HALLOWEEN 2K18: A Review of "Friday the 13th" (1980)

Jason trying to collect Alice's student loan payments

Happy Octoberfest once again. I hope you have your reading glasses on because I've got eighteen, count 'em, EIGHTEEN Halloween posts coming your way. It's time for our Friday the 13th vs A Nightmare on Elm Street showdown. Let's get started, because we've got a lot to cover.

Following the success of Halloween in 1978, the slasher film genre was born. A "slasher movie" is any horror movie defined with a large body count. While Halloween's was only four bodies, it started the wave of horror movies to start casting sexy girls as dumb damsels with big yams who get axed because they can't pay attention while some schmuck is giving them a good boning in a dank forest cabin. While Halloween invented the notion of these events occurring as a trope, a commonplace, a very foundation piece of the genre, another series took them and made them household gags. This is Friday the 13th, a movie that teaches us it is not okay to have premarital sex because odds are you'll get a harpoon through the chest during. A movie that the director even admitted was nothing more than a cash-in on Halloween's success, and not only was it too a box office success, it would spawn NINE fucking sequels. Do you think that's enough?

Crazy Ralph could've been the killer

The movie opens in the summer of 1958 at Camp Crystal Lake, two counselors named Barry and Claudette sneak away from a campfire and into a storage barn. They prepare to have sex before an unseen assailant enters and murders them. Literally right from the get-go, the entire franchise is letting us know what we're going to be seeing repeatedly happen for the next decade.

Twenty-one years later, on June 13, 1979, newly hired camp counselor Annie Phillips (Robbi Morgan) asks for directions to the reopened Camp Crystal Lake. An elderly man named Crazy Ralph (Walt Gorney) warns her against going, claiming that the camp has a "death curse." Despite only have one murder in its entire history, the whole camp is cursed now. Seems simple enough. A friendly truck driver named Enos (Rex Everhart) agrees to give Annie a lift halfway to the camp. During the drive, Enos warns Annie about the camp, informing her that a young boy drowned at Crystal Lake in 1957 and about the two murders the following year. Really? Two? We only saw the one... well I guess I'll eat my foot now. After Enos drops her off, Annie hitches another ride from an unseen assailant, who chases her into the woods and slashes her throat. Well, the main character's dead. Time to roll credits...

"I thought I was going to be a small-time actor, then I
took an arrow to the neck" - Kevin Bacon

...wait, she wasn't the main character? Ah nuts. I guess we gotta keep going. At the camp, counselors Ned (Mark Nelson) , Jack (Kevin fucking Bacon), Bill (Harry Crosby III), Marcie (Jeannine Taylor), Brenda (Laurie Bartram), and Alice (Adrienne King), along with the owner Steve Christy (Peter Brouwer), refurbish the cabins and facilities. As a thunderstorm approaches, Steve leaves the campground to stock supplies, leaving his camp counselors to fend for themselves in an otherwise abandoned summer camp. Meanwhile, the killer arrives at the camp and stalks the counselors. Ned sees someone walk into one of the cabins and follows, only to be killed off-screen. Later, while Jack and Marcie have sex in one of the cabin's bunk beds, they are unaware of Ned's body directly above them, with his throat slit. In the film's most iconic scene, Marcie leaves to use the camp bathrooms and during her absence, Jack's throat is pierced with an arrow from beneath the bed. The killer then follows Marcie to the bathrooms and slams an axe into her face. Meanwhile, Brenda hears a child's voice calling for help and ventures outside her cabin to the archery range, only for the range lights to turn on as she is attacked off-screen. Steve later returns to the camp and is confronted by the unseen killer, who stabs him. So, as you can see, these kids are getting whacked one-by-one pretty quickly. I mean the movie is only ninety-five minutes long, so with this many deaths they have to get hacking pretty quickly.

Alice and Bill are worried by their friends' disappearances, and why they've only chosen now to notice is beyond me. They leave the main cabin to investigate, which is... such a bad idea. They discover a bloody axe in Brenda's bed, the phones disconnected, and the cars inoperable. Boy, this killer has been a busy-body, haven't they? When the power goes out, Bill goes to check on the generator and is murdered by the killer. Alice then heads out to look for him. Upon finding Bill's body impaled with arrows to the generator room's door, she flees back to the main cabin to hide only to be traumatized further when Brenda's body is thrown through the window.

Marcie trying the new Axe product...
*ba dum tss*

Hiding inside, Alice sees a vehicle pull up and rushes outside, thinking it is Steve. Instead, she is greeted by a middle-aged woman named Mrs. Voorhees (Betsy Palmer), who claims to be an old friend of Steve's. As Alice brings her inside, Mrs. Voorhees begins to reminisce that her son Jason was the young boy who drowned in 1957. She blames his death on the counselors who were supposed to be watching him, but they instead were having sex and not paying attention to Jason's drowning. Sex and Camp Crystal Lake do not mix. Having sex at Camp Crystal Lake is a surefire guaranteed way to get yourself killed. If this isn't a PSA for abstinence than I don't know what is. Revealing herself as the killer, Mrs. Voorhees turns violent and rushes toward Alice with a bowie knife, attempting to kill her. THAT's RIGHT! The killer in this movie isn't Jason, but his mom! That's... unexpected for someone who only vaguely knows something about this franchise. In the ensuing chase, Alice finds Annie's body inside Mrs. Voorhees' car, because I guess she just needs someone to talk to on long car trips (though that would smell nasty after about an hour) and Steve's body hanging from a tree. Following a confrontation in which Mrs. Voorhees is knocked out, Alice escapes to the shore. Just as she begins to relax, Mrs. Voorhees finds her and attempts to kill her again with a machete. During the final struggle, Alice ultimately decapitates Mrs. Voorhees with her machete, in one of the silliest slow-motion scenes you'll ever see. Afterwards, a traumatized Alice boards and falls asleep inside a canoe, which floats out on Crystal Lake.

