I have watched a number of films of varying quality in addition to James Bond and Harry Potter and I begin with the Romantic film of the week turned out to be Love with a Proper Stranger I have seen before without giving due attention. A film about a jazz musician always interests and it was only after the opening frames that I remembered the story but decided to view again, a decision I did not regret, even though there is no jazz music, even as background,
Steve McQeen was 36 when he made the film with Natalie Wood who was 24. He plays an family Italian background jazz musician looking his age, and experience, dependent on work through the union, out of touch with his parents and living hand to mouth when Natalie, part of another Italian family approaches to ask for his help with information about an abortionist having conceived his child in a one night encounter which he does immediately remember.
I have considered if a character such as that played by Natalie would go with a jazz musician she had just heard play all the way, to use the language of the sixties, and if McQueen given his character would not have remembered such a recent the experience. I conclude yes to the former but have reservations about the latter because McQueen had a regular girl friend and the impression is given that he spent most days out of work. Leaving these issues aside the film deals with what happened when girls from Catholic homes become pregnant and the dodgy nature of the back street abortion at that time.
Until the sixties it remained common for a teenage girl to be played by a mature actress and I assume this was the case here with the girl living with her mother and brothers who attempted to keep a 24 hour watch on her behaviour when she was not working as a sales assistant in a departmental store. The girl character is credible as a sixteen to 21 year old in that environment but would have been otherwise married and not on the shelf at 24!
In fact the difficulties faced by young people from active tribal traditional Mediterranean cultures living in communities in other countries was and I suspect has become even more intense than those now back home. I am not surprised that Natalie’s performance earned her Oscar and Golden Globe nominations. She communicates in subtle and understated ways the mixtures of emotions so although she approaches he man for practical help[ it is also evident she hopes he will remember the experience with great affection and want to marry her not because it is the right thing to do but because he wants to. She communicates her horror and desperation at the predicament, especially with the abortionist but also her continuing hope for a the kind of resolution she has dreamed about.
I also thought the performance of McQueen was outstanding as a mature agent where the thought of a family life is furtherest from his mind but finding that she is both attractive and able to communicate with him he falls in love and the film has the expected happy ending. Before this there are somewhat stock scenes when the girl agrees to have dinner at home with a suitor who is being pushed by her brothers and the man gets money from both parents for the abortion and meets up with a former girl friend now married to a former close friend.
The Family Film of the week is Journey to Mysterious Island 2) which I watched in 3D at home. I was interested in seeing the film because Journey to the Centre of the earth was the first 3D film I ever experienced back in 2008 on a visit to London at the Millennium Dome’. There are key aspects of this first film which helps to understand the casting of Josh Hutchinson in the same role four years later as Sean Anderson, as well as the hostile, resentful and insubordinate relationship with his mother and step father. At the age of 3 Josh’s father disappeared, a Vernian, that is someone who knows everything there is to know about the writing of Jules Verne and a believer in the concepts created by the writer.
His mother deposits Josh with her husbands brother, a volcanologist for ten days who then takes John with him to investigate a development reported in Alaska. Josh who is already a rebellious uncompressing teenager takes an interest in his uncle in order to learn more about his father and is fascinated by a copy of Jules Verne’s book Journey to the Centre of the earth and his fathers obsession with the writer’s works. The two go to find another Vernian who worked with the missing brother and find that he has died but his daughter is familiar with his work and activities and shows them the radar station at the top of the top of the volcano which has suddenly given off a special signal, only for a collapse of the cave into mine working after taking shelter because of a storm This results in them falling into a tube down to the centre of the earth and into a lake where they discover a world within a world. After coming ashore they find evidence of a character mentioned in the original book and then the remains of Josh’s father who they then bury. They find the journal of his father which reveals how much he cared for his son and regretted being unable to get back to the surface to be with him.
The uncle works out that if they cross the underground ocean they could be able to reach the surface again using a geyser before it evaporates which gives them only 48 hours and during this perilous journey in a makeshift raft with sail they encounter prehistoric creatures and John becomes separated from the adults. The adults encounter carnivorous plants and the Uncle has to rescue the young woman, After this he leaves her to search for his nephew while she prepares to escape on her own if the other two do not return.
There is a further adventure invoving a dinosaur before they are able to escape asrising from a set of extraordinary events which stretch any remaining credulity and which shoots them up through Mount Vesuvius where they manage to destroy a vineyard and use one of the diamonds they have brought back to compensate the vineyard owner. Later Josh visits the now couple who have married, establ;ished a laboratory after the brother and a new home from the other diaomnds brought back and Josh notes the book Atlantic The Antediluvian World by Ignatious L Donnelly, signalling the subject for the next adventure and which surprisingly took three more years to complete.
Before explaining the links and problems created by attempting continuity with the second work in the series I will break one of golden rules about not making reference to situations involving real people where publication could lead to an identification which has not been agreed in advance and where one or more of the individual involved could still be alive. However when it comes to credulity the mention of Vesuvius reminds me of an event which still 50 years later I find difficult to believe happened as just as it was amazing at the time.
Fifty years ago I undertook a round Europe adventure with a work colleague by car visiting Belgium, Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland and France and on our way to visit the ruins of Pompeii and Mount Vesuvius from our hillside campsite near Sorrento overlooking the Isle of Capri and we gave a lift to two hitching Wrens going to Brindisi and Malta where they where stationed having failed to meet up with the parents of one in Sorrento. Pompeii is now a huge tourist centre which thousands of visitors each day whereas then we had the site to ourselves. My companion found out from a local that it was possible to reach the top of the volcano by a back road which avoided paying tolls and while again we found ourselves eventually at the top on our own we had encountered one vehicle on the back road travelling in the oppsoite direction, ,a Jaguar car, compared to my Mini traveller and by amazing coincidence the car was being driven by the parents of one of the Wrens. I turned the car round, chased and caught up with the Jaguar, no mean feat and with flashing lights persuaded it to stop where the girls were greeted with delight and amazement and my companion and I were invited to have lunch at their hotel the following day.
We had found our campsite from by two Enlish roses, the boot of whose car we had mended at a campsite in Rome. Although they and come from the site to spend a week in Rome, they said they would return if we took them to see Capri which they had not manage visit. Both girls were engaged one to married on her their return.
By coincidence they returned after the Wrens left and during the Sorrento Film festival with the gable evening to be held on the Saturday evening and my friend impressed me and them by announcing that he had obtained four tickets. The girls then amazed us by appearing with full make up looking glamorous in evening dresses while I had at last a jacket and tie which my friend did not. On arrival the official from whom he have blagged four free tickets claiming to be President of the Oxford Film Society/Festival was horrified by his appearance, and to less extent my own because everyone else was in dinner jackets and I suspect it was only appearance of our “wives” who looked starlets got us our seats in the front row of the circle, although I did break into a cold sweat when in the interval before the main feature Von Ryan Express dubbed in German with Italian Sub titles the principal guests including from the Venice and Cannes film festival were called to take a bow and say a few word on stage.
