by Hunter Bush, Staff Writer

Happy New Year, y’all! I hope that as you’re reading this you are filled with an overabundance of joy and hope and other warm, squishy feelings towards the year stretched out ahead of you. I hope I am too. As you may or may not know, I write these up a li’l bit in advance, so it’s actually the Christmas weekend for me and lemme tell you all: I. Am. Tired.

This year, like the last couple, has really worn me down. Is this normal? I frequently wonder if, like going through puberty, this general, directionless, soul-crushingly grey ennui I’ve been feeling is just A THING that everybody goes through as they age. But I don’t think so. I think we really are trapped in a terrible universe from which there is no escape. There’s no killswitch for it. All we can do is try our best to do what we can to improve our quality of life. Not just our own, but of others.

As I write this, yet another strain of the COVID virus is sweeping the nation like a shitty, life ruining Beatlemania that you can’t even dance to. My day job has me interacting with the public and I see so, so many people that are seemingly unconcerned with what is obviously happening all around. It’s …disheartening to say the least.

So let me be Stern Lecture Guy once again and plead with anyone reading this to: get vaxxed, get boosted, stay socially distance as much as humanly possible, wear a mask (or two) when you DO go out there, and keep your distance from most people. I mean, I get it. We all wanna fuck, and see our friends and loves ones, and go to the movies, and all that but like - is it worth it? Let’s all get big into astral projection, physical media, and tantric masturbation and see if we can change the world! But I digress.

All of this above is to say: It’s the end of the year, a long and exhausting year, and I’m phoning this one in a little bit. We’ve got three major new releases that fit into the Everything Old Is New Again mold - meaning they are based upon some form of previously existing Intellectual Property, whether it be some other form of media or even an older movie of some variety - and I’ve found a few older films that fit in as well to SPOTLIGHT if you’re looking for something fun.

Let’s take care of each other in 2022, hunh? Okay, here we go:

PREMIERS

New films coming to screens this January

13th

Peacemaker (series)
Where: HBO max

I dunno about y’all but I really enjoyed James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad (2021), both on its own merits (Weird characters! Great performances! Big starfish alien kaiju!) and also as an antidote to the self-serious, grim ‘n’ gritty version from David Ayer that preceded it in 2016. But honestly, that’s such a low bar. It’s hard to pinpoint certain characters in Gunn’s flick as “standouts” over others really, but as a lover of professional wrestlers in films, John Cena’s turn as Peacemaker comes close. A man so hell bent for leather over the concept of peace that he ends up becoming the worst apple in a bunch of killers and lunatics (and one man-shark), PM ended that film getting the Million Dollar Man treatment (no, this time I’m not talking about wrestlers - he was rescued from a collapsed building a nursed back to health, presumably by his gov’t overseers. This series finds him slightly introspective after the whole experience, returning home to talk to his father (Robert Patrick!) and making friends with a fellow vigilante, named appropriately enough Vigilante (Freddie Stroma) and some other non-super people. I’m not exactly sure what this group (which seem, only slightly beyond being a neighborhood watch) are up against - there’s some potentially mind-controlled/possessed/etc behavior from people in the trailer and a shot of what look like a hundred tiny spaceships landing, so… more aliens? Doesn’t really matter though, I guess. All I’m looking for from this is to have a good time and John Cena with a CGI eagle (that I THINK is named Eagly?!?) would seem to foot that bill perfects.

14th

Scream 5 (dir. Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett)
Where: in theaters

I’ve praised the original Scream (directed by Wes Craven, released in 1996) for initiating me into horror before - listen to Hate Watch/Great Watch episode 10 for instance - so I won’t go into the whole thing again, but needless to say I hold the original in very high regard. So I won’t lie to you when I say I am not excited for this legacy sequel. I’m not against the proposal entirely, but if we’re going to go back to Woodsboro, back to the original cast (Neve Campbell, David Arquette, Courtney Cox, possibly more?), I just want to feel like the film is going to have something to say. To that end, the trailer footage I’ve seen really doesn’t deliver. I see teens getting sliced up, a modern technology twist on the classic Drew Barrymore cold open, and a lot of familiar faces. I don’t really want to get into the whole Who Could Be Behind The Mask of it all, despite that being most of what the marketing is hanging its hat on, because I feel like the movie should have more meat on its bones than that. To really be worth doing after all this time, I’m going to need more than just some aggrieved acquaintance from somewhere back in the previous four films who’s got an axe to grind. I mean, that CAN be who’s behind it, but it’s got to really MEAN something more. For that reason, I’m interested to hear what the reactions to this are like.

