Split is the greatest movie of all time

Holy shit. I fucking loved this movie. People fucking hate on M. Night Shyhamalan (MNS). Those people don't know what the fuck they are talking about. While I haven't seen all of his movies—this may end up being an upcoming project, who knows—wasn't interested in The Happening, The Last Airbender, or After Earth (I am ignoring his early stuff that isn't even on my radar [Praying with Anger and Wide Awake]), there is a lot there of his I fucking loved. As of now my tally is didn't really care so much for The Sixth Sense, disliked The Visit for a few things I felt unforgivable, consider Unbreakable god tier, loved Signs, loved The Village even though I was told the twist ending during the movie, and I fucking loved Lady in the Water aka “The Turd in the Pool” which enjoys a 24% on Rotten Tomatoes. Whatevs. Loved the first season of Wayward Pines too even though the end was the most unintentionally hilarious thing I have ever seen in my life. I know there is much hyperbole in this blog. This should be taken literally. I could not stop fucking laughing to the point that my female companion was worried about my sanity. Anyway, Split is a return to god tier.

Rotten Tomatoes Consensus: Split serves as a dramatic tour de force for James McAvoy in multiple roles -- and finds writer-director M. Night Shyamalan returning resoundingly to thrilling form.

Pros: McAvoy is an amazing actor. Phenomenal pacing (no time for bullshit). The “twist” is understated and fucking sick.

Cons: Some really uncomfortable stuff regarding child molestation. The ending, before the “twist” that is, is somewhat anticlimactic.

Disclaimer: HERE BE SPOILERS

Remember that shit? Yeah, you do

I'm in no way against spoilers. Sometimes I read a wikipedia article about a movie before deciding if I want to see it. Generally, if someone tells me something is fucking dope and has a sick ending, I want to know what it is. Such was the case for this one. When a coworker was talking about this and how awesome he thought it, he asked if I knew about the customary MNS “twist”. I had not. “What is it?” He was all, “I can't spoil that for you, man.” Generally this makes me a psychopath or something in most people's minds. But he ended up telling me after some goading. Split is in the same universe as Unbreakable. Shut the fucking front door, I need to see this shit for myself.

Did not disappoint. Near fucking flawless.

The movie, which I took basically no notes on I was so inthralled, starts with the kidnapping of three 16ish girls by this super neat guy named Dennis play by James McAvoy who has a buzzcut, glasses, and a button-up that is done up all the way to the top who sounds like Robert De Niro. Come to find out that this is one of 24 personalities that live within this severally traumatized and splintered gentleman named Kevin Wendell Crumb. The kidnappees, locked in a room together and then separated for transgressions, try to figure a way out of the situation, ultimately resigning which, if any, of the diverse bunch of “alters” could help them in this task.

This all goes on while Kevin's psychiatrist, Dr. Karen Fletcher, played by Betty Buckley who is lovely, discovers something sinister is going on via vague emails from alter Barry, a fashion designer, that is having his sessions with doc coopted by the predatory personality Dennis. Dennis poses as Barry during these meetings in an attempt to prove that everything is all right. Eventually she catches on to this and Dennis explains to her what he has been slowly getting at with the girls, that his new personality, The Beast, is coming and is on a mission to do some really bad shit.

Once The Beast actually shows at the end (there was some question on if that was going happen or if The Beast was fake or something), which Dennis and this female personality that run the show at the end say is to protect the innocent/child personality, it is fucking bananas. This ego is pure fucking chaos. This comes as sort of a shock. It's like, “oh, so this dude and the movie weren't fucking bullshitting us. This is indeed really happening.” Anyway, The Beast it seems possesses supernatural powers with the ability to climb walls, bend metal bars, sprint like a madman, take shotgun blasts like a champ, so forth, all while using the girls for sustenance. Yeah, The Beast is fucking insane.

Fucking terrifying

After killing the two milk toast teens and his doctor, the survivor girl, who we come to find out has lived through some horrible fucking shit, gets cornered by The Beast and is a really bad way when we get to the first ending. This girl, played by that young blonde girl in The Witch, who lived through the fucking horror of living with her molester after her father died, it is revealed has been coping with this by cutting and has been doing it for a very long while. The Beast sees this and identifies with her and lets her go because she is wounded.

With the witness living and all, this shit is obviously all over the fucking news now. And that's when MNS lays out that fucking phenomenal second twist on us. Hear that shit on the Philadelphia news, where the movie takes place, in this little diner. Some lady at the counter is like, “this is some crazy shit, it's like back when with that one crazy guy in the wheelchair, whats-his-face,” and then there is fucking Bruce Willis's bald mug to remind everyone, “Mr. Glass.” Fucking sick. I instantly wished that I had seen it in the theater to have experienced that one communally. There is even buzz that this Kevin fellow made an appearance in Unbreakable which is plausible. And while that sequel you know is coming is likely to be shit with the hype already surrounding it, for right now, the idea of it is fucking insane. Anticipating the shit out of that one. 

