The Lost Boys (1987)

Tagline: ‘Sleep all day. Party all night. Never grow old. Never die. It’s fun to be a vampire’
UK Running Time: 97 Minutes
Film Quality: 4.5/5
Gore Content: 2/5
Entertainment Value: 5/5
Originality: 3.5/5

Introduction

Until the 1980s vampires had largely been monsters from a bygone age, Dracula or Nosferatu types, walking about in creaky old castles and springing out of coffins just as the rest of us are settling down for our cocoa and biscuits. Hammer did a little more to make them sexy in the swinging 60s and whatever the hell the 70s was, so it was a logical jump that the stylised 80s would discard them like an old sock unless they could somehow make them cool. David Bowie managed it to a certain extent in the slightly weird ‘The Hunger’, and ‘Fright Night’ made an admirable effort despite our ‘cool’ vampire spending most of the film wearing a jumper, it wasn’t until 1987 when Joel Schumacher absolutely nailed it with ‘The Lost Boys’.

In a nutshell

When Lucy ups sticks with her two teenage boys, Michael and Sam, to live with her Dad after a divorce they have no idea that they’re moving to the self-proclaimed ‘Murder Capital of the World’! That could be down to some bad elements, or it could be that it’s crawling with vampires eager to get their daily dose of rouge. Let’s just hope that Michael and Sam can stay out of trouble…

What’s good about it?

If they were aiming to make vampires cool then they succeeded (left). Schumacher crowbars in enough cool to fill two entire features with enough left over to put in the freezer and defrost in 1990 to turn into ‘Flatliners’. It’s dripping with style, quotable dialogue, an incredible soundtrack and characters that you would give your left stone to have been in real life. It captures the 80s as well as any John Hughes movie with its teenage angst, terrible fashions and ability to make situations relatable to us despite its subject matter.

It has a cast to die for, one of the best of any 80s movies regardless of genre with the pick of the bunch undoubtedly Kiefer Sutherland. It wasn’t his first feature, we’d seen him as the leader of a bad bunch before in ‘Stand By Me’ but he’s a revelation in this film. He oozes charm and a threatening calm, like a cult leader which I suppose he is. The way he encourages Michael to drink the blood is brilliant, using his vampiric powers of suggestion and illusion to make him do it willingly rather than by force, a scene which sums up his character wonderfully. We also have The Two Coreys on screen together for the first time, a great turn by the late Barnard Hughes as ‘Gramps’ and Jami Gertz playing the vulnerable yet seductive Star, a character originally written as male.

We’re not talking about a hardcore horror film here but there are some great little set piece vignettes towards the end including the infamous ‘Death by Stereo’ scene, the holy water bath and the battle between Michael and David. There are some nice special effects going on here and a surprising exploding head that, whilst not in the same league as ‘Scanners’ or ‘Dawn of the Dead’ is a welcome addition to a 15 rated horror movie! There’s also the brilliant vampires vs Surf Nazis scuffle which is less a battle than a massacre and shot with a scattergun approach that befits the MTV generation style of much of the film.

Having said that, what Schumacher brings to the film is a great sense of dark style and artistic brilliance. I love the shot of the wave crashing in front of the giant Blood Moon, the lighthouse beam shooting up over the top of the cliff face from below as the bikers speed towards the edge and the reverse shot out of the cave as the vampires prepare to go on another killing spree. It’s a very well made film with the art direction bringing a lot of the 80s excess, fashions and sensibilities into the context of a horror film without making it look too much like a movie for teenyboppers. In fact it’s one of those crossover films that’s managed to appeal to teens and genre fans alike.

What about the bad?

Well, it’s not very scary is it and you could accuse the film of adopting a style over substance attitude. At the end of the day this is a teen horror film where most of the central characters, at least the ones we’re invited to identify with are teenagers who have teenage problems that adults can’t solve. The issue of a lack of scares doesn’t bother me too much as it’s so bloody entertaining but it was one of the films to usher in a brand of horror designed to appeal to a younger audience which ultimately brought us ‘Twilight’ and I’m not sure I can forgive that!

With so much time and effort invested in the teenage characters, very little colour is given to the adults, with the exception of ‘Grandpa’. Lucy is incredibly dull, which is possibly the point as she is such an easy target for Max…watching it back you can see his grin when he first sets eyes on her (left), mistaken for an admiration of kindness on first viewing but takes on different connotations second time around.

Not enough is made of the vampires for me with no context as to why they’re in Santa Carla, who they are and vampire lore is played with to come extent. How are the vampires able to enter the building in the climax when they haven’t been invited? Why does garlic not work? Does nobody think of making a cross? And why do we not see Star change into a vampire? She is the only female member of the vampire gang and my own curiosity would have liked to have seen her ‘vamp out’!

Any themes?

The title is clearly a reference to Peter Pan. I like the idea that somebody has taken a look at Peter Pan’s character and realised that he comes out at night, never gets old, he can fly…what if he were a vampire? It’s a brilliant concept and the idea of living forever coming at a price which ultimately results in a complete lack of humanity (how do we know that David wasn’t like Michael and Star once, afraid and fighting the ‘turn’?) due to having to ‘feed’.

