Clarifying a point from my previous post (Freddy's Revenge)

I was bothered by something in my previous post about Freddy's Revenge, when I mention screenwriter David Chaskin's interviews at the time the film was released. I couldn't remember his exact words, but I knew he said his inspiration for the script was the feeling of a bad drug trip. I dug out the Fangoria issue (#50) and scanned this portion of the interview.

Setting the Record Straight: Freddy's Revenge

I watched the original Nightmare movies out of sequence, and I remenber seeing Freddy's Revenge after all the others. (I don't know why that was.) I remember seeing stills of it from the sticker album and cards, as well as clips from the awesome MTV special "Slash and Burn: The Freddy Krueger Story," and just thought that something about the movie seemed dark and creepy. I also remember seeing that awesome VHS cover in stores a lot. I had also heard a couple of stories from friends who knew family members that were actually sickened by the transformation scene. So, Freddy's Revenge had been built up in my mind as being some dark, twisted movie. It didn't end up being quite as disturbing as it sounded when I finally got around to seeing it, but I really liked the movie. It was different, sure, but Freddy was still dark and scary. I thought the actors were good; I thought the film had atmosphere and great make-up effects by Kevin Yagher and Mark Shostrom.

So, imagine my surprise when I eventually get onto the internet only to find out what a terrible reputation the movie has. People *hate* this movie. I knew friends who liked it. And I liked it, but all the while, the rest of the world apparently thought it was just about the worst sequel that could have been made. There are actually fans of Freddy's Dead who trash this movie. Freddy's Dead! While there's a lot of criticism against the movie for "breaking the rules" or being an "inferior sequel," the most perplexing thing to me was finding out about the whole "gay subtext" reading people had, which the first time I heard about any of it was on the DVD featurette from 1999.

Internet forums fall into circles of repetition, so I've found myself defending Freddy's Revenge over and over and over. Does it have flaws? Fuck, yeah. It's a dip in quality from the first movie. It's not as well made; it's not as intelligent. Being a quickly made movie to capitalize on the original's success, it doesn't have quite the same devotion as Wes Craven had put into his movie -- Craven was a creator with a story he needed to tell. Part 2's script was the first script of its writer, David Chaskin, that was made, and if you've read the script, they apparently filmed his first draft. So, the movie is not without its problems. There's certainly a couple of moments in Part 2 that make you wonder what the hell the filmmakers were thinking when they didn't leave 'em on the cutting room floor. But I still think it's better than some of the other Freddy sequels. Does it break the rules? Well, what WERE the rules at the time? The movie was made within less than a year of the original's release. It's easy now, in hindsight, to look back after eight movies and see the "rules." Look at Freddy's Dead -- the sixth movie, the "last" one, but it created its own backstory and messed with the "rules" more than Freddy's Revenge supposedly did. Could Freddy's Revenge have had more ties to the original? Probably, but...I see the first three movies as their own little trilogy, with Freddy's Revenge being a necessary break between Nancy Thompson's story, a bridge (she's even name-checked in the film). I think there's a progression to the movies that culminates with Dream Warriors, which I do kind of look at as the last real one, before the series goes in a really different, more comedic direction. I think Freddy's Revenge has a very similar look and feel to the original movie that helps make it easier to accept as a sequel even if it's going about things differently. (It would have *really* helped if they had used some of Charles Bernstein's theme music. I like Christopher Young's ominous score for the movie, though.)

Speaking of which, would you have wanted Freddy 2 to be a lazily reheated leftover of Part 1? I don't like when horror sequels stray too far in tone or content from a predecessor -- think Jason Goes to Hell -- but I don't like it when they're just going through the motions and weakly imitating their predecessor, either. Halloween 2 is a movie that didn't really need to be made, it's such a weak retread of the original, but lacks John Carpenter's skill as a filmmaker, as someone who knew what it took to maintain suspense. Halloween 2 to me is tedious, especially if you watch it closely after the first one. It really doesn't hold up, in my opinion. Freddy's Revenge might not have Wes Craven as writer or director, but the cinematographer (Jacques Haitkin) is the same, and I think we have him to thank for the movies at least looking similar, making it easier to believe that the events that transpire, what happens to Jesse is happening in the same town, the same world as Nancy's in the original. Go watch Dream Child -- there's no way THAT Springwood is the same one any of its predecessors depicted. I think by Freddy's Revenge taking such a different approach, it's really what made people put so much more effort into Dream Warriors and having further ties to the original movie. If Nancy had returned in a Part 2 that was just Freddy terrorizing her again, that wouldn't have been interesting. Having her sit out of the second movie, it packs a punch when she returns to help the new kids terrorized by Krueger. Her absence in two leaves enough space to believe she can get to the place of leadership she's in by Part 3. Like it or hate it, Freddy's Revenge was necessary in terms of getting fan-favorite Dream Warriors made.

The first three Freddy movies play like ghost/haunting/possession movies. In the first one, Freddy Krueger has somehow returned through supernatural means to exact revenge on the people who murdered him. This might be purely my own fan-made supposition, but I always saw Freddy's Revenge as being...Nancy defeated Freddy in the first one, she stripped him of his energy, so he's trying to come back in the second. He's been dormant, powerless, he wants the taste and touch of a kill again, he wants to be a flesh and blood killer again, but retain some of those supernatural abilities. So, he selects the new occupant of Nancy's house, Jesse.

He manipulates Jesse through his dreams, taking possession of him. I always thought it was interesting that Freddy did his killing through Jesse, by means of Jesse sleepwalking -- there are documented murder cases in real life in which the accused claims to have committed the crimes while sleepwalking. So, I thought that was an interesting approach for a Nightmare movie to take, still tying into the dream and sleep theme, but going in a slightly different direction. The weaker Jesse gets, the more Freddy takes hold, to the point where Jesse's not safe awake or asleep, and that's scary. The character is on the brink of madness and I always thought actor Mark Patton did a really good job conveying that, he gives a strong performance and doesn't hold back.