The Funhouse is the greatest movie of all time

The Funhouse was a very enjoyable flick. Director of Texas Chainsaw Massacre Tobe Hooper, now relegated to the shittiest straight to DVD trash, presents a solid, dare I say underrated, movie with plenty of scares and surprises. It follows four teenish kids who go to the carnival--where two girls went missing the year before--as they make the mistake of hiding out overnight in the funhouse ride. There they witness a murder, one of them steals the gate fee from the killer carneys, and are then stalked by the deformed monster throughout the eerie ride. Though it takes FOREVER to get going, once it does it is a complete free-fall into what the fuck, which you expect with a movie about carneys. 

Speaking of carneys, my female companion was at one point employed as such, which I like to bring up often. Watched most of the movie with me. This, she claims, is not an accurate depiction of the carney lifestyle. So keep that in mind when you give this the old viddy on the electric internet machine. 

Pros: Cool monster. Atmosphere is dark and strange as fuck. Very intense last 1/3 of the movie.

Cons: Basically only one likeable character (the survivor girl). Takes a while to get going. 

Disclaimer: My notes pretty much always contain some spoilers but I rarely give away the ending.

Notes: Opens with puppets and abrasive music. This goes on for several minutes. I don't like it. The real opening is POV. Looking around a room of someone obsessed with monster movies. Is actually a cool ass room. Was like mine in high school. Minus the torture devices. Grabs a knife off the murder wall. Now some young girl getting in the shower in the same house. She looks so fucking young. Yeesh, and she is completely naked. Jesus, man. Dude in the room grabs a clown mask. Just like the opening scene of Halloween which it obviously pays tribute with the POV with eye holes of a mask thing. Also homage to psycho as he goes after the girl in the shower. The knife is rubber. It's her younger brother. Man, that is some fucked up shit to do to someone. She tracks him down and is like, “I'm going to get even with you! Also, not taking you to the carnival tonight.” She totally freaks out on him. Totally justified. This family has some weird shit going on.

Girl is going on a date with her loser BF to the murder carnival. When he picks her up he just repeatedly beeps the horn until she comes out. Basically the easiest way in film making to show us that the guy is a dick. She comes out and is like, “hey, maybe we not go to the murder carnival?” “Nah, babe, we going.” Do a jay with some other couple. Chick is blonde. Other dude looks like a young Al Franken. Drone on about god knows what. Little shithead boy who stabbed his naked sister with a rubber knife sneaks out. Makes way to the carnival. One point almost gets picked up by a hitchhiker who is a complete psycho. Pulls a gun on the kid and laughs like a maniac. Kid runs off. Girls are talking in the bathroom about boning and such. Some gypsy lady comes in and is all judgy and shit. Says, “god is always watching you.” She shows up several more times in the movie. It isn't clear if she is like a carney or just some crazy homeless person who hangs out there. Anyway, she keeps saying shit like "He's always watching!" until they leave. Whatever. Go to a freak show. See a two-headed cow and an alien baby. Go to a magician. The crowd heckles the shit out of him while he goes on and on about Vlad the Impaler. Does a trick where he stakes a girl in the heart. Fake. She didn't really die. Daughter of the shifty magician. The kiddies do another jay.

Now it is off to see the fortune teller. They are so fucking rude to her. Laughing, fucking with her setup, talking about how stupid it is. She ends up kicking them out when they knock her crystal ball onto the floor. Tells the main girl to “get the fuck out” and “if I ever fucking see you again, I'll break every bone in your body.” It is a very tense situation. I'd have been terrified. Now it's off to a strip show which is weird for a carnival to have at that point. Naked ladies. Some subtle racism of quoting Al Jolson in The Jazz Singer. Fuck that guy. The women are all incredibly unattractive. The couples peep in the back. The dudes up front are going insane with lust which is disgusting. We keep seeing a guy in a Frankenstein costume who is all over the place. He ends up being the monster at the end. His main job is working the funhouse. One of the idiot dudes in the foursome wants for them to stay the night in the funhouse which seems like a great idea. They make this decision without the main girl's input. This is not a good idea. See the maybe homeless gypsy woman in the background eating out of the trash. You might remember her from her "God's always watching you" rant from earlier. Little brother sees them all going about their business. They've hopped off Frankenstein is confused. The brother, watching from afar, is confused as well. I definitely like this so far.

Park shuts down. The foursome is in the funhouse. Kid hides out and after everyone is gone, he walks up to it. One of the animatronics seems to come to life. The kid gets freaked. Starts to run. Gypsy evangelist lady pops up cackling, saying her bit about “He's watching you” yet again. Weird, she is just sort of hiding out in the field in front of the funhouse. Scares the piss out of him. Nothing happens for basically the first 48 minutes of the movie. Up to this point it is just a group of kids going to the fair. Then it gets weird. Frankenstein pays the fortuneteller for sex. He gets a handy which cost him $100, roughly a few million in today's money. He's pissed, doesn't want to pay. Chokes her to out instead. The foursome watch it and do nothing. They are also locked in.

The funhouse mouth, some old curly-haired dude, comes in. Is like, "well, shit, you shouldn't have killed one of our own, and $100 for a handy, that is outrageous." Goes to put the money back in the cash box and the rest is missing. He is surprising cool with all this until he finds his money is missing. Frankenstein freaks out. Jumps about hitting himself. Mask comes off. Fucking disgusting. He looks like a cross between a generic alien and of the evil dead in The Evil Dead. Come to find out this thing is a child murderer. Find out Al Franken stole the moneys. Bitch. Drops his lighter, too. Fuck this guy. They know that others are in there now. Well, shit.

