MANOS RETURNS (2018) **

If it wasn’t for Mystery Science Theater 3000, the 1966 low budget horror oddity, Manos:  The Hands of Fate would’ve faded into obscurity.  Thanks to a pair of wisecracking robots, Manos was resurrected and brought back into the pop culture consciousness.  Well, at the very least, the pop culture consciousness of people who like bad movies (like me).  

Manos Returns must set some kind of record for the longest gap between a movie and its sequel, especially for one that stars the same cast members from the original.  (Fifty-two years, to be exact.)  The good news is it looks exactly how you would expect a fifty-plus years later sequel to Manos to look.  It was shot on video, features minimal location work, and is packed to the gills with bad dialogue and amateurish acting.  It also cannily reuses the same music from the first film (including some covers), and recycles a lot of the same dialogue and situations.

I have to admit, it’s a lot of fun seeing the old cast again.  It’s also kind of neat to revisit this world and seeing how things have changed in the years since the original.  Like the old saying goes, the more things change the more they stay the same. 

This time out, it’s four friends who get lost on the highway during a vacation, instead of a family.  They make a wrong turn and wind up at a rundown old house where they meet the weirdo groundskeeper Torgo (Steven Shields), who “takes care of the place while ‘The Master’ is away”.  Eventually, after a lot of stumbling around the house, the friends find themselves in the grips of the dark power of Manos.

Manos Returns is at its best when its following in the original’s footsteps.  It’s kind of refreshing to see what a halfway capable director (in this case, Tonjia Atomic, who also has a supporting role as one of the Master’s wives) can do with the material as there are moments here when the whole thing threatens to actually work.  (It’s certainly more competent and watchable than the original, that’s for sure.)  It’s less successful however when it's making its own (unfunny) comedic commentary on the proceedings.  There are times when the characters make jokes at the movie’s expense; almost as if they’re trying to beat Mystery Science Theater to the punch.  (There’s even a thinly veiled reference to one of the riffs from the MST3K episode.)  The discussion the characters have about bad movies in the beginning is a bit too on-the-nose too. 

It was good seeing The Master (Tom Neyman) again.  Unfortunately, he died before it was released.  At least he had one more opportunity to wear the Manos robe.  Debbie (Jackey Neyman Jones) and her mother (Diane Mahree Rystad) also make a welcome return, although to say any more about them would get into Spoiler territory.  It must be said that the new Torgo isn’t a patch on John Reynolds’ definitive interpretation of the character in the original film.  I did find it refreshing that the Master added some plus-sized girls to his stable of wives though. 

There are some odd new touches to the Manos lore that feel a bit half-baked, like the lost souls (I think that’s what they are) who are still stuck inside the house.  The ending is okay, I guess, and we get one decent bloody scene.  On the plus side, it’s only an hour long.  I can’t quite call it “good”, but I admire the fact that it knew when to quit. 

Overall, Manos Returns is better than the original.  That wasn’t difficult to do I’m sure, but still.  It may have its share of flaws, but it’s about as good as a fifty-two years later sequel to one of the worst movies of all time could be.

EXTRACTION (2020) * ½

If you’re wondering why this movie is called Extraction, it’s because the filmmakers have somehow managed to extract all the charisma, charm, and personality from Chris Hemsworth.  That’s no small feat, let me tell you.  He stars as a merc who gets sent to rescue a crime lord’s kid.  It’s based on a comic book I’ve never heard of, but it feels more like a video game I’ve never played.  There’s no real “plot” either.  Just a series of objectives.  The dialogue scenes are more like cut scenes from a video game that set up action too.  It also doesn’t help that Hemsworth is totally miscast as a burned out alkie commando. 

Produced and written by the Russo brothers (who also made the Avengers movies with Hemsworth), Extraction is a joyless, generic, and forgettable affair.  It’s especially dire whenever first-time director Sam Hargrave tries to get arty.  The one-take Children of Men-inspired scene is particularly forced, and the obvious seams in the action only call attention to the fact that it’s a series of smaller shots held together with some not-so clever editing tricks.  If anything, it’s only purpose is to reinforce the “Let’s make an action flick that feels like a video game” aesthetic.

I guess I have to bring up the fact that Hemsworth’s character is named Tyler Rake.  That really wouldn’t matter except that there’s a scene early in the movie in which he kills someone with a rake.  I guess this would’ve been cool if he had said, “That’s why they call me ‘Tyler Rake’” afterwards, but he doesn’t.  It just takes you out if the scene when you realize the filmmakers are too dumb to acknowledge this bit of symmetry with a quip or a one-liner.  Also, why would a rake be in a living room?  If this scene happened in a garden or shed, I could understand why a rake would be there, but a living room?

Another thing that took me out of the movie was the scene where the bad guys bribe the police into closing all the bridges in the city so Hemsworth can’t escape.  I mean, isn’t that the same exact plot of 21 Bridges, which the Russos also produced?  Are they already running out of ideas for their non-Marvel films?  

The villain is really bland too.  The only memorable part is when he sends a bunch of street kids out to kill Chris.  If you always wanted to see Thor kick the shit out of some snot-nosed kids, here is your chance.  

