Category Archives: Adolescence/High School

A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988)

Posted on October 28, 2013 | 1 comment

nightmare on elm street 4

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Freddy won’t go away.

Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) tracks down and kills the last of the three remaining Elm Street teens, but Kristen (Tuesday Knight) wills her dream powers to her friend Alice (Lisa Wilcox) who now finds herself taking on the different traits of the past victims.  As Freddy tries to draw on a new batch of teen victims she fights him off with her new found abilities.

What started out as a highly original idea has now become formulaic. I didn’t find any of it scary, or even all that entertaining. The nightmare segments are redundant and the storyline cluttered. I wasn’t wrapped at all in the perils of any of the characters and would be surprised why anyone would. The whole series would’ve worked better had it stuck with the original Nancy character solely being the victim of the dreams and her lifelong battle against Krueger instead of always having some new character being the victim of the nightmares, which starts to make it derivative.

The dialogue is stilted and the characters are cardboard. The acting is also uniformly bad. Past entries in the series have had teen cast member go on to super stardom, but it is easy to see why this one didn’t. Due to being pregnant Patricia Arquette was unable to reprise her role as Kristen and Knight makes for a very weak replacement. I also didn’t like Wilcox because she seemed to resemble Sissy Spacek and started to remind me too much of the original Carrie. I did appreciate Danny Hassel as Dan simply because his wooden acting and one-note facial expressions aptly reflected the dull personality of your average high school jock.

The special effects are okay. The part where Alice is at a movie theater and gets sucked into an old movie is groovy as is watching the attractive Brooke Theiss morph into a giant cockroach. The segment where the souls of Freddy’s victims burst out of his body is excellent and the best moment of the entire film. However, other effects like having the heads of Freddy’s victims on sausages of a giant pizza are too silly.

Englund is in top form and really seems to be having fun. The part where he bursts out of a water bed and asks Joey (Rodney Eastman) “How’s this for a wet dream?” is fun as are his other choice lines. Englund even appears briefly as a female nurse and does as the Freddy character a rap song during the closing credits.

The series at this point looks to be dying a slow death with not enough new elements being added in and too much rehashing of the same old stuff. It seems incredulous to me that another two entries were made before the concept was finally retooled.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: August 19, 1988

Runtime: 1Hour 32Minutes

Rated R

Director: Renny Harlin

Studio: New Line Cinema

Available: VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 80's Movies, Adolescence/High School, Cult, Horror, Movies with Nudity, Sequels, Slasher/Gore

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A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985)

Posted on October 14, 2013 | 1 comment

nightmare on elm street 2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: More dreams more Freddy.

A new family has moved into the house on Elm Street where Nancy from the first film once lived and who is now locked away in a mental institution. The family’s son Jesse (Mark Patton) starts to have the same reoccurring nightmares dealing with child murderer Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund), but this time Freddy wants to overtake Mark’s entire body and use it as a killing machine to the other youths in the area.

As sequels go this one is okay. I liked the idea that it is a continuation from the first one and not just a reworking of it. Trying to evolve the idea to the next level by having Krueger actually possessing the kid is interesting and the scene where Kruger’s head pushes out of Jesse’s stomach is good. However, it also gets away from the whole dream element that made the first one unique and turns the thing into just another slasher formula. Freddy only appears for 13 minutes during the 84 minute runtime, which isn’t enough as the pace and tension starts to ebb towards the middle. A little too much focus is put on Jesse and his emotional quandary at knowing what this evil spirit is trying to do, which turns it into more of a drama than a horror film. The climatic sequence that takes place in the boiler room where Freddy used to work when he was still alive becomes a bit too melodramatic and not that scary.

I would have liked some flashbacks showing what Freddy was like when he was alive and before he got burned and some history showing what might have lead him into becoming a child murderer in the first place. I also couldn’t help but wonder why Freddy only seems to torment the dreams of the teen characters. Why not Jesse’s parents as well? One could argue that as a child murderer Freddy was only interested in terrorizing young people, but then why not get into the dreams of Jesse’s younger sister Christie (Angela Walsh), which he never does.

