FILM FOCUS: THE SCREAM TEAM

The Scream Team is one of many Halloween-themed Disney Channel original movies.  My only knowledge of it was that it co-starred Kathy Najimy as a ghost, and that was certainly enough to pique my interest.  Upon finally watching it yesterday (it first aired in 2002), I was pleased to discover that the Halloween-theme was prominent.  Too many of the “spooky” Disney Channel movies rely on supernatural elements and throw in a pumpkin or two in the background for Halloween cred.  The Scream Team actually takes place around Halloween and incorporates the holiday into the plot.

And what a plot!  What a convoluted, overly-complicated, disparate plot!  The movie begins by showing a grandfather’s corpse, dead in his chair as the paramedics arrive. I thought this was a weirdly bold (and potentially traumatizing) move for a Disney Channel movie.  We then cut to a flashback of the still-alive grandfather working on a pumpkin carving machine with his two grandchildren.  Between the early appearance of a corpse and pumpkin carving I had overly high expectations going in.

Things settled down quickly as the next thirty minutes were spent setting up the aforementioned complicated plot.  Dead grandfather was an inventor and former hardware store owner in a small New Englandy town called Steeplechase.  His adult son was embittered toward his father (I mean, really, REALLY bitter; he spent a lot of the movie complaining about his father) but his two grandkids loved him.  One of the grandkids is played by a young Kat Dennings, of Two Broke Girls and a few random movies fame.  I have never seen Kat Dennings play anything but a sarcastic wiseass and that’s what she’s doing here as well, though a milder pre-teen version.  She also engages in some of the worst, fakest on-screen running I’ve ever seen.  Meant to be running for her life in the woods at one point, she instead is laughing and sort of doing the chicken dance with her arms.  Even at a tender age, Kat Dennings was too steeped in irony to pretend to run for her life.

Eventually, after way too much set-up, the ghosts show up.  It’s hopelessly complicated, but in essence Grandpa’s ghost gets captured by a local evil spirit, and the kids track down some other ghosts to a limbo-like waystation for spirits.  The waystation is a total rip-off of the bureaucratic underworld seen in the movie Beetlejuice, down to the fact that the ghosts all appear in the same clothes they died in.  It’s an eclectic mix; spotted among the ghosts are cheerleaders, soccer players, a movie usher and a mime.  This movie would have you believe that people die constantly while engaged in their seemingly non-dangerous day jobs (which I don’t know—maybe that’s true?).

In short, the kids team up with a trio of ghosts who work at the waystation to rescue their grandfather’s spirit and usher him on to heaven (or potentially hell—this is never discussed in the movie.  The spirits just walk through a mirror into a sort of rainbow tunnel).  Erik Idle plays Coffinhead, a Revolutionary War ghost with bad teeth.  Kathy Najimy is the less-creatively-named Mariah, a ghost bride and sort of office manager.  And finally there’s Tommy Davidson as Jumper, a dead parachuter.  I’ve never seen Tommy Davidson in anything else before, but he was incredibly annoying in this.  He shouted all of his dialogue with an overload of sassiness.  Think of Chris Tucker’s character in Rush Hour, but even louder and sassier, and dressed as a parachuter.  Weirdly the ghosts only ever refer to themselves as “the Soul Patrol,” yet the movie is titled The Scream Team.

There is way, way more to the plot, involving a pyromaniac Pilgrim ghost with a thirst for revenge, a conspiring local businessman, stolen library books, an abandoned mine, the town’s first natural gas pipe system, and it goes on and on.  There is much running around with Erik Idle’s character disappearing every time the kids get into trouble, several run-ins with local cops, and the entire time the dad character is just bitching about not getting enough love and respect from his own father while his kids are fleeing for their lives (or in Kat Dennings’ case, chicken-dancing for her life) from a fireball-hurling spirit of vengeance.

Kathy Najimy (predictably, as she can do no wrong in my eyes) was the highlight, though of the three ghosts her role was the smallest.  She added some needed humor as the flustered office admin ghost who just wants to get on with her job, but at one point she morphs into a total bad-ass and has a supernatural showdown with the evil ghost and shoots ghost-lasers (or something) at him.  The special effects run the gamut; the shimmery, multi-colored flying ghosts are actually kind of cool, but there is also some laughably bad CGI fire throughout.

