Night of the Demons 2

NIGHT OF THE DEMONS 2
(R, Republic Pictures, 96 mins., limited theatrical release date: May 13, 1994)

Do you remember the three signs of demonic possession as outlined in a certain 1980s horror cult film? No, they do not involve water, sunlight and late night foodie calls, I've moved on from Joe Dante films for the time being. No, I'm talking about infestation from beyond the grave, Satanism and the human body as medium for the morbidly deceased. There are three warning signs you need to know if you ever hope to escape a haunted house post haste.

The noise is the first one, preferably the loud shriek of a teenage girl startled by some apparitional premonition visible only to her eyes, the kind which provokes easy cynicism from the hormonal heathens of the world. Yeah, the shriek may be no cause for real alarm, but then there's the chill. As cold as the touch of the Reaper himself, the kind whose only security blanket is one procured for a dirt nap. But death is too late to make similes for, you realize, and thus you take a deep breath through your nose only to catch a whiff of Hell on earth. The foulest stench is in the air, the funk of 40,000 years, and grisly gh...

I'm sorry, I got a little carried away there. No mere mortal can resist a "Thriller" joke. It's human nature, I tell you.

The point is that the noise, the stink and the chill are things which occur in a precise order and constitute the danger of demonic possession. It's advice that the new batch of doomed youths in Night of the Demons 2 should have picked up on before they wind up in Hull House, the infamous slaughter mill where Angela Franklin and friends threw the Halloween party which ended them all.

And by them, of course, I mean it ended Angela and her friends. Or did it?!

Because Amelia Kinkade is back in black bridal garb as Angela and she wants to celebrate her inevitable return to the corporeal world. Sadly, none of her old friends want to come back in limbo, so Linnea Quigley is out of the picture. And the original's director, Kevin Tenney, is also not on the guest list. However, reprising their positions from the last film are writer Joe Augustyn, producer Walter Josten, cinematographer David Lewis, and special effects designer Steve Johnson, so it's not all that mercenary. And yet every party needs a proper planner, so who is the man to take charge of "Night of the Demons 2: Angela's Revenge," so to speak?

Enter Brian Trenchard-Smith, an Englishman who went on to corner the market for Ozploitation from the mid-1970s onward. Critical consensus dictated that Trenchard-Smith comes from the Land Down Under not just geographically, but also aesthetically, until Mark Hartley's giddy Not Quite Hollywood gave the filmmaker a ringing endorsement from Quentin Tarantino and sincere love for the likes of Stunt Rock and Dead End Drive-In, which I also recommend. The 1990s saw him transition into American B-cinema, specifically the straight-to-video sequel mill which led him to Night of the Demons 2 as well as Leprechaun 3 & 4.

Yes, he was the man who brought you a demented dwarf from Ireland bursting out of a horny space traveler's kiwis a la Alien while quipping "Always wear protection."

There is plenty of phallic humor to go around in Night of the Demons 2, which owes as much to the Porky's school of horny hi-jinks as it does to its 1988 progenitor. The male heroes are introduced peeking through binoculars at the neighboring bedrooms of their lady co-eds, thus ensuring the film's Hard-R credentials. Flirtation involves a basketball which dribbles up towards a miniskirt with magnetic force. The baddest of the bad girls herein has heaving bosoms which allow for easy demonic access to attack the nearest lech. And once the horror kicks in, it's easy to go Freudian with the many snakes and tentacles which lash out in anger.

Caught in the middle of all the kinky chaos is Angela's biological sister, Melissa (Merle Kennedy), the designated Carrie White of St. Rita's Academy, a Catholic boarding school run by Father Rob (Rod McCary) and Sister Gloria (Jennifer Rhodes). Rob is a bit more liberal in his attitudes toward reformation than the strict Gloria, demanding that the students have more input into the upcoming Halloween social than Gloria prefers. Not only that, but Sister Gloria has a...well, habit of interfering with the throes of young lust by waving her trusty yardstick in between the students and commanding, "Save a little room for the Holy Ghost."

The campus alpha bitch Shirley (Zoe Trilling), though, defies Gloria by using her banishment from the dance to convince her girlfriends, including Melissa "Mouse" Franklin, to have their own party at infamous Hull House, the last known whereabouts of Angela. The poor orphaned cadet is made the brunt of a cruel stunt involving a virgin sacrifice, but the wicked spirit of Angela intervenes by hiding within a lipstick tube which fans of the original will know where it's been. The students make it back to St. Rita's, allowing Angela the freedom to come alive and wreak havoc among the student body.

Whereas the original Night of the Demons offered a scenario straight out of The Evil Dead, the sequel takes some of its cues from the gonzo school of splatter comedy in the vein of Peter Jackson where the more the messier. The demons in this film are treated more accordingly to the rules of vampire lore, easily dispatched with holy water and melting down into puddles of goop. In undeath, an athlete's severed head can be used as a basketball and Angela can transmogrify to adapt to any scenario, emerging even as a serpent. And there's a little Dead-Alive in Sister Gloria by making her kick ass for the Lord, although there's no explanation given for how she can overcome her own decapitation when she is not one of the demons. Are we supposed to accept her as an angel?

At least Jennifer Rhodes (of Slumber Party Massacre II and Heathers) has a field day with her performance, as do McCory's skeptical minister (a nod to Stir Crazy, perhaps?) and Bobby Jacoby (the prankster kid from Tremors) as freckle-faced demonology obsessive Perry, who makes a case for being the missing Frog Brother. On the opposite end, Cristi Harris gets the film's most warming character as Bibi, Mouse's lone teenage ally who manages to have premarital sex and survive, and there's Christine Taylor, the future Mrs. Ben Stiller, getting called "Marcia" by one of the jerky boys as the vapid Terri. Clearly, she was going places. Also in the cast are Darin Heames, the circumcision victim from Dr. Giggles, as giggling sadist Z-Boy and Johnny Moran & Ladd York as the nominal but not loathable Everydude heroes.

But as is always the case, the villain is the main reason to watch, and "Mimi" Kinkade gets to indulge both her Rue McClanahan lineage and dancing pedigree as the wicked Angela. Whether taunting a pair of missionaries with a cake party at the start of the film or doing a reprisal of her sultry "Stigmata Martyr" showcase later on, she makes a deliciously feminine counterpoint to the wannabe Freddy Kruegers of the horror world.

Your enjoyment of the film depends ultimately upon your nostalgic reserves for the adolescent T&A  comedies and/or the equally puerile Video Nasties from the 1980s. Brian Trenchard-Smith doesn't exactly come close to either Peter Jackson or Stuart Gordon in his disreputable hand, but he doesn't stand in the way of the cheap thrills and is all the more respectable for it. Maybe I should credit him less for the blatant use of stock footage from Tenney's film, but the film is far too much of a lark to be shocking. Night of the Demons 2 stakes its own claim as a good-time bad movie which might not stand up to repeat viewings, but it walks tall and swings a mean rosary. I'll take it over any of the Leprechaun movies.