Spoiler Alert!

This film also has one of the biggest plot holes I have ever seen and far more glaring than the ones you usually see in most other films of this genre. It all has to do with a party sequence in which Jesse turns into Freddy and starts killing off the other teen attendees. This was not dream, but reality, which was witnessed by many other people including Lisa’s parents. Yet at the end when Jesse somehow returns to ‘normal’ he boards the school bus where his friends make statements to the effect that he should just ‘forget about’ the party incident and everyone is ready to move on, but how does that happen? With the amount of carnage seen by the viewer the police and media would certainly have to investigate and the parents of the victims would want answers. Just ‘forgetting about’ something like that would not be a realistic option and the filmmakers attempts to gloss over what ends up being the movie’s biggest event is patently ridiculous.

End of Spoiler Alert!

Director Jack Sholder spends a lot of time focusing in on Krueger’s glove with its finger-like blades, but the more I saw them the less scary they became. The blades look awfully thin and flimsy and have no ridges or teeth on them. They look so dull that they would barely be able to cut through butter let alone human skin.

I did like that the lead victim was a male this time and it was nice seeing a teen character with sophisticated tastes as I spotted Jack Kerouac’s ‘On the Road’ novel laying on his bedside table. The scenes inside the high school and some of his conversations with his friends seemed less cardboard than usual. I also liked that Jesse manages to make friends with Grady (Robert Rusler) who initially comes-off as a stereotypical bully, but the scene where Grady speaks with his mouth full of food during a cafeteria sequence is a bit gross.

Jesse’s dealings with his harsh baseball coach (Marshall Bell) gets a bit over-the-top and forcing the boys to do pushups for hours underneath the hot sun would most likely get him fired especially these days. However, watching him get tied up and stripped naked and then whipped by towels in a sort of S & M death sequence is a highlight.

The story and special effects is still creative enough to raise this above the average 80’s slasher film although not all of them are effective. David Chaskin’s screenplay has some intriguing elements, but ends up biting-off-more-than-it-can-chew and creates too many loopholes to be satisfying.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: November 1, 1985

Runtime: 1Hour 24Minutes

Rated R

Director: Jack Sholder

Studio: New Line Cinema

Available: VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 80's Movies, Adolescence/High School, Cult, Horror, Movies with Nudity, Sequels, Slasher/Gore

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A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

Posted on October 7, 2013 | 7 comments

nightmare on elm street

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Freddy’s in their dreams.

Teenager Nancy (Heather Langenkamp) starts having nightmares about a strange man (Robert Englund) with burned skin, a green and red sweater and wearing a glove with sharp finger-like blades. She finds out that her friends are having the same type of dream and that this man is a former child murderer named Fred Krueger who is reaching out from his grave to attack them.

This movie has been parodied and imitated so much over the years that one forgets what an original idea this was. Writer/director Wes Craven uses stark, shadowy lighting and a distinctive music score to build a great horror atmosphere. The name Freddy Krueger, which he named after a childhood bully of his, is inspired. The scene where he appears in a dark alley as a midget with extremely long arms is a creepy image and possibly the scariest moment in the film. The pace is good and the scenarios imaginative making this well above average when compared to a typical 80’s slasher film and a definite classic.

The special effects are also quite creative and although not completely successful still a lot of fun to watch.  I loved the whole bathtub scene as well as the segment where Glen (Johnny Depp) gets sucked inside his bed, which creates a big hole in his mattress where a giant flow of blood comes gushing out of it and covers the entire ceiling and walls of his room. It may not make complete sense, but cool to look at nonetheless. The part where Tina (Amanda Wyss) gets pushed up the wall and ceiling of her room by an invisible force while being slashed is quite scary to watch despite the fact that when a close-up is shown of her skin getting cut it looks more like it is made a of clay and her bloodied body on the floor appears like it where drenched with a bucket of red paint.

heather 2

Langenkamp is fantastic in the lead and I would nominate her as the all-time best heroine of a slasher film. Her face is beautiful, but also quite expressive and she seems to show genuine emotion and far exceeds the typical cardboard scream queen. Her presence and not that of the villainous Freddy, whose screen time here is more limited than you think, is what carries the film. There is also a fun in-joke when she looks in a mirror and states “God, I look like I am 20”, which is funny since despite playing a teen character she really was 20 at the time of the shooting.  (I realize on the DVD commentary she states that she was 18 or 19, but the truth is she was born July 17, 1964 and this was filmed between June and July of 1984, so she was either 20 or very, very close.)

