Critical End!

If you’re anything like me or Ryan, you’re still trying to get over Sunday night’s Oscars.  Personally, I’m considering therapy.  In case you missed it (lucky), I’d love to tell you that there were some highlights, but besides the stunning “tribute” to “horror” and the moment where some crazy honky chick crashed the show, there’s not much to talk about.

Except for this:

Now then, I think it’s rather obvious that the entire thing was just pissing Reeves off, however for some reason MTV has actually made the Internet believe that this may really be happening…which it isn’t…unless it does…which it won’t.

Expect it in 3D this summer.

Vigilante justice.

We’ve discussed the possibility before, but after the success (I think) of the recent HomeAway.com short, a new Vacation film is looking more and more likely.  This one supposedly features an adult Rusty, taking his family to Wally World one last time before it closes for good, leading me to wonder if they’ll title it Vacation 5: The Final Vacation.  The rumor is that the studio hopes to bring Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo along for the ride.

Now, I love Chevy.  And I love the Vacation movies.  But my question is, would this really be a good idea for Chevy’s career?  He’s just now sneaking his way back into the public consciousness with Community.  Yes, the HomeAway.com thing wasn’t a total failure, but if Chevy returns to one of his 80’s franchises, one that is generally known for lackluster sequels, might this end up being  a step backward in his return to comedy legend status?

I suppose it depends on two things:

1. The writing, which is reportedly being handled by at least one writer of The Geena Davis Show, so we should be in good hands.
2. The Rusty.  If Rusty is really taking the lead role here, as the plot rumors indicate, we need an adult actor who can fill the roll of the ever-revolving fruit of Chevy’s loins.  Ryan Reynolds comes to mind, but he’s probably too high profile for a Vacation sequel.  Plus he’ll be busy with Green Lantern and Deadpool.  Same problem with Paul Rudd.  Jason Lee is another Chevy devotee, and since My Name is Earl got canceled, he’s available.  The question is whether or not he’s bankable enough.

Of course this is all moot for me.  They’ve already got my money, as does Hot Tub Time Machine and any other Chevy comedy.  What about you guys?

[Via /Film]

Alas, The Descent: Part 2, my theater hardly knew ye. 

After waiting a few years for this follow up, Lionsgate announced yesterday that the sequel will go straight to DVD on April 27.  However, don’t for a second think that this is some made for DVD, shot on DV, crap horror sequel.  The Descent: Part 2 actually had a full theatrical run in it’s native UK.  It opened to mixed reviews from both fans and critics (most point out that the sequel is played mostly for laughs, which is odd as the original was extremely hardcore horror), but for those of you who loved Neil Marshall’s creepy, claustrophobic, and highly original first film, this sequel is a must.

Expect a review as soon as I can get my hands on a copy.  Here’s some info on the DVD.

Been to the video store recently?  Scan the new release wall and you’ll quickly discover that there is a straight to DVD sequel to a film that you only vaguely remember anyway.  Take an extra moment to pick up any one of these and you’ll discover something else: That movie is most likely a straight to DVD sequel of several other straight to DVD sequels that you never cared to see either.  I’m not quite sure why Hollywood works this way, but somewhere somebody must be making some serious cash off of The Land Before Time XIII: The Wisdom of Friends (after 13 films, I’m sure there’s lots of wisdom to go around).  Here are a few of my favorite DVD sequels that you most likely missed out on in the last year:

Free Willy 4: Escape From Pirate’s Cove
How the hell did Free Willy ever become a franchise?  Didn’t they free him in the first film?  Does he keep getting trapped again?  If so, that dumb ass whale deserves to die.  What a jerk.  Anywho, this movie looks awesome.  Check out that trailer!  It has that fuzzy “we swear it’s film” look that a lot of straight to DVD films have, the “acting” talents of Bindi Irwin (ten bucks says she finds a way to rap in the film), and poor Beau Bridges stumbling around in what appears to be a homemade pirate costume.  Personally?  I’m fanning it on Facebook as we speak.

Bring it On 5: Fight to the Finish

Yes, you read that right, this is part 5 of the Bring it On saga.  What exactly is this “it” and when do they plan to finally have it brought on?  Let’s just hope that putting the word “finish” in the title implies that this is definitely going to be the last film.  The space limit on my Netflix queue means I can only hold four Bring it On films.  Also, what’s up with the guy on the cover?  Even he is all like, “…the hell?”
 

Step Up 3D
Not really straight to DVD, but I had to put this on here as a warning.  Early reviews are calling this the best 3D dance film since Avatar.  Oh, and according to the IMDB cast list, the characters have great names like Cable, Moose, Hair, Backround, Jenny Kido, and Press Box Patton.  Clearly, if Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo had been in 3D they would still be pumping out sequels to it out as well.

More to come as soon as I catch up on those Land Before Time movies.  Wait, Cuba Gooding, Jr. is in the new one?

Remember when we warned you about Chevy’s return as Clark Griswold via a Super Bowl ad for HomeAway?  Well, here’s a sneak peak at what we can expect:

You're gonna to make it after all!