‘Youth is wasted on the young’ is a popular saying but you can never truly stay eternally young because life’s experiences are what make you ‘old’. David and his gang may have been seduced by the thought of eternal youth but they are outcasts. They can never be free from the shackles of what they are and what they’ve done so, like Peter Pan, the boys who never grew up can never enjoy their eternal youth but feed off the youth of others.

Release History

Nice and straightforward with no censorship issues it was a modest box office success but really took off on home video with plenty of VHS, DVD and Blu-ray releases brimming with special features.

Cultural Impact

It’s become a monster of a cult hit, Quentin Tarantino even name checked it in his blistering debut ‘Reservoir Dogs’. It paved the way for vampires to be cool and was directly responsible (for better or for worse) for teenage hits ‘Buffy The Vampire Slayer’, ‘Angel’ and subsequently ‘The Vampire Diaries’ and the absolutely terrible ‘Twilight’ films. It always bothers me when people try and compare ‘The Lost Boys’ with ‘Twilight’. It’s like comparing the highest quality Belgian chocolate with a Twix, yes the ingredients are the same but one is mass produced for a quick snack and the other is for those who know the difference!

Final Thoughts

Not many films get that balance between mass appeal and cult phenomena and it’s almost always an accident but ‘The Lost Boys’ gets so much right that it deserves its place for both sets of fans. It’s effortlessly cool, despite being of its time, with enough nods to both the horror and teenage comedy genres that it works perfectly on both levels. It’s one of those films that you accidentally switch on to when you’re ready for bed, doing a bit of channel hopping, intending to watch another five minutes but end up watching the whole thing. Joel Schumacher, I salute you sir!

Memorable quotes

Grandpa: “One of the things about Santa I just couldn’t stomach……..all the damn vampires!”

David: “They’re only noodles Michael.”

Edgar: “Just scoping your civilian Wardrobe.”
Sam: “Pretty cool huh.”
Alan: “For a fashion victim.”

Grandpa: “Let me put it this way…if all the corpses buried around here were all to stand up at once, well, we’d have one hell of a population problem.”

Edgar: “It’s not our fault, they pulled a mind scrambler on us…they opened their eyes and talked.”

Sam: “Death by stereo!”

You’ll like this if you enjoyed…

“Fright Night’, ‘Near Dark’, ‘An American Werewolf in London’, ‘Tremors’

The DPP 39: Video Nasties List - Part 7

In 1984, the Video Recordings Act ushered in a terrifying new era in UK home video entertainment. The regulation and subsequent censorship of home videos by the British Board of Film Classification led to a number of films being seized by the authorities and prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act 1959. In total, 39 of these films were successfully prosecuted, over the coming months The Horror Video will look very briefly at the release history of each film and its current status. To view the rest of the series…

Part 1: ‘Absurd’, ‘Anthropophagus’ and ‘Axe’, click here
Part 2: ‘Bay of Blood’, ‘The Beast in Heat’ and ‘Blood Feast’, click here
Part 3: ‘Blood Rites’, ‘Bloody Moon’ and ‘The Burning’, click here
Part 4: ‘Cannibal Apocalypse’, ‘Cannibal Ferox’ and ‘Cannibal Holocaust’, click here
Part 5: ‘The Cannibal Man’, ‘The Devil Hunter’ and ‘Don’t Go in the Woods’ click here
Part 6: ‘The Driller Killer’, ‘Evilspeak’ and ‘Expose’. Click here

Title: ‘Faces of Death’ (1978)

Director: Conan Le Cilaire (John Alan Schwartz)
Uncut running time: 104 minutes
Alternative titles: ‘The Original Faces of Death’

In the 70s a very strange and macabre sub-genre emerged known as ‘Mondo Movies’. These were documentaries that claimed to show genuine footage of death, accidents, animal attacks and bizarre sacrificial ceremonies. ‘Faces of Death’ was one of these and has such a reputation that many horror fans avoid it out of principal. It claims to have been banned in 40 countries, knock the ‘0’ off and you have a more realistic figure and yes, the UK was one of those countries alongside Norway, Finland, Australia and New Zealand. Around a third of the movie is fake but there are some seriously nasty moments caught on film, most notably the aftermath of a road traffic accident between a truck and a cyclist and some pretty gnarly slaughterhouse footage.

It was something of a hit worldwide, taking $35million at the box office, not including VHS sales where it really coined it in! In the UK, the first version brought out by Atlantis Video Productions in September 1982 was cut by a massive 32m36s (almost a third of the film!!!) yet was STILL prosecuted and removed from the shelves in July 1983. It wasn’t re-released until 2003 when Screen Entertainment got it through the BBFC missing 2m19s of animal cruelty, namely dog fights and a monkey being beaten to death.

Current status: Available in the UK from Screen Entertainment cut by 2m19s, uncut in the US through Gorgon on blu-ray.

Title: ‘Fight for your Life’ (1977)

Director: Robert A Endelson
Uncut running time: 82 minutes
Alternative titles: ‘I Hate Your Guts’, ‘Held Hostage’, ‘Staying Alive’, ‘Getting Even’, ‘Bloodbath at 1313 Fury Drive’


Almost universally panned, this is a strange one in that it is the only film on the nasties list that was prosecuted due to language rather than violence. It plays out as a rape revenge movie but it’s the unbelievable level of racism that caused offence as three convicts attack, beat and generally violate an entire black family, forcing them to fight back. I don’t know if it was an attempt at a Blaxploitation movie that was horrendously misjudged or a deliberate attempt to offend but it really is bad on every conceivable level.

