Horror Franchise Thread

[Newb82]

I don't ask slasher movies to be terribly logical, but F13 Part 2 really baffles me. I thought it was great that a killer actually got to murder a survivor girl for once, but Holy Shit, did Alice fucking live twenty minutes away from the camp where she was nearly killed no less than three times?  Jason bumps Alice off right in her own neighborhood and then apparently walks back with her corpse and his mother's head undetected just in time to murder a new set of counselors. If I were Alice, I'd have moved clear accross the country, or maybe even left the Untied States.

I've come to rationalize the opening to PART II as an urban legend that's told in Crystal Lake and the surrounding area that gained traction because Alice went as far away as she could and changed her name.

[piranesi]

That opening supposes that the mental deficient, illiterate, deformed, rasied-in-the-woods Jason was able to track this girl down, knowing nothing about her.

 

Presumably at that time, this meant getting a library card and usng the microfiche reader to investigate news reports from the previous year.  And then after finding out her name, getting a copy of the police report to find out where in the northeast she actually lived.  Then taking a bus to her town, but she wasn't there.  She was recovering somewhere else. 

 

So he would need to do some reconnaissance on her family, maybe dsicreetly ask around or check their mail to find out what town she was staying.  Then another bus, or maybe a train ride there, where he would need to find out where one rents a house, maybe check the local realtors or newspaper sections and see if he can break into the main office and find out who rented to her and at what address.

 

This, he would do without

 

1) being able to read

2) being able to communicate

3) being able to drive or travel

4) understanding money and commerce

5) being able to reason beyond the level of an eight-year-old

6) a face

 

also he has a decaying head with him the whole time.

 

I want to see that movie.

[Jingus]

Freddy feeding on fear absolutely does NOT go back to the original.  Rewatch that shit.  It's halfway through the movie before Nancy has a damn clue who Fred Krueger is, and he's killing them fine without them knowing him.  Or at, least, not in the way it works in FvJ

It's a plot hole, but not a dealbreaker for me.  At least it tries to keep halfway within the established rules of the series by using the "Freddy needs people to be afraid of him" aspect, even if it's using it in a completely backwards way.  (And I liked the idea that the current Springwood adults had engaged in another different conspiracy to get rid of Kruger, and bringing back the asylum and Hypnocil from part 3.)  It also at least attempts to explain HOW Freddy came back this time, as opposed to all his sequels where he just pops back up again despite being "forever destroyed" in the previous movie.  

 

Ditto with Jason being afraid of water; yeah, some of the earlier movies contradict that, but they needed something to humanize him a little bit and that's really the only possible thing (besides his mother) that Jason could arguably be afraid of.

 

The fact that Michael could drive was fucking great and I loved that Carpenter never explained why.  There was far more to Myers than met the eye.

 

Psycho killers shrugging off bullets is a slasher staple.  You can accept it because it is what it is and that's how killers are in these sorts of movies, but Carpenter made it a point to show Myers being blinded after being shot DIRECTLY IN THE EYES~!  And then the fucking hospital blows up and Myers is turned into a walking Roman Candle

I think Loomis said that someone must've taught Michael how to drive, which I guess kinda makes sense.  Except for the fact that Michael really should've killed whoever it was in the car with him, but whatever.  

 

And yeah, Michael's ridiculous superpowers do get really annoying.  "He's EVIL~!" doesn't begin to explain how he could survive all the damage that's been done to him.  (To slightly misuse a line from my favorite recent slasher, "A chainsaw don't make you bullet-proof!")  HOW MANY TIMES has he been shot now?  Seriously, it's a number you can count in the dozens, that's just goddamned laughable.  I think the highest confirmed record for survived gunshot wounds is a dude who took twenty-one bullets and lived, and Michael easily beats that.  Ditto with how stupidly strong Michael is portrayed as, there's no way any human being can do stuff like jam their thumb right through someone's forehead.  

