Razzmatazz!

It’s easy to get angry over the annual injustice of the Academy Awards, but we can only mock Mira Sorvino’s luck or fruitlessly wave a David Cronenberg flag so many times before our own Oscar the Grouch routine sounds bitter. To thoroughly cite all the great genre performances and films neglected by the Academy Awards is as daunting a task as actually watching the ten Best Picture nominees of 2010 (mainly because that requires you to sit through The Blind Side), but there’s one annual national film society ceremony horror fans can, year after year, invest some stock in: The Golden Raspberries, aka the only trophy to be won by both Tom Green and Laurence Olivier.

We can be thankful that movies as awful as The Happening get recognized for the cinematic crimes they commit against the ticket buying public, but every now and then, the Razzies get it wrong. Sometimes it’s an oversight, as many voters probably try their darnest to erase the memory of certain bad films (I didn’t even remember that I’d seen Friday the 13th: Part XII this year. More often, the Razzmacademy gets a little too eager to punish some of the less critically acclaimed, but not necessarily awful cinema that’s simply an easy target. 

Here are a few Razzie wins and snubs that just don’t add up:

Megan Fox in Jennifer’s Body

There are a lot of people currently breathing who dream of watching the slow death/D-list descent of Ms. Megan Fox, but just because a person’s sound bites are more annoying than Mentos commercials doesn’t mean every single performance she gives is a total dud. In Jennifer’s Body--a film targeted as the second coming of Satan according to a vocal segment of the horror community--Fox is perfectly cast as a Mean Girl turned truly evil (not, like, high school evil) and hungry for the blood of horny teenage boys. Yes, Fox’s primary responsibility is to look hot in a cheerleader skirt, but she easily hits the right notes in a role custom made for her (probably limited) range. She’s no Jennifer Tilly in Seed of Chucky, but on a certain level, there’s some genuinely fun about her self-aware work. 

The Blair Witch/Book of Shadows

In fairness, the 1999 nomination for this juggernaut hit was probably more the result of general weariness from the onslaught of fan-films and true story debate than the actual quality of The Blair Witch Project. But a nomination for worst film? This in the year that was Baby Geniuses and Chill Factor? Similarly, the sequel continues to slowly build a late blooming audience who appreciate the film’s playful meta take on the very success of its predecessor. It’s not classic, but surely there were worse films to nab nominations in 2000. Don’t believe me? Hanging Up, Drowning Mona, Pokeman: The Movie, Digimon: The Movie, Autumn in New York, The Ladies Man, and Dungeons & Dragons might have something to say about that. If anybody remembered any of them existed. 

Paris Hilton in horror

I’m no Paris Hilton apologist. If I ever find a genetically deformed monkey’s paw, there’s a good chance its extra pinky may indeed be used to wish her fame into oblivion. That being said, there’s nothing about her underwhelming, if adequate performance in House of Wax that’s worse than Jessica Simpson’s slack-jawed mumbling in The Dukes of Hazard or, more importantly, Katie Holmes’ dull and unbelievable zombie stare in the nearly great The Dark Knight. I could easily call foul on the Razzie voting committee for her 2005 win, particularly when they gave her a hat trick four years later for one deservedly awful (beyond words) performance in The Hottie and the Nottie (please don’t ever make me type those words again) and one actual better than anyone expected (or wants to admit) performance in Repo! The Genetic Opera.

Anaconda

Great movie? Not by most standards. Damn good fun with decent production values and a rich sense of humor? You betcha. So why did 1997’s Anaconda earn a place in Razzie history with multiple nominations, including Worst Picture, Worst Supporting Actor (Jon Voight the performance of his career...seriously) and Worst New Star? More importantly, how is an animatronic/CGI snake considered a New Star?

The Shining

Stanley Kubrick was never a universally loved artist, but to cite him in the Worst Director  category at the Razzies debut ceremony is appalling in any time. At least he was in some highbrow company: Brian De Palma and William Friedken shared the honor.

Haunted Homes, Demon Teens, & Long Island Lolitas That Aren't Amy Fisher

Before we revel in the sexual depravity, mass murder, and withering disappointment of Amityville II: The Possession, allow me to bid you a warning:

I will spoil this movie. Because I’m a bad person. Or maybe because if you’ve seen any of the other Amityville spinoffs, you already know the ending (or rather, middle) or The Possession and it’s just too darn tough (or I’m too damn dumb) to discuss a film that hits its mark 60 minutes in without, well, spilling the red paint. If you’re truly looking forward to the twists and turns of this 1980 prequel, I recommend coming back here after viewing or just donning a pair of those cool 80s plastic sunglasses that didn’t actually protect your eyes from the sun, but did make it really difficult to see anything clearly.

Ready? Here goes:


Some movies were just made to be watched on a hot summer night at a drive-in. Amityville II: The Possession is clearly one of these relics. With its exploitation-y atmosphere, early climax, and okay-to-fall-asleep third act, this first sequel to Long Island’s pride-and-joy-horror smash made me want to win the lottery, buy some land, and build my own outdoor movie heaven.


