FRENCH FRIES and FULL MOON FEATURES part VII: "Invisible: The Chronicles of Benjamin Knight" and Arby's Seasoned Curly Fries

We're not entirely sure who the core audience was for Full Moon movies - we assume twentysomething party people(?). Personally we mostly knew these films only by their covers on the video store shelves and the full page ads in Fangoria magazine -- always wondering if the movies themselves lived up to their vivid artwork. 

One such memorable ad was for 1993's Mandroid. We've seen Mandroid, and still the only thing we remember is the artwork, so it took some time to orient ourselves when we realized that 1993's Invisible: The Chronicles of Benjamin Knight was a direct sequel. Like, they were clearly shot back to back (just like Lord of the Rings), but as it turns out, Invisible is much more lively and playful; it's still a dizzying mess of plot threads and fake science jargon, but we get a lot less exposition because most of it was covered in "Part One". It's pointless to explain the plot - all you need to know is that wheelchair-bound Wade Franklin and his mind-operated Mandroid robot have joined forces with invisible scientist Benjamin Knight to fight returning bad guy Drago. There's nothing about this that doesn't feel like a Full Moon Production, from the Romanian exteriors to the soundstage interiors, from the synth score to the damsels in dungeons, they know which side of their bread to butter. Having said that, this is easily the most fast paced, big budget, action packed Full Moon movie we've watched to date. 

What's the deal with curly fries? You get like three or four curly fries and then a million slightly curved potato shards. That's typically the scenario at an Arby's Restaurant, so it's entirely accurate that a bag of Arby's Seasoned Curly Fries contains exactly that. You might even be tempted to suggest that these are the exact frozen fries they keep in the back of any given Arby's because these are actually as good, if not better! They say "seasoned" but that just means they're not bland; the seasoning simply comes across as well cooked, well loved potatoes. We can't exactly say "well cut", again because of the shards, but size and shape aside, they pass the test of being tasty on their own, without the aid of dipping sauces. 

The Movie: B-

The Fries: A

6 Inconspicuous Sequels

I won't say "underrated" - mostly because I hate the term. But that also wouldn't be accurate; these are six Number 2s that are largely unnoticed, unpopular, or are just generally unassuming in nature, and I find them all to be pretty wonderful. 

Queen II

Not that their self-titled debut album was much more popular, but apart from its iconic cover art (that was famously recreated for the "Bohemian Rhapsody" music video the following year) this one usually flies under the radar. It contains one single, "Seven Seas of Rhye", which proved to be their first sorta hit, but the rest of the tracks would be mostly unfamiliar to a casual Queen fan. My advice to them and to anyone is to experience this album wholly, chronologically, and without pause, as it's constructed as one nearly unbroken opera of pomp, metal, and folk. It takes the Abbey Road gimmick further (and with more finesse) and explores changes in pace and tone that are actually more ambitious and bombastic than, say, "Bohemian Rhapsody". 

Coke II

I've written about this before. And talked on camera about it before. And I'm gonna keep bringing it up until I've made a goddamned feature film about it. Released in 1992 (or rather, renamed) it was beautifully packaged with the traditional red & white boldness, but now with blue highlights and a fancy Roman numeral that made it feel like a Rocky sequel. At 9 years old the sheer novelty of it was the initial draw - like, Batman gets a sequel, and now mf Coke does too?! Furthermore, I found the soda to be really good; even at that age I was already experimenting with potential pops to break up the boredom my Coca-Cola excess, and Coke II played that part for however long it was alive. It was only decades later that I discovered Coke II was actually New Coke in different clothes, and while it may be more famous (or infamous) as its first iteration, it'll always be Coke II to me. 

Snowball II

At this stage of the game, The Simpsons has no more "minor characters" - they've mined everyone from Gil to Bumblebee Man, and even though I'm largely (maybe somewhat entirely) unfamiliar with the last 15 years of this show, I can definitely say Snowball II kept her dignity. I know this because she eventually met her fate in a Season 15 episode and was replaced by Lisa with a cat who is ultimately Snowball V. So the tried-and-true Snowball II was solely part of the supposed "Golden Age" of Simpsons - in that time surviving basement flooding, lack of grooming, and a possible romance with Scratchy. She lost her life when she was run over by Dr. Hibbert, and she quite possibly took the series with her to the grave. 