This fared terribly in the UK where it was refused a theatrical certificate in 1981 but, incredibly, it was available on VHS through Vision On who brought out an uncut version in 1982. It festered on the shelves until September 1984 before it was seized and prosecuted as obscene. It’s one of the more highly sought after VHS tapes because it has never received a release since and one of the few that is still banned in the UK. I’d be surprised if it ever saw the light of the day due to its reputation, I can’t see one of the more well-known labels risking their reputations on it.


Current status: Unavailable in the UK and still banned, uncut in the US on a region free DVD through Blue Underground.

Title: Flesh for Frankenstein (1973)

Director: Paul Morrissey
Uncut running time: 95 minutes
Alternative title: ‘Andy Warhol’s Young Frankenstein’, ‘The Devil and Dr. Frankenstein’, ‘The Frankenstein Experiment’, ‘Up Frankenstein’


Bordering on camp on occasion, this odd attempt at re-imagining the Frankenstein legend from Andy Warholl and Paul Morrissey caused a lot of controversy in its day. Another one that, strangely, got itself into trouble thanks to its dialogue although, in this case, it was a single line as our titular mad scientist proudly proclaims that “You don’t know life until you’ve f~@ked death in the gall bladder”! This gained the interest of the moral guardians within the UK sensationalist press and drew attention to its gruesome and, in many places, sexual violence. Overall a very well made and acted film, it really should have been left alone but that was a sign of the times.

It suffered greatly at the hands of the BBFC who removed 8 minutes from its initial cinema release. Video Gems pushed through an uncut VHS in 1981 which was still the only way to see an uncensored print after the BBFC again insisted on cuts totalling 2m08s for a 1982 cinema re-release. VIPCO failed to get an uncut VHS release through, instead falling back on the truncated cinema release, however it still fell foul of the authorities who prosecuted in March 1984. There it remained until First Independent brought a VHS out in 1996, however it was still missing 56 seconds, but these and all other cuts were finally waived in 2006 for Tartan’s DVD. It’s crying out for a good blu-ray release!


Current status: Unavailable in the UK due to the Tartan DVD being out of print, uncut on Image DVD in the US

Zombie Flesh Eaters (1979)

Tagline: ‘When the earth spits out the dead…They will return to tear the flesh of the living’
UK Running Time: 91 Minutes (Strong Uncut Version)

Film Quality: 4/5
Gore Content: 4/5
Entertainment Value: 4.5/5
Originality: 3/5

Introduction

Italian director Lucio Fulci had carved himself a solid if unspectacular career as a crime thriller director with some pretty decent, stylish ‘Giallo’ movies under his belt. He took on this project, cashing in on the success of George A. Romero’s seminal ‘Dawn of the Dead’, forever becoming known as ‘The Godfather of Gore’. A notorious, so-called video nasty it was a surprise global hit despite its grindhouse leanings and, though history has diminished its ability to shock in the same way, still stands up as an incredibly entertaining, gore-soaked rollercoaster of a horror film. This should be any self-respecting zombie fan’s introduction to the Italian zombie sub-genre.

In a nutshell

An abandoned ship drifts into New York harbour and, whilst salvaging the vessel, a harbour patrolman is attacked before his killer is quickly dispatched. The daughter of the ship’s owner and a journalist set off for the Caribbean island of Matul, where he was last seen, to discover what happened to him. They come across an island knee deep in voodoo, strange medical experiments and tales of the dead rising from the grave.

What’s good about it?

Let’s not beat about the bush, it’s the gore!

This film was banned in the UK for a good reason and that is thanks to Geanneto De Rossi’s very gooey effects and a steadfast refusal to turn the camera away from the splatter that matters. We’d seen many a gruesome death in ‘Dawn of the Dead’ but that was done in such a deliberately comic-book, swift and throwaway fashion that its effect was lessened. Fulci really goes for the jugular, quite literally in one particular case, lingering on some very gruesome images with relish. Whereas ‘Dawn’ sprayed the red stuff around quite frequently, suddenly and in all directions, Fulci’s flick goes for the set-piece approach, building up to a gory scene as the payoff. The famous eyeball piercing scene is the most notable, we know there’s a zombie in the house, we know this particular character’s going to die, the entire scene plays towards a climax that even now is tough to watch.

The first time I saw this film was in the early 90s when VIPCO released what it misleadingly called an ‘Uncut Cinema Version’…what it didn’t say was that the film was cut for cinema but despite watching a truncated cut of the film, I still enjoyed it. There is more to it than just arterial blood and flesh eating. I think what it has going for it that is only hinted at in ‘Dawn’ (I keep comparing the two because this film was marketed in the US as ‘Zombi 2’ therefore billing itself as a sequel to ‘Dawn’, initially known as ‘Zombie’ stateside) is that, at its heart it takes the zombie back to its Haitian roots. The original zombies, way back in the early 20th century, were created by voodoo, to which there is many a reference, and witch doctors which suggests that the dead’s uprising may be religious rather than scientific. It’s interesting that an Italian production decided to take this direction, no doubt filming locations were cheaper in the Caribbean but it does give the film an atmosphere and an unpredictability that I found intriguing.

