Urban Legend 1998

Yeah, it's that time of the year when I ramble on just about any horror movie I watch. Today, we'll be revisiting this late 90s college slasher, which actually has some merit to it.

Don't get me wrong, it's far from perfect, but it's far from shit. I can take or leave the twist/reveal, because this movie was written around the urban legends and the kills they could get out of it. So if you get a few cool kills and a cool cast, who cares about the killer's motive?

Brad Dourif plays a stuttering gas station attendant in the beginning. One can only draw parallels to his character from Cuckoo's Nest on that aspect. Too bad he's not in much, but at the same time, I wouldn't want to hear him stuttering for too much longer. That shit gets annoying.

Robert Englund is the red herring college professor, and I think it's safe to say that nobody would expect him to actually be the killer, because he was already Freddy, so that would be too obvious. Right? He's not in much of it either, but so far, we have Chucky and Freddy, so that's cool.

One thing I've always found particularly noteworthy was Danielle Harris. Granted, her role isn't that big, but this is her fist horror film since Halloween 5, playing an irritable goth bitch roommate. And the first time we see her, she's getting fucked. They want you to hate this character, but I could never hate Danielle. There's also a funny bit in there showing how dated this movie is, featuring her getting mad that she has to disconnect from her dial-up because the main girl needs to make a phone call. Ah, the early days of the internet, caller ID, and mobile phones, and all the tropes that come with them... that's how you know this is a 90s movie, when they need to stop off at a gas station to use the phone, which will never even work during the thunderstorm...

I think I've seen at least one of the sequels, but I don't remember a damn thing about it. They left it open to be a franchise, but it never quite took off the way they wanted. Those sequels turned DTV quick and lacked the star-power of the first movie.

It's not a great movie, but those late 90s slashers did have some charm to them. Or maybe that's just the nostalgia speaking.

Some random IMDb trivia:

Danielle Harris (Tosh) and Tara Reid (Sasha) had been roommates in real life before they shot the film.

Danielle Harris (Tosh) was a smoker at the time and thrilled to be allowed to smoke while working. She quickly realized that shooting scenes while smoking meant that she was going to have to smoke cigarettes for hours all day while they shot. She eventually got sick of it and quit smoking.

Jared Leto has disowned the film and hates it, refusing to talk about it in interviews.

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The Continental

A John Wick prequel mini-series of 3 movies set in the 70s. Ian McShane's character from the movies is a young man who acquires the hitman hotel from a psychotic Mel Gibson.

There's probably a plot in here somewhere, but given the nature of this shoot-em-up, it's 100% irrelevant. You'll watch it for the action scenes, then probably zone out during the rest like I did. Mel Gibson is definitely the best part. He's over-the-top and mad, and that's how I like him.

Overall, I'm a little upset that this is the direction our entertainment is going. You'd think I'd eat this shit up, but it's so shallow with quick edits and meaningless characters everywhere. If someone gets killed, who gives a fuck? Carnage candy and nothing more. Not bad, but I'll forget it quick.

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Actors in the Most Horror Franchises

Bill Moseley has appeared in Halloween, TCM, Silent Night, Devils Rejects...

Robert Englund has appeared in Elm Street, Hatchet, Wishmaster, Urban Legend...

Brad Dourif has appeared in Chucky, Halloween, Urban Legend...

Kane Hodder has appeared in F13, Hatchet, Wishmaster, Ghoulies, TCM...

I'm missing a lot.

So who reigns supreme?

Orphan 2009

I've avoided this one for years because it sounded stupid. It ended up being pretty good. That orphan is one crazy little bitch. You think she's cold and calculating, but after a while, she starts getting sloppy. She definitely puts adoptive mom Vera Farmiga in a pickle by making her look crazy. And this movie is cruel to children, which is always ballsy.

I hear the recent prequel is stupid. My guess is the actress needed to milk this character for all her worth. I'll watch it soon. I guess prequels made many years later are the new thing, when filmmakers regret killing off a character that could've generated more profit.

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Chucky in the White House

That's right. Season 3 goes there. I think it's hilarious that Devon Sawa keeps coming back as different characters. This time, he's the president. You can't top that, unless he ends up playing God in the next season.

It's a funny thing when horror goes that route. Ash vs. Evil Dead had a promo video of Ash running for president. Burt Gummer also had a video of him running for president under the new Gummertarian party. The Re-Animator series was long rumored to have House of Re-Animator be about the white house too, and them re-animating the president. It would have been great.

Kingdom of the Spiders 1977

This one isn't quite as amazing as The Giant Spider Invasion, but it's pretty fun anyway. Some angry tarantulas live in a barn and like to eat people and web them up. William Shatner's hammy acting rules, and the trash value is up there. There's a certain horror piano cue in the score that has been used redundantly in pop culture. As well as throughout this movie.

The spiders are mere tarantulas, like a dozen scattered about in any given scene. I never felt any threat, since they were slow movie and spaced out. It's basically like they're dodging stationary toys in these scenes. Good 70s vibes from this movie.

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No One Will Save You 2023

New on Hulu. Trending a lot, so what's the big deal?

