You would think a horror movie about a killer doll would age after so many years. And you’d be correct. “Child’s Play” while not the worst movie ever made, certainly has lost much of its impact since its initial release. It’s not a horrifying movie by any means, but it’s not the worst of the killer doll sub-genre I’ve ever seen. Chucky may not be the Zuni Fetish Doll from “Trilogy of Terror” but he’s a charming horror character you love to hate.
What Stephen King’s adaptation of “Cycle of the Werewolf” has going for it, beyond everything else, is heart. In many ways, “Silver Bullet” is a multi-faceted horror film that can appeal to fans of family dramas and murder mysteries. “Silver Bullet” is a tension soaked eighties horror film that demonstrates rich characterization and complex feelings with a villain who isn’t completely black and white when all is said and done. Even the worst afflictions can rot anyone who means well enough, and “Silver Bullet” shines a light on two characters with afflictions they can not battle who have potential to rot from the inside out. One individual has embraced the darkness, and the other insists on seeing the bright side of everything, even in the face of pain, misery, and pure evil staring him right in the face.
The team of 1428 Films is at it again, and this time they’re giving Jason Voorhees, the man behind the mask, his due. If folks loved “Never Sleep Again” and it’s extended run time, you’ll be glad to find out that “Crystal Lake Memories” is an exhaustive and lengthy documentary running almost seven hours. This allows for funny, wry, and honest looks in to every single installment of the series. Including the remake. With narration by series star Corey Feldman, “Crystal Lake Memories” traces the series back to when “Friday the 13th” began life as a low budget production at half a million dollars. Thanks to the introduction of Wes Craven’s “Last House on the Left” along with John Carpenter’s iconic “Halloween,” the creators set out to make their own mark with a holiday themed horror film.
What does your average run of the mill slasher do on his time off? Eventually your hockey masked slasher has to unwind and recharge right? Kristjan Lyngmo’s short animated film is rather genius, in that it not only features a hockey masked slasher, but one of a lineage of hockey masked slashers who divides his time between murdering hapless campers and coming home to deal with everyday problems.
It’s Jason vs. the eighties version of Carrie White. Because… why the hell not, right? At this point the Paramount series had just about run out of ideas for characters. Tommy Jarvis imprisoned Jason in his underwater chamber doomed to float for all eternity, and there was really nowhere left to go from here. It’s almost like the ending of “H20.” Laurie Strode chopped Michael’s head off. The end! But is it? Yeah, it is. Oh really? No. No it’s not. Aw hell, let’s squeeze another sequel out of our corn holes! I need a new Porsche!
Watching “Dead Before Dawn” try to be funny is like going in to a third rate haunted house in the sticks on Halloween. It’s nice you’re trying really hard, but you really aren’t doing what you intend to. “Dead Before Dawn” tries to be many things, and one of them is a comedy. While it did elicit genuine laughs from me sporadically it manages to miss more than it hits. In fact by the end, the joke went on almost way too long. I was pretty relieved it ended or else I was afraid I’d begin to hate it.
Though it’s often thought of as the film that helped revive the animated film boom from Disney in the nineties, predating a string of hit films from the studio, “The Little Mermaid” is much like “Bambi.” It has amazing animation, and a wonderful soundtrack, but in the narrative frame, it’s unspectacular. While the former film garnered a nearly non-existent storyline with a simple resolution stretched in to ninety minutes, “The Little Mermaid” has almost nothing in the way of reasoning or logic for its heroine’s motives toward happiness.