AVATAR (2009)

When AVATAR came out around Christmas, too much was going on in my personal life for me to go see it. And, frankly, I wasn't real certain I wanted to see it. The first time I saw a trailer for it, I thought it looked like a video game movie, but then I saw a 3-D preview when I took my wife to see Disney's animated adaptation of A CHRISTMAS CAROL, and I decided I'd give it a chance when it came out, but probably later in its run. Then the hype machine started spewing out accolades, and I began to feel skeptical again. If it hadn't been for several good friends who went to see this without knowing what it was about - and loving it - I may well have skipped the whole theatrical run of the movie altogether. I was even thinking about going to see it in 2-D, since it was cheaper, but I broke down after 6 weeks, and took the whole family.

In reflection, I'm not really sure why I doubted James Cameron. It may well have to do with things I know about him as a person that make me feel not entirely comfortable with some of the decisions and comments he's made outside the realm of Hollywood, but - Truth be told - I honestly can't say he's ever released a movie I absolutely hated. More than that, I've pretty much loved every movie he's ever done, with the exception of the theatrical cut of THE ABYSS (I adore the Director's Cut, but find the producer-mangled "movie" release vastly inferior), and TRUE LIES, which is enjoyable enough, but it just never really did it for me. Ever since PIRANHA 2: THE SPAWNING, I've followed James Cameron's career. THE TERMINATOR was wholly satisfying to me, ALIENS is perhaps my favorite of all his films, T2: JUDGMENT DAY blew my mind, and my wife made me take her to see TITANIC three times, and even snuck in to watch the last quarter of the film at least twice after we'd gone to see other movies around the time of its heyday. I really loved TITANIC, and was extremely irritated by Spike Lee's public comments that the movie's dialogue was "weak," especially when considering how Lee can't make a film where characters speak proper English, and most of his dialogue is littered with harsh profanities and obscenities; I felt the dialogue in TITANIC was just fine.

After TITANIC, Cameron seemed to be fiddling around under the sea for a bit (GHOSTS OF THE ABYSS, anyone?), and in the computer arena, but when he kept going from non-theatrical project to non-theatrical project, it seemed like he was either a.) afraid to make another movie since the box office receipts of TITANIC seemed entirely unbeatable, and any film he'd make in its wake would be compared to it, b.) interested in things that weren't movie-related, or c.) had lost his desire to ever direct again. After so long a break, I was concerned he had lost his chops behind the camera. And when he started talking about how big AVATAR was going to be, and how it was going to blow everyone away - well - I thought he was bragging, a'la his "I'm the King of the World!" acceptance speech after he won an Oscar for Best Director, Best Picture, etc.

When I first heard about AVATAR, I was thinking that he ought to consider changing the name of his supposed box office extravaganza. As a matter of fact, I was a little irritated that he opted to keep this title even after he found out that the awesome animated property AVATAR: THE LAST AIR-BENDER was going to be made into a live-action motion picture. Even after finally seeing AVATAR, I wondered if DREAMWALKERS might have been a better title, but I digress.

AVATAR, in fact, did blow me away. It's every bit as good as the best of any of James Cameron's films, and it may well end up being my favorite of all his movies. I honestly didn't think I'd like it as much as I did. Nor did I think I'd end up slack-jawed and/or teary-eyed during certain sequences - and boy, am I ever glad that I got to see it on the big screen, and in 3-D. It will probably translate well enough on my flat-screen TV, but seeing it at the movies was a real treat, and I didn't even mind the cheaper price for the 3-D glasses rental, although I still think we should be allowed to bring our own 3-D glasses in to avoid any excess surcharges, etc.

AVATAR is the story of a paraplegic marine of the future, Jake Sully, who is asked to participate in a field study of an alien race by utilizing a, sort of, cloned version of the aliens that can be accessed and controlled by a mental remote control device. How the aliens are cloned, and how this device works, exactly, is really beside the point. Cameron has the lead character of the film sidestep the issue via a clever sequence where this wheel-chaired warrior is offering up his daily narrative for the project's recording device. I laughed out loud at the way the main character rolled his eyes and essentially said, "It doesn't really matter how it works, it just does." Cameron then proceeds to show the audience how it works by action rather than full explanation, and suspending any disbelief is as easy as watching a STAR TREK character zap someone with a phaser without fully understanding how a phaser actually works. Gene Roddenberry wrote in one of the early behind-the-scenes STAR TREK books that he didn't have to explain to the audience how a phaser worked any more than a movie policeman has to explain to criminals how his firearm worked when he had to shoot a bad guy, and Cameron seems to belong to this school of thought, and there's nothing at all wrong with this. To get hung up on such technicalities is to lose the ability to fully enjoy a movie like AVATAR - you should just let the movie take you where it's going to take you, and enjoy the ride.

AVATAR takes place in the future, and on an alien world called Pandora. Pandora hosts a vast array of alien lifeforms, the primary humanoids being a blue-skinned race of people known as the Na'vi, who are primitive and noble, savage and yet spiritual. In parts the movie is similar to films like DANCES WITH WOLVES, in that the lead character is enabled to become a member of the local tribe, and THE EMERALD FORREST, where a primary character becomes so connected to a tribe of people he was not born into that he ultimately cannot return to his point of origin. Segments of the film reminded me of the underwater creatures in THE ABYSS, some of the movie reminded me of the old Science Fiction novels about the Dragon-riders of Pern, and still other parts reminded me of John Carter, Warlord of Mars. Like George Lucas before him, Cameron has borrowed materials from the very best authors and movie-makers, and blended it all together into something that looks totally new while remaining seemingly familiar somehow. The movie made me think about LITTLE BIG MAN, and the plight of those suffering in Haiti, and there were more than a few sequences where I had tears in my eyes.

AVATAR is romantic, and exciting, and moving, and if it doesn't make you think about the rain forests of the Amazon, and how man plunders the Earth for its resources with no concerns whatsoever for the planets' indigenous inhabitants, you're missing the point. There are a few references in AVATAR to humanity being forced to leave the Earth because they'd polluted it so badly, and I couldn't help but think of WALL*E, which didn't condescend or preach to its audience, either. I also couldn't help but think of the robotic load lifter Helen Ripley fought the Alien hive queen with in ALIENS during certain scenes, or of the Space Marines in that picture, particularly the awesome Vasquez, who has an equally formidable kindred spirit in AVATAR, played by Michelle Rodriguez (in her best role to date, I think). This movie did more than entertain me, though; it made me think, and it made me feel, and isn't that what the very best movies do?

In closing, I have just one final thing to say: If someone doesn't recognize Zoe Saldana's fantastic work as Neytiri in this film, there's no justice in this world. She completely sold me on her character, and did so in spite of the fact that her performance was largely CGI - and that takes some talent, folks. Right now I'm her number 1 fan. I loved her as Uhura in last summer's STAR TREK, and I adored her as the blue-skinned Na'vi.

Let the Right One In (2008)

This was the first European Vampire movie I've watched in a long, long time and, at first, I was anticipating being disappointed. Why? Well, I felt really burned by the recent Russian horror films that were so widely hyped, and I heard the same type of hyperbole being spouted about LET THE RIGHT ONE IN; several Internet friends labelled this the "greatest vampire film ever made," and comments like this just make me automatically suspicious. So, I put off watching it. I waited several months for the hype to die down, added it to my Netflix queue, and finally watched it when my mental palette had been cleansed of all memory of any comments about it.

Before I go any further, I have to admit that I've been a lifelong Vampire lover - I read TOMB OF DRACULA when I was a kid, and was introduced to Christopher Lee's Dracula at a young age, and Bela Lugosi's turn as the Count before that. I watched BUFFY and ANGEL regularly, and it wasn't until recently that I started getting a little wary of the latest Vampire craze, TWILIGHT, and - to a lesser degree - the HBO series about vampires. Lately, Vampires are everywhere, from THE VAMPIRE DIARIES, to CIRQUE DE FREAK: THE VAMPIRE'S ASSISTANT, to the countless variations on bookshelves everywhere.

To me, the very best Vampire stories take something old and add a new twist to it, and I especially enjoy a Vampire story that does this while abiding by the pre-established rules of older Vampire lore. Some of my favorite Vampire movies include fare from the lower tiers of the Hollywood basement, like the BLACULA and COUNT YORGA films, to higher end Hollywood fare, like THE LOST BOYS. I've even enjoyed Vampire movies that seem to come from left field that were made on a lower budget, like NEAR DARK, and even THE FORSAKEN. Even when Vampires are treated in a comedic fashion in film, I've enjoyed them - DRACULA: DEAD AND LOVING IT, FRIGHT NIGHT, and LOVE AT FIRST BITE spring to mind. But with all this said, I've never seen a Vampire film quite like LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, which is moody, and rich, and paced in just the right way to make it its very own 'thing.'

If memory serves, the very last European Vampire film I recall seeing was probably the remake of NOSFERATU, which I found to be largely dull and plodding. The ending left me feeling entirely flat, and it put a bad taste in my mouth. Factor this into my feelings about the recent Russian horror films (in my opinion, they were special effects heavy and story-and-logic light), and you can understand why I initially approached LET THE RIGHT ONE IN with clear feelings of ambivilence. I just wasn't sure what to expect.

Most Vampire films tend to allude to Vampire lore and rules to a certain extent, but no further. For example, they establish that vampires cannot enter someone's home unless they are invited, but they usually don't expound on this. LET THE RIGHT ONE IN does. It also shows what happens when a Vampire is fully exposed to the sun, and what a Vampire has to resort to in an age when it wouldn't be in their best interest to lug around a coffin. It explains how Vampires are able to financially support themselves and their human guardians, and while it unfurls the curtain from such concepts to reveal the film's explanations for full scrutiny, it also adds a few new twists of its own - for example, how cats react to the presence of Vampires, how Vampires stalk their prey in urban areas, and how Vampires prevent the creation of new Vampires, who would - presumably - become their competition in pursuit of the human blood that sustains them. It also, unfortunately, makes one singular misstep, in its graphic depiction of how a Vampire's physical body remains stunted at the age at which they become a Vampire; about this, I will say no more.

LET THE RIGHT ONE in was made in Sweden, and features and entirely Swedish cast. It was based on a novel called LET ME IN, which was the title of the film in its country of origin. It revolves around a 12-year-old boy named Oskar, who lives with his divorced mother. Oskar is brutally bullied by one of his classmates, who forces two of his friends to regularly inflict beatings and pain upon Oskar. When alone, Oskar goes outside and practices retaliating upon his tormentors, and enjoys stabbing a tree, pretending it is the torso of his primary bully. Eli, the female Vampire anti-hero of the film, overhears Oskar's mental rehearsals, approaches him, and immediately informs him that they cannot be friends. Regardless, she is so kind to him, and so clearly interested in his plight, Oskar cannot help but be curious about her.

Eli is clearly much older than her physical age, and she is attended to by an older man, a human in her thrall, who preys upon youngsters in secluded areas, knocks them out, and then strings them up like deer, to bleed their life's blood into a bucket for his mistress to consume later. Eli and her human caretaker are clearly in hiding, and because they live in the apartment right beside Oskar's, it isn't long before she breaks her word, and clearly becomes Oskar's friend. Eventually, Oskar - of course - becomes infatuated with her, despite his clear concern that he might become one of her victims.

Eli is doing her best to keep her Vampiric identity a secret, but her lust for blood nearly drives her every action. When Oskar decides the two of them need to merge their blood in a blood brother ritual, Eli laps his dripped blood from the floor and demands he leave her apartment. Oskar, of course, figures out that Eli is a Vampire, and to learn any more, you must see the film for yourself.

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN is one of the most satisfying Vampire movies I've ever seen. It certainly belongs in my Favorite Vampire Films short list, and it's a memorable film despite its subject matter, with an evocative mood that makes it difficult to compare to anything that has preceded it. I understand an American remake is on the way, but I'm entirely skeptical that the spirit of this film can be replicated, unless it's set in an urban setting with characters cloistered in an apartment complex in a violent tenament area. If you enjoy Vampire movies, you should enjoy this one, if you give it a chance. It's not dubbed, though, so expect to read subtitles, which I feel in no way detract from the cinematic experience.

District 9 (2009)

Unfortunately, I missed my chance to see DISTRICT 9 on the big screen last summer, but - fortunately - my wife and I decided to buy our first Big Screen High-Def television after Black Friday, along with a new Blu-Ray player. Most of the Blu-Ray discs we've bought since then have been special effects heavy, so DISTRICT 9 was an obvious choice, even though it was a blind buy purchase. I opted not to read any reviews of the film when it came out, but every now and then I'd hear something about how it was an SF allegory about Apartheid. While it's set in South Africa, and while there are certain aspects of the movie that do have inferences about what happened there, I'd have to argue that the movie has more in common with films like ALIEN NATION and ENEMY MINE, with a little ROBOCOP thrown in for good measure (there's even a cybernetic defense 'droid that looks suspiciously like E.D. 209 from ROBOCOP). These are not bad things, however.

DISTRICT 9 plays and feels like something new. To me, it had the same type of energy and excitement that ROBOCOP had when it was first released, and I guess the best one-word description I could give of the movie is "revolutionary."

Frankly, I loved every minute of it. It starts out like a documentary, but quickly shifts into an action picture, and ultimately it offers viewers a twist on the old "Buddy Movie" formula that's both new and, somehow, familiar.

DISTRICT 9 tells the story of an alternate earth where an alien spacecraft has landed above South Africa and, after its government agencies investigate the hovering ship, they discover that it is loaded with a dormant alien species that eventually nickname "Prawns," because they look something like crawfish or shrimp with legs. The aliens are brought down to earth, and begin to breed quite quickly until, twenty years later, they're cloistered in shanty towns fenced in with barbed wires and armed guards.

The prawns seem to be unintelligent, and it is assumed that they were shipwrecked over Earth because they were either slaves or pirates who overtook a spacecraft they couldn't operate properly. Mistreated horribly, they are forced to contend with ruling South African gangs within the barbed wire compounds they reside in, and cruel governmental agencies who aren't afraid to shoot first and ask questions later whenever they interrogate the unwanted extra-terrestrials.

The primary focus of the film is a South African governmental agent named Wickus, who is shooting a documentary on how to properly evict the prawns from their shanties. Wickus is completely unaware of the fact that his government secretly covets the alien weaponry found upon the prawn ship, which operates only when touched by creatures with the proper DNA.

Wickus is accidentally sprayed in the face by an alien fluid while doing a routine investigation in one of the prawn compound houses, and it isn't long before he begins to undergo a horrific transformation that results in him going on the run as he seeks out a cure for his condition.

The prawns, of course, turn out to be more intelligent than they appear, and the hovering spacecraft above South Africa harbors some secrets, too, and the entire film is played straight, and features wild chase sequences, extreme violence as the alien weaponry is mastered, and is centered on a sympathetic lead character, and a gallery of other heroes and villains. I don't really want to say much more for those who haven't seen this gem yet, but I heartily recommend DISTRICT 9 for action fans who are into Science Fiction and like movies that are a little different.

It's a Wonderful Life (1946)

Other than Steven Spielberg and Alfred Hitchcock, it would be very safe to say that Frank Capra is one of my favorite directors. Just about anything he's done, I've loved, and IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE is my favorite Capra film, with IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT following close behind.

Most every film buff has seen this post-WWII classic, and most of us are more than familiar with its basic premise and storyline. Before I even knew what it was, I saw a small snippet of it in the original GREMLINS, which (I saw the weekend it opened) when Billy's mother is watching it while she works in the kitchen, and comments, "...sad movie" as George Bailey runs joyously through the town of Bedford Falls, wishing everyone within the sound of his voice a "Merry Christmas!" Seeing that one scene made me want to pursue it, and I did - many years later - and it immediately became a personal favorite. Frankly, when I watch it at Christmastime each year, it renders me a quivering mass of emotional jelly when I truly concentrate on it, and really allow myself to get involved with its myriad of characters and situations.

IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE is much more than a Christmas movie, though. It's a document of a particular moment in time, and it's a testament to the unseen ways we all impact the lives of others. It tells the story of the penultimate 'everyman,' George Bailey, who - as the film opens - is being prayed for by several unseen people, including some of his children. Bailey has found himself in a horrific bind, and is gripped in the clutches of the deepest form of despair, but the audience isn't shown what his situation is at the film's opening.

Being able to hear the prayers of unseen people pour out their hearts to God, and watch as their formless words seem to drift upward to the heavenlies, is remarkably and effectively conveyed. Equally effective is the manner in which Capra shows the audience the final destination of these prayers, which is - essentially - an inspecific location in space where the Heavenly Father and his angelic host are represented by celestial bodies that glow and shimmer as they expound upon Bailey's plight, and what must be done to enable him to make the right decision when all is said and done.

An apprentice angel, Clarence, is assigned to help George, and Capra then informs both the audience and Clarence about George Bailey's life as a senior angel, "Joseph," speaks offstage while projecting movie-like scenes from Bailey's entire existence all the way up to the point where the movie's story begins, at which point Clarence takes on a human form and interacts with George and reveals to him his role as his temporary guardian and advisor. George, of course, bemoans his existence, and wishes he'd never been born, and then the movie becomes what I firmly feel is a precursor and, perhaps, an inspiration for Rod Serling's TWILIGHT ZONE television series. It certainly served as the inspiration for the second installment of the BACK TO THE FUTURE movies. Regardless, the next-to-final act of the film is both gripping and moving, and while it hearkens back in a way to the ghostly visitations of Charles Dickens' A CHRISTMAS CAROL, it also feels in some way like the very best dream-sequences of any Jean Cocteau fantasy film.

IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE was a box office failure when it was released in January of 1947, but it has since become an iconic part of the fabric of American pop culture. It has been parodied, remade as a television film with a female in the lead, was redone twice as a radio play, and is so well known by most of its fans that entire stretches of dialogue from the film can be recited, word for word. The film has been emulated by other directors, but only Capra's original stands as the true masterwork - not one frame of the film is wasted - and it's one of the earliest movies that really conveys the artistic signature of its directors, whose imprint is sensed in every scene. If you carefully analyze the film, it's as if the camera itself is alive, and all these many decades later, IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE is as alive as it was when it was first shot. It was deservedly as Jimmy Stewart's favorite film, and Frank Capra's as well.

Truly, IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE is a wonderful, wonderful film. Whether it's viewed at Christmastime or not.

WALL*E (2008)

When THE IRON GIANT was first being promoted, I simply didn't know what it was, so I didn't go see it at the theater, and when I saw the first advertisements for WALL-E, I felt like it seemed to come out of nowhere in just the same way. Being uncertain about the background of the subject matter was what largely kept me from going to see THE IRON GIANT at the movie theater, and when I later saw it on VHS, I just wanted to kick myself in the head, I loved it so much. Not wanting to repeat the same mistake twice, I opted to give WALL-E a try, but I'll be the first to admit that I did so with no small amount of trepidation - mainly because I didn't really like Pixar's previous offering, CARS (which, I will admit, grew on me over time, for some reason).

I resisted the temptation of reading any reviews of WALL-E and, essentially, saw it with no real point of reference. I was surprised by two things as the movie started playing out:

1.) what I'll have to call the 'pantomime' work - the performances by WALL-E and his cockroach cohort, and - later - EVE. So much was conveyed with only a minimal amount of words that it was amazing. I don't think I've seen such effective work since my last viewing of a Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton movie.

2.) the appearance of real human beings in certain sequences: the clips from the musical 'Hello, Dolly,' and the scenes with Fred Willard. These things were a little jarring for me, since I was wholly expecting to see all characters in the film look like what I'd seen in previous Pixar offerings. Regardless, I was successfully able to get past it, and the film certainly held my interest throughout its entire running time.

Really, I think WALL-E - despite its fairly brief length - is more like two movies than one; there's a clear dividing line in the picture: the first story involves WALL-E, all alone on the desolated Earth with his cockroach friend, and then the second story, which chronicles what happens after WALL-E follows EVE into space, which leads them aboard the space cruiser AXIOM. Now, this is not a bad thing in the case of WALL-E (in my opinion, splitting up the storyline like this didn't work in Quentin Tarrantino's INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, which was - it could be argued - three movies ineffectively mashed into one). Both stories hold the interest of the viewer, but there's a dramatic shift in narrative style, largely due to the introduction of the human passengers and crew of the AXIOM, who speak, and are in a setting entirely different from what we were shown in the first half.

If I were asked which storyline I enjoyed more, it would be very difficult to say, but I would have to go with the first half, largely because it was so tender and sweet, and adorable. I enjoyed the second half, too, but I really enjoyed watching WALL-E explore the Earth and try to figure out what the purpose was for all the refuse the humans left behind before they departed the planet the polluted to such shameful depths.

There's a lot of subtle preaching about the environment in WALL-E, but it's not offensive, mainly because what the movie is telling us is true. Personally, I don't think the subtle preaching that goes on about weight gain in the face of sedentary inactivity is offensive, either, because it, too, is true. I was rather stunned that there were protests in some corners that claimed the movie made fun of people with weight problems, but I have to assume that they didn't watch the movie. The plump characters in the film are, without exception, sweet, and cute, and I thought they were entirely pleasant, if a bit naive. When Disney/Pixar released storybooks based on WALL-E, I was rather stunned to note that none of them showcased the rotund humans from the film, and only one of the several kids' books showcased an image of the captain of the AXIOM, and no other human character. Makes me wonder if Disney/Pixar knew there would be complaints. What a world we live in. What a world.

The world we live in, and where it's headed, is entirely what WALL-E is about. It's just shy of being environmentalist propaganda but, again, it's hard to argue what's being said in the movie because it's all true. It's exaggerated, sure, but aren't all animated features, to some degree or another?

Essentially, the first half of WALL-E takes place on the planet Earth, in the future, when human wastefulness and consumerism has polluted the planet to the point that is no longer safe to inhabit. WALL-E is one of, presumably, millions of little robots created to clean up the environment and crush the garbage left behind by the humans who fled into space to await the completion of the clean-up project. WALL-E, it seems, not only has survived longer than the rest of his robotic cohorts (whose parts he cannibalises once they have ceased to function), he's become a sentient being. So sentient, in fact, that he has developed emotions, and a keen sense of curiousity. WALL-E's curiousity leads him to analyze and stockpile any piece of human refuse left behind that seems to have some semblence of purpose. At some point in time WALL-E has also discoverd the glories of VHS tapes, and VCRs, because he's shown to clearly enjoy movies - the musical 'Hello, Dolly' being his particular favorite. When we're shown WALL-E watching his favorite musical number, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that WALL-E's fondest wish is to be loved, and so it is that another robot enters the picture, a clearly female robot who calls herself EVE. Naming the character EVE was a bit heavy-handed in the allegorical department, but we'll have to let it slide, because EVE is incredibly easy to fall in love with.

EVE has been sent to the earth by the AXIOM to search for vegetative plantlife. She does not reveal this to WALL-E straight away, namely because he - at first - is nothing more than an annoyance in her attempts to analyze everything that even hints of plant growth. WALL-E follows her around like a lovesick puppy, ultimately introducing himself to her, and to movies, and to a little potted plant he has stored amidst his collection of refuse. When EVE sees the plant, she automatically snatches it and goes into hybernation mode, and a remote-controlled shuttlecraft from the AXIOM picks her up, and WALL-E follows her into space.

WALL-E is nonplussed by all he sees while a stowaway aboard the AXIOM. All he cares about is finding EVE. Not even seeing humans for the first time seems to jar or deter him in his quest to find his true love, but the humans aboard the ship are shockingly different from any isolated group movie viewers have ever seen before.

The passengers aboard the AXIOM are the product of several hundred years of sedentary inactivity; they're all so large that they cannot walk without the aid of a hover chair (think a Charlie Brown version of what Baron Harkonnen uses in DUNE), and they've all been indoctrinated for the bulk of their lives by constant advertising and product placement on screens that are positioned before them so that they no longer even have to turn their heads. At one point WALL-E moves one of these screens, and the chubby character before him finally gets to see the environment around her as it was meant to be seen. Again, subtle preaching going on, but it's inoffensive because it's true: no one should let others do their thinking for them.

A subplot comes to light when the robotic crew of the AXIOM learn that plant life is finally growing on Earth once again. Fearing they will be put out of work and lose their programmed sense of purpose, they attempt to squelch the truth about the potted plant being brought onboard, but all's well that ends well in the long run, and WALL-E sacrifices himself to save the world before all is said and done in what some could argue might be a Christological allegory tossed into the mix for good measure. WALL-E, too, is resurrected by story's end, and the passengers of the AXIOM finally get to return to Earth to start their lives anew.

As with all other Pixar productions, WALL-E is loaded with wonderful characters, both comedic and dramatic, and WALL-E is one of the cutest things to ever hit the silver screen, despite some very, very minor similarities to Johnny Five in the SHORT CIRCUIT movies, which are the apples to WALL-E's orange.

WALL-E has positive things to say about being respectful stewards of the Earth, and of our bodies, and it doesn't come across as propaganda although its lessons come through loudly and clearly. Strange, when considering that the first half of the movie is almost entirely silent, except for its sound effects and lovely musical score. Pixar even went up a notch with their silent storytelling abilities in the first quarter of UP, which reduced me to a quivering mass of emotion and tears (to the shock of my two children, who couldn't understand why Daddy was crying).

Bottom line: I adored WALL-E. Loved every minute of it. As a matter of fact, I liked it so much I took my church's youth group to see it the following week, just so I could see it on the big screen a second time. This is one of my favorite Pixar movies, just below THE INCREDIBLES, which is my all-time favorite (I took some church kids to see that one after I saw it for the first time, too).

Pitch Black (2000)

Personally, for me, the fact that this movie was later renamed The Chronicles of Riddick: PITCH BLACK is entirely incidental. Sure, I like the Riddick character, probably as much as I liked the characters of Hicks and Bishop in ALIENS, but I didn't see where Hicks or Bishop deserved to have sequels focusing on them, or have ALIENS later renamed THE CHRONICLES OF HICKS, or THE CHRONICLES OF BISHOP.

Let me cut to the chase. PITCH BLACK is not what I would consider a Vin Diesel movie. Yeah, he's in it, and he has a lot of screen time, but he isn't the heart and soul of the movie, or even the lead or the focus of the movie, and this movie is better described as an ensemble piece than a vehicle for Vin Diesel alone.

Essentially, the movie tells the futuristic story of a transport ship which crash-lands on a world with three suns where, when its planetary rotation results in the castaways being covered in darkness, winged creatures swarm over the area in search of prey. Diesel's character, Riddick, is aboard the ship, but he's a chained prisoner - a convicted murderer - and the castaways must decide whether or not to trust his surgically enhanced eyes to help them find them safe passage as they search for a way off-planet.

For some strange reason, as I watch and re watch this film, it brings to mind the career of Humphrey Bogart for me. Bogart wasn't intended to be regarded as the leading star of THE PETRIFIED FORREST. Lesley Howard was. But, for whatever reason, Bogart shot to stardom as a result of his multi-layered performance as a gangster on the lamb, who's taken over a little diner in the desert as he seeks to avoid the cops who are pursuing him. Bogart's role is about the same size as Diesel's in PITCH BLACK, and the two criminal characters are a little similar when it comes to their worldview, but they remind me of each other for some reason. When I first saw PITCH BLACK, I kept wondering if it was a twist on THE PETRIFIED FORREST, but that may be stretching things. Just like making two follow-up films revolving exclusively around Vin Diesel's character is stretching things.

Now don't get me wrong. I like this movie. I like it a lot; the nocturnal raptors with wings that are the film's primary conceit are awesome, and so are Riddick's steel-looking eyes, but I appreciate the inter-character dynamic in the script far more than I enjoy Riddick being regarded as the skeleton on which the rest of the "meat" of this film hangs.

One other way of viewing this film is considering that it may well be a Sci-Fi twist on Alfred Hitchcock's World War II thriller, LIFEBOAT, only set in the future, and on an entire world of sand instead of an isolated locale in the ocean. LIFEBOAT was also an ensemble piece, and it also featured a character who was largely mistrusted by the other passengers on the stranded sea vessel. Well, not exactly, but close enough: it's revealed in LIFEBOAT that one of the characters is a Nazi spy, who sank the ship on which everyone was a passenger, so everyone struggles with trust issues.

The performances in the film are strong, and Vin Diesel does a fine job, but my favorite character in PITCH BLACK is actually its female lead, Carolyn Frye, played by Radha Mitchell. Frye reminded me of Ripley from ALIENS, which is yet another film that PITCH BLACK reminds me of, primarily because of some of the militaristic aspects of. It also features a dab of religion in it, but not enough to be offensive, and there are some very interesting characters thrown into the mix for good measure.

PITCH BLACK works well as Science Fiction, it works well as a Horror movie, or a Thriller, and it's got some very memorable set pieces. It's an entertaining movie, but it's just not as good as ALIENS, which I feel it tries to emulate at times. It comes close to being that good, but not close enough, and I'm not sure what it is - exactly - that doesn't elevate it to the same level as the James Cameron film. Still, it's really good. The follow-up films, to me, bear no resemblance to this film at all, particularly the animated mini-feature, which makes a few references to it, nonetheless. THE CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK, the third film in the series so far, looks more like a cross between CONAN THE BARBARIAN and DUNE than it does a follow-up to PITCH BLACK, but that's the subject of another review. Suffice it to say that I do rather like the third Riddick film, but there's a disconnect for me somewhere when it comes to trying to tie it into the continuity of the first film.

Children of the Corn (2009)

Initially, I had no intention whatsoever of watching the SyFy Channel's remake of the 1984 original. It didn't look like it would appeal to me any more than the sequels did. But, as I wound down to the final minutes of the sixth sequel, I decided, "what the heck?" And I added it to my NetFlix queue. After seeing all seven of the CHILDREN OF THE CORN films released prior to the SyFy version, I began to realize some things:

None of the sequels adequately answered the hard question of why the 'Children of the Corn' existed, or why the particular story of each film was being told, or how it was a logical extension of the original story. Perhaps this was, in part, because the original film didn't give viewers a proper background for the "He Who Walks Behind the Rows" cult, or explain what they were ultimately all about. I mean, why kill all adults, and why blood sacrifices? Some of the sequels made weak attempts at answering these two very important questions, but none of them fleshed them out in a coherent fashion, and each sequel went off in its own weird direction.

To be brutally honest, I think the origin of the seminal story can be summed up in a question that Stephen King probably asked himself at one point about the black clothes and seemingly sinister appearance of the Amish: "What if they abided by the Old Testament tenants of blood sacrifices instead of the Grace doctrines and Peaceful New Testament teachings of Jesus Christ?"

I mean, seriously, the first time I saw an Amish woman, when I visited Lancaster, PA, in April of 1985, I asked if she was a witch; I was naive, and had no point of reference, and her black clothes - particularly her black cape, which flapped in the wind behind her - scared me a little. The fictional thought that the Amish could be more "Eye for an Eye and Tooth for a Tooth" than the peace-loving and Christian people that they are in actuality, is really creepy if you think about it. This is probably why the sequels had such staying power, despite their mediocrity. They addressed an unspoken question that creeps up unexpectedly from the human psyche whenever it sees something that is unusual and seems sinister at first glance, and Stephen King tapped into it, and touched a nerve with his story.

None of the Sequels utilized the musical score from the theatrical release original. This completely kept them from "feeling" like official sequels. Regardless, nearly all of first seven CHILDREN OF THE CORN films seem like el cheapo video productions, including the first sequel, which had a very brief theatrical run.

None of the Sequels were co-written by Stephen King. I've wondered through every viewing of them what King thought about them and, apparently, he saw the same loose ends I'm mentioning here (more on this in a moment).

None of the Sequels were set in Gatlin, Nebraska, except for the sixth installment, "THE RETURN OF ISAAC," in which Gatlin is nothing more than a generic visual location and/or a passing dialogue reference, as opposed to an isolated space that is instantly recognizable; at no point in the film does the viewer get the sense that the story's set in Gatlin.

So now we have a remake of the original film, and not only a remake, but a television movie remake, produced by the same channel that wanted to sidestep its image as a video haven for geeks who like "Sci Fi" by altering the spelling of its name to SyFy which, to me, seems even more geekier. But I digress.

The opening minutes of the SyFy Channel television remake seem extremely promising. Not only does it feature the score from the original film, it proudly states that its screenplay was co-written by Stephen King, it's set in Gatlin, Nebraska, and it makes bold attempts to explain the purpose and origin of the "He Who Walks Behind the Rows" cult.

See, the young preacher, Isaac, who is a self-proclaimed prophet, claims to have received visions from the God of the Old Testament, who revealed to him that the crops in Gatlin were sparse because of the sin of the older generation. Isaac tells his congregation that, unless they rise up against that sinful generation, they'll be equally doomed, and he orders the children of his flock to kill the adults to ensure a healthy harvest. This is all made plain in the opening sequence of the film, in which hogs are slaughtered before the eyes of the children, as an example of what is to come. No sequence is ever shown where the Children of the Corn kill their parents, or any other adult person in Gatlin. Nor are there two children who connect with the two adult character who accidentally wander into their community 12 years later.

Speaking of the two adult characters in the film, let me just go ahead and say it. I cannot fathom what Stephen King and his co-writer were thinking when they conjured up the female character, who is nothing more than a vicious shrew with a tongue so sharp it could cut hedge. She and her husband, a stoic vet of the Viet Nam war, argue throughout the vast majority of their onscreen time together, and I found myself desperately wishing something would happen to her to shut her up.

