* Retribution (Kurosawa, 2006) 7.5
* The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (Hooper, 1986) 6.5
Repo! The Genetic Opera (Lynn Bousman, 2008) 4
Where the Wild Things Are (Jonze, 2009) 7
* Halloween III: Season of the Witch (Lee Wallace, 1982) 5
* The Fly (Cronenberg, 1986) 7
* Pulse (Kurosawa, 2001) 8
Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II (Pittman, 1987) 5
Prom Night II is admirable in many ways - it treats assorted subject matter with a sobriety and respect for viewer's moral intelligence that is the opposite of what a cheesy slasher sequel is supposed to offer, it is thoroughly unpredictable in that it follows a subversive logic informed by a latent (unachieved) goal of really digging at skewed moral environments, it thus gives us some very intriguing perspectives on high school, family, and Christian perversions and weaknesses, and it has imagination and inspired audacity that elevates it over the normal 80s horror junk - but, unfortunately, junk it pretty much is... in the kindest sense possible. The film, despite everything, is just completely unsuccessful. Much more grim and serious than you expect it to be, which leads to some good stuff, but it's a matter of watching a film strive towards being provocative and heady and suggestive and unique, with so many small elements that are subtle and superb, only pretty much nothing comes together because it doesn't have that much of a sense of what it really wants to communicate. I felt many times like the movie wanted to make some subversive point with a number of scenes, but everything is so underdeveloped, with a fatal lack of cohesion, which makes the film just a long series of "WTF? Uh... okay..."s instead of "WTF, oh yeah!"s. The performances, special effects work, and occasional character work are surprisingly good, though, and there's a great girl's locker room scene in there (for a number of reasons). Director Pittman has some good ideas, but you can tell the film gets lazier when it gets campier.
Trick 'r Treat (Dougherty, 2008) 5
* Cure (Kurosawa, 1997) 9
The Stepfather (Ruben, 1987) 6
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Kaufman, 1978) 7.5
Mystics in Bali (Djalil, 1981) 2.5
Bad Timing (Roeg, 1981) 6.5
* I, Madman (Takacs, 1989) 4.5
* Evil Dead Trap (Ikeda, 1988) 5
* Deranged (Gillen & Ormsby, 1974) 4.5
