MadCap's Reel Thoughts - "The Thing" (1982)

An outpost far from civilization...

...total and complete isolation...

...unable to trust anyone and having no way to escape.

This is the main draw of a movie like The Thing.  Now, it's time for me to praise the cinematic genius that is John Carpenter. You may recall, last year, me talking about Rob Zombie's unashamed raping of one of his best works, but now you can actually read me ranting about a good movie he's associated with.  He actually didn't write this one, just directed it, but his talent in bringing the printed words of a script to life shines through here beautifully.

The story is one of, as I said in the blurb above, isolation and of paranoia. A group of Americans in the Antarctic come across the remains of a Norwegian research station, finding bodies both burned and twisted by...something, though they really can't say what. And, in the beginning, they think nothing of taking on an adorable little husky that the few remaining Norwegians seemed to be chasing down...

...soon, things take a turn for the worse. The creature begins to assimilate members of the research team and starts to assimilate or otherwise incapacitate them. After the team discovers a flying saucer found by the Norwegians, they discover the titular Thing is trying to escape...whether to leave the Earth or leave the Antarctic is unknown.  After some calculations, however, they do know that if the Thing manages to escape the cold of the Antarctic, that it will assimilate the world in a matter of years.

So it soon becomes the world's deadliest game of ten little Indians as the members of the group find that they cannot trust one another, they have only a few improvised weapons (namely flamethrowers - which explains where "kill it with fire" came from), and they can't count on any outside help due to equipment failures caused by a storm. Will helicopter pilot MacReady (Kurt Russell) be able to discern who is who and save the day? Or will the Thing manage to find a way to escape to the mainland and assimilate humanity?

Nothing in the film ever seems too cheesy, either. It's dated by the technology, but that doesn't take away from it, it's just a product of its time.  That being said, the acting is sublime. Along with Kurt Russell there are several other acting talents, such as Wilford Brimley and Keith David (y'know, the guy who voiced Goliath in Gargoyles). The music is good too, and this is one of the notable instances where John Carpenter did not actually score his own film.

No, they got Ennio Morricone for that.  You know, the composer who scored The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly? Yeah.  That guy.

The special effects are also of note. Practical effects are the name of the game here, and The Thing does that better than many.  What you see of the creature is utterly horrific and gory, and all of it done by practical effects (including the Thing-dog, created by the Stan Winston) which makes it all the more impressive.

The Thing is an utterly magnificent film and, as I said before, its themes of isolation, mistrust, and paranoia. Can you imagine something scarier than a creature wearing the face of a friend and that could, at any moment, transform into a hideous abomination and swallow you whole? Or, worse, could infect you with a single drop of blood, just mixing in a few of its cells with your own and taking over your body entirely to make you a part of its consciousness?

I'll just keep myself tied to the couch until we find out...

The Thing is now available on DVD and Blu-Ray from Universal Pictures.

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MadCap's Trailer Reactions - "Power Rangers"

...well, that happened.

I said in on Twitter and I'll say it here: to be perfectly frank, it's bad.

First off, and I know this may be a bizarre complaint - but why Walk the Line? Excluding the fact that it's a cover (and not a bad one, in all honesty), why this for Power Rangers? Is its slow, somber tone supposed to illustrate to us that the five teenagers with attitude who get recruited by Zordon...oh, wait, they don't get recruited by Zordon in this version?

...what do you mean "they find their morphers in a quarry"?!

Yes, in a bizarre twist it seems that the rangers (at least Jason, Kimberly, and Billy if the trailer is to be believed) discover their morphers in a quarry...and they aren't even morphers. Gone is the uniqueness of the original belt buckler morphers carried by the team in the original series. Now, they have...I guess a flattened rock that glows their respective Ranger color? They look like something that someone who has no idea what they're doing would put on Etsy. Lame!

From the look of it, as well, the team's uniting actually comes not in the Angel Grove Juice Bar, but in Saturday detention. I wouldn't mind it so much, except it completely and utterly rips off The Breakfast Club in a way that shows no originality whatsoever. While that movie was a deconstruction of the various tropes of the teenager and how breaking free of what your peers or what society thought of you was the most important step in self-realization...Power Rangers took those stereotypes and played them straight in the original show.  If the definition of "dark, realistic reboot" is "make everyone kind of an asshole regardless of their stereotype" then I guess you could swing all of them being in detention, but I personally don't find it believable in the least.

