The Peanut Butter Solution (1985) – Review

Meriam Webster’s Dictionary defines non sequitur as “an inference that does not follow from the premises” which, funnily enough, could also sum up the premise for director Michael Rubbo’s film The Peanut Butter Solution, a film that constantly has the viewer wondering what the hell is going on. Now, I’ve seen some pretty weird kid’s films in my day, including such classics as The Dark Crystal and Return to Oz, yet this film about ghosts, out-of-control hair, magical paintings, and peanut butter really takes the cake; those other films may contain some creepy and bizarre imagery, and some very weird happenings, but The Peanut Butter Solution may have you questioning the sanity of all those involved.

The plot of The Peanut Butter Solution — and I’m being very loose with the word “plot,” here — deals with an 11-year old boy named Michael Baskin (Mathew Mackay), who is coming to grips with the fact that his sister Suzie (Alison Darcy) is now running the household while their mother (Anna Vitre) has gone off to Australia to deal with the death of her father, and their struggling artist father (Michael Hogan) is too busy in the attic trying to get some paintings done for a new show to worry about anything else. When Michael’s best friend Connie (Siluck Saysanasy) mentions an abandoned mansion that burned down the night before, our young hero is eager to check it out, which leads to him encountering something so horrifying — which later would be labeled “The Fright” — that it results in him waking up the next day completely bald.

 

Could this be how Lex Luthor got his start?

It turns out that a homeless couple, Mary (Helen Hughes) and Tom (Griffith Brewer), had died in a house fire, a pair who Michael had previously been kind to before they’d shuffled off this mortal coil, and, feeling guilty about scaring this nice kid bald, the two ghosts show up at his house, in the middle of the night, with the recipe to a magical formula for hair growth, the main ingredient, of course, being peanut butter. As in many of Grimm’s fairy tales, such magical assistance comes with strict rules where deviations from them can result in tragedy, and so, of course, Michael uses too much peanut butter and he quickly has to deal with the consequences.

 

From bald to having a train of hair with one easy oops.

As if a kid with hair that would make Rapunzel jealous wasn’t weird enough for you, the film also has an insanely bizarre villain, in the form of Michael’s public school art teacher (Michel Maillot), known simply as The Signor. This complete psychopath of an art teacher berates and even tears up the artwork of his students if they so much as even think of using their imagination, ranting at poor Michael, “I’ve told you a thousand times, no imagination, only what you see!” What kind of school would hire such a person to teach art, you ask? Well, later Signor is called to the Principal’s office, where she informs him that she’s had her doubts about him and she's done some checking; “I found out that you've been kicked out of two schools, that you've faked famous paintings, and that you've changed your name and appearance four times. AND you claim to be Rembrandt's great-great-great-great grandson.” She rightfully fires Signor, but we're left wondering how in the hell did he get that job in the first place.

 

Was there a job notice for “Crazed and Criminal Art Teacher Wanted” posted somewhere?

This is when things get even worse for poor Michael. Not only is he expelled from school for being a distraction — his hair having to be constantly clipped during class is found to be rather annoying — but he is quickly kidnapped by Signor who, having learned of Michael’s amazing hair, decides that he could use this magical hair to create magical paintbrushes, that he could, in turn, sell to local art suppliers. If that bizarre twist wasn’t enough to get you scratching your head in wonderment, well we also get Suzie and Connie going all Nancy Drew to discover what happened to Michael and twenty other children who have gone missing. You see, Signor has set up a sweatshop staffed with kidnapped children, who bemoan the fact that, "We have to make 500 brushes a day, or we don't eat!" Connie eventually locates the hidden magical paintbrush factory/sweatshop, having hidden inside Signor’s van during one of his deliveries, but he is quickly captured, and while there, he learns from the other kids that the paintbrushes are so powerful that they paint whatever their user imagines, without need for detail or neatness, and that you can even enter the paintings themselves.

 

At this point, the film has either won you over or broke your brain.

Learning that the idea for The Peanut Butter Solution stemmed from bedtime stories that writer/director Michael Rubbo told his son was the least surprising thing about this whole enterprise, as the movie does seem like some bizarre stream of consciousness, where someone is clearly making up shit as he goes along. The whole film is structured like a waking nightmare, with events unfolding with seemingly no rhyme or reason, and if there was a moral to this story, it’s more than a little muddled. Aside from providing common-sense advice about taking medical assistance from ghosts or that school hiring practices need to be quite a bit more thorough, it doesn’t really have a clear message for kids.

 

Stay in school kids, or this could happen to you.

The Peanut Butter Solution is clearly not your average kid’s flick, bouncing from one bizarre moment to the next at the drop of a hat, but the film does have a lot of heart, and I think most young viewers will get a kick out of the misadventures of Michael and his friends. The Peanut Butter Solution may have been made in the 80s, but by its very "out there" nature, it doesn't really date itself, and it also includes two songs from the then 17-year-old Céline Dion, which ended up being the first English-language songs she ever performed, so for that alone, some people may find this film worth checking out.

Scooby-Doo! and the Loch Ness Monster (2004) – Review

Cryptozoology is the pseudoscience and subculture that aims to prove the existence of such creatures as Bigfoot, El Chupacabra, and the Loch Ness Monster — a class of scientists that have even less credibility than Mystery Incorporated when it comes to tangling with real monsters — and being that Scooby-Doo and the gang have already encountered Bigfoot in “The Ghost of Bigfoot” back in the 70s series The New Scooby-Doo Movies, encountered El Chupacabra in Scooby-Doo! and the Monster of Mexico, and even ran into Nessie in the episode “The Loch Ness Mess,” in the New Scooby-Doo Movies and back as far as the original Scooby-Doo Where are You! (with the episode “A Highland Fling with a Monstrous Thing”), where Nessie makes her first appearance. I guess the producers of Scooby-Doo! and the Loch Ness Monster thought that three times was the charm when it came to this particular monster.

