“I like movies that make America look great. Like “Rambo III”!”
“Teenage Wasteland” is about as inept a slasher movie as you can get, and yet it’s oddly compelling. Once again campers begin disappearing at the hands of Angela, and no one really knows why or wants to know where they went. All Angela has to say is “They went somewhere” and that’s fine for the cannon fodder that appear throughout “Sleepaway Camp III.”
It didn’t take long for “Sleepaway Camp” to mock its own premise, as after the shocking ending to “Sleepaway Camp,” “Unhappy Campers” doesn’t miss a beat in re-introducing Angela. In fact she’s a puritanical camp counselor devoted to stopping the hormonal teenagers running wild in her camp, many of whom want to outdo Angela and run her out of camp with pranks that go awry thanks to Angela’s own clever thinking.
You would think in a time where films like “Blackenstein” and “Dr Black, and Mr, Hyde,” that “Blacula” would be one of the worst blaxploitation titles of its time. Despite the title, “Blacula” is actually one of the strongest vampire films of all time, and one of the creepiest of its sub-genre. “Blacula” is a tragic character drawn a victim to his blood lust who begins turning everyone in to his spawn when he finds himself alive in the twentieth century, and it’s a shock to see such an entertaining movie arise from a concept spun off from Count Dracula.
While the rights for “Candyman” are currently tied up, Scream Factory instead offers fans up the chance to watch the brutally boring sequel by Bill Condon. “Farewell to the Flesh” features more of the tragic hooked horror character, who is a combination of Freddy Krueger and Beetlejuice. Once a slave who was lynched for having an affair with a white woman, he emerges for vengeance every time someone mutters his name five times in a mirror.
It must either be really wise decision making, or a really weird coincidence that Eva Green stars in two Frank Miller based projects in 2014, both of which are pretty much just god awful cash grabs of their former films, and she ends up being about the best aspect of both films. Green really stole “Rise of an Empire” from everyone, and here she seems to embrace the absurdity in the incredibly rancid “A Dame to Kill For.” I’m not going to say I’m disappointed that “A Dame to Kill For” is awful, mainly because I didn’t ask for a sequel and I didn’t want one. I likened “Sin City” to Robert Rodriguez’s own wonky version of “Pulp Fiction.”
Do we need a sequel to “Pulp Fiction”? Hell no.
It’s kind of sad that “Blood Wings” is about as good as the series ever got. Surely the first film is good just as it is, but “Blood Wings” is about the only good sequel the movie series ever received, and I’m surprised the studios never sought to deliver higher quality follow-ups. You could technically count this as the final film in the series, and one that doesn’t completely realize the concept or expand on the mythos of the pumpkinhead monster. “Blood Wings” garners a smaller scale and much less logical tale about a dad wreaking havoc on the killers of his child, and focuses more on a witch, more reckless teens, and really awful performances all around.
The worst crime that “Shadow Recruit” is guilty of is that it’s mediocre. At no point was I worried for the characters because, I just didn’t care. We know Ryan fights another day, so why fear for his life? The studios can’t quite seem to decide if they want to turn Jack Ryan in to Jason Bourne, or just a geek chic techie, so in “Shadow Recruit” he’s both. One minute he’s zooming through New York in a motorcycle trying to chase down a fake police car intent on blowing up Wall Street, and the next he can barely finish a covert operation without the help of Kevin Costner’s guardian Thomas watching and re-assuring him from afar. At this point, it’s about time to really give up on the Jack Ryan character.