HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: JIGSAW (2017) **

Every horror franchise has that one “Final Chapter” installment that is immediately followed by a sequel that undoes all of that and continues the series full-steam ahead.  I’m not sure why they waited seven years to make another Saw movie after The Final Chapter.  I’m not even sure why they bothered to call it Jigsaw either.  I guess all horror franchises need to bring the killer’s name into the title at some point.

Do you really need to know the plot?  It’s just more of the same.  Why they waited this long to tell this particular story is beyond me as it’s almost indistinguishable from the last couple of installments.  Die-hard fans of the saga will undoubtedly dig it, but it left me kind of cold.  If you’ve seen one Saw, you’ve pretty much seen them all.  It contains all the booby-traps, self-mutilations, and hacked-off legs you’ve come to expect by now. By now though, there really isn’t much of a point to all the Jigsawing shenanigans. 

In fact, throughout most of the movie, I was clocking this at about a * ½ rating, which would put it close to the bottom of the barrel as far as the series is concerned.  Luckily, it climaxed with an insane bit of disgustingness when a guy’s face is lasered off in sections so that it unfolds into a squirming mass of what looks like a cross between octopus tentacles and an Outback blooming onion.  For that bravura scene alone, it’s getting **.  Other than that, I think it’s safe to let Jigsaw and the Saw series rest in peace for a while.

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: THE WNUF HALLOWEEN SPECIAL (2013) **

The WNUF Halloween Special is the next logical step of the faux grindhouse movies.  Instead of recapturing the feeling of old exploitation films, it more or less accurately replicates the feeling of watching an old videotaped TV show.  It’s not great or anything, but the way the filmmakers reproduce the video age of the ‘80s is something to see.

It all revolves around a live local news broadcast where a reporter and some paranormalists enter a supposedly haunted house.  The main focus leaves a little something to be desired as you have to wait until the very end for most of the horrific stuff to happen.  Either that, or they go to a commercial break right before something goes bump in the night.  

Speaking of which, the fake commercials are easily the best parts.  The filmmakers expertly captured the feeling of old regional ads and the anti-drug spots are particularly great.  It’s just a shame that the stuff inside the haunted house is so weak.  In fact, the news segments (where the anchors wear Halloween costumes) are a lot more fun than the main thrust of the story.

It’s a clever idea and all, but in the end, they just string you along way too long.  One neat touch is when the tape is fast-forwarded in some scenes.  However, you’ll wish you were the one who could control the fast-forward button, so you could get through some of the talky sections of the newscast.  

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: NIGHT OF THE DEVILS (1972) **

Gianni Garko is found unconscious beside a river.  The doctor runs some tests, which causes him to see visions of exploding heads and still-beating hearts being ripped out of people's chests.  So far, so good.  Once the flashback starts up to explain why Garko was left for dead, things slowly go downhill.

The central story is yet another variation on “The Wurdulak”.  It was told much better and more concisely in Mario Bava’s Black Sabbath.  As part of a horror anthology, the story crackled.  Stretched out to a feature length, there’s just not enough meat here to make it work.

The opening is appropriately gory, but it feels tacked on, not only to pad the running time, but to hold you over until something horrific happens.  Unfortunately, it's a good hour before anything really happens.  When it finally does, it's juicy enough I guess. We get some staking, clawing, and face melting.  The gore isn’t bad or anything, but it’s not enough though to justify the long wait. 

Director Giorgio (Mill of the Stone Women) Ferroni just can’t find a way to make the elements gel.  The wraparound scenes never feel like an organic part of the film and the middle section that retells The Wurdulak is low on chills.  So, if you’ve seen Black Sabbath, there’s really no reason to check this one out.  

SAVAGE DAWN (1985) **

Lance Henriksen is Stryker.  He comes to a dying mining town to watch the annual bare-knuckle contest.  A gang of bikers called the Savages, led by Pig Iron (William Forsythe) ride into town and wreak havoc.  It’s up to Stryker to protect his old buddy (George Kennedy) and his family from the bikers.  He then takes it upon himself to rid the town of the Savages too. 

