun for Jason by the local police. Two deputies come across the injured killer and one is killed and the other wounded. The wounded deputy crawls to a cabin inhabited by oblivious teenagers having a party. Jason, in a rage, attacks the house and is ultimately killed by the deputy, the lone survivor of the bloody weekend. Throughout the trilogy the movies start where the predecessor ends, and there is a scattered powerful storm raking across the Crystal Lake region.

Now I’m not saying this is somehow better or the best, but nods to the original, a tighter narrative and lore, nods to Halloween as well (as was initially intended in fact), and no muddled need for the supernatural. Makes me wonder what the remakes are actually like.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Friday the 13th Part III Preview

The horror genre should be the bread and butter of the Squeakuels cycle. There are a lot of directions we could go. The abhorrently titled I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, Blair Witch: Book of Shadows, Jaws: The Revenge, or perhaps Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 (if only for this hilarious scene). God knows I wish we could just rewatch Silent Hill: Revelation. But alas we cannot. Instead we went for a classic in order to try to take a bite out of what is largely considered the worst of the major horror franchises. That’s right, we’re watching Friday the 13th Parts II and III. Nearly all of the Friday the 13th qualify for BMT other than the first and the sixth. So here we’ll knock off 25% of the series in a go. Let’s go!

Friday the 13th Part III (1982) – BMeTric: 35.1

fridaythe13thpartiii_bmet

fridaythe13thpartiii_rv

(I am a little shocked, this is basically the same story as for Part 2 except drop the rating by 0.5 thus adding 10 to the BMeTric. It has the same regression to the mean, 2011 inflection, and recent drop in BMeTric. I wonder if the whole series kind of holds the same trend. Probably a little overrated rating wise, a ton of votes. It just takes me by surprise, I was expecting much more from Part III)

Leonard Maltin – 2 stars –  Strictly amater night in terms of acting and writing, but this entry deemphasizes explicit gore in favor of shocks, and delivers a few – especially in 3D and widescreen.

(What?! This shows what Leonard really thinks about horror. Thank god there isn’t any explicit gore in this entry. Instead let’s go for some fun 3D shocks! What a weirdo. Just enjoy the kills and effects man. Funny enough Leonard is known to only like Part III and Jason Takes Manhattan… which everyone else hates, hates, hates.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLHbki5fKvU

(That was much better than the trailer for Part 2. Seems like there are some fun looking kills in this one and the hockey mask makes an appearance. This is actually oddly promising.)

Directors – Steve Miner – (Known For: Halloween H20: 20 Years Later; Lake Placid; Forever Young; House; Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken; Warlock; BMT: Big Bully; Friday the 13th Part III; Soul Man; My Father the Hero; Texas Rangers; Friday the 13th Part 2; Notes: Was an associate director on the first Friday the 13th and then transitioned to director for Parts II & III. Also worked as an editor for Wes Craven early in his career (although credited as a P.A. for Last House on the Left).)

Writers – Martin Kitrosser (screenplay) – (BMT: Friday the 13th: A New Beginning; Friday the 13th Part III; Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter; Notes: A long time Hollywood script supervisor working closely with Tarantino on his films.)

Carol Watson (screenplay) – (BMT: Friday the 13th Part III; Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter; Notes: Ha! Both her and Kitrosser are credited with writing the story for Meatballs Part II. Interesting that they seemed to have a short lived collaboration.)

Victor Miller (character creator) – (Known For: Friday the 13th; Freddy vs. Jason; Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI; BMT: Jason X; Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan; Friday the 13th: A New Beginning; Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood; Friday the 13th; Friday the 13th Part III; Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter; Friday the 13th Part 2; Notes: He claims to have only seen the first Friday the 13th as he doesn’t like the idea of Jason being the killer.)

Ron Kurz (character creator) – (Known For: Friday the 13th; BMT: Friday the 13th Part III; Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter; Friday the 13th Part 2; Notes: He gets character credits for the series from here on. Interesting to note that he wrote a couple smaller films under the name Mark Jackson. Not sure if that’s his real name or the pseudonym he started with.)

Sean S. Cunningham (characters) (uncredited) – (Known For: Friday the 13th; Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI; BMT: Friday the 13th: A New Beginning; Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood; Friday the 13th Part III; Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter; Friday the 13th Part 2; Notes: He was the director for the first one. Also directed DeepStar Six which might end up in BMT in the future.)

Petru Popescu (uncredited) – (Known For: The Last Wave; BMT: Friday the 13th Part III; Notes: He claimed in an interview that casting for the film was based entirely on looks and nothing to do with acting ability (I’m sure it shows).)

Actors – Dana Kimmell – (BMT: Friday the 13th Part III; Notes: Mostly a TV actress in soaps and the like. Retired from acting.)

Tracie Savage – (BMT: Friday the 13th Part III; The Devil and Max Devlin; Notes: Long time reporter in the LA area, she has won three LA area Emmy’s for her work. She even reported on the OJ Simpson trial and had to take the stand regarding information she reported from an anonymous source. Wow.)

Richard Brooker – (BMT: Friday the 13th Part III; Notes: He portrayed Jason in the film. Died of a heart attack a few years back. Very interesting guy if you take a look at his IMDb.)

Budget/Gross – $2.3 million / Domestic: $36,690,067 (N/A)

(Still punching well above its weight. This is still the fourth highest grossing in the series. All the films nearly go down in gross in order before bottoming out with Jason X.)

#22 for the Horror – Slasher genre

slasher_22

(I found this plot to be interesting enough I’ll just copy my notes from the Part 2 preview: This guy sits right in the middle of the pre-85 horror genre at around $20 million. Blockbuster horror is still somewhat unique, at least with slashers. Only 11 films have over $50 million domestic! The Scream series holds the top three and are the only films to gross over $100 million. I had to kind of hack my program for this because they didn’t record the number of theaters for this movie, that’s why the dashed line isn’t really on the graph. The big peak is Scream. The genre saw a resurgence in the late 2000s … and now it is VOD. All Horror will be VOD soon beyond, currently, the Babadooks of the world. I am convinced there will always be a place for people to come together to be scared as a group, but it just is very small potatoes. Kind of sad to see the genre get swamped in the late 80s and then collapse in the 90s. That’s the story of horror though.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 12% (3/25): No consensus yet.

(Generally regarded as the second worst in the series. However it’s hard to tell as rankings are all over the place depending on what the ranker likes in a horror film. I believe the consensus would go a little something like this: Heavy on gimmick, light on scares. This entry may finally kill a series that was already on life support. I like that fake consensus because it would end up being so very, very wrong.)

Poster – Sklogday the 13th Part III (B+)

fridaythe13thpart3

(There is something fun and artistic with these posters. I like the framing and dark colors with contract. Take a look at that crazy title font to boot!)

Tagline(s) – A New Dimension In Terror… (B)

(Flows nicely and tells a bit of the story. Not as good as the Part II tagline, but still pretty good.)

Keyword(s) – serial killer; Top Ten by BMeTric: 72.9 I Know Who Killed Me (2007); 72.7 Basic Instinct 2 (2006); 72.3 I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998); 72.1 Halloween: Resurrection (2002); 69.4 Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo (2005); 69.1 Feardotcom (2002); 67.2 Species II (1998); 65.3 Zoolander 2 (2016); 65.2 Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993); 62.9 Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989);

(Some of these are not like the other, some of these do not belong. Hilarious list due to the comedies stuff in there. Otherwise pretty expected. Someday we’ll complete all of the major horror franchises, you’ll see.)

Notes – This was the first of the Friday the 13th films to use the iconic hockey mask, which has been in every sequel since. (Yup, watching the first three in a row the transformation of the killer is actually rather shocking considering how iconic Jason became)

The original plan for the film involved Ginny (Amy Steel) from the previous film being confined to a psychiatric hospital. Suffering from the trauma inflicted on her during the ordeal with Jason, she eventually finds that, intent on revenge, he has tracked her down, and he begins to murder the staff and other patients at the hospital. Steel ultimately declined the offer to return to the series as she was busy with other projects, but has since said that she thinks she should have accepted. (That is the plot of Halloween II, just a mental hospital not a hospital)

To prevent the film’s plot being leaked, the production used the fake title “Crystal Japan,” after a David Bowie song. This began an on-again, off-again tradition of giving “Friday the 13th” films David Bowie song titles during filming. (gross, who cares about the plot of a microbudget horror film?)

