Home Alone

Home Alone 1990

★★½

Home Alone is the first movie I ever really watched. I might have been in the same room as a movie playing before that, but it doesn’t really count. This was the first movie I got to see in a theater, after weeks of begging at the ripe age of 4. I got a very stern lecture about how movies aren’t real and I shouldn’t do any of the things that the kid does in the movie. I reminded them that I hadn’t beaten anyone with a stick like my idol Donatello, and thus won the argument. At least, that’s how I remember it happening.

Watching it over 20 years later, it falls somewhere between “embarrassed to have liked it as a kid” and “actually good”. John Candy is really funny in his small role, something I completely glossed over in my youth. Also, the mother is no less than the great Catherine O’Hara, someone I’ve liked in a lot of roles and movies since.

The “Wet Bandits” are more sadistic villains than at first blush. Marv’s “signature” of stuffing the drains and leaving the faucets running is really… just needlessly cruel. It’s bad enough that they’re robbing people during the holidays (and willing to at least kidnap a kid).

The third act bloodbath (with no blood) was much more overblown by my young mind. I thought the traps and physical violence were nearly constant, but it’s really constrained to one sequence at the very end. The violence tries to be cartoonish and light-hearted, but it just looks really really painful. Them still being conscious at the end of the movie is almost as big a stretch as us believing Kevin could in any way clean up the house before his family got home. But I guess this is a fantasy movie.

Left Behind (2014)

Left Behind 2014

★

This is. Such a terrible mistake. I’m doing it for you. Someone has to know.

The hunky male lead (not Cage) of this is some kind of investigative journalist that everyone recognizes. But he really just acts like a huge dick the entire time and everyone oohs and aahs over him anyways. Who would tolerate him pointing a camera in their face after their daughter just disappeared?

I will have to give this movie props - the closest thing it has to a tense and effective scene happens when a girl goes into a hospital and slowly walks through a maternity ward. This is after the titular “Left Behind”-ing occurs. The camera slowly goes through the empty room showing her walking past every empty crib. Then a good old-fashioned jump scare that worked far more effective than it should have.

Anyways, everything on the plane and with poor Nick Cage is torturous, and I’m not ashamed to say I got bored and decided to google the fate of one of the minor characters out of morbid curiosity. And well. I’ll let it speak for itself:

“She is rescued by members of the Tribulation Force. She is then convinced of the truth of God’s Word, and she becomes a devout Christian. She is eventually killed by Leon Fortunato, who calls down a bolt of lightning to vaporize her.

Hattie is resurrected at the Glorious Appearing of Jesus Christ, to the great delight of Rayford and the rest of God’s followers. She is awarded a crown from Jesus Himself, who praises her for her bravery in the face of certain death. She also appears briefly in Kingdom Come, as she is among those present at Mac McCullum’s thousandth birthday party and is assumedly with the rest of the Trib Force as they gather to watch the end of the Millennium.”

Anyways, this minor catastrophe is all fixed and wrapped with a shiny bow. Someone intones “I’m afraid this is just the beginning”, and I get terrified that there is 30 minutes left in this turd. Whew. They’re referring to the sequel. Then there’s a big quote over the screen - “But of that day and that hour knoweth no man” - well, okay, that makes no sense, par for the rest of the movie I suppose.

Another positive point: the credits roll out with a song titled “Left Behind”. FINE, I’ll give it another half star.

a few Movie Reviews

Leviathan 2012
★★★★½

Is this a surrealist nightmare or dream? It's hard to answer. It's filled with incredibly striking imagery. There are several shots and sequences of beauty that seem truly unique and seem impossible to capture any way other than the way this was shot.

And that way was just dropping several small waterproof cameras onto a fishing boat in the north Atlantic ocean. This didn't produce the most linear documentary, by any stretch, but it still ended up a visual and aural feast. I saw it described elsewhere as "David Lynch, gone fishing", and I would have to agree.

Some of the few human moments that are shown are lingered on for full effect. One worker's naked girl tattoo appears to dance while he spoons out some food. Another watches a news report on a break through bleary eyes. And the opening has the closest thing to actual dialogue, as two fishermen work together, yelling back and forth.

But again. Back to that gorgeous swarm of birds. The cameras gliding and dipping in and out of the water. Just some of many of the unique images and sounds this movie brings. I have to love a film that's so different from anything else I've seen.

Annie 2014
★★★

Quvenzhané Wallis is pretty amazing in the lead role, and she has great chemistry with Jamie Foxx. Will Gluck keeps things moving at a pretty swift pace, so the movie tends to glide past any of the less-desirable pieces.

Part of that gliding takes the movie way past any sort of message regarding the poor and the rich. Annie's foster home looks pretty great and shiny, all things considered. A rat scurrying across the floor resembles a lost pet more than a harbinger of filth. Annie's opening report on FDR and the New Deal is wrapped up in a fun drumbeat that is another glossy example of this.

The songs are all great and catchy. Only Cameron Diaz really stands out: out of place and out of tone with the rest of the movie. And the action and climax seems really forced when this movie doesn't really require a big thrilling climax like that.

Also, the rumors are true, this movie does have the exact same ending as Zoolander.


The A-Team 2010
★★★

The A-Team dares to ask the question: "can you get bored of action?" It gets dangerously close to "yes". But the game performances mostly keep it afloat.

There are huge attacks and huge plans after plans after plans. By the 6th time or so in the climax, it's just a continuous assault. Most of it ends up being fun in the spirit of the original TV show.

By the end of it, I was more into the characters than the spectacle. I'd like to see the TV Show that has about 1/20th of the scope and budget going forward. But Cooper and Neeson's huge surge of popularity makes that mostly impossible. I'll still have this.

Also, Joe Carnahan favorite Patrick Wilson is pretty awesome as the CIA slime Lynch. He has a couple standout goofy scenes elevated by him hitting the right tone.


Zodiac 2007
★★★★★

This movie is very spooky.

I have seen it several times before.

But I don't think any time was this late at night.

Edge of Tomorrow

Edge of Tomorrow 2014

★★½

The massively cool first large-scale war sequence of this movie is the only thing that stands out, thinking back. It's simultaneously a good thing and a bad thing.

The action was great, and the movie did a great job putting you in Cruise's perspective while still showing the flow of the battle at large. It's also a great introduction to the Mimics, who are never more terrifying and alien than this first scene.