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

My relationship with video games is narrow and my interests in them are specific. This sequel to the groundbreaking Legend of Zelda was actually quite popular when it was released in 1987, though after so much time and so many more Zelda games, this is the one gamers point to as the weakest. I like when I get the opportunity to point out that I'm not a gamer, so with my limited experience regarding anything Zelda-related post 1994, I can say Adventure of Link is high on my short list of all time favorite video games. Apart from "deviating" from whatever norms the normies got used to, it is an unquestionably hard game to play. But I didn't care about the difficulty or the dogma, I was only ever enraptured by the world it created, and I put in the effort because I wanted to explore and experience as much as it had to offer; somehow this 8-bit setting and soundtrack was as real as video games ever got for me. 

Saved by the Bell: The College Years

The New Class was not able to capture the charm and chemistry of the original series. The College Years, in my opinion, did. Both premiering in 1993, New Class ran for seven seasons, but College Years was only around for one, even though it was more truly a sequel than a spinoff. While the original was largely an ensemble effort, it's only ever been clear to me that Saved by the Bell begins and ends with Zack Morris; College Years secured only four original cast members which manages to maintain a lotta the original chemistry, but again, that's because Zack leads the way, in and around and through the fourth wall. Let's face it, despite reunion efforts, The Beatles were never The Beatles again without John. 

True Detective Season 2

Were expectations ever so high? The first season got a lotta love (much of it from me) and we were all longing for more of the same creepy vibes and pretentious pontificating that became synonymous with the title. I wasn't necessarily Batman Returns-excited but I thought I had a pretty good idea of how it was gonna be. For the most part I was wrong; the general tone still remained but my initial takeaway was a plot-heavy melodrama that sank under the weight of its many intersecting threads. That's my own pretentious pontificating as a way of saying I thought it was mediocre. And for the most part, again, I was wrong. Season One made it impossible to not get caught up in its whodunnit premise (it's a damn detective show) but I had to confront the fact that it was the mood and overall ambience that hit me hardest. Season Two retained that (from different angles), and while I'm generally a fan of style over substance, it went to work on me almost subconsciously, to the point that I've revisited it twice and realized I'd retained more than I thought. I stupidly wanted more of the same, and missed the fact that I got something good, but different. 

It's time to let old things die

Hello. Yeah, it's been a while. Not much, how 'bout you? Have you stayed strong in the face of social discord or are you letting the bastards get you down? More importantly, is my cordiality transparent enough to set the tone of my tirade? Without rushing things I don't think it's too early to say it's been a long year that also seemed to go by too fast - but clearly nothing is good enough for people like me. We're always busy populating this site with the stuff we love and why we love it, because that's our general approach to life and what it has to offer... but along that journey there are distractions and aggravations and lamentations and any schlub with advice to spare will tell you that it's healthy to talk about those things. I would never burden or bore you with the battles of my own personal life - this blog is largely a land of Pop Culture. And Boy Howdy! there are some battles to be fought in that land! So pull up an ice block and lend an ear because there's been some awful developments in the world of Art & Entertainment and I don't want you to think I haven't noticed. 

Save for a new PTA or QT movie, I don't feel any excitement when I go to the theater anymore. Some would blame my age, I blame the mediocrity of the movies - but that's a separate argument. Point is, as usual, I was entirely lukewarm on the idea of seeing Joker: Folie à Deux; while I liked the first one as much as the people who liked it, I disliked it as much as the people who didn't. At the end of the day it's the only comic book character I truly like as portrayed by one of my favorite working actors, and from that angle it melded harmoniously enough to recommend. So I found myself in a theater watching the sequel, not because I sought it out, but because, like everything, it was just the next thing. And what I found was exactly how everyone describes it - that is, to say, the people who actually have the tools to describe it beyond a single four-letter word. And while most people's observations were accurate, that is not to say I digested it in the same way as them. 

Look I'm not gonna review the goddamn thing, I'm as sick of it as you are - but I will say that the fact that we're all sick of it is a problem in and of itself. Personally I can't think of any recent movies that generated this volume of discussion - the only problem was that the "discussion" was an avalanche of lowbrow toxicity and aimless frustration saturated in grammatical errors. One of the items on my very concise and coherent list of complaints I had about the 2019 film is how causally it would insult the intelligence of its audience. And then, in the purest and most maddening example of irony imaginable, the Sequel attempted some very mild abstractions and it went largely over the audience's head. Little to no surprise in a year that gave us the most generous helping of fan service to date. That's not based on some vague barometer - to my understanding, Marvel released a movie about Marvel movies. Conversely, Todd Phillips released a movie that grown men thought would turn them gay if they watched it. As much as people crave competition, there really wasn't one - not in this case. 