The character bits they try to set up are also a bit odd, what with Jason apparently talking about "a big screw up", Kimberly dealing with some of her fellow cheerleading peers, and Billy dealing with a bully of his. Trini also gets a bit where someone scrawls on her locker...but Zack gets...nothing. I don't even think he has a speaking line in the trailer. Not that he was a big part of the team or got a large amount of character development (then again neither did Trini or Jason before they got Peace Conference'd...) but he's still one fifth of the team and honestly I would have hoped he'd get a bit more an appearance.

In what is sure to be a massive bit of controversy within the fanbase, the Rangers also have powers outside of their morphed form - Jason exhibited an enhanced physique in a scene taken right out of the Sam Raimi Spider-Man as well as enhanced strength, and Billy showing off enhanced durability when a bully headbutts him...and is promptly knocked out cold for his trouble. The Rangers never had powers outside of their morphed state in the original series (that came with later seasons), and, to paraphrase Linkara of Atop the Fourth Wall and his History of Power Rangers videos, it really does take away from the special status their powers are given if the Rangers can just crush a sink with a casual swipe or lift a car without so much as an inch of spandex on them.

...though some would argue that THAT IS NOT SPANDEX!!!...but I'm getting off topic.

In the one bit of praise I can give for this, Elizabeth Banks as Rita has a fairly menacing scene where she's telling Kimberly about how she's killed Rangers before. Short, sweet, and setting her up as an actual threat for directly facing the Rangers instead of hiding behind stock footage. The outfit still looks stupid, but at least she doesn't look like Queen Amidala and Madonna's forbidden love child anymore.

And, in what is a consistent problem with movies nowadays, everything looks so dark. Even scenes that are in the daytime look dark. It doesn't make the film look cool or edgy, it makes it harder to see and it makes me pissed off because I can't see anything. If I didn't know what Power Rangers were and knew nothing about the 20+ years that have come before, I'd assume this was some dumb shlock teen action movie. Which, it's sad to say, is probably what this is going to end up being.

And this is by Saban, the same people who had made the original show such a hit. What has happened?! Admittedly, I haven't kept up with the show (my interest in it waned in my youth after In Space, though I did watch Dino Thunder because of nostalgia), but when Saban bought it back I had honestly thought that it meant that they were going back old school with it.  By the look of this, if they knew what they were doing back then, they don't know. It looks like absolute garbage, and is about as far away from the uniqueness of the original as you can get.

That being said, I'm sure it'll make tons of money and get plenty of sequels. After all, it's not like good taste has ever stopped Michael Bay, either.

Saban's Power Rangers is set to be released in theaters on March 24, 2017 by Saban Films, Lionsgate, and the Toei Company.

For the latest from the MadCapMunchkin, be sure to follow him on Twitter @MadCapMunchkin.

MadCap's Game Reviews - "Alice: The Madness Returns"

...this game sucks.

And yes, I know fans of American McGee are going to probably try and hang me for that. I know two of them who will most definitely be reading this who live within driving distance and have access to both actual and improvised weaponry of all sorts, but I stand by my decision.

This is actually a done up version of my review of this that I did way back when the game was first released in 2011 and never published because...well, we all know how Skyrim pretty much took over my life around that time. Nevertheless, I decided to go back and try it out again and - with the benefit of time and experience, I have a much better perspective on it.

...it still sucks.

So, eleven years after the first game (which, no, I haven't played), Alice has been released from the madhouse and is now living at the most Cockney orphanage ever (I'm assuming, in England, that all orphanages are just filled to the brim with lovable Cockney children) where she has occasional forays into Wonderland because...otherwise we'd have a really boring game about running around in a version of London that's just into the Industrial Revolution era (see also, the beginning of Fable III).  Except Wonderland is a little more screwed up than it was before...that is to say, it's empty. Very few people are around, the familiar landmarks have been corrupted or tainted, and Christine's train-based cousin is running around causing problems...sort of.

It's kind of the same problem with Tim Burton's version of Alice in Wonderland - everyone here is crazy, so things being even more crazy really shouldn't be too much of an issue for everyone. Granted, at least here, if no one is here to be crazy, then that is bad...by their logic, anyway.

What did take a page from the Tim Burton school is the weapons. Everything from a kitchen knife to a pepper grinder to an umbrella, all mundane made functional that Tim Burton does...and Steven Moffat does far, far better. It's also a platformer, so better be sure you've got your aim right. Luckily, the controls for it aren't too bad. Alice can jump for days and you'll need that in order to maneuver around to solve puzzles and go digging around for secrets in levels that you've left behind.

So, on the hole, The Madness Returns is not that great. Even Mr. McGee has said it's unpolished, which I agree with.  Though while he has problems with the filler, I'd say there's really not enough to do in it. You wander around the open, empty landscapes of Wonderland and occasionally run into NPCs to interact with to further the sort of story, broken up by sporadic jaunts through A Christmas Carol.

