Prince of Darkness (1987)

Director: John Carpenter

Cast: Donald Pleasance, Lisa Blount, Victor Wong, Jameson Parker

Have I Seen it Before: Never. I know, I know. And in an interesting turn of events, I would normally watch this film later this year for Beyond the Cabin in the Woods, but it is still up next on my summer of Carpenter re-watches, so that will certainly save me the time of having to do my podcast notes and review later.

Did I Like It: I had that sinking feeling about halfway through the film that I wasn’t going to enjoy this as much as some of Carpenter’s other films. I’ve said before that Carpenter works best in a milieu of ruthless simplicity, and this one may just have too many characters for its limited setting. To the film’s credit, there’s a running gag where even the characters—trying to wrap their heads around the scientific and theological implications of the apocalypse—can’t seem to remember names and faces of everyone involved in the plot.

Even in a lesser Carpenter film, there are joys to behold. For one thing, there are some legitimately bewildering things done with insects in the film, to the point where I somehow have an even lower opinion of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008). And there frankly should be a lot more films that hinge on Donald Pleasance—here called simply “Priest,” just in case anyone was worried about Carpenter completely abandoning his ruthless simplicity—monologuing about the nature of “pure evil.”

These are perhaps trivial things to pick out, the kind of things a critic might reach for when discussing a film they don’t really like, but something happened to me as the film concludes. I started thinking of it less as an overstuffed, claustrophobic riff on The Exorcist (1973), and more of an Assault on Parish 13. I really started to like it, and the ending was so authentically unnerving that I couldn’t help but love it. Goddamnit, Carpenter. You got me again!

Escape from New York (1981)

Director: John Carpenter

Cast: Kurt Russell, Lee Van Cleef, Ernest Borgnine, Donald Pleasance

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure. I remember there was a stretch of time there during a particularly ice storm in 2007 where I was desperate to watch this film (in addition to Robocop 2 (1990) for reasons which are still unclear to me), but couldn’t get it running without power to a DVD player. Any time there is cold temperatures, I’m flooded with a desire to watch this movie. How I haven’t watched it since starting these reviews is beyond me.

Did I Like It: So much about this film feels like it is of the later Carpenter period, but it is only three years after he leapt on to the scene with Halloween (1978) almost immediately after The Fog (1980), almost immediately before Carpenter binge-drank his way through the screenwriting process which bound Michael Myers and Laurie Strode as siblings for decades in Halloween II (1981). Maybe it’s the presence of Kurt Russell, which more than any other single element props up Carpenter’s ambition to fuse westerns and sci-fi films together and for all time. Russell channels sufficient Clint Eastwood energy as Plissken and Carpenter wants to be—if not quite Sergio Leone—at least John Ford. They even managed to bring Lee Van Cleef along for the ride, for good measure. The two of them trying their best to be the second coming of that is not a complaint, by the way. Far from it. There are few things in movies I’d rather watch than that pairing with that ambition than almost any other movie combination. Ok, so I want to wrap up the review and watch The Thing (1982) and Big Trouble in Little China (1986) as soon as possible, don’t I?

Other little parts of the film delight, and of course I’m talking mostly about the hilariously miscast, creepiest British man who ever lived Donald Pleasance as the President of the United States. I mean that sincerely. I love it. Pitching that man playing the American President is enough to sell a movie on its own merits.

Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995)

Director: Joe Chappelle

Cast: Donald Pleasance, Paul “Stephen” Rudd*, Marianne Hagan, Mitchell Ryan

Have I Seen it Before: It came out at one of those moments in my life—the age of 11—when I was so into the series, but between the one-two punch of the MPAA and over-protective parents, I was stymied. I even remember watching—with my heart pounding—the first few minutes of a pay-per-view airing of the film before things went all staticky.

Did I Like It: I eventually watched the whole thing. It is truly amazing how kids imagining what horror movies might be like are infinitely more frightening than what many slapdash sequels end up being.

Speaking of endings, I am struggling to come up with a movie that has a more incomprehensible ending than what we are subjected to here. I’m not talking about a choice that beggars any understanding, that at least could be accepted if not celebrated. I don’t think the ending for Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1983) particularly works, but it definitely follows from the rest of the film. Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987) ran out of money and was knowingly released by the studio despite its toxic faults, but at least that movie ended with an upbeat, rousing quality (and stole the closing shot of Superman (1978)). Here, Donald Pleasance says goodbye to the film series which gave his career new life in his twilight years, and to the planet Earth itself, and disappears amid a hodgepodge of jump cuts and incomprehensible sound samples. Had this movie kept things together even minimally, we may not have needed to be rebooted multiple times in this series. Which actually ended up giving us something great far down the line.

Yes, I’ve seen the fabled producer’s cut, and the result is only marginally better, don’t let superfans of the series try to tell you any different. If a film is rotten at its core, there’s no number of alternate cuts which will fix matters.

Although it does start to shed light on just how Michael Myers managed to do all of the things he did in earlier films, despite spending his formative years in Smiths Grove. And the mask… well, the mask has certainly looked worse, so the film does have that going for it.

