Largely thanks to John Carpenter‘s original Halloween, the 80s were chock full of slasher flicks taking place everywhere from summer camps to sorority houses and everywhere in between with a collection of mostly bland, forgettable murderers. Everyone seems to remember this era fondly even though the sad reality dictates that most of these films are pretty bad with a few notable exceptions sticking out here and there. With the title, heroine, and villain notwithstanding, Halloween II would be more of the former than the latter.

In fairness, from the opening scene (largely cribbed from the end of the first), the film tips its hand and foreshadows what to expect: some excellence surrounded by cheap and lazy writing. Loomis’ magic seven bullet pistol and Myers’ leisurely stroll backwards up an obvious ramp cement that this is nowhere as thoughtfully planned or executed as the original. Returning writers Carpenter and Debra Hill take the interesting route of continuing this installment right after the conclusion of the last after Myers’ has escaped the nuthouse, killed a bunch of kids and adults (and a dog), and tried fruitlessly to off Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis).

Perhaps as a way of multiplying the low body count that no one complained of from the original, Laurie is taken to Haddonfield Memorial Hospital, otherwise known as the medicinal equivalent of Police Academy … or the malpractice warehouse. Doctors come in drunk, nurses show up late and disappear to fornicate in patients’ rooms or in a hottub, security guards are fat and clueless, and with the rest of incompetent boobs, all we’re missing is a Tackleberry character to complete the likeness. So of course Michael slips in under the watchful eye of no one and prowls around the abandoned corridors like a lost trick-r-treater.

I really dislike spending most of a review comparing a film to its far more successful forerunner but that is hard in horror films in general, especially here since it is so closely tied together with the preceding film. Yet, the most damning thing I think of against this film is that the writers and director Rick Rosenthal seemed to go out of their way to avoid carrying over anything great into this film. All of the new characters are merely set dressing waiting for their inevitable strangulation or scalpel in the back and due to their number, there is no reason to care for any of them. Bud can be easily identified as the crude, horny guy, Janet as the ditzy girl, Karen as the negligent nurse … it goes on and on. Only Jimmy (Lance Guest) has any deeper characterizations but even he is largely disposable.

Even though he didn’t have a huge part in the first, Donald Pleasence returning as Loomis feels like he is merely on a loop from the first film since he goes on the same rambling tirades about evil and death and Michael’s pleasant stay at Smith’s Grove but they are nowhere as entertaining this time around. And it’s questionable that Loomis, the man who watched over and studied Michael for a decade and a half didn’t even think to keep tabs on Laurie who Michael was clearly gunning for at the end of the last until he finds out that Michael and Laurie are related. Granted, Loomis didn’t know this early on but he was one step ahead of Michael the first go around. Now he’s desperately trying to catch up.

For all the quizzical choices made in the first two-thirds though, the final act thankfully ratchets things up as Michael finally stops dicking around and goes after Laurie. It is these last twenty minutes or so that make the film worthwhile as Michael pursues his sister through the bowels of the hospital. While the pursuit isn’t quite as tense as before, it does the job superbly helped by the cheesy synth music by Carpenter and now accompanied by Alan Howarth that actually fits well. Even though the ending isn’t as final as we would believe from this film, it does have a feeling of closure as Laurie once again escapes the throes of death while everyone else … well, doesn’t.

I am almost ashamed of myself from fifteen years ago for liking this more than the original. Sure, the body count is higher, there is more blood and gore than before, and even more classic horror elements like spring-loaded cats but the originality and heart of the first is sorely missing.

I have no idea what Hollywood is thinking sometimes. With the constant remakes, reboots and re-imaginings of so many movies clogging up the theater it’s hard to find something … different. If it’s not a “classic” movie from only 10 years ago that is being shoved back in our faces, it’s the deluge of “Super Hero” movies filling every marquee in town. I, for one, am quite simply, sick of it. That is where Hobo with a Shotgun comes in.