On the horror end...it doesn't have a lot, though it may just be enough to drive you insane...with boredom.

Alice: The Madness Returns is now available from Spicy Horse and Electronic Arts for Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360, and Playstation 3.

For the latest from the MadCapMunchkin, be sure to follow him on Twitter @MadCapMunchkin.

MadCap's Reel Thoughts - "A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge"

Why do so many people not like this movie?

This isn't the set up to a joke, I'm genuinely not sure I understand it. This question actually applies to people before the age where we looked back at movies and yea'd or nay'd them. Apparently, this film was derided even when it originally came out...and I'm honestly not really sure why.

I know people will refer to this as "The Gay One" due to the homosexual overtones that seem to follow the main character, Jesse (Mark Patton)...and that's not unwarranted, given that the screen writer of this one, David Chaskin, admitted in 2010 that he did this because he wanted to make the film that much scarier to teenage boys.

...stay classy, Chaskin.

Worse than that, Mark Patton himself came out within a few years of this film's release, having been closeted before and felt very betrayed when he realized what had happened.

Really, just...absolutely classy.

That bit of egregious homophobia aside, this is actually a very solidly put together film that I'm not going to judge on the merits of its writer being a completely tone-deaf asshole. Indeed, a lot more goes into a film than just the writing and - subtext aside - Freddy's Revenge makes for a really, really scary time.

All the necessary elements are here - namely the teenagers (and others) to be picked off, and Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) to do the picking off.  What's missing? Oh, right, the snarky jokes and puns that Freddy is so known for...starting in the next movie, Dream Warriors.  I've said it before, and I'll say it again - people are too caught up on how Freddy is after this movie.  In the original and this one, Freddy is a very dark and sinister being, even more so in this one than in the original.

That's right, I went there.

Really, what is more frightening? Stalking a bunch of teenagers in their dreams and killing them off one by one or hijacking the body of an unwilling individual, whether they're asleep or awake, and having them do it for you? That to me is significantly more frightening that Freddy cracking one-liners, but then I'm just one of those crazy people I guess.

But, nevertheless, that is the situation that our protagonist Jesse finds himself in as he moves into the house once lived in by Nancy Thompson. Five years after the first movie (with an unclear ending to boot, and no revelations about the fate of Nancy or her friends), Jesse and his family have moved to Springwood and he begins to have dreams where Freddy commands him to kill...

Thus, it is a battle for Jesse's very soul as Freddy pressures him and pressures him until he is finally able to fully take over...or is he? Jesse's love interest Lisa (Kim Myers) must find a way to free Jesse from Freddy's corruptive influence before its too late...

That point alone makes this film rather unique, flipping the trope of the damsel in distress from the slasher film villain, it now being a male in that place.  Uncommon, but not unheard of even today. Mark Patton's Jesse, however, was the first male Scream Queen.  That alone makes this film noteworthy.

However, that doesn't mean that the film is good by that alone.  Yes, the homophobic overtones are there (many who have worked on the film besides Mark Patton and David Chaskin did confirm it was deliberate). Yes, the scenes with the S&M bar don't really serve any purpose besides getting two characters to form a friendship.  But overall, this film is no worse than any other entry into the Nightmare franchise and is, in fact, better than almost all of them.  Mark Patton's acting as Jesse is excellent as he's driven into the depths of insanity, and Robert Englund as Freddy is as menacing as ever when he's allowed to be (the makeup is also, in my opinion, better than in the original and some of the later films).

It's doesn't have Freddy giving off his quips with each kill, and it's legitimately horrifying. You want to see Freddy defeated in this and Jesse saved, perhaps even more here than Nancy's struggle in the original.  To me, it's really what a sequel should be, if they were going to do any at all. Nightmare, sad to say, has not had it great in the sequels department and maybe we'll get to that another time.  For now, however, give this film a try. If you've already done so, give it a second look. It's definitely worth it!

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge is now available from New Line Cinema.

For the latest from the MadCapMunchkin, be sure to follow him on Twitter @MadCapMunchkin.

MadCap's Game Reviews - "Fallout 4: Nuka-World"

What if there was a place with all the zip of Nuka Cola?

MadCap rambles for about five minutes on Nuka-World.

Fallout 4 is now available for PS4, Xbox One, and PC from Bethesda Softworks.

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MadCap's Game Reviews - "No Man's Sky"

Am I as upset as everyone else seems to be about this? Well...

No Man's Sky is now available from Hello Games, Sony Interactive Entertainment, and iam8bit for Playstation 4 and PC.