This is the face most dentists make

Just as Alice awakens and sees the police arriving the next morning, Jason's decomposing body suddenly emerges from the lake and drags her underwater. She then awakens in a hospital, where a police officer and medical staff tend to her. When Alice asks about Jason, the officer says that there was no sign of any boy. Alice says, "Then he's still there," as the lake is shown with a single ripple on the open water. This, to me, ruined the ending. The ending to the movie should've been the decomposing Jason coming out of the lake and taking Alice underwater. The bullshit about it being all a dream and then her saying "then he's still out there" shouldn't have been added, but that's just me.

So there you go, the inaugural Friday the 13th. It set up a lot of tropes that would be abused in the future sequels, but considering what we get in future sequels, it isn't really that much of a "dumb" horror movie. It's pretty cheesy, hell what horror movie isn't, but it still works. It's just Halloween, the movie it was trying to cash-in on. It's simple, not really all that gory, a little crude, and overacted as hell. The entire franchise wouldn't start getting "campy" (pun intended) until the sequels would tear it to pieces. Stick around, because Cody's Halloween 2018 Spectacular has only just begun.

Announcing Cody's Halloween 2018 Spectacular!

It's that magical season again. The season where Jason rises from Crystal Lake, Freddy returns to your nightmares, Michael resurfaces in your backyard, Pinhead does whatever-the-fuck Pinhead does, Chucky returns from the local toy store, Leprechaun is resurrected from a four-leaf clover, Dracula rises from the ashes, Frankenstein's monster is thawed from a block of ice and...alright I'm rambling. you get the idea.

It's time once again for a Cody Brennan bona-fide blogging spectacular. Hell, I have nothing better to do with my time anyway, so I might as well entertain you with a few jokes, limericks, anecdotes, one-liners, judgments, and my trademark barrage of whimsical sarcastic jargon. All in respect and admiration of my favorite decade: the 1980s. I'm going to pretend like I was alive in the 80s this Halloween. "What do you mean, Cody?" I hear you grumble from under your breath. I'm going to take the 1980s cinema's two most notorious serial killing icons and match them up. Make them fight for your amusement. Okay, not really, but in a figurative sense. I'm going to take Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees and showcase their movies for your reading pleasure. You're going on a 1980s pilgrimage with me as we take a time travel jump back to that glorious, innocent time. Back when the country was okay with having a celebrity as President. Back before people discovered how to be offended 24/7. Back when Hollywood shoving schlock into theaters was a goofy and stupid albeit fun and cheap way to waste a Friday night before theater ticket price hikes and movie quality decreases ruined everything for the average moviegoer and his girlfriend. Or I guess since this is the 2010s, I'll say "and his **significant other**".

For this Halloween season, I will personally sit down and watch every single Friday the 13th movie as well as every A Nightmare on Elm Street movie. I will review them. I will carefully analyze them. I will blast Dokken's "Dream Warriors" followed by Alice Cooper's "He's Back (The Man Behind the Mask)". I will point out tropes, flaws, goofs, blunders, bloopers, boners and gaffes, laughing in a mocking and lighthearted manner, accordingly. I will girlishly giggle and gawk at every boob, breast, tit, chesticle, funnybag, gazoomba and bazonga exposed by any underpaid, smoking hot actress, pretending like I don't freeze-frame on every single instance for a good glimpse. I will act confused at the sight marijuana use and pretend like I don't know what's happening in a childish state of juvenile naivete. Oh it'll be glorious....and on Halloween day? I will cap it all off with Freddy vs. Jason where both psycho's careers culminated in probably the greatest "versus" movie we have ever gotten. NO NERDS. Marvel crossovers don't count as versus movies. It's all a preset, single-contained universe. Quit getting overexcited.

So I hope you're as excited as I am. Keep an eye on your social media tube, because shit's about to get real. Because there are only eighteen total posts, it'll have a cockamamie schedule of ridiculousness just to fill the whole month somewhat equally. If you'd rather watch for that inaugural post because that's when the roller coaster of nostalgic slasher-movie mayhem is leaving the station, just ignore everything after this sentence. If you'd like to plan your daily life around the release and reading of this Halloween spectacular because you love me that much, the schedule is as follows:

October 1 - Friday the 13th (1980)
October 2 - Friday the 13th, Part 2 (1981)
October 3 - Friday the 13th, Part 3 in 3D (1982)
October 4 - Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984)
October 7 - A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
October 10 - Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning (1985)
October 12 - A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985)
October 14 - Jason Lives: Friday the 13th, Part VI (1986)
October 16 - A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors (1987)
October 18 - Friday the 13th, Part VII: The New Blood (1988)
October 20 - A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988)
October 22 - Friday the 13th, Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989)
October 24 - A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989)
October 26 - Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)
October 28 - Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993)
October 29 - Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994)
October 30 - Jason X (2002)
Halloween - Freddy vs. Jason (2003)

Also, it goes without saying that this'll probably be the only post for September. I'll be busy writing all these monstrosities. See you in October!

A Review of "Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island"

Good God. Was this movie even made for kids? It's marketed as a kid's movie, it looks like a kid's movie, but... is it REALLY a kid's movie? What even is Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island? For those of you living under a rock, Scooby-Doo needs no introduction. Yes that's right, even for you you close-minded buffoon. Scooby-Doo involves a group of hippies and their talking dog going around solving mysteries, and not even being recognized by the towns they solve mysteries for. You'd think Mystery Inc. would get some kind of recognition for that. At least that's the part the movie got right. The cameo by Pamela Anderson, not so much. Anyway, I'm getting off-track here. Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island was Scooby's very first foray into animated motion pictures. By then, he'd only have about five different television series' with four more on the way, so he was alive and well, needless to say. So in a never-ending onslaught of Scooby-Dooness, what makes Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island stand out amongst the rest? Well quite simply put: It's horrifying!

As a kid, Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island is a twisted flick. It's got zombies, sure, but not like cartoony animated zombies like Scooby-Doo is used to, but horrific, groaning, creepy looking zombies. Their groans and movements haunt children's nightmares and I'm certain, with how needlessly PC America has become today, that parents will ban this movie from the Television airwaves should it ever come on again. Aside from the zombies, in case that horror wasn't traumatizing enough for your youngsters, there are Satanic cat people who eat people in there too! Crazy, am I right?! Who would've thought putting this in a fucking Scooby-Doo movie would de-terrify it. Simply put, it doesn't!