The scenario in which the two adults come into Gatlin is parallel with the theatrical film, with the primary difference being that - in the 1984 release - Linda Hamilton's character was much sweeter, and was far more patient with her male counterpart, played by Peter Horton, and there was tension between them over the nature of their relationship, but it wasn't overly melodramatic and potentially violent, as it is in the remake. The adult female lead in the remake was fine in her role as Casiopea in the new BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, but I'm really disappointed with her in this; she gripes and complains, and whines, and over-acts something terrible. She's wholly unlikeable. And so is her male lead, who's supposedly a RAMBO-like survivor of the wild.

After their car strikes down a youth from Gatlin, whose throat has been slit by Isaac's enforcer, Malachi, for some unspoken transgression, the two adults drive into town to find a law enforcement officer, completely unaware that the nearest one for many miles is nothing more than the mummified corpse of a policemen the Children of the Corn refer to as "The Blue Man."

When her husband investigates the primary church of Gatlin, the female lead of the piece is dispatched fairly early in the story (thank goodness), and the adult male of the film then has a violent confrontation with Isaac and company. He kills several of the boys who attack him, and rushes out into the cornfields. Then he experiences Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and becomes psychotic, presumably believing that he's re-living his experiences in 'Nam, and from that point on, the movie tries to steer itself more closely to the Stephen King story the first film was partially based on.

The DVD release of the telefilm contains a lot of graphic violence and one extremely uncomfortable sex scene that takes place in a church as a sort of fertility ritual, and before the eyes of the "demon pagan children," as the female leads' ghost later refers to them, and - all in all - this remake is no better than any of the sequels that followed in the wake of the far more satisfying 1984 film.

He Who Walks Behind the Rows makes an off-screen appearance in the movie, toward the very end, but his cameo feels like it's actually part of a set-up to a CHILDREN OF THE CORN television series, which I pray will never come to fruition. So far, the critical reaction to this piece has been entirely negative, and I can see why. It had potential but, ultimately, it blew it. Tainted by weak performances by child actors who come across as extremely amateurish, I don't see how it could have a follow-up. Then again, I have no idea why the six sequels to the original were produced.

After the closing credits, there's a brief coda involving Malachi, and a young woman he's clearly attracted to, but it's an open-ended coda, implying that - yes - they do want to continue this story. On that note, I'll close. I just don't know what to say, except, couldn't the SyFy Channel spend their millions on better projects?

Children of the Corn 7: Revelation (2001)

Personally, I found it rather interesting that there was only a one-year gap between the release of the fifth and sixth sequels. There was, however, a two-year gap between the release of the sixth and seventh sequels. Not sure why this was, although I speculate it was because the sixth installment wasn't as well-received as the producers had hoped. Not sure what they were expecting, though, when considering that they were apparently snoozing when story ideas for sequels were presented to them.

None of the sequels to the 1984 original are faithful to the source material, let alone the Stephen King novella from which it sprang. And this is certainly the case with this supposedly "final" CHILDREN OF THE CORN film; didn't the third film in the series feature the word "FINAL" in the title? And did not SyFy recently air their TV-movie remake of the original?

Because REVELATION has no semblance of continuity with what has preceded it, no recaps of previous installments are needed. Interestingly, though, this is the third CHILDREN OF THE CORN film in a row which revolves around a female protagonist who wanders into the thick of "He Who Walks Behind the Rows" cult activity, completely unaware of its not-real-coherent past history. It's also the second CORN film to feature a wheelchair murder scene, and it's the only film involving this fictional cult that labels "He Who Walks Behind the Rows" as "The Devil."

Previously, "He Who Walks Behind the Rows" was presented as a ball of fiery energy, a crab-like creature, a baby, and a twenty-something male. In this film, it is never shown, but the ghosts of some of its dead followers are. Yes, this movie is a ghost story. And a boring one at that. That is, unless you're horrified by the repetitious and very clearly orchestrated laughter of offscreen children, and the appearance of silent kids with menacing expressions, and faces plastered down with white skin cream or somesuch.

This installment features its ghost characters in the Amish-like dress of the first film, but it doesn't take place in Gatlin, and it - in no way - involves the "Isaac" cult. Instead, it's another Corn cult altogether we're introduced to, only this one had a suicide pact, and all of the worshippers of "He Who Walks Behind the Rows" are revealed to have burned themselves alive in a revival tent back in the 1920's. All but one, who fled for her life, and lived to a ripe old age.

The movie tries to present a mystery story to viewers, but it's really weak and easy to figure out. An attractive young woman named Jamie is in search of her missing grandmother who, you guessed it, turns out to be the member of the cult who fled. Grannie's missing, however, because the ghosts of her former cult arose from the dead to reclaim her life - and Jamie's life as well, since - to their reckoning - she was never supposed to be alive. Why? I have no idea. Why the members of this cult felt committing suicide, and never procreating, was the right thing to do is never made plain (especially when we see that Isaac sired offspring in the last film). Nor is it made plain why all the other residents in Jamie's missing grandmother's condemned apartment building are all so weird.

Throughout the movie Jamie encounters a hyperactive stoner who answers the door while smoking a bong, a cute stripper with a penchant for too much eye shadow, a shaky and constantly gun-wielding (and shirtless) guy with a heart condition, and a mean old man in a wheelchair with the mouth of a sailor and the enraged energy of a spoiled six-year-old (he's always raving mad, and practically frothing at the mouth - you'd think he'd wear himself down at some point). Jamie also meets a ne'er-do-well detective she seeks assistance from and, of course, the ghosts of the Corn cult, whose leader is the ghost of a never-before-seen Prophet Child cut from the same cloth as Isaac in the original film, but with a more babyish face and the deep vocal tones of a voice-over actor.

There are corn-related CGI effects galore in this film as corn stalks - well - stalk their victims in the apartment building (sort of like the weeds and things in the EVIL DEAD movies), but there are no scares. None whatsoever. There's gore, and there's a body count, sure, but everything about this movie is paint-by-the-numbers simplistic, and extremely easy to graph from point A to point Z.

Michael Ironside, one of my favorite character actors, is featured as a mysterious priest who spends most of his time giving knowing glances from a distance without saying a word, and I must confess that he reduced me to fits of laughter at times, because everything about this movie just seemed stupid to me. It seemed so dumb to me, in fact, that I kept talking to the screen during its many dialogue-free lulls, and making jokes at the film's expense to amuse myself, and maintain the integrity of my already waning sanity. Yes, these films are maddeningly DUMB.

One of the big reveals in the movie is that the apartment where Jamie's grandmother was overtaken by the ghosts of her former friends is the exact spot where they all burned to death. Why the Corn cult would ever be established on a city site where an apartment building was later built, and not out in the country like in the first film, is beyond me. But why they kept making sequels that didn't make sense is beyond me, too.

Children of the Corn 666: Isaac's Return (1999)

With a subtitle like "Isaac's Return," you'd expect Isaac - the boy preacher and cult leader of the original CHILDREN OF THE CORN film - to be front and center, and to really be given an opportunity to show his stuff. Sadly, however, this is not the case. Instead, Isaac's role in the storyline of the film is minimal in the grand scheme of things, and an attractive young girl named Hannah is the focus.

Hannah, you see, is the "last child" who survived the massacre at Gatlin. Now, wait a minute. What's this? She's the last child of Gatlin? Well, who were all the Children of the Corn in the last four sequels?

See, this is what I don't get: The cult at the center of the original film, from what I've always understood, were (at some point in time) seduced by a dark force - "He Who Walks Behind the Rows" - who 'spoke' through its prophet, Isaac. Isaac, assisted by his cohort Malachi, coerced the children of their town, Gatlin, to kill all the adults in that town, including their parents, because adults were 'evil' or somesuch. It was never clearly explained, and that is the problem at the heart of every single CHILDREN OF THE CORN sequel. None of the sequels follow that basic reasoning. And this sequel goes even further afield than the rest of them.

At the end of the first film, it seemed pretty plain to me that all of the Children of the Corn in Gatlin were killed, with the exception of the two innocent kids, and the one girl who ended up being knocked unconscious by Peter Horton's character, who seemed convinced he could rehabilitate her with the aid of Linda Hamilton's character. Interestingly, none of the sequels ever addressed these surviving kids and, instead, more and more Children of the Corn kept popping up, along with adults from the town of Gatlin, who we were led to believe had been slain in the massacre at the start of the first film!

Furthermore, "He Who Walks Behind the Rows" has been depicted in several different ways throughout the sequels, and even in the first film. Originally, this dark force was depicted as a ball of flame or energy, sort of like the energy monster in a classic episode of JONNY QUEST. Later, it was depicted as a giant, crab-like beastie who was shown springing up from the earth with claws that enabled it to snatch up pretty girls and instantly turn them into Barbie dolls before it snapped off their heads. THEN it became a fire again and, ultimately, was last seen possessing a little baby, who was shown with flames in its eyes in what seemed to be an homage to the finale of Michael Jackson's THRILLER video, in which Jackson was shown with cat eyes.

Isaac was the original 'prophet' for "He Who Walks Behind the Rows," and we knew he endorsed blood sacrifices for some reason, but we were never told why. Nor were we told whether or not his young co-horts were mesmerized by the dark force that influenced Isaac, or followed him of their own free will. In URBAN HARVEST, an a new acolyte of "He Who Walks Behind the Rows" is actually shown proselytizing his new religion (although its teachings were never explained), but in subsequent stories, "He Who Walks Behind the Rows" is shown actually possessing kids...

In another sequel, David Carradine is shown as an adult prophet of "He Who Walks Behind the Rows," but that doesn't make sense, since the cult teaches in the first film that adults are evil, and can't be trusted.

The main way, in the first through fifth films, one can tell if someone is a member of the Corn cult is, primarily, their Amish-like dress code, their age (pre-19, according to the 5th sequel), and their King James-type way of speaking. Also, most of the kids in the cult are CHILDREN. Not even THESE things are the case in this sequel!

In truth, there are NO children in this installment, and no one dresses like an Amish person - at least not until Isaac is reintroduced - and, stop the presses, but Isaac is reintroduced because, guess what, he didn't really die at the end of the first movie, he was just in a coma! For 19 years. And boy, does it show. He looks like an old leather shoe that was left in the rain, and dehydrated.

The scriptwriters of this fiasco, clearly, knew nothing about the muscular and physical atrophy that coma patients experience. Isaac, supposedly, has been in a coma for nearly 20 years, but no sooner is he awakened by the mysterious arrival of Hannah in Gatlin (the first time the town's name has actually been mentioned in a sequel, and the first sequel to be set there), he's up and around, and walking with a little cane. He actually looks more like a hobbit than prophet of doom in this movie, and I kept halfway waiting for Gandalf to appear and scold him for misusing his magic. But, wait a minute, Isaac has no magic. His only ability in this film is to persuade young people in their twenties (and Stacy Keach, playing a doctor, in a shameless waste of stunt casting) to worship his corn god! Why? What's the payoff? I have no clue. Unless you like to murder people in cold blood, with no provocation, I honestly can't see why anyone would want to be one of the Children of the Corn.

Another new wrinkle in the fabric of this franchise (beyond having all cult members be rowdy, liquor-drinking and hard-partying twenty-somethings wearing modern clothes and driving pickup trucks and motorcycles) is a sub-plot involving Isaac's old girlfriend, who - we learn - not only slept with Isaac during the setting of the first film - but bore his offspring! So members of the cult get to enjoy sexual intercourse which, unless I'm just totally off the mark, is typically a past-time of grown-ups and married people...something is not right with this picture, and on many levels. Especially considering how youthful, small, frail, and creepy Isaac looked in that first film; to picture anyone wanting him in a sexual way is impossible to my way of thinking.

The plot tries to mind games with the viewer, and there's a weak MacGuffin involving mixed-up identities, but what really put my brain into a twist was Nancy Allen's performance, which was simply terrible. She's not been in a movie in quite some time, and she never was the strongest of actresses, but she seems to have lost every trace of her past ability to even try to act. It's pititful, really, because I've always really liked her, and her role in this film makes Karen Black's performance in the sequel she was featured in seem like an Oscar-calibre tour de force!

The actress who played Hannah was cute, but her performance was ultimately unmemorable. Still, her name is above the title in most posters for the DVD release; it was far from worthy of a theatrical release.

Perhaps the greatest flaw in the film, beyond its weak usage of the Isaac character, whose "return" amounts to nothing more than a hill of beans and wasted effort, is its manifestation of "He Who Walks Behind the Rows," who turns out to be Isaac's twenty-something son. Funny thing is, while Isaac only has the gift of gab, his son is a telekinetic. Since this new character is easily defeated, this revelation ultimately proves to be a waste, too, as is one other twist in this wholly unlinked chain of stories: apparently, Isaac was trying to breed a new race of 'pure' humans, and Hannah's return to Gatlin (to mate with the spawn of Isaac) was all part of some sort of weird, demonic prophecy. But - what about the baby with the flaming eyes in the other sequel?

Folks, this series is train wreck. Plain and simple. It's like the film-makers never watched the original before they made any of the sequels. WEIRD. I'm surprised one of the movies didn't feature flowers, and "He Who Walks Behind the Rose."

Children of the Corn 5: Fields of Terror (1998)

Whenever sequels in a film franchise begin to increase in number, there's always a danger of their plots bleeding together in the minds of viewers over time. Especially when the subject matter is similar, and this is certainly the case with this fifth installment of the CHILDREN OF THE CORN series.

The fourth installment featured a touch of what might be called stunt casting by including Karen Black among its performers (I can't bring myself to call anyone in these pieces of drek "stars"), and this fifth flick does a little of the same, although on a much lower scale. The late David Carradine of KUNG FU fame appears in this film, as does Ahmet Zappa - the son of the late, great Frank Zappa. Alexis Arquette, the youngest member of the Arquette family of actors, is also in the cast, along with a fairly young Eva Mendes. Even Kane Hodder appears, but no one gives a truly noteworthy performance.

David Carradine's brief role as Luke Enright, a self-proclaimed leader or prophet of the Children of the Corn cult, is a real anomaly in this series when considering his age, and the fact that the bulk of these films have revolved around - well - children. A big deal's even made throughout the movie about 18 being the age at which human beings 'enter the age of sin,' so how is it that the grizzly-looking Carradine has survived all this time, unseen before now? And whatever happened to the town of Gatlin? It's long been forgotten in this series!

There's nothing particularly interesting about Carradine's presence in the movie, it must be reported. Presenting him as the Children of the Corn's leader is just strange. Especially when considering the following: Toward the end of the movie, Eva Mendes' character decides to sacrifice herself before she reaches 'the age of sin' to He Who Walks Behind the Rows because she's almost 18, after reading an also never-before-seen tome of arcane Children of the Corn theology, written by unknown past agencies. Perhaps the screenwriter wanted to offer up some background filler, but if this was the intent, it failed miserably. It was interesting, though, to see that the director of the movie opted to depict the blood-thirsty 'god' of the series as an animated ball of flame again, after previous sequels featured it as a massive stop-motion beastie, or as a re-animated corpse thing, etc.

In the end, this movie adds nothing to the mythology of the series; there are at least three lame attempts at showing viewers how the cult regenerates itself by creating new followers - either (1.) by possessing them whenever they investigate the spontaneous fire of He Who Walks Behind the Rows that magically appears in their fields, (2.) by proselytizing young people with their religious propaganda material, or (3.) by possessing future members before birth. See, there's a baby at the end of the movie who - in a sequence that seemed entirely lifted from an episode of the children's horror anthology GOOSEBUMPS - suddenly manifests flaming eyes in a freeze frame image just before the credits roll...

The primary characters of this mess stumble onto the Children of the Corn during the first act of the movie by accident but, wouldn't you know it, one of them has a relative who's in the Corn cult, so she spends most of the movie trying to get her brother to leave the followers of He Who Walks Behind the Rows. Turns out that he's the father of the fiery-eyed baby at the end.

Not a whole lot in this movie makes sense. Gore sequences are tossed in with no clear motivation; why should the Children of the Corn suddenly slash and kill an outlander when they could just as easily give them their religious literature to ponder? Why didn't anyone catch the fever the kids caught in the last movie before they were turned over to He Who Walks Behind the Rows? Why are there more and more adults in Children of the Corn communities in each successive movie, when the first film showed that the cult firmly believed in killing off all grown-ups? Why is David Carradine in the movie as the leader of the cult, when the movie opens with the possession of a little boy with jug ears named Ezekiel, and Ezekiel does most of the 'preaching' and decision-making for the cult?

These sequels leave a bad taste in one's mouth, and they really stink. Sort of like scorched popcorn. I really, really wish I knew what Stephen King thought of what his original short story eventually wrought.

Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering (1996)

Perhaps the greatest irony of this fourth installment of the Children of the Corn franchise is that fact that it features Karen Black in a latter day Horror movie appearance, and Naomi Watts in perhaps her earliest. Karen Black was a Horror star in the 1970's, most notably for her work in the original TRILOGY OF TERROR, but also in movies like BURNT OFFERINGS. Naomi Watts, of course, went on to star in the American remake of THE RING, and its less than satisfying sequel. At first blush, it almost seems as if the two actresses are crossing at a career pivot point - one at the end, and one at the beginning. But this all depends on whether or not you regard this movie as a "real" movie, since it was never shown in a movie theater and was, instead, released straight to video. Black needed some work, one must assume, and Watts needed a starting point, and who could hold it against them? No matter where you get your money, it's always green, no matter who signs your paycheck.

Another irony for this "film" is the fact that, despite its title, it never really acknowledges that it's a Children of the Corn sequel, it never mentions the town of Gatlin, and it never directly mentions the events of any of the stories that preceded it. Instead, it's its own strange little demonic beast.

This isn't so much a story about the "children of the corn" as it is a story about demon-possession on a wide scale, and the attempt by a cluster of ghost-inhabited young people who are attempting to resurrect their deceased child-preacher leader, Josiah. Now, this might have worked if Isaac or Malachi had been referenced, or even "He Who Walks Behind the Rows," but it just doesn't happen in this movie, and it's a shame it's got "Children of the Corn" in the title, since it's nothing more than a rural horror story, and not a very effective one.

The special effects in this installment never go as over-the-top as the last movie's did, but some of the gore set pieces just don't work, or look extremely lame - namely one scene in the rafters of a barn, where a fellow is sliced and diced by various farm implements, and another in a pediatricians' office, wherein demon-possessed children ride a cart in pursuit of their elderly victim, and slice him up with medical utensils.

As was the case with the last movie, the climax of the film simply doesn't work, and the effects fall short of what they should be. There's no real rhyme or reason to the plot, and while Naomi Watts does her best to be convincing as she works to save the life of her family, Karen Black's performance is a little on the campy side.

There's nothing particularly scary about this flick. Kids generate fevers for no reason, get the shakes, and then become overtaken by - one assumes - the spirits of the dead "children of the corn" (which might explain why more and more of them keep popping up in all the sequels), but the whys and wherefores are as mysterious as the absence of any reference to any aspect of Stephen King's original concept, or the previous sequels. Personally, I'd be interested in hearing how he feels about this milking of the dry, bloody teats of his creation, and the lame attempts at transforming it into a Horror staple, a'la the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET films, etc.

There are worse ways to waste the time you spend watching this, but there aren't many. Still, it's something of an improvement over what came before - although that's not really saying much.

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989)

In the summer of 1989, Tim Burton's BATMAN trounced all comers for box office glory. GHOSTBUSTERS II hit the number 1 slot just before BATMAN came, saw, and conquered, but everything else released that summer got the air knocked out of its sails, including STAR TREK V: THE FINAL FRONTIER, which deserved to bomb. Only two movies maintained their financial integrity that summer, against the odds, and one film was - surprisingly - HONEY, I SHRUNK THE KIDS, and the other was BILL & TED'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE, which quickly developed a cult following and earned the film both a sequel, and a Saturday morning cartoon series.

Not many people are aware of the fact that this first BILL & TED adventure was co-scripted by Chris Matheson, who is both a well-known author of short stories and the son of Richard Matheson, who penned the bulk of the very finest episodes of the original TWILIGHT ZONE television series. Not many people are aware, either, of the fact that Bill and Ted's travelling through time in a phone booth is an homage to the timeship of the famous BBC program DOCTOR WHO, which is also a phone booth.

BILL & TED'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE tells the story of two air-headed slackers whose lives seem to be headed for a downward spiral when they encounter a man from the future named Rufus, who tells them that - ultimately - his entire world will practically worship this dim-witted duo.

Bill is played by Alex Winter, who is perhaps best known as one of the vampires in THE LOST BOYS, and as the lead actor in the movie FREAKED! Ted, of course, is played by Keanu Reeves, who went on to greater fame in SPEED, and then played another role in which his character would learn that he was to be a future messianic figure, Neo, in THE MATRIX. In this movie, however, the two of them play lovable doofuses, and they're clearly having a lot of fun playing their roles. Rufus is played by George Carlin, and he does a very good job with his part in the film. The movie's a lot of fun if you're in the right frame of mind.

To enable them to fulfill their destiny, Rufus leaves Bill and Ted a phone booth time machine, which enables them to gather research for a history presentation that Ted must pass in order to keep from being sent away to military school by his father (which would upset the balance of what the future holds, thus destroying the fabric of the universe). Instead of observing history, however, the two air-guitaring surfer dudes decide to actually "collect" famous people in history, to show off when it's time for Ted's showcase. So, they gather such figures as Abraham Lincoln, Socrates (whom they ignorantly call "So-crates"), Joan of Arc, Genghis Khan, Billy the Kid, and Napolean. Then they set these hostorical personages loose on the world of 1989, with many comical results.

The film is very funny, and while it seems to be completely silly, its ultimate message is "Be Excellent to One Another," which - we learn at film's end - Rufus' future society anchors its entire philosophy upon. Maybe we should anchor ours on this thought, too. In the celebrated words of the Abraham Lincoln in the movie, "Party on, dudes!"

Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest (1995)

The first direct-to-video sequel in this franchise, CHILDREN OF THE CORN III: URBAN HARVEST, is nothing more than a weak attempt to turn the original film in the series inside out, and allow for the possibility that the cult of "He Who Walks Behind the Rows" might not have been limited to the little town of Gatlin, Nebraska.

In the first film, two city people enter Gatlin, and seemingly snuff out the corny cult of "He Who Walks Behind the Rows". In this third film, two young people from Gatlin enter the city, and one of them attempts to revive the cult.

The question of how any young person could survive what happened in the first film arose with the first sequel, which revealed more children of the corn. When this film opens, we see that at least one adult survived the massacre of Gatlin as presented in CHILDREN OF THE CORN, and he's quickly dispatched and transformed into a scarecrow, leaving his two youngsters without adult protection. So, they're sent to the big city, and we soon learn that one of the boys has a magical suitcase filled with ears of corn. When one person looks into it, they see maggots and cockroaches; when someone else looks into it, they see nothing more than ears of corn which, the boy says, he brought for "a taste of home." It isn't long, of course, before he's planting corn out in a nearby grassy area beside the high rise he's moved into and, yes, "He Who Walks Behind the Rows" is reborn somehow, and his acolyte starts making recruits of the willing city kids he's able to mesmerize.

Of these two brothers, the other is seduced by the worldly ways of the city, and he doesn't seem to have much awareness of the evil deity his brother worships. He's too busy learning how to dress modern, and chase skirts. Before the end of the movie, of course, the two have to scrap, only - in this movie - we finally get to see a flesh and blood version of the Children of the Corn demon. And, boy oh boy, does it look stupid! Honestly, it almost looks like the Rancor in RETURN OF THE JEDI, only with more eyes!

In the final climax, when "He Who Walks Behind the Rows" is made manifest and all chaos breaks loose, it picks up a girl, and in a wide shot, we can plainly see that the creature is a model, and its victim is a Barbie doll! It's embarrassingly bad. Awful, just awful.

There are some okay sequences in the movie, and the baby-faced actor who plays the evil kid from Gatlin is okay, but over all, the movie is a waste of time, as the finale of the film leaves a truly awful taste in the mouth. Something like rotten corn, I'd say.

Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice (1992)

While the 1984 original was filmed in Nebraska, CHILDREN OF THE CORN 2 was filmed in my home state of North Carolina, and it really shows if you're a native North Carolinian. The difference in location is jarring, but even more jarring is the tremendous time span that we're supposed to ignore in terms of this film's continuity.

CHILDREN OF THE CORN 2 proports to take place almost immediately after the events of the first flm, but nearly a decade passed between the two films and, for viewers, it robs this inferior sequel of any sense of immediacy. Especially since it revolves around individuals who are interested in taking the children of Gatlin, Nebraska, away from the horrors they'd been exposed to in the first film - after all, wouldn't those who were children be teenagers by this point, and the older youth be young adults after the 8-year span? Perhaps we're meant to forget that all this time had passed, and just assume that it merely picks up where CHILDREN OF THE CORN left off. And if this is the case, we've got another problem, because the two adult survivors at the end of the original took the two small survivors of Gatlin away to, presumably, raise. They also took one of the older girls, who was knocked unconscious after attempting to attack Peter Horton's character, so who are these children that are the focus of this new movie? Again, it's not really supposed to matter, and we're expected to just go along for the ride.

Shucked down to its cob, CHILDREN OF THE CORN 2 boasts a backstory wherein a reporter for a ragmag brings his son out to investigate the aftermath of what happened in the first movie. The main story of the film, though, focuses on an attempt by witless adults to rehabilitate the remaining children of Gatlin. These "children of the corn" are moved to the nearby town of Hemmingford and, of course, one of them named Micah is in the thrall of "He Who Walks Behind the Rows," and the same scenario that played out during the opening of the first movie springs from the original stalk...

The movie received only a brief theatrical run before being released to VHS, and five more sequels followed, so calling it the FINAL Sacrifice is really a misnomer. About the only memoral sequence, as far as I'm concerned, is the scene where an old woman in a wheelchair is sent flying through a window pane by the evil cleric Micah...

CHILDREN OF THE CORN 2 has none of the flair of the original B-movie it attempts to emulate, and has none of the charm the first film had, either. Isaac and Malachi were sorely missed, Outlander!

Children of the Corn (1984)

Okay, it's like this: I grew up reading Horror comics, watching Horror movies, and I really loved Stephen King's short stories, released very early in his writing career in such compendium editions as SKELETON CREW, and NIGHT SHIFT...

CHILDREN OF THE CORN was one of his earliest short stories, and I read it when I was in Junior High, and liked it, mainly because I'm a born and bred North Carolinian, and cornfields have always been a part of my life, and so has religion, in varying stages of complexity and, sometimes, excess.

When CHILDREN OF THE CORN was released in 1984, it seemed to come out of nowhere, and I was really excited to see that more of Stephen King's works were getting the Big Screen treatment. I even got to work as an extra on the film version of his FIRESTARTER, but I can't remember if we worked on it before or after CHILDREN OF THE CORN came out. All I recall is that a Wilmington, NC, radio station (that's, sadly, no longer with us, at least not in the format it was back then), WHSL, announced that, whoever got to the theater where it was premiering, would get to see it for free, so off I went with my best friend, and we watched it with a packed house of viewers and Horror fans.

Now, it could rightly be said that, because it was free, it seemed better to me at the time than it was, but I had to be honest - it's one of my favorite little guilty pleasures, and I've watched it over and over throughout the years, and it never really grows stale to me. Sure, it has its flaws, it's not perfect, but its heart is in the right place, if that's the right phraseology to use when you're talking about a weird cult of kids who kill all grown-ups at the behest of a supposed deity they worship called "He Who Walks Behind the Rows."

The movie's not quite as Stephen King wrote it, but it's a lot of fun, if you're in the right frame of mind. It doesn't take itself too seriously, and I guess it shouldn't when considering that the climax reveals - sort of - the cartoony face of "He Who Walks Behind the Rows, " and he turns out to look almost exactly like an energy monster on the animated JONNY QUEST show from the 1960's.

The movie's two adult leads are Peter Horton, before THIRTYSOMETHING, and Linda Hamilton, before THE TERMINATOR movies; whenever I see the two of them together onscreen, I think that Horton would have made the perfect version of the "cured" Vincent at the end of Hamilton's BEAUTY AND THE BEAST series - that is, if they could have ever come up with a cure for his physical peculiarities.

Horton and Hamilton are an unmarried couple who keep asking themselves why they're not married; turns out she's willing, but he's afraid of the commitment entailed. Both recent graduates, they're trying to decide what to do with their lives while touring the country, and during their excursion, they come upon, well, THE CHILDREN OF THE CORN.

Seems a dwarfish-looking kid named Isaac has had an encounter with a being among the cornstalks whom he labels "He Who Walks Behind the Rows," and - along with his trusty, red-haired henchman, Malachi, he's brainwashed the rest of the children and youth in his town to kill all the adults. Now, exactly WHY this had to be done is never explained, but one must assume that He Who Walks Behind the Rows enjoys blood sacrifices for some reason, so Isaac and Malachi, and all save two children in their little town, kill every adult there, including their parents and even the elderly, with one lone exception - the old garage mechanic who lives on the outskirts of town, played by the same actor who played "Uncle Louis" on the old FRIDAY THE 13th show (he was the one who sold all the possessed items to his unsuspecting customers that have to be tracked down throughout the course of the series). Why the mechanic gets to survive is beyond me, especially since it's later revealed that he knows what went on in the town, and is later killed for it, after he says too much to Horton and Hamilton's characters.

Of course the two lone stand-apart children encounter Hamilton and Horton and, in old school TV Show fashion, they team up and defeat both THE CHILDREN OF THE CORN and "He Who Walks Behind the Rows" in an almost Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew fashion.

There's a lot of bloodshed in the movie, and it can be creepy at times, but the one thing that makes most viewers of my generation get the willies is the performance by the actors who play Isaac and Malachi, and the Old English way they speak. After watching this movie, if you're like me and Renee, and my friends who saw it when it first came out, you'll probably go around the house saying, "OUTLANDER!" to one another, or just croaking out the names "Isaac" and "Malachi" whenever the opportunity seems most appropriate.

No, it's not a classic. No, it's not great but, yes, it's one of my very favorite Stephen King movies, and one of my very favorite B-movie Horror flicks. That is, if it really qualifies as Horror. I'm not really sure it earned it's R-rating. And it certainly didn't earn all the straight-to-video sequels that followed in its corny wake...

The Beastmaster (1982)

In the wake of big-budget Sword & Sorcery fare like CONAN THE BARBARIAN, this cult favorite B-movie - THE BEASTMASTER - went on to spawn a sequel and, many years later, a short-lived television series. The opening narration for the film says it all and, if you "get" the feel it's trying to convey, you can easily get what the movie was aiming for:

"It was foretold by witches. It was conceived through sorcery, and it was to be destroyed by all that is evil. But the courage of one mortal saved it. And so, into an age of darkness, in a time of mysticism, sacrifice, and plunder, there came the only light: The Beastmaster! Born with the strength of a black tiger, the courage of an eagle - the power that made him more than any hero, more than any lover. He was lord and master over all beasts. He was the Beastmaster! Behold the wonder, the horror, the fantasy, the challenge of the one warrior they called the Beastmaster! Mark Singer is Dar, Tanya Roberts is Kari, Rip Torn is Maak, John Amos is Seth. Together, they take us on a fascinating journey back into unexplored times! Conquer your fears! Face the unknown, and discover the incredible link between man, animal, and all that is phantasmagorical in the world of dungeons, dragons, and Dar: The Beastmaster! The epic adventure of a new kind of hero."

Part Mythological tale, part OEDIPUS REX, and equal parts Sword & Sorcery fantasy and cheesy Horror movie, THE BEASTMASTER opens like a TV movie or television show, with a series of still photos that have the opening credits overlaying them. That should say a lot about the films' production values: it was clearly made on the cheap, and it was clearly inspired by the first CONAN movie (it blatantly apes the sequence where Arnold Schwarzenegger, as Conan, learns how to wield a broadsword, and stands in an open plain as the camera moves around him, filming him twirling two blades around at once - only, in THE BEASTMASTER, "Dar" stand atop a mountainside, alone, and twirls a single sword around, seeming to be extra careful not to slice off an ear or two as he wildly swings his blade from side to side; there's also a cannibalistic sequence where a human head is seen floating in a giant stew pot, and another where a witch is dispatched by tossing her into an open flame. Both of these latter scenarios played out in CONAN THE BARBARIAN). Even today I can't help but regard it as a CONAN clone or, perhaps, now, a precursor to the Rock's movie THE SCORPION KING. As a matter of fact, it wouldn't be too difficult, really, to have Dar meet both Conan and the Scorpion King, if you think about it.

In truth, Dar is actually more closely akin to King Oedipus, of ancient Greek mythology, who - it was foretold - would grow up to marry his mother, and murder his father. In THE BEASTMASTER, however, it's foretold that Dar will grow up to defeat and the evil sorcerer Maak, who orders Dar's death even before he's born. In the story of OEDIPUS REX, the father of Oedipus orders his son's death and, as was the case in the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the death sentence is simply never carried out, not for Oedipus, and not for Dar. Both grow up to fulfill their ultimate destiny, after growing up as ordinary peasants. Well, ordinary for Dar, until the day he learns he can communicate with animals after an encounter with a giant bear.

