To repeat myself again these are in a random order until I get to the lasts 2 weeks. This weeks batch are all spoof films. Growing up, I watched a lot of spoof films and would have claimed it be my favourite genre for a long time. I have kind of grown out of it now, but I would be lying if I said these wouldn’t make me laugh watching them now.
Shaun of the Dead
This is without a doubt one of the funniest films ever made. I think I may have seen this film more than any of film ever. It’s incredibly funny, full of memorable moments and introduced me to Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. I’m pretty sure that most people have seen it. It’s a riff on Romero’s zombie films and is just pure fun from start to finish. I’m not as big a fan of the follow-ups Hot Fuzz and The World’s End. They’re just not as good for me.
Airplane!
Arguably the best spoof film of all time. It was a career turn for Leslie Nielsen and again just full of classic moments. The drinking problem, the inflatable co-pilot and of course ‘don’t call me Shirly’. It’s an incredible film that I used to watch with a friend quite a lot. The second one is also great, and has William Shatner in it, but I think the first one is the better of the two. Still a classic and would recommend it to everyone.
The Naked Gun
Speaking of Leslie Nielsen, probably his most well know role is Frank Drebin from The Naked Gun series. These are a laugh a minute from start to finish. There is so many stupid jokes that just make me laugh every time. Nielsen is a God of spoof films, they defined the later half of his career and Naked Gun is probably his best. My favourite one is part 3, for the baby scene at the beginning and Mother Teresa the musical. I do think the 1st one has the best jokes overall, so that’s why it takes this spot on the list.
Scary Movie 3
The first spoof film I ever saw and I watched this so many times over the years that if Shaun of the Dead isn’t my most watched film, then this is. It sums up both Signs and The Ring efficiently and with great humour throughout. I could honestly watch this any day of the week and have a good time. For me the Scary Movie series up to this point is only so-so. 3 is excellent, 4 is good but not the same and I never saw number 5, and probably never will.
Hot Shots: Part Deux
Another one where I couldn’t decide which one to use for the list. My mum recommended this to me, and I absolutely loved it. I then ordered the double DVD with Part Deux for when a friend came round, and we watched these over and over again. They’re both so funny and Charlie Sheen at his best. I met Charlie Sheen at a convention and told him Part Deux was one of my favourite films, and I wasn’t lying.
The films above made up a big part of my childhood and I really need to sit down and watch them again. Maybe I’ll host a film night soon. Pizza and spoof films – perfection.
Have you seen any of the above? Love them, hate them? Let me know in the comments.
Thank you to Kodansha Comics for the copy of this Manga in return for an honest review
The new manga adaptation of the classic mystery novel by Yukito Ayatsuji came out this week and I was very excited to read this one, based purely on the cover. I have to admit that I haven’t read the original novel, although after reading the first volume of this I will be, as soon as possible.
Seven students, who are also members of their university’s mystery club, travel to an island where six months before there was a brutal series of murders. The morning after they all arrive they start to suspect that they can’t trust each other. Meanwhile back on the mainland, a former member of the club, Kawaminami, receives a letter from one of the people who was murdered on the island. She sets out to solve the mystery of the letter and the murder.
I really enjoyed this manga. It almost feels like a 1980s slasher film when they set out to the island at the beginning. It’s very reminiscent of the opening to April Fool’s Day, with a bunch of characters travelling to a remote location for a small vacation. You know that something bad is going to happen even before anything does, purely because of the set up. It works really well and kept me reading from page to page.
The other side of this is the detective story, which I was gripped by instantly. It’s intriguing and you feel like you can work it out with them. I figured out one of the twists early on and I have some suspicions about what’s coming in future volume. It mentions it in the book and it does have an Agatha Christie vibe about it. (Which is strange because all of the characters are given nick names after famous mystery writers and on a page that gives a summary of the writers, Agatha’s dates are wrong. The book says she died in 1939, which is about 40 years too soon)
I do think the pacing is a little off with this one. At first it feels like it is going to fast without letting you have time to settle. Once you get past the opening chapter and the story switches to the mainland it does slow down. By the end of the book the pacing is right where it needs to be.
Oh and that ending. I already knew I was going to be reading volume 2 by the time I was halfway through it, but those final pages – I need volume 2 now!
Tom Cruise is undeniably one of the biggest stars of all time. He’s a great actor and one of the most bankable people in Hollywood. His reputation may have been tarnished in recent years, but the Mission: Impossible series is still going strong. Risky Business, released in 1983 was one of his early successes and propelled him to world-wide fame.
Cruise plays Joel Goodson, a high achieving high schooler, with big ambitions. After his friend orders an escort for him, he ends up caught up in a world he doesn’t truly belong to. Using his knowledge of business, he starts a brothel from his house, while his parents are away on vacation.
The film sounds stupid because the premise is stupid. It’s full of rich people problems. Joel can’t afford the escort and must go the bank to cash in a savings bond to pay her. While he’s gone, she steals a priceless egg that belongs to Joel’s mother. While watching it, you can’t help but wonder how pointless the film is. You don’t really care for Joel, because he got himself into the situation and why should we care.
