Foster on Film – Page 64 – The Film Criticism of Matthew M. Foster

Escape from L.A. (1996)

Oct 051996

Loner Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell) has been captured by the U.S. national police force and brought to officers Malloy and Brazen (Stacy Keach, Michelle Forbes). They force him to undertake a mission for the Christian fanatic president (Cliff Robertson). He must enter L.A., no longer part of the country after the earthquake of 2000, and retrieve a black box stolen by the president’s daughter, Utopia (A.J. Langer), and given to the revolutionary leader, Cuervo Jones (George Corraface). Entering the island city by sub, Snake meets an array of colorful characters who both help and hinder him, including treacherous Map to the Stars Eddie (Steve Buscemi), ex-thief Hershe Las Palmas (Pam Grier), and surfer-dude Pipeline (Peter Fonda).

Like its predecessor, Escape From New York, Escape From L.A. earns its post-apocalyptic label with a mini-apocalypse. The world hasn’t been destroyed, just L.A. And like in most post-apocalyptic tales, the story follows one, tough, unpleasant, larger-than-life anti-hero as he fights everybody. This is also a dystopian film as the U.S. has become a Christian theocratic dictatorship. Director John Carpenter, never one to shy away from his political leanings, uses both aspects to extol the virtues of libertarianism (making the film feel like Demolition Man, or his own They Live). While most of the politics is hammered too hard, the arrests for “moral crimes” does touch a nerve in modern U.S. lawmaking.

But this is no contemplative film; it’s an all out action picture, with guns a’blazing. Carpenter tosses in everything. If there’s movement, it’s in the film. Besides the shooting (with machine guns, rocket launchers, pistols, rifles, mouth darts, and net guns), there is a fight with a scalpel, hang gliding, high speed submarine travel, surfing on a tidal wave, and a basketball game. A basketball game? Yeah, well, I didn’t say it all works.

While Escape From New York was an action picture with some comedy, Escape From L.A. is a comedy pic with lots of action. Everything is light, fluffy, and silly. The characters are often caricatures of current L.A. stereotypes. So, there’s a guy still selling maps to the star’s homes, even though everything is in ruins. There’s an evil group of plastic surgery addicts, and a surfer waiting to ride a tidal wave. You could label it social criticism, but it is less a call for change than a child pointing and laughing.

While this is one of Carpenter’s most expensive movies, it looks like his cheapest. The real problem is in ineffective and extremely obvious CGI. From the submarine to the giant wave to a wide shot of the city, nothing looks real.

As a sequel, Escape From L.A. took the path of least resistance, repeating almost every plot point of the original. Snake is the same guy as before. He’s arrested again, given a mission that involves retrieving something for the president of the United States, and is given an implant that will kill him if he doesn’t complete the job in a set time. He’s again sent into a prison island, where he meets wacky characters, including a girl that wants to help him and a driver to take him around. The similarities continue, but you should be getting the idea. If you liked Escape From New York, well here it is again, with everyone older and the jokes broader. Why not just watch the first one?

John Carpenter’s other films include Halloween, The Fog, Prince of Darkness, and Village of the Damned.

Post-Apocalyptic, Reviews Tagged with: Two Reels

Tornado! (1996)

Oct 041996

An entertainment spy sneaks into Michael Crichton’s room and steals his script for Twister. His bosses make a few cosmetic changes, paste a new name on it, and rush it into production so it can beat Twister‘s release date. Wait, that’s not the plot of Tornado!. That’s a reasonable supposition on how it was made. OK, the plot. Hot grant auditor Samantha Callen (Shannon Sturges) arrives in Texas to pull the funding of Dr. Joe Branson’s (Ernie Hudson) tornado measuring device. Tornado chaser Jake Thorne (Bruce Campbell) needs to show her how valuable the project is while tossing in a little romance. Of course there’s a bad guy weather man because…well, because there was one in Twister.

There was a time when Bruce Campbell could do no wrong: Evil Dead II—1987, Moontrap—1989, Army of Darkness—1992, The Hudsucker Proxy—1994. Even when the material left something to be desired (Waxwork II: Lost in Time—1992), Campbell was quirky and entertaining. By ’96, that time was coming to an end. Now, with Man with the Screaming Brain and Alien Apocalypse under his belt, the Campbell name doesn’t mean much, and it doesn’t in Tornado!.

