Film Review: Freaky (2020)

Also known as: Freaky Friday the 13th (working title)
Release Date: October 8th, 2020 (Beyond Fest)
Directed by: Christopher Landon
Written by: Michael Kennedy, Christopher Landon
Music by: Bear McCreary
Cast: Vince Vaughn, Kathryn Newton, Katie Finneran, Celeste O’Connor, Alan Ruck

Divide/Conquer, Blumhouse Productions, 102 Minutes

Review:

“[whispering in the ear of the jock who grabbed her/his ass] Your touch makes my pussy as dry as sandpaper, you fucking monkey. I can’t wait to kill you.” – Blissfield Butcher as Millie

Generally speaking, modern horror sucks. However, sometimes a modern horror film has something that makes it stand out from the pack. This usually happens for me every two-to-three years.

I can’t say that this is great but it takes the standard slasher formula and adds a little Freaky Friday-body swap plot with some comedy and the comedic talents of Vince Vaughn, which makes this pretty fucking amusing and worth watching for a laugh and because, well, there just isn’t much horror worth giving your time to, these days.

Apart from Vaughn, I thought that Kathryn Newton was really good in this too and she’s someone who first came on my radar in the grossly underappreciated television show Halt and Catch Fire. I have since seen her play small parts in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and Lady Bird, where I thought she showed promise. This is the first thing I’ve seen that she stars in, however. That being said, she’s damn solid and I like her a lot. She can handle drama and ham it up greatly in roles like this.

The plot sees a timid but attractive teen girl nearly get murdered by the town serial killer. However, he has some mystical dagger that he stole from the house of his previous victim. This dagger causes the killer and the would-be victim to wake up the next morning in the other person’s body. With that, the teen girl, looking like Vince Vaughn, has to convince her friends that she’s not the wanted serial killer, while the killer in the teen girl’s body, sexes it up to attract teen boys to murder.

I don’t want to ruin the movie, so I won’t talk about the plot beyond the initial setup but everything plays out really well and this is an entertaining and legitimately funny movie in an era where almost anything a normal person finds funny is considered offensive by the social media snowflakes that cry about capitalism through their iPhones, standing in line at Starbucks.

All the characters in this are good, from her friends, her family and the asshole teacher that acts like a complete dick to her. Also, he’s played by Alan Ruck and I kind of loved seeing him play this sort of character when he’ll always be Cameron from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off to me. Sorry, Ruck, but through that role, you made a tremendous impact on me in my most impressionable years.

I can’t say that this was great but it is better than what the horror genre has typically spit our since the mid-’00s. I like the cast, I laughed a good bit and it’s something I’d watch again.

Rating: 6.5/10

Film Review: The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)

Also known as: Jurassic Park 2, The Lost World (working titles)
Release Date: May 19th, 1997 (Los Angeles premiere)
Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Written by: David Koepp
Based on: The Lost World by Michael Crichton
Music by: John Williams
Cast: Jeff Goldblum, Julianne Moore, Pete Postlethwaite, Arliss Howard, Richard Attenborough, Vince Vaughn, Vanessa Lee Chester, Peter Stormare, Harvey Jason, Ariana Richards, Joseph Mazzello, Camilla Belle

Digital Image Associates, Amblin Entertainment, Universal Pictures, 129 Minutes

Review:

“Oh, yeah. Oooh, ahhh, that’s how it always starts. Then later there’s running and um, screaming.” – Dr. Ian Malcolm

I barely remembered this film, as I hadn’t seen it in its entirety since the theater in 1997. Although, I have seen bits and pieces on television over the years. However, I usually catch the movie at the end, once the T-Rex is running around San Diego looking for its baby.

So I wasn’t sure what to expect in revisiting this but I always remembered not enjoying it as much as the original. However, it has a lot more Goldblum, so that is kind of a selling point, regardless of the overall quality.

Staring with what I liked about the movie, I thought it was immensely cooler simply for the fact that it was darker and pushed the envelope a bit further. It felt much closer to Jaws than the first film and it actually showed a good amount of dino on human violence. A lot of people get eaten, as well as a dog. We even see a girl get savagely attacked and are left with the impression that she was eaten to death. But we are told, several minutes later, that she survived the attack and was doing okay.

The tone in this movie, for the most part, was just right. It comes undone in the third act during the San Diego sequence but the movie did pretty good up to that point.

As mentioned in the second paragraph, this movie is heavy on the Goldblum, which I liked a lot, as even though he’s one of the three stars of the first movie, by the mid-point of that film, he’s kind of just hanging out in the techies’ office.

