Hell Fest (2018) – Review

Two studios releasing movies with very similar subject matter is nothing new — Volcano and Dante’s Peak were dueling eruptions in '97, then in 1998, both Deep Impact and Armageddon had the Earth being threatened by asteroids — but in 2018, we got Blood Fest, a film about a horror theme park designed to kill its patrons, and we also got Hell Fest, a movie about a horror theme park that a serial killer used as his hunting ground, but in this case both of them were pretty damn awful. Now, a killer using a carnival as a front for his murders was nothing new to the horror genre, Tobe Hooper’s Funhouse in 1981 being an early example of this, yet that film managed to generate actual frights, something director Gregory Plotkin failed to provide with his movie Hell Fest.

 We are first introduced to the horror theme park Hell Fest during a quick prologue (because what’s a good slasher film without an obligatory prologue?), where a young woman is stalked and confronted by a masked figure known simply as "The Other" (Stephen Conroy). The girl is stabbed and hung up alongside the other prop victims in one of the park’s many mazes, where she is mistaken for one of the props and left hanging for some time. We then jump ahead a couple of years so that we can meet our proper cast of victims; first off there is Natalie (Amy Forsyth), a studious girl arriving at the apartment of her best friend Brooke (Reign Edwards), who has organized a visit to Hell Fest, and along for the ride is Brooke’s current roommate Taylor (Bex Taylor-Klaus), who fills the role of the “bad girl” in this particular slasher film. Then we have her boyfriend Asher (Matt Mercurio) and Brooke’s boyfriend Quinn (Christian James), who are around simply to provide more bodies to add to the film's kill count, as they have next to no actual character traits other than being attractive and male, and finally there is Gavin (Roby Attal), who is attracted to Natalie and is the one responsible for setting up this night’s entertainment.

 

Could Gavin be the masked killer?

Hell Fest is not a mystery — Gavin is not the killer, nor do we ever find out who “The Other” actually is — Hell Fest is simply a collection of jump scares set amongst some amazing set pieces. Seriously, the art direction in this film is pretty badass, and production designer Michael Perry and art director Mark Dillon deserve all the kudos here. What the film doesn’t have is any characters for us to give a damn about, and that is a key ingredient for a film of this genre if it hopes to succeed, and though Natalie is set up as the “Final Girl” — being the focused target of the killer — we are given little to no information about her. It’s clear that the true star of this movie is the aforementioned sets, and we do get a lot of interesting locations for the film’s killer to stalk his victims through, but as we don’t give two shits for this particular collection of cardboard targets, any chance of the director building proper suspense is severely undermined.

 

Park lighting brought to you by Mario Bava and Dario Argento.

Let’s talk a little more about the mechanics of this park. We are told that this is a traveling theme park, like some kind of horror carnival, but the sheer size and scope of the grounds, and the attractions within, clearly flies in the face of that claim. Our cast of characters wander in and out of multiple horror mazes, some simply staggering in their sheer size, and there is no way that at the end of the weekend a group of Teamsters are loading it all up onto a bunch of trucks at the end of the day. And exactly how much money would this park cost to operate? The mazes and park grounds are populated with hundreds of costumed “actors” and even at minimum wage the salary budget alone would have to be astronomical. Then you have all the animatronic monsters, mechanical devices, and rides that would need constant upkeep and maintenance, so you’re looking at the operational expense of a Disney Theme Park.

 

I haven’t seen a less viable business model since Pinocchio’s Pleasure Island.

Stray Thoughts:

• Is the killer humming “Pop Goes the Weasel” supposed to be creepy?
• The killer seems to target people who claim not to be scared, which is an interesting idea but the film can’t be bothered to develop it.
• Security personnel refuse to believe that there is a killer loose in the park, even though two years ago there was a killer loose in their park.
• There is a cool bit with a prop guillotine not actually being sharp, thus thwarting the killer’s attempt at beheading one of the girls, but then that scene concludes with the girl dying anyway, making it all pointless.
• The killer has almost supernatural abilities when it comes to tracking Natalie throughout this massive park. I kept waiting for the reveal that he’d somehow put a GPS tracker on her.
• An area of the park is called the “Dead Lands” where guests must sign liability waivers because the “monsters” are allowed to touch and grab you, but there is no waiver in the world that could ever save this park from being sued into the ground.

 

It was nice to see Tony Todd make an appearance.

Owen Egerton’s Blood Fest was an over-the-top horror movie, with a ridiculous premise that only gets bonus points for just how balls to the wall moronic it was, while Gregory Plotkin’s Hell Fest doesn’t really have anything going for it other than the cool location. When Hell Fest staggers to its unstartling conclusion, which of course hints at further installments, we as a viewer are left with the simple desire to have our ninety minutes back.

Kim Possible (2019) – Review

With Disney Studios making billions of dollars off their live-action remakes, it’s not surprising that the Disney Channel would attempt the same thing with their animated shows. Thus the world has now been subjected to a live-action version of the popular television cartoon Kim Possible, but whereas Disney's theatrical releases have sported budgets in the hundreds of millions, this made-for-television feature looks to be made from the loose change found under Walt Disney’s couch cushions.