Bruce Campbell has announced that he will star in a follow-up to My Name is Bruce, in which he played a comically exaggerated self-deprecating version of himself that saves a small town from a demon.  In the sequel, Bruce Vs. Frankenstein, he’ll wind up in Europe where he, presumably, will save a small European town from a mad scientist and his monstrous creation.  I’m not sure what got Campbell going on this, but if he wants to remake the rest of Abbott and Costello’s oeuvre while he’s at it (Bruce Campbell Chainsaws the Mummy, Bruce Campbell Wrestles the Invisible Man, The Wistful She-Bitch of Wagon Gap, etc.), I’m completely on board.

Honestly, though, My Name is Bruce wasn’t all that hot.  It was hokey, like a lot of Campbell’s work, but it lacked the Sam Raimi execution that makes that kind of thing work.  And Ted Raimi turned in four performances that made me realize why Sam usually limits him to cameos.  Here’s hoping they pull it off a bit better this time.

[via /Film]

I’m something of an Alien and Predator nerd.  I admit that even the worst film in the series, Predator 2, has a 2 disc home in my DVD collection.  I also admit that I’m quite looking forward to the upcoming Predator sequel, Predators.  Nothing but good news has come out of the rumor-mill so far: Robert Rodriguez producing, Topher Grace and Adam Brody starring (?!), non-CG effects courtesy of K.N.B., and maybe even a cameo from Schwarzenegger’s Dutch.

All of that being said, I was excited to find out that several photos were leaked out and posted online.  You can view most of them here, but I would be lying if I told you that they gave anything away…except for one that is.  Look closely at this photo of stars Adam Brody and Oleg Taktarov…

Yes, that is, in fact, a Predator standing on a goofy yellow ladder in the background.  It would appear that Hollywood has FINALLY gotten around to making the Chevy Chase-influenced slapstick Predator film that I pitched years back.

It’s once again that time of year when families gather around the warm glow of the television and watch such holiday classics as It’s a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Story, Home Alone, and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation to name a few.  Sure, your pals here at Critical End! watch those too, but when the hour grows late, the fire has died down, and the kids from Ryan’s third marriage have all gone to bed, that’s when the real Christmas fun begins.  Logan mixes his “special” eggnog (Ingredients: Eggnog, mostly booze), while Ryan warms up the DVD player for those holiday slasher films known as Silent Night, Deadly Night.  This year, in honor of the birth of Christ our savior (Okay, and the release of Parts 3 to 5 on DVD), we thought we’d let Logan share his opinion on each film in a special 5 part series each week until Christmas. 

This week Logan concludes with a look at Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toy Maker. 

Body Count: 4?  Boring!

Best Death Scene: A worm-like toy called, and I swear I’m not making this up, “Larry the Larvae”, crawls into a guys mouth and later explodes out of his eye socket…then his car blows up.  Talk about a rough day…

Looking back now in retrospect, if I knew that the Silent Night, Deadly Night series was going to completely suck, I wouldn’t have told you that the earlier movies sucked.  Just when I thought that I had expierenced the most suckage that I could from the series, I had to go and ruin it by watching parts 3 to 5…and to think that I waited all this time just to buy these last three films on DVD.  There’s a simple reason why they took so long to come out: Because these films should be destroyed.  Yes, when I started this whole mess I never thought that I would side with Mickey Rooney, but now I see how right he was!  The only problem: By the time Part 5 came out, even Mickey Rooney had forgotten how right he was.

Some of you horror nerds may know the name Brian Yuzna as the writer/director of the last two Re-Animator movies.  Remember after you saw the first Re-Animator (he had nothing to do with it) and you had high hopes for all of the sequels?  Well, don’t worry, as he went on to ruin the Silent Night, Deadly Night series as well.  Granted, this series never had the amazingly awesome Jeffrey Combs to keep it slightly afloat (Can you imagine him as a killer Santa?  Somebody write that movie!), in fact, now that I think about it, Yuzna turned Clint Howard into the star of these last two films.  Doesn’t that just say it all?

I think this picture says it all.

But I promised a review, so I’ll attempt to deliver one: Mickey Rooney, despite his hatred of the 1984 original film’s portrayal of a killer Santa Claus, shows up as the killer Santa in this one.  Of course, this isn’t until the last 15 minutes of the film.  By that point the viewer has been forced to sit through some cocktail napkin plot that plays out like a soap opera.  Why won’t little Derek talk?  Who is his real dad?  Why is he the same boy who played little Bill in Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey?  Is he supposed to be Bill in this movie too?  Why is Mickey Rooney so fat?  Did they pay him entirely in hoagies?  If so, I wonder how much that many hoagies would cost?  By the time you learn the answers to most of these questions, you no longer care.  Oh, and it turns out that Mickey Rooney wasn’t even the killer Santa…a robot Mickey Rooney was.  How’s that for a twist ending?

