We Scream obsessives have been waiting for this. First we had the initial teaser poster, which was then followed by the familiar 4 poster and most recently the pointy Ghostface poster, but what we were all waiting for was the traditional cast poster to arrive. And here it is, via Horror Movies.ca. Well, an international version of it, at least. I wouldn't be surprised if the image of Sidney used changes simply because she looks a bit silly, but I do like that Emma Roberts is shown using her mobile phone.
It, of course follows in the footsteps of the original three posters, as well the rash of imitators that followed for similar slasher films in the poster-Scream world.
Compare those last three posters to the slasher genre posters pre-Scream and you'll see just one part of that movie's infinite influence.
Speaking of the influence of Scream, I've been writing an article on just that topic for The Big Issue so any Australian's out there should keep a look out for it! All these movies are mentioned and more.
Last July we got a look see at the trailer for Sean Byrne's insane fucked up horror movie The Loved Ones. At the time I hadn't seen the movie, but I now have and, yes, that trailer spoils a lot of it, I'm of the belief that many horror movie audience members want to know all that stuff is in there. Bang for their buck, in a way.
Nevertheless, now comes a teaser (yes, a teaser after a trailer) and it is instantly one of my favourites of the year. If they were able to show this in cinemas (I have a feeling there will be some "issues" in regards to the use of characters under copyright) then I am sure the movie would be a big hit. This little wonder is amazing. Via TwitchFilm!
Last night I watched Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers, the very last film in the Halloween franchise that I was yet to see. With that I have now watched every single entry within the three big slasher franchises of the 1980s: Halloween, Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street. Yes, the original Halloween was released in 1978 and, yes, all the franchises extended through the 1990s and 2000s, but each remains cultural touchstones in a cinematic movement that peaked in the 1980s.
Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers was hardly the best way to end such a feat, but it feels like a particularly geeky achievement to have seen all of the big three. Now, being a cinephile who lives online, I felt it was only natural to rank each and every film. Isn't that what we do? Whilst all of the Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street titles are still quite fresh in my mind (I have watched most of them within the last year), the Friday the 13th films are a bit murkier in my mind, having watched them some years earlier. Still, I think I've got the list down pat that represents all 30 titles as best I see them. Friday the 13th leads with 12 films (including one crossover with Elm Street) to Halloween's 10 and Elm Street's 9 (again, with one crossover), but how do they stack up for quality? Let's see...
30.H2 (2009, dir. Rob Zombie) A disgusting, repellent and altogether abhorrent piece of grimy garbage. The only film on this list that I would truly rate an F. It's got no other reason for existing other than for Rob Zombie to put on a freakshow, but using the mummified corpse of a famous franchise to do so. It's not so much "torture porn" as just "depressing, white trash, ugly, stump-fucking porn".
29.Friday the 13th (2009, dir. Marcus Nispel) This "remake" is hollow and desperate. Not at all interested with restarted the myths behind Jason Vorhees, director Marcus Nispel (whose Texas Chainsaw Massacre I will defend until the day I day by bloody chainsaw) jumps right into remaking Friday the 13th Part II and just giving audiences more Jason Vorhees, but this time with even less interest, excitement or thrills. The underground cave system was the worst! Hey Mr Nispel, give it up with the underground cave systems!
28.A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010, dir. Samuel Beyer) I find it both apt and completely accidental that the three worst films of this list (and the worst individual film of each subsequent franchse) are modern day remakes/retellings/re-imaginings/refuckoffs. All of them are dirty, oppressive and about as much fun as a punch in the face with razor blades. The world would have been a better place in none of them existed.
27.Halloween: Resurrection (2002, dir. Rick Rosenthal) To be perfectly blunt, I did not need to see Michael Myers take on the reality TV generation in a film starring Tyra Banks and Busta Rhymes. Dialogue like "let the dangertainment begin!", "Fear is what gives us the feeling of being alive!" and "trick or treat, motherfucker!" and that best-left-forgotten desecration of Jamie Lee Curtis' memory make this a terrible viewing experience. Good on Katee Sackhoff for somehow managing a career out of this horrible mess.