But other than the video game training sequence/montage once Cruise hooks up with Emily Blunt's Angel of Death character, the rest of the movie is fairly forgettable. Of course, he's bonded with her now*. And of course there's one last huge charge to take a thing to the thing to blow up the thing and save the world.

But I just find myself wishing the rest of the movie had the same momentum and sense of purpose as that first huge mad scramble of a fight scene.

*Just as an aside. This makes for a really weird love story. Cruise has spent countless days with Blunt training. But for her, it's always the first day she ever meets him. It's kind of like 50 first dates in a way.

Big Hero 6

Big Hero 6 2014
★★★★  Watched 02 Dec, 2014

Big Hero 6 was a really fun ride of a movie. It overcomes the challenge of being the umpteenth superhero origin story of the last decade by filling in the margins with a unique setting and visuals, funny characters, and a great script.

The script is quite lean and mean. Sometimes it feels like things are happening too fast. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's just impressive how few scenes feel superfluous in any way. One minor gripe is that it felt like the first act zoomed by a little too fast. There could have been some more earlier scenes between Hiro and his older brother.

San Fransokyo is a gorgeous delight. It looks like a city built on pure, unbridled imagination. The movie's unabashed love and joy for science not only shines through in the characters, but in the construction and futuristic look of the city. The gorgeous flying scenes are a really great exclamation mark onthe end of the "practicing our powers" montage.

It's obvious that Hiro and Baymax get the most development here, they're more or less the co-main characters. But the rest of the superhero team makes the most of their limited screen time. TJ Miller especially shines here as the PG stoner (read: shaggy) Fred. The others get their own good moments - Wasabi and Go Go during the frantic, hilly car chase being a standout sequence for both action and development of their characters and friendship.

Finally, I have to admit the most satisfying part of this, among everything else I listed above, was the emphasis on non-violence / non-killing. Granted, animated movies rarely get a high body count, but it was satisfying to see it so - spelled out here. Big Hero 6 is just a really sweet kids' film with a slick and action-packed coating.

Whiplash

★★★★★ 

WHIPLASH, a film centered around a jazz band drummer, starts with a long drum roll. There’s nothing really wrong with that, but it did make me slightly bristle at the cliché. Thankfully, about 45 seconds into the movie, this was the last clichéd moment. The movie bowled me over and exceeded my expectations. The acting and the script are both essential to creating two great lead characters. Every aspect of the movie comes together in a thrilling climax that is one of the best movie endings I’ve seen in years.

J.K. Simmons is a great actor, and all of his praise is completely deserved. But Miles Teller steals the show and really anchors the movie. He fills up every minute of the movie in a breakout role that pushes him to the limits physically and mentally. Lead character Andrew destroys his body and soul in his quest to be the best drummer in history. You can read all of that on Teller’s posture, tone of his voice, and look in his eyes.

But did Andrew have a soul to begin with? That’s a more interesting question. Before he gets too far down the rabbit hole, he has a few scenes with his family and new girlfriend that suggests Mark Zuckerberg in THE SOCIAL NETWORK more than a hero we should keep cheering. He only gets the temerity to approach said girlfriend after getting a bump upwards in his drumming career. His happiness is not about forging relationships with people or making his parents happy, it’s only about his one passion - to be great.

Of course, the music is amazing. This isn’t too much of a surprise, since writer/director Damien Chazelle was a drummer in a similar band in high school. Despite drumming and jazz being central parts of the story line and every major sequence, the film is still incredibly easy to follow if you know absolutely nothing about music. It shows you how the world works and teaches you some of the terminology while still treating the audience as an adult. Andrew’s dad never asks “so what is tempo anyways?”.

The script is very suspenseful and surprising, but the film doesn’t really rely on twists. Everything that happens completely makes sense and it doesn’t take the characters on a 180, or even 90 degree turn, it just simply deepens them and makes them stronger. Simmons’ FULL METAL JACKET band leader of course has some moments where his guard comes down, where he shows emotions other than pure rage, but they don’t come off as cloying or token humanization. They also pay off wonderfully in the third act.

The ending sequence of the movie turned out to be everything I wanted and more. I have to admit that it was built up fairly strong in my mind by seeing countless tweets from writers, critics, actors praising it. It was simultaneously surprising, but also completely inevitable. The direction and editing is masterful, and features clever visual callbacks/echoes of previous shots in the movie. In a semi-empty theater, people around me all finally let out that breath they were holding when the credits started. And, of course, Miles Teller and J.K. Simmons are never better than their final scene together.

The next drum roll for WHIPLASH will likely end with- “and the Academy Award goes to…”

The Theory of Everything

Steven Hawking based his life’s work around exploring the boundaries of the universe, testing them, seeing where they were. Film can be a boundless medium. It starts with a blank page, and can go from there to show someone’s inner thoughts, wildest fantasies, their future, their past in any mix or order imaginable. It’s so disappointing that what could end up as Hawking’s definitive biopic is so trapped in the bounds of every bad biopic of recent memory.

It’s also a shame that Eddie Redmayne’s revelatory performance is trapped here too. He does some really great, subtle work even before the drastic physical transformation takes place. The budding romance with Felicity Jones’ Jane in the first act are easily the movie’s best scenes. The party sequence where Hawking uses his knowledge of laundry detergent to entice Jane is a definite highlight. Their first kiss under booming fireworks is a bit of a cliché, but a very tender and beautifully shot cliché. Redmayne portrays the following physical challenges with crushing, brutal honesty. By the time we get to the third act, Redmayne is doing more with just slight hand movements, word choice, and his eyes than most actors can emote with their full voice and range of motion.

Unfortunately, that first kiss under the fireworks is one of precious-few visually interesting moments to be found. Much of the slightly-bloated middle looks like it’s shot with a bad Instagram filter. There are a couple wedding and family montages done like this, going for the look of old home movies, but it just comes off distractingly ugly. Most of the interior shots seem blown out in that same fake golden light. It only seems to ever get cloudy when thematically relevant.

One of those clouds comes in the form of Charlie Cox as the hunky widowed church choir conductor destined to tempt Jane just as her marriage to Steven becomes the most challenging. Right on cue out of the biography movie handbook. Their courtship is restrained compared to Steven and Jane’s, yet equally cute. Here is where it’s most obvious that the screenplay is based on Jane’s memoir, as she comes across as holier than most saints. Jane and Steven’s marriage falls apart in a beautifully-acted scene that’s a great showcase for both Jones and Redmayne. It wouldn’t be a great surprise to see it on both of their Oscar reels.