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From MadCap's Couch - "Sliders: Last Days"

"Nobody tosses a physics professor!"

...yeah, I'm not exactly sure how I missed this one. I blame Dinkleberg.

Yes, I know when I last left this little retrospective, I had finished up Season Two with the full intention to jump right into Season Three...but it appears that we must travel back along the timestream to an early point - a much earlier one, in fact. Back to Season One we go, when the show was still pure and innocent and, to be honest, extremely hit and miss.

...but then, that's Sliders in a nutshell, isn't it?

We begin with the Sliders Four falling from a vortex onto a street. They find it abandoned, with only a car that's run right into a fire hydrant as any evidence that people have been around at all. Heading into town, they find the cops running about calling for people to get off the streets as well as apples apparently being sold for an insane amount of inflation. It's chaotic, with alarms going off and people trudging about with reckless abandon. Taken in by an electronics salesman after he tells off a meter maid, they take a seat once more at the TV of Exposition and learn the terrible truth.

...DC MADE A GOOD MOVIE AND THE WORLD DOESN'T KNOW HOW TO HANDLE IT!!!

Yeah, just kidding. It's the end of the world via meteor. Because Armageddon...was still another three years from coming out.  (Suck on that, Abrams!)  They learn that the meteor will be there in two days, and the Sliders are unfortunately there for seventy hours and some change, making their position very uncomfortable indeed.

...I mean, unless they were to just make a blind jump, being that they are no closer to getting home than they were in the beginning and it really wouldn't hurt them...but that would make too much sense.

"Shut up about the meteor! I'm catching up on Thrones..."

Anyway, getting back to the plot, Remmy begins a tirade on Quinn for getting them into this mess (remember, we're still in the Season 1 "Everybody Hates Quinn" phase). He goes off on his own to mull over things, the group deciding to meet back there the day of the meteor strike (hopefully with a solution). While Arturo suggests they try to help the scientists of this world, Quinn ends up (with his mentor's blessing) going with Wade to check on their families. Arturo, meanwhile, goes to do the most logical thing and check the internet!

A press conference does further plot dumping...and then Conrad Bennish runs in screaming about nuclear weapons, which gets Arturo's attention and they chat.  Apparently on this world, the atom bomb was never created because scientists such as Einstein and Oppenheimer said that was not enough uranium in the world to build a successful bomb. Bennish, however, claims that the original bombs were misaligned. Arturo starts helping him out.

We return to Remmy, who has taken to a church and chats with a pastor. Who gives some kind words.

Back with Arturo and Bennish, Bennish apparently has gotten not only plans but has examined the actual prototype for the original atomic bomb - Fat Man. With this in mind, Arturo conscripts Bennish with a plan for saving the world using a series of drills and timed detonations on the surface of the asteroid that will...

...oh, wait, I already did the Armageddon joke. Crap!

MadCap Crossed the Streams: 5

But yes, from the look of it, Arturo and Bennish are going to set us up the bomb.

MadCap Crossed the Streams: 6

THAT DOESN'T COUNT!

After the commercial, we're back with Remmy in a scene from The Warriors. Actually, he meets up with some yuppies and decides to party with them because good decision making skills.

Then we finally catch up with Wade and Rembrandt, who are using a key under the mat to enter Quinn's house on this world (which is totally not breaking and entering, because they left a key). With a picture on the fridge they confirm that Quinn does exist in this world and start checking the basement for any Sliding equipment. They find some, with Wade theorizing that the Mallorys here must have slid to avoid the asteroid and Quinn saying that its "their only chance".

About to drop a mixtape so hot, they'll have to measure it in Kelvin...

Back with the plot, Arturo and Bennish examine the Fat Man.  Arturo questions whether or not they have the right to use the bomb, but Bennish rightly points out that if they don't, there's not going to be a world left, so they have no real choice. They technobabble their way to getting to whether they can set us up the bomb.

We cut back to Remmy, who has made his way to the party and meets...Vash from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Huh.

They dance. NEXT SCENE!

Quinn and Wade are fiddling with the Sliding equipment and Quinn has been working eight hours straight...somehow.  From some tapes, we learn that this world's Quinn was big on dinosaurs and wanted to develop time travel. Depressing irony, huh?

Though Quinn is optimistic about getting them home, Wade is not sharing in the good vibes. Apparently, with only sixteen hours (again, how?!) left before the meteor hits, she wants to talk about their feelings. Quinn asks for a half hour to work on things, during which he does indeed get the devices working...but blows the power before he can make any real progress, even charging the circuit breaker enough that it actually bursts into flame!