Dar, it seems, is also closely related to the Edgar Rice Burroughs character TARZAN OF THE APES, in that he can communicate with animals of all sorts (except for horses, which wildly stampede around him in several scenes in which he never even attempts to calm them down or control them), although Tarzan does it naturally in his adventures, by "talking with them" in various animal languages, and Dar does it via supernatural means. See, Dar was magically removed from his pregnant mother's womb while she was enchanted by horrifically ugly witches with slender, nubile bodies they like to showcase from behind for some reason, and his birth mother turned out to be an oxen of some sort (I kid you not). How this gave him the ability to speak with critters of all sorts, and "see" through the eyes of his pet eagle is beyond me, but I suspect he is an ancestor of Ellie Mae Clampett of the Beverly Hillbillies.

Anyway, the movie takes itself a little too seriously at times, but Mark Singer and company do they best they can with what they have, even Rip Torn, who has weird eyebrows in his role as the evil sorcerer Maak, and a giant prosthetic nose that makes me think of the cartoon character, DICK TRACY, whenever we're shown his profile. If you're into B-grade Sword and Sorcery epics, then this is the movie for you. However, I warn you: the trailer lied. There are no dragons in this movie. There are plenty of weird, ugly creatures - including these weird bat-men who, when they enfold their human prey in their wings, make them melt away into mere bones. My favorite plot device, however, is the magic ring with the all-seeing eyeball in it; rewatching it made me wonder if the director of the movie, Don Coscarelli, has a thing about dismemberment and/or fingers, since there's a magic finger in the movie he did before THE BEASTMASTER, PHANTASM, which is practically referenced in the trailer, when the word phantasmagorical is used...

THE BEASTMASTER was also, some claim, a variation on a novel entitled - surprisingly enough - The Beastmaster, by Fantasy author Andre Norton, whom the director of the film, Don Coscarelli, has often cited as one of his formative influences. Andre Norton was credited as the co-writer of the 1991 sequel to this film: THE BEASTMASTER 2: THROUGH THE PORTAL OF TIME, and the BEASTMASTER television series that debuted in 2002 featured a credit stating that it was inspired by, and based upon, the original Norton book.

Amityville: Dollhouse (1996)

AMITYVILLE: DOLLHOUSE - thank goodness - is the very last of the direct-to-video sequels of the original AMITYVILLE HORROR, and for good reason. It's awful. It plays like a weak TV movie made for LIFETIME, and when it doesn't showcase limp acting from its boring male lead, Robin Thomas (best remembered from a few episodes from the 1986-87 season of WHO'S THE BOSS?, where he was Tony Danza's rival for the affection of the Angela character), it slips in and out of what seem to be inane variations on Stephen King stories and old Horror comics.

Want voodoo dolls? It's got 'em. Want dead creatures that come back to life and torment people? It's got 'em. Want giant demons that look like something the Stan Winston Creature Workshop staff would laugh at? It's got 'em. Want zombified corpses coming back to life to bait people into murder, while acting like variations on old Jim Carey characters? It's got those, too. It's got other things as well, but there's one thing it ain't got - and that's the actual house from the first movie. Nope, it's not set there, and it's not even set in Amityville. As a matter of fact, the word "Amityville" is not mentioned even once during the course of this movie, and neither is anything that could be even closely related to anything that could be called part of the "legend" of the original! Well, except maybe the dollhouse of the title, which would actually be best described as being "Colonial Dutch" in style, from what I understand. And "Colonial Dutch" style houses really have as much to do with this movie as a teepee does to an igloo. The fact that the dollhouse of the title even looks like the house from the original movie is entirely incidental.

Before I go any further, however, I feel I must - in the interest of full disclosure - admit the following: It put me to sleep after only a few minutes, and it took me quite a while to generate the needed energy to rewind it, and watch this thing to its conclusion. Yes, it's simply that bad. And it's not necessarily the cast's fault, because they do their very best. I'd say the fault lies with the director, Steve White, who served as producer for all of the AMITYVILLE sequels beginning with AMITYVILLE: THE EVIL ESCAPES. The best directors leave their mark on a film, and you can look at their work and discern who was in charge of their movies; White is like a silent Ninja, whose presence is never detected. There's no tension in the movie. No drama, and certainly no character in the movie that has anything that makes them truly likeable or memorable. In the end, one has to ask themself: WHAT WAS THE POINT?

In short, the movie dealt with a newly mixed family (whether or not the Mom and Dad of this brood ever actually got married is never addressed, and I never saw wedding rings, if that matters to anyone), and the beginning of their new life together in a house the patriarch - played by Robin Thomas - has rebuilt from the ashes of his parents' old homestead. The family discovers what seems to be a dollhouse replica of the old AMITYVILLE house in a shed out back (how it got there is never explained, so go check your sheds, people! Quick!), and it's brought inside as a birthday present, and placed in the room of the youngest member of the new family, a little girl.

Yeah, you guessed it, the dollhouse has mysterious occultic properties, and soon after it's brought into the family home, strange things start happening, only not what we've seen in the previous films. For example: The matriarch of the family starts lusting after the patriarchs' teenaged son. The patriarch's teenaged son, who lusts after his wild girfriend (who later gives new meaning to the term "hot," when she's nearly burned alive), is attacked by a suddenly reanimated dead insect, which climbs into his ear and stings him, but leaves no later sign of injury or swelling! And, of course, the little girl of the family is the one who tries to warn everyone, but to no avail.

There's a subplot about the youngest boy in the family (he's slightly older than the little girl, and much older than the aforementioned teenager) being visited by a zombified incarnation of his dead father and, yes, the zombie wants him to kill his new stepfather for some reason. Why? We're never told. And the occasionally hammy acting on the part of the zombie, combined with his casual acting approach while wearing complete body prosthetics, makes every scene he's in complete agony for the viewer. Lame, lame, lame.

Oh, yeah, there's also a fellow named "Tobias" in the movie who's a mystic of some sort, although he looks more like the dude with the walrus mustache on MYTH-BUSTERS (minus the beret), and of course, he comes running in to save the family during its finale, with the old worn-out line, "We've got to get out. There's not much time." Um, according to whom, and why? And if there's "not much time," why does Tobias linger with the family's patriarch at the end of the movie, and go with him into - get this - the fireplace - where, I guess, the dollhouse demons have transported the family's youngest member; turns out the fireplace is a portal to hell of some sort, but we're never explained the in's and out's of it.

Anyhoo, costumed devils who are so completely plastic that all they can do is shuffle around and/or open and close their fanged jaws appear before all is said and done, and Daddy's Little Girl saves the day by remembering that, in her magic dollhouse, she discovered a secret door, which enables her and her daddy to escape through back into our world. Poor Tobias, on the other hand, is left behind as demon bait, and no one even mourns him, despite the fact that his sacrifice saves everyone's lives.

The ending of the movie confused me a great deal, though, I must admit. See, the daddy decides to toss the dollhouse into the portal-to-hell fireplace not long before the final credits roll. But remember, the dollhouse has a portal to the real world in it and, one assumes (since the little girl got sucked into the hell plane somehow), another portal to hell, which would mean that one portal to the nether world was being pushed inside another portal to the nether world, and since both portals are conduits to a boring-looking hell plane, um, shouldn't they - like - cross each other out, or something? Implode, maybe, like when matter and anti-matter meet? My brain hurts from contemplating it, but I don't believe that was the intent of the film-makers. I think their intent was to milk the teats of the AMITYVILLE cash-cow one last time, to make sure the the milk had stopped flowing, and to see if blood would come out, like blood from the proverbial stone.

"Is it over yet?" the little girl asks at movie's end. It was my question, too. Not just about AMITYVILLE: DOLLHOUSE, though. About the entire worthless franchise. The movie ends with the family home exploding in flames, ironically similar to the way AMITYVILLE: 3-D ended, and the Amityville dollhouse burns and explodes not once, but twice, in a clear cinematic goof intended to make the movie end on a dramatic note that, frankly, falls as flat as the rest of the flick. AVOID THIS TURKEY!

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009)

So, my little boy, who just turned 7, recently switched allegiences. Once a die-hard TRANSFORMERS fan, he decided to trade that franchise out for G.I. JOE, when we told him that the recent TRANSFORMERS sequel had too much unsuitable material in it for his age group, and ran about an hour too long, according to my brother, and several critics I'd read. We opted not to see TRANSFORMERS 2, and my son didn't really care: he was too stoked to see G.I. JOE: THE RISE OF COBRA.

Now, I was exposed to the "original" G.I. JOE long before the 1980's revisionist cartoon came out. My mom and dad bought me all the action figures, and sometimes lucked out and found old playsets that I'd wear out, teaming my fuzzy-headed (and sometimes fuzzy-faced) G.I JOE figure with J.J. Armes, and BIG JIM, whose "Rescue Rig" was one of my favorite toys back in the 70's, along with my SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN toys. I also liked the G.I. JOE variant characters, like Mike Power, the Atomic Man, who was a blatant rip-off of Steve Austin, and Bullet Man, the Human Bullet, and the caveman-like "Intruder," whom my brother stole away to our grandparents' house, where he spent most weekends, so he could go hunting and fishing with our mother's stepfather.

The G.I. JOE: A REAL AMERICAN HERO cartoon came out in 1983, when my younger brother was about 10 years old, and I was nearing 17. He loved it, and collected the action figures, and when it became a daily show, I started becoming familiarized with it, and the many characters, even though I was quickly approaching the end of my High School career. I regarded it as kids' stuff, but I did appreciate the show's clever scriptwork, the faithfulness to keep the characters distinct, and to have the same voice-over actors maintain the integrity of their roles throughout the series' run. Of course, it aired either before or after the TRANSFORMERS cartoon (both were made by the same company, and featured many of the same voice-over actors), so I quickly began to learn all about the Autobots and the Decepticons as well.

I'll be brutally honest: I was so fond of the Science Fiction trappings of the TRANSFORMERS cartoons, and the faithfulness of the show - during its initial years, anyway - to its storyline integrity that, when I saw the first TRANSFORMERS movie (the animated one), I was almost sick to my stomach by what I saw on the silver screen. See, I took my brother and our younger cousin to see it at the movies, because I'd gotten my driver's license and my own car by that point. I hated TRANSFORMERS the movie, and I hated what it left in its wake on the TV show the next season, too. The same can be said of the first G.I. JOE movie (the animated one); it was awful, and ruined the series, which tried to follow up on some of the insanity that played out during the movie, just as the TRANSFORMERS cartoon did. Both experiences left a really bad taste in my mouth for either G.I. JOE and TRANSFORMERS.

When TRANSFORMERS came out as a film directed by Michael Bay a few years ago, I took my son, and he and the rest of the family loved it, but I absolutely loathed it. Hated every blessed second of it. Yeah, it had a few decent set pieces, and I like Shia as much as the next guy, but I just thought it was awful, and it really seemed like it was never going to end to me; I actually fell asleep during it, and enjoyed my nap better than the movie. I've tried to watch it since then, but hated it just as much each time. I can't make it all the way through. I know others like it, and I'm sorry, but I just don't.

So it was, when a live-action G.I. JOE movie was announced, that I rolled my eyes, and I scoffed. Especially when I saw that Dennis Quaid would have a role in it. "Dennis Quaid?" I asked. "What are they trying to do? Put a curse on the entire production?" Now, I actually like Dennis Quaid, and I've loved several of his movies over the years but, poor guy, seems like if he's the lead in a movie, it tanks at the box office, no matter how good it is. It's like he's jinxed or something. Later, I learned that his role as "General Hawk" would be smaller than the rest of the cast, and it eased my mind somewhat, but then I saw the costumes some of the various characters would be wearing. I wasn't sure I'd like them.

When I heard Marlin Wayans was in the movie, I thought, "Oh, no! He's going to over do it like he always does, and ham it up like he always does, and he's going to ruin every scene he's in." Frankly, I didn't have high hopes for the movie. Sienna Miller as the Baroness looked cute, though, and so did Rachel Nichols, who I fell in love with in her first big role in P2, and then in the new STAR TREK movie, where she played Jim Kirk's green-skinned Starfleet groupie (she was also adorable in DUMB AND DUMBERER, which most people hate, but I think is cute). I thought, well, maybe it won't be so bad, especially since it's directed by Stephen Sommers, whose movies I generally like (yes, even VAN HELSING, which I think is a lot of fun). And then my son decided to fall in love with G.I. JOE on general principle, and decreed that, for his birthday, the main thing he wanted was to see the new G.I. JOE movie, so what was I gonna do? Break his little heart, after he'd spent several days running around dressed in either black or white, as he rotated between StormShadow as a favorite character, or SnakeEyes?

Off we go to see G.I. JOE and, lo and behold, it was everything that my previous experiences had not been. I sat there by my son and giggled my way through the entire first half until I gave myself a headache; the best part of the movie, for me, was listening for G.I. JOE jargon from the original toy line (Wayans - who was just fine in the movie - made a reference to another soldier having a "Kung Fu grip" at one point, and the actor who played the "Duke" character sported a gash on his cheek just like the old school fuzzy-headed G.I. JOE dolls), and trying to pinpoint just who was who. I would have gotten a very high grade if it had been a test, I'm proud to say. I especially loved it when Dennis Quaid, as General Hawk, said at one point, with a grim expression, "And knowing is half the battle".

Other great aspects of the movie included the fact that it featured one of my favorite actors as Destro, Christopher Eccleston, whom I adore for his lone season as DOCTOR WHO. I also enjoyed all the backstories it gave for various characters, particularly StormShadow and SnakeEyes, and the Baroness, who is more sympathetic a character than I ever dreamed possible. And cute. And speaking of cute, Scarlet couldn't have been any more adorable than she was. (But where was Lady J?).

The movie features a whole lot of spectacle, a whole lot of action, a whole lot of explosions, and it just might be a tad too long, but it's a whole lot of fun. One thing I didn't appreciate, though, was the obscenity, and a few profanities, which I thought were inappropriate for a film that lured my own 7-year-old into the cinema. Fortunately, though, any inuendo that was included went over his head.

If the movie hadn't felt like it was starting to drag on toward the end, I would rank this right up there with some of my other summer movie favorites, but I was tired by the time the final credits rolled (with its horribly mangled version of the Black-Eyed Peas "Boom-Boom Pow," which would have worked better in the TRANSFORMERS sequel, with its reference to "Cybertron"), and I felt worn out. I wasn't too thrilled with how it ended, either, but I don't want to spoil it for anyone, so I won't say what happens. There were a few neat little twists and turns on what I expected to happen, however, and I was surprised to see most of the cast of Sommer's original MUMMY movie pop up in various cameos. I had an old school G.I. JOE set that featured a mummy, and I kept wondering if this was why Sommers let them join in on the action.

G.I. JOE: THE RISE OF COBRA was more fun than it probably deserved to be, and it transformed me into a 7-year-old boy again for a time, which was a really neat feeling. I just wish it had been a little shorter, and had resolved itself a little differently. Then again, it did leave the door open for a follow-up, so I'll be looking forward to its sequel in a way that I was not looking forward to the TRANSFORMERS sequel. YO, JOE!

Orphan (2009)

So, I went into this one cold, having glanced fleetingly at a few extremely positive reviews, one of which claimed that it dealt with a little girl who was "the female Damien." This was untrue, although I can see where the allusion to the OMEN series came from. However, there's nothing supernatural going on in ORPHAN.

Don't know about you, but it seemed to come out of nowhere and, when I first heard about it, I thought it was a remake of THE ORPHANAGE, which it is not.

So, I've established what it is not. But what is it? Quite frankly, it's one of the best little thrillers I've seen in a long, long time, and there's enough violence and gore in it for it to qualify as a horror movie. It never really had my heart pounding, but it certainly kept me on the edge of my seat, and I can't say a whole lot without blowing the ending, so I'll limit myself to my description of the key plot:

A young couple with a somewhat troubled past decide to adopt an older child for some reason. Not really sure why, because they never establish a clear reason, but they already have a little girl who was born dead who's around 5 years old, and an older boy, around 11 years old (played by the same kid who played young James Tiberius Kirk in the new STAR TREK movie). I assumed they wanted an older child because the mother lost her last baby, and was still mourning the loss and, I guess, they wanted an older child so they could have a companion for their children to take their minds off their grief.

Anyway, they select a cute little girl from Romania, Esther, who is an excellent singer and painter, but dresses strangely, and wears a ribbon around her neck, and ribbons around her wrist, and she will not allow anyone to touch her ribbons. This is a key plot point, and I kept wondering if she was a child-like variation of the bride I'd heard legends about who, if you removed her choker, would lose her head...well, this isn't the case, but I can't say much more about it, or it would ruin it for those of you who haven't seen this yet.

When Esther is brought into the home, she seems normal enough at first, but after a while, the movie starts moving into THE GOOD SON territory, and while it's similar to that movie, too, in ways, it never goes in quite the same direction.

In the end, I'd say that the producers and the director did a great job - they pulled one over on me, and I'm pretty hard to fool; they took the movie in directions I didn't really anticipate, and - all in all - I'd say this is one satisfying little horror movie. Highly recommended to Horror and Thriller buffs alike. Be warned, though, that this is an adult film, and there's subject matter not suitable for younger viewers. Don't say you haven't been warned.

Dragonslayer (1981)

Directed by Matthew Robbins, and co-written by Robbins and Hal Barwood, DRAGONSLAYER seemed to come out of nowhere on June 26th, 1981 when it hit the big screen, and I was one of the lucky ones who was able to see it in the theater. Ever a Sword & Sorcery fan, it appealed to me on every level, and as I reflect upon my continuing fondness for it, I can't help but wonder what would happen if it were released today. Frankly, like the ads I've seen for the upcoming television show about the teen-aged years of Merlin the Magician, I think everyone would compare it to the HARRY POTTER movies, although it takes place in the Dark Ages.

Like the first HARRY POTTER story, DRAGONSLAYER centers around a young man who's uncertain of himself, and of his place in the world. Unlike Harry, however, the young man at the center of this film has a base knowledge of magic and mysticism, and aspires to one day become the greatest sorcerer of all time, whereas Harry Potter has no idea at first of what he's destined for. Unfortunately, and entirely unlike Harry Potter, this young man - Galen - has no clear aptitude for magic, and shows no real clear sign of possessing any magical ability whatsoever. In short, Galen uses slight of hand to try to convince others he has powers, and he brags to everyone within earshot about his seemingly non-existent prowess until he ultimately finds himself ensnared in a quagmire of his own making...

DRAGONSLAYER takes place in a time when dragons were real and, after bragging to the wrong people one time too many, Galen is hired by a king to rid his village of the huge dragon that plagues them and forces them to offer sacrifice virgins to it to satisfy its craving for human flesh; if the movie has any failing, it's that it never explains how the king or the villagers come to the conclusion that they must do this. Regardless, if you let this mystery slide, you will find that the film is entirely enjoyable, and its special effects are first rate.

Galen, played by a young Peter MacNichol, encounters an elderly sorcerer named Ulrich, played by Sir Ralph Richardson, and the two form an unusual alliance, considering that Ulrich possesses all the talents and abilities that Galen lacks. Galen also befriends a villager named Vallerian who, shockingly, turns out to be a girl dressed as a boy (so as to avoid being sacrificed to the dragon), and the this threesome take part in a memorable adventure that I will not spoil for those who haven't seen it. Suffice it to say that it's one of Industrial Light and Magic's first efforts outside the STAR WARS universe and, all these years later, I've never forgotten the movie's story, actors, or its magnificent special effects. It's a shame it's not more widely known.

Amityville: A New Generation (1993)

Despite showcasing the original Amityville Horror house on the poster for this straight-to-VHS release (it was released on DVD in 2005), the Amityville Horror house is not the setting for this seventh installment in the series. In fact, the entire film takes place in an unnamed large city, presumably New York, where a young photographer named Keyes Terry encounters a homeless man who gives him an heirloom mirror after Keyes offers him money for taking his picture for a publication he works for.

The mirror is quite hideous, and looks almost as hokey as the evil lamp in AMITYVILLE: THE EVIL ESCAPES, and we're expected to believe that it once hung on the wall of the Amityville Horror house, and served as the Satanic conduit and trigger that sparked the notorious murders there in the early 1970's.

Instinctively, Keyes doesn't like the mirror, and he and his girlfriend agree to give it to their beautiful neighbor, Suki (played by Julia Nickson-Soul, of RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II fame), who is a professional artist specializing in painting murals. Obviously, the evil force within the mirror influences anyone within close proximity to it, and when Suki's bullying ex-boyfriend comes over to confront her over their break-up, he sees horrible images within the mirror which prompt him to attempt to jump out the window. He smashes his face into the glass pane, which shatters, and he bleeds to death from his injuries. Of course, while he looks into the mirror, an image of the original Amityville Horror house manifests, clearly displaying the windows on the second floor that look like evil, glowing eyes; this happens nearly every time someone gazes into it.

The mirror, of course, inspires Suki to do wicked things once she's under its influence, and she immediately begins to paint large murals of demonic entities which she claims danced for her in her bedroom when she was small. When the landlord comes over for some reason (played by David Naughton, of AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON fame), she attempts to seduce him, and they almost begin an affair, but are interrupted by the detective investigating the death of Suki's ex-boyfriend (played by Terry O'Quinn, who was the star of the original STEPFATHER movies).

Later, Suki notices that the image from her largest Satanic mural is missing and, in a fairly creepy sequence, we see glimmers of it prowling around other canvas works in an attempt to lure her closer to the mirror. When she confronts the mirror one last time, it influences her to hang herself on one of the cords that enabled her to make her paintings seem to dance, and when the landlord comes over to check on her, he is also overtaken by its evil influence.

Terry O'Quinn's detective character unexpectedly calls on Keyes at this point, asking him to come to the city morgue to identify a body. When he gets there, he sees the homeless man he purchased the mirror from lying on the slab. The detective informs Keyes that his name and address were written on a note in the homeless man's pocket, and he asks Keyes if he knew the man. Keyes says no, but insists on paying for the stranger's burial, claiming he would want his own father properly buried.

Later, we learn that the homeless man is, in fact, Keyes' long-lost father and, upon learning this, Keyes nearly goes insane - especially when the mirror begins to influence him as well, primarily by giving him nightmares and visions of what happened in the Amityville house all those years ago. Unfortunately, the actual facts of the case are wholly distorted, and the slain family is shown being killed while eating a Thanksgiving dinner, all under the watchful eye of the accursed, evil mirror. In real life, the DeFeo family were killed as they slept in their beds on the night of a thunderstorm.

In the end, Keyes has to decide whether or not he can be his own person, or whether or not he has to submit to the murderous instincts his father succumbed to that led him to a lengthy stay at an insane asylum. The mirror, of course, works diligently to woo Keyes to the side of evil, and Keyes' father's ghost (?) begins to manifest in it as a sort of pseudo Freddie Krueger-type before all is said and done.

In truth, this is the first of the straight-to-VHS Amityville releases that is somewhat tolerable. Yes, it's a B-movie, and it looks like it was made for cable TV, or a cable TV horror series, but it - at least - has a cohesive storyline, convoluted though it may be, and believable performances in it. It even boasts Richard Roundtree in its cast!

The fact that it has Amityville as part of its cinematic lineage is almost entirely incidental, and it really could have stood as its own as a straight-to-VHS release without being connected to any horror franchise. I, particularly, liked the ending, which I felt was more satisfying than any of the others that preceded it in the series, and the absence of the ineffective Catholic priests in it gave it a little more flexibility in terms of its narrative structure, lower scale though it may be.

Considering the fact that, after AMITYVILLE: THE EVIL ESCAPES was about a possessed lamp from the original house, and AMITYVILLE: IT'S ABOUT TIME was about a possessed clock from the original house, I find it interesting that it's almost as if the producers actually did pursue the concept of an Amityville yard sale, and even furthered the idea with the next film in the series, AMITYVILLE: DOLLHOUSE in 1996.

AMITYVILLE: A NEW GENERATION could have been much, much worse. As it stands, it's clearly a product of its day, and the hairstyles and clothes in it serve as clear evidence. There are worse ways to spend your time.

Amityville 5: The Amityville Curse (1990)

A straight-to-video release, THE AMITYVILLE CURSE came out a full year after NBC aired its ridiculous TV-movie AMITYVILLE: THE EVIL ESCAPES. It was a straight-to-video release, for a reason, folks, and if you've ever wondered why this was never released on DVD, well, I'll tell you why...

THE AMITYVILLE CURSE is so bad it makes AMITYVILLE II: THE POSSESSION look like THE EXORCIST; it even makes AMITYVILLE 3-D look good. Yes, it's just that bad. Not only does it not take place in the original Amityville Horror house set, the new house looks absolutely nothing like what had been shown before in the four previous films. Bear in mind, of course, that the original house was blown up at the end of the third film, and the fourth film took place on the other side of the United States and revolved around a demon-possessed lamp.

The long and short of this fifth Amityville go-round is this: Marvin, a feckless psychologist who dabbles in real estate sees that a house in Amityville is for sale and, thinking it would make a good fixer-upper, he cons some of his buddies to buy it with him so they can sell it for a profit. When they come in to renovate, all chaos breaks loose.

Before we're introduced to Marvin and his friends, however, we see a prologue wherein a Catholic priest is slain in a confessional booth by a mysterious stranger who walks off into the darkness after shooting the priest with a handgun. What this has to do with the Amityville Horror house is beyond me, and what this has to do with an Amityville "curse" is beyond me, too. If the priest lived in the Amityville house, it's never made clear. His confessional booth, however, is placed in the basement of the house Marvin and company purchase, and it rattles and shakes, and smokes, and the scaly arms of a greenish beast is shown trying to scratch its way out of it at one point. Why it was placed down there is beyond me.

Eventually we're introduced to Marvin's associates, including his wife who is, of course, supposedly a clairvoyant. We're also introduced to Frank, played by Kim Coates (the only "name" actor in the lot, really, if one can fairly say this). Frank suffers from headaches, which I think the director intended to be a, sort of, red flag for viewers that something is not right with him. Marvin's wife suffers from seeing visions, and one of them is of a stiff young man and a dog, whose identity we never discover; in one vision, Marvin's wife sees this boy hanging from a tree, dead, but why she sees this, we never know, either.

Boiled down to its bare essence, once Marvin and company start working on the house, strange sounds are heard coming from the basement, glasses break for no reason and, mostly, Marvin's wife keeps freaking out, which causes Marvin to wax philosophical about mass hysteria once the others in their little group start getting nervous.

A local eccentric comes to call on her new neighbors at one point, and when we discover that she was once the house maid for the slain priest at the beginning of the film, she is knocked down the basement stairs, and she dies there, on the floor. The police are called in, and they discover video footage of the killing, but they can't identify who the murderer is, only that they're wearing cowboy boots.

Frank, of course, is the only member of the party wearing cowboy boots, and when all is said and done, we learn that he is actually the illegitimate offspring of the priest from the movie's opening, and it was he who killed the priest. Something indefinable triggers madness within Frank, and he dispatches Marvin down in the basement, and the only other male member of the group upstairs. Marvin's wife, the clairvoyant, of course, survives Frank's murderous rampage, and escapes his wrath by throwing paint stripping solution in his face, and shooting him with an air-powered nail gun. She and Frank's wife are left traumatized by the end of the movie when, fortunately, the police arrive, having figured out Frank's identity. We never learn who the young man is in Marvin's wife's visions but, frankly, I don't think anyone would care. As for me, I was just grateful that the movie was over.

Like AMITYVILLE 4: THE EVIL ESCAPES, escape this one, too, or waste 91 minutes of your life that you'll never get back, like I did to review this piece of garbage.

Amityville 4: The Evil Escapes (1989)

A 1989 NBC TV Movie directed by Sandor Stern, AMITYVILLE: THE EVIL ESCAPES is one of the sorriest excuses for a sequel - or for a horror movie - ever made. Starring Oscar-winner Patty Duke and old school TV favorite Jane Wyman, it’s essentially a story about a demon-possessed lamp that terrorizes the family of Duke’s character, who has recently been widowed. The story opens in Amityville, but the Amityville Horror house is only glimpsed briefly at the opening of the film, when a team of priests attempts to exorcise it of its evil presence once and for all. The youngest priest in the group has an encounter with a hideously ugly lamp that looks more like a classic Star Trek alien (complete with periodically appearing devil face in the large white globe that sits atop its tree-like base pole), and after all the evil in the house enters the lamp through its power cord through an electrical outlet (!), the priests think their work is done. That is, until the lamp is sold at a yard sale, and the evil contained within it starts to manifest itself again by, uh, flashing on and off, and giving off eerie vibes. Later, it starts possessing things like, say, a chainsaw, a window, an electrical switch, and a plumbing fixture - later, it possesses the youngest member of Patty Duke’s family, her 11-year-old daughter, who seems to think the ugly, evil lamp is her deceased father for some unexplained reason. In the finale we see her dead father’s face in the lamp’s globe, so maybe she thought her dad was trapped inside it, but that’s just, well, stupid.

At first blush, AMITYVILLE: THE EVIL ESCAPES seems to emulate the premise of the old syndicated FRIDAY THE 13^th series. In that program, demon-possessed objects are sought out each week by forces of good to contain their evil powers after they’d been sold to unsuspecting customers by an evil warlock at an old antique shop. Instead of many haunted items being sold at a yard sale in this film, though, only the bizarre-looking lamp is sold and, unfortunately, it contains the evil of the Amityville house, and ends up being shipped clear across the country to the sister of the old woman who purchases it and, interestingly, pricks her finger upon one of its metal edges, ends up with tetanus, and ultimately dies from it - but not before the young priest goes to see her in ICU, and learns where the lamp has been shipped. The infection shown in the woman’s finger, along with a sequence where a young man loses his hand in a garbage disposal that’s activated by the evil lamp, is about the scariest thing in the movie, unless you consider how horrifying it is that this piece of garbage was green lit in the first place. Who was the bonehead who thought this movie would be a good idea, anyway? Supposedly based on the novel of the same name by John G. Jones, this movie is a complete waste of time.

Best described as an extremely watered-down AMITYVILLE HORROR Redux, THE EVIL ESCAPES doesn’t even qualify as a poor man’s version of the original. Marketed for VHS and, later, DVD after its television premiere as THE AMITYVILLE HORROR 4, it entirely ignores the fact that, at the end of AMITYVILLE 3-D, the Amityville Horror house exploded! Then again, none of the remaining sequels acknowledge the films that come before them, either, so it’s par for the course, really.

If those animated bunnies did a 30-second parody of AMITYVILLE: THE EVIL ESCAPES, it would play out something like this: Priests attempt to exorcise the Amityville Horror house, and after the youngest priest goes into the attic, all of its evil goes into a weird-looking prop lamp through an electrical outlet. The lamp is sold to an old woman at a yard sale who cuts her finger on it, and ships it cross-country to her sister. The young priest gets an eerie feeling about the lamp, talks to the old woman in ICU, and she dies from tetanus poisoning before his startled eyes. Meanwhile, Patty Duke and her children arrive at her mother’s home; through exposition we learn that Patty Duke’s character’s husband has recently dropped dead at the age of 42, and her youngest daughter, 11, is traumatized, and carries a doll baby around, constantly combing its hair. The lamp arrives in a crate, and is set up in the living room. It glows mysteriously. Patty Duke sees an image of her dead husband in the mirror, turns, and sees nothing behind her. She goes to bed, and her husband’s arm is briefly draped across her, and then vanishes. Her youngest daughter starts talking to “Daddy” when no one is in the room with her. Grandma’s parrot ends up in the toaster oven, and dies. The priest tries to send a telegram of warning to the family, but it doesn’t get through. Phone calls don’t work, either. A young man comes over to help with some chores, and loses his right hand in the garbage disposal when it mysteriously comes on, even though he carefully put electrical tape over the switch before he jammed his hand down in it. Black goo comes out of the faucets, and a plumber comes over to check; he gets trapped down in the basement when a beam falls on him, and then an overhead pipe opens above his head, and he drowns in the selfsame black goo; his utility van drives off by itself, and no one ever questions where he went, and his body - presumably - is still in the basement of the home. A chainsaw becomes activated when Patty Duke’s teenaged son plays with it and, unable to control it, he chops up everything from shelves to support beams until the house maid shorts out the chainsaw with a deflecting blow from a crowbar. Grandma blames the boy for all the damage, and family tensions ensue. The youngest daughter in the family tears her room apart, and starts giving everyone evil glares. The house maid investigates the attic, and the lamp makes its cord strangle her to death. When the police are called to investigate, they claim the maid died of a heart attack. Finally, the priest arrives to warn the family, and gets sick upon nearing the house, and throws up under a nearby tree. He leaves a note for Patty Duke to meet him later. She does, and they charge into the house with Holy Water, and confront the evil lamp, which gets tossed out a window and crashes at the base of the hillside where the house is perched, but not until after Patty Duke’s youngest daughter floats over to the priest with a knife, and stabs him in the shoulder; she, of course, is “delivered” after the lamp gets thrown out the window but, in the end, the family cat is seen with glowing eyes in a freeze frame shot that seems entirely lifted from Michael Jackson’s THRILLER. The End, and thank goodness.

I have just saved you 90 minutes of your life. Please don’t waste your time on this movie unless you’ve absolutely got nothing better to do. As for me, I’d rather watch paint dry. And it’s a shame, too, because I really admire Patty Duke and Jane Wyman. Oh, well, everyone’s gotta pay their bills.