Savage Dawn’s main strength is its incredible cast.  In addition to reliable genre vets Henriksen, Forsythe, and Kennedy we also have Richard Lynch (the town mayor/priest), Karen Black (Forsythe’s biker mama), and scream queen Elizabeth Kaitan (a victim).  Their efforts keep you watching throughout the draggier sections of the film, of which there are many.

Despite the terrific cast, the movie itself never really kicks into gear.  The scenes of mass biker carnage are well-choreographed, but curiously lacking the piss and vinegar to make them memorable.  There are times where it seems to want to be a biker version of Shane.  The big stumbling block is that Henriksen is never fully utilized.  He’s kept off screen throughout much of the picture and whenever he is on screen, he isn’t given much to work with.  It’s almost as if the filmmakers forgot to have the hero do something, you know, heroic.  At least Shane had plenty of opportunities to be a badass.  Henriksen, unfortunately, gets lost in the shuffle.

ZONE TROOPERS (1985) **

A platoon of soldiers become trapped behind enemy lines in Italy during WWII.  While on the run from the Nazis, they stumble upon a crashed rocket ship.  Naturally, the Nazis want to use the ship for their own devious purposes.  The troops eventually befriend an alien and together, they team up to fight the Nazis.

This premise sounds like it can't miss, but it does.  The problem is that it's 75% war movie and 25% sci-fi action.  The budget was frankly just too low to support either genre convincingly.  

The war scenes are OK, but we all know you came to the party for the sci-fi cheese.  Unfortunately, it takes its sweet time getting going.  Because of that, you’ve got to wait a long while before anything remotely science-fiction-y happens.  That being said, the end where soldiers and aliens stand side-by-side to blast Nazis with ray guns is appropriately silly. There’s not nearly enough of it to make it worthwhile though.

The grunts are well cast.  Tim Thomerson is good as the gruff, seemingly unkillable “Sarge”. Art LaFleur does a fine job as the stone-faced “Mittens”.  Timothy Van Patten is a lot of fun as Joey, the “aw shucks” guy with a Brooklyn accent who feels like he came right out of a B war movie from the ‘50s.  They can only do so much to enliven this middling, if well-meaning cornball flick.

JUSTICE LEAGUE (2017) *** ½

Justice League is missing the godlike awe Zack Snyder brought to Man of Steel and Batman v Superman.  If ever a movie needed that touch it’s this one.  I mean you have the biggest names in the DC arsenal assembled together for the first time.  It should definitely feel loftier.  As it is, it’s perfectly acceptable Saturday morning fun.

Snyder stepped down during post-production due to a family tragedy and was replaced with Joss Whedon, who brings his patented wisecracking antics to the party.  Because of that, there is an inconsistency in tone.  Whedon, who already had two Avengers movies under his belt, tries to duplicate the Marvel formula, which is sometimes at odds with what Snyder had previously established.  Even though the movie didn’t really need the jokey tone, I have to admit that it is often hilarious.  (I especially liked the Pet Sematary references.)  Maybe it’s the Super Friends fan in me, but I dug seeing the superheroes ribbing each other.

Seeing the League unite is half the fun.  The chemistry between the superheroes makes up for the film’s lapses in tone.  I loved seeing the bromance between Clark Kent (Henry Cavill) and Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) blossom.  Gal Gadot continues to impress as Wonder Woman, Ray Fisher makes a solid debut as Cyborg, and Ezra Miller steals the show as The Flash.  Although I wasn’t a fan of Aquaman’s Hell’s Angels look, Jason Momoa did a fine job in the role.  (I especially liked the scene where he accidentally sits on Wonder Woman’s lasso and confesses his deep-seeded fears to the team.) 

Some elements feel like leftovers from The Avengers.  Remember in that movie when a box-shaped doodad was going to end the world?  Well, this one has THREE box-shaped doodads that can end the world.  The villain, Steppenwolf (Cirian Hinds) lacks personality too.  In fact, he often feels like he came out of a video game.  