A couple of days later he had to be loaned a jacket and tie when staying with a college friend of mine in Geneva who boss took us out for drink where a round used up most of my spare cash and hen drove us across the border to a casino in France ( we had been warned to bring our passports with us) and where I watched an Asian man win and lose £4000 pounds at roulette with minutes giving away £100 tips to the croupier and to his “daughter” which I reckon would be worth at least ten times as much today and this all happened within ten days of our thirty. The rest for another time.
For me stories and acting have to be credible giving the amazing reality of my real experiences throughout life. This is where Journey to the Mysterious Island fails. The problem is with the acting especially the decision to bring in a known personality, the former professional Wrestler, The Rock, as the legal step father of Sean Anderson who is played by the same actor who played the original 13 year old now meant to be a student I would guess seventeen eighteen years of age about to or already at university college
Emotionally he plays the part of a child brought up without his biological father who he had buried at the centre of the earth and resentful of his step father despite being provided with a large wealthy middle class home, unlimited technology and books, including first/library editions and whatever else he wants.
The Rock is wooden as a character actor, and as unlikely a pairing with the young widow as any I have seen in all my film going, The other problem is that although Joseph Hutchinson did well playing an adolescent teenager in the first film he looks out of his depths in the second episode of what appears to be at least a trilogy with a Voyage to the Moon promised as next.
Having said this I thought there was an excellent use of 3D giving depth with a good and clever use of coming out of the screen moments were which timely and not always expected, While the film is based on the Jules Verne book and features Jules Verne fanaticism, the film argues that Maps provides by Verne, Gulliver’s Travels by Swift ( and which is still on my list of books to reread having seen the awful film adaptation, also in 3D), and the perennial Treasure when combined by overlaying locate the real Mysterious Island. The Volcano on the Island vents not ash but gold to be become the Treasure of Treasure Island, and in a homage to Shangri-la when the adventurers get of the cold, storm laden rocky beach they find a beautiful inner world although the golden city which the uncle takes them to visit turns out to be a derelict Atlantis
In terms of the acting the film is rescued to a degree by Michael Caine as the Grandfather and an attractive young female lead played convincingly by Venessa Hudgens as the daughter of a Palauian who own a dilapidated helicopter for flying tourists between the two hundred and fifty islands which makes up this previously unknown to me real Pacific community with a population smaller than Gibraltar. Her father is played by Luis Guzmán the Puerto Rican actor as the funny side kick devoted to the welfare of his daughter but not as convincing as she as a Palauian, although admittedly the locals are a polyglot people from bordering Asian countries.
Sean gets a feint coded radio message which he assumes is from his adventuring grandfather who has not been heard of for over two years. The film opens as the boy is running away from the authorities after breaking into a local Satellite reach centre in order to try and boost the signal of the coded message. Fortunately among the various talents of the step father is code breaking which he recognises as Morse code and it is also the step father who works out from the translated message that combining the three maps will reveal the shape and the coordinates of the location of the island with the nearest habitation the Palau Islands. Faced with the boy taking off on his own he persuades his wife to let him take the boy and to bring him back. His wife is clearly as irresponsible as everyone else for having lost her first husband, and placing the boy in the care of the brother and with father in law who is just as mad and irresponsible, she agrees.
On the capital of Palau they cannot find anyone willing to take them by ship to the location because it is notorious for weather and loss of ships (Bermuda triangle properties) despite the offer of a thousand dollars and it is this fact which the helicopter owner hears that prompts him to accept despite the opposition of the daughter and getting the fee doubled and then trebled. He wants the money to enable her to go college although he does not insist that she remain behind on what is known to be a dangerous journey.
It is his desire to enable the daughter to go to college that leads them to drive into the eye of a hurricane which appears to destroy the helicopter in mid air although somehow they managed to land on the beach rather than the sea and survive. The contribution of Swift’s book to the film is that what is big in reality becomes small and vice versa commencing with a good joke moment as the loud trumpeting of what appears to be a normal size elephant turns out to be a tiny creatures the size of a small dog.
The party then quickly find themselves walking on top of the huge eggs of a lizard who they wake and who gives chase and are rescued by the Grandfather who amazingly is on hand and has available a number of swinging pieces of wood to disable such a creature. He has been on the island for two years having been ship wrecked and taken three months to create the radio which connects to the Satellite every two weeks although he does not explain why it has taken so long to try and communicate with his grand son except one can only assume he wanted the boy to grow up a little more and because he works out the island is due to sink below the waves.
The Grand Father lives in a tree house and takes them to see Atlantis which he argues was pushed to the surface in a Volcanic explosion in century and half cycles which he calculates will again occur shortly and was the precipitating cause of wanting his grandson to see the place before it disappeared again. rather than send out a general emergency signal, or contact his other son, who one can assume the actor was unwilling to participate in this second commercial venture, The first film made close to £180 million and the second close to £250 million.
The problem is that the step father explains that shortly becomes a matter of days as surface water has become salty. The only way for them to escape is to locate the Nautilus which the grandfather hopes is mentioned in the Journal of Captain Nemo Twenty Thousand Leagues below the sea whose Tomb is nearby but where he cannot get through the available aperture which fortunately Klani, the daughter is able to do and to recover the journal. Fortunately also the grandfather can read Hindu as Nemo came from India and also knows the location, a cave on the coast on the other side of Island.
The decision is to go along the coast or the short route across the island avoiding predators and getting across a mountain chain. The way across the mountains is to fly on the backs of large bubble bees which proves a great success until they are attacked by insect eating birds. The grand son plays a crucial part in saving the daughter from certain death and then in getting rid of the last of the birds. The party find a place to sleep only to find that the speed of change to the next phase has dramatically increased and they only have hours. They find another problem in that the girl’s father has gone off to find some gold to provide for the future of his daughter. The grandfather elects to go with the daughter to persuade her father to return while the step and father and his step son to find and make ready the submarine.
Unfortunately they arrive to find that the island has sunk 100 metre with the only solution to use makeshift breathing apparatus for a once only dive, locate the vessel and open an entry hatch while evading the advance of a large electric eel. Unfortunately despite a little juice in the batteries the energy cuts immediately out and the step father hits own the idea of a harpoon with an electric lead to attach to the eel and jump start the batteries,
Meanwhile the island is breaking up including the large piece of cliff rock on which the others are looking out to sea in vain for the submarine. Miraculous the Nautilus gets going at the right time and they are able to rescue the others. There is then a knife edge move to get to free water away from the exploding island and which involves using a torpedo to break up a rock about to crush them.
