Hey folks, and welcome on back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’ve got a somewhat lopsided collection of thoughts for you all, with plenty of the requisite horror findings, but also an impressively terrible fantasy film, as well as the final must-watch production of this exceedingly generous fall season. That’s right, I did indeed check out Bocchi the Rock, and must admit you were all correct in saying I really ought to do so. Turns out when you team up a dynamite production team with some genuinely witty source material, great things are likely to happen. We’ll get to Bocchi soon enough, but let’s first start off with some gleefully sleazy horror sequels, before we wind our way back to animation. It’s time to burn down the latest Week in Review!

Considering our success with the first Final Destination, our house was quick to march onward into Final Destination 2. Even more so than your average slasher franchise, Final Destination seemed profoundly amenable to sequelization; there’s no specific killer to keep track of, and as long as you can keep coming up with amusingly improbable deaths, the original’s core appeal is retained. I’m happy to report that our hopes were swiftly realized: if the original Final Destination feels like a self-critical third entry in an established slasher line, Number Two feels like perhaps the fifth entry, complete with a dramatic return by a former survivor, and more convoluted fate-evading strategies.

Final Destination 2’s innovations on the formula are small but substantial. First, instead of relegating the opening catastrophe to inference and summary, this film totally gives us the goods: we see the original unfortunate fate of all the film’s stars, meaning it fires out of the gate with one of its most thrilling and generous horror sequences. Next, and in a continuation of its predecessor’s slasher-subtext-as-text engineering, the film weaves its own cheeky visual motifs into its actual narrative substance, meaning that if a character sees a sign that says “We’re Slashing Prices Left And Right” they should be genuinely afraid of all bladed objects. Finally, the film also provides a potential exit route, framing “the creation of life that would not have previously existed” as an actual trump card against Fate’s machinations.

Bolstered by these various narrative accouterments, Final Destination 2 proceeds with confidence and flair, offering plenty more delightfully convoluted kill schemes and feverish strategizing by our hapless heroes. They even get Tony Todd (the original Candyman) to return as death’s messenger, a role he attacks with devilish relish. As both an evolution of the original’s strengths and a continuing love letter to slasher history, Final Destination 2 proves itself a terrific sequel and a fine slasher in its own right.

Unfortunately, the series takes a slight wayward step with Final Destination 3. Those evolutions in terms of the opening kill salvo and environmental winks as legitimate clues are fortunately retained, but this entry otherwise dispenses with the scenarios and continuity established by the first two films, serving as something like a soft reboot of the franchise. I frankly can’t deny that this might be a wise choice for a breezy, indulgent slasher franchise, but I nonetheless felt somewhat let down by this film’s decreased focus on counter-fate strategizing, to say nothing of Tony Todd’s unforgivable absence. Fortunately, the actual meat-and-potatoes kill sequences are still as strong as ever, meaning that while 3 might not match the consistent excellence of its predecessors, it’s still an above-average slasher experience.

Having heard some positive buzz about this particular sequel, our house then checked out The Exorcist 3, which indeed proved to be a surprisingly worthy followup to the original, while also staking out its own distinct identity. Much of the film’s strength comes from its excellent script, written by William Peter Blatty (also the writer of the original Exorcist book and screenplay, as well as this film’s director). His script is absolutely brimming with witty, personality-rich character moments, which are capably brought to life by the fatigued yet still-magnetic presence of George C. Scott (Strangelove’s General Buck, Patton’s titular Patton, etc). As aging police officer Lt. Kinderman, Scott infuses the film with a rich blend of emotions, coming across much like No Country for Old Men’s Tommy Lee Jones in his fatigued assessment of a changing, fallen world.

Scott is supported by an accomplished set of secondary players, including a perfectly cast Brad Dourif as the gleeful, snake-like Gemini Killer. Watching Scott and Dourif stare daggers at each other in the dim light of a padded cell is gift enough, calling to mind the sterile inevitability of Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Cure, but The Exorcist 3 is also otherwise brimming with stark horror payoffs and quirky interactions between Scott and everyone he comes across. The film pays no mind to the alleged diminishment of quality inherent in horror franchization, and in spite of lacking Friedkin’s singular direction, offers more than enough spooky pleasures and stunning performances to qualify as a genuinely superior horror feature, in the more pensive and emotionally rich mode of films like Don’t Look Now or The Changeling. Absolutely recommended.

