by ·Comments Off on Final Destination 3 (2006, James Wong)

The Roller Coaster Sequel. After the big funhouse setpiece, M.E. Winstead (the girl with hair like this) and her late bestie’s bf Kevin (a guy from The Ring Two Remake) survive, along with two goths (I’m about to see him in Ginger Snaps, she was in a Queen Latifah movie), a jock (Texas Battle of Wrong Turn 2), and two girls named Ashley who will soon die in cranked-up tanning beds, leading to a great edit to their coffins. Winstead figures out the pattern just quickly enough to find each person moments before their deaths, while being stalked by a goth, until something happens, I forget what, and they all think they’ve escaped, until a haha coda on an NYC train.

Our heroes, too late to save the jock:

Little sister Julie in front of a Carolyn Mark poster:

Very funny and enjoyable movie, obviously a must-see motion picture, but it loses something – part one was original, and part two carried a previous character forward and developed the idea, but then this is just part one again, almost a remake, the previous movies only existing diegetically in a web search jumbled in with 9/11 conspiracy theories.

by ·Comments Off on The Amusement Park (1973, George Romero)

I watched The Lost George Romero Movie just because it’s hot from being freshly rediscovered. Should’ve watched Two Evil Eyes instead, but I hit my Argento quota yesterday. This is a basic Twilight Zone scenario, but unconvincing and overlong, the time-loop plot being the one cool thing about it. If you set an industrial film in a heavy-metaphor theme park, you’re gonna get Carnival of Souls vibes.

Lincoln Maazel explains that he is an actor (it’s true, he’s in Martin), then healthy Link interviews a beaten-up, agonized Link wearing the same suit. We follow healthy Link through various scenarios outside until he eventually becomes his miserable beat-down version. How did this happen? The movie wants us to think it’s elder abuse, but it seems everyone is just selfish dicks and society favors the rich. Anyway, the only Romero movie where the grim reaper rides a merry-go-round.