13 Fanboy

Bubble baths can be a dangerous place in a slasher movie.

(2021) Horror (Deskpop) Dee Wallace, Hayley Reece Greenbauer, Corey Feldman, Kane Hodder, Lar Park-Lincoln, Judie Aronson, Tracie Savage, Jennifer Banko, C.J. Graham, Drew Leighty, Ron Sloan, Debra Sullivan, Poppy Gillett, Kaylee Hall, Hayley Duncan, Taylor Rodriguez, Nigel Lawes, Caslin Rose, Darren Barcomb, Tiffany Helm, James Cantu, Deborah Voorhees, Liana Cockfield. Directed by Deborah Voorhees

 

For folks my age and a bit younger, the Eighties were a magic time for both movies and music; it was morning in America, and the multiplexes – something fairly new at the time – were filled with low-budget slasher movies and cheapo horror. It isn’t hard to look back on those days with fondness. It seemed that every other week there was a new movie guaranteed to make your date cram her head into your shoulder – or put his protective arm around you. There were franchises a-plenty to keep us interested in our latest indestructible serial killer.

One of those franchises was the Friday the 13^th franchise, with hockey masked killer Jason Voorhees at the center. If you’re wondering why no new movies have been made in that particular series since 2009 when the Marcus Nispel-directed reboot was made. Since then, the rights have been tied up in a lawsuit that was only recently decided over who earned the copyright, although as it turns out, things still remain complicated; original writer Victor Miller was awarded domestic rights in the lawsuit, but original director Sean S. Cunningham retains the international rights. It seems as though it will still be a very long time before Jason dons the hockey mask once again.

But until then, we have 13 Fanboy. Co-written and directed by Deborah Voorhees (no relation to Jason), who played Tina in Friday the 13^th: A New Beginning, this is as much a love letter to fans as it is a visceral horror movie playing on the fears of actresses regarding the sometimes-toxic obsession of fans. The movie has a cast of actors from the franchise (and a few who weren’t) playing versions f themselves. Dee Wallace, the mom from E.T. and the heroine of The Howling, was good friends with Deborah Voorhees, but pooh-poohs her fears about an obsessed fan. The stalker then stabbed Voorhees to death on her ranch, witnessed by her granddaughter Kelsie (Gillett).

13 years after the murder (I’m sure the amount of time elapsed wasn’t chosen randomly), Dee still feels guilty about not believing her friend. She has kept close contact with Kelsie (Greenbauer), a budding actress who also teaches a self-defense class and has had a successful career as an MMA fighter as well. Kelsie also notices that actresses from the movie series are being picked off, one by one, and the police seem apathetic to it. Could this be the same killer who took her grandmother away all those years ago?

It shouldn’t be much of a spoiler to tell you that it is, and that Dee and Kelsie will have to be smarter and tougher than the killer if they are to survive. The movie gives us an intimate view of fan culture as well as the bond between the actresses whose moments of glory came in films like Friday the 13^th and its successors. The filmmakers utilize practical effects throughout rather than digital – they couldn’t have had much of a budget – but they did spring for graphics identifying each actor and the role they played in the series. There are some exceptions; former teen heartthrob Corey Feldman (who did play Tommy in Friday the 13^th: The Final Chapter in 1984, plays ultra-sleazy producer Mike Merryman here, overacting shamelessly, and why not? Voorhees seems to be making this for the fans as much as exorcising her own fears here. That does give the movie a kind of schizophrenia that makes you wonder if it had been originally intended to be a serious examination of fan obsession, but the ending – with too many twists to be satisfying – seems to indicate that it wasn’t ever intended to be that way. Still, it makes one wonder “what if” in a good way.

There is a scene which might remind viewers uncomfortably of the recent events on the set of the film Rust, although here it is a prop knife that is switched and a stunt double is accidentally killed. The fact that the film within a film was being shot in New Mexico is an eerie coincidence, but one that perhaps takes us a bit out of this film. That’s just one of those bizarre things that sometimes happens in life.

The thing to remember here is that this really is going to be delightful for those who love the original movies and take part in convention culture. In that sense, the movie is a rousing success; it does celebrate the love between the fans and the actors and gives some actors, many of whom are likely missing the loss of convention income during the pandemic, a chance to shine in the sun once again, and some do. Kane Hodder gets an uncharacteristic monologue that actually was quite effective, while Tracie Savage shows she can still be a scream queen with the best of them. There is also a fight late in the film between former Jason C.J. Graham and the masked killer in which C.J. bellows “You want a shot at the title?” which gets the blood pumping nicely. All in all, this is a nifty little film that is flawed perhaps but ultimately a satisfying work, particularly for fans.

