2 Fast 2 Furious

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As you may but plausibly may not be aware, I laid out an intention to watch the Fast and/or Furious series. Said intention was laid out seven years ago, so I cannot really say I’m nailing it here. I started to watch the second one between 3 and 5 years ago, but something interrupted me like a third of the way through, I guess? Anyway, last night I came back for a second attempt, which was victorious!

In a way, this is exactly the same movie: blond guy, cars, crime. Paul Walker has been burned by the events of the prior movie and moved to Miami, where he is still a street racer. But due to his actions in the first movie, he finds himself beholden by Eva Mendez to do runs for a local cartel drug lord guy who likes to heats metals buckets so the rat inside will chew through the person the bucket is shoved up against. Because[1], you know, he’s good at driving now. Thanks, Vin Diesel!

The main things I get out of watching this movie are a simultaneous confusion that it will eventually turn into a juggernaut franchise and complete understanding of why the next movie has only new characters, on the other side of the world. It’s not that 2 Fast 2 Furious[2] is bad, exactly. It’s aggressively mid in most ways, excepting fun stunt driving to watch. There was a line by the secondary main character[3], and I heard it, and immediately knew that not only had it been used in the previews (which I later confirmed) but that it almost certainly was written to be a line in a preview. It’s just… how do I watch the two I’ve seen so far, and then a third one with no existing characters, and then somehow those three movies convince people to launch this successful franchise that I know for a fact now exists? It’s weird.

I wish they had made more movies about Suki and Tej, though. Them, I could have watched all day.

[1] Er, that is, he’s doing runs because he’s a good driver, not the drug lord guy is doing the bucket rat thing for that reason. That would be insane!
[2] I mean, except the title. Wow.
[3] “Guns, murderers, and crooked cops? I was made for this, bruh.”

The Fall Guy (2024)

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Here is 100% of what I remember about the ’80s TV show named The Fall Guy: it starred Lee Majors as a stuntman who I’m pretty sure did something besides movie stunts; best guess is, solved mysteries, for some reason? And also Heather Locklear or Thomas. And I had a lunchbox of that show in elementary school, which implies that I liked it quite a bit when I was like 6 or 7,

So when they made a movie of it earlier this year, I was not what you would call entirely sold on the idea of that movie. And yet here we are a few months later, and I saw it on the ‘Cock, and I thought, hey, why not? I haven’t watched a generic action movie in a while[1], right? But here’s the kicker: I really liked it!

So Ryan Gosling plays Colt Seaver, the kind of name you’d expect a college quarterback to have, and he’s a stunt guy best known for having a pretty enormous fall[2], such that he broke his back and got out of the game. But, in a grand tradition going back to Michael Corleone, or Obi-Wan Kenobi, or arguably even Brutus, someone pulled him back in. So now he’s trying to save the movie, solve the mystery, and get the girl, and if you stop there? Yes, it’s a generic action movie. But what I didn’t count on is that Gosling has a bonkers funny dry delivery, and that he and Emily Blunt have some pretty solid chemistry, and also that the stunts would in fact be pretty cool.

I’m not saying to see it on its own merits; it is not high art nor probably will it be a necessary pop culture touchstone. But I am saying to see it if you find yourself in the situation I was in, wanting to see some generic action movie because why not? It will absolutely exceed those expectations! Which sounds like not much until you remember how many of them don’t.

[1] No regrets, but in retrospect I should have watched 2 Fast 2 Furious, if I wanted a generic action movie. Kinda forgot those are on my list.
[2] Get it?

Alien: Romulus

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Did you know there’s a new Alien movie out? And that it’s not about anyone exploring the lore or mythology of the xenomorphs nor whoever the giant people in the crashed ship that the Nostromo found some 45 years ago in the movie-goer’s timeline were?

Ah, I have your attention now, I think. No, Romulus is a research station in a decaying orbit around one of Weyland-Yutani’s colony planets[1], and a handful of teens intend to get up there and take advantage of the opportunity before anyone else does. Too bad, of course, about what Romulus-the-station is researching…

I’m not going to get into the plot of the movie. If you’ve seen an Alien movie, you know what the plot is and you know what the story beats are going to be, to at least a first approximation. This is one of those, for better or for worse[2]. I do want to call out one thing especially, though. As you know, a key aspect of these movies is body horror. From the moment John Hurt got that funny look on his face in the middle of lunch (or, honestly, from the moment they tried to pull the thing off his face and it… refused), that sense of impending dread, that your fleshbag is not entirely yours to control, is easily a third of what these movies are about. Anyway, the body horror in this movie is amped up pretty high even by my jaded standards.

Bravo.

[1] Yes, I am going to just sit here and assume you know what that means. And if you don’t, then this movie is for you the first episode in a reboot of the franchise rather than the latest episode in the franchise itself, and watching the movie would be a good way to find out. The accumulated lore surrounding that particular company is such that they didn’t have to waste any time hinting at things that have been slowly revealed over five decades and six or eight prior movies. Subtext has become text, and in 40 point font a that.
[2] And mostly for better, I would argue; both the formula and this implementation of it, to be clear.

