Recent Viewings, Part 2

[lester1/2jr]

Valentine (2001) - forgettable and forgotten holiday horror attempt from Hollywood. Denise Richards hit her peak in Wild Things (1998) making out with what's her name in the pool and does a serviceable job here, but it's just not that good of a movie, although blandly watchable. Scream and I know What You Did Last Summer (which I'm not sure if I've actually seen) are the targets they are trying to aim their slingshots at.

An oft-rejected nerd begins to stalk mean girls years later when they are all adults and It's a big whodunit. Is it this one's new boyfriend? This one's old boyfriend? some other guy? Besides of the gory murder aspect, it's pretty much a big budget Lifetime movie. The only character I liked was the frustrated police detective. He would say funny, obvious sort of things.

"Do you have any more recent pictures?"

"If I did, wouldn't we be looking at them right now!"

Besides of that, it was a slick, but ultimately pretty poor showing.

3.25 /5

edit: Brought it down a quarter of a point because i remembered that there was a scene where a woman ties a man up in bed and leaves him there. Might have been funny in 1934, but not anytime after.

[lester1/2jr]

Fortress (1992) - Not my usual side of the sci fi genre here. Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator) directs this dystopian action sort of deal. It's certainly not gonna make me forget They Live or Demolition Man, but I enjoyed going outside of my cinematic comfort zone.

Most of it takes place indoors on these very claustrophobic prison sets that I didn't like. A guy gets arrested and sent to jail. He wants to get out, well, so he can not be in prison obviously, but also because his wife is pregnant and being held captive by...the guy who runs the prison. Having the one woman in the whole movie be pregnant might have helped them create tension, but combined with the sets, it doesn't leave the viewer with much to view. It feels more like a late night Syfy channel tv show than a film.

The guy who plays the main evil guy is very good. I truly forgot he was an actor and really thought of him as an evil robot thing. I liked the weirdo science expert prisoner, the holographically weird special effects, and the strong action aspect. Can't wait to get back to black and white crime stories and found footage horror, though.

3.99/5

[HappyGilmore]

Peter Pan's Neverland Nightmares.

Caught this on Peacock. It's a modern day horror film about Peter Pan and Tinker Bell. Peter works as a clown with a circus in England, and is shown to be seen as a child abductor who ends up kidnapping a child, but gets badly disfigured by the child's mom.

15 years later, he tells Tinker Bell that he needs to take more lost boys to Neverland. He ends up kidnapping Michael Darling on his birthday. He takes him to some dirty old house in the woods. Wendy feels guilty because she was supposed to watch her brother and got distracted by her boyfriend. A few days pass, and a bunch of boys riding the bus home are brutally murdered by Peter after he kills the driver.

Peter promised to being Michael back a friend from school, and finds a picture of one of his friends, who's the younger brother of Tiger Lily. Wendy finds a father of a young boy named Tommy who disappeared 15 years prior. Tommy's dad feels immense guilt, because Tommy was a bit sensitive, and always 'felt like a girl.' Wendy goes back to Lily's home for the night. Peter shows up, kills Lily, her parents, and kidnaps the brother. Wendy hid, but follows in a car.

Michael and Tinker Bell grow a bit close, and she keeps Peter Pan from harming him throughout the movie. Peter hooked Tinker Bell on heroin...or magic pixie dust, and we see them using throughout.

Wendy gets inside the house after Peter comes back. Tink has been suspecting that Peter was never taking the kids to Neverland, and confronts Peter. He berated her, and gets high. While he's out, Tink talks with Wendy. Wendy figured out that Tinker Bell is the abducted Tommy, and informs her that her dad never stopped looking for her.

Peter takes Michael's friend away, there's a skirmish and Peter places him in a coffin in the basement. He fights with Tinker Bell in the kitchen, heard Wendy's phone ring on a charger and panics. He runs into the room where Michael is, and Wendy distracts Peter so Michael can escape. Michael takes a knife and Wendy's phone and hides in the kitchen under the table and tablecloth. He calls the police but doesn't talks Peter won't hear him. Tinker Bell and Peter have another fight, and Peter attacks her, and cuts off her arms. He sees Michael, who stabs him with a knife and runs to the basement.

Wendy is already there, as she got their friend out of his coffin, and helped him escape from the house and told him to run and send help. As she's headed back upstairs, she encounters a very pale guy who seems to be in his 20s, with pasty skin, long hair, emaciated, and is missing a hand replaced by a hook. She figured out he was the boy James kidnapped at the beginning and promises to come back after she gets her brother. Peter sees her and chases her and her brother upstairs. They double team Peter but he gets in some shots. Michael goes ballistic on Peter, bloodies him pretty good, but Peter starts to get the upper hand. Suddenly James appears from the basement and grabs Peter with his book down to the basement. We hear a few screams as the police arrive.

One year later, we celebrate another birthday. As it's happening, the phone rings, and it's Peter calling.

The movie is from the same people behind Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey Parts 1&2. They are making the Twisted Childhood Universe, horror flicks based on children's stories who are in the Public Domain. They came out with Bambi recently, and Robert Englund is voicing Jiminy Cricket in the upcoming Pinocchio. They're live action with a bit of gore, and a crossover similar to the Avengers is planned.

I haven't seem Winnie the Pooh yet, but I was surprised how good Pan was so I'm gonna check out the Pooh films and Bambi.

The actress who played Wendy was great, as was the man playing Peter.

[chainsaw midget]

I watched Armed and Dangerous.  Then I watched Delirious. 

Just can't go wrong with John Candy.