 I know I’m not the target demographic for a Kim Possible movie — not being a small child — but I must admit to finding the original four seasons of the television show to be immensely entertaining, and it holds up so well after all this time all due to the incredible team of writers and animators that brought it to life. Kim Possible not only burst at the seams with excellent character designs and bizarre adventures — not to mention having the world's most lovable naked mole rat — but what made that series so good was the different levels of humour that worked for audiences of all ages. This aspect is completely missing in 2019’s Kim Possible movie, for not only is the classic humour of the original series nowhere to be found, they somehow managed to turn Kim Possible into an escapee from an After School Special.

 

I’m surprised the show didn’t have a warning against children trying out jetpacks.

The movie opens with what looks to be a standard Kim Possible adventure, a world renowned scientist having been captured by the evil Professor Dementor (Patton Oswalt), and Kim Possible (Sadie Stanley) jet-packing in with her ever loyal sidekick Ron Stoppable (Sean Giambrone) to save the day, and if we were to let slide how incredibly poor the visual effects looked, or young Sadie’s complete inability to pull off an action sequence, then this wouldn't be a terrible opening, but then the movie jumps to the crux of what this movie is apparently about, which is the complete and utter humiliation of Kim Possible.

 

"Say it's not so Rufus!"

This movie seems to be a bizarre reboot of the show, with its timeline taking place during her freshman days of high school — the series having took place during her junior and senior years at Middleton High School — yet we are told that she is already a well-established global superhero, with countless villains locked up behind bars to her credit. The reason for this change is so that the writers can now run out all the “new kid in school” clichés that they can think of, ones that were already getting old and tired back in the 80s. What is truly surprising here is that some of the writers for this movie actually worked on the original series, so the undercutting of Kim’s character development is rather odd; she has no friends other than Ron and Wade (Issac Ryan Brown), her ten year-old tech support genius, there is no sign of Monique or any of her cheerleading friends, and she’s constantly late for class in what is easily the lamest running joke ever written for television, and is harassed constantly by her teacher Mr. Barkin (Michael P. Northey), who doesn’t seem to know who she is.

 

Is this Kim Possible or Saved by the Bell?

The original series was an action/comedy, with Kim combatting a variety of goofy villains, while this movie clearly didn’t have the budget for the action, nor the ability to write the comedy, and so much of the movie's ninety minute run-time is spent on teen drama, because that stuff is cheap and easy. Now, of course the cartoon did have some teen drama, with Kim crushing on Josh Mankey, but she was always top of the social food chain at her school, not the social pariah she is depicted as here. Not only does this movie take away the fact that Kim was head cheerleader, but she’s relegated to equipment manager of the school’s soccer team, by mean-girl Bonnie Rockwaller (Erika Tham).  In the cartoon, Bonnie was a somewhat "nemesis" to Kim in school, vying to take the top spot, but there was always an element of respect between them, yet in this outing Bonnie is just another weak television stereotype.

Note: Kim’s trademark Kimmunicator has been replaced by a holographic projecting pendant.

The basic plot of this movie surrounds new girl Athena (Ciara Riley Wilson), who Kim and Ron find crying outside of school, and they learn that not only is this girl an even bigger social leper than Kim — which once again is so very wrong — but she’s been idolizing Kim and her adventures for years. Athena is quickly embraced by our heroic duo, and soon they are spending time eating tacos at Bueno Nacho, training together, and eventually Kim gives Athena the complete makeover, which is the staple ingredient of a dozen teen comdies. It’s at this point that Kim starts to suddenly become a little jealous of Athena, as the young girl starts to mimic and takeover many of Kim Possible’s traits, right up to the point where she goes completely “Single White Female” and even saves Kim and Ron by taking on the villainous Shego (Taylor Ortega) in a fight. We even get Shego commenting, “Kimmie, you’ve got some competition here, this one's good, maybe even better than you.” Things get even worse when Kim’s grades start sliding, she face-plants during fights, all while Athena climbs to the top of the high school social ladder.

 

And just how could a school wallflower...

 

...turn into this superhero badass?

For those who want to view the Kim Possible movie unspoiled, stop reading now for I will be revealing the dastardly plan launched by Dr. Drakken (Todd Stashwick). Earlier in the movie, we saw Shego breaking Drakken out of prison — after one of the numerous times that he had been apprehended by Kim Possible — but now he has finally figured out why she always wins: it’s because she has a certain “spark,” and if he can steal that motivational essence for himself, he will be unstoppable. So the reason Kim has been off her game is because her vitality was being slowly drained by a cybertronic humanoid, one designed to appear to be a Kim Possible super-fan.

 

Athena was a robot? What a twist!

