Halloween 2025: September 6th

 

Final Destination (2000)

It started, as all things do, with an idea. Jeffrey Reddick heard the old urban legend about a woman telling her daughter not to get on a plane, a warning the girl heeds. The next day, the plane the girl was supposed to be on crashes, her mother's premonition having saved her life. (Or he saw "Sole Survivor," a 1984 horror flick inspired by the same story.) Reddick broke into Hollywood at fourteen, after sending his "A Nightmare on Elm Street" fanfic to New Line Cinema and badgering Rob Shaye about it after the script was rejected. At the time, he was trying to get into TV and thought this story could be the basis for an episode of "The X-Files." The spec script he wrote never made it to the "X-Files" writers' room but his friends at New Line read it and saw the potential for a good movie. Ironically, the script that was now called "Final Destination" ended up in the hands of James Wong and Glen Morgan, a duo best known for writing some of the freakier episodes of "The X-Files." Wong made his directorial debut with "Final Destination," which became a sleeper hit for New Line at the start of the new millennium. This would kick-off a new horror franchise for the House That Freddy Built. 

High school senior Alex Browning is preparing to leave on a class trip to Paris, his best friend Tod in tow. A small mechanical malfunction aboard the plane sets off a catastrophic chain reaction that ends with all the passengers dying in a massive explosion... Or so Alex sees in an apparent psychic vision. Once minor details from his promotion start to come true, Alex freaks out. He starts a fight with class bully Carter that results in the two of them – along with Tod, Carter's girlfriend, teacher Miss Lewton, Alex's crush Clear, and some random guy named Billy – getting thrown off the plane. Afterwards, they all witness the Boeing going up in a massive fireball, Alex's premonition having saved their lives. However, an eerie feeling continues to float over the survivors. Tod dies shortly afterwards in a bizarre bathroom accident, that is mistaken for a suicide. Alex becomes convinced that all of them were meant to die on that plane and now Death itself is claiming each of them, one by one. When Carter's girlfriend and their teacher die in similarly strange mishaps, Alex becomes obsessed with what the mortician William Bludworth calls "Death's design." He seeks to interrupt the preordained series of events and save Clear, Carter, and his own life before Death comes for them again.

In one roundabout way or another, most horror movies are about the fear of death. All of our lives are destined to end someday, an inescapable fate none of us can avoid or have much control over. "Final Destination" is a horror movie about this idea in a much more literal way than most. An unexplained intervention prevents Alex from dying in a horrible accident but this is only a brief reprieve, the inevitability of death sure to catch up with him eventually. Rather than get too existential about it, "Final Destination" takes this idea in the far sillier direction of death being a personified concept with a strict plan that gets extra creative and vindictive when his carefully constructed pattern is interrupted. Alex becomes an obsessive conspiracy theorist type, seeing secret codes and patterns in the random events around him that he interprets as further evidence of "Death's design." If only he can decipher this code – presented almost literally as a puzzle, after the accident that caused the plane explosion reveals the order everyone was originally destined to die in – maybe he can prevent these events from happening. That this conviction makes Alex, functionally, indistinct from a raving lunatic is probably the closest thing "Final Destination" has to a wider thematic point. We're all going to die, sooner or later, and trying to outrun that fate leads only to madness. Better to live your life without agonizing too much about how you're gonna die. Or at least, as Clear does, channel those anxieties into personal art pieces rather than become a schizophrenic who sees a malevolent force eager to act all around him. 