All of that hardly matters when the heroes are front and center.  The action is entertaining.  (The Flash sequence, though it is reminiscent of Quicksilver’s scenes in the recent X-Men films, is awesome.)  The performances are game.  It pretty much gives you everything you could want from a comic book movie.  Qualms aside, when it’s firing on all cylinders, it’s a lot of fun.  I mean how can you not grin from ear to ear when you see Superman fly past The Flash and call him a “slow poke”?

The 3-D is surprisingly good.  Most of these things forget that they should have stuff coming out into the audience’s laps.  So, it’s a treat seeing all this stuff come out of the screen:

·         3-D Fruit 

·         3-D Bullet 

·         3-D Suitcase 

·         3-D Batarang 

·         3-D Gun 

·         3-D Sword 

·         3-D Cyborg arm

·         3-D Trident 

·         3-D Axe 

_·           3-D Wonder Woman 

2017 Comic Book Movie Scorecard:

The LEGO Batman Movie:  ****

Thor:  Ragnarok:  ****
Spider-Man:  Homecoming:  ****
Logan:  ****
Wilson:  *** ½
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2:  *** ½
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets *** ½
Wonder Woman:  *** ½
Justice League:  *** ½
Ghost in the Shell:  *** ½
Atomic Blonde:  **
Death Note:  **

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: MURDER OBSESSION (1981) *** ½

Murder Obsession starts right off the bat with an excellent topless strangulation scene.  Turns out, it's only a movie.  The lead actor Michael (Stefano Patrizi) just got a little too carried away and almost killed his leading lady (Laura Gemser). (Those method actors are such a pain in the ass.)  Shaken by the incident, Michael runs off to see his mamma (Anita Strindberg) with his girlfriend Deborah (Silvia Dioniso) in tow.  (Maybe they should have called this Mother Obsession.)  He tells his mom Deborah is really his secretary, but she sees right though that.  Soon, more of his moviemaking friends show up to the house where they are picked off one by one by an unseen killer. 

Directed by Riccardo (Caltiki, the Immortal Monster) Freda, Murder Obsession is a hoot from start to finish.  Any director who gets Laura Gemser naked in the first minute of their movie knows what the hell they’re doing.  Later, she gets a great scene where she’s attacked in the bathtub.

Freda handles the stalking sequences stylishly enough, but he really outdoes himself during the extended nightmare scene where Dioniso is subjected to numerous outrageous perils in rapid succession.  First, she’s chased down a hallway while wearing a flimsy, haphazardly-tied nightgown.  During the chase, she runs smack dab into a giant spider web, complete with huge rubbery looking spider.  She’s next attacked by a horde of rubber bats before running through the forest where blood drips down on her from some bloody skulls hanging in the trees.  Zombie monks eventually catch her, string her up, tear her nightgown off, and force her to drink the blood of a chicken. 

The best part is when she's menaced by the giant spider.  Sometimes, they use the giant prop rubber spider.  Other times, it's clearly a regular sized spider attacking a Barbie doll.  Folks, I live for shit like this.   

This sequence, taken on its own exemplary merits, is a wonderful example of genre filmmaking.  It’s atmospheric with equal measures of cheese, sleaze, and genuine ghoulish thrills.  I especially loved the close-ups of the drooling monks with rotten faces. 

The thrills don’t end there.  There’s a hilarious axe-to-the-head scene that features even worse special effects than the spider.  I mean, the dummy head doesn't even have any eyeballs!  Fortunately, the chainsaw-to-the-throat effect is much better. 

Some would label Murder Obsession incomprehensible.  I prefer to think of it as unpredictable.  Sure, there might be great lapses in logic, but I guarantee you, you're never sure where it's going next.  I can understand being underwhelmed by the ending.  All I can is getting there is half the fun.

AKA:  Murder Syndrome.  AKA:  Satan’s Altar.  AKA:  Unconscious.  AKA:  Fear.  AKA:  The Wailing.