Prom Night II: Hello Mary Lou

Editor's note: There is not a funny subtitle for this post, because really, the actual subtitle is pretty great.

Maire says:
Prom Night II is one of those sequels that is better than the original. Sure, it keeps the same setting of Hamilton High, the awesome compositional skills of Paul Zaza, and the whole shit-is-gonna-go-down-on-prom-night! theme, while coming up with a completely new, but worth it, plot line. Seriously, how can you go wrong with possession, crucifix stabbing, telekinesis, and computer screen electrocution?

Also, Brock Simpson does a stellar job portraying Josh. Kudos to him for landing that role.

Corey says:
Salty gave us a bit of a talk before we watched Prom Night II. Long story short, he was all like “THIS IS THE GREATEST MOVIE EVER MADE HOLY FUCKING CHRIST. Except the last 10 minutes or so. Other than that it is GREATER THAN DIPPING YOUR BALLS IN LUKEWARM OLIVE OIL. But except for the last 10 minutes, which is a total letdown.”

You know what? That last 10 minutes ain’t too bad. I think he had… uh… un-hyped it to the point where I thought the climax was shortly going to be followed by an Edith Massey burlesque show (then again, that would be a sight). Instead, we get a kind of hokey (but not particularly awful) ending to a pretty neato film.

Overall, Hello Mary Lou does alright. I was super happy to see that, amongst the other name homages, Frank “What’s in the Basket” Henenlotter got a shout out. That guy doesn’t get enough credit. Unless it’s stuff he’d done recently that involves mutant man and lady bits that co-stars some weird third rate rapper buddies of his. I mean, I guess if that dude gave you like half the money needed to make the movie, then you should probably let him in your movie. Then again, giving Henenlotter that money meant that Bad Biology got made.

You know what? Fuck that rapper.

Anyway, the next time someone tells you that something is great, but the ending is awful? Don’t take their word for it! Unless it’s the last season of Dexter. And even if you don’t like the movie, at least it has a stunning soundtrack, expertly put together by the amazing Paul Zaza.

Salty says:
Hello Mary Lou is the bee’s knees. The 1980’s/1950’s mash up is perfect fit (see Back to the Future). It makes you remember why you love movies. Looking back on an old film that is looking at yet another period in time you get this strange layered experience. Both the periods synergize and make this even weirder period that never really existed, but you wish it would have. It’s like curved glass: one piece may shift things in a particular way and another in some different way, but assemble them in the right environment and - blamo! – telescope! This film is a rare treat, comparable to only a small subset of films like Hammer’s Frankenstein or Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. All period pieces must look unusual or kitschy to future viewers, but to continue to hold up to scrutiny and resist becoming unwatchable is an impressive feat that deserves recognition.

Don’t let my gushing distract from the movie itself, Hello Mary Lou is a schlocky horror film. The story is about a cruel high school student, the eponymous Mary Lou, accidentally burned to death (oh those pranks always go so wrong) at prom, her vengeful spirit escapes hell 30 years later through a props department box or something and possesses a young girl. No movie in which a possessed daughter starts to make out with her father after letting her super freaky rocking horse suck on her hand is going to win very many awards, but that’s okay, as a fan of horror I know this and accept it. The reward I get for my acceptance is the full frontal nudity in a scene that begins with an unexpected lesbian seduction and ends with a young girl getting crushed to death by the psychically induced implosion of the locker in which she is hiding. Worth it!

The biggest influences come from Carrie and A Nightmare on Elm Street with a dab or two of The Exorcist here and there, but these horror classics are blended and twisted into new and exciting forms so that the movie still maintains it’s own original storyline and vibe. There are some great visions of Hell, fun 80’s characters (fuck me gently with a chainsaw), a respectable 50’s soundtrack and a pretty good selection of what-the-hell-is-going-on moments that cross the line of absurdity in a good way.

The one cigarette burn in the celluloid is the ending. The film builds up this beautiful crescendo: we’re back at prom and Cynthia (she’s the main character) has just been shot, a gore-drenched Mary Lou emerges the bullet hole (you had to be there). Every time I watch the scene I get so jazzed up to watch an orgy of violent revenge on the innocent students of Hamilton High that I suddenly become a drunk at a football game and can’t resist screaming go get the bastards! Show those turds who’s boss! until my son’s coach tells me I’m disturbing the other parents and asks me to leave. I don’t know who that guy thinks he it, but a whistle isn’t a badge, you know? Then some crap happens and Hello Mary Lou ends flat as an armadillo on 66, but don’t let that make you forget how much fun you had watching Mary Lou kill that priest – this is a good film.

Maire	Corey	Salty
☆☆☆	☆☆☆	☆☆☆

Prom Night - Quit calling me Shirley

Maire says:
Prom Night introduces us to Jamie Lee Curtis’s second silver screen debut, Leslie Nielsen playing a serious role, everyone’s favorite one liner, and of course, the music of Paul Zaza.

In an intro that appears loosely based on Lois Duncan’s most popular novel, we find 4 friends, Young Nick played by Brock Simpson, making a secrecy pact. But someone else is there. Someone who hates prom as much as any other high school outcast. Why? We never really find out.

Cut to usual high school OMG PROM YOU GUYS movie, with the occasional YOU’RE GONNA DIE MUAHAHAHA thrown in and you pretty much can guess the rest.

Schlock highlights - Slick’s Van, the one liner It's not who you go with. It's who takes you home, Wendy’s death, and the killer reveal.

For fans of schlock horror, like myself, this first Prom Night sets up a fairly solid string of ridiculousness. (We won’t talk about this century’s Prom Night.) Just wait until we get to the glory of Prom Night 4!

Corey says:
If you would have told me that Leslie Nielsen and Jamie Lee Curtis were in a film together that wasn’t a comedy, I would have thought you were on drugs. And yet, here we are.

Prom Night was one of the films in the tidal wave of “We-are-studio-execs-who-saw-how-much-money-Halloween-made” slasher stampede. Hell, they even managed to put Jamie Lee Curtis in it, which was something Pieces sure as hell couldn’t do. (To be fair, I really like Pieces, and the ending is fucking weird and creepy.) And, like many of those first slasher clones, Prom Night ain’t that great.

All the tropes are there, of course. The prude, the stoner, the heroine (who happens to be a great dancer), and the red herring (which I totally fell for, I’ll be honest). However, the film just never puts it together quite right. Maybe it’s because this is my first time seeing Prom Night, or maybe it’s because I’ve seen enough slashers to know how they go, but just killing kids for fucking isn’t enough. I need a gimmick, and a dude in a balaclava isn’t enough. I mean, really, it’s not the film’s fault.

Wait, yes it is.

The reason this film doesn’t totally suck is because Nielsen and Curtis are just great to watch, even if they’re in a kind of shitty rip-off film.

On the bright side, the films has a stunning soundtrack, expertly put together by the amazing Paul Zaza.


Salty says:
The opening scene to Prom Night is the scene that I think of when I think of classic slasher openings: kids playing in some verboten place, a prank that goes mortally wrong, questionable liability, irresponsible reactions – it’s perfect! The rest of the movie doesn’t stand a chance.

10 years after the death and the students of Hamilton High start to be picked off one-by-one by a masked madman, who looks suspicious like a guy I remember from Ninja vs. Megashark or something like that. What I remember from my first viewing of the film (on stunning VHS!) is that the movie was very dark (as in poorly lit, not emotionally bleak) and the killer dressed in all black with a black ski-mask, so I had to use the process of elimination to guess who’s death cries I was hearing at any given 20-minute interval. Fortunately, the House of Sequels viewing was on DVD and I got to see what I was missing, which still wasn’t worth the time it took, but there is a stellar performance by an unparalleled horror movie icon.

That’s right I am talking about Leslie Nielsen! I know that the world will remember Leslie from his roles in such classics as The Night Gallery, Dracula: Dead and Loving It, Repossessed and of course Creepshow (he can hold his breath a long time) and he does not disappoint here. Watching Leslie not just play the principal of Hamilton High, but be the principal of Hamilton High is just a pleasure.

The movie also offers viewers a time capsule that contains the full-blown stink of the 1970’s. There is feathered hair and too-short shorts and powder blue and disco – oh boy is there disco! In the midst of disappearing teenagers the film comes to a complete stop to give you, the viewer, a disco dance long enough for you to wonder if you should have signed up to watch every horror movie franchise that has more than four entries, because you are beginning to get a taste of what you signed up for and it is a little sour.

Then we reach the big reveal, but by the time we get there we realize that we really don’t remember who was present at the beginning of the film. It’s kind of like the end of an episode of Scooby-Doo where they pull off the crocodile man’s mask and reveal a character you have never seen before. So you just kind of go “Oh it’s… wait… who is that?” They give you a little flashback to try and help, but you really just want to see the end credits.

