Candyman 2021

It's kind of it's own thing, but you still need to see the original to really get it. The sequels are largely insignificant, as they should be, so it's all about the first one. Same Chicago setting, the fallout of that bonfire, and the urban legends around Candyman. But who is Candyman? A question to be explored in this racist, woke, but damn interesting story.

I really love how it reinvented the mythology to make Candyman more of a symbol of an era rather than a singular character, but still giving Daniel Robitaille the credit as being the OG. The multiple Candyman angle makes me eager to revist the first one with this dark outcome in mind.

It's not a very violent movie. Lots of off-screen violence, but it is gross. Probably because a woman directed it, but direct it she did. It was well done, somewhat artsy, and had a competent gauge on the horror bits. I think it was also a social commentary on art critics. I think that commentary is that... black people kill as many people as white people? Or that art critics are snobs who deserve to get snuffed for having fickle opinions?

The ending is pretty stupid though. Not all of it, but definitely some of it. If you're expecting to see Tony Todd in this, you get to see him. For 5 seconds. Either way, it makes for a good companion piece to the original film. I give it a 1 out of 2.

#Review

Pearl

In this period-piece psychodrama, Mia Goth plays Pearl, an overworked farmgirl who dreams of being famous. Her mom is a strict bitch and her dad is a vegetable, so she's desperate to get away from the lifestyle. Who wouldn't be? Set in the backdrop of WW1, everyone is worried about the pandemic and catching the sickness, so there's a bit of social commentary on masks. Being related to the movie 'X', the plot also includes some film/porn stuff to tie that whole theme together. Plus an alligator.

To explain any further would do it injustice. Other than it being a prequel, I had no idea what I was getting into, so go in blindly and enjoy the experience and mystery of what the hell this movie may be about. Enjoy it for the novelty of an early 1900s-set horror flick. The era and setting have parallels to Wizard of Oz, and Pearl struck me as reminiscent of the Wicked Witch... of the south?

Mia churns out a good performance, and seems to have had a fair behind-the-scenes role as a co-writer/producer. It makes me happy to see Ti West spitting out some entertaining horror flicks. I've liked him ever since House of the Devil. He's influenced by the classics and is artsy, but not fartsy. It may already be part of a franchise, but it could stand on its own. I do, however, wish to give 'X' another go now that I've gotten to know this character more.

If "MaXXXine" is indeed the part 3 of the series, I have no idea what the hell that one will be about.

#Review

Brainscan

When you're a kid, you don't always have control of what you get exposed to. I'd seen this movie when I was like... 6 or 7? Suffice to say, it left an imprint on me at that age. I always thought Eddie Furlong was the coolest. He had that bad-boy teenage drama that I always envied. Girl problems, a misfit way of life, and an otherwise seemingly dope lifestyle.

He plays "Michael", and Michael's room always seemed like a cool place to me. He lived in the attic with a lot of "cutting edge" mid-90s technology, and even his own damn refrigerator up there. I was always kind of fascinated with that aspect of his life. Plus, his dad was never around, so he basically lived by himself. I always thought it would be cool to live in an attic room like that, but in real life, most attics are just cramped spaces with itchy insulation.

A lot of the movie is centered around horror fandom. It's very much a Fangoria-inspired movie, and the horror genre itself is obviously a major part of it. Michael runs a "Horror Club" at school where he would screen splatter flicks. Anyone ever watched horror flicks in school? Let alone on a regular basis? It's got to be a sweet life for Michael.

The writers needed to give Michael a handicap in order to balance the universe, so they gave him a leg injury. I distinctly remember being terrified of that brief scene of knee gore, always fast-forwarding that scene when I watched it on tape. A recorded tape that was borrowed from a neighbor and never given back. Of course, that gore scene is very brief and tame by today's standards, but I still felt unsafe watching it.

This movie is very much a time capsule of the horror culture in the 90s. It isn't necessarily a great movie, but I've always loved it, even if that Trickster guy isn't as cool as he thinks he is. He's like a really ugly version of an 80s glam rocker, but he has his moments. Langella doesn't do much in the movie, but I appreciate his presence nonetheless. And the protagonist's friend "Kyle", I always recognized that guy in a Halloween M&M's commercial. If that's all he ever did, I would count that as a fulfilling life.

