We watch several movies a week. Every Friday, we'll talk a little about some of the movies we watched that we felt were Worth Mentioning.
POLTERGEIST II: THE OTHER SIDE (1986)
The first Poltergeist gave an absolutely perfect explanation for why there were rage-filled spirits reaching out to the living through the home of the Freeling family: the housing development the Freelings lived in had been built on top of an old cemetery, and the company that set up the houses cut corners by only moving the headstones to a new location. The corpses were left in the ground, and many homes were built on top of them. That's as much explanation as a haunted house movie needs.
But then a sequel was greenlit. Faced with having to write a Poltergeist II, the first film's co-writers Mark Victor and Michael Grais (who also produced the sequel, in the absence of the first's producer/co-writer Steven Spielberg) decided to dig deeper - literally - and provide a different explanation for the supernatural events of Poltergeist. This change has never sat well with me, even though it did give Poltergeist II one hell of a creepy villain.
Coming along four years after its predecessor, the sequel is set just one year after the events of the first movie and finds that the Freelings - Craig T. Nelson and JoBeth Williams as parents Steve and Diane, Heather O'Rourke and Oliver Robins as children Carol Anne and Robbie - have moved into the home of Diane's mother Jess (Geraldine Fitzgerald), since their home vanished at the end of part 1. Gramma Jess is really only in the film long enough to realize that Carol Anne has psychic abilities just like she does. Then she passes away. There was another Freeling in the first movie, teenager Dana, but the actress who had played Dana, Dominique Dunne, was murdered shortly after the film's release, and the decision was made not to recast the role. Apparently there was a line in the script that Dana had gone away to college, but that line didn't make it into the finished film.
Soon enough the Freelings begin to witness more paranormal activity in Gramma Jess's home, which brings up the question, why have the spirits followed them to a different place? The Freelings will come to find out that there was an even bigger problem than the Cuesta Verde housing development being on top of the old cemetery. That problem was below the cemetery (that's what I meant by "digging deeper"); a cave that a doomsday cult led by Reverend Henry Kane sought shelter in as the day Kane predicted would be the end of the world approached. When that day came and went, Kane refused to let his people exit the cave. They all died down there, back in the early 1800s. And that cave full of long-dead cult members was directly under the Freeling house. Clairvoyant Tangina (Zelda Rubinstein) returns to help Diane tap into her own psychic abilities so they can figure out the history of the cult, while Tangina herself is able to deduce that Kane and his people were "drawn to the light of Carol Anne's being / life force" while she was trapped in the spirit dimension in the previous film, and they want her back.
Which is why Kane himself starts appearing to the family, trying to get Carol Anne away from them. Julian Beck plays this ghostly charlatan, strolling around the film singing a gospel song, "God is in His holy temple", and delivering an intensely creepy performance. Adding this cave full of cultists to the explanation Poltergeist already gave has always seemed ridiculous to me, but Beck's performance almost makes it worth it. The scenes with him are pretty much the only reason to watch Poltergeist II: The Other Side at all, because the movie around him isn't very thrilling or interesting. Sadly, Beck appears so gaunt in the film because he was actually dying of stomach cancer at the time. He passed away eight months before the movie even reached theatres - adding to the theory that the Poltergeist films were cursed.
Like the first movie, Poltergeist II used real human skeletons as props in some moments, which freaked out some members of the crew so badly that they demanded an exorcism be performed on the set. That exorcism was performed by a cast member; Will Sampson, who plays Tangina's shaman associate Taylor and was also a shaman himself. Not only could Sampson perform exorcisms, he also made Taylor a likeable character to watch.
Poltergeist II was helmed by commercial and music video director Brian Gibson, and he wasn't able to capture the same unnerving atmosphere that Tobe Hooper and Spielberg brought to the first movie, nor could he live up to their style. The sequel has some creepy moments, mostly thanks to Beck, but the paranormal stuff here just doesn't work as well here as it did the first time around.