Mars Attacks! (1996)

Mars Attacks! (1996)

Directed by Tim Burton

Starring Jack Nicholson, Glenn Close, Annette Bening, Danny DeVito, Pierce Brosnan, Martin Short, Sarah Jessica Parker, Michael J. Fox, Rod Steiger, Paul Winfield, Tom Jones, Lukas Haas, Jim Brown, Natalie Portman, Pam Grier, Jack Black, and many others…

MARS ATTACKS! features a galaxy of big-name stars, top notch special effects, a great musical score, and the memorable directorial stylings of Tim Burton, and yet it’s a movie that many revile, perhaps because it’s based on an old trading card series, and isn’t structured like a traditional ‘alien invasion’ story. Heavy on fiction and slight on science, it’s more parody than Sci Fi, and that’s one of its primary appeals to me. Personally, I think this film is extremely hilarious, and I think it’s one of Tim Burton’s very best pictures. Having grown up being aware of the MARS ATTACKS! card series, and having loved every one of Tim Burton’s movies, I guess I’m predisposed to liking it, but even beyond all that, I think the movie’s a lot of fun, and I simply don’t understand why so many people hate it.

Yeah, the movie’s plot is framed around images culled from the controversial MARS ATTACKS! cards (and, for me, that’s one of its best features), but at least it also apes the old ALIENS WANT EARTH’S WOMEN type movies from the 1950’s. If it hadn’t been released during the same summer as the Will Smith film INDEPENDENCE DAY, it might have stood a chance at the box office - that is, if audiences had actually understood what it was trying to be and do, which was emulate the old 1950’s Science Fiction movies wherein men in rubber costumes were always shown carrying off busty women who seem to have passed out in a faint.

Basically, MARS ATTACKS! relates the comical story of what happens when hideous Martian creatures invade the earth with the attitude best exemplified in one of the films’ movie posters: “Nice planet. We’ll take it.” All manner of chaos ensues when their flying saucers arrive, and perhaps my favorite bit occurs at the opening of the picture when the Martians zap a herd of cattle with fiery laser beams, and local farmers assume that the smell of searing flesh in the air is that of a nearby barbecue! The imagery of the charging, flaming cows stampeding across the screen is unforgettable, and I laughed heartily during that scene. As a matter of fact, I laughed throughout the entire picture - I’ll never forget the scene where a peacenik lets a dove fly toward the Martian spacecraft only to have the Martian leader zap it into a flaming heap - or when the Martians disintegrate all the members of Congress, to the cackling delight of one of the older characters of the film who watches it happen on television; she’s the one who turns out to possess the one thing that can defeat the alien invaders: the high-pitched yodeling of Slim Whitman records!

Lukas Haas plays a misunderstood, teenaged and wild-haired Tim Burton doppelganger, and Natalie Portman plays the daughter of the President of the United States, but she’s actually more of a clone of the character Winona Ryder played in Burton’s BEETLEJUICE. Jack Nicholson plays both the President and a smarmy real estate agent (perhaps the one really weak link in the entire movie; I didn’t care for this character at all. His character’s New Age wife, however, as played by Annette Bening, made me laugh out loud several times). Pierce Brosnan plays a stereotypical scientist type, and he falls in love with Sarah Jessica Parker’s character, who’s supposed to be a Fashion Show host from MTV. Initially, her character is in love with Michael J. Fox’s character, but he’s quickly dispatched during an early Martian attack that’s quite hilarious and showcased by an early cinematic appearance by a shorn-headed Jack Black.

Martin Short plays a smarmy and over-sexed George Stephanopoulos-type advisor to Nicholson’s president, and his best scene is played opposite a Martian woman who has been disguised to look like a human; played by Lisa Marie, she literally floats as she walks, and Short - clearly lusting after her buxomness - drools over her with an open-mouthed leer that has to be seen to be appreciated.

MARS ATTACKS! is loaded with tons of comical imagery, and if you watch the film thinking you’re going to get some serious Science Fiction, you’re barking up the wrong tree. The entire film is meant to be funny, and it parodies governmental ideologies, New Age religious concepts, Fashion, Philosophy, and even the types of films it strives to emulate.

If you don’t like Tim Burton movies, this is not the movie for you, especially when considering that it’s one of his more visual films. I think his films tend to be stronger visually than they are as actual stories - with a few exceptions - and I’m okay with that, because I think Tim Burton is a stylistic genius. Sure, his movies aren’t always logical, but we all need to dream, don’t we? Burton’s films are like cinematic dreams, and this one is a dream about the Martians of the old MARS ATTACKS! cards. It’s a lot of fun, too, if you watch it with the right frame of mind.

Alien Resurrection (1997)

Back in the 1970's, when most school systems used the old roller-style XEROX machines, I noticed that whenever a teacher copied a copy of a document, the newest copy was degraded. Of course, I didn't know the word 'degraded' back then because I was just a kid, but I remember looking at papers my teachers handed out, and noticing that what was black on an original document often turned blue after undergoing the XEROX copying process, or purple, and whatever was on the paper usually looked faded. If the teacher copied a faded copy, then the next copy would be even more faded, and so on, and so on, and so on. The point I'm trying to get to is, copies of copies generally produce a degraded version of the original, and this is especially true - in my opinion - of the ALIEN sequels that followed in the wake of the outstanding ALIENS.

To me, ALIENS was an outstanding sequel that was so far removed from its masterful original that the two films could arguably be labelled as two different types of films altogether, with ALIEN being more of a British Art film (not that there's anything wrong with that), and ALIENS being an American Sci-Fi Action yard (not that there's anything wrong with that, either). Yeah, ALIEN and ALIENS are interlinked by the alien xenomorphs themselves, and the character of Ellen Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver in what is perhaps her signature role (despite her ability to play other parts with excellence), but the directorial approaches to both films make the movies the cinematic equivalent of the proverbial apples and oranges.

ALIEN 3 was, for me, a massive disappointment and a major letdown after what I regarded as one of the best sequels ever, ALIENS. I've always maintained that James Cameron just has a nack for great sequels, be it ALIENS or TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY, or even the crappy B-movie PIRAHNA 2: THE SPAWNING. I didn't like TERMINATOR 3: RISE OF THE MACHINES at all because it lacked Cameron's flair, and seemed entirely unnecessary, but also because it betrayed everything about what occured in T2, which resolved itself beautifully, with no loose ends. TERMINATOR SALVATION, to me, wasn't as bad as some made out, but only because I don't really regard it as a sequel as much as I deem it a, sort of, interstitial diversion between the first TERMINATOR film, and the second one.

ALIEN 3 was, to my way of thinking, a complete waste of time, and I decided I hated it because of its betrayal of all that preceded it in ALIENS. Even before its opening credits were finished, I decided I despised it, particularly when it was revealed that Newt, Bishop, and Hicks had all been killed, rendering Ripley's movie-long quest to keep them alive in ALIENS pointless, and robbing her of her hope to be a mother again to Newt, who lost her entire family in the film, and died senselessly at the hands of the screenwriters' of ALIEN 3. Even worse, ALIEN 3 ended with Ripley sacrificing her life in a faux Christological scenario in which she casts herself into a molten pit, in a desperate attempt to destroy the xenomorph she discovered she harbored in her abdomen.

To me, ALIEN 3 is overly stylized, it's draggy, and it takes itself a little too seriously; I'd actually compare it to THE CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK, the live-action sequel to PITCH BLACK, but RIDDICK isn't as heavy-handed as ALIEN 3, or as British in flavor, and it relies far too much on CGI gimmicry.

As ALIEN RESURRECTION plays out, we are introduced to an Ellen Ripley clone, a genetically reproduced copy of the original character, who perished at the end of ALIEN 3 and, since she perished with a newly-born xenomorph chest-burster, of course her DNA is merged with the beast's. This new Ripley is an anamoly. An inferior reproduction, really, if one compares her to the original: Ripley Mark II is cold, seemingly emotionless, she trusts no one, can shoot baskets like a professional basketball player, and she turns out to be super-strong. The Wolverine character in the X-MEN films is probably her closest cinematic cousin, too, since she doesn't have a clear memory of her origin, and we eventually learn she was essentially created in a scientific laboratory.

If ALIEN 3 was too British to my taste (which is ironic, because I generally love British cinema; I'm just not interested in British prison colony movies, which is how ALIEN 3 could be described, actually), I think ALIEN RESURRECTION is too French in flavor. Despite the fact that I adore the work of Jean Cocteau and some of Francois Truffaut's films, perhaps AMELIE is the only French film I've liked in the last ten years, and I don't like American variations on French Cinema, either, like THE FIFTH ELEMENT. Heck, I don't even like BARBARELLA: QUEEN OF THE GALAXY, and it came out in the 1960's.

Some of the actors from the director's 1995 film, CITY OF LOST CHILDREN, appear in ALIEN RESURRECTION, and it can be distracting at times. Most of these characters seem to like to pose a lot, and posture heroicly, and talk sort of like the marines in ALIENS. They also seem to be cliche-ridden carbon copies of renegades from apocalyptic Sci Fi movies, or even Old School Westerns. One character, played by Gary Dourdon of past C.S.I. fame, even has a penchant for playing with - and throwing - knives, which was once a stereotypical Hollywood attribute for Hispanic or Indian characters in Cowboy movies. Another character tools around in a futuristic wheelchair, and then there's the Android character played by Winona Ryder, who starts out as a sheepish young lady without a whole lot to say.

Ryder's character, Annalee Call, isn't introduced in the film as an android; in fact, this information is hidden from the rest of the characters until this truth is ferreted out, like what happened in the first ALIEN film. In an odd side note, I find it curious that ALIENS showcased a little girl named Newt, and ALIEN RESURRECTION showcases a grown-up female android whose last name is Call. Newt and Call were the names of two of the primary characters of Larry McMurtry's LONESOME DOVE...

Winona Ryder does an adequate job, as does Sigourney Weaver, but I think most of the other performances are far too over the top. There's too much cursing, and too much yelling, and far too many scenes where characters like the one Ron Perlman plays seem to feel the need to assert their masculinity, and act all big and tough. Gary Dourdon glares with squinted eyes too much, and the mad scientist played by Brad Dourif is featured in at least one scene that's so far over the top that it seems as though the director fell asleep at the wheel! The Dourif scene in question is so bizarre, in fact, that it took me completely out of the film.

Perhaps, for me, the most memorable sequence in ALIEN RESURRECTION occurs when the primary characters are forced to swim underwater to escape a damaged vessel, and we see the aquatic skills of the xenomorphs, who are following them in hot pursuit. Other than this, there's a freakish scene wherein Ellen Ripley blows away so many inferiorly cloned copies of herself that the message of the movie (if there was one) is lost amidst all the pyrotechnical explosions.

The finale of the film features Ellen Ripley Mark II's escape to earth but, before she can get there, a freakish Alien/Human hybrid has to be dealt with and, of course, it doesn't kill her off because it can somehow sense that she and it are related. She dispatches the beast, of course, and sees the Earth from the window of the spacecraft she's on, but we never get to see what happens next, because it's at this point that the end credits roll. At some point in time a sequel to ALIENS was in the hopper called ALIENS ON EARTH but, after RESURRECTION, it was never made, and even worse inferior sequels were produced, both of them featuring aliens from another Sci Fi franchise, PREDATOR. It's really hard to believe that Joss Whedon worked on parts of the screenplay for this film when one compares it to some of his other material, namely BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER (the TV show, not the lame theatrical release).

Like the inferior clones featured in the film, and the copy of copies papers I alluded to earlier, ALIEN RESURRECTION simply pales in comparison to the first two films in this series. After I saw it on the big screen at a dollar theater on the outskirts of Lexington, Kentucky, during its final run, I never saw another ALIEN film at the movies, and I probably never will. That is, unless Ridley Scott or James Cameron return to the franchise, and promise us brand new originals.

DAY OF THE DEAD (2008)

Okay, okay, okay, so I know this is a movie that many George Romero fans love to hate. I know they hate it because it’s not really an adaptation of Romero’s 1985 film with the same title, and I know they hate it because it doesn’t really follow the pattern of Zack Snyder’s DAWN OF THE DEAD, which Romero fans are split into different camps over. I know this film confuses some people because Ving Rhames is in it, and he was in Snyder’s DAWN OF THE DEAD as a different character, and I also know that many just regard it as a rotten movie, either because it went straight to DVD and never went to the big screen (because it was leaked to the internet before it could come out, some claim), or because it was filmed on a low budget and utilized several B-grade movie stars. Me? Well, I happen to like it. I think it’s pretty fun, but I also readily admit that it’s not perfect; I just think the story’s interesting, despite the fact that it only offers up nearly veiled references to the Romero original, and doesn’t clearly relate to the remakes of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD or DAWN OF THE DEAD, neither of which I felt were true remakes in any sense - they were more like alternate universe extrapolations.

Personally, I’ve always enjoyed parallel world stories, as long as I’m familiar with the world from which the parallel sprang. I enjoyed it in Star Trek and other science fiction shows, I’ve enjoyed it in movies, and I’ve enjoyed it in comic books - particularly the WHAT IF? Comics put out by Marvel, and the ELSEWORLDS comics put out by DC. In parallel world stories, anything is possible, and the story can go anywhere, and practically anything goes. This, for me, was one of the greatest strengths of the Sci Fi Channel’s remake of Battlestar Galactica, where characters sometimes seemed to make reference to the original series by making statements like, “this has all happened before, in different ways, and it will all happen again.” Nothing is taken away from the original when a new interpretation is offered, because the original still exists. Stephen King was once asked whether or not he liked the changes made to his stories in the many movie versions of his books, and he said something like, “I don’t care. The original still sits on the shelf if anyone would care to read it.” - I felt this way about the X-MEN movies, the GODZILLA remake, and - most recently - JJ Abrams’ STAR TREK, which I thought was a great success.

When I was growing up, I was a major science fiction fan, and I especially loved Star Trek, which I grew up watching. I loved Lost In Space, as cheesy as it became, and the short-lived Logan’s Run, and the original Battlestar Galactica, and - later on - the British import Space: 1999. But things changed for me when I was introduced to Doctor Who. Sure, the sets sometimes wobbled, and the zap guns looked plastic, and the British character actors looked ridiculous dressed up as primitive aliens, etc., but the stories were always compelling, or at the very least held my attention from installment to installment, and the acting was of such a caliber that they made the whole thing seem believable, despite the obvious fact that everything seemed to be thrown together on a shoe-string budget.

If a movie can get my attention and hold it, despite obvious flaws - and even despite holes in logic, etc. - I’ll probably like it. Especially if I find I can emotionally invest in the characters, and the situations the characters are engaged in. This is all true of the remake of DAWN OF THE DEAD, and also of its inferior follow-up, DAY OF THE DEAD. I like both of these movies, and I like them both better than the remake of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. To me, the effects in both are better than the first remake of this trilogy - if one can call it that - and I simply like the characters, and even the zombies better. No, they’re not at all like what was presented in George Romero’s films, but - to me - they’re alternate universe versions of his stories, extrapolations, and someone else’s twisted turn on what has come before. Yeah, all of the remakes could probably have been better, but they are what they are, and I think they each have to be regarded as their own separate entity. No, there’s no real connective tissue, except for the Horror Movie, or Zombie Movie label, but this can also be said of George Romero’s DIARY OF THE DEAD, which seems to exist in its own little sphere of reality, where his four prior “Living Dead” movies seem to have never happened. And the same is true of DAWN OF THE DEAD, and DAY OF THE DEAD, too. The three “Living Dead” remakes are simply not connected to one another.

The remake of DAWN OF THE DEAD featured faster zombies than the NIGHT remake did, and despite the many years that transpired between the two films, DAWN was set in a world where the zombie crisis had only just begun. The same is true of DAY OF THE DEAD, which seems to be set in yet another reality where a zombie plague has broken out and, this time, how zombies come to be is like nothing we’ve ever seen before, except in films like 28 DAYS LATER, and its sequel, 28 WEEKS LATER - which DAY is, cinematically speaking, a closer cousin to, despite its clearly lower budget.

Before I proceed, however, I feel I need to speak bluntly about the Romero originals, which I’ve always felt were entirely lower in quality than many attribute to them. The acting, especially, in the original DAWN OF THE DEAD, is entirely weak and amateurish, and I feel the same is true of DAY OF THE DEAD. Personally, cinematically speaking, I think the best Romero Living Dead “movie” is LAND OF THE DEAD, which I thought was much, much better than most fans claim, despite its imperfections. The acting in LAND is much more palatable, to me, than the first three films, which seemed to have featured casts hired from amateur acting pools best suited to local theater productions. Romero’s direction, too, has always seemed sluggish to me, and I much prefer the rapid pacing of Zach Snyder’s DAWN OF THE DEAD remake, despite some its overt raunchiness, and coarse subject matter - and the same is true of DAY OF THE DEAD, although I wish it had been a direct spin-off of Snyder’s film.

When I first heard of the DAY remake, I thought for certain it would further the story that began with the DAWN remake, but the end credits of DAWN showed that all of its primary characters were attacked by wild, rampaging zombies when they arrived at the island they thought would be their salvation (a nod to Romero’s original, where the survivors of the zombie onslaught fled at picture’s end).

DAY OF THE DEAD tells its own story. It revolves around a zombie crisis in a Colorado town, where the zombie plague doesn’t necessarily stem from the living dead but, instead, from a virus that is transmitted through the bite of one of the infected. Later, it’s revealed in the film that the virus was actually created by our own military scientists, who have a hidden bunker in the Colorado town of Leadville. That element, sort of, reminded me of the movie version of Stephen King's THE MIST.

The primary characters in the film are National Guardsmen which, I think, puts an interesting spin on things, since they’re not full-fledged military, and also because it allows a character like Corporal Sarah Cross - played by Mena Suvari - to be featured. I think Suvari is fine in her role, but many discredit her performance, and seem to hold an unfair bias against her because of her past involvement in B-movies and the AMERICAN PIE series; personally, I wonder if people judge her unfairly because they wrongly identify her with Tara Reid, who I think is equally pretty, but couldn’t act her way out of a paper bag. Suvari, on the other hand, plainly does the best she can with what she’s given, and we need to remember her convincing role in AMERICAN BEAUTY, if we doubt her acting ability.

Of course, my favorite character in the film is Private Bud, who I think is a fitting nod to the “Bub” zombie in George Romero’s original, although he seems to have more reasoning ability than what had been shown in the Romero film. Having a vegetarian become a zombie, I thought, made Bud more interesting as well, although it made me wonder if the film-makers were implying that vegetarians are more apt to be pacifists than meat-eaters.

The zombies in DAY OF THE DEAD are not only fast runners, like those seen in Snyder’s DAWN remake, they can also climb walls and ceilings like Spider-Man. This made some fans roll their eyes, but I thought it was clever, and evoked a reaction from me. Not a jump, necessarily, but a reaction, none the less, and not of dissent.

The climax of the film was mostly satisfying, although I was irritated by the fact that they opted to kill off both Ving Rhames earlier in the film, and another lead African-American character who - interestingly - is shown having survived in the outtakes feature on the disc.

The featurettes on the disc are mostly pretentious, and showcase the cast and production team prattling on about the movie as if it was destined to a.) hit the big screen, b.) be regarded as a big success, and c.) be hailed as part of the official Living Dead remake franchise. None of these things turned out to be true, of course. If anything, most regard this movie as a low-budget anomaly.

As I started earlier, I’m aware that many Living Dead fans hate this movie, but I like it for what it is, and what it aspires to be. I also like the cast, and the over-all production, with a few exceptions that aren’t worth going into. It’s certainly not to everyone’s taste, but it’s a heck of a lot better than some of the zombie fare I’ve seen over the years that I disliked. RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD PART II and its many sequels, anyone? BIO ZOMBIE? NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD 3-D?

Amityville 3-D: The Demon (1983)

Released at the peak of the 3-D craze in the 1980's, perhaps the most bizarre thing about AMITYVILLE 3-D is that it stars a staple of many a Woody Allen movie, Mr. Tony Roberts. His hair is shorn down somewhat from his normal near-afro, but it's him alright, playing the role of John Baxter, an investigative journalist and writer who exposes frauds and, at the opening of the movie, is shown debunking a group of people who are running a Spiritualist hoax in the Amityville house of the previous two films. Other than the house itself, however, this film really has nothing to do with what has come before, and could have very easily been set in any old generic haunted house.

As was the case with AMITYVILLE II: THE POSSESSION, which was released one year earlier, the DeFeo family is never mentioned in AMITYVILLE 3-D, and neither are George and Kathy Lutz. A Dino DeLaurentis production, this film is clearly a gimmick intended to capitalize on the 3-D technology that was briefly popular at the time.

Other than Tony Roberts, the cast of the film also includes Tess Harper as Baxter's estranged wife, Nancy, Lori Loughlin as his teenage daughter, Susan, and Candy Clark as one of Baxter's co-workers. All of these individuals are entirely capable of offering up strong acting performances, and it's a shame that a memorable story wasn't offered to them, and the special effects of the piece are what was intended to be focused upon.

As a movie, AMITYVILLE looks great - the cinematography, lighting, and general camera work is impressive - but, unfortunately, it's entirely lacking in mood of any kind, and despite the fact that it purports to be "scary," it simply isn't, and most of the special effects are laughable at times. Even worse, in some scenes the cast is shown reacting to "something," but what this something is will forever remain a mystery, because nothing is ever shown, and no clues are ever forthcoming; it seems as though someone, somwhere, simply forgot what they were doing - either the scriptwriter, William Wales, or the director, Richard Fleischer. Now, normally, I would defend the concept of "what you cannot see is scarier than what you can," but in this film, this isn't the case - the frightened characters just seem to be going entirely insane for no clear reason.

The first half of the film is the strongest, and establishes Baxter's character effectively, and gives the audience adequate reasons to understand why he - as a character - would decide to buy the Amityville Horror house, despite its past history, but Roberts never conveys that he's a hardcore skeptic. It's as if he's merely an actor for hire in the film, and his heart's just not in it. In my opinion, the best performance in the movie comes from the adorable Candy Clark, who some may remember from the George Lucas film AMERICAN GRAFFITI, and its much-maligned sequel. Unfortunately, Clark's character is dispatched by evil forces about midway through the proceedings, and things go downhill from there.

In the second half of the movie, it is revealed that there is a 'hellmouth' in the basement of the Amityville Horror house, and then AMITYVILLE 3-D suddenly becomes a redux version of POLTERGEIST, complete with a curious team of ghostbusters, who decide to film inside the house to document its paranormal activity.

Meg Ryan has a bit part as Lori Loughlin's friend, and Ryan offers up hints about the DeFeo murders, and 'senses evil' in the house at one point, but she doesn't do much more than that, and then Loughlin's character is dispatched by evil forces that drive her mother, played by Tess Harper, nearly over the brink.

When all is said and done, the "demon" of the movie's ultimate subtitle (it was released merely as AMITYVILLE 3-D originally) manifests, and breathes fire into the chief paranormal researcher's face, and then drags him into the heart of the hellmouth...and then...the interior of the Amityville Horror house turns to ice, and then - you got it - it explodes, in what I'm sure was, in its theatrical form, glorious 3-D. Fireballs fill the screen, and it's a shame that it all falls so flat when shown in a 2-D format. It's even worse when you consider that the DVD release, like JAWS 3-D, is not in 3-D at all...talk about false advertising and misleading product packaging.

Except as a novelty piece on a boring afternoon or evening, when there's nothing better to do, AMITYVILLE 3-D is entirely unmemorable, and this fact is driven home even more when considering the many sequels that followed, where no one seemed to remember that this famous haunted house blew up at the end of the third feature of the franchise!

It's ironic that the movie opens with an emphasis on huxters and phonies trying to rob the gullible public of their dollars...were they trying to be ironic, or was it a case of art imitating life?

John Carpenter's Vampires (1998)

Long before the movie VAN HELSING proposed the idea that, in the 19th century, the Vatican utilized a covert monster-hunting unit to battle vampires and werewolves, and other things that go bump in the night, John Carpenter released VAMPIRES, which proposed that the powers that be in modern-day Rome hired vampire hunters to rid the world of all blood-sucking Nosferatu.

James Woods plays the lead vampire hunter of one such vampire-hunting team in the film, and along with his rowdy band of cohorts, they travel throughout the West, in search of the undead. At first blush, this seems like a fun idea but, sadly, this is one John Carpenter movie that made me feel scummy and dirty after I watched it, sort of the way I felt when I saw FROM DUSK TO DAWN, which I really disliked once its second half began to unfold. To me, VAMPIRES seems to be a close Cinematic cousin to that film, and it's raunchy, and nasty, and I just don't like it.

The language in the film is raw, the characters are vile - even the good guys - and there's at least one extremely vulgar scene that I found to be deplorable on every level (it entailed a new and nasty twist on how and where vampires may bite their female victims - let's leave it at that).

After the release of HALLOWEEN, I was a big John Carpenter fan for many years, but VAMPIRES let me down and, for me, it was his third disappointing film in a row in a series of movie misfires following the excellent IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS, continuing this losing streak with his last film, GHOSTS OF MARS. I once regarded Carpenter as a talent who could do no wrong, too.

There are some fairly innovative concepts at play in the film, though. The vampires, for example, aren't restricted to sleeping in a coffin filled with earth from their birthplace. Instead, they merely sleep anywhere they want to, as long as it's underground, and out of the sunlight. One scene, where the vampires rise from the earth under which they've buried themselves is particularly impressive, but most everything else in the film seems to be derivative - of ideas used in the BLADE movies, the film NEAR DARK, and even in the BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER television series.

Ultimately, the movie winds down to James Woods' character's need to locate a holy artifact with which to kill a powerful vampire - presumably the first of all vampires - who kills several of Woods' men, and even turns his best friend before all is said and done. The lead vampire, the "Master," turns out to have once been a priest believed to be possessed by evil spirits, and Woods' character, at one point, describes how his father and brother were killed by vampires. Regardless, his search for revenge isn't all that compelling, and despite a running storyline wherein a female victim of the vampire is shown to have a psychic link with the Master, the movie just falls flat for me. I've seen it all before, and I've seen it done better, and I've seen it done - well - cleaner.

InALIENable (2007)

The tagline on the Walter Koenig fansite reads, "Still guilt-ridden over the accident that took his family's lives, Eric Norris discovers that his body is host to a parasite from another world. Except, it is more than a parasite: it carries his DNA. Is this his new son or--as the government believes--a threat to mankind?"

InALIENable is a 105-minute feature written by Walter Koenig, and directed by Robert Dyke. It stars Richard Hatch in one of his best performances, and for a low-budget movie that actually premiered on the internet, it's a gazillion times better than any of the limp and bland fare the SCI FI CHANNEL regularly offers its viewers. As a matter of fact, it's actually very good, and on par with the better stories featured in shows like THE OUTER LIMITS or THE TWILIGHT ZONE. It has a cable TV-movie feel to it, but that's not a bad thing, as long as the story's compelling, and the acting's strong, which is certainly the case here. It's a movie that deserves to be seen, and I look forward to future productions by this film company, because I feel confident they will only get better and better with time.

Richard Hatch, in the lead role of Eric Norris, plays the character as both sympathetic and pitiful; he's clearly grieving the loss of his wife and child, who were killed in a car accident he caused, after trying to avoid crashing into a deer standing in the road. Norris is sleepwalking through life, and refuses to let anyone in, despite the flirtatious advances of a younger co-worker named Amanda, played by the beautiful Courtney Peldon. Even worse, his overbearing boss - played by Walter Koenig in an atypical villainous turn - has him under observation, and is looking for the slightest excuse to fire him.

Things turn toward the unusual after Norris is paid a visit by his friend Andreas, played by Gary Graham. Andreas has found an unusual meteor on his property, which he hopes Norris will examine in his lab. While Norris is running tests on monkeys, the meteor opens, and an alien life form creeps out of the duffle bag containing the meteor fragment, and it stealthly burrows into Norris' back, unbeknownst to the emotionally fragile scientist. Norris then begins to change on an emotional level, and finally agrees to get involved with Amanda, and they engage in a romance that culminates with the discovery of a large pustule on Norris' back.

Amanda realizes that the parasitic alien life form attached to her boyfriend has merged with his DNA, and when it grows in size, she and Norris decide to go into hiding, to avoid governmental entanglements. Meanwhile, their boss figures out what's going on, and tracks them down, catching up to the pair shortly after an alien hybrid baby is born. Government agents swoop in, and take both Norris and his alien offspring into custody. Footage of the child is leaked onto the internet, and when Amanda seeks legal aid, a lawsuit is declared, and the remainder of the film involves a courtroom trial that raises many questions about civil liberties and, yes, inalienable rights.

As I watched the film, the STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION episode "Measure of a Man" kept coming to mind, which detailed a similar trial revolving around the Android character, Commander Data, and - interestingly enough, Marina Sirtis, who played Counselor Troi in STNG, plays a prosecuting attorney in InALIENable. Other cast members include Walter Koenig's son, Andrew, who played "Boner" on the sitcom GROWING PAINS, Alan Ruck, and Eric Avari, who is perhaps best known for his work in THE MUMMY and the STARGATE theatrical film.

As stated earlier, I think this is a really interesting film, and I look forward to more movies from Renegade Studios, whose website can be found here. I hate to sound like a shill, but if you order a copy of the DVD from them, they'll include a free screener of STAR TREK: OF GODS AND MEN, which I recently reviewed as well.

Star Trek: Of Gods and Men (2008)

A Star Trek film featuring key cast members from the original series and actors from nearly every other Star Trek spin-off, was released in three parts over the Internet last year, to much fanfare and acclaim, although the rest of the world seemed to have its eyes fixed on JJ Abrams' then-upcoming theatrical film. Produced by Renegade Studios, and directed by Tim Russ - who played Tuvok on Star Trek: Voyager - it's a very, very enjoyable homage to Star Trek in general, and boasts a plot that's a direct spin-off of several classic Star Trek episodes, including Harlan Ellison's fiddled-with masterwork, "City on the Edge of Forever," "Charlie X," "Where No Man Has Gone Before," "Amok Time," and - most notably - "Mirror, Mirror."

Originally intending to be a 40th Anniversary celebration of all things Star Trek, the film tells what happens when the now-adult Charlie Evans escapes his captors, and seeks revenge against James T. Kirk, for stranding him during the first season of the original show. Charlie learns of Kirk's death, 12 years prior to his escape (a reference to the events at the opening of the theatrical film STAR TREK GENERATIONS), and decides to utilize the Guardian of Forever (from "City on the Edge of Forever") to go back in time and kill Kirk's mother before Kirk was ever born. After he does this, the entire Star Trek universe is thrown into chaos. Because Kirk was unable to stop certain key things from happening, the Mirror Universe takes over the known Trek universe, and when all is said and done, a showdown ultimately takes place between Charlie X and Gary Mitchell, who Kirk never got to deal with after Mitchell developed his god-like powers (in "Where No Man Has Gone Before").

Nichelle Nichols returns as Uhura, and plays both the original character, and the alternate universe version of herself, who senses that something is not right with the way things turned out. Married to the Vulcan, Stonn (a minor charactor in the classic episode "Amok Time"), she escapes the destruction of the planet Vulcan (which was also blown up in Abrams' theatrical film) and, with Tuvok at her side, encounters Mirror Universe versions of Pavel Chekov (played, of course, by Walter Koenig) and another character named Ragnar (played by Gary Graham, one of the leads from the old Alien Nation television series). This version of Chekov, however, is a freedom fighter, who seeks vengeance against the evil Mirror Universe version of Captain John Harriman, played by Alan Ruck, who was captain of the Enterprise B in STAR TREK GENERATIONS, and "Cameron," when he was much younger, and was featured in the comedy FERRIS BEULLER'S DAY OFF.

Other staples of the Star Trek universe appear in the film as well, including a green-skinned Orion Slave Girl played by Chase Masterson, of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (another such character was also featured as a Starfleet Academy student in JJ Abrams' recent film), a Klingon First Officer played by J.G. Hertzler, also of Deep Space Nine (interestingly, he plays a movie version Klingon, and not one of the classic versions from the original show), and an evil Mirror Universe version of the Harry Kim character from Star Trek: Voyager, played by Garret Wang. Also featured in the cast is the actor who played Neelix in Voyager, Ethan Phillips, this time playing a human, at the opening of the film, and Grace Lee Whitney, as both the Mirror Universe version of Janice Rand, and as the traditional version of the character, whom Charlie X still finds he pines over, despite the years that have aged them both. Also appearing in the film is Herbert Jefferson Jr., who played Boomer in the original version of ABC's Battlestar Galactica. Cirroc Lofton, who played young Jake Sisko on Deep Space Nine, also has a cameo, as one of the alternate universe Uhura's offspring.

It's a solid low-budget film, if a bit too talky for younger viewers (my 6-year-old was disappointed that there wasn't more action, and complained at one point that "all they do is talk, talk, talk"), but traditional Trek fans should be entirely pleased.

The fact that the film was shot on an extremely low budget barely matters, really, if one compares it to SF&F shows like Doctor Who, where story and competent acting take precedence. The special effects look much better on a smaller computer screen than on a TV screen, which make them look like CGI test footage for a Star Trek video game, but they're fine, all things considered. After all, because of copyright issues, the film cannot be legally sold, and it's plainly a labor of love - a gift to all loyal fans of Star Trek, particularly those who have been with the series since its inception.

The film can be viewed in three parts here, and DVD screener copies can be obtained for free when making purchases at the same site. Highly recommended for Star Trek fans, this film makes for an excellent conversation piece, especially when comparing it to the new theatrical release.