Maire	Corey	Salty
☆☆	☆☆	☆

Prom Night: The Franchise Introduction

The VHS boxes of the Prom Night series are those sorts of boxes that left indelible prints on my child brain.  Whenever I would go off to the rental store, I would wander down the horror aisle, quickly glancing at as may covers as I could before I chickened out and bailed.  There were covers that I didn't remember until they were brought up, like the dead prom date on Night of the Creeps, or the backpack full of copyright infringing horror icon weapons on Sleepaway Camp.  But there were some covers that were always there, tucked into the back of my mind, waiting for an idle daydream to come rumbling to the surface.  Mary Lou stuffed  in her casket locker of Prom Night 2 and the hell on wheels motorcycle of Prom Night 3 are two such covers.

The interesting thing about the Prom Night films is how diverse of a family they are.  Each film tends to embody a specific little niche in the horror world, from 70's slasher to late 80's camp to 2000's utter remake garbage.  In some ways, I think it would be impossible to like all of them, because each is so specifically different from the other.  In fact, the only link throughout them all (except the remake) is the ineffable Paul Zaza, maestro extraordinaire.  However, that didn't stop us from watching every goddamn one of them.  So grab a date and get in the back seat of your '57 Chevy, because it's Prom Night baby!

The Omen Franchise Summary - Spolier: Satan Loses

The Omen. What the fuck Hollywood? You know who you fucked that rottweiler to please and yet you don't even let Him win in His own damn movie. That's not okay. I mean Jesus? Come on, what an obvious choice, I really expected more from you. Instead what do we, the viewing audience get? Mediocrity, that's what - and Satanic mediocrity is the worst kind. It's like deciding to get fat on purpose and spending the next two years eating a lot of pastas, because baked goods are too sweet. That's dumb. If you're really fat and you don't have diabetes, you're dumb.

Franchise Ranking

Omen II	☆☆☆
Omen I	☆☆☆
Omen III	☆
Omen IV	☆
Omen V	φ

Prom Night's next.

The Omen V: 6 6 suck

Maire says:
First, I really like Julia Stiles. Granted, I haven't seen much of her filmography, but I was still pleasantly surprised when she showed up in season 5 of Dexter.

Second, I had myself convinced that I had seen this film before, and felt good about it.

Well, we know how I feel about shot for shot remakes, so I was pretty let down when I realized what was going on, and that no, I hadn't seen it before. And once again, a star studded cast cannot make up for a poorly executed storyline.

Corey says:
The buildup to this movie was amazing. It’s one of the few advertising campaigns that I remember having an effect on me. I had seen the original Omen years before and it hovered vaguely in my mind as I saw the poster and commercial blitz touting “06/06/06”. Living in the ultra-conservative area I did, the inundation of Satanic fun in the sun created a paranoia that I’m not entirely certain that the rest of the nation (or the world, for that matter) experienced.

To give you folks an idea of how conservative our area is, let me tick off a few quick points. My fair city (we try to call it that, but we aren't really fooling anyone) is home to one of the larger and more famous U.S. Catholic Universities. Furthermore, we have one of the highest concentration of Polish Catholics in the country. Besides the Catholic contingent (who can generally be pretty mild, what with all that guilt), we also have a sizable Evangelical population. LeSEA Broadcasting (one of the most influential and wide reaching Evangelical broadcast networks) calls our town home. In fact, they have not one, two, or three, but four (four!) 24 hour Christian-based programming networks.

Back in ’06, I was working for a restaurant. Most of the folks that worked with me knew that I was a horror nut, and I wasn't afraid to talk at length about films even if no one was listening. Once the ad campaign started, coworkers would come up to me apprehensively, asking about the film.

“Well,” I would say, “I wasn't a huge fan of the original, but it had some good stuff in it,” and proceed to talk about some of the stuff (It’s all for you yadda yadda yadda) I liked, and some of the stuff that was boring.
“Well yeah, but… it’s coming out on 6/6/6.”
“Yup! Super cool for a movie about the antichrist, eh?”
“Uhh…”

And the conversation would usually fade off into other things. I was younger then, and didn’t realize that the folks I worked with were so arbitrarily terrified by a number that the fact that the movie is about the fucking ANTICHRIST was a secondary consideration to the number.

Christians.

This movie kind of sucked, but in the same way that the original did. Mainly because it’s a blatant ripoff of the first, and didn’t really add much to the mythos. Watch the first one twice, and you get much of the same idea.

Remakes.


Salty says:
A conversation between two studio executives.

A: Hey, June 06, 2006 is coming up and since we already have the rights to The Omen, I propose a remake.
B: What do you have in mind?
A: What do you mean?
B: For the pitch? What’s going to fill the seats?
A: Oh, Um… okay. Well, the date thing is really all I had. I figure we can just use the original script, I mean we’ll update it a little here and there, but I don’t really want to have to pay anyone. And we want it to appeal to the kids, so we’ll give it a really slick look. My Dalmation went on the rag last week - it was a pretty startling visual. We should mimic that and do a lot black and white with red splashes everywhere.
B: Aw that is so cool! Hold on I have to go to the bathroom. Hey! Inspiration! How about a scene in a big empty white bathroom? That’d be pretty scary.
A: What do you mean like all the fixtures are white and stuff?
B: No. No fixtures. Just an unnecessarily large white bathroom… Bathrooms are scary. You know over 70% of serious household accidents take place in the bathroom. Plus, it’s a strong visual.
A: Okay, okay. You know what else would be freaky: snow that floated up!
B: Snow does float up unless you’re doing it upside-down.
A: No, I mean like the precipitation snow.
B: … Aw man! That is freaky!
A: Hold on! Let’s get this down on paper… okay what else?
B: Well, we should probably amp up the violence so it will really hold the attention of younger audiences, but I really don’t want to end up producing one of those torture-porn movies.
A: Oh, no problem. We’ll use CG effects for every death. You can do gruesome stuff, but it really won’t look good and it’s super cheap. No one really cares about those parts anyway.
B: Are you sure?
A: Totally.
B: So what have we got so far?
A: Well, we have a menstruating dog in a big white bathroom with a lot of CG coming out on 6/6/06.
B: I’d pay to watch that! We’re really good at our jobs!
A: I know.
B: But what about the talent? We need to get some big names.
A: Well, we’ll just pay like Mia Farrow or someone to come in and do something.
B: Oh! I just had another vision: cow skull in a red silk robe.
A: What does it do?
B: …I don’t know… it’s just a cool thing, you know?
A: Yeah, okay... Hey, do you remember that burned priest from the original? We should make him like all “aw gross!” and stuff, you know.
B: Aw man, that would be totally gross! Let’s work out the details over a round of golf.
A: Now, you’re talking! Hey, this is going to be great!
B: Yeah, I love golfing!
The resulting movie is terrible.

Maire	Corey	Salty
☆	☆☆	☆

Omen IV - The Awakening

Maire says:
Why yes, that is the passage describing the wall in the Exorcist 2.

If I had seen this movie in 1991, all of the psychic crystal mumbo jumbo probably wouldn’t have seemed as horrible. Wait, it probably would have.

Side note: The trailer for this is mostly footage of I, II, and III.

Ok, so this time around, Satan’s spawn is a little girl who tries to suffer from bitchy resting face. She’s your typical mute daddy’s girl who happens to be really good at killing people who piss her off. Each kindergarten scene is just gold, and the only reason this gets two stars.

Another side note: Did you know that there is an Omen wiki?

But wait, what’s this?! Ok, so that’s a wacky lil’ twist. Chimera’s are always tricky, but they usually don’t get into uterine implantation. Also, why can’t Satan be a girl? Hmph!

Last side note: You may have guessed based on the other side notes, I don’t remember too much about this film. That may, or may not be on purpose.


Corey says:
Usually, once a venerable series such as the Omen franchise hits the TV film adaptation part of its life, you can pretty much rest assured that the film is going to shit the bed. It’s going to be directed and written by people who don’t have any connection to the original film (and it’s entirely possible they haven’t seen it), and they hire actors off the street like rich folk do with Mexican day workers.

“Hey, I need a child to play the antichrist! Anyone here do that?”
“Well, I’m a little girl that cried in a commercial once.”
“You’ll do!”

It almost feels like the writers of IV used a dartboard as their major creative outlet.

“Ok, we need a protagonist” Throws dart.
“Perfect! New Age psychic nanny! And she can take the antichrist to a…..” Dart.
“Wacky psychic bullshit fair! Where the antichrist….” Dart.
“Sets all this shit on fire, because even SHE knows this plot is crap!”

The strange part about this movie is that it totally sucks, BUT the ridiculous bullshit parts almost make it worth watching. Setting stuff on fire for no reason? Cool. The girlchild is actually holding a fetus that she impregnates into her mom that is actually, really the antichrist? That could have been the stuff of movie legend.