Small Soldiers

SMALL SOLDIERS
(PG-13, DreamWorks SKG, 108 mins., theatrical release date: July 10, 1998)

Previously on Mind of Frames, I lauded the "Mega Madness" that was Gremlins 2: The New Batch, Joe Dante's poorly-received but uproarious sequel to the movie which gave him Hollywood clout. One of the things I forgot to mention was that Dante and screenwriter Charlie Haas reunited a few years later with the charming Matinee. Haas, you may recall, co-wrote the essential youth movies Over the Edge and Tex with Tim "River's Edge" Hunter, and in Haas, Dante found a worthy successor to John Sayles, who scripted Dante's inaugural Piranha and The Howling. It proved to be another two-picture wonder of a collaboration, though, as Gremlins 2 and Matinee each got poor box-office returns. Haas would never write another feature script again, and Dante was consigned to television projects for a spell.

Enter Steven Spielberg again to renew Dante's mainstream potential, having shifted studios from Amblin to DreamWorks and inciting direct competition with Disney/Pixar in several releases. The late 1990s, after all, was when DreamWorks' Antz and Pixar's A Bug's Life vied for the hearts of junior entomologists. Also on the DreamWorks slate was Small Soldiers, a live-action "send-up" of their rival's benchmark of a blockbuster, Toy Story.

As far as subversive hired guns go, Dante showed Spielberg twice that his aim was true. But whereas Gremlins 2 made a sacred cow of its beloved original and ground it up into a juicy burger, Small Soldiers is processed cheese all the way. The screenplay feels distressingly like a multiple cook crash since it credits three different sets of scribes, including Adam Rifkin (The Chase, Mouse Hunt) and the team of Ted Elliott & Terry Rossio (Aladdin, Shrek), which is all you need to know that this was punched-up to low places.

It could've been a hero on the same sardonic, satirically-gifted level as the Gremlins films. The premise is that a modest little toy company is now the subdivision of a military conglomerate called GloboTech, whose new family-friendly image juxtaposes bombers and babies. When transferring employees Larry Benson (Jay Mohr) and Irwin Wayfair (David Cross, who deserved a crack at this script given Mr. Show was airing on HBO about this time) pitch new toy ideas to GloboTech CEO Gil Mars (Denis Leary), Mars demands these playthings be able to play back. Coerced to oblige in a three-month pinch, the more go-getting Larry orders surplus units of the X-1000 microprocessor, a munitions chip, as hardware for both his G.I. Joe-style Army dolls, the Commando Elite, and Irwin's Gorgonites, who are their alien nemeses.

Meanwhile, in bucolic Winslow Corners, Ohio, teenager Alan Abernathy (Gregory Smith) is left to take care of his father's namby-pamby toy store, "The Inner Child," while he's attending a small business seminar. He strikes a deal with the delivery man (the requisite but reliable Dick Smith) to divert some of the inventory in his direction, figuring it would make some easy money to help keep the place open. Maybe it might even help bridge the divide between Alan, who has cultivated an exaggerated reputation as a delinquent, and his beleaguered daddy Stuart (Kevin Dunn, who would later essay an even dumber-downed version of this sitcom staple for the goddamn Transformers series).

Smith plays this Everydork to the best of his abilities though he looks way too milquetoast for all the underwritten teen angst he has to shoulder. Contrivances aside, Alan is more prodigal son than problem child, and whatever conflict he and his father have is utterly inconsequential. Just as preordained is the arrival of neighborly love interest Christy Fimple (Kirsten Dunst), a sassy, seasoned older girl looking for her kid brother's birthday gift. Their sputtering courtship revolves around a mutual dislike of "Family of Five" (that's Party of Five if you're an actual ‘90s kid and not some hacky archetype) and love for Led Zeppelin (which, as an ex junior high brat myself, I can fully relate to). But, of course, Christy is a footballer's squeeze and Alan is forced to play his romantic cards sparingly.

Love is secondary to war, however, once Commando Elite Major Chip Hazard (voiced by Tommy Lee Jones) punches out of his packaging and rallies his plastic brigade in destructive pursuit of the benign Gorgonites, whose leader Alan has taken home with him. Archer (voice of Frank Langella) makes a private connection with the kid and soon the Commandos are gunning after Alan. Since the Gorgonites have been programmed to cowardice, the remaining extraterrestrial exiles are scooped up from a dumpster by Alan, including a Daffy doppelganger named Insaniac and a cycloptic cutie named Oculus. The funniest movie reference in the film is when Alan's TV is airing 1958's The Crawling Eye, which the one-eyed wonder then glues itself to.

The rest of the cinephile pandering is caught between two extremes. Shrewd voice casting on the dolls' part means that the Commando Elites are performed by The Dirty Dozen veterans Ernest Borgnine, George Kennedy, Jim Brown, and Clint Walker, with Bruce Dern taking over for the deceased Richard Jaeckel. The principal Gorgonites are in turn spoken for by Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer, the legendary Spinal Tap trio. Their dialogue is ripe with pop culture allusions, encompassing everything from Patton to Titanic. The most subtle battalion of one-liners stems from how the Commando Elites take their war games dead seriously even for playthings, screaming "Medic!" when mortally wounded and getting noble eulogies: "His battery has run out, but his memory will keep going and going."

Major Hazard's increasing intelligence and adaptive skills spur his team onto more menacing and dangerous strategies, eventually involving taking Christy as a hostage and finally cornering both the Abernathy and Fimple clans under one besieged roof. And yet Dante's uncanny knack for making flesh-and-blood cartoon chaos isn't as potent here. The scorn many heaped at Dante for pushing disturbing images to children in the Gremlins films at least tempered by a giddy, inventive gusto in the staging, and there was better humor to them, too. Small Soldiers feels ‘roided up on cheap testosterone and let loose without much of a game plan other than the diminished novelty of little things causing big trouble in small towns.

The centerpiece of Small Soldiers is when Hazard tears the microchip from the brain of fallen soldier Nick Nitro and harnesses it to bring Frankenstein-style life to Christy's collection of Gwendies. Proud to be serving as cannon fodder, these Barbie surrogates are then stripped down to camo bikinis and attack with the kind of pun-damaged ditziness that made me genuinely fear Akiva Goldsman was ghost-writing this. Never mind the bizarrely fantastical choice to have Christy still in possession of underage toys whilst jamming to Led Zeppelin and Rush, there is a tonal dissonance in this device which is downright numbing, not to mention serious misjudgment in regards to the satire.

Christy's Gwendy dolls are each given specific accessories and costumes to make them look like Greek soldiers, Cleopatra, Jackie Onassis, Sally Ride, the Swiss Miss mascot, etc. You'd think there would be more ingenuity once they come to life than to just reduce them to condescending Valley Girl accents, giggly sadism and fetishistic objectification, but that's all they do after they're activated. They tie down Christy, pounce upon her useless boyfriend and make lame quip after lame quip, all the while half-naked and deformed. The pint-sized antagonists of Small Soldiers barely stack up against the memorably unhinged Gremlins who once mauled Santa Claus impersonators and rocketed an old lady out of her house. The worst that happens here is that the boyfriend gets his pants leg torched and Benedict Arnolds his way out of the plot.