*Yes, that one. Sort of endearing that the series could still produce a verifiable movie star after all this time… Sure, most people would argue Clueless (1995) was our introduction to him, I think that he was able to pull off any kind of a performance in a movie like this, that was far more indicative of his future stardom than being perfectly charming in an otherwise charming movie.

Halloween 5: The Revenge of the Michael Myers (1989)

Director: Dominique Othernin-Gerard

Cast: Donald Pleasance, Danielle Harris, Ellie Cornell, Beau Starr

Have I Seen it Before: When I wrote a story a few years bak about a boy terrified that the VHS boxes in the horror section of a rental store are out to get him, my memory of first eyeing this movie’s poster in a Homeland’s video rental department* that inspired it.

Did I Like It: Now, if only the film had lived up to that moment of undefined anxiety completely divorced from any context. Any virtues of Halloween 4: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1988) are washed away (literally, there’s a raging rapid and some waterfalls) in this film’s opening minutes.

Pleasance goes from camp hero to camp lunatic in this one, sadly paving the way for the work Malcolm McDowell will do in another fifteen years. Harris continues to equate herself well.

But every Halloween film that tries to immediately follow after the (sometimes mild) successes of their predecessors end up with even more problems in the end equation. If the concept of the Man in Black and the Thorn cult would have landed anywhere comprehensible, then at least the series might have landed in a campy mythological place. Here, things aren’t the worst yet, but they are grim portents of sequels and reboots to come.

Also, the mask is still unrelenting trash. I’d rather wear a real Silver Shamrock mask. I could write a whole book about these masks, but I don’t want that kind of evil in my life.

But that’s all fine, because at this point the film series would really have to have run out of steam, and there aren’t going to be any more Halloween movies to come.

If only.

*Long, long ago, grocery stores often had their own video rental stores in them. It was a wild time. Kids, ask your parents all about it.

Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)

Director: Dwight H. Little

Cast: Donald Pleasance, Ellie Cornell, Danielle Harris, Michael Pataki

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure.

Did I Like It: Let’s get this out of the way first thing. I hate, and I do mean hate, the fucking mask Myers (George P. Wilbur) wears in both this and Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989). It looks like the attempt of some fly-by-night costume manufacturer (Silver Shamrock, anyone?) to create a Shape mask when they didn’t have the rights to do so. It’s the MS Paint version of the mask we have come to know and fear and sometimes inappropriately love. To be absolutely fair, it actually does make some sense that the mask has changed from Halloween II (1981) to now, as the original would be a couple of streaks of burnt rubber by now, but I just can’t stand the sight of the thing. If the original mask was reworked from a Captain Kirk mask, then this was reworked from a mask of Blandy McBlandface, The Least Frightening Boy In The Whole World(tm). I have been kinder to some of the absolute worst movies in the series if they at least didn’t try to give us a mask that looks as bad as this one.

What’s more? I’m fairly sure the producers and filmmakers hate their own mask as well. Every poster for both this film and its successor have the visage of Myers as he appears in the original. They know what we want to see. Why do they not just give it to us all the time, especially in a series that isn’t exactly known for sticking to brave new territory?

After all of that, do we want to talk any more about the film? Donald Pleasance keeps things ramped up to their preposterous best. We really can’t expect any more out of him. Danielle Harris plays a convincing daughter of Jamie Lee Curtis, and a new heroine (or villain?) for the series, all while doing so at young age of 10.

The supposedly twist ending is undercut both by the knowledge that the next movie will retcon it into oblivion, and that every moment of the preceding ending telegraphs the punch.

But aside from that, it—as pretty much every course correction in the series—does breathe some new life into the series.

If only they could keep that going with subsequent films…

…and fix that goddamn mask, while you’re at it.

Halloween II (1981)

Director: Rick Rosenthal

Cast: Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasance, Dick Warlock*, Lance Guest

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure. In fact, from cable TV airings, I’m reasonably sure it’s actually the first movie in the series I ever saw.

Did I Like It: Sigh. The movie has much to answer for, but it also has a great deal to recommend it.

Yes, John Carpenter simultaneously shotgunned his way through a case of beer and the bridge between the second and third acts of this movie. In the process, he made Laurie Strode (Curtis) the long-lost sister of Michael Myers (Warlock). Sure, it gets Loomis back to Haddonfield Memorial Hospital for the finale, but it also straps an albatross of mythology onto a film series that, in its original form, was pure suspense and a minimum of history.

The violence here is amped up, probably unnecessarily so and also begins the series’ unfortunate tendency to follow the trends set up by other horror films, instead of establishing them as it did previously. Putting Strode in a sedative-laden fog for much of the movie could have added a layer of suspense to the proceedings, but is handled unevenly.

But I can discount the film entirely, and I don’t think much of it is tied to my fond memories of the movie from childhood. Donald Pleasance remains amped to his campy best, and remains a delight in the series for the rest of his life. The cinematography of Dean Cundey—one of the most understated and under-appreciated elements that made the original Halloween (1978) one of the greatest films of all time—continues to acquit itself quite well. 

