Daylight (1996) – Review

The 1970s saw Hollywood’s first disaster boom with such classics as The Towering Inferno and The Poseidon Adventure filling the theatres but in the 90s, with the advent of computer effects, a second and bigger disaster boom was in the offing. In the 90s films like Twister, Dante’s Peak and Armageddon made some series box office dough but one particular disaster film didn't do all that well and has mostly been forgotten, that being Rob Cohen’s Daylight, a film that didn’t rely on nature’s fury so much as a man-made disaster.

The basic premise of Daylight is that a shady waste management company tries to illegally transport barrels of toxic waste through the Holland Tunnel and on to New Jersey, but when a car full of jewel thieves are chased by the police into the tunnel and collide with this convoy of toxic cargo-carrying trucks the ensuing explosion causes the tunnel to collapse and our cast of characters to be trapped. As premises go this is not a bad one at all, and the shots of the massive firestorm rolling down the tunnel are visually spectacular, unfortunately, that is pretty much the best element of the movie. We get a nice set-up with a fantastic cataclysmic event full of disaster eye-candy but after that, we get your standard disaster slog as we the viewers are then forced to follow a small band of survivors as they attempt to escape almost certain death.

 

And people survive this?

As is standard for disaster films of this variety the first act is all about introducing us to the characters that we will be following throughout this particular crisis – if this film was made in the 70s the movie poster would have had little pictures at the bottom touting stars like Paul Newman and Charlton Heston as “The Architect” – and in the case of Daylight, we have quite the plethora of cannon fodder, though a little less star-studded then their 70s equivalent. First, we have struggling playwright Madelyne "Maddy" Thompson (Amy Brenneman), who after getting another rejection letter decides to leave her rat and roach-infested apartment and go back home, and in the O.J. Simpson role, we have George Tyrell (Stan Shaw), a transit cop who hasn’t yet told the woman he’s involved with that he loves her.

 

Start the egg timer on this guy’s survivability metre.

We also get an elderly couple and their deceased son’s dog, a busload of juvenile delinquents being transferred just so we can widen the cast demographic a bit, and because disasters are known for shoring up bad relationships we also have Steven Crighton (Jay O. Sanders), a family man taking his wife and daughter to New York in the hopes of patching up his strained marriage.  Finally, we have Roy Nord (Viggo Mortensen), a rich sports celebrity known for his extreme sports endeavours and showy commercials.

 

“I’m a rich asshole so I won’t even live as long as this film's black character.”

Now, any good disaster movie needs a hero and in this film that comes in the form of Chief Kit Latura (Sylvester Stallone), a disgraced former New York City Emergency Medical Services who now drives a cab and just so happens to be on the scene when the shit hits the fan. It should be noted that in Cliffhanger Stallone played a man who quit his mountain rescue career due to a failure that resulted in a death and now we have him playing an ex EMS captain whose last rescue resulted in death and a change of vocation.  That is very specific typecasting if I do say so myself. What really fails here, and makes absolutely no sense, is that almost everyone he is trying to save in this movie is constantly giving him shit. He’s not some hapless slob who just so happened to be caught up in the disaster along with everyone else, he willingly climbed down – through spinning fans that looked like levels out of a bad video game – to save these bunch of ungrateful asshats.

 

I would have left all these assholes behind.

And because raging fires and flooding tunnels isn’t enough drama we are also briefly introduced to some evil city bureaucrats who want to right-off the survivors as being dead so that they can get to work on repairing the tunnel – they give some kind of bullshit about the tunnel being a vital artery to the city as if this kind of destruction wouldn’t have the Holland Tunnel out of commission for months. This bit of manufactured drama serves absolutely no purpose as the “ticking clock” element of the tunnel flooding had already provided enough motivation for our cast of characters to make their way out sans help from above. Speaking of the flooding tunnels, if a ragtag group of survivors racing to stay ahead of their rising water sounds familiar that would be because it’s also the basic premise of Irwin Allen’s The Poseidon Adventure, and this similarity is made even more hilarious when you consider the fact that the script of Daylight was a rewrite of an early draft of what was to be a sequel to The Poseidon Adventure.

 

“Let me know if you spot Shelley Winters while you’re down there.”

As disaster films go Daylight is a fair to middling entry, for when it comes to the disaster itself the movie starts with an impressive and explosive sequence but then the remaining three-quarters of the film is kind of a soggy mess, which is the death of proper disaster movie. And aside from Amy Brenneman's plucky playwright, I couldn’t care less if any of them made it out of that tunnel alive, and those flooding tunnels had more depth than Sly’s clichéd hero with a tacked-on tragic past.
Audiences turn up for spectacle when it comes to this particular genre and Rob Cohen’s Daylight started promising but then it got bogged down with the same run of the mill tropes that plague many of its brethren and this issue pretty much doomed the movie from inception. There are certainly worse examples of the genre but there’s a reason why this one is mostly forgotten.

 

Will Sly and friends see daylight? Who really cares?

The New Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo Show (1983-1984) – Review

In this sixth incarnation of the Scooby-Doo franchise, the creators once again altered the format. Now, it would no longer be a half-hour show consisting of three seven-minute shorts, but, instead, a half-hour show consisting of two eleven-minute shorts. This kind of decision-making is what truly sets some television executives above the rest. On the plus side, Daphne Blake was returned to the cast after a three-year absence, and in the second season, the series was renamed The New Scooby-Doo Mysteries and Fred and Velma were allowed to guest star in a few episodes. So that was nice. Unfortunately, Scrappy-Doo would remain a thorn in the show’s side for a few more years to come.