With Scooby-Doo! and the Loch Ness Monster, the globetrotting continues as we have Mystery Inc. traveling to Loch Ness, Scotland to visit Daphne’s (Grey Griffin) cousin Shannon Blake (Grey Griffin but with a Scottish accent), who is hosting this year’s Highland Games at Blake Castle. Unfortunately, the games are in danger of being canceled due to the recent attacks by the Loch Ness Monster, but with Fred’s (Frank Welker) trap abilities, and Velma’s (Mindy Cohn) scientific sleuthing, the gang just may save the day — that is, if Shaggy (Casey Kasem) and Scooby-Doo (Frank Welker) can get over their fear of monsters and haggis.

Geography Note: There is only one castle located on Loch Ness, and that would be Urquhart Castle, which Blake Castle was clearly made to resemble. Also, once again, Fred spares no expense when it comes to bringing the Mystery Machine across the globe.

As mysteries go, Scooby-Doo! and the Loch Ness Monster is one of the lesser entries. We may get a plethora of suspects, but the truly “guilty” party is never in doubt. First, we have Dockmaster claiming that Shannon’s planned games have “Disturbed the spirit that haunts these waters;" second, there is Del Chillman (Jeff Bennett), a Loch Ness Monster enthusiast and amateur cryptozoologist who drives around in his van that he has named “The Lockness Monster Machine;” and thirdly we have Professor Fiona Pembrooke (Sheena Easton), a scientist who has staked her whole career on proving the monster exists, even though, as Velma points out “It has destroyed your career, demolished your scientific credibility, and devastated you financially.” Finally, we have Sir Ian Locksley (Jeff Bennett), who has arrived to be the head judge of the games, but is also the director of the Scottish natural history museum and Fiona’s old boss. Locksley is a staunch denier of the existence of the Loch Ness Monster, and he fired Fiona for spending all her time “Chasing after imaginary monsters.”

The monster is, of course, fake, and continues in the Scooby-Doo tradition of being a mechanical contraption that looks amazing — performing feats like destroying stone castle towers — but is later revealed to be less than impressive, and clearly incapable of doing what we saw it accomplish throughout the movie.

There is no way that a van draped with a green tarp was remotely the thing we saw chasing the Mystery Machine through the bogs. This is called cheating the audience, but because the intended audience was children, this was considered okay. I tend to disagree.

Stray Observations and Clues:

• Velma comments that over the years, the Loch Ness Monster had been sighted several times traveling on land. Since when has Nessie ever been considered to be an amphibious dinosaur?
• During water attacks, Nessie makes a mechanical humming sound, as if made by an engine. I wonder what that could mean.
• Fiona lends the Scooby Gang her boat so that they can track down the monster, but if she’s all fired up to prove Nessie is real, why isn’t she going out with them? As Alice in Wonderland would say, "Curiouser and curiouser!"
• Locksley lends the Scooby gang a million-dollar mini-submersible so that they can investigate underwater caves. That’s pretty goddamn generous; I wouldn’t trust these guys with a ten-speed bike.
• The beast, when on land, leaves massive footprints, but later when revealed to be just Del’s stolen van covered in a green tarp — poor, delusional Del — it is never explained how those tracks were made.
• In the water, it is supposed to be a pedal-powered submersible — operated by you know who — but at the size shown here, this is clearly impossible.

The person behind the Loch Ness Monster is, of course, Professor Fiona Pembrooke, and this whole hoax — which also included her hiring a couple of local lads to steal Del’s van and make a giant Nessie puppet — was all to convince Locksley that the monster was real so as to enlist his aid in finding it. Now, as preposterous as the nature of this hoax is, and it is pretty unbelievable, it’s kind of nice that we end up with a movie where there is no actual villain; there were no crooks trying to scare away locals to pull off some real estate scheme or recover Confederate gold, just a silly scientist trying to salvage her career so that she could eventually prove that Nessie does really exist. It’s kind of sweet.

 

You have to give Fiona an “A” for effort and ingenuity.

There are quite a few fun moments in Scooby-Doo! and the Loch Ness Monster, and the standard “Run from the monster” sequences were well-executed — though Fiona will owe Shannon quite a bit of money in damages as some of those sequences trashed Castle Blake — and the banter and comedic antics of our group were in rare form, with Fred being especially amusing throughout the movie’s running gag of the Mystery Machine constantly falling in the loch or being wrecked by the monster. Scooby-Doo! and the Loch Ness Monster certainly doesn’t break any new ground, but it is easily one of the more entertaining entries during this particular era of straight-to-video movies.

Note: When Shannon gives the Scooby Gang a tour of Castle Blake, we learn a bit about the history of Daphne’s ancestors: “For centuries the Blakes have been falling through trap doors, finding secret passageways, getting kidnapped, and getting caught in traps of our own creation. The Blakes have been famous for being — how should I put this…danger prone.” That is some nice meta-backstory right there.

Swamp Thing (2019) – Review

In 1982, DC comics revived their Swamp Thing character to capitalize on Wes Craven's Swamp Thing movie, but after a couple years, the book found itself nearing cancelation, with the title's sales plummeting, so with nothing to lose, DC gave a relatively unknown English writer named Alan Moore free rein to revamp the title as he saw fit. Now, Swamp Thing’s roots (pun intended) lay in the classic horror comics of the 70s — with the heroic anti-hero battling various monsters — but Moore would take good old Swampy in an even darker direction, and with the aid of artists Stephen Bissette and John Totleben, he would kick off what would eventually become DC’s Vertigo line of comics; titles that would cater to more mature audiences. It is this run of comics that has inspired horror producer James Wan to tackle a new Swamp Thing live-action television series, with show creators Gary Dauberman and Mark Verheiden borrowing key characters and elements from Alan Moore’s stories.

Note: This series will have decidedly fewer flowers.

Warner Bros’ DC Universe streaming service got off to a rather good start with such titles as Titans and Doom Patrol — both rather dark and intriguing superhero shows — but with this new take on Swamp Thing, we venture into vistas that are very reminiscent of John Carpenter’s The Thing and the body horror of David Cronenberg. With the first two episodes being directed by Len Wiseman — who helmed the pilots for Sleepy Hollow and Lucifer — we knew we were in good hands. Now, this take on Swamp Thing is still a bit of a departure from the source material; its darker themes and horrific elements are very much in keeping with what Alan Moore did back in the day, but Gary Dauberman and Mark Verheiden have clearly no reservations on making this series their own. This television show was horror with a capital “H,” and the ten episodes we got certainly illustrated that these two certainly know what they are doing when it comes to the genre.