If only it wasn’t a stupid bullshit made for TV movie.


Salty says:
Oh those antichrists, they’re popping up all over the place. You take three movies and do away with Damien Thorne in a half-assed ending and then BLAM a new bringer of the apocalypse shows up to be adopted by some other up and coming political family. Sound like a remake? Well it’s not… okay, it sort of is, in that the plot hits a lot of familiar marks: an adopted baby grows up and doesn’t seem to fit in with the other kids and the mom starts to suspect that something is unholy, but the dad thinks she’s just overreacting and then mom gets pregnant and fears for the safety of her new child so she hires a detective (who wanders into a musical before getting killed by a possessed wrecking ball), and there are Rottweilers, and politics and upside-down crosses (good for a drinking game) and Latin songs about the devil, etc. So… it’s a remake? Nope, the film acknowledges the original three films, eventually explaining (not that you’ll care by the time they get to it) that our new hellion is in fact Damien’s daughter, who bears the structurally similar name Deidra York.

What little fun there is to be had is brought by the attempts to modernize the original film, like the scene where the cast takes a trip to the new age medicine circus. That’s right, it’s a whole circus for hippies with phrenologists, palm reading, magic crystals, patchouli and clowns (there are a lot of clowns in this movie for some reason, they don’t really contribute to the plot or anything, they’re just around). Yes, all of the worst parts of a circus in a single place, which may seem like a bad idea until the antichrist shows up and sets the whole thing on fire. Thanks antichrist! How else are you going to try to win my heart? By telling some Jehovah’s Witness’ that they suck and ripping up their crappy pamphlet? You’re the best!

But killing stinky con-people and dissing blood-hoarders is not all this new antichrist has to offer. Even though she is only eight or something (I have no idea how old any kids are by sight) she takes a punch to the face from the local fat kid without breaking a sweat. Instead of crying about it she keeps her cools and gets her revenge by convincing the bully to climb a random ladder and piss his pants– that’ll show you, woman beater! Then she carves “Krug” into his chest and rapes him and kills him…wait that’s not right… but she does kill his dad. Nobody really talks about it though.

So she’s into women’s rights, and against carnies and Christian cults are you ready to pledge your allegiance to the dark master? Well, don’t waste your time, because - SURPRISE! - she’s not the antichrist! What!?!? Yeah, she’s just Damien’s daughter who was born with the antichrist in her prenatal womb and rather than give birth to it herself, there are a series of injuries that allow the evil family doctor to extract the embryo and implant it in her adopted mother without her mother’s knowledge. So the real antichrist is not Deidre, but instead it is Deidre’s adopted mother’s son, who we think is Deidra’s little brother, but is actually this weird incest baby who is actually Deidra’s kid, and still her actual brother, because Damien, the guy we thought was the antichrist before, but turned out not be (because he lost), is Deidre’s dad! The genealogy tree just has some wavy lines here.
That’s really the plot.

Maire	Corey	Salty
☆☆	☆☆	☆

Omen III - The Final Conflict, but not the final movie

Maire says:
Kill all the babies! One of ‘em is the second coming! Then all the priests, cos one of the babies got away.

Satan is now the dapper looking president of Thorn Industries, and has just been offered the position of ambassador in England. Yes, that should sound familiar. But Damien is way better than his “father” since he has harnessed the power of mind control and amassed an army of followers to do his bidding. He’s even used this power to get on the good side of his hot reporter girlfriend’s son.

But this movie is subtitled The Final Conflict, so obviously some final epic battle between good and evil will occur. Will our all powerful fallen angel win? Almost, until his girlfriend comes and screws everything up. It’s not like he killed her son on purpose. It’s just those damn pesky daggers showed up again. And then she literally backstabbed him with one. Satan defeated, peace on earth, yadda yadda yadda.

Moral of the story, if you want to rule the world with your supreme evil power, don’t date a single mother.

Corey says:
First off, Sam Neill stars in one of the better horror movies that I’ve ever seen.

No, it’s not this one.

I think one of the most interesting things about Omen III is the emergence of the Anti-Antichrist. I mean, you know. Jesus. Or whatever. This is kind of an interesting idea when it comes to the Satanic film. I could be wrong (and Salty is the authority when it comes to this specific genre, so I could consult with him, but referring to my memory is hilarious for everyone else involved), but usually we just have a bumbling priest or private dick trying to thwart Satan, an unholy supernatural force. That doesn’t seem fair, does it? Every Moriarity needs his Holmes.

Regardless, poor ol’ Damien Thorn has to refer to what those old bad guys did back in the day to get rid of this Jesus guy: Kill some fuckin’ BABIES, man. YES. Every dude who was born on the night this wacky astronomical phenomenon (which had some AWESOME special effects in that observatory) occurs is getting the axe, baby. Surely, surely it will work this time.

It didn’t work.

There are some fun nods to the original in III, mainly Damien’s rise to power as an ambassador. And those pesky Megiddo daggers are still around. And the Antichrist is in the movie. And some Bible stuff, I guess.

Salty says:
If I were the son of Satan - the true antichrist - I too would invest in a room with a sad wooden Jesus crucified backwards (to assure the proper amount of sacrilege - thanks for ruining the upside-down cross for the rest of St. Peter) and I too would stand behind it in a vaguely homosexual position while I whispered all of my evil plans into the deaf ears of my nemesis’ mannequin. I too would hang out with guys who have nothing better to do with their time than rig up elaborate suicides to assure that their gory demises are witnessed by their unsuspecting secretaries and whichever poor schleps have decided to pay them a visit. I too would order any potential threat killed in the sleaziest possible way, especially if that meant demanding innocent babies be murdered in their sleep just on the slim chance that they may be the Second Coming according to some astrological mumbo-jumbo. Why? Because that’s the kind of stuff that the antichrist does, that’s why.

The Omen series does a great job of showing the ascent of the antichrist from dark beginnings to reluctant youth to the groomed adult embracing his destiny as the bringer of the apocalypse. The films take care to establish a meticulously crafted antihero, simultaneously making Damien cold and evil, yet likable with the confidence of his actions and his generally badass disposition. This being Damien’s final appearance, The Omen III does almost everything it should as a film about the antichrist finally gearing up for the final one-on-one battle between good and evil. I say almost, because of I could have used a little more evil (Killing babies is not enough? No, it’s not. This is the antichrist we’re talking about.), and while I appreciate that as a politician the antichrist has to make sure his hands are somewhat clean, it is the notion that the filmmakers held back on the depths of evil that the bringer of the apocalypse would delve to that leave me as the viewer wanting.

Without the Satan’s son’s blackest heart on display, the film’s only potential salvation lies in it’s foreboding subtitle: The Final Conflict. By this point in the series, I am rooting for Damien and anticipating a titanic battle between omnipotent forces that will kick off the end of the world with bated breath. Instead, what do I get for my 3-film investment? A lackluster scene in an abandoned church with some crappy music, some strobe lights and a lame quote that is supposed to leave me feeling like I didn’t get ripped off. No battle, no real struggle at all, just the forces of good taking a few seconds out of their otherwise slow day to destroy The Harbinger of Hell On Earth the same way a person might remember that a stove burner is on and then flick it off without drama or tension. They might as well have had Damien collapse dead of a stroke or get into a car accident or something. The ending is almost an insult and does nothing but assures the viewer that watching these three films was a waste of his/her time.

Then they made another sequel for you to watch.

Maire	Corey	Salty
☆☆	☆	☆☆

Damien: The Omen Dos

Maire says:
Our little spawn of Satan is growing up nicely. He has a friend, does well at military school, and is finally getting his minions more under his control. Heck, his entrepreneurial vision would make even today's Republicans weep tears of joy. But alas, those pesky daggers keep showing up. However, this is Lil' Satan, and he's not going to let a dagger even think of getting near him.

This movie has some awesome deaths if only for their randomness. That guy who won't go along with the new agricultural plan? Have him fall through the ice and die. Someone else in the company acting fishy? Chemical spill. Meshach Taylor Figure out your secret? Cut him in half with a elevator cable!

So to sum up, good random deaths, not so awesome storyline.

Also, my last paragraph is actually at the end of this post (I totally didn't write it, but I'll ride the tide).

Corey says:
Finally, a fucking kid that can fucking act. Jesus CHRIST, how many fucking movies with doe-eyed doped up scene killers did we have to watch before we found one that didn’t shit the bed? Sheesh.

Anyway, I think the guy who directed II must’ve had a rough time with puberty. First, we start off with a 12 or 13 year old boy. Some dude gives him a book to read (The Bible, or The Hair Down There? You be the judge), and then he finds his first pube (or the 666 on his head, but hey, this is my damned story). After that, he’s unsure of himself. Will he be the same person he was? Will he turn into some sort of testosterone (or Satanic, whatever) beast?