It also feels like the quality of the film was lessened by excessive editing. Apparently the first cut was 131 minutes, while the cut that was released is just 91 minutes. It feels like things move along too quickly, especially a storyline following the mental and emotional breakdown of Steve - who is written like a sitcom character most of the time, then suddenly he's jealous of Taylor for no apparent reason, being manipulated by Kane, and chugging tequila, worm and all. This could have been an intriguing element of the film, but Steve deteriorates too rapidly.
The moment Steve swallows that tequila worm, then regurgitates it when it starts growing and turning into a disgusting, monstrous version of Kane is one of the most memorable parts of the film, along with a silly scene in which Robbie is attacked by his own braces. All of these shenanigans eventually build up to a return to Cuesta Verde for a brief, unsatisfying climactic sequence with some less-than-dazzling special effects. Rubinstein said the ending was originally longer and featured some of her best work in the film.
Underwhelming when taken on its own merits, Poltergeist II is a disappointing follow-up to the first movie... but Kane demands to be seen. There's also a moment where the ghosts try to attack the family with a chainsaw, which earns the film some extra points from me.
THE KARATE KID PART III (1989)
The Karate Kid and The Karate Kid Part II were movies I watched at home on TV a lot, due to cable schedules and viewings initiated by my older brother. The Karate Kid Part III is the first (and only) film in the franchise I saw in the theatre; I was so familiar with the first two movies, I wanted to see the third one on the big screen when it was released. Thirty-two years later, I still have some vague memories from that screening: memories of a shot of the villain's feet descending from the chimney he had been hiding in, down into the fireplace, and of a confrontation at the Cobra Kai dojo that involves broken glass and spilled paint. Only those couple moments have stuck with me over the decades, but given that it has been so long and I was only five years old when I saw this movie in the theatre, that's not so bad.
The movie itself isn't great, and it's nothing like the film returning screenwriter Robert Mark Kamen wanted to make. In Part II, wise sensei Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita) told his student Daniel (Ralph Macchio) that the Miyagi family had been practicing karate since the 1600s, ever since an ancestor of his got drunk during a fishing trip off the coast of their homeland of Okinawa, passed out, and drifted over to China. That Miyagi spent ten years in China, learning karate and starting a family before returning to Okinawa. Kamen wanted to show us that story, in a really goofy way. He wanted to start the film with Miyagi and Daniel on a fishing trip of their own. Daniel hits his head, gets knocked out, and proceeds to dream Miyagi family history: the boat would be surrounded by fog, another boat would appear in the distance, Miyagi and Daniel would follow it - and find themselves reaching the shore of China in the 1600s. They would then get to see the original karate-practicing Miyagi in action, and this action would be done in classic martial arts movie style, complete with people flying through the air when they do their karate moves. The studio didn't want that version of Part III, and I agree with their decision. It would have been too far off from the previous films, and probably would not have gone over well at all with the audience. Kamen was disappointed, and only agreed to write the Part III the studio wanted because the feeling was that no one else could write the interactions between Miyagi and Daniel properly.
The studio-requested Part III makes a lot more sense than the idea Kamen wanted to pursue. It's "The Revenge of John Kreese", the villainous Cobra Kai dojo sensei played by Martin Kove, who was humiliated by his students' defeat at the tournament at the end of the first movie, and by Miyagi beating him in a confrontation at the beginning of the second movie. Problem is, Kove had scheduling issues when this film was heading into production, so he had to take a smaller role in a story about his character getting revenge. Kreese has to hand most of the revenge over to someone else - his pal Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith), a fellow karate expert who served alongside him in the Vietnam War. Some viewers probably love to watch Silver, while others will be turned away by him, because Kamen and director John G. Avildsen present him as if he were a villain from a cartoon and allow Griffith to go way over-the-top with his performance. When he's not talking about hurting Miyagi and Daniel, he's talking about his company dumping toxic waste in various locations around the world. It's ridiculous.
