Richard joins Ryan Doyle and Jay Michaels of the NewsTalk 1010 afternoon show The Rush for Booze and Reviews! Today he talks about the Death in the Afternoon, a drink that sprung from Ernest Hemingway’s legendary liver, the Death in the Afternoon, the new “Velvet Underground” documentary, the latest from Michael Myers “Halloween Kills” and the reason Andrew Lloyd Weber bought a comfort dog.
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
Richard and CTV NewsChannel morning show host Jennifer Burke chat up the weekend’s big releases including the relentless return of Michael Myers in “Halloween Kills,” the emotional family drama “Mass” and the rock ‘n’ roll documentary “The Velvet Underground.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Keeping track of the storylines of the various “Halloween” movies and their sequels can be a mind-bending experience. Forty-three years ago the original John Carpenter-directed movie established many of the rules of the slasher genre, and spawned a prolific franchise that so far has churned out an additional 11 movies detailing unstoppable masked killer Michael Myers’ penchant for killing good looking teenagers.
There have been reboots, returns, prequels and sequel to remakes. Laurie Strode, the original film’s heroine played by Jamie Lee Curtis, has faked her own death, gone into hiding, decapitated, shot and stabbed Myers and yet, a new movie, “Halloween Kills,” featuring Strode and Myers, hit theatres this weekend.
Director David Gordon Green gets around the labyrinthine comings-and-goings of the mad masked killer by simply ignoring the movies made between 1981 and 2009. His 2018 film, “Halloween,” is a direct sequel to the 1978 film of the same name.
Confused? No need to be.
All you really need to know is that after an extended flashback to 1978, it’s Halloween night in Haddonfield, Illinois, and the action picks up minutes after the 2018 sequel. Michael Myers, the “essence of evil,” is in the basement of a burning house, trapped there by Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis), her daughter Karen (Judy Greer) and granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak). The nightmare should be over, but this a “Halloween” movie which means the nightmare will never be over. Myers manages to escape and, as he resumes his killing spree, Laurie, her family and some motivated townsfolk aim to end his reign of terror. “You and Allyson should not have to keep running,” Laurie tells Karen. “Evil dies tonight.”
The best horror movies are never about the monster or the killings. That’s the gooey, gory stuff that keeps us in our seats, ready to absorb the larger social messages woven into the script. “Halloween Kills” wants to make poignant, timely points about how anger divides us and fear keeps us apart, but, trouble is, “Halloween Kills” is not one of the better horror films.
Far from it.
It is brutal. Michael Myers is as unrelenting and remorseless as ever, maybe even more so. Green’s interesting POV shots of the victims coupled with nasty, squishy sound effects provide several memorable moments of gory glee that horror fans will enjoy. Slash, slash, squirt, squirt! Oh my! He’s got blood on his shirt!
The first half of the movie offers up rather inventive kills. It’s fun when Myers is onscreen, lumbering his way toward another victim. Unfortunately, it’s less fun when the vigilante mob endlessly chants “evil dies tonight.” We get it.
And everything else about the plot.
For such a simple story, they sure do waste time explaining the same points over and over. Add to that over baked dialogue—”Let him take my head,” Laurie sneers, “as I take his.”—and a too-long running time and you’ll be wishing it was already November 1.
“Something is wrong with Chucky,” says 13-year-old Andy Barclay (Gabriel Bateman) in the new horror movie “Child’s Play.” Anyone who grew up in the ten-year Classic Chucky era—1988 to 1998, from “Child’s Play” to “Bride of Chucky”—knows exactly what is wrong with the cute red-haired Chucky “Good Guys” doll; that he is actually a murderous piece of plastic containing the soul of a serial killer. Seven movies, a television series, comic books and video games later comes a new Chucky menace, starring Aubrey Plaza and Mark Hamill as the voice of the killer doll.
Plaza is Karen Barclay, a widower and mother of Andy. Looking to make a new start in a new town they relocate. “I know this move has been really touch,” she says to him, “but you said you were going to try and make new friends.” To help smooth the transition Karen buys Andy a new toy, a robotic Buddi doll that can connect to and control everything. “Remember, it’s refurbished,” she says, “so it may not work perfectly.”
The two become BFFs but playtime comes to an end when strange, deadly things start happening. As the bodies pile up Detective Mike Norris (Brian Tyree Henry) believes the boy and not the toy may be behind all the trouble.
“Toy Story” this ain’t.
“Child’s Play” takes liberties with the ideas from the original Chucky movies but retains the silly slasher fun that made this franchise so much fun in the first place. By cleverly updating the Chucky’s possessed scenario to involve technology gone amok, it’s a clever, blood-splattered commentary on our reliance on social media to fill a gap left by personal relationships. Add to that some 80s gore-inspired effects and a “Goonies” style cast of supporting characters and you’re left with a film that rides the line between retro and completely up to date.
Let’s do the time warp again!
When we last saw Tree Gelbman (Jessica Rothe) she was a sharp-tongued Bayfield University trapped in a time loop, forced to relive the day of her death again and again. As the main character of “Happy Death Day” she died over and over again, blossomed spiritually all while figuring out who her masked killer was.
In the beginning of the sequel, “Happy Death Day 2U,” Tree is back to normal. The “Groundhog Day” style murder and mayhem has stopped and she’s an everyday student who no longer has to live (and die) in fear.
At least that’s how it starts. Tree wakes up one morning to discover she’s back in the deadly twilight zone. This time is different, however. The loop seems to be caused by a time machine built by Ryan (Phil Vu), roommate to Tree’s inter-dimensional boyfriend Carter (Israel Broussard). How does it work? Imagine a piece of paper folded into six equal squares and punch a hole through the middle. Unfold it. Six squares, six identical holes. That’s the multi-verse, Tree is the hole amid duplicate realities separated only by space and time.
The new loop sees Carter dating ultimate mean girl Danielle (an underused Rachel Matthews) and Tree’s deadly roommate Lori (Ruby Modine), now alive and no longer evil. The creepy killer is back but so is Tree’s late mother. “People say I Love you all the time,” Tree says, “but it was until you can’t say it to their face but you missed it.” Despite the masked killer mayhem Tree wants to stay stuck in the loop and foster a relationship with her mother, a situation that provides challenges for everyone. “I thought I could have it all but I couldn’t,” she says.
There are some movies where a sequel seems inevitable. They are stories that need a few extra acts to expand already interesting ideas and then there is “Happy Death Day.” The original was a tight slice of fantasy that mixed horror with humour to form a charming, complete package. The sequel takes the premise and the appealing actors from the first one and wastes them in an unnecessary follow-up that will only work if you’ve seen the original. Convoluted and not nearly as laugh-out-loud funny or as tense as the 2017 film, it zips along at the speed of light, piling twist on top of twist.
The idea of a multi-verse so articulately expressed in “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” is messy and drawn-out here, dumbed down to simple repetition rather than richly imagined varied splinters of the main story.
It’s a shame because the core cast, Rothe, Broussard and Vu, all have faces John Hughes would have loved and work hard to make sense of a story that meanders through time. At best “Happy Death Day 2U” makes you wish you could go back in time to experience the sugar rush of the first film again for the first time.