It’s great seeing Johnny Depp in his film debut. He still looks boyish at 50, but here looks like he is barely 10 years old. It is amusing seeing him play a sort-of doofus and he also gets a good line when after hearing Tina and her boyfriend having sex in the other room states “Reality sucks”.

amanda wyss

I also enjoyed Wyss for her amazing piercing blue eyes, but having her willingly go to bed with Rod (Jsu Garcia) an obnoxious, crass, Fonzi wannabe makes her character seem kind of stupid.

John Saxon is competent as Nancy’s father who also works as the town’s police chief, but I couldn’t say the same for Ronee Blakley as the mother. She was unforgettable with her brilliant performance in Nashville, but seemed to be miscast in every film that she did afterwards and it should probably be no surprise that she hasn’t been in any film since 1990. I also didn’t care for her sprayed-on tan look either.

Despite being an enjoyable film there are a few logical inconsistencies that I feel should be addressed. One is that I would argue it is virtually impossible for someone to know that they are in a dream when they are dreaming even though the characters here do. It should also have been better explained how the Freddy character is able to come out of the dream and into real-life, which gets confusing.  The part where Nancy states that she hasn’t slept in seven nights, but doesn’t show any physical or psychological signs of it are too much of a stretch.  Also, I had to chuckle at the part where Nancy comes home to find that her mother has had bars placed on all the windows of the home for added security, but then doesn’t bother to lock the front door as Nancy is able to walk inside without having to use a key.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: November 16, 1984

Runtime: 1Hour 31Minutes

Rated R

Director: Wes Craven

Studio: New Line Cinema

Available: VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 80's Movies, Adolescence/High School, Cult, Horror, Low Budget, Slasher/Gore

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Graduation Day (1981)

Posted on October 3, 2013 | Leave a comment

graduation day

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: Killer slashes track team.

When the high school’s top track star Laura (Ruth Ann Llorens) collapses mysteriously after winning a race strange things start happening to her teammates. One-by-one they get knocked-off by a killer who has a way with swords, but who could it be? Her brash, driven coach (Christopher George) who pushes his players past their breaking point or maybe it’s her strange sister Anne (Patch Mackenzie) who comes back home from the military. The clues and suspects keep piling up, but can the police find the culprit before the entire team gets killed?

Writer Anne Marisse and director Herb Freed teamed up four years earlier to make the very original one-of-a-kind horror film Haunts where they created an excellent atmosphere on a nickel-and-dime budget that is completely lacking here. The scares and suspense even on a cheap level is non-existent. What is even worse is that there is no central character just a mishmash of uninteresting people and scenes that does not help to create any empathy from the viewer nor story momentum.

Freed’s direction is lively to some extent as he does inject some humor and a couple moments were he uses quick flash editing, but his other camera work is off-putting. I particularly got annoyed with a tracking shot showing a person running alongside a moving camera that seemed to make them look like they were on a treadmill, or going unnaturally slow in order to not outrun the camera. This is done several times throughout the film with different characters and the result is very artificial looking. He also features a band named Felony that sings a long seven minute song called ‘Gangster Rock’ that almost turns this thing into a music video. A scene showing a woman being chased by the killer is intercut between the band playing and this takes the viewer out of the film completely and kills what little suspense there already is.