UP (2009)

Don't get me wrong, I think all of the Pixar films have been good, but I haven't loved all of them. My favorite is THE INCREDIBLES, but I've not been as fond of some of their releases. I like the TOY STORY movies okay, but have never upgraded them from their VHS releases, and I've never purchased A BUG'S LIFE, or CARS (that last one took some time to grow on me, actually). I own DVD copies of MONSTERS, INC., and FINDING NEMO and, in 2008, I fell in love with WALL-E, but I didn't like it as much as THE INCREDIBLES, and the year before that, I only liked RATATOUILLE (which I never purchased either, and copied the full-screen version off TV). When UP was previewed with WALL-E, I couldn't figure out what it was, and its trailer fell completely flat for me. I simply didn't want to see it, and thought for sure that Pixar had its first flop on its hands.

And then the glowing reviews started coming out, and I started wondering if it was something different than what I'd assumed it was. It's a good thing I've never claimed to be a prophet.

Now, I've always loved 3-D movies, so when I found out that UP was being released in a 'flat' 2-D version and a 3-D version, I decided to take my wife and kids, and off we went to see it, with me still a little uncertain about what was to come. Last year I felt burned by the Disney release BOLT, which I didn't see in 3-D but didn't like, regardless, and when I took my kids down to the Mayfair Regal Cinema in Wilmington, NC, to see CORALINE, they didn't have 3-D projectors in place yet, so I went into UP feeling skeptical. And then I felt burned once again, because the movie theater in Greenville, NC, the Regal Grande, charged us each a $3.50 surcharge just for using 3-D glasses that they won't let us re-use if we go to see another 3-D feature! Talk about a rip-off! It cost us FORTY BUCKS to see UP, and boy was I steaming mad when we walked into the multiplex.

The little cartoon before UP was just okay compared to the one that preceded WALL-E, and my inability to connect with it straight away made me worry that I'd have the same feeling of indifference when UP started. I started feeling buyer's remorse for paying so much for the tickets, and then the feature began...

From its opening moments, it had me hooked. And in a silent sequence, similar to the way the first major portion of WALL-E was executed, so much emotional depth and narrative power was conveyed onscreen that I immediately began to weep, and weep hard. Tears flowed down my cheeks, and I looked over at my wife, and she was crying, too. Our children, 6 and 10, couldn't figure out what had gotten us so upset, and we had to whisper to them not to worry about us, and enjoy the movie - and enjoy it we all did. Immensely.

Since I don't want to ruin the surprise that is UP, all I'll say is that it's a movie about childhood dreams and ambitions that get swept under the carpet by adult life and the unstoppable advance of years, and it's about the things that slowly and inexorably draw us away from what we hope to achieve when we're young and in love. It's about loss, and unkept promises, and lost time and wasted opportunities - and it's about redemption, and it's loaded with adventure, and fun, and loads and loads of humor. Both of our kids are scouts, and there's a scout sub-plot, and a scout character that are priceless. I love this movie. I can't wait until it comes out on DVD.

In retrospect, I don't think the 3-D effects were so potent that, when we get the 2-D release, we'll miss them. In the end, it's the story that stands out. Not the animation, and not the characters, although the animation is wonderful, and the characters are easy to identify with, and are extremely memorable. UP is a movie I'd heartily recommend to anyone of any age. Pixar has done it again.

Drag Me to Hell (2009)

Sam Raimi once again revisits his Horror movie roots with DRAG ME TO HELL, which seemed to come out of nowhere after his last directorial turn and third go-round with the SPIDER-MAN saga. Raimi's last Horror film, THE GIFT, was released nine years ago, but most Raimi fans have longed for a sequel to his 1992 Horror/Comedy, ARMY OF DARKNESS, which was the last of his EVIL DEAD films. Until his planned remake of EVIL DEAD is released in 2010, DRAG ME TO HELL will simply have to do. And, like ARMY OF DARKNESS, it's equal doses of Horror and Comedy, mixed with some wild special effects, and a story that tickles the funny bone while chilling the spine. Toward the end of the movie, one character - under the influence of an evil spirit - dances a little jig while levitating, and if it's not an intentional homage to some of the over-the-top antics of the EVIL DEAD trilogy's primary protagonist, Ash, it certainly came across that way to me.

The film could easily be described as an amalgamation of the "Seven Days" race against time sub-plot of THE RING blended with plot elements from old E.C. Horror comics, and mixed liberally with Looney Tunes gags. But it revolves around a character that's very easy to empathize with, and has villains that are very easy to hate - including a representative of ol' Slewfoot Himself, who makes several appearances as a horned and cloven-footed shadow creature. A minuscule associate of the Lord of the Flies also plays a prominent role, but more on that fly later, because the real star of the feature is an old woman - seemingly a Gypsy - with an evil-looking white right eye, and slobbery, jagged and yellow false teeth that fall out a lot. And I mean A LOT.

Spectral mythology that seems to be historically authentic (but can't possibly be) grounds the film, and it's merged with some New Age Mumbo Jumbo and Ouija Board nonsense that involves blood sacrifices and the summoning of evil spirits. But this movie is clearly a fantasy, and it's one that takes every possible advantage of CGI technology. It's loaded with visual scares and jokes, and in the end, you're left thoroughly entertained. That is, if you enjoy being scared, and can suspend your disbelief. You have to, but it's not really all that hard, even when a floating handkerchief becomes one of the scariest things to attack a film heroine in many, many years!

DRAG ME TO HELL tells the story of Christine Brown, a young bank executive who wants a better life for herself and her prospective fiance. Up for an Assistant Manager's job at the branch she works at, her primary manager tells her she's one of two candidates being considered for the promotion, but he'd like to see a little more backbone from her. In an attempt to prove to her boss that she can show some spine when it comes to making the tough decisions, she turns down an elderly Gypsy woman, who removes her false teeth while Christine is conferring with her boss, and starts sucking on a piece of candy from a candy dish on Christine's desk; this scene is gag-inducing and hilarious at the same time, as the old woman drools and slobbers over the candy, and then pours the rest of the candy into her purse before Christine can get back to her work station.

Doing as she promised, Christine turns down the old woman's request for a third extension on her mortgage, and the Gypsy falls to her knees, and begs for mercy, resorting to even kissing the hem of Christine's skirt. Christine calls security, and they drag the old woman out, as she screams at Christine that she has shamed her...

Later, when Christine walks down to the parking level to go home, she notices the old woman's car (it's the same car from the EVIL DEAD movies, by the way, which Saimi also featured in the SPIDER-MAN movies as well) parked closely to her own vehicle. She nervously locks her car doors, and just as she cranks up her engine, she looks in the rear-view mirror and, sure enough, the old woman is in the backseat!

In order to spare those who have not seen the movie, I will say only this: something happens, and the old woman tears a button from Christine's coat, places a curse on it, and tells Christine, "Soon, you will come begging to me." Christine then learns from a New Age Psychic Reader that she has just three days to have the curse lifted before a demonic entity appears and drags her to Hell. Until those three days pass, she will be tormented to near madness by a demonic spirit, and it turns out that one of the spirits seems to take on the guise of a small housefly, which cavorts in Christine's nostrils as she's sleeping, and ultimately ends up buzzing around in her stomach, and later makes an appearance in some of Christine's food.

Frankly, despite its subject matter, this is one of those "roller coaster" movies, that takes you on a thrill ride if you allow it to, and aren't easily offended by its supernatural undertones. It's more of a Horror Comedy than a straight Horror Film at times, but that's really part of its appeal. For Horror buffs and Sam Raimi fans, it's a lot of fun.

If there was one element about the film that gave me pause, beyond its comedic depiction of demonic entities, it's that the name of Christ is invoked only one time, and it's used as a curse word; Christine never calls on God to help her, and even takes God's name in vain at one point. Instead, she places all her trust in the New Age Psychic Reader she befriends (and who charges her BIG bucks for his services), and traditional Christian approaches - even from a Cinematic perspective - to battling the Devil are never once considered. I found this peculiar, considering all the movies and stories like this I've been exposed to over the years. Still, the movie's fun, if one can let things like this slide completely under the radar, and entrench ones' self into the movie reality of the story at hand.

Two goat horns, and four cloven hooves up, with only moderate reservations, despite its subject matter.

TERMINATOR SALVATION (2009)

TERMINATOR SALVATION isn't so much a sequel as it is an interlude, in that it takes place in the future, but before the events of the first TERMINATOR film. As a matter of fact, the opening sequence takes place in an almost contemporary setting, and we're introduced to a mysterious man on death row who is convinced by a representative from Cyberdine Systems (the villains of T2, who were responsible for creating the computer program called Skynet, which became sentient and led to the creation of the terminators) to donate his body to them for scientific research as a way to make up for his past crimes. Then the story flashes forward to the adult John Conner, before he had a facial scar, and before he was leader of the resistance against the terminators, and before he ever met his future father, Kyle Reese.

Conner and company locate an underground bunker where Skynet has imprisoned human beings - presumably for research purposes, probably with the intent to copy the human body as they make their terminator robots or, perhaps, to learn about the physical weaknesses of humans. Conner's entire team is lost, and Conner alone escapes an attack by enemy forces, but a lone figure crawls from the wreckage after Conner has headed back to HQ, and it turns out to be the man from death row at the opening of the film, Marcus.

The movie then divides itself between the journey of Marcus, who is trying to figur out where he is, and John Conner, who learns that the terminators have his future father, Kyle Reese, on their hit list. If Conner cannot rescue Reese, a temporal paradox will be the result, and he will never be born, and Skynet will conquer the world.

Of course Conner and Marcus eventually meet, but Conner doesn't initially trust Marcus, who has to prove he isn't a terminator, despite the fact that all that remains of his humanity is his brain and his heart - the rest of him is entirely mechanical.The effects looked fine to me, and I especially enjoyed one sequence with what seemed to be a giant Terminator Transformer that shot killer motorcycles out of its legs that could manuever with deadly precision.

The action sequences didn't seem to be too "Michael Bay" to me (I've not seen one Michael Bay film I've liked, including TRANSFORMERS, which I really didn't enjoy), and perhaps the thing I liked best about the movie is the fact that it kept paying homage to the first film, with certain plot points, turns of phrase, and even a voice-over by Linda Hamilton that echoed the first film.

Unlike T3: RISE OF THE MACHINES, which defied all that preceded it and made T2 entirely pointless, T4 is more of a tribute, or an interlude. When I first saw the original TERMINATOR, I really wanted to see a story set during the war years of John Conner and the resistance, and while this movie doesn't go as deeply into all the mythology it could have, it's a pleasant enough diversion if you're willing to give it a chance, and don't have anything better to do. It's not great by any means, but it'll do until someone figures out a way to top it in the same way James Cameron topped Ridley Scott's ALIEN when he made ALIENS...not that McG's film compares to the work of Scott, of course. This is more of a popcorn picture than a work of Cinema, but it's certainly not as bad as some have made out. In my opinion, it's worlds better than T3, which makes T4 a pleasant surprise. Still, neither T3 nor T4 can top Cameron's original TERMINATOR films, and I still don't like the idea of anyone else making movies with his characters. I wish he'd return to the world of Sarah Conner and set things aright, but I guess he felt he did with T2.

George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1990)

Other than George Romero himself, Tom Savini was a key staple of the original LIVING DEAD films, both as an occasional extra, and as Romero's chief special effects man. After the fact, it wasn't shocking at all to learn that George Romero gave Savini permission to direct the remake of the initial film of his infamous horror series, but the fact that a remake was ever even made at all was the real surprise. An even bigger surprise, however, is the fact that the special effects in Savini's full color film seem to fall far short of Romero's original black-and-white version and, worse, it's not as shocking a film, either. It's certainly not because the novelty of zombie films have worn off over the years - after all, many more have come along that, in the opinions of quite a few fans, easily trump what was initially envisioned by Romero and company - it's just, well, Savini's movie lacks any real tension, and some of the effects work fails so miserably, it's as if the "living" characters are being attacked by gymnasts wearing gory prosthetics, and are clearly attacking what seems to be hollow, rubbery props that seem to lack any real weight, or heft. Rubber hands, for example, look exactly like rubber hands, and it's a crying shame.

Intended to be a shot-for-shot remake, Savini's version takes a few liberties here and there, particularly at the tail end of the feature, but perhaps the biggest and best improvement is what some gripe about the most, and that's the evolution of the film's protagonist, Barbara, who was a mindless, wimpy thing in the original. In this version, she becomes a cinematic cousin of Sarah Conner in James Cameron's 1984 film, THE TERMINATOR, albeit with much shorter hair. Still, the actress is attractive enough, although she's not remembered for much else beyond this film, which didn't have much of an impact when it came to box office revenue.

It's impossible to watch Savini's film and not compare it to the original. And where the original felt at times like a documentary, the remake seems more like a B-movie, which is ironic when one considers that the original was intended to be both an independent film, and a movie made so cheaply that it couldn't even qualify as being "B" in quality. This movie, clearly, had - at the very least - a small budget, although one that was certainly much larger than the original film's, which seemed to be made for pennies instead of millions of dollars.

George Romero's original film is laughable upon initial viewing, but it has enough contextual and subliminal potency that it can linger in the mind long after one first views it (especially when it's late at night, and one hears things outside their window that thump and bump in the darkness). Sadly, the remake is mostly forgettable, and far inferior to the original, and even to most zombie movies that followed in its wake, particularly the much-debated remake of DAWN OF THE DEAD, which would later be directed by the future developer of the comic book movie 300, Zack Snyder.

Like the zombies of the film, Tom Savini's GEORGE ROMERO'S NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD has no soul; it's a shell of the film it proposes to emulate and, one would guess, tries to top. Instead of featuring zombies who could easily be the viewer's deceased loved one, the movie's creature population is obviously comprised of, as was alluded to earlier, gymnasts and stunt people who are clearly wearing prosthetics, or are theatrically able to shuffle or crawl around while their bodies are contorted into hideous and unbelievable poses. Maybe one or two of the undead creatures in the film are memorable, but only because of their appearance, and certainly not because of anything they "do." The same could also be said of most of the dramatic cast, with a few exceptions.

Tony Todd, best remembered as Clive Barker's CANDYMAN and, later, as the physical embodiment of Death in the FINAL DESTINATION movies, plays the co-lead of the movie, but he lacks the appeal of the originals' African-American star. It's no fault of Todd's, though, because he clearly does his best. The real star of the movie, though, is not even the actress who plays Barbara - it's Savini's effects which, sadly, are also a shell of what they once were. Undead, indeed.

Looking back at the project, it's easy to see why so many years passed before anymore Romero remakes appeared on the horizon.

Amityville II: The Possession (1982)

The theatrical poster for AMITYVILLE II: THE POSSESSION reads, “The night of February 5th, 1976, George and Kathleen Lutz and their three children fled their home in Amityville, New York. They got out alive! Their 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.”

Supposedly based on the Hans Holzer book MURDER IN AMITYVILLE, the producers originally intended that the film would tell the tragic story of what happened when Ronald DeFeo, Jr. shot and killed his sleeping family in cold blood, years before the Lutz family moved into their allegedly haunted home. Instead, it tells the parallel story of the fictional Montelli family, and liberally tosses in Haunted House story clichés, one after the other, including a sequence where the Montelli parents are awakened by a loud pounding on the front door, only to discover that there’s no one there.

There’s a scene where blood drips from the kitchen sink when the water is run from the tap for the first time, and Mrs. Montelli inexplicably laughs when it turns into water. Later, near the ending, blood drips from the basement walls, and gushes out of a hidden room down in the basement, like the elevator from the 1980 Stanley Kubrick version of Stephen King’s THE SHINING. During one of the early sequences of the movie, an unseen force touches Mrs. Montelli while she’s investigating the basement, and there’s a sequence where an unseen, growling force prowls around the home in the middle of the night, and covers up a hanging crucifix with a tablecloth. In another scene, it knocks the family mirror off the wall during their first meal in the home, but it doesn’t crack until the character based on Ronald DeFeo, Jr. looks at it, in what seems to be a misguided homage to Stephen King’s CARRIE.

A major alteration to the original, supposedly "true" tale is that the film shows the fictional family being hunted down in their home by their blood-thirsty son on the night of their murders, and everyone in the family is wide awake as they’re killed, one by one. Even worse, the killer has a demonically contorted and unnatural-looking face as he gleefully stalks his terrorized prey. How would anyone know that this happened, if there were no survivors? And remember, the DeFeo family members were killed in their beds as they slept, which made their deaths extremely mysterious.

Another alteration I couldn’t understand was the fact that the character based on DeFeo, Jr. is never shown with a beard, and in the original novel, and even the first AMITYVILLE film, this was a major plot point, since DeFeo, Jr. and the always bearded George Lutz supposedly looked exactly alike, right down to their beards. In the first film, George Lutz sees a ghostly image of what he initially thinks is his own face, also bearded, until he later sees a dated photograph of Ronald DeFeo, Jr., in a newspaper article, which showcases what he looked like at the time of the murders - and DeFeo, Jr. is sporting a wild beard.

Jack Magner, the young actor playing the lead role in the film, is much younger-looking than the real DeFeo, Jr., and the director of this misfire - Damiano Damiani - spends too far much time focusing on Magner's body, including his face, forearms, and bare abdomen, which the actor seemingly sucks in at the moment he's "possessed," in a scene that looks like the demonic force is sitting on him; not sure what was trying to be conveyed. The director also spends far too much time trying to do rotating camera tricks that add nothing to the story or the "feel" of this failed attempt at a Horror story.

A few of the facts of the DeFeo family’s story remains intact, amidst material that largely amounts to what could be called a rip-off of THE EXORCIST, and this becomes painfully evident in the final sequence where the family priest attempts to exorcize the demonic spirit possessing the DeFeo, Jr. character, and is somehow possessed himself. “Infected” might be a better word choice, though, since the climax of the movie has the DeFeo Jr. character’s face crack and fall apart into bloody chunks during the exorcism attempt, until only a weird creature remains that, somehow, enters the priest, who seems to be disintegrating in a similar fashion before the final credits roll. It reminded me of the thing in the remake of THE FLY, and even the creature seen in THE FLY II, which came out a few years later.

AMITYVILLE II is a confusing mess, and it’s sometimes laughably bad, sometimes utterly confusing. It’s the product of a script that, clearly, was written by a committee. If I were Tommy Lee Wallace, I certainly wouldn't want my name on it.

In an early scene with “Sonny,” the character based on DeFeo, Jr., the priest watches in shock as Sonny literally wills the words “Save Me” to form on the flesh of his forearm in blood; why the unnamed demon possessing him isn’t doing the writing, and why it doesn’t write a slur against God, or even the priest, has always been a mystery to me. Frankly, the movie is garbage, and it’s stupefying garbage at times as it makes every effort to emulate not only other horror films, but the effects sequences from the 1980 Ken Russell film ALTERED STATES. Since when did demon possession entail body blisters, bubbles, boils, and swollen facial and cranial features?

Speaking of twisted flesh, there’s an incredibly uncomfortable and skin-crawlingly awkward subplot about the eldest son’s unnatural and incestuous relationship with his oldest younger sister that’s thrown into the mix. One scene has Sonny directing his sister to strip nude for him on the bed, and she sees nothing wrong with this scenario until he confesses to her that, earlier, he'd stolen a pair of her panties from the laundry!

Ultimately, the movie bears no resemblance whatsoever to its source material. Instead, it attempts to lead viewers to believe that the character based on DeFeo, Jr. acted at the behest of an evil force that laid claim to not only the Amityville house, but also the land upon which it was built, which is said to have once been an ancient Indian burial ground (which, interestingly enough, was also a key plot element in POLTERGEIST, which came out the very same year). Another annoying angle the movie emphasizes is that the DeFeo character, “Sonny,” heard voices telling him to kill only, most of the time in the movie, he hears these voices coming from his ever-present Walkman, which didn’t even exist at the time of the DeFeo murders!

The patriarch of the DeFeo clan is played by Burt Young, best known as the actor who played “Paulie,” Rocky Balboa’s brother-in-law, in the ROCKY movies. He’s as greasy and foul as ever in this, and does no acting whatsoever that would grant him any recognition for his work. Frankly, if I was his son, I’d want to kill him, too. The matriarch of the DeFeo family is played by Rutanya Alda, but she’s equally unmemorable, although less obnoxious. 1980’s B-movie starlet Diane Franklin plays Patricia, Sonny’s emotionally unstable partner in incest, and her performance rings as false as some of Sonny’s prosthetic face and body work. Only James Olson, playing the doomed Father Frank Adamsky, seems to be trying to play a believable role. Why hasn’t he acted in anything since 1990, anyway? I’ve always thought he was great in anything he did, and I certainly don’t begrudge his performance in this - a man’s gotta eat, doesn’t he?

Having read the original Holzer book, I was sorely disappointed when I saw this movie at the theater as a teenager with my mother, and the conclusion of the film - which not only echoes films like THE EXORCIST, but also the defeatist “Evil MUST Win in the End” movies of the 1970’s - left me feeling disgusted that money had been wasted on the movie tickets.

AMITYVILLE II concludes with the implication that, after the “Montelli Tragedy,” the house in Amityville was waiting to victimize the next family to move in but, truth be told, it was moviegoers who were victimized by yet another shameless attempt by Hollywood to create a Cash Cow Horror franchise.

A box office dud, and deservedly so, it’s amazing to think that a sequel followed, and then another, and another, and another…and then a remake!

In the Mouth of Madness (1995)

In his first non-fiction work, DANSE MACABRE, horror magnate Stephen King tells how he, as a young lad, found a box of his long-lost father’s books, and how the most impacting titles for him were the works of Howard Phillips Lovecraft., better known as “H.P.” Lovecraft.

Many of Lovecraft’s stories dealt with an arcane volume of ancient mystical lore called THE NECRONOMICON, the “Book of the Dead,” which Lovecraft maintained was written by “the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred,” who was supposedly devoured by a demonic entity in front of shocked witnesses for writing it. Within its bindings lay the secrets of the “Old Ones,” ancient beings who created the Earth before recorded history even envisioned them, and now lie imprisoned beyond our world, in a dimension wherein they can only sleep, and await the day when they can return and claim what once they owned.

One of the key concepts behind Lovecraft’s stories about the Old Ones was the thought that certain passages of the Book of the Dead, when read aloud, had the potential to crack wide our reality, and open a doorway from this world to that of the Old Ones. Most characters in Lovecraft’s tales, after discovering this fictional reality, eventually go mad, and their hair would sometimes turn snow white. Stephen King has borrowed such scenarios from time to time, but never so well as John Carpenter did in his horror film IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS, which he regards as the third in his self-titled “Apocalypse Trilogy,” which began with THE THING, and was continued in THE PRINCE OF DARKNESS, despite the fact that these three films have no real common denominator.

Starring Sam Neil as private investigator John Trent, who is best known for working fraud cases, IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS revolves around Trent’s search for the missing and wildly popular horror author Sutter Cane, whose latest occultic horror novel drives his readers violently insane, and spurs them on to murderous rampages. According to his publisher, Cane has vanished along with his latest work, which has yet to be finished, and Neill’s character will be well-paid for, at the very least, the return of the incomplete manuscript, if it can be found. To prepare for the case, Trent reads some of Cutter’s work, and discovers that he is slowly being drawn deeper and deeper into a Lovecraftian nightmare where reality starts to bend, and Insanity makes every possible effort to consume him.

IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS is one of Carpenter’s very best efforts, and there are sequences in the film that will remain with viewers forever, particularly one involving a grandmotherly character, and even the ending will linger in your mind long after you’ve watched it. A few years ago, in an episode of MASTERS OF HORROR, Carpenter directed an hour-long installment entitled “Cigarette Burns,” which featured similar subject matter, but IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS is far superior.

If you can handle an R-rated Horror movie (and it's rated "R" for a reason; there are some really gory and terrifying scenes), and you enjoy stories that make you question reality, and ponder concepts such as Free Will and Pre-Destination, IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS should pique your interest at the very least. Frankly, I think it’s the last really good horror movie John Carpenter’s done.

The Terminator (1984)

When THE TERMINATOR hit the big screen in October of 1984, it seemed to come out of nowhere. In fact, Arnold Schwarzenegger was only a minor celebrity at the time, and was primarily recognized as a former Mr. Universe title holder, and as the stiff-acting, muscle-bound star of CONAN THE BARBARIAN and its ill-received sequel. James Cameron had only a modest reputation as a Roger Corman protégée and as the director of a really good JAWS rip-off, PIRAHNA 2: THE SPAWNING, so his THE TERMINATOR wasn’t widely promoted. It was regarded as a B-movie by the establishment, really, and when it became an overnight cult classic, and began to break box office records, everyone was surprised.

Some thought that CONAN THE DESTROYER, released four months before THE TERMINATOR, was the death knell for Schwarzenegger as a film star, but his stoic turn as the title character of Cameron’s first solid work as a film director cemented his place in Hollywood history with the utterance of a single phrase: “I’ll be back.”

Broken down to its bare components, THE TERMINATOR is the story of what happens when a mysterious man from an apocalyptic future, Kyle Reese, comes back in time to tell a young woman, Sarah Conner, that she will give birth to a future military leader who will save mankind from the oppressive, murderous, thinking machines who will one day overtake the earth. Furthermore, he warns her that a human-looking android from the future is on her trail, and as he does his utmost to convince her that he’s telling the truth, the android (played by Schwarzenegger) reveals itself, and a wild and violent chase ensues. The body count is high, the action sequences are pure octane, and the low-budget special effects are so well done that it’s easy to overlook their flaws. THE TERMINATOR stands as one of the very last films to utilize stop-motion animation in one key sequence, but it also laid the groundwork for a sequel that would be regarded as its cinematic equal by some, and as a superior follow-up by others.

Michael Biehn, playing Kyle Reese, brings his character so believably to life that it’s difficult not to see him as Reese, no matter what role he’s playing in other films. Linda Hamilton, as the skeptical Sarah Conner, leapt from unknown actress to cult favorite, and Arnold Schwarzenegger - of course - would go on to become the biggest star of all the film’s performers.

Paul Winfield, best known to Science Fiction fans as the doomed Starfleet Captain of STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN, and B-movie superstar Lance Henrickson are also featured in the cast as police officers, and the film also has a sequence with fan favorite Dick Miller as a pawn shop clerk, and the then entirely unknown Bill Paxton as a gap-toothed street punk.

Perhaps the best thing about the film, however, beyond its stars and its excellent direction, is its story, which is Science Fiction at its best, piled sky-high with loads of action, and underscored by a convincing romance between the star-crossed Sarah Conner and Kyle Reese who, it turns out, also has an important role to play in events of the future.

After writer Harlan Ellison saw the film, he sued James Cameron for lifting story elements from two of his OUTER LIMITS episodes and his short story “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream, and the case was settled out of court. Later prints of THE TERMINATOR featured an Ellison acknowledgement in the closing credits.

Aside from its mind-bending time travel concepts, THE TERMINATOR is also notable because it featured a strong-willed female protagonist during a Hollywood era when this was not the order of the day. Sarah Conner, as a character, evolves from milquetoast single waitress to fierce female warrior before all is said and done, and as she struggles to outsmart, outwit, and outlast Arnold’s T-800 model android, the viewer cannot help but be sucked in to the story. The film's awesome musical score also helps maintain viewer interest.

One of the best franchise launching points in the history of Cinema, THE TERMINATOR will forever remain a Science Fiction/Action film favorite, and deservedly so.

Star Trek (2009)

After watching the film at the theater for the first time, the following thought has been drifting through my mind all afternoon: If JJ Abrams’ STAR TREK were a rapper, it would be LL Cool J, and if it starred in its own rap video, it would look you straight in the eye through the video screen, and explode without hesitation with the opening lines from “Mama Said Knock You Out,” which are, “DON’T CALL IT A COMEBACK, I BEEN HERE FOR YEARS!”

Who would have thought that JJ Abrams could pull it off? I certainly scoffed at the notion. I guess I felt burned by STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE, and the lackadaisical way it breached previously established continuity each week, all while claiming to be a series about how the Star Trek universe officially began. I also felt burned by the gaping plot holes in STAR TREK GENERATIONS, the poorly received and glorified television episode that was INSURECTION, and the flat-out embarrassingly flat NEMESIS. Despite a lifelong affection for all things STAR TREK, I was honestly indifferent to the thought that another TREK movie was being produced, and when I heard it would be set during the more youthful years of the Enterprise crew, I asked myself, WHY? Why return to the well, only to – seemingly – pollute the water a little more, and corrupt the continuity even more?

Continuity breaches and strict adherence to the long-established timelines of the STAR TREK universe have long been the combined bane of Gene Roddenberry’s world. If movie or television producers breached established continuity, they were deemed heretics by the fans, and if they stuck too closely to all that had come before, they were accused of being hacks and producing boring storylines. So, what else was there to do but press the reset button? And how would one do that without offended fans who had followed the show since its 1966 premiere?

Some of the very best TREK installments have taken place in alternate realities, or dealt with characters from alternate realities. “Mirror, Mirror,” an installment from the original series, springs immediately to mind, with its goatee-sporting Mr. Spock. Subsequent “Mirror Universe” episodes on DEEP SPACE 9 were also extremely entertaining, and perhaps the very best alternate reality STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION episode was “Yesterday’s Enterprise,” which fans often site as a particular favorite.

For the last year or so, I found myself in a dilemma. Every time I heard about JJ Abrams’ upcoming film, I felt completely indifferent, and uninterested. Even when the film was postponed, I found I didn’t really care. I was completely convinced the whole production would desecrate everything I ever held dear about the original series, and I simply didn’t believe another cast of actors could convincingly play younger versions of the characters I’d watched repeatedly in classic episodes, and read about in countless comic books and novels.

What changed my mind about the prospect of seeing the film were the internet tidbits I read from time to time that assured me, this time, fans of the old will not be offended, and the series will gain new fans. And the deal was clenched when I read that the entire storyline would be set in a divergent timeline, a parallel world of sorts, where the origin of the characters would be established, but in a world where things had changed significantly because someone had meddled in the past with the previously established flow of time.

My main upset, when pictures of the set, and the cast, etc., were first released, was not that some of the actors didn’t look like the original STAR TREK stars (Simon Pegg, I’m talking to you, unfortunately, and also to you, Anton Yelchin - but you both give great performances in your roles). My concern was that the interior of the ship, the weaponry, and the other trappings of the STAR TREK universe were far, far more advanced than what I grew up seeing and reading about. When I learned that someone had meddled with time in the past (at one point it was reported that the Guardian of Forever was going to be used and, frankly, I think one of the overlooked flaws of the film is that it never explains how the villains of the piece go back in time 25 years), I was okay with the changes, especially since I understood that – somehow – technology that had been unseen in the previously established timeline had been implanted in the past somehow (this is never expounded upon, either, not in any way).

The 4-part comic book series COUNTDOWN was released in monthly installments over a coarse of nearly 6 months before the film came out, and it clarifies some things that set the premise of JJ Abrams’ STAR TREK up, but I’ve noticed that the series shows that Spock and Nero – the primary Romulan villain of the film – know one another before and after his transformation into evil, and in the movie the aged Spock refers to Nero as if he’d never seen or heard of him before.

COUNTDOWN would have made an awesome movie in itself. It features characters from the NEXT GENERATION in wildly inventive ways, and even showcases the Remans from NEMESIS in such a way that fans can overlook the flaws in the previously released film, and regard it as established continuity; it does the same for both Data and his embryonic android brother, B-4. COUNTDOWN is recommended reading, but it’s not a necessity to seeing the new film, it only enhances it.

JJ Abrams’ STAR TREK is no PHANTOM MENACE. Let me state this plainly and clearly. Its Hollywood DNA is more closely related to THE WRATH OF KHAN more than any other film, TREK or otherwise, and there are multiple references to KHAN, and other STAR TREK movies and stories, including a hilarious sequence where we actually see young Jim Kirk take the infamous Kobayashi Maru scenario exam while attending Starfleet Academy, and a physical torture sequence that echoes the ear bore scene with Chekov and Captain Tyrell.

There’s a lot of humor in the film, and there’s a lot of story, but there’s also a lot of action, and a lot of respect for the world that Gene Roddenberry and the other creators of STAR TREK came up with when I was just in diapers.

The film is loaded with excitement, and STAR TREK fans will be delighted as they watch their favorite characters meet for the first time, particularly when Kirk and “Bones” McCoy first encounter one another. The introduction of Pavel Chekov is priceless, too, and I am simply mad for the new Uhura.

Other than the setting as the film begins, the only holdover from the original STAR TREK universe is “our” Mr. Spock, who is aged, yet entirely capable of saving the universe once more if need be. Trapped in a world that parallels his past, yet is completely divergent, his image is shown in holographic form when the movie opens, and he has at least three significant scenes as things play out: one with Jim Kirk, one with Kirk and Montgomery Scott, and one with the young Spock who, shockingly, is entangled in an intense romantic relationship with Nyota Uhura that I never saw coming or ever envisioned (I was shocked when Shatner tried to match her up with Scotty in STAR TREK V: THE FINAL FRONTIER, mainly because this had never been alluded to before, but even more so because there was ZERO chemistry between the two actors playing the roles, but there’s serious heat onscreen when Spock and Uhura are together in this film). Nero and company, it could be argued, are holdovers as well, but we’ve never seen them before, and that’s one of the weaknesses of the film, albeit an extremely minor one, and one not worth quibbling over.

