THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS

 

Publicity poster for The Nightmare Before Christmas (© Henry Selick/Tim Burton/Touchstone Pictures/Skellington Productions/Buena Vista Pictures Distribution – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

My movie watch on 11 October 2023 (I couldn't wait until 31 October, a more suitable date for watching a Halloween-relevant film like this one) was actually a rewatch – of one of my all-time favourite animated musical films. Namely, Tim Burton's supremely spooky stop-motion masterpiece The Nightmare Before Christmas (or Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas, to give it its full official title).

Directed by Henry Selick, conceived and co-produced by Tim Burton from his original 1980s story-poem, and released in 1993 by Walt Disney Studio's Buena Vista Pictures (followed by a 2006 re-release in 3D by Walt Disney Pictures), The Nightmare Before Christmas has as its central character the charismatic, enigmatic, Gothic-garbed, and eponymously-skeletal Jack Skellington (voiced when speaking by Chris Sarandon).

Jack is the Pumpkin King, the perennially popular Leader of the perpetually phantasmal, ghoulish realm of Halloween Town (cue this film musical's first song, 'This is Halloween'). Lately, however, he has become bored of his realm's annual Halloween festival (cue the poignant, melancholic song 'Jack's Lament'), and seeks something new, something different. So Fate duly if unexpectedly obliges him, when Jack accidentally enters the perpetually festive, joyful realm of Christmas Town and becomes enraptured by what he sees, hears, and senses there (cue the movie's most famous song, 'What's This?', sung in amazement by Jack when he encounters and explores the wonders of Christmas Town – click here to listen to and view it as it appears in the film).

Inspired immeasurably with unconscionable cheer, Jack decides to bring Christmas – and Santa Claus (voiced by Ed Ivory after first choice Vincent Price had to drop out through ill health) – to Halloween Town. Like so many good intentions, however, Jack's don't go according to plan, and although they don't lead to Hell, they do lead to Halloween Town's dreaded bogeyman, Oogie Boogie (voiced and sung by Ken Page) when this evil entity (an animate sack filled with hundreds of creepy-crawly bugs!) captures poor Santa and threatens to do bad things to him – very bad things!! Moreover, like so many of the most memorable Disney villains, Oogie Boogie has one of the best songs in the movie – namely, the self-explanatory 'Oogie Boogie's Song' (and here it is), staged in a dazzlingly psychedelic setting.

Meanwhile, it's up to Jack, assisted by Frankensteinian rag doll and love interest Sally (Catherine O'Hara), created from spare parts by the sinister, hyper-controlling mad scientist Doctor Finkelstein (William Hickey) to be his compliant daughter but who only has eyes for Jack (cue 'Sally's Song'), together with all of the other Halloween Town inhabitants (including Jack's ghostly but seriously cute glowing-nosed pet dog Zero), to rescue Santa Claus (or Sandy Claws, as Jack and co all mistakenly call him!) and restore him as well as everything else to how it all used to be and needs once more to be in both Towns – no easy task!

The Nightmare Before Christmas is painstakingly detailed, immensely inventive, and visually spectacular, but this incredible dark fantasy-themed movie is enhanced still further by the suitably eerie music and almost a dozen songs composed for it by Danny Elfman – who also provides the singing voice of Jack.

I'm not a massive Burton fan – quite frankly, I find his obsessive pre-occupation with darkness and death somewhat morbid and not a little disturbing and depressing at times – but this movie is truly amazing to watch and listen to, a perfect example of the very special cinematic magic that no other medium can even begin to conjure forth.

Indeed, The Nightmare Before Christmas was actually nominated for an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects (losing out to Jurassic Park); and was accorded the coveted #1 position by voters for a 2008 listing by the film review website Rotten Tomatoes of the Top 25 Best Christmas Movies (click here to access the entire listing and check through its 25 ranked entries, film by film).

Although there have been thoughts by Disney ever since 2001 about producing a sequel to this movie, but in either CGI animation or live–action format rather than stop-motion again, nothing has materialized; ditto re a recently-expressed wish by its original director, Henry Selick, to produce a prequel, revealing how Jack became the Pumpkin King. Moreover, earlier this present month, November 2023, Burton was quoted in an Empire magazine interview article (click here to read it) as saying that he has no wish to revisit the movie, either via sequels or reboots.

So with the exception of its appearances in certain video games, it looks as if we shall have to content ourselves with re-experiencing the one and only visit to Halloween Town and Jack Skellington that is currently (and may well ever be) available – The Nightmare Before Christmas. But as this is such an eminently rewatchable movie, one that reveals new delights each and every time that we return to it, this is not so terrible a hardship as might otherwise be the case.