I think it's pretty obvious that by the time Jesse has completely transformed into Freddy that Freddy shows he's capable of using his crazy dream world abilities in the real world. Throughout the film he's shown to manipulate temperature, making it boiler-room hot in 1428 Elm Street, but he's eventually moving objects, withstanding attacks, using pyrokinesis, causing Lisa to hallucinate when she's at the factory... Freddy's "revenge" is returning from the grave and having the best of both worlds -- being flesh and blood, but still being that evil, superpowered Sandman. If Nancy weakened him, his easy manipulation of Jesse and the pain he caused brought him back to recovery.

Lisa and Jesse might think they're victorious, but all they did was send him back to the death that gave him his abilities in the first place. (This was a theory I had before Freddy vs Jason, but I'll use what that movie said to help highlight my point; that movie said that Freddy needed to be known by the kids of Springwood, feared by the kids to give him the power to kill again. Same thing here, where the terror he caused in the real world, that he caused within Jesse, created enough energy for him to regain power. I kinda think that idea in FvJ was inspired by Freddy's Revenge, anyway, when Lisa reads that section of Nancy's journal where she talks about Freddy "feeding" on their energy.)

So, Freddy was defeated by Nancy, but awoke again within Jesse, was resurrected by the end of Part 2, so by the time we reach Dream Warriors, Freddy has been back in control of dreamland, becoming stronger than before. (Nancy even notes how much stronger he is.) A vengeful spirit that's laid to rest by the end of Dream Warriors, so...that's why I think the first three movies go so well together. The franchise certainly takes a turn after them, in style and tone, and the movies don't really hit high again until stand-alone entry New Nightmare.

Jesse was the ideal puppet for Freddy because he was just an ordinary, insecure kid. He's new to town, which, when you're young, can certainly be upsetting, turning your whole world upside down at a time when you're world already feels upside down. And then he moves into a haunted house...he was easy pickings for Freddy. Like the original, this movie takes some themes about the terror of adolescence, but I also see the movie as a depiction of a young person battling mental illness. Jesse fears for his sanity as he's pushed to the edge by Freddy. His oblivious parents thinks it's drugs. He can't quite verbalize it to his girlfriend, and his best friend doesn't take him seriously. But he's trying to hold onto his mind, and he's afraid he'll hurt his friends and family. Which is a good lead-in to Dream Warriors, with the way Freddy shenanigans cause teens to be committed. (And, particularly, my piece of fanon that it was Jesse who Neil was referring to as the kid who cut off his own eyelids.)

I'd like to say real quick that, when I used to watch this movie, I always thought Jesse -- as the main character -- was the "hero." It wasn't for a while until I realized that, no, Jesse really isn't the "hero," he's just another victim of Freddy's. A different kind of victim, in that Freddy doesn't want to kill him, at least not immediately. But a victim. By being absent for a lot of the movie, it's not immediately clear that Kim Myers' Lisa character is really the heroine of the movie. She's patient and does all of the investigating into who Jesse's tormentor is. She's the one whose determination to save Jesse gets through to him (within Freddy) and saves the day. So, I feel like Lisa might be a pretty overlooked character in the series.

Now, a few of the movie's problems. I like to think I'm a fairly open minded person, so I don't want for this to sound homophobic, because that's not where I'm coming from with this, but...I don't think that's the accurate reading of this movie. I think you CAN have that reading of the movie, if you choose, but I certainly don't think it's what was intended -- despite what those involved with the movie now claim -- and I don't think it's the one absolute reading of this movie. Honestly, I think it's something that's been really blown out of proportion, and there are only a few components to the movie that make people even think that it's a possible reading of the movie.

1) The character of Coach Schneider. I think if you eliminate this character from the movie, then probably 75% of the people who analyze this movie as having gay themes or whatever would probably have not said a word. In my opinion, the Schneider character is a pretty juvenile statement by writer David Chaskin. At school, Schneider is depicted as a hard-ass, take-no-shit, super macho coach. But, LOL, isn't it funny, it's a not-so-secret secret that he hangs out at "queer S&M joints." (Those are Grady's words. His info is slightly wrong, anyway.) Schneider spends his days tormenting his students, so Freddy -- feeding off Jesse's hate and knowledge of the man -- forces him to go to one of the bars Schneider frequents and ends up killing him by humilating him. He humiliates him with generic P.E. bullshit -- throwing balls at him and towel snapping -- and then humiliates him by mocking his after-hours activities, tying him up and leaving his naked corpse to be found by colleagues. The sequence where Schneider is terrorized by gym equipment just doesn't work and is ridiculous, and as one of the only on-screen kills of the movie, and the movie's first kill, it mars the movie and its weakness is highlighted that much further. The character and his subplot are pretty pointless, and I still wonder how Chaskin even decided to write it and put it in a movie.

2) The dancing scene. Yes, it's stupid. Yes, it's terrible. Yes, they made a horrible song choice. The point of the scene was to be funny and lighthearted, having Jesse be embarrassed by being caught by the girl he likes while doing some silly shit everybody's probably done at some point. (The script described him doing some '50s dances.) Would the scene have been better if he had just been, like, doing a crazy air-drum solo? Probably. But this was the bright, crazy, coked-up '80s. They had him doing a goofy dance that aged horribly, and so now people make fun of it. *shrugs* But it IS one of the movie's genuine comedic scenes. It was just ruined by bad choices. The movie has a lot of lighthearted and comedic moments that I think people misinterpret as cheesiness or hokiness.

3) Jesse leaving Lisa to go to Grady's. I never thought it was strange that Jesse abandoned Lisa to seek Grady's help; he was afraid that Freddy was taking over and he didn't want to hurt Lisa, so he went to the one friend he had, being a new kid in town, figuring Grady could handle Freddy if he showed up. The fact that Grady makes a joke about the strangeness of the situation and Jesse brushes it off, I think, pokes holes in this scene supposedly having any actual evidence of another meaning. It's just a laugh.

4) Actor Mark Patton. I don't want to insult him, because I think he does a really good job in this movie, and he's one of my favorite actors of the franchise. He gives a fearless, emotionally real performance. But...that fearlessness came at a price, because he doesn't hold back, and he does just scream his head off, so that quickly leads some viewers to go "Look, he screams like a girl!" (Which could very well be construed as a sexist take.) And so that leads people to think this or that or make some connection -- "Ha, he abandons Lisa to go to Grady's!" -- and then you end up with these out-of-control analyses of the movie about Jesse being gay and Freddy's a metaphor for gayness and whatever. Honestly, I don't feel like people ever really analyze the movie and come to that conclusion in a serious or genuine way, they use it in a humorous way, they use it as a way to mock. The whole "gay reading" of the movie is just another way for this movie to be ridiculed. And doesn't it sell Patton short as an actor -- isn't he selling himself short? -- to say that because he's a gay actor that makes his character in this movie gay, too?