The films ends six months later on the birthday of Sean with his girl friend and presumably fellow college student with his mother and step father and where the big surprise is the arrival of his grandfather who had sent a postcard from across the globe. Meanwhile back on Palau the girl’s father is successfully and profitably using the Nautilus to take visitors on underwater sea trips. There is reference to a journey to the Moon. I cannot wait!
The War Film of the week was The Enemy Below with Robert Mitcham the star of the Winds of War my bedtime reading and Curt Jurgans. In both films Mitcham plays USA Naval captain and in The Enemy Below he has lost his wife but his response is professional and not personals. Jurgans plays the commander of a German U Boat determined to get his crew back home after a along and successful series of missions at sea. The two men become engaged in a protracted cat and mouse battle in white the strains tell on both crews. As the tension mounts Jurgans works out the tactics and in a final desperate attempt to get away launches all four torpedoes in a read pattern knowing that failure will to lead to being sunk or surrendering. His ploy works and one torpedo strikes the destroyer midriff which leads Mitcham to make his own final ploy pretending the ship is more badly damaged and sinking quicker than it is, and which enables him to drive his ship onto the deck of the submarine which has come to the surface for the kill.
Mitcham is about to leave after all his crew are in life crafts when he notes that the German Captain is trying to get a wounded colleague to safety knowing that he has set the detonator for the submarine to self destruct. He goes to the aid of the captain and their respective men in a lifeboat seeing those go back to help the to escape. The final scene is on board a USA rescue craft that answered the help call as the Germans bury at sea their one dead.
The film can be described as part of he War Reconciliation genre. The film is not sentimental about war with the crew of the German Submarine singing a Nazi brotherhood to keep up their morale and defy the Americans. Mitcham is prepared not just to risk his men and craft but send the submarine to the bottom irrespective if this kills all its crew, The film recognises and applauds the respect which professional fighting men had for each other. In the book on which the film is loosely based the destroyer is British and the reconciliation \nd respect aspect is not present.
The Western of the Week is Tall Man Riding made 1955 when Scott was 57 although he continued to make films for another seven years as a younger sharp shooting bare knuckle fighting trail and ranch hand. The story has echoes in the Big Country and Giant, the TV series Dallas where powerful cattle men attempt not just to control their areas and who may or may not share some of the land but also who their daughter may and may not marry.
In this saga Scott was badly bullwhipped by the father of the girl he is courting when riding for the owner who had heard rumours that the couple have become lovers and who does not accept the man as good enough for the daughter. Scott goes off for several years in order to earn the money to pay for a lawyer to help him to gain revenge. This is achieved by finding out that the rancher did not properly stake his original claim and the lawyer obtains a Presidential decree dispossessing the owner and arrange for his land to be part of a land grab in the rest of the valley in an open competitive race organised by an agent of the Secretary of Sate and controlled by the Army.
Meanwhile the girl has married a nice man to give her father a son to take over the estate( the boy doe not appear in the film) and father son in law appears to have been willing to fit in with the father in law’s situation, Dallas style. In addition the local saloon owner of Pearls Palace wears smart suits and use a heavy Cologne as well as running Saloon girl and songstress Reva (Peggy Castle). She is a surprising riding friend of the Scott’s former girl friend played by Dorothy Malone and who shares the background about Scott.
Scott comes to the rescue of the husband who is being attacked in effect on behalf of his father in law who has not been seen off the ranch for several years, the reason, unknown to the town is that he has become almost blind. The husband had been defending the rights of the new settlers who had flocked into the town for the new land grab (arranged before the dispossession order is announced) and where the saloon owner hopes to extend his control of the town by taking control of all the best new sections of land and where he has the deputy, the judge etc all in his pocket and the only threat to his potential complete power is the ranch owner and his son in law, He employs the sharp shooter, the Peso Kid to lead his dirty dealings.
When the husband is framed for a murder he did not commit his wife begs Scott to intervene which he reluctantly agrees before being bushwhacked by the Kid and another of the Saloon owners men to prevent him giving evidence at the Inquest. Scott is saved by the intervention of Reva who is out riding but he is in no fit state to ride on and by the time he recovers the inquest is over and her husband is beings sent under escort with the deputy Sheriff to the County Jail. Scott sees the Kid leaving town shortly after this and follows in pursuit but not quick enough for the Deputy and the Kid to stop the stage, kill the driver and the husband and then blame the killings on Scott.
He has meanwhile confronted the Ranch owner and had a shoot out in a back room without windows to even the odds. Fortunately he only wings the rancher and is shocked to learn the man is blind and begins to feel guilty about his stance especially when the man and daughter are required to leave the ranch and take lodgings in town before the land grab race.
When Reva learns that her man is going to use the Kid to kill the rancher when he makes a bid to regain his land as well as use his men to stop the others and Scott she attempts to reach him with a note via a third party. Her man already suspicious when three of the bullets from her side riffle were found to be fired the same day that she thwarted the bush whacking of Scott he beats her up severely.
Scott has a shoot out with the Peso Kid and then beats up the deputy until he admits to the townspeople that it was the Kid who killed the husband and he also is made to tell the truth to the rancher and his daughter, The saloon owner is not the only one double dealing on race day as Scott has punched and sacked the lawyer for posting the news of the land grab and the dispossession before Scott is ready, The lawyer then throws his lot with the Saloon owner and goes early be a quiet route to take possession of the ranch for the saloon owner by avoiding the military. When Scott sees one of the Saloon owners men knock the daughter of her horse he goes to her rescue and then stakes out the ranch in the name her father in an attempt to undo the damage. He kills the lawyer and then the saloon owner in shoot outs and the father regrets his decision to horse whip Scott and offers him the job of running the property. The daughter also says yes and everyone is happy with the town rid of the baddies. This is therefore a classic B movie Western where the only problem is the incongruity of Scott playing a much young man, although in opera such incongruities are forgiven and he plays his roles well. I saw many such films on Saturday morning movies session at the local Odeon in Wallington.
The Private Eye film of the week is The Woman in Green involves Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Dr Watson. When several young women are murdered in different parts of London apparently for no reason as robbery or sex is ruled out as motives but the same forefinger is surgically removed Holmes is contacted by the yard in desperation
This is the third Sherlock Holmes film with Rathbone and Bruce where the adversary proved to be Professor Moriarty who IN each film falls to death but is later proved to have survived.
