Hello folks, and welcome the heck back to Wrong Every Time. I hope everyone’s been having a reasonably agreeable week so far; as for myself, I am happy to report that after a couple yanks on the chain, my dormant DnD campaign has leapt back into action, with our second post-break session proving one of the most exciting of the campaign so far. My intent was to create a Seven Samurai-style quest wherein the players fortify and then defend a village against bandits, and things went off swimmingly – the players clearly felt invested in their various defensive arrangements, my attempt to define separate front and rear battlefields succeeded without issue, and the session ended with players brimming with future ideas for their characters, which is always a heartening sign. We also went for five and a half goddamn hours, so apparently my dungeon mastering stamina has not suffered greatly from my time away from the board. But don’t let all this ecstatic table talk mislead you into thinking I’ve neglected my cinematic duties! I’ve got a pile of gooey features for you all, so let’s not waste any more time, and get right into the week’s selections.
We first continued our journey through Tobe Hooper’s filmography with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2, the only Texas Chainsaw sequel he personally directed, as well as one of the few times he was afforded a budget more substantial than the crew’s collective pocket change. It’s hard to tell whether his producers would have been ecstatic or appalled at what they unleashed, as Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 is loud, garish, and self-parodying, abandoning most of the original’s lean virtues to savor the absurd possibilities of a whole Leatherface-tier family of monsters. It is also, without a doubt, the best continuation the franchise has ever seen.
Hooper wisely chooses not to retread the plot of the original film; Texas Chainsaw Massacre was lightning in a bottle, its power as much a reflection of its shocking originality as its overt narrative content. Instead, he goes wide and ridiculous, connecting the two films through an unhinged Dennis Hopper bent on revenge. While the film’s actual plot largely concerns a local DJ being hunted by the Leatherface clan, and developing an odd understanding with Leatherface in the process, Hopper’s presence sends streaks of absurdity raging like termites through the film’s dramatic foundation, undercutting any glimpses of seriousness with scenes like him picking out his two-hand and akimbo chainsaws for battle at a local chainsaw emporium. After striking up an alliance with the aforementioned DJ, he forgets about her entirely, and spends the last act of the film mostly shouting into the sky while smashing his chainsaws into the walls of Leatherface’s lair.
While Texas Chainsaw 2 lacks the sparse, shocking immediacy of its predecessor, it makes up for that with a carnival’s worth of morbid attractions. Rather than returning to the dilapidated farmhouse of the original, Hooper wisely re-situates the Leatherface clan into the tunnels of an abandoned amusement park, full of colored lights and dangling props that evoke the environmental drama of his own Funhouse. The chases are long and winding, the body horror is varied and grotesque, and the film balances its tones in such a way that farce diffuses any sense of true entrapment or claustrophobia, freeing the audience to laugh and gasp from beneath the comforting lap bar of a roller coaster. Hooper is a grindhouse genius.
After the resounding disappointment of its second and third entries, I had figured my house was done with the Friday the 13th franchise. But then I saw a list claiming the next one was actually the best one, and given we’d already trekked this far, it seemed reasonable to give Jason and friends one last shot. As it turns out, the list proved accurate: the optimistically named Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter is almost certainly the best of the franchise’s first four excursions, succeeding via its generous variety of kills and glimmers of genuine intelligence. This is not to say it’s a great, or even particular good film – it’s merely a competent slasher, given an odd dash of star power through the appearance of Corey Feldman. But that at least is a higher bar than this franchise normally reaches, leaving me happy to consider this my final dance with the Friday franchise.
With that random appearance by Corey Feldman to guide me, I decided to check off another of the ‘80s family classics that I missed as a kid: The Goonies. The Goonies follows the group of titular kids on their last great adventure, as they seek the treasure of One-Eyed Willie in order save their homes from being paved over for a golf course. The overt plot of The Goonies moves with great energy, strongly evoking that specific sense of going on a play-acting adventure with friends. Plenty about the film feels awkwardly dated at this point (Data’s whole deal in particular), but on the whole, I can see why this film remains such a quintessential slice of ‘80s childhoods.
Not much that this film does was aimed at an audience of me, so along with its delightful set design, what most intrigued me about The Goonies was its quiet lament for a dying middle class. While the internal world traveled by The Goonies is rich in wonder, the overt town they live in is fading and gray, presumably an industrial town built around a disused mine or factory. While our heroes’ dreams are eventually realized through a pocketful of gems, the fantastical nature of that victory felt like its own sort of indictment, emphasizing how many thriving towns of the early twentieth century weren’t saved by a pirate’s booty. That in turn reminded me of The Last Starfighter’s ending, where a young man’s abandonment by the system and resignation to a life of downward class mobility was only averted through his elevation into the interstellar community.
In the margins of these hopeful ‘80s adventures, we see also the death of America’s fundamental promise, where a moment that required a New Deal-scale reassessment of American society was instead met with Reagan’s insincere trickle-down economics. I’ve talked before about how children’s media often reflects the base assumptions of a society with more clarity than media for adults, and in these classic ‘80s features, I see children playing in the rubble of a society that has fundamentally failed them. I’d like to think our own cultural moment will at least evoke a similar cry for help to future audiences – but given that mass-released children’s films are now almost solely the purview of the Disney empire, I’m uncertain our cultural output will express much beyond the final victory of the endless franchise.
We concluded this intensely ‘80s set of films with an ‘80s horror anthology, the Steven King-penned, George A. Romero-directed Creepshow. Creepshow is a clear tribute to the ghoulish horror comics of King and Romero’s youth, styling itself as a series of five stories that collectively make up one comic issue. This conceit is further embraced through the film’s cheeky inclusion of actual panel borders for many shots, as well as ostentatious page-turning transitions. All of these tricks add up to a charmingly goofy visual vocabulary, setting the perfect tone for its morbid tales.
And fortunately, those tales are actually pretty good! The film starts off slowly, with its first feature requiring a tad too much exposition in order to set up its zombie revenge narrative. The actual fulfillment of that revenge is a lot of fun, but the second vignette is unfortunately bogged down by the presence of King himself playing its central character. King is clearly one of the great horror scribes of modern history, but as this skit readily demonstrates, he is not and will never be a competent actor.
Thankfully, the film soon rallies with its two best skits, with the third featuring Leslie Nielsen and Ted Danson as two men trapped in a cycle of revenge. Along with featuring the best actors of the entire collection, this third skit also demonstrates King’s storytelling at its best, weaving a narrative where chilling murder setpieces segue into a macabre march of ghouls hunting their target. King has a distinct ability to find horror in the mundane or innocent, turning nursery rhymes into horrifying harbingers, and that talent makes Nielsen’s undoing one of the most effective punchlines of the overall film.
Creepshow’s fourth entry is equally effective, though its strength largely rests in its excellent creature design (much credit to Tom Savini, effects specialist for this and a dozen other horror classics). And the fifth offers a bit of a palate-cleansing pressure cooker, offering that devious pleasure of a guy who truly deserves it getting his just comeuppance. All in all, Creepshow isn’t exactly the scariest collection, but it’s not really trying to be. Its varied tales offer a loving tribute to comic horror, while reveling in the many talents of King, Romero, and Savini. A charming and generous collection.