And if you would like to pay a visit to Halloween Town right now, be sure to click here to watch an official trailer on YouTube for The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Finally: to view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

The front and back covers of my copy of the definitive book on this movie – Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas: The Film – The Art – The Vision, written by Frank Thompson, with a foreword by Tim Burton, and packed throughout with countless beautiful full-colour illustrations as well as the film's complete song lyrics (© Frank Thompson/Roundtable Press Books/Disney Enterprises, Inc. – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

VIENNA WAITS FOR YOU (aka LACE)

 

Publicity poster for Vienna Waits For You (© Dominik Hartl/Glaciar Films – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

On 25 August 2023, I watched a truly creepy German supernatural/horror-themed fantasy featurette (26 minutes long), with English subtitles, entitled Vienna Waits For You (aka Lace).

Directed by Dominik Hartl, written by Sarah Wassermair, and released in 2012 by Glaciar Films, Vienna Waits For You focuses upon a vivacious young woman named Anna (played by Petra Staduan), full of life and energy, who moves into an old apartment within a multi-storey block of them, situated in a run-down backstreet region of Austria's capital city, Vienna (which is where this mini-movie was shot on location).

The apartment's present tenant, an elderly woman, seems unexpectedly eager to move out of it, even leaving all of the furniture and knick-knacks behind as soon as Anna has signed the lease – signing it, I might add, without reading any of the fine print. Oh-oh…

As the apartment is shabby and dusty, Anna decides to clean and declutter it, taking several black bags full of the old porcelain figures, lace doilies on the sofa and elsewhere, and sundry other oddments filling the rooms to the waste disposal bins outside, but when she goes back inside the apartment she is amazed to discover that it is just as dusty as before, and that all of the knick-knacks are back in place too!

Anna tries repeatedly to clean and declutter, but it seems that the apartment has other ideas, because every attempt is met with failure. And could those be wrinkles and grey hairs appearing when Anna looks in the mirror the next morning...?

Yes indeed they could, because – SPOILER ALERT!! – it turns out that this eerie apartment, which has existed here in inconspicuous anonymity for countless years, totally unchanged, is both sentient and vampirish!

For it has derived the vital life energy perpetuating its own inimical, inexplicable existence by draining it from its unfortunate succession of tenants down through the decades, and which is precisely what is now happening to the once-lively, energetic Anna, causing her to age prematurely, and precipitously, becoming old and decrepit in just a few weeks from when she had moved in.

Moreover, just like so many of its previous tenants, Anna is resolutely held prisoner within its rooms by the apartment throughout her accelerated physical shriveling. Like I say, all very creepy, and unsettling too, especially when Anna discovers precisely what the only way to free herself from this nightmarish dwelling-place and her otherwise inevitable end caged within it entails.

Namely, she must achieve what her lucky predecessor the old lady did, i.e. she must be replaced while still alive by someone else, someone young and unsuspecting who is willing to sign up as its new tenant. In other words, she must deliver a new victim to the apartment in order to release herself from its lethal captivity.

In a bittersweet twist, Anna actually receives the chance to achieve this when her ex-boyfriend Daniel (Moritz Vierboom) who had recently dumped her for someone else arrives unexpectedly with his new girlfriend (this character is never named in the movie but is played by Cosima Lehninger). Daniel is interested in signing the two of them up as new tenants if Anna is willing to move out, but, ironically, he has no idea that the person he is discussing this with, the apartment's current tenant, is Anna, because she is now so old in appearance that he doesn't recognise her.

Yet despite her desperation to escape and also her upset at seeing Daniel with her replacement, Anna cannot bring herself to persuade her ex and his lover to take the tenancy, and thereby inflict upon them this certain death sentence in order to save herself. So she angrily sends the two youngsters away, despite knowing that in doing so she has doomed herself.

By the end of Anna's cruelly curtailed life not long afterwards, even her blood has been stolen by the apartment, having been somehow replaced by cords of thread, and upon her death her entire etiolated body is transformed into another lace doily for the sofa (explaining this featurette's alternative title, Lace), just like the bodies of all of the apartment's previous trapped tenants were, which is why there are so many doilies scattered around in its dank rooms…

Vienna Waits For You is a singularly macabre, grotesque cinematic offering, to be sure, yet, bizarrely, it also includes some deliberate comedy moments, and even various unexpectedly cheery strains of music at times. What it does not include, however, is answers to the many questions that it poses.

How, for example, did this fiendish sentient apartment come into being? Why has it never been discovered, exposed, and destroyed somehow by the authorities? And why does the apartment block's live-in apartment leaser (played by Alexander Fennon), assigned by local officaldom to oversee the legal exchange of leases between this apartment's unsuspecting incoming and (all-too-rare) deliriously joyful outgoing tenants, seem powerless to prevent any of this malevolent scenario from occurring, time and again, even though he is fully aware of what is happening?

