Am I the only person excited about a Tron sequel? Better question: Am I the only person who will pay to see a Tron sequel? Disney released this teaser poster today which has made me even more excited.
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Consider yourself teased.
It’s once again that time of year when families gather around the warm glow of the television and watch such holiday classics as It’s a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Story, Home Alone, and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation to name a few. Sure, your pals here at Critical End! watch those too, but when the hour grows late, the fire has died down, and the kids from Ryan’s third marriage have all gone to bed, that’s when the real Christmas fun begins. Logan mixes his “special†eggnog (Ingredients: Eggnog, mostly booze), while Ryan warms up the DVD player for those holiday slasher films known as Silent Night, Deadly Night. This year, in honor of the birth of Christ our savior (Okay, and the release of Parts 3 to 5 on DVD), we thought we’d let Logan share his opinion on each film in a special 5 part series each week until Christmas.Â
This week Logan looks at Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out!
Body Count: 11 (But once again, 3 of those are from clips of the first movie)
Best Death Scene: According to this film, the worst thing you could say to somebody in a coma is, “Who’s your favorite singer? Perry Coma?” Chances are they’ll wake up and kill you for telling lame jokes.
Let’s get one thing straight: Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2, despite it’s awesome gayness, was not a box office hit…or maybe it was, but only because it cost around ten bucks and a six pack of Coors to make. Whatever the case, the powers that be decided that it was time for the series to return to what made it huge in the first place: home video. 1989’s Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out! was the first of three direct to video sequels, and the only one not to feature Clint Howard. For many, that’s all the review you’ll need to read right there.
BOO! Hey, kids! Mickey Rooney here to remind you that I hate these movies! See you in Part 5!
It’s been six years since Ricky went on his Christmas Eve killing spree. It appears that he suffered some sort of head injury at the end of the last film that would cause a team of doctors to encase his brain in a glass dome. While this sounds like the coolest thing since Jason got his hockey mask, it’s actually far, far from it. Due to this, Ricky now stumbles around drooling and acting like Frankenstein’s monster, which, granted, isn’t that far from the way he acted in the last two films, now he just has an excuse. Oh, and the movie finds every excuse possible to put him in a goofy hat to cover the dome. This also isn’t as great as it sounds. Why?  Because for some reason the director (who has the impossibly awesome name “Monte Hellman”), seemed to be under the impression that this was a drama. The story concerns an annoying blind girl who has some sort of psychic connection with the dome-headed Ricky. While it takes most crappy horror series a while to get to “the sequel with the hot clairvoyant chick” (see Friday the 13th Part VIII, or Halloween 6 in which said hot chick is Paul Rudd), the Silent Night, Deadly Night series must have known that it was going to fizzle out early and decided to jump the gun. Anyway, for reasons beyond me, blind chick agrees to spend Christmas with her brother (one of two Twin Peaks stars who appear in the film), and his destined-to-have-a-nude-scene girlfriend. Everything is going fine until Ricky literally hitchhikes to them (would you pick up a guy in a hospital gown with a glass dome on his head?) in an attempt to “connect” with annoying blind girl. Oh, and for some reason I Spy‘s Robert Culp is there too, but only to promote some new gadget called a “cell phone”. It’s all very loony.
While Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 1 was trashy fun, and Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 was a train wreck classic, Better Watch Out! is just bad.  It would appear that the killer Santa that outraged parents in 1984 had finally run it’s course, and as the series moved into the 90’s we all knew that there was only one thing that could save it…
Next week:Â …KILLER BUGS.
Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out!
 Rating: 
3Â out of 10
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Mark Coleran designs crazy futuristic software interfaces for fake movie computers. here’s an awesome montage of his work.
Coleran Reel 2008.06 HD from Mark Coleran on Vimeo.
