(1990)
Dir - John Harrison
Overall: GOOD
Unofficially belonging in the Creepshow franchise as both Stephen King and George A. Romero were involved with either contributing stories or screenplays and itself based on the television series of the same name that Romero created, Tales from the Darkside: The Movie is a knowingly fun anthology outing that is more consistent than most. Another connection to the Father of the Zombie Film is in director John Harrison who worked as either a composer or actor in Dawn of the Dead, Knightriders, and Day of the Dead. Behind the lens here, Harrison maintains a lighthearted, generally amusing tone throughout every segment until the final "Lover's Vow" which is a modern, Western adaptation of the Yuki-onna legend in Lafcadio Hearn's collection Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things. The consistently recognizable cast is fun, with a young Steve Busemi as a slimy graduate student and David Johansen as a slimy hit man being particularly hoot-worthy. An adequate amount of gore and unpleasantness goes a long way too, with a cat crawling into a guys mouth and a young boy trying to delay being cooked in a conventional oven by a suburban witch being just two examples.
(1994)
Dir - John Flynn
Overall: MEH
Occasionally awkward and uneven, Rolling Thunder and Out for Justice director John Flynn's lone horror film Brainscan boasts a premise that can only exist because the 90s. Well, even though it has a CD-ROM video game advertised in Fangoria that promises the ultimate experience in horror, a bunch of grunge and metal pops up on the soundtrack, and a flannel-clad, perpetually high looking Edward Furlong is the lead, it all still plays off the same tired, Satanic panic tropes of lonely, horny, adolescent boys being negatively influenced by monster movies and obnoxious music that had already been a cliche for a decade prior. Also typical of the era, it has a ham-fisted villain non-cleverly called The Trickster who just as easily could have popped up in any untold number of increasingly ridiculous sequels, yet inexplicably never did. While the tone suffers from clumsy humor at times and the story is anything but unpredictable, it offers up some innocent if disturbed fun. The dated special effects are amusing, Frank Langella is uncharacteristically understated as an emotionally cold police detective, and everything wraps itself up nice and tiddy like. It is certainly not anything to blow many minds with originality or by challenge its audience, but it is mild, likeable schlock all the same.
(1999)
Dir - Peter Hyams
Overall: MEH
As Arnold Schwarzenegger's would-be come-back from the movie that killed the Caped Crusader's franchise Batman & Robin, End of Days is a pretty abysmal effort front to back. Several directors and actors were attached to the project at one point or another, (including Sam Raimi, Guillermo del Toro, Tom Cruise, Kate Winslet, and Liv Tyler), and apparently James Cameron had some sort of role in getting the director job to Peter Hyams, (2010: The Year We Make Contact, Timecop, Sudden Death, The Relic). In any event, it is front loaded with mountains of both horror and action film cliches from every kind of antichrist-ushering, demonic apocalypse, broken down tough guy with a heart of gold, comedic sidekick-paired, save the girl movie that came before it. For a Schwarzenegger vehicle, it is pretty low on one-liners and intended schlock, but it makes up for that with an all around pedestrian presentation and plenty of groan-worthy, unoriginal dialog to laugh at. Because it is all played too seriously for its own good, unfortunately that means the future Governor of California's thespian shortcomings are more noticeable than usual and he is rather uncomfortably stiff here. It is a pretty stupid, loud mess and easily one of the most forgettable films of its kind with so many cookie-cutter elements making up its DNA.
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