(1991)
Dir - Martin Scorsese
Overall: MEH
As iconic as many or even most of Martin Scorsese's works are, his remake of Cape Fear still manages to stand out as a highly memorable if not altogether excellent one amongst them. Comparing it to the man's most paramount films, Cape Fear does not hold up of course, but it can still at least be enjoyed for Robert De Niro sinking his teeth into probably the most evil and disturbed character that he ever played. Cutting down his body weight to four percent, adopting an almost silly southern drawl, and paying an orthodontist to literally jack up his teeth in real life, De Niro as usual steals all of his scenes and creates a movie villain for the books. The rest of the partly A-list cast is likewise excellent, though Gregory Peck's swansong cameo is honesty a bit silly. By utilizing some of Alfred Hitchcock's initial storyboards for the 1962 original, Scorsese very deliberately channels the highly influential master of suspense, with Bernard Herman's incessant score likewise further amping the whole thing up. Problems come from the script itself which stretches any would-be realism to a non-existing point and the plot holes are many. After all though, it did inspire arguably the finest Sideshow Bob Simpsons episode ever so it is still rather difficult to hate.
(1992)
Dir - Steve Barnett
Overall: MEH
Produced by Fangoria's one-time production company, Mindwarp is a standard post-apocalyptic, straight to video B-movie for all that it is worth. Relying entirely on practical effects, the most is made of its tight budget and there are some legitimately nasty moments involving cannibalism, breeding, insect-borrowing, torture, and human sacrifice. The film's mutant brutes look impressive enough and scenes involving crucified skeletons and blood being drunk out of skulls are rather gruesome and nifty. Bruce Campbell does a sturdy job as usual and none other than Angus Scrimm from Phantasm fame is appropriately hammy, but Marta Martin in the lead is pretty wooden unfortunately. All of the major plot points are easily anticipated in the script by John Brancato and Michael Ferris, both of whom also wrote the two dumbest entries in the Terminator franchise, not surprisingly. The film drags a bit where it should not though as the entire second act is people getting captured, then escaping, then getting captured again, then repeat. This combined with the standard, predictable story does not really make Mindwarp that interesting of a movie, even if it is not all together a bad one.
(1999)
Dir - Tim Burton
Overall: MEH
Coming after the disastrous pre-production spent on the unfilmed Superman Lives, Tim Burton made his first shift towards the style of remakes and films based off of famous literary works, (nearly all of which have stared Johnny Depp), with Sleepy Hollow, only loosely inspired by the Washington Irvin story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow". While fairytale logic, cartoonishly flamboyant visuals, and Danny Elfman's score that only shuts the hell up for about three seconds at a time, (and only about three times total), were nothing new to Burton's work. Here though, they are brought even more to the forefront. This is the most unapologetically Gothic film the director had yet made, unmistakably paying tribute to numerous Hammer movies as well as Black Sunday by Mario Bava. Speaking of the latter, it may as well be in black and white due to how much color saturation was used which makes further sense since Burton and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki at one point pitched it colorless anyway. As a straight up horror film for once as well as a period piece, Burton's quirky humor and singular strangeness takes more of a backseat while his other aforementioned trademarks run rampant. It is a bit too commercially structured with a script in desperate need of proper character development and as this would set the stage for many other comparatively "lazy" projects for Burton that would take up his time for the next few decades still at this writing, it can fairly be seen as the first significant slip in his filmography.
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