I don't understand why people would be so eager to run with this "gay interpretation" of the movie when, if you break it down, it's awful. If Freddy is being gay, isn't the movie then saying that being gay is being a murderous monster? If Jesse kills Grady to then feel like he can focus just on Lisa, isn't the movie saying that it's better to force yourself to be something you're not? Aren't these terrible messages? Why are people so happy to celebrate this movie for these supposed messages? Because it's easier to point and laugh at this movie than take it seriously. It's become a "campy" thing. I'd think gay people would be insulted by some of the things writer David Chaskin claims in this 2007 interview. Keep perpetuating this take on the movie, though?

What doesn't help matters is Chaskin kind of going back on his word. If you've watched the documentary Never Sleep Again, most of the staff members said they didn't think there was a gay subtext to the movie. Mark Patton actually says he doesn't think Jesse was intended to be gay, which completely goes against Chaskin's claims that he intentionally put this into the script. In interviews at the time of the release of Freddy's Revenge, Chaskin claimed his idea for the script began with the idea of "paranoia," not knowing yourself, like after a "bad acid trip." Not a single word of what he claims in Never Sleep Again. Personally, I think Chaskin knew that Freddy's Revenge spent years with the title of worst Freddy movie, and since some of its only positive reception came from the people who interpreted it to have a gay reading, or laugh at it as camp, Chaskin thought it would make him look cool and really forward-thinking if he started to claim it was his intention all along. Basically: I think he knew his material was considered by many to be weak, and that this take on it retroactively gives it "depth." I think if it had been intentional, it would have been reflected SOMEWHERE in the script, which just only describes Jesse as average and insecure, while also having descriptions of how into Lisa he is. I think it would have been reflected in the script in the scenes depicting the dreams. If he had intended any of it, it would be hinted at in the script to inform the cast and crew, who were all mostly oblivious to the supposed subtext.

[Screencap from part of Chaskin's interview with Bloody Good Horror.]

[Another screencap from the same interview.]

If that's your interpretation, that's your freedom. I just don't think you can claim it's THE definitive interpretation. And I don't think it's necessarily the interpretation you'd want to get from it, because it really doesn't hold up to examination. But, like I said, it's easier to just laugh than it is to think about it seriously.

Now, onto the scene that I think really should have been excised from the movie: the bird attack. I think this scene probably gives the movie more of its negative reception than anything else like goofy dancing. How...how did they film this, watch it in editing, and think it worked? It's a laughable scene, only you don't actually laugh because it's so stupid, and it's kind of embarrassing to watch. When you watch the movie, you're thinking to yourself, "Jesus, at this point in the original, we're getting Johnny Depp chewed up and spit up from a bed. That was disgusting, that was something you'd never seen before in a movie! Here, we're getting POV shots of a parakeet attacking a middle-aged guy."

Despite missteps like that, and the strange sight of Freddy Krueger attacking a bunch of teens at a pool party, I do think this movie is better than it's given credit for. Director Jack Sholder -- who, sadly, always makes his discomfort at doing genre stuff known in interviews -- prefers to stay grounded and focus on characters, and I think it really works for this movie. He helps lift it higher than it might have been and hold it together. They can be a bit stage-y at times, but I think he gets good performances from all of his actors and does a good job at creating a dark, unsettling, disturbing atmosphere. Through the combination of Sholder's direction, D.O.P. Haitkin, and Patton's performance, a lot of the nightmare scenes have this dreadful, sickly feel to them. Patton's Jesse just always looks feverish and unwell in those scenes. They might not be innovative nightmare scenes like the original's, or as outlandish as the later sequels, but they have an uncomfortable dread seeping through them. The movie's not without memorable sequences, though, as the opening sequence perfectly captures the bizarre turns a nightmare can take, and the disturbingly violent scene of Freddy bursting through Jesse is on par with any of the series' best creative gore effects. I really think Sholder's the glue of the movie and is responsible for taking the script and making it work. We also have Jack Sholder to thank for getting Robert Englund back, when the studio wanted to just use a stunt-guy. Freddy's Revenge also coined "Springwood Slasher" and actually calling him "Freddy."

What I find funny is the way people like Wes Craven and Robert Englund criticize this movie for "breaking" rules, but they were OK with other entries doing it. Craven criticizes the pool party scene, but in his original Dream Warriors script, Freddy is loose and causing panic at a dinner party of Kristen's mom. Dream Warriors "breaks" the rules by having Freddy be able to reanimate his skeleton in reality in order to stop Neil and Donald Thompson from burying it, and Robert's OK with that? Or how about the fact that New Nightmare is basically the same plot as Freddy's Revenge -- Freddy's taking possession of Dylan in order to cross over into reality the same way he did Jesse. What do you have to say about that, Wes? Also, look how series producer/eventual director Rachel Talalay has said it was a mistake to center a horror movie on a guy, but devotes 75% of her Freddy's Dead to the John Doe character.

All in all, I can understand why moviegoers in 1985 might have felt let down, and maybe I benefited by seeing some of the later sequels beforehand, but I still like this movie. I still think it has a worse reputation than it should, and if people had been more open-minded in terms of what "rules" it had to obey, maybe perception of Freddy's Revenge would be different.

A New Dimension in Friday the 13th Heroines

The final (maybe?) piece of my Horror Heroines line! Since I really like the Friday the 13th series, I wanted a heroine to represent that franchise. For me, it was no question that I wanted a figure of Chris from Part 3.

Part 3's my favorite Jason movie -- I think it's the one that completely delivers on franchise creator Sean Cunningham's "roller coaster thrill ride" credo, with a bunch of fun characters and creative kill scenes. It's also one of the only times I think Jason even comes across as spooky. I always thought that Chris was one of the more memorable protagonists of the series -- certainly when it comes to the earlier installments.