For all of its middling attempts to be madcap and macabre, Small Soldiers, like Gremlins 2: The New Batch, has the advanced sophistication of mechanical effects on its side. Whereas Rick Baker proved invaluable in building upon the puppetry and conceptions of the creatures in the 1990 film, here Stan Winston and his team mix computer graphics and radio-controlled animatronics to make an impressive illusion of lifelike figurines. And once again, all credit to the likes of Tommy Lee Jones, Frank "Skeletor" Langella and the great vocal talents I mentioned before for giving them fairly amusing personalities. Jones, in particular, doesn't ham it up as insufferably like he did with his Harvey Dent from Batman Forever and is more welcome with his wryly macho patois.

Alas, there are many clear casualties in terms of wasted talent. Aside from the two young leads, a visibly typecast Denis Leary and the rakish Joe Dante, himself, I neglected to mention one Phil Hartman, in his cinematic epitaph here as Christy's tech-savvy daddy Phil (seriously?!), because I watch him and all I can hear is Troy McClure egotistically reminding audiences to remember him from this mediocrity. The only real comic chemistry to be found is between MVPs/POWs Jay Mohr and David Cross as the rival toymakers, whose research into the dangers of the X-1000 microchip brings them to its creator Ralph, played by Dante repertoire scene-stealer Robert Picardo as a disgraced inventor turned quarantine manager who used to work under the Pentagon.

Once Ralph designed these microchips to grant "actual intelligence" to smart bombs, now they spur on "psychological warfare" involving Spice Girls songs. Talk about a defective product; you know, wouldn't it have been much funnier and apt if the Commandos blared Aqua's "Barbie Girl," instead? Speaking of a Cheap Trick not done right, I watched the film again knowing that "Surrender" was on the soundtrack listing, and they didn't even use that power-pop gem for laughs. The only songs you hear in the movie with real clarity are mostly re-purposed at the end in trendy hip-hop remixes, such as "War," "Love Is a Battlefield" and "Another One Bites the Dust." I'm confused as to whether I'm being sold a movie, a compilation album (which is better off skipped in favor of Jerry Goldsmith's proper film score), a collection of Chip Hazard-centered tie-in merchandise, or a flame-broiled Rodeo Burger.

Small Soldiers is a sad, strange little film, and it has my pity.

Gremlins 2: The New Batch

GREMLINS 2: THE NEW BATCH
(PG-13, Warner Bros. Pictures, 106 mins., theatrical release date: June 15, 1990)

In the 35 years since his solo directorial debut with 1978's Piranha, Joe Dante proved himself to be one of the most lovable anarchists in the cinema biz. His imagination is the product of both a garrulous, genuine love of film and the puckish, feverish invention of a Warner Bros. studio animator. Under Roger Corman's employment and Allan Arkush's partnership, he proved he could sell New World Pictures' line of B-movies with shrewd, demented glee. Even better was when Dante got the chance to make his own independent, irreverent fan favorites like Piranha and The Howling. And then Steven Spielberg, the man Dante was once tasked to rip off, saw his potential and started him small with a segment of Twilight Zone: The Movie, which finally led him to the blockbuster promised land that was 1984's Gremlins.

Naturally, the sadistic suburban chaos of that anti-Christmas classic proved a tough act to commodify. Neither Dante nor Spielberg were satisfied with the many half-baked treatments sent their way, not that Dante expressed much interest in a sequel to begin with. Desperation caused Warner Bros. to approach Dante with the ultimate enticement for any artist, the lure of total "creative control." I can only imagine the great, Grinch-y grin which graced Dante's mug, as that same mischievous smile was what I got numerous times watching that long-delayed sequel, 1990's Gremlins 2: The New Batch.

The studio was angling for a summer hit to compete with Disney and Dick Tracy, but Dante's flick wasn't the underdog success story you wished it would be. Gremlins 2 grossed merely a third of the original's profits, while Gremlins screenwriter Chris Columbus cornered the family market later that year with the massive, $476 million take from Home Alone. Dante had no interest in hackneyed sentimentality and bumbling slapstick, so once again, whatever Dante glory gleaned from the experience was purely archaeological.

1990 was the year Warner Bros. celebrated Bugs Bunny's 50th anniversary on the backs of two flop sequels, the second being The Never Ending Story II: The Next Chapter, and that one was preceded by an actual cartoon short, Box-Office Bunny. But it was the wraparound animation in Gremlins 2 which had the input of the legendary Chuck Jones himself, after Dante had him in a cameo for the original Gremlins. The movie even begins with the classic Warner logo as presented in the vintage Bugs toons, perched wabbit and all, instead of their reliable blue sky bumper. And sure enough, egotistical Daffy Duck storms in to steal the spotlight only to suffer a fruitfully embarrassing comeuppance.

The next 100 minutes of live-action antics only get much, much Loonier from here.

Gizmo, the cuddly Mogwai mascot/failed household pet, is back at Mr. Wing's (Keye Luke) Chinatown antiques emporium, but New York City's gentrification trickles down like water to start the chaos anew. The trouble begins when tycoon Daniel Clamp, glimpsed only via pre-recorded videocassette delivered by chief assistant Forster (Robert Picardo), wants to buy out Wing's property to build his own version of Little China. The answer again is a direct "No," but it's not like old Wing sounds fit enough to continue fighting. Six weeks later, Wing passes on, and a dozer duly levels his shop, with Gizmo scrambling to escape the wreckage. But the creature won't be homeless for long, as Clamp's tower has men in low places, namely the Splice of Life genetics lab technicians who seize him for study.

Also in Clamp's service are Billy Peltzer (Zach Galligan) and Kate Beringer (Phoebe Cates), the Kingston Falls lovebirds now seeking upward mobility at the billionaire mogul's high-tech, sky-scraping office block. Billy overhears a mailman humming a familiar melody in his design department cubicle, which is enough to spur him to rescue Gizmo from the surgical clutches of laboratory head Dr. Catheter (Christopher Lee). Despite Billy's command to keep out of sight until Kate arrives to pick him up, Gizmo ventures out and in the path of a faulty water fountain, which inevitably yet accidentally breeds another clutch of rogue Mogwai not ready to play nice.

The first rule officially re-broken, then naturally comes the dreaded prospect of them eating after midnight. Luckily, the yogurt and salad bars are open all night, and when Kate brings home not Gizmo but a cross-eyed, cackling impostor, he pigs out on chicken and throws the rest of dinner back in the couple's faces.  Freshly cocooned, it isn't long before the Gremlins hatch, and, of course, you realize this means war.

And not just in the Bugs Bunny sense, but a battle worthy of Rambo as the introductory scenes tease out.

The battleground are the many floors of the Clamp Center, already a subject of Tati-style satire from the moment it's introduced given the corporation's sign has the world squashed in a vise. This "smart building" is equipped with revolving doors which travel at 100 mph, inconvenient eco-sensors that go off when menial workers sit inactive for too long and an overbearing PA system possessed of eerie intelligence. In greeting you upon entrance, the announcement is that you "Have a powerful day." Should you enter the executive washroom, it knows if you forgot to wash your hands. Parked in a restricted area? It will straight-up insult your taste in automobiles. And the fire alarm? Well, you need to hear that one for yourself.