It’s plain to see from the title alone that this is not your ordinary movie. When I first saw the box when it was released, I was skeptical. I have proven that I have a increasingly strange and probably unnatural love of bad movies. Having said that, even I don’t make a purchase on a whim knowing absolutely nothing of what I am plopping down my hard earned cash for. However after seeing some reviews online, twitter, and personal friends recommending the movie to me, I made my choice. (Quick side bar; I actually purchased the movie with the full intention of watching it that way, until it popped up on Netflix. Thus saving me the $20. Score!)

Hobo (as I will refer to it from here on to keep things short) stars a haggard-looking Rutger Hauer in the titular starring role. The character he plays is never given a name other than “Hobo” so it’s not like I am just forgetting it. The hobo rides into a new town on the rail car with nothing more than a bindle, cane, and the hopes of starting a fresh new life. Once in town Hobo soon realizes that this is not a happy place to make a new start. Crime is rampant in the streets. From the very beginning of the movie the hobo is witness to a brutal murder of a man at the hands of his very own brother and nephews. The murderers are “Slick”, “Ivan” and their father “The Drake”. Drake runs the town, and rules over the people inhabiting it with a bloody iron fist. Those that oppose him are brutally murdered. Hell, even those that DON’T oppose him are brutally murdered.

Hobo is trying to just stay out of the way, keep his head down, and turn his life around without dying. This all changes when he steps in to help save a prostitute’s life. Unfortunately for him he got on the bad side of “Slick” who is Drake’s more violent and sadistic son. Slick decides to take his revenge on the Hobo and the girl (Abby though she is credited as “Prostitute”). Well that is enough to send the hobo over the edge of crazy cliff. He snaps, buys a shotgun, and well… decides to kill just about everyone that gets in his way. In his own weird murderous way, he is just trying to clean up the town, and maybe take down an insane dictator along the way.

I was told that this movie would be one that was insanely bloody, gruesome, and more than most can handle. I guess that would have been the case if I hadn’t seen so many crazy Tokyo Shock movies before this one. There was only one scene that was kind of out of line involving children. However given that the ENTIRE movie was so crazy over the top, it wasn’t that bad. Also the payoff for that scene later in the movie makes it all worth while. For the most part, it was really bloody, sure, but nothing that any fan of gory horror movies isn’t accustomed to.

Surprisingly enough, the acting is pretty good. Hauer straddles the fine line between crazy and caring pretty well. Sure, he dips to one side or the other in certain scenes, but it never felt over played. I don’t think the rest of the cast has ever been in a movie before (at least not that I am familiar with) but they all do a great job. I actually really liked the guy that played “Ivan”. It felt like he stepped right off the set of some 80′s midnight movie and on to this one. One spot in the movie however was so completely OVER acted it was literally laugh out loud funny. I won’t spoil it but it involves a doctor and nurse that may be just a little stressed out at work and not willing to lose their patient. Hilarious, trust me.

Even though this was not a true “Hollywood” movie, the big production companies can learn a thing or two from Hobo. Sure it won’t win any Oscars or Golden Globes, but it was original and that goes a lot farther than a remake. It reminds me of “Planet Terror.” A movie with high production value, that was made for the one thing that people seem to have forgotten about… Fun. Going to the movies should be fun again, and this movie goes a long way to restoring my faith in future directors. Also, how can you go wrong with the line, “We’re going on a trip to hell, and you’re riding SHOTGUN!”

Republished with permission from 3SMOVRadio.com

Honestly, I wasn’t quite sure why I picked Ernest Saves Christmas as part of the inaugural 12 Days of Christmas Scum Marathon. Perhaps it was because Jim Varney was quite comical as Slinky-Dog in the first two Toy Story installments. Or maybe it was nostalgia from the annual tradition of watching it around this time just before the long winter break in middle school. While I can safely say it was much better than Elf Bowling, Ernest’s antics were nowhere close to my fond remembrances of them.

I was shocked to learn (due to my extreme indifference toward him) that Ernest P. Worrell (Varney) was conceived as a local personality for television commecials which progressed into a TV series and no less than ten feature films. Having seen only a handful of those other movies, I cannot speak for the notion that Ernest is an almost self-aware, buffoonish caricature on purpose because his character merely comes off as a combination of annoying and “special.” Here we follow Ernest as he meets Santa Claus, a hot 80s teenage runaway, and some other stuff ensues as Santa attempts to woo a successor to take over the Santa throne.