All very strange, as is this mini-movie itself, yet hypnotically watchable too, even if the final transformation of Anna from dolly bird into sofa doily via her unnatural, unnervingly swift senescence makes decidedly uncomfortable viewing – not to mention requiring an exceedingly substantial suspension of disbelief!

Incidentally, I have no idea whether the following intriguing little fact has any relevance to Vienna Waits For You or not but it is sufficiently coincidental to warrant a mention here. Totally different from Ultravox's song of the same title, 'Vienna' is a very familiar song written by Billy Joel that he included on his 1977 album The Stranger, and in it he uses Vienna as a metaphor for growing old. Could it be, I wonder, that this song perhaps served as inspiration for the present mini-movie under review here, in which ageing and Vienna are so intimately linked?

If you'd like to watch Vienna Waits For You, all that you need to do is what I did – access it free of charge on YouTube by clicking here.

Finally: to view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

REAL STEEL

 

My official UK DVD of Real Steel (© Shawn Levy/21 Laps Entertainment/Montford Murphy Productions/Dreamworks Pictures/Dreamworks Studios/Touchstone Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

On 29 September 2023, I watched the American sci fi movie Real Steel, which was based upon a 1956 short story entitled 'Steel', written by American sci fi/fantasy author and screenwriter Richard Matheson. Other writings by him that have been turned into major movies include the novels I Am Legend and What Dreams May Come plus several others, as well as the short story 'Duel' (featuring that infamously maniacal, psychotic but never seen on screen lorry driver). So I was hoping for a thrilling watch, and I wasn't disappointed.

Directed by Shawn Levy, including Steven Spielberg (from Dreamworks) and Robert Zemeckis (from Disney) as executive producers, and released in 2011 by Dreamworks Studios and Touchstone Pictures, Real Steel is set in what was then the near future (2020) when boxing matches no longer feature human pugilists but giant robots instead, programmed and remotely-controlled by their human owners.

Hugh Jackman plays former boxer (of the human kind) Charlie Kenton who is now a driven bot owner, but is down on his luck after his latest bot is totally thrashed and trashed in a rigged fight with a colossal steer. In addition, he finds himself attending a custody hearing for his 11-year-old son Max (Dakota Goyo) whom he has never met, after Max's mother, a former girlfriend of Charlie, dies unexpectedly.

Her sister Debra (Hope Davis) wants legal custody of Max, and Charlie does a shady deal with Debra's husband Marvin (James Rebhorn) behind her back to receive a sizeable payment if he allows them to adopt Max, but if he also looks after Max for 3 months while Debra and Marvin go on an extended summer holiday.

The money that Charlie duly receives enables him to buy a very superior bot, but once again his luck fails him and the bot is soon destroyed in a boxing match. However, Max, who has become increasingly interested in bot boxing from being with Charlie, uncovers at a junkyard an abandoned, dilapidated sparring bot of an early, long since surpassed grade, whose chest-plate name is Atom, and after restoring it he persuades Charlie to help him train Atom to box.

There is also a romantic subplot, featuring Charlie and Bailey Tallet (Evangeline Lilly), the feisty, all-grown-up daughter of Charlie's former boxing coach, and who now owns her late father's boxing gym. Bailey acts to a degree as a surrogate mother to Max while he is living with Charlie, and she also assists them, albeit sometimes reluctantly on account of Charlie's gung-ho approach, in the development of Atom.

The rest of the film follows the familiar themes of estranged father and son bonding via a common interest, and an underdog competitor beating all of the odds to reach the pinnacle – in this instance, Atom is pitted against the world's undefeated bot boxer, the mighty Zeus, in the resplendent Real Steel stadium. But can underdog Atom pull off the surprise win of all wins against this god-like entity that has been created by multi-millionaire genius robot inventor/designer Tak Mashido (Karl Yune) and programmed by him with the pugilistic knowledge of every modern-day boxing bot in existence?

Or might Zeus be taken aback by a much less powerful, far more primitive boxing bot, yet one that had been created back in the distant days when such bots were much more human both in form and in their style of boxing? Moreover, Atom has even been trained to box by a human boxer (Charlie), and therefore is far more unpredictable in tactics than modern boxing bots. Think Rocky with robots, plus a transfusion of Transformers, and you'll have a fair idea of what to expect, more or less…

As might be expected from such a film and storyline, Real Steel is packed with superb bot-engendering effects, for which the robots were created in real physical form (and controlled by puppeteers) as well as via CGI (featuring motion-capture using professional boxers supervised by boxing legend Sugar Ray Leonard). Indeed, this movie received an Academy Award nomination for Best Visual Effects (but lost to Hugo).