This film actually takes place the day after the events of Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981), making it Saturday, the 14th. While the beginning takes place on the evening of Saturday, the 14th, when the store owner and his wife are killed, the majority of the film takes place on the following day, making it Sunday, the 15th. (Oh snap Jamie, are you ready for some temporal settings? [Jamie’s note: I don’t think this is accurate according to what I read online])

Larry Zerner was cast as Shelly when the producers spotted him handing out fliers for a horror movie and asked him if he’d want to star in one himself. (Jesus. When did they start taking this stuff seriously?)

The 3-D version contains a title card not seen in 2-D home video releases (for obvious reasons): after the Paramount Pictures logo fades out, the card reads “Ladies and gentlemen: The first few minutes of this picture are not in 3-D. However, you will need the special 3-D glasses.” The film then continues as normal with the recap of the ending of Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981), presented in 2-D. The 3-D begins with the shot of Jason removing the machete from his shoulder. (Kind of wish I could watch that shitty 3D honestly)

Although it appears sunny and warm, the film was shot during a January/February winter. Several night scenes were trimmed in order to conceal the actors’ visible breath appearing on screen. (huh fun fact)

Friday the 13th Part 2 Preview

The horror genre should be the bread and butter of the Squeakuels cycle. There are a lot of directions we could go. The abhorrently titled I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, Blair Witch: Book of Shadows, Jaws: The Revenge, or perhaps Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 (if only for this hilarious scene). God knows I wish we could just rewatch Silent Hill: Revelation. But alas we cannot. Instead we went for a classic in order to try to take a bite out of what is largely considered the worst of the major horror franchises. That’s right, we’re watching Friday the 13th Parts II and III. Nearly all of the Friday the 13th qualify for BMT other than the first and the sixth. So here we’ll knock off 25% of the series in a go. Let’s go!

Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981) – BMeTric: 23.6

fridaythe13thpart2_bmet

fridaythe13thpart2_rv

(Perfectly average. For the BMeTric the average is basically exactly 25 for big movies (which I usually define as movies that get 10 or more reviews on rotten tomatoes … for now). This guy just kind of floats around there. And regression to the mean is the name of the game. Having been doing the Hall of Fame previews it is pretty clear that to be legendary you have to basically buck the regression to the mean (it is probably the same the other way, the best movies probably don’t lose their superior rating as votes come in). The Wicker Man comes to mind as a legendary bad horror. This one probably isn’t, but we’ll see.)

Leonard Maltin – BOMB –  More nubile campers, more bloody executions. If you loved Part I…

(Wow, Leonard not giving this film the time of day. He notoriously hates horror films so I don’t totally trust his opinions on them. He was pretty open to the fact that in later editions of his book he had one of his employees review the horror films. He hates gore.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qqmj12n7yYc

(This has got to be one of the worst trailers I’ve ever seen. Why are you showing all kills?! And just counting randomly upwards. Yeesh.)

Directors – Steve Miner – (Known For: Halloween H20: 20 Years Later; Lake Placid; Forever Young; House; Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken; Warlock; BMT: Big Bully; Friday the 13th Part III; Soul Man; My Father the Hero; Texas Rangers; Friday the 13th Part 2; Notes: He directed Texas Rangers!? And episodes of Dawson’s Creek? He’s basically me (a.k.a. a Van der Beek super fan).)

Writers – Ron Kurz (written by) – (Known For: Friday the 13th; BMT: Friday the 13th Part III; Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter; Friday the 13th Part 2; Notes: Apparently he wrote most of the later drafts for this installment, although Victor Miller is often credited. Seems wrong since IMDb gives Miller characters which usually means he was just not involved anymore. He started out as a novelist. Here’s his debut which is not in print anymore.)

Victor Miller (characters) – (Known For: Friday the 13th; Freddy vs. Jason; Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI; BMT: Jason X; Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan; Friday the 13th: A New Beginning; Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood; Friday the 13th; Friday the 13th Part III; Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter; Friday the 13th Part 2; Notes: Ended up being more well known for his soap opera work on Guiding Light, All My Children, One Life To Live, and Another World. He indeed was only involved in the original, although he apparently has been writing two horror films, Eden Falls and Rock Paper Dead, both set to release this year.)

Sean S. Cunningham (characters) (uncredited) – (Known For: Friday the 13th; Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI; BMT: Friday the 13th: A New Beginning; Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood; Friday the 13th Part III; Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter; Friday the 13th Part 2; Notes: His IMDb compared him to Ed Wood! (in that he works fast and cheap). Claims he isn’t a fan of the horror genre, although he was a producer for many iconic horror films of the 70s and 80s. He too is only associated with the first film in reality, although he has credits for all of the sequels.)

Actors – Betsy Palmer – (Known For: Friday the 13th; Mister Roberts; The Long Gray Line; The Tin Star; BMT: Friday the 13th Part 2; Notes:  Nominated for the Razzie Award in 1981 for Worst Supporting Actress for Friday the 13th; Most famous for this role. Probably my favorite note is that she lived with James Dean for 8 months. She made it pretty clear later in her career that she didn’t exactly appreciate the iconic role, even turning down reprising her role in Freddy v. Jason saying it was beneath her. Also her being first billed is an odd quirk of IMDb I think, but she was interesting enough to include her because of the first film I decided not to replace her with the actual third billed, or more appropriately Jason himself.)

Amy Steel – (BMT: Friday the 13th Part 2; April Fool’s Day; Notes: Began her career in modelling and commercials. She has since begun a career in therapy, although she has worked in television all the way up to last year. She was offered a starring role in the third film, but her agent advised her to turn it down. What a strange series. The survivor from the first and second film turned down their potential starring sequels. You could have been Scream Queens! You got to Jamie Lee Curtis that up)

John Furey – (BMT: Friday the 13th Part 2; Notes: Both he and his wife Denise Galik have basically been doing one episode stints on television since 1990. He actually used to do a ton of crappy Sci Fi films like Island Claws.)

Budget/Gross – $1.25 million / Domestic: $21,722,776 (N/A)

(Well…. That is a lot of money on not a large budget. I’m kind of surprised it didn’t get bumped up after the first. Although I guess this came out the same year as Halloween II, so maybe big budget horror just wasn’t a thing yet. Still kind of just made them in the woods on a dime.)

#39 for the Horror – Slasher genre; Note: Many slasher movies from the ’70s and ’80s have no box office records, and, hence, do not appear on this chart.

slasher_39

(This guy sits right in the middle of the pre-85 horror genre at around $20 million. Blockbuster horror is still somewhat unique, at least with slashers. Only 11 films have over $50 million domestic! The Scream series holds the top three and are the only films to gross over $100 million. I had to kind of hack my program for this because they didn’t record the number of theaters for this movie, that’s why the dashed line isn’t really on the graph. The big peak is Scream. The genre saw a resurgence in the late 2000s … and now it is VOD. All Horror will be VOD soon beyond, currently, the Babadooks of the world. I am convinced there will always be a place for people to come together to be scared as a group, but it just is very small potatoes. Kind of sad to see the genre get swamped in the late 80s and then collapse in the 90s. That’s the story of horror though.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 34% (11/32): No consensus yet.

(I get to make a consensus (I’m singing that I’m so happy): A carbon copy of what was already a middling affair as far as the classic slasher go, this second film is a new set of campers who seem a whole lot like the old set of campers, with a villain who doesn’t bring much to the table. Forgettable. That is kind of the story of the series actually. At best it was low budget schlock. At worst it was a slap in the face. I’m excited. Honestly.)

Poster – Sklogday the 13th: Part 2 (C)

fridaythe13thpart2

(If this was a wholly original poster I would be pretty taken with it. Bold black with contrast and unique font. However, this is basically the same poster as the first one (but less artistic).)

