Bad Movie Twins

From the Hip Preview

“In my dream (a rather small dream now that I recall it) we are running through a forest. It’s a forest of lies, but also those lies/trees are birch trees… We are just like swinging around dem birches, right? Swinging all over the place and it feels pretty damn good. Then we swing on up to the top of a hill and we are smooching… hard. We make out for a while. This is actually most of my dream. It was in actuality a large dream just in terms of duration, but small if you write out the plot or recount it like I’m doing now. Because you can just say ‘and then we smooched… hard’ and that covers like 95% of the dream. Anyway, once we are done smooching you turn your head away in anguish. I try to pull you back to the birch trees so we can swing around a bunch more, but you say you can’t. You cradle your elbow and say that you’ve been trying to tell me something but I never listen. Then you begin to tell me what has been bothering you, but at this point I’m remembering swinging around in the birch trees and smooching and then I’m like ‘woah, am I daydreaming within this dream?’ and you’d think that by acknowledging the dream that it would end, right? But no. When I stop daydreaming you are looking peeved and say ‘Perhaps this will make you listen.’ When I look down you’ve pulled a tiny gun from your hip pocket. It’s so tiny that I actually start to laugh, but then you shoot! You shoot me with the little gun! And I wake up!” Jamie stands staring back at Samantha, appearing rather pleased with himself. Samantha is bewildered. That’s right! That connection was a bit of a stretch, but we are watching the Judd Nelson vehicle that everyone remembers, From the Hip… yup, that movie that you can just imagine because you remember it so well. As for the Friend, we are pairing that with a classic of the genre in Surf Nazis Must Die. We saw this for the first time in high school, but not since. Interested in how it holds up all these years later. Let’s go!

From the Hip (1987) – BMeTric: 13.1; Notability: 26

StreetCreditReport.com – BMeTric: top 17.6%; Notability: top 12.8%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 16.6%; Higher BMeT: Jaws: The Revenge, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, Teen Wolf Too, The Garbage Pail Kids Movie, Leonard Part 6, Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2, Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol, Surf Nazis Must Die, Who’s That Girl, Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise, Masters of the Universe, Ghoulies II, Return to Horror High, House II: The Second Story, Death Wish 4: The Crackdown, Hard Ticket to Hawaii, Over the Top, Burglar, Cherry 2000, Flowers in the Attic, and 24 more; Higher Notability: Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, Masters of the Universe, Who’s That Girl, Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol, Jaws: The Revenge, Fatal Beauty, Leonard Part 6, Cherry 2000, Blind Date, Burglar, Over the Top, The Sicilian, House II: The Second Story, My Demon Lover, Death Wish 4: The Crackdown, The Believers, Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise, Hot Pursuit, Slam Dance, Rent-a-Cop, and 12 more; Lower RT: Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol, The Garbage Pail Kids Movie, Hot Pursuit, Return to Horror High, Rent-a-Cop, My Demon Lover, The Allnighter, Jaws: The Revenge, Leonard Part 6, Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise, House II: The Second Story, Teen Wolf Too, Hello Again, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, The Sicilian, Ghoulies II, Russkies, The Squeeze, Surf Nazis Must Die, Siesta, and 19 more; Notes: I’m actually a little surprised this only played 13 times on cable in the 90s, this seems perfect for filling up a random cinemax slot. We’ve watched 6 of the top 10 for 1987, and I’m going to guess Teen Wolf Too has an insane number of cable plays (74! I knew it, that movie was on all the time). Surf Nazis Must Die played 16 times, more than From the Hip! I only knew of it because for some reason my brother knew enough about it to rent it for a bad movie night.

RogerEbert.com – 2.5 stars – I have a notion that a lot of moviegoers in Nelson’s generation will respond to his performance. There’s so much insecurity around right now, so much desperate competition for success, that the notion of a rebel inside corporate America is curiously attractive. If I am right and if our society is poised once again on the brink of a rerun of the 1960s, if Reagan is our Eisenhower, if the campuses are primed to revolt, then “From the Hip” is “The Graduate” of 1987. If I’m wrong, of course, it’s just a very silly movie. Somehow I think I’m wrong.

(This seems to be a trend in some of the reviews of the film: that yeah, people liked Nelson’s performance in this. The film is more fun than it has any right to be, quite similar to …And Justice for All.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPjkWFB4FwY/

(I must say the fact that this isn’t about someone who holds a dog bone in their mouth at any point is crazy considering the poster. I’ll also say … isn’t this the plot of And Just For All… more on that in the recap I suppose.)

Directors – Bob Clark – ( Known For: A Christmas Story; Black Christmas; Murder by Decree; Dead of Night; Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things; Blonde and Blonder; My Summer Story; Tribute; I’ll Remember April; Now & Forever; She-Man: A Story of Fixation; Breaking Point; Future BMT: Porky’s; Porky’s II: The Next Day; Loose Cannons; Turk 182; BMT: Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2; Baby Geniuses; Rhinestone; From the Hip; Notes: Him slipping into kids films and then his career exploding after Baby Geniuses is something else indeed. We have to do Porky’s at some point, maybe I’ll buy it on VHS.)

Writers – Bob Clark – ( Known For: A Christmas Story; Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things; My Summer Story; She-Man: A Story of Fixation; Future BMT: Porky’s; Porky’s II: The Next Day; Porky’s Revenge; Loose Cannons; BMT: Baby Geniuses; From the Hip; Notes: He died in 2007. Apparently he is one of only two directors who had a movie on both the Loved and Hated lists by Ebert (the other was Reiner).)

David E. Kelley – ( Known For: Lake Placid; Future BMT: Mystery, Alaska; To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday; BMT: From the Hip; Notes: One of the big names in television still to this day. He’s been nominated for 25 Emmys, and won 11, variously for Big Little Lies, Ally McBeal, The Practice, Picket Fences, and L.A. Law. Is this movie a proto-L.A. Law? L.A. Law started in 1986, but this script may have existed for a while prior to that.)

Actors – Judd Nelson – ( Known For: The Breakfast Club; Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back; The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day; St. Elmo’s Fire; The Transformers: The Movie; New Jack City; Billionaire Boys Club; Nurse; Fandango; Have a Good Trip; Brats; The Dark Backward; Bad Kids Go to Hell; Madness in the Method; Never on Tuesday; Relentless; Making the Grade; The Freediver; Netherbeast Incorporated; Hail Caesar; Future BMT: Airheads; Light It Up; BMT: Steel; From the Hip; Blue City; Notes: Y’all know Judd. His post-Brat Pack career is weird. I am very very excited to eventually watch Airheads again though, it is a very fun and genuinely good movie.)

Elizabeth Perkins – ( Known For: Finding Nemo; Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse; Ghostbusters; Big; Cats & Dogs; Miracle on 34th Street; Speak; About Last Night; Fierce People; Avalon; Try Seventeen; Indian Summer; The Doctor; My Little Pony: A New Generation; Jiminy Glick in Lalawood; The Thing About My Folks; Love at Large; Sweet Hearts Dance; Enid Is Sleeping; I’m Losing You; Future BMT: 28 Days; Hop; Must Love Dogs; Crazy in Alabama; He Said, She Said; Moonlight and Valentino; Kids in America; BMT: The Ring Two; The Flintstones; From the Hip; Notes: Man, she was huge back in the day. I got very confused for a second about who she was in Ghostbusters, but that is the 2016 Ghostbusters. Nominated for 3 Emmys for Weeds.)

John Hurt – ( Known For: V for Vendetta; Alien; Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2; Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone; Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1; Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull; Snowpiercer; Hellboy; Contact; Hellboy II: The Golden Army; Perfume: The Story of a Murderer; The Elephant Man; Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy; Spaceballs; Melancholia; Immortals; Hercules; Dogville; Only Lovers Left Alive; Dead Man; Future BMT: The Skeleton Key; Valiant; Thumbelina; King Ralph; Lost Souls; Partners; Jake Speed; BMT: Captain Corelli’s Mandolin; Wild Bill; From the Hip; Notes: Nominated for two Oscars for The Elephant Man, and Midnight Express. I still need to watch Midnight Express. I read the book and it was just on the wrong side of depressing so I needed some time to process before watching the movie.)

Budget/Gross – $9 million / Domestic: $9,518,342 (Worldwide: $9,518,342)

(Not what you want. I wonder how much of the budget went into some of the location shoots. The locations in this film are quite fun, but probably cost a bit to film at.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 30% (7/23): From the Hip finds Judd Nelson flexing previously unseen acting muscles, but this legal comedy is too grating to pass the bar.

