IT - Chapter One (2017)

Director: Andy Muschietti

Cast: Jaeden Lieberher, Bill Skarsgård, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Sophie Lillis

Have I Seen it Before: I can’t believe I look back on seeing this in the theater as a simpler time, but I do… It’s hard to forget how terrifying in an unhinged sort of way that the “slideshow” scene was. I wasn’t even 100% sure what had happened in that scene, and it was only about 2:00 AM that following morning before I realized I had neglected to fall asleep in favor of trying to decode on a cinematic level what happened in just that scene.

Did I Like It: It’s unfortunate that IT - Chapter Two (2019) was such a befuddling disappointment, because this film ends up getting the short shrift in that deal. Whereas the conclusion so thoroughly misses the mark in every possible way (while at the same time not winding up completely embarrassing), this film capitalizes on every potential pitfall and turns it into an opportunity to make a better film.

Skarsgård has the tallest task on spec, as Tim Curry is the only consistently good thing about the first, made-for-TV adaptation It (1990). Literally no other performer in either parts of this new adaptation has been compared to their predecessor (or later on, the adults, although I did have some thoughts on Bill Hader vs. Harry Anderson). The new Pennywise acquits himself well and becomes just as iconic as his predecessor, which was no small accomplishment. His Pennywise harnesses some of the stranger elements from the source material and makes the entity less merely a murderous clown and more the ancient evil from within cosmos that he always could have been. His is the only thing that survives two movies essentially unscathed.

But the movie’s true secret weapon lies with the kids. Casting a batch of Losers could have been a big swing and a miss, but not only does each of the kids indelibly occupy their role (although Mike Hanlon (Chosen Jacobs) gets far less development than the character deserves), but they have such a seemingly genuine chemistry amongst one another that I can almost understand Muschietti’s impulse to keep the kids in the second part, even though their stories are effectively concluded here. Now, if only they had managed to pull that off the second time around… If it helps, I think the story of the children might just be more interesting than the adults, and Chapter Two never really had a chance.

Night at the Museum (2006)

Director: Shawn Levy

Cast: Ben Stiller, Carla Gugino, Dick Van Dyke, Robin Williams

Have I Seen it Before: Never. Which elicited a shocked response and an immediate vow to rectify from my wife… I didn’t know it was so important. I’m hesitant to admit—even if it may be implied—that I’ve never seen the sequels, either.

Did I Like It: It’s hard not to like a movie like this. It was very carefully orchestrated to be pleasing and unchallenging. 

The story all fits together, if unremarkably. It’s not astonishingly funny at any moment, but any kid who saw it way back when couldn’t have been judged too harshly for cackling at the antics on display. There’s even enough of a current of intellectual curiosity at the core of the movie—with the possible byproduct of encouraging kids to actually want to visit a museum. It wouldn’t appeal only to stupid kids, or make otherwise bright children any dumber. That’s more than we can expect from many films aimed at children.

Every actor is likable, and selected for the specific purpose of being imminently likable. Indeed, is there another performer in the history of the moving picture more able to elicit those sort of feelings than Dick Van Dyke? Even Robin Williams was in One Hour Photo, and for that matter, Popeye (1980). That’s kind of a strange miracle in a film which features Ricky Gervais, a performer whose built an entire career out of being iconically unlikable.

Is it wrong for a film to be bland in this fashion? I think not, it has modest goals and largely accomplishes them. It’s not subversive in the slightest, and while one may be implied to knock the film for not reaching for more, is it more a knock against a studio system no longer capable of making children’s fare that is at all subversive. Then again, across all criteria, I may very well be the unreasonable one for even wanting something like that.

Halloween Kills (2021)

Director: David Gordon Green

Cast: Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer, Andi Matichak, Will Patton

Have I Seen it Before: Nope. Two new movies in such a short amount of time. What an embarrassment of riches. I caught the movie on Peacock because a) Still not entirely sure who would be breathing on me in a movie theater, so if there’s another option, why not go for it and b) I can take a watch through the shockingly good Saved by the Bell relaunch.