The plots found within The New Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo Show would maintain the solving supernatural mysteries element, only now, the quartet would consist of Shaggy (Casey Kasem), Daphne (Heather North), Scooby-Doo, and Scrappy-Doo (Don Messick), and they would be solving such mysteries as reporters for a teen magazine. Without Fred and Velma, we find Daphne in the role of the sole skeptic and, in keeping with the horror comedies of Abbott and Costello, she doesn’t see the actual supernatural shenanigans and puts any claims of such things to be byproducts of Shaggy and Scooby’s overactive imaginations. The first season mostly paired Scooby-Doo with his cowardly compatriot Shaggy, while Scrappy would be hanging out with his equally level-headed partner Daphne — we wouldn’t want those two wet blankets ruining Scooby and Shaggy’s fearful fun. However, skeptic or not, Daphne was occasionally forced to confront the bizarre head-on, such as a rampaging dinosaur in the episode “The Dinosaur Deception.” More often than not, though, such a mystery would be solved by revealing the typical guy in a suit, or in the case of that aforementioned episode, a guy in a robot dinosaur illegally mining silver.

 

In that episode, Scooby-Doo gave us a remarkable dinosaur impression.

While most of the mysteries our crime-solving quartet tackle in this season would follow the “Dude in a Mask” format of the original Scooby-Doo series, on rare occasion they would cross paths with actual supernatural beings. In the episode “Who’s Minding the Monster,” we get one of the more bizarre instances of this when Daphne wants to prove that the Frankenstein monster is real because of her job as a resident skeptic. Shaggy and Scooby not being too keen on hunting for the monster volunteer to babysit for the Draculas. How does this make sense? They know of Frankenstein’s monster but not who Dracula is or that he’s a vampire? Even stranger is that Dracula looks to be married to the Bride of Frankenstein and their baby is a werewolf. What in the holy hell were the writers on this show smoking?

 

Even by cartoon logic, none of this makes sense.

In 1984, season two changed the title to The New Scooby-Doo Mysteries and continued with the same format of The New Scooby and Scrappy-Doo Show, with two 11-minute mysteries per half-hour. Along with this name change came the return of Fred Jones (Frank Welker) and Velma Dinkley (Marla Frumkin) — though with very limited appearances — but the show would still feature the gang encountering various crooks posing as ghosts or monsters. Fred and Velma would appear in a combined total of six episodes, but not always together. In the episode “A Night Louse at the White House,” Velma invites Daphne, Shaggy, and the two dogs to the White House, but she apparently didn’t invite Fred. Was there some behind the scenes strife between these two characters? In the episode “Happy Birthday, Scooby-Doo,” we learn that Velma went on to become an apprentice research scientist for NASA while Fred became a mystery writer. I’m not sure what possessed the writers to choose that vocation for Fred when there had to be something more suited to his character. Maybe Velma’s academic success ruffled Fred’s failed career as a writer. What evidence do I have that Fred was a failed writer? Well, unless the books were about “How to trap a monster,” I’m not sure how good they’d be. That all said, it was nice to see Velma and Fred even if only in cameo form.

 

Note: This series does give us a rare glimpse of Shaggy and Scooby’s early years.

Stray Observations:

• In the episode “Scoobygeist,” Daphne locks everyone inside a supposed haunted house for the night, a nice take on William Castle’s The Haunting of Hill House.
• A school dance in “The Creature Came From Chem Lab” is almost called off due to monstrous shenanigans, which would make for a good plot for a Footloose sequel.
• In “No Thanks, Masked Manx,” Daphne’s rich parents make their first appearance, and a cat burglar at a masquerade party pays homage to Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief.
• Daphne seems remarkably blasé about there being actual magic in “Wizard and Warlocks” when a Dungeons and Dragons convention brings larping to a whole new level.
• “Who’s Minding the Monster” was when the gang first encountered the real Dracula, but they will, of course, forget all about this when they run into him in The Reluctant Werewolf.
• Working as paparazzi in "Scooby's Peep-Hole Pandemonium," our quartet exposes the publisher of Peep-Hole Magazine to be the culprit, but even though the “Mummy” in this mystery turns out to be a dude in a mask, the gang also encounters a real werewolf, Frankenstein’s monster, and a vampire.

 

“We simply must have you all for dinner!”

These two seasons collect an odd batch of mysteries that sprinkled in random actual supernatural creatures, along with the standard dude-in-a-mask criminal plots, which in hindsight makes Daphne’s skeptic nature rather ridiculous; once you are hired by Dracula, how can you doubt the supernatural? But the writers seemed to have had a lot of fun referencing classic movies from almost any genre, which can be fun for older fans to spot and can almost make one forgive the logic lapses. Unfortunately, we still have Scrappy-Doo to contend with and his “Puppy Power” shtick will forever grate on my nerves. Any time he’s on-screen, my enjoyment is lessened by a factor of five. Overall, the blend of the classic formula of a bad guy under the mask and real monsters made this run of the show a little more interesting than the previous run.

King Arthur (2004) – Review

The tagline to Antoine Fuqua’s King Arthur was “The True Story Behind the Legend,” and in the opening text, we are told, “Historians agree that the classical 15th-century tale of King Arthur and his Knights rose from a real hero who lived a thousand years earlier in a period called the Dark Ages. Recently discovered archeological evidence sheds light on his true identity.” You’ve got to admire a filmmaker who completely embraces the bullshit of his premise. This film showcases the legendary King Arthur as a Roman officer when there has never been a consensus amongst historians on Arthur’s historicity.

Taking place during the tail end of the 5th Century, we find Artorius Castus (Clive Owen) — Arthur being a Celtic version of Artorius — with his Knights of the Round Table guarding one of the outermost boundaries of the Roman Empire. The remaining men under his command include Lancelot (Ioan Gruffudd), Tristan (Mads Mikkelsen), Galahad (Hugh Dancy), Bors (Ray Winstone), Gawain (Joel Edgerton), and Dagonet (Ray Stevenson), all who were Sarmatian horsemen, mandated to perform compulsory militaristic service for the Roman army. On the eve of their retirement, having fulfilled their 15-year term of service, their writs of freedom are, instead, suddenly withheld and they are given one final mission.

 

“Damn it, I was just five minutes away from retirement.”