(Too grating?! I guess I can see it, but that is the point. Again, it isn’t that much different than …And Justice For All where the main character is defending a monster and has to vaguely figure out how to get out of the situation deftly.)

New York Times Description: A showoff rookie lawyer in Boston.

Poster – Dog Lawyer

(You may not remember this film, but this is a very well known poster in my head. It’s such an F- it comes all the way around and is an A+. What a disaster. Who made this?)

Tagline(s) – Getting To The Top Means Working Like A Dog! (F)

The way he practices law should be a crime (A-)

(The first makes no sense and yet they turned around and made it the basis of the whole thing. The second one is actually not bad. Just needs to be a little tighter.)

Keyword(s) – 1983-1991

Top 10: The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Back to the Future (1985), Goodfellas (1990), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi (1983), Die Hard (1988), The Terminator (1984), Scarface (1983), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), Full Metal Jacket (1987)

Future BMT: 72.7 Look Who’s Talking Too (1990), 72.5 Teen Wolf Too (1987), 67.9 Smokey and the Bandit Part 3 (1983), 61.1 Staying Alive (1983), 59.1 Suburban Commando (1991), 57.7 The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter (1990), 57.6 Ghost Dad (1990), 56.7 The Karate Kid Part III (1989), 55.1 Who’s That Girl (1987), 54.8 Curse of the Pink Panther (1983), 53.5 Graffiti Bridge (1990), 52.5 Johnny Be Good (1988), 52.5 Porky’s II: The Next Day (1983), 52.4 Porky’s Revenge (1985), 52.2 Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise (1987), 51.8 Police Academy 3: Back in Training (1986), 49.3 King Solomon’s Mines (1985), 48.7 Hercules (1983), 48.6 Delta Force 2: The Colombian Connection (1990), 48.6 My Stepmother Is an Alien (1988)

BMT: Jaws: The Revenge (1987), Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987), Troll 2 (1990), Jaws 3-D (1983), Highlander II: The Quickening (1991), Going Overboard (1989), Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989), Police Academy 6: City Under Siege (1989), Mac and Me (1988), Caddyshack II (1988), Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach (1988), Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991), Howard the Duck (1986), Supergirl (1984), Cool as Ice (1991), Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985), The Garbage Pail Kids Movie (1987), Leonard Part 6 (1987), Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989), Superman III (1983), Poltergeist III (1988), A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child (1989), Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol (1987), Wild Orchid (1989), …

Best Options (Flintstones): 57.6 Ghost Dad (1990), 54.8 Curse of the Pink Panther (1983), 48.6 My Stepmother Is an Alien (1988), 44.8 King Ralph (1991), 42.0 Club Paradise (1986), 41.6 Loose Cannons (1990), 41.0 Death Wish 4: The Crackdown (1987), 37.9 Invaders from Mars (1986), 36.5 Burglar (1987), 34.0 Hero and the Terror (1988), 31.0 Jetsons: The Movie (1990), 29.0 He Said, She Said (1991), 28.4 The Presidio (1988), 27.2 Flight of the Intruder (1991), 26.0 Bad Dreams (1988), 24.6 The Survivors (1983), 24.5 Sunset (1988), 21.6 Dead Heat (1988), 20.6 Spies Like Us (1985), 20.3 Strictly Business (1991), 18.9 Head Office (1985), 17.9 Brewster’s Millions (1985), 17.7 Skin Deep (1989), 15.9 Worth Winning (1989), 13.6 Stella (1990), 13.0 From the Hip (1987)

(Ha! Well, what you didn’t know is that we needed to do From the Hip in order to chain up into 2024. These days bad movies are at such a premium they pretty much dictate any and all chain films for the back half of the year.)

Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 15) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: John Hurt is No. 3 billed in From the Hip and No. 3 billed in Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, which also stars Nicolas Cage (No. 1 billed) who is in The Wicker Man (No. 1 billed) which also stars Leelee Sobieski (No. 6 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 1 billed) => (3 + 3) + (1 + 1) + (6 + 1) = 15. If we were to watch Must Love Dogs, and The Glass House we can get the HoE Number down to 10.

Notes – At his son’s elementary school, writer-produce-director Bob Clark offered a silent auction prize allowing the winner to go to Charlotte in North Carolina and go behind the scenes during the filming of this movie. After friends of the family won the auction, Clark allowed the entire family to be extras / background artists in a scene rather than just observers.

TV producer Steven Bochco hired writer David E. Kelley to write for his television series L.A. Law (1986) after reading this script.

Star Judd Nelson was Razzie Award nominated for this movie in the category of Worst Actor at the 1988 Golden Raspberry Awards but lost out Bill Cosby for Leonard Part 6 (1987).

Attorney David E. Kelley showed his spec screenplay to his law firm’s client, Indian Neck Productions, who optioned it and then recruited the film’s director Bob Clark.

This legal courtroom comedy drama was written by David E. Kelley who was actually a law attorney in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

Awards – Nominee for the Razzie Award for Worst Actor (Judd Nelson)

Dream a Little Dream Recap

Jamie

The whole backstory of Dream a Little Dream is tragic. Corey Feldman was trying to be a more serious actor. He wanted a role that would stretch his horizons a bit. But he also was deep in a Michael Jackson phase and wanted to push that as well. What does that mean? Given the fact that Michael Jackson was a singing, dancing and fashion icon, Feldman decided to go for the trifecta. He’s working on a single for the film, and within the film he gets to dress like MJ and dance his little heart out. So sure, he wants to do this very serious philosophical body swap movie with Academy Award winner Jason Robards, but he also wants the dance scene. The studio? Thrilled. Interestingly, if you read Feldman’s autobiography he seems to indicate that the inclusion of Corey Haim was more his agent/studio idea. Once Feldman was in didn’t they want to cash in on the Two Corey’s mania? Did it matter that Haim broke his leg just before filming? Nah, write it in. So what started as an attempt for Feldman to be taken more seriously became a Two Corey’s vehicle with MJ inspired dance sequences. As I said, tragic.

To recap, Coleman and Gena are an elderly married couple. Coleman has become obsessed with dreams and the idea that through dreams he will be able to spend eternity with his beloved. He is pursuing this through the power of meditation when suddenly Bobby, a local bad boy/slacker, collides with the girl he has a crush on, Lainie, who unfortunately dates one of his friends. This collision at the moment of meditative perfection results in a body swap, whereby Bobby and Lainie are stuck in the dream world while Gena and Coleman are now teenagers, gulp! Confusedly, they also are kinda mixed with their original selves so they are more like old people-teenager hybrids and only sort of know each other. Coleman wants to just wait it out, but then realizes he has to play into the role of Bobby or else risk his wife getting stuck forever in the dream world dooming them to be separated forever. Coleman ends up helping Bobby get better grades and improve his relationship with his parents. All this in pursuit of Lainie, who it eventually becomes clear must fall for Bobby in order to recreate the magic and swap all the bodies back. This culminates in a climactic scene where Bobby talks his friend out of murdering him (for real) and a different (and much more important) scene where Bobby dances like Michael Jackson and looks totally cool for sure. Having completed the mission Coleman realizes then that there is no replacement for the real thang and indeed they are able to switch back.. THE END.

I feel a little bad for Feldman. You can tell he was having some troubles here and he looks crazy. The idea that someone would want to take his career from acting to the general genre of “Michael Jackson impersonator” is insane. That’s not a genre of music/dancing/fashion. That’s just what MJ does. And yet MJ was so huge that this was a viable career move and he was hardly the biggest star to have tried it. All that being said, Feldman actually does have natural charisma. There’s a reason I remember liking his character the best in a number of notable films. This is all a wind up to say that this film is super duper weird. One of the weirdest major motion pictures I can think of. It’s like a deeply philosophical take on a body swap movie. Makes me think the writer-director said yes to all kinds of things involving Feldman simply because he wanted desperately to make this weird ass movie that otherwise probably wouldn’t have been made. Usually when something this weird is made you have to assume it’s based on a book (like Winter’s Tale or something). But this is a Mark Rocco original, babbby. As for Ghosts Can’t Do It, the only reason to watch this unpleasant catastrophe is to see the perfect example of an auteur film. A film that truly seems like you are looking into the deranged mind of its creator, like a Neil Breen film. The basic plot is about Bo Derek being married to an elderly rich guy who has awesome sex with her, but then dies and his ghost demands she find a hot young stud to kill so he can possess him and they can continue boning. And then they do just that. You OK, John Derek? Perfect pairing with Dream a Little Dream.