So where does this film fall in the entire series?  Flat on it’s fat ol’ bloated Mickey Rooney/Clint Howard dildo wearing face, that’s where.  Granted, this is where the last three films have mostly landed as well, but I really wanted to type the words “Clint Howard” and “dildo” again.  It really brought a lot of traffic to the site when I did it last week.  Anyway, my final thoughts on the Silent Night, Deadly Night series are thus: Watch the second one only…and only if you’re REALLY in need of a Christmas film…and drunk…and blind…and mostly deaf in both ears…you know, come to think of it, you may want to avoid Christmas altogether this year so you don’t accidentally see any of these movies…Clint Howard dildo.

 Rating:
2 out of 10

Series Average:
Rating:
3 out of 10

I really hope that you guys and gals enjoyed this series.  As always, we love your thoughts, requests, and comments on anything we do here at Critical End!  Have a great holiday.

It’s once again that time of year when families gather around the warm glow of the television and watch such holiday classics as It’s a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Story, Home Alone, and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation to name a few.  Sure, your pals here atCritical End! watch those too, but when the hour grows late, the fire has died down, and the kids from Ryan’s third marriage have all gone to bed, that’s when the real Christmas fun begins.  Logan mixes his “special” eggnog (Ingredients: Eggnog, mostly booze), while Ryan warms up the DVD player for those holiday slasher films known as Silent Night, Deadly Night.  This year, in honor of the birth of Christ our savior (Okay, and the release of Parts 3 to 5 on DVD), we thought we’d let Logan share his opinion on each film in a special 5 part series each week until Christmas. 

This week Logan looks at Initiation: Silent Night, Deadly Night 4. 

Body Count: 5 (…wha?  Only 5?!)

Best Death Scene: Whatever you do, NEVER beat Clint Howard with a broom.  It’ll make him mad enough to stab you to death with a butter knife.

I’ll be frank: I have no clue what the hell Initiation: Silent Night, Deadly Night 4 was about.  I had a hard enough time trying to wrap my head around the odd arrangement of the title.  I think it involved bugs…no wait, that’s not right…I think it involved lesbian bugs.  Is that even possible?  What the hell is going on here?  All I remember for sure is that it started off so great…

Want to see this face do a whole lot of things that should be illegal? Rent this movie.

Picture this: We open on a cold, windy December night on some rat infested back street.  The city is quiet, save for a low clicking sound.  As the clicking grows louder, we realize that it’s the broken wheel on a shopping cart being pushed by a bum who hasn’t showered in weeks.  This bum: Clint Howard.  He stops his cart as something shiny catches his eye in the gutter.  Bum Clint Howard bends down and picks up the bug infested remains of a soggy hamburger.  Ever the happy go lucky hobo, he sighs and says to himself, “What?  No cheese?”  Suddenly a scream is heard!  Clint looks up just in time to see a woman jump from a building!  And she’s on fire too!  Freakin’ awesome!  Cut to: opening credits.  Sounds great, right?  Well, that’s about as good as this “movie” ever gets.  Not caring if I give too much away, I think we can safely say that this film is seriously crazy ass insane.  That’s not a good thing.  Ditching the Ricky/killer Santa story line completely, this film attempts to pull a Halloween III and take the franchise in a whole new direction.  The “story” this time has to do a young investigative reporter hot on the trail of a murder in which Bum Clint Howard is the only witness.  This would be okay if she wasn’t the WORST investigative reporter of all time.  Not only does she allow herself to get drugged twice, but at one unintentionally hilarious point in the film, she literally stands on a HUGE clue for an entire scene and never notices it.  Anyway, when she eventually wises up a bit too late, all of the evidence leads her into a second and third act that involves, and I kid you not, lesbian bugs.  Oh, and then the film gets weird: Cockroaches grow huge, Clint Howard watches clips from Silent Night, Deadly Night 3 while a couple has sex in a bed behind him, and the lead reveals she’s Jewish despite the Christmas theme of the film.  Around the time that Howard strapped a dildo to his face while three old women rubbed grease all over his hairy chest, I started to think that maybe somebody had spiked my eggnog.

Alas, that wasn’t the case.  Turns out that Initiation: Silent Night, Deadly Night 4 is just as strange as it’s title.  What exactly the “initiation” mentioned in the title was, I can’t quite say.  All I do know for sure is that I some how survived it…and I will NOT be doing it again next Christmas.

Rating:
2 out of 10

Next week: Oh God, I have another week of this?!  After watching this film, I never want to see another movie again.  In fact, I now hate movies AND Christmas.  Damn, you Howard.  Sigh…next week the series comes to an end with a story about killer toys.  Oh, and I fully expect them to be killer lesbian toys as well.

MAJOR SPOILER ALERT…well, maybe.

While doing press rounds for Avatar it appears that Sigourney Weaver accidentally spilled the beans about a major plot point in the upcoming Ghostbusters 3.  I give you her exact quote:

“I might be in it; I see nothing wrong with being in it, although I don’t think I will have a big part. I think Bill Murray has a little more to do with it – he’s a ghost.”

Wow…really, Ghostbusters 3?  Are you aware that you haven’t even gone into production yet and you’ve succeeded at raping the characters that I loved all through my childhood?  I blame Judd Apatow.

Read the rest of what she said (Including the future of baby Oscar!) here.