RoboCop 3 (1993)

After my surprisingly positive reaction to RoboCop 2 when I (re?)watched it a few weeks ago, I decided to make a rewatch of RoboCop 3 a top priority. I have definitely seen this before, and I definitely didn't like it. But I went into it with an open mind and a good helping of optimism.

It's Robert John Burke in the main role this time around, and things are still not great in Detroit, which has now been acquired by OCP. OCP isn't the same old OCP any more though, having itself been taken over by a Japanese corporation now holding a controlling share of the stock. As Detroit residents are mistreated and turned out of homes that can then be demolished and turned into more profitable enterprises, growing unrest from civilians becomes such a strong force that it eventually affects the police. But will they continue to work as the strong arm for capitalist bullies, or will they follow RoboCop's lead and develop a moral conscience?

While he cannot match Weller's performance, Burke is very good in the lead role, and he does well with the physicality of the role. Nancy Allen reprises her role for a while, Remy Ryan is good as a talented kid, Nikko, who can also use technology to help those around her fight back against the authorities, Jill Hennessy is the aptly-named Dr. Lazarus, and it's fun to spot familiar faces like CCH Pounder, Bradley Whitford, Stephen Root, and Daniel von Bargen in the supporting cast. Bruce Locke has some very memorable moments as Otomo, most easily described as a kind of robo-ninja, and Rip Torn gets to join in with the fun for a few amusing scenes.

Directed by Fred Dekker, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Frank Miller, RoboCop 3 is a decent, but flawed, bit of sci-fi action fun with the kind of satire and social commentary that fans of the first two movies should expect. Like many perfectly fine sequels, the biggest problem it has is not being up to the high standard of the first film. That is all, although it was received so poorly when first released that it pretty much killed Dekker’s directorial career stone dead. 

There's nothing here to shout about when it comes to the technical side of things. The visuals lack some flair, but aren't awful, and the few moments that feel like highlights still pale in comparison to the highlights from both of the previous movies. It's obvious that the budget wasn't there for an epic vision, but it's hard to be sure that Dekker and Miller had any epic vision in mind, as the story we get is much more interested in re-establishing a connection between RoboCop and some real humanity than providing more glimpses of the dystopian future setting.

Yes, a few  moments feel unintentionally silly, either due to the plotting or the wonky special effects, but I ended up enjoying the messy mix of capitalist brutality fighting against community warmth. There’s no prime directive to say that you should watch this, but I don’t think that it’s anywhere near as bad as its reputation would suggest.

6/10

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The Predator (2018)

With Shane Black directing, and working from a script he co-wrote with Fred Dekker, it's fair to say that expectations for The Predator were high, higher than the expectations that fans had for any other instalment in the series. And then came the reshoots and the controversy, and those expectations started to dip. And now some people are claiming that this film has turned out to be their biggest cinematic disappointment of this year. I'm not sure what they were expecting but I got a Predator movie, so am happy enough.

Boyd Holbrook is a soldier, and he's also the person who first comes into contact with our hunting alien beastie. He even manages to get the better of it. This leads to him being interrogated and then loaded on a bus with other problem military personnel (including Trevante Rhodes, Keegan-Michael Key, and Thomas Jane). Meanwhile, the predator is being examined by a team, overseen by Sterling K. Brown. Olivia Munn plays a scientist type called in to help, Jacob Tremblay is a child who unlocks some predator-tech that he gets his hands on, and there are a number of fun set-pieces throughout that feature people being targeted by those familiar three red dots.

Okay, it feels a little tamer than some other Predator movies, in terms of bloodshed and savagery of the violence on display. And there are some ideas mixed in that I can understand people being put off by, although I didn't mind them (they're fun and never really slow down the momentum of the plotting). There's also a bit more comedy running throughout the movie than some might have expected (although when did Shane Black last write or direct a movie that didn't have a strong vein of humour?). But, despite those differences, this is still a Predator movie.

The cast all do a decent job, although some aren't well served by the script. Having Tremblay play a boy with Asperger Syndrome feeds well into the plot, although it also feels lazy to have his character be one of those all-too-common magical and supertalented Autistic individuals that crop up occasionally as convenient plot points in Hollywood movies. The bigger mis-step is having Thomas Jane play a soldier who suffers from Tourette's syndrome (and Jane suffers because of that). Holbrook is a solid lead, Munn holds her own alongside the guys, Brown is a lot of fun as the man heading up the team already well-informed about the alien species they finally have available to inspect more closely, and Rhodes, Key, Alfie Allen, and Augusto Aguilera fill out the rest of the core group.