Their mission, if they choose to accept it — which they must or be hounded as deserters — is to rescue a member of the Roman aristocracy who is living far north of Hadrian’s Wall. Being that there is an army of thousands of invading Saxon warriors heading their way, led by their brutal leader Cerdic (Stellan Skarsgård), it is a matter of utmost urgency that Arthur and his men are sent out on what is most likely a suicide mission. Along the way, they encounter the dark magician known as Merlin (Stephen Dillane) — his magical abilities are only rumoured and none are on display in this movie — and though he is the leader of the Woads (Picts), and he is the one whom Arthur and his knights have been fighting for decades, they manage to form an uneasy alliance against the greater threat of the invading Saxons. This movie also introduces to us a very different version of Guinevere (Keira Knightley). No longer is she a damsel in distress, but, instead, she is a warrior in distress — I guess that’s better — and she is found being held captive by the very same group that Arthur was sent to rescue from the Saxons. Now, it’s fair to say that the screen doesn’t exactly burn up with the budding romance between these two, with Clive Owen and Kiera Knightley having zero chemistry together, but then again, Antoine Fuqua was not all that interested in making a love story — he was all about making a grand historical epic.

Note: I’m all for depicting Guinevere as a badass warrior, but one look at Kiera Knightley and all I could think of was, “Could someone get this girl a sandwich?”

Now, if none of this seems very “Arthurian” to you, you’re not alone, as Antoine Fuqua and screenwriter David Franzoni couldn’t have cared less about the Arthurian legend or its possible historical origins. The namechecking of Arthur’s legendary Knights of the Round Table in this film ranged from pointless to just plain insulting. Not to mention the fact that giving people supposedly from the Eurasian Steppes names like Lancelot and Galahad is moronic, and even worse is the complete lack of any of these “knights” having the character traits of their legendary counterparts. Aside from Lancelot being depicted as Arthur’s closest friend, nothing else is even remotely close to what is found in the legendary stories.
If we forget that the original Knights of the Round Table were Britons (knights of Romano-Celtic Britain fighting for the freedom of Britain against the Saxons), and not press-ganged Sarmatian horsemen, we still have to deal with Antoine Fuqua’s horrible version of these knights.

 

"We’re Knights of the Round Table. We dance whenever we’re able."

In this movie, Bors is a boorish and lusty warrior and the father of many bastards, which differs greatly from his namesake whose purity and celibacy allowed him to witness the Holy Grail, according to legend. As for Dagonet of Arthurian legend, he was a cowardly court jester who would often dent his own shield so that it appeared he’d been in a fight, but in this movie, Dagonet is a badass fighter who sacrifices his own life so that the others can escape the approaching Saxons. This all begs the question: if you are going to diverge so far from the legends, why even bother using those names? It’s not like Bors and Dagonet were all that familiar to the general public to begin with, and if that’s not enough to piss off fans of Arthurian lore, the movie also leaves out the love triangle between Arthur, Guinevere, and Lancelot, one of the most famous tragic love stories in history. If you are going to make that many changes from the source material, why use the Arthurian tale to begin with? This could have easily been a movie about the last days of the Roman Empire in Briton, with no need to namecheck the likes of Galahad and Lancelot or Guinevere.

Pissing all over the Arthurian myth wasn’t the only crime the filmmakers here are guilty of, as their claims of giving us “The True Story Behind the Legend” is an even bigger affront to lovers of history.

 

Merlin and his band of misfits.

The King Arthur of myth and legend sat upon the throne of Britain within the walls of the fabled city of Camelot, where he and his knights held to a strict chivalrous code of ethics that was symbolized by the Round Table, which placed no man in higher standing than another. Now, in Antoine Fuqua’s King Arthur, we have Arthur spouting off that “You ...were free from your first breath!” with him citing the works of Bishop Pelagius to back this outlandish claim. Not only was Pelagius not a bishop, but he also was a monk who died of old age and was decidedly not murdered for his beliefs as depicted in this film, and he certainly didn’t advance any theories about political freedom. Instead, he resisted the doctrine of original sin, arguing that one was able to perform good works and achieve salvation by sinlessness alone without requiring spiritual Grace.

 

“They may take away our lives, but they’ll never take our freedom!”

This skewing of history is a common occurrence in movies where the filmmakers want to give the hero more modern and enlightened sensibilities, much like what was done with Zack Snyder’s 300, where the King of Sparta was always yelling about “freedom” despite the fact that Sparta was a slave state, and in the case of this particular King Arthur, the film undercuts its own message by stating right off the top that Arthur’s knights had been pressed into involuntary servitude. You can’t have it both ways Hollywood.

Stray Thoughts:

• Why was a member of the Roman aristocracy living in a land unclaimed, unoccupied and undefended by the Roman army?
• Upon seeing the Round Table, the Bishop’s aid gasps, “A round table, what sort of evil is this?” I never knew circular furniture was considered the work of the Devil.
• Arthur gives so many speeches about freedom that it’s clear this movie desperately wanted to be Braveheart.
• Lancelot was Galahad’s father, yet they’re depicted here as just compatriots.
• Once again, we get a Merlin who has no magical abilities, but this film goes one step further by removing him from the role of Arthur’s mentor.
• Guinevere is surprisingly good with a bow despite recently having her fingers dislocated.
• This movie presents the idea that Roman soldiers used their swords as grave markers which is beyond the pale ridiculous. A sword would be much too valuable to waste, and this idea is only presented here as such so that we can get a young Arthur pulling Excalibur from his father’s grave.

 

The Sword and the Grave doesn’t have the same ring to it.

