New to Blu: Halloween 4 and Halloween 5 Reviews (Kirk Haviland)

Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers

Starring Donald Pleasence, Danielle Harris, Ellie Cornell, George P. Wilbur, Kathleen Kinmont, Sasha Jenson and Beau Starr

Written by Danny Lipsius, Larry Rattner, Benjamin Ruffner and Alan B. McElroy

Directed by Dwight H. Little

Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers

Starring Donald Pleasence, Danielle Harris, Ellie Cornell, Wendy Kaplan, Jeffrey Landman, Donald L. Shanks and Beau Starr

Written by Michael Jacobs, Dominique Othenin-Girard and Shem Bitterman

Directed by Dominique Othenin-Girard 

New this week from Anchor Bay Entertainment are the Blu-Ray reissues of Halloween 4 and 5, the re-introduction of serial killer Michael Myers after the Myers-less Halloween 3. Varying in quality the films are eternally linked as they feature almost identical lead characters, are set only one year apart in movie time (and the same in production time) and Halloween 5 actually picks up from the very end of part 4. So are they each worth your hard earned dollars or is one simply leagues ahead of the other?

BEWARE SPOILERS AHEAD.

Halloween 4 takes place 10 years after the incidents of the first two films and introduces us to the Carruthers family and their two daughters: Rachel (Cornell), their biological daughter and  Jamie Lloyd (Harris), their adopted daughter. As it turns out, Jamie is the niece of Michael Myers, daughter of the damsel in distress, Laurie Strode from the first two films played by Jamie Lee Curtis. Strode’s absence is never explained, while the young Jamie has very little knowledge of her uncle other than the legends and a photo. Upon learning about the existence of a niece during a hospital transfer, Michael (Wilbur) predictably wakes and leaves a bloody swath in his path back to Haddonfield. Michael’s nemesis, the well weathered Dr. Loomis (the late Donald Pleasence), is hot on his trail as he closes ground on the formerly sleepy little town that has never managed to fully forget the events of 10 years prior.

Arriving in Haddonfield, Loomis goes directly to the police station and manages to convince the new town Sheriff, Ben Meeker (Starr), that he needs to get on the streets and search for Jamie and conversely Michael. Meanwhile, Jamie is out trick or treating with Rachel and the two end up separated when they knock on the door of a scantily clad Kelly (Kinmont) with Rachel’s boyfriend Brady (Jenson) with whom she had broken off a date in order to take care of Jamie. After almost running directly into Michael the two are reunited and Sheriff Meeker and Loomis find them right in the nick of time. All mayhem breaks loose as Michael destroys the entire Police Station and its occupants causing the formation of a lynch mob, the massacre at the Meeker house (and of course Kelly’s last name is Meeker) by Michael and the calling in of the National Guard. Eventually Michael is defeated in the remains of a mine shaft. We are left with a cryptic ending with an attack from an unlikely source.

Halloween 5 starts with the bottom of that mine shaft as Michael (this time played by Shanks) crawls to safety and ends up passed out in the shanty shack of a man by the river. One year after the events of the closing part of Halloween 4 Jamie is now institutionalized, no longer able to speak, and under the care of Loomis. Rachel and Tina (Kaplan), Rachel’s friend who is clearly designed after Lindsey (a miniscule part in 4), visit the silent Jamie and she has developed a friendship with a fellow patient with a crush on her Billy (Landman). We are shown a man in a black coat and black cowboy boots, complete with spurs clanging, who is never shown by face and just appears at random spots throughout the film. Michael awakes, from what I guess is supposed to be a yearlong coma, in his same clothes and mask and immediately dispatches the man who apparently has been keeping him alive for a year now. Jamie this time around sees exactly what Michael is doing as they are now apparently physically linked and somehow Loomis already knows it. After dispatching Rachel, the only member of the Carruthers family in the film, Tina, a random character with no family relations to Jamie, immediately starts acting like she’s her child and she tries to protect her. The silliness continues with extremely poor comic relief from junior deputies, a party on an isolated farm which provides Michael the perfect hunting ground and a final showdown in the now dilapidated Myers House.