It’s once again that time of year when families gather around the warm glow of the television and watch such holiday classics as It’s a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Story, Home Alone, and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation to name a few. Sure, your pals here at Critical End! watch those too, but when the hour grows late, the fire has died down, and the kids from Ryan’s third marriage have all gone to bed, that’s when the real Christmas fun begins. Logan mixes his “special†eggnog (Ingredients: Eggnog, mostly booze), while Ryan warms up the DVD player for those holiday slasher films known as Silent Night, Deadly Night. This year, in honor of the birth of Christ our savior (Okay, and the release of Parts 3 to 5 on DVD), we thought we’d let Logan share his opinion on each film in a special 5 part series each week until Christmas.Â
This week Logan looks at Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2.
Body Count: 24 (But to be fair, 12 of those are from clips of the first movie)
Best Death Scene: One poor soul is killed simply because it’s garbage day and he’s disposing some trash. Fellas, let this be a lesson next time the wife/girlfriend wants you to take the garbage out.
Oh, where to start? I guess I need to get the most important thing about this movie out of the way first: Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 is my favorite bad movie of all time. Yes, some people may tell you that you could never get worse than, say, Troll 2, or to a more recent extent, The Room, but for my money, this film has them all beat. And do you want to know the weirdest part about the whole thing? More than one third of Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 is made up of, yeah, you guessed it, clips of Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 1 MINUS most of the gore and nudity.
Following the video success of the first film, producers begin to search for a way to extend its shelf life a bit. Due mostly to the fact that nobody in Hollywood likes to use their brain (See any Adam Sandler film for further analysis), they collectively decided that the best thing to do would be to hire an editor to re-cut the film, adding two more scenes that would, get this, feature a mental patient telling the story which would have made the original film appear to be nothing more than the ravings of a lunatic. Hollywood, this is why you have no friends.
Lucky for us, Director/Editor Lee Harry (and yes, that is his actual screen credit in the movie), and a team of six writers decided that the movie needed a bit more. Now, when I say a bit more what I really mean is about 30 minutes of new material. The rest, as I mentioned above, is nothing but clips from the first movie edited for content. Wow, it took six writers to come up with that? Maybe this film was some sort of tax write off…whatever the case, the movie comes across like the equivalent of listening to your drunk Uncle Steve attempt to explain the first film. It’s now several years later and Billy’s little brother, Ricky, is all grown up and in the nut house. How he got there is the only real mystery in the movie (Spoiler: He killed lots of people), and is revealed mostly through what I have dubbed “eyebrow acting” and in flashbacks that bring the grand total of Ricky actors to a staggering EIGHT people. My God, that’s a lot of eyebrow acting. At one point the film really jumps the rails (and Ricky’s eyebrows threaten to jump off his face), when he decides that he needs to flashback to his first date. The movie then becomes a love story about a killer Santa for a few minutes. The best part? They go to see Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 1 on their first date. Just when we thought the film had finally stopped showing clips from the first movie, the filmmakers decided that what we really wanted to see was people watching the first film. God, I love this movie.
Oh, there’s more, but just take my word for it: Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 is NOT to be missed. If you’re a lover of bad films, then this will be like the holy grail for you. I can’t end this review without mentioning the fact that this film features one of my all time favorite lines and scenes from any movie ever. The clip from this scene is all over YouTube, but it’s worthless unless you actually made it through the rest of the film.  I guess what I’m saying is that you have to work for it…and believe me: It’s worth every second. Happy Garbage Day, folks!
Rating:
3Â out of 10
In three days: Ricky returns for some more yuletide slayings, but due to the head injury he received in the last film, he now wears his brain in a glass dome. GENIUS.
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Remember Death at a Funeral, that Frank Oz sleeper comedy from two years ago? While I didn’t think it was an amazing film, I did enjoy it as a fun British farce, which is really all it set out to be. Well, less than two years later somebody in Hollywood thought, “You know what? I think we should remake that funny little British film…but with black people.”
Needless to say, this REALLYpisses me off. Not only is the original film close to still being on the “New Release” wall at Blockbuster, but was there something in it that really screamed “Martin Lawrence, Chris Rock, and Tracy Morgan vehicle!”?
I’ve decided to put the trailer on here, but let me just save you the trouble of watching it:Â It’s literally, and I really, really, REALLY want to stress literally, exact scenes from the original film but with Asian jokes, “Daaaaaaaammmnn”‘s, and Tracy Morgan.
