Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I come to you after hours of scribbling about movies, having been forced by article scheduling to skip last week’s standard movie-scribbling time. It’s so far been a week of catchup in general – with The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arriving on Friday, I essentially did the temporal version of pushing all your stuff into a closet and hoping the door locks, and have been paying for my adventures in Hyrule ever since. Fortunately, I’m now all caught up on my responsibilities, meaning I can now push a whole new set of responsibilities forward to make more time for Zelda. The game is just straight-up bottled joy – I was wondering how they’d make a new adventure in the same world feel fresh, and every minute I play is filled with delightful, intriguing answers to that question. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about Zelda once I’m decently into it, but for now, let’s run down the films I snuck into the margins of the week!

First up this week was Willow, an ‘80s fantasy film starring Warwick Davis as the titular Willow Ulfgood, who lives in a village with his fellow “Nelwyn” and dreams of becoming a great sorcerer. When a human baby comes floating unexpectedly down the river, Willow gets his chance for greatness, with his quest spiraling from returning the baby to saving the whole dang kingdom. Eventually, he teams up with human mercenary Madmartigan (Val Kilmer) and the warrior Sorsha (Joanne Whalley), with the trio engaging in all manner of wild adventures.

Seeing Warwick Davis star in his own personal Lord of the Rings is truly a gift; the man has endless personal charisma, and absolutely lights up the screen as Willow the would-be magician. More of a surprise was the easy chemistry he shares with Val Kilmer – I’m accustomed to Kilmer playing stoic, distant types, so it was a delight to see him establish such a natural buddy duo with Davis. The film’s story is both a little simplistic and also fairly disjointed, but “Davis and Kilmer go on fantasy adventures together” is such a winning concept that I wasn’t too bothered by issues of stakes or pacing. For a light, feel-good adventure featuring an intriguing array of effects work (there’s even a stop-motion hydra!), it’s an excellent choice.

We then screened a true clash of the titans, watching slasher franchise crossover Freddy vs Jason. You might think a collision between the Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street franchises might be a crass, indulgent slaughterfest, but here’s the thing – when have either of those two franchises ever been anything else? I mean, Nightmare has its artful moments, but Freddy himself is a king of sleaze, while Jason’s franchise has basically never been genuinely good. So with nothing to actually ruin, Freddy vs Jason has nowhere to go but up – and that it absolutely does, serving as one of the best entries in either franchise.

The actual narrative explanation for Freddy and Jason crossing blades is kind of brilliant: Freddy is powered by fear, but having been forgotten by his old neighborhood, he now has no power. Seeking to redress this, he goes to hell and revives the unkillable Jason, steering him towards Elm Street in order to reignite the fear of Freddy. Jason does this with gusto and aplomb, to the point where he even starts stealing Freddy’s own kills, necessitating an eventual faceoff between the two legends.

Freddy vs Jason does an excellent job of simultaneously paying tribute to its component franchises while also treading its own path. The first two-thirds are essentially dedicated to simultaneous sequels in each franchise, with both killers racking up a collection of deaths that would earn them a place of distinction in their respective filmographies. Then, with the distinct powers of each monster established, the last act is dedicated to glorious killer-on-killer spectacle, as Freddy is dragged out of his dream world and onto the shores of Crystal Lake. The contrast of Freddy the schemer versus Jason the rock gives the film a nice “unstoppable force versus immovable object” sense of coherence, while their distinct motivations also create a sense of moral distance between them. Freddy vs Jason venerates its source franchises without falling into their latter-entry tedium, surprisingly proving itself to be a superior installment for both of them.

Our next watch was the recently released Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, which seemed like a must-see for our currently D&D-crazed household. I wasn’t expecting much from this one, as films based on games tend to just assume they’ll earn their audience regardless of their quality. I was thus thrilled to discover Honor Among Thieves is built with both general care as a film and obvious love for its source material.

Chris Pine delights as the bard Edgin Darvis, leading his appropriately ragtag group of adventurers on a quest to save his daughter and maybe also the world or something. Michelle Rodriguez makes for an obvious barbarian, Detective Pikachu’s Justice Smith is a convincingly uncertain sorcerer, and Hugh Grant continues his late-career run of deliciously despicable villains as the rogue Forge Fitzwilliam. Together, Edgin’s crew journey over hill and under dale, engaging in basically every manner of conflict you’d expect from a well-furnished D&D campaign.

Crucially, Honor Among Thieves succeeds both as a fantasy drama in the abstract, and also as an adaptation of Dungeons & Dragon’s unique world and dramatic tenor. While I was terribly fearful of drama-deflating, Whedon-esque “so that just happened” dialogue, Honor Among Thieves instead embraces D&D’s naturally attendant humor, wherein players are simply doing their best to succeed and continuously fucking up along the way.

Honor Among Thieves’ humor doesn’t poke holes in its narrative; the characters and their feelings are genuine, it’s just that the world of D&D is an inherently funny place, with the film taking care to lovingly execute classic chestnuts like “that fucking paladin who does everything right and thinks he’s so smart.” Additionally, while the action can at times be muddled by CG implementation, the combination of significant practical effects and the film’s logical, heist-driven structure means there’s always a sense of momentum, threat, and consequence. Through embracing what is genuinely, uniquely engaging about D&D’s style of exploratory, party-based gameplay, Honor Among Thieves succeeds both as a fantasy film and a celebration of tabletop roleplaying. I’ll definitely be checking out this party’s next campaign.

Last up for the week was The Stepfather, an ‘80s horror film about a man who kills his entire family and disappears, assuming the new identity of “Jerry Blake” and marrying widowed mother Susan Maine (Shelley Hack). All signs point to Blake being a perfect husband and father, but Susan’s daughter Stephanie (Jill Schoelen) suspects there is a darkness inside him, as his façade and mental control eventually begin to crack.

The Stepfather is one of those perilous films that lives and dies entirely on the strength of a single performance – in this case, Terry O’Quinn’s turn as the eponymous stepfather. Fortunately, O’Quinn is entirely up to the task, and carries The Stepfather into the realm of horror cult classics on the strength of his remarkable portrayal of this fractured, murderous chameleon. His performance of the perfect man is always just a touch too friendly, his smile straining a hair further than you assume would be comfortable for his face. And when his model family displeases him, and the mask begins to slip, you can see it happening one muscle at a time, as a twitch escapes his lip, travels through a furrow in his cheek, and comes to rest atop his furrowed, accusing brow.

O’Quinn absolutely dominates the screen every time he appears, maintaining a chilling calm that’s clearly stacked atop a roiling cauldron of desire and rage. The film is light on your standard horror payoffs, and can occasionally lose steam when O’Quinn is absent, but such moments ultimately serve as reprieves that ratchet up the impact of his eventual return. Far from an essential horror film on the whole, but worth it for O’Quinn’s fantastic performance.