THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: GODZILLA: CITY ON THE EDGE OF BATTLE (2018) * ½

Godzilla:  City on the Edge of Battle picks up immediately where Planet of the Monsters ended.  Our heroes, defeated by the massive Godzilla, encounter a race of tribal humans with psychic powers.  They learn the whereabouts of the remains of Mechagodzilla and try to get it up and running to fight against Godzilla.

This new series of Godzilla movies was originally intended as a TV show but were eventually strung together as a trilogy of features.  (The conclusion of the trilogy is supposed to be released to Netflix later in the year.)  Like Planet of the Monsters, there is a LOT of talk and the whole thing suffers whenever The G-Man isn’t on screen (which is most of the movie, I’m afraid).  Part of the fun of the Godzilla series is seeing giant monsters stomp on cities and fight other giant monsters.  Setting this trilogy in a future where Earth has become a desolate pseudo-metallic jungle was a bold choice.  The downside is that it doesn’t offer much for old school fans like me.  I mean, I can accept a CGI monster, even though I love men-in-suit ones.  It’s just that they never find very much for Godzilla to do.

Godzilla certainly looks cool.  I don’t know about his massive frame in this one (which makes him by far bigger than any of the other previous Godzillas), but the animation is such that it’s hard to get a sense of his scale, so it doesn’t really matter anyway.  The revisionist idea that Mechagodzilla is a nanotechnological entity is intriguing.  The problem is, the set-up is laborious, and the payoff is anticlimactic.  

It’s not all bad though.  The twin tribal girls are probably the best part of the movie.  They’re kind of like a blend of the twins from Mothra and Jaylah from Star Trek Beyond.  Maybe they’ll get something worthwhile to do in the conclusion of the trilogy.

Speaking of which, I’m sure all of this will get wrapped up eventually.  There’s a post-credits stinger that teases the return of a fan favorite monster.  Maybe the final installment will also contain some of the old school monster mashing that’s sorely lacking in the first two entries.  As it stands, City on the Edge of Battle is a step down from Planet of the Monsters.  It’s mostly a talk-fest, and what little Godzilla action we do get is disappointing and unsatisfying.

Are you craving more reviews of horror sequels?  Well, you can read all about them in my latest book, The Bloody Book of Horror, which is currently on sale at Amazon.  Get your copy HERE

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: GODZILLA: PLANET OF THE MONSTERS (2018) **

I’m not really an anime guy.  The only anime series I ever flat out loved was Kekko Kamen.  Everything else from Akira to Vampire Hunter D sort of left me cold.  However, when Netflix announced a trilogy of anime Godzilla features, I was intrigued.  Being a fan of all things G-Man (not to mention his ‘70s cartoon), I figured I’d give this series a whirl.

Earth is on the brink of destruction from Godzilla’s constant kaiju battles.  The last remaining humans board a spaceship and head to the stars looking for an inhabitable planet.  After a fruitless search, the crew decides to return to Earth to reclaim their planet from Godzilla.

I’ve never been a fan of the whole anime style, but this doesn’t look all that bad.  The design on Godzilla is decent enough and if he was removed from the action, he would’ve looked at home in a live-action movie.  (Those who criticized Godzilla’s tubby frame in the 2014 American remake will be disappointed as it looks like The G-Man’s put on even more weight here.)  I also liked the design on the various spaceships and flying motorcycles (although the “power suits” are a bit clunky looking).  

However, when it comes to traditional monster mashing, the film is sorely lacking.  The dragon monsters, though nicely animated, are never much of a threat and feel more like video game foes the characters have to defeat before working their way up the boss (or in this case, Godzilla).  Had there been a monster for Godzilla to fight, or at the very least, a building he could’ve stepped on, this might’ve gone down a lot smoother.

The human scenes in a live-action Godzilla movie are always the slowest and most boring things about it.  That feeling is amplified in an animated flick.  I just didn’t feel anything for the characters.  I know the same thing can be said for any other Godzilla film, but the animated characters never quite get you absorbed in their plight.  The most memorable character is the hard ass captain, who also has the best line of the movie:  “In times like these I find myself jealous of those who have gods to pray to!”

AKA:  Godzilla:  Monster Planet.