Campbell plays his normal he-man, but without the eccentricities. That makes him a pleasant, but unremarkable leading man, and puts the weight of the film on the plot and on the special effects. Neither can support it. The story meanders about with lots of talk on the dangers of tornadoes (I’m from the Midwest; I’m well acquainted with what they can do) and just a little talk about the fancy new invention which is supposed to be so important. That’s just as well as it’s hard to get excited about planting detection equipment in the wind.

Since this is a disaster movie, the payoff has to be some kick-ass destruction, but that requires money, and there isn’t enough. We get a lot of rain, and some nice gales, but no money shots. No buildings tumbling over or cows flying in the air. The scenes are exciting enough for a drama or character study, but not for a movie named Tornado!

The ending is painful: false sincerity with characters behaving ludicrously. If you must watch this (perhaps you have an office contest to see who can watch the most disaster films), turn it off ten minutes before the credits roll. You’ll be happier.

Disaster, Miscellaneous, Reviews Tagged with: One Reel

Twelfth Night: Or What You Will (1996)

Sep 281996

A shipwrecked young woman (Imogen Stubbs) takes the identity a man, giving her the appearance of her drowned brother (Steven Mackintosh), and becomes the confidant to the local duke (Toby Stephens). This leads to romantic confusion as she loves the duke, the duke loves Lady Olivia (Helena Bonham Carter), Olivia loves the cross-dressing girl, and the brother isn’t really dead.

Quick Review: My favorite Shakespearian comedy, Twelfth Night, is a hilarious farce, filled with pratfalls, sexual innuendo, sight-gags, over-the-top characters, and general silliness.

But not in this production. Director Trevor Nunn has made a skillfully shot, adeptly acted drama, which is unfortunate when filming a comedy. Ben Kingsley’s Feste is a good example of where this production fails. No one can fault his performance; it is first rate, but it is of the wrong character. Feste is a wacky fool, but Kingsley plays him as a melancholy philosopher. Nunn has a great deal of respect for Shakespeare, but Twelfth Night doesn’t need respect. It needs to be funny, and here, it isn’t.

Reviews, Shakespeare Tagged with: Toxic

Star Trek: First Contact (1996)

Aug 201996

The Borg travel back in time to assimilate humanity and disrupt Earth’s first warp drive test. The Enterprise follows to stop them, with Picard having Borg flashbacks and the Borg Queen attempting to seduce Data.

Like multiple of the films that came before it, a cast member takes over the director’s chair. This time it is Jonathan Frakes, who knows what to do with a camera. He also knows how to follow studio desires to not do anything too interesting.

A sequel to the two-part Best of Both Worlds Borg-centric TV episode, First Contact is primarily about Patrick Stewart overacting with Post-Borg-Traumatic-Stress syndrome, and Brent Spiner one-upping him as emotional Data being tempted. The first is annoying (really annoying as it goes on and on and on), with Picard throwing a tantrum, demonstrating that no one connected to the film had a firm understanding of psychology or character. The second brings the compensation of Alice Krige as the Borg Queen, which is a whole lot of compensation. The existence of the Borg Queen weakens the concept of the Borg, but less than later Next Gen episodes, and she’s worth it. In a film that flops between meaningless action, faux-tragedy, and weak comedy, she brings much needed sensuality and is a memorable villain, something too often lacking in Star Trek. Still, she has to ballance out silly scenes of Data moaning and pretending he’ll give in when we all know otherwise, and that’s too much to ask of her. (Hint to filmmakers: Do not make your film hinge around the suspense of a character’s temptation when we all know exactly what is going to happen.)

James Cromwell plays a funny drunk, which is amusing if you enjoy watching funny drunks. I could have skipped it, but it is a personal preference.

When it’s done, all is as it was (except for some continuity breaks with the character of Zefram Cochran). First Contact is an above average episode of the TV show. Not as good, or as epic as All Good Things, Yesterday’s Enterprise, Q Who, or its predecessor, Best of Both Worlds, but it’s enjoyable enough to make it to #10 on my list.

My ranking of all Star Trek movies is here.

Reviews, Science Fiction, Space Opera Tagged with: Two Reels

Rebirth of Mothra Trilogy (1996-1998)

Jun 201996

Rebirth of Mothra (1996)
Rebirth of Mothra II (1997)
Rebirth of Mothra III (1998)

Three films in which a pair of fairy sisters, Moll and Lora, work to save humanity with the help of children and the goddess moth, Mothra, while their evil sister attempts to do the opposite using various huge monsters.