Hot Take Clam Bake! Are we sure (steady yourselves) Feldman couldn’t have been Michael J. Fox? Like if he hadn’t gone down the dark road he was on would we have seen him carry some big films and then transition to a career where he’s the star of Just Shoot Me! or something? You see him running around and acting and (god help me) dancing and there are actual moments where I had to take a step back and be like “this kid was a mess and still got up there and looks halfway like a star.” It makes me want to read more of his autobiography just to see how aware he was of what was happening as it crumbled and fell apart. I can tell you the Dream a Little Dream parts of the book are very engaging. Hot Take Temperature: A Michael Jackson dance move.

Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! *Gif of me dressed as Michael Jackson lip synching a song and dancing around like an idiot* Let’s go!

The good? Uh … this movie is bonkers. Like, this movie is like you cracked the head of the writer open and just started watching. It is wild shit, and in a way I’m here for it, and the fact that it operates like a standard body swap almost makes it better. Some of the cast is also quite good, like they know what’s up and what they need to do … some of the cast.

The bad? Both Coreys. I don’t want to pile on them. I don’t want to come down hard on them. But Haim is just all over the place, limping around, and really very terrible in this. Feldman just looks like a lunatic. He’s a bit better from the acting perspective.

The BMT? In a way yes … it is really really weird. It is a really weird film. It is so weird. Is it so weird it could view for Hall of Fame … I think so. I it so weird. But it is also boring. It is such a tough decision. The movie is just so weird!

You best believe Ghosts Can’t Do It. I have no words. This is a truly bizarre film. John and Bo Derek were one of one terrible filmmakers. We’ve seen several of them so far, and they kind of just get worse and worse as you watch them. One time a critic I think said that John Derek was the worst filmmaker in history. Part of me wants to say that that is right. This film is very weird, Bo Derek comes across as very weird, and the mind of whomever wrote this movie seems very weird. D, part of me wants to be like A+, this is what BMT is all about, but the film is weird and off putting, so I’m slamming it. Slammed!

Obviously a big part of my AI journey here is trying to find uses for it in BMT. So far … mixed bag. There are odd bits where I’m like that’s interesting, but nothing so far is shaking the BMT foundations. One idea Jamie had was to look through Letterboxd reviews, and what better opportunity to look through structured returns. So I pulled 100 reviews off of Letterboxd, and then ran it through Gemini with the instruction to say whether the review indicated the person had “fun” watching the movie or not. It would return as a json blob which seems .. vaguely correct I suppose.

Anyways, to try it on this guy. Out of the 100 reviews the BMT Super Fun Factor (aka BMTSSF) was 41%. That is actually pretty good. If we want some references BMT classic Cobra was a 73%, BMT classic stinker Waiting for Forever is 14%. It is perfect? No, one in like five fails for no reason by giving back bad json. Spot checking shows it isn’t super clearly interpreting things well, possibly just random outside of very bad or very good reviews. But it is a pretty funny idea. Similar to pulling keywords out of posters, this is one thing where it is like … just fun enough that I might actually try scraping a full year to see if anything interesting falls out the other side.

Oh, and let’s see if we should get excited. What is From the Hip’s BMTSSF? 45%. So a little better than Dream a Little Dream. Surf Nazis Must Die is a 48%, which maybe points to it somewhat deserving its cult classic reputation.

Oh, definitely a Planchet (Who?) for Haim which is a bizarre character with an even more bizarre production story. Some solid Product Placement (What?) for the oreos you snack on as you talk to your kids about the accident he just got in. I mean, maybe the ultimate MacGuffin (Why?) y’all need to get back in your body, it’s a body swap film. And I’m going to do it, this is a BMT film, it is wild and crazy and weird.

Read about body swapping in the Quiz. Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Dream a Little Dream Quiz

Dreams? Little Dreams? Talk to me, people. Let’s go!

Pop Quiz Hot Shot!

1) It’s the End of the World as We Know it by R.E.M. is on the soundtrack for the film. It peaked at 69 on the Billboard Top 100. That is not nearly the highest R.E.M. reached, which was #4 for what song?

2) For the Siskel and Ebert episode for The Worst Films of 1989, Dream a Little Dream was a pick. Another film was a little film about a wrestler named Zeus starring Hulk Hogan. What was that film?

3) The Two Coreys were famous enough as a duo to have their own wikipedia page. They paired up nine times on film. The first time was in The Lost Boys, and the third time was in this film Dream a Little Dream. What was the second film they appeared in together?

4) This is an impossible one, but in the direct-to-video sequel Dream a Little Dream 2, Bobby Keller and Dinger find magic what? Yeah, you read that right, literally magic.

5) Jason Robards is in the film. He won a Tony (The Disenchanted), two Academy Awards (All the President’s Men, and Julia), and an Emmy (Inherit the Wind). But he notably played James Tyrone Jr. in what Eugene O’Neill adaptation?

Bonus NYTimes Listing Question: On March 19, 1990, Dream a Little Dream played at 8PM on HBO. Right after though this came on:

What movie could this be?

Answers

Dream a Little Dream Preview

Plain Jane is back, Jack! Third time’s a charm, but is it third time’s a… love?! Who would have thought that Plain Jane Never-Been-Kissed would have two dreamboat guys fighting over her? Not this girl, that’s who. Alejandro has shown up in the Big Apple professing his love for Holly and Brad has returned from Aspen even more in love with Jane than ever. Eeeeeek! If only she could be both Jane and Holly at the same time! Brain Blitz! What if she can? Her grandmother always said be careful what she wished for, particularly when using a monkey’s paw. Down goes a finger and… oops! Turns out when she wished that Jane and Holly would exist at the same time it meant that she would remain Plain Jane, but *gulp* Brad would become possessed by Holly Ween. It’s a sass attack as Holly Brad takes NYC by storm. Now she has to reveal her true identity to Alejandro in order to recruit him to help. He’s hurt. Doesn’t he know that he loved her for what was on the inside? But also, as he takes her glasses off, he mentions that her beauty on the outside doesn’t hurt either. Who? Little ol’ her? Jane and Alejandro are quite the power couple as they power their way into the hottest club in NYC and win a dance off against Holly Brad. Turns out out-dancing Holly Ween’s spirit is the only way to defeat her and the monkey’s paw closes again. Alejandro goes in for the kiss but Plain Jane turns him away. She can’t… because she’s dying. Brad and Alejandro gasp. Turns out they’re dying too.

“You get it?” Samantha says. “Let me see if I do,” Jamie says and begins to recount a dream he had. We’re recounting a little dream we had this week. The dream of watching Dream a Little Dream starring the Corey’s. Boy that sounds like a rough time. Hope we have a nice palate cleanser for our Friend this week. Ghosts Can’t Do It starring Bo Derek! Welp… it’s a hard job, but someone has to do it. Let’s go!

Dream a Little Dream (1989) – BMeTric: 29.8; Notability: 25

StreetCreditReport.com – BMeTric: top 10.4%; Notability: top 20.8%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 4.5%; Higher BMeT: Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, Police Academy 6: City Under Siege, Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers, A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child, Wild Orchid, Cyborg, The Fly II, The Karate Kid Part III, No Holds Barred, Cutting Class, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, Sleepaway Camp III: Teenage Wasteland, DeepStar Six, The Toxic Avenger Part II, Shocker, Pink Cadillac, The Punisher, Speed Zone, House III: The Horror Show, The January Man, and 6 more; Higher Notability: Tango & Cash, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, Troop Beverly Hills, Lock Up, A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child, The Karate Kid Part III, Harlem Nights, See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Fletch Lives, Leviathan, Three Fugitives, Listen to Me, Pink Cadillac, Family Business, Millennium, Dead Bang, Police Academy 6: City Under Siege, The Punisher, Let It Ride, Renegades, and 32 more; Lower RT: Police Academy 6: City Under Siege, The Toxic Avenger Part II, House III: The Horror Show, Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects, Speed Zone, Homer and Eddie, Worth Winning, Elves, Second Sight, Night Game, Wired; Notes: Played 42 times, and we’ve actually seen 8 of the top 10 BMeT films for 1989 which is pretty great. We really need to get on The Karate Kid III. I keep forgetting there was a sequel to this film (also starring Feldman) and that played an insane 45 times on television. Ghosts Can’t Do It played 23 times, including, amazingly, premiering on Cinemax on July 23rd 1991 in the primetime slot, wowza.

RogerEbert.com – 0.5 stars – So there I was, watching this TV commercial for “Dream a Little Dream,” when suddenly a light bulb went on over my head, and I said, “Hold on a minute,” because the commercial shows Corey Feldman as a kid named Bobby who has all these problems in school, you know, and like he’s in love with this girl but she’s dating the toughest kid in the class and so, like wow, what is Bobby gonna do? After I saw this commercial, what I wanted to know was: What happened to Jason Robards? What the commercial doesn’t tell you is that this kid named Bobby is not really a 16-year-old at all. He has a teenager’s body, sure, but inside his head, he is occupied by Jason Robards. … “Dream a Little Dream” is an aggressively unwatchable movie.

