It's Garbage Day!

This can't be right...

2011-01-18T17:40:00.000-08:00

Wow. It's been one year since Troy and I have conversed about a bad movie. That can't be right? My how the time does fly...

Troy, we need to talk about something soon. Perhaps the above picture acts as a motivator?

The Wicker Man

2010-01-18T22:25:00.000-08:00

TO: Well, it's only been (checks the date) FOUR MONTHS since our last post. But the wait will have been worth it, for today we take a look at one of the most atmospheric and ambiguous horror movies ever made, 1973's The Wicker Man. A true classic in the genre, including one of the more memorable ending images, The Wicker Man tells the story of an ultra-religious British policeman who is sent to an island where the inhabitants are followers of a pagan...

KO: Wait...wait...Troy...uh, I don't know how to tell you this...but we're discussing The Wicker Man with Nicolas Cage. You know...the Neil Labute, Feminists-Are-Evil version. Sorry.

TO: That piece of crap? With "how'd it get burned" and "the bees" and all that? I'll go grab a new intro picture and take a drink while thinking about how such a good concept turned into such a horrible finished product.

KO: I think the movie is so bad because the studio probably wouldn’t let LaBute make the movie he wanted. Everything I’m going to say throughout this conversation is going to be speculation, but when a director like LaBute – like him or hate him – turns in a clunker of this magnitude then it triggers something in my mind that things were a little shaky on set. It wouldn’t be the first time a production company usurped a director’s control of a film, sometimes even completely removing the director from the set and having either the AD or the producer take over. However the film contains enough motifs from LaBute's oeuvre to indicate to me that he wasn’t replaced. Which can mean only one thing in my mind (again this is pure speculation): this movie is a comedy.

TO: I'll let you run with this -- do tell more.

KO: It’s not that it’s surprising that the movie misfired – that would be naïve of me to think that a studio today could successfully remake such a cerebral, haunting horror film – but it’s the fact that it misfired so badly that fascinates me, and makes me think there was something else going on during the filming of the movie.

Obviously I have no proof to back this up, but if you watch this film and are a fan of LaBute’s work (which I am) then it seems to me that he was giving the studio a good bollicking for not letting him make the movie he wanted to make. One of the producers of the film was its star, the polarizing Nicolas Cage. Again, count me as one of the few remaining fans of this actors work…like him or loathe him, there’s no denying that he’s one of the most interesting actors of the past decade. Now, there’s no denying his penchant for crap roles that pay well in lieu of something challenging; but I would argue that he does enough challenging work that when he signs on for something he sees that he’s able to do something with the material. But we’ll get to Cage in a minute.

TO: I'll cop to the fact that when I first watched the film I had only a passing idea of who LaBute was and Wicker Man had me leaning towards the idea he was a work-for-hire hack. Now, after going back and watching his first two films, In The Company of Men and Your Friends and Neighbors, both of which are average to great, I've narrowed it down to five possible reasons for the existence of this movie:

LaBute took the money from the studio, propped a dummy in the director's chair (ala Ferris Beuler) and sipped mojitos on a yacht off the coasts of Spain.
Cocaine. It worked for Peckinpah.
Ashton Kutcher forgot to let us in on the fact that this was an unaired episode of Punked (how's THAT for some topical humor!)
Some new age cult or multinational corporation needed a tax write-off in the worst way possible.
You are completely correct and this is LaBute taking the piss after something happened between the studio and him.

I've found no evidence of the Moonies being behind this (again, topical), so I'm going with #5. LaBute is a director with talent, warts and all. Even if you feel he's the type to just place his camera and let the action occur, he seems to have a good feel for directing actors and a good ear for writing distinctive dialogue. This film is so bereft of good acting and nuanced dialogue (and LaBute had his hand in the script too, so he's responsible), that we seriously have to consider what may have gone on behind the scenes.

I've done some research and can come up with nothing in regards to how this happened. If LaBute was playing a joke, he left it all on the screen, because there's no interviews stating his dislike of Warner Bros. and no real evidence of missed paychecks or squabbling anywhere. All I can see is that this IS his last work with Warner, so perhaps it was him giving them the bird on his way out? C'mon, SOMEONE has to have some info on this.

Also making me skeptical, I would have to question why Cage, who had a financial stake in this, would let it be done in such a way that it was obviously never going to be a financial hit. I guess when you have as much money as Cage, you're willing to finance a something like that?

KO: Well Cage is notorious for blowing his money on rare dinosaur fossils, so it's not entirely impossible to think that he financed this film on a lark (he's also been quoted as saying he "finds ways to spend money that mystifies people").

TO: Oh wow, that story about the "quest" Cage was sent on by Arquette should be his next movie (and perhaps that's the basis for the working script of National Treasure 3: Hunt For Bob's Big Boy).