In Rebirth of Mothra, a middle-manager at a lumber company accidently releases Desghidorah (aka Death-Ghidorah), who will drain the world of energy if not stopped. The good fairies team up with the middle-manager’s wife and children, and of course, Mothra, to stop the monster, while the evil fairy coaches it.

In Rebirth of Mothra II, a pollution monster has returned to destroy the world and is countered by Mothra. The winner of the battle between the giants will be determined by who finds a treasure hidden in a pyramid in the middle of the ocean: the evil fairy and her two thieves or the good fairies, three children, and a furby with healing urine. Yes, that last bit isn’t a typo. A Furbee with healing urine.

In Rebirth of Mothra III, King Ghidora returns to Earth, with very different powers than he had in the Godzilla films. Now he captures children with a form of teleportation, storing them in a dome. Mothra travels back in time to the age of dinosaurs to fight him when he was weaker. In the present, a troubled youth attempts to save Lora, who’s been captured along with the children.

Mothra was the second most popular “monster” in Toho’s stable, and with the Godzilla films going on hiatus, they decided to spin off a trilogy of kids films. With the exception of the original Gojira, the Godzilla films had always had a juvenile quality, but the best were family films that everyone could enjoy. Mothra vs Godzilla is a family film, and a lot of fun. Son of Godzilla is a kid’s film, and is trash. The Rebirth of Mothra Trilogy is strictly for children. There’s nothing here for anyone older than 10. However, for Daikaiju kids films, they are better than average, and a step above the equivalent Godzilla films (i.e. the ‘70s juveniles), and leaps and bounds better than the early Gamera movies. The second falls down, but the first and third are surprisingly moving and should give the kids an enjoyable Saturday afternoon.

The first has a whacky segment early on, and the third spends a too much time dwelling on how hard it is to be a kid, but both play out primarily as earnest daikaiju films. The monstrous threat is very real, as are the emotions. The fights are surprisingly savage, a great deal more intense than in a majority of daikaiju films, and far more than in any of the others pitched at kids. I suspect you might have your own young children hiding behind pillows and getting teary-eyed now and again. By ‘90s daikaiju standards, the puppetry and special effects are pretty good, and by kids flick standards, they’re great.

The second is more of a fluffy children’s adventure tale. Nothing really matters and the kids just run around a maze-like temple for an hour. It might work for young children—I’d put the cut off around kindergarten—but better just to skip it.

That second runs into another problem: the children in the trilogy are annoying and the child actors are underwhelming. But in I and III, the children do very little, and are just around the action to be frightened and put in danger. In II, they are the protagonists, getting lots of screen time and lots of terrible dialog. They are worse than the urinating furby.

The fairies, on the other hand, are cute, with the good ones being played by teenage pop stars, which worked out well since they have multiple songs, all of which are pleasant (Lora was recast for the third when the actress’s career took off). The evil one overacts, but that’s pretty normal for the villainess in a kids movie.

All three movies have strong environmental messages, hammering their points over and over again, with characters repeatedly stating “pollution is bad and we must save nature.” Well, for a small child, perhaps that’s the way your message needs to be delivered. Still, it is another way the films are annoying for adults.

There’s a final problem. The dubbing is terrible. The emotions (or lack of them) do not match what should be coming from the character’s mouths. It kills the drama and the humor, and I take a Reel off of each when dubbed. The Japanese originals are the only way to watch these. Well, that will work if your kids happen to be speak Japanese. Otherwise, I’d be surprised if many seven-year-olds will want to read subtitles. I suppose you could use these as a reading lesson.

Foreign Language, Giant Monsters, Reviews Tagged with: Two Reels

Gamera 2: Attack of the Legion (1996)

Apr 021996

A meteor shower brings the Legion to Earth: large insects along with a single true giant. They build nests, that when complete, launch a pod into space to further spread the species—the launch destroying everything in a six kilometer area. Colonel Watarase is on the case, leading soldiers against the bugs. He’s aided by Midori Honami, a general purpose scientist, and her computer-savvy friend.