Further in the film, he tries to talk about his problems with his cousin. Maybe he’s going through the same thing! But when Damien pulls out his hairy wang, the kid’s all like “ew, gross, get away from me!”. So in a testosterone fueled (or Satanic, once again) rage, he beats this kid to death (or explodes his brain). Looks like raging hormones wins the fight once again!

Also some dude gets trapped under some ice and drowns, and then another dude gets crushed by a train. Those scenes were pretty cool, I guess.

Salty says:
If I could choose to watch any part of the Antichrist’s life, it would be the part where he finds out what he is. What would it be like to find out that the purpose for your existence is to bring an end to all things? And to find out in the midst of puberty no less! Hey Sally, do want to go neck? I just found out that I’m the devil’s son – no big deal. Plus, my mustache is really coming in. It’s the perfect time to find out that you are not only able, but expected to commit any sin you want, especially if you are in military school and there are no chicks around. Unfortunately for Damien’s budding libido, Lance Henriksen steps in and gives him the same speech Uncle Ben gives Peter Parker: with great power comes great responsibility.

Still the movie is good and unexpectedly stark. Apparently, there are consequences to trying to bring about Armageddon. For one, people are out to kill you, but fear not, magical daggers are hard to come by and evil forces have seen to it that they are buried deep in ancient rock… Oh, the powers of good still got the daggers and they found a sweet fresco. Well whatever. The Antichrist has bigger things to worry about, like taking field trips to factories and going ice-skating. He’s got normal teenager problems, like getting picked on for being from a powerful family (ooh that stings! Fortunately, none of the other kids find out that his mother is a dog) and being forced to give his best friend a brain aneurysm after his true identity is revealed (that’s normal, right?). This is the day-to-day life of Lucifer Jr.

Damien does get some benefits. A somber choir performs a cover of a Fantomas song every time he does something Antichrist-y, which includes, but is not limited to getting back at anyone that pisses him off, repercussion free. Plus, he has a built-in group of dedicated friends, though, to be fair, they seem more interested in furthering him on his journey to kill god’s creation than playing paper, rock, scissors and stuff (however, Lance Henriksen is really good at that game where you stab a knife between your fingers as fast as you can). And he has his animal posse, which now includes some crows that hate eyeballs in addition to his canine brethren. The best part, however would be answering to the duties of the job: riding horses (because the Antichrist is rich) willing people dead (it’s not Rube-Goldberg contraptions this time!) and burning down a museum (which I am sure many teenagers would love to do, because teenagers think museums are boring. Because teenagers are dumb).

Overall, the movie is a very interesting take on the ups and downs of what this young man’s life would be. The only drawback is that by this point an Omen III is clearly already in the pipeline, so you are reminded that this is the interesting chapter in an otherwise slow-paced and dry story. Of course, if you are following the series chronologically, you may be thinking that the series is really starting to get warmed up and that the next installment is going to go all the way and blow your mind - *spoiler alert* it’s not.

Maire	Corey	Salty
☆☆	☆☆	☆☆☆

The Omen, or: Hey, kids can be scary! Seriously!

The Omen theme is amazing. When you hear that choir singing some Latin satanic mumbo jumbo, you know that you’re in for a ride. Unfortunately, not all of the Omen films use the awesome score, and not all of the Omen films are worth half a shit.

The Omen series is interesting in that there isn't really a standout film in the series. Each film has its merits and flaws. While I can’t pick out a worst film in the series (ok, I can, but you’re going to have to read on), I can’t pick out a best either. Of all the classic series, this might be the most milquetoast one.

To the devil stuff!

The Omen - It's all for you!

Maire says:
Hooray for Catholic conspiracy! Too bad Satan saw right through your plan. Silly church!

This movie is kinda great. Every attempt to discover the true evil of Damien is thwarted in the best ways - need to find the record of his birth? Hospital burned down and destroyed all of the records and most of the people working. Photographer finds some “interesting smudges” suggesting danger? Dog attack. Need to kill Damien with a bunch of daggers to stop his evil? Cop will shoot you before the first downstroke.

As a bonus, if you want to have an abortion, but your husband won’t let you, Damien will fix that little problem for you. And then his nanny will push you out of the hospital window while you’re recuperating.

Like I said, this movie is kinda great.

Corey says:
To start, this film has one of the purest devotions to Satan I've ever seen in a film.
"It's all for you!".

It's all for you. And then she just jumps. It's beautiful in the simplicity and execution. And it shows just how awful religion, any religion, can be.

But it's cooler here, 'cuz it's the devil. And the devil is cool.

One of the highlights of this film for me is the amazing David Warner. This dude has played some evil marter farters during his career. He was Master Control in Tron, he played that evil ass Cardassian who tortured almost naked Picard... What can't this guy do?

Avoid sheet glass that'll decapitate him, that's what.

Decapitations and jumping nannies notwithstanding, The Omen suffers under the weight of a film that is based around a child that is not actually centered on the child. You get the feeling that they fed Damien a bunch of Benadryl during the shooting of the film. Unless this kid is screaming at the top of his lungs, he looks like he just smoked his first blunt at a Cypress Hill concert. For Christ's sake, you're the antichrist! Try to show some pizazz in being bored out of your skull.

Fucking kids. Don’t know how to fucking act.

Furthermore, the middle of this film takes FOREVER. I don't care about Gregory Peck playing detective. I just care about the sinister revelations. The buildup to the part where they show Damien's mom's grave has a dog in it? Just give me the dog part. All that ridiculous bullshit about Damien's foster mom? Just have the new nanny off her and get it over with.

Salty says:
Are you making a film about the antichrist? I’m in. I can’t help it, when it comes to movies about Lucifer and his mischievous doings I can’t resist. From Rosemary’s Baby to Devil Dog (yeah, there’s a movie called Devil Dog and I like it), I don’t know what it is exactly, but it doesn’t matter what Satanic schlock you’ve made, I’ll give you some money and an hour and a half. Do you like To The Devil A Daughter? Me too! Do you want to hear the gospel according to Alucarda? Pull up an uncomfortable pew. We all have our weaknesses, and yet, in spite of mine, I would be reluctant to say that I even like The Omen.

In its efforts to bring the story to date (for the 1970’s), the film strips out of a lot of clichés. Gone are the Brotherhood of Satan robed figures with their black candles and epic monologues and in their place we get some “as-is” neurotics emerging from the shadows to protect the Devil’s spawn. What motivations led them to a pact with Satan? All we know is that it’s all for Damien, whatever “it“ may be. You get the impression that all that evil has to rely on is an f-troop of church dropouts and stern mental patients. Gone too are the over-the-top incarnations of Satan or possession (we don’t even get any Eyes Wide Shut sex parties). There are no pits to hell or individuals distorted by an evil that infests their souls, no phlegm-laden baritones threatening do-gooders with damnation, nor any levitation, pyrokinesis, or even spontaneous expulsion of bodily fluids. Almost all of my favorite things about the subgenre have been cut out and discarded.

Instead we get Damien, a child born of a man and a dog (okay, that part is a really nice touch), who spends most of the film oscillating between sinister glances and looks of emotional indifference. A child who really can’t defend himself beyond calling for minions to assist him lest there be no apocalypse. Damien is the selling point of a film that plays more like a redundant religious version of Clue (Sinister Coincidence in the street with the plate-glass – *spoiler* Sinister Coincidence is always the killer) than a real horror movie. People are dying around him due to some photograph-able (just because, that’s why) preternatural force that really likes to make deaths elaborate, and Damien is just around. Sure Damien is unholy – he’s rich, un-baptized and he’s got a cool birthday – but just because you need to be killed by special knives doesn’t mean you’re worthy of the sacrilegious adoration. Maybe it’s just that I don’t like kids.

So, if you want to watch a great movie about Satan try The Ninth Gate or even The Mephisto Waltz (I am honestly sorry that Alan Alda is not more horror movies) and let me know, I will bring the unguent and a big compass (nobody likes an asymmetrical pentagram), but if you want to spend a movie watching a bunch of people get killed to protect a pale autistic child you’ll have to get someone else to present you with the chalice of blood.

Maire	Corey	Salty
☆☆☆	☆☆	☆☆

Texas Franchise Review

That’s it from Texas for now. Put away you bible and your belt buckle and stop doing that to your sister, we are moving on. But it’s been good times, right? Cannibalism and torture, wearing human skin and eating dinner with your kidnap victim - it has been good times. We may be more confused than ever about how many relatives Leatherface has, but at least we can recommend which movies you should watch:

Franchise Ranking

Texas '04
Texas 2	☆☆☆☆
Texas '74	☆☆☆
Texas 3	☆
Texas the Beginning	☆
Texas Next Gen	φ
Texas 3D

Next up: The Omen.