The killings themselves are unimpressive. The scene showing a victim getting beheaded looks too much like it is a mannequin and it is highly doubtful that any sword could make that type of precise and quick cut. Another death features a pole- vaulter  being impaled by a mat full of sharp spikes, which is pretty much ruined when we can clearly seeing that the victim is still breathing even as he lays there with the spikes having gone right through him.

There is logic loopholes as well including having the killer store the Laura’s dead body inside his bedroom and pretend she is still alive, which is too reminiscent to Psycho to be effective or interesting. I also didn’t know how somebody could dig up a dead body from a cemetery and not have the victim’s family, or the cemetery workers not notice. The make-up used to try to make her appear decomposed instead made her look more like she was a member of the KISS rock group.

Michael Pataki hams it up nicely as the school’s beleaguered principal and becomes a scene stealer in the process. Christopher George is so irritable and belligerent with anyone who makes contact with him that he becomes fun as well. Linnea Quigley has a nice topless scene as the horny Delores and Virgil Frye who is the father of Soleil Moor Frye of Punky Brewster fame has a few goofy moments as the school’s incompetent security guard. The funniest though is Patrick Wright as a grungy, overweight truck driver who feels that he is entitled to take liberties with Ann who is returning home from the service simply because he is a ‘taxpayer’.

Sources list Vanna White as the character of Doris, but I didn’t spot her and I don’t feel like going all the back through this cardboard thing again just to see if I can.

My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: May 1, 1981

Runtime: 1Hour 36Minutes

Rated R

Director: Herb Freed

Studio: IFI

Available: DVD, Amazon Instant Video, YouTube 

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Posted in 80's Movies, Adolescence/High School, Horror, Low Budget, Movies with Nudity, Slasher/Gore

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Wedding in White (1972)

Posted on August 23, 2013 | 3 comments

wedding in white 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 8 out of 10

4-Word Review: Ending is a kicker.

Jeannie (Carol Kane) is a shy 16-year-old girl living in a small, bleak Canadian town just after the war who is raped by her older brother’s army buddy. Her parents (Donald Pleasance, Doris Petrie) respond as if it is her fault and resort to some extreme even shocking measures in order to ‘save the family honor’.

This is a solid little drama with good scene construction. The pacing is deliberate and an ending that really packs a wallop. The sets and location look authentic for the period and the characters are believable. Jeannie’s friend Sara (Christine Thomas) seems like a very typical teenager no matter what time period and her interactions with Jeannie show the realities of teenage friendships and makes for an interesting sidelight from the main story.

Kane is impressive acting in a style I’ve never seen from her before. Pleasance is solid as usual and his Canadian accent sounds almost authentic, but it is a bit overdone. Petrie is also quite good as the mother. She really brings to surface a character that is so cloistered she is unable to make any clear decision for herself.

The story itself is the real strong point. It is convincing, insightful, and well-crafted and brings out a sort of darkness and ‘evil’ that can come from ‘wholesome small towns’ and ‘God fearing people’. It shows how having a rigid morality can sometimes create a sort of immorality and also brings to light the lies people wish to live by and how at times it can cloud their better judgment, but most of all it’s a study at  how easily sensitive, fragile people can get sucked away and how sadly common it is.

This is a film designed to leave you feeling shocked, angered, saddened, and maybe even a little repulsed. This is quality viewing that deserves more attention.

My Rating: 8 out of 10

Released: October 20, 1972

Runtime: 1Hour 43Minutes

Rated R

Director: William Fruet

Studio: Cinepix

Available: DVD

3 Comments

Posted in 70's Movies, Adolescence/High School, Drama, Foreign Films, Movies Based on Stageplays, Movies from Canada, Movies with a rural setting

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Joy of Sex (1984)

Posted on August 5, 2013 | 2 comments

joy of sex 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Teens can’t get laid.

This film will kick off a month long theme where every Monday we’ll review an 80’s film that has the word sex in the title. The title to this one was purchased by Paramount from a sex manual written by Alex Comfort. The studio was so convinced that the title alone would create a box office buzz that they hired two writers to write a story around it only after the rights to the title had been secured. The plot deals with Leslie (Michelle Meyrink) a teen that reads an article about skin cancer and is convinced that the mole on her chest is a melanoma. Despite the fact that her Dr. says it isn’t she still believes that she is dying and goes on a crusade to lose her virginity before she does, but with little luck.