Tagline(s) – The body count continues… (B+)

(They are super into the whole counting thing. I don’t think this is a bad tagline. Tells you what it is, does it concisely, and it flows nicely with the alliteration.)

Keyword(s) – pitchfork; Top Ten by BMeTric: 48.2 Halloween 5 (1989); 47.1 Eight Legged Freaks (2002); 45.2 Seventh Son (I) (2014); 45.1 The Messengers (2007); 38.1 Husk (2011); 37.7 Wrath of the Titans (2012); 36.7 Critters 2 (1988); 35.1 Friday the 13th Part III (1982); 33.8 Gymkata (1985); 32.9 The Brothers Grimm (2005);

(Ohhhh Gymkata. The list is more eclectic than I thought it would be. I figured pitchfork would just be horror. Nope. We got a few horror, a fantasy, action, adventure. Weird group. I kind of dig it. Imagine watching all of those films in a setting. Bonkers.)

Notes – Originally, the sex scene between Sandra and Jeff was longer and it included full frontal nudity from actress Marta Kober, but when Paramount studio discovered that she was underage, the scene was deleted completely (What!?!??! In what universe do you shoot a scene like that without knowing that?!)

Following the release of Friday the 13th (1980), Adrienne King had numerous encounters with an obsessive fan. The situation escalated into a stalker case, and she decided to avoid any further acting opportunities. She has not done any on-screen film work since, but has done voice over work on several films more than 15 years later. (Jeez. I wonder if she could have become a true Scream Queen like Jamie Lee Curtis. Sounds like they wanted to get her for at least one more film. Could have been more)

The actors stayed in the cabins on-set. John Furey, Bill Randolph and Russell Todd came to Lauren-Marie Taylor’s cabin to play a prank on her. They scratched on her screen window and she hyperventilated until she fainted. (hahahaha, terrifying and really not okay!)

The first Jason scene in the movie is a shot of Jason’s legs walking across the street toward Alice’s house. This is the only time in the series Jason was played by a woman. Jason’s legs belonged to Ellen Lutter, the film’s costume designer.

A shot of the infamous double-impalement was cut to avoid an “X” rating, yet a gory still photo of this censored shot appears on the back of the videocassette box. (ha!)

Jason in this film is dressed to look exactly the same as the hooded, burlap sack killer from The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976). The only difference is that the burlap sack he wears has only one eye hole, and his shirt has a slightly different plaid design. (For some reason I know this despite not having ever seen that film. The design seemed oddly familiar. I think it is from the poster. Serious question: why intentionally steal a design?)

Adrienne King filmed all of her scenes in one night. According to King, there was no script for her scene which is why she didn’t know her character died. She showed up to set, found out Jason was going to kill her, and that they needed her to completely improvise a phone conversation. So, everything with Alice talking to her mom on the phone about struggling to move on with her soon-to-end life was unscripted.

Hall of Fame Speech #4: Norbit

Brief note before we start: last July we got together and worked out a first class to be inducted into the Smaddies Baddies BMT Hall of Fame. It has been nearly six years since we started BMT and the films we had seen more than five years ago, in some cases, deserved a rewatch and reassessment. Over the next two weeks leading up to the fourth (sixth?) Smaddies Baddies we’ll bring you previews and Hall of Fame Speeches for the five films chosen. This is the fourth, for the raucous Eddie Murphy comedy magnum opus, Norbit. The intention is to reminisce a bit about what we remember about the film, what we think of it now, and why it deserved a special place in BMT history. Enjoy!

Hall of Fame Induction Speech for Norbit

Helllllluuuuuuur everyone! I rewatched the movie (gulp) Norbit this week. Norbit was, for me, top of the class for the BMT Hall of Fame. Not because it was the most BMT film (Street Fighter of Chun Li takes that award). It isn’t the most famous and rewarding bad movie (that is probably Battlefield Earth). Rather, Norbit is, bar none in my opinion, the worst film we have ever ever done for BMT. Stunning! How can this be? Just hear about what I remember about this film (not what I gleaned from subsequent viewing, oh no … this is what I remember from a single viewing nearly six years ago):

  • I remember the extremely racist chinese character played by Eddie Murphy. The character is mind-bending. It is genuinely shocking to see the character get into a film. It makes you think about how much creative control Murphy must have still had at the time. He was still able to churn out $100 million dollar comedies, and it did come out about a year after Dreamgirls. I think, upon reflection using all of the accrued BMT knowledge I have, one of the major reasons this movie is Hall of Fame was it is a nearly perfect example of what happens when you hand over complete control to a single (crazy?) person, and this character exemplifies it.
  • I remember actually literally being sick to my stomach in the middle of this film. You are watching a man in a seriously abusive relationship. Physically and emotionally abusive. If Rasputia was a man and Norbit was a women this would be a horror film. I don’t feel the need nor do I think it is my place to comment on social issues in the context of BMT, but in all seriousness I wonder how Eddie Murphy (and Charlie Murphy and the other two screenwriters) thought this was funny. Was the script really old and Murphy punched it up and updated it a bit after getting a greenlight from Dreamgirls? It is perplexing to me, and sadly I know I will never get an answer to that question (indeed, the DVD does not have a commentary with any of the writers that could have illuminated the mysteries of this film).
  • I remember being blown away from the makeup. Compare this to Big Momma’s House: There is no contest. I’ll be paying close attention to the faces in this film. There is a reason this film was nominated for an Oscar for makeup.
  • I remember the beach scene. Mostly because I had, at that point, been exposed to BMT favorite Madea only once by then. In the show Meet the Browns she shows up to teach one of the children good manners. The conversation went something like this:
    Madea: Now say helluurrrr
    Child: Hello!
    Madea: No! You got to say it fancy when you are speaking to an adult, say it like this: Helllluuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrr

    This is significant because in the beach scene Eddie Murphy as Rasputia says things in the exact same manner. For me this was kind of a mind blowing moment. One of those meta out-of-body moments where all of a sudden it hit me: I am not the audience for this film! Something deep within the shared culture of Eddie Murphy and Tyler Perry came a common impersonation of what I assume is someone acting like what they think a “proper” southern lady sounds like. This is part of the reason I genuinely love Madea films (and Tyler Perry films in general). I think there is something to watching movies not made for you and to sometimes allowing subjectivity to be a part of reviewing Hollywood films.

Hoooooooweeeeee I’m telling you, this film stuck to my bones. I’m happy it came up so early in BMT, because comedies are a tricky genre, and to have a few really impressive ones perform early was probably instrumental in keeping us going with our strict genre rotation.

So how did the film hold up? You know what … let’s do this recap style:

  • The Good – This movie is better than I remembered! Norbit himself is actually a solid character well acted by Murphy. The film is also heartwarming at times, how much the town seems to love Norbit indicates in a strange way that a much better movie could have maybe been made. Really star studded cast.
  • The Bad – I felt physically ill again in the middle of the film. Rasputia is a monster. In one of the first scenes with Norbit as an adult he tries to merely say that he didn’t mess with his wife’s car seat and she punches him in the face. She throws him through a window. She runs down a dog and then says she only regrets that she didn’t kill it. She pushes a speaker onto Norbit and puts him in the hospital. The kicker? When mad with jealousy of Norbit’s childhood friend Kate she indicates that if he talks to her again she’ll throw industrial acid in Kate’s face … empty threat? She literally melts a potato with industrial acid. The film isn’t funny, it is a testament to domestic abuse and how we dismiss it because of misguided perception that men can’t be weak and women can’t be physically abusive. I have to say this as well: Mr. Wong was just as racist as I remembered. He says (and I quote): “We got a brack one this time!” … He said brack … with an r instead of an l. It’s in the trailer! He is illogically obsessed with whaling. He is awkward, and unnecessary, and yeah … he’s a fucking racist caricature, and awful. If this character didn’t exist I might have been able to look past Rasputia antics as a misguided idea of comedy … but the one two punch is hard to move past without feeling bad about yourself.
  • The BMT – Yes. This movie is one of the worst things I’ve ever seen and is easily a 70+ BMT. Did you read the above two paragraphs, get out of here.

