BAD DREAMS (1988)

I'M THINKING OF STARTING AN EVANGELINE LILLY BLOG. WHADDYA THINK?

BAD DREAMS is a derivative 80s slasher that offers nothing new and probably couldn't scare my grandmother's bingo club. It's a shame too, because I REMEMBERED this as being one of the better ones out of those fertile pre-CGI Eighties, but watching it today merely elicited lots of (unintentional, I think) laughs.

OH DEAR GOD, NOT ANOTHER TRIPLE LIVE DAVE MATTHEWS CD!!!

Horror film characters traditionally aren't known for their brains (unless something's eating them), but nearly everyone in BAD DREAMS is beyond stupid, so I guess they all get what they deserve, except for the DUMB AS A ROCK young doctor who somehow makes Pauly Shore look like a Mensa candidate. What fucking mental hospital lets their patients walk freely in the halls, even using the elevators unchaperoned? Why is there a bone-crunching, razor-sharp exhaust fan (which doesn't seem to be spinning at a decapitating velocity anyway) kept behind an UNLOCKED iron gate AND an UNLOCKED maintenance door on the same floor as those free-wandering and oh-so-curious mental patients? What hospital leaves full bottles of steaming instant death formaldehyde on the table next to your bed (even if they're marked with those cool skull and crossbones labels that you see everywhere at pharmacies these days)? Since when does pulling a fire alarm suddenly cause all the doors to the dangerous solitary confinement rooms to suddenly SWING WIDE OPEN? And why doesn't Jennifer Rubin ever show the goods (when she couldn't keep her clothes ON in subsequent films)? These are just a FEW of the brain-rattling questions you'll ask when watching BAD DREAMS.

BAD DREAMS? MORE LIKE NIGHTMARES OF MY ART HISTORY CLASS!

I guess in a cheezy kind of Freddy Krueger/Night of the Comet 80's horror way, BAD DREAMS isn't as bad as it feels watching it today. Let's face it - Richard Lynch looks like a charred zombie even before the makeup department gets hold of him, and Dean Cameron's eyebrows and chin cleft are always more interesting than his acting. And Jennifer Rubin, God bless Jennifer Rubin, got me through many a lonely night in 1988. But BAD DREAMS fails to deliver the fright, and that's why you rented it. It won't give you bad dreams, but it may put you to sleep before its 84 minutes are up.

JENNIFER RUBIN. REMEMBER HER THIS WAY.

THE LITTLE GIRL WHO LIVES DOWN THE LANE (1976)

Not a horror film by any stretch of the imagination, LITTLE GIRL WHO LIVES DOWN THE LANE is a promising little thriller about a precocious young girl with crooked teeth who seemingly lives all by herself in a big house with no parental guidance. So what? That's EVERY kid nowadays, right? Ahh, but hold on - there's a creepy Martin Sheen who wants to get in her Garanimals, an even creepier magician kid who wouldn't know what to do if he did, and a school board member who actually HITS Jodie Foster - so much for PC films in the mid-70s!

HEY, MY SON CHARLIE'S SINGLE THIS WEEK. WHADDYA SAY?

The film looks like a Made-for-TV job (and might be, I'm just too lazy to check), and its promise of a really big payoff never delivers. The only "horror" element comes late, and would be a shock only if you were raised like a veal and have never seen another horror movie in your life. And speaking of horror, yes, little Jodie does have a nude scene - but don't get too excited. At this early age, she's still got the body of a pit bull. Hey, look, in 1976, I'm sure this film was scary as fuck. I mean, we shit our pants watching THE MANITOU, forgodsake! But in 2010, it's only of interest to pedophiles and Jodie Foster fans. So if you aren't John Hinckley Jr. or R. Kelly, keep moving...

JODIE FOSTER'S FIRST NUDE SCENE. HOTCHA!

