Teen Wolf Too (1987, Christopher Leitch)

There are worse movies than Teen Wolf Too. There have to be worse movies than Teen Wolf Too. It’s a mantra you can use when watching Teen Wolf Too. Of course, given the era, there may be even a worse theatrically released movie from the same year (1987). But Teen Wolf Too is just the wrong combination of worthless and ponderous.

The obvious worst aspect of Teen Wolf Too is lead Jason Bateman. His performance is so inept, he’s not miscast, it’s a joke he was tested. A lot makes sense once you realize Bateman’s dad, Kent, produced the movie as a vehicle for his kid who couldn’t act. What’s so unfortunate about Bateman’s acting is his apparent effort. He clearly working with some suffering acting coach because his deliveries are laborious. Lots of pausing to think and consider, which just prolongs scenes and makes the deliveries longer. The less Bateman acting, the better, but there’s so, so much of it.

Because Teen Wolf Too can’t afford the makeup people from the first one, which leads to a lousy werewolf mask for Bateman, but then he’s barely in it. Bateman’s only got a handful of scenes wolfed out besides the numerous (four or five) montage sequences, where they can also use a stuntman.

Including an indescribable—but seriously, not worth seeing it for yourself—song and dance number where Bateman’s obviously not singing or dancing. See, Stuart Fratkin’s back from the first movie—well, Fratkin’s character is back. The original actor, Jerry Levine, didn’t return. Since he’d have been thirty or whatever acting opposite maybe just eighteen Bateman. Fratkin’s older but not lots and lots older. Mark Holton’s back from the first movie; he’s lots and lots older. He’s some weird non-trad who went to college to physically assault teenagers.

But Fratkin. He wanted to get Bateman to college to create a new Teen Wolf sensation, and so he’s prepared the song and dance number for Bateman’s Teen Wolf coming out. And hired dancers. Again, indescribably bad. Again, don’t find out for yourself. Don’t even YouTube it.

So, the first movie was high school, and this one is college. Bateman’s playing Michael J. Fox’s cousin from the first movie, who doesn’t think he will be a werewolf because neither of his parents are werewolves. There’s not not an implication the parents are related.

Anyway.

James Hampton is back from the first movie as Fox’s dad and Bateman’s uncle. There’s also not not the implication Bateman’s parents are dead. It’s like the Cat People remake, actually, when you think about it. A lot like it.

Hampton’s not any good because the script’s terrible. Much like untalented white guy lead Bateman, screenwriter Tim Kring failed upward, though maybe he learned to write someday like Bateman learned to act once his dad stopped making his movies for him.

Sorry. Hampton.

Hampton’s not good. But he doesn’t appear embarrassed to be in the movie, which is incredible because everyone else looks mortified. Even Bateman. Bateman looks just as miserable as everyone watching him act.

The film’s cast is a varied assortment of established actors down on their luck, middling ones about to quit acting for something else, or lousy actors kicking off careers acting poorly.

You feel bad for Kim Darby and Paul Sands (though Sands is terrible and Darby’s just bad), but not John Astin. Astin’s atrocious. Fratkin’s awful, Beth Miller’s awful; Holton’s bad but not especially bad. Estee Chandler plays the love interest, who Bateman mentally abuses, and the script treats like shit.

Chandler’s sympathetic. She’s one of the few people not actively making the movie worse. She’s trapped in Teen Wolf Too.

Leitch’s direction is terrible, Mark Goldenberg’s music’s terrible, Jules Brenner’s photography is terrible. On the other hand, the editing–the movie’s got four editors and is ninety-five minutes—isn’t incompetent.

Don’t watch Teen Wolf Too.

Unless Jason Bateman’s dad is paying you to watch it.

Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995, Joe Chappelle)

Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers doesn’t even run ninety minutes and gets boring fast; the last twenty minutes are completely mind-numbing. Nothing makes sense, characters act without motive, cults cult without purpose, it just goes on and on. At least Donald Pleasence is lucky enough to get knocked out for a bunch of it.

Pleasence isn’t in Curse very much. The scenes he does get are usually silly, sort of half expository, half bridging scenes to keep things moving. He has no narrative of his own, which is fine. He’s so uninvolved with the film’s events he shouldn’t have one. Of course, no one gets their own narrative in Curse. At least, nothing approaching a completed one.