Are you craving more reviews of horror sequels?  Well, you can read all about them in my latest book, The Bloody Book of Horror, which is currently on sale at Amazon.  Get your copy  HERE

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: THE FIRST PURGE (2018) **

With The First Purge, we finally get to see how The Purge came to be.  It starts as an experiment on Staten Island when “The New Founding Fathers” legalize crime on the island for twelve hours.  A psychologist (Marisa Tomei) designed the night to be a “cultural experiment”, but the new political party, anxious to sway the experiment in their favor to further their agenda, send government assassins into the streets to cause chaos.

As I’ve watched these movies, I’ve always wondered what brought upon the Purge, and in the end, it turns out it was some Tea Party bullshit.  

The conceit that poor and/or psychologically imbalanced people have been financially compensated for their participation to ensure and/or incentivize anarchy prevails feels like stacking the deck a bit.  I did however like how some of the characters considered to be “criminals” try to defend their neighborhood from the hooligans committing “legal” crimes.  This sort of finely balanced nuance is eventually thrown out the window in favor of them doing battle with killers wearing KKK garb and assassins in blackface masks, which bluntly hammers home the point to the folks in the cheap seats.  

What’s interesting is that at first, no one in the neighborhood really purges.  Instead, they hold massive block parties with lots of booze and loud music.  (Noise violations be damned!  This is Purge night!)  I also appreciated some of the more random moments of WTF mayhem (like bag ladies rigging up exploding teddy bears).  It’s these little touches that help make this entry the best in the series.  Unfortunately, by the third act, it just becomes an unending series of repetitive action sequences.  The action pales in comparison to what we saw in The Purge:  Anarchy and suffer from some cheap-looking CGI bullet hits.

Like Election Year, The First Purge works better when it sticks to surviving.  The subplot of a young drug dealer trying to outrun a demented, wild-eyed killer known as “Skeletor” (who turns a couple of needles into a set of makeshift Wolverine claws) is more involving than anything we’ve seen previously in the series.  When it comes to the heavy-handed sermonizing though, it’s a little too on-the-nose for me.  (“They’re turning our neighborhood into the Coliseum.  Are we going to be the Christians or the lions?”)

Are you craving more reviews of horror sequels?  Well, you can read all about them in my latest book, The Bloody Book of Horror, which is currently on sale at Amazon.  Get your copy HERE

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: THE PURGE: ELECTION YEAR (2016) * ½

Senator Roan (Elizabeth Mitchell), who lost her family during Purge Night begins a campaign to abolish the Purge.  The Washington elite want to silence Roan and set out to assassinate her during the Purge.  Her head of security, Barnes (Frank Grillo) knows a thing or two about surviving the Purge and must protect her from not only the government hitmen, but also the killers roaming the streets.

The germ of The Purge has always been interesting enough, which makes the humdrum execution in film after film so damned frustrating.  Returning writer/director James DeMonaco hasn’t done hardly anything with the concept after three middling movies.  You get a sense that Rod Serling could’ve said so much more with the idea in a half hour episode of The Twilight Zone.  

The political ramifications of the Purge as portrayed in Election Year are clumsy and ham-fisted at best.  The more DeMonaco tries to make the Purge out to be a class struggle sort of thing, the more the allegorical aspects of the concept begin to unravel.  The further away from the survivalist plotline the film gets, the shakier the whole thing becomes.  (The subplot about shopkeeper defending his store from teenage girls with machine guns wanting candy works slightly better.)

Further adding to the frustration is the fact that DeMonaco will introduce tantalizing new wrinkles into the mythology and then do absolutely nothing with them.  For example, the idea of foreigners coming to the U.S. for “murder tourism” could’ve been made into its own sequel.  (Although I would’ve thought you’d have to be a natural born citizen in order to purge, but that’s just me nitpicking.)  However, this intriguing idea is relegated to one brief television newscast, and immediately forgotten.

Although Election Year is easily the weakest film in The Purge series, the Justified fan in me enjoyed seeing that series’ stars Mykelti Williamson and Raymond J. Barry appearing in supporting roles.

Are you craving more reviews of horror sequels?  Well, you can read all about them in my latest book, The Bloody Book of Horror, which is currently on sale at Amazon.  Get your copy HERE

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: HALLOWEEN (2018) * ½

Halloween is a good lesson to future filmmakers looking to resurrect dormant horror franchises.  It’s okay to put the original film in the series on a pedestal as long as you don’t look down your nose at the sequels that came before your new movie.  Don’t think that just because you have some of the original heavy hitters involved that it’s okay to retcon decades of enjoyable movies and erase other filmmakers’ hard work out of existence.  I beseech you, if you’re going to retcon something, make sure what you come up with is better than what you are retconning. 