I’m not sure why the screenwriters thought fans of Kim Possible would enjoy seeing their heroine turn into an angsty brat, one who whines about not being special, and complains to her mother (Alyson Hannigan) that if she’s not the best, what’s the point? That some of this is later revealed to be caused by her “spark” being drained does not offset the pain of watching a beloved character being destroyed and humiliated. Once again, I must point out that the original show was an action/comedy, and if I had wanted to watch a teen girl bitch and complain about not being special, I’d watch Party of Five. Thank God at least Todd Stashwick as Drakken and Taylor Ortego as Shego seemed to be having fun in this movie, and though they may not have been perfectly accurate representations of the cartoon alter egos, their verbal banter was pretty much bang on.

 

You’ve got to love villains who enjoy their work.

So if your idea of a good Kim Possible movie is one where Kim’s mother and her nana (Connie Ray) join our heroes in storming the villain’s lair — her nana is some Morpheus like martial arts figurehead in this vesion — or if learning that Rufus the naked mole rat was some sort of science experiment seems like a good idea, than you may get some enjoyment out of this movie. I myself found it almost too painful to watch at times.

 

If they make a sequel to this don’t call me or beep me.

Winchester (2018) – Review

The 2018 horror film Winchester, written and directed by the Spierig Brothers, was not about the Supernatural adventures of Sam and Dean Winchester — much as we wish it was — but was in fact based on the history of the Winchester mansion, also known as The Mystery House or The House That Ghosts Built, a place that is said to be one of the most haunted houses in America. Sounds like a perfect location for a horror movie, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, the filmmakers managed to drop the ball in every way shape and form, and we are stuck with a film that should have been called Jump Scare: The Movie.

The movie follows Doctor Eric Price (Jason Clarke), a womanizing drug addict with a tragic past, as he is hired by the Board of Directors for Winchester Repeating Rifle Company to assess the mental facilities of Sarah Winchester (Helen Mirren). Sarah Winchester owns 50% of the company’s stocks, so Price is to determine if she is fit enough to remain in control of the family business. It’s clear that the Board would really like it if Price would find Mrs. Winchester unfit, as they blatantly offer him more money if they get that desired result, and so Doctor Price enters this job on very dubious footing, but I guess when you are a laudanum addict you take whatever jobs come your way.

 

“I may be in an unethical situation, but I’m also a bit of a jerk.”

Sarah Winchester is the widow of famed gun manufacturer William Wirt Winchester, and heir to the vast fortune the sales of these weapons of death have accrued over the years. Because of this, Sarah is under the belief that she must continually add rooms to this sprawling mansion, with construction running day and night, so that it can house all the spectral victims of the Winchester Rifle. She tells Price that this helps spirits find peace — why being stuck in a small room in a weird mansion would bring peace to a ghost is never fully explained — but for those spirits too angry to move to the other side, well she locks them in their rooms, using a board and “thirteen nails” to keep them caged.

 

If only the Ghostbusters new it was this easy.

Clearly Sarah Winchester is nuts, or at least certifiably eccentric, so giving the Board of Directors their desired result should be no problem, but then Price himself starts seeing ghosts. At first, he takes the fleeting images of creepy apparitions to be hallucinations brought on by his drug use, but then later, when his laudanum is confiscated, he  chalks them up as symptoms of withdrawal. What follows is series of scenes where Price stumbles down dark hallways — ones often inhabited by Helen Mirren doing her "Woman in Black" impressions — with the occasionally ghostie arriving to pop out and say BOO! At no point in the film’s 90 plus minute run-time does anything even remotely scary occur (I do not count cheap jump scares as true scares), and as this movie is set in one of the creepiest houses in the world, that’s a considerable achievement.

 

How can you fail to make this place scary?

The film is not helped by legendary actress Helen Mirren, as the infamous Sarah Winchester, who is clearly in Boat Payment Theater Mode, and I’m assuming Jason Clarke did this film just to have a worse entry on his IMDB page than Terminator Genisys, but the fault really must be laid at the feet of Michael Spierig and Peter Spierig, who both wrote and directed this thing. Making a horror movie about “The House That Ghosts Built” should have been a cakewalk, but somehow they failed, and making it a historical period piece may have been the key problem, as they veer wildly from historical fact to their own nonsensical backstory.

Now, I’m not one who demands that historical films stay completely true to the actual events they depict, and certainly not when said film is a horror picture, but major plot points the Spierig Brothers come up with fly right in the face of facts. A key example of this comes in the form of the “angry spirit” harassing Sarah and her family. He is a Civil War soldier, whose brothers were killed in the war by a Remington rifle, even though the first Winchester lever-action model did not appear until after the war. We then learn that the surviving brother later walked into the Winchester Showroom and massacred dozens of people, which is another completely fabricated event — and all of this I could have forgiven if at any point something even vaguely scary would have happened.

 

  "Hello, I'm today's stock vengeful spirit."