This movie was better than I remember, but that isn’t saying much at all. The story is fine, the acting is at worst below average, and I thought Murphy as Rasputia and Norbit was quite good. But the jokes are top to bottom awful. Spouted by unpleasant people doing sickening things. I’ve written a lot, but I will say this as a final thought: Through all six years of BMT I still maintain this is the worst film I’ve seen, and a rewatch did nothing to dissuade me of that feeling. That feeling of being literally ill while watching a film is hard to replicate. And that is why Norbit belongs in the Hall of Fame

Norbit Preview

A small note prior to this post: Last July we decided to take a look back at the movies that we watched over five years ago and choose a Hall of Fame class, five movies that we thought embodied BMT in some way. Perhaps they were particularly bad, or an example of a specific bad movie trope, whatever, something made them stand out as special in our minds. Since we didn’t do email previews back in 2011 we also decided to provide a preview for the movie as well. This is the fourth in a series of five leading up to our yearly awards the Smaddies Baddies. A recap (Hall of Fame speech really) will follow immediate afterwards to explain why the movie was chosen, things we loved about the movie, and things we discovered upon second viewing. Enjoy!

Norbit (2007) – BMeTric: 81.2

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(Sweet 2011 inflection. It is definitely a strong trend. Yet again, despite thousands and thousands of votes coming it the movie’s rating doesn’t regress to the mean. It is generally unusual, but three out of the four Hall of Fame movies exhibit this unusual trend. Old Dogs was the only exception which is also very interesting. I suppose as a fairly innocuous family comedy it managed to evade the bad movie cultists that surround the more popular fair.)

Leonard Maltin – 1.5 stars – As in Coming to America and the Nutty Professor vehicles Murphy plays several characters: Norbit a meek young man brought up by Chinese restaurant owner Mr. Wong and stuck in a terrifying marriage with the hideously overweight Rasputia. All three are in search of a script. Murphy shows his comedic range but is let down by the material, which includes all of the fat jokes the writers (including Murphy his brother Charles) could come up with. Prophetic ad line for the movie asked, “Have You Ever Made a Really Bad Mistake?”

(I like the idea of Murphy getting all pissed about the writers failing to live up to his comic genius and then realizing that he wrote the movie. I’m also genuinely shocked Mr. Wong’s mind-blowing racism isn’t mentioned alongside the (seemingly) unlimited store of fat jokes the Murphy brothers could muster. I’m skeptical Leonard watched this film … this review is low on detes. I’m onto you Leonard.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmSZJ17ppEQ

(So she punches him in the face and she throws him through a window in the trailer. This trailer is aggressive, it is in your face. They use that song Don’t Cha by the Pussy Cat Dolls like five times. I don’t like the trailer, it hints that it might be the worst thing you’ve ever seen … but it does manage to hide the fact that the movie is more horror film than comedy. So congrats.)

Directors – Brian Robbins – (Known For: Varsity Blues; BMT: Norbit (BMT); The Shaggy Dog; Meet Dave; Ready to Rumble; Good Burger; The Perfect Score; A Thousand Words (BMT); Hard Ball; Notes:  Nominated for the Razzie Award in 2008 for Worst Director for Norbit; Good Burger?! Say What? He was a main character on the show Head of the Class appearing in all 114 episodes. He got his start directing with Kenan & Kel and Good Burger, and many Murphy projects. He is also an extremely accomplished producer in both television and streaming services.)

Writers – Eddie Murphy (screenplay & story) – (Known For: Coming to America; Beverly Hills Cop II; Boomerang; BMT: Norbit (BMT); Vampire in Brooklyn; Another 48 Hrs.; Harlem Nights (BMT); Notes: See below for Razzie Notes; He doesn’t write as many of his starring roles than I personally would have expected. He didn’t seem very enthused about directing with Harlem Nights, so maybe he’d rather riff on screen and doesn’t really care to write? He hadn’t done it in years before Norbit (1995 was his last feature prior to Norbit in 2007).)

Charlie Murphy (screenplay & story) (as Charles Murphy) – (BMT: Norbit (BMT); Vampire in Brooklyn; Notes:  Nominated for the Razzie Award in 2008 for Worst Screenplay for Norbit; Funny he was going by Charles Murphy … perhaps this suggests the screenplay was written long before the movie came out? Chappelle’s Show was in 2003-2006, and at that point he would have been far more well known as Charlie Murphy. Perhaps he got credited from an original draft written years before. It also perhaps resolves the curiosity that Eddie Murphy seemingly didn’t write a movie for all those years … huh, this movie was probably written in like 2000 wasn’t it?)

Jay Scherick and David Ronn (screenplay) – (Known For: Guess Who; BMT: Norbit; Zookeeper; I Spy; The Smurfs; The Smurfs 2; Serving Sara; National Security; Notes:  Nominated for the Razzie Award in 2008 for Worst Screenplay for Norbit; The writers for the upcoming Baywatch adaptation (the trailer looks pretty funny). These guys’ filmography make me a bit skeptical, but maybe they are punch-up artists? … I was just thinking that maybe they are like Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon … who it turns out also wrote Baywatch. Two other dudes got final credit. Yeah, Baywatch clearly fired those two writing teams during production. Wow.)

Actors – Eddie Murphy – (Known For: Shrek; Shrek 2; Shrek the Third; Mulan; Coming to America; Beverly Hills Cop; Trading Places; Dreamgirls; Tower Heist; Shrek Forever After; Beverly Hills Cop II; 48 Hrs.; Doctor Dolittle; The Nutty Professor; Life; Dr. Dolittle 2; Bowfinger; Boomerang; Imagine That; BMT: Norbit (BMT); Nutty Professor II: The Klumps; Pluto Nash (BMT); Vampire in Brooklyn; The Haunted Mansion; Meet Dave; Holy Man; I Spy; Beverly Hills Cop III; Showtime; Daddy Day Care; Metro; Another 48 Hrs.; The Golden Child (BMT); A Thousand Words (BMT); The Distinguished Gentleman; Harlem Nights (BMT); Notes: See below for Razzie notes; There isn’t much more to say about Murphy. He is both a legend in his own right, and a BMT legend. Since maybe 2000 his legacy has been marred by poorly reviewed films, bitterness, and poor public relations. The thing recently I remember was his awkward appearance at the SNL 40 celebrations.)

Thandie Newton – (Known For: Crash; RocknRolla; The Pursuit of Happyness; Mission: Impossible II; Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles; W.; Run Fatboy Run; Beloved; Vanishing on 7th Street; BMT: Norbit (BMT); The Truth About Charlie; 2012 (BMT); Good Deeds; For Colored Girls; Jefferson in Paris; How to Lose Friends & Alienate People; The Young Americans; The Chronicles of Riddick; Notes:  Nominated for the Razzie Award in 2001 for Worst Supporting Actress for Mission: Impossible II; Actually has an incredible filmography, including the recent HBO smash hit Westworld. Grew up in England and her accent limited her early work. She is vegan, and was even named the Sexiest Vegan of 2014!)

Terry Crews – (seen in Scary Movie 5, The Ridiculous 6, White Chicks, The Benchwarmers, Gamer, The Single Moms Club, The Expendables 3, Blended … that’s more than Neil McDonough!)

Eddie Murphy Razzie Cred – Won the Razzie Award in 2010 for Worst Actor of the Decade; Won the Razzie Award in 2008 for Worst Actor, Supporting Actor, and Supporting Actress for Norbit; Won the Razzie Award in 1990 for Worst Screenplay for Harlem Nights; Nominated for the Razzie Award in 2008 for Worst Director and Screenplay for Norbit; Nominated for the Razzie Award in 2013 for Worst Actor for A Thousand Words; in 2010 for Imagine That; in 2009 for Meet Dave; and in 2003 for The Adventures of Pluto Nash, I Spy, and Showtime; Nominated for the Razzie Award in 2009 for Worst Screen Couple for Meet Dave; in 2008 for Norbit; in 2003 for Showtime, I Spy, The Adventures of Pluto Nash;

Budget/Gross – $60 million / Domestic: $95,673,607 (Worldwide: $159,313,561)

(That’s actually not that bad. Looking through his boxofficemojo he had had bombs before, and I remember comments surrounding The Haunted Mansion, Daddy Day Care, and The Adventures of Pluto Nash concerning his turn in quality. But I also remember that it wasn’t really until Meet Dave that faith was completely lost. That completely bombed and it was then three years before Tower Heist was supposed to get him back into the comedy game. We’ll see about the new Beverly Hills Cop I suppose.)

