Coventry
Joined Nov 2002
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Sometimes I read through old user-comments submitted to this wonderful website, and I think to myself: "what kind of illiterate and ignorant person wrote this stuff?!?" ... And then I realize it's my own review. Editing or updating is useless in most cases, so it's better to just delete the whole thing and write a new one, like for "Friday the 13th Part 3". Besides, it provides me with an excuse to rewatch cool titles for the first time in more than 20 years.
The least you can say about these earliest "Friday the 13th" sequels is they don't waste time on chronology issues. Authorities are literally still picking up the corpses of the previous massacre when a van full of new Jason Vorhees victims arrives at a Crystal Lake cabin for a short holiday full of juvenile pranks, soft-drug use, and premarital sex. Jason crashes their party, and butchers a few random people on the side, and has become quite the big & independent boy by now! In the original "Friday the 13th", Pamela Vorhees did the killing, and in part 2 Jason always returned to a shed where he put up an altar with mommy's rotting head on it. There's no sign of mom in Part 3 - except during the intro flashbacks - and Jason develops his own "style" and "personality" here. He becomes the very slow-walking and imposing brute with the inseparable machete and hockey-mask. Let's just say he "received" the mask as a gift from one of his victims!
After the raw and primitive, but nevertheless suspenseful part 2, Steve Miner returns for part 3. This time, though, he had the pleasure and privilege to join in on the (contemporary) 3D-hype. This results - even when watching the film in 2D - in a handful of pointless but nevertheless fun visual gimmicks (popcorn popping in your face, swinging yo-yos, falling bookshelves, ...) and also extra-imaginative kills (incoming harpoon, eyeball popping out, ...). There's also a successor for "Crazy Ralph" and he's an even bigger weirdo, but his appearance is rather short. Personally, I still find it hard to believe/accept that the final girl is a survivor of a former Jason attack, and she's by far not the most likable (or prettiest) character.
The least you can say about these earliest "Friday the 13th" sequels is they don't waste time on chronology issues. Authorities are literally still picking up the corpses of the previous massacre when a van full of new Jason Vorhees victims arrives at a Crystal Lake cabin for a short holiday full of juvenile pranks, soft-drug use, and premarital sex. Jason crashes their party, and butchers a few random people on the side, and has become quite the big & independent boy by now! In the original "Friday the 13th", Pamela Vorhees did the killing, and in part 2 Jason always returned to a shed where he put up an altar with mommy's rotting head on it. There's no sign of mom in Part 3 - except during the intro flashbacks - and Jason develops his own "style" and "personality" here. He becomes the very slow-walking and imposing brute with the inseparable machete and hockey-mask. Let's just say he "received" the mask as a gift from one of his victims!
After the raw and primitive, but nevertheless suspenseful part 2, Steve Miner returns for part 3. This time, though, he had the pleasure and privilege to join in on the (contemporary) 3D-hype. This results - even when watching the film in 2D - in a handful of pointless but nevertheless fun visual gimmicks (popcorn popping in your face, swinging yo-yos, falling bookshelves, ...) and also extra-imaginative kills (incoming harpoon, eyeball popping out, ...). There's also a successor for "Crazy Ralph" and he's an even bigger weirdo, but his appearance is rather short. Personally, I still find it hard to believe/accept that the final girl is a survivor of a former Jason attack, and she's by far not the most likable (or prettiest) character.
This is a movie website, so obviously I want to leave a film review and not a political statement. Maybe just one sentence, though. More than 50 years have passed, so how terribly tragic and painful is it to see that the conflict of Israel vs. Palestine is still relevant today? Even more relevant than ever before...
"Black Sunday", both the film by John Frankenheimer and the source novel by Thomas Harris, are undoubtedly inspired by the dramatic real-life events that occurred during the 1972 Olympics at Munich, where Palestine terrorists from the Black September movement overtook the Israeli delegation and kept the athletes as their hostages. Due to stubborn principles of Israel and a lack of professional security at the event, the incident ended in a bloodbath. The story of "Black Sunday" is entirely fictional, but nevertheless quite realistic and disturbing. In 1977 as well as now in 2025.
During a raid on Black September's headquarters in November, special Mossad agent Kabakov recovers a video message that is clearly addressed to the American government and refers to a large-scaled attack that took place at the beginning of the year. The brain behind the terrorist attack, a female activist named Dahlia, survived the raid and promptly heads to the US to continue with the execution of her meticulously prepared plan. Kabakov, joining forces with the FBI, knows that something horrible will happen, but he doesn't know what, how, where, and when exactly. We, as viewers, know straight away, because Dahlia convinced the embittered Vietnam veteran turned Goodyear blimp pilot Michael Lander to detonate a massive plastic-bomb full of steel projectiles during the Super Bowl; - with 80.000 innocent sport fans present in the stadium!
Under the skilled supervision and craftmanship of John Frankenheimer (forever one of Hollywood's most incomprehensibly underrated directors), "Black Sunday" became an exciting mix between disaster movie, race-against-the-clock thriller, and harrowing drama. The running time is long - nearly two and a half hours. Usually this bothers me, but not in this case, because the talkative and action-packed parts interchange fluently. Most praiseworthy is that the script takes time and patience to listen to all sides of the issue, like the background of terrorist Dahlia and the reason for pilot Lander's hatred against America. This must be largely Frankenheimer's accomplishment, as I think other directors would cut these talkative parts much quicker. It's also really clever to juxtapose the preparation of the attack with images of the intelligence services still figuring out what event will be targeted, as this increases the tension massively. The grand finale at the stadium, with the authorized use of the actual Goodyear TV-blimp, is pure edge-of-your-seat suspense and very violent. Sure, there are flaws and many improbabilities in the script as well, but you overlook them for entertainment's sake.