All the characters from the original series, and then some, are in this feature. Captain Christopher Pike, a character showcased in the original STAR TREK pilot and in a revamped episode of same, sits in the primary seat on the bridge of the Enterprise, and most everyone else TREK fans have known and loved are present, but the technology of this version of STAR TREK is far more advanced than has previously been shown, and yet the more things change, the more they remain the same – particularly when it comes to the way the TREK characters react to things. And I mean this in the nicest possible way.

The premise of the story is this: Nero, the Romulan captain of a mining vessel equipped with Borg technology who harbors a particularly strong bloodlust and thirst for revenge, accidentally goes back in time (he’s originally from the STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION time period, although no one would know this, unless they’d read COUNTDOWN) and decides to destroy the United Federation of Planets, because he feels it is responsible for the death of his beloved wife and home world of Romulus (their loss is largely unseen in the film, only visually referenced in a later flashback scene narrated by the elderly Spock). Nero intends to destroy each world affiliated with the Federation, one by one, so his home world will be spared in the future, and the Romulan Empire will be all that remains. In a way, he’s an echo of the mad scientist, Dr. Soran, who kills Kirk in GENERATIONS.

It is the Mr. Spock of “our” time period (actually the NEXT GENERATION period; in the classic 2-part episode “Unification” from that series, Spock was shown moving to Romulus in an effort to influence them into seeking the path of peace) who inadvertently leads Nero into the past through a time and space wormhole he has created via something called “Red Matter” (referenced in depth in COUNTDOWN). Red Matter is fairly inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. It’s just a means to an end, and that’s another weakness in the script, although – as I, hopefully, alluded to earlier - the films’ strengths so greatly outnumber its weaknesses that viewers simply won’t care about them.

When the movie opens, James T. Kirk has yet to be born. His father, George, is first officer of the U.S.S. Kelvin, and when the ship encounters Nero’s massive vessel emerging from a time/space wormhole, George Kirk’s captain is taken aboard Nero’s ship and murdered, and George is left to assume command. The Kelvin is damaged beyond repair, and Kirk orders the evacuation of everyone on board in shuttlecrafts, including his pregnant wife, who gives birth to Kirk in time for George to hear the baby’s name and birthing cry before he crashes the ship into Nero’s, and sacrificing himself for his crew and his loved ones. Kirk is then shown growing up in Iowa and, while in our universe, George and Jim Kirk had a relationship that lasted for years and allowed Jim’s father see him take command of the Enterprise, in the JJ Abrams’ TREK universe, Kirk has an overbearing stepfather who is never seen onscreen, only heard, but James Kirk grows up to, clearly, be in the mold of the character TREK fans know and love.

Christopher Pine makes for an excellent young James T. Kirk, and Zachary Quinto is great as the young Spock; Spock’s childhood and growing-up years and relationship with his human mother and Vulcan father are also covered, and play extremely significant roles in the plot - but what makes this movie so significant is not so much the familiar characters and settings as it is this: JJ Abrams has taken Gene Roddenberry’s toys, and he’s put them in his own playground. We don’t know what’s going to happen to these cosmically tangential characters, and Abrams makes it plain that he’s not above killing any of them, or even billions of them.

At one point Kirk and Sulu go on a mission to disable Nero’s communications signal scrambler, along with another crewman wearing red. The old adage that it’s the “red shirts” in STAR TREK who always die proves true in this instance, but in JJ Abrams’s film, nearly every inhabitant of the planet Vulcan is a redshirt, including Mr. Spock’s beloved mother, Amanda, one of the most sentimentally significant characters in all STAR TREK lore (I actually had tears in my eyes when she perished as the result of Nero’s drilling into the core of the planet Vulcan, and causing it to become a supernova by dropping the mysterious Red Matter into it, despite the fact that she was played by Winona Ryder). Amanda’s death is extremely significant in the film, and Spock’s reaction to it ultimately results in Kirk’s assuming the command chair, when Captain Pike is forced to go aboard Nero’s massive, unnamed vessel.

There’s really no need to expound any further on the film, except to say that all the elements that made people love the original STAR TREK are in play - and then some - in this film. As a lifelong STAR TREK fan, I regard it as a beautiful letter of apology from Paramount pictures, as it sets aright all that has been done wrong since ENTERPRISE and NEMESIS; actually, JJ Abrams’ film even sets aright ENTERPRISE, and now that show should be regarded as part of the divergent universe its story is set in (Scotty makes a passing reference to his 'accidentally beaming "Admiral Archer's" beagle into space, at one point, and this can only be a reference to an older version of the Captain Jonathan Archer of ENTERPRISE; this makes sense, since that series was the result of the time-altering events featured in the theatrical film STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT, in which the Borg travel back in time to alter Earth's past).

Yeah, there are a few plot-holes; for example, I couldn’t understand why no one tried to blast apart the mechanical apparatus that extended into the core of Vulcan or Earth, when Kirk and company later zap it into smithereens like it was no real threat whatsoever. But, why quibble? The film’s so fast, and so furious, and so good, it simply results in one grant adventure, TREK or otherwise.

Everyone in the film did a great job, and I’m looking forward to further adventures. This one’s right up there with WRATH OF KHAN, folks.

The Amityville Horror (1979)

Director Stuart Rosenberg’s take on Jay Anson’s best-selling book, THE AMITYVILLE HORROR – A TRUE STORY was released when I was 13 years old. I’d read the original book at least twice, and was horrified by the mere thought that it could be true, so I was extremely excited to learn that a movie adaptation had been made. I had a fondness for all things scary, especially when I could wield them to scare others, which I often did, sometimes using THE AMITYVILLE HORROR as a platform on which to do this.

For whatever reason, I was spending the summer in what was then a very rural Rocky Mount, NC, when THE AMITYVILLE HORROR came out, and the aunt and uncle I was staying with thought I was mature enough to go see it, even though it was rated “R,” so – without my parents even knowing, off I went with my aunt one night. It was through that experience that I first learned what the phrase “it is better to ask for forgiveness than permission” truly meant, and we had a very enjoyable time at the tiny little movie theater in town. Especially exciting was seeing a trailer for STAR WARS before the movie opened, because I was a dyed-in the-wool STAR WARS nut by this time.

Even though I was fairly young, I was still able to mentally compare the movie with what I’d read in Jay Anson’s book, and I thought it was pretty close even then. There were a few things missing that really scared me in the book that had been excised, but the movie was mostly faithful to the source material. I thought the film was scary as anything and, apparently, so did a lot of other people. The film version of THE AMITYVILLE HORROR went on to gross more than Stanley Kubrick’s THE SHINING, which is simply a travesty of justice in the grand scheme of things.

As the decades have passed, I’ve revisited THE AMITYVILLE HORROR movie from time to time. I still jump whenever that black cat jumps in the window, and I still wonder why what seems to be the Imperius Leader from the original BATTLESTAR GALACTICA seems to manifest in the upper windows of the house during the climax – but Jody, the 7-foot-tall demon pig of the book no longer scares me, and I can tell that his red eyes in the window in one scene are flashing Halloween lights that were once popular additions to costumes I later purchased to, again, scare siblings, friends, and cousins.

As a Horror movie, THE AMITYVILLE HORROR is fairly decent. It hasn’t really aged all that well, and its narrative structure doesn’t seem all that stable when comparing it to other films with similar subject matter. It mostly seems to ramble from sequence to sequence, and loses all semblance of time after a while, despite the fact that it’s supposed to chronicle the limited time period during which the family of George and Kathy Lutz moved in – and moved out – of their supposedly haunted home.

When I watch the movie now, through enlightened eyes that have read several critical works on the AMITYVILLE phenomenon that followed the successful release of the book and the film adaptation, I see plot holes and flaws in logic that boggle my mind, and make me wonder why I didn’t question the veracity of the story when I was a teen. However, in my defense, the story came out during a time when things weren’t as sophisticated as they are now. We had no internet, no Wikipedia, no Film-Talk, etc., and it was impossible to compare notes with other interested parties who also wanted to know the truth. And the truth turned out to be that George and Kathy Lutz made up the whole thing as a way of getting out of paying off what they owned of a house they couldn’t afford. And they did a bang-up job of it. The entire story is bunk, from start to finish, and the only truth contained in it is the fact that murders were once committed in the home. None of the families who owned the house after George and Kathy Lutz ever experienced anything that could even remotely be described as paranormal. But we’re not talking about reality here. We’re talking about a movie. A Horror movie, intentionally created to scare the willies out of the viewing audience, and that’s exactly what THE AMITYVILLE HORROR did in its day.

The most effective Horror movies scare audiences because they make the implausible seem plausible. They make the audience forget about logic, reality, and even the laws of physics. This is why we never question how zombies, who are dead and have no blood flow (and, by logical mandate, no functioning digestive systems) are able to eat human flesh, or how vampires (who also are undead, and have no flowing blood, etc.) can consummate their romantic affections toward their lovers. It’s also why we don’t question why black goo would drip from the toilets and basements of haunted houses. I mean, seriously, what is the exact purpose and origin of this nasty goo mess? It really makes no sense!

Summed up to its bare essence, THE AMITYVILLE HORROR tells the story of George and Kathy Lutz, who move into a house where horrible murders once took place. Strange things start to happen shortly after the family moves in. A crucifix turns upside down. A window slams on the knuckles of one of Kathy’s children. The youngest member of the family starts seeing an invisible friend she names “Jody,” whose glowing red eyes are seen through the window. A rocking chairs rocks by itself. Mysterious black goo drips from a bathroom toilet and sink (was this intended to be protoplasm? If so, it’s never made clear).

As the story moves toward its inevitable conclusion, the George Lutz character becomes meaner and meaner. He stops showering, and can’t stay warm. He chops wood like it’s his new religion, and he sees a strange image that looks just like him in the fireplace one night. Lutz also keeps waking up each night at the same exact time the murders took place before his family moved in.

Eventually everything comes to head, and lightning strikes the upper level of the home, and the windows shatter, only to later appear undamaged, and the Lutz family head for the hills after one pit-stop during which George must go and rescue the family dog, who is trapped in the basement amidst all that mysterious black goo. George, of course, falls into a pit of this goo, but he escapes it, and the family gets away…only to move into a home built atop a desecrated graveyard. Wait. That’s POLTERGEIST. Or was it the premise of AMITYVILLE 2: THE POSSESSION?

Representatives of the Catholic Church are also prominent in THE AMITYVILLE HORROR. When a local priest is invited to come and bless the house, he enters it and, mysteriously, a horrifying voice shouts at him, “Get out…GET OUT!” --- and he doesn’t. He attempts to bless the empty house anyway, and when he enters one particular room, the door slams, and he’s locked in, and he’s suddenly covered with thousands of flies because, you know, one of the names for the devil in the Bible is “The Lord of the Flies.” Why the devil opts to set up residence in Amityville, NY, is never made plain, and one must guess that he opted to forfeit that address once the story of the haunting of the house there went public. Regardless, no one has ever been able to track down the priest who is showcased in both the book and the film, or the nun who almost enters the house, gets violently ill, and has to flee. Eddie Murphy once made a hilarious observation about all this in a stand-up routine in which he wondered allowed why white people always opt to stay in haunted houses in Horror movies. He said, basically, that – if he heard a loud, disembodied voice scream “GET…OUT!” he’d simply get out, no questions asked. And that’s the main problem with the veracity of the “real” AMITYVILLE HORROR. Hard questions simply weren’t asked. But, again, we’re talking about the movie, not the book, and not the story on which it’s based.

By today’s standards, THE AMITYVILLE HORROR might not scare more sophisticated viewers. Not in this age of weekly television shows like GHOST HUNTERS, MOST HAUNTED, and A HAUNTING. But it served its purpose for its time, and at the very least it made people wonder.

The acting in the film is largely effective; there are a few moderately weak performances from the children in the cast from time to time, and Margot Kidder is fairly so-so, but James Brolin certainly gives the audience his all. The effects are mostly effective, for what they’re intended to be, but it wouldn’t be unfair to say that the house is the real star of the film, and its upper windows in particular. Coupled with its blood-curdling musical score – one of the most effective Horror scores ever, and composed by television veteran Lalo Schifrin – the house and its theme song are what linger in the mind the longest when all is said and done.

Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)

Prior to its theatrical release, it seemed like NEMESIS was all the rage of the internet. Everywhere one looked were comments about how STNG fans felt burnt with INSURRECTION, and wanted something more akin to FIRST CONTACT, and the claim of many websites was that NEMESIS would get the franchise back on track, and everyone would be satisfied. In a foreshadowing of what recently happened with WATCHMEN, rumors began to surface about the movie being too long, and how the director was fighting with executives over the film’s length and content, etc., and eventually it was rumored that, when the DVD of the film came out, it would run around 3 hours, or possibly longer. Then the movie came out, and it wasn’t received nearly as well as hoped.

lNEMESIS was the first STAR TREK film after INSURRECTION (which I didn’t see at the theater at all) that I didn’t go to see on opening day. As a matter of fact, I was so disinterested by the trailers for it, I waited until very close to the end of its theatrical run, and I went to see it by myself, during a Sunday matinee. Hardly anyone was in the theater with me.

While the movie - in terms of visuals, effects, casting, etc. - didn’t seem to be missing anything, per se, during my first viewing, I have to admit in retrospect (and after at least two subsequent viewings on DVD) that – like INSURRECTION – it's very obvious that the film is entirely missing one key element, and that's any semblance of a heart. It's like Data as he was first presented: a non-living thing that aspires vainly to be alive. As a story, NEMESIS falls limp. It’s almost bland, it has no sense of immediacy, and it’s entirely lacking in drama, which is a shame when considering the considerable talent involved, and the obvious attempt to create high drama within a Science Fiction setting. NEMESIS is like a Federation starship, completely devoid of whatever energy enables it requires to zoom through the cosmos.

At the core of the film seems to be the unspoken question, “Who would be the ultimate villain for Picard to go up against?” and, unfortunately, the only solution the STNG powers that be could come up with was an anti-Picard, a clone, raised by a heretofore unseen race of aliens – the Remans – who are presented as being denizens of the Romulan home world, oppressed slaves of the Romulan empire. The Remans are hideous, and look like living embodiments of NOSFERATU, while the Romulans continue to look nothing like they did on the original series, complete with their STNG forehead ridges that I’ve always despised. Forgive me for rambling, but I've never understood why these forehead ridges were added to all the STNG Romulans, when it was a remarked in several episodes of the original STAR TREK that Romulans look exactly like Vulcans in every way possible, and the only clear difference between the two races is that the Romulans freely express emotion, and have a bit of a mean streak...

Why the Remans needed to be incorporated into the plot is also beyond me, and it’s a bit condescending – in my opinion – to name them Remans, because it’s an obvious play on the ancient names of Remas and Romulus, the traditional founders of Rome.

Data is featured in NEMESIS in an annoying sub-plot where we’re introduced to his heretofore unseen prototype, B-4, but no mention is ever made of Data’s evil twin from the TV series, Lore – and there are several sequences where it seems as if some of the cast members are thisclose to mentioning Lore’s name. Why no mention is made of him leaves most STNG fans incredulous, but the fact of the matter is, if he’s mentioned, an anomaly will arise because the television show made it plain that it was Lore who was Data’s prototype. Personally, I find it interesting that B-4 was initially going to be called B-9 (a play on the word ‘benign’), but then there arose talk of a new LOST IN SPACE series, and it became known that the robot of the series was officially called B-9. A revamped LOST IN SPACE television pilot was shot, but it didn’t sell, and all the sets built for the show were sold to the makers of the Sci-Fi Channel’s revamped BATTLESTAR GALACTICA show.

Long story short, NEMESIS tells what happens when Picard and company are introduced to Captain Picard’s clone, Shinzon, a younger version of himself who has been raised by Remans in the bowels of Romulus, the Romulan home world, and has forcefully risen in the ranks of power until he has become Praetor. Shinzon tells Picard he wants to usher in a new era of peace, but it soon becomes clear that his plans are far more nefarious.

According to the storyline, Shinzon was originally conceived by Romulan agents as a physical replacement for Picard in Starfleet once his accelerated aging process has been completed. Shinzon, instead, developed a fatal disease that both stunted his growth at a certain point, and limited his life span. Fully aware that he needs a genetic transfusion from Picard in order to cure his terminal condition, he kidnaps Picard after their initial meeting, but he and his cohorts apparently never figure out how to undo the damage his affliction has crippled him with. As the story plays out, Shinzon’s alluded-to race for a cure never becomes a solid element in the storyline, and we’re instead left with several action set pieces that devolve into a pale imitation of the battle sequence in the Mutara Nebula in STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN, complete with sneak attacks, and failed transmission readings. Eventually, of course, there’s a showdown between Shinzon and Picard, and Data is thrown into the mix. Data opts at film’s end to sacrifice his life, a’la Mr. Spock in the finale of STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN, by giving Captain Picard his lone transporter device (another never-before-seen plot device), and he perishes as Shinzon’s ship explodes around him, along with Shinzon, and the STNG film franchise.

B-4, of course, is shown to have all of Mr. Data’s memories implanted into in his positronic brain’s memory system before the final credits roll, so we know that Data, like Mr. Spock, will one day return, in some form or fashion. This all feels like Sci-Fi rehash, though, and Data’s sacrifice has no punch to it whatsoever, no matter how hard any of the STNG characters feign to mourn his supposed loss.

In most STAR TREK features, the title has a double meaning; Shinzon, of course, turns out to be Picard’s nemesis, as does B-4 for Data. Through Shinzon, Picard not only battles a new enemy, he also battles himself, and the same is also true for Data when it comes to B-4. However, audiences had seen all this before, and STAR TREK: NEMESIS simply brings nothing new to the table. It's a movie that came out of nowhere, that no one anticipated, expected, or wanted to see. The very best STAR TREK movies revolve around storylines and scenarios that TREK fans have always longed for, and the majority of the STNG movies simply don't fulfill this requirement. In terms of the STAR TREK movie series, they turn out to be square pegs trying to force themselves into round holes, unlike the television show, which mostly satisfied its loyal viewing audience by revisiting old STAR TREK themes in new ways.

Perhaps a couple of sub-plots in the film can bring everything into perspective: Riker and Troi, for example, are presented as a soon-to-be married couple as the movie opens and, as the story plays out, we learn that Riker is soon to become Captain of his own ship. These plot elements, though, along with the revelation of the new (and, unfortunately, boring with a capital "B") character of B-4, are treated in such an anti-climactic fashion that it’s as if the producers of the film are daring the audience to care, but only with minimal effort. Yet another sub-plot involves Shinzon committing a psychic/spiritual violation against Diana Troi that she, during the film’s finale, uses against Shinzon and his Reman mentor. All these things were seemingly intended to stir the emotions of the diehard STNG fans into a frenetic tizzy but, unfortunately, they simply fall completely flat. Frankly, this movie seems to be more closely related to the film GLADIATOR than it does a STAR TREK film, since it's about a man intended for greatness who becomes a lowly slave in ancient Rome, and then rises from the bowels of the gladiatorial pits to become a figure of prominence. And that’s moderately interesting when considering that STAR TREK: NEMESIS was scripted by the selfsame man who wrote that particular screenplay for Ridley Scott. Before the final credits roll, however, no Gladiator is carried off to his final resting place. Instead, the STNG film franchise is.

One movie poster for NEMESIS has the following tagline on it: “A Generation’s Final Journey Begins.” Strange that the film is far from the fond farewell the original cast received with STAR TREK: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY. NEMESIS, in no way whatsoever, gives off a "farewell to the fans" vibe. Instead, it merely treads still water.

Here’s hoping the next reiteration of STAR TREK is far more successful.

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)

After William Shatner stunk up theaters everywhere with his FINAL FRONTIER debacle, the powers that be at Paramount Pictures decided to close up shop when it came to movies dealing with characters from the original STAR TREK. Television’s STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION had become incredibly popular, and it was time to make preparations to turn the fate of the franchise over to the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise Mark D. Before that happened, though, it was deemed necessary to give the original cast a proper farewell, so Nicholas Meyer – director of the most popular STAR TREK film up to that point, THE WRATH OF KHAN – was hired to helm this final farewell. The final product doesn’t focus entirely on Shatner’s Kirk character, and every cast member is given their moment to shine – which is as it should have been, particularly when it came to STAR TREK: THE FINAL FRONTIER.

Leonard Nimoy, who directed the third and fourth installments of the movie series to great success, offered up a story idea that no one could pass up, and because STAR TREK was always at its best when it dealt with allegorical subject matter, STAR TREK: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY (which was originally intended to be the title for STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN) proved to be one of the very best STAR TREK outings ever offered, and a more-than-satisfying conclusion to the series.

As the film opens, we see the interior of the U.S.S. Excelsior, with the regal Hikaru Sulu seated in the Captain’s Church, sipping hot tea from a regulation UFP coffee cup. An impulse wave of radioactive energy blasts toward the ship, seemingly out of nowhere, and Sulu – like a good surfer would – orders his ship’s navigator to ride the crest of the wave to spare the ship from fighting against it. Sulu’s cup smashes to the floor as he clutches the arms of his seat, and we learn that tragedy has struck on the Klingon home world, resulting in the energy wave: the moon of Praxis has imploded, and in a scenario much worse than what happened when the real-life Chernobyl nuclear power station erupted in Russia, the Klingons learn that, unless drastic measures are taken, the Klingon race will cease to exist within a 50-year period (earth time).

The United Federation of Planets convenes in emergency session, and Captain Spock recommends Captain Kirk act as an ambassador of the Federation in order to help the Klingons relocate to a more suitable planet. Captain Kirk, who hates and despises Klingons, isn’t in the room when the recommendation is made, of course, so when he balks at the job, Spock replies, “There’s an old Vulcan saying: Only Nixon could go to China,” and so it is that Captain Kirk is assigned to meet with Chancellor Gorkon, primary leader of the Klingon people.

After a cursory meeting, and meal, with Klingon delegates, the Enterprise crew is shocked to see the neighboring Klingon vessel fired upon by missiles from, seemingly, the Enterprise herself. Two Starfleet officers, garbed in white uniforms with helmets that mask their faces, and wearing gravity boots, board the Klingon ship, and open fire, mercilessly killing every Klingon in sight, and mortally wounding Gorkon. Then they seem to vanish without a trace. It is during this sequence that we learn that Klingon blood seems to have the same color and texture as Pepto Bismol.

Shocked, Captain Kirk and Doctor McCoy surrender the Enterprise to the wounded Klingon ship, and board their enemy’s vessel, to see if they can be of assistance. Doctor McCoy, unfamiliar with Klingon anatomy, fails to save Gorkon, whose dying words to Captain Kirk are, “Don’t let it end like this…”

As the story plays out, the movie features a massive conspiracy fueled by prejudices between both humans and Klingons, and other alien races, more than one murder mystery, and literary references from Shakespeare to Arthur Conan Doyle. At one point Mr. Spock even implies that he is a descendant of Sherlock Holmes! Everything seems to be perfectly balanced, however, and even the occasional cameo from veteran STAR TREK cast members don’t seem to knock the primary narrative off-course. Nor does the mysterious brief appearance of then-popular actor Christian Slater, whose mother served as casting director for the project.

Captain Hikaru Sulu is given some fine moments in the movie, and it’s interesting to note the appearance of, seemingly, a relative of STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION’s Commander Worf as a Klingon defense attorney. Also seen is Mark Lenard as Spock’s father, Sarek, and a performance by Rene Auberjonois, who played Constable Odo the shape-shifter on STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE 9 throughout its entire run, as the treacherous human Colonel West.

Kurtwood Smith (of ROBOCOP fame) plays an extremely bizarre-looking Federation President, and the film also features Brock Peters (remembered fondly as the voice of Darth Vader in the NPR radio adaptations of the original STAR WARS trilogy), and David Bowie’s wife, supermodel Iman, as a shape-shifter who, at one point, takes on the appearance of a duplicate Captain Kirk – a scenario that was repeatedly done in the original show. Even Grace Lee Whitney, who originally played Captain Kirk’s female Yeoman in the original series, returns in this installment, as Commander Janice Rand, First Officer of Sulu’s U.S.S. Excelsior.

Perhaps the most noteworthy actors to appear in the film, other than the primary STAR TREK cast, are Kim Cattrall (of MANNEQUIN and SEX AND THE CITY fame) as Spock’s new Vulcan protegee, Lt. Valeris, and legendary actor Christopher Plummer, as the one-eyed Klingon General Chang. Cattrall comes close to rivaling Kirstie Alley’s Saavik as the most interesting female Vulcan in the franchise and one scene during the climax of the film is particularly affecting, when Mr. Spock is resorts to utilizing a forceful Vulcan mind-meld on her to learn of the secrets of her involvement in the movie’s primary conspiracy.

Christopher Plummer, whose character sports what appears to be a leather eye patch that has been forced into his Klingon skull with bolts, comes within centimeters of chewing up the scenery but, in the end, the villainous General Chang seems cut from cloth that is vaguely similar to Khan Noonian Singh’s, particularly when shouting phrases from classic literature, “Let loose the dogs of war!” and “The game is afoot!” The scene where Doctor McCoy dryly comments, “I’d give real money if he’d shut up” is absolutely priceless, as is a scene in which Chang claims that Shakespeare is at its best when it’s read in “the original Klingon.”

One of my favorite sequences in THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY occurs when Captain Kirk and Doctor McCoy are put on trial for the death of Chancellor Gorkon; the set-piece on which the actors stand is impressive, as is the performance by Plummer, who – in one stretch of dialogue – screams, almost spits, at Captain Kirk, “Answer the Question! Don’t wait for the Translation! ANSWER THE QUESTION!” I found that scene so affecting that I’ve used that phrase several times over the years when someone doesn’t immediately answer one of my inquiries.

Frankly, this is one of my very favorite STAR TREK stories. I love the opening, the prison and prison escape sequences (although I don’t understand why no one ever breathes frosty breath on the surface of the frozen Klingon prison camp world of Rura-Pente), and I always get a little thrill by the closing credits, where we get to see the autographs of the primary cast of the series. I cannot think of a more fitting farewell from them all.

As the story concludes, after the primary narrative is wrapped up, Captain Kirk and his bridge crew are told to report to the docking bay to be de-commissioned. Captain Spock, in a rare moment of sarcasm, closes out the movie by saying, “If I were human, I believe my response would be – Go to Hell. That is, if I were human.” Captain Kirk, then, tells Commander Chekov to steer their ship toward the second star to the right, a reference to the direction to Never-Never Land in the original PETER PAN. Fitting for a fictional character who never really grew up, never really had a wife and family, and was seemingly married to his beloved starship.

Aside from the film’s allusions to the Cold War, there’s also a sub-plot about Captain Kirk’s lifelong prejudice, fueled to greater heights by the death of his illegitimate son in STAR TREK III: THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK, at the hands of Klingon renegades. For a Science Fiction series, it effectively deals with racial tensions and prejudice, and the fear that some experience whenever forced change befalls them.

From the moment Spock begins weeping for V'Ger in STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE, and on throughout the bulk of the succeeding STAR TREK films, we begin to see Mr. Spock slowly evolve into a more expressive being, and one - almost - capable of publicly expressing emotion. In the aftermath of the forced mind-meld scene, which some have regarded as an emotional rape of sorts, Spock's entire body screams of rage, although he's entirely silent. It's little subtle touches like this that make the STAR TREK franchise stand out for me.

STAR TREK: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY is an excellent STAR TREK film, but it’s also an excellent Science Fiction Film, and it's an excellent film in general.

After the release of the film, George Takei began to star in audio drama adventures detailing the exploits of Captain Sulu and, at one point, there were even murmurs in Hollywood about his starring in a new syndicated STAR TREK series in which Sulu would be the primary character. In 1995, when he was promoting the release of his autobiography, my wife and I got to meet him, and he and I briefly discussed his petitions to Paramount for a series of his own, and the opening of THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY with his Sulu character seated in the Captain’s chair. He grinned broadly at me, and asked, “Wasn’t it GLORIOUS?” Yes, Hikaru, it was. Yes, indeed. It’s a shame the last time we’d officially see his character again was in a weak and unmemorable episode of the tepidly-received STAR TREK VOYAGER.

The Omen (2006)

When trailers for the 2006 remake of THE OMEN first ran on television, some fans of the original reacted with immediate confusion and consternation. Would it be a reinvention of the 1976 film, or would it be a follow-up to the gosh-awful OMEN IV: THE AWAKENING, which had tainted television screens nationwide in 1991? The ad campaign was intriguing, emphasizing the fact that the movie was being released on June 6th, 2006 - at 6:06:06 A.M., no less - but it answered no questions, forcing the curious to choose between seeing the film in theaters for themselves, or waiting until later to find out what the latest installment of the OMEN franchise was all about...

Frankly, having been burned by THE FINAL CONFLICT: OMEN III when it came out, and disappointed by the entirely unnecessary television follow-up, OMEN IV: THE AWAKENING (which was lame at best, and stupid at worst), I opted out of seeing this new OMEN in theaters. To me, it looked like an amalgamation of the first film in the series, ROSEMARY'S BABY (since it co-starred Mia Farrow, star of the classic Horror film), and the then-new SAW movies, namely because the ads showed flashes of what looked like Jigsaw's skull-sporting acolytes. It was well over a year later that I finally sat down and watched the film, when it aired on a free movie channel weekend. My reaction? Well, surprisingly, I rather liked it.

Instead of offering a shot-for-shot remake, the movie strays from time to time from the source material, but not so far that it goes off-track. It, basically, tells the same story as the first film, only in a modern setting. Including Mia Farrow in the cast as young Damien's caretaker was actually a stroke of genius, and the movie offers an especially strong performance from Liev Schrieber, fresh from his turn as the new MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, as the ill-fated Senator Robert Thorn. A lot of critics complained that Julia Styles was too young to play his wife, but I've always adored her in almost everything she's done, and felt her presence was appropriate, since so many political figures in the real world have trophy wives.

The fact that the remake was released 30 years after the launch of the OMEN series is especially intriguing, because Jesus Christ began his earthly ministry at age 30 and, hey, we're talking about a series of stories about the antithesis of Christ, and focusing on the early days of the prophesied "Man of Sin."

If the movie has any faults, it's probably that it ignores all four films that preceded it - but it has to, in order to tell a viable tale - and the fact that it's quite plain that the director of the movie encouraged the movies' young star to mug for the camera quite a bit. The child's performance seems to be a trifle forced, and pales in comparison with the natural acting done by the diminuative star of the original. The movie also suffers from an inferior soundtrack, completely ignoring the Jerry Goldsmith score that so many identify with the original trilogy. The special effects, however, are top notch, and some of the death scenes come off a little better than what has come before.

The biggest problem with the film, however, is summed up in a question that has been asked repeatedly since the film hit the silver screen: What's the point? It's really a matter of been there, done that, unless there are going to be follow-ups that blaze entirely different trails than the original movies. Even so, it seems most likely that the film was made to cash in on the decade-old popularity of the LEFT BEHIND books, and the sudden resurgence of interest in Horror as a movie genre. THE OMEN: 2006 raked in over four times more than its fairly meager 25-million-dollar budget worldwide, but so far this cinematic Anti-Christ seems to be lurking in the shadows, and there's doubt that he's going to make a reappearance.

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)

Perhaps the linchpin of the entire STAR TREK franchise is best summed up in the opening narration from the original series: STAR TREK is about…

“Space, the final frontier.
These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise.
Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds.
To seek out new life, and new civilizations.
To boldly go where no man has gone before!”

The series, and the franchise, was never intended to focus on one character, but the crew of the Enterprise, and one of its greatest claims to fame was the fact that its crew was comprised of individuals of various nationalities, and men and women, most of them treated equally, although serving in differing ranks. At its best, STAR TREK was a show that made a statement. It was a show about something, and while there were three primary characters who stood out from the rest of the crew – Kirk, Spock, and McCoy (who I always refer to as the STAR TREK Triumvirate) – fans also loved the subservient characters, Chekov, Uhura, Sulu, Scotty, etc. Some of the very best episodes dealt with the secondary characters, and apparently this just didn’t sit right with the man who played Captain James Tiberius Kirk.

When STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN was being filmed, according to George Takei, William Shatner ruined every single take of a scene in which Mr. Sulu was to be promoted to the rank of Captain, and the scene was scrapped. Shortly after the sixth film in the series, THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY, was released, Gene Roddenberry passed away, and suddenly reports about disharmony amongst the STAR TREK cast throughout the entire run of the original series became commonplace, with the majority of the subservient cast reporting that the bulk of the unrest was the result of the showboating and scene-stealing of William Shatner, who thought he was the heartbeat of the series. Quite frankly, most of the cast hate the man’s guts to this day, and even recently there’s been a very public feud between Shatner and Takei, bizarrely resulting – it seems – with Shatner being rewarded with his own cable talk show.

After the release of the third and fourth films in the STAR TREK franchise, both of which were directed by Leonard “Mr. Spock” Nimoy, William Shatner pulled strings behind the scenes and was rewarded with not only the director’s chair for the fifth installment, but creative control over the entire project, including the right to pen the final script for the film – much to the disgust and dismay of STAR TREK creator Gene Roddenberry, who was very ill at the time, yet was given regular updates on the film during its production. The end result was a movie that Roddenberry very publicly decried as both awful and apocryphal to the STAR TREK universe. And when someone of Roddenberry’s weak writing ability deems something as bad, you’d better believe it’s bad.