REASONS TO SEE: Really fan-friendly.
REASONS TO AVOID: Too many plot twists mar the ending.
FAMILY VALUES: There is violence, profanity, brief nudity and some sexuality.
TRIVIAL PURSUITS: This is the first release by new distributor Deskpop Entertainment.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, AppleTV, Google Play, Microsoft, Spectrum, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 11/5/21: Rotten Tomatoes: No score yet; Metacritic: No score yet.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: New Nightmare
FINAL RATING: 6/10
NEXT: The Gig is Up

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Hatchet II

Danielle Harris gets a Hatchet facial

(2010) Horror (Dark Sky) Danielle Harris, Tony Todd, Kane Hodder, A.J. Bowen, Tom Holland, R.A. Mihailoff, Alexis Peters, Parry Shen, Kathryn Fiore, Ed Ackerman, David Foy, Colton Dunn, Rick McCallum, John Carl Buechler, Erika Hamilton. Directed by Adam Green

One of the things I liked about slasher films from the 70s and 80s is that they had everything in them an adolescent boy could ask for – sex, chainsaws, pretty girls, disfigured killers and no plot whatsoever. Just a string of murders that were hopefully somewhat imaginative.

The first Hatchet was a tribute to those films and in its own way was fairly clever and inventive. It didn’t possess a particularly original premise but for those who hadn’t seen many of the films of the slasher variety this was all new and wonderful. It had a pretty decent cast as well.

The sequel picks up at the precise moment the last film left off. Marybeth (Harris, but who was portrayed by Tamara Feldman in the first movie) has escaped from the clutches of Victor Crowley (Hodder), the deformed serial killer on the bayou who massacred Marybeth’s entire family. 

She makes her way to the cabin of Jack Cracker (Buechler) who at first takes the hysterical girl in, but once he finds out her last name he sends her packing, telling her to see Brother Voodoo….er, Reverend Zombie (Todd) if she wants help. Victor Crowley arrives just after Marybeth departs and sends ol’ Jack Cracker to join the Choir Invisible in a rather inventive and nasty way.

After Marybeth makes it back to civilization, she confronts Reverend Zombie who tells her that Victor Crowley’s father Thomas (also Hodder) had an affair with Lena (Hamilton), the nurse of Thomas’ wife who was dying of cancer. She finds out about the affair and on her deathbed curses the child. The child is born deformed and Lena dies in childbirth.

Young Victor is the object of fear and ridicule and eventually a trio of schoolkids, including Marybeth’s father and her Uncle Bob (Holland) set a fire in which Victor is killed. A disconsolate Thomas becomes a recluse, confronting the parents of the teens who deny their involvement. He dies some years later, bitter and alone.

Marybeth isn’t content to let things lay the way they are, so she determines to have Zombie take her back into the swamp with a heavily armed escort to retrieve the remains of her family. What Marybeth doesn’t know is that Zombie has an agenda of his own, and her well-being isn’t necessarily a part of the plan.

Whereas the first movie was nonstop action and horror, this one had frequent lulls and breaks in the action which derailed the mood entirely. Green, who directed both the first film and the sequel, was also making Frozen at the time and I get the sense that his full attention wasn’t on this film.

Looking up at the cast of this film, there are a surprising number of familiar names, from Buechler (who directed a number of low-budget horror films in the 80s) to Hodder (a former Jason Voorhees) to Todd (the Candyman himself) and Holland (who directed the original Fright Night). Most of them aren’t known for their acting, although Todd has had a number of fine performances over the years. He’s really the best performer here.

There is nearly twice as much blood here than in the first movie (literally; they measured it) and a lot of icky, gruesome demises. There isn’t much sex (although there is a couple who get busy during the course of the movie under circumstances that could charitably be called “poor decisions”) which the movie could have used more of. Also, Harris was somewhat uninspiring as the lead, which isn’t entirely her fault; the character doesn’t have a whole lot of sense or strength. Most of the time she seems to be looking to others to protect her or guide her. I prefer my scream queens to do more than just scream.

That’s not to say this is a terrible film – it’s not. Despite the lapses in pacing, the movie works well when it does work. Some of the murders are nice and excessive (the first one of Jack Cracker is particularly gruesome, a real Grand Guignol masterpiece) but Victor Crowley, other than the John Merrick look-alike make-up doesn’t really distinguish himself from other supernaturally-based serial killers here. We’ve seen this kind of thing before; and quite frankly, I think it could use a little more spice to liven it up now.