The first few minutes are acceptable as even Ernest just comes off as a goofy, inept guy who has misplaced, but still good intentions. While his character may have still be the same by the end, I could not tell you as his mugging and vocal inflections get so ingratiating that I became angry whenever we left the more decent, or at least not as annoying characters, to get back to Ernest in some sort of get-up. In fact, I thought about Eddie Murphy a lot during this movie as well. I’m not sure that is relevant either but it still makes me angry.

Sadly, this doesn’t even work as a kid’s movie the way it used to in my day as my three kids who watched it with me could have cared less about anything going on other than debating if the old, bearded man was really Santa and laughing at the goofy fat guy in the warehouse. The story itself is pretty clever with Santa hounding this poor man to take over the gift distribution duties but yet still clichéd with the hot 80s runaway teenager having a change of heart away from her dastardly, Grinch-like gift stealing.

And I take issue with the overall title of the movie. How does Ernest save Christmas exactly? He drives a taxi, puts on wigs and false teeth, and kidnaps two elves while commandeering Santa’s sleigh. If all of that wasn’t enough, this movie should have been enough to put Ernest on Santa’s shit list.

In my attempt to escape the horror pattern I have been entrenched in, I selected Just One of the Guys as my next review. As it turns out, the director, Lisa Gottlieb, also directed an episode of Freddy’s Nightmares (the Nightmare on Elm Street television series). The film’s star, Joyce Hyser, appeared in that same episode.

Terry Griffith (Hyser) is a high school student who has almost everything she wants. Her parents are rich, she has a car, she’s beautiful, she goes out with a college dreamboat that is also rich. She dreams of becoming a journalist and the local paper is running a contest where students can submit articles for a chance to be published. The winning “reporter” will also get an awesome summer job at the paper. The article she submits does not get selected, and two male students’ work does. This coupled with a comment from her journalism teacher convinces her that she was not selected because she is a hot girl that no one will take seriously as a journalist. She becomes so distraught, that with the (sort of) help from her sex obsessed yet still virgin brother, she resorts to cross dressing and taking her article to another high school. She intends to submit it as a male to see if it gets selected simply because she is a boy. It doesn’t, but she stays at the school to find another story to write, and hilarious 80′s teen sex comedy ensues.

I also selected this film as sort of an easy 99th review so that we could quickly post the 100th review on the site. I happen to have it in my instant queue as it is a definite comfort movie of mine. Upon watching this, it would be quite easy to dismiss it for the one of a thousand standard 80′s teen sex comedies that it is at surface level. But watching it for the purpose of critical analysis, I realized that this is actually a pretty well put together movie, and really should stand out from the likes of Porky’s, Revenge of the Nerds, et al. There is only one scene with nudity, and it is rather brief. The main character is not obsessed with sex, in fact quite the opposite. Even the comedy is not largely based on sex. Really, the sex part of this is confined to Terry’s brother Buddy (played by Billy Jayne, and is quite hilarious) who is a virgin, determined to have sex while their parents are out of town. One could even argue that the categorization of “sex comedy” could even be a play on meanings where sex refers to gender, and not having sex.

There is a lot of interesting things going on in this film that you may miss if you just watch it for comfort, as I usually do. Terry is quite popular, but when she dresses as a boy and goes to a school where no one knows her, she is quite unpopular at first, as any new kid might be. As she befriends Rick, who himself has no friends, she takes him on as a sort of project, and gives him advice on how to dress and act, etc. in order to become popular and get a date. It’s actually borderline brilliant the way Hyser plays this; Terry the boy, trying to make friends, be hip and blend in, while at the same time Terry the popular girl, trying to help Rick do the exact same thing. You can actually see the back and forth she goes through. In a scene where Terry and Rick are talking about music in the cafeteria, you can see the genuine, yet subtle delight on Terry’s face in finding something in common, whereas in another scene, she is spouting off male things like, “this is what you call typical male bonding,” as if she is teaching Rick how to interact with other males. I found that this boy/girl, teacher/student conflict to be done quite well, especially when Terry falls in love with Rick, which only compounds the problem. I don’t know that there is any deep social commentary in this (other than the obvious), but not many (if any) films of this sort actually have anything worth looking at deeper than tits.