Attack of the Legion isn’t really a sequel to Guardian of the Universe, and that’s its biggest flaw. The only returning human characters are Osako and Asagi, and their parts are extended cameos. The new characters are fine by daikaiju standards, but are a let down after the first film. The colonel is a generic, noble, military man. He’s fine, though forgettable. The replacement scientist is more of a problem. After strong-willed Nagamine, we get timid Honami. She hesitates before every sentence. Since she’s another young, hot, female scientist, I’m assuming they couldn’t get the actress from the first film, but didn’t rewrite anything except her name, and in order for the character to be different, they told the new actress to act scared all the time. Whatever the case, a weak woman was not the way to go.

Additionally, Legion has nothing to do with the mythology. Gamera is a gyoas fighter. So why does he show up to fight Legion? Yes, it’s to save the Earth, but that wasn’t his job.

So, as far as the Gamera story goes, this is a detour. But it isn’t a bad one. The FX is a touch better than in the previous film. There’s plenty of giant monster action (though it gets a bit silly at the end with each monster pulling secret powers out of nowhere), and the early stages of the film have some effective horror moments. And since there are lots of “little” monsters as well as the giants, there’s something for the humans to accomplish.

Note: I watch these with the Japanese language track as the dubbing was not done with care, but you can find this film with a second dubbed track, Lake Texarkana, where everyone speaks like rednecks. It’s amusing, though not the one to go to for your first screening.

Foreign Language, Giant Monsters, Reviews Tagged with: Three Reels

Haunted (1995)

Oct 111995

A professor (Aidan Quinn) who suffered the tragic loss of his twin sister when a child, is called to an out of the way manor to investigate a haunting. The house is home to a mentally troubled old woman and three siblings: a beautiful woman (Kate Beckinsale), a controlling older brother (Anthony Andrews), and a wild younger one (Alex Lowe). It is also home to a secret.

Quick Review: If you like the haunted house sub-genre of horror, then you’ll want to see this; it is a good example of the type. It follows the standard storyline closely. Our hero hears bumps and cries in the night, but finds nothing at first. Slowly, the ghostly activity gets more and more obvious until it becomes deadly. Then he must figure out what happened years before. It’s the basic story of all the haunted house films and there is little new here. There are also better representatives. Still, it is fun in its predictable way. Aidan Quinn is stiff and unbelievable as the professor, but the supporting cast is better. The best of those is Kate Beckinsale. She sparkles as the free spirited Christina who is attracted to the professor. She is also beautiful and shows that off in several nude scenes. Art is about beauty as well as meaning, and Beckinsale’s naked form greatly enhances the beauty of the film. Add an extra if you are a fan of Ms. Beckinsale’s seductive charms.
Kate Beckinsale has gone on to become the mistress of the horror-action movement, starring in Underworld, Underworld: Evolution and Vanhelsing.

Back to Ghost Stories

Ghost Stories, Reviews Tagged with: Three Reels

Village of the Damned (1995)

Oct 101995

All of the residents of a rural American village black out, waking hours later with ten of the women pregnant. Dr. Alan Chaffee (Christopher Reeve) informs the families that tests show the fetuses are healthy, and Dr. Susan Verner (Kirstie Alley), representing the government, offers them money to have the babies. However, after they are born, it is apparent that there is something seriously wrong with them. They all look alike, act alike, and have the power to control minds.

There are reasons to remake a film: If the first had a brilliant idea but flawed production; Or if social changes have made the original ineffective in getting across an important theme; Or if a new take on the material can create something different. None of these are the case with Village of the Damned. The 1960 version was a well done, little film, staring the always excellent George Sanders, that’s withstood time. It isn’t frightening, but I doubt it was in 1960.

John Carpenter, who so successfully put a new spin on The Thing (actually, he returned to the concept in the short story) brings nothing to Village of the Damned. This is the same old story, lacking the charm, and inappropriately undated to the ’90s. The time switch works against the story as the world isn’t cut off enough any more; the people of Midwich appear less as rural folks and more like bizarre cultists, secluded with their unbalanced priest.

No attempt is made to show the kids sliding into their alien nature, giving some indication of why the “parents” would care for them. Rather, these children are so obviously evil that it’s absurd that the townspeople would live normally with them. Strangely, everyone states that the children have no emotion, including the children themselves. But they are extremely emotional kids, who are constantly in a bad mood and become angry at almost everything.

Shoddy work dots the film. Repeatedly, someone is set to kill a child, and then pauses for no reason, giving enough time for the children to use their mental powers. Dr. Chaffee uses an ocean view as a means of self-hypnosis to defend against mind reading, but switches to a brick wall because that’s what was used in the 1960 movie. Dr. Verner is part of some shady government program, but it doesn’t do anything and is never explained.