 

You want to play continuity games, well, here comes Friday the 13th!  Jason was cremated!  Here's his body!  We changed the town's name!  It's Crystal Lake again!  It's a tiny little camp!  It's a big lake with a camp on one side, and another camp ground on the other!  It's a fucking community with a gigantic shoreline!  The lake connects to the ocean!

If not for a certain series involving swordfighting aliens from the planet Zeist Scottish immortals, F13 would have THE worst continuity of any movie ever.  Although at times the original Godzilla series comes close.  And I'm not counting those like Texas Chainsaw which are constantly rebooted and go out of their way to explicitly say that some of the previous sequels don't exist, I mean those in which the continuity is simply never explained.  (One of the incredibly few nice things I have to say about the Saw franchise is that at least it played fair with its own history.)  Friday the 13th simply does not give a single fuck if it insults its fans' intelligence, and so almost every film in the series does something which flatly contradicts the previous entries.  

 

Ft13th has no continutiy whatsoever. Fuck, 2-4 are supposed to take place on successive days. Think about that.

I love the weak way they tried to hand-wave away some of his injuries.  Part 2 showed us that he'd practically been split down the middle with a machete (although the damn "it's a dream... or was it?" ending makes the entire thing arbitrary and pointless), so part 3 opens up with him pulling the machete out and pretending that it wasn't THAT deep a wound.  And though he looked pretty damn dead at the end of part 3, they just act like the axe in his skull didn't phase him THAT much for part 4. And then part 6 ignores both that he was cremated, and that his body should be in like twenty different pieces after Corey Feldman's mad machete rampage.  Then amazingly parts 7 and 8 play kinda sorta fair with the previous endings (as long as we ignore that nonsensical bit about the psychic girl's childhood and her father being in the lake).  Part 9 begins with the biggest fuck-you to the previous movie by simply ignoring part 8's ending altogether and not even trying to explain how Jason recovered and returned to Crystal Lake, then part X ups the ante by pretending that part 9 didn't happen at all, and then the Freddy crossover does the same to part X (or at least pretends that the beginning of part X happens sometime in the vaguely-determined not-so-distant future).  I mean, CHRIST that's an awful continuity snarl, fucking Hawkman's infamously convoluted backstory looks linear and sane in comparison.

 

I don't see the racism in Friday 3. Yeah, two of the bikers are black, but they ride with a white dude. They're also assholes in general thus making them perfect victims.

 

EDIT: does it make it sexist because one of the bikers is black AND female? C'mon.

The racism comes when they go to the store.  The "Hispanic" girl goes up to the counter, and before she even begins to pay or do anything, the clerk angrily says that they don't accept food stamps.  And so... she turns around and asks her friend for money!  She apparently really WAS going to pay with food stamps, because all those wetbacks are lazy unemployed commies who sponge off the government!  Jesus wept.  And casting the most white-looking "Latina" in the world was awful as well.  

[Newb82]

The cashier is a racist hick. IIRC, Vera tells Shelley she forgot her wallet.

[Newb82]

I forgot to mention after I finished H20 how funny it is that Laurie/Kari is easily able to hijack the coroner's van with Michael inside, and now no one seems to give a shit once she drives off.

Also, one thing I didn't notice until this viewing: When Josh Hartnet & Michelle Williams meet JLC and her bf after that awesomely tense "close call" scene. the adults ask the kids if they're ok. They note Josh getting stabbed, and say nothing about finding their two friends brutally murdered.

[Jingus]

They note Josh getting stabbed, and say nothing about finding their two friends brutally murdered.

WAY too many violent movies do that kind of amnesiac bullshit.  At the end, everyone's all happy and smiling and laughing... totally forgetting that everyone these people have ever loved all died very recently.  That's another reason I love The Burning, for all the kids' completely traumatized reactions to finding their dead friends.  

[FluffSnackwell]

Franchise nitpick time.

 

Just so we’re all on the same page here, everybody does realize that TCM III: Leatherface was a remake? Or reboot if you like.