To say that the filmmakers of King Arthur used “artistic license” in the making of this film is like saying the Pacific Ocean is a rather large and damp body of water. The historical inaccuracies could almost be made into a drinking game — take a shot anytime someone uses the word “knight” to describe a mounted Roman soldier — and the film is just chock full of armour and weaponry that is centuries too early. That all said, as a film, King Arthur isn’t all bad. If you let slide all that “True Story” crap, you can find yourself enjoying a rather fun action film, with battle scenes that are wonderfully choreographed and gore-filled — even the shaky-cam is kept to the bare minimum — and the acting overall is above reproach. It’s really that acting that makes King Arthur as good as it is, and with the likes of Mads Mikkelsen, Ray Winstone, and Ray Stevenson in supporting roles, that isn’t surprising. However, the standout performer here has to be Stellan Skarsgård as the Saxon leader whose gravelly voice rarely rises above a whisper, as if the murder of thousands of people is nothing more than a tedious chore.

 

“After this, remind me to pick up eggs.”

Antoine Fuqua’s King Arthur is just another entry in a long line of films that insist on giving us a “realistic” interpretation of mythical or legendary stories, and though I find nothing intrinsically wrong with that approach, I also can’t help but wonder, “Why bother?” Thankfully, successful fantasy films like Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings have shown Hollywood that audiences are more than capable of suspending their disbelief long enough to enjoy films about wizards and knights of old, so here’s hoping that someone else takes another crack at the story of King Arthur and his fabled Knights of the Round Table.

 

“With Lancelot dead, who am I going to have an affair with?”

Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo (1980-1982) – Review

In this fifth incarnation of the Hanna-Barbera’s Scooby-Doo, the series format changed even more radically than just having the addition of Scrappy-Doo. This time out, the series would switch from the standard 30-minute mystery to three seven-minute shorts that would feature Scooby-Doo, his nephew Scrappy-Doo, and Shaggy with the rest of the Mystery Inc. missing in action. Another radical change was the switch from the “Dude in a Mask” to actual supernatural beings, and love it or hate it, one has to admit that the Network needed to shake things up to prevent the show from becoming stale. How effective these changes were is certainly up for debate.

For those of you who found the inclusion of Scooby’s pint-sized nephew in the last show a tad annoying, you’ll be horrified to know the creators of this particular run of cartoons doubled-down on even more screen-time for this obnoxious little twit as Fred, Daphne, and Velma have been jettisoned in favour of the trio of Shaggy (Casey Kasem), Scooby, and Scrappy-Doo (Don Messick). Between 1980 and 1983, the Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo show was first packaged as The Richie Rich/Scooby-Doo Show and then later as The Scooby & Scrappy-Doo/Puppy Hour. We find that Shaggy, Scooby, and Scrappy-Doo seemed to have settled down as temporary stand-ins at the Fearless Detective Agency for Shaggy’s Uncle Fearless, until eventually teaming them up with Scooby-Doo’s western brother in Scrappy-Doo and Yabba-Doo. Needless to say, these multiple changes didn’t bode well for this run of Scooby-Doo.

 

Who exactly asked for this?

The very first short, “A Close Encounter With a Strange Kind,” definitely set the tone for the set of stories that would make up the bulk of the Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo adventures. Not only is it the first instance of dropping Fred, Daphne, and Velma from the series, but it’s also not the first time changing from the “Dude in a Mask” format to actual monsters. In the case of this episode, it’s a pair of real extraterrestrials that resulted in there not really being a mystery to solve. So that’s disappointing, and part of this could stem from the fact that you can’t really get a mystery off the ground and then solved in under seven minutes, but more likely it was a case of the show wanting to focus on our three leads running around and having wacky adventures. I guess uncovering a real estate scam just wasn’t felt to be all that necessary.

 

“Who called for an alien probe?”

In the first two seasons of Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo, our trio of bumbling morons could be found almost anywhere in the world, from Scottish castles to Egyptian pyramids, but when the third season rolled around, there was the slight alteration in the format by giving our trio a home base in the form of the Fearless Detective Agency. Now, you’d think that with them being part of a detective agency that would bring the mystery aspect back to the show, but you’d be wrong. The seven-minute format continued to prevent any semblance of a mystery happening and I don’t care how many times Scrappy exclaimed, “Gee, Uncle Scooby, we’ve got a real mystery on our hands,” it was never the case. Most of these short episodes feature Shaggy, Scooby and Scrappy being hired to guard or hunt down a particular item, often stolen by some nefarious thug, but the exact nature of the criminals involved was never really in question.

 

Episodes like “The Maltese Mackerel” do not rely on intricate plotting.

After their brief stint working as private detectives, the third season decided to mix things up by introducing another relative of Scooby-Doo in the form of his brother Yabba-Doo (Don Messick), a western incarnation of our cowardly canine, but unlike his famous brother, this “cowboy” canine is incredibly brave and will stop at nothing to protect Tumbleweed County from any number of nefarious villains. Under the banner of Scrappy-Doo and Yabba-Doo, these shorts focused on the mentor relationship between Scrappy and his Uncle Yabba-Doo, but the problem here was that with Scrappy-Doo in the cast, we’d already had our fill of overconfident canines. Thus, the addition of Yabba-Doo didn’t bring anything fresh to the series. They’d have been better off bringing back Scooby-Dum rather than this escapee from a Roy Rogers movie.

 

“Yippee-ki-yay mother farmers!”

Stray Observations:

• The appearance of actual aliens in “A Close Encounter With a Strange Kind” would be revisited again in the animated feature Scooby-Doo and the Alien Invaders.
• The episode “Scooby’s Fantastic Island” perpetuated the idea that dinosaurs and cavemen lived together.
• In the episode “Moonlight Madness,” Shaggy is turned into a werewolf, something that would occur again in the TV movie Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf.
• In “Sir Scooby and the Black Knight,” though our trio runs into a talking skeleton, there is nothing supernatural about the knight they encounter; he was just a Scottish dude who liked to lounge around in full plate armour.
• In the episode “A Fit Night Out for Bats,” our heroes need a lack of a reflection in a mirror to determine if Sylvester is a vampire despite the fact that he’s dressed like Dracula.

 

How are they fooled by dudes in masks but they barely recognize the real thing?

