Urband Scream What You Did Last Summer Legend

A teen slasher that includes urban legends AND a cat fake-out? Innovation was a BIG thing in the late ‘90s.

Quick Plot: It's a poorly lit night on Lovers (Lovers', right?) Lane when two teenagers' front seat lovemaking is rudely interrupted by an escaped mental patient with a hook hand cutting up the couple in a nearby car. In a shocking twist, the victims aren't horny high schoolers but the wife of the town sheriff (and mother to 4-year-old Mandy) and the husband of the school principal (and dad to Michael). 

You'd think that this would be scandalous, but somehow this small town seems to bury the crime from everyone but Mandy, who saw the messy cleanup. As far as the rest of the town knows, Michael's dad died of a heart attack and since the hook dude was returned to his asylum (conveniently run by Mandy's creepy-and-not-at-all-suspicious Uncle Jack), nobody ever seemed to realize that a brutal urban legend-worthy double homicide took place so close. 

Thirteen years later, Mandy is a nerdy high school senior who reads J.D. Salinger while Michael is the BMOC with a blond queen bee of a girlfriend named Chloe (who we at some point find out is Uncle Jack's daughter and therefore Mandy's cousin; there are apparently all of 19 people living in this entire town). With a Valentine's Day kegger scheduled for the evening, new girl in town and on the cheerleader squad Janelle (seconds-before-Scary-Movie Anna Faris) sets her sights on Michael, who has just dumped the bitter Chloe. 

A few more poorly lit teenagers team up for a night on the titular street  unaware that the hook-handed murderer has escaped and is on the prowl. What follows is a fairly straightforward, SUPER poorly lit slasher that gets some minor redemption with the oh-so-Scream-worthy reveal of its twist.

Lovers(‘) Lane is not a good movie. The story has been told a dozen times before, the tension is as tight as a sweater three sizes too large, and the murders are fairly uninspired. That being said, Lovers(‘) Lane is also one of THE most ‘90s movies I’ve seen in some time, and for purely nostalgic, very stupid reasons, that makes it slightly better than it should be. 

Just take a look:

Oversized shirt with a single big vertical stripe, modified mushroom cut, hemp choker, and baggy jeans for the boys. Boyfriend's letterman jacket and baby barrettes for the girls. This is a movie that seems to include a pig sighting purely for the purpose of having its characters reference Babe. Mind you, this in no way improves the quality of Lovers(‘) Lane. It merely makes it weirdly enjoyable for someone who graduated with the class of 2000.

High Points

I love a good mean girl, and Sarah Lancaster’s Chloe gets to have some sneering fun with the occasional bitchy insult

Low Points

Look, I get that director Jon Ward wasn’t given buckets of money to make this movie, but considering how much he saved on his female characters’ bra budget, would it have killed him to invest a little more in lighting his film so we could, you know, see it?

Lessons Learned

The rules of Lovers(') Lane states that only one partner can ever hear anything suspicious happening outside of the parked car

The majority of teen-related car accidents happen because everybody inside the car is screaming and flailing to dangerous levels of chaos at once

Unless you’re wearing some form of facial armor, do your best to avoid hunting down your fellow classmates during yearbook photo season

The Winning Line

"I wish I was her daddy so I could spank her when she got home."

Spoken by a representative of law enforcement. Um.

Rent/Bury/Buy

Lovers(‘) Lane is near the bottom of the barrel of Scream ripoffs,  but if the idea of that barrel smelling like Surge and CK1 excites you, then hey, why not kill 90 minutes via Amazon Prime?

Halloween: Water

I was a sunny 16 in 1998, toiling away behind the concession stand of now closed movie theater when Jamie Lee Curtis returned to the genre that made her famous. Halloween: H20 (we'll get to that title, don't you worry) didn't impress me then, it feeling far too tame and sleek, a false-classy picture trying to distance itself form the Dead Teenager chapter of cinema it had birthed.  Thirteen years and Netflix Instant Watch later, it felt right to revisit the film and see how well it held up.

Also, I was really thirsty and H20--I'll stop now. 

Because I won't later.

Quick Plot: Twenty years after Michael’s ’78 autumn slaughter, Laurie Strode is now living an assumed identity as the headmistress of a snooty prep school in Northern California. Having faked her death  to avoid being associated with parts 4-6 in case her brother came back, Laurie now spends her days slurping down Chardonnay, necking with the school guidance counselor, and coddling her 17 year old son John (played by the “introduced” Josh Hartnett). John does as a good-looking young man in a Kevin Wiliamson-inspired film does and mopes about his independence, looks sharp in a ruffled school uniform, and dotes upon Michelle Williams. 