The film is is quite funny due largely to a decent script delivered with excellence by everyone that had a funny line. In addition to the few anachronisms, the film is sealed in the 80′s by an appearance from Willam Zabka as the (shocker) school bully. There are also appearances from Ayre Gross and Sherilyn Fenn to completely randomize the cast.

Now the film is not without its flaws of course. How a fight between 4 people at a prom could go on with not one member of faculty stopping it kind of baffles me. Also, as much ruckus as Zabka’s character caused in this film in general (much to the janitor’s dismay; pay attention to him in any scene he is in), I did not understand how no one gave him at least a detention. Also, I understand that even high school kids can have facial hair, but when you cast 30 year olds with mustaches as high school kids, they look 30. However, it feels almost pointless to pick apart a movie of this genre.

It may seem odd to write a review for this film, as it really is purely intended to be light and frothy, but it really is a decent comedy worth a watch. It is still very funny 25 years later, and deserves to enjoyed more than as just a teen sex romp.

Now I can cross another classic teen 80’s movie off my list. For this, The Breakfast Club, and others, it was not as though I was actively trying not to see them. My younger days normally reserved for mostly harmless fare like this was instead spent watching 70’s and 80’s horror and action movies instead. Yes, I saw the entire franchises of Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, and even Maniac Cop before getting around to some of the more relatable films of my generation. So sue me. I now have seen it.

I would imagine that everyone else has seen Better Off Dead so I will keep the synopsis short. Lane Meyer is for the most part a typical adolescent. He has really random daydreams, a crazy family, and a typical teen’s awkwardness. After meeting Tina, err Beth, he seems to be on a straight path up the popularity ladder in high school. When she dumps him for a 23-year-old-looking-professional-skier-turned-high-school-student, Lane is downtrodden enough that he attempts to kill himself. Fortunately for Lane, he is quite bad at offing himself even with the help of his friends and family. This leads to a turn in his luck, meeting an exchange student, getting a kick-ass car, beating the cocky jock at his own game, and redeeming his meaningless life. It’s every kid’s fantasy.

Apparently, this film was not very well received when it debuted. From a low box office take to negative reviews back in the day, it has now become an iconic teen movie much like the aforementioned Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Even having never seen the film before, I was still aware of its presence and even its influence in subsequent films like the recent Hot Tub Time Machine and the spoof Not Another Teen Movie. I can fully agree with the current sentiment that this is a masterpiece of a film. Instead of deriving comedy from standard teenage film means, Better Off Dead takes a more absurdist approach to everyday living. This is the kind of life that you thought you had in retrospect with a gelatinous pile of crap crawling off your dinner plate, the teacher you hated taking out your ex, and getting your face inverted by embarrassing a popular cheerleader. I can safely say none of these things happened to me as a child but I would probably want to kill myself as well if they had. Other than the basic plot I did not know that the film’s title actually referenced the character’s desire to commit suicide. It seems a rather odd plot point and one I hazard would not find its way into a mainstream teen movie today.

Even twenty years ago, John Cusack can play comedy very well. Just like his character in Hot Tub, Lane is the relatively normal kid in abnormal situations of course disregarding the fact that he is almost dangerously obsessed with Beth, has clear suicidal tendencies, and wears socks in the shower. There is a rumor/fact/whatever that Cusack hates this movie which I find deplorable if that is the case. His straight-forwardness to the events unfolding is quite brilliant especially as the other central members of the cast excel in selling the abundance of crazy shit that happens. And this movie even has Dan Schneider, creator of TV’s iCarly! I do not think I can look at that show the same after seeing the nasal spray-snorting Ricky.

It just seems shocking that this film was never not regarded as a masterpiece. Sure, it is yet another teenage based movie from a time overflowing with them but the wackiness of this makes it stand out. Where else can you get Booger getting “high” off of frozen rain, a pair of sports-loving drag racing brothers, and a tireless paperboy who will go to any length to get his damn two dollars? I wish the DVD was a bit more in-depth with special features but it seems that for as high that fans hold this movie, Paramount has bought into disregarding the film along with Cusack. It’s quite sad but it was a good day for me to finally get to this one.