The film opens with the Mystery, Inc. gang solving the case of the Moat Monster. Becoming bored with solving mysteries, the gang goes their separate ways. You know, like visiting exotic locations and unmasking crooks would ever seem boring. Daphne Blake and Fred Jones start running a successful television series called Coast to Coast with Daphne Blake. What happens on this "successful" television series is beyond me. Velma Dinkley becomes the proprietor of a mystery bookstore (*cough* Ghostbusters II *cough*). Shaggy Rogers and his dog Scooby-Doo are fired from their job at an airport after eating all of the confiscated foods. Shouldn't both Shaggy and Scooby be diabetics by this point? D'ah shit, who cares. For Daphne's birthday, Fred decides to get the gang back together for a road trip while Daphne is filming her show. After encountering a lot of fake monsters, the gang finally arrives in New Orleans, where they'll discover the real monster: Hurricane Katrina! Just kidding, but they are soon invited by a young woman named Lena Dupree to visit her employer's home on Moonscar Island, which is allegedly haunted by the ghost of the pirate Morgan Moonscar. Just thought of visiting a place called "Moonscar Island" is a turn off enough already. So you know...fuck that noise. Though the gang is skeptical, they go with Lena, to whom Fred has taken a fancy. That horny bastard.

On the island, the gang meets Lena's employer Simone Lenoir, as well as the ferryman Jacques, and Simone's gardener Beau, to whom Daphne takes a fancy. That horny slut. They also meet Snakebite Scruggs, an ill-natured fisherman, and his hunting pig, Mojo. Snakebite Scruggs is voiced by Mark Hamill. Why did you need to know that? Why not? It's Mark Hamill! The gang sets out to prove that the "ghost" of the island is a fake. Shaggy and Scooby are chased by Mojo and end up falling into a big hole, where they encounter the zombie of Morgan Moonscar, in probably one of the first horror scenes in the movie. By the time the rest of gang comes to investigate, Moonscar is gone. So you know...zombies are here now. Plus the movie just went from child-friendly "Fuck, what is happening right now?" pretty damn quick. After the zombie sighting, Simone invites the gang to her house to stay for the night. Wouldn't you want to stay the night on an island inhabited by zombies? I know I wouldn't. As the gang is dressing up for dinner, Shaggy sees the ghost of a Confederate colonel in the mirror; Simone explains that the island was a temporary headquarters for a Confederate regiment during the American Civil War. Due to Simone's cats, Shaggy and Scooby eat in the Mystery Machine, but find the food spicy and get some water from the lake, where an army of zombies emerge. Shaggy's bad driving gets the Mystery Machine stuck in the mud, forcing him and Scooby to flee on foot.

Fred and Daphne later head out and find the Mystery Machine, but no sign of Shaggy and Scooby. They argue about each other's supposed love interests and come across Shaggy and Scooby. They manage to capture a zombie, which is revealed to be real when Fred pulls its head off thinking it is a mask. Let me reiterate. Fred...from Scooby-Doo...rips a zombie's head off. They play this off as nothing, but this is a zombie. Which means this was a real human head at one point, and Fred just ripped it off. As the zombies swarm around them, the gang splits in panic. One generic (yet badass) heavy metal song later, Shaggy and Scooby discover wax dolls that look like Fred, Velma, Daphne and Beau, and they play with them, causing their friends to undertake a series of involuntary actions for a short time until they leave after disturbing a nest of bats. Thank God for this, terrifying is slowly returning to comedically cheesey once again. Later, they return to Simone's house and discover a secret passage under the staircase. They find Lena, who tells them that the zombies dragged Simone away. Ominous. They find a secret chamber for voodoo rituals, where Velma finds footprints of Simone's heels and interrogates Lena about the story. Simone then appears, and she and Lena use voodoo dolls to trap the gang in the chamber before revealing themselves to be evil cat creatures... and horrifying once again. When Velma recognizes this, she accuses Simone of stealing Morgan Moonscar's treasure. Angered by the mentioning of Moonscar, Simone explains that centuries ago, they were part of a group of settlers who were devoted to a cat god. When Moonscar and his pirates chased the settlers into a bayou filled with alligators that later ate them, the vengeful Simone and Lena asked their cat god to curse Moonscar. Their wish was granted and they killed Moonscar and his crew, but the curse caused them to become cat creatures permanently, provided that they keep draining life forces every harvest moon to preserve their immortality. WHAT DOES ANY OF THIS HAVE TO DO WITH SCOOBY-DOO?! This is scary voodoo shit! Not men in masks. This is too scary! I'm stopping the VCR to watch Toy Story and feel better about myself! Turns out that Jacques joined them later on, agreeing to bring them more victims in exchange for immortality. Jacques turns into an even scarier cat creature, ripped and ferocious. Thus the repentant zombies' intent was to warn the gang to leave to escape their fate. So...the horrifying zombies, whose groans haunt our very nightmares when the lights are off and we're home alone...were the good guys after all. Well played, Scooby-Doo. Well played.

Finding Shaggy and Scooby, Jacques transforms into a cat creature and chases them to drain their lives. Thanks to the zombies, Shaggy and Scooby escape and accidentally tumble into the cave, interrupting the draining ceremony and distracting the cat creatures. Velma quickly unties herself and creates voodoo dolls of Simone and Lena to interrupt their ritual. Where did Velma learn how to do this? How did she? Who knows, but when Lena and Simone start slapping each other around, it's not scary anymore. When they are finally cornered, the cat creatures' curse expires, causing them to age hundreds of years and disintegrate, freeing and avenging the zombies' souls and allowing them to rest in peace. Reminds me of the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade when the guy drinks the wrong grail. Fucking brutal. Beau is revealed to be an undercover police officer sent to investigate the disappearances on the island. Betcha he didn't think he'd see fucking cat creatures. Daphne offers Beau a chance to guest-star on her show and discuss the adventure. The next morning, everyone leaves the island via ferry to head back to town.