Scooby-Doo fans with little interest in Scrappy-Doo will find very little enjoyment during this era of the Scooby-Doo show, and the truncating of the stories down to seven minutes in length pretty much kneecapped any thought of this incarnation bringing us any fun or interesting mysteries to solve. Add to that the fact that Fred, Daphne, and Velma were given the boot for this outing, and it puts this series at the bottom of the pile.

Prey (1977) – Review

What do vegetarian lesbians, murder and invading aliens have in common? The obvious answer would be Norman J. Warren’s cult classic Prey, a dark and twisted film that takes the audience on a claustrophobic trip with a trio of characters that are two parts Lewis Carrol and one part Hitchcockian. There have been many alien invasion flicks over the years, ranging from classics like Ray Harryhausen’s Earth vs The Flying Saucers to big blockbusters like Independence Day, but with Prey, we got a more intimate and warped take on the genre.

The British film Prey opens much as you’d expect a typical 1970s slasher film would start with a young couple having a romantic tryst in their car when they have a close encounter of the most violent kind, in this movie that doesn’t mean a chainsaw-wielding maniac but instead this terror comes in the form of a shape-shifting alien named Kator (Barry Stokes), who brutally murders the couple and then takes on the form and appearance of the male victim. As cinematic villains go one will have to admit that Kator is a rare specimen, a blunt metaphor for violent masculinity of the male species – despite being an alien Kator is decidedly male – and when his scouting mission to Earth results in an encounter with a couple of lesbians the metaphor moves from subtext to just plain ole text.

 

We get it, all men are dogs.

Our cast of characters is rounded out by Jessica-Ann (Glory Annen) and Josephine (Sally Faulkner), a lesbian couple who live in a nearby manor house, it was Jessica who witnessed strange lights in the sky but her lover Jo has no time for fanciful notions of space visitors. Jessica is a flighty and meek young woman who wants to see more the world or at least more than what can be found in the woods surrounding this house, but her paramour Jo is a domineering partner who has no interest in risking her lover encountering rivals. The character of Jo is your typical psycho-lesbian that has popped up in countless thrillers over the years but this cliché is turned on its head when the next rival turns out to be a carnivorous creature from outer space. In films of this type Jo would normally be the straight-up villain of the piece – pun not intended – and it would be up to the arriving hero to rescue Jessica from her evil clutches, but in Prey, the would-be saviour turns out to be even more dangerous than the jealously crazed lesbian lover.

Note: This film received an “X” rating on its original release and does include some fairly graphic sex scenes.

It’s when Kator, now going under the assumed name of Anders, arrives at the manor house that things go from being simply horrific to the bloody bizarre. At first, Jo considers Anders to be a trespasser, which he is, but Jessica notices his limp and forces Jo to offer him aid. This was a mistake. It turns out that Kantor is an advance scout for an alien invasion force and he’s been sent here to see if Earth is worth the effort. The film’s eighty-five-minute runtime consists of “Anders” acting all creepy, Jessica ranging from being terrified to full-on excited, while Jo covers the ground between suspicion and jealousy. The story’s location is mostly within the manor house and despite its size, it still manages to give us a rather nasty claustrophobic feel, mostly due to Jessica appearing to be a trapped rabbit in her own home, with a few excursions into the surrounding woods that only adds to one's feeling of isolation.

 

Who is the hunter and who is the hunted?

As mentioned the character of Jo is your typical deranged movie lesbian, one who considers any man a threat, and we quickly learn that she murdered a man who may or not have shown a passing interest in Jessica, but the odd thing is that when Jessica discovers proof of the murder she quickly goes from being rightfully afraid of Jo to pretty much brushing it off as “old history” and then having some robust sex with the murderess. It’s clear that Jo’s love for Jessica is an unhealthy one but that path clearly goes both ways when it comes to how Jessica feels about Jo and as a result, neither character comes across as all that sympathetic. The intrusion of Kator/Anders is a catalyst for the destruction of a relationship that was most likely doomed from the start, which makes the whole theme of "heterosexual temptation" brought forth with Ander’s arrival rather moot when you consider that Jessica was doomed no matter what choice she made. His arrival does put Jo on a war footing – whether she wants him gone or dead is constantly in the up in the air – and this eventually leads to a bizarre scene where they celebrate the killing of a fox, which had supposedly been killing their chickens, and then Anders is given a very feminine makeover for the festivities.

 

Alien scouting missions can be a real drag.

To say that Prey is a bizarre movie would be a vast understatement, with its off-putting views on homosexuality, masculinity and relationships it's definitely not your average fare for horror fans, but the trio of actors manage to ground things as much as possible.  Then we have the whole alien invasion aspect which often seems like an afterthought, now, we do get a couple of scenes of Anders turning into puppy-faced Kator to perform a killing or two and he does radio his mothership with updates from time to time, but the film’s focus seems more entirely on the homoerotic elements of the story than it’s science fiction component. Overall, the film works as a solid horror/thriller with the “outer space” element being a little icing on its cake of bizarreness. Prey is a hard film to recommend to your average horror fan but if you go into a viewing of this film with an open mind you will most likely be entertained.

 

The film doesn’t stint on nudity or gore so that should keep some fans happy.

Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo (1979) – Review

As the 80s approached it became clear to the folks at Hanna-Barbera that the tried and true Scooby-Doo formula was getting a little stale and if nothing was done the show was facing cancellation. Things had to change.  In an attempt to shake things up they released a primetime special called Scooby-Doo Goes Hollywood in the hopes that this parody would breathe some life into the flagging franchise – it didn’t, and as a parody it failed at being even remotely funny – so with ABC threatening to pull the plug something extreme was necessary, enter Scrappy-Doo. Love him or hate him if this piece of puppy power hadn't come along there was a good chance that Scooby-Doo would have been doomed to be nothing more than a piece of nostalgic memory.