Rather than examine this idea from a philosophical direction, Wong and Morgan's film takes Alex's position. The script seems to operate from the perspective that death can be escaped, if only you read the clues right. Following that thought, "Final Destination" is a film littered with subconscious warnings about the characters' ultimate fate. The opening credits look over the model airplanes in Alex's bedroom, hinting at the soon-to-come crash. Before Miss Lewton is killed by an improbably falling butcher knife, a stained glass window over her shoulder depicts a sword floating above her head. A speeding bus or flying piece of shrapnel are preceded by reflections in windows or flashes of lights, signs that these events are forthcoming. Wong and his team are clearly seeking to create an ominous feeling, in hopes that the viewer will feel as paranoid as Alex does, surrounded by a sense that a horrible accident could claim your life at any minute. Which, I suppose, is indeed a possibility. These frequent visual reminders are paired with a melodramatic score from Shirley Walker – a composer best known for her work in the also exaggerated superhero genre – and a generally credulous tone throughout. 

It's a bit overblown and more than a little bit silly, which is probably why an undercurrent of absurdity runs through "Final Destination." The film takes everything that happens very seriously despite it all being quite ridiculous, the dissonance creating a subtext of campy anticipation. I think Wong and company are in on the joke too. That the violent accidents in "Final Destination" happen as the result of elaborate chain reactions, a spontaneous Rube Goldberg machine that leads to somebody's grisly death, feels like a punchline to a steadily built-up joke. This is especially true for the series of unlikely events that result in a cord wrapping around a neck or a knife driven into a chest by a falling chair, combinations of such unlikeliness that you kind of have to laugh at them. When Kristen Cloke gets creamed by a randomly speeding bus or Sean William Scott is decapitated, it plays out like a physical gag. That "Final Destination" is only one step removed from a Raimian "splatstick" gore comedy doesn't prevent it from generating a grim tension in a few sequences. Most notably the opening plane crash, which piles misfortunes atop each other in a suitably out-of-control fashion that makes the viewer feel as caught up in this disaster as the characters. Or a mildly tense set piece of a car stopped on train tracks, which captures a little bit of that same panicked sensation. 

The minute it's revealed that a character has the last name of Hitchcock, it's clear "Final Destination" is one of those movies that sprinkles in homages to horror history. Miss Lewton's first name is Val, about as blatant a reference as you can get. Browning, Chaney, Dreyer, Weine, Murnau and Schreck are the other familiar names tossed around. Despite these shout-outs to the classic era, "Final Destination" focusing on elaborate death scenes makes it more like a slasher film. This is also evident in the "Dawson's Creek"-ready cast of photogenic young actors. The performances range from vacant to silly. Bright-eyed Devon Sawa as Alex gets increasingly sweaty as the material gets broader. Kerr Smith as Carter is a blustering cartoonish bully, while Sean William Scott is playing a slightly only less silly version of his “American Pie” character. Ali Larter, as Clear, and Kerr Smith as Carter, as Tod, are mostly stiff and unconvincing. The character remain archetypal in their simplicity, as they typically do in a slasher, though the movie at least gets points for not being as outwardly dismissive towards them as a lot of similar films are. Tony Todd's character exists to deliver some exposition but Todd was such an artist with screen presence that he makes the goofy dialogue sound sinister and impressive. 

By the way, “Final Destination'” origins as an “X-Files” spec script is still evident. The FBI agents floating around the margins of the story seem to suspect Alex might be a serial killer offing his friends or a terrorist who blew up the plane. The two have a scene, talking about whether the predictions of the future could exists, that you could easily slot Mulder and Scully into. It's not hard to imagine a version of this story with the investigator as the protagonists. Ending with a blunt cut-to-black that also operates as a pay-off to a sick joke, “Final Destination” takes the viewer out with a twisted smile on their face. It squanders a lot of potential with a shallow approach to its own ideas but remains a reasonably entertaining genre experience. Considering “Final Destination” came out during a time when slick “Scream” rip-offs made up a lot of the genre, the movie surely must've felt like a fresh approach at the time. It holds up fairly well. [7/10]

 

 

Meatcleaver Massacre (1977)

