Posts Tagged ‘Corey Feldman’
Tuesday, October 12th, 2021
“This is a small town, and small towns are supposed to be safe!”
FRIDAY THE 13TH PART IV: THE FINAL CHAPTER made almost as much as its predecessor so – Ah, hell, who are we fooling? Let’s make another one so immediately that it can be released in less than a year!
To restart the series they went to director Danny Steinmann, whose horror experience was THE UNSEEN (1980), and who’d just done SAVAGE STREETS starring Linda Blair. Steinmann gets a writing credit alongside part III co-writer Martin Kitrosser – because they used his early attempt at the part III script that would’ve been about Part II’s Ginny in a mental institution – and newcomer David Cohen, who rewrote that script (and would go on to write and direct HOLLYWOOD ZAP [1986], about “two friends, one searching for his father, the other searching for the ultimate sexual video game competition.”)
FRIDAY THE 13TH: A NEW BEGINNING cold opens with the type of storm the original FRIDAY THE 13TH had to build to. Part IV’s pre-teen Jason-killer Tommy Jarvis (Corey Feldman) is visiting a cemetery (not the same “old cemetery” from the last installment) where there’s a makeshift grave for Jason (who buried him?). Tommy watches as two idiotic, cackling fuckos dig up Jason’s worm-covered, still-masked corpse just for laughs. And then, for some reason (or none at all – you know how these resurrections go) Jason sits up and kills them. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Anthony Barrile, Bob DeSimone, Brooke Bundy, Carol Locatell, Corey Feldman, Corey Parker, Danny Steinmann, Debi Sue Voorhees, Dick Wieand, Dominick Brascia, Jere Fields, John Robert Dixon, John Shepherd, Marco St. John, Mark Venturini, Melanie Kinnaman, Miguel A. Nunez Jr., Rebecca Wood, Ron Sloan, Shavar Ross, slashers, Tiffany Helm, Tom Morga, Vernon Washington
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 27 Comments »
Thursday, October 7th, 2021
“This is the guy that’s been leavin’ the wet stuff?” 
By 1984, when Paramount decided that the fourth FRIDAY THE 13TH would be called “THE FINAL CHAPTER,” Jason and his mom had had a good run terrorizing the Crystal Lake region and the world’s movie screens, for which the studio and filmmakers had received some scolding from critics. But according to Crystal Lake Memories, Paramount was not ashamed. It was part 2 and 3 producer Frank Mancuso Jr. who was beginning to resent the series, because it was all people seemed to associate him with. “I really wanted it to be done and walk away,” he told author Peter M. Bracke. “In some ways, I felt I had grown beyond it, but it was really more me coming to terms with the fact that these movies should be made by people who are pushing themselves and learning and growing. The fact of the matter was that I wasn’t in a place where I could get excited about doing one of these things again. It became a chore.” So, contrary to our assumptions, he was completely serious about killing off Jason in a “final chapter.”
Part II and III director Steve Miner had grown bored of the series too, not interested in “remaking the same film, over and over again,” and he was off trying to make that 3D GODZILLA movie I mentioned at the end of the last review. So they hired a new director with relevant experience. Joseph Zito had directed ABDUCTION and BLOOD RAGE in the ‘70s, but more notably THE PROWLER (1981) is one of the more respectable slashers to come on the heels of HALLOWEEN and FRIDAY THE 13TH, with pretty similar content (a masked killer stalks college students at a graduation party on the anniversary of a past tragedy). FRIDAY producer Phil Scuderi had seen an unfinished version of THE PROWLER and declined to invest in it, but told Zito he would call him when there was another FRIDAY THE 13TH sequel. And that wasn’t just bullshit – he really did! (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alan Hayes, Barbara Howard, Barney Cohen, Bruce Mahler, Camilla More, Corey Feldman, Crispin Glover, E. Erich Anderson, final chapters, Greg Cannom, Joan Freeman, Joseph Zito, Judy Aronson, Kimberly Beck, Lawrence Monoson, Lisa Freeman, Peter Barton, slashers, Tom Savini
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 21 Comments »
Monday, June 8th, 2020
June 7, 1985
I have long held a stance on THE GOONIES that was highly controversial: I found it annoying. I don’t think I’m alone on that anymore, but it used to get me into trouble because of how many people of a particular age group hold that movie as a sacred relic of childhood.
For most of my writing career I’ve had a policy of being ambiguous about my age, because I wanted to seem like a crusty old man, regardless of how little that seemed to fit with the particular things I was knowledgeable about. As I get closer to being authentically old and crusty I’m starting to be more lax about that, so at last the truth can be told: I am exactly the right age to have grown up loving this movie. In fact, I did grow up loving this movie. And I’ll even go you one further: I saw it twice in one day. My mom took me and my friends to see it on my birthday, and since there wasn’t room in the car for my siblings, she brought them to see it later in the day, and I went that time too.
But when I saw it again as an adult I learned something disappointing: those fucking goonies never fucking shut up! This despite one character putting their hand over another character’s mouth to shut them up being a major motif. It’s a movie starring a group of pre-teen boys, and though they’re not quite as naturalistic as the kids in E.T. (which I think they were deliberately modeled after) they do have an accurate 12-year-old-boy energy, which means they’re constantly joking and giggling and bickering and yelling over each other and telling each other to be quiet. I was less patient with them than my mom must’ve been with my carload of friends, so for years after that viewing I would say that GOONIES feels like being tricked into chaperoning somebody else’s kids at Chuck E. Cheese. I didn’t remember that Martha Plimpton’s slightly older character actually sums up the movie well when she says something similar: “I feel like I’m babysitting except I’m not getting paid.”