Wasn’t thinking one of my reviews of the Halloween movies would include a reference to Saved by the Bell, but here we are…

Did I Like It: Hawkins (Patton) lives! Is that enough for a review? Probably not. I so enjoyed that character, and was injured by his apparent death in the last film, I’m willing to give the whole affair a pass.

As a sequel to Green’s Halloween (2018), it is probably safe to say that this film isn’t the same uniformly satisfying experience. I think that, largely, is fueling some of the negative reaction* to the film. Characters are introduced (in many cases, reintroduced) at a lightning pace, and disposed of nearly as quickly. Jamie Lee Curtis—such a vital, essential presence in the last film—is relegated to a hospital bed for the runtime, echoing some of the stranger decisions in Halloween II (1981). I don’t buy for a moment that the men who live in the Myers house now are somehow the only people in town who weren’t aware (or suspected, or were ready to form a mob because) Myers was on a rampage again. The film is perhaps a bit too obsessed with the mythology of the character that I can’t help but get the sinking feeling the next film will commit that most odious sin and try to explain Myers.

The shape (if you’ll forgive the expression) of this trilogy is incomplete, and so this film might end up being remembered as something of a fundamental mess, or perhaps just a victim of the middle-trilogy syndrome. I get the sense that Green and Company have some very specific ideas for what the forthcoming Halloween Ends will look like, and this movie is largely a clearing house from the last film, when it isn’t obsessed with setting the table for the next.

But there are plenty of things to like about the film. The flashbacks to 1978 (a sequence which was attempted for the last movie, but cut for budgetary reason) are great fun, and only add to the hero that is Sheriff Hawkins. When the film finally unleashes in its final minutes, it does so in a rather surprising fashion. A Carpenter score is a Carpenter score, and you can never go wrong with it.

Ultimately, any review really must exist in context. Anyone who hates this movie is either so weighed down by unreasonable expectations, determined to react to every movie in bad faith, or has not watched any of the other films recently. I watched all of them in the last week, and it’s clear this is one of the better films to feature Michael Audrey Myers, just not the best.

*Interesting note. Peacock posts the current Rotten Tomatoes score on the HUD when the movie is paused or just starting to play. The film’s score went up a whole percent while we watched the vanity cards. I’ve never seen the consensus change (to very nearly fresh, no less) as I started watching a film.

No Time To Die (2021)

Director: Cary Joji Fukunaga

Cast: Daniel Craig, Rami Malek, Léa Seydoux, Lashana Lynch

Have I Seen it Before: Where to even begin with a question like that? The film was originally scheduled to be released in April of 2020. I had even scheduled some time off to make a day of it.

We all know what happened there.

In fact, this is the first new movie* since Birds of Prey (2020) I’ve seen in the theater. This is also the first new movie showing only in theaters that I had any interest in seeing immediately. When it comes to Bond, it feels like the biggest screen possible is the way to go, so I booked a seat on Monday afternoon at the biggest theater I could find…

…and it was nearly abandoned, because the world is still pretty fucked up, right? It’s almost as if the theatrical experience is less about the collective experience** of a film and more about the seeing epic cinematography on the largest palette possible in a room that naturally eschews distractions.

I’m also struck by the little pieces of the theatrical experience. Seeing a melange of trailers, and being thoroughly disinterested in some (Jackass Forever) and being completely entranced by others which had not really been on my radar up until that point (Last Night in Soho). It had also been an astonishingly long time since I sat in a dark room, waiting for things to get started, and the prevailing thought I have racing through my mind is: “Did I forget to lock my car? I’m not going all the way out to the parking lot to check.

It was almost like it was early 2020 again. If only for a moment.

Did I Like It: Whew. After all that, is there anything left to talk about?

Plenty.