Any time a serious, Oscar-pedigree film unspools a slow motion montage that recalls the underrated parody film WALK HARD more than something like WALK THE LINE, well— it’s not good. The last ten minutes also play out much like the “Beautiful Ride” song from that same movie. The flashbacks of the nostalgia-tinted flashbacks are enough to make one queasy. The most interesting scene does come in the midst of this. At a talk for his latest, greatest book, time seems to stop as Hawking straightens up in his chair, stands, strides across the room, and picks up a pretty coed’s pen. It doesn’t entirely work, and it’s still too little too late. But it at least shows some kind of pulse and a willingness to try to color outside the numbers. That’s more than can be said of most of the rest of the movie.

What's Joe Watching 12/4/14

What's Joe Watching? 12/4/14

What’s Joe watching? The answer is a lot. After moving cross country, I got behind on a few of my favorite shows. The obvious answer: a nice day of watching a wide variety of stuff. I’m not going to do these for everything I watch, it’ll get exhaustive fast.

NCIS: New Orleans s1e1, s1e2 s1e3

 NCIS has never really clicked with me. The gimmick it employs- showing the final image before commercial at the beginning of that segment- is annoying at best and spoils what’s going to happen at its worst. And the chemistry of the cast only can get it so far before the show is just boring. “So far” is, in this case, just me watching a couple random episodes in syndication out of morbid curiosity. It is the most watched show on the most watched network, after all.

 Why the hell am I watching NCIS: NOLA? My dad loves it. It’s the only thing he has DVRed, and I’m too lazy to leave the room when he puts it on. Unfortunately, it carries over that freeze frame gimmick. I like Scott Bakula and CCH Pounder a lot, though. Lucas Black has a truly awful Alabama accent that must be heard to be believed. It was really funny in these first three episodes how desperate they were for viewers. The premiere brings in Ducky, the second episode has DiNozzo, Vance, and Abby, and finally the third brings in Gibbs.

 The most interesting thing about it is Stephen Weber as the typical slimy politician / councilman with eyes on being mayor of New Orleans. The first episode teases a conflict with him and Pride (I am not making up that character name) over the “soul of New Orleans”. Maybe I’ll check back in at the season finale when that comes to a head.

Brooklyn 99       s2e8, s2e9

 This show is firing on all cylinders and easily the funniest thing on TV. There’s not much more to be said about it.

 Wait, I lied. I cannot believe they blew up that grenade between Jake and Amy so early! The metaphorical grenade. I’m being slightly vague to avoid spoilers. But I’m really interested in where this continues to go for the rest of the season.

 The subplot thrown in there between Boyle and Holt was very, very appreciated and made me realize they might be the only two characters who haven’t really interacted until their little cooking escapade.

Marry Me             s1e5, s1e6

 Alright, the Thanksgiving episode was pretty manic and cute, but it really hit the same dumb beats anyone could have expected in a “first thanksgiving episode”.

 I vastly preferred the episode where Ken Marino’s character gets a nice, long storyline with Annie (Casey Wilson)’s dads, Tim Meadows and Dan Bucatinsky. They were both really great and funny playing off of Marino. I thought it was a little bit… I don’t know. It felt too pat that her dads get engaged at the exact same time (nearly) as the main couple. And it feels like this is going to make too many similar storylines with two couples wedding planning at the same time. But this show has been really funny and cute filling in the margins with bad storylines, so I have faith.

Mulaney     s1e6

 This episode opens laying pretty bare that it’s going to be an episode all about “the troops”, and this produced a pretty instant UGH reaction from me. Not to mention the opening seems almost completely identical to a Louis CK bit. Also, Lou’s subplot about the USO is incredibly hackneyed and fast forward worthy.

 Mulaney still provides the odd chuckle here and there, and is at least a little weirder/different than a lot of shows. But I’m barely still watching it.

Top Chef       s12e4

 The episodes between the premiere of Top Chef and Restaurant Wars are always a slog to get through. This is no different. The most positive thing I can say is that they eliminated two chefs who I knew absolutely nothing about.

@Midnight   12/1 12/2

 These were the first episodes I’d ever seen of the show. It’s a kind of fun, short, more risque and lowbrow version of Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me. The comedians in these two episodes were all pretty funny, and I’ll continue to watch it as long as I remember to watch it. That sounds like a huge insult, but shows like this (dumb internet / twitter commentary panel shows?) have such a short shelf life. If I don’t watch it within 24 hours, there’s no point. But I’m still watching until it stops being funny!

Knocked Up

Knocked Up 2007

★★½ 

I watched this sometime last week, and simply forgot to finish my write-up past a couple of random notes. That’s kind of appropriate, since this movie is unfortunately kinda forgettable. Apatow makes a nice series of vaguely connected comedy set pieces, and it’s all certainly really funny. But there’s not much here.

There’s a slew of memorable supporting performances here that take some of the pressure off of Heigl and Rogen to carry the movie. I could spend a paragraph just listing their names. Even Apatow’s kids are pretty funny in a couple roles that could have fallen flat. Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann stand out the most, and that’s not much of a shock considering they got their spin-off-quel This is 40.

There are really no stakes as the movie kind of lumbers to the inevitable conclusion. It’s not really shot particularly well or distinctive from a TV movie. This all sounds like I really hated it, but I guess a movie can get pretty far being just a funny movie with likeable people. It looks like pretty far comes out to about 2.5 out of 5 stars

A Night at the Roxbury

A Night at the Roxbury

Night at the Roxbury is a very, very long 82 minute movie. To call this a thin SNL-sketch plot stretched out to feature length is an insult to movies like Superstar, Coneheads, Blues Brothers 2000, and The Ladies Man. The credits play over something indistinguishable from one of their sketches. They hit each catchphrase and joke in turn, then the credits stop. Uh oh, now the movie has to start.

 Some of it works. Kattan and Ferrell have a really good, lived-in chemistry as a classic dim-witted duo. It would be hard not to with all the years together on SNL, and in these characters in particular. There’s a couple fun supporting characters, and the cast is filled with ringers such as Chaz Palmenteri, Dan Hedaya, Molly Shannon, Lochlyn Munro, and Loni Anderson. There is even a running gag that is funny more than it’s not.