26.Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991, dir. Rachel Talalay) Definitely the weakest of the original Nightmare on Elm Street films, this sixth installment came from the producer of Dream Warriors and The Dream Master so it's baffling to think how they went so wrong. Whether it be the Roseanne Arnold and Alice Cooper cameos, the terrible flashbacks to Freddy's childhood, the tacky 3D or the bizarre Wizard of Oz references, Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare is a boring, pale shadow of the series' former best.
25.Halloween (2007, dir. Rob Zombie) Pretty much the only thing that allows Rob Zombie's first dump on Halloween to rise ever so slightly above the fray is the performance of Sheri Moon Zombie. Call me crazy, but she nearly made my top five contenders for Best Supporting Actress in 2007. I said nearly...
24.Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993, dir. Adam Marcus) Is the Friday the 13th franchise the only one to have two "final" entries. Compare this one to Friday the 13th Part IV: The Final Chapter and the distinct drop in quality is monumental. Still, this film leaves the stupidest for last during the scene when Jason gets dragged down into hell by boxy clay monsters. I can't even explain it properly it's so ridiculous. Although it does have...
23.Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995, dir. Joe Chappelle) This one stars a pre-fame Paul Rudd and as humourous as that is for a little while, The Curse of Michael Myers soon collapses into a heap of dull garbage to do with curses and the mystery of Michael's ability to survive anything. This was actually the very first Halloween film I ever saw and it was late at night on the TV and I was captivated by the opening scene. It all went downhill from there and I soon turned it off before returning to it years later. It didn't get any better.
22. / 21. Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Goes to Manhattan (1989, dir. Rob Hedden) / Jason X (2002, dir. James Isaac) The two most out-there concepts for the Friday the 13th franchise produced two of the worst installments. Jason Goes to Manhattan could have been the pinacle of camp fun if Jason actually went to Manhattan for longer than 5 minutes, but seeing Jason ride the subway just didn't have the right verve to it after watching 80 excruciating minutes on a boat (a boat that somehow goes from Crystal Lake to the Hudson River?) Jason X (the "Jason Vorhees in space" movie) is equally preposterous and flat in equal measure. Not even a David Cronenberg cameo, a girl getting her face frozen and then smashed into a million pieces and a recreation of the famous sleeping bag death can turn Jason X into anything more than a wet squib.
20.Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989, dir. Dominique Othenin-Girard) I had heard that this sequel failed to make much out of the success of number 4 and they were right. It limps about its first hour doing not much at all and then when it kicks up a gear it's still not all that exciting. It's overwrought and over-the-top. Series regular Donald Pleasence gives a performance so eye-poppingly bad and Danielle Harris, impressive in the fourth film, gives the film a truly unpleasant vibe (it's essentially Michael chasing a near-defenseless 10-year-old girl for 90 minutes).
19.Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning (1985, dir. Danny Steinmann) This movie doesn't even feature a Vorhees as the villain so any possible good will it had accrued (and there is some, but not as much as in other entries) kinda went out the window.
18.Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982, dir. Tommy Lee Wallace) I toyed as to whether to even include Halloween III since everyone is aware the film has no connection whatsoever with the franchise as a whole, but, hey, it made the number of films in the an even 30 so why not? It's not a good Halloween movie, but it's a decent enough episode of The Twilight Zone, I guess.
17.A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989, dir. Stephen Hopkins) A "jumping the shark" moment if ever there was one. Whether it be the novelty rap song on the soundtrack or the "wanna have babies" plot, The Dream Child features some fun deaths (the woman who's forced to eat herself to death), but quickly becomes a grotesque freakshow with no real point. This was the first time that the Elm Street franchise's visuals had gotten ahead of its story, and the first time that said visuals were not interesting.
16.Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986, dir. Tom McLoughlin) The word "serviceable" comes to mind when thinking about Jason Lives. The sixth installment of this franchise provides nothing new, just the same ol' same ol' and while this same ol' is at least better than the same ol' of, say, Jason Takes Manhattan, it's still not terribly exciting either. It works as a perfectly decent Friday the 13th film, but never transcends to be a fun film in its own right.
15.A Nightmare on Elm Street Part II: Freddy's Revenge Clearly the gayest film of the countdown, the first sequel to Wes Craven's masterpiece A Nightmare on Elm Street is drastically different to its predecessor. I can't even truly talk about it without cracking up into hysterics, but Freddy's Revenge feels as much a part of the Elm Street franchise as Halloween III: Season of the Witch. Just watch it and enjoy it, but don't even think of it as an Elm Street film.