Village of the Damned is an unnecessary and ill-conceived adaptation of a superior picture. Skip this and see the original.

Aliens, Reviews Tagged with: One Reel

Vamps: Deadly Dreamgirls (1995)

Oct 091995

Horror film-loving priest, Seamus (Paul Morris), falls in love with Heather (Jennifer Huss), a stripper that works at a club that’s filled with vampires (Jenny Wallace, Amber Newman, Stacey Sparks). As the vampires remove their tops, Seamus must come to grips with his feelings and fears that Heather could become one of the undead.

I’m perfectly happy with the concept of a vampire stripper movie. There are sexy vampires, and they take their cloths off. Hey, that sounds pretty good.

But the funny thing about making a film, is that someone needs to have some skill. Hopefully the director is the one with cinematic training, but at least the key grip knowing his job would help. No one working on Vamps: Deadly Dreamgirls knows how to make a film. I’m not talking about artistic talent; I mean the minimal mechanical skills needed to turn on and off a camera.

Come on guys, if you were going to invest money into making a movie (not that a lot was “invested” here) couldn’t you splurge on a Camera 101 class at the local community college? They might explain that cameras can move, both left and right and up and down. And perhaps they could have pointed out that there are benefits to lighting a scene. Better yet, a local filmmaking collective might have hosted a workshop on sound recording. That would have helped. There, they could have explained that the volume in a film should not rise and fall at random moments, and that muffled sound is a bad thing. Sure, you might expect people to already know that, but the existence of Vamps: Deadly Dreamgirls proves otherwise.

I feel sorry for everyone involved in this film. It displays a lot of heart, but the results are what you’d expect from grammar school kids who decide to put on a show. Well, grammar school kids who like to expose their breasts. Heart isn’t enough, fellows. Film schools exist. Go find one. The acting is unskilled as well, but if your film is about breasts, the acting can be weak.

It isn’t hard to find films starring breasts, ones where the set doesn’t appear to be six feet wide, and you don’t have to clutch a remote to constantly adjust the volume. Get one of those instead.

Reviews, Vampires Tagged with: One Reel

Vampire in Brooklyn (1995)

Oct 091995

Caribbean vampire, Maximillian (Eddie Murphy), travels to New York to find a half vampire woman to be his bride. The woman, Rita (Angela Bassett), is unaware of her vampire heritage. She’s a police officer with a partner (Allen Payne) who wants her for himself. Maximillian, with the help of his new ghoul (Kadeem Hardison) must persuade her to accept him.

I’m sure this looked good to someone in a business office, but anyone with an understanding of film would see the problems before the project began. Horror that is also funny is difficult. Add in romance and it approaches impossible. Wes Craven had shown no ability to integrate the three and Murphy only knew Comedy and romantic comedy. The script, primarily under the control of Murphy and his brother, demonstrates that the Murphys had seen some old vampire films, but not they they understood how to create frights or avoid clichés.

Little of Craven’s influence works. The empty ship crashing into the dock is an old-time vampire film gimmick and it’s never looked better. Briefly, I was lulled into thinking I was in for a respectable retelling of the standard vampire story, but only briefly. A crucifixion is the only other successful horror image.

The humor is uneven. Kadeem Hardison’s decaying zombie is amusing in an embarrassing way, but doesn’t fit into a film with either horror or romance. It’s broad, slapstick silliness. John Witherspoon comes off as a 1930s film stereotype and not something I would have expected in a film made outside of KKK control in the ’90s. Murphy’s extra characters (a thief and a preacher) are feeble even when compared to his dress-up roles in Coming to America. The preacher could have been funny with some additions, but as is, the routine goes nowhere.

What works best is the romance, but only from Murphy’s end. He makes a surprisingly good, debonair vampire. As Maximillian is the character we follow, here is where the film could have really succeeded. Unfortunately, while Murphy’s playing for light flirtation, Angela Bassett thinks she’s in King Lear, flailing about with intensive anguish and anger every time she’s on screen. Allen Payne, as the third side of the triangle, is also in Lear, but as “Guard Number 2.” He also intense, but in a way lacking any interest. Whenever Bassett and Payne are on screen, it feels like I’m watching another film, and it’s not a very good one. It does, however, contain a lot of shouting.