We know what Producer Moustapha Akkad was shooting for here. After the success of Halloween and its immediate follow-up set on the same night, Halloween 2, then the disappointment of part 3, Akkad wanted to re-launch the Myers character with a splash. Halloween 4 is a solid entry into the series and introduces us to someone who was a fabulous child actor in Harris. Her Jamie in part 4 is believable and grounded when it could have been so far over the top and awful.  The story of part 4 is developed well and harkens back to the Carpenter scripts of the first two as it takes its time to develop and unfurl throughout the film. Michael actually shows evidence of a plan of attack as he takes out the power for the whole town and attacks the police station. He’s meticulous and strategic in his pursuit of young Jamie and the film benefits from it. The Director, Little, uses Carpenter’s directing style here very well with lingering shots and things happening in the extreme background that may or may not be a part of the plot. The camera work is also great and staged very well in this one. Halloween 4 is a solid entry in the series and a very flattering return vehicle for Myers, sadly the same cannot be said about Halloween 5.

Obviously hurriedly put together to capitalize on the success of the better than expected part 4, the script for 5 is lazy and really makes no sense whatsoever. The Rachel character is a mess, after Jamie’s attack on her own mother she still visits Jamie constantly and then is inexplicably killed off immediately. Tina all of the sudden acts like Jamie is her own damn child, though she barely knows her. Myers is apparently after Jamie but after Tina delivers him straight to where she is institutionalized he opts to follow Tina to some secluded party and kill drunken teenagers instead. Then there’s the never explained man in black. I could go on and on over the poor script choices but the real result is that they destroy any chances of the actors we liked so much in part 4 performing adequately. They replace the watchable Cornell with the sometimes downright grating Kaplan and don’t allow Harris to talk for the first half of the movie, only to use her to simply cry and scream for the entire second half. The directing is poor and the supporting characters laughably bad. Halloween 5 is one of the worst in the series.

The Blu-Rays do not contain much in the way of special features. Part 4 has a panel from the anniversary convention with Jenson, Harris and Kinmont talking about the film, a trailer and two commentaries: one from the two female leads of the film and the other with director Little. The convention footage is fun if too brief. The disc for Part 5 features an original set visit featurette from 1989, an original Halloween 5 promo, a trailer and two audio commentaries: one with Shanks, Harris and Landman and the other with director Othenin-Girard. The set visit is nothing but an extended interview with Kaplan that is very hard to get through, interspersed with behind the scenes footage and the original promo is very brief.  However, despite the extras being rather sparse I will say that the Blu-Ray transfers on both discs look fantastic!

So in the grand scheme of things we have a tale of two extremes with two films that are intrinsically linked. Halloween 4 is a very solid recommend as it actually stands as one of the better films of the series, while on the opposite end of the spectrum Halloween 5 is one of the worst and may be worth a pass. That said, as a pair they do work well enough to recommend, though it gets progressively silly the longer the double bill goes.

Till Next Time,

Movie Junkie TO

Make sure to keep up with what’s going on at Entertainment Maven by liking our Facebook page and having updates delivered right to your Facebook News Feed. It’s the only way to stay on top of all of our articles with the newest blockbusters and all the upcoming films and festivals in Toronto, as well as our expanding Home Video coverage.

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Darwin Review (Matt Hodgson)

Darwin (2011)

Directed by Nick Brandestini

Darwin starts a run at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema in Toronto starting today, August 24th.

If life’s getting you down and the mistakes seem to be piling up like unpaid bills, you may feel like leaving civilization in the dust. Pack your bags and grab your closest loved ones, but don’t fret, even though you may feel like traveling to the end of the world, you only need to go to Death Valley in California to leave the world behind, specifically, a town with a population of 35: Darwin.

The documentary film Darwin depicts life in the small town of the same name. The population is 35, the only job is at the post office, which is presumably government funded, and the sense of community is strong. So far nothing seems particularly amiss or entertaining about the small town, but it’s only after learning about the denizens of Darwin that the story starts to take shape. Although some of the residents stumble with their words and make some claims that could be interpreted as uneducated, they manage to surprise in other ways, while sometimes hiding truly remarkable talents. Any viewer with a prejudice of  what ‘small town folk’ are like will quickly find themselves questioning this view. Many of the residents have made mistakes in throughout their lives, but most now display an understanding of what it is to be human that philosophers of psychologists should be jealous of. Add to this remarkable talents that could have made some of the residents famous in more populated areas, and it becomes hard not to yearn for a few years out in the desert with these amazing people. Some problems that face America as a whole are also present in Darwin, and many of the stories the residents tell are nothing short of heartbreaking, but it is the spirit of the entire community that makes Darwin feel like an ignored diamond in the rough.