KO: Seriously though...I only bring up Cage and LaBute’s involvement (not to mention Ellen freaking Burstyn) because there are enough serious to semi-serious people working on this movie to make me think that at one time LaBute’s screenplay had some bite to it. If we look at what LaBute has done on the past – even his mainstream films like Nurse Betty and Lakeview Terrace seem a little edgier than most – it’s clear that he’s never worried about how women are perceived in his films. This motif fits in perfectly with his weird “Island of Feminists” he sets up in The Wicker Man. The only problem is the execution of this idea, and again this where I think it’s possible that studio wasn’t prepared for a cerebral horror film (like the original) filled with all of LaBute’s insecure and sexist takes on empowered women.

TO: Exactly -- LaBute seems like the perfect guy to take the original premise and tweak it to become a diatribe on how EEEEVIL women are so why don't they get back in the kitchen and bake me a cake. And even if the finished product was turned in nothing more than a crazy diatribe about an "Island of Feminists" (love that term), if he somehow finds a way to imbue it with some kind of atmosphere and subtlety, it just might work. So could it be instead that he tried this -- made a film about how crazy females are, the studio saw it, said "sure, we'd love to piss off a large chunk of our audience with your hateful ways", and ipso facto, here we are with the finished product? That's a lot of talk about the sexism inherent in LaBute's work, to the point that it now is pretty much his one defining attribute for most film critics.

KO: Yeah, LaBute has certainly had his problems with women, that much is sure. In his pretty-good film adaptation of his own play The Shape of Things the whole climax is centered around Paul Rudd calling the “arty” and “independent” (and yes, manipulative) Rachel Weisz a cunt. He revels in the moment. So too does he try to convince us that this all-female island is synonymous with hell. Men are constantly needing to “get their balls” back (the scene where Cage hilariously announces that he's there "for business only"); or prove in some sort of archaic, chauvinistic way that men are MEN (I’m thinking here of Aaron Eckhart’s role in In the Company of Men or Jason Patric in Your Friends and Neighbors and more recently Samuel L. Jackson – who essentially plays the same kind of cop that Cage does in The Wicker Man – in Lakeview Terrace), and are the dominant species. I think that’s why Cage’s cop is so blatant in how much of a dick he is to the women on the island, and how obtrusive he is in regards to his investigation. He’s a man damn it! He’s supposed to know everything and be in control. That’s LaBute for ya: poor, innocent males lashing out against those evil women and their controlling vaginas.

TO: Every man should try to work the term "controlling vaginas" into their wedding vows. That's precious.

The misogyny you speak of in regards to Eckhart and Patric is so blatant and so disgusting it takes something away from those films. I've not seen the Rudd/Weisz scene, but it feels in line with the earlier two films. In all those cases you are meant to cheer for the guy as he puts the stupid woman in their place -- sure the women may be manipulative, but no moreso than the men. So it's okay for the man to be like that, so says the subtext of his films, but when a woman does, put her back in her place! Now, I may take issue with the Cage role being quite on the level of Patric, Eckhart, or Rudd. As written or imagined by LaBute, he likely is that misogynist you speak of, but as played by Cage in this film he only comes across as a idiot, plain and simple. If LaBute was trying to make him sympathetic, even in his dickishness, a lowly pawn in the never ending ball-crushing of women, then Cage kills it by hamming it up way too much.

But again, let's save Cage and his performance for the end. I think we should start talking about the actual movie a tad...mind if I do a plot summary?

KO: Go ahead...I've got to keep my attention focused on an Ebay auction that's ending soon for some dinosaur skulls...

TO: If you don't want to waste your time on this -- just watch this video and you'll get a 2-minute recap of most of the "high-points" of the movie (it has close to 2,000,000 hits, so it must be good, right?).

For everyone else, here's a not-so-quick recap on how the film plays out, including plenty of spoilers. This is long, so scroll on by if you don't care. I'll embed the best videos and link to others where appropriate (so you'll have to click on the links to load them in a new window).

The movie starts with Nicolas Cage, who plays police officer Edward Malus (sadly, it's pronounced May-luss, so it doesn't rhyme with phallus), attempting to help out a mother and daughter in a station wagon, because the daughter had thrown her doll out onto the road.

This leads to a ridiculous head-on collision that involves you to suspend your belief in peripheral vision, people driving on the correct side of the road, and brakes. The little kid burns up inside the car. Remember this scene, because somehow it plays into the ending. In fact, all the women in this movie end up playing into the ending -- a giant menstrual conspiracy against Malus. I'm getting off track already.

Somehow this leads to Malus getting a letter (with no stamp!) from Willow, his ex-fiancee, who informs him that her daughter Rowan is missing. Rowan looks suspiciously like the girl from the beginning of the film.

Willow lives on the island of Summersisle, who via the Google, he finds out specialize in honey products. Malus heads to the island, which we find out he has no cell service, and begins his investigation, not getting any straight answers. Here you get to see Cage at his finest, with plenty of bad line reads and that smarmy, overacting style he displays when he's at his worst ("No...It Is Not Fine...It Is Anything BUT Fine"). We also find out that he is allergic to bees...thankfully he brought an EpiPen (although little good that does him in the end).