I’ve always thought On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969) was a throughly underrated entry in the Bond series. It’s scope is top-notch, it’s (relatively) grounded story harkens to the best that Ian Fleming’s books had to offer. The final moment is heartbreaking, and only undercut by the fact that Connery isn’t in the role so we could watch what was left of his heart break. He could have also torn through Diamonds Are Forever (1971) like a wild animal, instead of what we got… Even if Lazenby had either decided or been allowed to stick around in the role, that wrenching pathos might have been there in retrospect. Given that he was a one-off, that moment doesn’t quite reach the heights it could have.

Well, now we’re here.

I might say that this film owes a bit too much to Service, having to create at least part of its context through references to that earlier film’s dialogue and soundtrack. This is ultimately a minor complaint, because Craig’s longevity in role establishes that context in spades. It makes the story of his Bond a complete one, and earns that pathos.

There had always been a disconnect in the series (both in print and on film) where Bond’s more prurient impulses are often written off to an acute sense of mortality, but there’s never a moment where his continuing, perpetual survival is in doubt. That’s no longer the case. The film might be a little on the engorged side, and this only serves to make the climax perhaps an inch too intricate for its own good, but those are minor concerns, especially when we’re less than twenty years away from Die Another Day (2002).

I don’t know where the series may go from here, but I’m delighted by the possibilities. I stayed until the very end of the credits to ensure that, indeed, “James Bond will return.” 

Some might complain about a degree of demasculinization for the character, but I’m not with this line of thinking in the slightest. I’ve been walking a little bit taller and a bit more confidently now, days after I took in the film. Both this film and Craig’s time in the role will be remembered as all-time heights for the series. I’d say the potential complainers need to get over themselves, but I don’t need to tell them that. They’re going to get over it all on their own without my help.

*Since getting my full round of vaccinations, I have been to anniversary screenings of Fargo (1996) and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986).

**Come to think of it, more often than not, the majority of other people are a thing to endure in a movie theater. In this instance, all I needed was one person to blurt out something along the lines of “This kinda crap would never have happened when Roger Moore was around!” to bring down the whole experience.

Halloween II (2009)

Director: Rob Zombie

Cast: Malcolm McDowell, Tyler Mane, Sheri Moon Zombie, Brad Dourif

Have I Seen it Before: Yes. After my initial reactions to Halloween (2007), I’m not entirely sure why I would subject myself to it, and I even remember having a good laugh at the fact that the first time I tried to watch it on disc, my PS3 refused to recognize the disc.

Almost as if it were trying to protect me.

Did I Like It: I think one of the big problems I had with Zombie’s original film was that for all of the hype of his “unique vision,” the film couldn’t help but just be a tinny, discordant retread of the really original Halloween (1978).

Can’t really say that about this one, now, can we?

If we really must deal with a Michael Myers (Mane) stripped of any of the artifice of previous films (indeed, he lurches through large portions of the film unmasked, an he even talks) then maybe, just maybe this is the best possible version of that interpretation? I’m tempted to say it is. I’m confident that this is a much better film than Zombie’s first attempt. I’m even pleased to say that Zombie’s largely kept his worst impulses under control, aside from a few moments.

The visual flourishes show a greater deal of imagination on Zombie’s part, and the violence is once again unflinching.

That might be the one problem I continue to have with Zombie’s attempts. The violence is unsettling, which is certainly a choice. It keeps us from being desensitized in our passive observation, but despite all of this, I can’t help but think Zombie still view Myers as the hero of the piece. He’s ready to tear apart every other character (sometimes literally) and make them angry, hateful version of their predecessors. Is there no hope—if even for catharsis—in a Rob Zombie movie? Is that the whole point?

Halloween (2007)

Director: Rob Zombie

Cast: Malcolm McDowell, Sheri Moon Zombie, Tyler Mane, Scout Taylor-Compton

Have I Seen it Before: Ugh. Yes. Let’s start with a note before I even begin this screening. There are few films which have annoyed me more over the years. But this time, I’m going to try and take the film in under its own terms and see if I can’t come to some kind of peace with the film. Let’s see how it works.