Fast forward to today. The futuristic year of 2020. That figurative trip to Chuck E. Cheese was considerably longer ago than the double-screening birthday party had been at that time. Since then I’ve learned things. I’ve been through things. My tastes have changed. The world has turned more goonie. I was kind of excited to see it again and find out if I still hated it. I had no idea if I would. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: adventure, Amblin, Anne Ramsey, Chris Columbus, Corey Feldman, Dave Grusin, Jeff Cohen, Joe Pantoliano, John Matuszak, Jonathan Ke Quan, Josh Brolin, Martha Plimpton, Mary Ellen Trainor, pirates, Richard Donner, Robert Davi, Sean Astin, Steve Antin, Steven Spielberg, Summer of 1985
Posted in Family, Reviews | 52 Comments »
Thursday, December 20th, 2018
PUPPET MASTER VS. DEMONIC TOYS came out the year after FREDDY VS. JASON and a few months before ALIEN VS. PREDATOR, but eight years before THE AVENGERS, so it is an important milestone in cinematic universe crossover events. According to Wikipedia, though, it is “non-canon.” Produced for The Sci-Fi Network (before they had their own proprietary spelling), it doesn’t have Charles Band or Full Moon’s names anywhere on it, but it was directed by Ted Nicolaou (THE DUNGEONMASTER, TERRORVISION, SUBSPECIES, BAD CHANNELS, DRAGONWORLD) and written by C. Courtney Joyner (PUPPET MASTER III, DOCTOR MORDRID, TRANCERS III, plus PRISON and CLASS OF 1999).
Although I’m not all that familiar with either the vast PUPPET MASTER saga or the rich DEMONIC TOYS mythos I did think this one might be worth watching this week when I read (in Yuletide Terror, once again) that it was a Christmas movie.
Corey Feldman (EDGE OF HONOR, TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES) plays Robert Toulon, proprietor of Toulon’s Puppet Hospital, which looks like a business on the outside but from inside seems to just be a basement where he and his daughter Alex (Danielle Keaton, VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED, PINOCCHIO’S REVENGE, BABY GENIUSES) do experiments mixing chemicals and blood in beakers and injecting them into the famous PUPPET MASTER puppets Blade, Pinhead, Jester and Six Shooter (but not Leech Woman). Although I guess they’re on their own alternate dimension timeline, please note that these are the original Greatest Generation anti-Nazi puppets, not the hate criminals from the S. Craig Zahler version. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: C. Courtney Joyner, Christmas, Christmas horror, Corey Feldman, Danielle Keaton, killer dolls, Ted Nicolaou, Vanessa Angel
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 5 Comments »
Friday, July 20th, 2012
GREMLINS is a weird only-in-the-’80s mix. Like POLTERGEIST it’s a Spielberg production of a PG-rated horror movie directed by a legit horror director, Joe Dante. I mean, we can’t pretend THE HOWLING is on the level of THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE, but I think it’s a minor classic at least, genuinely creepy horror only overshadowed by that other even better werewolf movie that came out the same year.
But the other important factor at play here is that while Dante came up under Roger Corman he’s more of a goofball and cartoon nerd than a horror master. So his monsters are vicious bastards but also funny. Like the martians in MARS ATTACKS! they seem to live more to fuck with us than to kill us. And they plan to do both.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Chris Columbus, Christmas, Christmas horror, Corey Feldman, Dick Miller, horror comedies, Howie Mandel, Joe Dante, Judge Reinhold, Keye Luke, li'l bastards, Michael Winslow, Peter Cullen, Phoebe Cates, puppets, Zach Galligan
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 106 Comments »
Monday, May 21st, 2012
TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES (1990) is a martial arts fantasy produced by Raymond Chow and Golden Harvest (ENTER THE DRAGON), with excellent animatronic and puppet effects by Jim Henson, and impressively agile fight and stunt sequences involving people in full body rubber creature suits. It has early performances by Elias Koteas and Sam Rockwell, and stuntwork by Ernie Reyes Jr. One major problem, though: it’s about teenage mutant ninja turtles.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: ?, Corey Feldman, Elias Koteas, Ernie Reyes Jr., James Saito, Jim Henson, mutants, ninjas, Raymond Chow, Sam Rockwell, Steve Barron, teens, turtles
Posted in Comic strips/Super heroes, Family, Reviews | 137 Comments »
Tuesday, March 29th, 2011
STAND BY ME is Stephen King’s latest chiller, a spooky tale of kids going on a long walk singing TV show themes. Okay, I guess it’s more of a coming of age drama type deal, and it came out in 1986, and I don’t generally use the term “chiller.” This opening paragraph could use some work actually.
It’s hard to review a movie like this that everybody has seen and knows backwards and forwards, but I watched it on the new 25th Anniversary Oh Jesus We’re Old Edition blu-ray. It holds up, it’s a good movie, and I thought it was worth some words and sentences and shit.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Corey Feldman, Jerry O'Connell, Kiefer Sutherland, River Phoenix, Rob Reiner, Stephen King, Wil Wheaton
Posted in Drama, Reviews | 149 Comments »