Dante and screenwriter Charlie Haas establish this larger-than-life locale as a narcissistic totem to a character modeled trenchantly on both Donald Trump and Ted Turner. Somehow, it not only feels fresher than the original's Capra-esque winter town, but more expansive and ripest for ruination. Daniel Clamp is the entrepreneur to end them all; his self-made empire, already recounted in a best-selling autobiography, corners the market on cable television, construction, sports, finance, jams, and jellies. Filmed on location in Clamp Tower are such niche programs as: "Microwaving with Marge," hosted by the titular soused chef (Kathleen Freeman); "The Movie Police" with Leonard Maltin, who wasn't a fan of the first Gremlins; and whatever is airing on The Archery Channel, where the current Robin Hood actor has snapped his bow in protest.

Having established all these facetious facets, I hope you are duly prepared for the madness once those Gremlin pods melt away. This is undiscovered territory far from what Chris Columbus and, for that matter, FX master Chris Walas ever dreamed of. Let's not forget to clap our clamps and claws for Rick Baker, another in the movie's roster of MVPs, for supervising the creation of this new and improved batch. Thanks to Dr. Catheter's crimes against nature, the Gremlin menace evolves to the degree where the building's occupants are terrorized by an arachnid Gremlin, an electrical current Gremlin, a bat gremlin, the Brain Gremlin who injects the latter with "genetic sunblock" (granting it immunity against bright light, that third no-no in the protection manual), and the Miss Piggy/Bugs-in-drag creation that is the Lady Gremlin, who gets the vapors near the pompous Forster.

Lucky for us, also, is the human defense team which proves equally clever in regards to performances. Zach Galligan is made a more active and honorary foil than before, especially amusing when he makes a wrong turn at Albuquerque and into a Marathon Man reference, and Phoebe Cates gets to flex comedic muscle in a couple of meta moments. There's even the welcome return of Billy's former neighbors and snowplow attack survivors, Murray and Sheila Futterman, played by the no-nonsense Dick Miller and the jovial Jackie Joseph. And Baker has given Gizmo an animatronic overhaul, not just an adorable miniature puppet but an expressive creature able to command the tightest of close-ups.

John Glover, previously having provided eccentric flourishes to his must-see roles in 52 Pick-Up and The Chocolate War, plays Daniel Clamp impeccably against type and emphasizes a child-like wonder which elevates the character from mere yuppie caricature. Haviland Morris, a severely undervalued comedienne who started in Sixteen Candles and whom many feel should've taken Madonna's lead in Who's That Girl, gets a juicy character with the name of Marla, a name solidified in Charlie Haas' 1989 final draft before the Maples/Trump headlines broke wide open. With her loud mane of orange hair, hysterical Brooklyn accent and jittery, chain-smoking poise, Morris is a ball of fire made flesh.

As a late-night horror movie host and aspiring newscaster boasting an uncanny resemblance to Grandpa Munster, Robert Prosky makes a witty impression. Ditto Kathleen Freeman as the dubious cooking expert who adds sherry by the dollop whilst ingesting it by the trowel. Gedde Watanabe, the 1980s precursor to Ken Jeong who was also in Sixteen Candles with Morris, is his reliably hyperactive self as an overzealous shutterbug. Real life identical twins Don & Dan Stanton, of Good Morning, Vietnam and T2: Judgment Day, play Martin & Lewis, the quirky assistants of Dr. Catheter, the disease-obsessed mad doctor played with exquisitely creepy camp by Christopher Lee.

Look, I could go on about the subtle in-jokes and cameos, including many of Dante's friends since the New World years and a couple of WTF surprises which others have spoiled for me. I could talk about how the movie includes any number of offbeat gags involving serene nature videos heralding the apocalypse, characters openly poking holes at the nature of the three rules and the (in)correct uses of microwaves, paper shredders and wet cement. I could geek out over Tony Randall's hilariously haughty voice work as the Brain Gremlin, which culminates in a joyous performance of "New York, New York" which is sublime beyond words. I can applaud the movie for disarming us with more than enough delicious black comedy, as appetizing as the Chocolate Moose served up in that Clamp Canadian-themed restaurant, but doesn't forget the scares and the slime where it counts.

Gremlins 2: The New Batch is fondly remembered among Dante aficionados not just because it was so undiluted and unconventional, but also hilarious enough that the hits outweighed the misses. The film's reception and cult legacy kind of reminds me of Savage Steve Holland's Better Off Dead, another film which used a familiar plot as an excuse to dream up surreal situations and comic set pieces. And if Holland saw himself in the John Cusack role, Dante imagines himself a Gremlin in the machine, a pop culture prankster of minimal pretension and maximum destruction. This is my Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and it freaks me out. It's a legitimately sardonic, side-splitting and sanity-proof take-off from Dante's biggest hit, which cannot be said about the next film I will cover...

The last thing we need is a fight.

A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET PART 2: FREDDY'S REVENGE
(R, New Line Cinema, 87 mins., theatrical release date: November 1, 1985)


After Hours, Better Off Dead..., Brazil, The Breakfast Club, Fright Night, Heaven Help Us, Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, Re-Animator, The Return of the Living Dead, The Sure Thing.

These ten films will all be celebrating their 30th anniversary next year. I bring up these titles in particular, deliberately setting aside the blockbusters (Back to the Future, The Goonies, Rocky IV) and the ball-busters (St. Elmo's Fire, A View to a Kill), because I devoutly appreciate every single one of them from past until present. This is not thorough, as I have failed to mention Mr. Vampire, Real Genius, Runaway Train, Lost in America, and several other gems I caught up with. Even trashier stuff like Commando, Death Wish 3 and Red Sonja I can understand getting some love. But 1985 was the year which gave us John Cusack, Stephen Geoffreys and Linda Fiorentino in heavy doses. I'll gladly stick up for 1985 as a good year at the movies for those three reasons alone.

One of the more interesting movies I can see getting the retrospective treatment is A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge. Yes, I'm talking about one of the most infamous horror sequels in history, in the same year, mind you, that spewed out Friday the 13th: A New Beginning. The film drove a wedge between series creator Wes Craven and New Line Cinema honcho Robert Shaye, sparked a deathless debate over its brazenly homosexual allegory and, like Halloween III: Season of the Witch before it, became a cinematic orphan in mewling need of a willing cult of sympathetic adopters. The comprehensive Elm Street series documentary Never Sleep Again is essential viewing in understanding these bones of contention.

The best thing about Daniel Farrands & Andrew Kasch's project was that it marked the welcome public appearance of NoES 2's long-estranged lead actor, Mark Patton. His entertaining, frank comments on the film's legendarily gay subtext are priceless, but the outtakes from his interview were even more revealing. Patton dropped out of professional acting when his integrity was challenged by the still-prevalent Celluloid Closet and the cattily competitive behavior therein, which was maddeningly trivial even without the real life horrors facing the gays of the world. Patton overcame multiple health concerns, including HIV-positive testing, and is currently living a fulfilling life in Puerto Vallarta. He has kept up a solid profile as an artist, activist and writer, with hopes for completing a documentary called There Is No Jesse which may as well prove just as candid and critical as Heather Langenkamp's I Am Nancy, if not more so.