 But, oh boy, the rest is bad. Did this movie start the trend of goofy comedies focusing really hard on a B to C list celebrity playing a fictionalized version of themselves? Richard Grieco sleepwalks through the thankless and unfunny role here. The movie really hates women. Molly Shannon turns from a sweet love interest to the villain halfway through for no reason at all other than nothing else was happening. Also, I can’t say I’m surprised, but that “What is Love” song plays no less than 10 different times. It is also featured heavily in the climax (that otherwise is the same scene from Say Anything). Speaking of ripping off - another scene in the denouement has two characters repeating the dialogue from the end of Jerry Maguire completely verbatim, with no twists or jokes at all.

 Finally, the most baffling thing about the movie is how much Chris Kattan throws himself into the role and how… good he looks. Don’t get me wrong, almost none of this is funny, but he looks like 10x the rising star that Will Ferrell actually was. 

couple 90s Action Movies

I watched these, and they’re fairly similar, so please enjoy these thoughts on Sudden Death and Rapid Fire.

Sudden Death 1995

★★★½

This is way fucking weirder than I could have ever remembered. It’s some ways slavishly a Die Hard remake, and some ways bizarrely different.

One of the most pronounced quirks is that the group of terrorists is omniscient and can literally do anything as if they are a wizard. They never show all the terrorists, and continually have Powers Boothe saying “I have men everywhere!”

JCVD’s helper with the Secret Service turns out to be a bad guy, and unless I missed something, never gets caught or exposed. He just goes back to his post at some point and pretends to work. Unless he gets kicked or captured real fast and I missed it.

Normally the bad guys have some kind of badass physical specimen lieutenant for JCVD to fight near the end of the movie. Here, this fight happens right at the beginning! And even more surprisingly, the badass fighter henchmen is a woman. And uh. Most surprisingly, she fights JCVD in the full Penguins Mascot Costume. Courageous choice.

There have been great movies where the protagonist and antagonist never meet face to face really (The Fifth Element comes to mind first). Sudden Death has the same dynamic, largely shuttling all the great Hans/McClane moments from Die Hard. JCVD only sees his face as he mean mugs Powers Boothe while his helicopter beautifully perfectly crashes at a 90 degree angle.

Speaking of Powers Boothe, his villain is totally undercooked. His plan or motivations or whatever is never really explored or scratched any further than skin deep.

Also say hi to THE GREAT Raymond J Barry as the Vice President.

Rapid Fire 1992

★★★★

Look, I just started this because I wanted to see Powers Boothe and Raymond J Barry antagonize each other again (see: Sudden Death). And Brandon Lee has always been an interesting case. His team-up with Dolph Lundgren in Showdown in Little Tokyo is one of my favorite awful movies.

Anyways, this is a pretty cool blend of martial arts movie and action movie without ever feeling overstuffed. It’s got the odd couple and jazzy soundtrack of Lethal Weapon. It uses the setting to pretty good effect, especially in introducing the Chicago Chekov’s L Train. There’s an incredibly bizarre end of Act 2 montage that cuts the cops’ plans all failing in action scenes with a full nudity sex scene set to a weird hair metal song. I can’t do it justice.

They saved the best for last. After a very long scene resembling the Onion article “Man On Gurney Has Brief Word With Protagonist Before Entering Ambulance”, the male and female lead jump in the back of an ambulance. The shot evokes The Graduate- They’re in the back, another jazzy song firing up, and the landscape visible behind them in the ambulance windows. They even share a few of the same nervous looks from that famous last shot.

Am I reading way too far into the ending of this boilerplate 90’s action movie? Maybe. Am I overrating this for exceeding my low expectations? Definitely. But whatever, it’s fun and carves out a kind of unique little movie.

Not-Horror movies I've been watching

I didn't complete the October horror challenge exactly, but that's okay. Here are a few of the not-horror movies I watched over the last month, too.

Stretch 2014
★★★½  
This movie is Collateral and Los Angeles filtered through Joe Carnahan's eyes instead of Michael Mann's.

It helps that everyone is more than game to play along. Patrick Wilson and Chris Pine are pretty fun. The periphery is also filled in with a combination of great comedic actors and unobtrusive cameos.

I'm not going to say that everything works, some of the voiceover could be better. And more than a couple of the developments just don't make sense. But it's still a pretty manic and fun "one crazy night" type adventures.

TRON: Legacy 2010
★★★½  
Jeff Bridges and Michael Sheen are having a great time. The basic DNA / structure of the movie makes this a pretty classic adventure and hero's journey type of tale. Maybe audiences weren't ready for leading man Garret Hedlund. Possibly the ears of the movie-going world weren't ready for Daft Punk back in 2010, before they won every Grammy.

All of that aside - yeah, I can't really figure out why this isn't regarded much higher alongside some of the really big / fun movies like Pirates of the Caribbean. It's a really pretty movie. And of course Daft Punk's score and cameo really add to every scene they're in.

Captain Phillips 2013
★★★★
Tom Hanks and the terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2014
★★★½  
When I was a kid, we went on a family trip to New Orleans. I didn't have any interest in the city, though. I was hellbent on making a movie with our new video camera and all the Ninja Turtles toys I took on vacation with me. Let's call the toys and videotapes worth $125. After 20 years and multiplying the budget by a million, this is the closest thing to a remake of my artistic vision.

Let’s Be Cops 2014
★★★  
It's funny enough to make up for the plodding, non-sensical plot. And at least there are more jokes that work than don't.

Felt overstuffed at only 100 minutes. Rob Riggle has a slightly different turn than his usual shtick, which is about the only interesting thing in it.

I hope Keegan-Michael Key has more roles like his turn on the Fargo TV series than his lame caricature here. Also, nobody bothered to wake up Andy Garcia for any of his scenes.

It's worth a laugh, but there are no secret joys to be had. No twist or hilarious subplot or performance. Just another adequate manchild comedy.

Rumble in the Bronx 1995
★★★  
Jackie Chan getting pelted with glass bottles in the dead end alleyway reminded me of a similar glass scene from Die Hard. It was surprisingly brutal in such a goofy movie.

The action is a lot more fun when Chan is whipping gang members with a ski as opposed to the end, when the evil white men in suits take over and use a lot of guns.

But, hell, the hovercraft is REALLY fun.

Room 237 2012
★★★★  
I really enjoyed the format of this movie. It was a fun companion piece to watch right after The Shining. They remind me of the Ancient Aliens commentators in the way they start making a point that's completely sensible and coherent, and mid-sentence just go wildly in an absurd direction.

From Nightmare on Elm Street to Freddy's Dead

A Nightmare on Elm Street 1984
★★★★½  Rewatched  14 Oct, 2014

At one point, sleep-deprived Nancy reaches to her face. "God, I look like I'm 20". After getting over my initial reaction of "oh, fuck you", I realized it was a pretty clever little reminder how young everyone's supposed to be.