I thought Joker 2 was considerably better than the first one, but it was still just a B/B+. That's why I haven't gone on some aggressive defense jag in its honor; it's pretty good but not enough for me to go out ridin' fences. And that's where we're at: as Film Criticism was once as much of a valued art form as Film itself, the new adjacent form of entertainment is audience reaction. There's always been published "audience polls" and such for as long as I've paid attention, but now we have all these shared public forums where brains of all sizes can flesh out the reasons for their trivial point systems. But even still it comes down to the numbers; a lengthy essay (or even a girthy paragraph) is no match for a cluster of stars or a drawing of a tomato. And these services are put in place for a reason: just as the snobs need validation from IndieWire and Sight and Sound to inform their preferences, the "real fans" need their voices to be heard, free of all that pretentious academia put forward by critics. "If critics don't like it, that probably means it's good." And therein lies the root of that great moronic divide that's always haunting me and that I'm always complaining about: the senseless belief that there's a difference between "good" movies and "entertaining" movies. And naturally, professional critics know what's "good", amirite folks?

I've watched many of you abandon social media as a whole, and while I'm sad to lose your company in the vacuum of cyberspace, I commend your discipline; the greatest tragedy we've come to realize is that communication on a global scale is apparently bad for our health. Oh well. Masochist that I am I still rattle around these URLs just so I can read it over and over again...

I lie awake in bed staring into the darkness, pitying these poor souls who're convinced there's an illusive list of criteria that only the greatest Cinema can possess. And then I, an accredited scholar of Film and Film Studies, find myself struggling to calculate what these unique attributes could possibly be. Every once in a while I'll still muster the energy to engage with these commoners to find out if they have any ideas as to what makes a quality picture, and the common response is simply a list of the duties performed on a basic film production. 

Indeed, movies do have these things - so much so that they've gone as far as to categorize them for award shows and the like. But there it is: films with "good editing, good writing, good cinematography, and good acting" are, by definition, objectively good. Seems so simple it's as though it was fabricated by the mental midgets who actually believe it; I'm no culinary expert but I can tell you food tastes better when the ingredients are really good. I'm also not a scientist but I believe matter is at its strongest when it contains elements. Point is, the film bros are adamant about that figmental weather gauge that's been calibrated by the uppity critics and out-of-touch filmmakers who they admire and respect - until they have a difference of opinion regarding the state of Modern Cinema. 

Quentin recently came under fire for his daring observation that there are simply too many remakes nowadays. That's right, the moviegoing public unanimously vilified a genuine Film Expert for expressing an interest in risk and originality; as if to say "no, we want more remakes". Coppola, Gilliam, Cronenberg, Villeneuve, Nolan, Ridley Scott, and Alejandro González Iñárritu have all joined Scorsese in publicly disparaging the Comic Book scene, and while the general response is "ok boomer, you don't know what good cinema is", the bootlickers don't have the resolve (or the cognitive dissonance) to defend these foul franchises; it's a wasteland of guilty pleasures, and when the fans are forced to confront that guilt, they lash out with the very ugliness that gives the World Wide Web its reputation. To agree with these giants of filmmaking (regardless of whenever their prime was) would be admitting to your own poor taste, but when we assert that "art has the potential to be objectively good and correct", to whom do we look to set the dial? And I have to assume that this idea of "correct" and "well-crafted" Cinema is gaining so much traction because of the ongoing decline in quality - but that statement in and of itself reveals my own subjectivity. I guess what I'm really pushing for is a truer and more nuanced appreciation from my peers; for people to have the bravery and ability to articulate their own feelings, rather than just being like "let someone else do it". If for no better reason than I'd personally like a better understanding as to why they keep droving out for this dreck. 

