Pulp Fiction (1994)

Q: What do two hitmen, a mob boss and his cocaine-fuled wife, a glowing briefcase, a down-on-his-luck boxer, S&M freaks, dead body cleanup, and a wristwatch have in common?

A: Quentin Tarantino's sophomore project, Pulp Fiction.

After scoring a cult hit in 1992 with Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction would go on to win the coveted "Palme d'Or" award at the Cannes Film Festival, get a bunch of Oscar nominations (including a nomination for Best Picture), and be one of the most celebrated films of the decade. It's one of the most important and influential movies of the 1990s, but is its reputation more hot air than anything?

The film's plot is actually three interweaving stories that follow a related cast of characters in Los Angeles over the course of a few days. The first story, titled "Vincent Vega & Marsellus Wallace's Wife," begins with Vincent Vega (John Travolta) and Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson), a pair of hitmen discussing Vincent's recent visit to Amsterdam while heading to an apartment to acquire a briefcase for their boss, Marsellus Wallace (Ving Rhames).

After getting the briefcase and dispatching the guys in the apartment, the story proper begins. It centers around Vincent, who has been asked to show Marsellus's wife Mia (Uma Thurman) a good time while he heads out of town on business. Vincent is understandably nervous, as Jules had told him a story about Marsellus throwing a man from a four-story balcony for merely massaging Mia's feet. Throw in a dance competition at a '50s nostalgia café, Mia mistaking Vincent's stash of heroin for cocaine, and Vincent arguing with his drug dealer (Eric Stoltz) over how to save someone in the middle of a drug overdose, and you've got story one.

The second story, "The Gold Watch," centers around Butch Coolidge (Bruce Willis), a washed-up boxer that's been ordered to throw a fight by Marsellus. However, Butch decides that he's going to win instead. And win he does, to the point that his opponent actually dies in the center of the ring. Butch, fearing the consequences of both killing his opponent and going against Marsellus's wishes, flees the arena and escapes to a hotel with his airhead French girlfriend Fabienne (Marie de Medeiros).

The next morning, Butch awakens to discover that Fabienne left his prized gold watch, his only memento of his late father, at their apartment. He sneaks back to the apartment, retrieves the watch after a quick shootout with one of Marsellus's goons, then heads back to the hotel. Along the way, he ends up coming face-to-face with Marsellus, and the two brawl into a pawn shop. They couldn't have picked a worse place to fight, because it's at the pawn shop where they encounter two redneck rapists and an S&M freak known only as "The Gimp."

Story three, "The Bonnie Situation," follows, showing what happened between Jules and Vincent retrieving the briefcase and Vincent's ordeal with Mia. They kill the guys in the apartment, pick up the briefcase and Marvin (Phil LaMarr), their informant, then go to meet Marsellus. Unfortunately for Vincent and Jules and very unfortunately for Marvin, Vincent's gun goes off and splatters Marvin's head all over the rear windshield. Vincent and Jules panic, seeking help from Jimmie Demmick (Quentin Tarantino), a former employee of Marsellus that has gotten out of the business.

Jimmie isn't too thrilled with the idea of Jules and Vincent showing up at his house with a dead body, so he pressures them to leave before his wife Bonnie gets home. A few phone calls are made, and Winston Wolf (Harvey Keitel) arrives at Jimmie's front door to handle the problem. He instructs Jules and Vincent to clean up the inside of the car, makes a few phone calls, and gets a junkyard to demolish the car (with Marvin in the trunk for good measure) for them. After getting things settled, the two hitmen head to a nearby café for breakfast, where we see an extension of the movie's first scene. Two thieves, calling themselves "Pumpkin" (Tom Roth) and "Honey Bunny" (Amanda Plummer), hold up the café, only to realize they've gotten in way over their heads.

Pulp Fiction is one of my favorite movies, and for good reason. While almost all of the characters are portrayed as unlikable, it's hard not to think some of them are cool. The cast's portrayal of their characters is stellar, and their director is at the top of his game here. John Travolta is phenomenal here as Vincent, the hitman who can get himself into situations that he can't figure out how to get out of on his own. He's sort of like the jewel thieves from Reservoir Dogs. He talks tough, but loses his cool when bad stuff goes down.