Sarah and Doctor Price are not alone in this big spooky house, the place is constantly being labored on by construction workers, and though this mansion must also have a staff consisting of dozens of maids and butlers, none of them ever see anything, and their very existence removes the solitary nature of terror that a haunted house movie needs to build proper suspense. Also in the house is Sarah’s niece Marion Marriott (Sarah Snook), who has brought her boy Henry (Finn Scicluna-O'Prey) along to stay at her aunt’s spooky-ass mansion, after her own family tragedy. We are subjected to repeated scenes of young Henry being possessed by an angry spirit, and the only thing I can say about these moments is that somebody should have told the Spierig Brothers that putting a canvas mailbag over a kid's head isn’t creepy, it’s actually kind of goofy. And the film constantly forgets these two “guests” are in the house, but as they are both quite forgettable, and unnecessary, this is not surprising.

 

“I see cliché people.”

Winchester fails at almost every aspect of the horror movie genre. We have no compelling protagonists, the mystery behind the ghost is contrived and lame, the film relies almost solely on jump scares, and worst of all, it doesn’t even follow its own rules. We were told that ghosts are trapped in rooms by the placing of a board — nailed 13 times — across it, but during the big ghostly showdown, we see the nails seemingly coming out of the doors on their own. Were Sarah’s theories of spiritual confinement wrong? Was the angry Civil War ghost the one freeing his spectral buddies? If the last one is the case, that is one dumb ghost, as the ones it freed end up helping Price defeat the angry ghost, and if you’ve guessed that Price’s own tragic past will come back to “haunt” him, well give yourself a cookie.

 

“Damn it, I’m being haunted by a contrived backstory.”

If the Spierig Brothers wanted to make a horror set in the Winchester mansion, they’d have probably been better off setting it in modern times — maybe go with a documentary crew staying the night — and then they could have gone all balls-to-the-walls with the frights, but the film we ended up with seemed both constrained by the historical setting as well as showing a good deal of contempt for it.  I’m not saying you can’t make a good horror movie set in the 1860s — the history of the place is just rife with possibilities — but the decision made by the filmmakers here fails to not only scare the viewer, which once again is an achievement in this setting, but they annoy them instead. Winchester is guilty of the greatest crime that can be leveled at a horror movie, that of being annoying and boring. Give this movie a pass and watch Sam and Dean Winchester fight ghosts and monsters instead.

 

“Has my cheque cleared yet?”

Robin Hood (2018) – Review

There have been countless adaptations of the stories surrounding the legendary Robin Hood, from the silent era with Douglas Fairbanks to the technicolor world of Errol Flynn’s The Adventures of Robin; Even Disney did both live-action and animated versions of this classic tale. Then we have the more modern retellings with Kevin Costner’s Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and Russell Crow’s 2010 Robin Hood epic, which focused a little more on the Crusades than its predecessors, but now we have an action adventure Robin Hood for the millennials. Gee, just what we’ve been waiting for.

The movie opens with a narrator explaining to us that he won’t bother us with details, such as when this story takes place or the history surrounding it, “Because it would bore you and you wouldn’t listen,” and this is all to let the viewer know that, "You aren’t watching your dad’s Robin Hood." Of course, the real reason behind such an opening is to give the filmmakers the go-ahead to make up any ludicrous version of Robin Hood that they’d care to explore, which is fair enough, but then the film quickly informs us that the setting of this movie is during the Third Crusade, which took place between 1189 and 1192, so we now have a historical timeline and thus, this opens them up to being lambasted for historical inaccuracies. If you wanted to make a steampunk Elseworlds version of Robin Hood, go right ahead — but then you would have to create your own world, something director Otto Bathurst and company were clearly too lazy to do.

 

This looks more like Rome than Nottingham City.

What we get from Otto Bathurst is a Robin Hood movie that simply name-checks various characters from the legend, has it take place in a kind of medieval setting — though with “Occupy Wall Street” and “One Percenter” themes mashed in wherever possible — and runs off with its own “Rob from the rich and give to the poor” story, while abandoning everything else familiar to the Robin Hood legend. This is not an intrinsically bad idea (if the filmmakers had put any effort at all into the proceedings), but sadly the end product here is a mishmash of themes and genres, with no cohesive thread to pull it together. We are introduced to Lord Robin of Loxley (Taron Egerton), who is madly in love with a feisty thief named Marian (Eve Hewson), but he is drafted into the Crusades by the evil Sheriff of Nottingham (Ben Mendelsohn), who soon has Robin declared dead so that his lands can be seized to help pay for the war effort.

Historical Note: Soldiers were not “drafted” into the Crusades, killing heathens that occupied the Holy Land was a religious duty that got you a free pass into Heaven — not to mention a lot of loot — and a city sheriff would certainly have no power to draft or seize the lands of a noble, even if he wanted to.

Off in the Holy Lands, we find Robin becoming quickly disillusioned with being a Crusader — dodging anachronistic rapid fire crossbows really ruining his day — and when his nasty commander, Sir Guy of Gisbourne (Paul Anderson), starts executing prisoners, Robin steps in and tries to save a young Moor from getting his head lopped off. Unfortunately, he fails and is sent home for being a git. Now it just so happens that this dead boy’s father is an Islamic warrior named Yahya (Jamie Foxx) — basically this movie’s Legolas — and he is so impressed with Robin for “trying” to save his son, that he follows him all the way back to England. He vows to train Robin to be a badass fighter — turning him into Legolas 2.0 — and the two of them decide to end the war by cutting off the money supply. To say this pair is about the dumbest idealistic heroes in history of movies would be a vast understatement.
 