Willow informs him to trust no one and that she has to be careful. Malus soon finds Rowan's sweater, which is proof enough to him that she existed and that something happened.

He has a strange Abbott and Costello-esque conversation about "The day of tomorrow" versus "The day after tomorrow" that is just awful. Third Base! He finds his way to the school (where the girls all know that "what man represents in his purest form" is a "phallic symbol." That's a real line from the film.). There's some more hilarious dialogue and overacting from Cage ("You Little Liars.")

Even better is the fake scare that comes from Malus opening Rowan's desk as a bird comes flying out. At this point Malus is clearly going off the rails as he finds out that perhaps Willow burned to death in a pagan ritual! Malus does some more investigating, blah blah blah. Fortunately, we are soon treated to this spectacular double-fake out dream sequence!

Okay, I'm starting to believe Kevin's theory on this being a big joke.

Malus soon finds out he can't leave the island and he can't contact anyone on the mainland. He does some more investigating and finds out more stuff that I'm sure is relevant. He thinks he is falling back in love with Willow.

Malus rides a bike.

Can you say padding?

Bees attack him while he's out on his bike -- he rolls Chris Farley style down a hill and shows us the skills that got him an Oscar as he begins to be unable to breathe. This leads to his meeting with Sister Summersisle, played by Ellen Burstyn (that's TWO Oscar winners in this film). She informs our Malus that the island's economy relies on their precious honey, and there hasn't been much honey lately, so they will need to make "offerings" to the bee gods. Oh, and Malus's bee stings healed up awfully quickly.

More padding.

Malus decides he is going to exhume the body he assumes is Rowan. As he does so, we are treated to the greatest scene in film history -- Malus discovers a burnt dolly and ends up getting trapped in a well (long story). When he is rescued by Willow, he has to know one thing and one thing only, "HOW'D IT GET BURNED!"

Now Malus has to figure out what is going on, which leads to a room where a woman is covered in bees for some reason (an image that COULD have been creepy if the film were done right),

and ultimately to the big finale -- Nic Cage at his finest. Bike hijacking, two old crones, men with their tongues removed, lots of yelling, mask removal, and plenty of doors (and women) being kicked in. I'm not sure I can do it justice in words. So watch this video and enjoy.

Oh, and then there's Nic Cage in a bear costume, kicking ass!

Finally, we find out (shock!) that is was all a trap and that all the women on the island have led Malus to this point. This leads to them putting the helmet of bees on him, breaking his legs, and finally, burning him alive.

This all is drawn out over 20 minutes with lots of mind-bogglingly rote exposition, not much more than straight line reads by all involved -- of course we are treated to more bon mots from Cage here ("BITCHES," "Killing me won't bring back you GOD DAMN HONEY!" "Whatisitwhatisitwhatisit." "Not the BEEEES." "My eyes my eyes." About 10 minutes worth of Cage screaming "aaaaaaaggggggghhhh.").

Just watch the unedited video of the last 10 minutes of the film and you'll know.

And of course, as we pull away with a shot of a burning Officer Malus, we get some touching music and then right into the credits, where we are greeted with this:

HA!

KO: That ending is one of the most insulting things about the movie, but the funny thing is that by the time you get to that ending everything that has preceded it has been so off-the-wall-ridiculous that you can't help but laugh at how campy and silly and misplayed it all is. Whereas the original contains one of the most frightening, nihilistic endings in all of horror, Labute and Cage make the material into a bad SNL skit. One of the things you don't mention (because I'm assuming you're going off of the "unrated" DVD version) is that the original ending (or maybe it was an alternate one, I can't seem to remember) has James Franco and some other dude in a diner when one of the women from the island, possibly Willow, sits and flirts with them...and then you see a bee fly by. I don't know if that's LaBute's take on Emily Dickinson's fly, but it's an ending that is even sillier than the one most people saw on the DVD.

TO: Yeah -- I believe that is the ending that folks in the theater saw. They also didn't get the breaking of his legs or the helmet o' bees. Their loss. The DVD version removes the James Franco epilogue. Why the change in the ending is anyone's guess, as it's not like it truly changes a lot (perhaps that original ending spoke to a massive female conspiracy of luring men into their trap -- I'm just making crap up now).

KO: One of the elements that made the original so good was the acting. Edward Woodward playing the cop looking for the missing girl brought a certain smugness and seriousness to the role that Cage's antics -- albeit amusing and entertaining -- undermine. We've already discussed this enough, but it's one of the reasons why I think the remake could have worked...if only they would have (been allowed to?) taken the material seriously.

One last point: I don't understand, except for the fact that's it's LaBute we're talking about -- why they would attack Feminism in the 21st century. Ritualism -- Christian, Pagan, or otherwise -- would seem to me to be an adequate enough target, plus you get a more "authentic" feel that a remake should have. Instead the film just comes off as being sexist and lazy with it's antiquated views of women (granted these women in the film are crazy, but LaBute's agenda and subtext seem clear enough).