Outside, kid bumps into Frankenstein monster thing. Practically shits himself. Carneys catch him. Those outside the funhouse are just normal, nice folk, which is weird. Inside the funhouse the dudes turn on the animatronics. That’s a bad situation. Big dude takes over. “We have to deal with this shit,” is his general vibe. He is the only one making sense at this juncture. Al Franken is the first to go. Gets hanged, by some miracle when a noose drops out of the sky. The carneys don't seem to be above them so it was presumably done randomly by the animatronics. What? But that doesn't make sense either since he ends up coming down on the ride. They don't know this at first, they just see a dark figure on a car. Meat head dude hits him in the head with an ax he stole from an animatronic. The blonde falls through a trap door. Bad things happen to her. It occurs to me here that the monster sounds like a small dog going crazy.

The eventual survivor girl chick looks out this window with an industrial fan in it. Her parents show up to pick up her little bro. She screams for her dad at the fan in a pretty hopeless scene. The fan basically filters out the sound and she remains trapped.

This is how every horror movie would really end

Getting close to the end here so I'll wrap it up. Not to give too much away but things really intensify in the last couple of scenes. I'll focus on the final death, which, spoiler, is the monster, is fucking brutal. Gets clogged up in the gears of the machinery. The scene lasts about a minute and basically this creature, who had an extremely shitty life, screaming in horror as he dies horribly. And that is how it ends. Shitty way to go, man.

Edit: For people that were into Monstervision with Joe Bob Briggs, a fucking Saturday treasure for younger version of myself, here is the YouTube vid if you get a hankering to watch the movie.

Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master is the worst movie of all time

Not nearly as bad as I thought it would be but it still not very good. Freddy is still somewhat scary but just cusping on completely ridiculous. The acting is crazy bad. It's also a disgusting movie. Overall it was sort of fun--probably not for the right reasons though--but I will never watch it again. I'm also starting to hate these movies and I still have four to go (not counting the reboot).

In this one, Krueger comes back, yet again, to kill the surviving Dream Warriors and a whole new group of teens. Yep, that's what's happening. They are just churning these out once a year at this point. Also, this was the highest grossing horror movies of the 1980s. 
 

NOES 4: The Dream Master has a Fresh score of 53% which I found somewhat unbelievable.

Pros: Some good kills/special effects. Sort of scary. Starting to get unintentionally humorous (which is probably a con for most people).

Cons: Nothing new here. Bad music. Bad acting. Some problematic world building, again. 

They are both blonde

Notes: Open with shitty music. A movie also known for its great soundtrack (yeah, it's bad). Also immediately starts with very shitty acting. Blonde in Freddy's house gets blown back like 40 feet when the window implodes. Walks right into the boiler room. Oh shit. This is supposed to be Patricia Arquette's character from NOES 3: The Dream Warriors, Kristen. It took me way too long to realize this and just fucking watched that movie. This actress's name is Tuesday Knight which is an absurd thing for your parents to call you. Apparently Arquette was preggers and that was why she didn't come back. This new chick looks NOTHING like her. In her dream, the other surviving dream warriors show up, she has that ability to rally the troops in her dreams. I guess they still hang. She keeps telling them Freddy is still alive but they swear he's dead. I just watched NOES 3 and I don't know if I am supposed to recognize these people are not. 

One of the new people, Rick, brother of the survivor girl, Alice, does a bunch of this shitty karate which is fucking absurd. These guys are brother and sister but almost make out multiple times. Dad is abusive. Mother is dead. Have some weird shit going on in this house. Every time this chick and the blonde that took over for Arquette are on screen together, droning on about god knows what, it is like a bad acting off. 

Yes, a dog brings Freddy back by peeing fire on him

Again, no one thinks Freddy is around anymore. Think the idea he could come back is absurd. Then Kincaid, the black dream warrior, goes to sleep with his dog. In the dream his dog attacks him and is like a hound of hell or something. What this dog does to bring Freddy back is the most absurd thing I've seen in a movie. So, the dog pees fire on the ground where Freddy's bones are buried which brings him back to life. Da fuck? He dead. On to the next dream warrior, Joey. You may remember him as the one that got literally "tongue tied" in Dream Warriors when Freddy shape-shifted into a hot nurse before taking him hostage for most of the rest of that movie. In this one, Freddy does the SAME FUCKING THING except this time instead of a nurse coming at him on the hospital bed Freddy comes at him as a beer poster girl through the waterbed. This is where the one-liners really start to pick up and must of them suck. It's like, “hey, remember when I said that shit before I killed that chick in the last movie? 'Welcome to prime time, bitch.' You liked that, huh? I'm going to do that for every kill from now on.” This one is “how is this for a wet-dream?” Boo.

Why is this necessary?

Honestly, so far the movie has been okay. Around here, though, some shit starts to irritate me. First, there Robert England in drag for no fucking reason. I'm going to blame this on producer Bob Shaye as I do everything else. Second, the brainiac chick in this movie, some robotics super genius, says “li-barry” instead of “library. Third, they go by Freddy's house which is all run down and shitty looking. How the fuck is this house still standing?

