Blair Witch: When World-Building Goes Wrong
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Blair Witch is an absolute mess that builds upon its predecessor’s mythology and loses everything that made the original such a classic. I like that director Adam Wingard (The Guest, You’re Next) and writer Simon Barrett tried something new, but it feels like they threw everything at a time portal wall and it and came back incomprehensible. I understand the plot elements and have read the theories, but none of them feel organic or interesting. I was bored by the panicked wooded jogging and when the witch hit the fan I couldn’t help but think about every other found footage film, which is slightly ironic because the original Blair Witch helped the genre explode.
My biggest issues with Blair Witch is that it avoids the slow burn and moves quickly into horror thriller mode. I love the how original beautifully transitioned into madness and left you a nervous wreck due to prolonged tension. There is zero time to build anything (character, plot, coherence) in the sequel because things quickly go wrong then everything gets turned to 11. Thus, the action doesn’t matter because we don’t care about the hastily created characters. They are simply fodder to be killed by loud noises, falling tress and witch trickery. I don’t want to go into deep spoiler territory, but there are elements of time travel, mythology and more time travel. The story is being expanded but it works against the plot because there is no focus or clarity to the narrative. I like when we are left with questions, but I dislike when the questions are the product of narrative shortcomings.
Help! I’m stuck in a subpar horror film!
I had a hard time believing that the six people would go into the woods. I guess Heather’s brother would be curious as to what happened to her 17 years ago, but his plan seems foolhardy considering the police and search parties couldn’t find the cabin he is searching for. You know all their high-tech gear will fail at the worst possible moment and they will find themselves walking in the woods and complaining about their feet. The characters don’t make a single impression and if it weren’t for IMDb I wouldn’t know their names, which sucks because Wingard’s other films introduced us to some badass characters.
Sharni Vinson crushed it in You’re Next.
Blair Witch expands the universe but it gives zero personality to the characters. I only recommend watching it if you are looking for a horror film featuring lots of falling tress and wonky logic.
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How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Embrace the Remake
Cinematic remakes are a fact of life and I’ve learned to embrace the good, the bad and the ugly of the remake world (The Good, the Bad & the Weird is great by the way). When it comes to these movies I’m surprised that everyone is surprised about how many there are. The art of recreating an old property is not new and will continue long after we are done complaining about the latest Ben-Hur remake.
Instead of rallying against something I can’t stop, I decided to learn as much as I could about 21st century remakes so I can be that guy at the party who cares enough to make an argument for The Fright Night remake. I also needed an excuse to share this Wicker Man clip again.
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There were 175 remakes that received wide theatrical releases (2,000 screens) in the 21st century. So, there isn’t any confusion I’m sticking with strictly remakes. For example, Ocean’s 11 (2001) is a remake of Ocean’s 11 (1960). Lately, it has been getting incredibly murky when defining the word “remake” because there are reboots (The Amazing Spider-Man), television adaptations (Starsky & Hutch) and rebootquels (Thanks Birth. Movies. Death.) flooding our movie theaters and streaming services. I am going to write solely about the remakes because if I tried to blend them all together into one post I would end up like Austin Powers.
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The average critic (Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic)/audience (IMDb) score for the movies and their sequels is a lowly 49.1%. Only 41 of the remakes have a “fresh” 60% or above critic/audience rating which means only 23% are viewed favorably. Also, it is really hard to spin-off sequels from remakes. 11 of the 175 films had sequels and only the Ocean’s and The Texas Chainsaw films were lucky enough to have a third (Ocean’s 13, Texas Chainsaw 3D). The only remake sequel to best its predecessor was Journey 2: The Mysterious Island. The sequel had the luxury of featuring The Rock but even then the return on investment was close from 324% to 303% (#bringbackBrendanFraser).
Take a look at this graph that shows how remade franchises fare against comic book franchises. For some reason, sequels to remakes almost never do better than their predecessors.
Let’s say you run a studio that only remakes films and you want to know how the 21st century has treated you. Here is the inflated box office breakdown of the 175 theatrically released films.
- $151,000,000 average international box office – $60,000,000 average budget = $91,000,000 profit before including marketing expenses.
- The average marketing budget in 2007 was $39,000,000. So, even if you subtracted $50 million from each film you’d still have a profit of $41,000,000 and a positive ROI of 1.64% before DVD and merchandising sales.
- In the end, the studio would pull in around $7,175,000,000 from all their remakes. In a day and age where misfire blockbusters lose studios a lot of money it is pretty obvious why a studio would invest in a remake.
- The reason I valued the marketing budget at $50,000,000 is
to play it safe. I recently read that marketing budgets are around half a film’s budget. The average cost for each remake was $60,000,000 which should’ve resulted in a $30,000,000 marketing budget. However, with the rise of Disney and big budget marketing costs I felt $50 million was safe(ish).
Remakes may be less lucrative than 21st century reboots (Star Trek, James Bond, The Amazing Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Pan etc..) which average $414 million worldwide. However, remakes have a higher ROI (163.12>157.46) and their average budgets are much lower ($60,000,000 < $148,000,000) which means marketing expenses are not as high.
When I started looking at the theatrical return on investment (ROI) I found out some interesting things. Horror remakes and PG-rated films have the highest ROI because the budgets (sans Disney films) are lower, horror fans will watch anything and parents need to take their kids to movies. Here are the top 10.
- The Grudge (2004) – 1,773%
- The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) – 1,027%
- The Karate Kid (2010) – 797%
- Freaky Friday (2003) – 704%
- My Bloody Valentine 3D (2009) – 571%
- True Grit (2010) – 563% – The lone exception.
- Silent House (2012) – 555%
- Shutter (2008) – 498%
- Evil Dead (2013) – 473%
- Cinderella – (2015) – 471%
- True Grit is the lone exception. The $40 million budgeted film is the statistical best of the 21st century. The Karate Kid and Freaky Friday results are impressive considering they weren’t reactive, critically lauded or big budgeted.