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Hollywood, I officially hate you.
It’s once again that time of year when families gather around the warm glow of the television and watch such holiday classics as It’s a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Story, Home Alone, and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation to name a few. Sure, your pals here at Critical End! watch those too, but when the hour grows late, the fire has died down, and the kids from Ryan’s third marriage have all gone to bed, that’s when the real Christmas fun begins. Logan mixes his “special” eggnog (Ingredients: Eggnog, mostly booze), while Ryan warms up the DVD player for those holiday slasher films known as Silent Night, Deadly Night. This year, in honor of the birth of Christ our savior (Okay, and the release of Parts 3 to 5 on DVD), we thought we’d let Logan share his opinion on each film in a special 5 part series each week until Christmas.Â
This week Logan looks at Silent Night, Deadly Night.
Body Count: 13
Best Death Scene: Death by impaling on a stuffed antelope’s horns? Count me in!
Silent Night, Deadly Night is the cult slasher that was so highly offensive that, get this, C.A.M.M. (that’s Citizens Against Movie Madness in case you were wondering) decided that they needed to boycott its 1984 theatrical release. Several “concerned” parents felt that the image of Santa with a bloody ax was going too far. Hell, they even got Hollywood legend Mickey Rooney to join their letter writing campaign to TriStar Pictures (Never mind the fact that Rooney himself would later star in Part 5). Want to know the kicker? All of this worked. That’s right, after two weeks in only a handful of theaters, Silent Night, Deadly Night died a quiet death. Luckily, it was the early ’80’s and people were enjoying the spoils of a rather new gadget called VCRs. It was here that the film really took off, quickly selling close to a million copies on VHS and becoming a cult hit.
So was all the uproar really worth it?  Yes, actually. This movie is pretty damn gory, full of needless nudity, and, truth be told, rather fun. It opens on Christmas Eve 1971 with 5 year old Billy and his newborn brother Ricky accompanying their parents to visit their crazy old Grandfather. Crazy old Grandfather warns them that they better run when they see Santa tonight, but do they listen? No, because he’s crazy and old. On the way back home the family happens to run into a maniac dressed like Santa who shoots the father and rapes the mom in front of the two kids. Outraged yet, Mickey Rooney?
Needless to say, Billy grows up hating Santa and working at, of all places, a freakin’ toy store. It’s also the only toy store that I’ve ever seen with easy access to a huge fire ax (It’s located next to the board games and stuffed animals). Well, we all know what happens from here. Through a series of events (mostly told by way of a cheesy ’80’s montage), Billy ends up dressing up as the store Santa.  A sleazy, tight pants, co-worker hitting on Billy’s best gal is all it takes to send Billy into a Christmas Eve/morning killing spree with the above mentioned ax…but not before using a bow and arrow to dispatch one unlucky victim. Why this toy store sells real bow and arrow sets is beyond me, but who am I to question the practices of Ira’s Toys?
From here until the “shocking” ending things are pretty much your typical ’80’s slasher film with something of a budget. That is to say that Silent Night, Deadly Night is really no different than any fun, trashy horror film along the lines of the original Friday the 13th. Yes, it’s garbage, no doubt, but it’s a great time if this is your sort of thing. I could honestly recommend this for your yearly alcohol fueled Christmas party, if not for the existence of Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2…but we’ll get to that next week. Until then, why not find a copy of Part 1 and check it out this holiday season? Tell them Mickey Rooney sent you.
Rating:
5Â out of 10
Next week:Â Little baby brother Ricky picks up where Billy left off and delivers one of Logan’s five favorite film lines of all time in Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2.Â
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This audio recording is being beamed directly into your brain with Jedi mind tricks. REVIEWED: The Men Who Stare at Goats. PLUS: Trailer talk, featuring Brothers.