Did I Like It: I want to start the review proper with the things that are good, or at least I can get behind in the film.

After a litany of director-for-hires making under protest films they really didn’t want to, Rob Zombie is a director offering a vision of the material.

Malcolm McDowell is legitimately terrific casting for the new Sam Loomis. He has close enough to Donald Pleasance’s energy, with just a pinch more sinister cynicism and a bit less campy magic to make him a new presence.

Zombie’s depiction of violence is visceral. It’s impossible to be desensitized by this film, if for no other reason than its primary goal from moment to moment is not to entertain, but to provide discomfort.

I’m trying to find other things, and I will admit that I probably didn’t viscerally hate the movie on this screening, but I still don’t like it. Ultimately, I’m not a fan of Zombie’s aesthetic, and it is here in spades. He recasts Myers (Daeg Faerch as a child, Tyler Mane as an adult) not as the boy down the street who inexplicably became the visage of evil. Here, the kid meaner than the meanest bully becomes and even meaner person as time progresses. Myers is so over-explained, and in such a pedestrian way that I honestly can’t tell—despite all of the nauseating violence on display—whether or not Zombie wants us to root for the shape.

And that startling new vision? It’s more often than not watered down, usually collapsing under either a need to have four or five different climaxes, or just aping the scenes from the Carpenter original.

I’m not a purist, or at least I try not to be, but I find making Myers just another psychopath with a checklist of every little element in the DSM.

And that’s what Zombie is, ultimately. Cheap.

After all that, I need a break before I even dream of taking in Halloween II (2009)…

Halloween: Resurrection (2002)

Director: Rick Rosenthal

Cast: Busta Rhymes, Bianca Kajlich, Thomas Ian Nicholas, Katee Sackhoff

Have I Seen it Before: It was, indeed released on my 18th birthday. After a screening that weekend of Road to Perdition (2002) that ended more depressingly than could be exclusively blamed on the film itself, some pals and I went to go see this to try and save the weekend from itself.

And damned if I didn’t have a great time with it.

Did I Like It: This is not to say that I’m going to take the borderline psychotic view that Halloween: Resurrection is a better film than Sam Mendes’ crime epic, just that I would make the point that taking in a movie at a certain time in one’s life can create wildly—sometimes laughably—subjective opinions.

A lot of time has passed since that screening 19 years ago, and the movie has since descended into a lot of noise. The first reel of the film serves only to discount Halloween H20 (1998), and is interesting only in the sense that it looks like Jamie Lee Curtis is being held against her will. The rest of the film is a mishmash of half-formed ideas, moments filled with anti-tension, and choices (Kung Fu, anyone?) that to recommend the film would be an act of sadism. 

The film no longer engages or entertains, it only distracts. My big takeaway all these years later is that people in Haddonfield don’t know how to count. Myers (Brad Loree) is often referred to as variations of America’s worst mass murderer, but it also—discounting the continuity of Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988), Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989), and Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995)—notes that, combined total, Michael Myers has killed about a dozen people over the course of 20 years. In an era of mass shootings, and only a year after 9/11, that comes across as a slightly ridiculous statement in a film that is already filled to the brim with them. Hell, when we throw John Wayne Gacy into the mix, Myers is not even the Illinois state champ.

And yet, the movie—try as it might—is not without some positive developments. For one thing, Myers’ mask looks pretty okay, that already has the film mastering one element that other sequels perpetually whiffed. 

To move beyond the superficial, the film does largely try to jettison the mythology of familicide that has weighed down even the more watchable of the previous sequels, but never gains anywhere near the needed velocity to break orbit from the past. To go further, it turns a dim eye toward previous attempts to explain the evil that lives within Myers. Both impulses were reckoned with far more effectively in the eventual Halloween (2018), and so these attempts to be new and interesting only serve to illuminate how severely off the mark the series has travelled from the John Carpenter original…

Then again, I still have my rewatch of the Rob Zombie films to look forward to. So, things could always be worse.

Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later (1998)

Director: Steve Miner

Cast: Jamie Lee Curtis, Josh Hartnett, Michelle Williams, LL Cool J

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure. I do remember the first time I ever heard about the film. Jamie Lee Curtis was presenting at some awards show, and was introduced as the star of the upcoming Halloween: H20. I was naturally intrigued that Curtis was returning to the series, but based on the title I assumed Laurie Strode had become some kind of latter-day Jacques Cousteau and her brother had come to hunt his sister on some seabase on the ocean floor, like Sphere (1998) meets the original Halloween (1978)…

…actually, now that I think about it, that wouldn’t be the worst possible conceit for a movie. A slasher movie on a submarine. I kinda want to do that now. I might very well do it now.

Anyway…

Did I Like It: The Halloween series, after the wobbly, disjoined affair that was Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995) was doomed to follow the path set by other Dimension properties—like Hellraiser*—to direct-to-video depths.

I can’t help but wonder if that might have been better for the series as a whole. The movies—free of meeting corporate requirements for a wide theatrical release—could have gotten a lot weirder. Halloween has never been better than when its being completely ignored by the world at large.

But that’s not the world we live in now, nor is it the world where Thorn governs Michael Myers’ predilections, and every employee of Smiths Grove (except that one) was in on it. This is the world where Jamie Lee Curtis decided to become nostalgic for the beginnings of her career.

The movie that results is slight before it is anything else. Indeed, it has the shortest running time of any in the series, owing largely to the fact that an entire subplot revolving around the detective called to investigate the murder of Nurse Chambers (Nancy Stephens) and his hunt for the Shape.

And yet, there’s an argument to be made that the film could be even shorter. Something has happened to my Blu Ray over the years since I bought it, and it skipped it’s way through several sequences. This didn’t take anything away from the experience, though. That’s not an exceptionally strong endorsement for the movie, I realize. I’m tempted to think that it owes too much to Scream (1996) (which, in turn, owes too much to the original Halloween). A copy of a copy won’t be as sharp as original. Multiplicity (1996) taught me that much. Also, the one-two punch of Halloween: Resurrection (2002) and Halloween (2018) rendered any of the films strengths mostly moot.

And then there’s the mask… As much as I complain about the mask in previous sequels, here it looks mostly okay. Until it absolutely doesn’t. Some reshooting after test screenings necessitated the mask being grafted on via CGI. If there’s one thing that CGI in the 90s did really well, it was recreate things that were already real objects at other points in the film.

You can try to explain to me why they couldn’t just use a single mask, or at least a single mold of a mask, but I don’t think I’ll ever understand it.

*At one point, after Freddy vs. Jason (2003), there was even talk of forcing the Shape to go toe-to-pin with Pinhead. Let us thank Thorn that we avoided that, or at the very least, that I have avoided having to write about.

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 III: Season of the Witch (1983)

Director: Tommy Lee Wallace

Cast: Tom Atkins, Stacey Nelkin, Dan O’Herlihy, Michael Currie

Have I Seen it Before: I mean, almost always under protest, but yeah…

Did I Like It: There’s seems to be a moment in the life of every reviled sequel where people travel full circle on the spectrum of hating a movie to then turning around and insisting that a the film is not just better than we remember it, but in fact a secret work of genius.

Both reactions smack of being disingenuous.

This film isn’t quite as bad as it was judged on early reactions. Indeed, the film possesses both a John Carpenter score and cinematography from Dean Cundey. Those two elements alone would recommend a film on spec. 

The story is interesting enough, for the most part, if a little derivative of other films. Indeed, the initial hostile reaction to the film was not only too strong, but likely short-sighted. Had moviegoers gone for it more enthusiastically, then the series might have continued with its anthology hopes, and we could have gotten an army of Carpenter-produced (and scored) films with Dean Cundey’s camerawork before the bloom fully fell off the jack-o-lantern. It would have distinguished the series far better from its contemporaries, at the very least.

