Prime Time: Cutting Class (1989)

A slasher movie so apparently unmemorable that I completely forgot I had already seen it until checking my IMDb and Letterboxd resources, Cutting Class is a mildly amusing diversion for those after unsophisticated fun. Maybe the lapse in memory was just down to my film-addled brain. Or maybe I don't consider a film fully watched until I've written more than a paragraph about it. 

My original thoughts ran as follows: "Jill Schoelen, Donovan Leitch, and Brad Pitt are the main young stars in this fun slasher, and Roddy McDowall is as watchable as ever in one of the main adult roles. It doesn't go far enough with the dark comedy, and there isn't quite enough decent bloodshed, but it remains enjoyable enough."

That may be brief, but it remains a perfectly fine encapsulation of my opinion on this film. Someone is starting to murder a number of teachers and pupils at a high school. The main suspect seems to be Brian (Donovan Leitch Jr.), who everyone knows spent some time being treated for a slight case of potential insanity. Dwight (Brad Pitt) might also have that killer instinct though. This makes things a bit awkward for Paula (Jill Schoelen), a young woman caught in between the two of them.

The one and only feature directed by Rospo Pallenberg (who did some great writing for director John Boorman, but also ended up assisting on the infamous stinker that is Exorcist II: The Heretic, this is also the film debut for writer Steve Slavkin. It's obvious what the thinking behind this was. Everyone wanted in on some of that slasher movie money, even as the appetite for the sub-genre was waning considerably after the peak of a few "golden years". 

I would say that Pallenberg got lucky with his casting of a pre-stardom Pitt, but the whole cast actually does a decent job. Pitt is good fun in his role, a typical high school hunk with enough potential anger issues to make him a suspect when the murders start, and Schoelen is an appealing female lead. Leitch Jr. has to overact wildly, but that's par for the course in every slasher movie that presents someone who is either obviously a killer, or so obviously a killer that they couldn't possibly be a killer (if you know what I mean). Brenda James is another attendee of the school, and good friend of Paula, Roddy McDowall is the lecherous Mr. Dante, and Martin Mull is Paula's father, seen at the start of the film bidding farewell to his daughter as he goes on a hunting trip that will lead to one misfortunate after another, to put it mildly.

There's no visual artistry here, nor are there any set-pieces to help it stand out from the very crowded field it is in (and as the third act played out I also realised that I used to always confuse this with Graduation Day), but horror fans used to going into such things with suitably low expectations should find themselves consistently entertained from start to finish. Which is more than some lower-tier slasher movies manage.

6/10

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Prime Time: Shakma (1990)

The trailer is infamous, and the film actually manages to live up to that level of excitement, but there are still not enough people who have experienced the full glory of Shakma for themselves. If you are within that demographic, you should really change that.

Shakma is a vicious baboon. He's made even more vicious after being administered a drug that is supposed to calm him down, but ends up having the exact opposite effect. This means that Shakma is an added menace when a medical professor (Roddy McDowall) and a bunch of his students are all playing a live action role playing game in their research facility building. The building is all set up for their game, people speak to one another on various walkie talkies, and Shakma starts to cause carnage and death before the players start to figure out what is going on.

Written by Roger Engle, his only credit, and co-directed by Hugh Parks and Tom Logan, Shakma has the potential to be absolutely awful, considering the silliness of certain plot elements. It ends up being quite thrilling, however, because of how dangerous it feels throughout. A lot of editing and canny camerawork is involved to show the baboon being vicious and violent, but there are still many moments that have you fearing for the cast members.

Speaking of the cast members, McDowall is the biggest name here, but it's obvious that he's been picked for a prime role that allows him to lend his wonderful presence to the film without getting overly involved with the more intense sequences that will involve some of the younger players. Christopher Atkins is the lead, even if that only becomes clear after the opening third is out of the way, and he is joined by Amanda Wyss, Ari Meyers, Robb Morris, Tre Laughlin, and a few others.

But it's Shakma who holds your interest most, especially during the many moments that depict him going absolutely mental at closed doors. Shakma does not like having his routes blocked by doors, that much is clear. He's terrifying for every minute he's onscreen, even when not supposed to be as terrifying as he is later. I would not want to be stuck anywhere with an angry baboon, and Shakma seems to be about the angriest baboon I have seen in my life.

Things are set up well enough, with the measures taken to allow the gamers to play their strange game in peace, and there are logical reasons for most of the major plot beats, making this a more grounded and coherent piece of work than you'd think it would be. I am sure it would have been easy enough for people to be lazy and shrug, "some people are in a building and a baboon goes on the rampage", but kudos to the creators for putting some thought into things, making it a more believable, and slightly darker, film.

Watch it, be thrilled by it, and watch it again. Oh, and definitely head to YouTube to check out the trailer. Shakma!

8/10

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Overboard (1987)

The premise for Overboard may be more than a little bit dubious, but it gets beyond that and easily proves itself to be a fantastic rom-com with two stars who spar brilliantly with each other and a great supporting cast that includes a number of mischievous, but likeable, child actors.

The plot sees a carpenter (Dean Proffitt, played by Kurt Russell) given the job of renovating the closet of a spoiled, rich woman (Joanna Stayton, played by Goldie Hawn). The closet is part of a very nice ship and so, when the two fall out over the final result, Joanna refuses to pay Dean and instead pushes him overboard, with his tools following. Dean is more than a little miffed, but his chance for a little payback comes when Joanna herself falls overboard and loses her memory. Joanna's husband (Edward Herrmann) realises that he can enjoy the bachelor lifestyle and so doesn't provide her real identity to anyone in authority so Dean, after seeing her on the news, goes along to the hospital and convinces everyone that he and Joanna are a married couple. Joanna, of course, doesn't find anything familiar as she goes "home" with Dean and her mind remains blank even as she gets used to her many chores and tries to cope with their four rambunctious boys. Of course, it's only a matter of time until she has to be told the truth, but Dean wants to be compensated for the money that he wasn't paid.

Directed by Garry Marshall, Overboard has a bright and breezy, pleasantly light, tone throughout. Everything is so easy to enjoy and go along with that, for the most part, it's easy to forget how nasty that premise really is. Think about it, convincing someone else that they've been married for years, had four kids and spend every day working hard to keep the house in order is pretty bad, even if it's a smiling Kurt Russell doing it. The script by Leslie Dixon helps keep everything just on the right side of light amusement and it's improved by the performances from Russell and Hawn. Edward Herrmann is good fun in his small role, Roddy McDowall (who also signed on as a producer) has some fun and Mike Hagerty is very entertaining as Dean's friend who goes along with the fiction. I'm not going to name all of the child actors because I find it hard to separate their individual personalities from the collective squabble, but they all did very good work.

If you like romantic comedies and you like Russell and Hawn, then you'll like this film. It holds up really well, in my opinion, and the script is full of some great one-liners as Russell's character keeps adding ridiculous detail on top of ridiculous detail to create a life that never was. There's nothing here to shock you, nothing here that pushes the very boundaries of cinema, it's just a fantastic bit of fun for fans of romantic comedies.

8/10

Overboard IS available on DVD as a standalone title but I thought I would share the love for some other '80s flicks here and recommend this pack - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Harry-Sally-Mannequin-Overboard-Anything/dp/B004C9MCCO/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1359004106&sr=8-6