In this fourth incarnation of the Scooby-Doo franchise, the addition of Scrappy-Doo as a “new element” to cast was in the hopes of restoring the public and network's interest in the show but, unfortunately, not a lot of thought went into the character.  We don’t get much of an origin story for Scrappy-Doo as he’s not so much introduced as plopped full-formed onto a railway station platform, in a cardboard box, for his uncle Scooby-Doo to find. Why was he in that box? Did his previous owners get sick of “Puppy Power” and shipped him off to Scooby-Doo in the hopes of never seeing this runt again? Later in a 1980s episode titled "Scrappy's Birthday" we see that both Scooby and Shaggy were seen to be in attendance at Scrappy's birth, but I’d like to assume they quickly fled the scene to escape this obnoxious pup only to have the annoying creature dropped in their lap via United States Postal Service.

 

The worst thing to come through the mail until the anthrax scare of 2001.

What many modern viewers won’t understand is that Scrappy-Doo was a well-loved at the time, with numerous retail stores stocking tons of Scrappy-Doo merchandise and spin-off comic books, and his popularity was clearly evident with but a glance at the show’s boost in ratings. It wasn’t until years later that fans became more vocal about the dislike for this pint-sized terror and with the internet giving a much larger platform to air such grievances.  Many of these criticisms were levelled at the show for radically changing the format – the introduction of the idea of real ghosts and monsters – but what is interesting to note is that this first season of Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo the classic format of dudes in masks was maintained.

 

Proof that this was a 70s television show.

I myself lived during this era and even at my young age I was not a fan of Scrappy-Doo but as I was thirteen years of age at the time I was probably no longer the target demographic as I'd rather spend my time watching the adventures of the Superfriends than suffering through Scrappy-Doo’s showboating while Fred, Daphne and Velma got pushed into the background. It was this change in cast focus bothered me a lot more than the show's later introduction of real ghosts – which has been done multiple times since then and to varying degrees of success – but with the introduction of Scrappy-Doo, the group that once made up Mystery Incorporated basically got trimmed down to a trio with Shaggy (Casey Kasem), Scooby-Doo (Don Messick) and Scrappy-Doo (Lennie Weinrib) being the stars of the show while Fred (Frank Welker), Daphne (Heather North) and Velma (Patricia Stevens) were slowly relegated to bench-warming duties.

 

Shaggy, Scooby and Scrappy seen here sneaking off with the series.

Stray Observations:

• Scrappy-Doo being a rather loquacious dog kind of makes his uncle Scooby-Doo look rather simple-minded in comparison.
• The pilot episode “The Scarab Lives” clearly borrowed the look of its character from the Blue Beetle comic book hero.
• The Blue Scarab alarm is the sound of the Martian death ray from George Pal’s War of the Worlds.
• The episode “The Night Ghoul of Wonderland” has the gang tackle an amusement park full of robots in an obvious homage to Michael Crichton’s Westworld.
• Scrappy-Doo often horns in on Fred’s territory by creating “Scrappy Traps” to catch the villain.
• In “I Left My Neck in San Francisco” we get a rare episode where one of the Scooby gang is a suspect, in this case, it’s Daphne because she failed to have a reflection and thus was suspected of being a vampire.
• The final episode “The Ransom of Scooby Chief” could be considered as a test run for the following series as Fred, Daphne and Velma are pretty much absent during this mystery.

 

“We’ll be back in about three years.”

There is no love lost between me and Scrappy-Doo as his addition to the franchise sidelined some of my favourite characters in favour of an obnoxious little twit whose annoyance was only matched by his punchability, but to be fair, he wasn’t as useless as say the likes of the Brady Bunch’s Cousin Oliver, yet anytime I hear "Lemme at 'em!" or "Puppy Power!" I'd quickly reach for my remote.  To me, Scrappy-Doo will forever symbolize the drop-in writing quality that would send the series spirally downwards for years to come and though the original Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo is far from the worst the franchise has had to offer over the years it did harken the dark times to come.

 

Beware of real the spooks to come.

Scrappy-Doo’s introduction may have saved the Scooby-Doo franchise from sliding into obscurity but it also foisted onto the world one of the most divisive characters in television history. The first run of Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo maintained much of the mystery element of the original Scooby-Doo cartoons, sadly that was not to last very long.

Quest for Camelot (1998) – Review

Based on the fantasy novel The King's Damosel by Vera Chapman, Quest for Camelot was Warner Brothers' attempt at moving in on Disney’s long-held territory of animated fantasy films, unfortunately, they had very little chance of doing this with films like The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast kicking off the Disney Renaissance period and it certainly would have taken something better than a film based on a little-known novel to knock Disney off that pedestal. That the studio made so many changes from the source material, making it barely recognizable to anyone who'd read the book, certainly didn't help matters much, that all said "How does it stand up on its own as an Arthurian fantasy film?"  Let's take a look.

The protagonist of Quest for Camelot is a young girl named Kayley (Jessalyn Gilsig), who dreams of one day becoming a Knight of Round Table like her father (Gabriel Byrne), but when said father is killed by a vile knight named Ruber (Gary Oldman) during an attempt to overthrow King Arthur (Pierce Brosnan), her dreams are put on hold - it should be noted that killing off a parent is a very Disney tactic so we can't fault Warner Brothers here - yet ten years later we still find Kayley dreaming of becoming a knight, despite her mother's (Jane Seymour) insistence that the Knights of the Round Table don’t need her help.  Way to support your daughter's dream, mom.  It's when the villainous Ruber returns to Camelot and steals the fabled sword Excalibur that our story finally kicks into gear as it’s up to Kayley to venture forth and save the kingdom.

 

“Your job is to marry a prince, not save the day.”