So yeah, Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island is a pretty fucked up children's movie. It's got the usual Scooby-Doo stuff, like capers, monsters, and comedic stoner antics, but it's also got carnivorous cat people, curses, groaning undead and night-time bayou chases, all serenaded with late 90s heavy metal music. So...it's all over the place. A lot of it is still pretty cartoony and enjoyable for kids everywhere, but other parts of it are either really creepy or just flat-out unsettling. So, in a way, it's the perfect Scooby-Doo movie. Every one after this one got more cartoony and dropped the adult horror themes so that it could play safer to kids, but this one had some balls and still stands out as probably the best Scooby-Doo movie ever made. Hell, even the 2002 live-action movie was more cartoony than this, and that was the fucking live-action movie. Have some balls, Hollywood. If I don't get an R-Rated Scooby-Doo movie where monsters disembowel people, Shaggy and Scooby get high while Fred swears like a sailor and busts caps in people's asses, I'm going to be sorely disappointed by the end of my lifespan.

A Review of "Superman Returns"

It was nineteen years. Nineteen up and down years in cinema between the motion picture ass-fest Superman IV: The Quest for Peace and the next Superman movie. First, ideas came in the early 90s for Superman V: Reborn, a script that was floating around after Ilya Salkind got the rights back once the Cannon Group went belly-up. He wanted to adapt the "Death of Superman" arc in a motion picture once the comic book came out. That eventually fell through when famous comic-book enthusiast/comedian Kevin Smith got a hold of the script and rewrote it as Superman Lives. This was the script that was eventually approved by Warner Bros in the late-90s for Tim Burton to direct with Nicolas Cage starring as Superman. This is the one where a whole lot of pictures and videos, even a whole fucking documentary exists about. Superman Lives eventually fell-through when Tim Burton and Nicolas Cage both dropped out of the picture. So the Superman franchise dwelled on until the mid 2000s, when the director of X-Men and X2 Bryan Singer agreed to write & direct the newest Superman movie. This... is Superman Returns. A movie that proves you don't have to have a whole lot of action to be a period-specific thinkpiece. For $204 million, Bryan Singer got to make the exact Superman movie he would want to, honoring the Richard Donner versions of Superman & Superman II and boy it's...something.

For the previous five years, Superman (Brandon Routh) has mysteriously abandoned his adopted home of Earth while on a journey into outer space to investigate what astronomers believed to be an intact Krypton. When Zodd (Terence Stamp), Ursa (Sarah Douglas) and Non (Jack O'Halloran) showed up and Superman defeated them, he decided that it was time to search the galaxy for any other possible Kryptonians floating around the universe. In his absence, journalist and past love Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth) wrote a scathing article "Why the World Doesn't Need Superman", winning her another Pulitzer Prize. Lois is engaged to Richard White (James Marsden), the nephew of Daily Planet editor-in-chief Perry White (Frank Langella), and with whom she shares a young asthmatic son, Jason (Tristan Lake Leabu). Meanwhile, the notorious criminal mastermind Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey) secured an early release from prison due to Superman not appearing as a prosecution witness during Luthor's fifth appeal trial. By seducing an old heiress (Noel Neill, the original Lois Lane), Luthor is able to inherit her fortune, giving him resources for his next real estate scheme.

Unforeseen to everyone, Superman returns to Earth, crash landing at the Kent farm, just as he did as a child. He reveals to his adoptive mother Martha Kent (Eva Marie Saint) that he left hoping to find his homeworld, and expresses his dismay at being the only one of his kind remaining. Thus begins the whiney emo Superman we'll see for the duration of the movie. Upon returning to Metropolis in his human identity of Clark Kent, he is shocked to discover the consequences of his disappearance. When a mysterious nationwide power outage causes catastrophic failures during a space shuttle launch, Clark realizes he must reemerge as Superman. Yeah I mean... of course. Otherwise, what's the point of the fucking movie? Saving the shuttle and its ferry jet in highly public fashion causes a resurgence of media attention regarding Superman's return. Unbeknownst to anyone, the accident was triggered by Luthor using Kryptonian technology stolen from the Fortress of Solitude, including a cameo by Jor-El (Marlon Brando).

Luthor sends his moll, Kitty (Parker Posey), to distract Superman, allowing him to steal a sample of kryptonite from a museum. Yeah... again, what kind of threat would Lex Luthor pose without kryptonite? Still investigating the earlier power outage, Lois tracks the hypocenter...whatever that means...to the mansion Luthor recently inherited (I mean "stole") and, along with her son, explores the yacht docked there. Discovering Luthor, she is held captive as the yacht heads out into the Atlantic. Luthor plans to use the Kryptonian crystal technology Superman used to create his Fortress of Solitude to create a massive new continent which would swallow some of the current landmasses bordering the Atlantic. The world will then be forced to use his new land. Placing a crystal inside a shell of refined kryptonite, Luthor triggers the new land growth by launching it into the sea. I'm not going to lie, that part was pretty cool and it's a unique idea. I'm just going to ask though: why does ever Superman movie have to default to Lex Luthor and another landmass scam? The Lex Luthor in the comics was much more pimp than that.

Lois manages to use a fax machine on board the yacht to send their location to the Daily Planet headquarters, where it catches the attention of Clark and Richard. Upon discovering her attempt at subversion, one of Luthor's henchmen attacks Lois, causing Jason's powers to emerge as he crushes the henchman with a piano – revealing that the (no longer asthmatic) Jason is Superman's son. At least, its revealed to the audience. Because Pulitzer Prize-winning author Lois Lane can't deduce it for the love of fuck. The son pitches a piano across the fucking room...like, flying across...and Lois is still like "OMG How did Richard's kid do that?" Luthor even realizes this a million miles ahead of Lois and he and his thugs escape by helicopter as the earthquake effects from the growing landmass span back to Metropolis. While Superman works to contain the damage in the city, Richard reaches the yacht by way of a floatplane and releases Lois and Jason from their locked room. Why Jason's powers just fucking vanished on us is beyond me. The three become trapped when the yacht is split in two by the growing rock formations, knocking Lois unconscious and sinking the yacht. In a really cool scene complete with the classic Superman music, Superman rescues them and gets them to the safety of Richard's plane.