TO: Well, one thing that is obvious from the video evidence is that for as bad as Cage's acting is here, it's not like anyone else is any better. Now, I'm not claiming Leelee Sobieski is a great actress (or even a good one), but that scene with her and Cage and their vaudevillian shtick is something that would be right at home in a poorly dubbed Italian horror movie. The scene where he kicks her into the wall -- I swear she is about to laugh as she rolls her eyes to the back of her head. Unless they only had time to shoot those scenes once, there's just no excuse for it.

Same goes for the scene at the end, where everyone seems to be just reading their lines out loud. Even if they are supposed to be droning on in a brainwashed manner, it's still comical more than creepy and there is simply no way that LaBute couldn't have known that was the case as he shot it.

As for Cage...you know, I don't want to steal your thunder here, because I know this is one of your crusades -- so I'll just set you up and work off of that. Cage is using all of his strange overacting tics throughout and this usually gets him being called a "bad actor." So let's settle the score for the entire movie blogosphere -- is Nicolas Cage a good actor?

KO: Well, you can't talk about this movie without talking about Cage. It's true that the most memorable part of the film isn’t LaBute’s motifs, but Cage’s acting. Now a YouTube phenomenon, Cage’s performance is somewhere between comic brilliance or his usual ‘this-movie-is-so-bad-I’ll-just-act-crazy-to-make-sure-there’s-something-interesting-going-on.’ And really if it weren’t for Cage’s performance this would be a completely forgettable horror remake that would be easy to toss in the bin of other crap remakes like Black Christmas, April Fool’s Day, Prom Night, My Bloody Valentine, et al. However, Cage (as funny as this sounds) saves this movie from being an utterly forgettable experience.

As a Cage fan – and I assume this is true of most fans of his who have good taste in movies – I have to compartmentalize the man’s career. There are his wacky, out-of-the-ordinary roles like Vampire’s Kiss and Wild at Heart; there is his stretch where he did good comedy in films like Moonlighting, Raising Arizona, and Honeymoon in Vegas; there’s his completely forgettable films like It Could Happen to You, City of Angels, Kiss of Death, The Family Man, and Guarding Tess; you have his action films he was fun to watch, matching the energy of the kinetic action that filled the screen (The Rock, Con Air, Face/Off) and the action films that were so bad he felt like he had to make up for it with a weird, wacky, over-the-top performance (Gone in Sixty Seconds, Next, Windtalkers); there are his interesting failures (Snake Eyes, Matchstick Men, 8MM) and his successful experiments (Leaving Las Vegas, The Weather Man, Lord of War, Bringing Out the Dead, and Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, New Orleans).

I’m even omitting some here, but I think that last list is reason why I love this guy so much. No matter what I think of his shit – and he’s made a lot of it – he’s always bringing something interesting to the table. I still claim that The Weather Man (and yes, that’s The Weather Man not The Wicker Man) is one of the most overlooked performances of the decade. So, even though The Wicker Man is just a horrible, horrible movie…at the center of it is Nic Cage doing weird, psychotic things on camera: screaming when it isn’t necessary (a staple of his), donning a bear suit and punching a girl, kicking poor Leelee Sobieski, and pulling a gun on a girl and telling her to “step away from the bike”. In my heart of hearts I have to believe that this was Cage riffing on the material…right?

TO: Okay, so you are expecting me to go along with the idea that the man who owns an "array of shrunken heads" is purposefully riffing on the material?

I lean more towards the fact that Cage can act, sure, but that he may be a little too far gone to always be in on the joke. If you look at the good movies you point to above, one ties them all together. That is, for the most part they have directors who know how to use their actors to attain a specific feeling in their films, regardless of whether or not those actors are prone to overacting and craziness (Herzog, Scorsese, and Lynch are all particularly adept at this with regards to other Cage-ian types: Kinski, DeNiro, Pacino, Hopper, amongst others). So in that respect, I say it's on the director to point Cage in the right direction and either reel-in his wild nature or use his acting eccentricities to better the film.

Herzog's Bad Lieutenant is really the perfect example (and I just watched it last night, so it's fresh on my mind). I'd make the case that Cage doesn't act terribly different in that film as he does in The Wicker Man, yet there even when you laugh at the lines and his actions you still sense that there is a true crack-induced, gonzo craziness from his character. That's on Herzog for drawing that out and making it come across on film. Here, you just laugh. This goes to the fact that LaBute either didn't care, or was just too entranced at an unfettered, misguided Cage performance, that I think he ends up reaping what he sowed.

KO: Your point about Cage is well taken, and even if I am one of the few that thinks his off-kilter acting style is something to celebrate instead of bash I am still not blind to the man's faults. As it is with most actors they are only as good as their directors, and yes, the really special ones can often rise above their material, no matter how bad it is; however, I often find myself thinking about something Tony Dayoub said on the thread you linked to about Nicolas Cage: I'll paraphrase his thoughts which got me thinking about the way Cage kind of plays by his own rules (again thinking about the quote where he admits to making decisions that make people scratch their heads) reminding one of the combustible actors of the 50's and 60's before everything, as Tony aptly states, became method. Cage -- warts and all -- is kind of a throwback to a different type of actor, and I find that appealing, even if I don't like all of his movies or choices he makes.