What sets this movie apart from the sequels is that pervasive feeling that everything matters. Not that the others have low stakes, people are still getting knifed to death, but Nancy grows and changes until she's forged in steel by the time she's the final girl. At the end, she's more alone than ever before.

Also, it's fairly impossible for me to watch this movie without zeroing in on the image on the wall of the sleep institute. It's a pair of cats wearing hawaiian t-shirts on a San Francisco Cable Car. I gladly welcome the Room 237-esque documentary decoding the subtext behind that.


A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge 1985
★★  Rewatched  15 Oct, 2014

Freddy's Revenge has a lot of problems. I find myself liking it more with each watch, though. Part of the bizarre and just completely different nature of the movie must have come as a refresher while watching the first 6 or so of these movies in a row.

One of those quirks that works well in this movie is the constant heat. Our hero Jesse is constantly sweaty, even when sleeping nude (more on this later). This somewhat culminates in the regrettable part where a killer bird terrorizes the family until spontaneously combusting. But until that part, it somewhat adds to the atmosphere of the heat and terror constantly building.

If this movie was shot the exact same way, with the genders flipped, it would become lesbian softcore porn very fast. Jesse and Grady are constantly sweaty, naked, wearing short shorts, and in various states of embrace throughout the movie. An early "prank" is just Grady pantsing Jesse in front of some girls during recess. The guys are relentlessly objectified, with Lisa and her friends' conversations about sex sounding much like the guys in American Pie and other high school sex comedies.

More of the scary stuff works in this movie than I remember. The opening school bus sequence is really effective and scary, and starts that unbearable heat motif rolling for the rest of the movie. Lisa sees Jesse's face bulge out in Freddy's stomach saying "Kill me, Lisa" before her chase through the boiler room. There are dogs running around with baby faces.

Unfortunately, the scary stuff is undercut by the rest of the movie's weird tone. It's weird enough to be worth a watch, but it's still mostly a mess of a movie.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors 1987
★★  Rewatched  16 Oct, 2014

The narrative veers sharply back to the Nancy story (she's back) and the normal Freddy rules (he kills you in your sleep). It's a pretty nifty twist to have this take place in an insane asylum, surprisingly realistic. Despite the cooler and more varied death / dream sequences, this is still mostly a mess. Freddy gets called "the bastard son of 100 maniacs". And the goalposts of "how to kill Freddy" gets moved to "bury him in holy ground".

The kids getting superpowers in their dreams works in the movie's internal logic, I'll admit, but it still comes across mostly lame. There's no way to make lines like "I'm the wizard master" and "You found your dream power, man" work.

"Welcome to Primetime, bitch!" - still an angry misogynistic classic.

It feels a little short-sighted to sweep the table clear so to speak and kill off Nancy and her Dad and pin their hopes to the new girl. It looks even worse when the character is played by a different person in the next movie.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master 1988
★½  Watched 16 Oct, 2014

The fourth entry gets even meaner, moving on to kill off the two most likeable characters from the last movie (albeit in really cool dream sequences). There's not much else going on here, this is a kind of bad example of a horror movie just lining up people to kill and exploiting their one personality trait in the dream.

"How's this for a wet dream?" - RIP Joey.
"I wanna draw some blood" - Robert Englund in drag, call it Mrs. DoubtFreddy.
"How sweet, fresh meat" - This line makes the "how sweet, dark meat" part of Freddy vs Jason a little less gross since it's partially a reference?
"You flunk"
"Sayanora, sucker"
"I love soul food"
"No pain, no gain" - Actually a Cronenberg-esque cool body horror sequence when she
"You've got their power, I've got their souls"

That last quote reminded me - the whole thing with her gaining parts of her dead friends was really weird and didn't make sense, even for this series. Just stop thinking and wait for the Freddy Rap over the closing credits.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child 1989
★½  Watched 17 Oct, 2014

So, now we've evolved to - the only way to kill Freddy is to have his dream child and have the baby kill him? Okay, fine, dream murder baby, whatever.

There are some one liners and alright dream sequences here, but this movie veers way darker. The lead girl is pregnant, and somehow sees her baby's dreams? Freddy is using the dreaming baby to somehow attack everyone. Abortion is even brought up, albeit not directly.

"It's a boyyyyyy!"
"Bad year, Dan! Buckle up!"
"Fuel Injection! Better not dream and drive!" - There are not one, but two motor vehicle related dream sequences.
"Bon Appetit, bitch!"
"Things to do today: Die, bitch!" - Glad to see angry Men's Rights Activist Freddy is back.

No quote, but there's another pretty cool sequence where Freddy kills a comic book nerd in a dreamy comic book. The dream baby merging / destroying Freddy at the end is kind of lame.

Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare 1991
★  Watched 18 Oct, 2014

"Every town has an Elm Street!"

The most horrifying line maybe in the entire Elm Street series comes in the most overtly comic entry yet. Anyone masochistic enough to marathon these (hi) shouldn't be surprised by this, though. There's always been an uneasy balance between evil Freddy and wisecracking Freddy. The backstory gets laid on thick throughout this movie. Freddy's only living relative is mixed up with a Foster youth group home, and he's terrorizing them to get more victims.

This setup gives the movie an extra sadistic twist. Freddy kills all the kids using their fears and circumstances that got them homeless in the first place. He takes the forms of abusive father (twice), abusive mother, and makes a deaf kid's hearing aid explode his brain. The video game dream sequence is completely played for slapstick laughs, though. The last ~10 minutes of the movie go into "Freddy Vision", a 3D gimmick of sorts. Even in the movie, the character puts on goofy 3D glasses to "activate the memories". Then this hellish nightmare landscape shows all the horrors other people put on Freddy Krueger before he turned into the monster of Elm Street. This is supposed to be the last word on Freddy, so some going back to the beginning is kind of expected. But there's just no reason really to try to humanize him at this point, some 30 dead kids later.

Despite all the supernatural bents of the previous few movies, and even earlier in this movie (see everything Yaphet Kotto says), the real only way to defeat Freddy is, of course, putting a dynamite stick in a gaping chest wound. "Happy Father's Day!" chirps the blood-soaked heroine that just saw everyone she knows butchered. "Kids." deadpans Freddy as he looks at the camera. Then Freddy's body parts fly at the camera in the last gasp of 3D Freddyvision. Freddy's Dead, indeed.