14.Freddy Vs Jason (2003, dir. Ronny Yu) This crossover between the Friday the 13th and Elm Street franchises is very much a mixed bag. There's some truly great stuff in here and it gets points for having the balls to do it at all, but there was something missing in it. A truly cheap 'n' nasty vibe that runs through every earlier installment was gone and replaced by all too modern filmmaking devices like CGI.
13.Friday the 13th Part II (1981, dir. Steve Miner) The arrival of Jason (albeit in a sack mask) marked the beginning of the end of the beginning. There was no turning back after this point, but at least it remained fun for a good ten years or so. Perhaps my favourite final girl of the 13th series can be found here and it's the last genuine scare you'll find in the entire series, and yet I still don't hold it to quite the same esteem as Friday the 13th Part III, ya know?
12.Halloween II (1981, dir. Rick Rosenthal) Set the same night as the 1978 original, Rosenthal's first stab at this franchise is much better than his second (Halloween: Resurrection), but after the dramatic power of Halloween, the first of 6 direct sequels isn't quite as immediate. It has some nice set-pieces and the big finale chase sequence is tense, but it lacks a clear visual style and you could see the cracks appearing in the cliches already.
11.Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984, dir. Joseph Zito) The same year that A Nightmare on Elm Street debuted came this film, which was already claiming to be the end of the series. Hardly. Still, even though we know it's not, nor was it ever going to be, the real end of the series, it packs a punch with some inventive kills and provides one of the stronger plot backbones of the entire series (yes, it involves Corey Feldman).
10.Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988, dir. John Carl Buechler) The only film in the franchise second half (parts 7 to 12) that is any good, and (quite obviously) it is one of my favourites and not just because of the sleeping bag death or the scene where a man shields himself from Jason's weapon... by using another human being! No, The New Blood sorta has the vibe of one of the earlier films, knowing what the series is all about and no giving it silly location switches or going off on bizarre over-the-top passages. Plus, hello, Kevin Blair!
9.Friday the 13th (1980, dir. Sean S Cunningham) The original and... well, not the best, but definitely one of the best! The series was at its most innocent here, sure, but it already felt so assured of what it was and that goes a long way if you ask me. The shock ending is, really, only a shock to those who have grown up always believing "Friday the 13th" mean "Jason Vorhees and nothing else. It's also one of the few films in the series to have actual scares that are as effective in 2010 as they were 30 years ago.
8. / 7. A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987, dir. Chuck Russell) / A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988, dir. Renny Harlin) Many consider Dream Warriors (with Dokken soundtrack, naturally) to be the high point of the non-Wes Craven Nightmare films. As great as it is, and it is "great" actually, I have a very slight preference to the fourth in the series, The Dream Master. Each has one of the all time best Elm Street deaths (the strings and the waterbed death respectively), but where I give The Dream Master the edge is in the scene in which Freddy Krueger, who had definitely began is permanent change into stand-up act rather than scaremonger by this stage) puts its two leads in a never-ending loop as they try to rescue their friend from her own cockroach-infested nightmare. It's some wonderfully inventive stuff at work there, which why I've ranked them so high.
6.Friday the 13th Part III (1982, dir. Steve Miner) My favourite of the entire franchise is number 3. Yes, it's in ridiculous and crummy 3D, but therein likes a lot of the film's retro charm. It also has a disco soundtrack, a biker gang and every single character cliche you could ever hope to find! That's what makes Part III so good. It's pure, cheap, unadulterated fun and even if it has a scene in which a character drops a yo-yo into the laps of audiences, it also has a scene in which a character's face is squashed and the eyes come flying out at the viewers. This is very amazing. Perhaps I enjoy it too much from a so-bad-it's-good level (you can see the strings attached to the arrow as it flies towards you), but that's as valid an excuse for loving a movie as any other.
