Halloween II - TV Cut

When you've seen the theatrical cut as many times as I have, this version seems a bit bizarre in comparison. Many scenes are re-arranged and there's a lot of alternate takes used as well as additional scenes, which come at the cost of less graphic kills and some completely removed kills. Some characters just disappear after a certain point, and if this is the only version you've seen, it might cause a bit of confusion.

A notable difference is that this is only presented in full screen. The film begins with the intro credits immediately and the titles are squished into the frame. The recap doesn't feature the erroneous 7-shot 6-shooter, but it omits little bits and lines here and there.

Basically any scene with blood is trimmed or removed entirely. The bit with Alice and Mrs. Elrod is altered, Mr. Garrett's exploration scene uses footage of Myers chase with Laurie from much later in the movie, the darkness of the hospital is more thoroughly explained as an electrical disturbance, the marshall's death has Myers wrestle him off the ground and it doesn't make much sense at all as to why he dies with blood on his body, the explosion makes Jimmy fall, and then there's the ambulance alternate ending...

This isn't even the half of it. The first movie was tame enough to show on tv as mostly the same movie with a few added scenes, but this movie is edited vastly different. The theatrical version is superior, but I definitely appreciate all the added scenes and alternate takes.

A few scenes that simply don't work now are Janet complaining about Bud (not) using profanity, as well as Loomis's shots fired at the end. They fixed the 7 shots in the beginning, but he only shoots Myers twice in the clinic (plus his warning shot in the car), so he should have three bullets left, but he points at Michael and the gun goes click. He must have gotten too lazy to load all the chambers this time around.

The TV cut is available on the Shout Factory 2-disc dvd.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082495/alternateversions

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A lot of the entries in this series have alternate versions, but I feel that this version is the weirdest.

H1 has the extended TV cut.
H3 may or may not have an uncut version. Clarification anybody?

H6 has the producer's cut and a rumored Director's Cut.
H20 has the FX TV cut.
H8 has alternate endings that were intended for a theatrical gimmick.

RZ's H1 and H2 both have director's cuts, which demonstrate that he had no clear vision as to what he wanted out of these movies.

I guess H4 and H5 are the only one-cut movies out there.

#Review

The Sentinel (1977)

I wont get too long winded here, but this was a pretty decent flick. It has one hell of a cast if you haven't noticed with the leads being Alison (Cristina Raines) and Michael (Chris Sarandon). Alison moves into a Brooklyn apartment and things get weird quick.

This is a religion horror in the vein of Rosemary's Baby, complete with an apartment setting and weird neighbors, both based on books released within 7 years of each other. It's fairly engaging, and though it gets a little slow in the middle, it comes back full swing with a crazy ending. Also, did I mention the great cast?

#Review

A Shit Post

Monsturd. Now that's a good movie! Set in Butte County California. I know the name is supposed to be the "butt" of the joke, but it's even funnier that it's set in California, because that whole state is bullshit, just like our killer Jack Schmidt, aka The Shit-Man!

This movie will make you fear the toilet like Jaws made you fear the water. Don't get caught with your pants down! And protect yourself from the shit-man by wearing diaper armor and stocking up on pepto bismol and a million flies.


I rate this movie 💩💩💩 out of 5 shits.

#Review

Friday the 13th Lawsuit

I think it's pretty fucking stupid that Victor Miller won the infamous Friday the 13th lawsuit. He shat out a screenplay while Sean Cunningham produced, directed, and breathed life into the damn movie. It's much more his movie than Vic's, and also much more his franchise since he produced later installments. If Cunningham had the rights, we'd probably have another Jason movie already.

Jack Frost 2

What better way to start off the Halloween season than to watch a Christmas movie set on a tropical island? Since I have the worst taste in movies, this is a no-brainer.

For no reason, a group of scientists revive the killer snowman from the last movie, and he somehow manages to travel 2000 something miles to a Caribbean island resort where our sheriff and his wife are taking a vacation. The first movie was dumb, but this one is definitely dumber and with shittier effects.