TO: Okay, so we've ripped on the acting, script, plot, inherent misogyny...is there ANYTHING good about this film?

KO: As far as redeeming qualities the film may have…none really unless you’re like us and enjoy a movie that’s so-bad-it’s-good. Cage’s performance is enough of a perverse curiosity to see the film if you haven’t yet, and I guess if I had to go searching for something redeeming about the film it would be that it certainly looks nice. They didn’t skimp on the cinematography…just on the re-writes, which I still suspect came early and often, even as late as on a day-to-day basis during the filming; that’s the only reasonable explanation I can think of for why this movie misfired so badly.

TO: About that cinematography...I'd push to even call that a failure. If the point of the film was to show the beauty and majesty of the island and its inhabitants, sun-drenched and golden hued, then it works perfectly. Unfortunately, if you are trying to create an atmospheric and haunting movie about an island of pagan females who chop out men's tongues and have human sacrifices, well then it simply fails. Hell, they set the movie in the Pacific Northwest, the least they could have done is made it overcast and dreary, creating some kind of ambiance (note to non NW people -- it isn't always drab and overcast here. It's quite nice, actually).

Worse yet, this movie gives the original a bad name, by virtue of now when everyone hears about The Wicker Man they think, "oh, that Nicolas Cage piece of shite" and don't realize that there is another version out there and it is a fantastic, subtly creepy film. Argh. It's like how I can never convince people that Alan Moore's "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" is an intelligent, literary, and engrossing comic book series, thanks to the botch job that the movie version did. Drives me crazy. No, the only good thing about this movie is that it is so, so bad.

KO: I like your analogy of Moore's work. However, I think that this version of The Wicker Man is so different than the original that it really doesn't soil the name too badly. I like what you say about the cinematography, too, I never thought about the fact that it takes place in the Pacific NW and they don't even use rain/clouds as the obvious visual correlative. However, I think in its in own viral video kind of way, The Wicker Man has become a cult classic just like the original. So they do, oddly enough, share one thing in common.

TO: It is truly a film to be celebrated, for without it, we would not have the following video, putting scenes from the film to the Benny Hill chase song ("Yakety Sax").

The Bees Are Coming!

2010-01-17T14:05:00.000-08:00

Be on the lookout sometime this next week.

Silent Night, Deadly Night 2

2009-09-01T23:44:00.000-07:00

TO: And so it begins... Silent Night, Deadly Night 2 (henceforth referred to as SNDN2, to save us the trouble of typing that out). Now this is a hilariously bad movie (albeit, perhaps intentionally so). So, while we definitely need to poke some fun at it, you had previously mentioned that it does have a few interesting things about it to discuss, particularly in regards to it's production history and the significance of the film in relation to the "Video Nasty" scare of the 80's. Shockingly, that could actually make something potentially worthwhile come out of this dialogue. And since the people who read YOUR blog are all going to be coming here, it's probably for the better, lest you lose your street cred by teaming up with a hack like me!

KO: Well you give me, and my readers (ha!), too much credit. I kid, I kid. Yeah, the film is interesting in that a lot of its noteworthy qualities are hamstrung by its totally inane acting and nonsensical plot. I think it's safe to say that these themes are covered in better films, but it is interesting to go back and look at this film and think that people like Wes Craven, unbeknownst to them, ripped this story off (the idea of a horror movie within a horror movie being played out in a much better way in New Nightmare and then being ran into the ground with the Scream sequels). Anyway...I'm interested to see where this goes before we start getting really snarky. Onward!

TO: I will make no initial claim that the makers of this film were in it for any high-minded reasons -- it's an 80's horror movie, after all, and the majority of them were drek. If we can find just a scintilla of creativity that eeked into the movie somehow, well then, I guess we'll have to give the devil his due.

But I'm getting ahead of things a bit there. Let's start by discussing the story structure of the film, because it's a brilliant way to create a cheap, quick movie. And I mean that in the most sincere, non-snarky way. The filmmakers have decided to simply take scenes from he first Silent Night, Deadly Night and intersperse them into the sequel as "flashbacks." In theory, this is hack movie-making at its finest - you only need about 50-60 minutes of new material to have a completely "new" film.