WHY RENT THIS: If you like the slasher film genre of the 70s and 80s, this is for you. Plenty of ghoulish deaths and lots of blood and gore for the aficionados.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Not enough sex. Lots of down time between murders. The plot meanders a little bit.

FAMILY VALUES: Well obviously there’s a whole lot of violence and gore; there’s also some nudity and sexuality, as well as a fair amount of cursing.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: When the MPAA insisted on giving the movie an NC-17 rating, the filmmakers and distributor decided to release it unrated. Executives at AMC Theaters managed to view a screening copy and loved the film, deciding to allow the movie to be shown as is in their theaters. However, they pulled it from their theaters after just a few days without any explanation.

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: None listed.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $52,604 on an unreported production budget; I can’t imagine that it did anything but lose money.

FINAL RATING: 5/10

TOMORROW: Puss in Boots

Frozen (2010)

Making this movie sucks!!!

(2010) Horror (Anchor Bay) Kevin Zegers, Shawn Ashmore, Emma Bell, Ed Ackerman, Rileah Vanderbilt, Kane Hodder, Adam Johnson, Chris York, Peder Mulhuse, Adam Green, Joe Lynch, Wil Barratt, Dee Snider, Cody Blue Snider. Directed by Adam Green

It’s a nightmare we’d all prefer not to have – the no-win situation, in which nearly every option ends up in a particularly brutal or gruesome demise. What do we do in a situation like that? Wait patiently for death to take us? Or go down fighting and perhaps putting ourselves out of our own misery?

Dan (Zegers) and Lynch (Ashmore) are two buddies who have gone on an annual ski trip as long as they could remember. The dynamic is a little different this time out; Dan’s new girlfriend Parker (Bell) is along for the ride.

There is some tension between Parker and Lynch. While the latter has known Dan much longer, the former might just be “the one.” They don’t speak each other’s language and both of them are miserable; Lynch wants to enjoy the more “A” personality types of slopes which they can’t do because of Parker’s inexperience on a snowboard; Parker simply doesn’t want to be there at all.

Browbeaten by Lynch into one last run, they bribe a chairlift operator to allow them on one last run. A series of small errors snowballs (‘scuse the pun) into a really nasty situation when the resort crew shut down the lift and turn off the lights on the resort, unaware that there are three people stranded on the chairlift four stories above the mountain. You see, the people working at the resort are eager to get home with a bad storm on its way in.

At first the three young people are understandably angry and pissy about the situation, but those emotions turn to fear when they realize that there is nobody to rescue them and as bad as the frostbite and exposure is, there is something much worse below and nobody will be coming for them for at least five days.

Director Adam Green previously helmed the mighty satisfying slasher flick Hatchet and he does a pretty fine job here. From the moment when the ski lift stops, you’re on the edge of your seat. You would think that a movie about three people stuck on a chair lift would be kind of talky and to an extent it is, but the conversation is realistic and interesting – the characters depicted here are as real as people that you encounter every day for the most part.

Unfortunately, the movie suffers from a “stupid people doing stupid things” mentality. The chain of coincidences that strands the three mostly stems from the resort crew not following what I would expect to be standard safety procedures at any ski resort (i.e. making sure the lift chairs are all clear before shutting down the system) and yes, the three people sitting in that chair are prone to being stupid as well.

That said, the chemistry between Ashmore and Zegers is genuine and covers all the bases from “A” to “Z.” They bicker like good friends do and speak in shorthand like good friends do. These are guys that you’ve had a drink with at the local bar from time to time; they’re also the guys who have marathon PlayStation sessions and watch zombie movies while stoned. You know the sorts – the bachelors living in the godawful-messy apartments in nice complexes.

There are some disturbing images, particularly of people getting injured by falls or frostbite, as well as some death scenes you might not want the kids to see. Filmed on location in Utah, the actors were left on an actual ski lift 50 feet above the ground in the dead of night with temperatures hovering right around single digits. The expressions of cold you see on their faces are genuine from that standpoint.

I can’t really say this is a game-changer in terms of horror movies, but it is nonetheless well-crafted, solidly acted and expertly executed. I liked the concept a lot and I like the way Green realized it, but there is an awful lot of chatter and not just from the cold.

WHY RENT THIS: The tension level is ratcheted up to 11. Some pretty gruesome death scenes. Genuine chemistry between the leads.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Stupid people acting stupidly syndrome. Necessarily talky, but talky nonetheless.