If anything, the movie should have been called STAR TREK: THE WILLIAM SHATNER VANITY PROJECT, because that’s entirely what it is. STAR TREK: THE FINAL FRONTIER is nothing more than a William Shatner as Captain Kirk adventure in which his character is the brightest, smartest, strongest and most pivotal being in every plane of fictional existence imaginable. It revolves around an absolutely absurd story that makes no logical sense, and includes characters and places that have never been seen before, and expects the audience to accept their existence without question.

One set of new characters is comprised of a wild-haired Klingon commander called Captain Klaa, who is periodically in stealthy pursuit of Kirk throughout the film, seeking revenge for Kirk’s past actions against his people, and his body-building female cohort, Vixis. Another particularly ridiculous character is called Sybok and, supposedly, he’s Mr. Spock’s never-referred-to-before and long-lost half brother. Supposedly, Sybok is meant to be ironic, because he’s a “laughing Vulcan,” and he’s also on a mission to find not only the center of the galaxy which, I understand, doesn’t exist), but God Himself in a place called Shaka-ri, which is a convoluted extrapolation of Buddhism’s Nirvana, and the Biblical Garden of Eden. God, apparently, has been calling to him, summoning him to his home world at the center of the galaxy, and requesting he bring a starship. This is clearly a variation on the first film in the franchise in which V’Ger comes to earth in hopes of finally meeting his creator and presumed God; Mr. Spock is shown somehow sensing this desire on his home world of Vulcan, and this is why he is eventually reunited with Kirk and the rest of the enterprise crew in STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE.

After an opening sequence set on Earth, in the mountains, in which Kirk (later shown sporting a 20th-century T-Shirt that says “Go Climb a Rock”) falls from Mount El Capitan and is caught at the last possible second by a rocket-boot-wearing Mr. Spock, Sybok is introduced, and is shown on a planet called Nimbus-III. Apparently a wilderness planet, it houses a settlement in which renegade and disenfranchised political leaders are seemingly hiding out, including a fat, drunken, and belching Klingon, a beautiful Romulan female, and David Warner as St. John Talbot, an exiled human diplomat in a completely wasted and thankless role (luckily, he would be redeemed by a much better role in the next film, as an entirely different being). Also featured in this settlement are an assortment of characters who seem to be cast offs from the original STAR WARS cantina sequence, including a cat woman with multiple breasts who dances around while other characters play pool with floating billiard balls atop what looks like a cross between an aquarium and a pool table. This cat woman stands as a blatant insult to the character Lt. M’Ress, who was an elegant and intelligent cat woman in the old STAR TREK cartoon.

Sybok seems to have the ability to hypnotize everyone he comes into physical contact with, and he’s able to unleash pent-up emotions. Of course, he influences the ragtag inhabitants of the Nimbus-III settlement, and when he sends up a distress signal, guess which starship is the only one in the vicinity that can reach it in time? If you can correctly guess, then you can also correctly guess whether or not Sybok can gain control of the Enterprise and, yes, he does, by inducing mutinous thoughts amongst the Enterprise crew and – in one ridiculously bad sequence – we see Scotty and Uhura declare their undying lust and affection for one another. Wow, talk about something coming from left field. Also from left field is a scene where Mr. Scott bangs his head on an overhead pipe after openly declaring that he knows every inch of the Enterprise, even though it’s a new ship, presented to Kirk and the crew at the end of the last feature. This concept is another weakness in the story.

After Kirk and company are informed of the trouble on Nimbus-III, we’re expected to believe that the new Enterprise is a shoddily put-together, and is loaded with defective components!

Speaking of defective components, Paramount only allowed Shatner a limited budget when it came to special effects, and this installment features some of the very worst ever, because Shatner opted to pursue an untried effects team, forsaking George Lucas’s INDUSTRIAL LIGHT AND MAGIC, who worked on STAR TREK II, III, and IV to great success. Shatner also opted to eschew the talents of musical composer James Horner, whose work graced STAR TREK II and III (Leonard Rosenman did the score for STAR TREK IV) and, instead, sought the services of Jerry Goldsmith, who scored STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE, but his FINAL FRONTIER score just doesn’t live up to his previous work. FINAL FRONTIER doesn’t live up to the previous films, either.

Written during a writer’s strike in Hollywood, and released in the summer of Tim Burton’s BATMAN, which knocked GHOSTBUSTERS II out of its #1 slot at the Hollywood Box Office, STAR TREK: THE FINAL FRONTIER seemed to come out of nowhere. Its first official poster didn’t even feature the STAR TREK crew. Instead, it showcased a movie theater seat with a seat-belt on it with the following words emblazoned across the image: “Why Are They Putting Seatbelts in Theaters This Summer?” Unfortunately, the answer was actually, “To keep disappointed viewers from leaving.” The poster is doubly ironic, though, when considering that STAR TREK has long been criticized for featuring a bridge with seats that throw crewmembers to the floor at any hint of space turbulence because of their lack of seatbelts.”

Sybok, Kirk, and company do eventually find the center of the galaxy, and Kirk is especially disappointed by his crewmates who acquiesce to Sybok’s pursuit, even the ever-constant Mr. Spock. Kirk, according to William Shatner, apparently, is the only sentient being who could withstand an assault of the senses by a being such as Sybok, and this makes no sense whatsoever when considering all the STAR TREK tales that preceded this one.

Not everything is a complete wash, however. There’s one sequence where we see look-alikes playing two of the STAR TREK Triumvirate as young men, in a scene where Sybok makes them confront their deepest pains, and the look-alikes are eerily effective in their roles. The scene is unofficially a tribute to the scrapped plans of Producer Harve Bennett, who asked Paramount to consider doing a STAR TREK: THE EARLY YEARS film, featuring look-alikes of the original cast, set at Starfleet Academy. This is especially ironic now, when considering the upcoming JJ Abrams project. Harve Bennett, by the way, is seen on-screen at the opening of the film, when Kirk gets the summons to proceed to Nimbus-III to see what the trouble is; he plays Kirk’s commanding officer.

After landing on Shaka-ri, Sybok and the Star Trek Triumvirate of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, encounter a being of light who claims to be God. He looks more like a variation of the Wizard of Oz in the sequence where Dorothy and her friends see him as a giant floating head. At one point this God-being changes appearance, and takes on the countenance of various human beings, including one that looks like a caveman, one that sports a beard, and one that looks suspiciously like a Buddha figure. Of course Kirk questions God to his face, because he’s the only one bold enough, and when the question is asked why God needs a starship, which he has requested of Sybok, all chaos breaks loose, and lightning bolts begin to stream from his eyes, electrocuting whomever it comes in contact with, but not killing them, although the confused Sybok is apparently lost in the mayhem that ensues.

Out of nowhere appears Captain Klaa and company; they’ve been following Kirk, and feel the time has arrived to accomplish their vicious goal; they beam Kirk aboard their vessel, and blast the supposed God-being into oblivion with a blast of their laser cannons. Then they turn their attention to Kirk but, before they can kill him, they are ordered by the fat and drunken Klingon commander of Nimbus-III to leave Kirk alone, and so they oblige. All of the Klingon characters in this installment are nothing more than cheap plot devices, and they’re not needed to advance the story in any way, shape, or form. Furthermore, the fat Klingon is farcical, and an insult to characters who had, in all previous episodes and films, been noble, despite their savage tendencies (this, too, gets remedied in the next film).

One of the more comical lines during the finale of the film occurs when Kirk replies to Mr. Spock, “Not in front of the Klingons,” when Spock tells him he is relieved to see he has survived their encounter with the malevolent being who claimed to be divine. Memorable lines, though, are few and far between in this fiasco, one other being when Kirk tells Spock that he knows that, when he dies, he won’t be alone (this is proven almost entirely untrue in STAR TREK: GENERATIONS, in which he perishes with only Captain Picard of STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION at his side).

As the film resolves itself, there’s an echo of the ending of WRATH OF KHAN, where McCoy tells Kirk that Mr. Spock will always live on his heart, only – in this version – Kirk states that God resides within the human heart. This is, perhaps, the only STAR TREK episode that even remotely comes close to expressing a religious sentiment, and may well be what offended Gene Roddenberry, who was a die-hard humanist, and intentionally provided the Enterprise with every military ranking imaginable, with the exception of Ship’s Chaplain, because he never wanted the series to deal with the issue of religion.

STAR TREK: THE FINAL FRONTIER was, of course, slaughtered at the box office by BATMAN, and it deservedly earned less money than any other installment. It also ensured the ending of the adventures of the original crew, who would return for one final hoorah in the next film of the series. Some speculated that television’s STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION, which had been on the air to great success beginning in 1986, was largely why THE FINAL FRONTIER failed to attract an audience. FREDDY’S NIGHTMARES came out around the same time, as did FRIDAY THE 13th: THE SERIES, and when the succeeding NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET and FRIDAY THE 13th films were released, they bombed at the box office – some said – because no one was willing to pay for movie versions of what they could see for free on TV; this makes no sense, however, when considering that none of these shows were directly connected to what was released to movie theaters. Clearly, THE FINAL FRONTIER failed at the box office because it was sloppily put together by an inexperienced director and writer who was flying by the seat of his pants and didn’t know what he was doing, and wanted only to perpetuate his own vision of what was significant in the STAR TREK universe, namely Captain Kirk.

The very best STAR TREK adventures are ensemble affairs, written and directed by competent professionals, not big-headed, egotistical B-grade stars with diva complexes. THE FINAL FRONTIER is an effort best left forgotten and regarded as nothing more than, as stated earlier, a vanity piece for William Shatner.

Omen IV: The Awakening (1991)

Apparently, someone at Fox decided the OMEN series needed a follow-up to the theatrical disaster that was bone-headedly called THE FINAL CONFLICT. And , you know what? It’s really ironic that a television horror movie with the subtitle “The Awakening” would actually be best described as yawn-inducing, but OMEN IV: THE AWAKENING is. It is also, by far, the very worst “OMEN” film in the entire franchise, if one can truly call it an official part of it, and I actually scratched my head and had a very blank expression on my face when, a few years ago, I saw that it had been included in a box set with the first three films of the series. Perhaps the only solid connection it has with the original movies is its horrific usage of some of Jerry Goldsmith's classic OMEN music cues; the rest of its soundtrack is bizarrely inappropriate as well.

Boiled down to its very corny essence, it tells the story of the spawn of Damien Thorn, presumably after the events of OMEN III: THE FINAL CONFLICT. However, it doesn’t take place in a plane of reality where the events of the first three films are even acknowledged, particularly the return of Jesus Christ, which was the highlight of the third film, and resulted in the clear defeat of the Anti-Christ, Damien Thorn. It’s almost as if it never happened, and only the death of Thorn is referenced, although only cryptically (pun intended).

One of the biggest flaws of THE FINAL CONFLICT was the silly and misleading way its characters kept prattling on about Christ returning to earth, but reborn as an infant, and not as an adult. This has never been even an implicit thought in any ancient prophecy, and the concept was entirely undone during the climax of the film, complete with an appropriate on-screen Scripture reference. THE OMEN IV uses a similar McGuffin, and poses the implicit thought that the coming Anti-Christ could be the young female lead of its story. Sorry and, no offense, but everyone knows the prophecies revolve around a coming “Man of Sin,” not a coming “Woman of Sin.” Fortunately, this wacky thought is proven wrong by film’s end and, with OMEN IV concludes with the possibility of yet another follow-up. Thank goodness one was never forthcoming, although 2006 did see the release of a remake of the first film in the franchise.

Faye Grant, the pretty blonde star of THE GREATEST AMERICAN HERO and V television shows, is the only memorable cast member of the film, and even she offers up only a TV-caliber performance. The young lead actress of the movie, Asia Vieira, offers up appropriate sinister expressions, clearly hearkening back to the young star of the original OMEN movie, but she can’t save the sinking ship that is nothing more than a wasted opportunity. A clear product of its day, it’s loaded with New Age references, and includes one character that can read auras and take photographs of them. In a way, it’s similar to some of the weaker episodes of THE X-FILES, and the resolution of the film is just jaw-droppingly dumb.

Believe it or not, during the film’s climax, Faye Grant - the adopted mother of the faux Anti-Christ character in the movie - discovers that the child’s true father was Damien Thorn, the audience is expected to believe that this young girl was actually carrying the zygote of a male twin which she, miraculously, is able to transfer to her adopted mother’s womb, and he is destined to be the Anti-Christ! Talk about convoluted!

When Faye Grant's character gives birth to this child, and the 666 birthmark is in his little palm, there’s no shock value. Nor is there any shock value when, at the very end of the movie, Faye Grant draws a gun on her hell spawn and, instead, kills herself.

What’s truly shocking is that this abomination was ever made and broadcast as a gateway film for a possible series of TV movies, let alone re-released on DVD.

Race to Witch Mountain (2009)

Disney released the original ESCAPE TO WITCH MOUNTAIN around Easter-time when I was 9 years old, in 1975. It came in the wake of the PLANET OF THE APES craze, which I was wholly enchanted with, but I was already a Science Fiction nut. Two years later, I would be absolutely ga-ga over the original STAR WARS but, in 1975, I was in love with PLANET OF THE APES, the original STAR TREK and LOST IN SPACE, and anything that even hinted of a Science Fiction subtext, be it HOLMES AND YO-YO or THE LOST SAUCER.

Our favorite family came down from Virginia to visit us that Easter, I recall, and the grown-ups decided to unload all us kids at the movies so they could talk grown-up stuff. So it was that we went to the Manor theater in downtown Wilmington, NC, which was the only movie house that showed Disney releases for many years before it went out of business. We all opted to see ESCAPE TO WITCH MOUNTAIN, and all six of us loved it. Adored it, even. So much so that, when it was over, we all ran out to the station wagon and begged our parents to let us go right back in, and watch it all over again. The manager of the theater heard our plea, and said, "Come on back in, free of charge," and so our parents delightedly dropped us off for a few more hours. And we loved it the second time, all the more.

By the time the sequel, RETURN TO WITCH MOUNTAIN, came out, STAR WARS was all the rage, and STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE was on its way, in the wake of SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE. Sadly, the WITCH MOUNTAIN sequel was a let-down. Nowhere near as good as the first outing, even with Christopher Lee and Bette Davis in the cast. My fondest memory of the film was that it was shown as a double feature at the Manor, and my brother and I were dropped off to see both one rare school day afternoon, and there was no one else in the movie theater. We felt like we owned the place.

I recall reading the original novel the first film was based on as a kid, and that Disney licensed a story-telling record album narrated by Eddie Albert, and a Sunday paper comic adaptation, and a View Master reel of the sequel - but until the DVD releases of these two films, the only other Disney release was a pathetic TV version in 1995. The TV adaptation of ESCAPE TO WITCH MOUNTAIN was an extremely pale reflection of all that had preceded it and, alas, I must say the same about this most recent installment.

Why executives at Disney opted to utilize Ike Eisenmann and Kim Richards (the grown-up stars of the first two films) in tiny and almost insignificant background roles that had nothing major to do with the over-all plot is beyond my ability to comprehend. Plainly, they're still both extremely capable actors, and I had high hopes that they'd be related to the new set of twins in the film in some way. What a missed opportunity. And I'd have to say that this is true of the entire release, which ended up a platform more for Duane "The Rock" Johnson than anyone else...

The movie starts out strongly enough, and I was tickled when there was an early sequence with a news reporter I immediately recognized as Meredith Salenger, the star of the 1985 Disney release, THE JOURNEY OF NATTY GANN. I was even more tickled when she signed off, "This is Natalie Gann reporting," and I thought - well - this movie just might hold a lot of in-jokes. Let's see what they've got. I fully expected the movie to showcase Eisenmann and Richards in a similar fashion but, instead, all I got was a series of cameos by Gary Marshall, and one alien in-joke with author Whitley Streiber.

The second half of the film literally put me to sleep, and I was mortally embarrassed by some of the weak effects that someone at Disney, who was obviously asleep at the wheel, let slip through the cracks. They were so bad they looked like unfinished prototypes for effects, and my wife and I literally cringed and groaned. SHAME ON YOU, WALT DISNEY STUDIOS!

There's not a whole lot of criticism I can send in Duane Johnson's way; he did an adequate job with what he was given. And the two young actors who played the alien twins, who are not Tia and Tina from the original or the TV remake (they're actually called Seth and Sarah; neither use contractions, like Mr. Data from STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION, and Seth talks to everyone with his head tilted down, like everyone's deaf and need to read his lips). The kids did exactly what the script and the director told them to - but that was the problem. The script was weak, and the director lost control somewhere along the line, and seemingly started wheezing and stopped to rest as the movie ran on toward the finish line.

The only real "cool" moment was when Seth (who can change the density of his alien body, and phase through or stop things moving at high velocities) allowed an oncoming vehicle to smash into him, and he stopped it cold, not unlike a certain sequence in THE COVENANT. Unfortunately, this sequence has been played to death in trailers for the film and, apparently, absorbed all of the effects monies for the project.

One of the biggest problems I had with the storyline was its ability to forget the original, and a.) the powers of the two children, and b.) the fact that the aliens of the first two films were from a wholly benevolent civilization (seems the new twins are from a malevolent culture that has no problem with the concept of invading the earth if they need to relocate, and have no problem sending practically unstoppable androids to earth to seek out renegades, programmed to kill all runaways on sight). At one point the Rock's taxi wouldn't start, and I couldn't figure out why the alien girl didn't crank it up with her mind. I also couldn't figure out why Disney felt it was okay to feature a subplot about a device very similar in programming to EVE from WALL-E, which could prove whether or not a planet could eventually sustain life. This movie had promise but, ultimately, it was a train-wreck.

There was no chemistry whatsoever between Duane Johnson and his beautiful romantic co-star Carla Gugino, either, but - hey - I wasn't very attracted to this addition to the WITCH MOUNTAIN franchise, either. It's barely worth the cost of a rental, and I wish Disney had left well enough alone. My final verdict? Stick with the 1975 original, which still satisfies upon subsequent viewings, even though it's set in a more simple time period, three decades ago.

The Final Conflict: The Omen III (1980)

THE FINAL CONFLICT: OMEN III, appeared in theaters during the peak of the STAR WARS trilogy craze, one year after THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK came out, and two years before THE RETURN OF THE JEDI. Like JEDI, for me, it’s an extremely unsatisfying conclusion to all that preceded it, and almost a complete disappointment.

The original OMEN firmly set the stage when introducing audiences to Damien Thorn, a small child cursed to grow up and to become the Biblical “Man of Sin” of the “End Times.” DAMIEN: OMEN II waffled a bit as it showed what Thorn was like as a blossoming teenager, and what forces influenced him to embrace his future role as the arch enemy of Christ. THE FINAL CONFLICT: OMEN III completely stumbles as it reveals what the adult Damien was destined to grow up to be.

Wholly aware that he is the Anti-Christ, Damien has a legion of followers in the film, but to those who know anything about End-Time Biblical teaching, this movie is more a variation on the ancient story of Moses and a twisting of the New Testament story of the birth of Christ than it is a retelling of what is spelled out in, particularly, the eschatological Book of Revelation that caps off the New Testament. For example, Damien wrongly believes that the Second Coming of Christ requires that Christ return to earth as a baby, born anew in a new host mother’s body, and it’s never satisfactorily explained where this thought comes from (certainly not the Bible). So, of course, he orders a covert massacre of infants following the appearing of what seems to be a new Nativity star. Strange thinking of this sort plagues the film, as does a complete disregard for the established continuity of the earlier films. Cases in point: in this film, we’re told that Damien can be killed if he’s stabbed by only 1 of the 7 daggers of Megiddo, but it required all 7 in previous installments. Damien also makes references to certain times and dates that, plainly, go against the two films that preceded it. Logistically and chronologically speaking, the movie’s all over the place.

THE FINAL CONFLICT: OMEN III is slightly better than the television sequel to ROSEMARY’S BABY, a now little-known piece called LOOK WHAT HAPPENED TO ROSEMARY’S BABY, but not by much. As alluded to earlier, the script is the largest part of the problem, but the leading actors of the project are also at fault. They simply don’t pull off “Movie” caliber performances, and one could easily view them as being better suited to the stage; they just ring hollow in their roles, especially film newcomer Sam Neill as the adult Damien. He really chews the scenery in one odd sequence where he spits vitriol in a monologue delivered to a statue of Christ, and masochistically clutches the crown of thorns on its head, producing blood that drips down its sad face like tears. Neill disappoints, but so does the rest of the movie, which seems to have been made merely to round out the first two, and complete yet another unnecessary movie trilogy. Who started the trilogy trend, anyway?

Unlike the misleading movie poster, Damien never actually becomes President of the United States in this. Instead, he’s merely an American ambassador in Britain, who aspires to one day become President. Why? So he can become the most powerful man in the world, and ignite the prophesied coming Apocalypse but, again, it’s unlike any apocalyptic vision as presented in any familiar Biblical text. Again, the movie is largely a big letdown, and when all is said and done, one is forced to ask, “WHERE is the conflict in this thing?” If it was intended to showcase a final showdown between the returned Jesus Christ and Damien the Anti-Christ, well, even it’s an anti-climax, especially when Christ appears at the very end of the movie, glowing with outstretched arms, and levitating off the ground as if posing for a painting.

Add this one to the pile of movies marked “Should Never Have Been Made,” but be sure to put it underneath RETURN OF THE JEDI, which I thought was even worse.

Damien: Omen II (1978)

Note: Reading my review for the original OMEN film is a necessity when reading this review of its follow-up…

If the premise of the original OMEN revolved around the question, “What would you do if you learned your child was the Anti-Christ?” the sequel – DAMIEN: OMEN II – is centered around the question, “What would you do if you discovered YOU were the Anti-Christ?”

Viewers must remember that the concept of the Anti-Christ revolves around the New Testament figure known as the ‘Man of Sin’ who will be, in every way, the opposite of Jesus Christ.

OMEN II picks up approximately a decade after the first film, and Damien Thorn is now 13 years old, meaning he has ‘come of age’ according to Hebrew thought. In ancient times, at the age of 13, one was expected to choose a future vocation, and decide which direction their life was going to take, so OMEN II shows what occurs when Damien discovers who he really is, and what he decides to do about it.

In order to better understand the Anti-Christ as portrayed in this film, one needs to have at least a cursory knowledge of his opposite, and some of the philosophical arguments about him. Since the first twelve years of his life remain a mystery, as they are not discussed in the Gospels, many have speculative thoughts about the growing-up years of Jesus Christ. Some wonder whether or not he had life-long, full knowledge of who he was in terms of his Messianic role, and others wonder how much knowledge he had, altogether: if, for example, he had all knowledge from infancy, did this mean that he didn’t have to study in school, despite the fact that one of the Gospels relates that he did have to study, and grow, like other human beings?

In OMEN II, which picks up after a silent twelve years (paralleled with the twelve silent years of Christ’s growing-up years in the four Gospels), Damien Thorn (recall that Christ wore a crown of thorns on the cross – hence this odd last name; thorns also represent “sin” in Scripture, since they arose from the ground after Adam and Eve fell from grace in the Garden of Eden in the Old Testament book of Genesis) suddenly displays spontaneous knowledge about historical facts and information in a classroom situation that shames one of his instructors; clearly, this scenario is a twisting of past arguments about the childhood of Jesus Christ, but there are other twisted parallels to the life of Christ in the film as well.

As the film begins, Damien Thorn is unaware that he is destined to be the prophesied ‘Man of Sin.’ Then strange things begin to happen and, ultimately, he is exposed to the truth, and must either accept or reject his future role. In one scene eerily reminiscent to the Gospel’s description of Jesus struggling with his fate in the Garden of Gethsemane, Damien seems to strain and resist the thought that he is to be the Anti-Christ. Ultimately, however, he gives in, and not only accepts who he is destined to be, but relishes in the thought of it.

The greatest strength of the film, other than its impressive cast, is the series of graphic set pieces which seem to stem from the Grand Guignol tradition of blood and gore theater. The primary death scenes of the film are extremely memorable, but mostly because they are so graphic, clearly pushing the boundaries of what was acceptable in a PG film of its day. One woman has her eyes pecked out by a large crow (the preferred demonic creature of this outing, although Damien’s Jackal mother reappears) before she’s run down by an oncoming semi-truck. One person is crushed between two train cars, and yet another is sliced in half by a falling elevator wire. Unfortunately, these sequences are the glue that hold the project together and, on their own, they’re simply not enough to produce a film that’s of the same caliber as the original.

The lead role of Damien, also, is a deficit to the overall production; there’s never a clear explanation as to why Damien now speaks with a thick British accent, and Jonathan-Scott Taylor is nowhere near as sinister-looking as the young lad who played the role in the previous movie. As a matter of fact, Taylor looks somewhat innocent and virginal in comparison, and when his character resists his unveiled destiny to become the most evil human being ever imagined, one has a hard time believing that he could ultimately be capable of even considering evil thoughts, let alone perpetrating them.

One sequence, set in an archeological dig in the Middle East, almost seems to tie the film to THE EXORCIST, which has a similar sequence where a large statue of the Strongman Demon of the film. In OMEN II, an ancient painting is found on a wall instead, depicting the young Damien Thorn as a sort of Gorgon-figure. Again, however, the movie falls short of the original OMEN, and also THE EXORCIST, so it would be fair to say that this Middle East sequence was an extremely weak attempt to hitch a ride on a star, so to speak.

In summation, DAMIEN: OMEN II is somewhat disappointing, and cannot live up to its predecessor. Other than playing off inverted, apocryphal material about the life of Christ, it brings nothing new to the table when it comes to its presumptions about the coming ‘Man of Sin,’ and is best remembered for its gore.

The Omen (1976)

Richard Donner, deservedly, made a name for himself with THE OMEN, two years before he went on to greater fame as the director of SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE. For some reason, his involvement with the first OMEN film seems to have been forgotten, but direct it he did, and with such style and flair that the movie still holds up, even to this day. Of course the story of the film is sturdy, but had it been directed by a lesser talent, it may well have been reduced to campy fluff.

Fully understanding the original version of THE OMEN necessitates looking back, briefly, a few years prior to its release, perhaps even looking back a full decade.

In the late 1960’s and early 1970’s Hollywood began reflecting the culture of the day and, as the emerging Counterculture Movement began to spread, anti-heroes became the norm, and countless movie storylines ended on a sour note - typically with Evil triumphing over Good. Movies like THE OMEGA MAN, SOYLENT GREEN, BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID, THE STEPFORD WIVES, etc., all ended with the deaths of their primary protagonists at the hands of their enemies. But the greatest enemy of all became the fantasy fixation when a little film called THE EXORCIST was released…

THE EXORCIST dealt with the taboo subject of demon possession, specifically the possession of a young girl who is forced by evil spirits to be the victim of supernatural violence and to act out horrific and vile things she would never do on her own. Audience members reportedly threw up in the aisles at some screenings, and some fainted, and others had heart attacks. The movie crept into theaters quietly, became controversial, and then midnight screenings began to spring up as the fame and popularity of the movie about a doomed priest’s battle with a Satanic force began to grow and blossom. THE EXORCIST became one of the highest grossing films of all time, so it was only natural for movie studios to entertain thoughts of doing another movie about the Devil. And, in the tradition of old Horror movies of the past, when one movie monster makes it big, the next logical step is to focus on “The Son of” said movie monster. But how could a movie about the Son of the Devil be conjured up? Who would he be, and what would he look like? ROSEMARY’S BABY had famously answered this question long before THE EXORCIST, so another direction was pursued.

Cryptic prophetic texts about a coming “Man of Sin” from the New Testament Book of Revelation became the focal point of THE OMEN, with the premise of the story being, “what if the Anti-Christ described in the New Testament was living today, but as a child?”

In a way, the movie is a sort of philosophical step-brother to the old Twilight Zone question, “If you could travel back in time, would you kill Adolph Hitler?” And who better to direct such a film than a veteran television director with six episodes of The Twilight Zone under his belt? Under Donner’s skillful direction, the movie deals with the story of a man who learns that his presumed son is, essentially, damned to grow up to be the “Man of Sin,” who will one day wreak havoc upon the Earth before the End of the World, as prophesied in the New Testament – and he decides he must kill this sometimes innocent looking waif. Unfortunately, he learns too late that there is no goodness in his son – he’s completely evil, through and through, and there was never a shred of humanity in him. Furthermore, he’s not even entirely human: he’s literally the son of a jackal.

The most tragic part of the film is when Gregory Peck, in the lead protagonist’s role of Senator Robert Thorn, learns that his own, true son was sacrificed to Satan in a ritual insuring the birth of the Anti-Christ, and allowing for the swapping of his own infant child with the infant who grows up to be who we all now know as “Damien.”

Also shocking is the sequence where Thorn uncovers the Satanic “666” birthmark on his son’s scalp, and the many deaths that Damien is responsible for leave quite an impression as well.

The film has a terrific cast, with Peck, Lee Remick, David Warner, Patrick Troughton, and several other solid actors, but the gravity of the storyline, the sure handedness of the direction, and the brilliant special effects are what make THE OMEN so memorable.

Appealing to both secular and religious audiences, the movie was a box office smash, and – seemingly – became the first part of a Trilogy. Whether or not the sequel lives up to the original is a matter of debate, but after DAMIEN: OMEN II, which followed the original a few years later, the quality of the series began to diminish.

On its own, outside its pseudo religious trappings, THE OMEN remains a really effective horror film – mainly because its antagonist is a little child. And, Boy, Howdy, did they pick the right kid to play the Anti-Christ as a child! The diminutive actor who plays the role, Harvey Stephens, is perfectly creepy as he stares into space as he witnesses the handiwork of the Ultimate Evil – when his nanny hangs herself as a sign of allegiance to him, when his human mother is hanging perilously from the staircase, and when he looks into the camera at film’s end, seemingly fully aware of his future destiny.

The movie may have been made in the 1970’s, but it certainly plays well today. When plans for a remake were announced, it seemed silly to try to recapture the (for lack of a better word) spirit of the original project, but after the “Left Behind” books and films became cash cows for Christian publishing houses and film studios, it was probably a natural by-product. Regardless, THE OMEN makes for interesting viewing, even if it does add its own apocryphal spin to ancient Biblical texts (nowhere in The Book of Revelation does it say that the Anti-Christ will be the offspring of a Jackal).

Psycho IV: The Beginning (1990)

PSYCHO IV: THE BEGINNING was made for cable television, and aired on Showtime in 1990, and it’s a little more solid than the two previous sequels, at least in terms of story construction and execution. Perhaps this is due to the fact that it was written by Joseph Stefano, who wrote the screenplay for the original PSYCHO. Mick Garris, creator of the MASTERS OF HORROR series, directed.

The movie deals with the origin of the Norman Bates character, and its framing device is a scenario in which Norman Bates has called a radio talk show to confess the sins of his past and, particularly, his deep fear that he’s going to be unable to stop himself from murdering his pregnant wife, because of his concern that their child will end up like him. As he tells his story, a series of flashbacks from his life play out, explaining how he became the notorious murderer of the first film.

Young Norman Bates is played by Henry Thomas, best known for his performance as Elliot when he was a small boy, in Steven Spielberg’s E.T. – THE EXTRA TERRESTRIAL. He doesn’t especially look like Anthony Perkins, but he certainly plays the part well, although his character has a strange tendency to use the word “inordinately” at times, as if it’s an effort to prove he’s intelligent beyond his years.

The story of Norman’s past relationship with his over-sexed and extremely eccentric mother is the primary focus of the film, and it attempts to explain why he became obsessed with her, and how he was ultimately responsible for her death. There are blatant hints that Norman may have had incestuous thoughts about his mother, who is seductively played by Olivia Hussey. Interestingly, when Hussey was a young actress, she was best known for playing Juliet in the 1968 Franco Zeffirelli version of ROMEO AND JULIET. Her characterization as Mother Bates is both unnerving and fascinating; it’s obvious there’s something wrong with her, and it’s implicit that, perhaps, she suffers from mental problems relating to her seeming nymphomania.

As Norman’s twisted affection for his mother grows, he becomes increasingly more jealous of her relationships with other men and, eventually, he poisons both her and her latest paramour, and places her corpse in her bed, preserving her room like a shrine, and setting the stage for the first film.

The greatest weakness of the film is its finale, which falls completely flat when all is said and done. The entire movie revolves around Norman’s phone call with a Dr. Laura-type radio personality, and his insistence that – when his wife comes home – he’s afraid he’s going to kill her. The radio host, of course, spends the duration of the film trying to talk him out of it, but there’s an expectation that, when Mrs. Bates comes home, all chaos is going to break loose; when she does, however, the movie breaks down into a sequence that seems lifted whole cloth from any given episodic television drama: Norman’s wife pleads for her life, and the life of her baby, and expounds on why Norman is inherently good, and why their child will be good, too, and why he shouldn’t worry. She convinces Norman to drop his knife and, as the story ends, we hear the birthing cry of Norman’s new son. The end could very easily set the stage for a follow-up, but the tepid reception of the movie makes this unlikely.