This Halloween plays out as if everything from Halloween 2 (1981) to Halloween 2 (2009) never existed.  Erasing the revelation that Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) is no longer Michael Myers’ sister was shortsighted.  If that’s the case, why does he come after her forty years later then?  Because he’s “pure evil”?  Give me a break. 

Director David Gordon Green is a filmmaker I admire.  I like how he goes from drama (like George Washington) to comedy (like Pineapple Express) seemingly on a whim.  I’ve also enjoyed his work on the small screen and believe Vice Principals to be one of the best shows in the past decade.  However, I don’t think he was the best choice to bring Michael Myers back.

A lot of the problem has to do with the staging of the suspense sequences.  In just about every case, there is no build up.  No tension.  No suspense.  The Shape just shows up and starts killing people.  Gone is the Myers who would hide in the bushes, disappearing at random, hiding under a sheet, and playing with the psyche of his intended victims.  This Myers is surprisingly much closer to the one found in the Rob Zombie movies (minus the weird beard and the extreme bulk) as the kills are often over the top and gory, (which is something the original Myers never was).  In fact, the highlight of the movie directly rips off Zombie’s Halloween 2, which in a film so beholden to John Carpenter’s original, is odd to say the least. 

Speaking of Zombie’s sequel, that film did a much better job at exploring Laurie Strode’s past trauma.  Heck, even Jamie Lee Curtis’ quiet scenes with Adam Arkin in H20 are more effective than her shrill yelling and bitching at her family’s lack of Boogeyman preparedness.  Say what you will about Halloween:  Resurrection, the Laurie vs. Michael scenes in that flick were better executed, and there’s nothing here remotely as satisfying as the axe scene at the culmination of H20. 

The subplot involving Myers’ new doctor is among the worst in the entire Halloween series.  Yes, that includes the cult of the Thorn.  Yes, that includes Busta Rhymes.

While we’re on the subject of Busta Rhymes, have you even watched Resurrection lately?  The lame “webcast” shit in that movie has not aged well at all.  In fact, it feels more dated in many ways than the original.  This Halloween revolves heavily around a couple of knuckleheads doing a podcast.  It’s my belief that this insipid plot device will date this entry even worse.

I also take issue with turning Laurie into a Sarah Connor knockoff.  (Right down to the fact that her kid was taken away from her by the authorities.)  Seeing her go from meek babysitter to pistol-packing granny is jarring to say the least.  Maybe if there were more scenes addressing her coming to terms with the ’78 attack, I could’ve accepted it.  However, it’s all done with shockingly little substance and no real motivation other than she wants to kill Michael.  Also, how can you introduce three generations of Strode women, but then give them no real meaningful scenes together?  (Their dinner table scene is cringe-worthy.)

The new characters are even worse.  In addition to the aforementioned doctor, this movie contains some of the worst teenage characters I’ve seen in a horror film lately.  They’re all awful characters whose only purpose is to be killed by Michael Myers.  I did like Will Patton as the sheriff, but he was woefully underserved by his thinly written character.

Even the finale, which is laboriously set-up fails to pack much of a punch.  The reverse-callbacks of the original are almost laughable.  (Although they got a big reaction from the opening night crowd, which just goes to show this is little more than hollow fan service.)  Maybe that’s because I felt absolutely nothing for this iteration of Laurie.  At least her character in H20 had a little spunk to her.  Here, she’s less a human being and more of a plot device to take out Michael Myers once and for all.  

I mean take the finale of H20 for example.  She locked her son out of the school in order to face Michael Myers alone.  Her first thought was to make sure her son was safe.  In this one, she locks her daughter INSIDE a basement with Myers on the loose in the house.  It’s even worse when it’s revealed (SPOILER) that the basement has been designed as a trap for Michael, which makes her daughter the bait!  That just didn’t sit well with me.  Heck, Curtis’ death scene in Resurrection is more touching than anything she did here. 

Which brings me to my biggest complaint about the movie.  It just feels so… ordinary.  Things happen in it, sure, but Green tries to downplay so much of the suspense that it might as well been nonexistent.  Halloween ’18 is competent on a technical level.  It’s well-shot and looks great.  But, is it a worse sin to be mind-numbingly awful like Halloween 6 or Halloween 8 or aggressively not good like this one?  At least those two films had memorable moments.  This one is mostly forgettable.

