The Last Starfighter (1984)

Director: Nick Castle

Cast: Lance Guest, Dan O’Herlihy, Robert Preston, Catherine Mary Stewart

Have I Seen it Before: Sure, but it was never a big movie for me… And yet somehow in the last couple of years I got about 150 pages into writing a new novel which stole one of its load-bearing plot points from this movie. Apparently it had seeped into my mind far more than I had thought. Thankfully I realized it when I did.

Did I Like It: But then I wonder if I could do that bit (I’m not going to tell you what it is) a little better? I respect Nick Castle, quite possibly the greatest head tilter in the history of the movies, but I don’t think he ever became the director he wanted to be.

This movie has a pretty good pitch behind it, and a couple of good performers cashing a check (Preston and O’Herlihy), but not much else.

Everyone wants to celebrate movies which were one of the first (this one and Tron (1982)) to use CGI. Honestly, I need to ask why? The vast majority of CGI ceases to work on an even basic level within five years of release. The effects here had to look like it belonged in a toothbrush commercial by 1986.

I could see why a studio executive green lit the movie in the first place. It’s like Star Wars (1977), who cares if it is a thoroughly cheap alternative? After 1983, it’s not like George Lucas is going to make anything else to compete…

Ahem.

I’m normally one to feel an extra pang of nostalgia for pantheon of 80s sci-fi, but I might, *might* be prepared to dub this one the worst of the genre. Even Dune (1984) had failed ambitions.

Apparently, I do think I can do it better.

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?