30 Odd Foot of Clicks

Random reminder that I have a podcast (even I forget) and that in my most recent episode, the great Christine Makepeace and I dove into Red Rooms and its obvious pairing, 1995's The Net. 

I wrote about The Net a lifetime ago, but found it even more impressive this time around. As a thriller, it's perfectly sleek, but the real surprise was how once you look past the details (floppy disks, PIZZA DOT NET), the actual story is just as relevant THIRTY YEARS later.

Anyhoo, now that we all feel like dinosaurs, it only feels right to see ANOTHER studio-sized techno-horror from the same year.

Quick Plot: A technology firm has teamed up with a maximum security prison to enlist inmates in some virtual reality testing. Ex-cop turned convicted murderer Parker Barnes (the world's best movie star Denzel Washington) and a pre-Saw Costas Mandylor are hunting serial killer SID 6.7 in a video game sushi restaurant when something goes wrong. Our beloved before-he-was-Jigsaw-5.0 is killed, as investors decide to pull the plug on this totally reasonable experiment.

Not so fast. Head developer Darrel Lindenmeyer (the kind of wormy little man who you'd meet and say, "I bet his last name is Lindenmeyer") is so proud of SID 6.7 that he simply can't bear to say goodbye. If you love something, you set it free, even if that something is a computer program amalgam of 200 serial killers condensed into baby Russell Crowe's buttocks.

SID is quick to turn LA into his own very '90s murder playground. He storms a rave and MMA fighting event, always framing his kills in perfect view of a running camera. 

Naturally, there's only one man who can stop SID's rampage. 

Well, one man and a randomly paired blond sidekick with a precocious child perfectly constructed to be put in danger.

Virtuosity was probably never going to be a great film. The fact that I've taken multiple paragraphs to set something up before reaching the 20 minute mark of a 98-minute film and STILL haven't addressed half of the cast (OSCAR WINNER LOUISE FLETCHER FOR GOODNESS SAKE) should probably indicate that there's a bit too much going on here. 

Even Denzel thought so. The biggest drag in Virtuosity is whatever the heck the plan was for Kelly Lynch's Dr. Madison Carter. She's a criminal psychologist intent on teaming up with Parker to catch and profile SID. Naturally, she's also a single mom to baby-faced, perfectly kidnappable Kaley Cuoco. 

As a sci-fi action thriller, Virtuosity can be pretty fun. But Lynch's Carter just sticks out as an unnecessary chess piece in an already overstuffed game. It's not surprising that the first bit of behind-the-scenes trivia for this film is that the script turned Parker and Madison's relationship romantic. Whether that was ultimately cut for time, chemistry, or racial politics (most sites suggest it was Denzel Washington who thought it would alienate filmgoers), the end result of this pairing is just...off. This woman should NOT be tagging along as a seasoned cop/convicted murderer hunts down a terminator. The minute you see her equally blond-headed child, you clock exactly what will be the final conflict of what could be a far more interesting story.

So no, Virtuosity is not a hidden gem in a Blockbuster pile. It has heavy script issues that are both helped and hurt by the very '90s CGI and overall aesthetic. There's certainly a charm to its very of-its-time style. The film is never boring. But also, mostly, not that good.

High Points

Maybe it was a direct effect of having just watched the divine Sandra Bullock take over the screen in The Net, but there really is something to seeing a true movie star in action. Denzel Washington is obviously capable of deeper performances, but his work in this fairly dumb thriller is just more evidence of how insanely perfect he is as an onscreen presence.

Low Points

Aforementioned mess of Kelly Lynch's role, shoehorned into an already messy narrative and topped with one of the worst '90s haircuts to boot

Lessons Learned

You can always count on a '90s movie killer to speak in sadistic dad jokes

Never trust a computer nerd with a name like Lindenmeyer

It should probably go without saying, but there's no universe in which combining 200 serial killers into one mainframe is a good idea

Rent/Bury/Buy

Virtuosity is by no real definition a good movie. The choppy storytelling suffers from whatever happened behind the scenes, making the overall product fairly unsatisfying. But hey, there are only so many '90s techno thrillers, and even fewer that boast someone with the heft of Denzel Washington. 