Having said that, Real Steel took a while to fully engage my interest, because beneath the bot facade it is really a sporting movie, and I am no sports fan. Even so, by about the halfway mark of its 2-hour run time I'd settled in, and became ever more drawn into the increasingly gripping storyline as it sped on towards its climactic David vs Goliath robo-gladiatorial confrontation between Atom and Zeus, augmented throughout by the excellent, empathic performances of Jackman and Goyo.

In short, Real Steel proved to be an unexpectedly entertaining movie for me, and is certainly well worth watching by everyone, but especially by sports fans, and video gamers too.

Additionally, a TV series is reportedly under development for Disney+, and a sequel movie starring Jackman again, as well as Ryan Reynolds conceivably, is also being considered – the latter in particular would be a delight, I'm sure, in view of the firm bond of comedy chemistry between these two actors as seen in the wonderful Deadpool movies (click here and here for my Deadpool reviews).

Meanwhile, if you'd like to view some belligerent boxing of the steel-sculpted variety, be sure to click here to watch an official Real Steel trailer on YouTube.

Finally: to view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

DROP DEAD FRED

 

Publicity shot of Rik Mayall as the title character in Drop Dead Fred (© Ate de Jong/PolyGram/Working Title Films/New Line Cinema/Rank Film Distributors/Manifesto Film Sales – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

My movie watch on 17 November 2023 was the strange but engrossing early 1990s psychological fantasy/comedy film Drop Dead Fred.

Directed by Ate de Jong (Tim Burton apparently turned down its script), produced by Paul Webster, and written by Carlos Davis, Anthony Fingleton, and Elizabeth Livingston, Drop Dead Fred was released in 1991 by New Line Cinema (in North America), Rank Film Distributors (UK), and Manifesto Film Sales (internationally).

Its titular character, played in typically manic mode by Rik Mayall (I can't imagine anyone giving a better performance here than Rik, not even Robin Williams who was an earlier choice to play him), was the acid-green-jacketed, mayhem-inducing imaginary friend of a little American girl named Elizabeth (played by Ashley Peldon), and was therefore visible only to her.

Elizabeth would always blame all of their crazy, madcap misdemeanors upon Drop Dead Fred, much to all of the grown-ups' dismay, because they could only see her, so they assumed that she was not only exceedingly naughty but also an inveterate liar.

However, Elizabeth is now all grown up (and now played by Phoebe Cates – a role previously offered to Winona Ryder, Uma Thurman, and Jennifer Connelly among others), with Drop Dead Fred long gone. But so too, albeit much more recently, is her charming yet cheating husband Charles (Tim Matheson, winning the role over the likes of Alec Baldwin, Jeff Goldblum, and Rick Moranis), who has told her that he'll be moving in with his mistress Annabella (an uncredited Bridget Fonda). As a direct result of this traumatic news, Elizabeth manages to lose her purse containing all her money and bank cards, her car, and her job as a court secretary, all within a single day, and which duly renders her virtually destitute, both materially and mentally.

Moreover, we gradually come to realise via flashbacks to Elizabeth's childhood as the film progresses that Fred was subconsciously created by her when she was a toddler as a means of obtaining temporary release from the emotional abuse that she suffered by way of her stern, controlling, vituperative mother (Marsha Mason) – and who now has forced grown-up but hapless, vulnerable Elizabeth to move back in with her following Charles's infidelity.

Elizabeth's stress at being under her mother's control again has an unexpected result, however - it conjures forth Fred, after an absence of more than 20 years, who duly proceeds to embroil Elizabeth in much the same kind of comic childhood chaos, and inflict upon her the same silly gross-out gags, that he did when she was a child.

But there is a major problem here – Elizabeth is no longer a child, and now finds Fred a distraction too many. Encompassed by inhibitions to override, surrounded by issues to overcome, and bowed down by her mother's inimical, unhealthy aegis, how on earth will she manage to cope with an infantile, wholly unconstrained imaginary friend back in her life too?

Yet despite his destructive, uncontrollable behaviour, Fred does care for Elizabeth, and he soon realises that she will not be happy until she is back with Charles. So in his own inimitable, incorrigible way, he does his best to make this happen – only for both of them subsequently to discover to their appreciable shock that Charles is far from the fundamentally nice (if feckless) person he has always pretended to be. And, lest we forget, there is the not inconsiderable matter of helping Elizabeth break free once and for all from her mother's oppressive emotional grip.