Superman pursues Luthor, who has made his way to the growing land mass. The kryptonite shell surrounding the crystal has caused the new rock formations to be infused with kryptonite, making the land itself toxic to Superman, causing him to become weak and lose his powers. Luthor's thugs brutalize Superman into submission as he is unable to fight back...in a hearbreaking, gut-busting scene for someone as big of a Superman as I was. Luthor then impales Superman with a kryptonite shard and allows him to fall into the ocean, presumably to die. Regaining consciousness in the escaping floatplane, Lois learns that Superman has gone to confront Luthor. Knowing of the kryptonite danger, Lois convinces Richard to double back to help him. Jason, realizing that he's already in the express lane to Divorce Town, spots the Man of Steel in the water and Lois and Richard get him into the plane, where Lois removes the shard. Recovering, Superman flies high into the atmosphere to regain his strength by exposure to sunlight. Using his heat vision, he then tunnels deep under the new land mass and, using the last of his strength, is able to fly it off into space before it absorbs more land.

Escaping with Luthor in the helicopter, a disillusioned Kitty discards the remaining crystals and the two eventually end up on a deserted island when they run out of fuel. Complications from kryptonite exposure cause Superman to fall into a coma, and while doctors are able to remove more fragments from his skin, they cannot revive him. Somehow falling into a coma in space from Kryptonite poisoning doesn't kill him, but you know. Anywho, Lois visits him in the hospital and whispers into his ear while glancing at Jason. Looks like somebody finally started using her brain. Soon after, hospital staff discovers his room empty. No longer feeling alone in the universe, Superman visits his newly revealed son in the boy's room and repeats to Jason the words of his own father as he sleeps. Lois starts writing another article, titled "Why the World Needs Superman". Superman reassures her that he is now back to stay, and flies off into space, where he gazes down at the world in a similar fashion that he used to... back when Brandon Routh was Christopher Reeve.

Superman Returns is a fun adventure, albeit it can be a little boring at times. Okay... it can be a lot boring at times. It's an arthouse version of Superman we thankfully never got and then un-thankfully ended up getting with this. If you told me in 2006 that Superman Returns was going to be as critically panned as movies like The Shaggy Dog and X-Men: The Last Stand, I would've laughed in your face. I won't lie though, seeing the main title march in theaters was pretty great. It gave me goosebumps. It was a nice throwback reference piece to the Richard Donner original Superman & Superman II. Luckily it omitted Superman III & IV so we didn't have to worry about those. On top of the story having a few holes in it, the actors do well in their roles. Kevin Spacey was a freakin' perfect cast choice as Lex Luthor. Brandon Routh looked like Christopher Reeve enough and talked like him enough to cast him. The other people do the part. All-in-all, it's a decent Superman movie. It isn't memorable and classic, but it sure was better than the previous entries we got.

A Review of "Superman IV: The Quest for Peace"

"Chris? This is your villain... an ex-Chippendale's dancer"
"That does it, I'm calling my agent." "Chris, they aren't hiring--" "NO NOT TO DANCE!--"

Oh God. *Gags* *Dry heaves* *Tries to regain composure*. Dear Christ, Superman IV. What the hell happened? Why is this movie so BAD? I almost shouldn't even waste my time writing a blog post about it. I mean...fuck is this movie terrible. We started out with all the momentum and success in the world thanks to Superman. Superman II did all it could to carry that momentum and despite that it didn't quite live up to its legendary predecessor, it was still fun and was a pretty entertaining movie. Superman III took that momentum, laughed at it, wrote several bad jokes about it, decided to parody it and then shit itself into theaters much to the chagrin and anger of all those involved, but that wasn't even the end. Thanks to the abysmal reviews of Superman III as well as its spin-off follow-up Supergirl, Ilya Salkind decided that beating a dead horse was detrimental to his arm and sold the franchise rights off so he could no longer be responsible for Superman's cinematic demise. The rights were then purchased by...The Cannon Film Group. Holy God, why? If you don't know, The Cannon Group was an independent motion picture studio in the 80s renowned and notorious for their smutty, schlocky, low-brow action and drama cinema, and now they tasked themselves with breathing new life into Superman. Welcome to the cinematic assfest that's even worse than Superman III. This is Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, and yes, for some unGodly unHoly reason, most of the people who complained and vowed never to work on another Superman movie came back, including *gasp* Christopher Reeve himself. Reeve was so traumatized by the outcome of Superman III that he hung up his proverbial cape and bid adieu to Superman. The Cannon Group lured him back with a higher salary plus story and script input, proving once again that yes, "Money talks". So why? Why does Superman IV: The Quest for Peace fail across the board and stand tall as not only the worst Superman movie ever made, one of the worst comic book movies ever made, but one of the worst MOVIES ever made? Let's take a gander and see. Sit back, relax, and grab a drink; this is going to be a lengthy one.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Christopher Reeve and I'm
never fucking coming back ever again."

The movie opens with the familiar space credits that Superman & Superman II gave us, except it looks like a filmmaking class project on a budget of three dollars. We then see as Superman (Christopher Reeve) saves a spaceship of cosmonauts whose ship was thrown off course by debris at pure random. He opens the door and speaks to them, breaking not just one but a shitload of Laws of Physics. After that little scientific debacle, he visits his home-town of Smallville as Clark. Now that his adoptive parents have died, Clark has inherited their now-unattended farm. In an empty barn, he uncovers the capsule that brought him to Earth, and removes a luminescent green Kryptonian energy module. You know... the one he used up to build the Fortress of Solitude in Superman and he used again in Superman II and shouldn't even be in the space pod to uncover? That's right, fuck you continuity. A recording left by his Kryptonian mother Lara states that its power can be used only once... even though it was previously used twice and this would make it the third fucking time it was used. Good God we're already five minutes in and this movie's broken both science and continuity like twigs you find in your front lawn. After refusing to sell the farm to a mall developer, Clark returns to Metropolis, where he stops a runaway subway train after the conductor collapses at the controls. Just another random isolated incident, thank God Clark--I mean Superman--was there.