You also have to take your hat off to Fulci as the pacing of the film is perfect. There’s enough early on to keep you interested and questions you want to know the answers to. It’s a good half an hour before they even get to Matul but it doesn’t lag. There’s a terrific score by Fabio Frizzi which includes incessant voodoo drums - there is an amusing moment when one of the characters remarks that those drums are driving her mad, that there is real voodoo going on here.

We’ve talked about the gore but a quick note on De Rossi’s make up effects as well. He really goes to town with some of these zombies. Whereas the undead in ‘Dawn’ are largely the recently deceased, we see some of these creature rise from their Conquistador graves. They have maggots where their eyes should be, they’ve decomposed, missing limbs, dressed in rags, they are pretty scary and uncanny so hats off to De Rossi for the convincing way these zombies are depicted.

What about the bad?

Well. As with many spaghetti horrors, this is blessed with the kind of dubbing that leaves actors mouths flapping about like a school of distressed salmon whilst the dialogue plays over the top. There’s no getting around the fact that it’s distracting and whilst some say it adds to the charm, I say it makes the film look unprofessional, cheap and nasty. It was common for Italian films to be shot without recording dialogue so that it could be easily dubbed and therefore more attractive to the overseas markets, but for me it stands out like a boil on the forehead.

This is very much a knock off affair thanks to the success of ‘Dawn’ and as such it is blatantly obvious that the opening few scenes and final shot, both in New York, are intended purely for the US audience. It didn’t really need either and does nothing to tie it to Romero’s flick. One other scene stands out and that is a shark attack, this time referencing the success of ‘Jaws’. To be fair this is such a bizarre and quite beautifully shot scene, and certainly the only zombie vs shark rumble that I can think of. It’s also there to ensure a little bit of nudity is crowbarred into the film.

The unintended by product of Fulci’s successful Romero rip-off is that it spawned a whole host of Italian Romero rip-offs that somehow managed to rip off Fulci’s flick (yes I’m talking to you ‘Zombie Holocaust’, ‘Zombie Creeping Flesh’, ‘Night of Terror’ and ‘Nightmare City’), none of which are a patch on this one. It’s harsh to criticise a film for inspiring pale imitations but there are so many, including four unofficial sequels!

Any themes?

I’ve already said that I admire the fact it goes back to the very birth of the zombie myth whilst bringing it up to date for the Romero generation. If this was the last zombie film ever made you could have few complaints about it coming full circle with the re-introduction of voodoo rituals bringing about the rising of the dead. ‘The Serpent and the Rainbow’ did an incredible job of telling that story a few years later but the zombie remains and, thanks to Monsieurs Raimi and Jackson, there was plenty of scope for the zombie to enter the world of comedy (something ‘Zombie Flesh Eaters 2’ managed completely by accident!).

Release History

In the UK this title has had an interesting history due to censorship. The BBFC had a big problem with ‘Zombie Flesh Eaters’, cutting one minute 46 seconds for its cinema release, including the climax of the eyeball splinter scene, all instances of flesh eating, the throat ripping and a few other minor moments – fourteen separate cuts in total.

The movie was then released uncut on video by VIPCO as a ‘Strong Uncut Version’ a year or so later, becoming one of the biggest selling videos that year. Unfortunately it fell foul of the video nasty moral panic, the cinema version was put out and this version, alongside its uncensored counterpart, was banned outright in 1984. It remained out of print until VIPCO re-released the Uncut Cinema Version (still missing nearly two minutes) in 1992 in both a pan and scan and widescreen version.

In 1999 VIPCO tried again and managed to get a more complete version out on DVD that they marketed as ‘The Extreme Version’ despite the fact an uncut version would most likely have been passed. The problem here was a ridiculous, draconian, possibly even mythical law that a film could not be released uncut if it had been subject to a successful prosecution within the last ten years! This meant the BBFC’s hands were tied due to their own ridiculous ideas of censorship. The eyeball climax and subsequent flesh eating were still missing. They finally passed it uncut in 2005 for Anchor Bay’s ‘Box of the Banned’ so it wasn’t until Arrow’s release in 2012 that you could buy the film uncut, on its own, but even then the steelbook and special edition dvds were accidentally missing six seconds of footage (not contentious, they just used the wrong print) so replacement discs had to be sent out.

Watching the film again it seems ridiculous that you couldn’t walk into a shop/order a copy online of this film until four years ago, a full 33 years after its initial release!

Cultural Impact

Well it kick started the Italian horror genre which, at the time, pretty much solely consisted of Dario Argento who was churning out bona fide classics of the calibre of ‘Deep Red’, ‘Suspiria’, ‘Inferno’ and ‘Four Flies on Grey Velvet’ all on his own…I’m sure he was glad of the company!

Depending on your point of view this series consists of five films due to the Italian title in America being ‘Zombi 2’. This means that what we know in the UK as ‘Zombie Flesh Eaters 2’ (also directed, incredibly badly, by Fulci) was called ‘Zombi 3’ in the US, ‘Zombie Flesh Eaters 3’ is called ‘Zombi 4’ and so on. This is further complicated in the US by the 90s re-releases of Joe D’Amato’s ‘Anthropophagous’ and its sequel, ‘Absurd’, which were titled ‘Zombi 6’ and ‘Zombi 7’! I prefer to think of ‘Zombie Flesh Eaters’ as a standalone film to prevent giving myself a headache.