Patton's character of Jesse Walsh is the new kid on Elm Street, freshly relocated to the same white house with bars on the windows wherein Nancy Thompson vanquished Freddy Krueger. Screenwriter David Chaskin and director Jack Sholder burden Jesse with the same all-too-real nightmares of the scissor-fingered psycho, but they've jettisoned one of the more resonant themes of the original Wes Craven film, the inheritance of the parents' sins. Mr. & Mrs. Walsh, played by Clu Gulager and Hope Lange, are interlopers with no understanding of their new house's eerie history, let alone aware of the mass show of vigilantism which loosed Krueger onto his killers' brood. They are your garden variety suburban caricatures, as are all of the other parental units, and serve no consequence on the ensuing teen angst.

Mr. Walsh, stern simpleton he is, is far from Craig T. Nelson's character in Poltergeist, reacting less plausibly to clearly supernatural phenomena and jumping to jokey conclusions at every opportunity. This type of skeptical, oblivious father who may as well be the absentee parent in many a bad teen sex comedy. Mrs. Walsh is stereotypically passive, and kid sister Angela (Christie Clark) has somehow even less of a personality. The crux of the story is specifically Jesse's gradual torment by none other than the goading spirit of Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund), who makes it his crusade to possess Jesse Walsh and resume killing in a mortal coil.

If only that were Jesse's lone concern. He is simultaneously bullied and befriended by Rod Lane ringer Ron Grady (Robert Rusler), the two of them bonding over phys ed detention sessions under the sadomasochistic thumb of Coach Schneider (Marshall Bell). There's also the matter of pretty Lisa Webber (Kim Myers), who isn't so well-off that she cannot rely on Jesse to get her to school every morning. Their peer-pressured romantic courtship is at risk thanks to Krueger's machinations, which turn dead serious when a supposedly sleepwalking Jesse makes the bizarre choice to catch Coach Schneider's eye in a gay bar and is taken back to the gym for punishment.

The combination of Chaskin's eccentric if hackneyed plot and Sholder's plebian proficiency as director pays dividends in terms of camp. Grady teases Jesse early on that his soft, pretty boy physique is exactly what gets Schneider's rocks off, but then the leather-vested martinet and his lanky prey turn up serendipitously at a watering hole for homosexuals?! When Schneider starts raiding the supply closet and pulls out a jump rope, all the while Jesse is taking a shower nearby, my brain tells me there's going to be some squat thrusts going on that I shouldn't even begin to contemplate. But then you get to Schneider's death, which involves racquets snapping, balls exploding off the shelves, towels becoming sentient and whipping Schneider's bare ass. Chaskin intended this as simple adolescent wish-fulfillment, but I'll be damned if it doesn't exacerbate the queenie absurdity of it all.

The audience had already gotten an eyeful of the Risky Business rip wherein Jesse dances around his bedroom to club diva synth-pop wearing gold lame sunglasses and closing drawers with his tuches. The production design is so shameless, that Nancy's journal is placed conveniently next to a board game named "Probe" and a "No Out of Town Checks" sign outside Jesse's door has an I pasted over the E. And in a twist on the original scene where Nancy asked her boyfriend Glen to watch over her as she slept, the frightened Jesse, foiled in an intimate moment with Lisa, begs Grady to protect him in much the same way, complete with wake-up call warnings and stoic recitation of "Don't fall asleep."

Objectively speaking, A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2 is simultaneously derivative and defiant of its immediate progenitor. Krueger is still a shadow demon whose favored tropical climes involve boiler rooms and power plants. The bravura opening sequence in which Jesse's school bus teeters over an infernal pit packs the same kind of sweaty, sleazy dread as Tina's inaugural nightmare the last time. The teenagers are elevated to nobility through investigation and open-mindedness, not just their sympathetic supernatural anxieties. And Jesse Walsh is every bit a solid central character as Nancy Thompson or Alice Johnson, relatable even as Krueger eats at both his will and his sanity.

The main problem is in reducing the Freddy mythos to just another slab of Amityville Horror/Poltergeist hokum. The worst offender is the famous scene where a spooked lovebird is loosed from its cage and flies around the living room dive-bombing Mr. Walsh, only to explode in flight. The ludicrousness of the scenario is hardly deflated by dad's dopey rationale for the bird's errant behavior: "It's that cheap seed you've been buying." Furthermore, dream logic matters little in the overall goal of Freddy Krueger being reborn in Jesse's place, especially when a pool party populated by hardly narcoleptic teens are beset by Krueger, who surrounds them in flames, turns the water to boiling and cavorts around, sticking his razors into the panicking herd. It's an equally embarrassing turn of events given the grim urgency of the original, which blurred fantasy/reality and life/death with resolute tragedy. Krueger feels strangely emasculated, saddled with a plan that saps him of his primal fear potential and makes him frightening only in mere context.

Whatever genuine pain this sequel conjures depends largely on Mark Patton's internalized, anguished central performance. The young man looks distressingly fragile, more so than a lot of female survivors in past slasher movies, and there's a glistening, grim pathos that is hard to deny. Whatever psychosexuality and gay repression themes rise up to the top of this milkshake are tempered by Patton's earnest, personal commitment to the role. There is a case to be made for Jesse Walsh as a more effeminate version of the Everyboy persona, and in the film's universe of adolescent confusion and foiled romantic desire, Walsh is well-rounded enough as a character to make the madness sting. The fortitude he lacks is ably compensated by Kim Myers as the concerned, brave female friend Lisa, and there is an innate tenderness to their scenes which is a welcome touch in a youth-driven market fueled by leery sexism.

Kevin Yagher, taking over the FX work begun by David Miller in the original, gives Krueger some distinctly gothic touches, especially in the amber-colored eyes which Sholder locks onto in one memorable close-up. And the film's coup turns out to be Jesse's on-screen rebirth of Freddy, impeccably crafted by Mark Shostrom and filmed with the utmost dread by Sholder. The eye peeking out of Jesse's mouth, the head indenting itself in Jesse's abdomen, the razors tearing out from Jesse's fingers...every shot counts.

The trouble with A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2 is that not everyone appears to be on the same wavelength, so the earnest qualities of Jesse's body horror/sexual orientation predicament and the micro-budget inanity fail to mesh together in a proper way. It's formless, jarring quickie product which doesn't quite bastardize Freddy in the same way later sequels did, but it doesn't really add much to the Gloved One even as it subtracts. It's not fully deserving of its disreputable rep, and I'll take this over Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare any day, every day. But there's a reason Wes Craven was allowed some input on the subsequent Dream Warriors. A lot of NoES 2's legacy appears purely incidental, as strange and senseless as any nightmare. But at least they spare us the parakeet's lucid dreaming.

Here's the rare red band theatrical trailer I can recall seeing on my old special edition VHS of A Nightmare on Elm Street.