Where the film suffers is in the actual direction, and the editing. While the script may not be as sharp as I would like, it's passable in terms of fun dialogue and exposition. But the weak execution of the material shows a surprising lack of focus, and maybe even a lack of heart, from Black. Individual scenes are fun but rarely come together to form something that flows organically from beginning to end. What's worse, none of the death scenes have any impact, even if some of the characters are more likable than others. There's never a feeling that there are real stakes at play here. The whole thing is a romp, but it at least has a consistency of tone throughout (whether or not you like that tone is a different matter altogether - I did).

If this was one of 100 other movies with the same failings then I could have easily disliked it more, and I am very surprised at some of the mistakes made by Black here, but it's a Predator movie, and it still does enough to keep fans of our favourite dreadlocked hunter alien happy. Hell, I was grinning when I heard someone tell others to "get to the chopper", so maybe that tells you all you need to know about how easy it is to please me sometimes.

7/10

It can eventually be hunted down here.

Night Of The Creeps (1986)

The 80s were good for Fred Dekker, the writer-director behind both this movie and, the much-loved, The Monster Squad. Those two movies garnered him a loyal fan-base for life, and rightly so.

Night Of The Creeps is all about little, parasitic aliens that take over human bodies and turn them into deadly zombies. This is a big pain in the backside for Chris (Jason Lively), who is finally getting a chance to woo Cynthia (Jill Whitlow), a girl he has fallen in love with. With gruff Detective Cameron (Tom Atkins) trying to figure out what's going on as bodies start to, apparently, wander off on their own it's not long until the living have to band together to keep the living dead at bay.

A cross between '50s sci-fi B-movie, teen comedy and zombie flick, Night Of The Creeps really does remain a hugely enjoyable little film that should be seen and appreciated by as many genre fans as possible. A lot of the movie may be wish-fulfilment stuff usually delivered by John Hughes back in the '80s, but that doesn't detract from the overall enjoyment.

Tom Atkins has never been more fun (his "thrill me" answering of the telephone just one small, enjoyable nuance from a selection of many), the rest of the young stars are good enough (Steve Marshall as the best buddy, J.C., strikes just the right balance between confident and irritating) and Jill Whitlow's character is easy enough to grow fond of, making the lengths that Chris will go to to keep her safe all the more believable. Allan Kayser is an easy-to-hate douchebag named Brad, and there's also a nice little Dick Miller cameo for fans to watch out for.

With a sharp script, many wonderful, individual moments and pacing that perfectly delivers a number of little, eerie moments before building up to an all-out battle of a finale, the movie delivers just the right mix of fun, thrills and overall entertainment. Fans of sci-fi and horror will enjoy the fact that all of the main characters are named after the likes of Raimi, Carpenter, Cronenberg, etc and the more eagle-eyed viewers should easily spot a piece of graffiti exclaiming "GO MONSTER SQUAD".

It's not perfect though, by any means. What are the main flaws? Well, there aren't many scenes that are actually tense, even when things are supposed to be getting that way, and the last ten minutes or so are a bit of a let-down compared to the fun had beforehand. Despite those things, this remains the best parasitic, zombie-creating, alien horror comedy ever made. Yep, it's still better than Slither.

8/10

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The Monster Squad (1987)

Fred Dekker has, to date, only directed three movies. One of those movies was the very poor Robocop 3. Thankfully, his other two movies were two classic horrors that fans still hold dear almost 30 years after their initial release, Night Of The Creeps (this Bluray plays on all players) and The Monster Squad. While the former was a fantastic call back to the best of the '50s sci-fi horrors, The Monster Squad was a love letter to the big icons of horror, the monsters that Universal made into movie icons in the 1930s and '40s (and one from 1954).

Written by Dekker and Shane Black, The Monster Squad is all about a bunch of kids who make up the titular gang. They spend their time chatting about monsters and having fun but it's nothing serious, of course. That all changes when Dracula (Duncan Regehr) comes into town, bringing with him a monster (Tom Noonan) that was made by a certain mister Frankenstein, a mummy, a werewolf (Jon Gries) and The Creature From The Black Lagoon a gillman. He's in town because he's desperate to get his hands on an amulet that he only has a chance to destroy once every hundred years in an attempt to tip the balance of power in favour of all things evil. It's up to The Monster Squad to get the amulet and keep it safe.