 

For starters, Leatherface was always a human so there’s no way he survived having his intestines chainsawed out in TCM 2. No fucking way.

 

Furthermore the real original Leatherface (as portrayed by Gunnar Hansen I mean….not Ed Gein) was nothing more than a severely mentally handicapped manchild who only protected his territory like a frightened animal in the original….or in the case of TCM 2 his bastard brothers sicced him like a rabid dog on poor unfortunate pricks who either offended them or were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

 

But the total domineering badass donning the deadskin mask in TCM III? He’s a mean as nails alpha male who even has a penchant for raping of all things. The de facto patriarch of this particular Sawyer clan does try to scold him which turns out to be a bad mistake on his part.  Nope, it’s awful clear who the real man of the house is in this version.  And it’s not that fucking redneck henchman guy from Roadhouse who kinda sorta looks like the discount version of James Remar.

 

The other thing that seems kind of obvious is that out of the original run of TCM movies, Part III clearly had the most influence on Platinum Dune’s 2003 re-imagining.  Besides both movies featuring an alpha male Leatherface that’s as mean as a snake both movies feature Leather surrounded by random white trash (even including an old hag mama that looks like any other old hag which really goes against the very core concept of the original two movies: men behaving badly…….shit downright barbaric….. without a mother figure around to keep them in check.)

 

And yes, for as good as he was with his sick sense of humor in the remake, random white trash applies to Ermey too since he was playing the same character he always does….only transplanted into a genre movie and gone off the deep end. To me, that’s not the same as having distinct characters like the Cook, Hitchhiker and Chop Top and how they fit into the narrative of the original two movies.  Hell, when you get right down to it, it’s a pretty huge waste that the remake didn’t have Gunnary Sergeant Hartman and Leatherface butt heads at all.

 

I will admit that I still get more authentic chuckles from ‘Fredo and his constant mumbling to himself than anything Chop Top did in TCM 2; even if it’s easy to see why Chop Top is rightfully iconic and ‘Fredo is a generic afterthought in the franchise. All in all, if TCM III: Leatherface only had the requisite balls to kill characters and have them stay dead it wouldn't have been all that bad. At least it didn't go the blatantly formulaic route that the Platinum Dune movies did where a tiny little final girl had to mutilate this souped up version of Leatherface on steroids. "I get it already; TCM Remake (and soulless money-grubbing prequel to remake); you're a derivative piece of dogshit fully aware of how late you're coming along in the genre!"

 

I also genuinely dig the cheesy eighties metal theme song from TCM III. Rawk it, Laaz Rockit!

[Newb82]

THE FINAL DESTINATION was the worst. The guy who got his insides sucked out by a pool drain doesn't even have his death mentioned in any way despite him supposedly being friends with the core group, and the main guy completely no-sells another character getting plowed over by an ambulance inches away from his face in order to save his gf.

[Newb82]

I've only seen LEATHERFACE once years ago and was so thuroughly bored that I missed all of that.

[Newb82]

Random, out-of-context quote from CRYSTAL LAKE MEMORIES:

"There's a big group of people out there who have never seen a big black dick before. We can exploit this."

[FluffSnackwell]

I've only seen LEATHERFACE once years ago and was so thuroughly bored that I missed all of that.

 

It sure as shit didn't deliver on whatever that Excalibur trailer was supposed to be promising.

 

I'll still take that cheesy ass mess over Next Generation..... which I sincerely hope was the aftermath of a Kim Henkel crack binge gone awry.

[bink_winkleman]

Oh, Dear Lord, if there is one thing I will never accuse horror films of, it's continuity.  I think that geographically, Camp Crystal Lake lies on the West Coast somewhere between British Columbia and Chile.  Probably not in Central America because it is obviously too humid.

 

Oh, and you smart towns folks renamed the town from Crystal Lake to Forrest Green, but that still leaves the actual fucking lake itself with the name Crystal Lake, right? 