Yeah, there are five of those.

*Salty can’t fucking believe that Texas 2 is not number one and is at a loss for words… other than these: Texas 2 is an amazing blend of a certain culture in a certain time period and seamlessly blends horror and comedy that is as black as a woodchuck’s asshole on a moonless night in a concoction fit for the most discerning connoisseur of horror. It is a travesty that a faithful representation of the films greatness is not presented here, but I have faith that you, anonymous reader will settle any question by going out and judging for yourself… or you could save yourself the trouble and take my word for it: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 is the motherfucking shit.

**Okay, lets just agree that this list didn’t come out the way that anybody wanted.

Texas 3D - Please don't make me watch this ever again

Maire says:
I think the point of this movie is to destroy the franchise. It could have been good, but they did their best to make it horrible. Seriously, every character is so loathsome, that by the time they start dying, you wish it would have started sooner. And even then you’re left unfulfilled and curing those “damn kids these days”.

I won’t even talk about the 3D parts. Can we please leave this horrible idea back in the Captain EO exhibit, where it belongs?

If you’ve seen this movie, you have my sympathy, and I really hope it wasn't your introduction to the franchise.  Truly worthy of a shitpickle rating.

Corey says:
Hey! Bill Moseley plays Drayton Sawyer!  Cool!

Salty says:
Texas Chainsaw 3-D (which we watched in 2-D and still managed to understand it) starts off expecting its viewers to not have seen the original 1974 film. It wants you to know that there is some old film called The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but it wants you only to know that that old movie happened and there is a guy called Leatherface in it. That’s it. If you know anything else about the original movie, you will be alienated via continuity errors and character discrepancies. By the way, do you like rap in your horror movies? Okay, well it’s in there anyway. Seriously.

After a highlight reel from the original film we pick up exactly where the original left off. How exactly? The Black Maria is still parked outside the Sawyer house, that’s how exactly. Although apparently the Sawyer family has managed to asexually reproduce, because now there are like a dozen members (including Bill Moseley doing a creditable Drayton Sawyer, and Gunnar Hansen doing an even more creditable douchebag pseudo-intellectual cashing in on the lone highlight of his lackluster career - you suck, sir). A posse of vigilantes shows up and after a wild-west shootout Leatherface escapes to his aunt’s house down the road and one of the Sawyer family’s newly spawned babies is kidnapped. Seriously.

Cut to x years later (mysterious), the baby is grown up (with the Sawyer family crest burned onto her chest somehow) and she gets a letter that tells her that she has inherited the Sawyer estate, even though she was kidnapped and no one knows it blah, blah, blah she and her boyfriend and 2 other people go to check out the inheritance and pick up a shifty hitchhiker on the way who, in a surprising twist, tries to rob them blah, blah, blah Leatherface, now named Jebediah instead of Bubba or Tommy, is at the house and starts killing people blah, blah, blah her best friend and boyfriend are having an affair, though it works out fine, because they both get killed before anyone finds out blah, blah, blah she’s the only one left alive. Seriously.

Our protagonist escapes Leatherface only to fall into the hands of the police, who turn out to be at the whims of a corrupt former vigilante mayor! The mayor, having found out that this girl is a Sawyer, decides to have her killed. So he has her tied up in a factory and Leatherface shows up to kill everyone, but he finds out that this girl is his relative and they team up to kill those that would do them wrong. Now Leatherface and the girl are tentatively friends and they go back home to learn how to live with one another. So, it’s like a happy ending.


Seriously.

Maire	Corey	Salty
☆	☆	☆

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, the Most Original Subtitle Yet

Maire says:
Settle on down kiddies, it’s backstory time!

Would you believe that our boy Thomas Leatherface was born in a slaughter house? I know, right?! It’s ok though, cos the lady down the street takes him in and raises him as her son.

Along the line, Leatherface gets a lil’ brother, who is very protective of his older brother. After an unfortunate event surrounding the closing of the local slaughterhouse, lil’ brother comes to his brother’s aid by way of killing and then assuming the identity of a policeman. This leads to all sorts of opportunities throughout the film. (and also helped me to understand a lot in the remake by watching this one first.)

And here comes the irony for us viewers. Cue the usual TCM story line of kids being bad kids, and imagine our surprise when the local “policeman” comes to their aid.

Now since this one is called The Beginning, you’d expect there to be some mix-ups and missteps along the killing lines, but nope, these are all pretty polished, and for once, everybody dies.

Corey says:
When I first heard that they were making a prequel to Texas: The Re-Texasening, I felt shades of the Exorcist prequel abortion extravaganza grip my bowels.  I had liked the Re-Texasening! It had ups and downs, but overall, it did really well.   I really didn’t want the venerable franchise to be shitpickle-ized by sequel fever.

Turns out that my fears were unfounded.  Texas: The Bit Before Texas: The Re-Texasening retains the same atmosphere and gritty realism that made the reboot work so well.  All of our well cast family members are still here, and some of them still have legs!  Speaking of legs, the best part of The Beginning is that it is an origin story for the whole family, not just Bubba (fuck whatever they try to call him in the reboot, that big retarded oaf is Bubba, and will always be Bubba).

This origin story mythos is the major reason we watched this film before watching the reboot.  Maire had never seen either, and we thought it would be interesting to see what she thought of the cast of characters before they had become the cast of characters that we already knew.  I mean, I knew that dude wasn’t gonna have legs by the end of the film, but Maire had no idea!  I knew that R. Lee Ermey was gonna kill that cop and take his shit, but Maire didn’t have a clue.  It was fun to do the “I totally know what’s coming so I’m gonna look at someone who hasn’t seen either of these films” game with some of the more developmental points that make their way (can they make their way if the 2nd film chronologically was released first?) into The Beginning.

Other than seeing how our friends came to be, the film follows the typical Texas tropes, with some kids stumbling on the newly cannibal-friendly family, and dying/being chased in torture-y manner.  Other than a grueling scene with R. Lee Ermey and some kid who has to do pushups ‘cuz of Viet-fuckin’-nam, most of the deathy stuff just kind of feels rote.

Salty says:

Now I've never smoked meth, but I am pretty sure that watching horror movies is kind of like smoking meth. My understanding is that the first time you take meth is the best time, the most meth-y (I really don’t even know what the effect of meth is, but based on observation I assume that it makes rotting teeth feel really good in your mouth) and every time you do it after that you are just trying to relive that first time. So it is with horror: the first time you watch a movie is usually the best time and the many many many repeated viewings are attempts to relive that first time (perhaps watching it in the first place is just an attempt to relive the first horror movie you watched… that’s deep), though, to be fair, if the movie has any chutzpah (put some phlegm in it when you’re sounding it out in your head) it will be designed for additional viewings.

My point is that the first viewing is special in that it is a unique experience. Every film has its own vibe, its own surprises. I think that one of the reasons that The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning doesn't do it for me is that even the first viewing is without surprise. Yeah, you don’t know exactly when things are going to happen, but right off you do know that certain things are going to happen, that certain people are going to end up maimed in a certain way and that everyone is going to die. No survivor girl, no one is going to save the day, everyone is going to get it. Bleakness prevails. How and why are rarely as fun as who and what.

Plus, I prefer to leave the origins of some things unknown. I am sure that most meth-heads would prefer not to think about the fact that they are smoking insect spray (I really don’t know what is in meth either). Combine these things with the fact that the film parrots the very distinct feel and cinematography of the remake of Texas, adding only increased viciousness, and you get an ugly baby. Do I sometimes like the bad guy(s) even though he/she is killing people? Yep! Do I like them because they are hurting others? No. Okay maybe, but in a fun way, not in a real life choke-your-child-to-death-in-front-of-you way. That’s not a fun way.

So, the question is: would the movie be good if it was not a prequel? I don’t think so, no. To me, good slasher movies are a game: you try to pick your survivor right away and then see who is going to get it when and whether or not it will be their own fault et cetera. The director’s job is to keep you guessing within the rules: will the music cue be for the killer or a red herring, can you be tricked into thinking an fake off-screen death was actually real and so on. The games that The Beginning wants to play are How long can we torture them? How grizzly can we make it? I suspect the director of the film owns a lot of porn movies with the word Gag in their titles.

Maire	Corey	Salty
☆☆	☆☆	☆

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre : Bringing 1973 to 1973 in 2003

Maire says:
Disclaimer: I was at an advantage watching this one since we watched The Beginning beforehand. Thank you Corey and Salty. :)

As remakes go, I’m really alright with this one. Ok, we all know the story, so what can they do better. Well, the hitchhiker is a bit more crazy, so that was nice. The cop angle added a nice pickle as well. The gore is a bit more, but definitely within appropriate limits. I cringed. Ok, so there’s a baby, and I guess it being ok leaves you with a warm fuzzy? Yeah, I wouldn’t have put it in there either.