5. / 4. Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988, dir. Dwight H. Little) / Halloween: H20 (1998, dir. Steve Miner) To be perfectly honest with you, I could easily see the order of these two titles swapping and I wouldn't care in the slightest. Both are of very fine quality, with The Return of Michael Myers have a very polished, cinematic quality to it that had been missing in the franchise since John Carpenter's original. H20 holds more sentimental value to me since it came out right as I was getting into scary films (thanks to Scream, naturally) and I do still get a bit of a thrill out of seeing Jamie Lee Curtis return to the horror genre. And, hello, Steve Miner, aka director of Friday the 13th Part 3D!
3.Halloween (1978, dir. John Carpenter) Everybody knows how influential it was, but do people remember how good it actually is? Just watch it again and be amazed by the command of cinema John Carpenter had, the way that even on such a minuscule budget he was able to craft something of such pure cinema. That it was and still is terribly scary is another testament to the skill on display. Yes, it originated many of the cliches that made a lot of the films in the earlier part of this list so bad, but when they're done this well that do not age.
2.A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984, dir. Wes Craven) The trailer claimed Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street was a "new masterpiece in fantasy terror" and it remains one to this very day. So much inventiveness on screen, so much tension and so many frights. It really puts modern day horror movies to shame and when compared to the 2010 remake? Well, what's the point? Who can forget the first time they ever saw Freddy Krueger's arms extend in the alley? Or the bed gushing blood? Or those three creepy girls playing jump rope? It's a classic.
Of course, typical Wes Craven. He had to go and trump his own movie, didn't he?
1.Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994, dir. Wes Craven) Nearly ten years to the day since his original film premiered, Wes Craven's New Nightmare was released to general yawns from audiences, mild enthusiasm by critics and general hysteria from die hard fans. Someone once described it as "the 8½ of horror movies" and I can't deny that, but New Nightmare is more than just a highfalutin take on the franchise, it's an incredibly suspenseful, wickedly inventive and visually spectacular film in its own right. That there's enjoyment to be had in ethical dilemmas like "do I let Robert Englund babysit my child" adds to the film and the way Wes Craven twists, weaves and entangles so many different threads throughout the film makes it a film that grows richer on repeat viewings.
One of the benefits of being stuck at home all day sick with little motivation to do anything is that one becomes truly grateful for old fashioned video stores. I still call it a video store even though the days of Blockbuster stocking VHS - or me having a VCR - are long gone, but that's besides the point. Yes, I have my local DVD delivery service, but they can't send me a whole bunch of movies all at once that allows me to watch them in quick succession - or, they do, but I can't afford that service.
I have used these past couple of days to fill in some of the gaps in my viewing history of several of the most iconic horror franchises of all time - Halloween, Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street. Over the span of 72 hours I have watched Halloween II, Halloween III: Season of the Witch, Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, Halloween 2, A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master and Jason Goes to Hell. All of which had been previously unseen by me (or, in the case of The Dream Master, so I thought, but it turns out I was wrong) and now only have a few to go before I have seen each and every entry of these most delicious horror franchises.
Jason Goes to Hell was the final film in the entire 12-film-long Friday the 13th series that I had yet to see and, I gotta say, it was a pathetic way to end that particular quest. The only redeemable feature was the moment capped below and the end credits. The former because, well, just look at it! Made from marble, I swear. And the latter because it meant it was finally all over.
That there is Michael Silver and he's in Jason Goes to Hell very briefly. So brief that when I say he's naked for majority of time he's on screen I am actually telling the truth. But seriously, there is just nothing in Jason Goes to Hell that is... well, good. Even the bridge to Freddy Vs Jason, which would only come to fruition ten years - and one Jason X - later, was a bit lame. It can rank perfectly well alongside Jason Takes Manhattan, Jason X and the 2009 remake as the worst of the series on a grade of D-
I sat down to watch A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master thinking I had never seen it before, but from the opening shot I got the twinge of feeling that I was wrong. It turns out that this is the Elm Street edition that I saw when I was a wee tyke who would sneak and watch the horror movies my brother would watch on VHS. As I watched I recalled vivid memories of the opening scene, the looping sequence, the cockroach and the "suck face" death scenes as well as this glorious waterbed sequence, which most definitely ranks in my top three all time favourite Nightmare death sequences.