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In this film Moriarty arranges for Watson to be out on a fake call for help while he visits Holmes to taunt him and gain information on the set up inside the flat. He then hypnotises an ex solder to kill Holmes from an opposite window. Holmes sends Watson across the way to apprehend the potential killer but Watson appears to arrive too late but on returning to their flat he finds that Holmes has used a bust similar to his frame to give the killer the false idea he has been successful. Later the service man is also killed when he goes to see Holmes to reveal who is behind the situation,
In what is the only credulity stretch of the film Holmes accompanies the Inspector to a drinking club in the West End when they spot a well known figure, Sir George Fenwick. entertaining a much younger women dressed green We know that the woman invites Sir George to her home for a nightcap but not what happens immediately next. In the following days when Holmes and the Inspector fail to find any leads Holmes and Watson note another young women approaching their residence with a handbag that Holmes tells Watson must be containing something she is bringing to him because it does not go with fashionable other clothes she is wearing.
This young woman explains that she found her father going out in the middle of the night after having stayed out one night and she then digs what he has buried which she now hands to Holmes and he opens the box to reveal a severed finger. Homes notices that the girl was being followed so he insists on making his way with her immediately to the home of the father, contacting Scotland Yard to join them. Unfortunately when they go to talk to the father, they find that he has been murdered evidently to stop him revealing what happened to him.
Clutching in one hand is the pocket matches from the drinking club where Holmes had seen him before Sir George Fenwick with The Woman in Green. Holmes suspects that the woman with him plays a significant role and sets out to trap her suspecting that she is lured to get wealthy men to her rooms where they are hypnotised to believe that they are the killers of the women after they find a finger in their possession. They are then blackmailed by the woman and Moriarty and Sir George had withdrawn all the savings from the bank account shortly before his death,
Holmes then befriends the woman in green who takes him back to her flat and appears to hypnotise him and one of her men uses a knife to cut Holmes to check he her is her under control, after which she then orders him to write a suicide note, and go out on the window ledge and jump to his death,
Watson and the police arrive and it is revealed that Holmes had taken a pain killing substance so he could give the impression of being hypnotised, Moriarty who is in the building escapes from the police and appears to fall to his death as he jumps from the building to another.
The Police Cops and thriller film of the week is Jenifer 8. Arriving in small town rural California for a new job recommended by a friend and police colleague, John Berlin ( Andy Garcia) works out that there is a relationship between the body part of young woman in a garbage can, a severed hand, and an unidentified murdered girl which remained unsolved despite a six month investigation. Berlin notices that marks on the hand indicate that the girl used Braille and could be assumed to have been blind. He discovers there were also other unsolved cases which convinces him they are looking for a serial killer. Under pressure from a long standing colleagues who was passed over for promotion to make way for Berlin the local police chief refuses to accept there is any connection between the new and previous cases.
It has become a cliché that once the police on both sides of the Atlantic have a suspect who they believe is guilty they do not explore other possibilities. In total there were eight girls within a radius of 300 miles who were killed or disappeared and had sight problems. He names the unsolved case Jennifer 7 and the latest Jenifer 8, hence the title of the film. He then meets a blind young woman (Una Thurman) and is convinced that her room mate is Jennifer 8 and because she has knowledge of the voice of the person with whom the girl came to associate she is also at risk. Because the girl resembles his ex wife Berlin becomes attached to her.
There is then one of those situations which is not uncommon, Berlin arranges for the wife of the friend, who arranged the transfer to look after the girl while they keep watch on her accommodation believing an attempt will be made on her life. When investigating what looks like movement in the girl’s room Berlin is knocked unconscious and his gun taken and used to kill his colleague and friend. He is then accused of the murder and questioned by the FBI special agent, John Malkovich in a brilliant cameo performance, egged on by the colleague who was passed over for promotion.
Berlin becomes convinced this is this is situation and gets into an understandable panic after being freed because the passed over colleague is on his way to the home of the widow to take the witness back to the residential centre the blind to go over what happened in relation to her friend Jennifer 8. We the audience are not immediately aware that the widow has switched positions with the witness and accompanies the killer who is under the impression she is blind. When he attempts to kill her, she turns round with a gun and shoots him dead thus bringing the story to its successful conclusion.
The spoof films of the Week was the first and second of the Scary Movie Franchise. Scar Movies 1 and which came out in 2000 and 2001 and where number 5 is to be released next year. The first film boasted that that it was a one off and unlike the genre it parodied there would be no sequel. The opening of the second admits that the team which includes two actors who were/are also the writers, lied. The films are intended for the weekend teenage audience which adores films about teenagers experimenting with sex, making jokes about masturbation, lavatory humour and lots of gore a well as those who are appalled at the genre and welcome a film which attempts to ridicule.
The basics of the first story makes constant references the film “I know what you did last Summer.” with in this instance the killer phoning the group of college students (I know what you did last Halloween).
A college girl is brutally murdered and the following day another college girl is warned that she will be next after which there follows an increasing number of murders of her friends. She survives at the end of the film which also reveals that the murderer is the someone who has been the goofy moron allowed to go around with the police because he is a goofy moron who uses the tube of a vacuum cleaner to masturbate and poops in his pants. The girls are frequently seen in their bras and pants, there are intimations of oral sex and the spoof horror includes a decapitation of a girl who continues to talk and the removal of a breast implant which occurs at the immediate opening of the film.
The point of the film is the parody, The opening follows Scream I and is quickly followed by a reference to I know what you did last Summer as previously mentioned. There is also a replica scene where the whole cinema audience takes it turn to kill a girl who has spent the opening part of the film watching giving a loud running commentary and which was the enjoyable moment of wishful thinking on my part given my hostility to those who insist on having a conversation during the main feature. Other references are to the Blair Witch Project, a film which I did not get or found engaging at any level and, to The Sixth Sense, which I did; the Shining and the line from Psycho, “We all go a little Crazy sometime.” The cinematic tricks of slowing down fast moving action is taken from the Matrix and the final scene is from The Usual Suspects while the sex scene is from American Pie.
I agree with the parents who complained that the film should have been rated 18 and not available for 14 years olds although there is only nudity is the back view of a male together with shots of an obviously fake penis, going in one ear and out of the other and none of the killings appear real or scary. My complaint is that provides a false impression of how college students behave.
Having got away with the first the second concentrates on packing in as many references as possible including The Haunting, The Exorcist, Hollow Men, The House on Haunted Hill. Hannibal, Save the Last dance, Mission Impossible II The Amtyville Horror, Dawn of the Dead Twister, Scanners, The Rock Horror Show, Poltergeist, What Lies beneath (a great film), Rocky, Wishmaster and several others.
The main story line involves the students being selected by a researcher and his assistant because of their previous involvement in mass killings in a stay at a House for the weekend where there have been murders and known ghosts. They have been promised A grades for participating. Before this there is an opening scene at the House from Hell in which a girl pees on the floor for several minutes and another scene of an exorcism the Exorcist priest, the local Priest and the possessed girl explode vomit at each other with increasing ferocity. The Lavatory humour, the swearing and the fake sex is notched up or down depending on viewpoint with increased vulgarity
The first film made around $250million more than costs while the second only £100 million.