I've always remained publicly sensitive about people's love for a lotta these big franchise films - particularly the Comic Book Movies. My polite excuse has repeatedly been "I've not seen many of them so I can't judge either way", but I should think everyone's been perfectly able to see through my bullshit: I've got a pretty strong understanding of how studio marketing and movie trailers and posters work, and if they're doing their jobs adequately then I'm obviously not seeing these films on purpose. And I say it time and time again - I don't care that they're "Comic Book Movies"; I've seen protagonists and antagonists and explosions before so this isn't some entirely new genre that's too intelligent or innovative to grasp (or too dumb or disorienting to dismiss). But this sort of passionless platform of unrelatable characters and expository dialogue and pushbutton animation and an obnoxious preoccupation with continuity and cameos and mythology is never gonna be appealing to me -- and those are just the superficial elements; some years ago I was in a situation where there was a TV nearby with a Captain America movie playing on mute, and just watching the cutting and compositions of basic dialogue scenes and the transitions between them didn't feel too dissimilar to the countless student films I saw in school. Put differently, even when I disregard how vapid the content is, it's presented in a laughably amateurish way - and it's frustrating because I think even the fans know this to be true. 

My son recently said something along the lines of "I only wanna see movies I like with characters I know." While that 6-year-old mentality may be publicly prevalent, it takes the honesty of a child to say it out loud. My plan was to go to my grave having never watched Beetlejuice 2, but once he found out about its existence and release it would've been extremely petty of me to prevent him from seeing it. Miraculously, the movie made me feel as though I was a child again - specifically when I got an overwhelming urge to lie down in the aisle of the movie theater out of immense boredom. What a puerile miscarriage of a movie, but the otherwise agreeable audience reception was a loud indicator that microwaved leftovers will always be preferable to trying new things. Fans of Zack Snyder will tell you that one of his strengths is that his adaptations are "comic book accurate", as if to say he dares not deviate into anything too intensely original. It doesn't matter how godawful the STAR WARS prequels were, they'll remain superior to the Disney Sequels because they never colored outside the lines. And so I don't scratch my head in bewilderment when whatever remaining theaters that are left are filled with video game graphics and ramshackle nostalgia; You get what you fucking deserve! 

We were only a few years into the new millennium when it had occurred to me that it'd been a long time since I'd seen a truly original movie - like, roughly since the beginning of the 2000s; big or small, Indie or Hollywood, the heavy rotation of life-changing Cinema had seemed to come to a halt. That was it? 18 years old and I'd completely lost touch with what was new and exciting? I'd like to say it was a slump, but here we are, and there doesn't seem to be any Enlightenment or Renaissance creeping up on us any time soon, and it all coincides with that Y2K changeover. And it's not hard to understand why...

This century began with a sorta "Four Horseman of the Apocalypse": STAR WARS, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and Spider-Man. You could argue there were more, or implicate others, or defend these because you liked them, but it is undeniable that they've cast an everlasting shadow from under which we will not escape for a long time; nearly 25 years of pronounced cultural stagnation and it is in no doubt due largely to the success of these four conglomerates of Fantasy and Action that captured the hearts and minds of audiences and producers alike. Nearly all media has attempted to match the model created by these four installments and the only new measures we've seen is some lateral expansion: nothing new, just more of this. The urge to binge multiplied by the advent of streaming; radio serials updated for lower standards and shorter attention spans. TikTok and all that. In an age where we spend $400 million on shaky special effects and turn on subtitles just for fun, visuals and writing seem to be weaker than ever. The storytelling angle has become the singular focus, and the central theme of these stories are all the same: "Here's stuff you remember from before, and be sure to stick around for more." They've become a goddamn bingo card; a system of checks and balances to ensure absolute satisfaction with no loose ends. It's become STAR WARS Prequels x 1000. In 2023, Fangoria Editor-in-chief Phil Nobile Jr. observed the following: 

Of course he's able to melt down my entire complaint into a single paragraph - and it so eloquently explains why a moviegoing public can't cope with a shirtless Kylo Ren or a singing Joker -- "this absolutely does not fall in line with what I'm used to!" With this kind of dogmatic approach to art - to anything - how could there ever be progress? Here, I'll make an objective observation: 20th Century Cinema was better. Everyone goddamn knows it, otherwise they wouldn't keep tryna remake the shit every two bastard weeks. Danny DeVito once said something to the effect of "Hollywood will keep trying until they get it wrong." Can't really say it's their fault - the public fights originality in every possible form; for better or worse we got a wholly original Barbie doll movie and the common reaction was "Welp, Hollywood has officially run outta idea." 