(Roger Ebert really channelling the Bad Movie Twins style of writing for a second there. It does make me think we have a voice here … it isn’t an intelligent or good voice, but it is something that someone somewhere would go like “huh” to, you know?)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWIlihA-DBo/

(My god the music. Watching all these trailers makes me realize just how insane the music in trailers often are. My god, this is a body swap film?! What the hell?)

Directors – Marc Rocco – ( Known For: Murder in the First; Where the Day Takes You; Scenes from the Goldmine; BMT: Dream a Little Dream; Notes: Somehow Murder in the First was his last directorial effort. I remember that film being at least not-bad. He produced a bunch after, including The Jacket.)

Writers – Daniel Jay Franklin – ( BMT: Dream a Little Dream; Notes: Literally this is it. He wrote a single episode of Knots Landing, and then got a character credit for the sequel.)

Marc Rocco – ( Known For: The Jacket; Where the Day Takes You; Scenes from the Goldmine; BMT: Dream a Little Dream; Notes: Adopted son of the guy who played Salvator in The Wedding Planner … oh also the guy was in The Godfather, but The Wedding Planner seemed more appropriate to mention.)

Danny Eisenberg – ( BMT: Dream a Little Dream; Notes: Seems to be a collaborator with Rocco since he also wrote (and composed for?) Scenes from the Goldmine.)

Actors – Corey Feldman – ( Known For: Stand by Me; The Goonies; Gremlins; The Lost Boys; Maverick; Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles; The Fox and the Hound; The ‘Burbs; Time After Time; Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV; Corbin Nash; Pauly Shore Is Dead; My Date with Drew; Kid 90; Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope; Porn Star: The Legend of Ron Jeremy; Meatballs 4; An Open Secret; 13 Fanboy; Rock ‘n’ Roll High School Forever; Future BMT: Loaded Weapon 1; License to Drive; Bordello of Blood; Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star; BMT: Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter; Friday the 13th: A New Beginning; Friday the 13th: The New Blood; Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III; Dream a Little Dream; Notes: For real, for this film he readily admits he was in his “Michael Jackson” phase. He had vaguely learned to dance like Michael, and he dressed like him, but he basically couldn’t sing, but at the time that didn’t seem to be of concern to Feldman who straight mimics Jackson throughout this film. He looks ridiculous.)

Jason Robards – ( Known For: Once Upon a Time in the West; Magnolia; Enemy of the State; Philadelphia; All the President’s Men; Crimson Tide; Parenthood; Tora! Tora! Tora!; Quick Change; Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid; A Boy and His Dog; Johnny Got His Gun; The Paper; My Best Fiend; Something Wicked This Way Comes; The Ballad of Cable Hogue; Julia; Beloved; The Adventures of Huck Finn; Bright Lights, Big City; Future BMT: Little Big League; BMT: Dream a Little Dream; A Thousand Acres; Notes: You know, I’m reading King Lear now, and I think I might have to reassess A Thousand Acres at some point. I remember finding it nuts at the time, but it is a weird take on King Lear which maybe I could understand better. He won two Oscars, for All the President’s Men and Julia, and was nominated for Melvin and Howard.)

Corey Haim – ( Known For: The Lost Boys; Silver Bullet; Lucas; Murphy’s Romance; Watchers; Prayer of the Rollerboys; An Open Secret; Dream Machine; Oh, What a Night; My Truth: The Rape of Two Coreys; New Terminal Hotel; Shark City; Never Too Late; Future BMT: License to Drive; Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star; Secret Admirer; Firstborn; BMT: Batman & Robin; Crank: High Voltage; Dream a Little Dream; Notes: Apparently he was added very late in the game as a request by Feldman (who seemed to take over production to some degree), and then Haim broke his leg, and they just wrote into the script that he walks with a cane. It is nuts.)

Budget/Gross – N/A / Domestic: $5,552,441 (Worldwide: $5,552,441)

(It is honestly astonishing this made any money. It is crazy that it was released to theaters. The film is so so so so weird. One of the weirdest BMTs in history and that’s saying something.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 9% (1/11)

(The consensus here is actually very straightforward: this movie is completely incoherent. Audiences will be left in a daze after wondering what the hell they just saw.)

New York Times Description: Routine high school slick cloaked in foggy folderol about dreams and incarnation.

Poster – Sklog a Little Sklog

(This is actually hurting my eyes a little. At least the font has a bit of vim and vigor. C-.)

Tagline(s) – With dreams like these who needs reality? (D+)

(I don’t… I’m not sure I understand. With dreams like these… who needs reality? You sure about that one? A classic, this sounds like a tagline but I assure you it isn’t a tagline.)

Keyword(s) – 1983-1991

Best Options (Romance): 72.7 Look Who’s Talking Too (1990), 61.1 Staying Alive (1983), 55.1 Who’s That Girl (1987), 47.2 Big Top Pee-wee (1988), 44.8 American Ninja (1985), 44.8 King Ralph (1991), 38.6 Stroker Ace (1983), 38.2 The Butcher’s Wife (1991), 35.3 Spring Break (1983), 33.6 Career Opportunities (1991), 32.0 The Forbidden Dance (1990), 31.5 Jumpin’ Jack Flash (1986), 30.5 The Woman in Red (1984), 30.0 High Spirits (1988), 29.8 Dream a Little Dream (1989), …

(We mostly did this for the year if I recall. But is is one of those wild films that is completely off the wall inexplicable, so it isn’t like we were struggling with the decision. It is the best 1989 Romance film we could find regardless.)

Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 18) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Jason Robards is No. 1 billed in Dream a Little Dream and No. 3 billed in A Thousand Acres, which also stars Michelle Pfeiffer (No. 1 billed) who is in New Year’s Eve (No. 3 billed) which also stars Robert De Niro (No. 2 billed) who is in Righteous Kill (No. 1 billed) which also stars Al Pacino (No. 2 billed) who is in 88 Minutes (No. 1 billed) which also stars Leelee Sobieski (No. 3 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 1 billed) => (1 + 3) + (1 + 3) + (2 + 1) + (2 + 1) + (3 + 1) = 18. If we were to watch License to Drive we can get the HoE Number down to 14.

Notes – Four days before filming, Corey Haim broke his leg and Dinger’s character had to be rewritten to include the injury. While his actual cast was removed during filming, he had to wear a fake one for the remainder of the production. In the movie Dinger says that his mother hit him with her car. In real life, Haim broke his leg while trying to teach his mom how to ride a motorbike. She couldn’t use the brakes well yet, and ran into the side of a building, breaking her nose and Corey’s leg.

On the wall of Bobby’s room a poster for the movie “The Lost Boys (1987)” can be seen. Corey Feldman and Corey Haim both starred in “The Lost Boys”.

At the time of filming the two Coreys were both addicted to drugs such as cocaine, as well as Feldman using heroin at the time and having an obsession with Michael Jackson. He included Jackson style type moves in the dance sequence involving Lainie in the gym.

This film re-teams frequent co-stars Corey Feldman and Corey Haim though originally only Feldman was cast in the film. When Lala Sloatman was cast as Shelley, she agreed to be in the film on the condition that her then-boyfriend Haim was also cast.

During a dream meeting between Bobby and Coleman, Bobby gives Coleman instructions to view Bobby’s home movies to learn how to act like a more believable Bobby. When the film cuts to Coleman selecting a VHS tape of one of Bobby’s birthdays, the audience can see a videotape on the shelf with Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970) marked on the label. Jason Robards, playing Coleman, also played General Walter C. Short in the 1970 WWII film.

Amityville 3-D Recap

Jamie

Franchise Man checking in! Amityville Horror? More like Amityville Snooze-a-thon. And I’m not saying that because most of the series is terrible, but more because where is the lore?! You had three dang movies to get your lore sorted and instead you mill about trying to decide what the deal with the house is. Every film seems different. Is it a possessed house? Is it a haunted house? Is the demon’s lair behind a fireplace, in a crawl space, or in a well? Does it look like an alien arm? Is it a pig with red eyes? It’s like an inverse Child’s Play, which just remade the same film three times. What is a Franchise Man supposed to do with this shit? Now this isn’t the first time this has happened. Friday the 13th really didn’t get settled till the third (also a 3D entry), but it at least got settled at that point with a serviceable entry. From there it was off and running. This? This is merde (excuse my French).