On the filmmaking side of things, Brandestini, the documentarian, fills the needs of any good doc: a trip to somewhere inaccessible to most of us, but also the telling of an entertaining story in the process. I doubt that many people who watch this film will ever set foot in Darwin at some point in their lives, but it doesn’t matter as the doc does a wonderful job of transporting us to the quiet, dusty landscape for an entire 90 minutes. It’s hard to leave the residents of Darwin behind once the credits begin to roll. I found myself with so many questions about their futures and for that matter, about mine. We only get one chance at this game called life, but at least it’s comforting to know that if I have a few bad turns, there is a community that will accept me for who I am, and I can all but leave the world behind and take up residence in the little town of Darwin.

Darwin starts a run at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema in Toronto starting today, August 24th.

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A Little Bit Zombie Blu-Ray Review (Kirk Haviland)

A Little Bit Zombie (2012)

Starring Kristopher Turner, Crystal Lowe, Shawn Roberts, Kristen Hager, Emilie Ullerup and Stephen McHattie

Written by Christopher Bond and Trevor Martin

Directed by Casey Walker

Hitting store shelves this week from Anchor Bay entertainment, A Little Bit Zombie has taken a different approach to releasing the film to the masses. After a completely self-financed and self-distributed theatrical run, the creators of the film have teamed with Anchor Bay Entertainment Canada to bring the film to home screens. And in the process, deliver the film to a wider audience than the limited engagements at individual theaters across the country would allow. But is the Blu-Ray worth your hard earned dollars?

A Little Bit Zombie starts off with Max (McHattie) and Penelope (Ullerup), a pair of zombie hunters that use a mystical orb to help track their targets, in the middle of a zombie swarm. After the carnage we follow, through first person camera, a mosquito full of zombie blood fly around in search of a target. We meet Steve (Turner), Tina (Lowe) his fiancé, Craig (Roberts) his best friend and upcoming Best Man, and Sarah (Hager) Steve’s sister who is also Tina’s unwitting Matron of Honor and Craig’s wife. The foursome is on their way to Steve and Sarah’s family cottage for a weekend of bonding and relaxation before the wedding. Our mosquito friend attacks Steve, repeatedly, which sets off the events of the film, with Steve slowly turning into a zombie and developing a lust for brains. In fact, Steve develops a certain hilariously grotesque response to even the word ‘brains’. The “family” must decide what to do and how to handle what is happening to Steve, all while Max and Penelope start tracking the strange readings that will lead them straight to him. Tina proves she is willing to go to extreme lengths to protect her man and her upcoming nuptials, dragging Sarah along with her, while Craig has the hardest time dealing with the situation. Everything leads to crazy confrontation with a deadly outcome.

ALBZ shares a lot of similar themes with last year’s Zom-Com Deadheads, with the biggest difference being that ALBZ is not a road movie like Deadheads is. Both films incorporate a love story, but the female subjects of the love story could not be any further apart in personality. The script tries to walk the very fine line of letting us know exactly why Craig and Sarah do not like Tina, while still trying to make her endearing enough that the audience can see why Steve loves her so. As such, the script becomes very much hit and miss but it does pack some genuine laughs. The Cast of ALBZ is mostly up-and-coming Canadian talent, with McHattie, the grizzled veteran, chewing massive amounts of scenery. And while McHattie does steal the film, the foursome all put in fine performances, particularly Turner and Lowe as the engaged couple. The film is very light in tone and played for laughs throughout, and when it works it’s a lot of fun. The film attempts to go the practical effects route in the first half to greater effect than the CGI conclusion. Fans of the aforementioned Deadheads should check this one out as well.

As for the Blu-Ray, it’s loaded with extra features; a pleasant surprise for a film that was self-produced on a very tight budget. Anchor Bay has really gone all out with this set. The disc comes with a Feature Commentary featuring director Casey Walker and cast members Kristopher Turner and Shawn Roberts, a well made 30-minute ‘making of’ documentary titled “To Dream of Brains”, multiple behind the scenes featurettes, outtakes, bloopers, and full presentations of background segments shot for the film. It also includes a series of on-set video diaries from Director Walker and a fictional diary from Ullerup’s Penny. Overall a very satisfying set of special features.

Overall I feel that ALBZ works a lot more than it doesn’t. The exuberance and earnestness of the cast shines through, and the film benefits from this greatly. The disc is loaded with fun stuff and as such becomes a very attractive package that’s well worth purchasing. I can safely give A Little Bit Zombie a solid recommend.