People don't just form their opinions based on the consensus, they hijack it entirely; we know what all the good and bad movies are because those areas have been drilled, and the emergence of social media keeps us up to date on the new stuff. I used to love riding on the bandwagon and sharing the excitement and adoration of The New Big Thing but I didn't come to make friends - my connection to the movie came first, and if it didn't happen for me then that was my cross to bear. It's difficult to share a conflicting point of view nowadays without fear of coming across as attention-seeking or problematic, so the leading lesson I'm preaching is this: dare to feel what you feel without bending to unanimity or licking boot, and make sure you have the vocabulary and the valor to back it up -- because they'll come for you.

- Paul

Pinhead vs. The 90s

A driven female TV reporter. A runaway street girl with dreams of a better life. An excessively douchey nightclub owner. A heavy metal soundtrack (and theme song). A demon who dispatches his victims by flinging compact discs. 

Now, can we talk sensibly?

We're always discussing these delightful sequels that take a sharp turn into some other dimension, and why that's sometimes good and sometimes not. But this ain't no Aliens. This ain't no New Batch. This is Pinhead Takes Manhattan, or more accurately, Clive Barker's New Nightmare. As the plot explains, Pinhead has broken free from his typical Cenobite functions and has become a straightforward real world slasher -- and the "real world" is New York City (which clearly isn't) in the year Nineteen Hundred and Ninety Two. Gone is the gothic, timeless setting of the vaguely European locations of the first two films - as are nearly all of the "rules" and motivations put in place by their complex (though sometimes flimsy) mythology. Nothing against Parts One & Two, but that story was done and had nowhere to go. If they were gonna press on, there had to be a change - that's reality. But what kind of change is where there seems to be some disagreements. 

The movie starts with that same familiar tone: shadowy surroundings, a mysterious transaction, the Christopher Young title music, a hook-related body explosion. It's comfortable but boring.

Then we meet Brad.

Brad has about a page of dialogue. He shows up for a scene to instruct lead character Joey to be sexier and wear shorter skirts when she conducts her on-camera interviews. Brad has no real plot function, but his snappy dialect and obnoxious demeanor and dated wardrobe and haircut would set us down a path from which we would never return. Brad single-handedly initiated this into "franchise mode": Hellraiser would never be the same. 

And was that so bad? ...Well, they had a good thing going there - and it only would've taken a bit of effort to keep up that sorta Hammer Films vibe they created with the previous two. And it's important to note: following this movie they truly tried to get back to original stories that only vaguely referenced the Cenobite stuff. But it would never be like it was - and it would certainly never be anything like this movie. 

Hell on Earth may be a spike on the timeline, but in many ways that spike stands alone. People have long lamented that the once-supporting "Lead Cenobite" eventually took over the series - simultaneously diminishing his mystique and trivializing the story aspects. In actuality, I've seen five of the seven films that follow this one (yes, there are ten with an eleventh on the way), and those were all convoluted psychological thrillers with barely a mention of Pinhead. 

But no, not this one. This one is The Pinhead Show; it's an origin story, it's an anomaly, it's a renegade, it's a "fuck you" to the fervent fanboys & girls who swore by the books and/or the first films. The menacing chains have become the chainsaw, the razor glove, the machete. He's no longer seeking out the individual souls who summon him via The Box to fulfill their masochistic curiosities and shower them with flowery prose. He's out for blood - any type. A body count. To press the stinking face of humanity into the dark blood of its own secret heart. Hell on Earth. 

And when better to start than the 1990s? Upon further exploration we learn that Pinhead's physical self began only as recently as the First World War, but whatever he's made of and whatever he does is timeless; he carries the history and knowledge of humanity within his supernatural essence. So when he's resuscitated into the age of "Achy Breaky Heart" and "Baby Got Back," his disgust is vindicated. This isn't the worst he's seen (either physically or psychically), but clearly there's been no evolution in regards to the brand of enlightenment he dispenses. He's now here to punish with pleasure (rather than please with punishment), and it comes to fruition in one of the more famous scenes in the film (and maybe the franchise).