To recap, John and Melanie are journalists who expose con artists. The latest con they uncover involves the Amityville house. Having found that the whole thing was a ruse, John is convinced to purchase the house himself (what could go wrong?! It’s a steal!). Soon after the real estate agent is found dead in the house. John convinces himself things are fine. Totally fine. Just fine. I SAID IT’S FINE! Melanie is less convinced. Particularly after both she and John are nearly killed in freak accidents. After a terrifying night where she is tormented by the house while John is away, she digs deep into photographs she has taken of the house. Uh oh! Looks like one of them has a little alium looking thingy on it that definitely doesn’t look totally stupid and fake. She rushes to show John this not stupid and not fake looking thing and is killed in a horrific car accident. Later, John’s daughter is home alone and decides to play with a ouija board with some friends. Despite the warnings of the board she then goes out on their motorboat and drowns. John’s estranged wife becomes convinced that their daughter is still alive, but John is like… pretty sure. He saw the body and everything. No need to open the casket and risk the head flying out. To try to help his wife, John brings in a team of paranormal investigators who get a bit more than they bargained for. In the well in the basement a portal to hell opens up and demons and acid and all kinds of shit start flying out. John and a few others manage to escape before the whole house implodes and basically that’s kind of it. THE END (or is it? (Ehhhh… kind of)).

Ha! This is dog shit. Like really, really bad. A franchise killer. It’s not even that nothing works. Meg Ryan is good. It didn’t pull the punch on killing people and setting the stakes correctly. Some of the tension and effects here and there were alright. You just can’t get over how stupid the effects for the demon are. Unrecoverable. Not to mention the fact that in this version of the story the house has unlimited range. It’s fucking with people in Manhattan and stuff. Absurd. Candy Clark is also surprisingly very bad in this. You can point to the material for that, I guess. She just doesn’t seem to have the aptitude for a scream queen and never sells any of the stupid lines she has to say. It is too bad that this essentially relegated the series to direct-to-video schlock. Something I would have liked to have seen was a take on the story where the town is in on it. They basically cover up for the house to convince families to move in. Eventually it’s revealed that the town worships the demon in the basement and is feeding it families. You can have fun with this. It’s not against the rules. As for Joysticks, I watched part of this years ago while on the treadmill and found it quite unpleasant. That unpleasantness continued on a complete viewing. The characters are gross cartoons. That’s actually the fun of watching these movies. Like… how is it that Joysticks was made by a whole group of people who looked at it and thought, “Yeah, this is good. This is funny.” It’s interesting. Then once in a while you find a Ski School where the broken clock is right and they actually hit the right note.

Hot Take Clam Bake! I’m actually half convinced that the character of John actually bought the house in order to run his own con. That after years of uncovering cons he figured he knew enough to create an unbreakable con. It would in part explain why he appears totally oblivious to everyone freaking out around him. He thinks the con is working. He put this little alien in a photo and is like “looks great and not fake,” and sure his partner dies rushing to show it to him, but that means it worked, right? And sure he daughter dies in a freak accident while unsafely motoring around the water by his house, but it adds to the lore. Yeah, don’t worry honey, it’ll all be worth it when we get these paranormal investigators in here and they get a load of the crazy contraption I set up in the well in the base… oops! My contraption sucked the house into the ground and killed numerous people. Let’s just walk away and pretend this was all real. Hot Take Temperature: Fiery basement well.

Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! *Gif of me popping out of a well, but I’m maybe a lizard person, or possibly a Sleestack … are there Sleestacks in Amityville?* Let’s go!

The Good? I kind of dug the very 80s B story of a guy being kind of a piece of shit to his family and buying a haunted house so that he can make the big bucks no matter who he hurts. Meg Ryan was, not surprisingly, quite good. Genuinely, it is no surprise she would end up being a star shortly after.

The Bad? Obviously the Sleestack at the end was absurd. And basically everything you could say is good in the film could also be construed as bad. Cheesy 80s sets, relatively bad 80s acting, silly 80s story.

The BMT? Yeah I think so, but mainly because of the absolute absurdity of it all. The bottomless well, the Sleestack, the hoax thing running throughout the film, how crazy he is for buying the haunted house to live in in the first place. It is just nuts enough to work.

Ah, another 80s T&A comedy, I’m sure this one is just as good as Meatballs III. This one is called Joysticks and is all about an arcade and making sure eeeeevil politicians / businessmen can’t shut them down. The movie is kind of funny, in a tongue-in-cheek way. Like, the whole business with the main super-cool guy who can’t play video games anymore because of a past trauma. And then he gets over it to win the big day. It is fun. But also the film is kind of weird and gross and makes me feel a little gross as well. So I think I’m going to bump it down to a standard B in the end.

For this installment of AI corner I did the same thing as above, except at the end I asked it to summarize it all as a single ten keyword list:

Horror, Amityville, Haunted House, Supernatural, Demons, 3D, Death, Investigation, Curse, Skepticism

It is actually a little weird. Initially it kept on cheating to add more keywords, e.g. giving back “Evil/Demon” which is just two keywords mashed together. When I asked it to restrict itself to a single word or phrase it conspicuously had “House” which is obviously supposed to be “Haunted House” but it was only outputting single word keywords. Finally I told it just not to use “/”. Even then it pluralized “Demons” which was singular in the other attempts, and “3D” lost its hyphen which maybe had to do with me insisting on not having a slash.

In the end isn’t this the main issue as AI as a summarizer? My vague and terrible prompt is “code”. It is not reproducible in the first place because these models tend to do a consensus with restricted and stochastic backing resources, but also even minor changes to the prompt changed the order and structure of the list wildly. So ultimately, to run an analysis the prompt must be included, but even then you have to just trust that outside of false positives (see the Red Scorpion analysis), there is still an issue with it just being very unknowably random.

Again, A+ Setting Alert (Where?) for Amityville, New York. And you know what? No worst twist here. I actually liked the twist in the end whereby the daughter just dies and is released. Oh the Skeestack? That was weird as fuck, but that doesn’t have much to do with the film. Beyond that that one moment I think takes this film from a normal run of the mill horror film, to a true blue 80s small time weirdo horror film, and I kind of dig it, BMT.

Read all about Sleestacks, probably, in the Quiz. Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Amityville II: The Possession Recap

Jamie

I’m going to put this right out there, I do not care for The Amityville Horror. The first half hour is fine and has some nice creepy stuff, but unlike Friday the 13th (which always knew what it was), this devolves over the course of 2 hours into a bunch of Stephen King/haunted house/exorcist retreads. Friday the 13th was giving people what they wanted in the slasher genre. Amityville doesn’t know what it’s serving up. Like is the house haunted? If you watched it you would be tempted to say yes. There appears to be a ghost in the house. But it’s not. It’s possessed by a demon… so the demon is pretending to be a ghost? And it just goes on and on and on like this for a full 2 hours. It’s bad. Just a bad movie that spawned a bunch of other bad movies I guess.

To recap, in a prequel to the first film (I think, it’s never made totally clear), the Montelli family moves into our fateful house. The head of the household is played by Burt Young and is a total maniac (Burt Young? A maniac? I’m shocked). Everyone is terrified of him because he is a loose cannon. As the demonic presence in the house pulls pranks like a little stinker, Burt Young just goes about blaming and beating his children for it. His wife tries to get a Priest to intervene but Burt Young is like “you wanna piece of this Father?” When choosing who to possess, the house appears to take one look at Burt Young and is like “No thanks,” and inhabits the eldest son, Sonny, instead. Thinks then get crazy. And I mean, like, real crazy. I’m talking Sonny seducing his sister kind of crazy… it’s crazy. He further falls prey to the demon and when it demands that he kill his family he obliges. The next day he is arrested and the priest is convinced that Sonny needs an exorcism. He breaks Sonny out of jail and eventually is able to perform the exorcism at the house. Sonny is taken back into custody, but at least free of the demon, who, it’s implied, has transferred to the priest. THE END (or is it? (Ha!))

Yeah, so this is a good movie. In terms of the craziness of a demonic possession this is on par with The Exorcist where there were several moments where I was like “woah!” and got a bit of a queasy feeling. It did not pull punches and knew exactly what it was up to. From start to finish the family at the center of it is in an upsetting position. Even before the possession, which I think it meant to convey the idea that a place like Amityville draws people like that to it. They are vulnerable to possession because of the sadness and anger and then the demon corrupts the remaining aspects of their lives so love and happiness are blotted out. It really is an upsetting film with not even a glimmer of a happy ending. So I give it credit. Hard for me to remember another case where a poorly reviewed sequel is so clearly superior to the original in almost every way. Like head and shoulders better.