The remakes that have been box office disappointments haven’t followed trends or were released at the tail end of the particular craze. There was no momentum behind them and were pretty much unnecessary (sans Solaris). I really don’t see a world where Willard, Around the World in 80 Days, Rollerball, The Invasion, Poseidon, Ben-Hur, Arthur, Conan, Alfie, The Truth About Charlie and Straw Dogs were wise investments. The films just couldn’t make the jump forward in time and no matter the A-list crew or big name directors they underwhelmed and lost money.
The large number of 21st century remakes weren’t made because people loved remakes. A lot of the movies were produced because there were some trendsetters that kick-started a craze.
- The Ring (2002) – Gore Verbinski’s film was incredibly popular ($333 million worldwide) and was voted one of the 21st century’s best horror films. However, its success ushered in a whole lot of bad. Starting with the massively popular and incredibly timed The Grudge that made $238 million (with inflation) on a $12.7 million budget. These two films were blockbusters and were responsible for seven years worth of terrible but lucrative Asian horror remakes. Here are the films: The Ring 2, Dark Water, Pulse, The Grudge 2, The Uninvited, One Missed Call, Shutter, Mirrors, and The Eye.
- The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) – It may be a boring retread of a classic but it was very influential. The $12.4 million budgeted remake collected $139 million at the worldwide box office and ushered in a whole lot of big money makers that were mostly bad. I believe the success directly/indirectly inspired studios to remake every horror property they could get their hands on: The Exorcist, Dawn of the Dead, The Fog, The Amityville Horror, House of Wax, Black Christmas, When a Strange Calls, The Wicker Man, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, The Omen, The Hills Have Eyes, The Hills Have Eyes 2, The Hitcher, The Invasion, Halloween, Prom Night, The Stepfather, Sorority Row, Halloween 2, Friday the 13th, The Last House on the Left, My Bloody Valentine, A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Crazies, Evil Dead, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D, Carrie
- Alice in Wonderland (2010) – Alice in Wonderland made over a billion dollars worldwide and ushered in a plethora of expertly made and widely successful Disney remakes. Here they are: Maleficent, Cinderella, Alice Through the Looking Glass, The Jungle Book and Pete’s Dragon (watch it!!!!). With Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, Cruella and Dumbo on the way.
Sidenote: There are other influences (The Sixth Sense, 28 Days Later, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) but I feel these three films put studios into plaid remake overdrive.
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I love that three films were directly/indirectly responsible for 43 of the 175 (24%) 21st century theatrically released remakes. The numbers peaked in 2005 with 20 and dropped to five in 2015.
The Asian and classic horror remakes have run their course and now Disney is the biggest game in town. Disney has transformed its remake game since the 1990s and they’ve moved to a very intelligent system. They don’t remake random films (Ben-Hur, Poseidon) or have to worry about changing something from R to PG-13 (Robocop, Total Recall) to make more international money. They are digging deep in their back catalog and making bank (Around the World in 80 Days excluded). I appreciate that they hire big name directors and A-list stars and they seemingly care about making good films that make them really good money. I guarantee that Beauty & the Beast will clear a billion worldwide and Ewan McGregor’s French accent will confuse everyone.
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Remakes don’t always have to follow trends or be pushed into existence. In the 21st century amazing directors like Martin Scorsese (The Departed), David Fincher (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo), Spike Lee (Oldboy), Tony Scott (Man on Fire), Cameron Crowe (Vanilla Sky), Jonathan Demme (The Truth About Charlie), John McTiernan (Rollerball), Tim Burton (Planet of the Apes, Charlie & the Chocolate Factory), Jon Favreau (The Jungle Book), Steven Spielberg (War of the Worlds), Steven Soderbergh (Ocean’s Eleven, Solaris), Christopher Nolan (Insomnia), Peter Jackson (King Kong) and the Coen brothers (True Grit, Ladykillers) have tackled remakes and the results are spectacular when done right (The Departed, True Grit) or awesomely bad when botched (Rollerball, Oldboy). There is something neat about watching a great director remake a film they love. I’m sure there are directors who want the payday but the 10 best critic/audience rated remakes have been exceptionally made.
- The Departed (2006) – 87.3
- True Grit (2010) – 84.3
- The Jungle Book (2016) – 83
- Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007) – 81
- 3:10 to Yuma (2007) – 81
- Insomnia (2002) – 80.6
- Let Me In (2010) – 79.6
- Hairspray (2007) – 79.6
- King Kong (2005) – 79
- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) – 78.3
- Only one of these films (The Jungle Book) falls under the reactive remake system I talked about above. Disney is crushing it.
I love when a remake succeeds because it feels sneaky. The creators have found a way to tell the same story twice and get people to spend their hard-earned money on something they’ve already watched. It almost seems like an uphill battle because many of the copied films are beloved and there is zero chance they can match the originals endearing qualities. The creators need to tell the same story, with the same beats, but make it different enough to not be Gus Van Sant’s ridiculous Psycho remake. I really felt for the Ghostbusters remake/reboot/whateverboot because director Paul Feig had to appease irrational die-hard fans and forge a new path. Ghostbusters could never become its own thing because it also had to be the old thing. Thus, we were left with a movie that really wanted to have fun but was handcuffed to cameos, familiar ghouls and locations. If you are interested check out this great episode of the Empire podcast that features Feig breaking down the production.
It is ridiculous but understandable that foreign films need an English remake. I normally begrudge these creations but I respect when they are done right (The Ring, The Departed, Let Me In) and not cynical cash grabs. I am even more impressed when remakes like Evil Dead and Dawn of the Dead overcome their cult predecessors and are actually pretty good. Adam Sandler’s films Just Go with It, Mr. Deeds and The Longest Yard crushed the box office ($231 million average) and succeeded despite having terrible reviews and zero superheroes. I’d wager the majority of the people who went to the films didn’t even know they were remakes and simply wanted to relax and embrace Adam Sandler’s lucrative and familiar antics. Some may call it lazy but I call it sneaky (listen to our Sandler podcast).