I feel The Karate Kid Part III is a step down from its predecessors, but when I watch it I can see the potential for a much better movie in there, buried beneath the bad choices. The core story is fine for a third film in this series, the idea being that Kreese and Silver are able to manipulate situations around Daniel in a way that causes him to drift away from the teachings of Miyagi, knocking him down so far that he actually becomes a Cobra Kai. The story of Daniel being driven to the dark side could work, but the way it's brought to the screen doesn't.
The main problem is the fact that we know exactly what Kreese and Silver are up to from the very beginning of the movie. We see them set their plot in motion before we even catch up with Miyagi and Daniel, and we see way too much of Terry Silver. He rants about wanting to cause Daniel to fear "pain in every part of his body" and "fear in every part of his mind", he gets hyped about causing damage to Miyagi and Daniel, we even watch this guy - whose mansion is the house from the original House on Haunted Hill - get assistance from his servants in picking out what kind of car he's going to drive to trick Daniel into thinking he's poor. Since we know so much more than Daniel knows, it makes him look like a total fool when he gets tricked by Silver's helpful act.
Even when he's not getting played by Silver, Daniel doesn't come off very well in this movie. He's high strung and neurotic, bumbling through a string of bad decisions. There's something off about the character here, and part of that may be because Macchio wasn't fully invested in Part III. He wasn't happy on set because he was disappointed with the condition of the script. Avildsen has said the script was "hastily written and sloppily rewritten", and it shows in the finished film.
Although five years had passed since the release of the first Karate Kid, by Part III less than a year has passed for Miyagi and Daniel (lucky for them, Macchio aged incredibly slowly), and the next All-Valley karate tournament is coming up. Daniel wants to fight in the tournament and defend his championship, but Miyagi doesn't want him to. Daniel is upset by that at first, and just when he starts to accept the idea that he won't be fighting again, Silver sends "karate's bad boy" Mike Barnes (Sean Kanan) and henchmen Dennis (Christopher Paul Ford) and Snake (the director's son Jonathan Avildsen) to bully Daniel into joining the tournament. Driven over the edge by the bullies, especially when they cause trouble for the bonsai tree store he's trying to start with Miyagi, Daniel becomes so frustrated with his sensei's refusal to get involved with the tournament that he turns a stranger for help. This guy Terry Silver, who has shown up to bring the news that Kreese has died and he's there to clean up his mess. By training with Silver, Daniel becomes a Cobra Kai, not realizing his trainer owns the Cobra Kai dojo. Silver seems nice, but we know all along that he's a cackling maniac under this good guy facade. How long is it going to take this dummy Daniel to figure out what we already know? Too long. This movie would have been better if the story was told entirely through Daniel's perspective, if we only had the information he has. If we could be fooled by Silver along with him, only finding out that Silver is a bad guy (and Kreese is alive!) when Daniel does late in the film, it would make for a much better viewing experience.
In the midst of all his problems with Cobra Kai and trying to get the bonsai tree store off the ground, Daniel also finds some time to hang out with the girl who works across the street from the store, Robyn Lively as Jessica Andrews. Jessica's presence doesn't add a whole lot to the movie, as she's not the love interest she was originally intended to be. But that's a good thing, because the filmmakers already tried to convince us that Daniel's romances with Ali in The Karate Kid and Kumiko in The Karate Kid Part II were meaningful, only to write those characters out with some quick dialogue in the following film. Although Kumiko and her aunt Yukie had talked about going with Daniel and Miyagi when they returned to California from Okinawa, those plans fell apart between movies - Kumiko took a job in Tokyo and Miyagi and Daniel built a house for Yukie in Okinawa. If these characters can be set aside so easily, it would have been tough to care if Daniel and Jessica got into a relationship. Thankfully, Jessica has a boyfriend waiting for her in Ohio, so she's not interested in being anything more than friends with Daniel. This change was made to the script because Lively was only 16 when the movie was filming, while Macchio is 10 years older than her. Macchio also happens to be four months older than Griffith, but somehow Silver seems like he's twenty years older than Daniel.