Arquette's stand-in's mom is still an aggressive bitch. Chick eventually faces off with Freddy. Around here somewhere she is dreaming of relaxing on the beach but Freddy turns into this sand shark thing with his glove as the fin and he explodes out of the sand. It's sort of cool but cheesy. Pulls Alice into the dream. As Freddy tosses her into a fire to get burned alive, she shoots out some infamous 80s blue lightning, giving Alice her powers of bringing people into her dreams and aerobic exercise. Here we are, 40 minutes in and all the dream warriors are dead. Feels like a four hour movie by this point. Alice also starts getting the powers of the people Freddy kills.

Those still living are all, "Freddy isn't real." How do they not believe in Freddy by this point? That starts to change when they are in class and the "genius" chick passes out. This is the "wanna suck face" death which is fucking gross and dumb but looks sort of cool. In the middle of this we get another shitty Bob Shaye cameo. Fuck this guy. Teaching a class on, what, dream masters? More falling asleep in class. Here is where things go off the rails. New rules every fucking movie. Now he needs someone, Alice and previously Kristen, to pull people into her dream and then he kills that person. What? Terrible fucking world building. 

Next we get some horrible karate with invisible Kruger and Rick. Freddy is saying all this sensei type stuff. Rick kicks the glove off, good deal, but it flies out and stabs him in the chest, bad deal. Alice has a daydream he still alive. It's fucking stupid. Says “baaaaa-bay” like a moron. She's like picking up powers from everyone who dies still. She can use nunchaku now or at least the dude with completely different hair posing as her body double can use nunchakus pretty well, I guess… I have no idea.

She goes to see Refer Madness in a dream maybe or IRL and then falls asleep there. It doesn’t matter. Ends up in a different movie. At the diner. The infamous pizza with pepperoni souls. She is working at the dinner, serving herself, I think, made to look all old. Freddy tells her he wants the chick that works out all the time. They keep referencing how fit she is. It's not like she's a fucking bodybuilder. She even benches with Flo-Jo like nails. Freddy is spotting her. I think she's lifting A 10 pound bar with 10 pound plates. He does a shit job and breaks her arms. They fall off and she turns into like a cockroach or something. I don't understand. He catches her with a glue trap and a roach motel. He smashes it. Wtf is happening?

No previous references to this were made

Alice is now pissed. Tallies up all her powers in physical display by putting on her person something from each of the dead kids. It's like, "now that I look ridiculous, I can go kick ass." And she does. Alice beats the shit out of Freddy for like 45 seconds with maximum effort. Freddy just laughs like a maniac for most of it. Obviously not working. All that shit is worthless. Then she recalls the final verse of the Dream Master rhyme that I thought had no relevance in the movie up until that point. So if I understand correctly, she more or less defeats Freddy by turning the evil or souls inside him against him. What? And those souls like burst out of him and rip him apart. I don't fucking understand. There is more to it than that, I'm sure, with the words in the rhyme having some sort of meaning. But I don't fucking care. It's fucking lame. And then the movie ends with the hint of another Freddy return and sequel. Four more to go. Four more to go. Halfway there.

Club Dread is the greatest movie of all time

I love the Super Trooper guys (their group is called Broken Lizard) and don't get why they don't make more movies. Club Dread, which I fucking love, is not well liked by audiences or critics. I think it rules. Those sheeple don't know what they are talking about. Basically, this movie is universally considered “unfunny”. Well, that shit is subjective. I think it is hilarious. I am not going to argue for why those people are wrong but they are. 

Movie follows the employs on a resort called Pleasure Island that is owned by Buffett-esque musician Coconut Pete. The employees and some guests are getting murdered while the ones that are left try to solve the mystery of the killer's identity. If this were like a murder-mystery weekend, I would totally be fucking down. 

Bullshit Rotten Tomatoes Consensus: Comedy is too hit-or-miss in this slasher spoof.

Drinking away in Pina Coladaburg

Pros: HILARIOUS. I LOLed through several parts of the movie. Nice satire on the slasher genre. Better done than say a Scary Movie. Nice little story as well, And Then There Were None esque. Very pretty ladies.

Cons: Pretty long. There is a period in the middle that sort of just drags on forever where nothing really happens.

Disclaimer: My notes pretty much always contain some spoilers but I rarely give away the ending. 

Notes: Movie takes place on Pleasure Island. Opens with this raging asshole who is getting it on with this two chicks. They immediately break so many horror movie rules that you just know they are going to die. So out of control and disrespectful it is insane. He like uses some local deity icon thing as a phallus and hooks up with ladies on this tomb. Throughout all that there are like 10 jump scares that all end up being red herrings. Brunette has great breasts, by the way. Of course they all eventually get murdered. See the brunette almost make it back to camp but the killer chops her head off. Cool POV kill where we see the head rolling from the head's perspective.