And what exactly does Kayley need to save Camelot from? Well, it turns out that Ruber has somehow come into possession of a magical elixir that will allow him to transform his soldiers into horrific mechanical monstrosities by melding them into whatever inanimate weapon they were holding. Ruber captures Kayley’s mother because he needs her to gain access to Camelot – an army of monsters apparently not enough of an advantage – and with Excalibur in his hands, nothing can stop him...well, except for one tiny wrinkle. Ruber had sent his winged griffin to steal Excalibur but when it is attacked by Merlin’s (John Gielgud) falcon it dropped the fabled sword into the Forbidden Forest and now it is a race between Ruber and Kaylee as to who will find the sword first.

 

Luckily she finds a man to help her.

Quest for Camelot is a perfect example of how not to tell a fantasy adventure story as it fails to give us any characters to root for. Kayley is a rather obnoxious heroine and the plot continually undercuts any "girl power" theme, and that she is teamed up with the rather boorish blind hermit Garrett (Cary Elwes) doesn’t help matters any as their travails through the Forbidden Forest vary from the pedantically lame to the outright insulting.  The story is hurt further any time we cut back to Ruber and his incompetent minions as we are then constantly reminded how lame a threat our villains truly are. Then if things weren’t bad enough the movie saddles us with some terrible comic relief, and I’m not even referring to the half-axe half-chicken voiced by Urkle, which is bad enough, but that of a two-headed dragon named Devon (Eric Idle) and Cornwall (Don Rickles) who dislike each other and cannot breathe fire or fly.  To call anything "comedic" concerning this pair would be an insult to comedy.

 

“We are the reasons cousins shouldn’t marry.”

The poor excuse for comedy presented here isn’t even the film’s worse failing because the plot itself is beyond the pale moronic. Ruber’s plan makes little to no sense, as is the inclusion of Kayley’s mother as a hostage as it is completely unnecessary, and when our heroes eventually find Excalibur and escape the Forbidden Forest we get blind asshat Garret telling Kaylee he won't be continuing on to Camelot with her, giving her some bullshit excuse about “There’s no place for me in Camelot” and sending her on her way alone.  Who needs a badass blind-fighter when the fate of the kingdom is on the line?  Thus he abandons her so that she can then be quickly captured by Ruber a few minutes later. Are we truly supposed to sympathize with anyone in this film?

 

Did we really need Kayley to become a damsel in distress?

Garrett will, of course, come to the rescue, along with Devon and Cornwall who can now breathe fire and fly, and they will save Kayley from Ruber’s minions.  It should be noted that the only interesting thing Kayley does in is this entire movie is tricking Ruber into sticking Excalibur back into the Stone, yet the film then backtracks this female empowering moment by having her and Garrett ride off into the sunset together like any other clichéd fantasy. Don’t screenwriters understand things like character arcs? Earlier in the film Kayley wasn’t interested in getting a new dress, she wanted to be a Knight of the Round Table, yet when the film ends she gets a seat at the table but still ends up with a new dress.

 

Way to undercut your “Girl Power” message, guys.

Stray Thoughts:

• When Excalibur is stolen Arthur orders horns to be blown to alert the populace of the theft. Question: Is Excalibur stolen so often that there is a recognizable horn signal for when this occurs?
• Kayley's father is voiced by Gabriel Byrne who played Uther Pendragon in John Boorman’s Excalibur.
• Though she’s not a Disney Princess Kayley is still your stereotypical female protagonist who dreams of something more than this provincial life.
• The two-headed dragon Devon and Cornwall tell Kayley and Garrett that they can’t go back to the Dragon Country because if they do they will be “Banished and exiled for helping humans.” How is not going back any differently than being exiled?
• Don Rickles and Eric Idle’s constant slew of anachronistic jokes was clearly an attempt to copy Robin William’s performance as the Genie from Disney’s Aladdin. They failed.
• The movie is 99% traditional animation but then they throw in a CGI ogre that would barely pass muster on an episode of the animated series Reboot.
• When Excalibur is returned to the Stone everyone is suddenly healed and all the men who were turned into monstrous half-men half-weapons revert back to normal but for some reason, Garret remains blind. As magic items go Excalibur is a total dick.
• The big question is, of course, how did a knight like Sir Uber even earn a seat at the Round Table in the first place?

 

This guy reeks of evil from his every pore.

As mentioned this film was based on the fantasy novel The King's Damosel by Vera Chapman but Quest for Camelot bears very little resemblance to the book. The novel consisted of two sisters, an arranged marriage, the rape of one of the sisters by a mentor figure, a Red Knight who attacks their home and demands the eldest daughter marry him, and the younger sister escaping to Camelot to plead to King Arthur for help in rescuing her sister. Now, there is a blind dude who eventually shows up in the story, and he does provide a love interest for the heroine, but he also ends up dying in her arms.  This leaves one wondering, "Did the filmmakers even read the bloody book?"

 

I don't expect rape in my cartoons but was this the best alternative?

If we set aside the movie’s complete bastardization of the source material, and to be fair Disney is often guilty of the exact same thing, but at least the folks at Disney have the ability to tell a cohesive story which they then populate with amazing songs, but that is not the case here. This film has about a dozen songs throughout its 86 minute running time and most have nothing to do with the plot or character development, they are an assembled collection of inane drivel that will have you reaching for the fast-forward button. There is one good song in this film titled “The Prayer,” which was wonderfully performed by Celine Dion, but it was dropped into the film with absolutely no thought to context. The music arranger for this film should have been drawn and quartered or at least sealed away in a Crystal Cave.

 

"Could anyone see if Morgan le Fay is available?"

Quest for Camelot rightly bombed at the box office with its lazy animation, poor storytelling and forgettable songs ensuring that this film would not make the list of childhood classics.

The Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt Hour (1976-1978) – Review

Following the cancellation of The New Scooby-Doo Movies and the reruns of Scooby-Doo, Where are You!, our cowardly canine and his friends found themselves moving from CBS to ABC where the hour-long format used for the New Scooby-Doo Movies would continue in the form of The Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt Hour. This series would sandwich together an episode of The Scooby-Doo Show with an episode of Dynomutt, Dog Wonder and though the two shows mostly worked independently, we did get the occasional crossover.