Tom Cruise is fantastic, and his performance is one of his best from the early days of his career. If it wasn’t for this, maybe his life would have taken a different path and we wouldn’t have classics such as A Few Good Men, Born on the 4th July or Rain Man. At maybe, Cruise wouldn’t have starred in them. The fact that Risky Business propelled him into stardom is a good enough reason for it to exist. To be fair, Taps, the army-school drama from a couple of year before should have been enough to ensure Cruise’s career (It’s a fantastic and often overlooked film), but it’s Risky Business that is widely recognised as his break-out role.
The most famous scene – Joel dancing to Old Time Rock and Roll, is one of the most iconic moments in film history. It comes early in the actual film and is one of the more charming moments of the film. There really isn’t anything else that happens that is all that memorable. The characters and story are just not engaging enough. Toward the beginning there are a few exploitative scenes, especially with Lana (Rebecca De Mornay) and towards the end the whole film just feels pointless. It’s a coming of age story where at the end nothing is really learned and nothing is really lost.
Apart from Cruise there is nothing worth seeing in Risky Business. It’s completely unengaging and forgettable. It gets some leniency because it’s an early Cruise film and his performance is fantastic, but beyond that this is a pointless film that isn’t worth watching. It’ll leave you feeling hollow.
I completely missed the Wrong Turn series, hadn’t even heard of it until relatively recently when my mum told me about them. She told me that they got sillier and funnier as they went on. I did put them off at first, there is something daunting about 6 horror films (7 if you include the recent reboot), especially ones that don’t have good reviews. At her insistence, and wanting something brain-dead to watch, I decided to try it out.
For those that are new, Franchise Catch Up is where I take a series of films (of at least 3 or more) and binge watch them, writing a initial thoughts for each one shortly after watching it. If you haven’t seen the Wrong Turn series and are curious, or you love the franchise and want to see what a newbie thinks, I hope you enjoy.
Wrong Turn
I’m genuinely surprised by Wrong Turn. It was a decent horror film. Nothing original about it but it’s good. There’s a little Chainsaw Massacre, Deliverance, Hills have Eyes. It’s a mix of classics but is still enjoyable. The characters are decent, the scares are good. The effects are a mixed bag but I enjoyed it. Not a classic, but a lot better than I was expecting.
Wrong Turn 2
This feels like a template straight to DVD film. It takes the idea of the first one, doesn’t really know what made it enjoyable and rehashes it. The effects are awful, the acting is bad. The horror isn’t there and everything is over the top. It’s funny and stupid, but not scary. It’s not as good as the first one, but still enjoyable. The moment where they have dinner is almost an exact copy of the scene from Texas Chainsaw 1&2. There’s still something to like here, even if it’s a lot different from the first one.
Wrong Turn 3
After the opening scene, which is pretty standard for the series so far, it jumps to a prison with a transfer taking place. It’s a lot more grounded and serious that the 2nd one, which was just as crazy as possible. I really like the idea of a bus full of convicts and the guards being the ones lost in the woods. It’s an interesting dynamic and works well. It’s not used to its full potential here, but at least it makes it feel original. The effects, while not as bad as the 2nd one, aren’t great. The CGI is painfully obvious and distracting. It’s not the end of the world here though. This one rattles along, nothing made me laugh but there’s some good moments of tension and horror in this one. Overall not as good as the first one but miles better than the second one.
Wrong Turn 4
This is easily a contender for the worst film I’ve ever seen. There are a lot of bad films out there, most of them horror, but this really pushes it. Even with a budget of £2 million, this looks rubbish. The acting is some of the worst I’ve seen. I wonder how the auditions looked for this one, the other contenders must have been a cardboard cut-out and a potato. I almost turned this off 10 minutes in.
The opening of this one, which is a prequel to the series, shows the cannibal murderers locked in a hospital, then escape and kill a load of people. They are so cringy to watch. They aren’t scary, or funny just cringy. Every time one of the killers were on screen I winced because I ashamed to be watching it. I can only imagine what it must feel like to be someone who worked on this film. The rest of the film is set closer to the present with a group of unconvincing students, who find the hospital in the middle of no where and get stuck there, before being picked off one by one. It’s so bad with no tension or actual horror. It’s also not funny, which is what makes this a lot worse than other horror films that are so bad they’re funny. Most of the effort went into a scene where someone is skinned alive and it doesn’t even look that good. This was awful. If I hadn’t already started this series for a post, I would give up at this point.
Wrong Turn 5
God, this was awful. I thought the 4th one was bad, but this one is just horrendous. It was barely 80 minutes and felt at least triple that. The characters are bad, the acting is bad, the effects are bad. There are no redeeming qualities here. I want to know if the people who made this film are proud of it? They shouldn’t be – it’s a contender for the worst film ever made. It’s not so bad it’s funny. It’s not campy and enjoyable. It’s just lifeless and time consuming. Why was Doug Bradley in this? Was he that desperate for money? No Hellraiser films planned at that point?