A girl in an isolated house goes through a cat and mouse ordeal against some old school aliens. For this movie to work, the aliens need to work. I think they're pretty good: thin, weird appendages, jerky movements, and that classic big-headed black-eyed classic alien head. These things are assholes, and our heroine of minimal dialog has to best a lot of them. They also have telekinesis and tractor beams on their ships. Very traditional alien stuff, but that's a good thing. There's also a spongy throat parasite thingy, and that's pretty squirmy.

It's not bad. Not sure I cared for that ending though. I mean, I guess I knew what they were going for, but it felt meh.

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Featured Theme

TE looks boring if you haven't picked a theme, so I added the "Featured" theme, which will reflect any seasonal aesthetics, such as October should obviously use the Halloween theme, and when this month hits the 13th, it would switch to the F13 theme.

Then I defaulted all guests, new users, and existing users with no theme to use the Featured theme. If you hate it, you can always switch it back to no-theme. But then you'll be boring. You don't want to be boring, do you?

I'll probably find a few bugs here and there...

Children of the Corn 2023

Some sources say it's from 2020. I've seen all the other ones, so why not? It's a rather crummy DTV series, with only a few notable entries. Then again, which franchise isn't exactly like that?

The 1984 original isn't great, but I like it anyway. It has a good eerie cornfield atmosphere, Linda Hamilton, and a bunch of creepy kids. I hadn't seen it until my late teens, so I had a long period of my life where I could look at that cool red sunset poster artwork and build up the movie in my head and make it out to be better than it really is. Sometimes when you do that, you can actually brainwash yourself into disregarding the movie's actual merit (or lack thereof) in favor for your own delusional concept of how great a movie is. Tricking yourself into regarding a movie as a classic. I think that's what Hollywood did when they decided to make this relatively stand-alone film into a whole franchise of DTV garbage.

In 2009, they remade the movie. It was okay at best, but basically just that. A remake of an 80s movie with no real charm or reason to exist. I think it was a Syfy channel movie, which should put it all into perspective for you. Nobody cared, and I've already forgotten all the beats of that movie.

Then in this very year (or 2020?), they thought they'd try again. It may have the same title, but this is less of a remake and more of a re-imagining. It has the same concept of children killing adults because of something in the corn pushing them to it, but the way it plays out is quite different. It's almost more of a story about psychologically fucked up kids, at least until the halfway point where you see there actually is a creature who walks behind the rows. Yeah, they show him, and it's not the worst effort in CGI. The movie looks well-made and it's more sadistic than other entries, that's for sure. Worth at least one watch, but the very end scare perpetuates some dumb genre tropes. Definitely one of the better entries in an otherwise crappy series.

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Tolerating "A Return to Salem's Lot"

Oh man. I forgot how bad this was.

Ouch.

But, I feel like there could almost be some way to sort of enjoy it. If you just approach it as a sequel to Salem's Lot, then...... you're totally screwed. It's impossible to enjoy it that way, it's just a terrible sequel. The acting is worse, the whole plot has way too many problems, and it just generally looks like they didn't care enough to even try.

BUT. Maybe... maaayyybeee.... if you have recently watched The Stuff, House (1985), Phantasm 2, Return of the Living Dead 2, or some of the Children of the Corn sequels, it MIGHT be barely possible to watch this and not be too bummed out that you spent a precious hour and a half of your life watching it. It just sort of fits in with the general ambiance of mid to late 80s cheap horror movies, and horror comedies. Sadly, I'm pretty sure this was not intended to be a horror comedy, it just makes me think of horror comedies. As I said earlier: Ouch.

Katja Crosby, who plays Michael Moriarty's love interest, reminded me a little of the main girl in Phantasm 2. (It might just be that they had comparable hairdos).

The Stuff could put you in the mood to watch this, just because it has Michael M as the hero, and they're both Larry Cohen movies. (Not Larry Clark, I always have to correct myself).

House could put you in the right frame of mind, maaayyybeee, just because it's about a guy inheriting a house from an aunt, and finding paranormal shit going down in the area. Also, you can just tell it's from the same period, the way people dress, etc are very similar.

Return of the Living Dead 2 came our around the same time, and it just has a similar vibe sometimes. RotLD2 is funnier and better, though.

All the scenes with the children kept reminding me of Children of the Corn. Not for any cosmic reason, it's just an obvious comparison. Some of the sequels are more like Return to S.L. than the original, I think... it's hard for me to say which ones, they all run together in my brain. Speaking of the children, there's a marriage scene between two vampire kids that is kind of interesting. I don't think they really explained it in much detail, unless I dozed off and missed it, but I imagine that the vampire "kids" were suposed to be many decades or centuries old, and had had their growth halted... there are plenty of movies that feature this type of situation, of course.

What else, what else... Serpent and the Rainbow came out not too long before this, I think. That may have had some influence on the director's idea of having the main character be an anthropologist coming straight from studying cultures south of the US. No wait, the dude in SatR was an ethno-botanist... well, you know what I mean.

So anyway... why did I even make this post. I don't know. It's just not a great movie, and I don't recommend watching it if you haven't sat through it already. But, if you've already seen it, it is possible that thinking about it in the context of the other movies I mentioned here might make you want to vomit a little less. That is all. Kirk out.