IMDb Trivia:

Director John Flynn did not get along with Edward Furlong during filming. He later recalled, "Eddie Furlong was a 15-year-old kid who couldn't act. You had to slap him awake every morning. I don't want to get into knocking people, but I was not a big Eddie Furlong fan."

Edward Furlong's aunt Nancy Tafoya and half brother Sean Furlong lost custody of him to his mother in 1993, after the duo consistently fought with Furlong during the filming of this movie.

#Review

Blue Steel (1990)

That was a damn good movie. Kathryn Bigelo is one of the few female directors who understands action and tension. With some of that good ol' Eric Red writing, you get a tense and well-paced thriller about a wall street guy who snaps one day and fixates on a beat cop he saw take down a bad guy.

Jamie Lee does a fantastic job here. Nobody believes anything she says except for good ol' Clancy Brown. He usually shines in villain roles, but he goes for a good-cop role this time, and it works. Ron Silver is the wall street guy who slowly descends into madness as he toys with our protagonist cop lady the entire movie, often discrediting her every chance he can get so he can ruin her life in whatever way seems to get him off. You really hate this guy the whole time, and it's great.

The other cast is full of people you'll recognize, and it even has a Brad Fiedel score. If that guy had scored any of the post-T2 sequels, those movies would probably be a lot better. So with all these great ingredients, why haven't I seen this movie sooner?

#Review

The Next Karate Kid (1994)

I avoided this one for a while because I figured it would be bad. Nobody ever really talks about it, so what gives? I guess Daniel San isn't a kid anymore, so fresh blood was needed. This time, we get Hilary Swank, and you know what? She does a damn fine job.

Julie Pierce is an angry teen. She's been recently orphaned and has a rough time in high school. Violent male stalkers, poor attendance, unsympathetic teachers, the works. However, when Mr. Miyagi is shoe-horned into her life, things start to turn around for her. You know how these movies go.

Of course, there must be a villain, and it's a bunch of testosterone tough guys led by a hate-mongering Michael Ironside. Was this guy born to play an asshole, or what? Here, he's filling in the need for a Kreese-like character. He's training his male students to seek out revenge over the stupidest transgressions. Try to help someone who got hurt? We'll make him pay for that! Seriously, what a bunch of dumbasses.

It's hard to reboot a franchise without its "main" character, but Swank does a great job, and she's looking fine in this movie. What a tight body. And it's perfectly legal for me to say that, because she was 20 when she made this movie.

As the last known student of Mr. Miyagi, I think it would be a great move to bring her into the show sometime. Hell, maybe even bring Michael Ironside back too (for moral support, I doubt he's very physical these days). And for good measure, they should also bring back Walton Goggins mostly useless side character, because it's Walton Goggins. He'll steal any scene you give him.

Not a bad movie. Don't try to get me to watch the Karate Kid remake though. I'm not that brave.

#Review

The Incredible Melting Man (1977)

Just how incredible is this man, you ask? Monstrously incredible.

The premise is that of a classic monster movie. Some group tries to stop a bad accident from getting worse, and our hero/villain/victim is the gimmick. A man melts. The concept of the film is terrifying. The execution is not. It's cheesy and poorly shot at times, but it is gory. It has to be, right?

The dude is fucked either way, and we take a trip through his decomposition and it is pretty gnarly. Throw in a slasher/monster angle for good measure. He needs to feed on people to slow his decay rate. None of the characters matter, and for a movie that wants to showcase its gore effects, it skips out on a lot of opportunities for it.

It's all about the special effects on the main guy though. His character is just as shallow as everyone else, but it's better that way. The audience can be left to ponder their own wonders of this melting man's melting biology, and maybe even try to put themselves in his shoes. The melting man's shoes.

He wears a hospital type of outfit, so you'll only ever see his melting head, hands, and feet. All he does is stumble around the land and kill people every so often, until a confrontation with his past ends it for everyone. Not that it matters, because every character in this movie is bland. You'll have zero attachment to any of them as you root for the Melting Man to kill people and, well... melt some more.

It's a bleak ending, but damnit, I loved it. And I loved that bit where the guy has to clean up the muck. His fate is inevitable. Melted things can't unmelt. I'm surprised it took me so long to see this. This movie is trash, and that's exactly where they put him.