One Flew Over the Martian's Nest

I don’t think I’ alone in remembering movies from my childhood more as moments than full narratives. I couldn’t tell you much about my family’s VHS copy of Invaders From Mars, save for those specific images that stuck: a mother eating raw beef, icky open wounds on the back of adults’ heads, and Louise Fletcher practicing Grandma Foxworth’s diction screaming a-e-i-o-u (in my own re-imagining, she adds “and sometimes y”).

Naturally, when it popped up on Instant Watch, it was a natural experiment to see how Tobe Hooper's little loved sci-fi/horror remake played to my adult sensibilities.

Quick Plot: Young Hunter Carson lives happily in the suburbs with his mom and NASA employed dad. One night, he spots what a possible UFO landing just over the hill outside his window. Dad takes a walk to investigate and returns a little ... off.

Just give it one more day and a parents-only walk before Mom is serving up blackened bacon and eating raw chopped meat. At school, Hunter begins to suspect his teacher may also be under some form of extraterrestrial influence, and not JUST because she happens to be played by Nurse Ratched. 

Thankfully, Hunter is able to convince the friendly school nurse Linda (genre stalwart Karen Black) that something is amiss. Together they discover a series of underground tunnels occupied by giant, fleshy ball creatures with long legs and almost adorable t-rex arms, plus their master who resembles what I assume would happen if a baseball had sex with a meatball, the meatball took thalidomide when pregnant then drank steroid-infused clamato while breastfeeding.

Slightly cute, but mostly ugly.

Invaders From Mars is a remake of a classic (though unseen by me) sci-fi film from the golden ‘50s. This version starts with a fair amount of complicated pedigree: Alien creator Dan O’Bannon on script duties and Texas Chainsaw Massacre director Tobe Hooper behind the camera. Fresh off of the alien (and boob)-filled Lifeforce and slightly distanced from the controversial Poltergeist, Hooper seems to approach Invaders from a rather in-between style. With its child protagonist and PG rating (although a 1986 PG is generally translated into a 2014 PG-13), Invaders From Mars certainly feels like it’s made for a younger audience. On the other hand, some of the violence and general theme of Martians landing on our planet to possess your parents, eat your teachers, shoot your war heroes, and poke a hole through your neck is rather rough stuff for the kiddie crowds.

More problematic is the pacing. My understanding of the original film is that it follows a similar feel to Invasion of the Body Snatchers, with a slow build of suspense with special attention to its Cold War analogy. Hooper’s film has other aims. We get one quick but sweet scene setting the Carsons up as a happy family before immediately pulling them apart. It’s not that every monster movie with a child lead has to include the obligatory ‘only the kid knows the truth!’ trope, but Invaders moves so fast that there’s not even time for the intelligent adults to question him.

It’s strange. There’s so much about Invaders From Mars that’s almost awesome. You’ve got a super duper supporting cast filled with the likes of Timothy Bottoms, Laraine Newman (with a Coneheads reference to boot!), and James Karen, all of whom clearly relish the chance to go big. The effects by Stan Winston and John Dykstra are genuinely great, and plenty of weird touches (Fletcher’s zombie-teacher-intimidating-through-vowel-reciting, for one) that keep the film on a kind of special radar.

It’s not really enough. I enjoyed watching Invaders From Mars, but to call it a good film would be a lie. And reader, would I ever lie to you?

High Points

Enough really can’t be said about the creature design of Invaders’ Martians. Gooey, ugly, and genuinely not of this world. Also, they shoot lasers. That’s never bad

Low Points

I don’t really want to even talk about the ending because it made me that mad, so we’ll just leave that right there

Lessons Learned

Always keep a sack of pennies on you. They might cause you to run with a limp and almost get caught by clumsy martians or schoolteachers, but it's worth it

Marines have no qualms about killing martians (although they never carry spare change into combat)

Astronauts need to stay up late

Rent/Bury/Buy

Just 90 minutes on Instant Watch, Invaders From Mars is certainly worth a look for those interested in sci-fi, heavy practical effects, or true ‘80s genre cinema. I can’t imagine anyone will declare this an unheralded classic, but it’s a weird little oddity that should prove entertaining on one level or another. I mean, lasers. Who doesn’t love ‘em?