Teen Witch (1989)

I'm not saying Teen Witch killed the careers of those behind the camera, but it's the last film written by Robin Menken and Vernon Zimmerman, and the second-last narrative feature from director Dorian Walker. Some of the cast members have managed to continue their acting careers, which seems like a miracle when you see some of the stuff they have to do here.

Robyn Lively is Louise, a typical teenage girl who spends her time in the company of her friend, Polly (Mandy Ingber), swooning over Brad (Dan Gauthier), and wishing she was more popular at her school. After a bike accident leaves her a bit shaken up, Louise ends up encountering Madame Serena (Zelda Rubinstein), a woman that informs Louise that she's due to inherit some magical powers by the time she turns sixteen. When that happens, Louise finds that she can make herself popular, and put everything in place to give her a good shot with Brad, but at what cost?

Teen Witch is quite a mad film, and I immediately resented watching it as soon as the end credits started to roll. I may have been a bit too harsh though. It's very much a film from the 1980s, it's very much a film thinking it provides a story that teenage girls will identify with and enjoy, and it's unafraid to lean into the sillier moments (at least one of which, an impromptu street rap scene, is the stuff of cinematic legend).

Lively at least makes a good, personable, lead. Ingber is also very good, playing the typical best friend who has become resigned to accepting their station in high school, and at least enjoys the fact that she doesn't pander to her peers in an attempt to gain brownie points. Rubinstein is a lot of fun, and Gauthier, well, he just has to stand in the right spot and look like a handsome schoolboy/middle-aged yuppie. Dick Sargent being cast as Louise's father is a nice touch, Joshua John Miller is a pesky little brother, Shelley Berman and Marcia Wallace are teachers affected in very different ways by witchy powers, and Noah Blake and Megan Gallivan both get standout moments.

There are set-pieces here that have to be seen to be believed, and even then I cannot guarantee that you'll believe them, wild events that have no long-lasting consequences, and characters who learn an important moral lesson or two by the time everything ends. And these things irritated me while I was watching the film, but later struck me as elements typical to pretty much any teen movie. It still may not have worked for me (although I am far from the target audience), but it would be unfair of me to mark it down for elements that I have enjoyed in so many other teen flicks.

I was going to end this review by warning people away from Teen Witch. My view of the film has softened though. I think you should watch it at least once. You may even enjoy it. Whatever you think of it, you certainly won't forget it.

5/10

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Shudder Saturday: Behind The Mask: The Rise Of Leslie Vernon (2006)

A film that has always been viewed by many horror fans with a lot of affection, Behind The Mask: The Rise Of Leslie Vernon is an enjoyable mockumentary that works with the familiar tropes of the slasher sub-genre and tries to give them some explanation.

Nathan Baesel is Leslie Vernon, a potential slasher icon looking to get himself ranked alongside all of the greats. To help his cause, he allows a documentary crew access to his life as he prepares for a night that should put his name in the history books. The crew find out lots about Leslie, find out about his potential victim(s), and also find out about a man hoping to put an end to his reign of terror (Doc Halloran, played by Robert Englund).

First-time director Scott Glosserman, who also co-wrote the screenplay with first-timer David J. Stieve, certainly seems familiar with the material that he's chosen to work with here. Having said that, very few people would watch this and NOT be familiar with the rules being followed/lightly mocked. Most people know what makes a standard "final girl", most people have seen clips of a stalking killer following someone who flees until they trip up, and the template of many a slasher movie includes the kind of third act planned for by Leslie, from the problems with home electrics to a collection of corpses primed to fall out on people discovering them while panicking and trying to stay away from the killer.

Baesel is excellent in the title role, he's the right mix of affability, when he wants the crew to stick with him and record his exploits, and menace, whenever he's about to stalk his prey. He also has a pretty good killer mask, which may seem like a silly thing to say, but is very important in these kinds of movies. Angela Goethals does a good job as Taylor, the leader of the documentary crew, and the one who tends to focus on completing their project, even as things become more and more serious for others. Englund tackles his role with gusto, clearly having fun as a Van Helsing type, and there are small roles that allow for great work from the likes of Scott Wilson, Bridgett Newton, and the irreplaceable Zelda Rubinstein.