The Shining

The Shining never forgets it’s a horror film. It’s meticulous, relentless, and also lives in a world where horror stories exist. There’s an amazing sense of space in every shot. The opening is sky blue titles flying over wide open mountain air. The Overlook is immaculately framed between pillars and windows as Jack (Nicholson) walks through to the office for the interview promised on an opening title card. The office is cramped and tight compared to the earlier open air and hotel lobby. The focus shrinks visually, now focusing in on Jack as we learn about him for the first time.

Or was the opening title referring to Wendy’s interview with the doctor? In addition to the cabin fever murders revealed to Jack, Wendy has her own horrors with which to deal. The iconic blood elevator shot shows up first very early in the movie as their son Danny has his first dramatic shining vision. Wendy also admits to being a “horror film nut” here as well. Jack hasn’t even accepted the job yet, and things are already very tense and strained. The family can’t even get through the car ride to the Overlook without going into the Donner Party story. In other movies, this foreshadowing could stick out like a sore thumb. But Kubrick keeps the entire world so off-kilter and terrifying in the first few sequences, that it’s just part of the world’s fabric.

Back to that space. The Overlook is gloriously explored through these opening shots, both in the tour and the first few scenes after winter begins. Kubrick does a great job of laying out the different locations before they’re turned into gruesome scenes later. One in particular is the family’s cramped apartment. It sits in contrast to the huge lobbies, kitchens, and hallways elsewhere in the hotel. It’s in these small, cramped areas and shots that the most intimate terror takes place. Jack kills the poor cook in a huge entryway. He sees the ghosts in the party, the former caretaker, and the bartender in the large ballroom. But when he attacks Wendy, he’s chopping down a small door to a small bathroom with a small window as the only escape. And finally, Danny is able to outsmart his father in the claustrophobic hedge maze.

I watched The Shining earlier this year and didn’t finish it. It’s a polarizing film. Maybe I wasn’t in the right mood, or just wasn’t paying that much attention, but it all felt completely false and phony to me then. Shelley Duvall and Kubrick were nominated for the Razzie Awards. This time through, I really was able to notice the depth and tension of almost every scene. The care in framing every shot also stood out. There are a dozen things to love about The Shining. Jack Nicholson is great. The effects on things like the blood elevators, the frantic parade of ghouls near the end, and the lady in Room 237 all look amazing. But this time through, I kept coming back to the way everything is seen and explored. No one makes a movie like Stanley Kubrick.

October 8th: Ghostbusters

What more is there to say about Ghostbusters? It's 30 years old and has aged remarkably well. This could easily just be a long list of great quotes and moments and nothing else. It's not a controversial statement to say it's the funniest movie of all time. It also is probably Harold Ramis' best movie which is a high bar to clear.

The three scientists are drawn remarkably well, remarkably fast. Venkman's introduction using a pseudo-science to hit on a young co-ed is pitch perfect. He's later called "more of a game show host than a scientist", which is another really great description. The first bumbling ghost encounter is such a great set piece that lets the three leads really shine. Egon's "that would have worked if you hadn't stopped me" line is a great way to show his confidence and stubbornness. Ray's positively giddy at everything in the library until his master plan of yelling "AHHH" falls through. And of course, Venkman has several great moments of sarcastic detachment, even in the face of seeing his seeming crackpot friends proven right when they see the first ghost. "What now?" he asks his dumbfounded colleagues.

So, what now? The theme of Ghostbusters gets a lot of respect and attention. But there's another great song in the periphery as well that stands out. The Busboys' "Cleanin Up The Town" plays three times during the movie. The first is the slapstick shot of the trio running out of the haunted museum after their first encounter. Then again during a full-fledged ghostbusting montage later. Finally, during the ending and credits. The song has a really great, jaunty piano hook (the only part heard during the first playing), and is a song about the movie and made for the movie. Sad to say that trend of movies having really on the point theme songs mostly died out around Will Smith's first Oscar nomination. Ghostbusters had two! The theme is great and rightfully gets all the credit, but this song is also great, too.

There are a ton of laughs, but something slightly overlooked is how scary Ghostbusters is in some parts. The most famous ghost, Slimer, is a joke and mostly kid-friendly. And of course the marshmallow man is the biggest (ahem) joke in the movie. A lot of the rest are not played for laughs at all. The wonderfully-animated dogs working for Zuul chase Louis down and eat him while he screams in terror. When they come for Dana, hands burst out of her chair and hold her down roughly before she's dragged struggling into the dog's clutches. Murray does a good job undercutting the scene with his usual funny self, but the possessed Dana is pretty chilling while booming "There is no Dana, only Zuul". And of course, the ending showdown with Zuul has the lives of billions in the balance and nothing short of world destruction.

There's something sexual going on during the climax (ahem) as well. Gozer first assumes a form that appears to be a woman, and is at least androgynous. Later, the god eggs on the Ghostbusters to "choose their destroyer". Had they already chosen the female form earlier, being afraid of all women? Egon rejects Janine's very forward advances, and earlier during the montage, Ray gets a blowjob from a ghost woman. The proton pack shooters are undeniably phallic as well. The way they're held during the climax also makes it look like a giant dick. Finally, crossing the streams can easily be read as gay panic. They defeat the Stay Puft man by crossing all four streams and circle-jerking in to the portal (vagina) that birthed Gozer, leaving everyone covered in white marshmallow goo. Come on.

Part of the greatness of Ghostbusters is being able to see a little more each time. Laugh a little more. Every viewing brings some little funny part to the forefront, or some little angle never seen before. That quality is one of the main reasons this movie will probably keep getting re watched for the next 30 years as well.

October 7th: Texas Chainsaw 3D / 2013

The first warning sign here is fitting this movie into the others like a bit of a jigsaw puzzle. The credits do a pretty slick recap of the events of the first movie, but then it clunks into a really long sequence set between 1 and 2. Another is the complicated name. Texas Chainsaw. Is it 3D at the end? There's no "Massacre", so it's technically different than the 1970s and 2000s one, but it still feels necessary to throw a (2014) in there. The movie would have worked just as well without the prologue. When Heather (Alexandra Daddario) finds out all the sordid history in the police station, it's double the exposition on the crap we already saw in the flashback!

The cast of doomed teens does a pretty good job with their characters before the soaked-in-blood part of the movie ramps up. And once that inevitably rolls around, the action is mostly pretty quick and brutal, reminding of the best parts of the original. The 3D really starts to grate around the time Heather has a first big chase with Leatherface. She ends up in a coffin with the chainsaw coming down at her face, then escapes from that only to get a chainsaw thrown at her and our heads. Daddario does a great job with all of her scream queen glory in the first hour or so of the movie.