Although the movie has received almost unanimously negative reviews including a ‘bomb’ rating by Leonard Maltin I was surprised to find that the first 20 minutes or so is actually quite engaging. Some of the humor is kind of funny including the running joke of a ‘krazy glue bandit’ who terrorizes the administrators of the school by gluing all sorts of weird things on objects including coffee cups on the breasts of an outside statue, Mr. Potato heads to trophies inside a trophy case and a dildo inside the mouth of a fish that is the school mascot. There is also Farouk (Danton Stone) an early version of Borat who misunderstands American customs for instance when someone asks him to ‘give me five’ he hands him a five dollar bill and some of the thoughts that Leslie has while she makes out with a guy in a car are also pretty funny.

Where the film goes wrong is that it is just too damn innocuous. There is no tension, edge, or conflict. The majority of the movie deals more with Allen (Cameron Dye) and his inability to get laid instead of Leslie. The teen characters are one-dimensional and their adult counterparts come-off as staid, stiff, and out-of-touch. What is worse is that the film spends the entire time talking about sex, much of which is not very clever or interesting, but then never shows any of it. There isn’t even any nudity, which may be because the film was directed by a woman which may please the feminists, but as a guy if I’m expected to sit through something as vapid as this I would at least like a little T&A to help carry me through.

Meyrink is terrific and the one good thing about the movie. She is the only character that comes off as a real person and her nerdette caricature is a delight. Christopher Lloyd who plays her high school coach father over does it by delivering all of his lines in a drill sergeant-like manner that eventually becomes annoying. I also didn’t care for Colleen Camp who plays an undercover cop posing as a student. She was thirty at the time and looked it and I think the other students would have realistically thought the same thing. She also has a protruding mole on her right cheek that looks like a big pimple.

I did like Paul Tulley as Ted Vinson a crusading news reporter who expounds on all of society’s ills. Leslie meets with him because she thinks he can use his influence to get her friend Sharon (Cristen Kauffman) back in school after being kicked out for being pregnant, but instead finds that he simply is interested in having sex with her. This reminded me of former Chicago Tribune columnist Bob Greene who would write a lot of whiny, sappy, overwrought columns about society’s perceived moral decay only to end up being caught in a sex scandal himself.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: August 3, 1984

Runtime: 1Hour 33Minutes

Rated R

Director: Martha Coolidge

Studio: Paramount

Available: VHS, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 80's Movies, Adolescence/High School, Campy Comedy, Obscure Movies, Sex

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Cry-Baby (1990)

Posted on July 3, 2013 | 1 comment

cry baby 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: The Greasers are cool.

Director John Waters films, which are sometimes referred to as ‘an exercise in bad taste’, are indeed an acquired taste.  Some label his films from the late 60’s and early 70’s like; Mondo-Trasho, Pink Flamingoes, and Female Trouble to be tasteless, exploitative, and trashy. Yet those films also have a very fervent following. I for one found them to be perversely brilliant.  However, when Waters decided to ‘sell-out’ and go more mainstream Hollywood, his stuff became too toned-down. The humor lost all of its edge. The original Hairspray that came out in 1988 was a particular disappointment. It seemed like nothing more than a stretched out sitcom with musical numbers.  This film, which came out two years later, does only slightly better.

The setting is a 1950’s Baltimore High School that has an intense rivalry between the leather jacket wearing, motorcycle riding ‘greasers’ and the more refined All-American clique. The lightweight story  follows a young, clean-cut girl (Amy Locane) who secretly longs to go out with the head of the greasers (played by Johnny Depp), but can’t due to her social standing.