Quinn is completely wrecked by this, having worked so hard on it, but Wade just embraces him and tells him that they'll be okay.  The next morning, however, Quinn's bad mood hasn't abated. Wade, however, continues to comfort him. She points out that she did volunteer to come on the first sliding trip and assures him that she has no regrets and all that schmaltzy jibberjabber that actually makes for a very good scene between the two.

Conversely, we have a scene of Arturo nearly killing Bennish over a boombox and finishing up the calculations for the detonation. They also take a moment to discuss the pros and cons of nuclear power, seeing as it will be the first time that this Earth has ever had the option. Bennish makes a rather meglomanical comment about no one saying 'no' to them, seeing as they have the atom bomb.  The music swells worryingly and...Arturo decides to look over the plans last minute while Bennish hits the head, taking one of the schematics and hiding it away.

"If you request 'Everybody Wang Chung Tonight' one more time, I will cut you..."

Remmy sings "Can't Help Myself" from that band that his band was totally not a parody of. And then gets caught up in a game of Russian Roulette, which he puts an end to and leaves with Vash.

Back at Casa de Mallory, Quinn and Wade twiddle their thumbs and build on that romance subplot that David Peckinpah is going to come in and shit all over. They have an almost kiss, some talk over a candlelight dinner, a dance to some porn music and then actual kissing. And one might call me just a Quinn and Wade shipper, but it's really done believable and they do both seem like they're trying to say everything they've wanted to to one another since the beginning, considering that they're both going to die within a few hours for all they know.

...and then Arturo comes in to cockblock in a major way. Douche!

About. Damn. Time!

But he does catch them up on the plot while eating their dinner,  In this time, also, Arturo has...somehow arranged for the bomb to be placed on a missile that's going to be shot at the asteroid. Damn! We must be in the last ten minutes of the episode! Already?

With four hours to impact, they roll up to the "Federal Space Agency" with a full police escort and arrive just in time to see the meteor come into visual range...

The TV of Exposition explains that Arturo apparently got together with a scientist who was heckling Bennish before who has it in good with NASA and so everything comes together with only sixteen minutes to go. As they discuss Arturo stealing the schematic to keep Einstein's secret safe (and out of Bennish's hands), Wade brings up that its well past time and Remmy hasn't shown up.

The Crying Man is back at the church from earlier with Vash, working a soup line for the homeless. He thanks the Pastor before sharing a goodbye with Vash and slipping away to meet up with the others. And arrive he does just as the final launch sequence is beginning. With less than a minute to go, they catch him up on the plot. They go outside to watch the impact of the bomb, Quinn and Wade holding hands as they prepare for either their salvation or damnation...and the bomb works.

Yeah, we've gone through to the end of Season 2, you know that they survive. Don't even act shocked.

Of course, now, the people of San Francisco on this world will die horribly over the next few months from the radioactive fallout of the bomb. Yay, Science!

Many joys are had and...the schematic for the bomb falls out of Arturo's pocket and is stealthily picked up by Bennish...

But yes, the sun once more rises on the world and all is well. Vash and the Pastor feed the homeless, Bennish gets the credit for saving the world, and the Sliders are preparing to slide when Arturo realizes the schematics he took are missing...but, they must slide on.

Bennish, meanwhile, plots from his evil lair about his use of the atom bomb...leaving the fate of this world forever in question.

This is a great episode, and I'm actually really glad I went back to watch it. Sure, the plot is a little silly but is clearly well-thought out. Arturo giving the questionings of morality as he has in other episodes is as sublime as ever. Quinn and Wade got some excellent moments to build up on their relationship. Some good moments. Short, but definitely very good and it becomes a shame that a lot of the things built up here are going to be wasted as we get into later seasons.

What doesn't really work in this episode is the pacing...and I know I've said before that critiquing the pacing in a Sliders episode is a fool's errand, but it really is. Sixteen hours pass out of nowhere with no clear sign that time has passed. Another thing that doesn't really work is Remmy's subplot. Unlike in certain other episodes - Summer of Love comes to mind - it didn't really do anything to further Remmy's character or tell us something new about him. He just decides to go party with a bunch of yuppies at some producer's house and then decides to leave when things get too real.

But, overall, this episode was great. Definitely one of the stronger ones in the first season, which is something that I won't turn my nose up at considering the quality of several Season One episodes.

Next time, we get into Season Three...and let me tell you, folks...it's all downhill from here...

Sliders and all related characters and concepts are the property of universal.

For the latest from the MadCapMunchkin, be sure to follow him on Twitter @MadCapMunchkin.