Samuel L. Jackson is also wonderful as Vincent's partner-in-crime Jules, the scripture-quoting hitman that can barks orders like the drill sergeant from Full Metal Jacket, yet can calmly and quietly reflect over situations as well. To be totally honest, every actor does his or her job perfectly, and I couldn't ask for better. I actually wasn't too big on the character of Fabienne, but that's not the fault of Marie de Medeiros. I just didn't think Fabienne was all that great of a character.

Also perfect was the script, written by Tarantino and Roger Avery. A lot of the movie's charm is how some of the dialogue and predicaments the characters find themselves in are so outrageous. The non-linear construction of the movie (which has become something of a trademark for Tarantino) is such that you can see the movie a dozen times, and still be surprised by what happens next. The stories all overlap and intersect, but a chronological edit of the movie would destroy the whole flow and feel of the movie. It would probably make even less sense if viewed that way.

As with all of Tarantino's other movies, the soundtrack plays a big factor. Here, the movie is scored with lots of surf music and other old songs. Many of the songs have become connected with the movie in such a way that hearing a particular song from the soundtrack can remind faithful viewers of the scene in which it was featured. In a way, it's like how the Stealer's Wheel song "Stuck In The Middle With You" has become forever attached to the torture scene from Reservoir Dogs. This time, it's numerous songs that have become attached to scenes from the movie.

Many consider Pulp Fiction to be one of the best movies ever made, and I won't disagree. Tarantino's knack for creatively telling crazy, off-beat stories is fully revealed here, and he's seemingly developing the same storytelling reputation that legendary director Orson Welles had at one time. In fact, one could call Pulp Fiction Tarantino's Citizen Kane. The creativity in his movies are light-years beyond other movies, and is at a level most writer/directors never reach throughout their entire careers. So I can't give Pulp Fiction any rating other than five stars. I know it will sound like hyperbole, but if you haven't seen it yet, you should.

Final Rating: *****

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)

Ah, remakes. Hollywood can't seem to get enough of them, especially ones in the horror genre. In the past 25 years, dozens of remakes have been released. Some are considered as good as, if not better than, the source material (The Fly, The Thing, and the first Invasion of the Body Snatchers remake), some are okay (the well-made yet financially disappointing Willard), while others just don't pan out (Psycho). Perhaps one of the most talked-about remakes in recent memory has been Michael Bay and Marcus Nispel's remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. On with the review...

The date is August 18, 1973, and we join a group of friends in a beat-up van heading to a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert in Dallas following a brief excursion in Mexico. We meet Erin (Jessica Biel) and her boyfriend Kemper (Eric Balfour), smart-aleck pothead Morgan (Jonathan Tucker), sex-crazed Andy (Mike Vogel), and the equally sex-crazed Pepper (Erica Leerhsen), a hitchhiker the group picked up while coming through El Paso. Along the way, the five pick up another hitchhiker, a hysterical young woman (Lauren German) claiming that a "bad man" killed her friends before producing a gun and shooting herself in the face.

The obviously unsettled gang stops at the nearest general store, asking the clerk (Marietta Marich) if they could call the police and report the suicide. She basically blows them off, telling them "what you do is your own business." They get all up in her area about the dead girl in their van, so the clerk calls the sheriff and says he'll meet them at the nearby abandoned mill. They're understandably confused as to why the sheriff won't meet them at the store, but they go to the mill anyway.

Upon arriving at the mill, the group finds not a sheriff, but a filthy little boy named Jedidiah (David Dorfman), who I nicknamed "the Redneck Troll" while watching the movie. (Hey, I thought it was funny at the time, sue me.) Anyway, Jedidiah tells them where the sheriff lives, so Erin and Kemper head in that direction while the other three wait for someone to arrive.

Someone eventually does arrive, in the form of Sheriff Hoyt (R. Lee Ermey), who is a foul-mouthed, abrasive pervert. He orders Morgan to help him wrap the body with saran wrap and put it in the trunk of his police cruiser. But there's more to him than he lets on, as he slowly becomes more vile, twisted, and disgusting as the movie progresses.