If the film does anything right it is the fact that, in typical John Waters style, everything gets played up to the extreme.  The ‘model’ students are really snobby and annoying and the animosity between the cliques is strong. However, I couldn’t help but feel that there was a certain grain of truth to all this especially in that era where ones ‘reputation’, whether it be good or bad, was taken more seriously than it may be today. I thought the casting of Locane in the lead was perfect.  She has an appealing, girl-next-door face and her hidden feelings of wanting to venture out of her repressive social role are certainly relatable.  I also loved Depp in the male lead role. He is a gifted actor, but sometimes he seems to take himself too seriously, so it was fun seeing him ham it up. Female viewers may also like the fact that there is an extended scene where he is shown wearing nothing but his underwear.

The casting of the supporting actors is equally inspired if not incredibly quirky.  Polly Bergen gets what might by her finest role in her long, but modest career. Here she plays Locane’s very rigid, upstanding Mother that ends up loosening up a bit in amusing fashion.  Joe Dallesandro and Joey Hetherton are a hoot as an extremist religious couple.  David Nelson and Patty Hearst (yes, the same one that was kidnaped in the 70’s) are equally funny as the surbanites.  Waters veteran Mink Stole has a bit playing the most entertaining iron lung victim since Jose Ferrer played one in The Big Bus.  Kudos must also go out to Kim Holden who sports one of the most hilariously ugly faces since Cloris Leachman’s Nurse Diesel character from High Anxiety. The only mistake here is that they didn’t make the Holden character a villain, which they should’ve in order to really play it up.

Some of the comedy does have its moments.  I liked the part where parents go to an adoption agency and ‘shop’ for children who are set up like mannequins in a display window. The climactic car chase sequence in which the rival gang leaders play the infamous game of ‘chicken’ while riding on the roofs of their cars only to end up crashing into an actual chicken coop, is good. The rest of the film though is too silly and cartoonish without the outrageousness of Water’s earlier films.

The story is also too pedestrian without offering any new insight or perspective.  The characterizations are over-the-top broad and the whole thing ends up being vapid and forgettable despite a few chuckles here and there.  There are also some musical numbers in this, but the songs all sound alike.  The dance routines are dull and unimaginative, looking like they were done without a choreographer present.

Waters earlier work is still far better as it was independent film-making at its purest. Those films also starred Divine who is sorely missed here (she died a few years before). Of course any film that has Susan Tyrrell in it, arguably the most eccentric actress to ever grace the screen, gets a few more points, but not enough to save it.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: April 6, 1990

Runtime: 1Hour 25Minutes

Rated PG-13

Director: John Waters

Available: VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 90's Movies, Adolescence/High School, Campy Comedy, Cult, Fast Cars/Car Chase, Musical, Romance, Satire

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Heathers (1988)

Posted on May 13, 2013 | 6 comments

heathers

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: These girls are bitches.

Heathers (Kim Walker, Shannon Doherty, Lisanne Falk) are three beautiful teens all with the same first name of Heather who act as the bitch queens of their Ohio high school. Veronica (Wynona Ryder) strives to be accepted into their exclusive clique and eventually does, but feels guilty about having to ignore her old friends as well as not particularly liking her new ‘friends’. In comes J.D. (Christian Slater) a rebel who decides to shake up the status system by killing off all of the snotty girls and jocks and making it look like suicides. Veronica reluctantly goes along with it, but when J.D. decides to blow up the entire school in order to make ‘a statement’ she decides things have gone too far.

Daniel Water’s dark script is incisively on-target and filled with original quotable lines of dialogue. Director Michael Lehmann gives the proceedings a nicely surreal touch with just a pinch of satire with the funeral scenes of the victims being the funniest and most creative. The characters are pretty much portrayed on the negative side, but the caricatures have a lot of truth to them and it reminded me a lot of my high school days.

What really makes this stand out from other 80’s high school movies is the fact that it transcends the teen culture by showing how the adult world really isn’t much better and this high school is simply a microcosm of a cold, screwed-up world that it inhabits. In fact Veronica’s mother (Jennifer Rhodes) says it best when she states: “When teenagers complain that they want to be treated more like adults it is usually because they are being treated like one.”