FAMILY VALUES: There are several disturbing images, plenty of foul language, and a little bit of sexuality.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Every character in the film is named for a close friend of director Adam Green, who also cameos as a disgruntled patron on the chairlift.

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: There’s a featurette on the grueling conditions of making the movie on location; there’s also an Easter egg about a suicide on the same spot where the movie was eventually filmed.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $3.2M on an unreported production budget; the movie might have broken even, but probably lost money.

FINAL RATING: 5.5/10

TOMORROW: Swing Vote

New Releases for the Week of October 1, 2010

The creators of Facebook can’t believe they’re already getting spammed.

THE SOCIAL NETWORK

(Columbia) Jesse Eisenberg, Justin Timberlake, Andrew Garfield, Rashida Jones, Rooney Mara, Joseph Mazzello, Max Minghella, Armie Hammer. Directed by David Fincher

Facebook has become the social outlet of the 21^st century for most young people, but someone had to invent it. That someone was Mark Zuckerberg, a young Harvard student who came up with the brilliant idea to take the college experience and replicate it online. This would lead him to become the youngest billionaire in history, as well as personal and legal problems that would plague him once Facebook became the massive hit it is. The movie debuted at the New York Film Festival a few weeks ago and is already being considered a frontrunner in the Oscar race.

See the trailer and promos here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Biographical Drama

Rating: PG-13 (for sexual content, drug and alcohol use and language)

 

Case 39

(Paramount Vantage) Renee Zellweger, Jodelle Ferland, Ian McShane, Bradley Cooper. A family services worker takes on an unusual case where cruel and dangerous parents try to murder their only daughter. The social worker takes the young girl in while she tries to find a good home for her. She also enlists the help of a detective to help protect the girl, and a psychiatrist to help her get over the trauma. Unfortunately, this leads to the discovery of dark forces at work in the girl’s life. This has been sitting on the studio shelf for over a year until they decided to release it suddenly and almost without any publicity.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Supernatural Horror

Rating: R (for violence and terror, including disturbing images)

 

Chain Letter

 (New Films International) Nikki Reed, Noah Segan, Keith David, Betsy Russell. A group of high school seniors receive an electronic chain letter. When they break the chain, one by one they begin to get picked off by a maniacal serial killer. Freddie Kreuger and Jason Voorhees, move over.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Slasher Horror

Rating: R (for strong, bloody, sadistic violence throughout, language and brief nudity)

Enthiran

(Fusion Edge) Rajnikanth, Aishwarya Rai, Danny Denzongpa, Santhanam. A brilliant scientist builds a robot that looks human, has human strength and intelligence but is completely a machine. The results are unexpected to say the least.

See the trailer, clips and interviews here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Sci-Fi Action

Rating: NR

Exit through the Gift Shop

(Producer’s Distribution Agency) Rhys Ifans, Thierry Guetta, Banksy, Shepard Fairey. One of the world’s most notorious graffiti artists makes his film debut about a documentarian who is ostensibly making a documentary about the underground street art movement who becomes the subject of the documentary himself. I saw this at the Florida Film Festival earlier this year; the complete review can be found here.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Documentary

Rating: R (for some language)

Jack Goes Boating

(Overture/Relativity) Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Ryan, John Ortiz, Daphne Rubin-Vega. Two shy people find each other in the mean streets of New York City and through each other, find the strength they never knew they had even as those around them begin to fall apart. This marks Hoffman’s directorial debut.

See the trailer, interviews and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Romantic Comedy

Rating: R (for language, drug use and some sexual content)

Hatchet II

(Dark Sky) Danielle Harris, Kane Hodder, Tony Todd, A.J. Bowen. The sequel to the surprise 2007 indie slasher hit finds one of the survivors heading back into the New Orleans swamp that she escaped from to put an end to the curse of Victor Crowley once and for all.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Slasher Horror

Rating: PG (for brief mild language and rude behavior)

Let Me In

(Overture/Relativity) Chloe Moretz, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Richard Jenkins, Elias Koteas. A lonely young boy who is viciously bullied at school makes a strange new friend who comes out only at night and is seemingly always barefoot despite the bitter winter elements. Soon, her true nature emerges and the violence really begins. This is based on the acclaimed Swedish film Let the Right One In and is directed by Matt Reeves, who also did Cloverfield.

See the trailer and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Vampire Horror

Rating: R (for strong bloody horror violence, language and a brief sexual situation)