KO: Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned the editing. It's interesting because the original Silent Night, Deadly Night was such a controversial film that all of the backlash and protest surrounding the movie made it more of a hit than it ever had a hope of being. The producers recognizing this hired someone to "direct" a sequel when in reality all they told him to do was shoot a few scenes of new footage and re-edit the original film into those new scenes to create "a sequel". The director in the commentary for the now out of print Anchor Bay DVD claimed that they gave him very little money (probably something along the lines of a Corman salary) and sent him on his way. The director insisted that they couldn't make a movie with that little money (thanks to Wikipedia I see that the estimated budget was around $250,000). What's interesting is that the film would have just been another worthless slasher film if it weren't for the controversial topic: a psycho killer dressed up as Santa. That's the only reason why the original was popular (the film is boring as hell and complete bollocks), and of course any mention of the film being put on the infamous "video nasties" list was sure to pique the interest of fans of slasher films who so passionately sought out VHS copies of the "nasty" films (even though, as you and I have found out, most don't live up to the "hype"...Island of Dead excluded, hehe, but I digress...) and made them popular that way. So, it's understandable why the producers thought they could make a quick buck, and hey, kudos to them for exploiting the press that surrounded the original film.

The problem was that they were so cheap they ruined any chance for profit with the sequel as people shit all over the movie immediately for simply being the same film as the original for the first 45 minuets. Plus, the whole point of a sequel is to extract more money from another films success, so imagine how duped people who actually paid to see the sequel felt when they realized they just paid money to see the same movie over again! The film made very little money (about $154,000), and I think it's safe to assume that the film would have made little money regardless of whether they recycled the footage or not. At that point (1987) the slasher film was a dead genre and pretty much anything associated with the slasher genre not named A Nightmare on Elm Street or Friday the 13th was sure to fail. It was a stale genre that was running on fumes and trying to make money off of the more successful films that came before it.

I'd like to return to what you say about how this method is a cheap, effective way to make a movie. Yes and no. I think that producers obviously save money going this route, but really it would only work now with how cheap and easy the straight to DVD route is. I'm sure they spent money on advertising and getting the film to theaters...there's no way that movie came even close to making a profit, and it's because its fans saw right through it. However, if sheer output of films are all your concerned about, then yes, it's an effective way to make a movie. Just think about all the Godfrey Ho films where they shot three movies at once and just dubbed in the dialogue they needed and shifted scenes around! It's amazing that people did this, but it made them money for awhile. It also created gold for cinephiles like us who love to be masochistic and watch drek like this for fun. It really is a sickness.

The other point you bring up about SNDN2 being "hack filmmaking at its finest" makes me think of all the Italian films we love so much. I'm speaking specifically about the cannibal and zombie films of the late 70's and early 80's where it was almost part of the deal that stock footage had to be inserted into the film to try and give the film a sense of "authenticity". Of course I'm thinking of the hack years of Lenzi and the great Mexican hack Rene Cardona Jr. whose films always implemented (read: padded) this stock footage as a way to kill time. Excruciating sequences of stock footage are shown for five minutes at a time in some films, and it's obvious that they were trying to ape the Mondo films that were so popular, but it was also a cost effective tool that allowed them to shoot multiple pictures on the cheap with the same crew and the same actors and package them out as different films.

Anyway...where else have we seen this in horror movies?

TO: I've been racking my brain trying to think of another horror movie that did exactly what the makers of SNDN2 do here and I'm coming up empty. I looked, and it appears Joe D'Amato or Bruno Mattei never even stooped to that. However, it's not like the whole recycling of a prior film into a new film is anything new. Roger Corman did this exact thing in many of his films (the reuse of the space footage/SFX from Battle Beyond the Stars comes directly to mind), as did the Filipino action producers, like Godfrey Ho. I'm sure there is some Italian horror director who did this at some point. Apparently, Disney even did it. However, none of them went to the extent that SNDN2 does. It feels like half of the film is made up of scenes from the first film. Sadly, the internet is not helping me in determining what percentage of the film is old footage. You better talk to the people while I get out the stopwatch and figure it out. Pray I survive this.

KO: Haha. Good luck! Yes, SNDN2 really does go above and beyond in doing nothing but showing footage from another movie. I love that there is a somewhat postmodern moment where Ricky and his girlfriend are at a movie theater (a scene I'm sure we'll get to in more length) and Ricky asks what the movie is that they're seeing (an odd thing to ask after you've paid admission), and his girlfriend tells him: "It's about a guy who dresses up as Santa Claus and kills people". Ricky's response to this is great ("Whaaaa!?!?!") and it is actually an intriguing moment (the only in the movie) where they are watching the original Silent Night, Deadly Night. Obvious? Yes. Hacky? Sure. Inspired? Meh...kind of. It's just as good as anything Kevin Williamson came up with.

TO: Whaaaa?! Before the results of my ordeal, this one point -- in that same theater scene, the rowdy patron who throw popcorn at Ricky essentially does the Jaimie Kennedy bit from the Scream movie (about how this guy is going to die because he goes in the basement alone...that bit). I think $4.50 (or whatever it cost in 1987) of that $154,000 DID come from one Kevin Williamson. Hell, you could even see the Chet character as being a precursor for Dawson!