Apart from these glorious death scenes (remember, cockroaches and suck face being the other immortal ones from The Dream Master) there is actually quite a bit to enjoy about this fourth trip to Elm Street. This installment was directed by Renny Harlin, who would go on to direct Die Hard 2, Cliffhanger, Deep Blue Sea and was responsible for two films that gave us some of the most infamous runaway production stories of all time - Cutthroat Island and Exorcist: The Beginning. That this rather innocuous 1988 horror movie manages to be better than all of them is both telling in regards to Harlin's career and the franchise's ability to be awesome.
I liked the recurring loop that Lisa Wilcox's "Alice" and Danny Hassel's "Dan" find themselves in as they try to save the girl who would become a permenant member of the roach motel. I cannot recall it being done in any other Nightmare film, but it's a neat trick and a far more interesting trick for Freddy to play than anything he did in this year's remake.
Speaking of Danny Hassel, isn't he a bit of a dreamboat? Or, as Brooke Theiss's "Debbie" calls him "one major league hunk".
Yes, he'll do.
Debbie, meanwhile, is a hoot of a character isn't she? She has nothing to do other than set up her own demise - she works out, hates bugs, watches Dynasty - and wear hilarious '80s fashions. Just take a look at her ensemble here. What looks to be a skirt made out of bike short fabric, a bra of some kind with no shirt (who does she think she is, Sue Ellen Mischke?) and then a leather jacket, lining her midriff with a studded waist. Plus the hair. Oh my looord, the hair!
Or how about this for some prime 1980s glory?
All in all I very much enjoyed this entry in the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise and now only have A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child to see. Looking at the final scenes of this movie in Freddy's lair and it's so much more... I don't want to say enjoyable, but it's certainly more watchable and pleasing to the eye than the 2010 Elm Street remake. That Marcus Nispel remake was dirty, rusty, decrepit and depressing. I don't want to leave an Elm Street film feeling like I saw a comedy rather than a horror movie, but I'd certainly prefer that feeling to the feeling of deep sadness that the 2010 edition left me in. I would rank The Dream Master alongside Dream Warriors as a highlight of the non Wes Craven-directed Elm Street entries. B
Of the three big horror franchises - A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th and Halloween - it is the latter that I have been the most negligent of. Before this week I had only seen John Carpenter's 1978 original as well as Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers (co-starring Paul Rudd, it must be noted), Halloween H20 and Halloween: Resurrection. The last one there is, by far, one of the worst movies I saw from the last decade. I did not need to see the Halloween franchise's take on the reality TV genre, okay?!?
Halloween II is a direct follow on from Halloween, despite being made 3 years after it. Set on the same night as Michael Myer's return it is centred mainly in the Haddonfield Memorial Hospital. Usually when I hear a movie is set in a hospital or, even worse, an asylum I tend to shudder at the thought of how overly art directed it is inevitably going to be, but Halloween II thankfully avoids that.
The design here was so simple and eerily quiet with its dark corners and it was as if the makers really knew their way around it and knew where they could hide victims, killers and all sorts or other nastiness. Compare it to Rob Zombie's own take with Halloween 2 and his hospital sequence is dirty and grotesque with leaking water pipes and ugly facilities. I'm impressed Zombie restrained himself and didn't include shots of toilets bubbling over with shit and patients vomiting everywhere, but more on that movie later.
Halloween II is obviously not as good as John Carpenter's original. Director Rick Rosenthal's visuals are flat and uninteresting for the most part and he has trouble setting up sequences that make sensible use of Michael Myer's slow walking nature. Nothing about Michael here seems threatening. If he'd just speed up a little bit then he would have caught Jamie Lee Curtis' "Laurie Strode" and be done with it. I did like this moment however when bitch just walks right on through a plate glass door with nary a care in the world.
I must admit though that I have a definite "thing" for curly haired love interests in 1980s horror flicks. There always seems to be one! I do enjoy a curly mop of hair like the one sported in Halloween II by Lance Guest. It's a weakness that I am incapable of curing. If I had been alive in 1981 I would have been lining up to see this movie because a) the first was so good and b) Lance Guest. He's adorable.
