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rookie-critic · 6 months

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Rookie-Critic's Halloween Horror-thon: Part 6 - #26-32 [FINALE]

Alright, here's the bottom of the pile, the weakest bunch of the month. Overall, a nice little bunch of movies. I genuinely loved most of them, and at the very least had a good time with most of the others. None of them made me actually regret watching it. Well... except for one...

#26: Cry Baby Lane (2000, dir. Peter Lauer)

This one is a case of the story/history of the thing being vastly more interesting than the thing itself. This was a film produced for Nickelodeon in 2000 to be aired as a part of their Halloween programming for the year. It aired on October 28, 2000, and Nickelodeon received so many complaint letters from parents saying their children were mortified by it that it was promptly pulled from any future programming and never aired again (until 2011 when Teen Nick ran the film one last time as a reaction to an online rallying campaign to dredge the film back up). If that doesn't peak your attention then I don't know what will. The movie itself, unfortunately, is fairly lackluster. I mean, it's decent enough, but it is most definitely not scary (I don't even think by child standards this would really make waves nowadays), and the acting is, well, early 2000's Nickelodeon TV movie acting. Oscar-nominated Frank Langella is in it and even his performance feels very phoned in. I'm glad I watched this for the experience and the history of it alone, but I can't recommend it based on its own merits, it's incredibly forgettable without its historical context. Score: 5/10 You can find this on YouTube in it's original broadcast format, October 2000 commercial breaks included, so if you're interested in that it's a fun little time capsule.

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#27: Five Nights at Freddy's (2023, dir. Emma Tammi)

This year's big horror release was the film adaptation of the smash hit video game franchise Five Nights at Freddy's. Now, I am very aware of the FNAF series of games and am aware of its lore from a tertiary perspective. I've always found them to be slightly cringe-inducing and not super fun to play, but I appreciate its tenacity and willpower to keep expanding. That being said, I have always liked the character designs and the general premise of "possessed malicious animatronics." It's rife with possibilites. This particular film, however, doesn't seem to fully capitalize on any of the things that could have made it worthwhile. The animatronics are still creepy and very well constructed (they were made at the Jim Henson creature shop, so that should come as no surprise), but they don't feel fully realized. The moments they get in the movie are good, some might even say they're the best part of the whole thing, but there's just not enough of them. The acting from Josh Hutcherson and Matthew Lillard is good, but they get caught in the crossfire of the tonal game of tug-of-war the film plays. Ultimately the film's biggest issue is that it can't seem to decide if it wants to be scary or campy, and the mix that it compromises with itself on feels like its not enough of either to make any kind of impact. The plot contrivances (of which there are a lot) are ludicrous and eye-roll inducing, but in the film's defense I think the games are exactly the same, so I'm sure if you're into the games this might actually work quite well for you. Although, I have heard that fans are disappointed with the changes made to some of the lore, to which my reaction so far has been "who really cares?" All this to say that I did actually have fun with my time watching FNAF, but I'm sure the further away I get from it, the more forgettable it will become. Score: 5/10 Currently in theaters and streaming on Peacock.

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#28: Idle Hands (1999, dir. Rodman Flender)

Good lord, what were they thinking when they made this? A stoner comedy/horror that catches just as many groans as it does laughs, Idle Hands is just stupid enough to tip its scale back towards funny, planting it in the "so bad it's good" camp. Devon Sawa's commitment to the bit is admirable, and the stoner buds played by Seth Green and Elden Henson provide all the witty slapstick comic relief you could want from a film of this caliber. It's a film that understands that its premise is dumb, and I applaud it for that, but it's filled with so many late-90s bad movie trademarks that some of them are pretty hard to overlook. Score: 5/10 Not currently available on streaming.