But, really? The movie kind of sucks. Maybe it establishes mood more effectively than the subsequent sequels even attempted. Maybe it goes to the wall with its bleak aesthetic and leaves it up to the viewer as to whether every kid in America is going to get their skull eaten by Stonehenge-powered Halloween masks…

And when I write that last sentence, the whole damn falls apart. First of all, why is every kid in America only interested in these three masks? Did no one want to be Batman for Halloween? Frankenstein’s Monster? Hell, Michael Myers (especially as the original Halloween (1978) is airing throughout the film)? Who the hell wants to be a Jack-o-Lantern? 

Beyond the fundamental implausibility of the whole conceit, the special effects we’re subjected to during this process are ridiculous to the point of being embarrassing. They take me right out of the movie…

But I still can’t help but wonder what the series would have looked like in another world… 

House of Dracula (1945)

Director: Erle C. Kenton

Cast: Lon Chaney, Jr., Martha O’Driscoll, John Carradine, Lionel Atwill

Have I Seen it Before: As with the rest of the Universal monsters, I viewed everything in that canon just before I set about writing these reviews. This one lives interchangeably in my memory with House of Frankenstein (1944).

Did I Like It: Which doesn’t exactly bode well for a review. 

The charms of the monster mashup on spec exist, but there is something diminished here. Maybe the war had just ended and America was in too good of a mood to create grand horror entertainments just yet. Maybe it’s that Karloff has moved on from the Universal horror canon after the previous film. Just as much as I missed the presence of Karloff in the role of Frankenstein’s Monster in that previous film, I now miss him altogether. Ah, well. There’s always the chance to go back to the James Whale-directed Frankenstein films to relive the glory days of the series.

Ultimately, the films scant runtime ensure that it can’t wear out its welcome, even if it doesn’t quite make a case for its own existence. To say that it is slightIndeed, I’m finding it a challenge to come up with the necessary 300 words to fill an entire review. It is nice to see Dracula (Carradine) even briefly reckon with his own monstrous quality, even it is mostly used as grift for a B Sci-Fi plot. It’s also good that Universal kept making these films, as it will eventually begat the superlative Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), and contribute to the enjoyable The Monster Squad (1987), and create a framework that has allowed Marvel Studios to create largely engaging (if occasionally exhausting) entertainments for the foreseeable future.

House of Frankenstein (1944)

Director: Erle C. Kenton

Cast: Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney, Jr., John Carradine, J. Carroll Naish

Have I Seen it Before: As with nearly the entire canon of Universal Monsters, I marched through an entire box set of the films a number of years ago, just before I started these reviews.

Did I Like It: There’s a pulpy quality to these later Universal horror films whose charms can’t quite be denied. It also gives the pretext for what would one day become Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), one of the great films not just of the series, but of all time. Each of the individual properties in the Universal Horror canon have maybe grown beyond the point where they could sustain their own films, so we engage in big-time meetups. At the time, it was the province of B-movies. Now, it’s one of the governing commercial principles of the movies.

This film is slight, befitting its status, but there are charms beyond just the the idea of a monster mashup which keep this individual film lively. Karloff is here, which is good, but he’s sadly (if understandably) not playing Frankenstein’s Monster. The most ubiquitous version of the monster is not actually from Karloff’s depiction of the character in Frankenstein (1931), Bride of Frankenstein (1935), or Son of Frankenstein (1939), but instead Glenn Strange’s portrayal here and throughout the rest of the series. It’s one of those strange bummers of film history—and this film in particular— which I wished I didn’t know.

Oddly enough, the cell-animated bats used for one of Dracula’s (Carradine*) other forms are—while not good—somehow better than the dangling puppets used all-too regularly during Lugosi’s original film.

*We thankfully don’t have to suffer through Chaney’s mumbling attempts at the Count from Son of Dracula (1943) from a year prior. Chaney sticks to The Wolf Man, what he does best.