Wishmaster

WISHMASTER
(R, Live Entertainment, 90 mins., theatrical release date: September 19, 1997)

Nostalgia can be a cruel bitch sometimes.

Wishmaster, or Wes Craven Presents: Wishmaster as it was advertised, was the kind of processed comfort food a 13-year-old gorehound like my younger self had no qualms about scarfing down. Even in 1997, I could tell that the movie was directed by an FX wizard of great renown, written by the man responsible for milking Clive Barker's Hellraiser until the teat broke off and was populated by several "like, omigod!" horror icons for that extra dose of genre-mad glee. Not many pre-pubescent boys can recognize Phantasm's Reggie Bannister with the same kind of enthusiasm reserved for seeing their father come down the chimney clad in an Old St. Nick cosplay.

So what if the movie was met with critical indignancy and led to a string of bland, dread-proof movies (Carnival of Souls, Don't Look Down, They) which ruined the supposedly-legit "Wes Craven Presents" prefix? It was an homage, a throwback, an affectionate display of celluloid longing for the glory days of four years ago, when you had such AFI-worthy touchstones like Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth, Warlock: The Armageddon and Leprechaun 2.

Wishmaster is cheeky enough company for those Cheetos-and-Corona-at-midnight blitzes which demand it. But it's also completely transparent if you stare at it too long, and is relieved of its tedium only by some extraordinary splatter set pieces and the reliably nasty twists on the Faustian adage of "Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it." Monkey's paws seem as lucky as rabbit's feet in this universe.

I'm guessing writer Peter Atkins hit the same snafu Wes Craven did when his Freddy Krueger creation turned as cuddly as E.T. and just as helplessly burlesqued. Pinhead essentially became a "genie in a bottle" baddie by the time the 1990s rolled around, so why not go literal or go home? Thus, Atkins concocted the Djinn, a mythical beast forged from holy fire and doomed betwixt the realms of angel and man. No, I am not rehashing my review of The Prophecy, for Christ's sake.

The Djinn feeds on wishes, or to be more accurate, those poor venal souls who make the mistake of confiding to the Djinn. This happened in ancient Persia, where a monarch demanded to be shown "wonders" and essentially got the Boiler Room bloodbath from Hellraiser III for his trouble. You say bazaar, I say bizarre, let's call the whole thing off, as a valiant sorcerer agrees after forging a fire opal and placing a spell on the Djinn which confines him within the ruby.

Earth, 1997-I need to stop repeating myself-America, 1997: The opal has found its way into the modern world after a drunken crane operator destroys a valuable sculpture. I want to stop right there and basically point out that this particular scene is like a guessing game for genre actors, three in particular essaying the roles of the antiques collector who ordered the damaged goods, the unctuous toady assisting him and the blitzed blue-collar buffoon himself. The best part is that you've got the beginners, intermediate and advanced levels all represented here. I'll spoil but one of them, mainly because he's given the prestigious boxed credit in the opening titles: "And Robert Englund as Raymond Beaumont."

But Englund, that eccentric oxygen tank of a man, is only 8% of this movie, the more substantial pie slice on the chart going to small-screen actress Tammy Lauren in her only leading role in film. Don't let the looks fool you, though, Linda Hamilton she is not. Although Atkins writes her a role as an athletic, independent woman who prefers every cross-gender relationship to be wholly platonic, he also wastes a tragic backstory on Lauren's Alex Ambrose which produces little triumph, and even when Alex is coaching her girl's basketball team, Lauren seems more bored than bold. If this is our plucky heroine, then why didn't Kurtzman bother to land Linnea Quigley, Jewel Shepard, Michelle Johnson, or some other recognizable B-babe who would've warmed to the material better?

Alex works at Regal Auctioneers and is tasked to appraise the fire opal once it arrives at their office. It is she who awakens the Djinn from his ugly sleep and thus inadvertently mind-melds with the creature, reborn after a thermal analysis laser prompts the demonic egg to hatch. But The Djinn needs souls to rejuvenate himself and wastes no time prowling about the city looking for impulsive suckers who require his perverted magic. They don't even have to phrase their requests in the form of a wish, the Djinn does it for them, so he never really strikes a hard bargain:

"Do you wish it?"
"Yes."
"Good."
"Aaaah!"

The Djinn eventually goes full-on Frank Cotton and slips into the skin of fresh cadaver Nathaniel Demerest, allowing for actor Andrew Divoff to finally shed those full-body Human Gremlin prosthetics. Divoff is a roguish character actor on par with William Sadler, best known for playing all manner of terrorists and tyrants in the likes of Stephen King's Graveyard Shift, Toy Soldiers, Air Force One, and Indiana Jones & The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Compared to the debonair villainy of Doug Bradley and Julian Sands, Divoff comes up short as a formidable foe. While deceptively handsome, his bluntly phonetic line deliveries make him sound as intimidating as Katy Perry. Atkins' dialogue, all boilerplate boasts and witticisms clearly indebted to the Cult of Krueger (or Chucky, or the Leprechaun, or even Dr. Giggles), do him no favors. Nevertheless, the grinning, gallant Divoff seems to be having more fun on the job than the perpetually nervous leading lady.

And the token Fangoria Hall of Fame one-offs in the cast all go head-to-maw with the monster, making for some delicious confrontations. Kane Hodder, the most beloved of the many incarnations of Jason Voorhees, lends his own brand of muscle as a security guard for Regal Auctioneers and is duly absorbed into the steel wall behind him. Perennial screen derelict George "Buck" Flower (of The Exorcist, Back to the Future and They Live) gets into a nasty battle of wits with Reggie Bannister's irate pharmacist, all the better for the Djinn to act as the kind of unfair referee seen in many a classic WWF grudge match. The underused but incomparable Tony Todd plays a bellowing bouncer who deep down wants to escape, although not in the way the Djinn allows.

Wishmaster has all the materials to make for a solid genre film, and I won't say Craven's own Scream ruined the ability to appreciate straight-up schlock without prejudice. But this has all the malnourished hallmarks of an also-ran, substituting grisly special effects for gut-twisting suspense, relying on reams of flat exposition instead of challenging the imagination and depending on the kind of exhausted tropes which had been run through the mill even by the late 1980s. You wish Kurtzman and Atkins had better sense than to lean on cliché jump scares, garden variety grotesquerie and tedious lectures on the limitations of the Djinn's dark dynasty (even if they are delivered by wry Jenny O'Hara, of amazingly no relation at all to Catherine).

It's no shock in a film devoid of them that Wishmaster is best appreciated as a showcase for Kurtzman's legendary effects shop, KNB EFX. There are not one but two crowded room massacres packed with showy if shallow evisceration, and in the Grand Guignol equivalent of throwing in the kitchen sink, there's even a random appearance by Jack the Ripper during the finale (see for yourself!). Yes, the scourge of England apparently reanimated by the scourge of Englund, who gets a "Paging Dr. Giger" comeuppance straight out of Poltergeist II: The Other Side.

Even the technical credits fail to live up to expectations of old-school horror, with Nightmare on Elm Street cinematographer Jacques Haitkin and Friday the 13th composer Harry Manfredini on low-budget autopilot. Not a single frame or musical sting is on par with either of those beloved films.