If only Halloween night’s biggest challenge was sneaking away for a cafeteria sponsored party! Sadly Michael emerges from...well...

a discount mask shop I guess to stab Dr. Loomis’ former nurse in the search for Laurie’s new digs. That turns out to be easy enough that a two-day drive in the vintage car belonging to a murdered woman gets him to his little sister just in time for the entire school to take a vacation without her, her boyfriend, son, son’s girlfriend, sassy security guard, and a few pieces of easy knife fodder.

So. H20. Halloween 7. Halloween: 20 Years Later. Halloween: Liquid

The title is killing me.

A lot of things about Halloween: Water are killing me. Not EVERYTHING. Without question, we can agree that Halloween: Hydrogen + Oxygen surpasses the miasma of its predecessor and Bustariffic followup. But for the film to so haughtily dismiss Parts 4 and 5 as if they’re pure tripe, not classy enough for the return of horror royalty...well, amongst other issues (H Two Oh?), it irks me.

Jamie Lee Curtis is wonderful as Laurie Strode. Was in the ‘70s. Was in the early ‘80s. And yes, still was in the ‘90s. We never doubt for a moment that this is our favorite final girl all grown up, a damaged but secretly strong woman who’s been waiting in fear for the majority of her life. It feels RIGHT watching her stand up to the Boogyman.

Sorry Tyra. There’s an art to this sort of thing.

Unfortunately, a great scream queen doesn’t necessarily make a film. Halloween: The Water Movie is riddled with issues, most of which are indicative of its time and place as a late ‘90s studio horror film. I stopped counting fake-out jump scares when I reached ten within the film’s first thirty minutes. That was exhausting, but then something great happened: I was able to almost NOT watch anything that happened onscreen because these dramatic SOUND CUES would PUNCH ME IN THE EARS whenever something EXCITING was about to HAPPEN..

Or if there was just another jump scare jumping my way.

So that’s part of Halloween: The Liquid You Need To Stay Alive’s problem. Two parts, actually. And there’s a third:

It’s too frickin’ nice.

Now I don’t need the nihilism of a Rob Zombie universe just become the word “Haddonfield” is mentioned. I just need to be scared, to believe the black-eyed boogyman is going to stab his way through whatever blocks his ultimate target. I can’t do that when 1) Michael’s atrocious mask displays some charming baby blues and 2) I don’t buy for one moment that he’ll kill anyone of mild sympathy.

Take, for example, an early scene where a passing driver and her young daughter pull over to a questionable rest stop bathroom. Director Steve Day of the Dead 2008 Miner stages a tense setup as these two female innocents hide behind dingy doors while the black-clad Michael sneaks in. We catch a glimpse of him through the bathroom crack, a terrifying image that wouldn’t give these ladies a chance. Except, of course, he does. All he wants is a ride, which is easy enough to get by grabbing a pocketbook and 


AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!

Ooops, just a spider. 

Nevermind, he’s gone. Carry on.

Look, I don’t WANT to see a cute little girl filleted on the roadside. And I kind of understand the idea that building this early tension is supposed to put us on edge for the later carnage. And that the original Halloween was far from the gratuitous bloodbath folks misremember it as. But when every three minutes, a scene ends with a false danger, it’s hard to EVER care.

It doesn’t help that in true studio form, the body count ends up being too small to form an adequate trivia night team in heaven. The main victims have the word “Main Victim” all but tattooed on their pretty faces, while the ones that SHOULD die because their characters ARE PUT IN EXTREME DANGER BY ONE OF THE MOST DANGEROUS CREATURES IN CINEMA manage to run, stab, get shot, get stabbed, and pretty much tango with Michael before ending the film with their attractive mugs barely bloodied.

One of my problems with the Scream series (SPOILER ALERT) is its obvious reluctance to ever kill the characters fans adore. Dewey clearly survived Part 1 because test audiences were angry, probably scooted through Part 2 for the same reason, and will continue to limp through Scream 86 (or rather, Sc86m, which won’t make sense but neither does ACHE TOO OH so who’s complaining?) until David Arquette actually dies and his clone leaves the acting world to pursue a career in puppeteering. 

Wait, what were we talking about again?

High Points

I can’t hate a movie that opens on a close-up of a shiny steak knife as it slams downward into a fertile pumpkin

There’s a nice subtle touch in crafting Michelle Williams’ Molly as a Laurie-esque character. We don’t get much of her, but just the one scene of having her be the only student to answer an English literature question has a sweet sense of good girl nostalgia

Low Point

While it’s a good gesture to dedicate the film to Donald Pleasence, was studio warfare so intense that they couldn’t use his past dialogue for the early narrated “Dr. Loomis” moments?

