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Blood Capsule #222

DARKMAN II: THE RETURN OF DURANT (1995)

Technically, this counts as a rewatch.  I caught Darkman II on television as a wee lad, which is strange, given the film's release date.  It was actually shot in 1993, as was Darkman III: Die Darkman Die.  I love Sam Raimi's original.  It was a successful marriage of amusement park thrills and comic book visuals.  This sequel almost feels like a do-over, only without the winning personality and the polychromatic imagery.  Liam Neeson has been replaced with Arnold Vosloo.  And while Vosloo is Vosloo, he isn't Neeson.  Good God, and I call myself a professional writer.  What I mean is that while Vosloo gives it the old college try, he lacks a certain verve, an intangible quality that you can only find in ghost pepper fries or bacon cheeseburgers.  I was never able to warm up to this Darkman.  Oh, the synopsis.

So Camille Keaton stars as a woman beleaguered (read: raped) by backwoods rednecks.  Wait, that's I Spit on Your Grave.  I do that all the time.  Er, despite dying in a fiery helicopter crash, the nefarious Durant is somehow alive and plotting to hijack the drug trade with outlandish weapons.  No, it doesn't make sense, but at least Larry Drake agreed to reprise his role as the golf-happy, cigar-cutting heavy.  It's worth renting The Return of Durant to see the return of Durant.  He isn't omnipotent, though.  As I said earlier, this has the (un)makings of a withered version of the first film.  The action has been dialed back, and there isn't much in the way of suspense.  According to my highly reputable sources (IMDb), Raimi wanted Bruce Campbell to play Darkman in the sequels.  Man, imagine that.  The guy from Maniac Cop and Maniac Cop 2 as Darkman.  Oh, well.  Would have been nice.

Random Match Alert

I've been on a huge Bret Hart kick lately.  Of course, by "lately," I mean "my whole life."  People often daydream about what the Attitude Era would have looked like with The Hitman on board.  Think of all the potential match-ups we didn't get to see.  Thing is, we did get to see a lot of those match-ups.  Fans tend to forget that Bret wrestled Austin, Rock, and even Triple H.  He wrestled The Nose on more than one occasion.  I'm spotlighting an encounter from Bret's heel run in 1997, but they also faced each other in early '96.

Blood Capsule #221

RETURN OF THE FLY (1959)

I recently rewatched The Fly (the original, that is).  Man, what a freakin' movie.  How's that for intellectual commentary?  Somehow, I had never seen the follow-up, a true sequel that follows the events of its predecessor.  Ol' Vinnie Price returns as the distressed uncle of Phillippe Delambre, the son of the scientist who found himself caught in a teleportation chamber (or "disintegration cabinet," as it's called here) with a common housefly.  I don't need to recapitulate the whole story, but you should know that Return of the Fly isn't a simple rehash of what came before.  Phillippe shows an interest in continuing his father's research.  Price - I believe his name is Francois - is reluctant to assist the young man.  He agrees to help against his better judgment under the caveat that he will attempt to dissuade Flyboy Jr. at every step.  The project needs funding, however, and that's where conflict comes into play.

I'm being intentionally vague.  The plot consists of many moving pieces, and as long as you're on board, you'll enjoy trying to guess where the narrative is going to take these characters.  Obviously, Price is the main attraction, but I also liked Brett Halsey as the humorless and headstrong Phillippe.  The special effects are all sorts of fun.  Compared to the first Fly, we get more shots of the monster...um, monstering.  The film does feel scaled down, even though the sets have simply been repurposed.  I suppose some will see the black-and-white photography as a demotion, but those people are horribly misguided.  Flies are black anyway.  It's not like we're missing out on a spectrum wheel of fluorescent greens and pinks.  On second thought, that would be awesome.  I digress!

You can skip 1965's Curse of the Fly.  It doesn't actually have anything to do with flies, if you can imagine that.  What's next, a Halloween movie without Michael Myers???

A few thoughts on Beetlejuice Beetlejuice...

Image taken from DeviantArt.

I just got back from seeing a movie I never thought I would see in this lifetime.  Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is a big deal to people my age.  We grew up with these characters.  Actually, I have sweet memories of taping the network television premiere of Beetlejuice and watching it the next morning.  That tape contains a TV spot for Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare that scared the bejesus out of me.  In any event, I knew that B-B wouldn't let me down (call it a nerd's intuition), and I was right.  It's a modern film, but it took me right back to my childhood.  Claymation sandworms certainly helped.

Needless to say, the cast is splendid.  Michael Keaton deserves an award of some sort.  I mean, I know he won't be nominated for an Oscar, but...does Nickelodeon still have an awards show?  Give the man something.  My eyes turned into cartoon hearts as soon as I saw Winona Ryder as Lydia Deetz.  Again, awards.  Awards all over the place.  Don't get me wrong; Beetlejuice Beetlejuice isn't perfect.  A couple of subplots are given lukewarm payoffs, and I certainly wouldn't say it tops the original.  I'm thinking 4 Z'Dars.  I'm definitely buying the Blu-ray, which is high praise coming from me.

It just occurred to me that this little write-up fits wonderfully in Random Sequel Month.  By the way, I have a few more part twos lined up before I finish with a part four.  Be on the lookout!