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I understand the complaints against remakes but they won’t change anything. The movie industry follows trends and if something is successful they will make a lot of it. I think the reason why remakes are getting so much buzz now is because Ghostbusters, Ben Hur, Alice Through the Looking Glass and The Huntsman: Winter’s War underperformed and made less than their predecessors. Some of these films were total cash grabs or plagued by online hate that sparked a whole lot of press. There are always several big budget movies that tank every year, but after the massive box office of 2015 people are freaking out about the oddness of the 2016 summer season.
Remakes aren’t going anywhere so you might as well understand them. I’d like to say that they are Hollywood being unoriginal. However, that means for all of cinemas existence filmmakers and studios have been lazy. On the whole it is harder to make a good remake than it is a bad one So, I’ve embraced the random few like The Thing, The Fly, The Departed, True Grit and Invasion of the Body Snatchers that rise above the rest and become classics in their own right.
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John’s Horror Corner: Blair Witch (2016), discussing a divisive franchise whose third installment offered little new except LOUD NOISES and a videogame monster.
MY CALL: I had fun watching this movie. Once it gets going it’s actually quite exciting if you don’t get overly aggravated by its repetitions from 1999’s playbook. But I also enjoyed it much less after I left the theater and had time to reflect on it. Sigh. Take from that what you will. Felt like a great jumpy popcorn flick to me, but not something for anyone hoping for a satisfying film following up The Blair Witch Project (1999).
Almost 20 years ago, The Blair Witch Project (1999) took theaters by storm in an era before internet hype; before social media minefields of spoiler-rich click bait revealed everything before the opening day of the movie; and, most importantly, before anyone had ever considered found footage to be a subgenre (let alone a subgenre of which they tired). It was about three film students who vanished after venturing the Maryland woods to film a documentary on the local Blair Witch legend, leaving only their harrowing and turbulent footage behind. The film powerfully impacted the horror industry and its fans, so naturally followed an under-appreciated sequel.
The 1999 indie film was more than a bit divisive. Causing shaky camera-induced motion sickness in a sea of viewers, this otherwise impressive film ignited the tidal wave of found footage hatred in its wake about which so many peevish horror fans moan today.
The more mainstream (and not found footage) studio sequel Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (2000) followed a subsequent group of investigators to Burkittsville, Maryland after seeing The Blair Witch Project (1999), herein treated as a “real movie” within the movie. In this metamovie, our protagonists explored the local mythology only to get caught between mass hysteria or, perhaps, the magical influence of the Blair Witch. Whereas I enjoyed and highly recommend this sequel, the majority of horror-goers don’t seem to share my opinion. An obvious consequence of this backlash being that this new 2016 sequel directly follows The Blair Witch Project (1999) while apparently ignoring the events of Book of Shadows (2000). However, one could thinly argue that both sequel stories transpired and that their constituent investigators simply never crossed paths in person or in research.
Now with this third film upon us the Blair Witch has become a franchise—a brand. So it came as no surprise that such a stylistic indie filmmaker was chosen for this third Blair Witch film which, for fear of being stoned to death, I dare not call the completion of a “trilogy.” Director Adam Wingard (The Guest, V/H/S 2 – Phase I Clinical Trials, The ABCs of Death – Q is for Quack, V/H/S – Tape 56, You’re Next) is no stranger to found footage, nor to taking the road less traveled to pursue less mainstream-style horror stories. He has even taken it upon himself to helm the risky American remakes of Death Note (2006) and I Saw the Devil (2010). And where we find Wingard, we find writer Simon Barrett, who wrote all of the Wingard projects mentioned above, including the upcoming Americanized remakes. They make a good team…I have high hopes for this film. Or should I say, I had high hopes.
Having just left the theater I can comfortably say it was consistent nerve-racking fun…but also rather annoyingly just more of the same, turned up to an “11” and super loud. If you can enjoy a film simply for its rollercoaster jumpiness and ignore its content altogether, then you could end up loving this completely unoriginal film. It’s a thrillride and it’s great at being a thrillride, as if we were injected into a fast-play horror videogame towards the end. But outside of that, this brings nothing new to the table except for a “witch” that looks like a tall lanky monster from a Doom or Resident Evil first person shooter game—and with similar effects.
The original (and Book of Shadows) focused on the characters and their superstition turning them on each other and likewise turning to terror. Putative supernatural occurrences were suggested but not evidenced back in 1999. This 2016 film, however, was more akin to sprinting through the woods and an abandoned dilapidated house screaming “WIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITCH IN THE WOODS” with a super shaky camera that captures occasional glimpses of terrors. Much as The Thing (2011), Star Wars Episode VII (2015), Jurassic World (2015), Cabin Fever (2016) and Ghostbusters (2016), we have yet another film that paints by the numbers of an overly familiar model pattern. And that model pattern was a successful one the we loved… but did anyone really want to see the investigators get lost, apparently hike a giant circle, and end up back at the campsite again? Did we need more sprinting while holding a flashlight-lit camera at high speeds in the woods? Did the creek need to disappear… again? Did we need to see another person standing in a dark cellar facing the wall? Probably not. But, again, despite being a mediocre film (in my opinion), it manages to be a quite entertaining movie experience (for me).
As it turns out, this redundant link is perhaps also the deepest aspect of the film–addressing the aspect of time distortion in the forest. Lots of theories out there, so we won’t discuss it here other than to say that many think this is the “same event” showing the “same character” in both movies. Think about it…if time passes differently in those woods, this is maybe possible depending on your rationale.
That’s not to say everything was replayed from what makes me now shutter to call “part 1.” There were new character elements (for otherwise underdeveloped characters), they forced more probable supernatural elements upon us sooner (rather than relying on mystery or possible hysteria for much of the running time), there was a shocking voodoo doll scene (with a back break akin to Paranormal Activity 3 (2011)), a completely disjointed implication of a parasite of some sort (with greater implications that I feel failed), some more clues to the component of time distortion (addressed in the other two films as well), and they made a bigger overblown deal out of the house (which was straight out of a videogame). But, like I said before, it still smelled of the original, and strongly so.
In the end I had fun watching this movie. It’s actually VERY exciting and entertaining if you don’t get caught up in aggravation—LOL. But I also enjoyed it much less after I left the theater and had time to reflect on it. Sigh.