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#29: Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist (2005, dir. Paul Schrader)

The film that Morgan Creek hated so much that they scrapped it and re-filmed it with a mostly new cast, a new director, and a slightly altered story before ultimately releasing both films anyway. A Paul Schrader-directed Exorcist prequel sounds like it would be interesting, at the very least, and to its credit it manages to be the least bad of the four bad films in the franchise. Schrader is a great director and that can be tangentially felt here. It's a weak pulse, but it is there. The other plus I'll throw in Dominion's corner is Stellan Skarsgård, who plays Father Merrin (played by Max von Sydow in the original 1973 film) the best he can given the material. It's a rough go only because it is very middling and forgettable and the narrative is mildly ridiculous every now and then. My score might seem high, but that's most likely because I know what a bad Exorcist film looks like, and it ain't this. Score: 5/10 Currently streaming on Starz and for free on Vudu with ads.

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#30: Exorcist: The Beginning (2004, dir. Renny Harlin)

The aforementioned re-filmed version of Paul Schrader's Exorcist prequel is objectively a worse film. It is messy, even more ludicrous than its originator, and the third act is essentially an action movie. While there are a couple of worse films in the franchise (more on those in a second), this one feels like the most of a complete opposite from the original. Taking all of the things that made the original film a masterwork and just going "but what if we did it this other way instead?" Stellan Skarsgård is still here, but he's having to work even harder to maintain any kind of credibility with a script this sub-par. It's hollow and baseless and doesn't really seem to be interested in being anything but a tepid cash grab. Score: 3/10 Currently streaming on Hulu and Peacock.

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#31: Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977, dir. John Boorman)

While Exorcist: The Beginning felt like a tepid cash grab, The Heretic feels like a deliberate and reckless one. Coming only four years after the original, the memory of The Exorcist was still fairly fresh in the cultural zeitgeist, which must have made this sting all the more. The sound design is atrocious, with the whole film sounding like it was ADR'd by a toddler, the acting is horrible, especially when you consider the talent this was able to round up (Richard Burton, Louise Fletcher, and James Earl Jones are in this!), and I think the worst thing is that it's just really silly. There are multiple sequences where the camera hitches a piggyback ride on the back of the most fake locust you've ever seen. It's laughably bad, and the ending that so badly wants to feel epic, but just comes off as cheap and bewildering, is just the cherry on top. When the industry talks about bad horror sequels, I have to imagine this is the prime example. If you're interested in diving into the Exorcist beyond the first film, just skip straight over this one and go to The Exorcist III. You're not missing anything, trust me. Score: 2/10 Not currently available on streaming.

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#32: The Exorcist: Believer (2023, dir. David Gordon Green)

While both The Beginning and The Heretic made me disappointed, Believer just made me unbelievably mad. There's just something about David Gordon Green's recent horror efforts that bring out a rage in me that most things don't. The other Exorcist sequels don't seem interested in what worked about the original, they were just cash grabbing on the notoriety and acclaim of that first film, but Believer seems to have learned all of the wrong lessons from William Friedkin's masterpiece and accented them, all the while genuinely thinking they were doing a good job. The Exorcist isn't the pea soup vomit, it isn't the 360-degree head turn, it's not the heavily makeup-altered little girl. That was its reputation among the masses, sure, but that is such a simplification and a misunderstanding of the film's themes. The Exorcist is Father Karras' crisis of faith. It's him having to come to terms with the crisis in the face of the most powerful evil he could possibly come up against. It's the desperation of Chris MacNeil, a mother at the end of her rope, trying to save her daughter from something the she has no frame of reference for and no power of her own to stop. It's the sacrifice (and not the kind that's made in this trash heap of a movie), it's the compassion. There is no compassion in Believer, there is no crisis, it's all just suffering and cheap attempts at nostalgia and scares that aren't there. There are so many ways to have done this where it worked, but it ended up being so unbearably horrible that even the return of Ellen Burstyn couldn't save this (a lot of my absolute biggest grievances actually came around the time she shows up). There is no regard for the 1973 original in this, there is no attempt at anything other than a repeat of all the gross-out and disturbing things that take place in the original film as well, but as I said in my write-up for that movie, those things work in the original because you actually care about the characters, you actually resonant with what's happening on screen. You're disturbed because the movie has built a relationship between you and Reagan, and it's powerful. I will give The Exorcist: Believer one, and only one, compliment. Leslie Odom Jr., for what it's worth, gives a performance that feels genuine, but it's not enough. It's not nearly enough to forgive this sorry excuse of a movie. Score: 1/10 Currently in theaters.

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