Sorority Babes in the Dance-A-Thon of Death

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A very long time ago, in the summer of 1994 I expect, I watched Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama. I rented it from Hastings, and I watched it with my roommates, and my girlfriend, and my girlfriend’s father, the latter of which you’ll realize was awkward if you’ve ever seen the movie yourself.

I believe that I knew about Sorority Babes in the Dance-A-Thon of Death before the internet was functionally searchable (and way before it lost that capability). But how did I know? Word of mouth: from whom? Usenet: I guess maybe, but I have never been a horror community guy, I suppose because I found my people somewhere else first. Hastings again: well that would make sense, except that I never saw the movie, which I definitely would have if it had been available. Because, like, how do I turn down a sequel to that aforementioned august masterpiece of film?

The most likely answer, I suppose, is that I’m wrong about how long I knew this second movie existed. Because, honestly, any of those other reasons would not have found me almost exactly 30 years later and only now learning that the two movies are entirely unrelated, except by naked opportunism[1]. Which is ironic, since this one had no nudity. (Nor did it have actors, or a script, except in the most literal of senses. It didn’t even have the charm of Bloody Muscle Body Builder in Hell to make up for having been shot on low quality video with a sufficiently washed out color palette that black and white would have looked a lot better.)

So, you know, I freely admit that it’s unreasonable of me to believe I have a better technical eye, to know when a scene has overstayed its welcome by multiple seconds, and a better ear for dialogue, to know that I would need a much better story reason to send my characters to “the abandoned college on the hill” than the payoff I received, in order to ever even consider using that line seriously, and a better eye for talent, when I’m not constraining myself to only actresses who’ll film nude scenes[2], to end up with at least one or two people who could have sold that wretched line in the first place. …although come to think of it, that particular actress may have been the best of the bunch, ie she may have actually sold it. I was saying, though, it’s unfair of me to believe all those things of myself when the last movie I made was a ten minute short adapting Fahrenheit 451, in junior high. But that said, I’m pretty sure it was better than this. (I wonder if the video cassette still exists for me to check against.)

Still, though, they mentioned Joe Bob Briggs in their “Thanks” section of the credits, and that has endeared them to me somewhat.

[1] That is to say, the box mentions a “from the creators of” line, and I flat out do not believe this is true. (Just like I don’t believe anything else it says besides the title.)
[2] That sounds like I’m denigrating the ability of actors who shoot nude scenes, but I’m not. I’m just saying when you have fewer options to choose from, especially if your talent pool is already restricted by “can commute to Kansas City”, you get what you pay for. And I’m especially saying that these people did not constrain themselves thusly, and have no excuse whatsoever.

A Nightmare Wakes

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This was a weird one, and I’m not sure how I feel about it. See, Mary not quite Shelley and Percy Shelley and Mary’s sister (I think) and Lord Byron are all hanging out at Byron’s place, just like we saw in a recentish episode of Doctor Who. And they made a bet to write a scary story, which as we all know was the genesis of a certain Modern Prometheus. Fine so far.

Only Mary also had a miscarriage, and started getting obsessed with this idea she had for a book, and Percy is getting more and more grossed out by her whole vibe, and meanwhile she’s got Victor Frankenstein (who is just Percy except dressed in black and nobody else can see him) stalking and/or courting her, and basically the whole movie is this obsession she has with her book, or maybe the book is haunting her? I was at first really unhappy because it seemed like they were saying she was being externally haunted and the book was being given to her, which is kind of a bullshit take. But I’m pretty sure it’s the obsession or maybe haunted by the book as she goes[1] but at least she’s really the one writing it angle instead, and that’s alright.

I did a shallow dive into the history of a handful of characters afterward, and while they are certainly taking some liberties here, the movie was in the end at least a reasonable fiction of how it might have happened. (But it definitely did not happen this way, all the same. Also, not for nothing, Percy Shelley, good poet though he might be, was kind of crap at being a man.)

[1] A Nightmare Wakes kind of implies the latter haunted version, but only kind of.

Pánico en el Transiberiano

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I have learned about a new streaming service funded by libraries. My local does not offer Kanopy, but apparently they offer Hoopla. Which is nice, because the last two movies [that I haven’t seen] presented by my horror movie podcast were both available on said network. Thanks, Carrollton Public Library!

Anyway, the randomness this time was Hammer Studios[1] crossed with aliens, which is a hard sell since Hammer makes mostly movies with draculas. In fact, I’m being informed that this is not a Hammer Studios production, and my podcast people done screwed up. But in their defense, the movie stars both Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, so the only thing missing (aside from a dracula and/or some of its brides) was a couple of gallons of just enormously bright red paint. I can understand, when you’re desperate for a match, overlooking a little thing like not technically made by Hammer, if almost everything else lines up, y’know? They were in a real fix.