Steve McQeen was 36 when he made the film with Natalie Wood who was 24. He plays an family Italian background jazz musician looking his age, and experience, dependent on work through the union, out of touch with his parents and living hand to mouth when Natalie, part of another Italian family approaches to ask for his help with information about an abortionist having conceived his child in a one night encounter which he does immediately remember.
I have considered if a character such as that played by Natalie would go with a jazz musician she had just heard play all the way, to use the language of the sixties, and if McQueen given his character would not have remembered such a recent the experience. I conclude yes to the former but have reservations about the latter because McQueen had a regular girl friend and the impression is given that he spent most days out of work. Leaving these issues aside the film deals with what happened when girls from Catholic homes become pregnant and the dodgy nature of the back street abortion at that time.
Until the sixties it remained common for a teenage girl to be played by a mature actress and I assume this was the case here with the girl living with her mother and brothers who attempted to keep a 24 hour watch on her behaviour when she was not working as a sales assistant in a departmental store. The girl character is credible as a sixteen to 21 year old in that environment but would have been otherwise married and not on the shelf at 24!
In fact the difficulties faced by young people from active tribal traditional Mediterranean cultures living in communities in other countries was and I suspect has become even more intense than those now back home. I am not surprised that Natalie’s performance earned her Oscar and Golden Globe nominations. She communicates in subtle and understated ways the mixtures of emotions so although she approaches he man for practical help[ it is also evident she hopes he will remember the experience with great affection and want to marry her not because it is the right thing to do but because he wants to. She communicates her horror and desperation at the predicament, especially with the abortionist but also her continuing hope for a the kind of resolution she has dreamed about.
I also thought the performance of McQueen was outstanding as a mature agent where the thought of a family life is furtherest from his mind but finding that she is both attractive and able to communicate with him he falls in love and the film has the expected happy ending. Before this there are somewhat stock scenes when the girl agrees to have dinner at home with a suitor who is being pushed by her brothers and the man gets money from both parents for the abortion and meets up with a former girl friend now married to a former close friend.
The Family Film of the week is Journey to Mysterious Island 2) which I watched in 3D at home. I was interested in seeing the film because Journey to the Centre of the earth was the first 3D film I ever experienced back in 2008 on a visit to London at the Millennium Dome’. There are key aspects of this first film which helps to understand the casting of Josh Hutchinson in the same role four years later as Sean Anderson, as well as the hostile, resentful and insubordinate relationship with his mother and step father. At the age of 3 Josh’s father disappeared, a Vernian, that is someone who knows everything there is to know about the writing of Jules Verne and a believer in the concepts created by the writer.
His mother deposits Josh with her husbands brother, a volcanologist for ten days who then takes John with him to investigate a development reported in Alaska. Josh who is already a rebellious uncompressing teenager takes an interest in his uncle in order to learn more about his father and is fascinated by a copy of Jules Verne’s book Journey to the Centre of the earth and his fathers obsession with the writer’s works. The two go to find another Vernian who worked with the missing brother and find that he has died but his daughter is familiar with his work and activities and shows them the radar station at the top of the top of the volcano which has suddenly given off a special signal, only for a collapse of the cave into mine working after taking shelter because of a storm This results in them falling into a tube down to the centre of the earth and into a lake where they discover a world within a world. After coming ashore they find evidence of a character mentioned in the original book and then the remains of Josh’s father who they then bury. They find the journal of his father which reveals how much he cared for his son and regretted being unable to get back to the surface to be with him.
The uncle works out that if they cross the underground ocean they could be able to reach the surface again using a geyser before it evaporates which gives them only 48 hours and during this perilous journey in a makeshift raft with sail they encounter prehistoric creatures and John becomes separated from the adults. The adults encounter carnivorous plants and the Uncle has to rescue the young woman, After this he leaves her to search for his nephew while she prepares to escape on her own if the other two do not return.
There is a further adventure invoving a dinosaur before they are able to escape asrising from a set of extraordinary events which stretch any remaining credulity and which shoots them up through Mount Vesuvius where they manage to destroy a vineyard and use one of the diamonds they have brought back to compensate the vineyard owner. Later Josh visits the now couple who have married, establ;ished a laboratory after the brother and a new home from the other diaomnds brought back and Josh notes the book Atlantic The Antediluvian World by Ignatious L Donnelly, signalling the subject for the next adventure and which surprisingly took three more years to complete.
Before explaining the links and problems created by attempting continuity with the second work in the series I will break one of golden rules about not making reference to situations involving real people where publication could lead to an identification which has not been agreed in advance and where one or more of the individual involved could still be alive. However when it comes to credulity the mention of Vesuvius reminds me of an event which still 50 years later I find difficult to believe happened as just as it was amazing at the time.
Fifty years ago I undertook a round Europe adventure with a work colleague by car visiting Belgium, Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland and France and on our way to visit the ruins of Pompeii and Mount Vesuvius from our hillside campsite near Sorrento overlooking the Isle of Capri and we gave a lift to two hitching Wrens going to Brindisi and Malta where they where stationed having failed to meet up with the parents of one in Sorrento. Pompeii is now a huge tourist centre which thousands of visitors each day whereas then we had the site to ourselves. My companion found out from a local that it was possible to reach the top of the volcano by a back road which avoided paying tolls and while again we found ourselves eventually at the top on our own we had encountered one vehicle on the back road travelling in the oppsoite direction, ,a Jaguar car, compared to my Mini traveller and by amazing coincidence the car was being driven by the parents of one of the Wrens. I turned the car round, chased and caught up with the Jaguar, no mean feat and with flashing lights persuaded it to stop where the girls were greeted with delight and amazement and my companion and I were invited to have lunch at their hotel the following day.
We had found our campsite from by two Enlish roses, the boot of whose car we had mended at a campsite in Rome. Although they and come from the site to spend a week in Rome, they said they would return if we took them to see Capri which they had not manage visit. Both girls were engaged one to married on her their return.
By coincidence they returned after the Wrens left and during the Sorrento Film festival with the gable evening to be held on the Saturday evening and my friend impressed me and them by announcing that he had obtained four tickets. The girls then amazed us by appearing with full make up looking glamorous in evening dresses while I had at last a jacket and tie which my friend did not. On arrival the official from whom he have blagged four free tickets claiming to be President of the Oxford Film Society/Festival was horrified by his appearance, and to less extent my own because everyone else was in dinner jackets and I suspect it was only appearance of our “wives” who looked starlets got us our seats in the front row of the circle, although I did break into a cold sweat when in the interval before the main feature Von Ryan Express dubbed in German with Italian Sub titles the principal guests including from the Venice and Cannes film festival were called to take a bow and say a few word on stage.