Ger

From there they then go back in time about an hour. Spend so much time setting that guy up as the world's biggest douchebag. We meet all the characters here. Ramathorn is a dreaded tennis instructor. Landfill is a masseuse. There is a fun cop, a DJ, a Costa Rican dude who is all about Bone Town, a fitness instructor who is one of the survivor girls and is very fit. She was the love interest in Joe Dirt. Most memorable, though, is Bill Paxton as Coconut Pete. This character is Jimmy Buffett. At one point they are in a song circle and someone tells him to play “Margaritaville” which pisses him off. Says his song was “Pina Coladaburg” and that Buffett ripped it off.

Anywho, this vacation spot looks fucking sick. Solid activities. Constant parties. Drinking. Drugs. Live action Pac-Man. Murder. Looks fucking dope.

The DJ tells the story of this guy named Colletti who got his dick chopped off by a machete, went on a murder rampage, and escaped into the jungle. He was then forever known as “Machete Phil” which is funny. Other little funny bits include one of the survivor girls, Penelope. Costa Rican dude always pronounces her name “Peen-el-ope”. There is also a Jaws moment where this old, grizzled security guy is all like “you know what has to be done,” and then the camera slowly pans to him as he drones on nonsense. Later the guy is talking shit to the killer, things like “face me like a man,” when the killer walks up to him, slashes his throat causing his immediate death. He was sort of protecting this Asian girl at the time. She runs off, get on a golf cart, fiddles with the keys, finally get it in drive. Goes about five miles an hour. Killer walks up to her and kills her. Ha.

All in all, solid movie. Good death scenes with a lot of humor. I totally love this flick.  

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors is the greatest movie of all time

Three Nightmare on Elm Street movies in and this one is my favorite thus far. Wes Craven returns as writer, which is obviously a positive, and they more or less ignore the previous movie, which is also for the best. Just missed the 30 year anniversary for this solid piece of horror kitsch.

In this NOES iteration we have good old Fredrick Krueger going after the last of the kids whose parents murdered him all of whom are staying at this mental hospital for reasons. Nancy is there in an official capacity, she must have been a real go getter at school to already be some sort of psychologist three years after the original NOES so just roll with it, to teach the children how to lucid dream. As such, each of these kids basically develop some sort of superpower that they use whilst in dreamland to combat Freddy scissor hand.

Heather Langenkamp returns as survivor girl Nancy from the first one. Her pops, the ever cool John Saxon, he back as well. Also features a very young Patricia Arquette. Others making appearances that you would know are Lawrence Fishburne and the guy from Body Double who looks exactly like Bill Maher, Craig Wasson. And of course Robert Englund. A lot to like about this one. After Freddy's Revenge this was sincerely welcomed.

Interesting piece of trivia about this film.Sam Raimi stole Freddy's glove and used it as a prop piece in Evil Dead II, my all time favorite flick, which came out that same year. Wes Craven and Raimi had this thing where they would have little nods to one another in their movies throughout the decade as a way of saying "my movie is scarier than yours." It all started with Craven putting a Jaws poster in The Hills Have Eyes. Raimi, thinking that was cool, decided to do the same thing when in The Evil Dead he featured a scene with a torn The Hills Have Eyes poster to basically say the same thing. Next, Craven had Nancy's character in A Nightmare on Elm Street trying to stay up while watching The Evil Dead It then culminated with stealing the glove which you can see in the shed above the door.

Should have been flipping the bird

Pros: Cast is fucking dope and surprisingly well acted for a NOES flick. Effects are also solid. Fantastic kills. Dream sequences are eerie and cool.

Cons: Freddy's backstory is pretty weak. A few of the effects don't age very well (the fighting Freddy bones). Also, Freddy at one point coexists both as a physical skeleton and an ethereal dream killer which is sort of problematic (like, is the skeleton on autopilot while fights with kids or what?).

Disclaimer: My notes pretty much always contain some spoilers but I rarely give away the ending.

Notes: Movie opens with Arquette. Good call more or less building the movie around the young starlet who looks like an adorable child at this point in her career. Dreams that Freddy is chasing her about in some shitty house. He comes at and slices her wrists before she comes to. Her mother, a real Mommy Dearest type, thinks she tried to eliminate her own map and sticks her in an institution where Nancy is on staff as some sort of intern or something. Her methods are not conventional.

Is she not adorable? Also, Feddy totally looks like a phallus

A couple of really fucking cool early deaths. Probably the two best in the franchise and they run back-to-back. The first is this sleepwalker dude. With this poor bastard Freddy basically pulls out the tendons on his arms and legs and fucking walks him around like a puppet. He then takes him to the ledge of the building and cuts the "strings" which causes him to splat below. In the second, the other blonde one that is not Arquette earns a spectacular death that ushers in the era of Freddy dropping one-liners before every kill. She starts the scene by watching TV in the common room. The Dick Cavett Show is this evening's chosen entertainment. How they got Cavett to do this cameo is beyond me. That night he was interviewing Zsa Zsa Gabor. She was an actress at one time, of course, but by this point, and the way I remember her, she was little more than a socialite, sort of like Paris Hilton, whom she was actually related to by marriage. He was supposed to interview Sally Kellerman for the bit, I always thought she was really pretty, but she didn't end up doing it for whatever reason. Cavett was then allowed to choose the person who he'd interview. He picked Zsa Zsa saying "she was the dumbest person" he'd ever met in his life, he'd never have her on his show IRL, and if there was one person he'd want to see killed by Freddy it would be her. Their back and forth is ridiculous. She is wearing this feathery boa thing. Cavett asks her how many animals died for that thing. Zsa Zsa is like, "I don't know. Is it real? I don't know where it comes from." Cavett is like, "Oh, it probably came from an artificial bird." They drone on about how to succeed as an actress and such, ironically, when he turns to her and says, "can I ask you something?" Zsa Zsa, "uh, ok." Then Cavett says, "who gives a fuck what you think," turns into Freddy, and fucking kills her. The girl is like, "what the fuck am I watching," which leads to the best of all of Freddy's one-liners, "welcome to primetime, bitch," and then this happens.