Ryder is superb and I still consider this to be the best role of her career. The fact that the character is morally dubious, but still manages to stay likable makes it all the more fascinating. Christian Slater’s Jack Nicholson impersonation is irritating, but he is still a good pick for the part. The two share some particularly good exchanges including this one:

Veronica: “I just killed my best friend.”

J.D.: “And your worst enemy.”

Veronica: “Same difference.”

I must admit that I fell completely in-love with Kim Walker as Heather #1 as she possesses an amazingly beautiful face, which would be enough to make me want to watch her regardless of acting skills. I’m surprised that her career never took off and she was relegated to supporting roles in minor productions.

kim walker 1

However, she does get two great lines including:

“Fuck me gently with a chainsaw.”

And her most famous one:

“Did you have a brain tumor for breakfast?”

Unfortunately she gets killed off much too quickly when she is tricked into drinking some drain cleaner supplied to her by J.D., but she still looks  beautiful even with blue teeth and a blue tongue. What is even sadder and more perplexing is that in real-life she died at the young age of 32 by believe-it-or-not a brain tumor.

kim walker 2

Falk as Heather #2 is attractive as well although not quite like Walker. Her career never skyrocketed either and her biggest claim to fame outside of this is that she was the model on the cover of Foreigner’s Head Games album. Doherty as the third Heather may be the most famous of the three, but she is not as attractive. For the first half she didn’t even seem all that effectual but comes into her bitchy best during the second part.

Despite the fact that the teens were not using cell phones, or texting, or had any of the other technological advances of today the film doesn’t seem dated, which is another plus. Only two scenes really stood out to me in this area. One is when J.D. shoots at a couple of mean jocks (who are characterized in amusingly dim-witted style) with a gun full of blanks and he doesn’t get into any trouble for it. Off course in 1988 school shootings were unheard of, but today the place would be put on lockdown and J.D. would not only be suspended but probably serve some jail time blanks or not. Another scene involves Veronica and J.D. planning to ‘humiliate’ these same jocks by making it look like they are gay lovers, which today would get Veronica and J.D. labeled as being homophobic.

Although I enjoyed the scene where J.D. gives Veronica the finger only to have it shot off I did find the second half not to be as slick and the concept itself seems to get stretched too thin. The script’s original ending called for a prom to take place in heaven and featuring the teens in different cliques than the ones they were in on earth, but unfortunately the suits at the studio in typically stupid fashion nixed that idea and went with a rather dopey and contrived one instead.

There is also ample argument to the fact that most investigators probably wouldn’t be fooled by these staged suicides and instead consider them the homicides that they were, but because it was all done in the satirical vein I’m willing to overlook it in what is otherwise one of the best high school movies ever made and one that enjoys a considerable cult following. There are also apparently rumors of turning the film into a TV-series where a grown Veronica returns to her hometown with her teen daughter who must now contend with a new generation of teen bitch queens named Ashley.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: October 1, 1988

Runtime: 1Hour 43Minutes

Rated R

Director: Michael Lehmann

Studio: New World Pictures

Available: VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Instant Video

6 Comments

Posted in 80's Movies, Adolescence/High School, Black Comedy, Cult, Quirky, Satire

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Surf II (1984)

Posted on February 25, 2013 | 5 comments

surf 22

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Surfers turn into zombies.

When compared to other low grade teen comedies of the 80’s this one fares a bit better. The story is about a nerd (Eddie Deezen) who decides to take revenge on all the ‘cool’ surfers by forcing them to drink a cola that will turn them into zombies.

The idea of mixing the crude humor of the 80’s with the zany surfer themed films of the 60’s is not a bad one. The film initially avoids the sterility that the other teen comedies usually have. The first fifteen minutes are fresh and inventive and there’s even a chuckle or two. It’s nice how it mixes old B-list actors with up and coming young stars like Eric Stoltz, Corinne Bohrer, and the late and underappreciated Tom Villard. The film also shows definite venom towards the surfers and some of which is accurate while taking some fun shots at the adults particularly two of the dads of the surfers who seem very much like what happens when ‘surfer dudes’ have to grow up and actually start earning a living. There is also a garbage eating contest between one of the zombies and a fat guy that has to set some sort of gross out precedent.