A couple of days later he had to be loaned a jacket and tie when staying with a college friend of mine in Geneva who boss took us out for drink where a round used up most of my spare cash and hen drove us across the border to a casino in France ( we had been warned to bring our passports with us) and where I watched an Asian man win and lose £4000 pounds at roulette with minutes giving away £100 tips to the croupier and to his “daughter” which I reckon would be worth at least ten times as much today and this all happened within ten days of our thirty. The rest for another time.
For me stories and acting have to be credible giving the amazing reality of my real experiences throughout life. This is where Journey to the Mysterious Island fails. The problem is with the acting especially the decision to bring in a known personality, the former professional Wrestler, The Rock, as the legal step father of Sean Anderson who is played by the same actor who played the original 13 year old now meant to be a student I would guess seventeen eighteen years of age about to or already at university college
Emotionally he plays the part of a child brought up without his biological father who he had buried at the centre of the earth and resentful of his step father despite being provided with a large wealthy middle class home, unlimited technology and books, including first/library editions and whatever else he wants.
The Rock is wooden as a character actor, and as unlikely a pairing with the young widow as any I have seen in all my film going, The other problem is that although Joseph Hutchinson did well playing an adolescent teenager in the first film he looks out of his depths in the second episode of what appears to be at least a trilogy with a Voyage to the Moon promised as next.
Having said this I thought there was an excellent use of 3D giving depth with a good and clever use of coming out of the screen moments were which timely and not always expected, While the film is based on the Jules Verne book and features Jules Verne fanaticism, the film argues that Maps provides by Verne, Gulliver’s Travels by Swift ( and which is still on my list of books to reread having seen the awful film adaptation, also in 3D), and the perennial Treasure when combined by overlaying locate the real Mysterious Island. The Volcano on the Island vents not ash but gold to be become the Treasure of Treasure Island, and in a homage to Shangri-la when the adventurers get of the cold, storm laden rocky beach they find a beautiful inner world although the golden city which the uncle takes them to visit turns out to be a derelict Atlantis
In terms of the acting the film is rescued to a degree by Michael Caine as the Grandfather and an attractive young female lead played convincingly by Venessa Hudgens as the daughter of a Palauian who own a dilapidated helicopter for flying tourists between the two hundred and fifty islands which makes up this previously unknown to me real Pacific community with a population smaller than Gibraltar. Her father is played by Luis Guzmán the Puerto Rican actor as the funny side kick devoted to the welfare of his daughter but not as convincing as she as a Palauian, although admittedly the locals are a polyglot people from bordering Asian countries.
Sean gets a feint coded radio message which he assumes is from his adventuring grandfather who has not been heard of for over two years. The film opens as the boy is running away from the authorities after breaking into a local Satellite reach centre in order to try and boost the signal of the coded message. Fortunately among the various talents of the step father is code breaking which he recognises as Morse code and it is also the step father who works out from the translated message that combining the three maps will reveal the shape and the coordinates of the location of the island with the nearest habitation the Palau Islands. Faced with the boy taking off on his own he persuades his wife to let him take the boy and to bring him back. His wife is clearly as irresponsible as everyone else for having lost her first husband, and placing the boy in the care of the brother and with father in law who is just as mad and irresponsible, she agrees.
On the capital of Palau they cannot find anyone willing to take them by ship to the location because it is notorious for weather and loss of ships (Bermuda triangle properties) despite the offer of a thousand dollars and it is this fact which the helicopter owner hears that prompts him to accept despite the opposition of the daughter and getting the fee doubled and then trebled. He wants the money to enable her to go college although he does not insist that she remain behind on what is known to be a dangerous journey.
It is his desire to enable the daughter to go to college that leads them to drive into the eye of a hurricane which appears to destroy the helicopter in mid air although somehow they managed to land on the beach rather than the sea and survive. The contribution of Swift’s book to the film is that what is big in reality becomes small and vice versa commencing with a good joke moment as the loud trumpeting of what appears to be a normal size elephant turns out to be a tiny creatures the size of a small dog.
The party then quickly find themselves walking on top of the huge eggs of a lizard who they wake and who gives chase and are rescued by the Grandfather who amazingly is on hand and has available a number of swinging pieces of wood to disable such a creature. He has been on the island for two years having been ship wrecked and taken three months to create the radio which connects to the Satellite every two weeks although he does not explain why it has taken so long to try and communicate with his grand son except one can only assume he wanted the boy to grow up a little more and because he works out the island is due to sink below the waves.
The Grand Father lives in a tree house and takes them to see Atlantis which he argues was pushed to the surface in a Volcanic explosion in century and half cycles which he calculates will again occur shortly and was the precipitating cause of wanting his grandson to see the place before it disappeared again. rather than send out a general emergency signal, or contact his other son, who one can assume the actor was unwilling to participate in this second commercial venture, The first film made close to £180 million and the second close to £250 million.
The problem is that the step father explains that shortly becomes a matter of days as surface water has become salty. The only way for them to escape is to locate the Nautilus which the grandfather hopes is mentioned in the Journal of Captain Nemo Twenty Thousand Leagues below the sea whose Tomb is nearby but where he cannot get through the available aperture which fortunately Klani, the daughter is able to do and to recover the journal. Fortunately also the grandfather can read Hindu as Nemo came from India and also knows the location, a cave on the coast on the other side of Island.
The decision is to go along the coast or the short route across the island avoiding predators and getting across a mountain chain. The way across the mountains is to fly on the backs of large bubble bees which proves a great success until they are attacked by insect eating birds. The grand son plays a crucial part in saving the daughter from certain death and then in getting rid of the last of the birds. The party find a place to sleep only to find that the speed of change to the next phase has dramatically increased and they only have hours. They find another problem in that the girl’s father has gone off to find some gold to provide for the future of his daughter. The grandfather elects to go with the daughter to persuade her father to return while the step and father and his step son to find and make ready the submarine.
Unfortunately they arrive to find that the island has sunk 100 metre with the only solution to use makeshift breathing apparatus for a once only dive, locate the vessel and open an entry hatch while evading the advance of a large electric eel. Unfortunately despite a little juice in the batteries the energy cuts immediately out and the step father hits own the idea of a harpoon with an electric lead to attach to the eel and jump start the batteries,
Meanwhile the island is breaking up including the large piece of cliff rock on which the others are looking out to sea in vain for the submarine. Miraculous the Nautilus gets going at the right time and they are able to rescue the others. There is then a knife edge move to get to free water away from the exploding island and which involves using a torpedo to break up a rock about to crush them.