AMATEUR (1994)

1994'S AMATEUR is a brilliant little dark comedy that has some of the funniest writing this side of an (older) Coen Brothers flick. Yeah, the writing and acting is mannered, but it's supposed to be. AMATEUR is 10,000 times funnier than your average Will Ferrell movie because all the actors and actresses play it deadpan straight, which makes their lines even funnier. Someone should teach Jim Carrey about that. Watch for cameos by Parker Posey and Michael Imperioli (Christophuh from the Sopranos) - Parker in particular is hysterical and definitely gets the tone of the film. Isabelle Huppert is wonderfully detached (if only ex-nuns were half as hot), Elina Lowensohn makes great eye candy (if only ex-porn stars were half as hot), and "Martin Donovan" is probably an indiefilm pseudonym used by Andrew McCarthy (they look identical).

THIS IS SO MUCH BETTER THAN ST. ELMO'S FIRE, INNIT?

Also watch the scene between the two hitmen (who are hysterical) comparing cellphones and TELL me if Hal Hartley wasn't taking notes for his adaptation of AMERICAN PSYCHO, released 6 years later. Docked one star because the DVD I got looked like it was dubbed off a second-generation VHS tape left out in the sun in an old VIDEO PLAYLAND store, and it weren't widescreen at all. In fact, I have the original VHS tape and it looks BETTER. Someone REALLY needs to clean this up and give it a proper DVD release - it's an incredibly overlooked film. And it's better than TALADEGA NIGHTS: THE STORY OF RICKY BOBBY!

KISS ME IF YOU THINK I'M CHRISTOPHER LLOYD.

SHE'S A NUN. YOU CAN TELL BY THE CROSS ON HER CHEST.

BUTCHER BOY (1997)

PLEASE, GOD, PLEASE MAKE TERRY GILLIAM'S NEXT MOVIE GOOD.

This is what Terry Gilliam ASPIRED to recreate when making the (awful) TIDELAND. BUTCHER BOY did it much better a decade earlier. This is the tragicomic loss of innocence as viewed through the eyes of a 12-year-old. Much of it makes little sense logically, because (duh!) much of LIFE makes little sense to a 12-year old. As if! (Do kids still say that?) So watch as a precocious Irish boy experiences his mother's suicide, his father's slow drunken death, lecherous boy-loving clergymen, and the heartbreaking realization that close friends eventually do drift apart. Are we having fun yet?

MODERN CINEMA'S REPRESENTATION OF A BUTCHER BOY. CUTE, HUH?

A REAL BUTCHER BOY. REAL LIFE AIN'T SO HUGGABLE, IS IT?

LADY SNOWBLOOD (1973)

DON'T MESS.

Well yeah, Quentin Tarantino stole plot points and images from "Lady Snowblood," but what people don't mention is that he vastly IMPROVED on it, quadrupling the action even if he ignored much of the back story. So "Kill Bill" fans will be mildly disappointed, because the gushing blood and giant martial arts battles don't happen nearly as often in "Lady Snowblood," which is a much quieter, more emotionally intense film. Its importance should be measured in far MORE than just "Kill Bill" - the Japanese have had a female revenge Jones for the past 35 years since "Lady Snowblood" - Female Convict Scorpion, Zero Woman, Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, Battle Royale, Machine Girl and just about any "Pinky Violence" movie - so really, when it comes right down to it, Quentin got to the party really, really late.

OH LOOK, THEY'VE MADE A CUTE LITTLE POSTCARD OUT OF IT ALREADY!

"Lady Snowblood" isn't a 5-star movie by any means, and it wasn't meant to be. Japan was cranking these movies out like SAW sequels back in the early 70's (Sex and Fury, Female Yakuza Tale and Female Scorpion 701: Beast Stable (huh?) all came out the same year), so go rent 'em all but don't treat any one of them like they're masterpieces. They got no Chiaki Kuriyama, and no 5.6.7.8.s. You WILL miss them both.

She's not in LADY SNOWBLOOD. That's bad for LADY SNOWBLOOD. No GoGo, no go.