Regardless of one’s enjoyment, I’d struggle to identify anything new that actually contributed to the 1999 story…other than that we got to “see” the Blair Witch and she looks like a starved, gangly-limbed videogame monster that was probably transported back to Earth after the reappearance of the Event Horizon (1997), the wrong turn to Silent Hill, or the incident at Raccoon City.
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After seeing this I imagine you’ll want to see more witch movies. Maybe because you loved this above-discussed 2016 film or because you want a witch movie do-over to make up for that hot mess. So, now that the Blair Witch discussion has come to an end, here is a little witch movie guidance…
MORE WITCH MOVIES: Some excellent witch movies that actually feel like witch movies include Warlock (1989), The Witch (2016; podcast discussion) and The Witches of Eastwick (1987). Beautiful Creatures (2013) and The Woods (2006) may appeal to young adult audiences. But I would sooner direct you to Hocus Pocus (1993), The Witches (1990) and The Craft (1996). I’m leaving Harry Potter out of this discussion, by the way. Fantasy sorcery (Willow, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice) and wizardry (The Lord of the Rings) is to be considered its own thing entirely.
The campy The Kiss (1988), Spellbinder (1988), Necropolis (1987) and Cherry Tree (2015) are entertaining but bad. And speaking of campy, Superstition (1982) and The Haunting of Morella (1990) are allegedly witch movies but don’t feel like it. But even if you want a bad movie, definitely skip Witchcraft (1989) and all sequels.
The dark noir Lord of Illusions (1995) is intriguingly edgy and, while more a “magic movie” than a “witch movie,” it hits a lot of the same dark arcane notes. And, of course, The Blair Witch Project (1999) and Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (2000) were awesomely stylized in their own unique ways despite never actually showing us a witch. Check out Pumpkinhead (1988) for a great depiction of a witch, though it’s not a “witch movie.” Meanwhile Deadtime Stories (1986) and The Theater Bizarre (2011) features a pretty cool witch short story, and The Pit and the Pendulum (1991) addresses witch trials.
Witches can come in so many flavors, can’t they? Lords of Salem (2013) and Mother of Tears (2007) deal with witches’ spirits in the form of dark ritual and possession. Quite the opposite, Snow White and the Huntsman (2012), The Last Witch Hunter (2015; podcast discussion) and Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013) offer action and effects-driven popcorn fun—Season of the Witch (2011) attempted this, but failed miserably. But the witch from The Brothers Grimm (2005) was pretty cool.
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Well that concludes today’s witch movie discussion. That is, of course, until they release The Blair Sasquatch! I totally think the story would make more sense if it was just some bigfoot making crude stick men and eating campers that nosily wander too far from the safety of their trails. That thing we saw for half a second at a time in the Blair Witch (2016) finale could have easily been an albino sasquatch, rendered almost completely ravenous, hairless and gaunt from the extreme malnutrition of having no campers to eat for 17 years (since 1999)! I’m just glad that poor crypto-critter finally got to eat something.
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The MFF Podcast #72: The 1996 Super Cinematic Bonanza of Awesomeness
Hello all. Mark here.
You can download the pod on Itunes or LISTEN TO THE POD ON BLOG TALK RADIO.
If you get a chance please make sure to review, rate and share. You are awesome!
The MFF podcast is back and we are revisiting 1996! In this pod we discuss crappy horror films, draft teams comprised of 1996 movies (vote below) and hand out random awards. No 1996 film is safe as we chat about classics like Carnosaur 2, Tremors 2: Aftershocks and The English Patient. If you are a fan of the movies that were released 20 years ago I guarantee you will love every second of this very special episode.
The best walking of 1996.
As always we answer random questions and discuss Bill Murray’s hair in Kingpin. It is a rollicking 90-minutes that will bring back many good (and bad) memories of a very influential year of cinema.
Check out the MFF pod on Blog Talk Radio or head over to Itunes and listen to the randomness!
If you get a chance please SUBSCRIBE, REVIEW, RATE and SHARE the pod!
Here are our 1996 cinematic teams:
Lasavath: Fargo, The Rock, The Cable Guy, Space Jam, Escape From L.A.
Leavengood: Birdcage, Happy Gilmore, Phenomenon, Jerry Maquire, The Craft
Mark: Swingers, Scream, Trainspotting, Bottle Rocket, Kingpin
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Sully: The Miracle of Tom Hanks
I want to hug Tom Hanks. His performance in Sully is perfection and I think it is so good that people won’t know how good it is. It is a subtle performance that commands respect and immediately makes you believes that Tom Hanks can do anything. What I love about Clint Eastwood directed films is how he allows his actors to shine. Between Million Dollar Baby, Flags of Our Fathers, Letters From Iwo Jima, American Sniper, Mystic River and Unforgiven we’ve been given some amazing performances and I think Eastwood’s acting first style creates some brilliant performances.
I loved every second of Sully and I appreciate how Clint Eastwood was able to take to the story of an absolute miracle and find humanity, tension and heart. I am still amazed that pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger was able to land his plane on the Hudson river after double engine failure. No plane had ever experienced engine failure at just 2,818 feet in the air and 99% of the time the engine failure would’ve resulted in certain death. However, Sully and co-pilot Jeffrey Skiles calmly landed the massive plane on the Hudson river. All 155 passengers survived and the crew became overnight celebrities.
Eastwood’s film covers every angle of the water landing and focuses on the lives of the two pilots days after the miracle. Sully (Tom Hanks) and Jeffries (Aaron Eckhart) are thrust into the national limelight and become media darlings who are forced to relive the ordeal over and over for the press. Things go slightly awry when investigators releases the news that flight simulators successfully returned the damaged plane back to New York airports. What follows is an examination of doubt, friendship and great mustaches.
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Sully is an elegant look at a conflicted man pondering if he did the right thing. Time vindicated Sully but I can only imagine the stress he went through as he ran every scenario in his hand. Tom Hanks is perfect in the role and I love how effortless he makes everything work. I bet it was really tough for Hanks because Clint Eastwood’s sparse style and need of only a couple takes must’ve forced him to bring his A++ game. The most pleasant surprise of Sully is Aaron Eckhart’s charming performance. I’ve always liked Eckhart and thought he was great in Thank You for Smoking. Now that I’ve seen him in Sully I’m annoyed that he spends his time making I, Frankenstein and London Has Fallen. He is so good in Sully that it is frustrating because you want to see him get better roles.