David Harbour shows up late in the game in an extended cameo as Hemsworth’s pill-popping compatriot, but he doesn’t stick around long enough to resuscitate the movie.  Oh, and the ending really sucks too.  I can’t go on record by saying Extraction is the worst flick of the year, but it’s definitely the most forgettable. 

AKA:  Tyler Rake.  AKA:  Out of the Fire.

RAVEN (1997) **

Burt Reynolds stars as Raven, the leader of “Raven Team”, a special unit of soldiers who do dirty jobs for the government.  Their latest assignment:  Steal a top-secret decoder.  Raven knows the government is just going to hand it over to the Iranians, so he goes rogue and steals it himself.  His shellshocked second in-command, “Duce” (Matt Battaglia, who also starred with Burt in those Universal Soldier sequels around the same time this was made) calls it quits after their last mission and walks away in possession of a vital piece of the decoder.  Raven will stop at nothing to get it back, even if it means stabbing his former friend in the back.

Raven feels like it might’ve been a pilot for a TV show that didn’t get picked up.  (The action is very reminiscent of those old “Action Pack” TV shows from the ‘90s.)  It kicks off with a lot of action, gunplay, and explosions, but the staging is rather uninspired.  (It also looks as if some of the explosions may have been taken from other movies.)  Unfortunately, it almost immediately settles down and gets pretty dull, pretty quick.  We then have to sit through a lot of talk, plotting, and double crossing.  This wouldn’t have been so bad if the rest of the action was up to the caliber of the beginning of the film.  However, the bulk of picture is light on action, and the finale is a big fat bust.  

On the plus side, Raven does deliver three completely gratuitous sex scenes, which does help alleviate the boredom.  The fact that two of the scenes feature Emmanuelle in Space’s Krista Allen as Battaglia’s hot girlfriend certainly was enough for me to put this in the “watchable” category.  If director Russell Solberg (who got his start as a stuntman, which is probably what put him on Reynolds’ radar) had tossed in a couple more of these scenes, he might’ve had a halfway decent Skinamax flick on his hands.  As is, there’s just not enough action or skin here to make it worthwhile. 

Reynolds is OK as the baddie, but he really needed more to work with if he was going to emerge from this one unscathed.  Battaglia, on the other hand is thoroughly awful in the lead.  He pretty much singlehandedly sinks it with his braindead line readings and laughable emoting.  During his big emotional scene on the battlefield, it’s hard to tell if he is experiencing PTSD or if he’s wondering if he left the iron on.  

AKA:  Raven Team.

DANGEROUSLY CLOSE (1986) ** ½

A group of fascist hall monitors called “The Sentinels” rule their school with an iron fist.  They claim they’re reducing crime and vandalism on campus, but in reality, they’re targeting lower class, minority, and punk students in the name of vigilante justice.  Randy (John Stockwell, who also co-wrote the script), the leader of The Sentinels, reaches out to Danny (J. Eddie Peck), the editor of the school newspaper, in hopes he will write a favorable article about the group.  Danny, a lower-class kid (who also cleans Randy’s pool), is lured by the promise of popularity, and is drawn into the world of The Sentinels.  When students begin turning up dead and/or missing, Danny discovers The Sentinels may be the ones responsible, and he sets out to bring the group down.  

I’m not sure why this was called Dangerously Close.  Maybe because it was one of the few Albert Pyun movies that came dangerously close to being good.  It’s far from perfect, but as far as Pyun’s work goes, this is one of his best.  (Although let’s face it.  He’ll never come close to matching The Sword and the Sorcerer.) 

I’ll admit, it’s a little clunky in the early going.  Once the film finally unfurls its premise, it slowly begins working.  Think Class of 1984 Meets The Lords of Discipline by way of John Hughes.  However, the wheels start coming off as it enters the home stretch.  While the twist ending is decent enough, the editing in the third act is often choppy, with the final shot being especially perplexing.

Despite its flaws, the film certainly has a strong cast for this sort of thing.  Stockwell (who also was in Pyun’s Radioactive Dreams) is solid as the slick, persuasive preppie villain.  Peck (three years away from starring in Curse 2:  The Bite) makes for a likeable lead.  It helps that he has qualities of both a cool guy and a dork, which kind of makes it uncertain what side he’ll remain loyal to.  Carey Lowell (three years from starring as a Bond girl in Licence to Kill) makes a memorable impression as Stockwell’s bored girlfriend, who naturally begins to have eyes for Peck.  It was also fun to see Pyun regular Thom Mathews and Miguel A. Nunez being reteamed once again a year after they starred in Return of the Living Dead.

AKA:  Campus.  AKA:  Campus ’86.

GRETA (2019) **

There’s been a lot of talk about “elevated horror” lately.  Greta is an example of an “elevated thriller”.  It features a good cast (Chloe Grace Moretz and Isabelle Huppert) being guided by a prestige director (The Crying Game’s Neil Jordan) through a thoroughly predictable plot, but since it’s got a good cast and a prestige director, we’re supposed to think it’s hot shit.  In this case, Jordan is barely able to disguise the fact it’s nothing more than a weak rehashing of the ‘90s “From Hell” genre.   Despite the fact that Jordan has directed some well-regarded films in the past, there’s little here to distinguish this one from the likes of The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, Single White Female, and The Temp.  (Or the dozens of similarly themed thrillers that Lifetime has been cranking out for the past decade, for that matter.) 