#Review

Private Resort

Fresh off of the first Nightmare movie, Johnny Depp found himself next in the midst of a buddy sex comedy at private resort, ripe for all sorts of unjustified shennanigans. I find it amusing that there is no prologue as to why they are at the resort, nor is there an epilogue of what happens when they leave. The story exists solely in the Private Resort.



Ben (Rob Morrow) and Jack (Johnny Depp) play our swindlers^protagonists. All they want to do is get laid, and they're not above lying about their identities and drugging girls to get it. Through misunderstandings and contrived circumstances, Ben and Jack find themselves in various predicaments that have them narrowly missing out on sexual escapades as they flee from murderous guests and inept management.

Seriously, all the manager wants to do is keep his resort respectable, but as soon as these two show up, sexual hijinks galore. The "villains" are repeatedly humiliated by our duo's tenure as the "heroes" of this eccentric 80s rom-com. He's a square for trying to do his job, and the other guy is the asshole for wanting revenge against the guys who shaved his head and tried to bang his wife? Our villains are entirely sympathetic. Or rather, they would be, if this was a real-world situation. But no, this is a private resort, baby. Anything goes apparently.

This movie glorifies bikinis, and that's always a wonderful thing. But this movie also delivers the boobies. Hell, the first of many subplots has Johnny Depp trying to bone Leslie Easterbrook (fresh off of Police Academy), and she's always been known for hers.

Jack and Ben run amok of the place. Making enemies at every corner, they never seem to get laid, and they have a blast (not) doing it. If you've seen an 80s movie before, you can figure out how this one ends, but it's all about the ride^girls.

Objectifying women is bad.^{This movie had some hot sluts in it.}


Want to see her take off her clothes?
What? "Not really?"
Yeah... I know what you mean. She looks weird.
She's a weirdo character, but come on.

https://junkepics.com/post/dump-file.php?file=file/1/image/private_resort_unclothed.jpg

#Review

Oh, Hi, Unmarked!



Ok, I wasn't really in the mood to write anything this week, but I gotta say something about this. The other night, I watched this movie on the Tubi that I wasn't particularly excited about, but ended up pleasantly surprised, dare I say a bit shocked. Shocked by the unbelievable level of schlock that the IMDb synopsis didn't even begin to prepare me for. A pretty ordinary-sounding movie by what I read. However, it all plays out in the most rushed, most unrealistic, ridiculous way imaginable. It almost feels like some sort of Lifetime movie, especially with the unnecessarily suspenseful score, making everything sound much more crucial and meaningful than it is. Meanwhile, nobody manages to come off like they give a fuck about anything that is happening. Way too low budget of a production to be a Lifetime movie, but it gives off those vibes nonetheless. Something about it also reminds me of legendary 2000's slasher sequel, Return To Sleepaway Camp... which is fun.

In the first five minutes of the movie, we have two 13/14 (?) year olds hanging out in the rich kid's room. Temptation is too much for poor kid as he sneaks and steals a few bucks from rich kid's drawer when nobody's looking. Next day at school, rich kid passive aggressively calls poor kid out on the stealing, who more or less admits to it for some reason. Poor kid DID come off normal enough, but is now an obnoxious dickhead who hates rich kid. We quickly cut to poor kid at home pretending to cry to his mother about how rich kid has been bullying him and accusing him of stealing. For some reason, he throws in an extra lie about the much smaller rich kid body slamming him at lunch. Poor kid's mother, who is no longer taking her medication, flips out and unfollows rich kid on "all social media". And as we now head into minute six, we then cut to the next day at school where, at lunch, poor kid attacks rich kid and slams his face into some food while threatening and berating him. Actor portraying rich kid does a below average job of appearing displeased.