Pinhead unleashes Hell on a crowd of unsuspecting nightclub patrons in an orgy of bloody latex and VFX. I find it as satisfying as the pool party in Freddy's Revenge or the cornfield slaughter in Freddy vs. Jason or any confrontation in the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre. I recently poured my heart out in regards to my boredom with the Slasher genre - and it's because I only ever want scenes like this. I don't know if that makes me lowbrow but I'm not sorry about it - they make these movies about these savage monsters who are frequently and bafflingly too timid to just go ahead and kill the cast. So when something like this happens, it's just about the most believable thing in this or any of these movies. 

It was easy to not be scared of Pinhead and the 'bites because I'd never had any intention to dive into the Lament Configuration. Hell on Earth removes that safety net and asserts that I could get a hook in the hand at any moment. What's worse is that I could end up as part of his crew - damned to saunter around in black pleather with my lips stapled to my nuts for all eternity (or at least until the next sequel). But that was another neato part of this movie: the way Cenobites are made like comic book villains. Whatever basic traits they had when they were alive mixed with however they were killed and presto change-o: Camerahead, Pistonhead, CDhead, et al. The lore this movie gave was noticeably more accessible and cartoonish, and I'm somehow both pleased and put off by it. 

There are smudges throughout that are unfortunate. While still a theatrical release, it was still low budget stuff - which was handled decidedly well with the first two, but wobbled under the weight of their attempt to turn this one into an Action picture. The nastiness of the gore is made a little less nasty with some lazier effects, and it's tough to turn a general mood into movement. There's an awkward foot chase in which Joey (Terry Farell) frolics down a poorly-dressed city street at night while dodging fireballs, reckless drivers, and downed power lines - because Pinhead don't run. Though this is immediately followed by the best scene in the movie as Joey seeks refuge in a church - which backfires as Pinhead follows behind and joyfully mocks the establishment in grotesque ways. This scene actually managed to piss off the Jesus freaks - which means this so-called silly sequel still had some teeth.

This movie was born outta 3 things: the rise of Dimension Films, the fall of New World Pictures, and the fact that virtually no one from the previous installments (except Doug Bradley) were willing to reprise their roles. What that meant was: Clive Barker was to never again have any creative input, and Pinhead now belonged to Miramax. And throughout the decade, they would do as much for him as they did for Michael Myers - more or less just shitting the bed on screen. So, save for Part IV (which I also like), Hell on Earth is the next-to-final act in what I consider to be the official Hellraiser Quadrilogy: an unbroken narrative in which the supporting character with nails in his head becomes the surprise lead to guide us through some fucked up folklore about a sadomasochistic Rubik's Cube. We visit Hell, the U.S., the U.K., outer space, World War One, the Vietnam War, 1796, 2127, and, unmistakably, the 1990s.

- Paul

We Wish You a Bloody #2!

I'm back on my "sequels" bullshit again. But this is a very specific assortment: followups that trembled under the weight of their more competent and/or popular precursors. And yeah, in some cases, the quality dips, and for others, it's a remarkable improvement. Either way, these are all plucked from "franchises" that we typically don't think of as such for one reason or another (no central villain, varying formats, not enough sequels, etc.), but however they hold up against their respective "Part Ones," I dig 'em enough. Sometimes a lot.

- Paul

Snappy. Engrossing. PG-13 Action disguised as a monster movie. All of these describe the original 1990 Tremors, and it's all present in its first sequel (maybe even to better effect). The setup feels entirely like a Michael Crichton premise (particularly Jurassic Park), though coincidentally, it's actually just The Lost World before that even got a film adaptation: a reluctant Fred Ward is coaxed back into Graboid hunting and all goes wrong. Apart from being legitimately entertaining, for a Direct-to-Video creature feature, the effects (both practical and CGI) are pretty great - and when they're not, they're still fascinating. 

It's the best Ghoulies there is - and while that's like falling off a log, don't let that fact undersell the value of this installment. As far as the Ghoulies themselves go: I always liked that they came in a variety and that no two Ghoulies are alike - but other than that they're completely uninteresting. What sells this one are the humans; competent actors playing somewhat likable characters. Add in a few genuine laughs and it gets a more-than-passing grade. And if you're new here, you don't need to see the others for this one to work.

It's taken me most of my life to realize that I don't really care for "college humor" - as in comedy specifically relating to the educational institution itself. But when you add stuff like demonic possession or some T&A then it's fine. For as shamelessly silly as the first one is, it still has worthy moments of surprise and terror. This one is just straight silly; it's still endlessly inventive and never boring, but if your favorite bits from Part One were the funny bits, well they've gone & made a flick for you. 

