90's American Horror Part Forty-Three

GRIM PRAIRIE TALES

(1990)

Dir - Wayne Coe

Overall: MEH

Art director Wayne Coe's only film from behind the lens until We Have Your Kids emerged thirty years later, Grim Prairie Tales is a anthology horror Western that is held together by James Earl Jones and Brad Dourif as the campfire yarn spinners.  Besides the top-notch presence of the two leads, the movie is also notable for being one of the first to be shot by famed cinematographer Janusz Kamiński.  Both Jones and Dourif have excellent chemistry together as they spend an eerie evening in the desert, playing a game of one-upsmanship that results in a competitive, often aggressive admiration for each other.  Dourif being the more mild-mannered "city folk" bookworm with glasses and Jones the rugged and intimidating bounty hunter, none of their babble is particularly profound, but it is captivating to watch two master thespians lean into their playful banter with each other.  Unfortunately, the segments themselves are top-to-bottom dull.  The first concerns an old man dying while crossing an Indian burial ground, the second and only hilarious one has a succubus literally sucking Marc McClure into her vagina after seducing him, the third features William Atherton caught up in a lynch mobbing, and the final is about a cocksure gunslinger who meets his supernatural end, (and features a nifty if out-of-nowhere animated nightmare sequence).

 

THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS
(1991)
Dir - Johnathan Demme
Overall: GREAT

One of the most heralded psychological thrillers in cinema history and a police procedural/serial killer profiling drama that has had a lasting influence in the three decades since its release, The Silence of the Lambs boasts the credentials to back up its pop culture relevance.  It was the second film to feature the character of Hannibal Lecter after Michael Mann's also excellent Manhunter from 1986, this one being a direct and faithful adaptation of Thomas Harris' second book in the series.  Both Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins were already well-respected actors in their field when they took on Clarice Sterling and Lecter respectfully, each delivering superb performances as an FBI agent in training and a cannibalistic psychiatrist who share two different types of respect for each other after bonding over acquiring information about Ted Levine's Buffalo Bill; a disturbed serial killer that skins slightly overweight women in order to make a flesh suite out of them.  The disturbing aspects of the subject matter are never exploitative in their depiction, yet Demme brings the viewer in intimately with characters speaking directly into the camera as he utilizes numerous slight of hand maneuvers from the director's seat.  This includes letting the audience be privy to certain information that the characters lack, while also manipulating us in conjunction to how numerous people on screen are likewise being duped.  Classy and riveting, it is about as good as such movies ever get.

WISHMASTER 2: EVIL NEVER DIES

(1999)

Dir - Jack Sholder

Overall: WOOF

When it comes to unrelenting schlock and recycled laziness, one has to hand it to the Wishmaster series for steering the course.  For Wishmaster 2: Evil Never Dies, all parties involved essentially redo the first movie except the same.  The laughably flimsy story merely serves the purpose of setting up another ridiculous set piece, one after the other where Andrew Divoff utilizes the loosest possible definition of a "wish" to feed his soul bag because ancient prophecies or whatever.  Several plot points from the first movie are recycled and the few new ideas here all have the feel of being made up on the fly, with writer/director Jack Scholder returning full-throttle to horror for the first time since A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge, delivering an incessantly stupid smorgasbord of D-rent Hellraiser camp in the process.  Divoff would bail on the franchise after this as to not embarrass himself any more than necessary, but his performance is of the exquisite scenery-chewing variety as the grin never leaves his face and his ADRed lines are full of cliches and diabolically groan-worthy quips.  Tony Lister playing a prison guard instead of an inmate is a delightful addition and the practical effects work fare better than a handful of CGI shots that straight-up look like cartoons.  Still, watching the Wishmaster make a lawyer "go fuck himself" and a woman literally "crap-out" in a casino is well worth the price of admission.