Don’t name your film after water. Just. Don’t.

Lessons Learned

People like to read descriptive adjectives (as opposed to the non-descriptive adje--um)

When a bullet grazes you, it also knocks you out and makes you bleed profusely to the point that in no way could you possibly be mistaken for alive

Swinging a knife is about as noisy an action as turning on factory equipment or mowing one's lawn

Credits Curiosity

Initially, I was charmed to see a teenage Joseph Gordon-Levitt mucking around in a hockey mask and stealing his neighbor’s beer to earn a rollerblade throat slash. It was a cute pre-credits cameo that’s even more charming 13 years later when Levitt became a genuine star (rather than a grown-up Angels In the Outfield seer). But see...he dies before the credits. So why does his name even come up?

And just who edited all those jump scares? A soon-to-be 3D titan known as Patrick Lussier

Trick It/Treat It/Drink It/Bathe In It

Halloween: The Awfully Titled Sequel is silcker than most anything else in the series, with better than usual performances and some genuinely well-staged scenes of suspense. At the same time, it's flawed in a way only good money could buy and personally, rather indicative of what went wrong with theatrical horror in the 1990s. It's certainly worth a viewing for Halloween fans, as seeing Jamie Lee Curtis battle her big brother is as rewarding as it should be. But as a movie...well...it depends on your tolerance for 98,778,425 and counting jump scares and an equal amount of obnoxiously aggressive sound cues.

And the biggest non-spoiled issue of Screfourem is...

quite hair raising

Hayden Panettiere sports one of the oddest cinematic hairdos since Whitney Able in Monsters or well, Courteney Cox in Scream 3. 

We will never forget

It's not that this attractive young actress can't handle a crop. She has a lovely little face that could easily pull off a pixie cut, but what part of common sense was her stylist lacking when he/she decided to keep the front pieces long enough that they required the strange tie-back? It's baffling and frankly, the scariest sight I've seen on the big screen since that dancing dwarf thing rocked out to Tiny Tim in Insidious.

While we're on the subject of hair, allow me to raise a second point of contention: Woodsboro's severe lack of scrunchies. Does NO ONE in this town own a Goody pack of hair ties?

Well, Marley Shelton’s Deputy Judy does, but note how she uses bobby pins to keep most of her ponytail back, yet fashionably keeps large grown-out bang strands in her face the entire film. Sure, they're blond and therefore light enough to generally see through, but doesn't an officer of the law have more important things to worry about than constantly blowing those angles out of her eyes? No wonder her lemon squares taste like rumps (paraphrased from Gale Weathers-Riley's potty mouth).

These are the details that can sometimes prevent me from loving a film. Prime flip side example: The Running Man. There Maria Conchita Alonso is, sweating in spandex and fighting for her life. Her rich dark locks sure look lovely flowing through underground hockey rinks, but what crosses this film into successful four-star territory is that choice her character makes to grab that mane, twist it around and efficient prevent it from becoming a stalker's easy handle.

Apologies for the HairCare PSA. I just sometimes find it necessary to shout out the truth.

Oh and Scream 4? 

I liked it.

I suppose I could go into a deeper analysis on what the Scream franchise has meant to me and my generation of horror fans, but many a blogger has done that over the last few weeks. Scream 4 (or Scre4m, which doesn’t really make sense because Screfourem sounds more like an algebra equation or mild infection than horror film) is not in any ways a perfect film. Some of the dialogue gets clunky. The kills are repetitive, since there’s apparently only so many things you can do with a kitchen knife that doesn't involve stabbing or slicing assy lemon squares. Gale and Dewey's relationship feels sad and leaves me pondering what a now unemployed big city reporter-turned-suburban housewife has been doing for ten years (answer: lots of Botox). 

A meta line about cheating makes me feel uncomfortable. The apparent eternal youth of Sidney Prescott (who looks EXACTLY THE SAME) makes me wonder if either a) Neve Campbell started sharing Vanna White's virgin blood moisturizer or b) Neve Campbell has just always looked 30. And finally, we're introduced to the emptiest hospital since 28 Days Later, where I beg any and all of you to never end up in because through screaming, pulled monitors, power outages and gunshots, no staff member will dare pass by to check on your status.