Another weakness in the film is the fact that, in trying to explain why Norman became a serial killer, Stefano’s script doesn’t present a case that can easily be bought into – Bates doesn’t follow the same path Serial Killers are traditionally known to have followed. For example, instead of showing Bates torturing small animals or other children as a youth, we see him as more of a victim of circumstance - the primary circumstance being his twisted upbringing and relationship with his demented mother. One sequence involves a lusty young girl, Norman’s age, who attempts to seduce him and, seemingly conflicted by his physical desire and his psychological rage at his mother, he kills her – but why he actually feels the need to kill is never fully explained.

If Stefano had, perhaps, utilized the sick and twisted story and motivations of Ed Gein into the tale, which was the true source material for the original novel his initial script was based on (back when he worked for Alfred Hitchcock), we might have a better understanding of Norman’s murderous actions of the past. As it stands, it’s difficult to grasp why such a seemingly mellow and sweet man could be transformed into the heartless, dress-wearing slasher of the previous three films. It’s almost as if he’s Bruce Banner, and stress transforms him into a normal-sized Hulk that puts on a dress and wig, and kills, either out of repressed desire, or out of rage and fury over his unresolved past.

In the final analysis, it was a good attempt, but it could have been done a little better. It’s also a shame that it has a television movie look and feel to it; it’s better than the two previous sequels, but it’s not in the same league when it comes to cinematography and lighting, and it was clearly shot on videotape instead of film. Nothing could ever top Hitchcock's original, and PSYCHO IV serves as proof.

Since the film seemingly puts to rest the demons that plagued Norman Bates, and the fact that the author of the original script penned it (which makes it “official” in a way, unlike PSYCHO II, although it’s worth noting that PSYCHO III was directed by Anthony Perkins) perhaps no one will revisit the character again. Hopefully, the 1998 Gus Van Sant shot-for-shot remake will remain the last attempt.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)

STAR TREK had many twists and turns before it became a television series, and just as many before it became a movie franchise. Volumes have been written describing how NBC canceled the television series, changed its mind when fans sent in millions of letters of protest, and canceled it again after a lackluster third season in 1969.

Gene Roddenberry, a perennial salesman who produced two pilots of the original show for television executives when the first version was rejected (he later used the footage to serve as the basis of a 2-part flashback episode that was quite memorable), attempted to recreate STAR TREK at least twice after it went off the air. The first reinvention was entitled GENESIS II. It featured the monotone, mustachioed, and stiff leading man Kent McCord as Dylan Hunt, a Captain Kirk wannabe who was actually more of a rip-off of Buck Rogers, since he was frozen in one time period and woke up in a more futuristic one. Produced as a pilot in 1973, it revolved around a Federation-type society called PAX (the Greek word for “Peace”), which was threatened by grotesque villains one can only compare to inbred Nazis with strange ridges on their foreheads that resembled fleshy rooster combs. The 74-minute installment featured a variety of characters, including a giant who could communicate with animals played by Ted Cassidy (who appeared in one of the original STAR TREK episodes, but was more famous in the 1960’s for having played “Lurch” on the original ADDAMS FAMILY), a mind-reading “empath,” and underground tunnels which also allowed for travel to the surface of 22nd Century Earth. In a sense, the series could be viewed as a prequel to STAR TREK, which showcased adventures in the 23rd Century.

Roddenberry’s second attempt at a STAR TREK redux was entitled PLANET EARTH. It aired one year after GENESIS II, in 1974, and featured John Saxon as a more virile and adventurous Dylan Hunt. This second Dylan Hunt adventure dealt with the battle of the sexes, and showcased a society where women dominated men. Ted Cassidy was also showcased again, as the sensitive giant called Isiah.

When neither pilots launched a new show, Roddenberry went on to produce THE QUESTOR TAPES in 1974, about a sentient, human-looking android planted on Earth by a higher power to study and assist mankind; it also dealt with the thought that, in every generation, the individuals who rise to the top in terms of mental prowess, etc., were actually androids. More about the merging of a higher consciousness with the human consciousness in a bit…

In 1977, three years after THE EXORCIST hit big, Roddenberry created a fourth failed pilot entitled SPECTRE, which dealt with a Holmes and Watson-type detective team trying to solve a case involving the occult. It featured a strange lizard creature wearing a funny cape, which looked shockingly similar to the Gorn shown in the original STAR TREK episode “Arena,” which was a rewritten version of another author’s story.

1977 was a significant year for Roddenberry, because it was also the year that the George Lucas film STAR WARS became the #1 box office movie of all time. Clearly deciding to take a ride on its coat-tails and on the fact that STAR TREK never stopped airing in syndication after its 1969 cancelation, and never had a clear series resolution (it was, after all, supposed to be a series with a “5-year Mission”), Roddenberry pitched a follow-up to Paramount executives. For a time there were discussions about a proposed STAR TREK television feature that would lead up to a prospective new series, and there was even a public announcement that Paramount would be launching a “fourth network,” with a new STAR TREK as its tent pole series.

Scripts were commissioned for the initial STAR TREK: PHASE II television movie. Sets were built with the anticipation that they would be utilized in the upcoming show, and most of the original cast was re-hired to reprise their roles, although Leonard Nimoy refused to ever play Mr. Spock again after a decade of being typecast. The Spock character was recast with another, younger actor playing a different Vulcan named Xon, and rehearsals for the new show began. And then it was decided there would be no fourth Paramount television network. It was also decided that there would be no show entitled STAR TREK: PHASE II. Instead, they would shoot a feature film, and since George Lucas utilized top notch technology to accomplish his effects in STAR WARS, a STAR TREK feature would definitely have to follow suit.

Robert Wise, who directed the original version of THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, was brought in to bring the new movie some clout, but when he arrived on set he quickly discovered that the script wasn’t finished, and no one really liked what Gene Roddenberry had originally proposed – a storyline where the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise are forced to utilize the time-spanning “Guardian of Forever” to go back in time and assassinate John F. Kennedy. The Guardian of Forever was a construct created whole cloth by famed writer Harlan Ellison, who has forcefully claimed for decades that Gene Roddenberry abused his power as producer of the original show, and bastardized his original script for the episode that featured the object, “City on the Edge of Forever;” Ellison also claims that Roddenberry hoped to include Ancient Incan Indians in STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE, in a plot reminiscent of Erich von Däniken’s Chariots of the Gods?, a full thirty years before George Lucas and Steven Spielberg did with their latest Indiana Jones adventure. Ironically, Roddenberry was livid when William Shatner used a similar concept in the fifth STAR TREK film, and publicly declared the film “non-canonical.” Apparently, no one aside from the Great Bird of the Galaxy (as Roddenberry liked to be called) was allowed to blatantly steal eggs from the nests of others.

Robert Wise quickly took the bull by the horns and began setting things aright, but with an opening night deadline looming, he felt rushed, and wasn’t satisfied with the final product once it premiered at theaters. Wise wasn’t alone. Many panned the film outright, and Harlan Ellison declared in STARLOG magazine that, if STAR TREK was a pregnant elephant, it had strained and strained, and – ultimately – it begat…”a mouse.”

For fans who had waited from 1969 until that December 1979 opening night, it didn’t matter what anyone else thought, and it broke box office records straight out of the gate, mainly because die-hard fans kept going back for repeat viewings, and recruited friends to do the same – over and over again.

Broken down to its bare components, STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE shows what happens when, after nearly a decade behind a desk after completing his 5-year mission, “Admiral” James T. Kirk forcefully wrenches control of the newly refurbished Enterprise from the son of one of his oldest friends in an attempt to save the universe one more time. It seems a massive, mysterious, cloud-like life form is headed toward Earth, and it seems to be digitizing everything in its path, making it disappear.

The primary crew of the original STAR TREK still serves aboard the ship, minus Mr. Spock, but even he comes back aboard before all is said and done. Also included in the crew is a new character named Ilia, a “Deltan,” who is an empath, and affects the male members of the crew in such a way that there’s a subtle disharmony in regard to the way the men react to her; she’s almost a throwback to the Dylan Hunt adventure where men are enslaved by women.

As the movie opens, in an impressive special effects sequence, we see a version of STAR TREK’s famous Klingon aliens, but they don’t look anything like they did in the original series. They have strangely sharp teeth and, even more strangely, weird fleshy ridges on their foreheads, almost like fleshy rooster combs. Sound familiar?

The Klingons, observed by a Federation space station (commanded, interestingly enough, by the actor who had been hired to play Xon in STAR TREK: PHASE II), are quickly engulfed by the massive “cloud” floating toward earth, and Kirk and company have to figure out how to prevent it from digitizing the world before it’s too late, for lack of a better way of describing it.

STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE, plainly, was made for fans of the original series, and that is its greatest flaw, and it’s also its greatest strength. For those unfamiliar with what had come before, there are sequences that may seem long and laborious, but for the STAR TREK-thirsty fans, it was like a cool drink in a dessert on a hot, dry day. Extremely long shots literally revolving around the redone Enterprise might seem overwhelming to those who don’t understand the relationship Kirk had with the ship (expounded on in fan fiction, and in the original show), but fans drank it in with relish, and they also loved the sequences set on Mr. Spock’s home world of Vulcan, seen only briefly in the original series episode “Amok Time.”

It’s an odd film, really, that relies far too much on flash over substance, and when the film’s resolution comes, and audiences realize that the space cloud was merely a McGuffin, and there’s a sentient satellite at its center that wants to merge its consciousness with that of a human being so it might attain greater understanding, well, it’s not like Roddenberry hadn’t pulled that rabbit out of a hat several times before – not only in the original series episode “The Changeling,” but also in the failed pilot THE QUESTOR TAPES.

STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE is almost a train wreck. Almost, but not quite. Fans of the original show can find plenty of things to enjoy, even if it does bore those who have no idea what’s going on. It’s really a love letter to the fans who kept STAR TREK alive and, thankfully, it greased the track so the far superior WRATH OF KHAN could warp past it into Hollywood history just a few years later. Interestingly, this first installment was the highest grossing film in the franchise until the fourth installment became a cross-over audience hit. Also interesting is the fact that, over 20 years later, Robert Wise was commissioned to oversee a Director’s Cut which allowed him to trim away much of the fat of the original’s bloat, tweak multiple scenes, and make it a far, far better viewing experience that deserves to be seen by STAR TREK fans, and non fans alike.

The Planet of the Apes: A Retrospective

Fish-out-of-water stories have been popular since time began, particularly when the story plays out to comic effect. However, some fish-out-of-water stories serve as powerful allegories. Gulliver’s Travels, while comical at times, was Jonathan Swift’s attempt at utilizing literary techniques to make social commentary about the world of his day, and in the 1950’s and 60’s, perhaps the individual with the sharpest eye toward allegorical story-telling was the brilliant Mr. Rod Serling, creator of The Twilight Zone television program.

Serling was hired to adapt the French novel Planet of the Apes for the big screen just a few years after The Twilight Zone had ended its run, and many have claimed that – for its first half – the film plays out like the classic TZ episode, “I Shot An Arrow Into the Air,” in which a group of astronauts, thinking they’ve landed on another planet, discover by episode’s end that they’re actually on the Planet Earth.

It would be silly for me to explain the premise of the original PLANET OF THE APES film, released in 1968. The movie - and, particularly, its ending – is as iconic and instantly recognizable as anything Hollywood has ever produced. But to fully understand the movie, and the series of films that followed it, one has to appreciate the time frame in which it was created.

THE PLANET OF THE APES came out in a period in American history when the theory of Evolution was beginning to gain ground in Academia and in pop culture, although some scowled at even the mere notion. It was a time when the older generation wanted the younger generation to stop questioning authority, and just blindly follow orders, but the younger generation was tired of the status quo and wanted change. The Viet Nam conflict was in full swing, and so was the Cold War. Since the ending of WW2, nearly three generations had lived with the subconscious threat that, at any minute, The Bomb could be dropped. Sting, of the rock band The Police, wrote in his song “Born in the 50’s” a phrase that, for some, perfectly encapsulates the sentiments of the day: “Would they drop the bomb on us while we made love on the beach? We were the ones they couldn’t teach, ‘cuz we knew better.”

The ending of THE PLANET OF THE APES, with its apocalyptic message and imagery, begged the question, “Is this where we’re going to end up?” and “Who’s running things? A bunch of war-crazed apes?” Before the final credits roll, Charlton Heston, as the film’s main character, Taylor, damns to hell those who would cause to destruction the United States of America, but the finale of the tale would have been just as effective if the melted monolith the audience sees had been the Eiffel Tower, or Big Ben, or the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. The base message of the film is clear: We’re all heading backward instead of forward. We need to check ourselves, and look in the mirror about some things.

THE PLANET OF THE APES also contains material that forces the viewer to deal with issues of social injustice, class prejudices, and government-controlled schooling. Days could be spent analyzing the various minor lessons in the film but, for a kid back in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, this was just an awesome adventure movie about what could also be interpreted as an alternate reality. The film was deep for the adult viewer, and fun for the younger viewer, and it caught on quickly with audiences everywhere as a result.

THE PLANET OF THE APES was released a full decade before George Lucas learned that his film STAR WARS, while the biggest Box Office blockbuster of its day, could generate more than twice its box office revenue with tie-in promotional items and toys. PLANET OF THE APES blazed the trail for him. After the film earned a box office gross of close to $32 million dollars (a figure not adjusted for inflation), a glut of PLANET OF THE APES merchandise flooded store shelves. Everything from cereal bowls to T-shirts, from models to action figures, costumes to candy. The financial floodgates opened wide, and – of course – there had to be a sequel. But where could the next story possibly lead? Apparently, the powers that be decided it could only lead within, and inside, itself.

Charlton Heston balked at the notion of reprising his role as Taylor. He simply didn’t want to do it. But, contractually bound, he agreed to make an appearance in the follow-up – just as long as Taylor was killed off before the movie ended. For some reason Heston starred in several films in that time period where, after his character proves himself to be the epitome of heroism, he’s killed before the final credits roll.

BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES, released in 1970, two years after the first film, delves into the underworld of the Forbidden City, a location only glimpsed at in the 1968 original. The first half of the movie seems to be rehash of what played out in the first film, with a new character who replaces Heston’s Taylor. Taylor’s mute love interest, Nova, proves to be more prominent, too, but when she escorts her new lead into the underbelly of the Forbidden City, the sequel becomes a completely different animal altogether.

More allegorical statements are made in a sub-plot in which Gorillas want to discover Taylor’s whereabouts, but the final half of the film deals more prominently with mutated freaks who live in the rubble of New York City than actual apes. But who would go see PLANET OF THE MUTANTS UNDER THE PLANET OF THE APES?

The mutants, apparently, are the progeny of those who detonated the nuclear bombs prior to the events of the first film. As such, they worship an atomic bomb for some reason, and sing off key variations of hymns of worship toward God, but replace the word “God” with the word “Bomb.” They sport rubber masks that make them look normal, but before the finale, they strip them off and reveal themselves to be hideously melted and hairless. They also exhibit the mental ability to control the will of others in a sequence that seems to be derivative of an old episode of the original Star Trek: they actually pit Taylor against his new counterpart once the two are united, but in the end all warring factions converge, and Apes, Humans, and mutants all perish when the dying Taylor detonates the worshipped warhead as his last act of life, and triggers the end of the world – effectively becoming like those he damned during the finale of the original. Talk about an anti-climax.

Where would the series go next? The sequel turned the premise of the first film on and into itself, and the resulting pretzel of a plot caused the primary narrative to simply implode! The answer would come with the third film in the series, one short year later. BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES only earned a little over half of what the original film did (nearly $19 million, not adjusted for inflation), but the producers of the series wanted to see how else they could milk their cash cow.

Okay, so PLANET OF THE APES was completely destroyed in BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES. There was nowhere to go…except backward. And why not? The entire series hinges upon the rift in time that sends Taylor and his crew forward in time…

ESCAPE FROM THE PLANET OF THE APES, released in 1971, opens with Taylor’s spacecraft crash-landing in the ocean - in 1971. Aboard the ship are Zira and Cornelius, the two chimpanzee leads from the first two films, and for PotA child fans of that era in particular, this movie was simply a dream come true. Whether or not modern audiences can fully appreciate what this format transition in the PotA series meant to child fans back then is doubtful. In short, it meant that Zira and Cornelius – at least in the context of the film – were alive and well, and walking around on Planet Earth, and not in the future, but in the here and now. Kid fans could envision encountering them, interacting with them, even befriending them, and if the later Superman movies made children believe that Superman was real, ESCAPE FROM THE PLANET OF THE APES easily did the same for the inhabitants of the Planet of the Apes.

ESCAPE FROM THE PLANET OF THE APES, in a way totally unrelated to BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES, revisits the theme and format of the first film in the series. Instead of exploring the underbelly of the Forbidden City, however, it essentially did a script inversion, and instead of relating the story of a human who becomes a strange visitor on a planet ruled by apes, it told the story of apes who became strange visitors on a planet ruled by humans – ours.

Initially there are three apes as the film opens, and when the trio is taken into custody by the United States government, we learn that Zira and Cornelius had, unbeknownst to Taylor and company, repaired Taylor’s ship, and launched it into space just seconds before the Planet of the Apes exploded. The repair of the ship was not spelled out in the climax of BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES, and how Cornelius, Zira, and their cohort could repair such an advanced thing when the apes of the first two films can’t even fly planes is a mystery. The ship’s repair is a convenient plot device, sure, but instead of simply echoing the first movie, ESCAPE turned the original inside out in a far more palatable way than BENEATH.

Instead of being rejected and hidden like Taylor, Zira and Cornelius are embraced by the 1971 media, and they become instant pop celebrities. Contemporary viewers of the film thoroughly enjoyed seeing Zira and Cornelius in “modern” clothes and vehicles but, again, it might be difficult for a modern audience to grasp what seeing such iconic characters in such situations; frankly, it’s almost like showing them the two talking chimps on clothes that, perhaps, The Brady Bunch kids might find cool back then!

Sadly, Zira and Cornelius lose their friend from the opening of the film (played by the late Sal Mineo) when he’s accidentally choked to death early on by a wild gorilla he gets too close to while the threesome are in custody. Why he was even needed as a plot element, since he was not in the first two films, is also a mystery.

When Cornelius and Zira are interviewed by a governmental inquiry board, they reveal that they’re from a future earth, and when Zira discovers that she’s pregnant, it is then that their troubles begin. Concerned about issues of future evolution, a governmental official decides that Zira and Cornelius as a threat to future generations, and must be killed. Like Taylor, they are forced into hiding.

A sub-plot in which the offspring of Zira and Cornelius could be potentially regarded as the future ape equivalent of Jesus Christ comes into play, and there are references to Herod’s massacre of the infants, and his failed attempt to kill Christ before he reaches adulthood. Of course we see a similar scenario play out, and when governmental agents close in on the hidden Zira and Cornelius, both are tragically killed and, fortunately, their newly born son is stolen away to safety, replaced with a dead baby chimpanzee from a nearby circus, run by a kind man named Armando (played by Ricardo Montalban). Before the credits roll we see Milo, the infant son of Zira and Cornelius, crying “Mama! Mama!” like the little doll Taylor discovers shortly before he discovers the Stature of Liberty at the end of the first film. The series has become a snake that has swallowed its own tale. The Planet of the Apes would not exist if Taylor had not gone forward in time, allowing Zira and Cornelius to travel back in time to spark the creation of the talking apes in the first two films…so, of course, anything to follow would naturally follow the life of the son of Zira and Cornelius. Where else could the series go?

ESCAPE FROM THE PLANET OF THE APES made less money at the box office than BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES, but $12 million dollars in 1972 money was nothing to be sneezed at, so of course another sequel was commissioned. No other sequel would earn as much; the next installment would go on to earn $9 million, and the final film in the series would earn $8 million.

CONQUEST OF THE PLANET OF THE APES was released in 1972 and, as expected, picked up where ESCAPE left off. Why it was entitled “CONQUEST” is puzzling, especially when one could view a conquest as the final act of a conflict; instead, the follow-up to “CONQUEST” would be “BATTLE FOR,” further muddying the water for future generations, since a battle usually precedes a conquest.

CONQUEST deals with the life of Milo, the son of Zira and Cornelius, and its fatal flaw is that it implies that, for some unknown reason, the apes of our world can suddenly talk when provoked. Language, throughout the entire franchise is an issue, really. In the first film, humans can’t talk, and this is almost entirely why the apes keep them in oppressed subjection. In the first film there’s an allusion to the apes having possibly removed the vocal chords of their human slaves, but it’s never expounded upon, and no human other than Taylor and his fellow astronauts are ever shown to have the ability to speak.

Apes also, suddenly and inexplicably, begin to walk upright in the future world of CONQUEST, and are forced to become the clothed and domesticated slaves of human beings. All chaos breaks loose when the son of Zira and Cornelius leads his fellow apes into mass revolt against their oppressors. He is renamed Caesar, and becomes a sort of political/pseudo-spiritual messianic figure for his followers and, of course, the final elements come into play that set the stage for the first film in the series. CONQUEST doesn’t hold up to much logical scrutiny, but we have to remember that we’re talking about a series of movies where the primary villains are monkeys who, unexplainably, have the ability to talk, write, and reason!

The conclusion of the film, naturally, paves the way for a follow-up, but by the time BATTLE FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES was released in 1973, the movie series was clearly winding down.

BATTLE FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES proved to be a tepid plot vehicle for another Ape story. Loaded with sometimes confusing battle sequences pitting humans against apes and also some of the mutants from BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES, the movie could have pulled out all the stoppers and ended the saga with a bang. Instead, however, it goes out with a whimper. Its final moments are moderately memorable, with an appearance by the great John Hustin as the Speaker of the Law, but in the end one could easily come to the conclusion that the series could have ended with ESCAPE. Everything that followed was nothing more than a shallow attempt to make money, including the live action television series, which debuted on CBS in 1974. The only worthwhile spin-off, interestingly, would turn out to be a Saturday morning children’s cartoon broadcast in 1975.

Planet of the Apes, the 1974 television series, ran for only one season, and with good reason. Extremely bland and formulaic, and nothing more than a pale variation on the first film in the series, it simply went nowhere. Starring two leads who, seemingly, were hired because they looked like the leads from ABC’s Starski & Hutch, the show had nothing new to offer, and when a new line of action figures and toys, coloring books, comic books, magazines, costumes, props, masks, etc., were released, it became obvious that each episode could easily be labeled as 1-hour commercials for the merchandise of a once-popular movie series. Still, it has its fans, and a DVD box-set of the show was ultimately released.

Return to the Planet of the Apes first appeared in 1975. Wholly animated, albeit somewhat sluggishly at times, it dared take the franchise in heretofore unchartered territory while, at the same time, revisiting some of the movie installment’s better segments. Furthermore, the apes in the series were knowledgeable about aerial technology, and could fly planes and drive trucks and cars, etc. Memorable episodes dealt more deeply with the underground mutant cult of BENEATH, giving them a greater dimension and, well, depth, than the movies did, and one of the primary human characters in the series (a female; the other two leads were males – one, a blonde Caucasian, and the other an African-American) was ultimately kidnapped by the sect in an unresolved plot-line that, frustratingly, dangles loosely to this day. The show still works for audiences today, and the scripts for the series are remarkably advanced for what most would consider a kids’ show. In the 1970’s, most television networks re-aired their Saturday morning shows over and over before ordering new episodes, and there was no such thing as a “season,” like on weeknight television. Unfortunately, no new segments were produced after the first batch.

Interestingly, humans are incapable of speech in Return, and when Tim Burton later re-envisioned the first film, and perhaps the entire movie series, he seemed to forget that this was ever a significant issue.

Tim Burton’s 2001 version of PLANET OF THE APES, whether one likes it or hates it, went on to gross nearly $363 million dollars worldwide. Box Office revenue is no gauge of quality, and neither is popularity, but the movie is certainly best described as a visual spectacle.

Whether or not it’s a remake of the 1968 original is debatable. A character named Taylor is not featured in the film, although a human astronaut (played by the stern Mark Wahlberg) lost in time is, and the final moments of the original have been either forgotten or ignored. Charlton Heston makes an appearance, but he’s in ape makeup, and plays an elderly matriarch of one of the ruling ape clans. Interestingly, his character is also a “people hater,” which was a phrase used to describe the human Taylor in one of the early moments of the first movie, long before he learns what it means to be a human being subject to the whim of violently oppressive simians.

Ape society in Tim Burton’s variation is slightly different from what has preceded it, with the main alteration to the PotA universe being that all human beings are capable of speech, and all the apes know it. In the 1968 film, their lack of an ability to speak via oral communication is the primary reason that humans are kept in bondage. At one point in Burton’s film a huge gorilla pries the astronaut hero’s mouth open, and – looking inside Mark Wahlberg’s mouth – asks, “Is there a soul in there?” If a creature is capable of speech, why wouldn’t this be a marker of it having a soul? This scene, the issue of humans being able to speak, and the question of whether or not humans have a soul, could easily be the movie’s greatest problem, despite what some have said regarding the acting style of Wahlberg, and the directing style of Burton. A lack of logic has been present throughout the entire series, from start to finish, but having humans who are able to speak in the remake leaves far too many unanswered questions. Still, if one regards Burton’s version as a story taking place in a sequestered and inconsequential corner of the Planet of the Apes, it’s not too terribly impalatable. It’s certainly better than some of the later sequels.

In the end, the best film in the entire franchise is undeniably the 1968 original. The series made a significant mark on the landscape of pop culture in its day, and some feel the Box Office reception of Burton’s film of eight years ago is evidence that some would like still more adventures on the Planet of the Apes. Currently, there are rumors that another re-envisioning lies on the shore of Hollywood, sheltered neatly beneath the shadow of a half-melted Statue of Liberty.

The Duchess (2008)

Having recently watched - and enjoyed - THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL, I had high hopes when my flight to Tel Aviv opted to show us THE DUCHESS as we flew over the clouds. Generally speaking, I've liked almost every movie Keira Knightley's done (the primary exception being, of course, the last PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN movie, which I abhorred). This one, however, I didn't really warm to, despite her fine performance as the pitiable Duchess of Devonshire.

Seemed to me that the movie was yet another attempt to serve as Oscar bait, but it never really brought anything new to the table, and I've seen similar stories play out in umpteen other movies and television shows. It was also difficult to garner sympathy for the Duchess, since I felt she had to have some idea of what fate awaited her when she agreed to marry her ultimately cold and insensitive Duke.

The Duchess, of course, has a relationship with her husband that could be easily compared to that of Charles and Diana, but I never felt the director capitalized on these eerie similarities, perhaps intentionally so. It would have helped the movie a lot if some sort of connection could have been made but, instead, modern viewers are left to simply contemplate why the things we see play out were acceptable in their day, and in those ancient houses of royalty.

Trapped in a loveless marriage, intended only to produce a male heir to the throne, the Duchess has an intellect to be reckoned with, and she becomes much beloved by the socially elite and commoners alike; her sense of fashion is followed closely, but somehow she's able to carry on an affair after she learns of her husband's many dalliances, and no one seems to notice when she becomes pregnant with her lover's child, has the baby, and is forced to give it to his family to avoid scandal. Perhaps no one noticed because Knightley never gains a pound in the film, just like in real life, and I desperately wanted to throw her a sandwich and force her to eat it!

Knightley is beautiful, no question, and she's a fantastic actress, but the movie's nothing spectacular. Ralph Fiennes isn't quite as evil as Harry Potter's Lord Voldemort in his portrayal of the Duke of Devonshire (he doesn't have his wife's lover killed when he learns of her infidelity, for example), but he's certainly not likable, especially when we see how he flaunts his mistresses in front of his wife.

In the end, the movie fell rather flat for me, and I'm simply not sure what message - if any - it was trying to convey. As the portrayal of a tragic life story, I can honestly say I've been impacted more by other, similar tales. It's good, but not great, and not really worth the cost of a rental unless you're a die-hard Keira Knightley fan.

Beverly Hills Chihuahua (2008)

It has been wisely said that a camel is a horse designed by a committee. If this is so, then Beverly Hills Chihuahua is the perfect example of a film plotted out by a committee. In short, it's horrible, and I hated every minute of it.

Oddly enough, this is the third dog movie by Disney I've seen in the last two years, and it's the third dog movie I've really hated. I remember seeing advertisements for it when WALL-E came out, and wondering, "What the heck is that?" - and I also remember being shocked when it premiered as America's #1 nation-wide weekend release.

Drew Barrymore phones in her performance as what I assumed was the title character of the film (the poster makes me wonder if this is a correct assumption, however), and as far as I can figure, the movie was supposed to showcase the adventures of Paris Hilton's puppy after it runs away, but apparently someone decided to wisely extract Paris Hilton from the entire scenario.

Dogs can talk in this flick, but only to one another, and only in clichés that were used to much better effect in the animated Disney film LADY AND THE TRAMP, which is one of my favorites.

Jamie Lee Curtis is the well-to-do owner of the primary puppy in the picture, and she leaves the dog with her niece for the weekend; the dog accidentally gets locked out of her motel room when Jamie Lee's spoiled little rich girl niece takes her to Mexico and opts to leave her out of the evening's festivities, and we're supposed to believe that individuals who run illegal dog fights down in Mexico knowingly snatch the pooch as a potential contender in one of their to-the-death bouts!

The little dog, Chloe, becomes the object of sympathy for an older, gruffer German Shepherd who was once a police dog (voiced by Andy Garcia), but she becomes the object of wrath for an evil doberman pincher named Diablo, voiced by Edward James Olmos. When the organizers of the dog fight realize the little puppy has on a diamond-encrusted collar, they send Diablo after Chloe, and the film segues into a series of chase sequences all over Mexico.

Ultimately, the dog next door, Papi (voiced by Cheech Marin) comes to the aid of Chloe - assisted, of course, by his master, who is the love interest of Jamie Lee's spoiled niece - and all's well that ends well by the time things wrap up and the final credits roll. The German Shepherd even gets his old job back.

Silly, contrived, and been done better before, the plot points were so easy to guess in advance it was as if the screenplay had not only been written by a committee, but by a screen-writing computer. I wouldn't even recommend this one to kids. It would insult their intelligence. Now watch mine see it and fall in love with it because they have no point of reference. Aye, chihuahua...

Flash of Genius (2008)

Flash of Genius should have been a TV movie instead of a Hollywood release. It strives to be reminiscent of Francis Ford Coppolla's TUCKER: A MAN AND HIS DREAM but, I'm sorry, it's really boring, bland, and slowly paced in comparison.

Greg Kinnear plays a gentle man named Bob Kearns in the film, who aspires to be an inventor and give something of significance to the world. He creates an intermittent windshield wiper after realizing the need for one during a rain storm, but I never once saw a sequence that effectively conveyed that the man had a flash of anything other than obsessive-compulsive mania.

After Kearns is suckered into showing his prototype to crooked executives from the Ford corporation, he spends years attempting to avenge himself after they steal his design and market it as their own.

At one point Kearns is offered a 30-million dollar payoff if he'll settle out of court, but he refuses, and ultimately wins only 10 million. He loses his wife, his relationship with his children suffers horrifically, but - in the end - he simply wants to be known as an inventor, and a man who contributed something to society. The fact that so much in his personal life is destroyed in his pursuit of these claims is oddly underplayed, and everything else about the movie is overly subdued as well.

Kinnear's role is extremely reminiscent of his performance in LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE, and it distracted me for most of the picture. Lauren Graham, of GILMORE GIRLS fame, is adequate as his estranged wife, but I wasn't satisfied with the way in which her character refused to even consider reconciling with her husband, even after he was vindicated. More should have been conveyed to help the audience understand.

What I really don't understand is why the producers of FLASH OF GENIUS felt this movie contained a story that had to be told. In the end, it felt more like a historical footnote as opposed to a milestone. The fact that the man could have earned a 30-million dollar payday and, instead, was satisfied with a 10-million dollar victory says a lot about where Mr. Kearns' priorities were. Sure, he was a man of principle, but I think his principles were skewed in the wrong direction.

Nights in Rodanthe (2008)

Nights in Rodanthe is yet another film adaptation of a Nicholas Sparks romance novel and, as such, it's par for the course. In cinematic terms, however, it's below average, and terribly bland. Slowly paced and loaded with clichés, it's also the third screen coupling of Richard Gere and Diane Lane, who also co-starred in THE COTTON CLUB and UNFAITHFUL. Unfortunately, their on-screen chemistry isn't enough to save the film, and I fell asleep about halfway through, and awoke in time for the ending, for which I was grateful.

Essentially, the movie tells the story of a woman whose marriage is in trouble, and what happens when she meets a single doctor having a post mid-life crisis. Gere plays his character as pained and frustrated, and his performance seems familiar. It wouldn't be fair to say that it was similar to his work in AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN, but it did remind me of other parts he's played.

Diane Lane, as beautiful as always, deserved better, and I enjoyed her a lot more in UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN.

Set in North Carolina, I can say as a native North Carolinian that it didn't really convey the flavor of my home state, but the sequences shot in the Outer Banks were certainly pretty to look at. Too bad the movie was so dry and conducive to eliciting snoozes from this particular viewer.

All the classic romance novel clichés exist in this movie: the worldly wise best girlfriend for the female protagonist, as well as the arrogant, know-it-all, insensitive husband. Pained male protagonist? Check? Unexpected chemistry between the frustrated wife and tortured doctor? Check. Romantic setting and situations that temporarily force the two together? Check, and double check.

Essentially, Gere's character is under threat of a serious malpractice suit after one of his patients dies on the operating table during a procedure he'd done successfully many times before. He escapes to Rodanthe to get his head together and to discuss the situation with the family of the deceased, whose pa