Later on, rich kid texts poor kid in Spanish for some reason. He's all like 'really?", but in Spanish. Poor kid, once again, runs to his mother, this time insisting that not only is he being cyber-bullied but in SPANISH, "and he KNOWS I don't speak Spanish". Unmedicated mother has had enough and heads over to rich kid's house to have it out with rich kid and his mother. Rich kid and his mother seem to get through to unmedicated mother as she seems somewhat convinced of her son's guilt, but quickly freaks out and starts ranting about how this is going to ruin his life, so, she threatens to ruin rich kid's life instead. Now hysterical, unmedicated mother heads to the school and easily convinces member of the faculty that rich kid is a problem that must be dealt with. And that's it. Case closed. Despite being soft spoken and more polite than most kids, rich kid is officially guilty and at no point does anyone at any point in the movie budge from this belief. Every teacher, councilor, even the principal are all like "fuck this kid".

It appears to be rich kid's word against poor kid's, but apparently not. Rich kid is immediately declared guilty because poor kid's mother bitched first and was crying and not one person working at this school listens to a thing rich kid or his mom says from this point forward. Even though poor kid has no proof of anything, the faculty demands proof from rich kid, which he easily gets by recording some shit talking by poor kid with his phone. After this being brought to their attention, unreasonable faculty then accuses rich kid of invading poor kid's privacy, putting him in even more hot water. The more poor kid bullies rich kid, the more unhinged unmedicated mother becomes after poor kid cries about rich kid's reactions. And the more unmedicated mother complains to the faculty, the more angered and unfair they become, bringing them to the point of bullying rich kid themselves. It's almost like somebody who works at this school is related to unmedicated mother and her asshole kid. However, if that's the case, they forgot to mention it.

I love how out of all the times poor kid bullies and harasses rich kid, it's in front of like a dozen other kids, yet no one ever says a word, despite most reactions appearing to be that of disapproval. No faculty member asks if anyone has seen anything, and come to think of it, rich kid seemingly never even considers asking one of his peers to come forward on his behalf. Not sure what that's about. Eventually, I start wondering "ok, are they fucking with us, here?" Is this REALLY a serious movie? Everyone is WAY too unreasonable for this to be a real attempt at something. Maybe that's where I get the Return To Sleepaway Camp vibe from. Never mind the acting that would make Tommy Wiseau cringe. Seriously, it's like The Room. Unmarked is a so bad, it's good classic just waiting to be discovered. 4/10... And that's where I would normally end the write up. However, one minor detail has now come to my attention: The child actor who portrayed rich kid also directed this abomination, which I'm pretty sure makes this far less of an abomination and more of a legit accomplishment. Color me impressed, little fella! But seriously. That was hilarious! 5/10



#Review

Police Academy, the TV show

The moment everyone's been waiting their entire life for... a babbling on POLICE ACADEMY.

If you didn't know, there are 7 movies leading up to this series, so it needs to be good, right? Fortunately, it can be considered "good", because it's soooo much better than Mission to Moscow. That piece of shit.

This show is so 90s. It's not very funny, but it did last for two seasons. It acts as a follow-up to the films, but only motormouth Jones is a recurring character. Fortunately, some of the originals do show up, including Callahan, Lassard, Hightower, Tackleberry, Sweetchuck (as a different character), and even Mauser. That guy has been out of the series since after 3, so I was surprised to see him again. This time, the character was in a wheelchair because the actor Art Metrano had injured his spine in '89. I found out that he died only last year, so RIP.

Sometimes, the show jumps the shark and tries to incorporate vampires and guardian angels and some other stupid shit, but it's mostly about police cadets in sitcom scenarios while their inept and irritable superior tries to sabotage them. The crime subplots in each episode were written by a trained monkey, and the women weren't afraid to be slutty either. And that's always a good thing.

•makes random noises with my mouth•


I can understand why this show was axed. As of today, this show remains the final entry in the series, and it's a better end than Mission to Moscow. That piece of shit.

FUN FACT:

The show was filmed in a nuthouse that was shut down a year earlier. Some say it was haunted. 10 years after the show ended, the place burned down.

#Review

Everything Everywhere

I gave this movie a fitting description in the database. Now, if that plot summary doesn't make you jump out of your seats in excitement to see such an intense sounding film, then I'll sway you with something else: There are in fact hotdog hands in this movie, and people do fellate them. There's also a dildo fight scene and some butt stuff, but surprisingly no nudity. James Hong and Indy's lost partner Shortround are in this, and the whole premise is about stopping a giant bagel with everything on it. There's also a subplot about rocks with googly eyes on them. The End.

#Review