This film cost $1.5 dollars. Where did that money go? On the talentless actors? On the shockingly bad effects. I hated this film so much. Only 1 more to go. The first one was pretty decent, how did it get so bad.
Wrong Turn 6
This one was marginally better than 4 & 5, but only slightly. I wasn’t angry at the film, but I was bored out of my mind. I don’t understand the appeal of this series at all. I don’t know if there are mega-fans out there, but they made 6 (+ the reboot). The villains are so cringy, every time they are on screen I want to look away, not because they are scary but just because I can’t believe that someone made this. This one attempted to have better characters, but the acting is so poor that I found it hard to stay focused on it. There is so much nudity for no reason it borderlines softcore porn. This is a bad end to a disappointing series. I had high hopes after the first one, but this is the worst film series I’ve ever watched. Normally I wouldn’t have made it this far, but I don’t want to give up half way through a franchise catch-up. I’m going to try the reboot, purely because I’ve heard it’s different. It can’t be worse than 4, 5 and 6. Those are among the worst films ever made.
Bonus Round: Wrong Turn (2021)
I’d heard some good things about this one, which is why I watched it. It’s a lot better than the original series. Originally titled Wrong Turn 7: The Foundation, the name was reduced to simply Wrong Turn before being released. It’s the only film to be written by Alan B. McElroy since the first one and that’s the only thing it shares with the series so far. It’s a completely stand-alone horror film and works quite nicely. All of the hallmarks of the series are gone; there’s no horrendous acting, no ridiculously bad effects, no more cringy villains that aren’t believable or scary. This was a pretty decent film. It’s got some great suspenseful moments and some proper terror. The end is also pretty great. It does go on too long. It feels like there are too many ideas here and it could have been cut down a little bit. It’s still a massive improvement for the series and I would happily watch another one in this style. To be honest, it shouldn’t have been called Wrong Turn. If they had called is The Foundation instead, I think it would have been received a hell of a lot better.
Final Thoughts
What started as a series that blended some well-established tropes of the horror genre and turned it into something entertaining quickly descended into complete trash. The reboot is better than the first 6 films but should have been separate and called something else.
I would recommend the first one, the reboot and number 3 if you can’t get enough. For the rest, leave them well alone. The 2nd one is okay, but 4, 5 and 6 are some of the worst horror films ever made and should have never been given a wide release. Watching number 5 was akin to being waterboarded.
Starring: Tim Robbins, Patricia Arquette, Rhys Ifans, Miranda Otto and Rosie Perez
Rating: ★★★
Before making Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind together director Michel Gondry and writer Charlie Kaufman made the comedy Human Nature. The script was written before Being John Malkovich was even in production, but didn’t get made and released until 2001, two years after Malkovich. At one point Steven Soderbergh was linked to direct before dropping out and being replaced by Gondry.
Lila (Patricia Arquette, True Romance) has grown up with a hormonal imbalance which caused her to grow hair all over her body. Feeling like an outcast from society she goes to live with nature, becoming a nature writer. All is well with her life, until human nature takes over and she wants a partner. She must re-join society to find a partner and ends up dating Nathan (Tim Robbins, The Shawshank Redemption), a scientist. One day, when hiking they find an ape-like man (Rhys Ifans, The Amazing Spider-Man) and Nathan takes him back to the lab to try and teach him manners.
This film is an exploration of science vs nature through the usual odd and unique style that only Kaufman’s mind can bring up. The narrative is told through flashbacks. From the opening scene, you know the Nathan is dead telling the story in some kind of after-life. Lila is telling the police what happened and the ape-man, known later as Puff is telling his side of the story at a congressional hearing. It’s a bizarre narrative structure that no other writer would attempt to pull-off. Like some of Kaufman’s other films it starts off very charming and fresh and ends up going on too long.
The film is presented in a quirky tone, with backgrounds that are meant to look fake, a moment where Lila bursts into song and most of it being a flashback. It’s full of odd-ball charm and interesting characters that don’t feel like they’ve been rehashed from other films. Arquette is great, bringing a nice sense of humour to the film. The standout performance is Rhys Ifans as Puff. He is completely believable as both the ape-like man and the sophisticated gentleman he is taught to become. He’s magnetic on screen, grabbing your attention and not letting it go.
While there are a few laugh out loud moments, there are also a fair few juvenile jokes that don’t hit the mark. They are more cringy than anything else and stand-out against the rest of film. At points it feels like it leans on the crass humour too much and it just isn’t funny. The film also feels long. It’s only 90 minutes, but after watching it, you’d believe it was 2 hours.
The title sums up the film, it’s about human nature and how far have we actually evolved. It’s funny in places, boring in others. If it didn’t have the quirky charm of Kaufman’s writing then it would be easy to dismiss it, sadly it does outstay its welcome.
Ashley Manning 