This must be how Walgreens pharmacy techs
see old people when they get the medication they
so crave... after an hour arguing over insurance.

After returning to the Daily Planet, Clark learns that the company has gone bankrupt and been taken over by David Warfield (Sam Wanamaker), a tabloid tycoon and your stereotypical 1980s asshole media mogul who fires Perry White (Jackie Cooper) and hires his own daughter Lacy (Mariel Hemingway) as the new editor. Hooray for nepotism! Lacy takes a liking to Clark (for whatever reason; she's kind of hot and Clark's kind of a dork) and tries to seduce him; Clark agrees to go on a date with her. Following the news that the United States and the Soviet Union may engage in a nuclear arms race, Clark is conflicted about how much Superman should intervene. After receiving a letter from a concerned schoolboy, Superman travels to the Fortress of Solitude to seek advice from the spirits of his Kryptonian ancestors, which shouldn't even be possible. Kryptonians could only be viewed through crystal recordings or "ghosts". These are acting like they're just talking on the phone like nothing's wrong. Superman II is also guilty of this, but you know, to hell with it I guess. They recommend that he let Earth solve its own problems, or seek new worlds where war has been outlawed. After asking for advice from Lois Lane, Superman attends a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, announcing to the assembly that he will rid the planet of nuclear weapons. Various nations fire their nuclear warheads into space, which are collected by Superman into a giant net and then thrown into the sun--okay stop, stop stop. Fucking stop for a second.

Superman's *sigh* Nuclear missile net

First off, the scene where he takes advice from Lois is so ass-backwards and broken. Lois comes over and asks Clark why he's so bummed, so Clark takes her on a walk... off the rooftop. As they fall, in one of the worst green screen effects you'll ever see, he saves her as Superman, re-revealing his identity to her. They then mimic the flying sequence from Superman, including the same musical cues...for NO reason. Then they return to Clark's rooftop, where he kisses her to make her forget everything that just happened, un-re-revealing his identity to her. Fuuuuuuuuck this noise. Next, Superman agrees to rid the planet of all nuclear weapons, to which EVERY SINGLE NATION is overwhelmingly in support of. Imagine you're some minute country surrounded by angry dictators on all sides...I don't know the name of one, so let's just make one up and call it "Israel". Imagine you're this made-up country "Israel" with made-up angry dictators on all sides of you, but the only thing you've got to stop them is your nuclear arsenal...which Superman is now taking away because "They'we dangewous". You are now up shit creek without a yamaka, Israel, you made-up country you. This movie's premise is shit. Pure shit. Thirdly...a giant net? How fucking Looney Tunes can you get? Where did Superman acquire this net? Did he build it? Did he find it? If so, how do all of the nukes just sit in the net and not go off in contact of each other? He flies them into the net pretty forcefully. Also again, when he throws the net into the sun, a net containing DOZENS of nuclear devices...that would set off a chain reaction, wouldn't you think? Like a cataclysmic one? Fuck you Superman, you arrogant dickhead.

"I HAVE THE POWER!"
"For the last time, fuckface, you're NUCLEAR
man... NOT HE-MAN."

In a distracting subplot, young Lenny Luthor (Jon Cryer) breaks his uncle Lex Luthor (Gene "What the fuck am I doing here?" Hackman) out of prison. Returning to Metropolis, Lex and Lenny steal a strand of Superman's hair from a museum, and create a genetic matrix which Lex attaches to a U.S. nuclear missile. The strand of hair is being shown to hold one thousand pounds with relative ease and it can be cut by Lex with wire strippers. *Screams* After the missile is test launched, Superman intercepts it and throws it into the sun. *Screams Again* A glowing ball of energy is discharged, which develops into a superhuman. This "Nuclear Man" makes his way back to Earth to find his 'father' Lex, who establishes that while his creation is powerful, he will deactivate without exposure to sunlight. *Screams Just Because* A vicious battle ensues between Lex's creation and Superman. While saving the Statue of Liberty from falling onto the streets of New York, Superman is infected with radiation sickness by a scratch from Nuclear Man's radioactive claws. Yes, he has claws, but they don't look like claws. They look like fucking Press-on nails. "Whoopsie-doodle, Superman. I'm'a just give you a good scratchin' here, honey".

"Hey Lois, remember when we did this last time?"
"No?" "Oh, right."

To Lois' disgust, the Daily Planet (which has been reformatted as a tabloid newspaper) publishes the headline "Superman Dead?" Lois indicates a desire to quit and seizes Superman's recovered cape for herself. Lacy is also upset and reveals to Lois that she cares for Clark. Lois ventures to Clark's apartment where she proclaims her love for Superman, a man she would know is in the room right next to her if it weren't not one but two mind-erasing kisses. Felled by radiation sickness, an elderly Clark staggers to his terrace where he retrieves the Kryptonian energy module and attempts to heal himself. So that's use number three. Good work writers, you assholes. Having developed a crush on Lacy out of her looks alone, the shallow Nuclear Man threatens mayhem if she is not brought to him. Why does he have a crush on her? What does he hope to gain? I don't know, maybe they can paint each other's nails at night. The newly restored Superman agrees to take him to her to prevent anyone else from being hurt. Superman lures Nuclear Man into an elevator car, trapping him inside and then depositing it on the far side of the moon. As the sun rises, Nuclear Man breaks free due to a sliver of sunlight through a crack in the elevator doors and Superman is again forced to defend himself. The battle on the soundstage--I'm sorry, I mean "the moon" goes on for a while. The black curtains--I'm sorry, I mean "space"--looks pretty great in the background. You can even see the strings when Superman is tossed and when Nuclear Man flies. This is like a backyard Super8 film. At the end of the battle, it appears as though Superman has been defeated, as he is driven into the moon's surface by Nuclear Man. Literally like one would drive a fence post into the ground.

"Effective immediately, I'm standing down from the role of Superman
so they can't make anymore of these goddamn, shit-ass sequels to
torture you all" - Christopher Reeve, final day of shooting.