 

"Hello, I will be this film's Morgan Freeman."

Sadly, on the romance side of things, the homefront has gotten a little complicated, Robin having been declared dead has resulted in Marian "moving on" and is now dating Will “Scarlet” Tillman Jamie Dornan), who is an aspiring politician that wants to use the people’s unrest to further his career. Yahya, now called John because Robin can’t pronounce his real name, urges his young charge to keep Marian out of their business, under the auspices of keeping her safe. He then comes up with a plan that will have Robin masquerading as a frivolous playboy to win the Sheriff’s confidence, while at night he would be running around in a hood, robbing the from the rich and giving to the poor.

 

So he’s not so much Robin Hood as he is a Zorro knock-off.

Somewhere in this film’s two hour run-time there is a good movie to be had. There are a few action sequences that are generally fun, and Jamie Fox and Taron Egerton have genuinely good chemistry together, certainly more than what we get between Egerton and Eve Hewson’s vapid Maid Marian (whose sole purpose in this movie seems to be providing heaving cleavage and being rescued), but director Otto Bathurst keeps getting in his own way. He's constantly throwing in modern themes that in no way fit in with the story he is trying to tell, creatinf one of the most ridiculous plots ever put to film.

Turns out the Sheriff is in league with an evil Cardinal (F. Murray Abraham), and the two of them are using the war tax to fund the Saracen army in the hopes that this will somehow destabilize England, and thus give them ultimate power. Hold it a minute guys, how exactly is that supposed to work?

The Plan:

• Declare war and start a third Crusade.
• Somehow draft a bunch of nobles to go and fight it.
• Tax the poor to fund the Saracen war effort.
• England loses the Crusades and the Sheriff and Cardinal become rulers.
• Profit.

“In this country, you gotta make the money first. Then when you get the money, you get the power. Then when you get the power, then you get the women.”

I’m not sure what King Richard was supposed to be doing during all these evil machinations — in fact the film doesn’t mention him or Prince John at all —and how some local sheriff has achieved this level of power over the local nobility is never explained, (for even with the support of the church such an appointed position as sheriff would have very limited power). We get some idiotic monologue from the Sheriff explaining how as an orphan boy he was beaten by the nobles, and though this explains his hatred for the nobility, it in no way clarifies how this led to him being able to order nobles to be executed. That someone hadn’t stepped in and murdered the Sheriff is the true mystery here, and while all this is going on, Robin Hood is running around being an action hero, which is about as helpful as pissing into the wind.

Stray Observations:

• Crusaders can apparently call in air strikes.
• Nottingham looks like a Middle Ages version of the Mega-Cities from Judge Dredd.
• Robin of Loxley is wanted for “The Youth Vote.” Was that a thing in the 16th Century?
• The mines of Nottingham — which in reality it never had — rival the Mines of Moria.
• We see a party of Medieval One Percenters, one that consists of scantily clad women in high heels gambling at roulette wheels. It was at this point my anachronistic meter broke.
• While in disguise, Robin is called “The Hood,” which just reminded me how dumb it was when Oliver Queen was called "The Hood" on the television show Arrow.
• People nail hoods to the walls as some kind of symbol of solidarity.

The plot and structure of this particular Robin Hood never works, as the writers clearly forgot that their setting is during a time of monarchy rather than a fascist republic, thus rendering all the scenes of the Sheriff giving speeches to people about how they all must support the war effort, completely ridiculous. Why would the Sheriff need the support of the poor to pass a tax bill? It’s not like the poor are allowed to vote on such things, not to mention the bigger question as to why a sheriff is in the position to create legislation in the first place.

 

"I'm the evil sheriff who clearly failed his civics class."

Otto Bathurst’s Robin Hood is not only an anachronistic mess — which I could forgive if the end result made for a compelling story — but with elements borrowed from political ideologies veering from Victor Hugo’s Les Miserable to the current political climate under President Trump, it ends up not saying much of anything at all. I can forgive a movie that gives us Gatling-gun style crossbows, but not when it also tries to be a self-important message picture, one that didn't actually bother to come up with an actual message other than, “Greed and corruption is bad, and war is unpleasant.” That's sure taking a hard stand there, Otto. This is a Robin Hood film that failed under the weight of its pretensions and the nonsensical nature of its supposed plot.

Note: By the time the film ends, it’s clear that they were hoping to get a sequel out of this thing, but as in the case of Guy Ritchie’s disaterous King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, there is no chance of that happening.

Scooby-Doo and the Curse of the 13th Ghost (2019) – Review

In 1985, Hanna-Barbera aired their seventh incarnation of the Scooby-Doo show, where Scooby-Doo, Shaggy, Scrappy-Doo and a young con-artist named Flim Flam teamed up with renowned magician and warlock Vincent Van Ghoul, to tackle real ghosts and Ghoulies, in a short-lived series called The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, but that show was cancelled after a mere 13 episodes, with the 13th ghost never being captured.  Now, after a three decade wait, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment finally brings us the conclusion to that story, with Scooby-Doo and the Curse of the 13th Ghost.