There's a cult around this series that I'm not part of. What that means for me is that I can enjoy these movies more as a friend than as a lover. You can really only go so many places with Zombie Comedies (Zombedies? Zom Coms?), but this one's unique because it's a kids' movie; there's no cursing or sexuality or even gore really. There also aren't really any scares, shocks, or laughs. I've seen it 3 times and each time is like the first time; it doesn't leave any deep marks, but it's pleasant while it's happening. 

Swap out the standard 'teen angst' setting of high school and home life for the standard 'teen angst' setting of an unscrupulous rehab clinic, and there you have it. But still with werewolves. Lycanthropy has always had a big overlap in the Body Horror Venn diagram, and these movies are the least shy about it. The first film had a lotta subtext - this one is just about the ickiness of becoming a carnivorous wild dog (and going to grotesque lengths to stop it). And while the previous one was all about Katherine Isabelle, this one belongs to Emily Perkins (in screen time, but also bravura performance). 

The question is, "What's the difference between an artist who chooses to paint like a child and a child's paining?" From Dusk Till Dawn may've been a 'Drive-In' homage, but the more contemporary parallel was Direct-to-Video. And so, apart from the smaller budget (and the absence of one of the greatest screenwriters of all time), this was a natural and seamless continuation. What is it about crime & vampires that makes 'em go so well together? Add a cast of character actor cameos (and leads) and you've got one solid Action/Horror/Crime/Vampire whatever. 

Barring recent attempts at a tonal reboot, the common thread in this 8-film(!) series has been its 'self-awareness.' Too bad - he's kind of a great character, but even the crazier sequels in this franchise are boring as all fuck. Though I can't say that about this one; I like this one most - not because it's any less of a Comedy, but because it's portioned out with some finesse. It's totally a standalone story, but because it is a sequel, there's none of that pesky exposition for the dullards in the back; nothing but highbrow hijinks here!

Here's Bubbles! Celebrating the 10th Anniversary of SHOWGIRLS 2

Wow! Where does the time go? Can you believe it's been 10 years since we've inherited the precooked canned meat product that is Showgirls 2: Penny's From Heaven? Me neither. And so, I'm commemorating this double-digit anniversary with some superficial meanderings mixed with deep thoughts regarding this largely overlooked sequel. Some of you may ask "Why?" Some of you may even ask "Huh?" Don't worry, I'll tell you -- but you might not like the answers.

Actually, there's only ever been one singular answer, and that's Rena Riffel. 

I can't give you a number of the countless character actors I've charted over the years, cheering them on as they'd crop up in bigger & better things, building their resumes, flexing their range, watching their star rise. Ms. Riffel was one such performer. From an adolescent point of view, she was difficult to miss in stuff like Showgirls, Striptease, and Married... With Children (credited, predictably, as Stripper #1). In Candyman 3: Day of the Dead, she smears honey on her bare breasts before being devoured by the slasher's swarms of vengeful bees, and I thought "Ahh, this is it. She's made it." I thought playing a victim in one of the few (but better) 90s Horror franchises was a sealed deal for mainstream stardom -- and for a minute, it kinda was; her brief but prominent scene in Mulholland Drive was, for me, as startling and confounding as anything else in that movie. Lynch's ode to the horrors of Hollywood - beautifully personified right there on the screen by a struggling actress who'd relied on her sexuality to make it to this very moment.

And so she was, and will now and forever be the bright red cherry atop your Criterion collection, and mine. And then that was kinda it for a while; not a lot worth mentioning outside of some weird TV stuff and tame DTV Erotica that was more dull than sexy. But it didn't matter, because all the while Rena was spearheading a Kickstarter campaign to produce a sorta spinoff feature about her character from Showgirls - then simply titled Showgirl. I got word of it directly through her own YouTube channel back in 2009, and I was elated to find that not only was she still an artist, but that she was entirely in control of her art, and that this was the project she chose. I followed its progress very closely until things seemed to go quiet, and I thought it'd died. Then, miraculously, years later, I came across the finished product on DVD - and as that journey ended, a new one began...