The kills are funny. Is that swimsuit model not excited enough? Here's some ice for her to rub on her nips. Evil ice! And that stupid guy with the eye patch made me laugh due to the redundant stock music that accompanied him. Naturally, the only way to one-up a movie about a killer snowman is for him to have multiple killer snowman babies, right?

In a bizarre and unfortunate twist, I looked up the lead actor Christopher Allport who plays the sheriff in both films and found out he died in 2008. Cause of death? A goddamn avalanche! Did Jack Frost win? 😟

#Review

RLS

So, I have RLS (restless leg syndrome) and I've had it for years. I'm currently out of my medicine for it, and that means no sleep. I hate having it! It's so annoying and painful.

I think the longest I went without sleep was 7 or 8 days while waiting on my medicine to be filled. Those were some crazy nights! Tromafreak told me I was talking about naked guinea pigs.

No real reason for this post aside from not being able to sleep. Do any of you have RLS? What's the longest you went without sleep?

Candyman/Child's Play connection?

I have not thought about this is a long time... possibly never, actually. Anyway, I was just wondering if Candyman might have been partly inspired by John, the old voodoo priest in the original Child's Play. Just the art on the walls in each of their homes, which was apparently made by John in Child's Play, and by Candyman in C... it's sort of similar. Also, I guess just the fact that both characters are black makes me wonder if one could have inspired the other.

Candyman was at least mostly based on a short story that Clive Barker wrote in the early to mid 80s, so maybe that story was part of the inspiration for John in Child's Play? I don't think I've ever read that story, sooo... not sure where to begin, in sorting this out.

Anyway. Just a possible little connection there. Had to mention it.,

Twilight Zone: He's Alive

Season 4, episode 4. Dennis Hopper plays a neo-Nazi trying to find his voice in this surprisingly compelling episode. Rod Serling wrote this episode, and he had a tendency to be very outspoken on certain subjects. Hopper gives a great performance, and this is perhaps the youngest I've ever seen him.

If only more people TODAY would watch shit like this, we wouldn't have so much political fuckery these days. Twilight Zone gives us some great morality tales.

Sci-fi/Fantasy Marathon

Just checking if this is happening for September? If no one is officially doing it I will just put my list here and anyone else can too.

So looks like we are just doing it here. For anyone who doesn't know you can watch anything Sci-fi or fantasy related and you just add up the minutes whether a movie or TV show.

Trancers and Terminator

Here's a slew of similarities between the two.

Both films are tech noirs that came out in 1984 within a couple weeks of each other and are set in Los Angeles. They feature rugged male protagonists from dystopian futures who go back in time from the month of July to stop a bizarre threat from altering the future. While in the past, they go to punk clubs and fall in love with women who will affect their own lineage and existence. In the end, neither of these men return to their respective futures.

Then both franchises got a quasi continuation in 1988 with the Trancer's City of Lost Angels short and Terminator's emergence in Top Comics.

Big deal, right? Well, the sequels to each film both came out in 1991 within a month of each other and feature a returning lead actress who is essentially written out of the franchise after the second entry. Both sequels have our protagonists break a woman out of a mental institution run by a guy trying to further his own career.

In Trancers 3, Jack Deth is sent to 2005. In Terminator 3, the T-850 is sent to 2004. Both films feature military compounds in the process of creating the very threat each series is about.

By the third entries and beyond, the directors of the first two entries of each respective franchise left and had very little if any involvement in the franchise thereafter.The tone of each franchise changed a bit and important plot elements of each were no longer relevant. The part 3's were both okay, while the part 4's and 5's were kinda shitty.

Both 4th entries in each franchise were raped by producers. The original Terminator 4 script suffered from a zillion rewrites, while a trivia bit of Trancers 4 is: "Several budgetary problems occurred during filming, to which director David Nutter went on to say that they were resolved by simply tearing out various pages in the script." Neither film was made as originally intended.

The 5th entry of each (and 4th of Trancers) deal with deviations in the timeline and introduce the concept of alternate dimensions.

The 6th entry in each franchise is set in the 2020s and is all about girl power. As of now, there are no plans for any follow-ups to either franchise. I'd say these franchises are somewhat similar. 😐