When future right-wing talk radio host and life-long hack Michael Medved named Edward D. Wood Jr. the “Worst Director of All Time” in 1980, he plucked the name out of obscurity and insured the filmmaker an undying cult following. Ed Wood doesn't merely have fans, he has devotees. I mean that almost literally, as Wood is at the center of a highly sarcastic but legally recognized religion. Wood archivists genuinely exist and they've unearthed lost works of his with some regularity. For example: It was long rumored that Wood had some involvement with 1976 trash-slasher “Meatcleaver Massacre” but, in 2022, cinematographer Roy H. Wagner confirmed that ol' Eddie boy basically directed the whole movie. That would make it the last Ed Wood movie, as he died three years later. First released as “Hollywood Meatcleaver Massacre,” the distributor later stitched on an introduction Christopher Lee had filmed for a totally unrelated project and chopped the “Hollywood” off the title. Now this utter obscurity is available on spiffy special edition Blu-Rays, both cuts bundled together and all cleaned up and full of special features. If only Ed had lived to seen it...

Professor Cantrell gives a lecture to his class about a Gaelic demon named Morak, said to be summoned to deliver bloody vengeance against those that have wronged another. Among Cantrell's class is Mason, an anti-social burn-out. That night, he meets up with his friends – long-haired hippy Sean, mechanic Dirk, sleaze ball Phil – and the group decides to pay Professor Cantrell a visit. Donning masks and wielding knives, they break into the man's house and brutally stab his wife and daughter to death. Contrell is left in a coma. From his hospital bed, his thoughts call out to Morak. Soon, Mason and his friends begin to experience bizarre hallucinations and nightmares. A demonic force is closing in and picking them off one by one. A police detective, who uncovered a triangular patch of cloth from Dirk's jacket at the crime scene, investigates.

In the same social media post where he confirmed that Wood directed most of the movie, Roy Wagner also revealed that shooting occurred over a four day period. This is evident, as the movie's narrative often operates as if it was made up along the way. We never learn anything about any of the character, all of them existing as thinly defined entities. Why Mason hates his college professor so much, or why he's such a belligerent psychopath in general, is never discussed. His friends seem to go along with the murderous plan on a whim. The plot, as it is, operates in an extremely simple, A-to-B fashion. This assholes kill a guy's family, he summons a demon to avenge them, and then they all die in supernatural ways. Despite that simplicity, “Meatcleaver Massacre” pads its slim 77 minute run time with lots of people walking around, hanging out in dingy apartments, or existing in various places of business. If you expect that subplot about the detective or the one guy's girlfriend working in a rub-and-tug massage parlor to amount to anything, you are definitely watching the wrong movie. 

Not that such a slapped-together production, with a paper-thin plot and non-existent characters, would be atypical for an Edward D. Wood Jr. movie. However, the director often paired his zero budget production values and nonsensical scripts with bizarre dialogue and a spunky, do-it-yourself flow. “Meatcleaver Massacre” mostly lacks these qualities, perhaps owing to Wood being a last minute replacement and a barely functioning alcoholic at the time. Occasionally, however, a bit of that old Wood-ian weirdness emerges. Such as in a hilarious sequence where Dirk seems to seriously consider slashing his wrist with a straight razor before glancing at his watch and shouting, “I'm gonna be late for work!” Or a customer in that sleazy sex shop being either a priest or a man posing as a priest. Another highly quotable line is a doctor in a mental institute looking in at a cackling patient and declaring “This is my first nut!” Before Morak takes out each guy, they have strange nightmares or visions. One of which involves wandering through a misty funeral home and a dead body wrapped in a white sheet on a beach. The long-haired hippy is taken out after wandering into the desert, the scene cut in such a matter that it looks like he's been killed by the leaves of an agave plant. So that's pretty funny. 