Being a teenage mystery-solving team can’t be easy — we still don’t know how this group even pays for gas for The Mystery Machine let alone Scooby and Shaggy’s food bill — but in this direct-to-video outing, we find the gang in particularly nasty pickle when the “ghost” they nab turns out to be innocent, and the local Sheriff accuses them of being criminally negligent: “You're almost eighteen, after this, if someone presses harassment charges, you can be looking at prison time, so if I see you driving that Mystery Machine one more mile, I’m putting you away.”

 

Could this be the end of Mystery Incorporated?

For some reason this forced retirement results in Fred (Frank Welker) selling The Mystery Machine — I guess he couldn’t just repaint the thing — and the rest of the gang holding a garage sale to get rid of all their mystery collectibles, but when they come across an old crystal ball, from the days when Daphne, Shaggy and Scooby worked for Vincent Van Ghoul (now being voiced by Maurice LaMarche as opposed to Vincent Price in the original), the gang find themselves pressed back into the ghost-busting business when Vincent informs them that he’s found the thirteenth and final ghost.

 

I wonder what kind of minute plan you get on a crystal ball.

Fred and Velma (Kate Micucci) are a bit surprised to learn that their friends have had secret adventures without them, but Daphne (Grey Griffin) explains this all happened when Fred and Velma were at camp, and that the whole experience traumatized Scooby-Doo so much, that her and Shaggy (Matthew Lillard) decided to never bring it up again. Well, you certainly can't argue with that logic. Fred points out that, “We’d love to help you Daph, but I just sold The Mystery Machine,” but Daphne has things covered, as she unveils her Strategic All-Terrain Mobile Command Unit.

Trivia Note: The red van was the vehicle used by our heroes in the original 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo, and Daphne ditches her trademark purple dress for an outfit more in keeping with her costume from that show as well.

This begins Fred’s shift from team leader to second banana, he can’t drive a stick shift so Daphne gets behind the wheel — being it’s her vehicle, why that was even in question is a bit bizarre — but once on the road, while dodging a malevolent driverless car, Fred becomes overwhelmed by the fact that not only is Daphne a very capable driver of stunt driving awesomeness, her van also has a computer center and is equipped with combat counter measures to help shake off their evil pursuer, and it's great to see Fred completely losing it, yelling, “This thing has a smoke screen ... this thing has a smoke screen?” and thus begins this movie’s loving emasculation of Fred Jones.

 

Mystery Incorporated versus The Car.

With a dozen different incarnations of the Scooby-Doo show, and even more direct-to-video movies, continuity isn’t going to be something the writers are going to worry about, which you can’t fault them for when you consider the fact that they are working with a cast of characters that are stuck in their late teens but have been around since the late sixties. This has resulted in prequels, sequels and reboots of varying degrees of success.

In 2010, Warner Bros Animation teamed up with the Cartoon Network to bring us a prequel to the original series called Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, taking place during the time period when our teen-age sleuths are still in high school, before taking The Mystery Machine on the road. Then in 2015, Cartoon Network released Be Cool, Scooby-Doo! which could be considered a reboot of the original Scooby-Doo Where Are You? as it also featured the gang solving mysteries right after their senior year of high school. Both of those shows did their best to downplay, or completely forget, the horribleness of the 1980s that was Scrappy-Doo, and being Scrappy-Doo was a major player in 1985’s The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo (and due to years of backlash against Scrappy), it's no wonder that the creators of this movie decided to ditch the pint-sized pup. Being he was an essential character in the original, where does Scooby-Doo and the Curse of the 13th Ghost fit into all that? Well, it turns out that the only reference to Scrappy in this movie is when the character of Flim Flam comments, "The gang's all here... except for Scrappy," and Velma responds, "What's a Scrappy?"   

 

“No sign of Scrappy-Doo so far, excellent!”

With the direct-to-video release of Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island in 1998, where it was promoted with the startling tagline, “This time, the monsters are real!" we got to see Scooby and the gang tackle villains that weren’t just dudes in a mask, and it was treated as something new and startling, which it would be for Fred and Velma, but Scooby, Shaggy and Daphne had already tackled real ghosts and demons thirteen years ago in The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, so this should have been no big revelation to them. Yet in this 2019 sequel to that series, we get Daphne having to explain to Fred and Velma that ghosts and demons do actually exist, which means this movie must take place before the events of such films as Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island and Scooby-Doo and the Witch’s Ghost, and will result in Velma spending the bulk of this movie trying to debunk any supernatural shenanigans.

 

I wish Velma had been tasked to debunk the Amityville Horror instead.