Led by Nancy, around here the group starts more or less getting superhero powers in their dreams. Arquette, for example, can pull people into her dreams and do gymnastics (which is next to worthless). The others include the black dude who is like a pudgy strongman, the wheel chair wizard kid shoots the infamous 80s blue lightning and dies, and the punk, drug addict chick who is “beautiful and bad” who looks fucking awesome with a ginormous mohawk.

Look at what we missed out on?

Other things of note in the movie are this horny idiot Joey who by some miracle makes it to the end to the movie. Freddy pulls ye olde pose a hot, big breasted blonde way out of the dude's league. Here he starts hooking up with this nurse that matches the above, gets literally "tongue tied", and held captive for most the rest of the movie. You'd think he would have learned something from this experience. No, he does not as we see in NOES 4: The Dream Warriors when the same fucking thing happens only this time the chick is on some beer poster and instead of getting tied to the bed by a rope, tongue obvious Bob Shaye addition, he gets pulled into and drowned in his waterbed. Also, the blonde in this one almost turned into Freddy with boobs which was just too much for everyone.

Lastly, the flick features Freddy's birth story which was a weird addition. Basically his mother returns to this hospital where she worked as a nun/nurse and Fredrick was conceived during a 100+ psychiatric patient gang rape. No one wants to hear that shit. Other than that and some 80s cheese, pretty solid. Would recommend.

Late Night Double Feature is the worst movie of all time

This is definitely one of those movies I will completely forget about in a year or so. Canadian horror anthology. It's not great. I respect the low budget flicks like this for just getting a bunch of amateur actors together and putting shit on screen. I love that shit and love people who do this. Salt of the earth, these people. More than I've ever done. Great for them... But by movie standards, this was only sort of watchable.

The basic gist: while taping Dr. Nasty's Cavalcade of Horror, a late night television program that does little skits between a pair of featured films, made up for this anthology, things on the set descend into what the fuck over the course of early morning. Pissed about Dr. Nasty's (the host) appalling behavior and her prick boyfriend, the director, the nurse sidekick loses her mind and gets all murdery.

Pros: It's pretty good about telling a story that sort of starts and sort of ends. Interesting concept. Nurse nasty is all right. Canadian anthology.

Cons: Shitty acting. Shitty stories. Characters are incredibly milk-toast. Has that soap opera look. Dr. Nasty is so disgusting. Canadian anthology.

Disclaimer: My notes pretty much always contain some spoilers but I rarely give away the ending.

Notes: Always thought it would be a dope job to be one of these late night horror hosts. The people who made this must agree. Dr. Nasty's: The credit scene is great. Over the top computer graphics. All downhill from here. Dr. and Nurse Nasty. Local horror host. Show looks terrible. The crew agrees. Next week on this show trailer. A clown movie. Night Clown. Meh clown.

First movie: Dinner for Monsters

Chef is hired to cook a dinner for six. Goes to person's house. At the door he has a moment with the maid who is like “it's a shame you are here for dinner,” he is like, “huh.” The rich couple greet him. The guy is joking with him. Says something like, “you might say it would save your life right now if you were to turn around right now and leave!” He also goes on a rant about how animals should not be used for consumption. I totes agree. Is this what I sound like? Well, this is where our rants veer. Yeah, they want him to cook a human. Takes very little convincing. Sort of threaten him. He starts his work. Sort of freaks out. This is how I feel about meat in general. First course is a Greek salad. Ha. Killer mortgage rates commercial. Make him eat some. He flips and starts killing everyone. Only ones left are the main couple. Now in the basement where the “live stock,” humans, are grazing. They are basically zombies. Throws the host dude in. Have a really good kill here. The humans rip the guy apart with their bare hands and eat him. Shite. Now chef dude is serving human at his restaurant. Uh, okay. Keep throwing around “humano carne” as the type of meat. Always thought it was “long-pig.”

Back to this Dr. Nasty shit. He is getting blown by some intern wearing the nurse wig. The real nurse is like, “fucking gross,” and the old man is like, “know your place, bitch.” Then they do a stupid skit and play the next movie.

Second Feature: Slit

Guy who gets paid to cut cutters on their back. There is a slasher/killer guy out there, apparently. Guy getting cut asks the cutter, “you didn't do it, did you?” Claims no. Goes and sees a new chick client. She lives in a real shit hole. Asks him how he gets his job. Demand he says. She is disgusting. Addict maybe. Has all kinds of cutting scars. He cuts her. She tries to jump his bones. He is pissed about this. Starts to leave. She stabs him. Chases him around. She is no athlete. Corners him. Cuts and rips her face off. It is bananas. He runs away but dropped his client list with his address in it.