If “Meatcleaver Massacre” can be said to have any merits when taken as a stand-alone artifact, it is in the same way a lot of exploitation movies are: As an accidental time capsule of its time and place. There is a sequence, where Phil is walking down Sunset Avenue. The most famous landmark he passes is the Roxy Theater, which is advertising a late night screening of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” He also passes a lot of much sleazier venues and shops, showing pornography of varying degrees. Yes, “Meatcleaver Massacre” does have a little bit of that super greasy and washed-out atmosphere you find in extremely low budget and nasty grindhouse flicks of the time. There was definitely a Manson family influence on the home invasion premise, which was almost a decade out of date by the late seventies. However, the scraggly, long-haired, and polyestered actors – all of whom appear to be strung-out on one type of substance or another – does generate that seventies sense of nihilism. That the idealism of the sixties had failed and drugs and hedonism were all we got left with.  

This is interesting but not enough to make up for “Meatcleaver Massacre” mostly being a total nothing-burger of a movie. The close-ups of the weird-ass paintings seen throughout are fun. When Morak kills a guy with a car hood latch, that was mildly entertaining. However, the “Meatcleaver Massacre” experience is mostly summed up by the Christopher Lee bookends. Lee intoning grimly about pseudo-mystical mumbo-jumbo for six minutes sounds fun, like “In Search Of...” if it was hosted by Dracula and not Spock. In actuality though, the Lee sequences are flatly shot and rather monotonous. If you give Wood credit for the movie, you can smell the boozy fumes coming off the entire project. The other people behind the film were screenwriter Keith Burns, whose only other credit is a TV clip-show about Ernie Kovacs. The second credited writer is Ray Atherton. He mostly worked as a producer with credits like “F.A.R.T. The Movie,” video tapes collecting violent accident footage, and a documentary about L.A. queer culture starring a physically disabled tap dancer that later spawned an internet meme. Oh, he also played the guy who gets killed with the TV in “Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer.” All of which implies that the behind-the-scenes details of “Meatcleaver Massacre” – no one is massacred with a meat cleaver, by the way – are more interesting than the actual movie itself. [4/10]

Thriller: The Incredible Doktor Markesan

Boris Karloff hosted every episode of “Thriller,” of course, but he appeared as a character in the stories themselves a handful of times as well. Of these five appearances within “Thriller's” narratives, “The Incredible Doktor Markesan” is easily the best regarded. First Darren Dick York stars as Fred, a perpetually broke young man. Alongside his young wife, Molly, he drives to the estate of his rich uncle, Konrad. Konrad Markesan was a notable professor at the local college at one point and Fred and Molly hope he can help them find work, or at least provide them with a place to stay for a while. When the two arrive at the home, they find it dilapidated and slowly being consumed by the swamp around it. The house appears empty at first and, when Konrad finally does appear, his behavior is strange and his appearance is sickly. He allows the couple to stay in the home but under one condition: They must not roam around the house at night. He locks them into their bedroom every day at sundown to insure this. However, Molly and Fred are both curious about what's going on with Uncle Konrad. They soon break their promise to him and uncover that the old man has been performing unnatural experiments. Oh yeah, and that him and his work colleagues – also seen lurking around the house – have been dead for ten years. 

“Thriller” was a series that often succeeded in bringing a classic horror atmosphere to the small screen. “The Incredible Doktor Markesan” excels in this regard and it's not surprising once you read that it was directed by Robert Florey. That's the same guy who directed “Murders in the Rue Morgue,” among the foggiest of Universal's mist-strewn classic monster movies. Florey worked in almost every genre over his long career but was especially good at the macabre stuff. “The Incredible Doktor Markesan” is awash with smoky fog. The climax features an old family crypt, reeking with age and clouded in darkness. The setting is primarily a crumbling old mansion, filled with shadows and dust. When Karloff first appears the title character, it's with waxy flesh and massive bags under his eyes. He's the first of a handful of similarly sunken-eyed ghouls that show up. This classically spooky ambiance is supported by moody cinematography that often adopts askew or stylized camera angles and a score that layers on the quivering strings and shrill shrieks. Karloff, meanwhile, is at his most sinister as an ancient old man that moves between utterly zombified and surprisingly threatening.

