Many people insist that Mel Brooks pretty much lost it once the nineties introduced itself. His comedy was somewhat outdated and he’d run out of material. I say thee nay! Sure, Mr. Brooks didn’t deliver any films in the level of “Blazing Saddles” in the nineties, but damn it I think his later efforts were entertaining in their own right. I think “Robin Hood: Men in Tights” is wacky fun, and you know what? I happen to find “Dracula: Dead and Loving It” to be hilarious on more than one occasion.
Director Ivan Reitman’s eighties classic has the advantage of being a film that can be appreciated in the context of its decade, and by literally anyone else. There’s something very relatable to the broader audiences who visit New York to follow four workaday ghost hunters battle a real foe in the form of an inter-dimensional demon. It also helps that “Ghostbusters” stars an ensemble of brilliant character actors, all of whom are perspective heavyweights in their own right.
The heroes of “Ghostbusters” aren’t flawless brooding men, but average Joes with paunches and flaws that make them absolutely relatable. It’s rare we can have a horror film with heroes who look like every day New Yorkers rather than the fit and virile young men that dominate the genre today. The four heroes in Reitman’s horror comedy are scientists and talk show guests who discuss paranormal beings and aren’t afraid to milk it for all the money they can get. But when an actual demonic entity is released within a lonely single woman’s house, the team of scientists becomes “The Ghostbusters.”
When all hell breaks loose, they go from local pariahs to immediate heroes and decide they must take it down the omnipotent monsters whether they like it or not. Sigourney Weaver (post-“Alien”) stars as Dana Barrett, a woman who literally discovers an alternate ghostly universe brewing in her refrigerator, and is possessed by the entity “Gozer the Gozerian.” The being is vicious and relentless. Through her, it plans to topple New York City within itself, and eventually dominate the world. Bill Murray is at his utter finest, channeling Bugs Bunny as the wise-cracking and hilarious Peter Venkman.
He’s the ham within the group who wants the fame and glory but won’t work for it. Harold Ramis is the leader who examines ghosts and their material form alongside friend Raymond Stantz who manages to help invent much of the ghostbuster technology including the “Phantom Zone”-esque vortex where all the captured ghosts are stored. He along with Dan Akroyd’s Ray Stantz perfect the team’s most popular devices, the proton guns which stun the ghosts, and their storage pod which can suck the ghosts for quick transfer. In spite of the great devices, the beauty lies in the mixture of horror and comedy in to a perfectly eccentric mold.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Ernie Hudson as Winston Zeddemore, probably the only religious member in a trio of pragmatists and scholars, who believes that the emergence of ghosts in New York is a sign of something very dire. While the group relish the increase in business, Wiston is hesitant to celebrate because he believes it to be an omen for a potential apocalypse. Hudson is an important member who also plays the role of the spectator for the audience, gazing at the awe inspiring but horrifying moments in the team’s battles, but standing alongside them courageously.
Director Reitman, along with crafty editing and top notch direction, is able to make magic off of the traditional green screen and puppetry effects. Case in point, the climax, which offers some of the best fantasy filmmaking ever, as the four finally face off against Gozer in the skyscraper, leading in to one the best filmed sequences of the genre. The writing, courtesy of Akroyd and Ramis really comes together with a perfect balance of terror and laughs that compile an exciting and fun genre hybrid rarely mastered.
Well if anything “Return III” doesn’t remake the first film as part II did. And it introduced us to the red haired goddess we know as Melinda Clarke. “Return III” is a goofy and kind of odd twist on the original film, but it packs in a pretty interesting romance, as well as staging the furnace scene from the first film again except with two people devastatingly in love.
Director Alex Craig Mann’s horror zombie comedy would probably like to be considered an amalgam of “Shaun of the Dead” with “The Breakfast Club.” And while those attempts at claiming both territories are admirable, his film never quite lives up to aspiring for both heights at all. Mann’s film starts out respectably, taking beats from “Shaun” with moments of school activity interrupted by zombies lurking in the background and stumbling in to class. And then suddenly everything goes to hell. The problem is while it seems to enjoy “Shaun” very much, it’s never as humorous or clever. When it has the chance to compensate for that flaw by focusing on rich and complex characters, it doesn’t do that as well as it should, either.
If you want a pure unadulterated ride in to the middle of the eighties, “The Goonies” is an inadvertent trip in to the complete mindset of the decade. Cyndi Lauper, adventure, escapism, work out obsession, coming of age, nostalgia for the sixties, a humongous Steven Spielberg influenced narrative, Corey Feldman, Richard Donner, Jonathan Ke Quan, if it was in the eighties, it’s likely here. That doesn’t act as a caveat, thankfully, as “The Goonies” is a very decade relevant film that still manages to work as an excellent child oriented fantasy adventure in the vein of “The Hardy Boys.”
Upon first glance, you’d think Brian DePalma directing a Stephen King Adaptation would be something disastrous. DePalma has spent most of his early career emulating Hitchcock, and delivering cerebral gems like “Sisters.” It’s a treat though that he ends up becoming one of the most crucial elements of “Carrie” and its adaptation. Because what the director can’t convey through special effects, he conveys through some amazing camera work and editing that still wows me to this day. “Carrie” is easily one of the best horror films, and revenge films ever made. It’s a brilliantly cast and deeply tragic story of a girl whose powers became the judgment day for many cruel individuals who preyed on the innocent.
It’s a remake! It’s a sequel! It’s a remake! It’s a sequel! No, it’s an homage! Who knows what “The Rage: Carrie 2” is. Like most “sequels” in the late nineties and early aughts, I imagine this was originally just called “The Rage,” and the studios decided to plug in a lot of continuity from Brian DePalma’s “Carrie.” A few quick fixes, and voila! We have a sequel to “Carrie” that no one wanted. “Carrie 2” is actually a solid dramatic thriller when all is said and done, the problem is it’s really not necessary. We don’t need to know what happened once Carrie White destroyed her entire student body.