Go watch Sully. It is a beautiful film that puts characters first and features some of the best performances you will see all year.
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Bad Movie Tuesday: Timecop (1994), Jean-Claude Van Damme travels through time and does splits.
MY CALL: More of a fun “action” movie than a “martial arts” movie, this is LOADED with cheeky lines and “most” of the JCVD staples. But if you seek jump spin kicks, you should watch his earlier movies instead. MOVIES LIKE Timecop: Other Van Damme movies, of course! Especially Bloodsport (1988), Lionheart (1990) and The Quest (1996), which all feature hush-hush Fight Clubs that can’t keep a secret. But maybe this movie isn’t bad enough for you and you want something a bit more “campy bad.” If that’s the case, try China O’Brien (1990), Outside the Law (2002), Night Vision (1997) or Only the Strong (1993) for your Bad Movie Tuesday.
Timecop boldly opens, challenging its viewers by posing the question: If a bunch of Confederate gold is highjacked by a time traveler during a wagon trail hold-up in 1800s Georgia, does anyone care? Well, since all that did was remind me of the displaced silliness of laser guns in Cowboys and Aliens (2011), I’m gonna’ say no. But honestly it was kind of a cool scene that, despite my joking, opened the movie with a bit of integrity.
But now we need to put on our serious faces and explain the “rules of changing the past” to set the urgency of the film. “What if Saddam Hussein time travels to steal our atomic bomb technology to become a world power” and blah, blah blah, end of mankind, “ripples” in time are bad… And now there’s now been a ripple when some terrorists (present day) were found brokering an arms deal with confederate gold.
Is that a Stargate?
So now it’s time to create the Time Enforcement Commission (TEC) to essentially police time travel…with “time cops.” From proposal of the TEC to appointing a chairperson takes about 6 minutes tops, making this the fastest act of legislation ever in the history of all things government—even the most insane dictators would think things over (like newly appointed commissions) during the course of a drink. I don’t think John Hancock signed his name in the time it took to convince a table of DC bigwigs that time travel technology was invented (without them knowing anything about it) and it “just happened last week!!!!”
They just nod like “sounds reasonable” after they are informed they “know” the gold is from the 1800s not just because of how it was marked (Property of the Confederacy or whatever), but because they carbon dated the aforementioned highjacked gold. But wait… Can you carbon date pure gold???? Guess what, writers of Timecop? You simply cannot carbon date things that don’t have carbon. You don’t get to waive your hands in the air and say we know “because SCIENCE that’s why!” As it goes, you can only “carbon” date things that have carbon in them. And since gold is made of…waiiiiit for it…GOLD (Au 79) and not CARBON isotope C-14, you can’t use carbon dating to estimate its age.
But let’s try to forget for a moment that our writers failed their 8th grade Physical Science midterm and focus on the story. Our hero is Max Walker (Jean-Claude Van Damme; Bloodsport, The Expendables 2, Universal Solder: Day of Reckoning), a cop with an incredibly American sounding name, an incredibly unexplained Belgian accent, an incredibly beautiful wife and an incredibly unbelievably huge house for his civil servant job in the greater DC metro area.
“Read it.”
“Wolverine…?”
“Between the lines.”
“I should get the Fuck outta here.”
We meet Max playing out some fantasy roleplay in the middle of a mall with his wife (Mia Sara; Legend, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off) when he pulls an awesome little scene out of nowhere with a steady kick held in a rollerblading purse snatcher’s face. Some ostentatiously crooked looking goons oversee the event and seem unimpressed with his obvious glute strength and balance. It’s a pretty iconic scene—that and the washer/dryer jump split make for some exquisite trailer moments.
Thank you, by the way, to the writers and Mia Sara and Van Damme for acknowledging and playfully mocking Van Damme’s English. “He read my mind…With your English he didn’t have much choice…Hey, I know all the good words.”
On that note, this movie is loaded with some great 90s action movie lines…
“Is this TEC work dangerous?”
“I don’t bake cookies for a living.”
But Van Damme’s movies are known for more than thick European accents being applied to American characters delivering cheeky lines. He’s also known for his surprisingly tender love scenes that might just be presented as much for the ladies as the men (e.g., Double Impact, Bloodsport). JCVD’s Kenny G-scored love scene comes complete with iconic Van Damme bare butt shot for the ladies, some Mia Sara nudity for the bros, and soft lighting for the production geeks. On top of that, it’s filmed and scored like softcore porn on late night Skinemax.
Director Peter Hyams (A Sound of Thunder, Sudden Death, The Relic) knows how to deliver what Van Damme fans want! And that does not include a very sound story. We are rich with clichés as the bad guys kill his wife and needlessly explode his giant house, the time travel portals conveniently appear wherever they are needed and smack of the subsequent show Sliders (1995-2000 Sci-Fi Channel; which may have copied Timecop, in fact), and I don’t even have an explanation for Van Damme’s hair.
When I see her face it reminds me…
of when Quaid wanted Cohaagen to give the people da’ air!
The thing that really makes this highly rewatchable movie work is that Van Damme is clearly having fun with this role—as he often does with his cheeky charm. This is most evident during his first time travel fight scene in Wall Street. His cheeky lines, his sudden straddle dodge, his stick strike to the nuts—sometimes I imagine they had to do extra takes because he’d burst out into laughter. The kicks in the face are numerous, so are the gunfire evasive dive rolls, and I’m happy for Van Damme. His career never saw paydays like Schwarzenegger or Stallone, but he always seemed to embrace his characters (at least, up until this point in his career).