There are a couple of cool, somewhat-clever set pieces. Leatherface stalks a couple people in an overturned van in a way that brought to mind Scream and Jurassic Park. Later, a police officer searches a dark and scary house holding a gun and his phone as a flashlight, while giving the sheriff and mayor a live look via FaceTime. This one sounds obnoxious on paper, but it works pretty well in the movie even though the officer in question is the definition of a throwaway character. The more interesting / revealing part is the sheriff/mayor's reactions, playing on their 20-year, 1 and a half movie long relationship.

Mild spoilers follow. I'm warning even though the plot developments are fairly blindingly obvious and I'm not sure many people clamoring for the latest turn of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre haven't seen it yet. But the ending parts of the movie put the viewer in a precarious situation. It flat out paints Leatherface as the good guy, as just misunderstood and needing help. The movie goes out of its way to make a villain so reprehensible that we cheer for him to be slowly dragged into a meat grinder. There's a moment of exhaling, relaxing at the trail of dead bodies being over, but there are still a lot of dead people. Horror movies are supposed to be bleak, and there are certainly great endings where no one wins. But this one comes off more as a triumphant action movie villain death than something deeper or darker. Leatherface is only missing a one-liner.

Is Heather still the hero and a good person after it all? Did we watch her transform into a monster in response to a monster? Was that monster the evil sheriff or her cousin that turned her boyfriend and best friend into meat? The movie's over too quickly to really think through any of this before the credits roll and blast you with the loudest song from the soundtrack.

October 6th: The Colony

Watching The Colony is a mistake. It's readily available on Netflix. The preview image clearly shows Bill Paxton and Lawrence Fishburne. One could see them and immediately think of Aliens or The Matrix or any other number of their hits. But watching The Colony is a wholly boring experience that will only faintly remind the viewer of other, better movies.

Before you can even notice how much everything in the post-apocalyptic winter landscape looks like The Thing, you're assaulted by the obnoxious knockoff John Carpenter soundtrack. Then the endless voice over begins, trying to be so clever as it introduces Sam and the world in which he lives. Characters don't have any actual conversations as much as they spout madlibs cliches back and forth as the plot's gears wind into motion. Fishburne's noble, loyal leader tries to keep his humanity while raging asshole Paxton wants to kill everyone that threatens to spread disease. Our bland lead man sits in the middle as nothing really happens for a long period of time.

Fishburne and the good guys take a very long (time-wise, and feeling-wise) journey to another distressed colony eventually. The slow, boring trod in the snow is finally shaken to life when our crew happens upon a man chopping a human leg into pieces inside the empty colony. The movie finally lurches into motion as it trades The Thing for any number of cannibalistic marauder pictures. The villains seem closest to the Firefly universe's Reavers, but with none of the nuance, intrigue, or menace.

A lot of the chasing, running, and getaway from the Reavers actually works. Maybe just ANYTHING happening looks appealing next to the staring out into the snow and bad dialogue that precedes it. Who knows. There's a particularly cool fighting and chasing sequence through the vents when the evil gang inevitably assaults the home base. Our hero Sam watches a couple weirdly repetitive honorable sacrifices to help him escape. There's a hoary plot with seeds and the world thawing and a hope for the future that feels tacked on just to give the movie some sort of a point. Anything just to end the movie.

The Colony attempts a few genres- post-apocalyptic, zombie, survivalist, slick action and fails at all of them. Paxton and Fishburne really sleepwalk through their scenes until their stunt doubles take over for the mayhem. The lead really makes no impression and doesn't really make the viewer care if he survives "The Colony" or not. That's a bit of a problem for a movie begging you to cheer his escape from certain death at every turn.

October 5th: Carrie 2013

Remakes aren't necessarily a bad thing. I never feel the anger others do when I hear a favorite movie of mine is getting a new telling. This telling of Carrie is only really effective when it's slavishly copying the original. The changed bits add nothing at their best, and stick out obnoxiously at their worst.

The movie opens with a POV shot creeping through the house. It lingers on iconic images and tableaus from the original Carrie. This will unfortunately be one of the most subtle reminders of the first movie. After the credits, the first scene at school is the girls' gym class playing volleyball yet again. But the slight twist is that it's water volleyball. Right here, it might seem like they're going for a different, more visually interesting inciting incident. But no, we're immediately to the locker room, and the familiar shower. Halfway through the movie, I realized it would be impossible to count up all of the moments that are the exact lines and/or shots from the original.

There's way too much flashy CGI stuff that doesn't really add anything more to the story. In one of the early scenes practicing her powers, Carrie levitates her bed and several books. Chloe Grace Moretz actually does a great job showing the experimentation, wonder, joy, and fear at exploring her powers (aka new found sexuality) in these scenes. But the focus seems much more on the pretty shiny things flying around the screen than the character moment.

The most egregious less is more example is the climatic rampage. It becomes much larger, more elaborate, and sadistic for really no reason at all. You get the sense the remake is trying to have its cake and eat it too. In this version, Carrie spares her teacher and saves Sue. But then she just gruesomely tortures everyone that she does kill. Poor Chris and John Travolta just get their car flipped and immediately exploded in 1976. Here? The boyfriend gets his head scrambled by the steering wheel after Carrie stops the car faster than a brick wall. Then Chris is flung to a gas station, and has her head slowly pulled through the cracking windshield. Carrie walks away with her bleeding to death, then blows up the gas station as an afterthought, like an action star.

The base story of Carrie is still a good one. This remake keeps close enough to the original to keep it from being too bad. But it doesn't really take enough chances to stand out. In the end, it keeps the general plot of the original, but unfortunately has none of its unique style or vision. It's also a weird commentary on the changing morality in movies that nearly 40 years later, we're way more scared of seeing the female body naked than seeing a female body crushed and spewing blood under a trampling mob.

October 4th - Carrie 1976

Carrie forms a very distinct memory in my childhood. Many of the horror movies I saw as a kid were me and a cousin on a Saturday night staying up late before church. Not this one. This one was a group of boys, elaborate subterfuge and lies, and a sleepover geared around watching this movie. Why were a bunch of boys so interested in a Brian De Palma horror movie? The opening shower scene, duh. However, we did watch the rest of it through. And as corny as it is, by the end of the movie, I was more interested in the actual movie and what it meant and how it was showing us than the fleeting 3-5 minutes of bare chests.