When the movie first introduces us to Chris, she's rounding up her friends for a getaway at her family's farm. She's a little nervous, a little on edge, and it's revealed that she managed to survive an attack in the forest a few years prior, which is something she's kept to herself. She's using this getaway as a way to conquer her fears and reclaim her life in addition to just trying to have fun with her friends.

The movie's not set at Crystal Lake -- it's nearby -- so it's not a case of a bunch of stupid teenagers ignoring folks and going to party at a place they knew very well is bad. Jason's on the run after Part 2 and just happens upon Chris' farm and then gets up to his usual tricks. Chris happens to be on a walk when Jason first hits the farm, and when she returns, knowing something's not right, seeing the aftermath, it opens those old wounds and she's reliving her nightmare. At first, she doesn't realize that the person causing the carnage at the farm is the thing that attacked her in the woods that time, but Jason actually unmasks himself to let her know. And that's one of the spooky things about Jason in this movie -- when he's unmasked, he's constantly grinning, obviously getting a kick out of tormenting Chris.

So while Chris is a little jittery, a little on edge, I never thought she was weak or incapable like a lot of the Friday characters are considered to be -- she gets in quite a few hits to Jason. Look at the damage she does -- she throws a bookcase on him (for that 3D effect), stabs him repeatedly with a knife, smacks him over the head with a humongous log, smacks him in the head with a shovel, hangs him... Who else has done that much? Part 2's Ginny pees herself as she hides from Jason. Part 7's Tina was telekinetic and the best she could do was drown him in a puddle of chocolate milk. Most importantly, Chris chops him in the head with an axe, giving him the infamous split in his hockey mask that the movies continued to depict for most of the following sequels. A traumatized Chris ends the movie in the throes of a breakdown, but I like to think she recovered and is ready to face Jason again if she had to, giving his hockey mask a split on the opposite side to match. Chris' journey in the movie leads it to be a little downbeat; she's trying to finally heal from her past encounter with Jason, only to encounter him all over again, and this time she's led to a breakdown. But, like I said, I like to think she recovers.

People have given actress Dana Kimmell flak for some of her acting choices, but I thought she played the role right. The scene that people like to poke fun at is Chris finally telling her ex about the night she was attacked. While I like the way director Steve Miner decided to have the scene with the attack superimposed over Dana delivering the lines, I think the mistake was having all of that dialogue done in one uninterrupted take. I still don't think it's as bad as people make it out, though -- Chris is opening up about this for the first time. She's nervous, she's traumatized at reliving it -- I think Kimmell does a good job. She, Chris -- and Part 3 in general -- are really underrated.

Ready to watch the movie!

Universal Monsters: Funko Versus Remco

Funko's line of Universal Monster figures were supposed to be released in late August, but are apparently just shipping now. I've just received the ones I ordered and am mostly pleased with these figures. I love the Universal Monsters -- with one exception -- and have always wanted cool toys to represent them that wouldn't annihilate the wallet. I had the Imperial toys when I was a kid, which I thought were the coolest, but they're pretty damned expensive now. I had some of the '80s Remco action figures, which also go for too damned high of a price for my liking. (Each figure goes for around a hundred bucks each.) Recent toys by Diamond Select don't really interest me, and I'm not that big a fan of the retro-styled dolls to have paid the prices they can reach. I remember thinking the Remco toys were neat looking and was always bummed out that they were too expensive to buy, but I'm about to say something blasphemous...

I think these new Funko toys look better than the Remcos if you compare them. The Remcos are much better looking in the mind's eye, but when you pull up a picture of them, especially compared to the Funkos? Yeesh. The only Remco that looks halfway decent -- which happens to be the one Funko that I think is actually the weakest of the line -- is Frankenstein. Since I'm a nerd and like to keep this shit in the packaging, I've been considering ways to open the bubble without damaging it or the packaging, maybe buying a Remco Frankenstein and slipping it into the Funko packaging. I'm guessing this can't be done, though.

The Funkos are far from perfect, but even at their worst, they'll be better than the Remco.

Dracula. Not many releases ever look like Bela Lugosi, and Funko's is no different. (It looks like Armand Assante to me.) The Funko one at least looks a little sinister; Remco's looks like he drank some bad blood, regrets it, and doesn't feel well. I like that the Funko has that old '70s style vinyl cape, but Remco wins by having the red lining. I'm glad Funko at least changed the coloring between the prototype and the finished result, though -- the prototype had a weird blue coloring to it.

Frankenstein. Remco's is more reminiscent of Frankenstein to me -- like a mash-up of Boris Karloff and Glenn Strange. Funko's is...damned weird looking. It looks like Takeshi Kitano. Takeshi Kitano dressing up as Frankenstein for Halloween. (A friend thinks it looks like Neil Patrick Harris. Take your pick, but neither of 'em are Frankenstein.) The bolts on the neck of Funko are difficult to see and look more like errors in the molding than bolts. Remco wins this round.

Bride of Frankenstein. Remco never released a figure of her for comparison, but I'm a little disappointed in Funko's. It looks like Ana Gasteyer. Points for getting the scars on her jawline, though. (Which I included a picture of.)

The Wolf-Man. One of my top favorites of the Universal Monsters. The Funko is awesome, and really does look like the high quality make-up the character sported in the original Wolf-Man movie. (The quality dipped in sequels.) He also has an appropriately sad looking expression. It certainly looks better than the Remco, which...what the hell is that thing? It doesn't look like the Wolf-Man, I'll tell you that. It looks more like Jason Bateman in Teen Wolf Too. And while the old Imperial figure had me always used to the idea the Wolf-Man had a red shirt instead of the blue of the Funko, what the heck's with the jumpsuit he's wearing in the Remco release?

The Mummy. The Funko looks really nice in person and is nicely detailed. His head looks green in person, which is a little weird, but the sculpt does at least resemble Boris Karloff. (So what the fuck was up with the Neil Patrick Frankitano? If the Mummy can look this good, why not Frankenstein, which was Karloff's more important role?) The Remco is a joke -- he looks like a toilet paper monster, or like John Forsythe's ghost character from Scrooged.

The Creature From the Black Lagoon. The Funko looks awesome, it really resembles the Creature. Look at that ugly thing Remco released -- it's like the toy either got the news that his lagoon carried TB or it saw itself and realized what a goddamn awful, ugly sculpt it was, completely amazed that they were passing it off as the Creature and charging money for it.