Final Thoughts

The very best of the Italian zombie sub-genre and the only one to escape the ‘unintentionally funny’ tag, this has stood the test of time very well even if it’s capacity to shock has diminished. That said, there are still some hard to watch scenes and with Fulci keeping a tight grip on the pacing he creates a wonderfully unique atmosphere from a familiar plotline. He directed three more zombie movies (the jury’s out over how much of ‘Zombie Flesh Eaters 2’ he directed after abandoning the project) and whilst I think at least one of them is superior to this one, ‘Zombie Flesh Eaters’ is probably the purest in terms of the zombie mythology.

Memorable Quotes

Dr Menard: “I don’t believe in voodoo”
Lucas: “And Lucas not believe that the dead be dead.”

West: “Out there, they’re coming back to life…they’re everywhere.”

Radio Reporter: “ I’ve been informed that zombies have entered the building…..they’re outside the door…..they’re coming in…………aaaarrrrgggghhhh.”

You’ll like this if you enjoyed…

‘Dawn of the Dead’, ‘The Serpent and the Rainbow’, ‘Zombie Holocaust’, ‘City of the Living Dead’, ‘Zombie Creeping Flesh’.

Jaws: The Revenge (1987)

Tagline: “This time it’s personal.”

Running Time: 90 minutes

Film quality: 0.5/5
Gore Content: 2/5
Entertainment Value: 1/5
Originality: 2/5

Introduction

You would have thought after the pretty terrible ‘Jaws 3D’ that they’d have been done with Bruce the Shark but no…Universal were determined to make another instalment and drafted in four time Emmy Award winner and director of ‘The Taking of Pelham 123’ Joseph Sargent to produce and direct a fourth instalment. There was no script and no direction, just ‘give us another ‘Jaws’ movie and make sure it’s centred around the Brody family’. Well, they certainly did that, but nobody expected them to take the most sarcastic line from ‘Jaws 2’ (“Sharks don’t take things personally”) and turn it into the basis of an entire film!

In a nutshell…

When Sean Brody is attacked and killed by a shark (left), just off Amity Island, Ellen Brody becomes convinced that Great White Sharks have it in for her family. She goes to the Bahamas with her other son, Michael, who is now a marine biologist…but surely the shark hasn’t followed them more than 1,000 miles to carry out its vendetta?

So what’s good about it?

I can honestly say that there is only one even slightly effective scene in the entire film, and that’s a dream sequence. Ellen, already terrified of the water, is swimming and suddenly gets the jitters, chased by what she thinks is a shark, but she can’t swim fast enough. All tension though is ruined by the pay off you expect actually happening right in front of your eyes, alerting you to the fact that it’s clearly a dream before the punchline…effective scene duly ruined! Watching the rest of the film it’s easy to convince yourself that this moment was good by accident and, coming very early on, lulls you into a bit of a false sense of security.

Other than that, at least it’s short, there is some stunning scenery (the only truly original part of the film) and the acting is serviceable…oh, and Michael Caine bought himself a very nice house!!!

"You were only supposed to blow the bloody Jaws off"

And what about the bad?

Everything else!!! Let’s start with the premise…a shark that follows a plane more than a thousand miles from freezing Christmas waters to the tropics just because it has a personal beef with the Brody clan! I know they were intending to go for the mystical but really? Not only that but it seems to be communicating with Ellen through some kind of psychic link!!! I remember watching the original and thinking that there was no way a shark could jump onto a boat like that…if only something that down to Earth happened in this film!

Moving onto the special effects, they have to be amongst the worst I’ve ever seen from what was the most expensive film of the year, costing $23million. To paraphrase ‘Red Dwarf’, I’ve seen more convincing sharks given away free with packets of Wheaty Flakes! In some of the underwater scenes you can clearly see the mechanisms moving the shark across the sea bed. There isn’t a single moment where you think that it is anything other than a substandard mechanical puppet…where the hell did all that money go? Again, Michael Caine’s house must have been f@cking brilliant!

Flight, yet filling!

There’s the editing, the writing, the directing, the pacing, the sound effects…I mean come on, sharks do not roar and routinely poke their heads out of the water like a demented seal!!! Also, is it possible to electrocute a Great White Shark as though it’s some sort of therapy? How do they know it’s the same shark as in Amity when that’s the least likely of any number of ridiculous explanations and why does everyone, including someone who is meant to be a respected marine biologist firmly believe this…did they get its FIN-gerprints? I’m here all night! How can a 28 foot shark wriggle its way through an intricate shipwreck? They even manage to top the silly shark attack on a helicopter from the otherwise excellent ‘Jaws 2’ by pulling the same trick with a light aircraft (above,left). The entire film is utterly ludicrous…it’s only because of ‘Ishtar’ and ‘Leonard Part 6’ that it didn’t win more than one Razzie award (naturally for its low-bar setting ‘special’ effects).

Character actions and motivations are absurdly bad. If Ellen is traumatised by the water, why does her marine biologist son think that taking her to their coastal retreat on the Bahamas would be relaxing? The apparently newly qualified Michaal (quite a step up from Sea World!) neglects his duties to, you know, warn people that there's a massive killer shark around, putting everyone, including his daughter, in mortal danger. Why would such qualified and well-educated marine biologists flap around like a distressed fish at the first sign of a Great White...isn't that what attracts them in the first place? Maybe they've been spending too much time tagging Conch Shells!t's truly awe-inspiring that this kind of stuff made it past what must have been a committee of script consultants...perhaps they just fancied three months in the sun.