The movie fills around Carrie and her mother nicely with interesting side characters. Look out for the secretary from Ferris Bueller. She looks young for the only time in her career as one of Carrie's tormentors. There's also Joanie, aka the ball cap girl. She barely gets any lines, but bizarrely stands out with her perfect color coordination. Then later, she is wearing a ballcap still at the prom. It's kind of disturbing and actually never commented on whatsoever. There's also a really ugly streak of abuse going on between Chris and her boyfriend (John Travolta). They're pretty physically and verbally abusive to each other throughout the lead up. Chris stays fixated on Carrie White and her revenge plot, while he is pretty much oblivious and along for the ride. The funniest example of this is Travolta's incredulous reaction to Chris obsessing over Carrie while they're trying to fool around in his prized car. He would rather yell "Git R Dun!"(this actually happens), and taunt pigs about not having "to worry about the bomb no more" as a gleeful idiot than be a part of Chris' fury.

De Palma pretty much pitches a perfect game, at least the cinematic equivalent, once the prom finally arrives. There is an epic tracking shot showing the entire layout of the gym and dance as Carrie enters. It does a great job showing most of the characters and setting up the geography of the mayhem to come. Another long shot follows the rope from Chris' eager hands all the way up to the bucket of pig's blood waiting above. She grips it tightly under the stage as she casts a silhouette over the sheet hanging off the stage. It looks like a delicious Psycho shower curtain reference. Another close up of Chris' glossy lips right before all hell breaks loose. It's decidedly sexual, titillating us right before the money shot.

Other weirdnesses creep in throughout as well. An early standoff between Carrie and her mother happen across a long table with a huge Last Supper painting on the background wall between them. Lightning flashes with each yell back and forth, lighting up Jesus' face. I love how it still commits to a goofy and light-hearted prom montage. A funky 70s tune plays while Bobby Ross and a couple of nameless bros try on tuxedos. All of this would play as a parody today, but it's completely strait-laced. Seemingly coming in from another movie that ends at the lakehouse party where everyone gets laid and grows a little bit. By the time the prom band plays "the Devil's got a hungry soul", and Bobby tells Carrie "to the devil with false modesty!" it's laying it on a little thick.

The sheer terror once Carrie's rampage starts doesn't disappoint. The king and queen announcement is shown over the shoulder of the bucket of pig's blood hanging over the stage. Even through the soft-focus walk towards the stage, it's obvious that this is all going to get very bad, very fast. The use of blood red lighting and split-screens really keeps the carnage vivid and kinetic throughout her massacre. It's a fitting and iconic climax for one of my favorite horror movies.

October 3rd: From Dusk Till Dawn (TV Series): Episode 1

I really know nothing about this series other than A) its existence from it popping up on Netflix as an original series and B) my knowledge of the original movie that I just watched. I'm a little excited to truly and completely have no clue what's coming. I also haven't really seen any of the DTV sequels, so if anything that pops up is a reference to those, I'll completely miss it. Most of my experiences going into some show or movie without any preconceptions / seeing any sort of trailer have gone pretty well.

The first episode does a pretty good job of setting up some of the major characters despite some of the head-scratching changes and additions to the original story. I'm not sure if this was produced as a pilot, or with the knowledge that it would be completed. Either way, any first episode has to be good enough to convince you to watch the rest of it. The entire episode takes place at a liquor store in Texas, but the episode still makes sure to show the evil Aztec horror to come through the cold open and some of the small touches and moments creeping in the periphery.

Once it's established as a standard retelling of the Gecko Brothers fleeing the law to the Titty Twister bar in Mexico, it makes a lot of sense to expand the opening liquor store robbery/shootout into its own standalone episode. However, it's anticlimactic even to someone that had never seen the movie. The old grizzled Texas Ranger is immediately shown in some pointless, boring flashbacks giving his rookie partner sage advice. By the time he reveals that he's counting down "how many good days I have left", he should have a gaping chest wound already. There's still the exact how's and the why's of the Brothers' escape, and the show milks some tension from that. Despite some mildly egregious slow-motion and bad one-liners, the ending shootout and payoff for the simmering tension is well-done.

Most of the changes from the movie creep in somewhat slowly. The biggest is that there is no twist regarding the supernatural here. The cold open features a truly horrifying ritual involving snakes that basically shows what would have happened in Raiders of the Lost Ark if Indiana Jones wasn't a superhero. Richie Gecko's role seems to be beefed up as well - he spends most of the episode switching between generic leering at the (thankfully) older female hostages and being tortured by demonic images. Seth Gecko's boss in Mexico advises him to take Richie's visions seriously, because he has "the sight". It's a good tease of what's waiting for them in Mexico seeing him working alongside Aztec symbols briefly.

Is Richie having a bigger role in the second half of the story a good thing? The actor comes across like a bit like a cross between Cillian Murphy and Michael Shannon. If he can bring half the intensity to Richie's "sight" as Michael Shannon, it'll be a treat. Seth Gecko's a little harder to read. Sometimes he seems like he's trying a Clooney impersonation, sometimes he's NAILING a Clooney impersonation, and sometimes he's in between. Don Johnson is great as the ill-fated Earl McGraw Texas Ranger character, but the flashbacks and pumping up of his story came off as padding. Also, John Hawkes was dearly missed as the liquor store cashier.

The younger ranger, Freddie, gets the most problematic start. He's set on a path of righteous vengeance on the brothers for killing his partner. However, not content to let this easy setup be enough, the near-death partner orders him to "follow them to the gates of hell". This is unforgivably bad and on-the-nose even for a pulpy TV show like this. What should be a good and defining character beat for him is made laughable when the exchange from not 5-10 minutes earlier in the episode is repeated in ghostly voice over before he sets out after the brothers. Freddie is a good addition to the show at large though, having a law enforcement pursuit with a face and a character is a good thing. Here's hoping he evolves into more of a character as the show goes on.

I'm going to keep watching! I don't know when, or if there will be entries for the later episodes, but I'm curious to see where this goes and what more changes. The cast list showed Robert Patrick (presumably as the Harvey Keitel father role) coming up later. I tried to avoid any looking up on the internet about this so I wouldn't spoil how many episodes someone may or may not be in. Also, Wilmer Valderrama was unrecognizable as Seth's Mexico boss. That will also probably be a decent and much-expanded role now that he is in on whatever horror is going on down south.