Halloween III: Season of the Witch is, as I'm sure you all know, not even a direct sequel, but is in fact a separate Halloween related story. It had been the intention of John Carpenter and his co-writer/co-producer on the first films in the series to develop the Halloween brand into a sort of Outer Limits/Twilight Zone series where each year would bring about a new Halloween-related tale of horror. Directed by the production designer of the original Halloween, Tommy Lee Wallace, Halloween III: Season of the Witch is about a Halloween mask company that aims to bring an altogether different form of horror to families across the country.
I initially enjoyed Halloween III: Season of the Witch with it's opening 15 minutes proving to be suspenseful, intriguing and, at one point, quite shocking. Starting with that creepy shot of a man emerging out from the night time underpass and ending in the man in the suit dousing himself in petrol and setting himself on fire, it's quite an audacious opening. Unfortunately after that it becomes nothing more than an episode of Twisted Tales (but better than Two Twisted, naturally) with it's bland visuals and TV-sized payoff. It throws in a terribly lame sex scene for no reason, the repetitive music is frustrating and the opening credits are so bad they're funny. It's like Halloween for Commodore 64*. The villain, played by Dan O'Herlihy, is like a mix between Willy Wonka and Hannibal Lecter, but not scary.
In fact, my favourite moment of Halloween III are the moments when it goes all meta on the audience and includes the original Halloween on a TV. One moment where an ad for Halloween appears when lead actor Tom Atkins is in a bar, and at another time his character is watching a TV when the movie is playing.
That brings me to Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (although the DVD menu inexplicably labels it Halloween 4: The Revenge of Michael Myers, "Revenge" being the verb of Halloween 5, not 4), which I think is most definitely the holder of the flame in terms of the sequels. Only Halloween H20 would make a worthy opponent. Neither of them are as good as the original, but for a franchise that has served up some terrible entries - I'm looking at you numbers 6, 8 and, apparently, 5, which remains the only entry I have not seen - for a sequel to be this good is something worth championing.
What sets Halloween 4 apart from the other sequels is that it has a very cinematic look, reminiscent of Carpenter's original. Colours are deep and rich here, not flat and cheap like in Halloween II. Also, basically, it's not a load of rubbish like Halloween 6 or Resurrection. There is a very clear, thought-out story being told in The Return of Michael Myers and one that fits in perfectly with the entire Halloween mythology. It plays well with the images of suburbia, both interiors and exteriors, that helped make the original so good. There's more cinematic style in the below screencap than there was in the entirety of the decent, but un-memorable, Halloween II.
One just needs to watch the rooftop escape scene to know director Dwight Little is working with better stock than others of the franchise. His filmography remained quite average - Free Willy 2, Murder at 1600, Anacondas - but continues to this day making solid TV including episodes of Bones, 24 and Dollhouse. I have heard that Halloween 5 doesn't build upon the solid promise of this third sequel, which is a shame since it was very good.
I find it interesting - and this is purely in retrospect - that Rob Zombie's Halloween 2, which was not a remake of the 1981 film although it does feature a sequence in the Haddonfield Hospital - took on the idea of Michael's madness being genetic since this was an idea first raised in Halloween 4's final sequence. Curiously, neither incarnation of the franchise seems all that interested in taking this thread and giving it its own film.
Having said that, I don't think Rob Zombie's version of Halloween 2 has any desire to be anything other than a disgusting, repellent and altogether abhorrent piece of grimy garbage. While the final 15 minutes or so see Zombie manage to actually string together something coherent, that doesn't forgive for the other hour and a half I sat through. Watching people's faces get stomped on, watching women run around completely full frontal naked before getting smashed into a mirror, watching a girl get so brutally sliced up that the walls, floors and ceilings are coated in blood and yet we still have to watch her suffer through her final breaths and so on. The opening scene was bad enough with the foul-talking necrophiliac rapist not only being killed by Michael Myers, but having his head cut off in graphically detailed closeup. What a horrible movie.
I give Halloween II, Halloween III: Season of the Witch, Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers and Rob Zombie's Halloween 2 grades of B-, C-, B+ and F respectively.
* I have since become aware that there exists an Atari game (hell, there's even a Texas Chain Saw Massacre game for Atari! - "Grab your joystick and become "Leatherface"") in which you play a babysitter who has to save as many children of a knife-wielding maniac as possible. If you get caught then your head flies off and blood spurts out. Has anybody played this?