I never thought a movie would make me yearn for Josh Hartnett, but here we are. 

Are you craving more reviews of horror sequels?  Well, you can read all about them in my latest book, The Bloody Book of Horror, which is currently on sale at Amazon.  Get your copy HERE

PRIME EVIL: THE RED QUEEN KILLS SEVEN TIMES (1976) ** ½

Two rich sisters named Kitty and Eveline live in a mansion where a spooky painting of a woman in a red cloak foretells their ominous fate.  Decades later, friends of the now-grown Kitty (played by Barbara Bouchet) are picked off one by one by a killer dressed as the woman in the painting.  It’s only a matter of time before she becomes the killer’s next target.  Even though the police are hard at work on the case, Kitty is withholding an incriminating secret that could bust the investigation wide open.

The central murder mystery is ho-hum, and the stalking scenes suffer from a few repetitive kills.  (The only memorable death involves someone being impaled on a gate.)  In fact, the film’s subplots are a lot more interesting than the murder investigation itself.  The legend of the woman in red, along with the revelation of Barbara’s big secret (not to mention her involvement with a junkie blackmailer) are sure to keep you engaged when the rest of the movie is spinning its wheels.

The Red Queen Kills Seven Times is an uneven, sometimes frustrating giallo, but it’s buoyed by a great performance by Bouchet.  She’s given plenty of scenes that allow her to descend into wild-eyed theatrics and she looks positively stunning during her freak-outs.  While most of the film is patchy, the final reel in which Bouchet is locked in a slowly flooding room teeming with rats is stellar.  (She also gets a handful of sultry nude scenes too.)  Sybil Danning also shows up briefly, but you’ll wish her part was bigger.

AKA:  Horror House.  AKA:  Blood Feast.  AKA:  Feast of Flesh.  AKA:  The Corpse Which Didn’t Want to Die.  AKA:  The Lady in Red Kills Seven Times.

You can watch the film for free on Amazon Prime:  HERE

THE 31 MOVIES OR HORROR-WEEN: THE STRANGERS: PREY AT NIGHT (2018) **

I don’t know why it took ten years to make a sequel to The Strangers.  It wasn’t exactly great or anything, but its low-fi concept seemingly lends itself to unrelated sequel after unrelated sequel.  Maybe the lukewarm Strangers:  Prey at Night is proof that coming up with another similar scenario is harder than it looks.

I was looking forward to Prey at Night primarily because it gave Christina Hendricks an opportunity to have a leading role.  I don’t want to spoil anything, but… Let’s just say at least she’s top-billed.

Hendricks and her family are on their way to take her teenage daughter to boarding school.  They stop to spend the night at an abandoned trailer park owned by some relatives.  If you saw The Strangers, you know they’re about to be visited by a gang of home invaders wearing creepy masks who delight in tormenting the family before picking them off one by one.

The difference this time out is that the characters are in unfamiliar surroundings.  Because of that, it feels less like a violation of the home and more of a straightforward slasher.  That feeling is compounded by the fact that this time there are four potential victims instead of two, so there isn’t as much endless toying with the characters (or the audience).  That doesn’t exactly translate into scares though.  

The effectiveness of the killers’ stalking ability will probably depend on how creepy you find their masks.  Also, they don’t do much other than stand there, and when they finally do attack, they mostly just slice and dice.  There is at least one memorable jump scare, but it’s not enough to put this one into the win column.

Director Johannes Roberts films things with a stylish flair.  He gives us a lot of fog-drenched streets and gloomy exteriors, but that doesn’t exactly mask the fact that there really isn’t much of a movie here.  He also directed 47 Meters Down, which might explain the film’s extended underwater sequence.

His overuse of ‘80s songs like “Kids in America”, “Total Eclipse of the Heart”, and “Making Love Out of Nothing at All” is marginally effective I guess.  Not only are the characters fighting for their lives, they have to struggle to survive while Air Supply blares in the background.  Personally, having to suffer through listening to Air Supply should count as torture all by itself.

AKA:  The Strangers 2.

Are you craving more reviews of horror sequels?  Well, you can read all about them in my latest book, The Bloody Book of Horror, which is currently on sale at Amazon.  Get your copy HERE.