Nuclear Man returns to Earth, forces his way into the Daily Planet and abducts Lacy, carrying her into outer space. Yes, you read that right. He carries her into outer space, where she is ABLE TO BREATHE NORMALLY as if she is not in outer space. That does it, I'm convinced the director just didn't give a shit. I don't even know his name and I don't care to look it up. He's a bitter disappointment of a director. That's second-grade level science. It's okay though, because Superman manages to free himself from the moon's surface and then PUSHES IT OUT OF ITS ORBIT to cast Earth into an eclipse, nullifying Nuclear Man's powers and leaving Lacy helpless (again... IN SPACE). "Apologies for all the rogue waves and tsunami's, people of Earth. I have to stop NUCLEAR MAN!" Superman rescues Lacy (again... FROM SPACE) and returns her to Earth, recovers Nuclear Man and deposits him into the core of a nuclear power plant, destroying him. Perry White secures a loan to buy a controlling interest in the newspaper, making David Warfield a minority shareholder and protecting the paper from any further takeovers (in case you gave a shit which you shouldn't). In the movie's ending press conference, Superman declares only partial victory in his campaign, saying, "There will be peace when the people of the world want it so badly that their governments will have no choice but to give it to them". Oh so that's why there's war in the world. It's not differing ideologies, power-hungry dictators, or a never-ending game of economic grabass; it's just because we don't want peace hard enough. Superman also recaptures the fleeing Luthors. He places Lenny in Boys Town, telling the priest that Lenny has been under a bad influence, and returns Lex to prison.

What. A fucking. Load. Superman IV: The Quest for Peace is seriously one of the worst movies ever made and easily one of the worst I've ever seen. It makes no sense, it's poorly written,  and it's story is stupid, confused, contrived, broken, ill-timed, poorly-paced and horribly executed. The science and physics are absolutely forgotten about or, hell, considering what we've seen, completely fucking ignored just for the sake of scriptwriting. The special effects are fake and cheap-looking that it makes the movie out to be a farce of itself, including that shot of Superman flying used over and over and over and over and over and over again. The movie ultimately goes nowhere, does nothing, moves no characters in any sort of way that can be considered "development" and returns the city of Metropolis, Superman, Lois, and fucking everybody else into the exact same predicament they were in when the movie first started. Oh, except "Israel" doesn't have its nuclear weapons now and is probably getting fucked on all sides by evil dictators who were smart enough not to surrender them to Superman. I read online where the movie's only an hour and a half because well-over forty minutes were cut from it. I've read small bios on these scenes and guess what? They didn't go anywhere either. Thank God this movie's only ninety minutes long. It's like "what the fuck were we being punished for?" Is this God returning the favor for the Miracle on Ice? Why were we punished with this atrocious garbage? We didn't think it was possible to top Superman III's suckage and yet here we are, bawling in a corner while Superman IV's end credits play on the TV. Christopher Reeve thought Superman III was bad, I can't believe he didn't just burn his costume, walk off set and become an English teacher for the rest of his life when he saw Superman IV being made. I'm astounded they released this. Absolutely astounded. It should be branded illegal to watch this movie. Avoid it all costs...unless you're just absolutely messed up on drugs.

A Review of "Superman III"

"Chris, I know you love method acting--but flying me forty miles from the set just to
help me pick up my pizza is a tad overdoing it!"

After the triumphant ending to the theatrical release of Superman II, that is Richard Lester's Superman II, the end credits open by telling us "Coming Soon, Superman III". So basically, they were like "You want more of this? Well we won't give you more of this, but we'll give you a big old punch in the nuts and call it Superman III." Superman III is bad. Very bad. It's such a farce and a lame-brained attempt to cash-in on the comedic prowess of legendary actor and comedian Richard Pryor that you even wonder what fucking Superman himself is even doing in the movie. This movie started out as a stand-up routine by Richard Pryor called "SuperN*gger" where he acts out a bank robbery thwarted by an African-American Superman from the ghettos of America's slums. When asked what provoked such a routine, Pryor jokingly said that he always wanted to be in a Superman movie. I repeat... he jokingly said that. Well, Ilya Salkind was such a numbnuts that he took it seriously and saw an opportunity to not only cash in on Pryor's fame but to keep his superhero franchise alive...and for all intents and purposes, Superman III sucks ass. Christopher Reeve even was so humiliated by the outcome that vowed to never play Superman again, but we ALL KNOW WHERE THAT WENT HAHAHAHAHA. So let's dive into this shit heap and figure out why we went from Richard Donner's epic masterpiece to... I don't know, whatever the fuck this is.

No, I didn't pull this from another Richard
Pryor movie. This is from Superman III.

Gus Gorman (Richard Pryor), a chronically unemployed ne'er do well, discovers a talent for computer programming, and is hired at the Metropolis-based conglomerate Webscoe. Gus embezzles from his employer through salami slicing, that is taking fractions of a cent that the computer rounds off in electronic transactions and stores them in a bank account. The same plot device used in Office Space, because as they said in Office Space,"...it's just like Superman III". The embezzlement brings him to the attention of CEO Ross Webster (Robert Vaughn). Webster is intrigued by Gus's potential to help him rule the world financially. Joined by sister Vera (Annie Ross) and "psychic nutritionist" Lorelei Ambrosia (Pamela Stephenson), Ross blackmails Gus into helping him. So you're probably wondering "What the hell does any of this have to do with Superman?" Well it doesn't. But hey, Superman's in here somewhere. Stick around.