We followed up that welcome surprise with a total piece of crap, The School For Good And Evil. Just released on streaming, but based on a fantasy series from the early ‘00s, the film is in totality an underwritten photocopy of Harry Potter lathered in a can of My Chemical Romance paint. It dispenses with Harry Potter’s already-wildly-reductive four house system to instead posit a school where heroes and villains are each sorted into their respective houses (by a quill, not a sorting hat!). The story begins with two best friends who each believe they’ve been sent to the wrong place, resulting in all sorts of wacky consequences.

There’s really nothing good I can say about this film, unfortunately; it feels like a CW fantasy show rewritten into feature film length, and possesses such shows’ attendant lack of competent scripting (heaven spare me any more of these ‘quippy modern teens in fantasy backdrop’ atrocities), acting, or art design. In spite of that, they somehow snagged Lawrence Fishburne, Michelle Yeoh, and Charlize Theron to play magical teachers; sadly, none of these distinguished actors can rise above the deficiencies of the narrative and dialogue. Character motivations seesaw at random, conflicts are invented largely because conflicts must exist, and the final act is a disappointing medley of dramatic reversals, magic laser beams, and costume changes. To add final insult to injury, the film ends on a deliberate avoidance of canonized queer romance that I’m sure most anime fans will find both familiar and insulting. The easiest of skips.

Fortunately, we rallied from that with another entry in the increasingly distinguished V/H/S franchise, the just-released V/H/S/99. Set in the declining days of MTV, and imbued with the ‘90s distinct flavor of directionless rebellion, 99 was an oddly nostalgic experience for me, reminding me of that precise type of “cool” that every advertisement of my childhood was selling. That was fun for me, but fortunately, 99 also offers one of the series’ most consistent and frightening collection of found footage tales yet.

The film starts off strong with a group of Jackass-derivative faux-punks, who are determined to shoot a music video in a burned-down venue where a riot grrrl group was trampled to death. I had some quibbles with that group’s anachronistic sound (definitely more Paramore than Le Tigre), but had no complaints about the sequence’s macabre conclusion, which provides one of the collection’s most striking single images. That’s followed up by what’s likely the scariest of the collection’s stories, as a hazing ritual goes wrong and a girl finds herself genuinely buried alive.

From there, the collection gets a little less reliable, dabbling too heavily in violence for its own sake at one point, and falling flat on its face with the regrettable fourth entry. Fortunately, the final entry is another winner, embracing elaborate set design and practical effects to present an oddly charming journey to hell. As an assembled group, my only significant complaint about 99 is that there’s no Timo Tjahjanto entry; but the man’s career is rocketing into the stratosphere right now, so I imagine he didn’t have time to pull off another all-timer like Safe Haven. On the whole, V/H/S/99 presents a satisfying combo meal for any found footage aficionados.

And yes, I did indeed check out this season’s final top prospect, Bocchi The Rock. I am happy to report that everyone clamoring about this show was correct, and Bocchi is indeed excellent. First off, the show is basically a marvel in all regards aesthetically. There’s oodles of character-rich animation, spacious layouts that help to evoke our heroine’s anxiety, and lots of inventive little art design digressions, all with an eye for enhancing the show’s comedy.

Those visual strengths also don’t exist in isolation. Bocchi’s script is witty and incisive, accurately portraying the lived experience of social anxiety, but making sure to temper its venom with lots of snappy, effective jokes. With the script and storyboards working in such close sync, Bocchi is able to pull off endless jokes of timing, spacing, and phrasing, mining effective comedy out of every possible situation. That comedic appeal is further enhanced through its creative variations in linework and character design, with Bocchi at times evoking a Nichijou-ian flair for turning art design into drama or hilarity. It’s altogether an excellent little comedy, boasting a wildly inventive production team and a quietly savage, consistently amusing script. Good work, Bocchi!