If you want a solid chainsaw massacre flick with an updated cast, please give this one a watch. It’s Maire approved.


Corey says:
For me the Texas Chainsaw Massacre reboot was one of the first films to kick off the remake revolution. Since it was released countless films have been redone, from other classics like A Nightmare on Elm Street and Halloween to cult darlings The Hills Have Eyes and Last House on the Left. (Disclaimer: Some of these remakes are good, and some are fucking garbage. Watch at your own discretion.) The 2000’s were the decade of remakes of films that I gave at least half a shit about. I guess everything old is new again at some point.

One of the more interesting decisions made for the reboot is that the powers that be decided to make the film true to the period of the original. While we can take this as a nod to the original, it really doesn’t serve that much of a purpose or stand out during the film. Most likely, we are tooling around in the 70’s because there’s no cell phones, and just not having them is much better than “oh. no. I don’t have service.” for the thousandth goddamn time.

Unfortunately, the family doesn’t take center stage nearly enough this time around for my taste. It’s almost all Leatherface all the time. Don’t get me wrong, the family does an alright job of trying to be the Sawyers (even though their names have been changed. Why? Fuck you, that’s why), but they aren’t as much of a focal point as they have been in previous outings. R. Lee Ermey is the shit, and plays the patriarch very well. He’s no Drayton, but he does ok. This time, there’s all SORTS of ladies helping out (I’ve never heard so much about tea in a film that wasn’t about tea in my goddamn life), and they brought another fucking kid into the mix. At least that goofy-toothed monosyllabic miscreant knew better than to get in the way too much. Fucking kids.

The reason that this film succeeds as a remake is because the people who made it knew who their audience was. In the olden days, horror films were drive-in fodder. You took a date and watched some schlock in the hopes that you’d get to see some tits (either on the screen or in your car). Throughout the years, though, these movies built a following. Gorehounds started watching the films because they liked them. Texas the remake isn’t about throwing a bunch of teens into a modern day situation with a tired old theme (I’m looking at you, Prom Night remake) in hopes to get one of the larger moviegoing demographics to see it. It’s made for the fans who watch the film for the film's sake.


Salty says:
The good horror movies are the ones that put you in an extreme situation and ask you to figure out how to handle it while the characters do the same – the better ones tend to let their character make more agreeable decisions. This remake of Texas does a great job of coming up with the situations and having its characters react well without letting thing work out nicely. In order to keep the surprises coming, the family is expanded into a town of sadists hell-bent on cannibalism.

In what I would like to think of as a tribute to our friend Franklin (remember those raspberries?) we are given a wheelchair-bound antagonist, a likably evil sheriff, and an assortment of scrawny and morbidly obese co-conspirators (oddly enough this amalgamation of the family most resembles the family presented in part 3) that work to keep the thrills a-comin’ with a lot of what-would-you-do scenes. And then there is a very respectable, very scary version of Leatherface. You really get the impression that this individual would be terrifying to be in a room with. Add a chainsaw to the mix, and all I would think to do is wet my pants, and hope that he fears urine.

Okay, I really dislike that they changed Leatherface’s name to Tommy or something, but otherwise minimal complaints.

Maire	Corey	Salty
☆☆☆	☆☆☆	☆☆☆

Well, look at that rating above there.  Hrm.  It looks like we've all finally agreed that a film deserves three stars.  Huh.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 4 : Your Stars of Tomorrow, TODAY!

Maire says:
Wrong! Well, at least this movie bore the next generation of movie stars? Yeah, let’s go with that.

I should like this movie. A lot. It has everything I love: dumb teenagers after prom, unnecessary blood spatter, and just all around ridiculousness. But alas, this film in pushing cliche to it’s limit, overshot and then wallowed in it rather than draw back into acceptable range.

Look, I know it’s hard to be a teenager, and after prom holds so much potential for things that you want to do and don’t want to do. But that is no excuse to turn into a fucking moron. Yes, bad ass nerdy girls are cool. Unfortunately, Renée Zellweger is neither. Matthew McConaughey’s Vilmer is the bright spot of this film. Good on him. However, his character’s leg is just... ugh. There are better ways to portray that.

And for the record, I’m ok with cross-dressing Leatherface.


Corey says:
As a disclaimer, this was the first sequel to Texas that I ever watched. I was in my mid-teens, and had finally gotten into horror past the “I’m 10 years old this is scary” stage of my fandom. Thus, when The Next Generation got released at my local video rental shop, I grabbed it sight unseen, lured by the weird sexy (???) Leatherface on the cover. Thus, my memories of this film were colored by a time where any horror was good horror. I was a sponge, and they’ll suck up the bad with the good with no regard for either.

This recent viewing reaffirmed that, yeah, there actually is some good stuff going on here. First of all, the family that got put together this time around does alright. They seem like a loving family with a good streak of wacko put in for good measure. Leatherface has some really good looks this time around, and generally acted like the big slow guy we all know and love. The hijinks with the bionic leg that Matthew McConaughey wears are hilarious, and the banter/fighting between family members is reminiscent of the first two films. Also, there’s no fucking kid to fuck things up. Fucking kids.

This time, though, all of those bits that I could happily gloss over in reverie were there in all of their ugly glory. Like the scene where Darla TOTALLY shows her ACTUAL TITS and not a body double’s during the scene where she flashes people for no good reason. Hell, I was 16, I didn’t care, tits were tits. This time, though, the transition from Darla to boobs is so jarring that it looked like they lifted the boobs from a different film entirely. Really, if they wanted that flashing sequence so bad, why not just get Linnea Quigley? She’ll get naked for a ham sandwich and a tube of Ben Gay.

And then there’s the weird freaky government dude. At 16, I thought that was edgy and neat. Crazy weird piercing through a ridiculous part of your body? Neato! You killed a dude with an airplane? Fucking AWESOME!

At 32, I think it’s dumb as shit.


Salty says:
I am certain that the idea behind Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation was this: what if there was a reason behind the Sawyer family? What could that reason be? To find the answer you have to ask what is the true reason for all evil in the world according to a Texan. The answer is, of course, the government. Bear with me on this for just a minute, here is your kernel: the government is actually facilitating the Sawyer family’s wholesale slaughter of Real Americans across the great state of Texas. It follows then that each member of the Sawyer family should represent a different “problem” with society.

Think about what are we given. If you were a Texan and you wanted to make a horror satire about the liberal government’s welfare system, what would you want to cover? We have the cripple, surely he is receiving disability for his tender condition (and most Texans are blowing raspberries at that!). Now, the filmmakers have a problem in that the physically disabled aren’t generally considered to be threatening, so they would need to come up with a threatening disability or you could give him a threatening crutch. I may be reaching here, but what kinds of crutches are people leaning on these days? Technology. So we give the leader of the family a gimp leg, enough to get him some subsidized relief, and then we fix it with crappy broken technology. On paper it’s a potent metaphor; in the film it is Matthew Mechagimpleg McConaughey with a nonsensical piston-leg-brace that is overly sensitive to remote controls and allows him to crush people’s skulls with ease.

Mechagimpleg’s got a hussy girlfriend. One of the first things she does when we are introduced to her is flash her boobs at some local college kids for the thrill. She uses her sexuality to get away with her crimes, hence the whole scene where she flirts with the cops to divert their attention from the girl that she has tied up in her trunk. She spends the rest of the movie toggling between being madly in love with her boyfriend and getting into fistfights with him. Face it, she’s just a few years away from having a couple of kids with that same abusive cripple, and those kids aren't going to feed themselves.

Do you doubt that Bubba AKA Leatherface is mentally handicapped? It is an established fact, and though his presence in this film is perhaps the least in the series he maintains an inability to speak or properly communicate, thus in real society he would receive some gub’ment money, and if your from Texas you ain’t lykin’ dat (especially since he’s a transvestite too). Then there’s the third brother: the one who doesn’t do much. Is it too much of a stretch at this point to speculate that he is receiving unemployment? Perhaps he’s a drug addict.

When the men in suits show up we get a couple of speeches about what a bad job Mechagimpleg is doing and we are supposed to think that this man is his employer. In a way he is: he is a government caseworker coming to see what is happening with the money the family has received and he is upset that things are so crazy. Mechagimpleg fears this man, because he needs to appear to be resisting the awful acts that he is committing to keep getting his free money. On the other hand, Mechagimpleg does have an advantage: the government man cannot stop him from torturing and killing the innocent because the federal government does not endorse capital punishment for any crime. It all kind of fits together, don’t you think?

The movie is a conservative view of liberal government and the way it hands out money the weak and needy. Therefore, the Sawyer family is just – are you ready for the linchpin that’s going to sell the whole thing? The Sawyer family is just a group of babies sucking at the government’s tits – hence the government employee is covered with nipples!
You’re welcome.

