WISHMASTER 2: EVIL NEVER DIES – I've never been much of a fan of franchise horror. I prefer that 'Friday the 13th ' episode set in space to any of the others, and, as far as actual runs of sequels go, The Human Centipede series is the only one to have consistently held my interest. That, and maybe the 'All Night Long' films, not that you'd consider those to be part of a franchise exactly. I mean, what would the merch be? Bloodied tampons? The 'Wishmaster' films had some initial push in that the first one went out under the aegis of Wes Craven, who was, back in the late nineties, enjoying a second renaissance. I liked that first movie – it had a bit of drive and and verve behind its ultimately derivative pitch, and I remember it as being quite fast paced and appropriately gory. 'Wishmaster 2' is subject the law of inevitable decline which is imposed whenever anyone tries to do a sequel that doesn't mess with its forebear all that much. It's an example of a highly refined cinema – the reprocessed left overs of a film which consisted itself of reprocessed leftovers (of the 'Freddiesque' sub genre). It starts off with an art heist that goes wrong - the wishmaster is unwittingly sprung from his antique prison and lands a hipster goth chick / armed robber in a whole lot of trouble. For nonsensical but slightly poetic reasons, wishmaster (in human guise) deliberately puts himself in a real jail (as opposed to a statue), where he goes around getting inmates to wish themselves into messy situations as he sets up a soul harvesting operation. Meanwhile, hip goth chick robber hitches up with her unlikely former lover, a priest, and the two do the usual ie join forces to stop the wishmaster. It all ends in a casino / tawdry hell set piece, where moderately crazy stuff happens, thankfully. 'Wishmaster 2' is bad fast food with zero nutrition and less taste, but what the hell, I found it pretty entertaining. Quite a lot actually stacks up in its favour – some trashy special effects, including a stupid looking regression to childhood and a slimy wishmaster reconstituting out of a wall, a few good gore gags involving cons pushing themselves between cell bars and the like, plus the whole enjoyable inanity of nineties direct to video horror where lines like “release the prophecy” repeat every five minutes in a croaky, sibilant voice which sounds disappointingly like that of Victor Meldrew. The biggest draw for me however was Andrew Divoff's bizarre performance. He looked like he was involved in a freaked out attempt to channel Benedict Cumberbatch and Timothy Leary, maybe with a bit of J Nicholson thrown in, with a really odd kid's “I'm being evil” face slapped on top. Possibly a pretty bad bit of acting, but I found it mesmerising. Though sadly not enough to inspire me to check out the other sequels, which I'm told are awful.
THE MUTILATOR – I'll always be a fan of that special time when you could go out and make a movie that began like a shit soap opera and ended with a vaginal stabbing. I'm also glad that movies like 'The Mutilator' can be looked at now with dewy eyes, and that the comfortable mists of nostalgia include these kind of lopsided schlockers. Whilst not all that effective as a slasher film, 'The Mutilator' is interesting in the sense that a few of the other recent re-releases ('X-Ray', 'Blood Rage', 'Madman' etc etc) are interesting – through being a bit eccentric, although not necessarily all that good. And it's interesting in itself that these hitherto woebegone flicks are now considered worthy of deluxe upgrades, whereas back in thems days they'd be taken as evidence of horrible taste in movies and possibly character pathology. 'The Mutilator' s specific eccentricity lies in the way it bridges the gap between anodyne and nasty (as with many early eighties slashers, this bridge also runs all the way to 'dumb as f*ck'). Again, this is a movie that starts by looking like it might turn into a feeble teen comedy and ends with some edgy genital mutilation. What happens between those two points is a bit blurry – I was tired when I saw it last night, but I think the film itself has that indistinct feel to it, so that it always seems as though it's being recalled from some time in the eighties. What I do remember is, some kids are going on a fall break. If you didn't know that, there's that well known and truly hideous theme tune to remind you. Anyway, our fall breakers are persuaded by one of their number to go to his dad's beach house for their holiday. Dad's having “one of his turns” and has kind of ordered his son out there, although, bit of back story here, son accidentally killed mom when he was a kid, so it's good that the two are on speaking terms. So they all go along, and there's a lot of the requisite wandering around and talking, but also odd little snatches like dad having a framed photo of his late friend's corpse on his living room wall. Erm, maybe dad's a bit weird or something? No one told them he's hiding beneath the house, and let the fun begin etc etc. 'The Mutilator's kids are fairly wholesome, and there's not much in the way of bitching or shagging. Still, I didn't feel all that much empathy for them when they were variously beheaded, drowned, vaginally stabbed etc as they were all a bit 2D, although the performances weren't all that bad despite what a lot of reviews have said. The gore is there in places, but it's well spaced out. The highlights are those points where the film goes a bit crazy – the climax for instance, where the killer manages to hack the leg off a passing cop despite having been cut in two himself! Beyond this, there's that weird, uneven atmosphere. I liked 'The Mutilator'. It's not as 'special' as something like 'Blood Rage', but it brings home once again the rough oddness of regional filmmaking and as such opens a window onto a naïve time which we'll never see again. Kudos once more to Arrow for investing the time and effort in such a minority interest, although I like to think it'll snare more than a few unwary punters in places like HMV.
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