Hot Take Clam Bake! Are we sure that house is possessed before Burt Young gets there? I’m not saying Burt Young is a demon, but I’m also not not saying it. Probably some force was simply inhabiting the house and was like “Oh, cool. A new family is here. I sure do hope they are kind and take care of this home we will share.” And then it took one look at Burt Young and was like “uh oh… I mean… I do have the possibility of stopping this maniac.” From there things spiralled a little out of control. Like in the remake of Nightmare on Elm Street it turns out that the possessed house was just misunderstood the whole time. Perhaps the house was really the hero we never knew we needed. Awwwww. Hot Take Temperature: A glowy pit under the basement.

Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! *gif of me slowing getting covered in more and more flies, but unlike the movie it doesn’t seem to bother me which is somehow more scary* Let’s go!

The good? I always dig the look of older films like this because it feels like they were channeling a bit of the 60s and 70s directly into the 80s and trying to hold onto that small budget magic that existed at the time. I love Burt Young, even though this is full blown drunk Burt Young and he’s a monster in the film.

The bad? I could have done without the incest storyline. That was gross and dumb. I also didn’t think the movie read very well as a prequel. I legit did not remember it was a prequel until I started doing this recap even. The main issue is that the murderer in the first film was named DeFeo (who was a real person), but they obviously changed it for the second, but then was there a DeFeo? It is unclear.

The BMT? No, not really. The main issue if I’m being frank is that there are two films here, and the third one is weirder and wilder and much more fun. So it kind of nixes this as a BMT classic. Mostly it feels lazy, gross, and bad. So no, not very BMT.

I have an idea on how to maybe do keyword extraction in BMT, but there are a lot of tests I would like to run on it first. I figured and interesting bit though would be to look at multiple available sources:

Poster: Horror, Possession, Family, Fleeing, Nightmare, House, Evil, Amityville, Supernatural, Tragedy

Trailer: Horror, Supernatural, Possession, Haunted House, Amityville, Family, Paranormal, Demonic, Evil, Tragedy

Trailer (No Sound): Horror, Amityville, Possession, Haunted House, Paranormal, Family, Supernatural, Demonic, Thriller, 1980s

Wikipedia page: Possession, Horror, Familicide, Incest, Exorcism, Demonic, Violence, Abuse, Murder, Supernatural

IMDb Trivia: Incest, Nudity, Awkward, Horror, Sequel, Paranormal, Lawsuit, DeFeo, Replica, Debut

IMDb Reviews: Possession, Haunted House, Incest, Murder, Evil, Religion/Priest, Horror, Family, Violence, Prequel

The ones with actual text tended to identify specific plot points (incest being the big one), and the media was fairly mundane. Demonic, Supernatural, Possession, Haunted House, and Incest would be the five I would pick out as “intriguing and description”.

There is an A+ Setting Alert (Where?) for Amityville, New York, which seems to be somewhere in Long Island, although that’s where the real one is, they don’t get too specific in the movie. Worst Twist (How?) for the useless reveal that the priest is now possessed. That doesn’t come back at all in any of the first three films, so what is the point? This one is Bad, it is weird and gross and off-putting in general, and specifically is pretty boring with nothing to say ro add to the exorcism genre or the first film.

Read about haunted houses or something in the Quiz. Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Amityville 3-D Quiz

Amityville 3-D? 3-D, demons, talk to me people! Let’s go!

Pop Quiz Hot Shot!

1) In the movie the kids play with a Ouija Board they find in the attic of the spooooky house. Where does the name Ouija come from?

2) Tony Roberts is the main character in the film. His last film role was as the character Max Kellerman, the operator of an upscale Catskills resort, in a television remake of a famous film. What film?

3) Siskel and Ebert covered Amityville 3-D in an episode also covering a boxing film starring Dennis Quaid. C’mon, Dennis Quaid. Boxing film. 1983. What is it?

4) A very young Meg Ryan is in the film. Afterwards she would spend several years on As the World Turns, but then would break out in what 1986 action packed film?

5) Part of the film was filmed in Mexico City (interiors mostly). Mexico City is the 5th largest metropolitan area in the world, behind Tokyo, Delhi, Shanghai, and what South American city?

Bonus NYTimes Listing Question: Oh what a twist, look at this guy:

That is Amityville 3-D, but it has a different subtitle. What subtitle did it gain for a Halloween, 1992, showing on channel 55 in NYC?

Answers

Amityville II: The Possession Quiz

What makes Amityville 2 special … possessions, exorcisms, talk to me people! Let’s go!

Pop Quiz Hot Shot!

1) Might as well start with an easy one. Where in New York is the real life Amityville?

2) Ha, on the soundtrack for this film, naturally, it has to give official credit for Happy Birthday to You. This song is famously written by whom?

3) There was a remake of the original film in 2005. How many original films were there, and since 2011 how many independent releases of related films have there been (plus or minus 5 let’s say)?

4) Orion Pictures produced the film. They have produced four Best Picture films. Name any one of them.

5) In this film the family uses the fictional name Montelli. But what was the actual name of the family in the original Amityville haunting?

Bonus NYTimes Listing Question: On January 26, 1998, this film played late on TMC. Earlier that night though this played:

What is that film?

Answers

Amityville 3-D Preview

“What? No,” Samantha says, confused as to why Jamie would think a scorpion would have stung her in the forests of Massachusetts. She cradles her arm and looks at him with tears in her eyes. “I’ve been trying to tell you,” she says softly. “I know,” Jamie says, even softer, “but I wasn’t listening. But I’m listening now.” They slowly walk their way into the roller rink that contains the Wall of Lovers and sit at a table. Two milkshakes later and they’re ready to talk. “Do you remember when I told you about how I used to be a track and field star in high school but then had to stop?” Jamie shakes his head. He didn’t remember that at all, but it explains her blazing fast speed. “Alright,” she continues, “but you must remember how I told you about the time that a couple of boys drag raced their way into this roller rink and then into my heart while they rebuilt the roller rink together.” It sounded familiar but he eventually shakes his head. He probably would have remembered that if he had been listening. “OK,” she presses on, visibly frustrated, “but how could you forget that after finding my true loves we decided to carve our names in the Wall of Lovers and that’s when we noticed…” she trails off, her eyes pleading with Jamie to have at least absorbed the most tragic of the many tragic stories in her unique beautiful and doomed life. Jamie’s face is blank. Slowly he opens his mouth. “Yes,” he says. Samantha gives up and comes around to his side of the table and hands him a book. It’s the third of the Holly Ween series. Holly Ween’s Possessed 3D. That’s right! We are hitting up one of the most famous horror series for the first time by catching Amityville 2: The Possession and Amityville Horror 3-D. I really don’t like the first film much. I think it’s bad and kind of crazy that it spurred a whole series of films. But apparently these are even worse. Cool. As for Bring a Friend, let’s lighten it up a bit with the “classic” T&A comedy, Joysticks. Now we’re talking. Let’s go!

Amityville 3-D (1983) – BMeTric: 58.4; Notability: 24

StreetCreditReport.com – BMeTric: top 1.7%; Notability: top 12.1%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 5.9%; Higher BMeT: Jaws 3-D, Smokey and the Bandit Part 3, Superman III, Staying Alive; Higher Notability: Superman III, Curse of the Pink Panther, Krull, Deal of the Century, Doctor Detroit, Flashdance, The Sting II, D.C. Cab, Staying Alive, The Man Who Loved Women, The Lords of Discipline, Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone, The Keep, Two of a Kind, The Black Stallion Returns, Stroker Ace, Class, Jaws 3-D, Romantic Comedy, Nate and Hayes, and 8 more; Lower RT: Staying Alive, Nate and Hayes, The Lonely Lady, The Man Who Wasn’t There, The Survivors, Porky’s II: The Next Day, Still Smokin, Deal of the Century, The Sting II, Jaws 3-D, Smokey and the Bandit Part 3; Notes: It claims it only played twice on cable in the 90s, but that is probably because it is called Amityville: The Demon in the paper, but Amityville 3-D on IMDb. Jaws 3-D played 34 times, Smokey and the Bandit Part 3 played 20 times, and Superman III played 30 times (remember drunk Superman? That was great). We are actually doing pretty well on the top 5 for 1983, we have Staying Alive slated for early 2025. Joysticks played 5 times on television which is hilarious.

New York Times – Janet Maslin – The third in a 3-D series, as in ”Jaws 3-D” or now ”Amityville 3-D,” simply isn’t a good idea. Once the first two films in a series have exhausted most opportunities for action, the third is liable to average half a dozen exposition scenes for every eventful episode. And 3-D exposition is the stuff of which headaches are made[.]