About now I’d like to pause and assess how we know this is a bad movie (as if it wasn’t yet obvious):
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How was there not a single jump spin kick in this entire movie!?!?!?! That’s JCVD’s thing! Also, much to my surprise, there is very little in terms of sweaty biceps shots. #JumpSpinKickFAIL
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This takes place in “the future” in 2004. Man, I can’t wait for 2004! The cars may look like Back to the Future’s DeLorean and Total Recall’s Johnny Cab had a mutant baby… but they drive themselves! And the TV and voicemail in his house are voice-command.
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There are these two goons with matching death metal hair and giant twin hoop earrings. Shouldn’t goons of high level criminals be more discrete?
So was this like a thematic rematch of sorts? 
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After being found guilty of “time travel with the intent to alter the future” a guy is sentenced to death. But the death is carried out by letting him fall from a building in 1929 where he was impersonating a Wall Street investor. Wouldn’t that alter the future? When 1929 cops cannot link this supposedly wealthy investor to anyone who actually existed? Isn’t that sort of a big ripple. Oh, and he did already buy 100,000 shares of oil stock. What about those ripples? Jobs, the economy, increased financial disparity between classes…? Jobs and money affecting if certain parents ever met and had kids…like so the kid who grew up to invent time travel would have never been born because his dad didn’t get “that” job and meet “that” woman at “that” time.
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The evil presidential hopeful slams his consultant’s head into a car window for giving him bad news. I love this!
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Watch out for the knife fight in the kitchen fight scene. They replay the same set of attacks/parries 2-4 times back to back really fast as if we wouldn’t notice…just like they replayed the same jump spin kick footage (vs Chong Li) in Bloodsport…just like they replayed the same stunts (vs China) and punch combo (vs Khan) footage in The Quest. This wasn’t the only Timecop offense, the girl’s (Gloria Reuben; Robot, Falling Skies, Silk Stalkings) palm strike and some rainy finale punching were replayed, too. Was this common in 80s and 90s action movies, or does Van Damme just get too tired to film more moves? Adding insult to injury, the Asian knife fighter outspinkicks Van Damme’s spin kick! #SpinKickFAIL #KnifeFightFAIL #ReplayFAIL
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Also during that knife fight Van Damme seems to “parry” several attacks in a row by simply holding the knife perfectly still in front of his face as if it was a powerful magnet! LOL. Terrible! #ParryFAIL
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Evidently if you expose water to 50K volts of electricity, it can hold the charge and electrocute someone several seconds later. #PhysicsFAIL
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I don’t think their time travel launch car ever hit 88 mph! #BacktotheFutureFAIL
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Did they rip off the launch car from The Running Man (1987).
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“Never interrupt me when I’m talking to myself.” An incredibly silly line delivered by the villain with an incredibly straight face.
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No one can deny that the liquid nitrogen arm shatter scene was a blatant (and playful) rip-off of Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991). Not gonna’ lie, I laughed.
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Okay, I am now CERTAIN that Van Damme gets the giggles over hitting people in the balls. In The Quest the Chinese fighter monkey punches the Brazilian in the balls and the Scottish guy loses to a punch to the balls right under the kilt from the Turk. In Bloodsport the Sumo wrestler gets punched in the nuts by the African monkey boy and a Van Damme split testicular uppercut. And now in Timecop, Van Damme whips a guy in the balls with a stick and then two guys get shot in the balls during the rainy rooftop finale.
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“The same matter cannot occupy the same space at the same time.” Three times we are informed of this! But at least by the third we got some awful effects as the bad guy ate it and melted into pink ooze.
For the most part, this is not a movie for technical fight choreography snobs who live for the likes of Tony Jaa (Ong Bak), Scott Adkins (Undisputed 2-3, Universal Solder: Day of Reckoning), Michael Jai White (Undisputed 2, Blood and Bone), Jason Statham (Mechanic: Resurrection), or Iko Uwais (The Raid: Redemption). There’s nothing particularly wowing about the martial arts. However, a few stunts steal the show. We mentioned the washer/dryer jump split, he makes good use of a towel and an over-the-arm kick to the face, and the quality of the fights was highly satisfying. But I’d call these “action movie fights” more than “martial arts movie” fights, if you feel my drift.
Van Damme ends up saving the day by stopping an evil time travelling senator from buying the presidency and, along the way, he hits 3 out of 4 on the Van Damme staples: a Belgian butt shot (with Mia Sara), splits during a fight (x2), tandem jump spin kicks (sadly absent), and a sappy closing scene with the subject of his motivation (his son whom he meets for the first time).
Most of Van Damme’s pre-1995 movies have high rewatchability, and this is no exception. In fact, this JCVD movie had quite a bit of Schwarzenegger style and appeal to it, making Van Damme feel like a more typical action hero than normal. I highly recommend it to anyone who ever liked pretty much any Van Damme movie.
If you enjoy this stuff please buy it, watch it, then join our nostalgia by listening to our Van Damme podcast episode!
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John’s Horror Corner: Tourist Trap (1979), where Psycho meets The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
SPOILERS
MY CALL: If Norman Bates and Leatherface had a telekinetic lovechild with a fondness for mannequins, this lunacy is what you’d have. It’s not scary or gory, but it trumps the deck in the weird and creepy department. MORE MOVIES LIKE Tourist Trap: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986), Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933), House of Wax (2005) and Psycho (1960, 1998).
Also released as Horror Puppet, this cult classic leaps right into the deep end of its own lunacy. We’ve barely met our group of victims when one of them, approaching a sleepy and perhaps abandoned gas station (a la The Hills Have Eyes and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), wanders into a sort of elaborately rigged funhouse loaded with evil mannequins. The scares are cheap and numerous, but they should crack a grin.
I have no idea why this poster depicts a naked women (there is no nudity) or why her nipples emit beams of light (that obviously doesn’t happen).
This is a terribly misleading poster.
And while we’re at it, what is with this raunchy poster pose?
It’s oddly similar to Evils of the Night (1985)
The humor may not be entirely deliberate, but I finda sort of sick slapstick nature to it as the mannequins cackle and random objects jettison through the air at our victim.
This may make some horror lightweights a bit uncomfortable. Writer/director David Schmoeller’s (Puppet Master, Netherworld) first feature length undertaking sets the stage much like its successors The Evil Dead (1981) and The Funhouse (1981).