 

And you renamed the town yet you still have a standard horror movie old crazy person that knows the town's dirty secret to replace the previous standard horror movie old crazy person that got garroted with barbed wire in an earlier film.

 

Isn't it in New Jersey?  And I think Elm Street is in Iowa, so the scene in FvJ where they drive from Elm Street to Crystal Lake is just fantastic.

[Newb82]

Crystal Lake is in New Jersey. Springwood is in Ohio.

[bink_winkleman]

Ah, I was thinking it was further out in the midwest.  Still a bit of a road trip.

 

I really need to revisit TCM III.

 

And as someone who never was the biggest Halloween fan, I did enjoy the third one quite a bit when I was a kid.  Haven't seen it in ages.

[HumanChessgame]

The final installment of the [rec] series is now being filmed.  Even though I'm not fond of found footage/handheld POV horror movies, this series has been very consistently good.  The final act of the first movie and several parts of the second (which is probably my favorite of the series) was genuinely creepy.  The unique twist they put on the zombie virus was an original take on it that was actually quite interesting.  The third film was a bit on the cheesy side, albeit intentionally so, and the way they worked in the less serious aspects actually worked.  I also give it points for getting away from the handheld gimmick.  I'm anxious to see how they wrap it up.

[Brian Fowler]

I don't see the racism in Friday 3. Yeah, two of the bikers are black, but they ride with a white dude. They're also assholes in general thus making them perfect victims.

 

EDIT: does it make it sexist because one of the bikers is black AND female? C'mon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don't see the racism in Friday 3. Yeah, two of the bikers are black, but they ride with a white dude. They're also assholes in general thus making them perfect victims.

 

EDIT: does it make it sexist because one of the bikers is black AND female? C'mon.

The racism comes when they go to the store.  The "Hispanic" girl goes up to the counter, and before she even begins to pay or do anything, the clerk angrily says that they don't accept food stamps.  And so... she turns around and asks her friend for money!  She apparently really WAS going to pay with food stamps, because all those wetbacks are lazy unemployed commies who sponge off the government!  Jesus wept.  And casting the most white-looking "Latina" in the world was awful as well.  

 

 

Mostly what Jingus said, but lets not forget that the two black gang members were also the first two black characters that actually spoke in the franchise, which doesn't help the argument.

 

The cashier is a racist hick. IIRC, Vera tells Shelley she forgot her wallet.

 

I am fairly certain she does not mention forgetting her wallet, although I would need to pop it in to be sure.  My memory is we get the food stamps line, she turns, asks Shelly for his wallet with no further lines, and then we get the biker gang set up.

[JRGoldman]

I was very tired last night, and was baffled about why we were having a discussion about the racism in the third Friday movie. 

 

As an aside, a movie with Jason, Freddy, Chris Tucker and Ice Cube would probably be the best movie ever made. 

[Newb82]

Just checked the scene in question in Ft13th 3-D. Vera does not say she forgot her wallet, but was searching her pants and shirt pocket during the "food stamps" line.

[FluffSnackwell]

 

 

The Hidden is one of those great '80s films that NOBODY talks about. It's a synthesis of The Terminator and T2 with Kyle MacLauchlan! What's not to like?

 

 

and Clu MOTHERFUCKING GULAGER!!!!

 

 

I am disappointed. Everyone knows that the real bonus of The Hidden is Claudia Christian's epic five minutes of screen time as Brenda the alien possessed stripper.

 

Since this is kinda NSFW,

 

 

The track playing on the radio while she is sexually murdering the guido in the lime green Caddie is Say Goodbye by Hunters & Collectors, a lost gem of 80's.  Aussie pub funk fucking rules.

 

 

 

 

 

Welp, you still left out the next best detail; the fact that "The Hidden" was the very next thing Jack Sholder directed after helming that fabulous Freddy sequel.  I'm thinking the only way dude's career could've gotten much wackier was if he ended up directing Sonny Boy featuring David Carradine in drag as Pearl.