The show’s main protagonist is Doctor Abby Arcane (Crystal Reed), who works for CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service and has returned to her hometown of Marais, Louisiana to investigate a deadly swamp-borne virus. The locals are rather alarmed at the fact that their friends and family members are suddenly collapsing and coughing up gooey swamp water and plant matter, some blaming the illness on possible illegal dumping by prominent businessman Avery Sunderland (Will Patton), but it is when Abby meets Alec Holland (Andy Bean), a disgraced doctor briefly in the employ of Sunderland before being fired, that the mystery truly takes a dark turn. On his own time, Holland had been investigating a mysterious mutagen accelerant found in the swamp water, a mutagen that can cause plant life to practically explode with rapid growth, and with Abby’s help, he could uncover just what is going on in this swamp. That is, unless, someone shoots him in the chest, blows up his boat, and leaves him to die in the swamp.

 

You know what they say about keeping a good man down.

With this incarnation of Swamp Thing, the show’s producer doubled down on the horror aspect, with horrific moments of brutal violence — criminals viciously taking out anyone who threatens Sunderland’s shady operation — and Swamp Thing himself (Derek Mears in the suit) inhumanly dispatching his opponents by literally tearing them apart limb from limb. The look of this show was simply fantastic, from Sunderland’s beautiful antebellum mansion — a clear nod to villainous Anton Arcane’s mansion from Jim Wynorski's The Return of Swamp Thing — to the dark and gloomy swamp where tangled roots and sunken ruins make for excellent backdrops to the horror on display.

 

A hungry gator is the least of your worries in this swamp.

Watching this show it's apparent that the truly interesting element here is that we aren't dealing with a simple case of “Science run amok,” as it’s clear that there are dark supernatural forces at work here. Whatever biochemical mutagen that Sunderland was dumping in the swamp — in the hopes of making tons of money off of fast-growing plants and the new medicines that could result from them — it is definitely not the only factor in play. These experiments may have been the triggering element for Alec Holland’s transformation from scientist to muck monster, but when we see young Susie Coyle (Elle Graham) — a victim of the mysterious illness and whose dead father basically exploded in a fury of angry fauna — a girl who seems to have some kind of mental link with Swamp Thing, we know that there must be more going on than simple evil science.

 

Mister Coyle and his very bad day.

Exploding people and angry swamp monsters the only type of horror this show has to offer; we also have Avery’s wife, Maria Sunderland (Virginia Madsen), who blames Abby for the death of her daughter Shawna (Given Sharp) — her death due to some pre-college hijinks gone wrong — and she seems to be haunted by the possible vengeful ghost of her poor deceased daughter. Contact with the dead is aided by Madame Xanadu (Jeryl Prescott), a blind fortune teller who is not all that eager to deal with what is truly going on out in her swamp. This element really hearkens back to the original comic, created by Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson back in the 70s, and it was this component that really set this series apart from the previous adaptation of Swamp Thing.

 

The dead do not rest in the swamp.

Simply put, this adaption of Swamp Thing was absolutely marvelous, even though at times it was wildly divergent from the source material, it nevertheless perfectly captured the tone and feel of Alan Moore’s run of the comic, from its brilliant production designs to the out-of-this-world creature effects, to its standout cast of both new and veteran actors; this is easily one of my favourite comic book-based television shows. Swamp Thing has had two movies, an animated show, and a live-action series — which surprisingly lasted three seasons — and all of those pale in comparison to what Gary Dauberman and Mark Verheiden have created here. I never thought I’d see the day when Swamp Thing, a comic book favourite of mine since I was a kid, would be so wonderfully brought to life.

Comic Book to Show Observations:

• In the comic, Alec Holland was working on a bio-restorative formula to help end world hunger; in this incarnation, scientist Jason Woodrue (Kevin Durand) is hired by Avery Sunderland to create the mutagen accelerant. What Sutherland hired Alec for, before firing him, is still unclear.
• As in the comic, Avery Sunderland hires Jason Woodrue “The Floronic Man” to perform an autopsy on a presumed dead Swamp Thing, which leads them to learn a truly dark secret about the muck monster.
• The evil necromantic sorcerer Anton Arcane, who was Abby’s uncle in the comics, makes no appearance in the series.
• In this show, Abby is aided in her investigations by police officer Matt Cable (Henderson Wade), while in the comic, Matt was a government agent assigned to protect Alec and Linda Holland as they worked on the bio-restorative formula. Later, he would marry Abby until he gainer reality-altering power, turning him into a monster.
• Abby is also aided by Liz Tremayne (Maria Sten), a local newspaper reporter and bartender and a close childhood friend to Abby, while in the comics, Elizabeth "Liz" Tremayne was a tabloid journalist looking into the deaths of Alec and Linda Holland.
• Of course, Alec Holland in this show has no wife — can’t have a possible love interest if one of your parties is married — which hearkens back to what Wes Craven did with his film version of Swamp Thing, where the character of Linda Holland was altered to be his sister. 

 

DC Universe’s doomed Alec Holland sans Linda.

There are certainly significant alterations from the source material — having an origin story completely reworked is no small thing — yet all of them work so damn well that my normal comic geek rage had nothing to grasp on to. So, of course, this show got canceled. Why it got canceled is the true mystery here — especially considering it got the ax after airing only one bloody episode and to mostly good reviews, I might add (we’re talking 92% on Rotten Tomatoes). Rumors that it was about tax incentives and budgetary issues were quickly kyboshed, so I’m betting it was more about one of the higher-ups at Warner Bros. Television not having faith in the show. The biggest piece of evidence for this is the fact that DC Universe’s Swamp Thing was not to be considered part of the shared universe that encapsulated Titans and Doom Patrol — I'm not sure how that even makes sense — then add to that the fact that Swamp Thing was originally to have a thirteen-episode first season, but then was cut down to only ten late in production, made all this look like some exec had it in for good ole Swamp Thing from the get-go.

