Worth Mentioning - Bloodshed Was the Point

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. 

John Wick and an '80s slasher make a bloody mess...

JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 4 (2023)

John Wick is back to kill a whole lot more people in John Wick: Chapter 4, a film that – for a moment – looked like it was going to be the last film in this franchise (not including spin-offs).... but then it went and made more money at the box office than any of the previous three films, so of course they’re not just going to let this fade away.

Each John Wick movie picks up where the previous entry left off, and honestly I had kind of lost the plot a bit by the time 4 got rolling. After all, I had only seen John Wick: Chapter 3 once, and that was a few years ago. But while you may not remember the exact circumstances we left the characters in at the end of 3, what’s going on in 4 is fairly self-explanatory. Wick (played by Keanu Reeves, who dropped most of his dialogue out of the script this time) was once a legendary assassin working for an organization led by members of the High Table. He tried to retire, but he got drawn back into the killing game by some idiots who deserved what they got in the first John Wick, and then had to deal with another idiot in John Wick: Chapter 2. Now he’s desperately seeking his freedom from the High Table, and in that quest for freedom he has to shoot, chop, slash, etc. his way through the seemingly endless parade of killers the High Table keeps sending his way.

Wick’s activities have serious consequences for Winston (Ian McShane), manager of the New York assassin hotel The Continental, resulting in the destruction of the Continental building and the murder of Charon, Winston’s trusted concierge (Lance Reddick, who sadly passed away right before the movie was released). High Table member the Marquis (Bill Skarsgard) has been given carte blanche to make sure Wick is brought down once and for all, and the destruction of the Continental and killing of Charon is just part of this business he has taken on. But he makes an enemy of Winston in the process, and Winston has an idea of how Wick will be able to strike back against the Marquis and win his freedom.

Moving among the many random assassins Wick and his associates mow down are two interesting new characters: The Tracker (Shamier Anderson), who is interested in killing Wick for a very high price and always has a dog by his side... and we know how special dogs are in the John Wick franchise. The Tracker is also referred to as Mr. Nobody, but I won’t call him by that moniker because it already belongs to Kurt Russell’s character in the Fast and Furious franchise. There’s also Caine, a blind hitman and swordsman who is played by Donnie Yen in an excellent performance. Caine is a former of friend of Wick’s, forced to turn against his friend because the Marquis will kill his daughter if he doesn’t. Yen was really the most entertaining part of this particular movie for me, and his character reminded me of Rutger Hauer in Blind Fury. (A character that was based on the more famous Zatoichi, but I’m more familiar with Blind Fury.)

Another memorable character is played by fit action star Scott Adkins, who was put in a "fat suit" to play the villainous Killa Harkan. He may have some extra weight on him, but he still has his Scott Adkins moves.

As John Wick: Chapter 4 nears its conclusion, Wick finds himself having to fight his way across Paris on his way to a climactic duel. And to begin this sequence, director Chad Stahelski and writers Shay Hatten and Michael Finch lifted ideas, dialogue, and a music cue straight out of Walter Hill’s 1979 classic The Warriors. (Since The Warriors had to fight their way across New York on the way to Coney Island.) This came off as a bit more like blatant theft than homage, but it’s nice to see The Warriors getting such an obvious nod anyway.

With a running time of 169 minutes, this sequel was a bit too long for my taste. I would have been much happier to see the events spread out over two movies than to sit and watch one movie that’s this long... but I enjoyed it. I’d have to watch Chapter 3 again to figure out whether or not Chapter 4 turned out to be my favorite of the sequels, but I definitely found it to be more fun than Chapter 2.

None of the sequels have worked for me as well as the simple and emotional first movie did, but they’re a good time anyway.

MADHOUSE (1981)

Madhouse was one of the many slasher movies released in 1981, but even though I’m a huge fan of ‘80s slashers, I only just recently saw this one for the first time. I would have checked it out a bit earlier, but I kept being put off – every time I looked it up online, I only saw negative reviews. I should have gone ahead and watched it anyway years ago, because I ended up really enjoying it.

Trish Everly (a.k.a. Patricia Mickey) plays Julia, a schoolteacher who was relentlessly tormented by her twin sister Mary (Allison Biggers) throughout their childhood. Mary has been locked away in a mental institution for years, and Julia has been working to move on with her life... But soon before their twenty-fifth birthday, Mary is diagnosed with a disfiguring and potentially terminal disease, so their priest uncle James (Dennis Robertson) convinces Julia to visit her sister after years apart. The visit doesn’t go well, ending with Mary threatening to make Julia suffer as she has suffered.

The rest of the film builds up to Julia and Mary’s shared birthday, ending with a horrific birthday party. Mary escapes from the mental institution, and people around Julia start turning up dead one-by-one. Friends. Acquaintances. Not even children are spared in this one, as Julia’s favorite pupil is murdered. Most of these murders are carried out by a vicious dog, much like the one Mary had full control over when the sisters were little. For that reason, some may argue that it isn't slasher, but there is some knife play as well.

Madhouse was produced, co-written, and directed by Ovidio G. Assonitis, who took over for the film’s initial director after a few days of filming. Apparently this is something Assonitis (who’s described as being an “Egyptian-born Greco-Italian entertainment executive”) had a habit of doing: he would hire American directors to secure funding for his projects, fire them after a few days, claiming they were incompetent, and then direct the movie himself. He did something similar to James Cameron on Piranha II: The Spawning. Regardless of the circumstances, Assonitis did a fine job directing this movie, which has an Italian feel to it despite being shot in Savannah, Georgia. It also has a score from Riz Ortolani that’s quite reminiscent of the score he composed for Cannibal Holocaust.

There are some bloody murders in Madhouse; nothing that slasher fans would be shocked by, but they were enough to land the movie on the “video nasties” list in the UK, accused of being obscene. It was a big deal at the time, but now the reputation of being a video nasty is something a movie can wear as a badge of honor. In fact, I know of people who purposely seek out the movies that were called video nasties simply because they were on the video nasties list, making them more special than they would have been otherwise.

Madhouse may not be all that special, but if you’re deep into ‘80s horror it provides some decent entertainment.