But the worst trick it pulls is in several scenes where they show sepia footage of the original…nothing highlights how terrible a sequel is than reminding you of the far superior original. Right from the beginning we’re treated to a photo of Roy Scheider as Martin Brody, we have a rehash of the touching father and son mimicking each other over dinner scene and, worst of all, the wonderful ending of the original is in Ellen’s thoughts (odd, she wasn’t even there!) as the incomprehensible and poorly edited finale burns a hole into our eyeballs and taints our world view of movies for evermore!

And one final thing (spoiler alert!!!)…why does the shark explode?

Any themes?

Nothing comprehensible, other than that the ‘Jaws’ series perfectly exemplifies the law of diminishing sequels. Also a perfect example of what happens when nobody has a single clue what’s going on…apparently Mario van Peebles wrote his own lines, poor soul.

Release history.

In the UK there were issues over censorship with much of the opening scene where Sean is killed cut by the BBFC to achieve a PG rating. In total 37 seconds were removed from that scene and the inflatable banana attack (some pretty gruesome shots of the shark eating a young woman…all above water of course!), all of which were restored to a ‘15’ rated DVD, downgraded later to a ‘12’.

There are a number of different versions doing the rounds that feature the shark being impaled on the front of a boat (right!), rammed until it dies of blood loss and, bizarrely in the version I saw, blowing up! Depending on which version you see Mario van Peebles’ character Jake either survives (how on Earth could he have survived that!!!) or dies, there are a number of different endings, none of which make any sense whatsoever.

Credit to the BBC who had a version pretty much identical to the original cinema cut but was broadcast at a faster speed so only runs 82 minutes…not quite fast forward but anything that makes the experience shorter!

Cultural impact

Killed the ‘Jaws’ series stone dead…there is no chance on earth or at sea that any film maker will think it’s safe to go back in the water ever again, regardless of whether or not it’s personal. Cult Italian director Bruno Mattei directed a TV movie called ‘Cruel Jaws’ that was shamelessly released as ‘Jaws 5’ in some territories and does feature some stock footage from the series but really has nothing to do with the official ‘Jaws’ cannon.

Final thoughts

This is such a turd of a film that if Sargent had unravelled the entire negative and taken a giant dump on it, we’d see a massive improvement. Shockingly bad on almost every level it’s rightly regarded as one of the worst films ever made, its only saving grace was that it turned a profit.

Memorable Quotes

Hoagie: “I have the urge to kiss you.”
Ellen: “Why?”

Jake: “May your sex life be as busy as your shirt.”

Hoagie: “When I get back remind me to tell you about the time I took a hundred nuns to Nairobi.”

You’ll like this if you enjoyed…

No…you really won’t like this at all…

Jaws 3-D (1983)

Tagline: “A new dimension in terror.”

Running Time: 99 minutes

Film quality: 2/5
Gore Content: 2/5
Entertainment Value: 3/5
Originality: 3/5

Introduction

One classic original and a solid second instalment meant that a third film was inevitable and it had to be something different. Clearly aware that the first two films, essentially, followed the same formula without appearing to be carbon copies, the makers needed something to freshen things up. Following the modest successes of the third films in the Amityville and Friday 13th series in their employment of a renewed interest in the 3D format, an underwater adventure and the potential of having things thrust at the audience proved too much of a temptation to resist. Audiences were about to get a lot closer to Bruce…and his/her younger daughter!

In a nutshell…

Following on from their traumatic encounter with the shark in ‘Jaws 2’, Michael Brody now works at a Sea World centre and invites his younger brother Sean to stay. Sean is now terrified of the water and his arrival coincides with an uninvited guest of a far more man eating kind.

So what’s good about it?

I don’t think anyone can hold their hands up and say that it’s anything other than a step down from ‘Jaws 2’ in almost every way. However, it is still just about entertaining and whilst, unlike the first two, it really doesn’t stand up to repeated viewing, I don’t recall being bored and have returned to it by choice a couple of times whilst channel hopping. The writers were wise not to set it in Amity, it does feel fresh as a result and I think the idea of catching a Great White and trying to nurse it back to health is an interesting, if not very realistic one! You can certainly see how an animal lover would choose this as an option whist the nautical equivalent of a big game hunter wants to blow it to kingdom come. This is what puts it WAY ahead of the utterly and completely awful fourth instalment, it has likeable and believable characters that you would cheer for and that’s half the battle.

Also unexpected, until about halfway through at least, was the presence of two sharks. Now, I’m not convinced that sharks are maternal/paternal and I don’t know how a 35 foot shark can be that incognito for that length of time, but I quite liked the direction the film went, for entertainment purposes rather than logic at least. Whereas the first film is cat and mouse and the second plays out like a slasher film, this one morphs into a disaster film at the midway point. There are shades of ‘The Towering Inferno’ and ‘The Poseidon Adventure’ as visitors to the Sea World are trapped. It adds an otherwise untapped dimension (one that doesn’t require a pair of red and green specs) to the film with scores of people in danger who aren’t in the water instead the five or six who are. I’m not sure they quite make the most of this, in fact you almost forget those people are trapped until the very end, but you’ve got to hand it to the writers once again for trying something new.