Now one short, four twenty-somethings remain including Jerry (Jon Van Ness; X-Ray, The Hitcher), the anxious Molly (Jocelyn Jones; The Enforcer), the bold Eileen (Robin Sherwood; Death Wish II, The Love Butcher), and the foxy Becky (Tanya Roberts; The Beastmaster, Sheena).
The classic tropes are on display, that’s for sure. When our four victims go looking for their missing friend, they go down a road passing a sign with a vulture perched upon it that reads “closed to the public.” Maybe read between the lines, folks.
This won’t end well.
The friendly backwoods landowner Slausen (Chuck Connors; Soylent Green, Summer Camp Nightmare) catches the girls in his swimming hole and kindly introduces himself, explains the regional history and warns that they leave before dark. He ran the now out-of-business “local museum” and offers them a ride to pick up some tools to fix their broken down car.
Things get really troped up and really suspicious really fast…and the short shorts get really short. The phones don’t work, he warns them not to wander around, he gives cryptic answers to simple questions like “who lives in that house” and Slausen wastes no time separating the group.
Random objects break, shatter or shutter about adding little of substance to the haunted house atmosphere. It feels cheap and desperate. What does work are the creepy mannequins’ shifting eyes, moving on their own, and blatant nods to a slack-jawed, eerily masked Leatherface-like villain with some Norman Bates issues.
The death scenes are pretty hokey. Scarf strangling by ghost (or telekinesis or something), a projectile pipe stabbing, asphyxiation by plaster…they sadly do not comprise the highlights of this flick. But it’s charm is instead found in the antagonist’s mania as our murdered victims are added to a creepy mannequin menagerie.
This split-personalitied maniac and his romantic proclivities clearly inspired Motel Hell’s (1980) sympathetic Farmer Vincent character, who also echoed Leatherface and other aspects of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974).
For whatever reason or coincidence, this outfit makes out villain look like Tony Clifton!
Tony Clifton is for real gonna’ murder this chick!
I’d recommend this to seasoned horror fans—who have already seen The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and Psycho (1960)—who like digging deep to observe the roots of subsequent horror themes.
Before.
After.
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The Best Horror Workouts, Part 1: Killer Workout (1987), Death Spa (1989) and Happy Birthday to Me (1981)
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Working out in the 80s…in horror movies?
You guys know this is gonna’ be a bit dirty!
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Ready to sweat out the sins of watching too many horror movies? Well throw on your halfway shirts, short-shorts and tube socks and let’s get to it!
Killer Workout, aka Aerobicide (1987)
Pretty classy poster, right?
Killer Workout, aka Aerobicide (1987) is easily one of the most TnA-rich raunchy throwbacks I’ve ever seen. Hardly horror at all, this was deliciously cheesy to the point of hilarity. Watch this to remind yourself of what it’s like to be a teenage boy. Brace yourself for sweaty hard bodies, ass-choking leotards, hot pink tights and excessively inappropriate camera angles as we are introduced to Rhonda’s (Marcia Karr; Maniac Cop, Savage Streets) gym. Despite a recent series of in-gym homicides people keep coming to the gym as if nothing happened and never seem to wonder what happened to their training partner. This may sound bad, but we came to laugh as people get killed with random gym apparatuses. What this flick lacks in knives in cleaving sweaty cleavage, it makes up for with extra cheese in your post-workout shake.
We get our raunchy cheese, as any cheese connoisseur would have it, in a variety of forms. But the real highlights here are aerobics montages to remind us that back in the 80s women pretty much dressed like hookers when they worked out. We learn that the camera man understood his instructions loud and clear as we are bombarded by tandem close-ups of sweaty bouncing aerobic boobs, thong-wedgied butts and leg-spreading crotch shots. No joke–the aerobic routines are more than a little slutty and there’s an inordinate amount of this. Every 10-15 minutes it’s like the director was just filming hooker tryouts. SIX TIMES we get these bouncy slut montages encored by a highlights reel during the closing credits. LOL. We even see a scarred up burn victim’s bare breasts in more than one lengthy scene!!! That’s an awful LOT of screen time for TnA even in a raunchy horror flick.
Nope. That’s not a prostitute walking up to the Bunny Ranch in that ass-choking leotard. That’s an aerobics instructor in her classiest uniform hitting the gym.
I have no clue what this move is called. But I think I love it.
Yup. This really happens in this flick…a lot
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Death Spa (1989)
Death Spa (1989) lets us sweat out the toxins with some bad 80s horror at its best. A sultry Flashdance routine immediately warns of the quality of the movie to come. Our flashdancing spa exhibitionist is Laura (Brenda Bakke; Nowhere to Run, Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight) and she is nearly killed when the gym sauna spews caustic gas out of some pipe–clearly in an effort to murder her…because spas “do that” in this movie. But have no fear, she judo chops to safety through a window and then passes out naked and sweaty before our eyes.
This spa looks like the 80s vomited all over it. Super short shorts on allegedly straight guys with feathered hair, girls in provocatively snug unitards, lots of hairspray, tights, promiscuity, legwarmers and a strangely wardrobed black dude (Ken Foree; Dawn of the Dead, The Lords of Salem, Halloween) who the director clearly decided was “tough” because he’s a tall black dude who works out in a robe!
As the “spa” continues to strike, its assaults include tampering with a diving board, scalding hot showers, projectile bath tiles flying at naked women, a busted hot water pipe melts the face off of some chick and a needlessly deadly chest-fly machine.
Not surprisingly it only takes a few free months of gym memberships for gym rats to remain loyal to Brother Iron and Sister Steel while several people have been serially killed or injured in the past week! Later some dude has his face squeezed off (the only real latex effort in special effects), a chick’s hand gets blended into a protein shake while it’s still attached to her and there’s a random zombie fish attack…yes, one zombie in the entire movie and it’s a fish. They’re rich in omega-3’s, bro! This movie even includes death by tanning bed–which is the second time this ever happened on film (Killer Workout (1987) was the first), later copied by the I Know What You Did Last Summer and Final Destination franchises.