(This is probably sage advice. On the other hand, money money money money. The series was still making money.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SOBXnEY-Cc/

(Dems alotta screams in this trailer. Haha, man this trailer is all about this being a #D film, something you’d never really be able to recreate at this point. It is really too bad. I would kind of love to see it in 3D. “This picture is not a sequel to the pictures ‘Amityville Horror’ or ‘Amityville II: The Possession’” … it isn’t?)

Directors – Richard Fleischer – ( Known For: Soylent Green; 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea; Tora! Tora! Tora!; Fantastic Voyage; The Vikings; The Boston Strangler; Doctor Dolittle; Mr. Majestyk; 10 Rillington Place; The Narrow Margin; Compulsion; Barabbas; His Kind of Woman; The Jazz Singer; Mandingo; See No Evil; The New Centurions; Armored Car Robbery; Violent Saturday; The Last Run; Future BMT: Million Dollar Mystery; BMT: Conan the Destroyer; Red Sonja; Amityville 3-D; Notes: He won an Oscar for the Documentary Design for Death in 1948. He was on a role in the 80s though, this then Conan and then Red Sonja.)

Writers – David Ambrose – ( Known For: The Final Countdown; D.A.R.Y.L.; Taffin; The French Revolution; The Survivor; The Fifth Musketeer; A Dangerous Summer; Il gioco; Future BMT: Year of the Gun; BMT: Amityville 3-D; Notes: Year of the Gun is one of those weirdo bad Andrew McCarthy films. Looks nuts.)

Actors – Tony Roberts – ( Known For: Annie Hall; Serpico; Hannah and Her Sisters; The Taking of Pelham One Two Three; Radio Days; Play It Again, Sam; Stardust Memories; A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy; The Longest Week; 12 and Holding; Los Angeles Plays Itself; The Million Dollar Duck; Le sauvage; Seize the Day; Just Tell Me What You Want; Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There; Key Exchange; Star Spangled Girl; Future BMT: Switch; Popcorn; 18 Again!; BMT: Amityville 3-D; Notes: Oh man, he was in the Dirty Dancing remake in 2017. He literally just died a week ago. Often worked with Woody Allen.)

Tess Harper – ( Known For: No Country for Old Men; El Camino; Frank; Silkwood; The Man in the Moon; Tender Mercies; Straight A’s; Crimes of the Heart; Burden; Sunlight Jr.; Flashpoint; Broken Bridges; Loggerheads; Kiss the Bride; Broken; Saving Sarah Cain; Daddy’s Dyin’… Who’s Got the Will?; My New Gun; Far North; The Turning; Future BMT: The Jackal; The Perfect Guy; Her Alibi; The in Crowd; Criminal Law; My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys; BMT: Ishtar; Amityville 3-D; Notes: Nominated for an Oscar for Crimes of the Heart. From Arkansas.)

Robert Joy – ( Known For: Don’t Look Up; Waterworld; The Hills Have Eyes; Land of the Dead; Fallen; It’s a Boy Girl Thing; Radio Days; Desperately Seeking Susan; The Dark Half; Atlantic City; Shadows and Fog; Resurrection; Harriet the Spy; Pretty Persuasion; Ragtime; Death Wish: The Face of Death; Millennium; Longtime Companion; I’ll Do Anything; That Guy… Who Was in That Thing; Future BMT: Sweet November; Superhero Movie; The Goldfinch; Joe Somebody; BMT: Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem; Amityville 3-D; Notes: Hard working. Was on CSI: NY for 165 episodes.)

Budget/Gross – N/A / Domestic: $6,333,135 (Worldwide: $6,333,135)

(Seems good enough. There is no way this cost more than a few million to make.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 18% (4/22): A gimmicky Amityville retread with insufferable characters.

(Ha! Insufferable characters. I mean, they’re not wrong I suppose. Also a standard staple of third editions of classic horror franchises from the 80s.)

New York Times Description: Horror Junk (Ha!!! That’s legit it)

Poster – Amitysklog 3-J&P

(I’ve seen this poster before and it’s never not funny. Just an insane thing to put together and be like ‘nailed it.’ I mean it’s an A+++++ obviously.)

Tagline(s) – WARNING: in this movie you are the victim. (C)

(I understand what they are going for and I think there is something clever about it when you put it with that hilarious alien monster hand reaching out. But it also warps my brain a little.)

Keyword(s) – 1983-1991

Best Options (Horror): 58.3 Amityville 3-D (1983), 45.7 Children of the Corn (1984), 45.4 DeepStar Six (1989), 42.4 Shocker (1989), 41.9 House II: The Second Story (1987), 37.9 Invaders from Mars (1986), 37.7 Return of the Living Dead II (1988), 32.7 The Seventh Sign (1988), 30.1 Creepshow 2 (1987), 28.3 The Phantom of the Opera (1989), 26.5 My Demon Lover (1987), 26.0 Bad Dreams (1988), 25.6 The Unholy (1988), 25.3 The First Power (1990), 24.2 Dark Angel (1990), 23.4 Popcorn (1991), 22.4 Nightmares (1983), 21.6 Dead Heat (1988), 20.8 The Believers (1987), 17.7 Phantasm II (1988)

(Boom, smashed it. This movie is insane and was destined to be done in this cycle. Thank you for being you Amityville 3-D.)

Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 23) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Tess Harper is No. 2 billed in Amityville 3-D and No. 6 billed in Ishtar, which also stars Warren Beatty (No. 1 billed) who is in Town & Country (No. 1 billed) which also stars Josh Hartnett (No. 10 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 3 billed) => (2 + 6) + (1 + 1) + (10 + 3) = 23. If we were to watch Criminal Law, and Paranoia we can get the HoE Number down to 17.

Notes – Not counting Amityville: The Awakening (2017), which is a completely original story, this is the only theatrically released Amityville film not to be based on a book but instead on the real life accounts of investigator Stephen Kaplan.

The frost that blows out of the basement onto Candy Clark was actually warm wax. She later admitted that she had to wash her hair with detergent to get it all out.

Like the previous installment, Amityville 3-D filmed the exterior scenes at the same house in Toms River, New Jersey and a house nearby for the exterior of Nancy’s house. The interior was a set in a Mexico studio: Estudios Churubusco. The filmmakers almost never got the house to film at again. It was scheduled to be picked up and moved over one lot. They were only able to film the exterior shots before the house was moved. Originally the house had four quarter shaped moon windows, two on both sides. However, by the time of filming in 3D, the owners of the house did not want the eye windows on the side of the house facing the road so they modified them to look like small ordinary square windows. All shots of the “eye” windows (except for the most noticeable scene when John and Susan pull up to the house) had to be filmed on the side facing the river that has the sundeck.

Also known as Amityville III: The Demon.

The character of John Baxter is loosely based on Stephen Kaplan and his investigation of the house, who at the time was trying to prove the Lutzes’ story was a hoax.

Amityville II: The Possession Preview

Amityville II: The Possession (1982) – BMeTric: 36.6; Notability: 32

StreetCreditReport.com – BMeTric: top 3.4%; Notability: top 6.4%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 8.7%; Higher BMeT: Grease 2, Piranha II: The Spawning, Trail of the Pink Panther, Megaforce, Zapped!, Friday the 13th: Part 3, Losin’ It, Parasite; Higher Notability: Young Doctors in Love, Trail of the Pink Panther, Movie Madness, Grease 2, Wrong Is Right, Monsignor, Yes, Giorgio, Lookin’ to Get Out, Death Wish II, Fighting Back, The Toy, Megaforce, The Beast Within, Zapped!, Partners; Lower RT: Class Reunion, Partners, Movie Madness, Monsignor, The Toy, Piranha II: The Spawning, Megaforce, Zapped!, Friday the 13th: Part 3, Parasite, The Beast Within, Losin’ It, Vigilante, Fighting Back, Trail of the Pink Panther, Summer Lovers, Five Days One Summer; Notes: Only played 10 times on cable in the 90s which is a little surprising, it seems like the perfect item of IP to pedal to random channels late night. Grease 2 played over 40 times, but amazingly Piranha II seems to have only played once, on June 5th, 1993 at 3AM on channel 5 … that seems impossible. Young Doctors in Love … what the hell is that lol? We’ve only seen two of the films with a higher BMeT, mainly because it is hard to tell what is and isn’t qualifying from 1982.

RogerEbert.com – 2.0 stars – This movie is actually slightly better than “The Amityville Horror,” maybe because it rips off superior source material. It starts with the most notorious piece of real estate in North America. Then it lifts ingredients from “The Exorcist,” “Poltergeist,” and ‘Murder in Amityville,’ which was the book about the original Amityville horror.