The Phantom of the Opera. The make-up Lon Chaney created for his character in this movie is legendary. It's actually creepy and still really holds up, nearly 90 years later. He wanted to stay true to the book, where the Phantom is described as looking like a skull, so he had the imagination to tape his nose upward and glue his ears down, while also creating the look by stuffing his mouth with cotton and gluing fish skin to his face.

Now, it's always been a disappointment the way that the Chaney Phantom movie, because of its slipping into public domain, will often be excluded from the big round up of Universal classic Monsters. He's pretty much the first Universal Monster, so he should always be acknowledged. They'll tend to use Phantom of the 1943 remake, which strays from the material, is hardly a horror movie, and Claude Rains just isn't as good as Chaney. So, I was pretty excited to see Phantom in this line-up of Funko toys. As with Dracula, I like that old Darth Vader-styled vinyl cape it has, but the sculpt is a bit disappointing. They should have honored Chaney's make-up a little more, the roundness of the head just throws the look off. Also: the expression they gave him makes him look like he's horrified to have just learned that his strange, dark, creepy horror story will end up being a Broadway show. Like, "You're shittin' me, right?" Still, better than the Remco, though, which also has a strange expression, one of nervous worry, like the Phantom is reallllllllllly uncertain whether or not he should be included in the line.

I'd also like to point out the problem with buying stuff online versus buying something in a store: the turned head on my Phantom figure bugs the bejesus out of me.

Funko also released the Invisible Man, but I didn't buy it because that's the aforementioned one Universal Monster I really don't care about. I like the sequel with Vincent Price, but the first one -- and the other sequels -- are so damned boring. It's neat that Funko did an "invisible" variant, though, having the figure be made of clear plastic.

Despite my slight disappointment in a couple of the sculpts, I'm still glad Funko released these and still think they beat the Remco figures.

I'd also like to add that, due to their expensiveness, the pictures of the Remcos aren't mine -- I once saved them from the net and "borrowed" them here for the sake of comparing them to the Funkos. Sorry and thanks!

The King of Horror, nightmares sold separately

I knew they released figures for every single one of the 15,000 original characters that ever appeared on screen in The Simpsons, so they had to run out of toys eventually, right? Apparently not...

When I first saw that they were releasing figures based on the show's celebrity guest stars, my reaction was a little bit like "Jesus Christ, they've reached 3,000 miles beneath the bottom of the barrel." And then I saw they did one for Stephen King and was like "Stephen King has an action figure. That's kind of awesome." So, I knew I had to buy one. Unfortunately, it seems that horror fans all thought the same thing, because it's been a bit of a bugger to track down. It goes pretty much instantly out of stock whenever a store gets it and scalpers on eBay are charging about four times its retail price.

If you're a horror fan of a certain age, I think Stephen King and his works hold a bit of meaning to you. The '80s were filled with adaptations of his books, on the big screen and small, so they were kind of hard to ignore. I also remember my horror loving aunt's place being littered with his books and how I'd go to the library with her and get some of his stuff. (I think the first thing I read of his in its entirety was the story that Silver Bullet was based off of, Cycle of the Werewolf. I know that's a short story, but, hey, I was a kid.) Stephen King's a giant of horror, so I wanted this figure as part of my collection of horror figures.

It depressed me a little to hear stories of people getting to meet King at book signings, though. He's such a giant that so many people are waiting to meet him that it sounds like they're just all rushed through on a conveyor belt. One story I read was reminiscent of Ralphie meeting Santa in A Christmas Story -- like the person is placed in front of King, and before they were even able to say "hello," he's done scribbling an autograph while a couple of assistants/guards just kept pulling them along, shoving them down that slide, dashing their hopes of getting that Red Ryder air rifle.

The figure was released just in time for Encore's month-long Stephen King marathon, which has been fun. The thing doesn't really have the right yellow coloring of the Simpsons characters, though -- it looks more like one of those creepy butter sculptures. Still, it's cool to have a Stephen King figure...

NECA's Tater Sack Jason arrives

There are some of the old Cult Classics, Movie Maniacs and Sideshow figures that I regret not buying when they came out, because a lot of them go for high prices now. NECA's release(s) of Jason from Friday the 13th Part 2 -- the so-called "Tater Sack Jason" aka "Hillbilly Jason" -- is one of the figures I regret not buying. (Especially the box set that had Jason, Pamela and Jason's shrine for Pamela's decapitated head.) So, when I saw that NECA was releasing a retro-styled Part 2 figure, I wanted to buy it, even though I felt like I was just settling for that style of figure after missing out on the others. I'm not a big fan of the retro-styled dolls -- I can understand why people would like them, if that's the style of toys they grew up with. Me? I'm an '80s, Kenner kid, so I get a kick out of Funko's ReAction line more than the cloth dolls.

I had bought the Part 5 Jason/Roy retro-styled figure a few months ago basically because I'm one of the few fans of A New Beginning, and it was the first figure to represent that movie. It looked alright, but it didn't make me want to rush out and buy the other retro-styled horror figures NECA's done. But the newly released Part 2 figure, man...it's pretty nice. It kind of makes sense to have this look of Jason's be in the *clothed* retro style: the layered hillbilly get-up, the tater sack head... It's a nice looking figure, with neat little details like the dirtied sack. I'm very surprised by it and very pleased with the purchase. In my opinion, it definitely looks better and more screen accurate than the Sideshow version of Part 2 Jason and the molded action figure versions previously released by NECA. The look just really pops and comes across nicely in the retro style.

I'm a nerd, so I didn't want to open the packaging, so I'm curious how Jason looks under that hood. I'm assuming he has rooted hair and not molded hair, due to the way the sack is a little misshapen. Even if I opened it, I'd be afraid that I wouldn't get the sack tied on the same way and that would bug the heck out of me.

Jason's look in Part 2 is unique; his ordinary clothes, simple sack over his head and the way his make-up looks -- along with the way Steve Dash portrayed him -- made Part 2's Jason the most human seeming. The long haired Jason, the beard -- he certainly looked like someone who was presumed to have died and raised himself in a forest. (Someone also recently pointed out to me the way Part 2's Jason looks like a scarecrow. That's a neat idea, like Jason is a scarecrow scaring people away from his turf at Crystal Lake.) It's not a look that would have worked out for the entire series -- the popularity of the hockey mask proves that -- but I appreciate this different Jason look.

