Tag Archives: M

The Mummy Returns (2001)

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Man, Evie and Rick O’Connell have to be two of the most incompetent movie heroes ever conceived. Not only do they bring the mummy to life in the first movie, but in the opening of the second film, they desecrate a tomb, and steal a sacred bracelet that their snot nosed son slips on. Even worse, their son is kidnapped, and said bracelet is going to kill him in a week if he doesn’t find a mythical oasis. There’s a big difference between being an average Joe adventurer like Indiana Jones, and a bungling nincompoop like the O’Connell’s. Seriously, is it so hard to watch one child? And if you’re handling priceless artifacts that are absolutely irreplaceable, why entrust it to an eight year old kid?

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The Mummy (1999)

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Stephen Sommers’ ridiculously successful reboot of “The Mummy” is a film that almost gets the formula correct. It’s like a cocktail of action, comedy, romance, horror, and adventure that almost becomes the perfect marriage of sub-genres, but never quite hits the mark; even when it’s at its best. “The Mummy” is incredibly uneven and tough to really respond to, because Sommers seems to want to opt for action, while Universal seems anxious to embrace the horror. Thus it’s all so unbalanced and drags down an action horror comedy hybrid with potential to be a classic.

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My Boyfriend’s Back (1993)

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my-boyfriends-backIt’s unusual how a film made in 1993 actually feels like it was made in 1983. And that’s likely because of producer Sean Cunningham and composer Harry Manfredini, both of whom inject an eighties atmosphere that makes Bob Balaban’s “My Boyfriend’s Back” a surreal but entertaining zombie romance comedy with a very funny script by Dean Lorey. It even has something of a Tim Burton aesthetic where the small town the story is set feels perpetually stuck in the fifties despite being the nineties.

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Machine Head (2014)

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Jim Valdez’s “Machine Head” is a triple threat. The acting is abysmal, the directing is bush league, and the writing is incoherent nonsense. And what’s worse is the movie seems to be competing with itself to see which aspect is worse than the others. This results in a nearly unwatchable and putrid horror film that has no idea what it wants to be. Sometimes it’s a thriller, sometimes a slasher, and sometimes a road horror film in the vein of “Duel.” Truly, when you see the final scene that book ends this tripe, you’ll laugh, roll your eyes, and move on to something worth your time.

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Mothman (2010)

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With a B movie like “Mothman,” you can only laugh it off. What keeps the film from really taking off as an effective horror entry is that it’s so painfully derivative of “I Know What You Did Last Summer.” Jewel Staite stars as Katharine, a young girl a part of a small group that goes camping. One night during a swim with her friends, they decide to pull a prank on the youngest in the group resulting in an accidental drowning. So frightened are they by this that they decide to cover it up, and pretend it was one big accident. Why?

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The Mothman Prophecies (2002)

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How have we not had a great movie about the Mothman yet? It’s one of the creepiest urban legends in American folklore and one of the spookiest series of events to unfold, and we still don’t have a compelling horror film about the phenomenon yet. Richard Gere stars as reporter Jeff Klein, a man who travels to West Virginia to potentially buy a new house with his wife Mary (Debra Messing). While driving home, Mary is frightened to her wits by a red winged demon that causes them to veer off the road and hit her head on the glass.

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Mosquito (1995)

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“You’re living science fact!”

An alien ship crash lands in a swamp in the wilderness. But that’s unimportant–giant mosquitoes! What about the aliens, you say? Who cares? Giant Mosquitoes! It’s too bad we never saw what happened when humans drank alien blood. Do they too become gigantic? I think we deserve an answer. Director Gary Jones’ “Mosquito” is pure mid-nineties STV junk, but damn is it a good time. If you’re going to name a movie “Mosquito” (and it’s not a metaphor) you’d better serve us some giant mosquitoes, and director Jones supplies the goods.

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