Meanwhile, Erin and Kemper soon find a huge house in the middle of an otherwise vacant field, where they're confronted by a mean old man (Terrance Evans) confined to a wheelchair. He lets Erin into the house to use the phone and call the police, but Kemper soon grows impatient with waiting and enters the house. As with the first movie, this turns out to be a huge blundering faux pas. Among the house's residents is a brute in a homemade leather mask (Andrew Bryniarski), a monster of a man known to us viewers as Leatherface. And you know what that means, don't you?

Like I said earlier, this was one of the more controversial remakes in recent memory. Not since Gus Van Sant revisited Alfred Hitchcock's classic Psycho had a remake been so hotly debated. Many horror fans hold Tobe Hooper's original 1974 Massacre close to their hearts, and news of a remake produced by Hollywood hot shot Michael Bay (the creative muscle behind flicks like Armageddon, Pearl Harbor, and the Bad Boys movies) was almost a slap in the face. But personally, I thought the remake was pretty darn good. Besides, just because there's a remake doesn't mean that the quality of the original is lessened in any way.

I feel like I should point out the "Inspired By A True Story" thing that the movie used for its promotion, like I did in my review of the original. The remake using it as a tagline was merely a marketing ploy used because the large number of people that believe the original movie is real. While the plot of Leatherface and his insane clan is fictional, some of the family's traits are inspired by Ed Gein, a grave robber and murderer that haunted the small Wisconsin town of Plainfield in the 1950s. He would often use the skin and bones of his victims to create things around the house, as well as having a suit made out of skin and a collection of female sexual organs kept in a shoebox. Gein went on to inspire characters in at least eight movies that include the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Psycho, The Silence of the Lambs, and a biographical movie. (As in my review of the original, I'll forward those interested in learning more to HouseOfHorrors.com for more information.)

Anyway, onward to the technical aspects of the movie. While the original looked very gritty and harsh, the remake is very sleek and clean. Marcus Nispel's direction and the cinematography of Daniel Pearl (who filled the same role in the original) give the flick a stylized, modern look that managed to keep the same edge the original had. I also loved Steve Jablonsky's score. It made every scene tense, dreadful, and unnerving, and that's what I like in my horror scores.

And Scott Kosar's screenplay is great, too. It's not the same old thing that we saw in 1974, but a different telling of the same story. If I wanted to see stuff from the original done the same way, I'd just watch the original. Kosar's different take on the hitchhiker scene was also a fun change, and the inclusion of Sheriff Hoyt was a very welcome addition.

And now the acting. I absolutely loved R. Lee Ermey here. Imagine his drill instructor character from Full Metal Jacket as a sadistic redneck pervert with hints of necrophilia, and that's what he's like. He practically steals every scene he's in, and I love him for it. Meanwhile, I enjoyed the chemistry between the five protagonists. They all seemed like longtime friends (even though Pepper was a hitchhiker they picked up along the way), and they're all very likable characters that are far more developed than their 1974 counterparts.

Jessica Biel, Mike Vogel, and Jonathan Tucker are all good, but I enjoyed both Eric Balfour and Erica Leerhsen more. Balfour's portrayal of Kemper came off as being the kind of guy that I'd have hung out with if I lived in the 70s, while Leerhsen's Pepper was a sympathetic gal whose screams nearly made my ears bleed. Seriously, I think her screams could shatter glass and make dogs go nuts. She's that loud. And I'd be remiss if I didn't point out Andrew Bryniarski as good ol' Leatherface. Bryniarski gave Leatherface an animalistic side that made him the imposing, intimidating figure that the movie needed.

Not everything about the movie is good, though. For one, I disliked Erin's metamorphosis into Supergirl near the end of the movie. She just goes nuts in a turn that comes completely out of left field. I also didn't like the movie's reason why Leatherface was a killer. In the original, we're left to believe that he wears the masks of his victims as some sort of trophy, or as a sexual thing similar to Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs. Those reasons make Leatherface a sick freak of a monster. Here, he just wears the masks to hide his face. While what was under the mask was creepy, the reasons behind it were a bit of a letdown.

Overall, I really enjoyed the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake. While not the same kick in the butt that the original was, it's still a tense experience to be had. The movie may shock you, and possibly disgust or offend you, but that's the point. The new Massacre is unapologetic in its desire to shove horrific, mean-spirited violence in your face, and it kept this longtime horror fan on the edge of his seat for the entire ride.