Looking beyond just Jeff Goldblum, this film had a great cast between Julianne Moore, Vince Vaughn, as well as cameos by Richard Attenborough and his character’s grandchildren. This also featured Pete Postlethwaite in what I would call one of his greatest roles. His character was complex, interesting and he really shined in this role, despite not having the screen time that the bigger stars had.

I also liked the sequence where the raptors are hiding in the tall grass and picking people off, as everyone is running away from the danger. It’s superbly shot and it’s a chilling scene that has held up remarkably well, especially when other scenes don’t look like they’re on the same level as the first movie.

Moving on to the negatives, the CGI and special effects, overall, look worse than the first film. I found that baffling, considering that this came out four years later in an era where CGI effects were moving forward by leaps and bounds.

However, the scene where you see the first dinosaurs greatly pales in comparison to the dino reveal scene in the first picture.

Also, the movie doesn’t feel like a Steven Spielberg movie. It’s a hard thing to explain and his magical cinematic touch is difficult to quantify but this just doesn’t have that “touch” that other Spielberg adventure films have.

Something that made me scratch my head and go “huh?” was the scene where Goldblum’s daughter uses gymnastics to kill a raptor. I remember people bitching about this back in the day but the whole thing slipped away from my memory over the last twenty-three years. It doesn’t break the movie but it makes you question whether or not Spielberg was off that day and left the film in the hands of a stoner baked out of his mind.

While I liked most of the action, the sequence with the research trailers hanging off the cliff ran on for too long. It was stretched out for suspense and to set up the curveball that was the arrival of two T-Rexes but it was poorly crafted with bad pacing and it disrupted the suspense it tried to build towards.

Lastly, I didn’t like the San Diego shit. I get why they did it, as they had to try and up the ante with this film and taking a T-Rex to a major American city seemed like the next logical step. It just feels out of place and strange. Although, I did like the film’s token asshole getting eaten alive by the baby T-Rex.

This film is a mixed bag. It’s mostly good and it’s a better-than-decent popcorn movie to escape into for a few hours. However, it kind of shows that maybe this concept should have been kept to one film.

Rating: 7.25/10
Pairs well with: the other Jurassic Park/World films.

Film Review: Psycho (1998)

Release Date: December 4th, 1998
Directed by: Gus Van Sant
Written by: Joseph Stefano
Based on: Psycho by Robert Bloch
Music by: Bernard Herrman, Danny Elfman (adapting), Steve Bartek (adapting)
Cast: Vince Vaughn, Julianne Moore, Viggo Mortensen, William H. Macy, Anne Heche, Robert Forster, Philip Baker Hall, Anne Haney, Rance Howard, Chad Everett, Rita Wilson, James Remar, James LeGros, Mike “Flea” Balzary, Gus Van Sant (cameo)

Imagine Entertainment, Universal Pictures, 105 Minutes

Review:

“A boy’s best friend is his mother.” – Norman Bates

If you ever thought that a shot-for-shot remake of a masterpiece with added gore and vibrant color was a good idea, you’re in luck because this motion picture exists!

If you’d rather see someone take old material and give it new life and a fresh perspective, well… don’t watch this motion picture.

It’s baffling to me that the director, Gus Van Sant, came right off of the critically acclaimed and multiple award winning Good Will Hunting and churned out this pointless, vapid turd.

I’ll be honest, I never wanted to see this film because the original Alfred Hitchcock classic is damn near perfect. However, it’s the only Psycho-related thing that I haven’t watched and reviewed. Sadly, it makes the worst of the sequels and re-imaginings look like classics by comparison. Hell, even the strange Bates Motel TV movie from the ’80s is much better than this.

What’s weird is that the acting actually isn’t bad, it’s just that this uses the same script and only really alters it to feature some extra violence and to update it due to technology changing from 1960 to 1998. The problem with that, is that this feels more like the actors trying to emulate what came before with just a little bit of their own flourish added to it. But I can’t really say that it’s their fault, as how can one not be influenced by the great performances that already turned this same script into a real cinematic classic?

As a film, this is embarrassing. I feel bad for everyone involved in it and I just don’t understand why this was made and who thought it’d be a good idea. Some of the sequels and other takes on the material were good. It would’ve been a lot cooler to see a new take on the story, as opposed to just making it in color, more violent and more modern.

Eh, whatever… fuck this movie.

But I guess it’s worth checking out if you’ve ever wanted to see Vince Vaughn fap.

Rating: 2/10
Pairs well with: spoiled milk and stale Zebra Cakes.