Sixteen episodes of The Scooby-Doo Show were produced as part of The Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt Hour in 1976 — though eight more segments would be produced for Scooby’s All-Star Laff-A-Lympics — and this incarnation would retain the format of the original Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! where the Scooby gang would entangle themselves with some nefarious spook or monster that would inevitably turn out to be just some dude in a mask. This run of The Scooby-Doo Show also brought us some of the classic Scooby-Doo ghosts and monsters such as the 10,000-Volt Ghost from “What a Shocking Ghost,” and in the following episode, “The Headless Horseman of Halloween,” the gang encountered one of literature’s most famous spectres. This series also included the return of the zombie from “Which Witch Is Which,” and to date is still one of the creepier monsters in the Scooby-Doo canon.

 

In retrospect, pink is a decidedly non-scary colour for a zombie to wear.

Not only did this run of Scooby-Doo cartoons team up the Scooby gang with a pair of “superheroes” it also introduced the world to Scooby-Doo’s cousin Scooby-Dum (Don Messick) in the episode “The Gruesome Game of the Gator Ghoul.” Though he’s basically a Mortimer Snerd version of Scooby-Doo, his stupidity results in him being both extremely brave and extremely cowardly, depending on whether or not he’s actually noticed the danger he’s facing. The character of Scooby-Dum has the desire to be a police dog despite his uselessness when it comes to solving a mystery — though his ignorance of the laws of physics has led to him helping his friends out of a jam — and when anyone mentions the word “Clue,” he’d leap into action with his trademark catchphrase, "Clue? Dum, dum, dum, dum," to the strains of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5.

 

Scooby-Dum — a pure example of Southern Fried Stupidity.

The other half of this hour-long show was, of course, Dynomutt, the Dog Wonder, a show that answered the question, “What if Batman teamed-up with a robot version of Scooby-Dum?” The basic premise of this show was that millionaire socialite art dealer Radley Crown (Gary Owens) and his mechanical dog Dynomutt (Frank Welker) hang out in the lap of luxury until they are alerted by the Falcon Flash. They then rush off to the Falcon’s Lair to switch to their secret identities: the Blue Falcon and Dog Wonder.

 

Our dynamic duo?

In each episode, they would tackle various bizarre criminals that look more like rejects from Batman’s Rogues Gallery than credible threats to Big City. With the likes of the caveman Lowbrow and a talking worm that even Captain Marvel wouldn’t give the time of day, there wasn’t much here to offer fans of superhero adventure.

 

This is their idea of a spoof of the superhero genre?

When watching Dynomutt, the Dog Wonder, a person will get a distinct Inspector Gadget vibe, as Dynomutt employs a system of miniaturized transistors that allows him to extend his limbs or neck and use them to perform extraordinary feats as well as launch various self-serving gadgets. Unfortunately, like the aforementioned Inspector Gadget, his innate clumsiness results in numerous mechanical mishaps that often result in the Blue Falcon calling Dynomutt “Dog Blunder.” It’s important to note that this show came out seven years before Inspector Gadget, and so one can rightfully assume that the creators of that show heavily ripped off the concept from Dynomutt. As a sidekick, Dynomutt is presented as a loveable goofball, but how much of his supergadgetry and silly antics you can stand will be a litmus test to how well you liked this show.

 

“Stronger than a train with a so-so brain!”

Stray Observations:

• In the episode “High Rise Hair Raiser,” we find the Scooby Gang hanging out at the malt shop bemoaning their lack of funds, with Shaggy scanning the want ads and Daphne commenting, “Good idea Shaggy, we’re running out of money.” This is one of those rare times when our heroes seem to be concerned about money.
• The 10,000 Volt Ghost seemed to be borrowing his origin story from the Spider-Man villain Electro.
• The Headless Horseman is one of the few recurring phantoms to plague the Scooby gang. First in this series then later in Scooby-Doo Meet the Boo Brothers, next in Lego form in Lego Scooby-Doo! Haunted Hollywood, and finally in Scooby-Doo! and the Goblin King.
• In the episode “Scared a Lot in Camelot,” we meet Shaggy’s rich uncle, Shagworthy, a zillionaire who had King Arthur’s castle transported stone by stone to America. Which begs the question: just how rich is Shaggy’s family? He has an incredible Uncle Nathaniel we meet in “The Loch Ness Mess” and in one of the early Scooby-Doo movies, Scooby-Doo Meet the Boo Brothers, Shaggy inherits a Southern plantation. Even Shaggy’s parents are rich, as we see them living in a large estate during their retirement in the episode “Wedding Bell Blues.” In the series Shaggy & Scooby-Doo Get a Clue!, Shaggy himself is the inheritor of billions of dollars. So, how can the Scooby gang ever run into money troubles?
• The cheesy narration in Dynomutt, Dog Wonder is an obvious steal from William Dozier’s narration in the Adam West Batman television show.
• In the final team-up between Mystery Inc. and the Blue Falcon and Dynomutt, we get Scooby and Shaggy impersonating the dynamic duo and they make a far more believable crime-fighting team.

 

The Blue Beatnik and Scoob-Wonder.

The cartoons that make up The Scooby-Doo Show feel like a solid continuation from the original Scooby-Doo, Where Are You, with their delightfully goofy mysteries and those meddling kids and their dumb dog, while the Dynomutt, the Dog Wonder comes across more as a dull Batman knock-off, with villains who seem ridiculous even by Scooby-Doo standards. The animation is also substandard when compared to what we find in the Scooby-Doo half of the show. Fans of Scooby-Doo will get a lot of enjoyment out of the mysteries found in this incarnation, but these selfsame fans may want to skip the Dynomutt portion as they have decidedly less entertainment value other than a nostalgic appeal.

Note: In the 2010-2013 run of Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, there is an episode called “Heart of Evil” where we are given an origin story for a very cool and updated version of The Blue Falcon and Dynomut