This doesn’t mean that I loved Amityville II. It just means I love drive-ins.


Quick Plot: Some years before the ill-fated move of Mr. & Mrs. Lutz, the best-named director in the world Damiano Damiani tells the far more ill-fated tale of the Montellis, a normal enough family who apparently didn’t read my advice on navigating the real estate market.

 Instead, they arrive at their bargain-priced dream home to meet some pesky ghost squatters that have a talent for shortening the tempers of humans they encounter. Little time passes before the sink is leaking red paint, Burt Young’s Papa Montelli is dripping heavier sweat wads than Sylvester Stallone sweatin’ to the oldies, and the teenage siblings are taking their relationship to V.C. Andrews levels of inappropriateness.

By little time, I mean almost none. The film isn’t one hour through before the central act of violence occurs, and while it’s shocking, graphic, and thoroughly upsetting, we in the audience still have another 45 minutes to get through. Therein lies the problem.


While there are flaws the first act, Damiani does succeed at creating an intriguing buildup to the collapse of the refreshingly authentic Montellis. For once, I actually didn’t want to kill the youngest child actors (even as they played hide-and-seek in plastic bags and could have made the job easy), which made their doomed fate truly horrifying. Diane Franklin is sympathetic as the naively seductable Patricia, and some of the latex-heavy effects have aged quite decently.

Unfortunately, the second half of The Possession loses all the intensity it so quickly built up. It’s hard enough to carry a film when 5/6ths of the main characters have been slaughtered, but much harder when your game plan is to rip off The Exorcist right on down to the silhouette of Father Merrin’s hat. As Sonny, actor Jack Magner doesn’t make for a particularly save-worthy soul and the guilt-baiting ghosts nagging at Father Adamsky have no real weight when all we’ve really seen of his sins were turning down one phone call. Some film fans may enjoy the boy-on-the-verge-of-manhood possession analogies, but for me, there just wasn’t enough character or story to really invest any care into.

High Points
The opening Rosemary’s Babyish la-la singing is rather haunting


Diane Franklin looks enough like a 15 year old to make the statutory incestuous stuff sufficiently creepy. This isn’t exactly a “high point,” per say, but I give it a nod since I imagine a 2009 remake would skirt this issue by casting a rapidly Benjamin Button-esque aging Lindsay Lohan and putting her in an 18-hour Playtex bra (how I fear your possibilities, Let the Right American One In 2010)


The massacre is truly disturbing, in part because the film’s lack of weight doesn’t really prepare you for such an early scene of no holds barred violence

If you’re going to have a mustache, take a note from Sonny’s lawyer and have a fucking MUSTACHE


Low Points
Maybe it’s just the poor luck of being chased down so quickly by Spielberg & Hooper, but floating paintbrushes got nothin’ on evil clown dolls


Sonny’s stomach-pumping bed scene demonstrates just how important good acting ability is to pulling of any form of the prolonged “Nooooo!” and not sounding like Darth Vader’s lament of Padme’s death


Lessons Learned
Introducing your son as your first born and letting your 15 year old daughter call you Mommy and Daddy may not be fostering the best environment for sexually confused teenagers

Chekhov’s law that introducing a gun in the first act requires said gun to be fired later in the story applies to horror movies in full force


Don’t piss off Burt Young when he’s wearing a belt

When in doubt about how to end a mediocre horror sequel, blow something up


Stray Observations
Yes, that’s Mommie Dearest’s loyal assistant playing Mama Monticelli, and yes, Rutanya Alda has the dubious honor of receiving two consecutive Razzie nominations for Worst Supporting Actress, proving that Ms. Crawford wasn’t the first one to take a second ‘round at the rodeo.

Is there some curse on adolescent male antiheroes that head the second installments of multi-film franchises? I’ll give Magner a gold medal if Nightmare on Elm Street 2’s Jessie silvers and Silent Night Deadly Night 2’s Ricky cleans up the garbage around the base of the podium.


Rent/Bury/Buy
Amityville II is not a terrible film, nor is it particularly good. Having seen bits and pieces of most of the series (like the good native Lawnga Eyelandah I am), I was quite shocked at the brutality in the central murders. If you press stop after the bodies are messily removed, you have yourself an above average demonic dream home thriller that will darken your day considerably. If you continue through the Exorcist-lite mood switch, however, you may find yourself drifting into MST3K jokes or sleep. Anyone with an interest in the Amityville saga should definitely give this a rent, but I don’t imagine a rewatch will be necessary enough to warrant a buy. If anything, give it one viewing to appreciate a simpler, sweeter time in cinema history, before the MPAA created the PG13 rating and studios smartened up to where the actual money market was. This is 80s horror sleaze without limitations. If only the script supported it the whole way through.


Special thanks to Stacie Ponder and Final Girl’s Film Club for assigning this as May’s pick. Take a virtual field trip to wander through what promises to be a diverse and entertaining mix of other horror bloggers taking their rifle shots at this misshapen gem of a movie.