Till Next Time,

Movie Junkie TO

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Saluting a Top Gun – The Tragic Passing of Tony Scott (Nadia Sandhu)

The internet was abuzz with the news of director Tony Scott’s apparent suicide as I went to bed last night, and inevitably my dreams involved Mavericks and Gooses (Geese?).

Much is made of the career and works of highbrow filmmakers, so much so that significant contributions of more populist directors, the masterminds behind the big budget blockbusters, are unfairly undervalued (see Steven Spielberg and the Quest for Oscar).

For all that film is a storytelling format, it is still primarily a visual medium and Tony Scott excelled at crafting high-octane fare that swooped, swooshed and vroomed across our screens. Scott made his mark on planes (Top Gun), trains (The Taking of Pelham 123), automobiles (Days of Thunder) and even submarines (Crimson Tide).  He directed Tom Cruise and Will Smith (Enemy of the State) and Eddie Murphy (Beverly Hills Cop II) and Denzel Washington (five times!) at the heights of their careers.  He even directed a Quentin Tarantino film for good measure (True Romance).

Alongside James Cameron and Michael Bay, Scott forged the action movie genre.  Where would Michael Bay (anything!) or Brett Ratner (Rush Hour) even be without him?  Think about that, and try not to focus on the sad circumstances around his death, even as you morbidly wonder what Top Gun 2 will be without his vision.

Top Gun Clip

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Breathless DVD Review (Kirk Haviland)

Breathless DVD Review

Starring Gina Gershon, Kelli Giddish, Val Kilmer, Wayne Duvall and Ray Liotta

Written by Jesse Baget and Stefania Moscato

Directed by Jesse Baget

Arriving in stores this week from Anchor Bay Entertainment is the new comedic thriller Breathless. Starring Gina Gershon and Kelli Giddish and from the director of the upcoming Wild Side with Juno Temple and Nicolas Cage, Breathless is the story of a heist and the wife who finds out about it. But does this direct to video offering pack enough bite to entice you to spend you hard earned dollars on it?

Breathless starts with Tiny (Giddish) arriving at Lorna’s (Gershon) trailer and discovering an unconscious Dale (Kilmer) on the floor of the living room. It appears that on the previous day a bank robbery occurred in the next county and Lorna has deduced that Dale was in on it. Bringing Dale around again, the two friends start grilling Dale about the robbery and the location of the money, but not all is what it appears as there are many issues that play out between the three. After an accidental weapon discharge causes the situation to change drastically, a visit from the local lawman, Sherriff Cooley (Liota), manages to heighten the tension and increase the scrambling. We get twist after twist until the biggest twist happens at the end of the film, and sadly it is predictable like most of the rest of the film.

The script behind Breathless is handicapped by its one-setting scenario, but it also manages to become very predictable and stale in dialogue and the way the story plays out. Seemingly content to rehash the past, there is a lot of material, almost all of it in fact, that feels like reheated leftovers of better films and other not so well made films. Writer/Director Baget does little to be original in this offering and unfortunately the lacking script also does no justice to its performers. Gershon, much better in this month’s Killer Joe in theaters now, is pretty much just phoning it in here. She knows what the film is and knows she does not need to put herself out there too much with her character. Giddish is really trying here but the script completely lets her down. The rest of the cast is actually used very sparingly and as such are mainly lost in the background of the film. The setting of the trailer may be the one aspect of the film that really works. Allowing only one building for the entire setting, the set decorators and designers had a much smaller ‘canvas’ to deal with and it shows in the attention to detail displayed in the film. It may not be much but at least the people taking care of the set knew what they were doing.

The special features on the disc are fairly barren as we get an audio commentary from the director/producer team, which is pretty standard, and a very disappointing 15-minute ‘making of’ that really doesn’t serve up nearly enough actual behind the scenes footage.

Lacking in originality and killer performances, Breathless is a predictable crime/thriller/comedy. There will be better options for your money in the coming weeks, and you may be better served holding out for them. Breathless is definitely a non-recommend.

Till Next Time,

Movie Junkie TO

Make sure to keep up with what’s going on at Entertainment Maven by liking our Facebook page and having updates delivered right to your Facebook News Feed. It’s the only way to stay on top of all of our articles with the newest blockbusters and all the upcoming films and festivals in Toronto.

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