A neat figure, I recommend it. If you've been on the fence about these retro styled, clothed figures like I've been, I think this one will surprise you.

Horror comes to GSN's Skin Wars

The Game Show Network has a new series, a body art competition show called Skin Wars. The competing body artists are given themes to work with each week and the last episode challenged the artists to make themselves up as one of their big fears. (They usually paint models, but an extra part of this challenge was for them to apply the make-up on themselves.) Some of the artists did things like aging and arachnids, but artist Felle chose horror movies and came up with...

I just got a kick out of this. Part Freddy, part Pinhead. (There's also Heath Ledger's Joker and...I don't really recognize the other part below Pinhead.) Hellraiser always seemed to me like it's not on the radar as much as a Freddy or Jason, so I always like when it gets referenced somewhere. (As it did on a Community episode last season.) The artists on Skin Wars are given a couple of hours to complete their projects, so I think Felle's Pinhead and the Freddy burns turned out nicely. (These pics I took don't do it justice.)

The Hell Tale Heart

Since toy companies like to ignore the majority of non-monster characters from horror movies -- especially the heroines -- I've once again taken it upon myself to make another custom figure in my Horror Heroines line. This time it's Hellraiser's Kirsty Cotton. For a while there, I considered Kirsty to be my favorite Horror Heroine. (I'll get to the reasons why that changed.)

I got into the Hellraiser movies big time in 2003. I just wasn't into Hellraiser much when I was younger, and hadn't watched a movie beyond the third one -- and it's memories of that third one that negatively influenced what I thought of the series until I decided to give them another chance. I was pretty damn surprised at how much I ended up liking the first one after revisiting it; it's a smaller scale horror movie, about adult characters and for adult fans.

Monstrous human characters are the movie's major villains -- the over-the-top Cenobites are just supporting players. On one side, you have Frank Cotton -- a walking embodiment of the seven deadly sins -- and Julia Cotton, his sister-in-law who's rotted from an unhappy marriage and is blindly manipulated by Frank into becoming a monster for him; killing for him to get him back seemingly resuscitates her and makes her more alive than she's seemed for quite a while. On the other side, you have Larry Cotton, who's just a poor, but well-intentioned schlub, and his daughter Kirsty, who wants the best for her father. (She has pretty much seen through Julia all along.) Larry ain't stupid: he senses Julia's unhappiness which is why he decides to move to her "home turf" in England, which is a strange city in England that can't quite tell if it's English or American. (Other than Julia, accents come and go, and cops have guns in the sequel!) I feel there's a definitively clear black and white, good versus evil represented by both duos. I know Clive Barker's more interested in shades of gray, and I think Julia is a bit more complicated than being a flat-out villain (she begins her descent into madness out of a misplaced sense of love). And she definitely has shades of gray, but Frank is total scum. There's *nothing* likable or redeemable about him.

Kirsty benefits from being an older character than typical horror heroines -- she's obviously around college age, at least in her early 20s and not mid-teens like the norm. She joins her dad in England, probably to keep touch with him. (And keep an eye on Julia?) Right away, it seems like something is after her: she begins to dream premonitions and is followed by the homeless man, who is later revealed to be a watcher of the puzzle box. It's checking up on Julia that gets her pulled into the web -- she hears screams come from the house, but she doesn't flee, she investigates. She finally, finally is about to get confirmation on all she's probably suspected about Julia, and she finds...Frank. She's justifiably terrified, but she stands her ground and fights Frank back. Kirsty's courageous and in a believable way, I find. There's a lot of horror movies that are trying to portray such a positive image that the protagonist is nearly superhuman in their strength and resolve. For example, I think the Scream movies are pretty bad about that. Sidney goes through and does stuff that would probably kill Wile E. Coyote, but will be on her feet in the next frame, her senses sharp as only a screenwriter could make them. Sidney should be with the Teen Titans, you know? Kirsty can fight and keep her senses, but not to a cartoonish degree like that.

You get the sense that she's the first person to even think of talking to and trying to deal with the Cenobites. Well, she at least seems to be the first person that tried that with Pinhead. She puts it all together, realizing Frank escaped them, and promises to lead them to him in her place. When the Cenobites seem to go back on their word, after dealing with Frank? By that point, she's through with this shit. She sends 'em back like *that*. (Watch for that funny scene when the Engineer enters the front door and Kirsty's milksop, Larry Appleton-looking love interest tries to take the box from her and she just punches him out of the way. It's hilarious.)

Kirsty really shines in Hellraiser 2, though. Her goodness, her pureness of heart leads her to...willingly walk into hell to save her father! And not only does it end up being a trick by Frank to lure her to him, but she has to contend with a more powerful Julia and the even more powerful Channard Cenobite (who's so powerful, he disposes of the four Cenobites in no time), while racing to prevent the dimensions opened by the puzzle boxes from merging with Earth. Not only that, but she has to play guardian to Tiffany. And not only that, but she tricks Channard and saves Tiffany...BY PUTTING ON JULIA'S SKIN! That's dedication, man. Meanwhile, Ginny's practically dry-heaving at putting on Jason's mother's moldy sweater in Friday the 13th Part 2. Amateur!

Hellraiser 2 saw Kirsty and Tiffany exiting the asylum, maybe finally free and clear of trauma, but ready to go kick some Cenobite ass in future installments, right? Not really. Kirsty's reduced to a lame VHS cameo in Part 3 and then forgotten about until the sixth movie, Hellseeker, a lame and lazy rewrite of another script that decides to shoehorn a character named "Kirsty Cotton" into the script, only the character isn't Kirsty Cotton. The Kirsty Cotton I know wouldn't be some petty sneak who opens the box just to get back at her shitbag husband, then talking Pinhead into letting her kill her husband and his mistresses for him instead of the Cenobites taking her. This is Kirsty, who attempted to pull her dad out of hell. This is Kirsty, who wore another woman's skin to save someone.