(Hmmmm, intriguing. See this is why having real critics is nice. Who could have watched this along with like four other movies in an afternoon and then reeled this off off-the-cuff.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-1wwxK2wIs/

(The trailer explains the first film. Yes, before them another family … the DeFeo family. I do love how they had to change the name despite it being the original name in the first film. I guess you can’t just use actual names in ridiculous fictional accounts. This trailer really doesn’t do justice to how insane this film is.)

Directors – Damiano Damiani – ( Known For: A Genius, Two Partners and a Dupe; A Bullet for the General; Mafia; Confessions of a Police Captain; The Most Beautiful Wife; The Empty Canvas; Alex l’ariete; The Case Is Closed, Forget It; I Am Afraid; How to Kill a Judge; The Witch; Un uomo in ginocchio; The Sicilian Connection; The Inquiry; Goodbye & Amen; Lipstick; Girolimoni, the Monster of Rome; Arturo’s Island; Una ragazza piuttosto complicata; The Warning; BMT: Amityville II: The Possession; Notes: Italian obviously … it is unclear whether this is his only American film.)

Writers – Tommy Lee Wallace – ( Known For: Fright Night Part 2; Vampires: Los Muertos; Far from Home; BMT: Halloween III: Season of the Witch; Amityville II: The Possession; Notes: He genuinely seems to be known for writing many sequels to classic horror films. I’ve heard good things about Fright Night Part 2.)

Hans Holzer – ( BMT: Amityville II: The Possession; Notes: He wrote the book. For some reason he only got credit on this one and then two terrible sequels.)

Dardano Sacchetti – ( Known For: Demons; The Beyond; City of the Living Dead; The House by the Cemetery; The Cat o’ Nine Tails; A Bay of Blood; The New York Ripper; Demons 2; The Psychic; Shock; Cannibals in the Streets; 1990: The Bronx Warriors; A Blade in the Dark; Devil Fish; Aladdin; Manhattan Baby; Cut and Run; Body Count; I guerrieri dell’anno 2072; The Tough Ones; BMT: Amityville II: The Possession; Notes: I guess I assume he worked with the director at some point? Or maybe he was just an Italian guy who did American Horror films and so the director hired him.)

Actors – James Olson – ( Known For: Commando; The Andromeda Strain; Ragtime; Rachel, Rachel; The Stalking Moon; Wild Rovers; Moon Zero Two; The Strange One; The Groundstar Conspiracy; Crescendo; The Mafu Cage; The Sharkfighters; The Three Sisters; BMT: Amityville II: The Possession; Notes: Oh, I should watch The Andromeda Strain, the book was quite good. Mostly he doesn’t have any qualifying films because he really didn’t work much in the 80s.)

Burt Young – ( Known For: Rocky; Once Upon a Time in America; Chinatown; Rocky II; Rocky Balboa; Rocky III; Win Win; New York, I Love You; Transamerica; Mickey Blue Eyes; Back to School; Convoy; Rob the Mob; Sly; The Pope of Greenwich Village; She’s So Lovely; The Killer Elite; Across 110th Street; Last Exit to Brooklyn; The Gambler; BMT: Rocky IV; Rocky V; The Adventures of Pluto Nash; Going Overboard; Amityville II: The Possession; Notes: Burt Young baby! He looked ancient for like 20 years prior to passing away in 2023. Also, I’m not sure anyone acted drunk better than him … also he might have been drunk.)

Rutanya Alda – ( Known For: The Deer Hunter; Rocky II; The Long Goodbye; The Ref; Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid; The Panic in Needle Park; The Dark Half; Scarecrow; The Stuff; Mommie Dearest; The Fury; Hello, Dolly!; When a Stranger Calls; Black Widow; The Last Tycoon; Looking for Mr. Goodbar; Christmas Evil; Night of the Wolf; Last Exit to Brooklyn; Prancer; Future BMT: The Glass House; The War with Grandpa; Gross Anatomy; BMT: Steel; Amityville II: The Possession; Notes: Still alive I think. She was born in 1942 in the Soviet Union.)

Budget/Gross – $5 million / Domestic: $12,534,817 (Worldwide: $12,534,817)

(Again, not bad. You really can’t go wrong with horror films. They can be made for a few million, and you make like $15 million and mint some money. Easy.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 27% (6/22)

(Ha, well the consensus appears to be: this is a rip-off of The Exorcist, and also is gross for exploiting an actual tragedy. Go figure.)

New York Times Description: More occult hooey.

Poster – The Amityville Sklog II: The Skloggening

(The house has always been cool. Looking like the Halloween pumpkin and all that. This poster sucks though. I’ll give it a slight bump far higher than it deserves only because of those cool little devil esses in the title. C-.)

Tagline(s) – The night of February 5, 1976, George and Kathleen Lutz fled their home in Amityville, New York. They got out alive! Their living nightmare shocked audiences around the world in “The Amityville Horror”. But before them, another family lived in this house and were caught by the original evil. They weren’t so lucky… this is their story! (F)

(Nope. Let me know when you finish reading it so I can reiterate: No way.)

Keyword(s) – 1983-1991

Best Options (Horror): 58.3 Amityville 3-D (1983), 45.7 Children of the Corn (1984), 45.4 DeepStar Six (1989), 42.4 Shocker (1989), 41.9 House II: The Second Story (1987), 37.9 Invaders from Mars (1986), 37.7 Return of the Living Dead II (1988), 32.7 The Seventh Sign (1988), 30.1 Creepshow 2 (1987), 28.3 The Phantom of the Opera (1989), 26.5 My Demon Lover (1987), 26.0 Bad Dreams (1988), 25.6 The Unholy (1988), 25.3 The First Power (1990), 24.2 Dark Angel (1990), 23.4 Popcorn (1991), 22.4 Nightmares (1983), 21.6 Dead Heat (1988), 20.8 The Believers (1987), 17.7 Phantasm II (1988)

(This film is actually a little outside the window, it is being done as a bonus. As you can see though, Amityville 3-D was just so good we couldn’t pass it up.)

Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 14) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Burt Young is No. 2 billed in Amityville II: The Possession and No. 3 billed in Rocky V, which also stars Sylvester Stallone (No. 1 billed) who is in The Expendables 3 (No. 1 billed) which also stars Jason Statham (No. 2 billed) who is in In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (No. 1 billed) which also stars Leelee Sobieski (No. 3 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 1 billed) => (2 + 3) + (1 + 1) + (2 + 1) + (3 + 1) = 14. If we were to watch Rocky IV, and The Glass House we can get the HoE Number down to 13.

Notes – In a 2018 interview, Diane Franklin talked about her infamous incestuous sex scene. She said while she definitely understood the peculiarity of it, she didn’t have a huge issue with doing it. “I never had a brother, so luckily, I didn’t have that association or the weirdness that went along with it.” Franklin did admit filming the scene did end up being very awkward, but not because of the content. It was the producers who made her nervous. Shot in Mexico with no parents or chaperones at her side, the script called for the actress to appear topless, which she agreed to because she had no issue taking off her top in front of cast and crew. She’d already done it in The Last American Virgin (1982). But when producers tried to persuade her to go fully nude, she balked and successfully stood her ground. “They said I was beautiful and they really wanted me to do it. I said thank you very much but no.” Franklin laughed. “They got around it by shooting me from the back, which I had no say in. And that was that.”

Jan and Mark Montelli were portrayed by real life brother and sister Erika Katz and Brent Katz.

According to an interview with George Lutz at website Horror.com, (Lutz’ twenty-eight days in the real-life house provided the base for The Amityville Horror (1979)), Lutz wanted this sequel to be based on John G. Jones’ book “The Amityville Horror Part II”, the sequel novel which recounts the aftermath of the Lutz family escaping the house, but still experiencing paranormal events. However, producer Dino De Laurentiis, in conjunction with American International Pictures, made this sequel based on Hans Holzer’s book “Murder in Amityville”, which is a prequel that recounts the events that led to the DeFeo family deaths instead. Lutz sued De Laurentiis. He was unsuccessful but did manage to force them to out a disclaimer on the posters that read “This film has no affiliation with George and Kathy Lutz.”

Debut theatrical feature film of actor Jack Magner whose only other screen acting credit after this movie was in Stephen King’s Firestarter (1984).

The house in the film, as in the original The Amityville Horror (1979) movie, is not the actual house as depicted in the best-selling novel, as that dwelling was unavailable to shoot in for both films. The home in both movies was a Colonial style replica situated in Toms River, New Jersey.

Awards – Nominee for the Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actress (Rutanya Alda)