Maybe I'm suffering from lapsed nostalgia, but the truth is that I've seen Wishmaster done better many times before. I gave Dr. Giggles, Warlock and the original April Fool's Day positive reviews, and I thought the spotty Hellbound: Hellraiser II brought out some interest elements in regards to character and imagery. I can even find the entertainment in Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth even after 22 years. Wishmaster, though, doesn't have much going for it in the long run, except to have lazily exploited my wildest wish for a simple good time.

Djinn-Genie, let yourself go!

Remote Control (1988)

REMOTE CONTROL
(R, New Century/Vista Film Company, 88 mins., theatrical release date: April 7, 1988)

In 1977, writer/director Jeff Lieberman made Blue Sunshine, a cult classic in which a group of domesticated, distraught ex-hippies who dropped the titular strain of acid a decade earlier lost their hair and their marbles simultaneously. It was made back in the amber-colored days when soft-core writer Zalman King was just another fledgling B-actor, and Lieberman, having previously directed Squirm, was establishing himself as a quirky genre hero on par with Larry Cohen despite a stunning lack of prolificacy.

Ten years later, Lieberman cloned that film's concept of homicidal mass hypnosis as well as its Hitchcock-style "wrong man" thriller elements for the VHS era with Remote Control. This is most certainly not a feature film version of the MTV-produced couch potato trivia show, but another trendy homage to the science-fiction cheapies of yesteryear. Lieberman didn't exactly conjure up by lightning twice, as after Remote Control was consigned to cable-channel obscurity, his already sporadic film credits proved fewer and further between; there was a co-writing claim on The Never Ending Story III here, the swan song-seeming Satan's Little Helper from 2004 there. His career squittered to a halt, and with the advent of digital home video, Remote Control was officially branded his "lost" film.

I actually found a VHS copy at a garage sale pitched by the I Can Smell Your Brains podcast team. Two years after that acquisition, Lieberman secured the rights to self-distribute the film on limited-edition DVD and Blu-Ray himself, complete with a fresh 2k transfer and feature-length commentary track from the filmmaker. One can only hope that the film gains enough momentum for a wider release via Shout! Factory, who recently re-issued Squirm. But I did revisit Remote Control when the news of its re-emergence broke, and as a card-carrying fan of its 1986 contemporary TerrorVision, I was eager to receive whatever it was transmitting.

Remote Control and TerrorVision have quite a few things in common, starting with the requisite joke at the expense of inept wannabe swingers living in their thoroughly-modernized (read: blindingly 1980s) pleasuredome. The husband in this case, bemoaning the lack of anything good on TV, had sent his wife out to rent a videocassette called "S&M Made Fun." As she suits up in her New Wave dominatrix costume, loverboy puts on another rental to pass the time, an obscure chestnut from 1957 called "Remote Control." The movie begins with another jaded couple, Milo and Eva, finding the same relief in modern technology that the present day lovers do, complete with an early form of VHS called "View-o-Vision" that Eva uses to play her own copy of a film titled "Remote Control." Alas, Eva is literally under remote control, as subliminal messages overpower her mind and she mutilates Milo with her knitting machine. But things sometimes have a way of bleeding out into the real world.

Meanwhile, a rundown movie theatre has been renovated into Village Video, where our hero Cosmo DiClemente has a job at. Kevin Dillon plays Cosmo, a couple of decades before his Victory on HBO's Entourage but in the nostalgic wake of breakthrough roles in the likes of Heaven Help Us and Platoon. His boss, Georgie (Christopher Wynne), has received a new promotional display for "Remote Control," and a dozen copies for inventory. Cosmo, however, is more interested in French films, or at least the woman who wishes to rent them, beautiful Belinda Watson (Deborah Goodrich). Belinda is seeking a copy of Truffaut's Stolen Kisses because, like Cosmo, she is a hopeless romantic, her current boyfriend being a possessive douchebag named Victor (Frank Beddor). Georgie is also pining for dizzy brunette Allegra James, played by fellow celebrity sibling Jennifer Tilly.

Victor and Allegra argue over a copy of "Remote Control," and Georgie tips the scales in her favor. He also agrees to hold a copy of War of the Worlds for her, but is so lovestruck that he and Cosmo decide to drop off the tape in person at Allegra's house. They aren't alone, as Victor has become so butt-hurt by the snub, he tracks down Allegra as she is watching "Remote Control." Cosmo and Georgie are chased off by a neighbor, but Victor stays to strangle Allegra and subsequently murder her returning parents.

Policemen Artie (Mike Pniewski) and Pete (John Lafayette) arrive at Village Video the next day to arrest Cosmo and Georgie based on the eyewitness' testimony. Cosmo pleads to Artie to let him try to find the "invisible evidence" that proves Victor was the culprit, believing that the murder was recorded on camera, but the "Remote Control" tape plays as normal until Artie becomes brainwashed and turns his gun on Cosmo, killing his partner and eventually getting shot in self-defense by Cosmo.

Now fugitives, Cosmo and Georgie kidnap Belinda in an attempt to convince her of Victor's guilt, but that necessitates playing the damn movie again. Belinda picks up a hammer and lunges at Cosmo, but the hand-cuffed Georgie manages to stop the tape and break the spell. With Cosmo finally hitting upon the truth, the three of them make an effort to destroy all copies of "Remote Control," eventually leading them to the headquarters of distributors Polaris Video in typical invasion movie fashion. And sure enough, Bert Remsen, the grandpa from TerrorVision, plays a low-level baddie who is easily disposed of in a fit of conflicting emotions.

TerrorVision wasn't just a movie about aliens, it was alien in every aspect of its execution, from the screenplay to the performances to the set design. It was chock full of cheap stereotypes and low-hanging satire, but it was consistent and vicariously weird enough to stand out amongst Charles Band's endless B-movie Empire in the same way Stuart Gordon did with his Lovecraft spin-offs. Remote Control doesn't feel as loose and lawless as that Ted Nicolaou film, as Lieberman is going for a more self-aware, meta tone in which the fictional plot of "Remote Control" is re-enacted in contemporary Los Angeles. The movie plays itself incredibly straight once the mystery is unraveled, yet it doesn't quite work as a direct thriller because it is so unassuming and clearly meant as a pastiche.

The character motivations are confusing even without the mind-control shenanigans. Victor, for instance, is a such a psychotic goon that you keep expecting him to be some kind of a mole, or a clearly-defined satire of 1980s arrogance, but it doesn't shine through in Lieberman's script. He's just a bland nuisance and obvious straw villain who lacks the charisma to even convince Belinda that his actions are innocent, when he comes off as such a robotic creep from scene one. As a result, it also impairs the credibility of the damsels in distress, be they Allegra, who is distressingly unperturbed by his intrusion into her house, or Belinda, whose naivety doesn't change an ounce in the face of clear and present danger.

Deborah Goodrich, coming off a spunky, sexy performance in April Fool's Day, is let down by the material. Ditto Jennifer Tilly, who would go on to riff on her buxom bimbo image with more wit and invention than her minor role here affords her. Leading man Kevin Dillon, though, is convincingly tough and tender, navigating the peril with workaday integrity.