Shower scenes and wet bodies abound in this extra cheesy flick in which a HAL-like gym security system takes it upon itself to kill its members like they kill their triceps. I’d like to see this remade by Eli Craig, Joss Whedon or Sam Raimi…you know, like the minds behind Evil Dead (2013), The Cabin in the Woods (2012), Final Destination 5 (2011), Tucker and Dale vs Evil (2010), Drag Me to Hell (2009), and of course Evil Dead 2 (1987) and The Evil Dead (1981).
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Happy Birthday to Me (1981)
Grin-worthy 80s lameness abounds in this gory flick. The deaths range from ho-hum to laugh-out-loud hilarity. But my favorite kill involves giving a mean spot while someone is doing bench presses, which of course reminded me of Killer Workout (1987; aka Aerobicide) and Death Spa (1989). But unlike the other two mentioned flicks, Happy Birthday to Me (1981) features but a single gym-related death.
After any good workout you gotta’ eat right to get those gains! PROTEIN!!!! And if you’re a gym rat, you know muscles are made in the kitchen. So whether your forcing kabobs down your throat or prepping your girlfriend’s severed head, get to it! The pay off is so worth it.
I know you’re full, bro. But take it down like the lion does the gazelle. GET THOSE GAINS!
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We hope you enjoyed these three gory sets of horrific muscle-building reps from the 80s. Stay tuned for The Best Horror Workouts Part 2!
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The MFF Podcast #71: Star Trek, Past and Beyond
You can download the pod on Itunes or LISTEN TO THE POD ON BLOG TALK RADIO.
If you get a chance please make sure to review, rate and share. You are awesome!
Summary: This week we discuss the Star Trek reboot (2009), Star Trek: Into Darkness (2013), the latest release Star Trek: Beyond (2016), and reflect back on the Star Trek captains of the past, TV series and movie franchises.
We answer the tough questions in this podcast! For example…
“Old Khan or Cumberbatch Khan?”
“Does Quinto Spock do justice to Nimoy Spock, and is it fair to compare them?”
“Did Eric Bana and Tom Hardy make convincing villains?”
“Is Chris Pine the greatest Captain we’ve ever had, or perhaps one of the TV show captains?”
LISTEN TO THE POD ON BLOG TALK RADIO,
or head over iTunes, and if you get a chance please SUBSCRIBE, REVIEW, RATE and SHARE the pod!
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10 Films to Watch Before the Fall Movie Season Starts
Fall is coming and that means we will soon be inundated with Oscar hopefuls and big budget blockbusters. Before you watch all the prestige pictures and superhero/wizard flicks here are 10 smaller films that you should see before you get too busy wondering how the Death Star plans will be stolen in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. These films are incredibly different but exhibit a whole lot of greatness. I totally recommend them and hopefully you can get to a few before the fall movie season starts.
Watch these movies!
1. Everybody Wants Some!!
Everybody Wants Some!! is the best film of the year (s0 far) and I will probably watch it again after I finish this post. Don’t be thrown off by the baseball playing lead characters because you will miss an absolute charmer of a comedy. Director Richard Linklater (Dazed and Confused, Before Sunrise) has mastered the ensemble film and somehow finds a way to make everyone likable, unique and cool. Watch it now and recommend it to everyone!!
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2. Green Room
Green Room is the best thriller of 2016 (so far) and it proves that director Jeremy Saulnier (Blue Ruin) is an amazing director. I was on the edge of my seat the entire time and I love how Saulnier makes violence look so ugly and realistic. Nothing is glorified and you will find yourself incredibly nervous for the trapped punk band. Also, Patrick Stewart is awesome as the Neo-Nazi leader because he looks like your nice uncle but he would kill you without a thought.
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3. Sing Street
Sing Street is pure bliss. Director John Carney (Once, Begin Again) has created another fantastic musical yarn that will put a smile on your face. If you are into good music, likable characters and more good music it doesn’t get any better than Sing Street.
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4. The Neon Demon
Do you like Nicolas Windin Refn films that aren’t Drive? Is you answered “yes” than you will really appreciate The Neon Demon. It is empty, violent, weird and extremely beautiful to look at. It won’t leave you feeling happy or fulfilled but it is truly original and features some insane moments that will make you squirm.
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5. Love & Friendship
Love & Friendship is a breath of fresh costume drama/comedy air. Jane Austen’s unpublished novella is in perfect hands with director Whit Stillman and the two seem beautifully suited for each other. Kate Beckinsale is a delight, and I hope she is remembered come awards time. She is perfection in the film and it bums me out that she had been stuck in the Underworld world so long.
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6. High-Rise
Ben Wheatley (A Field in England, Sightseers, Kill List) is a maniac director who has eluded the mainstream and thrilled cinephiles. His movies cannot be described, and what I love about High-Rise is that it keeps his sensibilities intact. This isn’t some big budget yarn featuring Tom Hiddlesston. High-Rise is a bonkers J.G. Ballard adaptation that is tough to watch and awesome to experience.
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7. Don’t Breathe
Don’t Breathe is a blue-collar horror film that features realistic scares and a badass villain. The camerawork is stellar and every time violence breaks out you feel the pain. I love that it is tearing up the box office because this is a film that deserves to be watched. It gives the audience what they want and features likable characters and almost too much suspense (I’m a wimp).
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8. The Lobster
The Lobster is weird, violent and hilarious. It might be one the best comedies released in years and I really hope that Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz are remembered come awards time. If you are into movies that use toasters as evil punishment devices you will love every second of The Lobster.
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9. 10 Cloverfield Lane
10 Cloverfield Lane is a terrifying chamber thriller that features career best performances from Mary Elizabeth Winstead and John Goodman. It manages to do a lot with little and proves horror films don’t need masked killers or insane violence to be tense.
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10. Midnight Special
Jeff Nichols is my favorite director (right now, might change tomorrow) and I’ve loved his films Shotgun Stories, Take Shelter and Mud. What I love about Midnight Special is that is feels like an Amblin film, but it doesn’t rip off Amblin film. Midnight Special is beautifully original and very touching. Watch it now!
Movies, Films & Flix 