A Good Samaritan named Frances (Moretz) finds a purse on the subway.  Instead of keeping the money inside, she returns it to its owner, Greta (Huppert), an older lonely woman.  Frances feels sorry for her since she herself recently lost her mother and needs an older woman’s guidance.  She finds out much too late that Greta’s an obsessive psycho.

There are one or two moments here that prevent Greta from being completely dismissible.  The turn that sets up the second act is well executed by Jordan.  He also delivers a fine sequence that unfortunately, and infuriatingly, turns out to be one of those “It was all a dream” scenes.  In fact, it turns out to be an “It was all a dream within a dream” scenes, which makes it twice as infuriating.

However, the other notes are struck with rote indifference.  The scenes of Moretz going to the police about Huppert’s behavior, while necessary, stops the film dead in its tracks, mostly because we know the cops won’t do anything about her.  (If they did, the movie would be over.)  Jordan also drops the ball in the third act as the tension pretty much dissipates by the hour mark.  If Jordan leaned into the more horrific elements of the screenplay, it might’ve worked.  As it is, he’s too busy trying to make the flick respectable that he forgets to have any fun with it.

The performances can’t be faulted.  Moretz is good as kind, but gullible heroine, and Maika (It Follows) Monroe breathes a little life into the film as her spunky roommate.  Huppert’s performance is pretty much the whole show though as she chews the scenery with aplomb.  While it’s not a patch on her mesmerizing turn in Elle, her efforts alone make Greta watchable. 

A FIELD IN ENGLAND (2013) **

Soldiers fighting in the English Civil War split from the battlefield and take off in search of ale.  Along the way, they get waylaid by a deranged alchemist who coerces them into finding his lost buried treasure.  Eventually, the cowardly lot find their courage and decide to fight back. 

I was a fan of director Ben Wheatley’s High-Rise and Free Fire, so I figured I would give A Field in England a chance.  Even though Wheatley made it two years before High-Rise, it feels like it was made a decade earlier.  Because of the low budget, hammy acting, and bland black and white cinematography, it often feels like the work of a first-time director.  I will say that Wheatley does a good job during the battlefield sequences with very little at his disposal.  He’s able to suggest a much larger battle than the one that’s shown by strategically placing the camera, cleverly utilizing well-timed flying dirt, and adding in the sound of gunfire and thundering hooves. 

Unfortunately, the bulk of the movie is devoted to long scenes of men walking around aimlessly.  This section of the picture is rather lifeless and dull, and the addition of the annoying alchemist character does little to liven things up.  The long, draggy middle section almost makes it feel like a short film that was expanded to feature length.  

Still, there are flashes of brilliance here that suggests what Wheatley can do even with the limited resources he was given.  There’s a funny impromptu medical examination scene, and some solid gore as well.  The highlight is the great, trippy scene near the end that feels like a mix of David Lynch, Stanley Kubrick, and Alejandro Jodorowsky.  These moments taken on their own merits are quite impressive, but overall, there’s just not enough of them to make A Field in England worth recommending.

AKA:  English Revolution.

PARASITE (2019) ***

Ki-Woo (Choi Woo-Shik) lives in a crummy basement apartment with his family, who are barely able to eke out a living folding pizza boxes for a local pizza parlor.  When a job tutoring a rich girl falls in his lap, Ki-Woo charms his way into her family’s heart.  Ki-Woo and his scheming family then ingratiate themselves into the rich people’s good graces.  One by one, using false names and credentials, they take on household servant roles, and before long, they are comfortably nestled inside the luxurious home (not to mention rolling in the dough).  Eventually, they learn they can’t keep up the charade forever. 

Parasite made a big splash when the film and its director, Bong Joon Ho won four Oscars, including Best Picture.  (It was also the first foreign language film to win Best Picture.)  It’s thematically similar to Ho’s Snowpiercer, although it’s not quite as daring and provocative as that movie.  This is only the third Ho picture I’ve seen (the other two being Snowpiercer and The Host), and for me, it’s my least favorite of the trio.  That said, it’s still a strong feature, even if it kind of loses its way in the second half.

The first act is a dizzying high wire act as Ho deftly balances the darkly comic tone with the increasingly desperate actions of the poor family.  It’s enormously successful until the twist that sets up the second half causes the film to take a sharp turn.  This section of the movie (which I won’t spoil) is interesting as it forces us to reexamine the characters (and forces the characters to reexamine themselves).  However, the pacing dawdles too often during this stretch, and the sequence where the family become imprisoned inside the home runs on too long.

Despite that, the finale makes it worth the wait.  Unfortunately, after that stellar sequence, the film doesn’t know when to quit as it suffers from a few too many false endings.  Still, this is probably the most atypical movie to ever win Best Picture, and for that, we all should be grateful.  I mean, did Green Book end with a birthday party massacre?  Didn’t think so.