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Oh, funny Owen Wilson, how I will miss you. There was a time when you were co-writing critically acclaimed films like Bottle Rocket and Rushmore, then making me laugh while you kicked some ass in films like Shanghi Noon. Now look at you: Voicing a CGI Marmaduke in the upcoming comic strip adaptation. Sigh. Maybe you’ve been spending too much time swimming nude with your buddy Woody Harrelson…or maybe it’s all of the pot. Hmmm. The pot would at least explain why you’ve had the same haircut since 1997.  Oh well. Perhaps the death of your comedic talent is for the best. It was either this or another Meet the Parents film, right? Wait…you’re doing one of those as well? Double sigh.
I leave you with what I SWEAR is today’s (November 5, 2009) Marmaduke comic. I can only hope that the movie might feature slightly more timely comedy.
[via CHUD]
HE EATS BABIES, PEOPLE! When will you learn to shun him!
In a way, I’m glad that Sandler is apparently reversing his decision to go the way of Jim Carrey, filling the latter half of his career with maudlin “sad clown” roles a la Punch-Drunk Love and Funny People. I would have hated for him to gain any degree of semi-legitimacy. Although to be fair, Carrey, unlike Sandler, actually used to be funny.
What I’m getting at is the news that Sandler is set to star in Jack and Jill, a move in which he plays twins. Named Jack and Jill. And it’s a romantic comedy.
Beyond the inevitable Sandler-related factors (Jill will talk in a baby voice for some reason, Drew Barrymore will be put-upon but charmed), nothing more has leaked out about the plot. But Sandler fans will surely hail this as a return to form, and give it a great opening weekend.
With that in mind, I’m getting the jump on my own “Nursery Rhyme Title as Raunchy Romantic Comedy” pitches. Here’s a taste:
Old Mother Hubbard
When Dick Hubbard’s (Dane Cook) foul-mouthed grandmother dies during his annual visit, Dick stumbles upon her will and is shocked to discover that she’s left all her money to a local animal charity. If Dick wants his inheritance, he’ll have to pose as his own grandmother (with the help of his theater school pals) long enough to convince her lawyer to change the will. It’s the perfect plan until the sexy and passionate director of the charity (Kristen Stewart) shows up to plead the animals’ case and get back on “grandma’s” good side!
What do you guys think? I’ve also got a great poster for Little Jack Hornier…
[via Chud]
Logan and Ryan want to play a game. A game where they talk about the Saw series as a whole without boring you with the details of any one installment. Also there will be MURDER.
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What’s all this then? Well, it’s our first video feature. A Critical Quip, if you will. In it, Logan and I have our way with the trailer for Solomon Kane. Wanna see more stuff like this? Let us know in the comments.
Arnie Niekamp was once again kind enough to invite me on his podcast Stupid Nerd. This time, Jason Chin and I get Arnie all caught up on the entire Friday the 13th series.
Get it from iTunes or hit play and listen below.
[gplayer href=”http://cdn4.libsyn.com/mysterycove/Stupid_Nerd_Friday_the_13th.mp3″][/gplayer]
Your pals at Critical End! would like to wish a super happy birthday to Sir Chevy Chase (we’ve knighted him in our own minds). Can you believe the man is 66 today?! Most people don’t know that Chevy didn’t become the household name that he is today until around his 32 birthday when he first started getting noticed on some show called NBC’s Saturday Night. I wonder what ever happened to that forgotten gem?
Speaking of great moments in Chevy history, Ryan and I have listed our five all-time favorite Chevy films below. In celebration of this special day, why not take a few hours to get reacquainted with one of the greatest comedians of all time?
Ryan’s Top Five Chevy Picks
1. Caddyshack
2. Three Amigos!
3. Fletch
4. National Lampoon’s Vacation
5. National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
Logan’s Top Five Chevy Picks
1. Caddyshack
2. National Lampoon’s Vacation
3. Fletch
4. Three Amigos!
5. Spies Like Us
And finally…news hit the web yesterday about a rumored fifth Vacation film from New Line Cinema. However, I couldn’t find a single website that had a source on this, so I’ve decided to hold off reporting the “details” for now. Just be aware that this could possibly exist outside of my dreams within the next few years. More info to come.
Happy Chevy Chase Day, kids.Â
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