 

We can’t have nice things.

Was Swamp Thing cancelled because some dude in a suit thought the show was too dark and scary — the show didn't shy away from gore, so I could see some exec getting a bit twitchy — or could it be as mundane as a network suddenly deciding to rethink their entire streaming service and poor Swamp Thing was the first casualty? Regardless, Swamp Thing was an amazing show and if there is a just god in the universe, some other network will pick this show up and carry the story forward. If you are a fan of the character or just a lover of good horror, this is a show you will want to watch. We may never know the true reason behind this show's untimely end, but don’t let the knowledge of its cancellation keep you away, it's well worth checking out.

Note: This show brings Alan Moore's "Anatomy Lesson" to brutal life, but with the extra bit of horror thrown by having Swamp Thing waking up during his own vivisection.

Scooby-Doo! and the Monster of Mexico (2003) – Review

In this sixth entry in the series of direct-to-video films, we find the Scooby Gang taking a little trip south of the border — surprisingly, not to score drugs — where our heroes end up embroiled in a real estate scheme involving the urban legend known as El Chupacabra. Now, when viewing Scooby-Doo! and the Monster of Mexico, you must take two things into consideration: one, that the writers clearly didn’t even bother Googling what the hell El Chupacabra was; and two, what they know about Latin America was most likely gained through their vague memories of watching Dora the Explorer.

 Once again, we find the members of Mystery Incorporated going on vacation — one must assume that the stress of catching fake vampires requires major downtime to recuperate — and this time, it’s Fred’s (Frank Welker) pen-pal Alejo Otero (Eddie Santiago) who has offered the Scooby Gang the opportunity to visit him and his family in Veracruz, Mexico. This brings up an old question: “Where in the hell are Fred and the gang's parents during all these adventures?” Just how old are they supposed to be, anyway? Are we to assume that they can easily cross the border without parental consent? Legalities of crossing the American/Mexican border aside, our band of mystery solvers have bigger problems on their hands than border restrictions, as it turns out that Alejo’s family resort — he’s rich and has a nice hotel — is being harmed by poor tourist trade due to attacks by the terrifying Chupacabra. Velma (Nicole Jaffe) helpfully informs the group that he’s “Mexico’s version of the Bigfoot,” which, of course, he isn’t. El Chupacabra is said to be a three- to four-foot-high reptile-like creature that lives on the blood of goats; he is nothing like Bigfoot.

 

That is not El Chupacabra, that’s bloody King Kong.

We must, of course, also set aside the fact that sightings of El Chupacabra would more likely than not boost tourist trade, not kill it, but regardless of ethnic stereotypes and cultural misappropriations — and there is a lot of that going on in this movie — our heroes smell a mystery, and soon they're doing their best to get to the bottom of their friend’s dilemma. The problem here is that there isn’t much of a mystery to solve; right off the bat we learn that a shady man named Señor Fuente (Castulo Guerra) has been trying to get Alejo’s mother Doña Dolores (Rita Moreno) to sell their land ever since her husband passed away. Now, this guy turns out to be a red herring — in a subplot that goes nowhere — but throughout this adventure, it's clear that human agency is involved: the “Go home” threat is written in poor Spanish across the side of the Mystery Machine, someone cuts the van’s brake line, and Daphne (Heather North) is briefly kidnapped by the curator of the local museum (things that are unmistakably not the work of an urban legend).

 

They even get chased through the deadliest theme park ride ever built.

So who is behind all these shenanigans? Could it be Alejo’s brother Luis (Jesse Borrego), who seems eager to sell the ancestral lands and was also missing during a big El Chupacabra chase sequence? Or could it be his wife Charlene (Candi Milo), whose Southern accent is so over the top that Dolly Parton would be telling her to tone it down a bit? But what about theme park mogul Mr. Smiley (Rip Taylor), whose billboards we see promoting his upcoming attractions? The answer to this leads to my biggest problem with the Scooby-Doo! and the Monster of Mexico, which is the reveal that it was, in fact, Mr. Smiley was behind it all, yet aside from those billboards, we’ve never met him, not until the big unmasking at the end. That is not how you do a mystery, people! To add insult to injury, we learn that Charlene is also working for Smiley — at one point she disguised herself as a museum curator so as to kidnap Daphne, and she was also the one wearing the El Chupacabra costume — and it is all so bloody lazy. Hell, the film was supposed to be about this “Monster of Mexico,” but the writers forget about El Chupacabra for the bulk of the film's run-time, so instead, we spend more time with our gang fleeing from animatronic stone statues and angry tourists, and not the title creature.

Note: Once again, the technology on display for the villain’s nefarious plot is beyond ludicrous; we get an animatronic eagle — one that talks with a horrible Spanish accent — that somehow is able to frame the Scooby Gang for temple desecration so as to get the tourists to chase them. Then, Daphne and Velma ride a flying living statue of an Aztec god, as Fred is accosted by frisky frescoes of jaguars, all while Alejo and Luis are forced to dodge the feet of a forty-foot stone giant.

Stray Observations:

• Scooby-Doo has his first love interest since Scooby-Doo and the Alien Invaders.
• El Chupacabra is not of Mexican origin, but from Puerto Rico.
• This movie takes place during the “Day of the Dead” so, of course, we see kids carving Jack-o-Lanterns and wearing Frankenstein masks. *Sigh*.
• Those frisky frescoes of jaguars, which take a liking to Fred, attack the animatronic eagle in our gang’s defense. This makes no sense because all these theme park attractions were being operated by Mr. Smiley. Did these stone jaguars somehow develop sentience?
• The idea of El Chupacabra being Charlene in a monster suit is beyond insulting. We see the creature leap great distances, as if it was Mighty Joe Young, and tosses heavy headstones as if they weighed nothing. The height of the monster is explained by showing us she was wearing stilts, but during the big final fight, it reacts in pain to Daphne stepping on its foot.
• The local theater is showing the previous Scooby-Doo movie The Legend of the Vampire. Nice.
• We get two Wizard of Oz references; at one point, while hunting for El Chupacabra, Daphne comments “Coyotes, jaguars, and boars, oh my!” and when Mr. Smiley is uncovered operating a projection of a ghost, in another attempt to fool the Otero family into selling, he says, “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.”