#11 for the Comedy – Fat Suit genre

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(Better than Big Momma’s House 2 and Big Momma Like Father Like Son. Only a shade below the original Big Momma’s House as well. Obviously a major player in the genre, Eddie Murphy was a trailblazer with the Nutty Professor franchise. Is it crazy to say that this movie marked the end of the Fat Suit Era of Hollywood? I can think of two reasons why. First, the genre is garbage. Second, they can kind of pull it off with cheaper CGI it seems (see Central Intelligence).)

#29 for the Romantic Comedy genre

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(Man … the romcom genre kind of sucks. No joke, there are like 300 films in this list and the 31st is Sex in the City 2. Gross. Once again this graphic is interesting. Such a major genre you can kind of see Hollywood grow through the 90s and reach saturation in about 2000 and then it just holds steady. Nothing really causes the fall. The movies just seem to consistently not make money. Thinking of a 2000 theater release $24K per theater is $50 million dollars. Since the 80’s only 80 or so movies have broken that mark, and only 28 broke $100 million. Plus I’m sure, given the cultural restrictions on romance in particular, these movies perform quite poorly if at all overseas. My guess is that, yet again, this is a genre destined for VOD release going forward.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 9% (11/123): Coming off his Oscar-nominated performance in Dreamgirls, the talented-but-inconsistent Eddie Murphy plays three roles in Norbit, a cruel, crass, stereotype-filled comedy that’s more depressing than funny.

(Less than 10% on rotten tomatoes is incredible. Cruel (yep), crass (yep), stereo-type filled (yep) those are the things I remember about this film on my first viewing. It made me feel gross and it seems like 91% of critics also felt gross while watching it.)

Poster – Bore-it … get it? (C+)

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(I know Jamie would be hating on this poster because it is basically just white. I actually think it does an adequate job at highlighting literally the only thing you want from this movie: Eddie Murphy as a big ol’ fat girl. I gave it b-b-b-b-bonus points because of how they squeezed the title. Very hard to spoof if I wanted to.)

Tagline(s) – Have You Ever Made A Really Big Mistake? (C-)

(I was going to give this an F, but then I envisioned Rasputia on th eposter and thought, ah, big mistake. I get it. I don’t like it, but I get it, and it makes sense for them movie. So I merely declared this below average.)

Keyword(s) – orphan; Top Ten by BMeTric: 90.6 Epic Movie (2007); 86.3 Dragonball Evolution (2009); 83.6 Fantastic Four (2015); 81.5 Alone in the Dark (2005); 81.2 Norbit (2007); 78.0 The Room (2003); 77.5 Super Mario Bros. (1993); 74.1 Prom Night (I) (2008); 73.8 Superhero Movie (2008); 64.3 The Next Karate Kid (1994);

(Huh, interesting list. I’m shocked the Next Karate Kid is so loathed actually. I never did get around to that. Besides that Alone in the Dark is the only other must see, although a 70+ horror film in Prom Night does hold some allure.)

Notes – One scene shows Rasputia watching a talk show with a paternity test theme. Eddie Murphy endured a paternity scandal before the film’s theatrical run, involving Spice Girl Melanie Brown. A DNA test confirmed the actor was the baby’s father.

The set used in the film is the same one that “Gilmore Girls” (2010) used as Stars Hollow in their 7 season run. (awesome. I’ll have to look out for that on my watch of Gilmore Girls)

The car wash scene is a parody of a TV ad featuring Paris Hilton. (oh alright, that’s didn’t hold up)

For security purposes, early prints were shipped under the title ‘Jupiter’, an apparent allusion to Eddie Murphy’s film Pluto Nash (2002). (fun facts)

This is the second film that Cuba Gooding Jr. played in, that starred Eddie Murphy playing multiple characters. The first film was Coming To America (1988), he had a small non- speaking role, as boy in barber shop chair.

WatchMOJO lists Norbit number 10 on its top worst comedy movies list. (Number 10?! Let me see this fucking list: Norbit, Chairman of the Board (BMT), Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd (Seen it), Little Nicky (Seen it), Freddy Got Fingered (BMT), It’s Pat. Son of Mask, Master of Disguise (BMT), Bio-Dome (Seen it), Jack and Jill (BMT). Alright … that’s a pretty legit list.)

Awards – Nominated for the Oscar for Best Achievement in Makeup (Rick Baker, Kazuhiro Tsuji)

Won the Razzie Award for Worst Actor (Eddie Murphy)

Won the Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actress (Eddie Murphy)

Won the Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actor (Eddie Murphy)

Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Picture

Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Actor (Cuba Gooding Jr.)

Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Screen Couple (Eddie Murphy)

Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Director (Brian Robbins)

Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Screenplay (Eddie Murphy, Charlie Murphy, Jay Scherick, David Ronn)

RoboCop 3 Recap

Jamie

Trying to catch up. No probs. Just gonna kick the shit out of this email just like RoboCop does with the bad guys. Woooooo.

What?! RoboCop is back and looking good. Almost as if a totally new actor took over the role. OmniCorp is trying to clear Detroit to make way for Delta City (still), but has to move all the poor people out before it can happen. Can our beloved cyborg hero stop the unjust evictions before the entire city is left as rubble? RoboCop 3!

Why?! As always OmniCorp is trying to build Delta City. This time though there is added motivation as OmniCorp is in deep shit and is getting bought out by a Japanese company. The merger will save the company from complete collapse, but hinges on OCP clearing out Detroit in time to start construction on Delta City. RoboCop’s motivation changed this time… jk! Still the same: Chew bubblegum. Run out of bubble gum. Kick ass. Also, he wants some sweet, sweet retribution for the unfortunate death of his partner, Nancy Allen, who really didn’t want to be in this film (but still wanted to get paid for filming a death scene).

How?! Since OCP has proven to be super inept at building all but one crime fighting cyborg they are just using a group of British(?) mercenaries to clear the city. Unfortunately a band of rebels are making their lives a living hell. They also make a terrible mistake by killing RoboCop’s partner, which leads him to join the rebels in their fight. In the end it’s OCP on one side and the police and rebels on the other. Guess who wins? You’re right! The one with the cyborg killing machine with a shiny new jetpack (a.k.a. shiny new action figure accessory). In the end RoboCop defeats OCP (and a random Japanese cyborg that is 5000x better than RoboCop but still loses) and the city is given independence by the Japanese company. It really wraps up the whole saga in a neat little bow.

Who?! While he wasn’t really comic relief, Bradley Whitford makes an appearance as an OCP executive. Clearly he was honing his Eric Gordon character for Billy Madison because he basically plays the same person. He was the best. In fact, there are a lot of things you can say about RoboCop 3 but it has a pretty dope TV actor cast.

Where?! How many times do we have to say it. RoboCop is Detroit. Detroit is RoboCop. Shouldn’t even have called it Delta City in the film. It’s RoboCop City. Because he owns it. A-

When?! As noted for RoboCop 2, the creator of RoboCop has continually said that the year is the “near future” for the first film and true to form the sequels also seemed to take this approach. Very little about the year the film takes place is provided. We know from the first two that this is in the general vicinity of the late 80’s and early 90’s. More fun is the fact that RoboCop 3 represents the first of the year’s random Xmas films! Yay! This film very clearly takes place around Christmas. Not only are there Christmas decorations EVERYWHERE, but the parents of one of the characters are killed at the beginning of the film and their day of death is shown as December 7th. Perhaps with a very close watch a year could be gleaned like in the first one, but I couldn’t find it. Despite that, this is probably my favorite temporal setting of the three films. C+

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! RoboCop 3? More like RoboCrap-py!!!! (Wow, that just falls right out of it huh?). I watched both RoboCop and RoboCop 2 on a ten hour flight to Vegas (just as the director intended the movie to be consumed, via iPad). Would my gamble of watching the third on the return flight instead of sleeping pay off? Nope, busted. Let’s get into it!