The other highlight of the movie is the Halloween décor and small-town festival.  Seriously, I love fictional small-town holiday festivals—call it the Stars Hollow effect.  Throughout the story the town is preparing for its annual Halloween festival, and we see truckloads of pumpkins and hay bales being delivered, and several trips are made to the most lavishly decorated library you’ll ever see (it even has a fireplace decked out with cobwebs, ravens and fake fall leaves).  The big finale takes place at the festival on Halloween, where the evil ghost hurls fireballs at the Ferris wheel and the locals burn a pumpkin-headed effigy.  As I wrote at the beginning of this overly long review, they certainly didn’t skimp on the Halloween décor.  Sadly they also didn’t skimp on the plot elements either, which were dizzying. 

The screenwriter (or writers) clearly had daddy issues since the movie essentially ends with the whiny dad sitting down with his father’s ghost for a heart to heart talk.  Those two kids risked life and limb for two hours to save their grandfather's immortal soul and then at the end when finally reunited with his ghost they say a quick goodbye and scurry upstairs to give their dad some private time to work out his feelings.  In the end, The Scream Team isn’t one of Disney Channel’s best Halloween offerings (I would give that award to Halloweentown), but it’s got a few things in its favor and makes for some good cheesy fun, with lots of nice glimpses at a New England town done up for Halloween.

FILM FOCUS: WHEN GOOD GHOULS GO BAD

The Fox Family made-for-TV movie When Good Ghouls Go Bad has long been on my “To Watch” list for many reasons.  It’s based on a book by R.L. Stine, the 90s horror maestro.  It stars Christopher Lloyd, of Back to the Future and Clue fame.  And, judging by the few snippets I was able to view online, it’s brimming with Halloween cheer.  Despite my desire to see it, it’s been a long wait.  It’s available for sale on DVD but I wanted to watch it at least once before adding it to my permanent collection, and it apparently never airs on TV anymore.  Luckily some kind soul put the whole thing up on YouTube and it was my first movie pick of the 2015 Halloween season.

I’m happy to report that it didn’t disappoint!  It never reaches the brilliance of Hocus Pocus (nothing does, but both movies both have “death by school kiln” scenes) or even the campy fun of Halloweentown, but it hit all of the holiday sweet spots.  The plot gets complicated, but I’ll do my best to keep recap it quickly: tween Danny and his dad move back to the small town that’s home to both Danny’s grandfather and the ailing family chocolate factory.  While Danny’s dad ignores him while trying to save the family business, Danny bonds with his fun-loving grandpa (played by Christopher Lloyd), who insists that everyone, even Danny, call him Uncle Fred.

Danny soon learns that Halloween is forbidden in the town due to an incident years earlier involving a Goth kid who was accidentally killed in the school kiln and threatened revenge if the holiday is ever celebrated.  The local football coach and his bully son fanatically enforce the rules, but a series of bizarre events quickly upsets the status quo.  In short order Uncle Fred is killed when a mysterious pile of pumpkins falls on him, then comes back as a friendly zombie to help Danny uncover why Halloween decorations keep appearing all over town.  Danny, his local girl love interest, and zombie Uncle Fred soon run afoul of a host of zombies and angry townspeople and uncover a conspiracy about the real events surrounding the infamous Curtis Danko’s death.

That’s about as concise as I can manage, and I’m leaving out a lot, including weird subplots about German investors, Danny’s dad’s own love interest, magical fireflies, a secret haunted house run by the local kids, an evil statue, and the list goes on and on.  The story isn’t the movie’s greatest strength, but it somehow all makes sense in the end.

Christopher Lloyd can bring gravitas to any situation or dialogue and he anchors the whole thing with a sense of fun.  There are a lot of interesting supporting characters, like Danny’s dad’s kooky secretary, the bully’s mom, and the befuddled mayor and his wife.  At first I was confused by Danny’s love interest, Dayna.  I thought maybe her dialogue was all dubbed, because something was definitely off every time she spoke.  A little internet research revealed that the actress is Australian, and she did a bad job trying to disguise her accent.  The result is a very weird, very distracting cadence.  The movie itself, set in small-town middle America, was shot in Australia but if there were other covert Aussies actors in the cast they did a much better job of keeping their accents at bay.

The Halloween visuals are plentiful.  One of the plot points is that elaborate Halloween decorations keep mysteriously appearing throughout the town, so there lots of shots of lavish holiday décor.  The kids also have the aforementioned secret haunted house, to which they smuggled all of the town’s banned Halloween stuff.  An orange Volkswagen bug even gets done-up as a jack-o-lantern and a very cool cemetery makes repeat appearances. 