 

This was literally the only time I chuckled during this entire thing.

As a Scooby-Doo mystery, Scooby-Doo! and the Monster of Mexico fails on pretty much every level, with the villain reveal being a pretty big cheat, and though the animation was decent — an improvement over the last entry, at least — the plot and character interactions were just beyond the pale terrible, which made the film hard to watch at times. This would be the last time the original voice cast would be together, with Heather North joining Don Messick in that big voice booth in the sky, so it’s rather sad that this last adventure would be so lame. Scooby-Doo! and the Monster of Mexico is easily one of the lowest points in the history of the Scooby-Doo movies.

 

“And we would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for that meddling script!"

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019) – Review

With the success of the film adaptation of Goosebumps, it’s not that surprising to see another movie based on a children's book series hitting theaters — though a little early for Halloween, but I’m guessing they wanted to avoid competing with part two of Andy Muschietti's adaptation of Stephen King’s It — and yet Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark is more in the ballpark of Muschietti's movie than the more “family-friendly” Jack Black vehicle. This movie is a few degrees scarier than 2017's Goosebumps, but when you have the likes of Guillermo del Toro writing and producing, the term “family-friendly” isn’t something that would leap readily to mind, and so with Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark we get a PG-13 movie with some very genuine scares.

 Guillermo del Toro and director Andre Ovredal manage to dance the line between a straight-up narrative horror story and that of an anthological one — such as Creepshow and Trick ‘r Treat — in this film, we focus on a group of teenagers and their encounters with a vengeful ghost, a spirit that manages to bring scary stories to life. Our cast of characters includes a young girl named Stella (Zoe Margaret Colletti), whose escape into writing scary stories gives her a unique perspective on the ghost, her friends Auggie (Gabriel Rush) and Chuck (Austin Zajur), who just want to have one final Halloween hurrah before they are considered too old for Trick or Treating, and then there is Ramon (Michael Garza), a drifter with a mysterious past who finds himself inexplicably mixed up with our group of "heroes" on this fateful Halloween night.

 

Today's Scarecrow is brought to you by Leatherface.

The plot is kicked into gear when the group are chased into a reputed haunted house by the local school bully, a particularly nasty piece of work named Tommy (Austin Abrams), and while in the house they come across the hidden room that once housed the legendary child murderer Sarah Bellows (Kathleen Pollard). While exploring it, they find her book of scary stories, which, as legend has it, she would read to the children of the town — through the walls of her homemade prison — and that would be the last story these children would ever hear. It's at this point that Stella makes the classic horror movie mistake of removing the book and unleashing Sarah’s vengeance on her and her friends. Soon enough, new stories appear within the pages of Sarah’s book, stories that write themselves — in what appears to be fresh blood — making the teenagers the targets of a fresh round of monsters that are unleashed on this sleepy town.

 

"Did any of you guys pack some White-Out?"

Being that Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark is based on a series of children’s book from the 80s, one shouldn’t expect much in the way of originality — the scene with a scarecrow coming to life to attack asshat Tommy was pretty standard stuff, and nothing we haven’t seen a dozen times before, but as predictable as it was, at least that segment was brief — but what makes this film work as well as it does is that the young cast of actors work very hard to convey pure and utter terror. Note: Having Tommy be the first victim was a mistake, this negates any tension as we as an audience couldn't give two shits for this guy.  Now, once Tommy is "missing," the film moves into the expected research of the town’s mystery, with our teens visiting the library and local hospital to read up on Sarah Bellows, all while waiting for the next story to be written. The key element here is that with this particular book, “You don’t read the stories, the stories read you,” so our young protagonists find themselves facing their own greatest fears, which once again will get many viewers thinking of Pennywise from Stephen King’s It.

 

Did she come from Room 237?

Where the film fails in the originality department it at least somewhat makes up for it with some genuinely tense and dread-filled scenes — though as this is still a horror film for younger viewers, there is no gore — and even if the murderous scarecrow seemed a little “old hat,” the other stories manage to bring to the screen some truly nasty creations, my particular favourite being "The Red Room," where a horrifying phantom of a pale lady, from a recurring nightmare of Chuck’s, stalks the poor kid through the hellish hospital halls. It's clear that Guillermo del Toro and Andre Ovredal know what they are doing, and they excel at creating an atmosphere of dread and despair, with each story trying to top the next, and the overall mystery behind the “Legend of Sarah Bellows” provides a nice twist or two, even if the film doesn’t quite stick the landing — the resolution being both a little too easy as well as unclear — and so I can heartily recommend Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark as a good entry point for younger viewers of horror, and even older audience members should enjoy a thrill or two from this flick.

Scooby-Doo! And the Legend of the Vampire (2003) – Review

How would you like to watch a Scooby-Doo travelogue? With Scooby-Doo! And the Legend of the Vampire, we get a direct-to-video that is pretty much that, a movie that not only is a return to the “dudes in masks” format — so no actual zombies, witches, or aliens in this outing — but much of the run-time is filled with what comes across as a visit to Australia promotional film: “Come for the vampires, stay for Sydney Opera House,” and the mystery itself is a bit of a letdown. Gone is the darker style of Mook Animation Inc. — the animation house behind the four direct-to-video movies that started with Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island and ended with Cyber Chase — instead we have the flatter and brighter animation style of the What's New, Scooby-Doo? series. This is definitely a step back in quality.