The films ends six months later on the birthday of Sean with his girl friend and presumably fellow college student with his mother and step father and where the big surprise is the arrival of his grandfather who had sent a postcard from across the globe. Meanwhile back on Palau the girl’s father is successfully and profitably using the Nautilus to take visitors on underwater sea trips. There is reference to a journey to the Moon. I cannot wait!
The War Film of the week was The Enemy Below with Robert Mitcham the star of the Winds of War my bedtime reading and Curt Jurgans. In both films Mitcham plays USA Naval captain and in The Enemy Below he has lost his wife but his response is professional and not personals. Jurgans plays the commander of a German U Boat determined to get his crew back home after a along and successful series of missions at sea. The two men become engaged in a protracted cat and mouse battle in white the strains tell on both crews. As the tension mounts Jurgans works out the tactics and in a final desperate attempt to get away launches all four torpedoes in a read pattern knowing that failure will to lead to being sunk or surrendering. His ploy works and one torpedo strikes the destroyer midriff which leads Mitcham to make his own final ploy pretending the ship is more badly damaged and sinking quicker than it is, and which enables him to drive his ship onto the deck of the submarine which has come to the surface for the kill.
Mitcham is about to leave after all his crew are in life crafts when he notes that the German Captain is trying to get a wounded colleague to safety knowing that he has set the detonator for the submarine to self destruct. He goes to the aid of the captain and their respective men in a lifeboat seeing those go back to help the to escape. The final scene is on board a USA rescue craft that answered the help call as the Germans bury at sea their one dead.
The film can be described as part of he War Reconciliation genre. The film is not sentimental about war with the crew of the German Submarine singing a Nazi brotherhood to keep up their morale and defy the Americans. Mitcham is prepared not just to risk his men and craft but send the submarine to the bottom irrespective if this kills all its crew, The film recognises and applauds the respect which professional fighting men had for each other. In the book on which the film is loosely based the destroyer is British and the reconciliation \nd respect aspect is not present.
The Western of the Week is Tall Man Riding made 1955 when Scott was 57 although he continued to make films for another seven years as a younger sharp shooting bare knuckle fighting trail and ranch hand. The story has echoes in the Big Country and Giant, the TV series Dallas where powerful cattle men attempt not just to control their areas and who may or may not share some of the land but also who their daughter may and may not marry.
In this saga Scott was badly bullwhipped by the father of the girl he is courting when riding for the owner who had heard rumours that the couple have become lovers and who does not accept the man as good enough for the daughter. Scott goes off for several years in order to earn the money to pay for a lawyer to help him to gain revenge. This is achieved by finding out that the rancher did not properly stake his original claim and the lawyer obtains a Presidential decree dispossessing the owner and arrange for his land to be part of a land grab in the rest of the valley in an open competitive race organised by an agent of the Secretary of Sate and controlled by the Army.
Meanwhile the girl has married a nice man to give her father a son to take over the estate( the boy doe not appear in the film) and father son in law appears to have been willing to fit in with the father in law’s situation, Dallas style. In addition the local saloon owner of Pearls Palace wears smart suits and use a heavy Cologne as well as running Saloon girl and songstress Reva (Peggy Castle). She is a surprising riding friend of the Scott’s former girl friend played by Dorothy Malone and who shares the background about Scott.
Scott comes to the rescue of the husband who is being attacked in effect on behalf of his father in law who has not been seen off the ranch for several years, the reason, unknown to the town is that he has become almost blind. The husband had been defending the rights of the new settlers who had flocked into the town for the new land grab (arranged before the dispossession order is announced) and where the saloon owner hopes to extend his control of the town by taking control of all the best new sections of land and where he has the deputy, the judge etc all in his pocket and the only threat to his potential complete power is the ranch owner and his son in law, He employs the sharp shooter, the Peso Kid to lead his dirty dealings.
When the husband is framed for a murder he did not commit his wife begs Scott to intervene which he reluctantly agrees before being bushwhacked by the Kid and another of the Saloon owners men to prevent him giving evidence at the Inquest. Scott is saved by the intervention of Reva who is out riding but he is in no fit state to ride on and by the time he recovers the inquest is over and her husband is beings sent under escort with the deputy Sheriff to the County Jail. Scott sees the Kid leaving town shortly after this and follows in pursuit but not quick enough for the Deputy and the Kid to stop the stage, kill the driver and the husband and then blame the killings on Scott.
He has meanwhile confronted the Ranch owner and had a shoot out in a back room without windows to even the odds. Fortunately he only wings the rancher and is shocked to learn the man is blind and begins to feel guilty about his stance especially when the man and daughter are required to leave the ranch and take lodgings in town before the land grab race.
When Reva learns that her man is going to use the Kid to kill the rancher when he makes a bid to regain his land as well as use his men to stop the others and Scott she attempts to reach him with a note via a third party. Her man already suspicious when three of the bullets from her side riffle were found to be fired the same day that she thwarted the bush whacking of Scott he beats her up severely.
Scott has a shoot out with the Peso Kid and then beats up the deputy until he admits to the townspeople that it was the Kid who killed the husband and he also is made to tell the truth to the rancher and his daughter, The saloon owner is not the only one double dealing on race day as Scott has punched and sacked the lawyer for posting the news of the land grab and the dispossession before Scott is ready, The lawyer then throws his lot with the Saloon owner and goes early be a quiet route to take possession of the ranch for the saloon owner by avoiding the military. When Scott sees one of the Saloon owners men knock the daughter of her horse he goes to her rescue and then stakes out the ranch in the name her father in an attempt to undo the damage. He kills the lawyer and then the saloon owner in shoot outs and the father regrets his decision to horse whip Scott and offers him the job of running the property. The daughter also says yes and everyone is happy with the town rid of the baddies. This is therefore a classic B movie Western where the only problem is the incongruity of Scott playing a much young man, although in opera such incongruities are forgiven and he plays his roles well. I saw many such films on Saturday morning movies session at the local Odeon in Wallington.
The Private Eye film of the week is The Woman in Green involves Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Dr Watson. When several young women are murdered in different parts of London apparently for no reason as robbery or sex is ruled out as motives but the same forefinger is surgically removed Holmes is contacted by the yard in desperation
This is the third Sherlock Holmes film with Rathbone and Bruce where the adversary proved to be Professor Moriarty who IN each film falls to death but is later proved to have survived.