Maire	Corey	Salty
☆	☆☆	☆

Texas 3: The Saw is Family

Maire says:

Remember how The Exorcist II really had nothing to do with The Exorcist? Texas 2 is sort of in the same boat, except that it’s actually good.

So here we are with Texas III, which tries to pick up after Texas 1. And then it falls into the 3rd in the series trap. It wants to be good. You want it to be good. But somewhere along the line we all realize that it’s not going to be great. In fact, it’s not even going to be good. But we soldier on anyhow, and are we rewarded for our efforts?

Well, Ken Foree is stellar as always. And hey, isn’t that Viggo Mortensen? Oh, it is! But alas, despite the gore and tension, the end just really goes to schlock. So no, we’re not rewarded for our efforts, but I hear there are some big names in 4, so it’s sure to be great, right?


Corey says:

I could take this entire review and talk about how awesome the trailer for this movie is.  Instead, here it is. Ok, now you’ve seen the best part of Texas 3.  That being said, 3 has its merits.  For one, it’s got Ken “No More Room in Hell” Foree in it, which I think is pretty neat.  He seems like a nice guy, and he gets into quite arguably the best duke-it-out-with-Leatherface-while-a-chainsaw-dances-in-the-water-in-the-background scene ever put to celluloid.

Other than that, the fun in 3 is few and far between.  Viggo “dont call me Strider, dammit” Mortensen does a pretty good job of trying to fill the wacky brother role of the family, but everybody else feels too goofy and watered down.  None of the other family members (even you, Bubba) don’t have distinct enough personalities to allow you to figure out which wacko is which.  And why is there a fucking kid?  Who’s idea was that?

Movie Exec: “You know what would be creepy?  A wacko kid!  That’d be an awesome twist!”

Oh.

One of the standouts of this film was the soundtrack.  This bad boy is just dripping with late 80’s crap metal everywhere, and I fucking love it.  Hell, Sacred Reich is on there! I haven’t thought about them since I was wearing big stupid pants and had blue hair.  In fact, them being on there kind of sums of this film nicely.  Texas 3, unfortunately, was a product of the times it lived it.  It reeks of late 80’s/early 90’s stereotypes and how to fit the venerable series into those tropes.  If the first two films hadn’t been so groundbreaking, this might not be a problem.  But they were, so it is.

Salty says:

While The Texas Chainsaw Massacre bears the distinction of being one of the most imitated original horror films of all time and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 bears the personal distinction of being my favorite movie of all time, Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III’s main distinction is that it has one of my favorite theatrical trailers of all time. I think that theatrical trailers are an art unto themselves; there are trailers that use little to no footage from the film (Pink Flamingos), trailers that don’t use any dialogue so you won’t know that they are foreign (Don’t Open the Window) and trailers don’t really relate to the film at all (Videodrome), but the best trailers are the ones that use original footage – stuff that you don’t even get in the movie. The Leatherface trailer is one of the latter, and oh boy is it a doozy! Just go watch it.

As for the film itself, Texas III is not bad (not bad does not mean good). The story is familiar: two siblings (neither of them blowing raspberries) on a cross-Texas adventure meet up with the family of chainsaw killers with a lot of obvious fodder along the way – only now the family is different. Drayton is way off, and the wacky hitchhiker is now much less crazy Viggo Mortenson (who does not wear a Sonny Bono wig). They decided to try to humanize Leatherface with this sad awkward Speak-and-Spell scene (a digital picture of a clown is not food - good name for a song by The Locust; bad way to tell me that Leatherface is mentally handicapped). Plus, grandpa is dead (really dead, it’s not that he just looks dead this time) and now we have… smoking post-tracheotomy grandma and… a little cannibal girl, both of whom are presented without explanation, and this leaves the film feeling a lot iffier.

The movie overall is a toss-up between the decent (kitchen scenes) and the lame (Did you know that if you drop a running chainsaw in the swamp, it will not only continue to run, but wave itself back and forth in the water? I may be crazy, but I suspect that this won’t actually happen.) and as it is so often in life, mediocrity wins.

Maire	Corey	Salty
☆	☆☆	☆☆

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2: Electric Boogaloo

Maire says:
Ok, so the original film was pretty intense, wasn’t it? Obviously the best way to follow that up is with slapstick! Don’t get me wrong, this is still a gore flick. Enough so that, on first viewing, you may not realize it’s meant to be funny, which will leave you feeling more horrified than its predecessor.

There’s a lot that can be said about this film. First, Dennis Hopper is in it. Maybe this isn’t surprising to you, but it was to me. Granted, I only really knew of him from his name and those Ameriprise Financial commercials, but his was not a name I equated with slasher movies.

Second, Bill Moseley. I’m sure Corey and Salty will have plenty to say about Bill and his character Chop-Top, so I will leave it to their masterful words.

Third, the Older Brother (he's not the Dad) character. If there is a stereotypical doggoneit dagnabit character portrayed better than Jim Siedow’s, well, I owe you $5.

Fourth through twenty-seventh, well, just watch it. You’ll enjoy it. Though, to fully appreciate Texas 2, you need to watch it with Salty. There may be no other person who can glean so much joy from this film as he does.

Corey says:

If Texas the first is a grandaddy of horror and terror, then 2 is the goofy uncle that’ll sneak you a beer when no one is looking while telling you stories of how he used to light bottle rockets out of his butt. 
The films are fundamentally different in approach, yet the quality of execution is just as high.  The maddening tension and fear of Texas are replaced by larger than life characters, each with their own amazing personality (and hilarious quirks).  That’s not to say that 2 isn’t a horror film, mind you.  It’s just one of those few films that rides that narrow gap between horror comedy and horror absurdity.
One of the things that Salty pointed out to me on this viewing that I hadn’t previously noticed is the set design.  If you look at the weird cave lair thing that the Sawyer folken are holed up in this time around, you notice how much time and care went into designing a place that a crazy family would hang out while winning multiple chili cook offs.  There’s the bones of old victims, coupled with that crazy network of cobwebby tunnels and pipes.  The whole place looks... well... lived in.
Speaking of chili cook offs, I love how Drayton comes off as a greedy capitalist in this film.  When he’s not yelling at his idiot family for doing some idiot thing, he’s scheming and trying to weasel his way into generating more money from his family business.  And who’s to say he’s not good at it?  After all, he’s won multiple chili contests, and that sort of thing will catapult you into financial stardom in a place like Texas.
On a final note, Texas 2 isn’t my favorite in the series.  But it sure as hell is the one I quote the most.

Salty says:

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 is the best movie ever made.

We start out on a cross-state road trip with two rowdy yuppies raising hell on the way to a college football game in – you guessed it – Texas. The young punks manage to piss off the wrong awooga-horn-blowing, confederate-flag-yielding truck (in Texas?! you exclaim. Yes. There are Confederate flags in Texas) with a game chicken, and a few hours later, in the midst of a prank phone call to our favorite Bedazzled DJ, Stretch, the kids are pursued by the truck which now has a chainsaw-wielding corpse riding in the bed. That’s right! The partially mummified corpse of a Vietnam veteran begins to attack the college kids car with a chainsaw from the bed of the truck, which is going upwards of 60 mph (in reverse). Next thing you know the driver’s head has been cut in half and it’s all been caught on tape by Stretch, who is persuaded into honking the recording out on her radio show to try get into serious journalism.

This is just the beginning of the film ladies and gentlemen, just the start of this masterwork. The rest of the movie is filled with fry-houses, aching bananas, crazy armadillo hats, Sonny Bono wigs, plot-driving trap doors, handicapped skeletons, fake brick walls full of discarded viscera, Christmas lights, food trucks, and Mr. Shark. Ever wonder how many times you would have to strike a stranger’s face with a hammer before it stopped being horrifying and started being funny? What does it look like when Death eats a cracker? Would a Vietnam-themed amusement park attract tourists? What would you do if you woke up to find a dear friend was wearing your recently cut-off face? Some questions will be answered, others merely posed - this is a bizarre and wonderful film that totally redefines what it means to be a Part 2.

The film, as a sequel, brilliantly revisits ideas conceived by the original, while simultaneously providing more depth. As it turns out the crazy hitchhiker from Part 1 (who was run over by the Black Maria) has an even crazier identical twin brother who got a metal plate in his head after getting wounded in Vietnam during the events of the first film (you know the plate is there because he has picked away and eaten the burnt scabby skin around it with a wire hanger that he sanitizes with a lighter). The identical twin, Chop Top and the corpse from the truck, Nubbins, expand the family without giving the feeling that new characters are just thrown in, and it’s great to spend more time with the surviving Sawyer brothers: Drayton is more pissed at the world than ever (but I think that that’s due to his hems); Bubba is starting to wonder about the joys of S-C-E-X, and, don’t worry, grandpa is still the best. Dennis Hopper has been added as Lefty, the renegade uncle of the wheelchair-bound raspberry-blower Franklin from the original film. In my opinion Dennis Hopper can do no wrong and this is his defining performance.