Of course, this is all building up to Daniel and Miyagi reuniting just in time for Daniel to fight Barnes at the tournament. It's the ending of the first movie all over again, a rematch with Cobra Kai, but that's fine - the end of the trilogy brings us full circle. The climactic fight with Barnes isn't the best confrontation in the movie, though. The best fight comes when Silver reveals his villainy (and his association with Kreese and Barnes) in the Cobra Kai dojo. Things are looking bad for Daniel, until Miyagi shows up to save the dumb kid. This is when the broken glass and spilled paint comes into play, and I can still remember how amused the audience I saw the movie with was when Miyagi mocks the sounds Silver makes during their face-off. The Karate Kid Part III may be a half-hearted letdown, but if anyone in the theatre was already thinking that it didn't show in that moment. In that moment, we were all with the movie, and we were always with Miyagi.
HARDWARE (1990)
I had seen positive references to writer/director Richard Stanley's feature debut Hardware, most likely in the pages of Fangoria magazine, before I had the chance to see the movie a few years after it was released. I remember I rented the VHS while I was staying with my paternal grandmother in Indiana, and I would have watched it when I had her living room to myself for a while, which means my viewing would have been at night, during the hours when I would stay up later than grandma's early bedtime, the volume of the TV low so I wouldn't disturb her as she slept two rooms away. Thinking back on that, it feels like I experienced the perfect way to see Hardware for the first time - a teenager watching it alone in a dimly lit or possibly completely dark room, trying not to wake up grandma. This is definitely a movie that fits that setting.
Hardware takes place in a filthy dystopian future where civilization has crumbled due to overpopulation, war, and high radiation levels. Outside the residential areas are irradiated forbidden zones - and that includes all of New York City - where scrappers search for metal junk they can trade for cash. The opening sequence was inspired by a recurring nightmare Stanley had about someone unearthing a metal skull in the desert, and here that someone is a strange Nomad (played by Carl McCoy), who finds pieces of an android scattered in the sand. The Nomad takes these pieces to a buyer in the city, but he ends up selling the skull to military man Mo (Dylan McDermott), who wants to give it to his girlfriend Jill (Stacey Travis) as a Christmas gift. It's not a gift many women would be enthusiastic about, but Jill is happy to receive it because she's an artist who makes sculptures out of random items. This android head will be the centerpiece in her latest creation.
But since the android is still active, is able to self-repair, and happens to be a M.A.R.K. 13, created for the purpose of aiding the population control efforts by wiping people out, having the skull in Jill's apartment turns out to be a very bad idea. Soon enough the M.A.R.K. 13 has built itself a new body and starts using weapons like a drill and a chainsaw to try to kill Jill and anyone else who happens to come to her apartment.
It takes a while for the killer android action to kick in, but once it does Stanley crafts some intense scenes and there are great moments of destruction and violent, gory death. Before the M.A.R.K. 13 starts killing people, Stanley makes his film captivating by showing us just how bad the world has gotten, bathing imagery in colorful lighting reminiscent of Dario Argento's Suspiria, including some cool music from composer Simon Boswell and the likes of Public Image Limited, Ministry, Motorhead, and Iggy Pop (Motorhead's Lemmy also makes a cameo in the movie, and Iggy Pop provides the voice of a radio DJ), and introducing us to a human threat - Jill's creepy, sleazy stalker Lincoln (William Hootkins).
Hardware was made on a low budget, but Stanley made the most of it, and his feature debut is quite impressive. This shows that he deserves a bigger, better career than he has had, but his output has been severely hindered over the years, most notably due to the studio issues he ran into when he tried to make an adaptation of H.G. Wells' The Island of Dr. Moreau. That situation was so crazy, a documentary was made about it twenty years later. It's a shame, because he gave us a sci-fi horror classic his first time out, and in the years since he has had some very interesting ideas for films that haven't been made, a Hardware sequel among them. He seems to be making a comeback now, and I'm glad to see it.
That first viewing I had of Hardware, engrossed by the visuals and sounds as I sat in grandma's living room, getting the repeated line "This is what you want, this is what you get" from the theme song "The Order of Death" driven into my brain, was a memorably great one. More than twenty years later, I still enjoy sitting through this weird and wild movie.
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