Also, once the film does finally get going, it unleashes tension quite well, although I wonder if that had more to do with John Carpenter’s re-engagement with the film after an initial cut failed to satisfy anyone. The sequence where Strode is running from the shape, but is stymied by the slow ministrations of a basement elevator are simple, unnerving, and have to do this day introduced just an ounce of anxiety into every time I try to use an elevator.

If only the rest of the series could keep it up.

*Great name for a stuntman, or greatest name for a stuntman? There is no third option. Also, is it just me, or does every cast member not in the original movie sound like they have porn star names?

THX 1138 (1971)*

Director: George Lucas

Cast: Robert Duvall, Donald Pleasance, Don Pedro Colley, Maggie McOmie

Have I Seen it Before: Yeah, a couple of times. Hell, I’ve owned it on DVD a couple of times, just like any cineaste of sufficient stuffiness.

Did I Like It: It’s a trip, to be sure.

It’s sort of fun to imagine what kind of filmmaker George Lucas might have become, had he enjoyed any measure of commercial success earlier than he did. This film feels like the kind of movie he has really wanted to make this whole time. He may be still be producing “tone-poems” like this in some fashion after his retirement from big-budget blockbuster, if his interviews post-Disney takeover of Lucasfilm are to be believed. 

I can see why people didn’t like it when it was initially released. It is dour and aloof in a near-monolithic way. Lucas might have refined his film school sensibilities further had the studio system not so thoroughly kicked the crap out of him during the early goings. But, I got a lot of neat action figures over the years, so I guess that’s nice, too.

It should be mentioned that the ending of the film sticks with me long after the film is over. It’s the strongest, most coherent part of the film, and that’s no surprise as it is largely a remake of Lucas’ previous student Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB (1967). While the feature tries to go through the milieu of Orwell’s 1984, things take a turn when the almost happy-ish ending where THX (Duvall) escapes society, largely because the authorities don’t have the budget to keep chasing him. Something about that gives me hope. We’re all too expensive for tyranny to truly break us.

Anyway, it’s a strange film, and the Lucas we all came to know is almost undetectable in the movie. Could you imagine if George Lucas kept going along this path? Can you imagine what he might be working on now that he has totally divorced himself from the audience? It boggles the mind, or at least the mind’s eye. The mind’s ear might be able to keep up. His early films almost sound like radio plays.

*Unlike with the original Star Wars movies, I had to watch the final George Lucas directors cut, complete with additional CGI effects. The augments are clearly less obtrusive than they became in his other, more famous movies, but it would have been something to see the film in its original form.

John Carpenter's Halloween (1978)

In my nearly fevered anticipation for the forthcoming rebootquel Halloween (2018), I thought I might re-watch all of the original series(es). My gushing in this entry leads me to think that I may not have the strength to suffer through Rob Zombie again, to say nothing of Paul Rudd. We’ll see.

Director: John Carpenter’s John Carpenter

Cast: Donald Pleasance, Jamie Lee Curtis, Nancy Loomis, and (ahem.) P.J. Soles.

Have I Seen it Before: I’ve at least seen it as many times as Anchor Bay has released it on either DVD or Blu Ray, so that’s got to put it somewhere in the 100s.

Did I Like It: Oh, how do I count the ways?

It will be supremely difficult to write thoughtful reviews about some of my greatest-of-all-time movies. John Carpenter’s Halloween is one of them. The acting is sublimely modulated cheese, especially with the world’s supreme scene chewer Donald “I SHOT HIM SIX TIMES” Pleasance. The cinematography is perfect. Each frame harnesses a perfect sublime banality, that when the horror really kicks into high gear, the tension is there, but there’s also a palpable sense of tragedy at the same time. The music is so beyond perfect that it a) completely removes any pretext at criticism I might hope to reach for, b) makes the film without this music unimaginable, and c) elevates the sequels and (ugh) remakes into (on average) watchability.

And all of it was made with next to nothing. It is an unbelievable achievement that no amount of sequels, copy-cats or (again, ugh) remakes could hope to replicate, nor ruin.

Now, the long arm of legacy is what this film consistently has to fight against, but if you can put yourself in the mindset of someone living in a universe where the other films don’t exist (a feat which I think is going to become significantly easier in a few weeks), the film is even more unnerving. Here Michael Myers (Will Sandin as a child, Tony Moran unmasked as the adult Myers, and Nick Castle as the form commonly referred to as “The Shape”) isn’t the Freshman Abnormal Psych paper of the latest Rob Zombie films, the scion of the Cult of Thorn, Laurie’s brother, Jamie’s uncle, or budding Dangertainment star*. He was purely a kid—and he could have been any kid you knew growing up—who one day picked up a really sharp knife and never looked back. He slithers through the vast majority of the movie simply watching his prey, and when the moment comes, he zeroes in to take what he wants, simply because he wants it, and should therefore be entitled. He is every man, and if we’ve learned anything recently, he cannot be stopped.

That’s the movie I love, and if you don’t… Well, then fuck you, Rob Zombie.

That may be harsh, but it’s not like I don’t totally mean it. Totally.

*God, when you really unpack Halloween: Resurrection (2002), the more of a headache it becomes.