Friday, November 23, 2018

Boogeyman 2 Redux (2002)

5 REASONS TO WATCH BOOGEYMAN 2 REDUX






1. BOOGEYMAN 1

The original Boogeyman (1980) is a classic. A fantastic movie! You get to see that movie nearly fully in this Director's Cut of its sequel. Yes, you read that right. While the original sequel (1983) had about half of the movie be flashbacks of the original, this Director's Cut drastically cuts down the sequel's original material and puts even more Boogeyman 1 flashbacks in. Somewhere around 80-90% of the movie is now flashbacks of Boogeyman 1.





2. META NARRATIVE

When this Director's Cut of the sequel to the original isn't showing the original movie, it's showing the director being interrogated about the murders that happened in the original. So, in other words, the director initially made a sequel to his movie that had only about half of it new material, and then made a director's cut of that sequel where he not only replaced the original sequel material with more material from the original movie but also added himself talking in front of a white wall.

It takes a crazy genius to do something like that. RIP Ulli Lommel.





3. BLACK & WHITE STILL SHOTS

Not only the movie is 80-90% flashbacks of the original movie and most of the rest being the director talking to the camera, it also cuts to black and white production stills (or just simple screenshots) from time to time. And no, it's not because it is a making of documentary or anything like that. It is part of the actual narrative. Something about "the memories coming back like still images" or something.


So yes, this director's cut removes a lot of the original sequel content in favor of more footage from the first movie, footage of the director being interrogated and black and white still shots here and there.

But don't worry, the director did actually find a workaround to keep the original sequel content while cutting it off. How? Often when the actual content from the sequel appears on screen it's fast-forwarded at double or triple its original speed.



4. BOOGEYMAN 1, AGAIN

Seriously, look at this! Boogeyman 1 is a fantastic movie and it's always a treat to watch, be it in a sequel or in the director's cut of the sequel.







5. MAKES YOU IMAGINE INTERESTING THINGS

Imagine, say, Steven Spielberg announcing a Director's Cut of Lost World: Jurassic Park.

People would go to theater to watch it. They would be greeted with 80% being the original Jurassic Park, 5% being black and white still shots, 5% being sped-up scenes from the sequel and 10% being Steven Spielberg in front of a white wall defending himself from the accusations of him being the killer in the original Jurassic Park.


It takes a crazy genius to do something like that. Spielberg isn't but Ulli Lommel was!




Saturday, November 10, 2018

I, Madman (1989)

5 REASONS TO WATCH I, MADMAN (1989)






1. HANK(?) STALLONE

If you can't get Sylvester Stallone in your movie you'll call Frank Stallone and ask if he could do a small role for you.

If you don't get Frank Stallone in your movie you'll ask anyone who looks like him to do the role, and BANG you've got a lookalike of a Sylvester Stallone lookalike in your movie.

For anyone interested, the actor's name is Steven Memel. At least his first name starts with ST like in Stallone, but then it kinda drops every ounce of an action star "let's put this name on the poster, all caps, font size 1000" potential it might've ever had.





2. UNDERWEAR CATALOGUE FLASHBACK

This is like a lady straight from a department store catalogue's underwear section back in early 90's (think of Anttilan kuvasto in Finland and maybe a Sears catalogue in the US). Complete with see-through clothing and all.




3. HYPER REALITY BOOK PREMISE

 The books in the movie make situations in those books happen in real life.



In a not so subtle manner the books even have this written in them:

"All the characters in this book are real, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is intentional."

And if that wasn't clear enough, they're even categorized as NON-FICTION.

 



4. CAT JUMP SCARE

A cat suddenly jumps on the table and the lady spills her coffee. Some might think that's bad writing and it's 100% unnecessary in any horror script ever and it's just a cheap scare, but hey, cats are like that. The next time a cat jumps on you unexpectedly are you going to say he just does cheap scares? Are you calling life bad writing?





5. SUPER EFFECTS

In the most intense way possible a door gets ripped to hell and a demon dog monster jumps in presumably from the same hell dimension the door just got ripped off into.