  • The Good – Woof. I’m surprised by how much Robert John Burke looked like Peter Weller once the mask was on. I was happy to see the returning actors as well. This series isn’t something to scoff at, it could have been serious business if it was handled properly.
  • The Bad – Basically everything. The story makes little sense. None of the characters are particularly believable or motivations made clear. The finale is horrible, ditching the bread-and-butter practical effects for a special effect ending that just looks like garbage. RoboCop comes across as much less likeable in this installment. Less robotic somehow.
  • The BMT – This one, yes. For sure. I can kind of see why it is reviled. I would probably put it around 40. If there were more sequels I bet that is where it ends up to be honest. Being the only really bad installment of an iconic series has its downsides.

Here I will go Sequel. They tried and failed to do the remake. Time to go RoboCop 4. Let’s cast, yes the 69 year-old retired PhD, Peter Weller again as the now old RoboCop. Of course he ages! He has a human … face or whatever. He’s too old for this shit, but when Detroit comes under fire by a series of, what appears to be, terrorist attacks, the officers of the Metro West go into the basement and dust off the, now, behind the times relic. Recruiting youthful hackers from a rambunctious gang they retrofit RoboCop with some new toys, and soon he is fit as a fiddle, directive free, and ready to kick some terrorist ass. Can the obsolete become cutting edge? Could the remnants of OmniCorp, scattered to the wind oh so long ago, somehow be connected to this new attack on old Detroit? Can RoboCop find … love? RoboCop 4 (no subtitle, get out of here!), coming next June!

I would watch it. Cheerios, and back to you Jamie!

RoboCop 2 Recap

Jamie

What?! RoboCop is back, Jack! And ready to attack the smack that’s taking over the streets. That’s right! There’s a new drug in town, Nuke, and while the (non-cyborg) police are on strike, no one’s there to stop its rise. OmniCorps aims to use the crisis to launch Delta City with a updated version of RoboCop to patrol the streets. Just hope RoboCop 2 isn’t some insane cyborg killing machine (hint: he is). RoboCop 2!

Why?! The entire aim of the film is for OmniCorp to gain control of Detroit and built Delta City. It’s funny because that’s basically the motivation of all the RoboCop films. They can’t seem to get the goddamned city built. RoboCop’s motivation is the same as well: Kick ass. Take names. Not necessarily in that order.

How?! In the original RoboCop OmmiCorp signed a contract with Detroit to take over the police department and privatize it. Turns out that contract had a clause whereby OminCorp could foreclose on the entire city if it defaulted on the contract. Uh oh! So OmniCorp’s entire plan is to undermine Detroit’s credit, wait for the city to default, stop paying the cops, allow crime to run rampant while they’re on strike, and call it a loss to justify knocking it all down to build Delta City. And the plan would have worked too if it wasn’t for that damned RoboCop. Seriously. They needed more RoboCops to patrol the streets of their shiny new city but couldn’t figure out the secret sauce that made the first one work so well. This time around they try using a newly captured Nuke kingpin as the brain for the robot and feeding his addiction as a means of control. Not a great idea as it goes beserk at the sight of Nuke and RoboCop has to save everyone (obvs). Unfortunately, they decided not to write in how RoboCop beating up a robot in any way solves the city’s financial crisis. We can only presume OmniCorp still ended up owning the city after everyone stopped high fiving and the credits rolled.

Who?! No true Planchet here, but I want to give a shout out to Belinda Bauer, an Australian actress with an unknowable accent. I really couldn’t tell if she was supposed to be American in this film or what. It was one of the worst (read: best) accents we’ve had in a while. Also Willard E. Pugh consumed any and all scenery as the bonkers Mayor of Detroit. Enjoy:

Where?! Detroit, duh. It’s fucking RoboCop. There’s a reason the city is going to have a statue dedicated to him (if the artist ever finishes making it). It’s really the only thing they didn’t mess up with the sequels and remake. In this world there is nothing that can be said to be certain, except death, taxes, and RoboCop being set in Detroit. A-.

When?! According to the writer it is set in the “near future” but there is a clear January 1986 calendar in the precinct. There is some evidence presented online about it being set in 2044, but it’s from the book so noncanonical. I prefer the calendar. The month being January also lines up with the fact that the scientists are seen celebrating New Years in the three month span during which RoboCop is built. Why bring up the first film? Because at the Delta City presentation at the end of the second film the president of OCP says that “about a year ago we gave you RoboCop.” From that perspective we can presume that it’s either late 1986 or early 1987. Not incredibly specific but we got something. C-.

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! RoboCop 2? More like RoboSlop! Boo! (ohhhhh yeah). We watched the sequel to one of my favorite movies (with some of the best practical effects in the biz), could it hold up to such praise? Nope! Let’s get into it!

  • The Good – Their hearts are in the right place. They tried to make a good follow up. To an extent the story is solid, and it does an okay job of taking a new subject (drugs) and running with it. And the practical effects seem pretty okay.
  • The Bad – The villains are not good enough to carry what is a ludicrous story. In the first the villains are just bad people. They fill that supervillain mold from Cobra but also in an interesting manner (with Kurtwood Smith looking as natural in a suit in OmniCorp headquarters as in a trenchcoat blowing Peter Weller’s hand off). In the second, Cain is just kind of a weirdo. They had an interesting villain (Gabriel Damon) in a pre-teen psycho, but waste him in an overly sentimental and brief stint at the top. The entire middle makes you wonder “what is the point?” after much is made of rewriting RoboCop’s directives, only to have him reverse the damage in a matter of seconds.
  • The BMT – Naw. At best it is borderline. As I said, the film isn’t terrible. Just heavy handed, with bad villains, and a precursor too good to live up to. It is interesting to read stuff about the series. It does seem like they were desperate to make RoboCop a franchise. Just never really came together properly.

Hmmmm. Tough to figure out games when I usually do sequels and prequels … this movie already has both. I think I’m going to make up a new game. This I’m going to call Sklog-light. It is something from the movie just watched which perfectly exemplifies something from my recap. This time I’ll flesh out something in the recap which perhaps was not expounded upon enough: RoboCop 2 is heavy-handed. At the end of the film OmniCorp is presenting RoboCop 2 (the evil Cain as a cyborg monster) and we catch a nice glimpse of their new flags:

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… snazzy. Those couldn’t possibly be alluding to anything. They probably aren’t a crazy Godwin’s Law directly in the viewer’s face. We get it RoboCop 2 writers … OmniCorp is a fascist corporate-government hybrid. Could have toned down the flag. I assume Hitler existed in the RoboCop universe. For a company who seems obsessed with public relations this seems … like a snafu.

I got a whole other recap to write! Plus we are a bit behind. So I’ll leave it there.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Hall of Fame Speech #3: Street Fighter Legend of Chun Li

Brief note before we start: last July we got together and worked out a first class to be inducted into the Smaddies Baddies BMT Hall of Fame. It has been nearly six years since we started BMT and the films we had seen more than five years ago, in some cases, deserved a rewatch and reassessment. Over the next two weeks leading up to the fourth (sixth?) Smaddies Baddies we’ll bring you previews and Hall of Fame Speeches for the five films chosen. This is the third, for the action (and Chris Klein) packed martial arts masterpiece, Street Fighter Legend of Chun Li. The intention is to reminisce a bit about what we remember about the film, what we think of it now, and why it deserved a special place in BMT history. Enjoy!