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?

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)

Director: Peter Jackson

Cast: Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Liv Tyler, Viggo Mortensen

Have I Seen it Before: I expressed during my review for The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) that I’m not entirely sure if I’ve seen anything beyond The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), which I have a very clear memory of seeing during its theatrical run. With The Two Towers, that was largely because I thought the middle-part of Middle Earth just dragged through its massive runtime with nothing but incident to recommend it, but here…?

Did I Like It: Here, I’m not sure I’ve seen this one before because after nearly its nearly 4 1/2 hours runtime, I actually kind of sort of liked it?

I know, I was as surprised as anyone else…

I always thought that my lack of enjoyment for the series in the past had stemmed from the fact that I had never read the original Tolkien text. Before this viewing, I did just that. Maybe that helped? Hard to tell.

Yes, there are stretches where I feel like both Tolkien and Jackson are content to spin their wheels while a conclusion to the saga looms (willfully?) just beyond their reach, but once things finally move on, the story takes on a great poignancy. That might have been predictable, as I’ve often expressed my antipathy to the series largely stems from my essential Hobbit-ness. The fact that I actually enjoy scenes set in the Shire a great deal, and can never quite understand why anyone would leave. Once things return to Hobbiton, I’m having a good time again.

But then everyone decides to take the last boat out of Rivendell* and I’m still left scratching my head. Why leave? Thus, I’ve come full circle.

*Which I could hear a thousand time—and probably did—and each time think they’re saying “Riverdale” and I keep thinking of, well, not the TV show but the actual Archie comics. I come to these movies (and the story) differently.

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)

Director: Peter Jackson

Cast: Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Liv Tyler, Viggo Mortensen

Have I Seen it Before: Sure? I eschewed everything after The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) during their theatrical run, but having been married to a dyed-in-the-wool Tolkienite for ten years, I’m sure I must have sit through it at some point.

Did I Like It: That’s not exactly the most upbeat note to begin a review on, no? The middle part of movie trilogies have a problem. They are all noise and incident, serving mainly as connective tissue between the stirring opening and the rousing conclusion. Even Star Wars - Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980), for all of its strengths is largely an assembly of connections, topped with a surprise ending that hasn’t really been a surprise to anyone in over 40 years. It might be controversial to say, but aside from the freeway sequence, I don’t think The Matrix Reloaded (2003) had much that happened in at all. Even Back to the Future - Part II (1989) stands as an incomplete story, but I enjoy that world and characters so much, that it fails to diminish my enjoyment of the film even a little bit.

And I think that’s the standard which dictates how much someone will enjoy the part two of a trilogy. The Tolkien cycle never has and, at this point, likely never will hit me on the same level as it does the most of you. Thus, this becomes my least favorite in the series. This will seem vaguely sacrilegious to some, mainly my wife who counts this as her favorite in the series. She’s probably reading this now and shaking her head, even if she’s not surprised by the judgment. Hi, honey. We’ll get to The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) here in a minute. I love you.

Anyway, the main meat of Gollum’s (Andy Serkis) contributions to the story are here, but aside from that, everyone seems mainly consumed with battles that aren’t the real battles they will have to deal with in the next film.

Son of Dracula (1943)

Director: Robert Siodmak

Cast: Lou Chaney, Jr., Louise Allbritton, Robert Paige, Evelyn Ankers

Have I Seen it Before: Yes, and I have almost no memory of it during my previous march through the classic Universal Monsters canon. 

Did I Like It: In my review of Dracula’s Daughter (1936) I scratched my head, wondering why they didn’t actually use the main character. Even if Lugosi was unavailable for any number of reasons, they could have recast the role, as it wasn’t like they were hesitant about that in the years to come.

Well, forget all of that. I was wrong. 

Chaney is so spectacularly miscast in the part of Dracula. He can’t avoid sounding and looking like he feels real bad about everything he does. That kind of guilt written on his face works for a werewolf, sure, but using it for the visage of Count Dracula never feels right. 