Also swept up in this maelstrom of madness are Elizabeth's zany New Age guru friend Janie (Carrie Fisher, after having unsuccessfully auditioned for the role of Elizabeth), whose beautiful houseboat Elizabeth manages to sink due to Fred's disastrous attempts at assisting her in steering it; and Mickey (Ron Eldard), Elizabeth's real childhood friend, who does truly love her (unlike Charles) but whose love goes unnoticed by Elizabeth in her blind, hopeless pursuit of Charles. (Interestingly, the likes of A-listers Keanu Reeves, Michael J. Fox, Josh Brolin, and Charlie Sheen had all been considered at one time or another for the role of Mickey, as well as Geena Davis and Beverly D'Angelo for Janie.)

 

Drop Dead Fred having fun at the child psychologist's clinic with some other children's imaginary friends, who include the memorably-named Go To Hell Herman, Velcro Head, Graggy, and Namby Pamby (© Ate de Jong/PolyGram/Working Title Films/New Line Cinema/Rank Film Distributors/Manifesto Film Sales – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Despite this movie's heavy slapstick content (including a particularly hilarious scene at a child psychologist's clinic where several other children's imaginary friends as well as Fred all boisterously cavort with each other, unseen by the psychologist and the children's parents), the viewer is left in no doubt that at its core is the decidedly serious subject of emotional childhood abuse and how it can continue to harm and repress its victims even when adults.

In addition, there are some poignant scenes in which Rik reveals Drop Dead Fred's care and protective love for Elizabeth that show a side to his acting skills all too rarely seen on screen – the obverse of his famously OTT off-the-wall persona known from The Young Ones, Bottom, The New Statesman, etc – yielding a depth and tender, heartfelt pathos that is incredibly moving and genuine.

Most poignant of all is Fred's final scene with Elizabeth, after he helps her achieve all that she needs to do in order to move on in her life, free from her past turmoil – a real tear-jerker, yet also very uplifting. (NB – and please forgive the spoiler, but let's just say that although it may be for Elizabeth, at least for us, the viewers, this is not quite the last that we see of Fred!)

I wish that during his tragically cut-short life and career we could have seen more of this serious, compassionate facet that Rik's acting so evidently contained, yet which for the most part lay concealed deep within his more familiar, outrageous alter ego.

Although not popular upon its original release in 1991, Drop Dead Fred has gone on to become a cult movie favourite, and I can understand why.

A number of plans for a sequel have been aired at one time or another, but as Rik was initially not interested in reprising the character of Drop Dead Fred (and later was not well enough to do so, sadly), Jim Carrey and Russell Brand were both considered as possible replacements, but nothing came to pass with either of them in the role.

As for the original movie, guess who was its writers' first choice to play Drop Dead Fred, above both Rik Mayall and Robin Williams? John Cleese! Oh, and if you're wondering why Drop Dead Fred is called Drop Dead Fred - well, as Elizabeth told her father (before he walked out on her mother) when she was still a child, it's because that's his name! Simple!

One final piece of memorable trivia – the interior sets for this movie were created and filmed at Paisley Park Studios, owned by a certain purple-prone rock star. Yet although it has long been rumoured that he secretly visited these sets at night, Prince formally denied doing so.

Conversely, if you'd like to visit the weird world of Drop Dead Fred, be sure to click here to view an official trailer for this movie on YouTube.

To view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

Publicity shot of Rick Mayall and Phoebe Cates as Drop Dead Fred and all-grown-up Elizabeth (or Snot-Face, as he still affectionately calls her!) (© Ate de Jong/PolyGram/Working Title Films/New Line Cinema/Rank Film Distributors/Manifesto Film Sales – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

 

CLICK (2006)

 

Publicity DVD poster for Click (© Frank Coraci/Adam Sandler/Columbia Pictures/Revolution Studios/Happy Madison Productions/Original Film/Sony Pictures Releasing – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

 

On 9 November 2023, my movie watch was Adam Sandler's sci fi/fantasy comedy movie Click – named after the sound made by the remote-control handset at the centre of this movie's plot.

 

Directed by Frank Coraci, co-produced by Adam Sandler, and released in 2006 by Sony Pictures, Click has as its lead character a 30-something architect named Michael Newman (played by Sandler), whose ever-demanding boss John Ammer (David Hasselhof) means that Michael spends far more time working and far less time enjoying family life with his wife Donna (Kate Beckinsale) and their two small children Ben and Samantha than he (and they) would like.

 

As a result, Michael is so stressed by their opposing demands upon him that he often finds even the simplest tasks onerous and confusing, such as selecting the correct remote-control handset to operate a specific electronic device at home.

One day, deciding to purchase a universal remote-control handset that will operate any device and thus eliminate at least one source of hassle from his life, Michael finds himself in the far reaches of a department store where he meets a strange, mysterious employee named Morty, or Mort for short (Christopher Walken). SPOILER ALERT – even if you have only the most basic knowledge of Latin, that latter character's name may well give you an inkling of where this storyline is ultimately heading…

Anyway, Morty offers Michael a newly-developed universal remote handset, so new in fact that it has yet to go on sale and doesn't even have a serial number, but saying that as good guys like him need a break sometimes, he can have this one free of charge – as long as he understands that he can never return it.