Then

Now

All that aside, Screfourem was a fun theatrical experience, particularly in the company of a full audience that jumps and shouts in all the right places. I won't delve into any spoilers here, but I do thoroughly recommend the film to anyone that considers themselves a fan of the franchise. It doesn't come near matching the freshness of the original or wit of part 2, but it knows enough to still be a horror movie (unlike the goofy 3) while getting with the times and satirically playing with the modern tropes and cliches of the genre as it stands in the 21st century. 

Is it everything someone who used to have Scream memorized was living for? Not quite. Is it a good time and $13 well spent? Absolutely.

Now about that hair...

Let the Wrong One Live: The 5 Worst Survivors In Horror History

As some of you know and others don't care about, I spent the last year or so contributing to Pop Syndicate, a recently renovated website that lost all its past content (and writers). The following article appeared in 2009 and since you can't find it anywhere else in InterWorld, I'm rerunning it here. Apologies for the deja vu.

Don’t you hate it when the wrong ones get away? While the majority of kill-heavy horror films know the proper hunting formula, every now and then, some undeserving soul smiles triumphantly in the final freeze frame, leaving the audience to scratch their heads and sit through seven minutes or so of badly scored credits, waiting in the hope that the director was saving his final kill for those with patience to spare.

What follows is a spoiler-rich countdown of films that leave us wanting more...blood. Specifically, enough to drain the life out of a survivor or two.

5. Day and Land of the Dead

Some critics have observed that Uncle Romero has softened in recent years, but I take it one step back and argue he’s still burning off the sweetness from eating too many chocolate Bonkers in the 80s. Day of the Dead has a fine collection of Savini packaged blood and guts, but the fact that none come out of the bodies of any ‘good’ character takes a certain depth out of the movie. Likewise, Land of the Dead loses a sympathetic John Lequizamo, but once again, our rather dull heroes get to ride off into the twilight in full force. There’s a reason so many people felt empty at the end of Romero’s quadrilogy finale: very little happened to the people we were meant to care about.  I do realize that Diary of the Dead has a richer body count, but, well...I just didn’t care enough about the living or deceased to really include it here.

4. Kingdom of the Spiders

There's no reason for William Shatner's heroic veterinarian to die in this 1977 tarantula flick...no reason, except, say, the fact that he gets bitten by about twenty DDT enhanced arachnids who had previously proved that one nibble was enough to take down a horse. Was there some sort of antidote in Kirk’s far too prominent belt buckle? Did the tightness of his jeans prevent the venom from spreading through his doughy body? Even if his (and quite possibly the rest of the world’s) fate is left tangled up in webs, Shatner’s survival is a cheat.

3. Snakes On a Plane

If you build your marketing campaign around earning an R rating, you have a responsibility to your ticket buying public to provide inventive kills and little mercy. Snakes On a Plane never got that memo, as observed by the surviving characters that include the bland leading man, an obnoxious Beverly Hills brat actually named Mercedes, and worst of all, two bratty little kids who should have been marked for death in the first reel. Even a dud like 1976's Rattlers  had the nerve to knock off a few obnoxious child actors in the pre-credit sequence. Snakes On a Plane, on the other hand, teased us with bad assery and delivered a de-fanged bite.

2. Silent NIght, Deadly Night

As my Catholic school-educated mother has often said, nuns are evil. Mother Superior (Jean Miller), the primary villain in this notorious 1986 Santa Clause slasher, is arguably the least likable character in a film exclusively populated by extremely unlikable characters. You'd think the filmmakers--who so clearly hate everything in this world--would revel in the chance take a few shots at a God-fearing and child-hating Dominican. You'd think wrong. Somehow the woman partially responsible for harnessing little Billy’s psychotic tendencies and mind-boggling confusion over what Santa Clause actually does gets to celebrate another Christmas (probably by slapping the wrists of orphans with a candy cane). The only redeeming factor is that the world’s meanest nun loses her habited head in the gloriously bad sequel.

1. Scream 3

By all accounts, David Arquette’s bumbling Sheriff Dwight Riley should never have survived Wes Craven’s first installment of this meta-slasher. I’ll accept the fact that Dewy was just too gosh darn lovable for test screen audiences to mourn. I’ll even give him a free pass for Part 2 since Randy was sacrificed. But by the third installment, his number was up. Remember the ads that boasted how no one was safe? Apparently they were referring to Jenny McCarthy, the other guy from Felicity, and the token black dude. We loyal fans, who survived Courteney Cox’s bangs and Nev Campbell’s squints, get to end with the lamest double date in horror history. 

So dear bloodthirsty readers, please share your cravings: which last men, women, and children standing would you like to see get a much more exciting alternate ending?