The squad members are as follows: Sean (Andre Gower) the leader, Patrick (Robby Kiger) is Sean's best friend, Horace (Brent Chalem) is a bullied, overweight lad who finds acceptance in the club, Eugene (Michael Faustino) is the youngest member and Rudy (Ryan Lambert) COULD be the oldest and coolest member if he passes the entrance test and then stays interested in the activities of the group. While The Monster Squad is about the monsters, and while it has a number of great one-liners throughout the script, it's also very much about the kids and how they grow with the help of one another. Whether it's tackling bullies, learning methods of killing monsters or just spending time away from weary adults, the squad is always much more important than the childish escapade that outsiders choose to label it and it becomes, of course, an essential defence when evil forces invade suburban America.

Funnily enough, the movie actually holds up even better today than it did when released in 1987 because back then it seemed to me to be nothing more than an attempt to ride on the coat-tails of the great success of Ghostbusters. There was even the tagline that said "you know who to call when you have ghosts but who do you call when you have monsters?"

Perhaps others felt the same way. That would explain the relatively poor performance at the box office although there's also the fact that people might not have realised just who it was aimed at. While there isn't too much here to traumatise hardy children, it's not really one to stick on while babysitting some pre-teens (a fantastic sequence involving the werewolf holds up as a nice selection of grisly practical FX work). The reputation of, and love for, the movie may have grown over the years and it may be completely obvious now that it's aimed at true horror fans but it wasn't quite so obvious 25 years ago. Such is the way of marketing, I guess.

It certainly looks great throughout, making the most of that modest budget, and the performances are all wonderful. Regehr is superb as Dracula, Noonan is wonderful as Frankenstein's monster, all of the kids are great fun, Jon Gries is highly entertaining and Leonardo Cimino is excellent despite not being onscreen for all that long. I could mention so many others - Ashley Bank as little Phoebe, Mary Ellen Trainor and Stephen Macht as Sean's parents and everyone else who bagged a credit -but I'd just be boring you and taking up time that could be spent actually (re)watching the movie.

Suffice it to say, I'm sure that Messrs Dekker and Black will be pleased to know that fans of the film STILL grin from ear to ear whenever they hear or see a reference to the line "wolfman's got nards".

9/10

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House (1986)

Not to be confused with the House AKA Hausu from 1977, any number of other movies called House or even the very popular TV drama show starring one Hugh Laurie as a grumpy but fiercely intelligent doctor, this House is a very enjoyable horror comedy that features some well-known horror genre names in the credits. Produced by Sean S. Cunningham, directed by Steve Miner and with a screenplay based on an initial story by the fantastic Fred Dekker, House is a lot of fun for horror fans. It even has a decent soundtrack from Harry Manfredini.

You'll be completely unsurprised to learn that House is all about a haunted house. After the death of his grandmother, a writer returns to the family home he knew (and the scene of his son's disappearance) and begins to suspect that something is wrong with the house. More worryingly, he starts to think that his son is trapped somewhere within the house. Or, at least, his spirit. Is the house determined to claim victims or is the traumatised author, who is also working on a new book based on his experiences in Vietnam, slowly but surely losing his marbles?

What it lacks in genuine atmosphere and tension, House more than makes up for in impressive rubber monsters, inventive craziness and a nice blending of the humour with the horror. William Katt does well in the lead role, though he never did fulfil the potential shown in his superb Carrie performance. Handling more of the comedic moments is George Wendt, good fun as a concerned neighbour. We also have the lovely Kay Lenz as Sandy, Katt's ex and the mother of the missing boy, and the intimidating Richard Moll as Ben, a dark and dangerous memory from Vietnam.

Steve Miner has never been a truly great director but I have always found his work enjoyable enough, for the most part, and he's capable of putting together fun, lightweight movies. The screenplay, by Ethan Wiley, works just fine. The dialogue could be sharper but the overall tone of the movie and the set-pieces will raise a smile on the face of anyone who can immediately think of dozens of influences on the material.

It didn't really, as hoped, launch another hugely successful franchise for Cunningham and co. but it did lead to three sequels of decreasing quality and remains a fine slice of 80s horror hokum.

7/10.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/House-Collection-the-DVD/dp/B0002IAQUO/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1330037036&sr=1-1