Back to the stopwatch. After adding it all up, there are about 28 minutes, 02 seconds of footage from the first film. Tack on a nearly 5 minute ending credits and you have 33(!) minutes of non-original movie in an 88 minute runtime. That's good for 37%. You know what it takes to pull that off in a major release movie? It takes brass balls.

KO: They have NOT made their decision for Christ! Okay...let's stay on track. Yes, the stuff in the Catholic school was all from the original. It's all Ricky's memory, but all of the stuff, except for the ending, dealing with Mother Superior is from the original.

TO: Ahhh, yes. In that pan up on Ricky, after watching his brother die, that's where we switch over to original footage. Got it. Would you say that the best part of all that reuse of footage is in the way that they manage to tie it to the sequel, plot wise? The killer from the first movie, Billy, has a brother, Ricky, and both apparently have all the same Santa Claus, religious, and sex related hang-ups that cause them to want to kill those who are "Naughty." I guess murderous rage runs in the family.

KO: Indeed. You know even when I watched the original I never cared for the plot because the thing was so damn boring. Yeah, I guess it's kind of interesting the way they tie the sequel in, but really it all just seems so unoriginal. Especially the ending where Ricky gets shot and everyone thinks he's dead, but then smiles at the camera.

TO: Obviously Michele Soavi was sharing a tub of large popcorn with Kevin Williamson while vacationing in the states and viewing this very film, because he uses that exact shot at the end of Stage Fright!

KO: Haha. Great line. Yes...Soavi, Williamson, DePalma...they all were influenced by this masterwork. There can be no debate about that. That style of ending really was a staple for all slasher films, and I love that Soavi uses it in his film, which is somewhat of a swan song for the slasher film (and certainly the last great slasher film ever to be made, appropriately marking the end of an era). There also does seem to be some "idea" about how the filmmakers feel about religious oppression. It's handled in a sophomoric kind of way, and something that deep is way too lofty of an idea for a film like this, but I think it's there...lurking beneath the surface of the comically bad slasher flick.

TO: Hmm, I'm not sure they were going for that religious oppression theme -- it's simply done too jokingly for it to actually expect itself to be taken seriously. I think they were simply going for something outrageous and controversial. What's draws more controversy than a movie where a the bad guy is dressed like Santa and kills a nun! But as to why this is executed so poorly...take it away, Kevin.

KO: Yes. I see your point there. I don't think anyone watching this movie can seriously think that this film legitimately elicits those kinds of themes, but I don't doubt that the filmmakers thought it would be great if they made a commentary on organized religion.

Anyway, I think we all know the reason why this movie can't be taken seriously (even as a bad slasher flick): Eric Freeman. Freeman plays Ricky as so over the top insane that it's impossible not to think that he was either coached into doing that, or he's just so amateurish that he didn't know better. It's easy to see why the filmmakers cast him as he has a presence about him, but man, he simply cannot act. It's sad that the filmmakers couldn't find him for the DVD commentary -- apparently he's gone AWOL -- as I would have loved to hear what his thoughts were about his acting. I don't think Freeman is to blame, though. I mean sure he's a bad actor, but the filmmakers gave him nothing to work with, and he's obviously an amateur as he thinks that proper emoting equates to raising your eyebrows (his eyebrows do more acting than he does), dramatic pauses, and emphasizing every other word ("Red CAR. NICE." "Fuck off DOC." MotherFUCKER!"). I know that you have some thoughts on Freeman...perhaps we should look into the Videoscope for evidence?

TO: OOOOH YEAH! We'll get to that after this point -- I'm personally torn on Freeman in this movie. He is either a great actor and is knowingly hamming it up onscreen, or he is so bad that it just comes across as comedic. His line reads are so rigid that I half-expect the director told him to play it that way. As you say, that likely goes hand-in-hand with the dialogue he's been given. You can see some of the more memorable lines over at IMDB, but the printed lines don't do them justice without Freeman's delivery -- so here's some tasty samples for you.

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Wasn't that just incredible. The eyebrow acting, the overemphasis on the odd syllable, the "Whaaa?!", even a "Mooooooo" at the end (is he channeling a cow?) -- it's all there, like you say. I think it should be our life's goal to find Mr. Freeman and let him know he should be happy with his cult status. I'm sure WWE would let him guest host an episode of Raw, no? Now, let's take a look at a few of the more noteworthy scenes in the movie -- we have the "umbrella death," the aforementioned movie theater scene, a death by batter charger, Ricky's killing spree, and some scenes from the chase scene at the end. I know it seems like a lot to ask, but watching all of these will improve your life.

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KO: I have to hand it to the filmmakers -- the umbrella death is pretty original. And neat looking.

TO: Yeah, although the actor playing the victim here just doesn't look sleazy enough to be some kind of tough-guy. That bothered me a LOT more than the impossibility of putting an umbrella clear through someone. A lot. Maybe it's the Jack Weston-meets-Elliot Gould-ness of the guy.