So, Christopher Lee is a paleontologist I guess, and he’s just dug up a maybe missing link in China, and now he’s on a train back to civilization with his find. But Peter Cushing wants to see inside Lee’s comically overprotected trunk in the storage compartment, which sets off an unlikely chain of events when the thing in the trunk is not as dead as previously believed, and is furthermore[2] a visitor from the depths of space and not the missing link at all! …sort of.

Soon undead alien apes and countesses and Rasputins and Hammer Studios talents and Tellys Savalas are running up and down the train, trying to solve the mystery without getting their eyes boiled out of their heads and/or without being caught and exposed as the alien. If Horror Express were wildly popular, one could easily imagine a hidden roles boardgame being developed from the IP. But my point is, hijinx ensue as they necessarily must have, until there is eventually a final showdown for the fate of humanity. (I mean, probably? It was after all just the one alien.)

Still, good times. I especially liked the sci-fi backstory,

[1] out of London, although the movie was made in Spain, and furthermore my brief research indicates this was not in fact a Hammer Studios production at all, and great, now I have to talk about this outside the footnote.
[2] I would consider this a spoiler, but as an alien was necessary to this being the movie I watched, the cat was kind of already out of the bag.

Lyorn

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After Lyorn, there are two books left in the Vlad Taltos series, and you can really tell. This is a book that is tying up loose ends in an effort to rush headlong toward a finale. But, and here’s the good news: it’s also a book that’s about something besides tying up loose ends.

In the words of General Rieekan, “A death mark’s not an easy thing to live with.” So Vlad has decided to lay low at a theater (because of sorcery-related reasons) to plan his next move. Which quickly turns into a series of musical numbers and side quests, but the former are unobtrusive to the reader (if that’s not your thing) and the latter are quickly rendered apparent to be the actual point of the book. I’ll explain myself below the spoiler cut, not because it is especially a spoiler for more than the book’s themes, but for brevity, because I’m about to overstay my welcome.

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Emelie

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I have to say, babysitter horror movies[1] cannot possibly hit the same if you don’t have kids who need to be watched, if you are ever to leave your house and go on a date. Like, I don’t mean you have to have empathy to enjoy a film, that is not my point. I mean, having experienced the same type of movie before and after, I can tell you with certainty that the one I watched while in possession of a four-year old hit harder than the one I watched without one. And so we have Emelie, a movie about a babysitter implausibly named Anna, and about her unique methods of childcare. Subjects include pet-feeding, puberty, uncommissioned art, and hide and seek.

On the one hand, I feel like I should say more. On the other, what more is there to say? This is exactly the movie you expect it to be, and why should I spoil it for you, if you were inclined to watch it? The one thing I would say is a relatively big spoiler, but it’s worth mentioning. I liked the movie a lot better when the babysitter’s motivations had not yet been explored. That reveal was a big disappointment, even though in retrospect it also is exactly what you’d expect. Unfortunately.

Maybe worth pretending it never happened, or wasn’t true.

[1] That is, the ones where the babysitter is the threat, not the ones where the babysitters are the victims

Let’s Scare Jessica to Death

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So this is one of those movie titles that I’ve seen over and over again, and I think I always just assumed it was the same as April Fool’s Day[1] where Jessica, having died in the opening scenes or else via flashback, would be taking her revenge on her teenage bullies for the rest of the flick. Let me start by saying that Let’s Scare Jessica to Death is decidedly not that movie.

So Jessica is a schizophrenic who has just been released from psychiatric hospital, and now she and her husband have moved out to a farmhouse in the sticks near a small town, I suppose to get away from it all. Only, their house has a squatter as well as a history, and Jessica keeps seeing a girl in white, and the townspeople are creepy, and who is that under the lake? Plus, she keeps hearing voices that do not have her best interests at heart (which is how I know she was a schizophrenic).

The mystery isn’t whether or not we should be worried if Jessica is imagining things. It’s nearly a first person movie, and that is her fear the whole time. As such, it is the central tension in one of the tensest psychological horror movies I’ve ever seen.

Recommended.

[1] Why, you ask, did I for years think April Fool’s Day was about a girl named April? I cannot help you out with that.

Abigail (2024)

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I decided to do a movie outside of Shudder, as I do every so often. And this time I thought, hmm, there are two recent horror movies with little girls on Peacock, but which? And I decided to go with the newer one, since the older one I’m already way too far behind to accomplish anything useful for my hungry public.

And so, I watched Abigail, which is a crime turned horror movie about a kidnapping. See, there’s this ballerina kid, and a whole bunch of people in masks who don’t know each other (a la Reservoir Dogs) come together to kidnap her. Then they go to an isolated estate to lay low and wait for the ransom, which might have gone according to plan except that they decide to not trust each other. And once things start going wrong, boy howdy do they escalate, in all kinds of ways that you would never have considered possible.

I mean, unless you watched the trailer. Don’t watch the trailer, for the love of all that is holy.

But that aside: you know what, obviously the Tarantino movie does a better job of being a crime movie, and I could name a few horror movies along these lines that do a better job of doing what they do (spoilers below the cut), but as mashups go? I’m pretty happy with this one!

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