There’s really not much else about it that you could realistically describe as good…the music is what it is, the direction (Joe Alves was the 32nd unit director on the second instalment and production designed on the first) is unspectacularly okay, acting so-so despite terrible dialogue to utter, but we did have a lucky escape. The Zanuck-Brown production team initially wanted this to be a spoof called ‘Jaws 3, People 0’ written by the National Lampoon team. Thankfully, in a rare moment of studio interference for the good of the world, Universal were strongly against the idea, believing it would ruin the first two. Some early drafts also strongly hinted that the shark would somehow be the same one that perished at the end of ‘Jaws 2’, presumably picking up on the ‘Friday 13th’ theme of an unkillable killer!

And what about the bad?

Unfortunately, no matter how likeable Dennis Quaid’s Mike, his girlfriend and all round eco-warrior girlfriend Kay and some of the other characters are, it really doesn’t win the other half of the battle. Whilst the film may well have looked impressive up on a cinema screen, it looks nothing short of awful for the most part on the small screen. There’s a noticeable and distracting edge to most of the underwater effects, particularly the submersible and shark that almost look otherworldly and surreal. It also uses the gimmick of 3D as just that, a gimmick! There is no real artistic reason for it…watching it in the oh-so old fashioned realm of just the two dimensions you can pinpoint the moments when they wanted to show off the third dimension. Two divers wander around in the marshes just to the reeds can bend towards the audience. We have poles, fingers, killer whales, eels, fish, rope and, of course, the shark launching themselves towards us and it just comes across as annoying on a conventional TV screen. It’s not a long film so to have so much going on that’s purely there to exploit the format, an exercise that is made impotent on the small screen anyway, that’s a lot of wasted time.

As with part four the effects are, almost without exception, extremely poor. Costing $18million you would have expected better because even the animatronic effects are very bad which you can’t blame on the lack of 3D for small screen viewings. The film quality in parts is also very bad and this CAN be blamed on the 3D. Because some of the shots were done with the green and red filters, for the small screen they simply took the left eye shot which means resolution is halved and bathed in red. Not ideal in today’s HD-obsessed and colour corrected society!

Any themes?

Considering this a sea life centre and it’s been well documented about how misunderstood sharks have been since the release of the original ‘Jaws’ they missed a real trick in giving us a bit of a marine biology lesson. Instead it’s merely hinted at with an attempt to keep the shark in captivity and study it. Apparently they consulted real shark experts to make this film but even I know that sharks can’t swim backwards so this was an opportunity missed. Other than that, nothing other than the boundaries of 3D are really explored.

Release history.

Suffered minor edits for its cinema release after the BBFC removed 7 seconds. The offending scenes were the discovery of the mutated remains of the first victim, Overman, and a second shot of a small eel or worm coming out of his mouth. These cuts were made to avoid a ‘15’ rating and were restored for the VHS and DVD versions, rated ‘15’ for VHS and downgraded to ’12’ for DVD. These releases featured a slightly different opening title of ‘Jaws 3’ to account for the fact it was a two dimensional film. Subsequent blu-ray releases were remastered from the cinema version so revert back to its original ‘Jaws 3D’ title.

There is only one example of a small screen version retaining the 3D effect which was brought out in Japan in the very shortlived VHD format. A version of the playback machine was manufactured to play 3D but very few were made…this version has been bootlegged so it is possible to get a DVD copy but the picture is likely to poorer than the film itself!

Cultural impact

Attempted to take the series in a slightly different direction but for the most part failed. It turned a decent profit but nowhere near the cash supply of the first two films and followed the rules of diminishing returns from sequels. A little bit of trivia for you…apparently Roy Scheider accepted the part in ‘Blue Thunder’ so that there was no chance of him being roped into this one!

Final thoughts

This is where it all started going wring in the ‘Jaws’ franchise, a little bit silly and laboured in parts, it’s certainly not the worst film you’ll ever see…as we all know now, that was to come four years later!

You’ll like this if you enjoyed…

‘Piranha’, ‘Alligator’, ‘Anaconda’ ‘Free Willy’ (maybe!)

Jaws 2 (1978)

Tagline: “Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water.”

Running Time: 116 minutes

Film quality: 3.5/5
Gore Content: 2/5
Entertainment Value: 4/5
Originality: 3/5

Introduction

With a massive hit like ‘Jaws’ (click here for my review of the original classic!), Universal green lit a sequel before the original had completed its international run. But it wasn’t going to be straightforward! Spielberg likened doing a sequel to ‘A cheap carny trick’ (if only someone had reminded him of that before he did the 4th Indiana Jones film!), Roy Scheider was reluctant to go near it, an initial draft closer to the tone of the book featuring Amity in decline and in the hands of the Mafia was rejected and the film’s original director was fired 12 weeks into production. Could the little known Jeannot Szwarc, a regular director on the small screen, save the film which would ultimately cost three times the original?

In a nutshell…

The seaside town of Amity is thriving again following the devastating events of the first film and local businessmen are ploughing money into new luxury developments. When a couple of divers go missing and a waterskier is killed in a terrible boating accident, Chief Brody fears the worst…has the killer shark returned and will anyone listen to him?

So what’s good about it?