Clark Kent (Christopher Reeve) convinces his Daily Planet boss, Perry White (Jackie Cooper), to let him return to Smallville for his high-school reunion. En route, as Superman, he extinguishes a fire in a chemical plant containing unstable Beltric acid, which produces corrosive vapor when superheated. The fire at the chemical plant is actually pretty decent and a fun sequence. You wonder why the whole movie couldn't be like this. At the reunion, Clark is reunited with childhood friend Lana Lang (Annette O'Toole), a divorcée with a young son named Ricky, and harassed by Brad Wilson (Gavan O'Herlihy), her ex-boyfriend. So you're probably wondering "what does this high school reunion shtick has to do with Superman?" Well, it doesn't. Back aboard the boredom express, Ross is infuriated by Colombia's refusal to do business with him, so he orders Gus to command Vulcan, an American weather satellite, to create a tornado to destroy Colombia's coffee crop for the next several years. Yeah... you read that right. Your vision is working just fine. Gus then travels to Smallville to use the offices of WheatKing, a subsidiary of Webscoe, to reprogram the satellite. Though Vulcan creates a devastating storm, Ross's scheme is thwarted when Superman (of all people) neutralizes it, saving the harvest. Superman in a Superman movie? Get fucked! Ross orders Gus to use his computer knowledge to create Kryptonite, remembering Lois Lane's Daily Planet interview with Superman from the first movie... even though there was absolutely no fucking mention of Kryptonite in that interview. Good God, did the producers even watch the first Superman movie? Gus uses Vulcan to locate, scan, and analyze Krypton's debris. He discovers that one of the elements of Kryptonite is an "unknown" compound, and substitutes tar.

"Lana, I've been nervous to say this but... will
you go to the prom with me?"
"Clark, we're in our mid 30s--"

Meanwhile, on this week's episode of fucking Dawson's Creek, Lana convinces Superman to appear at Ricky's birthday party, but Smallville turns it into a town celebration. Superman, a man known for stopping runaway missiles and thwarting Kryptonian villains just as strong as he is, now makes public appearances at children's birthday parties. I'm getting a very "Batman & Robin" vibe from this crap. Gus and Vera, disguised as Army officers, show up and give Superman the Kryptonite, though it appears ineffective. Superman soon becomes selfish, focusing on his lust for Lana, causing him to delay rescuing a truck driver from a jackknifed rig hanging from a bridge. Superman becomes depressed, upset, and casually destructive, committing petty acts of vandalism, such as blowing out the Olympic Flame, and straightening the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It's basically the effects of the Red Kryptonite in the comic books, but it's still green so...go figure. Also, these aren't really acts of vandalism...he's kind of just being an asshole. It's almost hilarious.

A proverbial shot of the post-movie reaction: Christopher Reeve
beating himself up for being in such a pile of pigshit.

Gus, feeling used, gives Ross crude plans for a supercomputer he's designed and Ross agrees to build it in return for Gus creating an oil embargo by directing all oil tankers to the middle of the Atlantic Ocean until further notice. When the captain of one tanker insists on maintaining his original course, Ross has Lorelei seduce Superman into waylaying the tanker and breaching the hull, causing a massive oil spill. The villains decamp to the computer's location in Glen Canyon. Sigh... what is even happening in this movie? Could we get another hilarious moment? Sure, let's just watch Superman go on a drinking binge, become overcome by guilt, and suffer a nervous breakdown. That's...funny? Well, he lands in a junkyard where he splits into two personas: the immoral, corrupted Superman and the moral, righteous Clark Kent. How? Why? Who fucking cares. They don't explain it. It just happens, like a magical take on cellular mitosis. They engage in a pretty semi-decent battle, ending when Clark strangles his evil identity and kills him. Restored to his normal self, Superman repairs the damage his counterpart caused. I don't know how we'll get this derailed plot back on course, but goddammit we're going to try. 

After defending himself from rockets and an MX missile launched by Ross and his cronies, Superman confronts them in the cave where Gus's supercomputer identifies him as a threat and attempts to determine his weakness, unleashing a beam of pure Kryptonite. Guilt-ridden and horrified by the prospect of "going down in history as the man who killed Superman", Gus destroys the Kryptonite ray with a firefighter's axe, whereupon Superman flees. The computer becomes self-aware, much like Skynet but 1000% less badass, defending itself against Gus's attempts to disable it. Ross and Lorelei escape the control room, but Vera is transformed into a cyborg. What the fuck is going on here? Vera attacks her brother and Lorelei with beams of energy that immobilize them. No seriously, what the fuck is going on here? Superman returns with a canister of the Beltric acid from the Smallville chemical plan from earlier. Superman places the canister by the supercomputer, which does not resist as it suspects no danger. The intense heat emitted by the supercomputer causes the acid to turn volatile, destroying the supercomputer.

Our villains: Hughie, Dewey and Louie.

Superman flies away with Gus, leaving Ross and his cronies to the authorities, and drops Gus off at a West Virginia coal mine, where Superman recommends him to the company as a computer programmer. Afterwards, Superman returns to Metropolis. As Clark, he pays a visit to Lana, who has found employment as Perry White's new secretary. He is attacked by Brad, who has stalked Lana to Metropolis, only to end up falling into a room service cart. He restores the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and the film ends with Superman flying into the sunrise for further adventures... which we'd hoped we'd never get, but hey, life's a bitch. Get used to disappointment. 

Superman III is an unequivocal pile of garbage. It's action scenes are cheesy, hokey, lame and not really all that awe-inspiring. It's comedic scenes are complete duds, they go nowhere and they do nothing. It's established characters are laughably misused and its new characters are annoying, spotlight-stealing lunatics who have no clue what century they're in or how to behave in this kind of universe. Margot Kidder is in the movie a grand total of five minutes. LOIS LANE ISN'T EVEN IN THE MOVIE FOR FIVE MINUTES. She was so disgusted by Richard Donner's firing during Superman II and so outraged at the laughable script for III that the producers just wrote her out of the movie and wrote Lana Lang a bigger part. Superman literally plays second-fiddle in his own movie to a bumbling, nervous, comedic sidekick in Richard Pryor. If they wanted to drive the nail into the Super-coffin and kill the shit out of this franchise, they couldn't have done any better. It's embarrassing. They don't even open with a triumphant space title sequence anymore; Superman III opens with a series of slapstick gags occurring in Metropolis on a typical weekday morning. I shit you not. God, it's ridiculous that they chased Christopher Reeve out of the franchise out of sheer embarrassment by being included in such a thing. It's like if director Richard Lester was handed the cockpit pilot seat of a 747 and then just crashed it straight into a mountain because he thought it'd be hilarious. Fuck this movie. 

...but just when you thought Superman III was the worst, it gets even worse than that...

Stay tuned.