Note: review subject line inspired by Homer's Blimp Song from "The Simpsons".
"Black Sunday", both the film by John Frankenheimer and the source novel by Thomas Harris, are undoubtedly inspired by the dramatic real-life events that occurred during the 1972 Olympics at Munich, where Palestine terrorists from the Black September movement overtook the Israeli delegation and kept the athletes as their hostages. Due to stubborn principles of Israel and a lack of professional security at the event, the incident ended in a bloodbath. The story of "Black Sunday" is entirely fictional, but nevertheless quite realistic and disturbing. In 1977 as well as now in 2025.
During a raid on Black September's headquarters in November, special Mossad agent Kabakov recovers a video message that is clearly addressed to the American government and refers to a large-scaled attack that took place at the beginning of the year. The brain behind the terrorist attack, a female activist named Dahlia, survived the raid and promptly heads to the US to continue with the execution of her meticulously prepared plan. Kabakov, joining forces with the FBI, knows that something horrible will happen, but he doesn't know what, how, where, and when exactly. We, as viewers, know straight away, because Dahlia convinced the embittered Vietnam veteran turned Goodyear blimp pilot Michael Lander to detonate a massive plastic-bomb full of steel projectiles during the Super Bowl; - with 80.000 innocent sport fans present in the stadium!
Under the skilled supervision and craftmanship of John Frankenheimer (forever one of Hollywood's most incomprehensibly underrated directors), "Black Sunday" became an exciting mix between disaster movie, race-against-the-clock thriller, and harrowing drama. The running time is long - nearly two and a half hours. Usually this bothers me, but not in this case, because the talkative and action-packed parts interchange fluently. Most praiseworthy is that the script takes time and patience to listen to all sides of the issue, like the background of terrorist Dahlia and the reason for pilot Lander's hatred against America. This must be largely Frankenheimer's accomplishment, as I think other directors would cut these talkative parts much quicker. It's also really clever to juxtapose the preparation of the attack with images of the intelligence services still figuring out what event will be targeted, as this increases the tension massively. The grand finale at the stadium, with the authorized use of the actual Goodyear TV-blimp, is pure edge-of-your-seat suspense and very violent. Sure, there are flaws and many improbabilities in the script as well, but you overlook them for entertainment's sake.
Note: review subject line inspired by Homer's Blimp Song from "The Simpsons".
One of the most annoying replies to receive when indicating to someone that you didn't like a movie is: "you shouldn't have taken it so seriously". Yeah, okay, it's a movie in which Casper Van Dien smokes big Cuban cigars and visits Hollywood night clubs that are exclusively for vampires, whilst evading Dr. Van Helsing who teamed up with a black street gang members! Of course I didn't take it seriously, it just sucked.
Oddly enough, the person responsible for this dud of a horror "comedy" is Matthew Bright. He previously impressed me with his scenarios for "Freeway" and "Ted Bundy", but this attempt of his is less than... bright. My apologies for the lousy pun, but it's in line with the quality of the movie. "Modern Vampires" aims to cash in further on the success of recent ( and much better) vampire movies like "From Dusk till Dawn", and - maybe - it even was director Richard Elfman's secret ambition to bring forward a 90s version of "The Lost Boys". There's quite a lot of vibes here emphasizing the "sleep all day, party all night, never grow old. It's fun to be a vampire" philosophy.
I think I know a good 'n gory comedy when I see one, and "Modern Vampires" isn't it. Apart from a couple reasonably ingenious & comical moments featuring Kim Catrall (spoofing her "Sex and the City" character by depicting an insatiable vampire dominatrix) and an all too brief appearance by Udo Kier, the film is a lamentable and incoherent series of ideas that were seemingly improvised on the spot. In between all the goofiness there is suddenly some family melodrama, when the vampire girl hopes to reunite with her trailer trash mother. Near the end, things become absurd with a vampire gang bang and the total humiliation of Van Helsing's character.
Oddly enough, the person responsible for this dud of a horror "comedy" is Matthew Bright. He previously impressed me with his scenarios for "Freeway" and "Ted Bundy", but this attempt of his is less than... bright. My apologies for the lousy pun, but it's in line with the quality of the movie. "Modern Vampires" aims to cash in further on the success of recent ( and much better) vampire movies like "From Dusk till Dawn", and - maybe - it even was director Richard Elfman's secret ambition to bring forward a 90s version of "The Lost Boys". There's quite a lot of vibes here emphasizing the "sleep all day, party all night, never grow old. It's fun to be a vampire" philosophy.
I think I know a good 'n gory comedy when I see one, and "Modern Vampires" isn't it. Apart from a couple reasonably ingenious & comical moments featuring Kim Catrall (spoofing her "Sex and the City" character by depicting an insatiable vampire dominatrix) and an all too brief appearance by Udo Kier, the film is a lamentable and incoherent series of ideas that were seemingly improvised on the spot. In between all the goofiness there is suddenly some family melodrama, when the vampire girl hopes to reunite with her trailer trash mother. Near the end, things become absurd with a vampire gang bang and the total humiliation of Van Helsing's character.