The writers of Scooby-Doo and the Curse of the 13th Ghost throw in a bunch of references that only viewers of that thirty-four year old show would remember, such as the aforementioned red van — which has a rubber ducky inflatable raft mode — then there is Daphne’s more mod wardrobe, and the bizarre fact that apparently they own a plane and both Shaggy and Scooby can fly it. But then they completely change the actual origins of the Chest of Demons — the ancient trunk that kept the demons trapped all these years — by giving us a new backstory about Vincent Van Ghoul and his partner Mortifer (Nolan North) being some kind of archeologists, ones who accidentally opened the chest while exploring an old temple, and that years later, after capturing all the ghosts and placing them back in the chest, it was then re-opened by a couple of idiots named Scooby and Shaggy. Now, in the original series, Vincent Van Ghoul was just a magician working at a nearby Himalayan nightclub, and was brought into the fight by street urchin/con-artist Flim Flam to help Daphne, Scooby and Shaggy recapture the ghosts.

 

Note: The character Mortifer didn’t exist back in the 80s show.

So this movie throws some nods to the original, but then basically rewrites the history of the Chest of Demons and the thirteen ghosts, which I guess isn’t a bad thing, and I seriously doubt even fans of the original would be too put off by these changes, but it does leave the story a little unclear, as if we are working from two different recipes. What makes Scooby-Doo and the Curse of the 13th Ghost stand out from its predecessors (and makes us forgive some of the plot problems), is the change of leadership from Fred to Daphne. Not only is Daphne shown to be a badass combat driver, able to out-maneuver a demon car, she thinks fast on her feet, can find secret passages and uncover clues like nobody's business, and by doing this she quickly asserts herself as the leader on this particular mystery — being she is the one familiar with the history, this makes sense — but what’s really cool is that Fred comes to the conclusion that it would be best for the team if Daphne became the permanent leader of Mystery Incorporated, and that he’s more suited to the role of team cheerleader.

 

This sure smells like teen spirit.

There is a lot to like about Scooby-Doo and the Curse of the 13th Ghost, with the voice cast all doing great work — though Maurice LaMarche as Vincent Van Ghoul does kind of drift between sounding like Vincent Price and his other cartoon counterpart Brain, from Pinky and the Brain — and the animation is simply gorgeous, highlighting some excellent action sequences, but if I were to voice one complaint it would be in having Velma’s skepticism never quite being resolved, “Was the thirteenth ghost just a dude in a mask or could something actually supernatural have occurred?” In the original series, it was made abundantly clear that our heroes where tackling honest to goodness ghosts — or demon ghosts to be more accurate — and so having this movie waffle on the one yard line seems rather disingenuous. There are certainly a lot worse things you can do in your movie than have the ghosts turn out to be real, and as I’ve pointed out earlier, the show’s continuity is so over the map, with out of whack time-lines, so having a clear statement of "Ghosts are real" wouldn’t have hurt anything, and it’s not like the writers can’t just change their minds on what is real and what is fake in the next Scooby-Doo incarnation.

Note: The “13th Ghost” reminded me a lot of Goliath from the animated series Gargoyles, and is also another case of “How exactly does some dude make a flying, flame breathing demon ghost costume?”

I will end this review with one more bizarre continuity issue, one that makes the fifty-year run of Scooby-Doo really stand out, because in the original 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo the character of Flim Flam was about nine or ten years old, yet when Fred and Velma bump into him, while searching for the Chest of Demons in this movie, he is now clearly the same age as the rest of the gang.

 

Flim Flam in The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo

 

Flim Flam in Scooby-Doo and the Curse of the 13th Ghost

We are used to comic book and cartoon characters not aging — Archie and Jughead can remain eternally young in the pages of their comics — but somehow the character of Flim Flam (Noshir Dalal) has aged a decade while the Scooby Gang haven’t seem to have aged a day, so even if it turns out that the Chest of Demons was just something to bring in tourists, or that the thirteenth ghost was just a dude in a mask, there is still something seriously supernatural going on with these apparently immortal kids.

 

The cast of Dorian Grey.

Scooby-Doo and the Curse of the 13th Ghost wraps up a thirty-four year-old unresolved mystery, with the Scooby Gang having to re-adjust some of their preconceived notions on their roles in the group, and while the writers kind of waffle at the end on whether there was a real ghost or not — which is kind of stupid considering this is a sequel to a series where the ghosts were bloody real — the end result is still a fun and exciting Scooby-Doo adventure, one that will enchant the young ones and even give older fans a chuckle or two. So check this one out, it’s a "scary" good time.

Kin (2018) – Review

 I’m all for genre mashups — horror comedies or sci-fi mysteries can be a lot of fun — but if you start chucking more and more genres into your blender, the danger that the end product could end up becoming a tasteless soup increases exponentially. With writers/directors Jonathan and Josh Baker's Kin, we get a film that has elements of family drama, crime drama, a thriller mystery aspect, some science fiction, all wrapped up in a road picture. There is no saying such an assembly of components couldn’t work, it would just take some deft writing and sharp directing. Sadly, the Bakers overreached a little for their directorial debut, and thus Kin is more a mess than a mashup.