This outing finds Mystery Incorporated on vacation — if it's possible to go on vacation when you don't actually have jobs — taking a cruise ship to Australia, and while on board, they will solve the mystery of the "Sea Serpent Smugglers." It will, of course, turn out to be a bunch of dudes in masks, but that's a return to form I’d have let slide if it had explained how this gang of mystery solvers could afford a trip to Australia. We’ve still never seen them being paid for any unmasking of crooks, so I’d like to believe that this cruise line hired Mystery Incorporated to expose this smuggling plot, as it would also help explain how Fred (Frank Welker) could afford to have the bloody Mystery Machine shipped along with them. Once they arrive in Australia, we spend a little time sightseeing in Sydney, where Velma (Nicole Jaffe) will point out the Sydney Harbor Bridge as “The world’s largest freestanding bridge,” and then Shaggy (Casey Kasem) would remark on the strange design of the Sydney Opera House, all before they settle down at Bondi Beach for some surfing and barbequing, just so we can see Daphne (Heather North) get hit on by some Aussies, and Shaggy and Scooby can be attacked by a shark.

 

This would have been so much better if this turned out to be Jabberjaw.

After that fun in the sun, the gang decides to venture into the Outback to take in more Australian sights as well as check out the Vampire Rock Music Festival. Needless to say, Shaggy is less inclined to attend anything with “Vampire” in the title. Velma is quick to assure Shaggy that vampires aren’t real, despite the gang having met Dracula himself in previous adventures, but assurances aside, things don’t look too good for this music festival. Turns out, an ancient Australian vampire called Yowie Yahoo — an actual Australian vampire legend, but also about the stupidest name for a monster I've come across — is kidnapping any band that dares to enter the contest. Daniel Illiwara (Phil LaMarr), the festival’s manager, doesn’t believe in vampires, but as the movie goes on, and bands either are snatched by flying vampires or cancel out of fear of the same happening to them, he starts to wonder if the legends are true.

 

Note: Yowie Yahoo looks a lot like the Chernabog from Disney’s Fantasia.

As mysteries go, the one we get with Scooby-Doo! And the Legend of the Vampire isn’t all that great, as the script ladles on this big backstory dealing with the previous year’s Vampire Rock Festival, where we are told a glam rock group called Wildwind disappeared when they went camping up on Vampire Rock, after coming in third place at the festival. Could their disappearance have something to do with the attacks by Yowie Yahoo and his vampire minions? Of course it does, but we still have to trot out a bunch of suspects. First, we have Jasper (Jeff Bennett) who managed Wildwind before their disappearance, and now he’s back at the Vampire Rock Festival, desperate to see his latest group win the contest. Then we have Daniels’ grandfather, Malcolm Illiwara (Kevin Michael Richardson) who believes that the festival has angered Yowie Yahoo, which makes no sense when you take into account that the big bad vampire didn’t attack last year’s festival. Next, we have Daniel’s assistant Russell (Michael Neill), who points out that the three vampires minions with Yowie Yahoo look just like the members of Wildwind.

 

Ziggy Stardust meets the Vampire Lestat.

Who is behind the vampiric attacks is never in question, but once again, the mechanics behind the hoax are completely unbelievable — mountain climbing gear, wind machines, and holograms do not explain the visual stunts these villains pull off — and the big reveal as the identity of the culprits is only interesting because it involves a double unmasking. So, the writers of the Wayne’s World movie could totally sue them. Did I mention that the Hex Girls from Scooby-Doo and the Witch’s Ghost are performing at this festival? Well, for some strange reason, the Hex Girls are performing at the Vampire Rock Festival but not competing, and the most critical thing I can say about Scooby-Doo! And the Legend of the Vampire is that they are completely wasted in this movie. They aren’t even given the chance to compete.

Note: Having the Hex Girls appear in a movie where the monsters aren’t real kind of handicaps the premise a tad, because on the one hand, you have Velma saying “Vampires aren’t real” — even though in the past, the Scooby gang has totally run into the actual Dracula — and then on the other you have Thorn (Jennifer Hale) standing on stage, who is an honest to goodness witch, so it's hard to discount the supernatural out of hand.  Sadly, we later see her and her bandmates being kidnapped by Yowie Yahoo — who is revealed to be fake — yet she doesn’t think to use her magic to combat the hoax. WTF?

Stray Observations:

• The opening shark attack ends after it manages to move up the sandy beach and eat Fred’s barbeque. Seriously, even for a cartoon, this is stupid.
• The trope of “Danger-Prone Daphne” returns as she repeatedly falls through secret passageways.
• Velma loses her glasses while fleeing the vampires because of course she does.
• The group is menaced by a pack of evil-looking dingoes that look a lot like the hyenas from The Lion King.
• Fred is rock stupid in this movie, clues practically fall at his feet, but he still insists on considering the vampire threat to be real, right up until the big reveal.
• Also, Fred is the king of pointing out the bloody obvious, he states to Daniel “The Hex Girls are in trouble,” while the girls are being lifted into the air by the giant vampire.

 

Thanks for coming out Fred, you suck.

The only positive thing I can say about Scooby-Doo! And the Legend of the Vampire is that it was kind of nice having the original voice cast back for this outing, having not been together since 1973, with only Don Messick, the original voice of Scooby, missing due to his death in 1997. That aside, the movie just isn’t all that engaging; the animation on display here is flat and uninspired, the mystery itself was obvious as well as ludicrous — we get a supposed hologram throwing fireballs that can obliterate rocks — and the misuse of the Hex Girls is a crime all on its own, all adding up to a rather lackluster Scooby-Doo adventure. Skip this movie and throw some shrimp on the barbie instead.

Note: In this movie, our heroes have to go undercover as a rock band, which is neat considering the original concept for the show that would become Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! dealt with five teenagers and their bongo-playing dog solving mysteries when not performing gigs.

Hobbs & Shaw (2019) – Review

The Fast and the Furious franchise departed the whole “Street Racing” element at around the fifth film and since then they've focused mostly on crazy heists with high-octane action sequences – each one trying to outdo the previous entry – and then with The Fate of the Furious any semblance to reality was gleefully dispatched. Now with the release of Hobbs & Shaw it’s clear that the producers have fully embraced the absurdity of it all and have put forth an entry that is one part James Bond flick and two parts comic book movie.