28th

Morbius (dir. Daniel Espinosa)
Where: in theaters

Jared Leto has to be one of the worst people around right? I mean, not at the level of like Joe Rogan or Jeff Bezos or whatever, he’s not evil (I don’t think) he’s just The Worst. Obnoxious. Takes himself too seriously. He’s the kind of “method” actor who completely misunderstands the point of The Method and instead just acts like an asshat all the time. So anyway, here he plays Michael Morbius, a doctor afflicted with a rare blood disease who decides to use vampire bats to cure himself. Michael Morbius is a villain/antihero from the Spider-Man comics and the whole “I’ll use ___ animal to cure myself” line of logic is pretty prevalent there. So of course, what happens but Mikey becomes Morbius the Living Vampire, which means he’s not technically undead but he still has all kinds of vampirish superpowers and needs that sweet vein gravy like all good vampires do. It’s not super clear why, but at some point he’s imprisoned (and passes by Michael Keaton, but put a pin in that for a second) and then escapes and is wanted by like a whole strike team for whatever reason (maybe just crimes? Or maybe also experimentation? Or maybe for being Jared Leto?)

So, having not seen the most recent Spider-Man, I’m unclear on the state of the Spider-Verse. There’s a whole complicated legal history between Marvel/Disney and Sony over the legal Spider-rights and the two seem to have repeatedly reached agreements allowing Spidey to appear in the MCU while Sony holds onto certain other characters (including notably Venom). That most recent Spidey movie No Way Home has both cinematic universes collapsing and intermingling and whatnot, so when Michael Keaton shows up, I’m guessing he’s reprising his role as Adrian Toomes/The Vulture? But there’s anti-Spider-Man graffiti on the wall in the background of a shot, and I’m not sure exactly which Spider-Man that is - Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield, Tom Holland, or god forbid yet another one). This trailer has my attention because it’s different. Adding a vampire (strongly mystical/magical) to the largely sci-fi Sony Spider-Man film franchise could be a lot of fun. The cast certainly doesn’t hurt, as it includes Tyrese, Jared Harris, and Matt Smith. And for what its worth I think Leto is perfectly cast here because much like a vampire, he totally sucks.

SPOTLIGHT

Not new releases, but still EOINA material worth checking out

3rd

Blood For Dracula (dir. Paul Morrissey)
Where: Shudder

This adaptation and elaboration upon the character of Dracula - created by Bram Stoker in 1897 - find Drac not fairing very well. Played by a young and oddly beautiful Udo Kier, Drac has travelled to an Italian villa under the auspices of finding a “marryable” (read: virgin) wife. In this version, he can only drink virgins’ blood or else fall violently and (spoilers: hilariously) ill. The villa is home to three sisters and Joe Dallesandro, playing a worker who has lived on the grounds his entire life. I know this all sounds fairly standard, but I cannot stress enough how entertaining it is as a trash fire. Dallesandro is very good looking, but he has a THICC east coast accent, so his casting as a lifelong Italian worker/Marxist is absolutely hysterical!

Apocryphally, Andy Warhol (famed photographer/artist/personality and producer on this film) fell in love with Dallesandro and thought he could be the Next Big Thing, recommending him for this role and his performance, while completely serviceable, gets completely lost in the cacophony of accents in this. While most of the rest of the cast are European, and speak thusly, Dallesandro chews through his dialogue with a real Brooklyn swagger. When one of the sisters - who has been sleeping with Dallesandro’s Mario - explains that Dracula is “looking to marry a virgin”, Mario responds “Then what’s he doin’ wit yew two hoo-ers?” and, readers: I died. I laughed so hard I gave myself a headache.

It absolutely rules. It’s not Kevin Costner and his wishy-washy Robin of Locksley dialect from Prince of Thieves; no one is trying to “fool” you into thinking Dallesandro is actually Italian. It’s more like watching an amazing community theater performance recorded for all time. It’s punk rock and I love it. The film itself is absolutely fine, but what makes it a must watch is the execution; the sheer DIY who-cares-lets-just-do-it gusto of the production. Watch it.

Thank you for reading. I hope, as I said above, that the coming year treats us all better than the year behind us. I’ll be back next month for more and, Satan willing, I’ll have more energy, more vitriol, more verve. Fingers crossed!

Thanks as always to MovieJawn for hosting and posting. If you’d like to read more from me you can find me all around the MJ site, OR you can listen to the Hate Watch/Great Watch podcast which I cohost with Allison Yakulis. Coming up in January we’ve got an episode on the 1996 Schwarzenegger meta action send-up Last Action Hero with returning guest Celso Garcia. It’ll be fun, just tune in.

Until next time - Long Live the Movies!