At home, dude orders a pizza like a total maniac. Calls, says he needs a pizza at such and such address. They ask what he wants on it. He says, “I don't give a shit! I just want it here now!” Seem like about the worst way to order food I've ever seen. If you do this the person making the pizza will probably get pretty creative with the toppings if you know what I mean. Then the pizza guy shows up. Dude is passed out. Leaves a ball jar of change out front to pay. Psycho girl tapes him up. Doesn't wake up until the end. She lectures him with a bunch of nonsense about getting fucked over by guys like him then she murders him by stabbing him in the dick. Now she is moving on to killing his clients, it would appear, as he shows up at the first guy's house.

Back to Dr. Nasty's set. He is being gross, as usual. Nurse is still cuffed from previous skit. He starts whipping her like an insane person making her bleed a shitload. She is like, “you are totally fired.” The manager guy doing her is like, “yeah, he has a really good contract, so...” Nurse quits. Her BF talks her down. Says they are going to fire him. The nerdy guy with glasses who is obviously in love with her is with her icing the whip wounds. Talks about how he loves her butterfly tat. She is like, “um, ok, I'm going to go.” Tells her they are going to start shooting on Monday for this movie they are making. Intern comes in gloating about getting the lead. Nurse goes pretty reasonable but her BF/manager just turns into a complete dick for no reason and fires/breaks up with her. Is insanely cruel about it which is sort of out of nowhere. She grabs a knife to kill him. Sneaks up on him, his back to her. Yep, he already dead. So is the intern with dude's severed wang in her mouth. Turns out everyone is massacred by nerdy guy who is torturing Dr. Nasty. He did it so she could get her own show. He also has a matching butterfly tat. She is fucking stoked about it. Scene. So a shit movie ends.  

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge is the worst movie of all time

What the hell, bro?

The gay one, as it is known. It's not great but was fun and apparently has a cult following among homosexuals, which I dig. Maybe a little less so after I started researching the production. So in the documentary Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy about the Nightmare franchise, pretty much everyone denies that the homoerotic subtext was intentional. Bob fucking Shaye was like, "we had no idea, what the hell, it was just a normal movie," which is typical. So were a bunch of the actors. But the writer, David Chaskin, that guy, he was like, "oh, yeah, it was totally intentional." Why all the secrecy I am not sure but speculate that most of the people involved didn't want to be culpable in more or less type casting actor Mark Patton, the movie's "final girl" who was closeted publicly but privately open meaning that the filmmakers knew his preference and decided to exploit it. The year before the movie came out, Patton stared in a movie overtly about homosexuality called Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean which I am unlikely to see and know next to nothing about. Patton, who comes off as unpleasant in the Never Sleep Again doc, has since blamed the film for ruining his career as an actor. When talking about Chaskin, though, you really feel for the guy: "Nobody ever affected my confidence—the boys that threw rocks at me, nobody—but this man did," and he also claimed that Chaskin told him he played the part "too gay" for his tastes. That's fucked up, main. But feel free to rock out to this infamous dance number from the first act...

But much has already been made of the movie's gayness. That stuff is something I'm on the fence about because of how Patton, the only openly gay person in the film, feels about it. Therefore, I will focus on my big gripe with the movie. Basically that they changed the rules for this movie and it's stupid. What made the original NOES fucking scary was that he existed on another ethereal plain. He wasn't human and didn't need a physical presence to murder you. In this movie, they shitcan that mess. Now, in order to commit murder, as Freddy does, he now has to possess someone and murder through them in the real world. What. The. Fuck.

Oh, cool

This shit has Shaye's stink all over it. Supposedly a lot the trouble from this film was the deadline. New Line had no money and needed to crank the picture out to piggyback on the success of the first one. Yeah, you can fucking tell. With fucking Shaye micromanaging everything and threatening to fire director Jack Sholder over every disagreement, there wasn't a lot of reflection. Plus, Shaye really liked this one liner, "You've got the body; I've got the brains," which led to Freddy exposing some brain. That became the fucking movie. And it's a fucking shit departure. It's all over the place, the acting is just weird, it's not scary, it's only mildly unintentional funny, and it departs from the original so much that it doesn't work as part of the NOES universe as anything goes as that is. This movie is trash.

Pros: The homosexual "subtext" is sort of cool in retrospect. Clu Gulager.

Cons: Shits on that world's rules. Not scary. Clunky. Characters are so flat they barely need names.

Notes: Freddy as normal guy is the bus driver. Three of them kids on the bus. Freddy goes rogue. Drives them into the desert. The ground falls away. Freddy is coming to the back of the bus. This is supposedly not Robert Englund. They didn't think he was the star and weren't planning on building the franchise around him, which seems insane. Anyway, dude wakes up fucking screaming and sweaty. He is so goddamn sweaty for the rest of the movie. Fam is downstairs. Sister is like, “he is doing it again.” Her serial is so racist. “Fu-man Chews” with plastic nails as a prize. Then a ring at the door. And there is... Meryl Streep. It's not her but looks exactly like her. Pretty sure this lady, one Kim Myers, can't fart into a paper bag and earn an Oscar nomination for Best Actress.