I challenge you to find one person who does not enjoy a hot tub. Putting aside the potential health issues from prolonged use or extreme temperatures (thank you Michael Myers for teaching kids about the latter), a hot tub is relaxing and therapeutic and can make a kick-ass time machine. I would argue a Delorean is better as it can also function as a normal automobile, but the titular hot tub is running a close second.

Three friends, Adam, Nick, and Lou have seen better days. Now in their middle ages, they find their lives slipping away from the dreams and ambitions they once had. After Lou has a mishap (or potential suicide attempt) with car exhaust and a sealed garage, the three hit the road with Adam’s nephew Jacob to a winter ski resort that they kicked at in the old days. The first night there as the four are relaxing in the bubbling, heated water containment unit, a mishap with a Russian drink and the hot tub controls results in a transportation back to 1986, a crucial year for the friends at the same resort. They realize with the help of an old, sage hot tub repairman that they must not deviate from their previous actions for fear of a dramatic ripple effect to the rest of the world. As this is a testosterone-filled comedy, that doesn’t happen as the down-trodden men stuck in teenage bodies attempt to right their prior wrongs.

While there are certainly comparisons to be made to the Judd Apatow and Todd Phillips like-minded comedies, Hot Tub doesn’t feel like an Apatow movie or even The Hangover. For starters, the characters are pretty flat. Aside from what we learn in the first ten minutes about their lives, there is not a great deal of development about their current lives. This is not necessarily a bad thing as the characters are rather stock. Nick is the dreamer, Lou is the asshole, Jacob is the nerd, and Adam is the straight-man to counter the absurdity of the situation. The bulk of the film has the group reliving out their childhood but it might have helped to understand more about the consequences those first actions had on their next few decades and how the deviations would have helped or even hurt.

On the plus side, all of the characters are funny as hell and very aware of the implications for their situation. Several references to the time traveling adventures (and subsequent paradoxes) of The Terminator and the Stargate series help ground the film as the realistic interpretation of what would happen if these guys were actually transported back in time. Even knowing what they do about the butterfly effect (the theory and the movie), they still fuck up the space/time continuum for the sake of their own personal gain. Whereas Back to the Future preached for responsible time travel, Hot Tub throws all of that out the window as Nick and Lou try to hustle a crowd on the outcome of a football game and Adam avoids breaking up with a hot girl because it was a really stupid thing to do and it resulted in him getting stabbed in the eye.

Setting the movie in the 80s is a relative goldmine for the trends and fads from that period which are so laughable now, it is conceivable that someone might set up a retro reunion as one of the characters ponders early on. From the leg warmers, MTV showing music videos, and even good old cassette players, you did not necessarily have to be alive during the 80s to see the humor as this group of iPhone carrying, Google-using, modern men try to wrap their head around a group of people wearing bright neon ski-suits or using the old-fashioned Zack Morris phone. Of course, the soundtrack helps to drive the point home as well with a good heaping of cheese and excess is blaring during a good portion of the film. Having only visited the 80s in my much younger years, I’m sure there were more subtleties that escaped me but it is quite fun to revisit these modern day anachronisms.

If I had any complaints about the movie (other than the previous character issues noted above), it would be that the setting of the bulk hinders what the group can fuck up for the future. Obviously, the ski weekend serves the story well as an important few days for each of the guys but it would have been fun to see that expanded out of the small town, if only for a few more 80s jokes at the expense of Michael Jackson or the Cold War. With the film clocking in at a reasonable 100 minutes length, for some reason this seemed to drag on much longer as I was about ready for it to end about fifteen to twenty minutes before it actually did. While the laughs are bold and frequent, there were some portions that fall flat. This is normal for most comedies but the as the funny parts were quite good, the unfunny seemed to detract even more.