So the Part 2 aspect of the film is used expertly, but you may be concerned about the rest of the key elements – as would any fan of Patton Oswalt. The Massacre is admittedly minimal due to budget cuts (only 2 on-screen deaths), but fear not, there is plenty of Chainsaw. How much chainsaw? In addition to the aforementioned partial decapitation, and the live skinning of a chronic spitter, we get a chainsaw swordfight (I admit that this has already been done in Motel Hell), and plenty of phallic allusions. But it’s not just the bad guys that have access to the saws: Dennis Hopper comes right back at the family of chainsaw killers with not one, not two, but three chainsaws. Three chainsaws!? Yes, three chainsaws! You may be wondering how he manages to lug three chainsaws around. Two words: Chainsaw holsters. Oh yes! It’s a chainsaw extravaganza all up in this motherfucker – they even throw in an electric knife, just to cover the bases.

So we get a little Massacre and a lot of Chainsaw, which leaves the Texas. There is more Texas than a pair of rattlesnake cowboy boots, darlin’! The Texas is the best part of the movie. No character could abide any other part of the Union. From old hymns to “Remember the Alamo”, the dialogue reeks of Texas in the best possible way. What better place for a family of cannibals to win awards for their excellent chili? (The secret is in the meat.)

Thanks to Stretch, the movie has a great soundtrack (though no inavitadegotta, baby), and there is an excellent all-synthesizer score that always makes me think of some weird, jazzed up organ. What else can I praise? How about the set design? Brilliant! The home of the chainsaw killers is a delight to behold in real time or frame-by-frame to take in the subtler touches. Casting? I could think of none better. The costumes? Perfect! Do I like every aspect of the movie? Yep. Even the ending? Yeah, I even like the ending. Brazos.

Maire	Corey	Salty
☆☆	☆☆☆	☆☆☆

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: the Franchise Introduction

Texas, as it’s affectionately known here at House of Sequels, is not an easy franchise to review. Each of us have our preferences, and while we are all delighted with our favorite devices, they do come few and far between, and none of them work for all three of us at the same time*. Though really, shouldn't all films end with a dancing chainsaw silhouette fade out?

The series follows a, let's say, loving and close knit family deep in the heart of Texas. Yes, they're a little misunderstood, but aren't all families?  Here we have a family down on their luck.  They've lost their livelihood, and they're just trying to make it in a world that is slowly passing them by.  The Sawyer family is trying the best they know how to keep food on the table.  Hell, we here at the House have eaten lungs, hearts, tripe... even whale! What's to say any of you wouldn't do what you had to do to keep your family fed?

*The exception is Texas 2, which is just all around great. Yes, even the ending.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Government Film About the Dangers of Picking Up Hitchhikers

Maire says:
First off, did you know that this movie’s wikipedia page has 160 cited references? If that doesn’t say “cult classic,” I don’t know what does.

While Psycho definitely brought the slasher genre to the forefront, Texas makes full use of its elements. Yes, we know there are going to be bloody deaths, but man, it does a great job of building tension. By the end of the film, you’re hoping for the last death, wanting the movie to be done and over already so you don’t have to suffer the tension any longer.

And then the finger scene happens. And you feel horrible about yourself for watching it.

But you still don’t get that last death. Instead, you get a happy(?) ending and the first of our “dancing chainsaw” fade outs.

Oh god, the tension is still there...

whimper

Corey says:

Oh boy, here we go.

One of the reasons that we started the House was to document the fact that, yes, we actually watched all of these films. Even if no one reads our blog, we have a testament to the fact that we took on this Sisyphean task. But the problem arises when we tackle one of the greats. What can we possibly add to the conversation? What can I say about Texas that hasn't already been beaten to death?

Then, I remember that the House is for my reactions to films. How do I feel, 15 or so years after the first time that I viewed Texas? For the most part, I'm just as horrified as I was the first time I saw the film.

The thing that gets me the most about Texas (and the thing that most people tend to forget, if you ask Salty) is that the horror of the movie is not Leatherface. The horror is that there's a whole family of psychopathic wackos. Ol’ Bubba is important, sure, but he’s more of a supporting role to a crazy hitchhiker, a domineering (but loving) older brother, and a grandpa that’s still one of the best slaughterers in the state. In fact, the film would still be great (though maybe not a legend) if Leatherface weren’t present at all. He works as less of a character and more of a catalyst, providing impetus to the horrors that are already being wrought. He’s the salt in a soup, the hops in a beer. The movie isn’t built around him, he is built around the movie.

One of the other things the film excels at is the plodding tension and horror, without much actual gore. All of the sights and sounds are ground in gritty realism, never glorifying but at the same time never pulling any punches. Much like the slaughterhouse background of the Sawyers, the film delivers atmosphere brutally and efficiently. When Sally Hardesty wakes up for dinner, it’s terrifying to her, not because of the freaky bones on the table or the dead (?) man sitting at the table with her, but because of how we got to this moment. We’ve been hung on hooks. We’ve had to run. We know we’re the only one left. And now, just a quiet meal, where we’re the guest of honor. It’s enough to break anyone.

On a final note, Franklin is an amazing character. For one, he’s in a wheelchair, and the film doesn’t make a huge deal out of it. Just another one of those touches that, hey, this is real. Also, he’s a dick. And I love him for it. Every time I see that scene where he’s giving the raspberry, I crack up. But then I remember what’s going to happen to him, and it makes me a little melancholy.

Salty says:

Horror movies steal from one another constantly. It’s a fact. The producer of Friday the 13th admits he told his screenwriter “Write me a movie like Halloween”. All movies do it, but with horror it’s like a riot: everyone is stealing everything they can and no one cares who took what except the overtly pretentious spectator. I am sort of fickle when it comes to the thievery. I had to get rid of my copy of High Tension after I saw Intensity - not that Intensity was that good (fuck you Dean Koontz), but it’s like finding out your favorite porn star has gotten AIDS. It ruins the magic, you know? This is also why I can’t love Night of the Demons, when I watch it, all I can think is I could be watching Evil Dead. But I like Slither and Night of the Creeps, and I love David Cronenberg and he just makes one movie over and over (it’s a good movie). The issue is complicated.

Although dozens, if not hundreds, of movies have shamelessly “borrowed” from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (especially House of 1,000 Corpses), I have yet to see anything made prior to it that bears a remote resemblance. It’s the first movie made for mass audiences that feels like you shouldn’t be watching it, because not only is it violent, it’s chaotic, so you’re never really sure what you’re going to see or if you want to see it. The grainy quality of the film helps, so does the hydrocephalic gas station attendant and the self-mutilating hitchhiker. Also the chainsaw – let’s face it, no one would want to go see The Texas Massacre, that just sounds too religious and depressing.

The film is a Rubicon and rite of passage. Every horror fan has a “first time I saw The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” story, same as parrot-heads have a “first time I heard Margaritaville” story (and consequently a “first time I realized that I was an 50-year-old drunk with too much money” story). At fourteen my friend and I raided his miscellanea-riddled attic in the midst of a caffeine-fueled all-nighter. Our plunder was a pillowcase that we were certain was crusted with dried blood, a couple of Slayer tapes and coverless VHS copy of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I crashed about a third of the way in, but I kept waking to screams and chainsaw sounds, watching grizzly pandemonium and then slipping back into unconsciousness. I remember waking up at dawn as the end of the film played and wondering how it had come to this blood-drenched girl literally raving mad as she fled from the dancing Leatherface into the too-orange dawn and not being sure if I had seen that fat man blow raspberries at his peers or just dreamed it. I was sure that I would be watching the film again.

The movie is just off-kilter enough to make sure that you, the viewer, are interested without ever reaching a disenchanting moment of absurdity. It is, after all, based on highly exaggerated fact, and the reality is driven home by details. The setting, the characters, the plot, the unique but believable look and feel of the movie all amalgamate into this wild awful thing, but the details are what make it just right. The jittery muscle spasms you see after blunt force trauma to the head are a real phenomenon. The jerk of being dropped onto a meat hook yips with reality. Those bones you are seeing are real human bones (ordered from India according to the commentary; one wonders how much director Tobe Hooper worked on Return of the Living Dead before leaving the project). The movie is a complex recipe but all the ingredients are on full display, there are just too many to get mix correct again. So, it’s forgivable that other filmmakers have been unsuccessfully trying to emulate it ever since; it’s too hard not to (but you can at least try not to Rob. Come on man, seriously).

Maire	Corey	Salty
☆☆	☆☆☆	☆☆