When Michael arrives back home, he soon discovers to his amazement that the handset does far more than control his TV, open and close the garage door, operate his kids' electronic toys, freeze-frame, rewind and fast-forward his media player, etc. Yes indeed, for this extraordinary handset can freeze-frame, rewind, and fast-forward time itself! Or to put it another way, his universal remote-control handset can actually remote-control the universe!

Consequently, Michael uses it initially to freeze-frame the world around him for a while and thereby provide him with extra time to work on his projects. He also uses it to skip back in time to rewatch a fondly-remembered incident in his past, and even fast-forward his life to some long-awaited occurrence in the future.

But just as all of this seems too good to be true, Michael becomes alarmed to find out that it really is too good to be true. To begin with, the handset swiftly learns Michael's preferences, and starts performing them without him even pressing any buttons, thereby pitching him into all manner of unexpected and often highly embarrassing, comical situations.

Far worse, however, as Michael also discovers, is that when he fast-forwards his life using the handset, not only can he not rewind back to his original starting point, but in addition the handset starts fast-forwarding him automatically, of its own accord, at the slightest hint that he is anticipating some future event. Once again, it has learnt to sense his hopes and aspirations, and duly acts upon them by propelling Michael forward in time to when those hopes and aspirations become realities in his life, but without giving Michael the option of stopping it from doing so.

Michael swiftly realises to his horror that a major outcome of these handset-induced fast-forwardings through time is that he has skipped several entire years of his life, thereby missing out upon directly experiencing countless precious events that have occurred during those intervening years, such as watching Ben and Samantha grow up, loving Donna, etc.

It should be noted here that in the lives of his family, lived at a normal pace, Michael is still there, he doesn't vanish, but he is on what the handset's menu screen labels as 'auto-pilot' mode – i.e. he is physically present in their time, but is emotionally unattached, disinterested in everything – and everyone – around him. Sure, he achieves success at work, fast-forwarding instantly to promotions that would have taken him years to attain in the normal pace of his life, but he ages accordingly when doing so. Moreover, Donna's increasing frustration and perplexity with her auto-pilot husband at home eventually results in her divorcing him and marrying Bill (Sean Astin), Ben's swimming coach, instead.

Desperate to be free from the accursed handset's control, Michael attempts to dispose of it by several different means, but it always returns to him – and when he telephones Morty, who has an uncanny knack of always being close by at such times, Mort reminds him that it cannot ever be returned.

Finally, when Michael is standing in a shocked, greatly saddened state at the grave of his beloved father Ted (Henry Winkler), whose death had occurred during one of his fast-forwardings, so that he had been wholly unaware of it until informed by his now grown-up children, Morty once again appears from nowhere and reveals his true identity to Michael – Morty is the Angel of Death. (Remember my earlier reference to a basic knowledge of Latin offering a major clue to the true nature of Morty? 'Well, here it is – 'mors' and its derivative 'mort' are Latin for death.)

Michael is horrified, and swiftly instructs the handset to take him to a happy place – whereupon he finds himself at Ben's wedding. But when Ben tells him that he has cancelled his honeymoon in order to fit in more work – he is now an architect too – Michael realises that Ben is travelling down the same ill-fated path that he journeyed, putting work before his family, so he pleads with his son not to do so.

However, the stress of telling Ben is too much and Michael dies, surrounded by his grieving family – until he opens his eyes and finds that everything has been a dream, or rather a nightmare, and that he is still young, happily married to Donna, with Ben and Samantha still two small children, and his father Ted still very much alive and well. Or was it more than just a dream?

For soon afterwards, Michael discovers on a counter at home that very same futuristic remote-control handset! Next to it is a short handwritten note, which says that good guys need a break. The note is signed by Morty, so the Angel of Death is apparently giving Michael a second chance, a chance to redeem himself – but will he take it?

Michael smiles, picks up the handset, stands thinking for a moment, then walks over to a waste bin and drops the handset into it – and this time, it stays there. He then joins his family to have some fun time with them, unencumbered by work or the handset.

As you can tell from the basic plot summary presented by me above (the movie also contains a fair few additional subplots and extra incidents not mentioned by me here), Click is very much a morality tale, warning of the evils awaiting anyone who puts work before their family. Indeed, in some places it is positively Scroogian, with Michael falling only a little short of uttering Ebenezer's infamous "Bah! Humbug!" exclamation at times, and with the handset and Morty serving jointly as veritable Ghosts of Michael's Past and Future in order to show him the horrors that Fate has in store if he doesn't mend his ways!