[J.T.]

I enjoyed [REC] one and two.  I hated the first Quarrantine movie because it was a shot for shot remake and tried to use some bullshit Resident Evil-light angle to explain away the supernatural elements of [REC], but Quarrantine 2 was acceptable because it went its own way... even though that way had already been clamed by 28 Days Later / 28 Weeks Later.

 

I am hesitant to watch the third [REC] movie because it looks like self parody.

[FluffSnackwell]

The final installment of the [rec] series is now being filmed.  Even though I'm not fond of found footage/handheld POV horror movies, this series has been very consistently good.  The final act of the first movie and several parts of the second (which is probably my favorite of the series) was genuinely creepy.  The unique twist they put on the zombie virus was an original take on it that was actually quite interesting.  The third film was a bit on the cheesy side, albeit intentionally so, and the way they worked in the less serious aspects actually worked.  I also give it points for getting away from the handheld gimmick.  I'm anxious to see how they wrap it up.

 

I'm in the same boat when it comes to loathing found footage but actually loving the first two REC movies. However most of what I've heard about the 3rd REC movie is that it's no better than any other disposable "zombie/possessed/infected horde" flick that gets churned out now-a-day. Maybe I'll have to give it a shot after all.

[Curt McGirt]

I just think I'm an idiot considering Friday 3 in retrospect, since they had the mother bitching about the girl leaving in Spanish and everything. Now that I think back on it, yeah that was some pretty racist shit. At the same time it makes you feel for her character for being fucked with for no good reason and hopefully that was the intention. 

 

TCM III is pretty solid in retrospect though torn apart in the making by the director and producers. There's a great writeup by David Schow (splatterpunk author of regard) in an old Fangoria about how his script for it was changed. For III he wanted Leatherface to be a chain-smoking rebellious teenager type with leather jacket rebelling against his folks which is a great idea. Interestingly he ended up writing TCM: The Beginning, which is where I credit a great deal of its nastiness.

[FluffSnackwell]

I just think I'm an idiot considering Friday 3 in retrospect, since they had the mother bitching about the girl leaving in Spanish and everything. Now that I think back on it, yeah that was some pretty racist shit. At the same time it makes you feel for her character for being fucked with for no good reason and hopefully that was the intention. 

 

TCM III is pretty solid in retrospect though torn apart in the making by the director and producers. There's a great writeup by David Schow (splatterpunk author of regard) in an old Fangoria about how his script for it was changed. For III he wanted Leatherface to be a chain-smoking rebellious teenager type with leather jacket rebelling against his folks which is a great idea. Interestingly he ended up writing TCM: The Beginning, which is where I credit a great deal of its nastiness.

 

I hated "The Beginning." For one thing while I got sick chuckles out of Ermey's antics in the '03 remake, him torturing the brothers in "The Beginning" dragged on so long and was so humorless and boorish he might as well have been some washed up hack comedian doing a lame ass special chock full of their greatest hits.

 

Also I think the '03 movie was nasty enough for what it was that making things just a little bit nastier wasn't nearly enough to justify a prequel that added nothing else besides that amped up "nastiness."

[Newb82]

The FRIDAY THE 13TH doc from the guys who did NEVER SLEEP AGAIN has a "soft" release date Friday, September 13th. You can order from www.crystallakememories.net . The general release will be on October 8th.

 

I don't like that they weren't creative and went with the same title as the awesome book, and since I own that book, I'm not sure if enough gold can be mined to keep me interested for long, let alone the monstrous 400 MINUTE run-time, plus, if you do order from the site, there's another FOUR HOURS of extended interview footage. Holy fuck. I think I'll wait for some reviews to come in before I even think about picking this one up. At best, it'll go on my birthday/Christmas wish list.

 

EDIT: Looking through the site some more, the doc is "based on" the book. It might take you longer to watch the movie than read the book!

[Brian Fowler]