Hall of Fame Induction Speech for Street Fighter Legend of Chun Li

From the first batch of HoF films, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li is probably the one that best represents BMT. This is simply because it is the film furthest from what bad movie aficionados typically look for in a top film. If you follow bad movie sites and podcasts, this film is rarely mentioned and when it is it is largely dismissed. Part of that is the lack of true BMT star power. While Battlefield Earth has Travolta, The Wicker Man has Cage, Norbit has Eddie Murphy and Old Dogs has a devastating Travolta/Robin Williams one-two punch, SF:TLoCL merely provides a solid dose of Chris Klein (a BMT fave, but hardly top-tier Hollywood royalty). But for us it hit a magical spot that reverberated through the BMTverse for years.

So what did I remember about the film from my last viewing 5 years ago:

  • The film is about Chun-Li aiming to take down M. Bison because… something, something, something. Chris Klein is also there as Charlie Nash, an interpol agent with one-liners for days, who is also going after M. Bison because… well I presume he must be a criminal if Interpol is after him. In the end Bison is taken down because he wanted to bring his daughter to Bangkok… which doesn’t seem illegal at all in retrospect. I really don’t remember much about the plot to be honest.
  • I mostly just remember Nash’s super rad one-liners. Much like Nic Cage with The Wicker Man, The Legend of Chun-Li had a Chris Klein supercut of his lines circulate in the years following its release because they are so ludicrous. I think it’s only gotten funnier over the years:
  • Additionally, while this was an introduction to our beloved Chris Klein (this, Rollerball, Say It Isn’t So, and Here on Earth), it also introduced BMT to Neal McDonough (this, Timeline, The Guardian, I Know Who Killed Me, 88 Minutes, Fire Down Below, and Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2) and The Black Eyed Peas (namesake of mapl.de.map). Without Taboo playing Vega in this film there likely wouldn’t have been a mapl.de.map. Or at least it would have been named something different.

The first major thing to discuss regarding the rewatch of this film is just how ridiculous it is that this was released to theaters. The film is flat out poorly made. It looks a bit like a SyFy film with B-list actors, shoddy effects, and plot line that takes a lot of suspension of disbelief (mostly the disbelief that it was actually a real film). I guess this is probably why so many people are dismissive of the film. It doesn’t have the looks or actors of some of the biggest flubs, but also doesn’t go to the extreme of a The Room or Birdemic. It’s just in the middle where people merely ask, “Wait, was this really released to theaters?” The answer is yes, over a thousand of them. Why? Because this film cost… wait for it… … … $50 million to make so they kinda had to release it. This had to be some kind of financial scam. It makes absolutely no sense. This looks like a $10 million picture at most. Where did the money go?! Follow the money!

The second thing to note is that Chris Klein delivers. It is pure joy when he is on the screen. The most unfortunate thing about the film is that he is the third biggest character after Bison and Chun-Li, so doesn’t get as much screen time as one would hope. But boy does he put in the BMT work. Beyond his lines my favorite thing I rediscovered about the film is just how bad of a cop his character is. He constantly screws everything up. The best scene is when he and fellow cop Moon Bloodgood are supposed to be following Balrog and he inexplicably takes the opportunity to totally make out with Bloodgood (rad). While doing that Balrog switches cars and they lose him… all because he wanted to cop a feel. It’s pretty great. Without Chun-Li he would have just fucked around for a few days and not solved a single thing.

Finally, I had really forgotten how ridiculous the entire plot is. Back then we had a hard and fast rule to not focus on the plot, but in the age of close-watching that is no longer the case. Listen to this: We have M. Bison, a ruthless criminal slumlord, who takes Chun-Li’s father hostage. Years later Chun-Li goes to Bangkok to join forces with the Order of the Web and take revenge on Bison. Learning that Bison is importing something called the White Rose, Chun-Li goes to stop him (presuming it’s something illicit and could bring down his enterprise if he’s caught shipping it in). After the White Rose arrives it’s discovered that it’s Bison’s daughter, who he imbued with his conscience in a satanic exercise during her birth. She is the yang to his yin, basically. Chun-Li then murders him. Wait, what?! I don’t understand. I get that Bison is a criminal that should be brought to justice, but the White Rose is totally tangential to that. She could have went to his house and fought him literally any time… why wait for the White Rose to even appear? It was set up as if it was some major illegal shipment that they would nail him for and in the process fight him, but instead it turned out to be mostly legal (if they had her papers in order). But instead of waiting for another chance they then follow him to his compound and go ahead and kill him in the most gruesome way possible (Chun-Li quite literally kicks Bison’s head 180 degrees around to the other side of his body). It’s one of the best worst plotlines I can remember. The White Rose is a classic McGuffin and McGuffins are already lazy, but this one is even half-assed. A half-assed McGuffin!

Overall, this will stand as the most BMT of the first batch of HoFers. A film that is beloved by us, but by no one else. At a time when we were still somewhat beholden to a couple bad movie sources, this was an important separation. Something that was truly our own to love and cherish. I was happy to find that many of the things that we loved at the time continue to hold up today and many of the things we hold dear in today’s BMT world (close watching the motivation of the characters, settings, etc.) would be gangbusters as well. Fun watch and really, really, really, really, really, really, really not a good film.

Jamie out.

Street Fighter Legend of Chun Li Preview

A small note prior to this post: Last July we decided to take a look back at the movies that we watched over five years ago and choose a Hall of Fame class, five movies that we thought embodied BMT in some way. Perhaps they were particularly bad, or an example of a specific bad movie trope, whatever, something made them stand out as special in our minds. Since we didn’t do email previews back in 2011 we also decided to provide a preview for the movie as well. This is the third in a series of five leading up to our yearly awards the Smaddies Baddies. A recap (Hall of Fame speech really) will follow immediate afterwards to explain why the movie was chosen, things we loved about the movie, and things we discovered upon second viewing. Enjoy!

Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (2009) – BMeTric: 70.2

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(I think this plot is a good argument as to Street Fighter’s lasting bad movie cred. A 3.7 is a comically low IMDb score, a score that, if this was a mere below-average or middling bad movie would have steadily crept higher as the thousands of votes flowed in since 2010. But it has basically just stayed constant around 3.8 since then. As I argued in The Wicker Man preview, it is the staying power that I think could be the defining feature of a good-bad movie. It is a movie people seek out, watch, and universally agree is garbage. And we have another one here. And of course 70+ BMeTric is nothing to dismiss.)

Leonard Maltin – BOMB –  Pointless new film version of the popular video game series finds pretty martial arts-trained Asian-American Chin-Li (Kreuk) spurred into action in Bangkok after her father is kidnapped. Sher uses all her wiles to snuff out the main bad guy, local crime lord McDonough, and his henchmen, led by the imposing Duncan. The 1987 game inspired a 1994 version which is Citizen Kane compared to this inept action vehicle, where even the centerpiece fight sequences are lamely choreographed and hopelessly contrived. When Interpol agent Klein yells, “Bomb! Get out now!” it would be wise to heed his advice.

(Doesn’t he say that at the end of the movie Leonard? Too little too late I would assume. Yeah, oddly a somewhat rare BOMB from Leonard within our Hall of Fame so far. I might not go so far to say the 1994 movie is that much better, but this one does stick out as a complete mess when I think about it. So maybe a cheesy Van Damme barely-movie is better than that. Solid hyphen game early by Leonard as well.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EctFEyCMDL0

(Wow, that was actually really good. Basically as good a trailer as I could have possibly expected for this film. Makes it out like it’s going to be non-stop action street fights between characters you love. I was jazzed by the end. Am I sure this is a terrible film? Looks great.)

Directors – Andrzej Bartkowiak – (BMT: Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li; Doom; Exit Wounds; Cradle 2 the Grave; Romeo Must Die; Notes: It just occurred to me that if you take Exit Wounds (DMX), Cradle 2 the Grave (DMX, Jet Li), and Romeo Must Die (Jet Li) you get a nice little chain reaction. I wish Jet Li and Seagal had been in a movie. We’ve seen Doom and Romeo Must Die, but finishing his filmography is a must. He is more well known as a cinematographer and his collaborations with Sidney Lumet.)