What I wasn’t expecting were a few surprisingly profound moments thrown in amid the silliness.  The first such moment occurs when Danny speaks to Dayna after his grandfather’s funeral.  She delivers a beautiful monologue on how the idea of him decomposing in his grave is actually a beautiful thing, a return to the earth, and so on.  (It sounds better when delivered in her weird Aussie-US warble.)  The ending of the movie is also surprisingly moving, with the assembled zombies engaging in a beautiful danse macabre in the graveyard, slowly swirling into dust and clouds. 

Reading up on the movie afterward revealed a real-life tragedy linked to it.  The actor who played Danny went missing in 2006 at the age of 18.  He’s never been found after leaving a poker game with friends.  It definitely casts a pall over the proceedings,  knowing the grim fate of its child star, but as I said the movie actually has a surprisingly deep and nuanced view of death that you wouldn’t expect from a made-for-TV Halloween movie aimed at kids.  Perhaps it's due to the tragic circumstances of its star that When Good Ghouls Go Bad isn’t in heavy rotation every Halloween, but it has a lot going for it and is definitely worth seeking out.

FILM FOCUS: VALENTINE

I am (somewhat covertly) a big horror movie fan, though my weak constitution places limits on how and which horror movies I watch.  Rather than see a scary movie in the theater, I much prefer to watch them the way I did growing up, as reruns on cable with the goriest parts edited out by some kindly network censor.  Watching scary movies on TV also gives you the handy option of quickly changing the channel right before something gruesome happens, and then switching back when you think it’s safe (often only to catch the tail end of the gruesome bit--it takes practice).  I don’t go for gore or “torture porn” but I love me a good  ole fashioned chase sequence and a hapless group of sexy teenagers getting bumped off one by one.  As Nick said the other night, he knows that if I like a certain horror movie it must mean that it’s not actually scary. 

Since the 1970s success of Halloween and Black Christmas, moviemakers have long mined the 'holiday + psychopathic killer = box office gold' formula.  When thinking of a Valentine’s Day slasher film the obvious choice may be My Bloody Valentine (both the original and the more recent 3D remake).  But again, I tend to opt for not-very-scary slashers, so for me the cupid-killer movie that holds my heart is 2001’s box office embarrassment, Valentine.

Valentine is one of those movies with a cast of somewhat recognizable faces, mostly culled from TV shows.  David Boreanz is the biggest name, probably followed by Katherine Heigl, who is only in one scene  because **spoiler** she dies (this is not a spoiler because basically everyone dies).  Heigl later publically regretted her involvement in this movie, claiming she hadn’t read the entire script before signing on.  Knowing how apparently unashamed she is of her many other shitty movies, that really speaks to the quality of Valentine.  Even the movie’s director (who also directed Urban Legends, another fun, not terribly frightening slasher flick I enjoy) has publically apologized for Valentine’s shortcomings.  They can all say what they will, but I still get a kick out of the proceedings.

There really isn’t a plot so much as a series of deaths connected by a Valentine’s Day theme.  The movie begins with a flashback, in which a group of middle school girls help humiliate a dorky boy at a Valentine’s Day dance.  Years later the girls are all blond (except for one, Denise Richards) and sexy and living in San Francisco (which looks more like L.A. by way of Toronto).  One by one the girls receive threatening valentines signed by “JM,” the initials of the geeky boy from their past.  And then one by one they get killed off, along with a lot of other secondary characters who solely hang around to provide a bigger body count (seriously, was it really necessary to kill the maid?!). 

The women fall into the usual horror movie clichés: smart one, fun one, good girl and the slutty girl, the latter played with some spark by Denise Richards.  They are less notable for their characterizations than they are for the methods of their deaths—one is literally shot with arrows by the cupid-masked killer.  The movie’s most memorable death again belongs to Denise Richards.  It involves a sealed Jacuzzi and a power drill, and I'll leave it at that.   There is also the single worst fake severed head you will ever see in a movie.  Not only does it not in the least resemble the doomed detective it’s meant to represent, it’s clearly a mask someone bought at a Spirit Halloween close-out sale.