That “The Incredible Doktor Markesan” has such incredible atmosphere makes up for a story that is fairly predictable. The episode is adapted from a script by frequent Lovecraft colleague August Derleth. While there's no cosmic horrors about in this one, the premise of a younger man discovering a disturbing family secret created through profane scientific experiments isn't that far off from something Howard Phillips might have written. The reveal that his uncle is an undead ghoul of some sort isn't that shocking and it takes Fred entirely too long to figure that out. In general, the episode is a bit heavy on the young couple bickering. 

However, there is something appealing about the classic set-up here, the “Bluebeard”-esque promise of comfort and security as long as someone simply doesn't explore further. The exact motivations of Markesan's experiments aren't revealed until the very end and remain a bit vague then too. The script works best when suggesting something weird and disturbing going on. Such as when Molly gets a glimpse of the old man forcing the other zombies to exhaustively repeat a speech praising him. Someone catching a glimpse of a weird, forbidden ritual that they don't understand but clearly realize they should not be seeing is a trope that almost always gives me the willies. Like most of the “Thriller” episodes I've seen, this does lead up to a properly chilling and surprisingly grim ending, which sends the viewer out on a fittingly creepy note. Doesn't hit quite as hard as “The Cheaters” or “The Hungry Glass” but still a nicely spooky hour of television. [7/10]

 

 

The Addams Family: Gomez, the People's Choice

An early season one episode of “The Addams Family” was entitled “Gomez, the Politician” but was actually about the patriarch of the eccentric family canvasing for another politician altogether. The idea was revisited with “Gomez, the People's Choice.” Upon receiving the tax bill for their home, Gomez and Morticia are disgusted to see their stately manor is only worth 84 dollars. They head to the mayor's office to demand to pay more, only for the glad-handing politician to offer to lower their bill instead. Gomez is outraged and, upon seeing his political rant, Morticia talks him into running for mayor. His bizarre ideas prove surprisingly appealing to the public and his campaign starts to gain steam. So much so that Gomez becomes too distracted by his new career to pay proper attention to his wife. Morticia and the rest of the family conspire to undo Gomez' latest ambitions. 

See, this is why the Addams Family are perhaps the only good millionaires: Not only do they pay their taxes, they demand to pay more than they owe! I can't imagine Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg ever trying to get into politics on that platform. As you'd probably expect, “The Addams Family” was not a series made for serious political commentary. Gomez' campaign is built entirely on nonsensical slogans. He spews a bunch of cliches and has Whizzo – the family super-computer introduced in “The Addams Family Splurges" – spit out topics for him to rant on. That's a surprisingly relevant message in our post-truth era, when a far less charming billionaire lunatic spouting completely inane bullshit somehow swindled his way into the White House twice. The Trump parallels become far more obvious in the second half. When Morticia and the others start attempting to sabotage Gomez' career with one scandal after another, his opponent realizes this will only make more popular with voters and immediately concedes. Very ahead of its time, that observation was. 

The middle stretch of this episode does feel a little limp. The beginning – of the family all engaged in their wacky hobbies before the tax bill ruins their day – is a solid gag. The last third features some really funny bits. Morticia rattling off a series of French phrases that go unnoticed by her husband, consumed in his political rhetoric, and getting increasingly aghast at what is happening is a wonderful moment. As is Morticia's attempt to portrayed a battered wife, which falls apart the minute her husband starts kissing her arm, turning her cries of anguish into ones of ecstasy. See, the wacky relationships between these character is why I love this show! That same sequence features a good joke about Uncle Fester pretending to be an escaped criminal. I also like the reveal concerning where the Addams got the signatures needed to approve his political run. Needed more silliness like that and less scenes of Whizzo the computer blowing confetti and shooting steam. (Especially not when there's a suitably funny series of gags about smoking earlier in the episode.) [6/10]