Final Rating: ****

Return of the Living Dead, Part II (1988)

It seems like every movie, especially those of the horror genre, has a sequel. Such is the case with the 1985 cult classic The Return of the Living Dead. A sequel is what we got in 1988 with Return of the Living Dead, Part II, which should be one of the biggest reasons that not every successful movie should be followed by a sequel.

The movie begins with a brief introduction to Trioxin, the gas that created all those zombies in the prior movie. Other than that, they pretty much ignore the prior movie. Regardless of the first movie's status in regards to the sequel's plot, we learn that some of these big drums of Trioxin from the prior film are still floating around in the Army's possession. You can imagine what happens next. During a military transport caravan, one of the drums falls out of the truck and rolls into a canal. And as you could imagine, bad things shall ensue.

Our story proper begins with Jesse Wilson (Michael Kenworthy), an annoying young boy bullied by some local kids. He gives the head punk in charge, Billy (Thor Van Lingen), some old Spider-Man comics, which I guess is supposed to be a twelve-year-old's answer to protection money. Upon acquiring said comics, Billy makes the announcement that Jesse's been inducted into the gang. The group is really just Billy and some other kid, so they're just not much of a gang. Jesse protests, but gets dragged to the clubhouse, which is really a crypt in the local cemetery. Before Billy and the other kid can beat an initiation into him, Jesse runs off, and ends up in a nearby sewer. They find the lost drum of Trioxin we saw earlier, and discover a corpse inside.

Understandably freaked out, the three kids run back to the cemetery, where Billy and the other kid lock Jesse in the previously mentioned crypt to keep him from telling anybody what they found. Why? They just saw a corpse in a big metal container with "Property of the United States Army" stenciled on the side. Did they think the corpse was hiding gold nuggets that were theirs for the taking? Or maybe chicken nuggets? Or the Denver Nuggets? But regardless, one would assume that an oil drum with a corpse in it would be something you'd report to the FBI.

After locking Jesse in the crypt, Billy and the other kid head back to the sewer and start poking around the Trioxin drum. That proves to be a bad decision, as toxic fumes shoot out and spray both kids in the face before wafting over to the cemetery. The gas gets mixed in with some clouds, which proceed to rain the Trioxin all over the graves and revives the zombies. In short, if you saw the first movie, you know how the zombies came to be in this one. Throw in a pair of bumbling gravediggers named Ed (James Karen) and Joey (Thom Mathews), Joey's bimbo girlfriend Brenda (Suzanne Snyder), Jesse's aerobics-obsessed sister Lucy (Marsha Dietlein), the all-looks-and-no-brains cable guy Tom (Dana Ashbrook), and the senile Dr. Mandel (Philip Bruns), and you've got a movie that ends up being absolutely horrid.

Seriously, this is not a good movie. At all. Anyone who says this is even a "so good it's bad" movie deserves to be punched in the face. This is one of the worst movies I've ever seen, no lie. It's not as bad as House of the Dead, but it's one of the most horrible pieces of cinematic garbage I've ever had the misfortune of watching. Almost all of the acting is crap, with the exception of James Karen and Thom Mathews. They were the brightest parts of the whole movie, but that's only because they played the same characters they did in the first Return movie. Why they're in the sequel, I don't know. Even if the character names are different, they're still the same. Some of their dialogue is identical to dialogue they had in the first movie. Maybe they just figured nobody would notice that they were in the first one. But I noticed.

The script, written by director Ken Wiederhorn, is atrociously awful. The characters are all morons, and none of them are likable at all. And casting a twelve-year-old kid as the lead guarantees that he'll live. The vast majority of horror movies wouldn't kill children, so that one's kind of obvious. In other news, J. Peter Robertson's music is also obnoxiously bad. It's definitely up there as one of the worst scores in movie history.

I hate this movie. Hate. I'm using the word "hate" to describe my feelings for Return of the Living Dead, Part II. The only good things about the movie are James Karen, Thom Matthews, and the new Tarman. That's it. Do not see this movie unless you absolutely have to.

Final Rating: *