It's strange that my main criticism of Behind The Mask is that, despite how much it attempts to show how things might work if a slasher icon was making himself a household name in a realistic and grounded way, it just never feels as grounded as it could be, and is therefore less enjoyable. Glosserman and Stieve seem to want to have their cake and eat it, while this kind of thing would have been much better served by the starker approach favoured by films such as Man Bites Dog and Diary Of A Bad Lad. You can have your killer have supernatural abilities, or you can have him working extra hard to make everything look effortless. Trying to have a mix of both is a bit less satisfying, although there's still plenty here for horror movie fans to enjoy.

7/10

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Anguish (1987)

Anguish is an interesting, quirky horror movie that fails, but fails in a way that keeps things entertaining and interesting throughout.

First of all, there's a film within the film. A strange, nasty slasher movie starring Michael Lerner and Zelda Rubinstein, with the latter playing the mother of the former. Eventually, viewers are allowed to see that other people are viewing this film in a cinema. We start to watch the watchers, as it were. One pair of girls, Patty (Talia Paul) and Linda (Clara Pastor), seem more affected than anyone else in the audience. To be fair, Patty is more twitchy and nervous than a first-time drug mule having his crotch sniffed by a German Shepherd, while poor Linda is just doing what she can to console her irrationally terrified friend. And then a killer appears. Another killer. Not the one in the film within the film, but one simply in the film. Just watch the thing and you'll soon understand what I'm trying to say.

Written and directed by Bigas Luna, better known for the likes of Golden Balls and Jamon Jamon, this is such a curio that I heartily recommend it to all horror fans, despite the fact that the poor script and overacting combine to drag it down when considering a standard score/rating.

Lerner is the best thing onscreen, giving a wonderful performance that mixes real creepiness with occasional hints of a child-like innocence (especially in the way he is controlled by his mother). Rubinstein, on the other hand, is allowed to go over the top, and she does so with great gusto. Yet it's not too painful to watch. What is painful to watch is the hand-wringing, squirming performance from Paul, saddled with the role of "worst person to watch a horror movie in the cinema ever". Pastor fares a lot better, although that's not so hard when she's alongside Paul, and other people in the cinema who seem to have wandered in from the cinema featured in Demons (loud reactions to whatever is happening onscreen, uncharacteristic concern for fellow movie-goers, complete ignorance of major violence occurring nearby - Demons fans will know what I mean).

I know, I know, I've not done a very good job of encouraging others to see this movie. I've also yet to mention how boring it can be for many scenes. This is not a film for someone seeking out a hidden gem. Some will find it dull and horrible, I have no doubt about that, while others will find some fun, as I did, buried under the offputting surface elements. The layering of the movie alone, and the ambiguity of those layers, allows it to have more intelligence than it could otherwise be credited with.

Give it a whirl one evening when you're after something a bit different.

5/10

http://www.amazon.com/Anguish-Zelda-Rubinstein/dp/B0013K2ZD6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1406548489&sr=8-1&keywords=anguish+dvd

Poltergeist III (1988)

That spooky, nasty reverend Kane is back (this time played by Nathan Davis after the death of actor Julian Beck) and he still wants Carol Anne, despite the fact that she now lives in a sleek, ultra-modern highrise building with her uncle and aunt (Tom Skerritt and Nancy Allen). Thankfully, this big building has lots of mirrors and reflective surfaces that can become portals for Kane’s particular brand of evil.

You can try to be all deep and meaningful about it and put it this way – Poltergeist was about the insidious nature of television and how too much exposure to it can literally eat up the life of your child, Poltergeist II: The Other Side was about the family unit and how important and difficult it was to stay united against outside pressures and obstacles, Poltergeist III is about the perils of complete modernisation that leads to alienation and far too many opportunities for wrongdoing. Or you could just say that Poltergeist was a great ghost flick, Poltergeist II: The Other Side was a decent ghost flick with a definite baddie to focus on and Poltergeist III was the movie that went back to the well one time too many.

The acting is okay from all involved but everything is undermined by a poor script (that should have simply been titled “Carol Anne” due to the number of times that her name is called out) and mediocre execution. Director Gary Sherman (who also shares the blame for co-writing the thing) seems happy to go along with everything that is wrong with many modern horror movies. You know what I mean: people keep running off alone, nobody seems to notice while lots of other folk disappear, one jump scare is repeated so often that it ends up being ineffective, etc.