Yet whereas Scrooge was very much the engineer of his own miserable fate, much of Michael's work-related misfortune stems not from himself directly but rather from his unsympathetic, selfish boss who has pressurized him into taking on more and more work, to the detriment of his family life. Due to this, together with Sandler's sympathetic performance as Michael, viewers feel much more empathy with him than anyone ever could, or would, for Scrooge. In addition, as my plot summary above readily reveals, Click also recalls elements of the classic 1946 "what if"-themed supernatural movie It’s A Wonderful Life.

Although Click definitely has much to smile and laugh over (including a hilarious turn by Jennifer Coolidge as Donna's sex-crazed best friend Janine), and features a few comedy set pieces of the gross-out variety too, it also has some seriously dark, melancholic content, and is definitely the darkest Adam Sandler movie that I have so far seen (and I've seen several). Nevertheless, it is eminently watchable throughout, and it's always good to see a good guy successfully surmout his life's obstacles to achieve the happiness that he deserves. So, yes, I enjoyed Click, and was also much more moved by it than I had expected to be.

If you'd like to watch an official Click trailer on YouTube, please click here and see for yourself the havoc that may ensue if a remote-control goes out of control!

Finally: to view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

THE TWONKY

 

Publicity poster for The Twonky (© Arch Oboler/United Artists – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educationall/review purposes only)

On 3 November 2023 I watched a b/w science fiction comedy movie from the 1950s entitled The Twonky, which was delightfully daft and is nowadays totally obscure – more's the pity, because it was quite delightful in its weirdly wonderful way.

Directed, written, and co-produced by Arch Oboler, and released by United Artists in 1953 after a 2-year delay in securing a distributor (it had been completed in 1951), The Twonky is loosely based upon an original 1942 story of the same title but much darker in tone, penned by American sci fi/fantasy writers Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore, collaborating under their joint pseudonym Lewis Padgett (click here to read it online).

The central character in this movie is a somewhat stuffy college philosophy lecturer named Prof. Kerry West, played hilariously and hysterically (in every sense!) by Hans Conried in his first big-screen lead role. Conried had hitherto been best-known to me as the despotic piano teacher/dictator Dr Terwilliker in that surreal Dr Seuss-created fantasy musical The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T (released the same year as The Twonky, and which I've fully reviewed here).

The movie opens with West receiving as a gift from his wife Carolyn (Janet Warren, in her final film) a television set (as opposed to a radio console in the original story) to keep his mind occupied at home while she is away tending a sick relative – which it certainly does, but not in the way that she intended, that's for sure!

For unbeknownst to either of them, the television set is actually a robot from the future masquerading as a TV, and once installed in the professor's house it begins taking over his life in an increasingly controlling, militant manner, driving the thoroughly unnerved professor to despair, and to drink!

West's friend, Coach Trout (Billy Lynn, who had passed away prior to this movie's belated release)), the college's American football coach, is sometimes quite fanciful in nature and outlook (especially after a glass or three of his potent home-brewed wine!), but even he is initially disinclined to believe West's incredible tale of televisual persecution – until he sees, and hears, the professor's mechanised foe from the future in action, plodding loudly after them of its own accord, by virtue of its four tall slender support legs, yet not even plugged into a power socket!

Thoroughly bewildered, Coach Trout calls it a twonky – the name that he gave as a child to anything that he couldn't understand – and he enthusiastically combines forces with West to try to defeat it, with hilarious and inevitably unsuccessful results.

This is due in no small way to the twonky being able to carry out a very efficient form of mind control, wiping their memories (and also those of various other unfortunates who unwisely attempt to meddle with it), so that they have no recollection of ever having attempted to nullify it, nor any desire now to do so, though thankfully these befuddling effects are only temporary.

Eventually, however, when all seems lost and when even West's returning wife is drawn into his and Trout's ongoing nightmare with the pseudo-TV set from Hell, in a swift and most unexpected manner the twonky finally meets its long-deserved come-uppance – or does it?

Very much a B-movie (with such basic SFX that nowadays they are actually a quaint joy to watch), albeit one that satirised the diabolical havoc that the film industry back then had expected TV would inflict upon it via direct competition, The Twonky only received a minimal cinema release (just three cinemas in the whole of the USA screened it). Nevertheless, it is greatly enhanced by Conried's expert comic performance, ably supplemented by Lynn's, as well as a fine and feisty turn from Gloria Blondell (sister of Joan) as an exceedingly tenacious debt chaser who humorously – and glamorously – adds to West's already sizeable collection of woes.

A potential cult classic, The Twonky definitely deserves to be recalled from the far-distant backwaters of cinematic history – which is why I am reviewing it here, in the hope that I may bring this on-screen oddity to a wider audience, especially as it can currently be viewed free of charge on YouTube.