Lead Paul Rudd doesn’t. His character survived the first Halloween as a kid, which makes him early-to-mid-twenties. He lives in a boarding house and obsesses over Michael Myers while peeping on new neighbor Marianne Hagan across the street. She’s a single mom moved back in with her family–mom Kim Darby, dad Bradford English, brother Keith Bogart. Devin Gardner plays Hagan’s kid.

So Hagan and Rudd don’t show up for about twenty minutes, maybe a little more–though Rudd does narrate the opening titles, which are set over J.C. Brandy giving birth and then running from Michael and a cult. From a basement. Director Chappelle likes his basements. He likes to poorly direct scenes in them; cinematographer Billy Dickson lights these basement scenes poorly, like everything he lights in the movie. It’s all poorly lighted. Dickson and Chappelle shoot their night exteriors with a lot of blue light. Bright blue light.

Back to Brandy. She’s from the last couple movies but it was a different actress. The movie introduces her in the Rudd voiceover during the titles and there’s no time spent establishing her character. Even though her escape subplot goes on forever, it’s filler. And badly directed. Chappelle badly directs everything in Curse. The movie doesn’t just not having anything to recommend it, it has nil positive elements.

Chappelle’s direction? Bad. Daniel Farrands’s script? Bad. Dickson’s photography? Bad. Randy Bricker’s editing? Bad. Alan Howarth’s music? So bad.

And none of the actors are any good. Once Rudd and Hagan take over the movie, it’s all about Rudd finding Brandy’s baby and then trying to find Pleasence. Meanwhile Hagan’s got a subplot about… nothing? She’s got a couple scenes showing she’s suffering–dad English is physically and mentally abusive, Gardner’s a weird kid–but no subplot. On one hand, it’s good Rudd and Hagan don’t have a romance subplot, but it’s also bad because it’d be so godawful it might be fun to watch.

Rudd’s really bad. Hagan’s better. Darby’s okay. English is bad. Bogart is bad. Mariah O’Brien–as Bogart’s girlfriend–she’s bad. She’s got this subplot about bringing Halloween back to the town. There’s a festival, which doesn’t appear to have actually been staged because Chappelle’s terrible at establishing shots. He, cinematographer Dickson, and editor Bricker are really terrible at tying scenes shot in different locations together. Sure, the plotting is herks and jerks along, but Bricker has no rhythm. There’ll be a bad establishing shot, then a second–longer–bad establishing shot, just on a first unit location. Curse is a visual mess.

Leo Geter is awful as a shock jock who figures in, but not enough.

Mitchell Ryan is in it a few times as Pleasence’s old boss, who wants to hire him back even before Michael Myers returns. Even though Pleasence is clearly not in shape for a nine-to-five.

The jump scares are all cheap, usually red herrings, usually with terrible Howarth music accompanying. But mostly there’s gore instead of scares. But the gore is often insert shots; obvious insert shots. Like Chappelle has something to prove. He can keep finding ways to make the move worse, even as every other “creative” impulse runs out.

Curse is bad. And it goes on too long to be amusing at all in its badness.

Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995, Joe Chappelle), the producer’s cut

Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers spends about twenty minutes resolving the previous movie in the series and, gingerly, setting up the characters for this one. Chappelle sets these events to a radio talk show–Curse screams early nineties–but there is an attempt to make it feel “real.” The shock jock is a ludicrously bad Howard Stern imitation.

When the movie does actually start, the setup isn’t terrible. It even reminds of the unproduced John Carpenter treatment about a town recovering from a masked spree killer. Sadly, Chappelle’s direction is laughable, the script’s terrible and the acting is mostly atrocious. Somehow Kim Darby manages to maintain some dignity.

Leading lady Marianne Hagan isn’t particularly believable as a young mother, but she’s not bad. The kid playing her son, Devin Gardner, is terrible. So’s Bradford English as Hagan’s abusive father. And Paul Rudd (in his first film)? He’s hilarious. If he were in it more, Curse might be worthwhile as comedy.

Poor Donald Pleasence looks exhausted; he died soon after production finished. Given he’s acting opposite Mitch Ryan (who gives English a run for the worst performance prize), he doesn’t come off too bad. Maybe because Pleasence doesn’t really need directing, which Chappelle’s incapable of providing anyway.

Daniel Farrands’s script is astoundingly stupid–it’s full of cults, basement lairs, eugenics and so on. Curse never has a chance; it blissfully ignores the solid town recovering concept.

Worst of all (comparatively), Alan Howarth’s score is terrible.

I’ll avoid a cursed pun.