Let’s get one thing straight out of the way…this film was NEVER going to beat the original and the makers must have known that. However, alongside ‘Psycho 2’, this has to go down as one of the best ‘this should be terrible’ sequels of all time. It really isn’t bad at all and there are some truly standout moments that easily rival the original, and it’s in the set pieces that this film really knocks it out of the park.

The shark chasing the waterskier in one of the earlier moments is as extraordinary as it is iconic, Chief Brody’s meltdown on the beach is highly memorable and tragic, the jump scare of the dead body leaping out of the waves as Brody gingerly makes his way into the water almost lives up to the head popping out of the boat. These scenes would not have been out of place in the original and Szwarc does a fine job in replicating the tension and thrills that Spielberg managed so effortlessly.

He paces the film very well and is clever enough to pitch the film very close in tone to the original without making it a shameless re-tread. Brody’s children are more grown up in this movie so they make a plot feature out of it by putting them in peril. This changes the dynamic and Brody’s sense of urgency. Whereas in the first one he is the hero out of a sense of duty to protect the town, this time he needs to save his children and their friends. The setup is very much the same, the first half of the movie on land, the second at sea, but whereas Spielberg’s juggernaut was claustrophobic with three men in a small boat, this one juxtaposes the frantic search by Brody, Ellen and Hendricks with the escalating horror of the helpless kids at sea. It might not reach the same tension levels but it is very effective all the same.

One thing that struck me was how much the film follows the formula of your average slasher flick. Nobody can see the faceless killer stalking the beachgoers, we get a few red herrings along the way before the reckless teens defy their authoritative parents to put themselves in danger and must be saved by the only one who can see what’s going on. I’m not saying that it wrote the book on slasher films but it did precede ‘Halloween’ by a few months and many of the common tropes are there. That said, with the exception of the Mayor’s son who comes across as a bit of a prick in the first half of the film, the kids are generally likeable and you’re on their side, just wanting to have a bit of fun living in a seaside resort.

Of course John Williams score is as exceptional as ever, adding a new dimension with the beautiful, peaceful undersea theme making the shark scene seem all the more jarring. Again, the acting is excellent with Scheider, hiding his almost total disdain for the film and director, turning in a performance every bit as good as his original effort. But we can’t close the ‘good’ section without mentioning the poster. That tagline ‘Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water’ must be one of the greatest poster taglines ever written and is often mistaken for the original film’s tag. It’s been imitated and parodied ever since but remains memorable in its own right.

And what about the bad?

Yes, the shark in the original does things that no shark in the history of the world has ever done but there are some very silly moments in this one. Outside of ‘Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus’ (or anything released by The Asylum), can a shark really bring down a helicopter? Also, the film badly misses characters with the gravitas of Hooper and Quint. Early drafts that used a discarded plot point from the novel, the Mafia’s role in propping up the town, would have lent the film some real depth and grounding so it’s a shame that this was considered ‘too dark’. But, other than simply not being as good as the original, this is a very serviceable film and have settled on it to watch it to the end whilst channel hopping many times…always the sign of a good film!

Any themes?

There’s not as much depth as the first film but it does play more on the greed and nature of self-interest that follow politicians and local authority. The Mayor local councillors and businessmen with a vested interest can’t see, or aren’t willing to see what’s going on in front of their eyes and don’t heed the warnings of Brody until it’s too late. It’s hinted at in the first film with Larry’s refusal to believe they’ve caught the wrong shark but that line is more explicitly drawn in the sequel with the introduction of developer Len Peterson who has a personal beef with Brody, completely driven by money and chasing his wife Ellen.

I like the way it focusses on the positive aspects of kids having fun. Whereas the slasher film takes delight in punishing sexual abandon, drug taking and drink, there is very little of that here. The only couple engaged in sexual activity are in a solid relationship and the fun loving kids are simply taking advantage of living in a seaside resort and enjoying its natural charms.

Release history.

No issues with censorship but there was a Brazilian VHS release that featured two additional scenes, apparently not present anywhere else. These include a moment where we see Hendricks searching underwater for the camera lost by the divers and a second extended scene where Brody talks to residents in the police station. There is also a TV versions featuring five very short, incidental scenes inserted to beef up the running time for a three hour slot. Some of these short and largely character developing scenes are available as deleted scenes on the DVD release.

Cultural impact

Some of the set pieces, especially the waterskier with the shark fin in tow, have been parodied and held in very high regard. Likewise, that genius tagline, but other than being viewed as a highly competent sequel, the cultural impact is very much owed to the original.

Final thoughts

Though not a patch on Spielberg’s classic, it’s easily the best of the follow ups and matches the original with some outstanding moments, if not as a whole. It doesn’t deviate too far from the formula of the first film whilst maintaining its own sense of identity, focussing on the kids and the fun aspect of living on a resort and how this can go horribly wrong if you don’t respect the sea.

Memorable Quotes

Marine Biologist: “Sharks don’t take thing personally Mr Brody.”

Brody: “I think we’ve got another shark problem.”

Brody: “I’m telling you and I’m telling everybody at this table that this is a shark, and I know what a shark looks like because I’ve seen one up close. And you’d better do something about this one because I don’t intend to go through that hell again.”

You’ll like this if you enjoyed…

‘The Reef’, ‘Open Water’, ‘Piranha’, ‘Deep Blue Sea’