Look, it's bad enough that Hellseeker is an abysmal movie that feels three hours longer than it is -- did they really need to make Kirsty into a villain? Into someone more like Julia, a person she despised? And while one of the things I find interesting about Pinhead is that he's willing to LISTEN to people, he doesn't just hack and slash them, do you even buy that he'd go for Kirsty's insane deal? At that point his "good friend" (as Captain Elliot Spencer referred to Kirsty in Part 3) had shown signs of being no better than someone like Julia -- I think the Cenobites would have taken her. I'm sure the Hellseeker writers are under the belief they made Kirsty "real," "flawed," or "complicated," or like they had a great twist, but they were way off the mark -- it wasn't Kirsty.

That's the last the movies saw of Kirsty, or the so-called Kirsty. But wait! There's hope yet -- Clive Barker decided to write comics from the BOOM company that ignored every movie after Part 2. It was going to be the definitive showdown of Kirsty versus Pinhead. Great, ignore the sequels. Please; a lot of them are bad. Surely -- surely! -- Clive could somewhat save Kirsty's image, right? (I say "somewhat" because, in the back of my head, comic spin-offs don't count as much as a movie installment.) Clive has supposedly said he liked Hellseeker, which I don't understand, so I shouldn't have been surprised to see that he didn't quite save Kirsty's image. In the comics -- which probably make more sense if you read them while on acid and cocaine and Hawaiian Punch and Holy Fuckin' Shit from 21 Jump Street -- Kirsty has this insane anti-logic where she thinks if she becomes a Cenobite, she can reunite with her dead loved ones, so...she willingly switches places with Pinhead, who pretends as if he wants to be human again, but really has some bonkers Dr. Doom scheme secretly planned.

So, Kirsty becomes a female version of Pinhead and, since the comics make no sense and seem like they were written on the go, she forgets all that junk about her loved ones and instead decides to let people summon her with the box and she uses that to weed out sickies and/or variations of the Lament Configuration. In the meantime, she also finds out that Cenobitin' ain't easy. And she's repeatedly tricked by a variety of different characters. And she ends up just doing nothing much but seeming stupid -- she gets trapped in a box and the day has to be saved by the Female Cenobite, Harry D'Amour, and Elliot Spencer's handicapped, octogenarian, born-of-incest daughter...or some crazy shit like that. What...the...fuck. Even Takashi Miike would find these comics weird. Long story short: Kirsty's image is still marred.

Where's the brave heroine? The one who fearlessly fought off Frank. The smart heroine, who put together just what all of that crazy Cenobite stuff was, who solved the mystery of Pinhead's identity? Barker's novel from which Hellraiser is based is called The Hellbound Heart; while the film makes some changes from the novel, it's essentially the same. (One wise decision: making Kirsty Larry's daughter; it involved her in the story more, made her more important. In the novel, she's just a mousy co-worker of Larry's who's interested in him and snoops around the house when Julia's doing her killing.) Kirsty in the book and first film is pure of heart. It's all motivations of the heart. The two with the poisoned hearts get what they deserve. Kirsty, with the pure heart, looking out for the best interest of others, is who wins.

I think actress Ashley Laurence really kicks ass and does a great job as Kirsty. (And even though I think the "Kirsty" in Hellseeker is some character from a bad Silk Stalkings episode wearing the skin of Kirsty Cotton, Laurence is still good in that movie.) Laurence seems like a strong, take-no-crap kinda woman in real-life, and that really comes through in moments where Kirsty's standing up to these hellish monsters. Laurence also didn't mind getting dirty for the role, really having maggots dumped onto her in that scene in the first movie and being covered with blood at the end of Part 2.

Since I think Hellraiser 1 and 2 go nicely together, I wanted the figure to represent both movies. Her outfit's based on her look in the first movie, but accessories pertain more to 2 -- the Spencer photograph and...Julia's skin! I just knew that had to be part of the set. And here's the result:

Front and back of packaging.

RIP, FEARnet

I was awaiting FEARnet's monthly update only to find it missing from my On Demand listing. Apparently, FEARnet is no more. My local cable provider only ever got the On Demand portion of FEARnet and not the actual channel, but I've enjoyed and discovered plenty of horror movies on there, so I'm sad to see it go. (Comcast is merging it with the Chiller channel, supposedly -- another channel my crummy cable company doesn't offer.)

FEARnet's selection kind of dwindled over time, but it was still nice to have a monthly dose of horror. And, like I said, I got into some obscure slasher movies through it, and enjoyed some of their original programming, like the miniseries Fear Clinic, Tom Holland's Twisted Tales anthology and Mick Garris' interview program Post Mortem. Most of all, I always got a kick out of their comedically tinged, often WTFucky movie descriptions. Someone over there had a goofy sense of humor.

RIP FEARnet!

The Pain of Viewer's Guilt

I try not to think of things in terms of being a "guilty pleasure" or whatnot. If you like something, like it. But there are some things that you can't help feel embarrassed for liking, or just a deep shame for liking. I'm not talking about something that's cheesy or "so bad it's good" or whatever, but a movie or show with legitimately disturbing subject matter that people would probably think you're a monster for liking, so you don't want to advertise it. People already like to make horror fans feel ashamed for liking the genre, there's such a discrimination against the genre and its fans, so we don't need movies to come along and make you wonder "Is something wrong with me for liking this?"

One movie I feel guilty and ashamed for liking is Takashi Miike's Ichi the Killer -- the movie should be rated V, for violence, vileness and vulgarity. I'm aware that this movie is thirteen years old and not exactly a horror movie, though I've seen it classified as horror. Miike HAS made a few horror movies, but American genre fans know him mainly for Audition and Ichi the Killer, neither of which *I* really consider horror. Audition has only one legitimate scare scene, in my opinion. (#renosugiinabag) Otherwise, it's just a mystery/thriller. Ichi the Killer is more of an outlandish yakuza movie to me, not even a thriller or horror as it's often been called.

Ichi the Killer is notorious for its violence, and a lot about it *does* make for a pretty disgusting movie. But since it's based on a comic and since most of the gore is computer generated, I think it has a kind of an over-the-top and cartoon quality to it. It's not quite the Saw movies, where it's two hours of terrible things happening to people. A lot of vile things happen in Ichi the Killer, but when you keep in mind its comic book origins, it begins to look more like a deranged, warped superhero movie, as a lot of people say.