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In this film Moriarty arranges for Watson to be out on a fake call for help while he visits Holmes to taunt him and gain information on the set up inside the flat. He then hypnotises an ex solder to kill Holmes from an opposite window. Holmes sends Watson across the way to apprehend the potential killer but Watson appears to arrive too late but on returning to their flat he finds that Holmes has used a bust similar to his frame to give the killer the false idea he has been successful. Later the service man is also killed when he goes to see Holmes to reveal who is behind the situation,
In what is the only credulity stretch of the film Holmes accompanies the Inspector to a drinking club in the West End when they spot a well known figure, Sir George Fenwick. entertaining a much younger women dressed green We know that the woman invites Sir George to her home for a nightcap but not what happens immediately next. In the following days when Holmes and the Inspector fail to find any leads Holmes and Watson note another young women approaching their residence with a handbag that Holmes tells Watson must be containing something she is bringing to him because it does not go with fashionable other clothes she is wearing.
This young woman explains that she found her father going out in the middle of the night after having stayed out one night and she then digs what he has buried which she now hands to Holmes and he opens the box to reveal a severed finger. Homes notices that the girl was being followed so he insists on making his way with her immediately to the home of the father, contacting Scotland Yard to join them. Unfortunately when they go to talk to the father, they find that he has been murdered evidently to stop him revealing what happened to him.
Clutching in one hand is the pocket matches from the drinking club where Holmes had seen him before Sir George Fenwick with The Woman in Green. Holmes suspects that the woman with him plays a significant role and sets out to trap her suspecting that she is lured to get wealthy men to her rooms where they are hypnotised to believe that they are the killers of the women after they find a finger in their possession. They are then blackmailed by the woman and Moriarty and Sir George had withdrawn all the savings from the bank account shortly before his death,
Holmes then befriends the woman in green who takes him back to her flat and appears to hypnotise him and one of her men uses a knife to cut Holmes to check he her is her under control, after which she then orders him to write a suicide note, and go out on the window ledge and jump to his death,
Watson and the police arrive and it is revealed that Holmes had taken a pain killing substance so he could give the impression of being hypnotised, Moriarty who is in the building escapes from the police and appears to fall to his death as he jumps from the building to another.
The Police Cops and thriller film of the week is Jenifer 8. Arriving in small town rural California for a new job recommended by a friend and police colleague, John Berlin ( Andy Garcia) works out that there is a relationship between the body part of young woman in a garbage can, a severed hand, and an unidentified murdered girl which remained unsolved despite a six month investigation. Berlin notices that marks on the hand indicate that the girl used Braille and could be assumed to have been blind. He discovers there were also other unsolved cases which convinces him they are looking for a serial killer. Under pressure from a long standing colleagues who was passed over for promotion to make way for Berlin the local police chief refuses to accept there is any connection between the new and previous cases.
It has become a cliché that once the police on both sides of the Atlantic have a suspect who they believe is guilty they do not explore other possibilities. In total there were eight girls within a radius of 300 miles who were killed or disappeared and had sight problems. He names the unsolved case Jennifer 7 and the latest Jenifer 8, hence the title of the film. He then meets a blind young woman (Una Thurman) and is convinced that her room mate is Jennifer 8 and because she has knowledge of the voice of the person with whom the girl came to associate she is also at risk. Because the girl resembles his ex wife Berlin becomes attached to her.
There is then one of those situations which is not uncommon, Berlin arranges for the wife of the friend, who arranged the transfer to look after the girl while they keep watch on her accommodation believing an attempt will be made on her life. When investigating what looks like movement in the girl’s room Berlin is knocked unconscious and his gun taken and used to kill his colleague and friend. He is then accused of the murder and questioned by the FBI special agent, John Malkovich in a brilliant cameo performance, egged on by the colleague who was passed over for promotion.
Berlin becomes convinced this is this is situation and gets into an understandable panic after being freed because the passed over colleague is on his way to the home of the widow to take the witness back to the residential centre the blind to go over what happened in relation to her friend Jennifer 8. We the audience are not immediately aware that the widow has switched positions with the witness and accompanies the killer who is under the impression she is blind. When he attempts to kill her, she turns round with a gun and shoots him dead thus bringing the story to its successful conclusion.
The spoof films of the Week was the first and second of the Scary Movie Franchise. Scar Movies 1 and which came out in 2000 and 2001 and where number 5 is to be released next year. The first film boasted that that it was a one off and unlike the genre it parodied there would be no sequel. The opening of the second admits that the team which includes two actors who were/are also the writers, lied. The films are intended for the weekend teenage audience which adores films about teenagers experimenting with sex, making jokes about masturbation, lavatory humour and lots of gore a well as those who are appalled at the genre and welcome a film which attempts to ridicule.
The basics of the first story makes constant references the film “I know what you did last Summer.” with in this instance the killer phoning the group of college students (I know what you did last Halloween).
A college girl is brutally murdered and the following day another college girl is warned that she will be next after which there follows an increasing number of murders of her friends. She survives at the end of the film which also reveals that the murderer is the someone who has been the goofy moron allowed to go around with the police because he is a goofy moron who uses the tube of a vacuum cleaner to masturbate and poops in his pants. The girls are frequently seen in their bras and pants, there are intimations of oral sex and the spoof horror includes a decapitation of a girl who continues to talk and the removal of a breast implant which occurs at the immediate opening of the film.
The point of the film is the parody, The opening follows Scream I and is quickly followed by a reference to I know what you did last Summer as previously mentioned. There is also a replica scene where the whole cinema audience takes it turn to kill a girl who has spent the opening part of the film watching giving a loud running commentary and which was the enjoyable moment of wishful thinking on my part given my hostility to those who insist on having a conversation during the main feature. Other references are to the Blair Witch Project, a film which I did not get or found engaging at any level and, to The Sixth Sense, which I did; the Shining and the line from Psycho, “We all go a little Crazy sometime.” The cinematic tricks of slowing down fast moving action is taken from the Matrix and the final scene is from The Usual Suspects while the sex scene is from American Pie.
I agree with the parents who complained that the film should have been rated 18 and not available for 14 years olds although there is only nudity is the back view of a male together with shots of an obviously fake penis, going in one ear and out of the other and none of the killings appear real or scary. My complaint is that provides a false impression of how college students behave.
Having got away with the first the second concentrates on packing in as many references as possible including The Haunting, The Exorcist, Hollow Men, The House on Haunted Hill. Hannibal, Save the Last dance, Mission Impossible II The Amtyville Horror, Dawn of the Dead Twister, Scanners, The Rock Horror Show, Poltergeist, What Lies beneath (a great film), Rocky, Wishmaster and several others.
The main story line involves the students being selected by a researcher and his assistant because of their previous involvement in mass killings in a stay at a House for the weekend where there have been murders and known ghosts. They have been promised A grades for participating. Before this there is an opening scene at the House from Hell in which a girl pees on the floor for several minutes and another scene of an exorcism the Exorcist priest, the local Priest and the possessed girl explode vomit at each other with increasing ferocity. The Lavatory humour, the swearing and the fake sex is notched up or down depending on viewpoint with increased vulgarity
The first film made around $250million more than costs while the second only £100 million.
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