Children of the Corn: 1984 Stephen King horror film directed by Fritz Kiersch and starring Peter Horton, Linda Hamilton, John Franklin, and Courtney Gains. A group of children kill all the adults in a rural Nebraska town at the behest of a boy preacher named Isaac and a Tremors-esque static monster known as He Who Walks Behind the Rows. Several years later a married couple accidentally runs over a boy trying to escape from the town, and soon they’re being chased by Isaac and his followers. Holy crap this is an awful movie. It’s so awful. The level of terrible child acting is just staggering. There’s an annoying voiceover throughout most of the movie, and the music is ludicrous. It actually might have been more interesting without the supernatural monster element; Franklin as the young, evil version of Cotton Mather was creepy enough on his own. I did enjoy Gains as Malachai, and his constant yelling of the word “OUTLANDER!” But I liked him more in The ‘Burbs, where he says little and his acting is way more effective. Skip this one.
Scream 4: the fourth (and hopefully last) installment of the slasher series, directed by Wes Craven and starring the Classic Lineup plus Emma Roberts and Hayden Panettiere. Oh, you thought it was over? You thought that Scream 3 tied things up so neatly that no jackass would ever mess with this franchise again? SO DID I. Sidney Prescott is now a self-help guru on a book tour (must. control. gag reflex), and she swings by Woodsboro to relive some terrible memories and visit a cousin we never knew existed. People start dying, everyone’s a suspect, cameos abound. Same old shit. A few things of note: the opening sequence is obnoxious, everyone looks like hell except Campbell, Hayden is not as annoying as I’d expected, and they make a nice little nod to Halloween 2 at the end. The original, not the Rob Zombie version. Dunno if that was intentional. It was fine. Not ‘90s enough for me.
The Change-Up: 2011 “comedy” directed by David Dobkin and starring Ryan Reynolds, Jason Bateman, and Leslie Mann. One dude is a family man, the other is a jobless slut, they magically swap lives, bla bla bla. I’m not into gross humor. I tolerated it in Bridesmaids because it was used sparingly. But this? This is insufferable. Every other joke involved feces. Watching it was like a dare. I turned it off after 20 minutes in disgust, and find that my inexplicable crush on Ryan Reynolds is now a thing of the past. We’ll always have Blade 3.
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows: 2011 action movie directed by Guy Ritchie and starring RDJ, Jude Law, Noomi Rapace, and Jared Harris. Have you read the books? Because you should. This was entertaining, much like the first. It was fluffy and fun and I liked it. Why not? Harris is spectacular as Moriarty, but there’s not much chemistry between him and The Downey. That’s my only quibble.
Burke & Hare: 2010 British black comedy directed by John Landis and starring Simon Pegg, Andy Serkis, Tim Curry, Tom Wilkinson, Jessica Hynes AND YET IT’S SO LAME. How? How does this happen, I implore the gods to tell me how?!?! It’s loosely based on the Burke and Hare murders. And I do mean "loosely." I was expecting so much more, you guys. Landis comes out of hiding for this bullshit? It wasn’t funny, it wasn’t interesting, and I wanted to smack everyone involved for building my hopes up so high and then cruelly dashing them to the ground with this farce of a sham of a crappy movie. For SHAME.
Over the Edge: 1979 directed by Jonathan Kaplan and starring Matt Dillon and some other teen actors from this era you’ve never heard of. A group of kids in a small town go apeshit when the Rec Center gets shut down. It defies further description, honestly. Think Dazed & Confused, but way more violent and campy and weird. I really liked it.