It’s a shame that this was the last movie for young Heather O’Rourke (her death after this movie completed a trio of deaths that people referred/refer to as “The Poltergeist Curse”) because it’s just not a very good film. On a lighter note, it’s the first film gig for a young Lara Flynn Boyle so fans may want to check it out for that reason. 

There are still a few decent moments here and there but, overall, this is a poor end. 
 
5/10

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Poltergeist II: The Other Side (1986)

I used to love Poltergeist II when I was young. I thought it was even better than the first movie. Now, with the benefit of age and wisdom (okay, okay, just with the benefit of age then), I can see a lot of the flaws it has and how it pales in comparison to the first movie.

Almost all of the main cast members return (with the exception of Dominique Dunne who was, tragically, killed by an abusive ex-boyfriend not long after the release of the first movie) for the continuing tale of a family plagued by supernatural events. This time around they have help in the form of Taylor (Will Sampson) as young Carol Anne (Heather O’Rourke) is targeted by crazy Kane (Julian Beck, who died of stomach cancer after this film was completed). The Freeling family must stick together as a unit to battle the forces working against them.

It seems kind of churlish to complain about a lack of believability in a sequel to a movie that revolved around a little girl being taken by ghosts into a TV but that’s the biggest failing of this sequel. It’s also not helped by an uneven tone that fails to blend horror and humour as effectively as the first movie did and, instead, just has one or two impressive moments left among a number of other scenes drained of any tension due to a mix of lacklustre execution and overused humour. This time around, the Freeling family (Craig T. Nelson and JoBeth Williams as the father and mother, in particular) don’t seem particularly terrified by everything going on around them. While I appreciate that this time around they’re seeing spookiness that’s not entirely new to them I still think that they should have been more shaken up. 

Michael Grais and Mark Victor return to the writing duties, with Brian Gibson taking a turn in the director’s chair, but this movie is saved by the cast and one or two great special effects moments (just keep your eye on that tequila worm as one prime example). 

It’s not a bad movie at all but, unsurprisingly, it’s not as good as the superb original. 

6/10 

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Poltergeist (1982)

A classic tale of suburban horror, Poltergeist is just one of those films that most people of my generation saw 101 times during the 1980s, and deservedly so. It’s a polished thrill-ride of a movie, an entertaining horror film that mixes humour in with the scares and blends jumps with atmosphere (and some great special effects) for a fantastic package. To many true horror fans it may be viewed as “horror-lite” but it’s pretty bloody good horror-lite.

The Freeling family are a normal, everyday American family. Mum and dad look after two daughters and a son and breakfast revolves around the usual minor squabbles and family disputes. Things change when they find that their house has some strange power within it, something that starts off by harmlessly moving furniture (and people, when placed in the right spot). The harmless soon becomes a nightmare, however, when young Carol Anne disappears and her voice is heard coming from the TV. Energy and strange activity builds in the house and the Freeling family have no choice but to call in some specialist investigators to help them with their unique problem.

Based on an idea by Steven Spielberg (who also produced the movie), Poltergeist is directed by Tobe Hooper but you’d hardly be able to tell that. Hooper hasn’t exactly held himself up as a master of cinema, with the exception of his phenomenal horror movie that revolved around a certain chainsaw-wielding maniac, and all of the main choices here just look like they were made by Spielberg. The shots of suburban Americana, the wonderful score by Jerry Goldsmith, the smooth and quick push-in shot up to a character’s face, etc, etc.

But just who did what behind the scenes is irrelevant anyway, when it comes to the viewing experience. What matters is just how enjoyable the thing is. The cast are all fantastic. JoBeth Williams and Craig T. Nelson remain likeable and believable throughout experiences that grow increasingly far-fetched. Heather O’Rourke is angelic and wholly innocent as Carol Anne. Oliver Robins is great as Robbie, the middle child, and Dominique Dunn is just fine as the eldest, the one who fully realises how crazy everything is and just wants to get the hell out of the house ASAP.  Everyone else onscreen is just fine but James Karen deserves a special mention as an unscrupulous businessman and Zelda Rubinstein will always be remembered for her turn as Tangina.

 

Followed by two inferior sequels, and referenced in many other films and shows, Poltergeist remains a top-notch haunted house movie and is as entertaining today as it was back in 1982, when it was first released. 

8/10

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