Kin is based on the short film “Bag Man” where a young African American boy comes into possession of a very high-tech gun — we have no idea where the gun came from or how the kid came to have it — and while out one day for some target practice, he runs into some thugs who are about to execute some hapless dude, so the boy uses the gun to basically vaporize the bad guys, the end. The short is about fifteen minutes in length, and is a slow lyrical little mood piece with some cool visual effects. Unfortunately, the Bakers forgot that if you are going to expand a short film to feature length, you kind of have to put more thought into it, and thus we have the key problem with their feature film version, a lot more happens, but none of it means much.

This film centers on fourteen year-old Elijah "Eli" Solinski (Myles Truitt), who lives in Detroit with his stern adoptive father Hal (Dennis Quaid), and though he gets suspended from school for fighting, he is not a bad kid. Eli spends his spare time scavenging copper wiring from abandoned buildings, his dad being a little too frugal with allowance, and during one particular hunt he comes across what looks to be the aftermath of a nasty firefight, with armored corpses and high-tech weaponry strewn all about, and when he later returns to the site — having initially run off scared — he is surprised to find almost all evidence of the battle gone, but he does discover a strange futuristic weapon that had been left behind.

 

Finders keepers losers weepers is a tried and true motto.

Life gets a little more complicated when Eli's newly paroled older brother Jimmy (Jack Reynor), Hal's biological son, returns home from prison with a $60,000 debt — the cost of protection during his years behind bars — that local crime lord Taylor Balik (James Franco) wants to be paid back immediately, or else bad things will happen to not only Jimmy but Eli and Hal as well. Things go from bad to worse when Jimmy and Balik’s gang break into the safe at Hal’s job site only to be interrupted by Hal himself, with the resulting confrontation leading to the death of Hal and Taylor’s brother. Needless to say, Taylor doesn’t take this well and vows vengeance.

 

Could this be a dark sequel to Pineapple Express?

It’s at this point that Kin becomes a “road movie” with Jimmy lying to Eli, hiding the fact that their dad has been murdered and the killers are after them, and the two of them head across country with sixty thousand dollars of stolen loot. Of course, the threat of a crazed Detroit crime lord isn’t the only thing hanging over the heads of our two protagonists, there are also a pair of futuristic soldiers that seem very interested in tracking down Eli and the missing gun. Will the revenge-fueled Taylor find them first? Who exactly are these strange soldiers, and what is their agenda? Can Eli ever forgive his brother for getting their father killed? All these questions and more are kind of answered, but don’t expect to finish your viewing of Kin feeling too satisfied, as the Bakers clearly were planning a sequel — with the last act throwing in a pretty obvious twist — and being the film bombed theatrically, there is little to no chance of us ever getting a proper resolution.

Stray Observations:

• Eli is never given any real motivation for taking this piece of clearly advanced weaponry home and hiding it under his bed. Lucky for us the screenwriters thought to send killers after him so that having the gun works out.
• Eli is a little too gullible when his brother tells him that their dad wants the two of them to go off on a road trip together, especially when Eli had heard his dad kick Jimmy out of the house the night before.
• The high-tech gun only functions when Eli is using it, could that be a clue?
• Eli and Jimmy make a pit stop at one of those PG 13 strip clubs that only exists in these types of movies, where strippers don’t actually get naked.
• You can apparently blow the crap out of a strip club, with your high-tech space gun, yet not have to worry about the owner calling the cops, because of course he’s crooked too.
• Our pair befriend a stripper by the name of Milly (Zoë Kravitz), who falls into the Hollywood movie category of “Hooker with a Heart of Gold.”

 

“Hey kid, how about some Risky Business?”

Best and Worst Scene in the Movie: The final act deals with Franco’s character learning that Jimmy and Eli have been picked up by the cops, and are being held at the county police station, and what does this vengeance-driven crime lord decide to do? Does he call it a day and head home? Does he wait until they are being transferred to the county jail and attack the vehicle they are in? No, because any of those would make sense. Instead, he has his gang attack the fucking police station, as if they were remaking Assault on Precinct 13. This makes the idea of super guns that can flip over a car, and explode people like a popped zit, seem downright plausible by comparison, and that not one member of Taylor’s gang said “Fuck this for a bag chips” and takes off, makes it all even more unbelievable. Thank God those two future dudes eventually show up to try and make sense of things.

 

Side Note: They don’t end up making much sense of anything.

You’d think a road movie about a kid with a high-tech gun, one who is on the run from various villains, would be pretty exciting, but somehow the filmmakers fail to create any sense of tension. The nature of those futuristic soldiers is not revealed until the end, so their “threat level” is never made clear, and the gang led by James Franco’s crime lord character, though murderous and evil, are just so poorly conceived that they become walking-exploding punchlines and nothing more. Scenes just drift along lackadaisically from one into another, with no real sense of urgency or danger, and this lethargic pacing is only relieved when we get to one of those brief action moments, which they themselves are less than perfectly thought out, that all culminates in a non-ending. This movie would have worked fairly well if it had been the first episode of a Netflix series, but as a standalone movie — 'cause we ain’t getting a sequel — it isn’t something I can readily recommend.

 

Someone notify this film’s next of kin.