It all may sound pretty bloody but the gore is surprisingly minimal.  I won’t spoil the ending but basically there are two candidates for who the killer may be, and ultimately neither really makes sense (I even watched the closing scene with the director’s commentary this year and it still didn’t fully clear it up for me).  Amidst all the death is a lot of talk of dating and romance and some odd sexual moments (but no real nudity).  Example: a creepy dude is caught trying on his neighbor’s pantyhose before being bludgeoned to death with an iron.

In terms of its holiday theming, however, Valentine nails it.  There are the aforementioned creepy death threat valentines.  There is maggot-filled candy in a heart-shaped box, red roses, and a heart-shaped sucker.  The final third takes place at the world’s most lavish Valentine’s Day party, with tons of decorations that suggests a passion for the holiday that nobody seems to have in real life.  The killer is also on-theme, wearing a porcelain cupid’s mask.  If you’re one of the many anti-Valentine’s Day people out there, watching a bunch of aspiring early 2000 starlets get murdered by a killer cupid ain’t a bad way to pass the evening.  Or, if you’re like me, and like your horror fairly tame and intestine-free and can appreciate a good-bad movie for what it’s worth, check out the movie or at least the trailer below.

I do still feel bad that the maid had to die though. 

FILM FOCUS: MERRY IN-LAWS

 

I don’t know how or why 2014 became the Year of Watching Shelley Long Movies—but it did. Troop Beverly Hills, which stars the Divine Ms. L, is one of the cornerstones of my childhood, but beyond that I could never properly call myself a Shelley Long fan. It was only after Cheers was added to Netflix that I started to fall in love, first with the character of Diane Chambers and then with Ms. Long herself.  So this past year I’ve been seeking out her films, both from the height of her popularity in the late 80s/early 90s and her more recent TV movies (how the mighty have fallen, I know). In 2014 I watched Outrageous Fortune, Strawberry Summer, and A Holiday Engagement. 

While making a list of Ms. Long’s films (do I even need to say at this stage of the game that a list was involved?!) I was pleasantly surprised to see several Christmas movies.  Someday I’ll get to writing about the aforementioned hybrid Thanksgiving-Christmas movie A Holiday Engagement, which Nick and I both liked so much that we went out and bought it after viewing.  But I was most excited to see Merry In-Laws, which thanks to the wonders of TIVO I was able to watch for the first time this year.

Prior to watching, I knew nothing about Merry In-Laws save the title and the fact that Shelley Long was in it.  But I correctly guessed that it was about a woman who ends up engaged to the son of Santa, and that Mrs. Claus (one half of the titular merry in-laws) would be played by Shelley Long.  Made-for-TV movies just love the idea of Santa offspring—everyone from Jenny McCarthy to Kelsey Grammer have played Santa’s spawn over the years.  In Merry In-Laws, Santa’s son is a kindly schoolteacher who proposes to a pretty astronomer.  Because: science = skepticism!  The stage is now set for a showdown between the true believer Klaus Clan and Lady Astronomer’s uptight family.

The plot is really secondary to several other important factors, including the amount of Christmas decorations that appear.  Things start out rather lackluster but once Mr. and Mrs. Claus show up, they deck the halls real good.   Santa is played by George Wendt (who I saw also in the role of Santa in the Broadway musical version of Elf).  And of course Mrs. Claus is played with bubbly enthusiasm by Shelley Long.  Wendt and Long both starred on Cheers back in the day, and I couldn’t help but think of this as some weird alternate universe where Diane ran off with Norm and they gained magical Christmas powers.  This version of Santa and Mrs. Claus are rather affectionate—if not downright randy, and there are several scenes of them pawing at each other and giggling suggestively.  Yeah.  I know.

The movie’s best scene, however, is when Mrs. Claus and her future daughter-in-law bake cookies together.  Lady Astronomer is a terrible cook (we know this because she burns a couple meals prior to this scene), so she is reluctant to bake.   However Mrs. Claus insists that all she needs to make a successful batch of cookies is a little song and dance.  They then proceed to adorably prance around TO THE GREATEST SONG EVER.

Seriously, I have found my anthem for life.  Once the offbeat (yet Christmassy!) tune began to play I was instantly hooked, though doubtful it was a real song and not some random tune made up for the movie.  “Let Siri identify it,” insisted Nick (who worships a god named iPhone) and much to my amazement, Siri proclaimed that the song in question is “Can’t Stop Thinking About Christmas” by Electric Honey.  I can’t stop listening to this song—I love slightly off-kilter Christmas music and this fits the bill.  Plus the lyrics basically spell out my blessing and curse: an obsession with Christmas.