The film proceeds with no continuity to the original story (somehow even less than Dracula’s Daughter) but still has the same, bland qualities of those earlier films. It evaporates from the mind almost immediately after the end credits roll, so much so to the point where I am mildly struggling with enough to say about the film to fill full review. 

So, it’s with a fair amount of irony that the film’s superb forgettability also yields its greatest weakness. Apparently, those charged with the preservation and maintenance of older films didn’t think much of this third Dracula outing, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a film presented so poorly on a commercially available DVD. Large stretches of sound effects are so filled with pops and crackles that the entire film sounds like an ancient radio play written onto a wax drum that had been left out in the sun since V-J day. A scene with a large fireplace is borderline unintelligible. I’m not entirely sure why Universal even bothered to re-release this one. I’m not sure if anyone would miss it.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings (2001)

Director: Peter Jackson

Cast: Elijah Wood, Ian McKellan, Liv Tyler, Viggo Mortensen

Have I Seen it Before: Sure. Hell, I was there on opening weekend. That was mainly because there wasn’t much else to do on that particular Friday night. If you happened to be in that particular auditorium, I was the one who laughed when Frodo (Wood) used the alias Mr. Underhill.

But that was only because it was the same alias Chevy Chase used at the country club in Fletch (1985).

Yes, I was that guy. It’s nice to see you again. I sure hope I didn’t ruin the movie for you.

Did I Like It: Look, I’m not the guy for Tolkien. Yes, I’ve read the books, but only recently. I’m not much for world building for the sake of world building, thus the Middle Earth canon and most of high fantasy just misses me.

But then again, this might very well be my favorite of all the Peter Jackson Tolkien films. I think that’s mainly because, for all of the sturm and drang that accompanies these stories, I always feel the proceedings lose something imminently pleasant when they leave the shire. I want to stay there and be among the hobbits. I’m not much for farming, but a good meal, and enough peace and quiet to write a book or seven suits me just fine. These adventures we keep getting dragged on run just a bit too long, and searches for far too many endings than one story ought to hold. Yes, the pictures are pretty. Yes, the actors play their parts well. Yes, the music is stirring. But I think I’ll stay here if it’s all the same to you.

Oh, you know what? It’s become abundantly clear I’m just Bilbo. That’s why this all hits a little bit different for me. I’m Bilbo. Everyone else can carry on. I’ll see you all in the third movie.

Dracula’s Daughter (1936)

Director: Lambert Hillyer

Cast: Otto Kruger, Gloria Holden, Marguerite Churchill, Edward van Sloan

Have I Seen it Before: I acquired a big box-set containing as many films featuring the classic Universal Monsters several years ago. It took me a number of years to get through all of the films featured—indeed, every sub-set focussed on a particular monster had a copy of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)—but as this came right on the heels of Dracula (1931), I watched it very early in the process.

Did I Like It: It is a slight movie, and yet more cinematically inventive than the original. That’s not hard, as the original Dracula—despite it’s seminal image of Lugosi as the Count—has all of the inventive camera work of a C-SPAN marathon.

Lugosi is long gone by this point—indeed, he only ever resumed the role in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)—and the real heat in the monster movie was on Frankenstein, as the superlative Bride of Frankenstein (1935) had thoroughly dominated. We’re stuck with some follow-up to the original story, and that legacy is largely put on the shoulders of Professor van Helsing (Sloan).

And from there, the story unfolds largely the same. There’s a square jawed hero, a damsel in distress, and more than enough flimsy looking bats on wires. Holden provides a suitably spooky image as the new vampire, but as memory fades after just a couple of years between screenings, even that can’t lift the film up like the original.

One can’t imagine why they didn’t resurrect the Count for this story. Maybe there was a problem with Lugosi, but even still, so many people have played the role, and it wasn’t like Universal was squeamish about recasting Frankenstein’s Monster after Karloff swore the part off. They could have still used the daughter. Use both of them!