The plot to Hobbs & Shaw is fairly simple, an evil organization called Eteon have plans to wipe out a large portion of the world’s population – insert some idiotic rhetoric about removing the weak to save the planet – and to do this they need to recover a programmable virus, but MI6 agent Hattie Shaw (Vanessa Kirby) injects the virus into herself before Eteon’s cybernetically augmented operative Brixton (Idris Elba) could get his evil clutches on it Unfortunately for Hattie, Eteon is one of those magical tech organization they are able to frame anyone they like and she is soon on the run for her life and the lives of countless millions. Now, if that sounds like your standard James Bond plot you aren’t alone as the only thing missing from this film, to make it a true Bond entry, is the reveal that Brixton’s boss is actually Blofeld – the villains even have super high-tech facility that is one step from being a volcano lair – and Brixton himself fits the bill as your basic Bond henchman. The only difference between Idris Elba’s Brixton and the likes of Oddjob and Jaws is that neither Richard Kiel nor Harold Sakata made the cover of People’s “Sexiest Man Alive” issue.

 

He gives The Rock a run for his money in the smoldering department.

Of course, in this film James Bond is not sent in to save the day – maybe we will get that crossover in the future when the Fast and the Furious franchise remakes Moonraker – instead we have the illustrious duo of Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) and Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham), who spend so much screen time trash-talking each other that I'd often forget what the plot was about as the incessantly and endlessly tried to one-up each other. This is an unlikely pairing, to say the least, and the producers try their best to make us forget that Deckard was once a cold-blooded murder, but one cannot deny that Johnson and Statham have great screen chemistry – certainly more than what Johnson has with Vanessa Kirby – and when the action sequences explode across the screen there is much fun to be had with this outing, that is if you're okay with scenes that veer between the simply implausible to the outright cartoonish.

 

“I’m not ridiculous, he's ridiculous.”

To say that Idris Elba was underutilized in the role of evil “Black Superman” would be a vast understatement – as could be said by anyone who has seen even one episode of him on The Wire – but it's all made worse by him being set-up as an unbeatable foe for the bulk of the movie - super strength, super speed, computer-enhanced tactical fight skills - that is until our heroes realize that they outnumber him two to one. Somehow this never occurs to them until the final reel.  During this final confrontation, I kept waiting for Johnson and Statham to cry out “Wonder Twin Powers, Activate! Form of a plot contrivance!”

Hobbs & Shaw falls into the trap of pitting our heroes against an insurmountable amount of enemies that must have either forgotten they have guns on them or are recent graduates of the Stormtrooper academy of missing things if our heroes are going to survive. In this film Hobbs and Shaw have something even better than Kevlar and that would be “Plot Armor” as they are not only invincible in battle but can’t be harmed in any way – Hobbs grabs hold of a steel cable with his bare hand, slides down it several stories, and doesn’t even get a blister – and it’s this kind of thing that removes any sense of tension or suspense. It’s one thing to know our heroes are going to win out in the end but it’s another to realize they’re not even going to get a papercut.

 

"Relax, I read to the end of the script, we're gonna be fine."

Stray Observations:

• Hobbs having the hots for Shaw’s sister is an obvious lift of the action hero dynamic from Tango and Cash.
• The pointless Kevin Hart cameo reeked of “Doing a friend a favour.”
• It’s alluded that Shaw is also Handsome Rob from the Italian Job remake. Nice.
• The villains repeatedly state that they need Hattie alive but the amount of times they almost kill her is staggering.
• Brixton is told by his superiors to try and "turn" Hobbs and Shaw, which has to be one of the stupidest excuses for the bad guys to not straight up kill the heroes.
• Hobbs is able to hold a helicopter in place as if he’s Captain America, which proves this movie is basically a knock-off Marvel flick.
• Apparently, a helicopter can have problems lifting one vehicle but if Idris Elba is piloting it can suddenly lift several.
• At no point do the villains ask their scientist to manufacture a second batch of the virus, and even if he'd refused are we supposed to believe that Eteon didn’t have backup copies of all his work? He was in their employ after all.
• The third act includes an A-Team montage of setting up gear and weapons for the big fight. "I love it when a plan comes together."
• High tech handguns that can be electronically authorized is one thing – so your enemies can’t just use one of your own guns against you – but setting up your helicopter gunship the same way is a bit moronic.
• Hobbs ditches his bulletproof Kevlar outfit so that he can be bare-chested in Samoan attire for the big finale, because?

 

Something for the ladies.

I will admit to enjoying myself throughout most of Hobbs & Shaw’s 135-minute runtime, the two leads are insanely likable, but I would have probably enjoyed it a helluva lot more if it had ended thirty minutes sooner. The film’s last act was completely unnecessary and moved the film from being an over-the-top silly action film to becoming a tired over-the-top silly action film. There are only so many ludicrous CGI-enhance action moments one can take before your personal bullshit meter breaks and you check out of the movie and Hobbs & Shaw left that point in the dust early on.  Side Note: Please, tell the writers to stop beating us over the head with how important “Family” is to these people. Is this an action franchise or a Hallmark movie?

As a globetrotting adventure film Hobbs & Shaw will certainly entertain their fan base but with the amount of money spent on these mammoth productions, not to mention all the talent in front and behind the camera, I would love to see a little more time put into assembling a script that doesn’t have one’s eyes rolling at every turn. Hobbs & Shaw is a fun, if insanely silly movie, one that fills the bill as an “Adrenaline-Fueled Thrill-Ride” just don’t expect more than that.

What's New, Scooby-Doo? (2002-2006) – Review

This ninth incarnation of the Scooby-Doo series followed the same basic format of the original Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! where we’d have Scooby-Doo and the gang arriving at some new location – ski lodge, space camp, amusement park or even the Old West – they would encounter a ghost or monster to run from and then they’d expose them as being some type of criminal or conman, which is basically the premise of What's New, Scooby-Doo?  So it's clear that the producers of this show were going with the old proverb “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it” but that all said they still wanted to make things fresh, but how would they manage that? Well, for this series they tried to modernize things by having the gang use current technology, such as cellphones, laptops, and night vision binoculars, yet aside from this “modernization” there really wasn’t all that much new to be found in a show called What's New, Scooby-Doo?