The Anne Rice school of vampires hadn’t taken over the screen yet in ’95 (Interview with the Vampire had come out only the year before) so Murphy and Craven were still thinking of the vampire as the villain. They should have known better. As a romance with Maximillian as the protagonist, this could have been a landmark film.

Reviews, Vampires Tagged with: Two Reels

Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995)

Oct 091995

A parody of other Dracula films, it tells the same story of Count Dracula (Leslie Nielsen) moving to England, seducing Lucy (Lysette Anthony) and Mina (Amy Yasbeck), and confronting Van Helsing (Mel Brooks) and Jonathan Harker (Steven Weber).

Quick Review: Watching this waste of film stock, it is sad to think that the man who made Blazing Saddles and The Producers is responsible. Just how funny is suggesting that everyone gets an enema? How about watching over and over someone falling down, tripping, hitting his head, or running into a wall? That’s all Dracula: Dead and Loving It has to offer besides many “funny” accents. There is nothing new, exciting, or edgy here. You’ve seen Leslie Nielsen do his routines before in the The Naked Gun, but now he has a cape. Maybe Mel Brooks has nothing more to say, or simply can’t think of a joke. Not everything in his earlier films was funny, but when not funny, at least it was different. Dracula: Dead and Loving It has the same old jokes, done with less skill.

Reviews, Vampires Tagged with: Toxic

Candyman 2: Farewell to the Flesh (1995)

Oct 091995

The hook-handed, ghostly Candyman (Tony Todd) is haunting New Orleans and the Tarrant family. He killed Annie Tarrant’s (Kelly Rowan) father and husband, and her brother has been arrested for the crimes. Annie realizes there’s a secret that connects her to the ghost, and sets out to uncover it.

Candyman was a frightening and artistic Slasher/Ghost Story, with original concepts that question the assumptions of society. Candyman 2: Farewell to the Flesh is a sequel. It is less frightening, far less artistic, and reuses some of the ideas from the first while introducing none of its own. It dumps Helen, the intriguing lead who should have been in any sequel and was excellently portrayed by Virginia Madsen, and introduces us to Annie, a slightly-better-than-the-norm Slasher victim, played reasonably well by Kelly Rowan. It brings back Tony Todd, but with little of the intensity he’d previously shown, and gives him plenty of unnecessary dialog to spout. It repeats the score by Philip Glass, which gave the first a transcendent feel, but here sounds tacked on. It isn’t a bad film, but it isn’t anything special either.

The gore is still there. For anyone who doesn’t enjoy suffering and blood, there are some seriously unpleasant moments before the credits role, topped by the sawing off of a hand. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your disposition), the frights don’t have the same kind of impact as the violence. Filled with far too many cheap jump scares, we get: “It’s just a cat,” “It’s just a bird,” and three cases of “It’s just a person I didn’t notice walking up behind me.” And of course, there’s the always unnecessary dreams of killings that don’t take place.

It’s best not to watch this soon after the first as the concept and background has changed. The urban-legend-come-to-life has been abandoned in all but name, as has the racial issues except to point out that things were bad when slavery was legal (isn’t that a given?). Nothing about modern prejudices pops up. Instead, there is only a standard revenge haunting. That Candyman has a slightly different past and reason for existing is easy to ignore, although it does raise questions about the filmmakers: Did they not recall the first film? Didn’t they like it?

While shot in New Orleans, little is made of the city. Marti Gras is going on, but it might as well have been any Monday. The pointless narration from a DJ may have had some connection to the celebration, but then it might not. Either way, his dialog doesn’t clarify anything, nor is it amusing.

For a film with a great deal of emotional upset, none of it rings true. Annie’s brother just yells all the time. Annie’s mother isn’t given a realistic line in the film. And Annie seems hardly to notice that her husband had a hook shoved through him. I should have been empathizing with them, instead of just watching.

By Ghost Story standards, Candyman 2 is unimpressive, however, most of my complaints vanish if you are looking for a Slasher. There are plenty of killings with tons of blood and a monster who can stand with Jason and Freddy. It certainly beats picking up a Friday the 13th sequel.

While functional on its own, it’s sad to see so little of what made the first chilling. Candyman is a movie that has stayed with me. I barely remembered this follow-up one a minute after I left my seat.

Ghost Stories, Reviews, Slashers Tagged with: Two Reels

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