A lot has been made of how misogynistic the movie is in its brutal treatment of women, and that is one part of the movie that makes me uncomfortable and makes me hesitant to ever say I like the movie. However, a lot of what happens to the women characters in this movie is really the norm for yakuza movies, and that's something nobody will really be aware of unless they've watched a lot of those movies. I'm not saying it's right, but yakuza movies only really ever have two or three types of roles for women -- victims, mistresses and prostitutes. The cast will be largely male, mainly immoral characters who vastly outnumber what's usually limited to two or three women in the cast. The limited number of women in these movies and the limitations put upon their roles will really highlight just how brutal these kinds of movies handle women. Filmmakers will probably claim they're trying to realistically depict the criminal underworld, but these are still movies -- I think there's many ways to have better characters for women in these works of fiction. But Japanese moviemakers are obviously not going to think like that, especially when mobsters movies are meant to be rough and gritty guys' movies.

While a lot of people are drawn to this movie for the outrageous gore and kill scenes, what I like most about the movie is the character of Masao Kakihara. (Or, as the film refers to him as, "the number one bad guy.") When Kakihara, a high ranking gangster, learns that someone is unleashing the sadistic serial killer Ichi on all of the local mobsters, the masochistic Kakihara becomes obsessed with Ichi's brutality and anticipates the idea of facing off against him. He's looking forward to being killed by the film's killer! That's one nutty character. The closer Ichi gets to crossing Kakihara off of his kill list, the more excited Kakihara becomes. Kakihara builds up the idea of having a really intense encounter culminating in a glorious, legendary death that will take him to new levels of pain, and the movie does a good job of building up to their crossing paths in the last act and milking that encounter for all it's worth. For maybe the first time, Kakihara feels fear as Ichi approaches him. But what's funny is that when Kakihara finally does square off against Ichi, who he's imagined is this stone-cold monster, he's ultimately let down to find out that Ichi, despite his vaguely superhero-esque costume and dangerous razor-heeled boots, is really just an average serial killer, an awkward, easily distracted, weepy young man. Kakihara has to resort to imagining the great duel and glorious death he had been anticipating.

Kakihara wouldn't work as well without actor Tadanobu Asano. What initially caught my attention about his performance is how subdued he is. In pretty much every Japanese gangster movie I've seen, the actors will often go over-the-top and start yelling like nuts, but Asano never raises his voice. He barely ever speaks above a low tone, and often has a bemused smile upon his face, which gives Kakihara's enjoyment for inflicting pain (and having pain inflicted upon him) another edge of creepiness. He's really understated, and it's a style that I think has become more common since for these types of characters since, but I think when this movie came out in 2001, Asano was doing something fresher. The Kakihara from the original manga was a bit different, prone to emotional outbursts and being overly expressive, but I prefer Asano's quiet, inscrutable take on the character.

I'm not the first to make a connection between this movie and the world of Hellraiser, but I've always thought about the idea of Kakihara facing off against Pinhead. I think Kakihara would probably become a high-ranking Cenobite, one even worse and more powerful than Dr. Channard. He'd certainly give Pinhead a run for his money; I can't imagine Kakihara Cenobite being one who would revert to his humanity after being shown a publicity photo. (I wonder if Clive Barker has seen this movie or read the comic and what he thinks about it.)

Ichi is obviously Miike's favorite of his works and its twisted world is one he clearly felt at home in; it has such a different atmosphere from his other movies and is unlike most yakuza movies, including other ones made by Miike himself. Credit goes to the source material, which is unique to say the least. (Seriously, what's wrong with creator Hideo Yamamoto?) But a lot of credit goes to the interesting cast Miike rounded up. (The weak link is Nao Omori as Ichi. For as monstrous as Ichi's actions are, as twisted as he is, I think you're meant to feel a bit more sympathy for him than Omori, a big old creep, manages to eke out. Is he the monster, or is Shinya Tsukamoto's Jijii the bad guy for manipulating Ichi into doing all of the killing? There aren't exactly any characters to root for in this movie, but Jijii initially seems like he's as close as this movie gets to having someone with morals or redeemable qualities. He controls the murderous Ichi, setting Ichi's bloodthirsty desire on only criminals, Dexter Morgan style. But there's that question mark about Jijii -- just how much did he falsely plant into Ichi's memory in order to control him? What's Jijii's motivation, does it come from a place of warped justice? The movie hints at Jijii being a bit of an unreliable character, and the casting of the shifty Tsukamoto gives the character a further shade of untrustworthiness.) You can at least say this about Miike: he certainly doesn't glamorize mob life.

There are quite a few interesting ideas running throughout this movie, and I think it's a bit of a shame that it gets buried and overtaken by Miike's penchant for perversity and the movie's notorious gore. Although the purpose of the film and its comic book source's brutality and outrageousness was to bring attention to itself, if they could have managed to show a bit more restraint, if the movie could have cleaned up its act a bit, I think it would be taken a bit more seriously instead of being seen as a nasty, gimmicky exploitation movie that leaves most viewers feeling grossed out by the time credits roll.

So, with all that said, part of me still feels like it's not right to like this movie. Society does like to shame people like horror and genre fans, doesn't it? And there's such a hypocrisy -- people who are quick to dismiss horror or a movie like Ichi and wag their finger at horror fans probably sing the praises of a character like cold-blooded killer Walter White or obsess over the excessively violent and cruel Game of Thrones. The monsters aren't meant to be the stars of horror movies, but all of the accepted and critically-acclaimed, "highbrow" drama shows are centered on characters who are horrible human beings. I know of people who model parts of their lives after Don Draper or Hank Moody, two of TV's foulest people, "because they're cool!" It's hard to imagine horror fans wanting to model their lives after Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger or Ichi the Killer. Horror viewers yell at the screen for the victims to outrun and escape the monster; viewers clamored for Tony Soprano to whack certain characters, they rooted for Walter White to escape his crimes (including the poisoning of a kid), "because they're bad-ass!" Also: look at how exploitational a lot of those supposed highfalutin HBO shows are. Why do horror fans get singled out and picked on, the genre dismissed? Hypocrisy is a horror.