13 Days of First-Time Frights: Society

13 Days of First-Time Frights is a series of reviews for October 2019 where Douglas Laman, in the spirit of Halloween, watches and writes about thirteen horror movies he's never seen before. These reviews will be posted each Tuesday and Thursday as well as the last three Wednesdays of October 2019.

Entry #2: Society

Have you ever felt like you just don't fit in with your friends, your neighbors, even your family? I'm sure we've all felt like that from time to time but Bill Whitney (Billy Warlock) not only feels it all the time, he feels it in a more pronounced way, like that his isolation from the people around him is part of some greater conspiracy. Nobody listens to him on the matter, though, his parents barely even recognize hi mand his High School psychiatrist just dismisses it as youthful angst. But a series of strange incidents, as well as a fateful tape recording of his parents and sister engaged in some sort of creepy ritual, open Whitney's eyes to the fact that there is, in fact, something evil afoot in this society he lives in.

Bram Stoker's Dracula Is A Sexually Charged Piece of Cinema That Makes For A Delightful Watch

Bram Stoker's Dracula is one horny movie. It's so horny you might as well call it a crash of rhinos. It's so fixated on getting it on that one is surprised some James Brown tunes don't pepper the soundtrack. Director Francis Ford Coppola has assembled an A-list cast and some extraordinary production design, not to mention Bram Stoker's iconic source material, to create a vivid erotic fever dream about the one, the only, the vampire called Dracula. That description is meant to be a compliment, Bram Stoker's Dracula has refreshingly no inhibitions about what it wants to be is and fully embraces any opportunity to revel in both sex and hamminess, frequently at the same time.

Denzel Washington Delivers Some of His Best Work As An Actor In The Outstanding Biopic Malcolm X

In my prior reviews, I’ve made it no secret how much I prefer biopic movies that cover a short span of a real-life person’s life rather than features that try to shove an entire life into one motion picture. When you try to put too many major life events into one biopic movie, it has a tendency to make things feel rushed and lessens the impact of moments that should have real power to them. But this approach to biopic cinema can work with the proper execution and Spike Lee’s Malcolm X not only has the proper execution, it executes its expansive depiction of the life of Malcolm X so well that this truly feels like one of the all-time great biopics.

Tony Todd Excels As The Nefarious Mythical Foe of Candyman

We all know about Freddy Kruger, Jason Voorhees, Leatherface, Chucky, Michael Myers, all those horror movie icons who hunt down people in gruesome ways and just can't seem to be killed no matter what you do. But what about Candyman? This figure, portrayed by Tony Todd in his three movies, likely never got as famous as some of his horror movie villain counterparts simply because he wasn't as ubiquitous, whereas Jason got endless sequels throughout the 1980's and 1990's and Chucky is still headlining direct-to-video follow-ups, Candyman only starred in three movies, the last of which was released in 1999. Whatever the reason, the original Candyman is a good enough horror movie to make me wish Candyman was a more well-known figure in the world of horror cinema. Maybe that new remake Jordan Peele may or may not be producing will help boost his profile?

Clint Eastwoods Deconstructs The Very Genre That Launched Him To Stardom In Unforgiven

James Mangold and Hugh Jackman have cited many movies that carried a large influence over the creation of their 2017 X-Men feature Logan and it's no surprise to hear that Unforgiven was one particular movie Jackman saw as a guiding light for that final Wolverine movie (The Wrestler was another, similar unsurprising, point of inspiration for Jackman). Both Unforgiven and Logan star actors who play older weary versions of iconic stock characters they became famous for playing inhabiting a more realistic world low on hope and high on danger. Because Logan is dealing with an ex-superhero, the movie is able to end, after an entire film of bleak nastiness, on a note of hopefulness that the heroics Logan once committed will inspire a new generation to rise up and become beacons of hope in their own right. 

Batman Returns Is Weird For Sure But It Doesn't Add Up To Much

Boy howdy, is this ever a weird movie.

The Downward Trend In Quality In The Alien Movies Began With Alien 3

How do you follow a one-two punch like Alien and Aliens? Well, really, you should just leave a good thing alone, especially if you haven't got a great idea for a third movie burning a hole in your pocket. But 20th Century Fox was determined to make more entries in the franchise after the big box office bucks generated by Aliens. From their determination to wring another Ellen Ripley adventure out of the franchise sprung Alien 3, which ended up being the feature-length directorial debut for one David Fincher. Yes, that David Fincher, the guy responsible for The Social Network, one of my favorite movies of all-time.

Wayne's World Is Frequently Pleasant Though It Doesn't Quite Reach The Heights Of "Excellent!"

Movies based on recurring characters on Saturday Night Live are basically a thing of the past in the 21st century (the only entries in this subgenre since 2000 are The Ladies Man and MacGruber), but they were all the rage in the 1990's as immediate efforts were made to replicate the box office success of Wayne's World. The likes of Coneheads or Stuart Saves His Family (or even a direct Wayne's World follow-up) couldn't come remotely close to the box office returns of Wayne and Garth's first theatrical outing, which has emerged as one of the more quoted and beloved comedies of the 1990's.