Showgirls 2: Penny's From Heaven (note the clever contraction) was written, produced, edited, and directed by Rena Riffel, starring Rena Riffel, released by Rena Riffel Films. On a budget of $30,000, this barely-supporting actress pulled together a passion project based on one of the most notorious turkeys of the 20th century, shamelessly (though admirably) reprising and repositioning her character into the lead.

The most readily-available comparison I can make is to Bill Hinzman's Flesh Eater: a movie he himself cowrote, produced, edited, and directed as a vehicle to return in his role as Zombie #1 from 1968's Night of the Living Dead. But certainly there's no shortage of B-movie superstars who've sorta "understood the joke" and have embraced and utilized their cult status in fun ways. And Showgirls 2 is many things - chief amongst them is "fun."

So, for the millionth time, let's talk about "bad movies." I don't wanna get into my defensive mode again or reaffirm my exhaustive examination of the verbiage, but we're in that territory, so let's get dirty and come clean... Showgirls (1995) was universally panned and underperformed in theaters, but was a complete financial success on home video as audience's curiosity predictably generated a cult. And still, people watch it ironically, people watch it because they legitimately love it, people watch it for the nostalgia, people watch it for the nudity. It has its "following" or whatever, not solely because of its incompetence, but also its overpowering narcissism and general disregard for subtlety. In other words, it's loud and jiggly and dumb and tasteless (which was intentional) and funny (which, sadly, was mostly unintentional). Obviously there are plenty of people who didn't respond to any of this (neither ironically or seriously) and weren't able to get past the movie's shortcomings. Rena Riffel (like myself and so many others) is not one of those people. Sequelizing this pop culture phenomenon not only made her a clever opportunist, but an almost-brilliant satirist. 

Showgirls 2 does take place in the same universe as its predecessor, but it's a very different kinda Showgirls movie. The biggest and immediately-noticeable change of pace is that it's shot on video, which demands an entirely different approach than, say, a $40 million MGM picture. And while this format is typically exploited to convey "gritty realism," there's nothing too realistic going on here. The cheap aesthetic and clunky compositions and disorienting momentum add to the strength of its woozy charm -- but make no mistake: the truly, truly bad audio mix (dialogue and score) falls way out of the realm of any "so bad it's good"-type crap.

To describe the plot would not only cheapen whatever powers the movie has, but is also nearly impossible, because a.) there are too many abstractions to get a firm grip on a cohesive thread, b.) the rhythm of sequences and how they're cut are actually working against the odds of any traditional storytelling cognition, and c.) any spoken plot points are drowned out with overpowering ambient sound. Apart from the latter, she may've very well taken inspiration from Mulholland Drive - she does, after all, make a forthright visual reference to it early on in the movie. 

Here's the gist: Penny wants to be a famous dancer, happens upon a bag of cash (like the one that appears in most movies), and struggles to climb her way to the middle - navigating friends who become enemies and vice versa. The "stardom" subgenre has been around for some time - from A Star is Born to Boogie Nights (to Showgirls, to Mulholland Drive) - but this tale is built upon firsthand experience by someone who seems pleased with her place in the pantheon of pulp fiction, and the journey is so surreal that it's probably true. The movie is peppered with cast members from "Part 1" - possibly for continuity, but more likely a gimmick, as there are many references to the original Showgirls: some subtle, some honest, all mockery. 

Unlike the original, this movie is entirely self-aware (one doesn't accidentally make a movie called Showgirls 2), but ultimately, it's not a parody; it is its own thing. But, like the original, it's not quite as clever, fun, or sexy as it thinks it is. Its best moments are when it spirals into the truly bizarre, and that's when it most resembles the Trashploitation/Something Weird camp of the 1960s. It could've really worked under that label, and the major thing preventing it from simply being that is its 145 minute runtime. That's right: 2 hours and 25 minutes. I really have no problem with long films (obviously), but a movie of this scope severely suffers from this much space; the passion of this indie filmmaker and her love of each scene/shot/take is visceral, but its pointed humor starts to drown as sequences go on and on and on until we start laughing at it, not with it (like the first one). 

Yes, it's totally a Texas Chainsaw 2-type sequel; not in terms of budget or subject matter, but in style and attitude and tonal distance from the first one. It's an intentional "Midnite Movie," which is a dark path to follow because nothing's more obnoxious than a movie that thinks it's "hip." But, because of what it is and how it is (and especially who it is), it earned its self-appointed absurdity. 

- Paul