Speaking of which: if you'd like to watch The Twonky in its original b/w format on YouTube, please click here – or here if you'd like to watch on YT a recently-produced colorized version of it.

Finally: to view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

 

SOULKEEPER

 

My official DVD of Soulkeeper (© Darin Ferriola/One-Tu-Three Productions/Overseas Film Group/Sci Fi Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

On 20 October 2023, my film watch was the DVD pictured above, of the American fantasy movie Soulkeeper. I have no idea what Total DVD is (a magazine presumably?), but despite the warning to Total DVD owners not to resell the Soulkeeper DVD that originally came free with it, the latter DVD was available to buy separately at a local charity shop on 19 October 2023, which is where I duly purchased it second-hand for 50p but in excellent condition.

Watching it the following day, I went into it on the basis that if this movie is as striking as its DVD's front cover illustration, it should be good, but even if not, it will probably keep me out of trouble for 90 minutes or so, which is never a bad thing.

Directed, written, and co-produced by Darin Ferriola , and first screened in 2001 as the very first original TV movie by Sci Fi Pictures on the Sci Fi Channel, Soulkeeper proved to be, I'm pleased to say, a thoroughly entertaining, parodying throwback, or even a deliberate homage, to the many zany, irreverent comedy-horror movies of the 1980s and early 1990s.

Two (very) small-time, down-on-their-luck (i.e. flat broke) thieves, Corey (a Robbie Williams lookalike played by Rodney Rowland) and Terrence (a Declan 'Dec' Donnelly lookalike played by Kevin Patrick Walls), are promised a sizeable fortune from a mysterious gentleman named Pascal (Brad Dourif) if they can steal from a covert cult in the United States an ancient relic called the Rock of Lazarus, which has the power to bring back souls from the dead.

Hot on their trail, however, is Simon the Magus (Ed Trotta), a mysterious figure referred to in certain bona fide biblical apocryphal writings, but who is portrayed in this movie as an evil demonic sorcerer in human guise who wishes to seize the Rock and use it for restoring only evil souls.

In addition, although they are not made aware of the fact for much of the movie, Rob and Dec (sorry, I mean Corey and Terrence!) are also being monitored by a bona fide guardian angel, Mallion (Robert Davi), who is most anxious that they complete their quest successfully.

During their search for the Rock, our two heroes encounter every kind of horror trope that you can think of: seductive female vampires, a mist-enshrouded graveyard filled with groaning stumbling zombies and a shadowy library filled with dusty arcane tomes, a sinister ritual featuring cowled acolytes, a plethora of spooky music and even spookier secondary characters, a non-venomous boa constrictor doubling as a venomous serpent, a rat-and-bat-infested cave – and pop star Debbie Gibson too, truly!

There are also plenty of humorous spoof and wry 1980s movie-tribute gags, my favourite one being a sight-and-sound parody scene in which an upbeat rock anthem accompanies our two heroes as they grimly arm themselves in bold testosterone-pumping readiness for the final cataclysmic battle between good and evil, just as always happened in classic 1980s movies of this kind – except that here, once they're kitted up, one of our heroes presses the off-button on a ghetto blaster that has been playing the music the whole time!

Then suddenly, throwing a total curved ball on the entire proceedings – SPOILER ALERT! – the climactic scene, in which Simon the Magus in his true demonic reptilian form is finally vanquished, also sees one of our heroes killed, sacrificing himself to save his friend.

Naturally, I then waited impatiently for the closing scene to see how he returns in best deus ex machina manner – but it never came, because he doesn't return. He really is dead.

Consequently, the movie ends on a poignant, massively anti-climactic note, featuring a kind of feel-good fading-out scene for our surviving hero as he receives a divine sign from his departed friend, but which for me simply didn't work, because it totally dissipated all of the fun and frivolity that had preceded it. So the movie moral here is: never try to mash-up two totally different film genres.

Still, apart from that awkward, bittersweet ending, Soulkeeper was as entertaining a movie as I'd hoped it would be, with its two principal characters both endearing and also believable as ever-loyal best buddies, plus the numerous digital SFX (more than a hundred, created by Blur Studio) incorporated throughout the storyline were for the most part excellent, and there were plenty of silly but enjoyable slapstick turns at every available turn.

So yes, Soulkeeper did indeed keep me out of trouble for 90 minutes or so, which is all that really matters! Please be warned, however, that it contains some (not much) gore and nudity, explaining why this movie rates a 15 certificate in the UK.

If you'd like to view an official Soulkeeper trailer on YouTube, be sure to click here.

Finally: to view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

Full cover of a German VHS video of Soulkeeper (© Darin Ferriola/ One-Tu-Three Productions/Overseas Film Group/Sci Fi Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)