Writers – Justin Marks (screenplay) – (Known For: The Jungle Book; BMT: Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li; Notes: Kind of fascinating career just because he wrote Street Fighter for release in 2009, and then didn’t write another feature until 2016 with The Jungle Book. He now is well on his way, with Jungle Book 2, Top Gun 2, Shadow of the Colossus (video game adaptation), and FBP Federal Bureau of Physics (comic book adaptation) in production. I’d be willing to bet three of those will be BMT or borderline, can you guess which ones? I am stunned this movie had a single credited writer.)

Actors – Kristin Kreuk – (Known For: EuroTrip; BMT: Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li; Ecstasy; Notes: One of her first roles was as the ex-girlfriend Fiona in EuroTrip, otherwise she’s stuck to mostly television (like Smallville). She is Canadian and has a purple belt in karate.)

Neal McDonough – (Known For: Greater; Captain America: The First Avenger; Minority Report; RED 2; Star Trek: First Contact; Flags of Our Fathers; Darkman; Ravenous; Traitor; BMT: I Know Who Killed Me (BMT); Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (BMT); Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 (BMT); Fire Down Below (BMT); Timeline (BMT); The Hitcher; 88 Minutes (BMT); Angels in the Outfield; Walking Tall; Telling You; The Last Time; Three Wishes; The Guardian (BMT); Notes: BMT legend having been in seven BMT films in our first six years, pretty good rate. He’s from Barnstable, Massachusetts of all places! Studied in London. I’m loving this guy, do your thing Neal.)

Michael Clarke Duncan – (Known For: The Green Mile; Planet of the Apes; Sin City; The Island; Kung Fu Panda; Friday; Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby; Daredevil; The Scorpion King; The Whole Nine Yards; The Last Mimzy; Cats & Dogs; Bulworth; Redemption Road; BMT: Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li; Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore; Green Lantern; Breakfast of Champions; Racing Stripes; D.E.B.S.; Welcome Home, Roscoe Jenkins; The Underground Comedy Movie; See Spot Run; Delgo; Slipstream; School for Scoundrels; A Night at the Roxbury; The Players Club; Armageddon; The Slammin’ Salmon; Brother Bear; Notes: Sadly died a few years ago from complications related to a heart attack. My favorite note from his IMDb page: On July 12, 1979, during the Disco Demolition Night fiasco at Comiskey park, Duncan ran onto the field and slid into third base. Ha!)

Budget/Gross – $50 million / Domestic: $8,742,261 (Worldwide: $12,764,201)

(A complete and utter disaster. If that budget is correct this would probably be one of the biggest bombs of that year, and only is saved a bit from being a legend by “only” having a $50 million dollar budget. To be frank I don’t really believe that, at least some of it has to be exaggeration for tax reasons.)

#95 for the Action – Martial Arts genre

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(This plot is actually kind of sad. Initial thoughts: The 90s boom is basically people like Seagal and Van Damme. Then there was a little dip before Jackie Chan ushered in another foreign / comedy boom for the genre. This came right in the final gasp there with Rush Hour 3 and Transporter 3 kind of having the genre die off. Now … is it possible that martial arts has been relegated to VOD? Are we entering an era of whole genres being shunned from theatrical release in favor of tentpoles? It makes me a bit sad, but then again I can’t think of a situation in which I would personally go and see a martial arts film in theaters. Crouching Tiger might literally have been the only one I’ve ever seen in theaters to be honest. This movie is below Dragonball: Evolution on that chart … I’ll let that be a closing statement of sorts.)

#63 for the Action Heroine genre

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(THIS MOVIE IS BELOW CUTTHROAT ISLAND ON THAT CHART. That movie literally destroyed a production company! That giant peak around 2005: Lara Croft 2, Underworld, Catwoman, Elektra, Miss Congeniality 2, Charlie’s Angels 2, Resident Evil 2, Blade 3, Domino, Aeon Flux, Underworld 2, Ultraviolet, Resident Evil 3 … that’s a lot of terrible movies. And note how little money they made on average! And naturally since 2010 the action heroine has been a huge seller for Hollywood. I wish I could say this movie blazed a trail … but it didn’t. It merely allowed Hollywood to get the garbage juice out of its system before getting serious.)

#31 for the Video Game Adaptation genre

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(We saw Warcraft this year, and Hitman Agent 47 the year before among several BMT video game adaptations. Street Fighter Legend of Chun Li sits right above Alone in the Dark the Uwe Bol classic … so not great. Video game adaptations still make less than the martial arts genre of the 90’s, which is unimpressive to say the least. Naturally they are looking to have that change over the next few years you would imagine, but this multi-bomb year probably didn’t help matters. Five video game adaptations came out this year, that is the most ever according to this chart. Someday there will be a successful video game adaptation. It will happen.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 6% (3/54): The combination of a shallow plot and miscast performers renders Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li a perfectly forgettable video game adaptation.

(Less than 10% on Rotten Tomatoes is extremely impressive. Doing it with over 50 reviews is incredible. I wonder who they are talking about when they say miscast performers … I’m so sorry Chris Klein. So so sorry.)

Poster – Sklog Fighter: Legend of Jamie (D)

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(That is unfortunate. A truly ridiculous color scheme and spacing. Glad we at least get a unique font that would make it hard to create Sklog Fighter: The Legend of Jamie.)

Tagline(s) – Some fight for power. Some fight for us. (B)

(Hmmm. My brain is telling me that I should like this, but my heart is telling me that this is terrible and sounds like garbage. Definitely has the cadence, brevity, and a bit of the plot. I think it’s OK. My heart is disappointed in me.)

Keyword(s) – gangster; Top Ten by BMeTric: 89.6 Catwoman (2004); 85.8 Gunday (2014); 82.7 Gigli (2003); 81.8 Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2011); 78.6 The Avengers (1998); 77.5 Super Mario Bros. (1993); 77.3 RoboCop 3 (1993); 72.8 Striptease (1996); 70.5 Grease 2 (1982); 70.2 Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (2009);

(Well since we aren’t ever doing Gunday we will complete this genre with Grease 2 which has to be done at some point. Solid list obviously, but I assume a few films might be a stretch. There was around 1200 films that claim a gangster keyword (around that). All of these vaguely make sense, but was there really a “gangster” in The Avengers for example? Questionable.)

Notes – Back in 2003, Jean-Claude Van Damme was working on a sequel to the original Street Fighter movie titled “Street Fighter II”, for Universal. Several cast members had been hired to join him in the sequel, including his Universal Soldier co-star Dolph Lundgren in an unrevealed role, Australian actress Holly Valance would have replaced Kylie Minogue as Cammy White, and Damian Chapa would have reprised his role as Ken Masters. Byron Mann was also reportedly in talks to return as Ryu Hoshi. However, after a few years of trying to get the sequel off the ground, the project never materialized and any plans for a sequel were scrapped in favor of this movie. (Would have also been terrible. People try to have nostalgia for the original, but in reality it is also terrible and a sequel without Raul Julia wouldn’t have been much better)

A potential sequel with Ryu and Ken was planned but was cancelled due of the poor box office performances of the film. (Jesus)

This movie only has 7 world warriors taken from Capcom’s “Fighting Game of 2008” titled Street Fighter IV (originally, the game has 25 characters) with the legendary world warrior from Street Fighter Alpha: Warriors’ Dreams [1995] (also know as Street Fighter Zero in Japan, Asia, South America and Australia) known as Charlie Nash being a special guest to this movie rather than reusing the hybrid-character “Carlos Blanka” from Universal Pictures’s Street Fighter [1994], The world warriors that made their appearances are: Chun Li, Gen, Crimson “Maya” Viper, Rose, Balrog, Vega, Master Bison and Charlie Nash. The world warriors that are absent are: Ryu (who is mentioned by Gen once), Ken Masters, Major Guile (who is replaced by Charlie Nash), Blanka, Edmund Honda, Zangief, Dhalsim, Sagat, Cammy White, Fei Long, Akuma, Dan Hibiki, Sakura Kasugano, Able, El Fuerte, Rufus, Gouken and Seth. (All solid information, thanks IMDb)