So, admittedly the movie is not as good as The Hangover but for a semi-raunchy male-driven comedy by someone other than Apatow, that is a lofty goal to reach. It does have more class than comedies of its bygone era, better star power and even Crispin Glover in what is likely a career-making role (if we consider he has not had one yet) and I suspect Hot Tub will play even better on repeat viewings with drunken cohorts. I am beginning to think the concept of unrated DVDs were created for movies like this.

Pop quiz! When I say Michael Crichton what’s the first movie that comes to mind? Jurassic Park? Nice job! Twister? Not too bad! Sphere? Congo? Now you’re just messing with me. If you did not think of his smashing directorial success Runaway, I wouldn’t be surprised. This is such an old favorite of mine that I’ve never heard anyone else even acknowledge (excepting PBF who probably saw in theaters). A 1984 movie about killer robots? How original! Oh wait. Terminator didn’t have Tom Selleck’s mustache though.

Taking place “in the future” or some weird alt-history 1980s, Tom Selleck’s Jack Ramsey is head of the runaway squad, a group of police who deal with industrial and household robots that misbehave. Things start off rather uneventful until a servant robot decides to dice up two people and hold an infant hostage at gunpoint. Ramsey discovers the robot was purposely tasked to go off the handle by the over-the-top Gene Simmons to eliminate an engineer who developed the computer chips that overrode his robot’s commands. The rest of the story unfolds as Ramsey tries to catch up with Simmons’ Charles Luther to prevent him from producing and using the chips. Now, if this sounds all fancy and technical, it’s really not. The story, also written by Crichton, is actually fairly straight-forward and cliched. You could substitute computer chips for illegal guns, drugs, or Ferbies and have the plot for many scores of other action movies.

Where this film gets it right though is the direction. Sadly, Crichton did not direct too many films, presumably due to churning out a new book every few years. However, the composition of the film and the tension throughout is actually quite good, as long as you can suspend your disbelief of the “cutting edge technology.” Now, its unfair to judge the movie based on the standards of technology today as, similiar to Terminator, the story dealt with the fear of the increasing number of machines taking over for humans and what could happen if things went wrong. While I do not yet have a housekeeper robot who looks like a love child between a college dorm fridge and a boombox, we do have Roombas and unmanned drones and bomb disarming robots. So, while Cameron’s flick dealt with runaway robots on a global level (with the resulting death and destruction), Runaway focuses more on them locally and the havoc only a few rogue machines can do with the wrong Kiss member behind the scenes.

Almost all around, the movie is quite good compared to its relatively cheap 80s counterparts. Acting wise, Selleck and the MIA Cynthia Rhodes share quite a few good moments as they bond throughout the movie (even if Ramsey is the most densest action character in films, she wants to jump your bones!). Simmons is quite over the top in just his facial expressions alone but it works quite well as he comes off as a raving lunatic. Even GW Bailey, channeling Capt. Harris, fits in the ensemble well as the requisite hard-ass captain who wants results and is never happy. Kirstie Alley though? Never been a big fan and she reminded me of her shrill performances in those damn talking kid/dog movies. And for God’s sake, if Joey Cramer‘s performance here stayed the same, things are not looking good for a revisit of Flight of the Navigator. The robots are pretty cool even if they do look quite dated. And you can’t beat those spider-ish things! They can scale walls, affix to the ceiling, jump at you, shoot acid in your face, inject you with it and then blow up! That’s bad-ass!

If anything fell flat, it would have to be the music. The normally good Jerry Goldsmith was apparently trying to sound futuristic with the all electrical score but it just further concretes the fact that you are watching a movie at the height of cheese from the decade of hair. And, while it might not be to the fault of the filmmakers, the brick-sized cell phone, the 8-color CRT computer screens, and the “futuristic” Ford Tempo police cars can be distracting if you let them be. But don’t. You’d be doing yourself a disservice. In fact, while we at Movie Scum bemoan the ever increasing tide of remakes, I would not mind a remake of this if only to make the killer robots a bit more close to home to the current century. Runaway certainly is not a perfect movie but with the right combination of makeup free Gene Simmons, Tom Selleck’s mustache, Kirstie Alley’s hair, and “futuristic” killer robots, Runaway is a classic comfort movie.