The problem comes with the fact that the story has no direction and eventually loses all momentum. There are too many absurd elements thrown in that have no connection to the main plot. The film comes off as derivative and convoluted and the manufactured calamity filled finale is incoherent.

Star Deezen looks and acts so much like a nerd you wonder if he was bred in some sort of laboratory. It is almost hard to believe how scrawny his arms are. Initially it is kind of funny and diverting to hear him say such megalomaniac statements with his high pitched voice, but his act is one-dimensional and eventually becomes annoying. Lyle Waggoner is another bad actor whose only claim to fame is his chiseled good looks. However, his bumbling police sergeant character Chief Boyardee is funny and he does get the film’s best line, which he says to a group of mouthy teens. “If I need any shit out of you kids I’ll squeeze your heads.” Ron Palillo who is best known for playing Horshak on ‘Welcome Back Kotter’ plays his deputy named Lt. Underwear and even sports gray hair! Cleavon Little though is wasted in a meaningless role of ‘Daddy-O’.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: January 14, 1984

Runtime: 1Hour 31Minutes

Rated R

Director: Randall M. Badat

Studio: International Film Marketing

Available: VHS

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Posted in 80's Movies, Adolescence/High School, Campy Comedy, Cult, Low Budget, Obscure Movies

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Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995)

Posted on January 9, 2013 | 1 comment

welcome to the dollhouse

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: She doesn’t fit in.

Another flick about the trials and tribulations of high school life. There is the shy, sensitive, and alienated girl, the bitchy cheerleaders, the bullies, the name calling, the not being able to find a seat at lunchtime, the stupid teachers, the too busy to listen parents, the bratty siblings, and yes even the spitballs. This is a very accurate and concise portrait of Junior High. It will make you soooooooo glad that you are past that age and will never have to go back to it.

It’s the pinpoint accuracy that makes this film stand out the most. Every scene and segment ring true. Even the little stuff from the way the little sister answers the phone to the way our protagonist Dawn Wiener (Heather Matarazzo) always seems to get blamed even when it really isn’t her fault.

Although the film displays many of the ugly elements of that age it doesn’t wallow or sensationalize them. In fact this film has a nicely balanced perspective. It shows scenes from both Dawn’s high school life and family life. It weaves a nice tapestry and observes how interconnected everything really is. The family life scenes are probably more interesting and in many ways just as difficult.

The film has a good ability at bringing out all the confusion that permeates that age. It is interesting how it shows that everyone is a bit alienated and lost. A big fish can simply get eaten up by an even bigger one. For example there is Steve a good looking kid with a nice singing voice. He is ‘cool’ and when in school everything goes his way. Yet when he drops out so as to ‘make it big’ in New York he suddenly realizes how stacked the odds are against him. There is also Brandon the class bully. He is a composite of all those other bullies. At first you really dislike him, but then you witness his very sad home life. You learn to understand not only why he acts the way he does, but also begin to feel sorry for him.

The film also scores by not letting the adults off the hook either. They are in many ways very much of the problem. They suffer from their own type of confusion and have their own type of code. They lack the ability to really communicate as much as the kids do. Junior high may be a mean, ugly, and crazy place, but that is only because it is a byproduct of very mean, ugly, and crazy world.

If the film has a weak point it is with the ending that fails to give any type of closure. Of course it doesn’t have to, but it would have given it more of an impact and made it come more full circle. Yet even if it doesn’t show it we still know that Dawn will make it. There are many scenes that show her to be very resourceful and strong willed when she needs to be. She is, like a lot of us, a survivor.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: September 10, 1995

Runtime: 1Hour 28Minutes

Rated R

Director: Todd Solondz

Studio: Suburban Pictures

Available: VHS, DVD, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 90's Movies, Adolescence/High School, Black Comedy, Drama, Low Budget

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