Lieberman is a talented writer who is not below crafting smart dialogue or displaying sardonic wit, but aside from simply rehashing his previous Blue Sunshine or leaning on the DayGlo chintz as a means of poking fun at the concept of futurism, Lieberman lets the playful tone of the first half peter out. A scene where an entire nightclub falls prey to the cathode craze doesn't make particularly memorable use of the indelible image of Eva's demented stare watching over a crowded dance floor, and is staged rather poorly until the pyrotechnics kick in. The conflict involving Victor is perfunctory enough that the showdown has no convincing stakes, and it has no real bearing on the conspiracy plot.

Better to appreciate Remote Control for its minor virtues, mainly digressions such as an offbeat fight between Cosmo and the manager of a competitor store as well as Kevin Dillon's affably heroic presence, especially when the film intercuts his forklift-piloting derring-do with the similar antics in the 1950s film. Moments like these give Remote Control its forgotten glory as a reliable schedule-filler on old school USA Network and Sci-Fi Channel listings. It's entertaining enough that it kind of blends in with its real environment, not so much videocassette as it is the Saturday Night Movie, where real "remote control" is wielded like Excalibur.

The Prophecy (1995)

THE PROPHECY
(R, Dimension Films, 98 mins., theatrical release date: September 1, 1995)

Imagine John Milton writing a B-noir screenplay taking off apocalyptically from the Angelic War premise of Paradise Lost. Lo, you have just foretold the coming of The Prophecy, Highlander and Backdraft author Gregory Widen's 1995 feature debut produced for the mid-1990s Weinstein boutique label Dimension Films. The Prophecy seems to have been lost in the shuffle coming from the cash-cow indie company who also gave you countless DTV sequels to Children of the Corn and Hellraiser, but if you were there in the '90s, The Prophecy remains engrained in your memory banks even if only for one reason:

Before he caught the fever only more cowbell and Fatboy Slim could subside, Christopher Walken was drafted to play a modern-day incarnation of archangel Gabriel, a roguish castaway from God's graces who seeks a mutiny in Heaven (that's not a half-hearted reference, as Walken could plausibly resemble an aged, American ringer for Nick Cave). Looking suspiciously like a character from Mirimax's hottest non-horror property, Pulp Fiction (in which he, Amanda Plummer and a still-unkempt Eric Stoltz also appeared in), Gabriel doesn't do as much hovering as he does strutting through the landscape. With a magnified sense of smell as well as a sardonic nihilism to his decrees, Gabriel may be mortal (angels on Earth aren't exactly invincible) but is possessed of a jubilantly swollen Godhead. Also, when he plays his trumpet, best to keep at least 100 yards away from him to avoid the debris.

Walken's continual cachets to his cultism also managed to include The Prophecy, whose modest success at least allowed Dimension to bring him back for the film's initial, non-theatrical sequels. But does The Prophecy work without him? Well, sort of...

The Prophecy is as graven and sunken-eyed as its antagonist, hinging on the brutal loss of faith, the animosity towards the Almighty for man's ascension, the dark soul of a war criminal imprisoned within an Indian girl's body, and the appearance of Lucifer himself, played with equally dangerous zeal by a pre-Tolkien Viggo Mortensen. The central character isn't even a celestial being, but a fallen man named Thomas Daggett, played by another major indie film star of the time, Elias Koteas (Exotica, Crash). Daggett was once set to be ordained into priesthood until grim visions caused him to break down on the pulpit and drive him into working as a detective. But his doubts will be put to the test when a crime scene investigation turns up evidence of an anatomically-incorrect cadaver and an unabridged copy of St. John's Revelations.

The corpse in question is the angel Uziel (Jeff Cadiente), and he was murdered in self-defense by another not-quite-ancient figure, Simon (Eric Stoltz). Simon sets out to the economically-depressed town of Chimney Rock, Arizona, to guard the spirit of local hero/Korean War occultist Colonel Hawthorne, but transfers it into the body of orphaned Mary (Moriah "Shining Dove" Snyder) as a contingency plan. This doesn't prevent Gabriel from tracking Simon down and slaughtering his nemesis, finally leading Gabriel to terrorize Mary, Daggett and schoolteacher Katherine (Virginia Madsen) in pursuit of Hawthorne's soul, which he needs to ensure his victory in the second war on Heaven.

The rationale is that even though angels may carry savage weapons, they are still novices in the ways of wickedness compared to some of God's most beloved creation. And yet here is Christopher Walken, who as a Bond villain (Max Zorin from A View to a Kill) mowed down an entire swath of henchmen with sick glee as well as pushed Sean Penn to the brink of madness in the domestic crime drama At Close Range, needing to possess someone else's power. Even as a dejected seraphim, Walken is already a master in cool menace. He relishes every threat to tear apart little Mary like a human Cracker Jack box just to get his prize, and his many matter-of-fact taunts about his "talking monkey" enemies are believably bitter.

Gregory Widen could have stood to put some more soul into The Prophecy, which, while not completely humorless, is still weighed down by a portentous essence, circling the action regularly like buzzards might swarm the desert scenery. Elias Koteas and Eric Stoltz are not without charm, as anyone who can remember Some Kind of Wonderful can attest for sure, but they play the roles with a solemnity that is stoic to the point of wooden. It doesn't help Stoltz's case when he has to finally unload Hawthorne's soul into the virgin Mary, a moment which will leave many scraping their jaws off the carpet. Virginia Madsen brings earthly sex appeal and pluckiness to the undervalued role of Katherine, making for a less oppressive form of gravity. Also in the cast are Adam Goldberg and Amanda Plummer as Gabriel's homosapien slaves, suicide cases stuck in depressed limbo to carry out the angel's every destructive whim.

It should be noted that Widen's story, whilst a peculiar and perverted twist on religious iconography which often stares at its own navel for long stretches, is not completely stupid, just not fully convincing. There is black humor in Walken's every scene and a sense of integrity to Daggett's conflicted ideals. Furthermore, as a director, he makes great use of angelic sculptures, Native American scenery and the ever-reliable special effects team. Most major studio genre films are not known for being ambitious and imaginative, mostly because of dollar-chasing skepticism, but Widen gets his vision across in mostly unfettered terms.

The trouble is that without the canny casting of Christopher Walken or the charmingly nefarious Viggo Mortensen ("God is love. I don't love you"), you'd be hard-pressed to call The Prophecy particularly entertaining or involving. Widen doesn't quite find a satisfying middle ground between intellectual and inessential. Maybe it's for the better as this is not exactly a bad movie, and it fits snugly in the middle ground between Dimension's more rewarding Scream series and the shameless schlock of those endless Leprechaun flicks. The premise is also fresh enough to make those later Prophecy sequels, even the ones which resurrect Walken as Gabriel, seem more cynical and dopey in contrast.

The Prophecy, meanwhile, isn't as sacred as it takes itself to be, and it's a shame Walken's irreverence didn't bless the rest of the film. This could have sincerely been manna from Hell.