As you can imagine, by the end of the movie the skeptical science family is eventually won over by the merry in-laws, but only after Lady Astronomer thinks her fiancé is cheating on her with an Asian elf.  Merry In-Laws isn’t the greatest made-for-TV movie I’ve ever seen, but it’s certainly a fun way to help pass the time while you wrap presents or work on your cards (you are mailing out cards this year, right? I haven't received mine yet.  Seriously, the clock is ticking).  It’s worth it for the kitchen dancing scene along, and Shelley Long is really charming in her role of horny Mrs. Claus.  Luckily for you, it’s available for cheap on DVD and I’m sure will be running on TV at least once more this holiday season, so keep an eye out!

CHRISTMAS SCENES IN NON-CHRISTMAS MOVIES

I thought I'd kick off the season by taking a look at some of my favorite Christmas scenes from non-Christmas movies.  While there are a preponderance of Christmas films, there are also a lot of non-holiday movies that nevertheless feature Christmas in some way.  Oftentimes it’s just a short scene; in films a Christmas scene or a glimpse of Christmas in a montage is a tried and true method to indicate the passage of time (like its movie device cousins, “Pages Flying Off A Calendar” and “The Spinning Newspaper”). 

Without further ado, here we go!

Mean Girls

Mean Girls is one of those (deservedly!) cult movies where nearly every scene and line of dialogue is remembered and repeated.  However I think it’s fair to say that the “Jingle Bell Rock” scene is especially memorable.  It’s funny, it’s sexy and it contains some important plot developments (ie the start of Gretchen’s fall from grace).  We also get at least one other Christmas scene, in which candy canes are delivered by Damian dressed as Santa, and the epic “You go Glenn Coco!” line is uttered.  Nick LOVES this line and can be found exclaiming it randomly year-round.

Yours, Mine and Ours (1968)

Let me begin with a warning: make sure to only ever watch the original movie, starring Lucille Ball, and not the shitty 2005 remake (which I’ve never seen, but is shitty by default exactly because it does not star Lucille Ball and is an unnecessary remake).  I love this movie in its entirety, and the Christmas scene, which comes towards the end, is amazing.  I’ve always been fascinated by the late 60s toys and decorations galore that appear in this sequence (that may become its own post in the near future) as well as the gingerbread cookies on the tree that one of the daughters devours.

Edward Scissorhands

Some may argue that this actually is a Christmas movie—but they’re wrong.  It has a lot of fairy tale elements and that wistful Tim Burton quality, but only the film’s finale takes place during the holidays.  Like the rest of the movie, the Christmas scenes are haunting, beautiful and melancholy.  The instrumental music in the “Ice Dance” scene has become a permanent part of my Christmas music playlist.

Martha, Inc.
You can't have a made-for-TV bio pic of Martha Stewart and not have at least one Christmas scene.  If you haven't seen this camp classic, starring Cybill Shepherd as the divine domestic diva, you're missing out (It's based on an even better book that's also worth your time).  Anyhoo, the Christmas scenes in this movie involve "Martha" berating her husband during a Christmas dinner video shoot, and then coming home to the beautifully decorated yet dark and empty Turkey Hill farmhouse, having been abandoned by her husband and daughter just in time for the holidays.  It may sound grim but it makes for some addictively good TV viewing!

The Trouble With Angels

I love, love, love this movie!  I grew up watching it so there’s a nostalgia factor at work here, but it’s truly a great movie on its own merits, and the couple of Christmas scenes are among the film’s best.  First we’re treated to the girls, all students at a Catholic boarding school, making Christmas art projects, which all have a delightfully funky 60s look to them.  In that same scene we’re also treated to a scrumptious-looking tray of holiday eclairs.  Then it’s off to the old folks’ home for a heartbreaking scene in which an elderly lady abandoned by her family on Christmas is comforted by Mother Superior.  YOU WILL CRY.  Finally it’s all wrapped up with another moving scene showing the sisters at a Christmas mass, with some beautiful caroling done by the nuns.  It doesn’t get more Christmasy than this!

This is just a sample of some of the many Christmas scenes to be found in non-Christmas movies.  This holiday season haul out your DVDs and skip ahead to some of the seasonal scenes just waiting to be watched!