Spitting image of talent

Off to gym class. Playing baseball. This aggressive jock, New Line loves an aggressive jock, nails one right at Jesse here and knocks him to the ground. Everyone runs to dude like, “fuck, man, are you okay?” This dick jock is fucking still running the bases. Coach is like, “don't be a fucking loser” to Jesse. Eventually he is up and playing again. Then after the next hit, dude gets the jock kid out and he de-pants Jesse and then fights him for no reason. Coach comes over. “Assume the position!” They do pushups forever which happens multiple times throughout the movie. Coach apparently is into S&M and young boys. Also, the house is the connection to the first movie. Was where Nancy lives. Is lame.

The stupid fucking line comes that night in his dreams. “You've got the body; I've got the brain,” basically the first thing Freddy says to Jesse. Shaye's infamous line that they built the movie around. He rips off his head's skin to reveal his brain like in the above gif. It's lame as well. One of those, oh, cool, I guess, moments. This is where we start getting this, “I need to become you,” shit. Jesse lets out this scream that is fucking incredibly girly. Jesse and Freddy's dynamic is sort of like that of the rapist and the prison bitch. They have some weird shit going on.

This happens

Next day in class he is passes out. Looks like shit, per use. Thought we'd get the NOES obligatory Freddy in school scene but it doesn't happen in this one. Wakes up when a snake comes out of its cage and wraps around his neck. Goes home. Going to meet his Meryl but his dad wants him to unpack his room. This all happens so that he has an excuse to go upstairs and gay out. It is fucking absurd. Meryl shows up which is something I haven't thought about for a while. That people used to call on a land line. Say “I'm coming over.” Then if you didn't show up within a reasonable time, then that person would show up and be like, “hey, what the fuck?” Anyway, they find Nancy's diary. She is the chick from the original NOES. They act like this was 20 years ago. This movie came out just a year later.

That night he goes to the basement. Sees Freddy. Finds the glove. Freddy wants him to try it on. Starting to become more Freddy like. Next day we have more locker room shit. At this HS they basically have gym and snake class, apparently. Now Jesse and the jock are homies. Talk shit about coach Snyder's “stick up his ass,” and he is standing right there. More assuming the position. Goes home. Bird goes insane and spontaneously combusts, randomly. It's weird. Don't dwell on it. Dad claims he rigged the bird.

That night, the enfamous 80's blue lightning comes in and destroys the dishes. He goes to an S&M bar. Fucking Bob Shaye is the goddamn bartender. In leather. Looks like an asshole. Coach is there. Of course. Makes Jesse go to the HS and run laps. Pretty sure this is not ok. While Jesse showers, coach, still in leather, is in the equipment room. The equipment like attacks him. He doesn't look phased despite obvious supernatural shit going down. Still chewing his gum and looking stupid. Jump ropes drag him to the shower. Clothes are ripped off. Towel whips his ass for a while then sliced up with the Freddy glove. He is wearing said glove now. Screams again. Most ridiculous fucking thing I've ever seen.

So Snider is dead. I assume physical evidence is everywhere but no one suspects Jesse. Police pick him up on the street, naked. Dad is like, “what are you on... and where can I get some?” This dad is easily my favorite character. He is such an over the top moron. Appliance catches fire in the kitchen; he is like, “huh, it's not even plugged in,” well what do you know? It took me the whole movie to realize he is Burt from The Return of the Living Dead actor Clu Gulager. Love when this guy shows up in movies.  Actually, I like the hotdog chef at the pool party better. It's best to just that scene.

Meryl is having a pool rager at her house. Jesse and her start to mess around. His tongue comes out all weird and gross. He leaves, goes to the meathead dude's house. She is crying. Not making his case for a hetero male. Jock even mentions this. Says Freddy wants inside him. Wants dude to watch him sleep. He goes to sleep immediately. They both wake up. Freddy like busts out of him slowly and painfully out of his stomach. Freddy sort of looks like Snoop. His dad is Ferris Bueler's dad, I think. He dead. Jesse's really amassing a mountain of evidence against himself. Shows back up at the party with blood all over him. Tells Meryl about the killing he's been doing. Some serious overacting going on from Jesse at this point.

Jesse turns into Freddy and starts massacring everyone. He goes on a fucking rampage. Bites a chunk out of Meryl's leg. Oh, the Freddy knives are coming out of his hands, I notice. He doesn't have a glove. Meryl half asses an attempt at self-defense. He starts killing the kids in the pool area. Some idiot tries to reason with Freddy. He kills him. Then Freddy just leaves. Goes to this boiler room place. Has these stupid dogs with human baby faces. Other weird animals keep popping up and eating each other. It's weird. Now Meryl and Freddy have their showdown which is basically the end of the movie. She basically makes out with Freddy. This lowers his control over Jesse for some reason. Then he catches fire, incases him in a stone Freddy, and he turns back into Jesse, sort of like in Ghost Busters. It sucks. Unless you have a high threshold for shit, which I am blessed with, don't watch it.