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I wanted to touch more on the movie theater scene to simply point out that this has reached the pantheon of bad movie greatness for me. The two guys in the peanut gallery, the inane dialogue that sounds like it was scripted by a 7th grader, the random popping-up of boyfriend Chet. Please, someone who has heard the director's commentary for the movie, tell me this was this all done intentionally. It's what still gives me hope that the film Kevin, myself, and some friends "made" years back, Liver Thief, could someday see the light of day.

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KO: Haha. Yes, someday Liver Thief will be unearthed and all will be right in the world. The killing spree really is the highlight of the film, and one of the reasons it has obtained cult status. Freeman's maniacal laughter is so over-the-top that like you I half suspect that the director didn't know what to do, and so Freeman, the amateur that he is, was left to his own devices. He probably thought: "oh, I know. Bad guys are evil. Evil people laugh like this. Perfect!" It's such a horrid piece of acting -- not to mention the stupidity of it all where a Ron Howard looking cop, who may be the worst cop in the world, gets a bullet to the head for his troubles and thensome poor guy taking his garbage out gets murdered (leading to the famous "Garbage Day!" line) -- that it really makes the whole thing worth seeking out just for the rampage scene alone. I read that there was a meme created for the "Garbage Day" scene where people dub in different holidays. Brilliant. That car , too. Holy crap. Some poor stunt guy almost died because of a botched stunt. And what is this the A-Team? Since when did a car flip from someone shooting its front end.

TO: Since when did a car explode from landing gently on its side, for that matter? Oh, and when he electrocutes Chet with the jumper cables he totally would have been electrocuted too, since he's touching Chet's neck during the whole murder. This movie is soooo fake. Uh oh, now I sound like the Popcorn Guy. PUNISH!

KO: Again. A-Team? McGyver?

TO: In that last scene, apparently the Mother Superior has lost all the blood in her body (and did we ever find out why her face was all deformed...was that just to hide the fact it was a different actress?). And they steal the Argento shot from Tenebre...that makes TWO directors that DePalma stole from!

KO: Yes! I love the decapitation scene with no blood! Perhaps Ricky is a vampire, too. Hehe. Yeah, I noticed the Tenebre shot, too. Interesting that that shot is a favorite among horror movies. Most famously of course in the DePalma films Raising Cain and Femme Fatale. It's a good effect, though...so I can understand why people would want to pay homage to it.Is there anything else you want to add to wrap this up?

TO: I agree, it is a cool shot and I'd "homage" it in a heartbeat if anyone cared to see me make a movie (and did you know that if you Google "movies that have stolen the tenebre shot," my blog comes up seventh!). Yeah, I've absolutely run out of things to write about. If anyone has made it this far into this, I'm impressed. We actually managed to write 3000+ words on this steaming pile of poo.

KO: I'm proud of us. Well...we did watch this like three times when we first discovered it a couple of years ago. I think we mostly watched from the rampage scene on, but this was something of an experience, watching this movie. You get sucked in because you can't believe they're really going to be showing us all of that footage from the first film, and then when the sequel finally "begins" it's so outrageous and over the top that you can't help but be sucked in by how awesome the final act is in its awfulness.

TO: So, do you really think this movie was ever intended to be taken seriously...in grabbing screencaps, I just noticed the Mother Superior's address is "666" and that, taken in conjunction with all the other silliness, settles it for me, they didn't even care. Again, can we get the director's commentary to back us up on this? Where do you stand on the matter.

KO: Oh, I'm sure they thought they were making a legit film, they just didn't have the budget they thought they needed to make a "good" movie. Which I don't think was possible with this crew. Yes, the 666 is an obvious touch, too, but one that seems at home with these kinds of filmmakers who think that kind of thing is "fresh" and "cool". I mean Fulci did the same non-sensical crap in The Beyond the only (obvious) difference is that his film was a supernatural movie -- so that otherworldy feel and inconsistency was right at home. Now whether or not the filmmakers care or not is another question. As mentioned earlier they seemed to have been pretty disillusioned about the whole process since the producers wouldn't give them the budget they wanted. So maybe as a big middle finger to the production company they made the worst movie they could make...basically they gave the producers, who were only interested in turning a profit off of the film's name (think Halloween III: Season of the Witch), what they wanted: a piss poor slasher film that never stood a chance to last more than two weeks in theaters. This segues nicely into the next film we're going to talk about Neil Labute'sThe Wicker Man, another film where I think the filmmakers basically said "screw you " to the producers that wouldn't allow them to make the movie they wanted. More on that later this month, though.

TO: Are we just going to deal with films that have YouTube memes attached to them? I know of your conspiracy theory for Wicker Man and I can't wait to delve into it. Plus, any chance I get to discuss "not the beeeeeeees, aaaahhhhhh" I will gladly take.

KO: Sure you can, but talking about the bees won't bring back your precious honey! Until next time...

BONUS VIDEOS: Sledding decapitation and The Love Story of Eddie and Paula. Some great dialogue in both of these, but I couldn't find a way to fit them into the main post (hard to believe).

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Just to get things started...

2009-08-26T14:10:00.001-07:00