Blood Capsule #220

NEMESIS 2: NEBULA (1995)

Is this a well-regarded franchise and I just don't know it?  There had to be some level of interest for there to be so many sequels.  Nemesis 5 was cranked out in 2017.  Why?  I mean, who was begging for an extrapolation of what was basically a low-rent Cyborg?  I rented the original years ago from an honest-to-God video store, but my memories are cloudy.  Apparently, Nebula is set in the future (of the future).  Cyborgs have won a civil war, and human rebels have turned to science for salvation.  New DNA is injected into a "volunteer."  You know what that means, don't you?  We've got a hybrid baby on our hands!  The mother is deemed a fugitive, so she is sent through a wormhole to East Africa.  Or is it Los Angeles?  Wait, I'm jumping ahead.  We cut to twenty years later - future present day, if you will.  I'm discombobulated.  Maybe a paragraph break will help me sort this out.

An automaton assassin from the future-future is sent to kill the hybrid baby, now a full-grown woman.  I'm still discombobulated.  To be perfectly honest, I only watched this flick because there is a cool robot on the cover.  It yearns to be an ultra-modern amalgamation of Predator and Terminator 2.  Personally, I would put it somewhere between Split Second and...um, Nemesis 3.  Director Albert Pyun was capable of making sci-fi cheese in his sleep, so from a technical standpoint, Nemesis 2 ticks the right boxes.  Unfortunately, the minimal use of dialogue ends up working against the film.  It's not a very stimulating sit, with or without a cool robot.  Trivia!  Nemesis 2, 3, and 4 were all intended to be one giant movie.  Egads, talk about dodging a bullet.

Rassle Inn #52

Don't look now, but Shawn Michaels is brewing a potent concoction down in NXT.  Before I go any further, I should make one thing clear.  Most of NXT sucks.  The gimmicks are cartoonish (the mafia stable is ridiculous), the writing (or whatever you want to call it) is juvenile, and the on-screen authority figures are just horrid.  Having said that, the women's roster is all kinds of stacked.  It's actually too stacked.  I couldn't sit here and name every athletic blonde who appears in the backstage segments, but as with any division, there are standouts.  Let's talk about a few of them.

I've been looking forward to Giulia's debut for several months, and man, it did not disappoint.  Can you say "star quality"?  Hell, she literally looks like a star.  She twinkles, for crying out loud!  I'm assuming that she will take the NXT Women's Championship when the show moves to CW, which would send Roxanne Perez to either Raw or Smackdown.  Roxy is another one of those standouts I mentioned earlier.  It seems like just yesterday I was watching her compete in ROH.  I'm a fan, although I hope she switches back to being a babyface after her inevitable promotion.  I'm not digging her heel promos at all.  They feel forced.  Maybe I'm overly critical.  Eh.

The last standout I wanted to highlight hasn't debuted on TV yet.  NXT has an ace up its sleeve, and her name is Stephanie Vaquer.  She wrestled on Dynamite earlier this year in a losing effort against Mercedes Mone.  I can't believe AEW let her go, seemingly without a fight.  If you haven't seen her go in the ring, she has all of the intangibles that can't be taught.  Her versus Giulia?  I'm salivating over here.  The only downside to these hot prospects is the fact that I have to watch NXT every week now.  How else am I supposed to keep track of my wrestling crushes?  Okay, I only have a crush on Vaquer.  And Giulia.  I'm sure they won't mind fighting over me.  Wheelchair on a pole match?

Yikes, I forgot about Jade.  It's an embarrassment of bitches (sorry, I had to).  Moral of the story...start paying attention to NXT, folks!

Blood Capsule #219

HOWLING VI: THE FREAKS (1991)

Ironically, I just got back from a fair.  Apart from forcing down overpriced chicken tenders, I had a blast.  Carnivals are all about vibes.  Likewise, Howling VI is all about vibes.  You'll think you're standing in line to throw darts at balloons or...something with ducks (I've never been able to wrap my head around that one).  You might be under the impression that this entire franchise is deplorable, but you would be mistaken.  While it's true that most of the sequels are a tacky mess, The Freaks is highly entertaining.  It's also kind of ballsy.  It anticipated the "versus" trend by over a decade.  Oh, you didn't know?  The storyline pits a werewolf against a vampire.  If that wasn't gnarly enough, the vampire is blue for no discernible reason.  I had no idea that the Universal Monsters could be enhanced by Crayola crayons, but here we are.

The actual plot follows a vagabond who gets roped into Harker's World of Wonders, a traveling freakshow that offers funhouse frivolity and a mime who bites the head off of a live chicken.  Hey, I'm in no position to judge.  At least he didn't pay twenty bucks for the damn thing.  Seriously, they weren't even good chicken tenders!  Alright, back on topic.  The Freaks has a secret weapon, and his name is Bruce Payne.  His performance is probably too shrewd for this movie, but that's why it works.  Trivia!  Payne starred in Warlock III: The End of Innocence.  This little carousel was written by Kevin Rock, the same bloke who wrote Warlock: The Armageddon.  Now you know.  I don't have much else to add.  I will say, our lycanthrope isn't terribly imposing.  He's outclassed.  In all fairness, who wouldn't be outclassed by a blue vampire?  Perhaps a mauve mummy.

Howling VI is dandy.  Name a better sixth installment in a series.  That isn't Jason Lives.

Random Sequel Month has begun!

"Shudder and chill?"

September, September, September...not only is it my birthday month (I turn 18* on the 28th), but it's also Random Sequel Month!  The next five - maybe six - blood capsules will be reviews of sequels that all fall somewhere under the sci-fi/horror umbrella.  I've curated a motley mix, and I'm eager to fill your eyeholes (ew) with takes on offshoots/follow-ups of all stripes.  NOTE: I won't be covering Bride of Frankenstein on account of the fact that I already did.

PS - I'll be announcing a giveaway in a couple of weeks.  Once I've taken care of Random Sequel Month, I'll announce my plans for October.  Exciting crap is in the works!

*Plus 22.  Hush, I'm in denial.