The nicest thing that can be said about What's New, Scooby-Doo? is that it reunited our classic cast of characters, who hadn’t been together since Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo back in 1979, but now the entire gang is together again; with Fred (Frank Welker) setting traps, Velma (Mindy Cohn) sorting out clues, Shaggy (Casey Kasem) and Scooby-Doo forced to be bait for a monster or ghost, and poor Daphne (Grey Griffin) still randomly getting kidnapped, but at least this series toned down the “Danger Prone Daphne” element a tad with her now being an excellent surfer, having the ability to make improvised lock picks, and she even uses her fashion knowledge to aid in the mystery-solving, so it’s nice to see a little character development there.

Daphne, not quite the klutz she's been in the past.

The biggest criticism that can be leveled against What's New, Scooby-Doo? is the flat and boring animation on display, gone are the darker tones found in such offerings as Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island and in its place is a dull color palette with a complete lack of vibrancy, and this severely lacking aesthetic isn’t helped by the poor character designs given to the show’s ghosts and monsters. Sure, we can’t expect horrifying visages that could scare the kiddies too much – though Zombie Island danced over that line a tad – most of the creatures in this series wouldn’t scare a neurotic toddler with an animation phobia. Now, there were a few nods to popular movies that did provide a few good monsters, such as the rogue robot from the episode “Go West, Young Scoob” which was a fun take on the movie Westworld.

 

Not nearly as menacing as Yul Brynner, but still scary.

Easily one of the worst episodes in this run was “Big Appetite in Little Tokyo” where we get the rare instance of the Scooby Gang on the run from the police, unfortunately, it’s because Shaggy has been accused of turning into a Godzilla sized monster and destroying villages. The Scooby-Doo mysteries often lean towards the farfetched but in that episode things go a bit too far, even for a cartoon, as the villain has to frame Shaggy while also operating a thirty-foot robot that can somehow come and go without anyone noticing, and then made all the worse by tying it back to an ancient legend and a cursed pizza. There’s absurd than there is plain old stupidity, this thing was actually painful to watch.

 

Not since Jimmy Olsen as “The Giant Turtle Man” have I seen something this lame.

On the flip side there was the episode “Mummy Scares Best” which had the Scooby gang teaming up with the recurring character of Melbourne O'Reilly (Steve Blum), an Australian adventurer who invites our heroes to the help with an archeological dig at the Great Pyramids, but soon they find themselves running from a nasty mummy and his zombified minions. The design of the mummy in this episode was actually quite frightening – on par with what we saw in Zombie Island – and when Fred, Velma, and Daphne are turned into zombie minions the threat level reaches new heights that the show rarely achieved again. Even the mystery itself was pretty decent - villains diverting water for profit - but what was an unexpected change was the fact that Shaggy and Scooby ended up solving this mystery by themselves. I’d say “Mummy Scares Best” could be considered as one of the better Scooby-Doo episodes of the entire franchise, with thrill, chills, and a kickass monster.

 

Where’s Brendan Fraser when you need him?

Stray Observations:

• In the episode “There's No Creature Like Snow Creature” Fred ends up in a cast and has to watch Daphne investigate via night vision binoculars, a clear nod to Hitchcock’s Rear Window.
• In the episode “It's Mean, It's Green, It's the Mystery Machine” not only do we get a killer car story ala Christine but we also get the origin of the Mystery Machine. Apparently, it once was a tour bus for a music group called “The Mystery Kids.”
• In the episode “Big Appetite in Little Tokyo” Velma wins the science fair with her “First ever robotic canine” which ignores the fact that she and the rest of the Scooby Gang have teamed up with The Blue Falcon and Dynomutt in the past.
• In the episode “High-Tech House of Horrors” the A.I. of a "House of the Future" goes nuts and kidnaps Daphne, lucky for her it doesn’t try to get her pregnant like the house from Demon Seed did to poor Julie Christie.
• In the episode “Recipe for Disaster” we get a nice parody of Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory when Shaggy wins a trip to the Scooby Snax Factory.
• In the episode “The Vampire Strikes Back” the Scooby Gang team up with their old friends the Hex Girls, who they will once again fight fake vampires in Scooby-Doo! and the Legend of the Vampire.

 

The Brides of Dracula?

What’s New, Scooby-Doo? may have been a step back in the quality of animation department, certainly when compared to some of the direct-to-video movies of the time, but there was still a lot of fun to be had in this incarnation of Mystery Incorporated. The characters remained mostly true to their nature and the mysteries themselves ranged from passable to good, just nothing really special, but still very in keeping with the original concept of Scooby-Doo, Where are You! which, unfortunately, was one of the show’s key problems as it basically comes across as a simple retread of the 60s original cartoon – Daphne’s showing more brains and heroism than ever before being one of the few standout changes – and though the humor worked for the most part, with some nice meta moments thrown in for older fans, there were too many episodes that were sunk by the less than impressive villains, with episodes like “The Fast and the Wormious” being especially egregious.

 

Frank Herbert’s Dune this is not.

This particular run isn’t going to go down in history as one of the greats - sticking to a tried and true formula will only get you so far - but regardless of the less than stellar animation, there is still much to be enjoyed from a viewing of What’s New, Scooby-Doo? as the comedy is overall pretty solid, from Fred’s ability to butcher every foreign language as well as his horrible Elvis impersonations to Daphne and Velma fun self-aware moments – mostly at Fred’s expense – but some of the show's "modernization" went a little too far, such as Fred's constant modifying of the Mystery Machine, where it becomes more of Jame Bond vehicle than just a cool van.

 

Is this the Mystery Machine or the Magic Schoolbus?

Sure, this incarnation wasn’t groundbreaking, some could even consider it a step back when you consider the drop in quality in animation and retreaded concept, but What’s New, Scooby-Doo? still has everyone’s favorite mystery-solving group taking on a variety of masked crooks in crazy locals while serving up a good amount of laughs, with meta nods to its many clichés and tropes, all going towards making this a worthy entry in the annals of Scooby-Doo.  What more could you want?