Reviews

What did we learn from last week's poor episode? Nothing apparently, because this week's is even poorer in terms of what a horror movie should be.

Copying a page right out of the Saw series handbook, this episode is about a cop / detective who does not-so-nice things to get information out of suspects. Yawn. But unlike those movies, this guy is played by Eric Roberts. Eric, who was a lot less lovable in 1992's Final Analysis, has a heart of gold here. But it's just too late for him to change his ways because ghosts are mean and they're not so good at letting a grudge go.

Whatever, I could let this bad plot go. Also, I can forgive the fact that Eric is suited up with White Noise type techno-gear to hear ghosts even though it's clearly already been done before. Because this episode is certainly more stylish than The Sacrifice. And Eric Roberts is a great actor. But this is a multiple-person story. And he's the only one giving a good performance. He's surrounded by a cast of boring, tepid, and completely uninteresting co-stars.

As the episode follows through its' ghost story, we get some bad CGI (the reflective window thing is just plain wrong and completely predictable - as were the weird-breathing sound effects), a really poorly lit and photographed false scare, tensionless reveals without proper build-up, and a really lame flashback scene.

The ending looks like it might finally break the curse of tedium from this episode. But again, predictability sets in. And - was anyone actually surprised by how it ended? Everyone knew the guy's assistant was going to use that gun by the end of the episode. They only showed him straddling and caressing it in every shot he's in. "Ooh, baby. Ooh, baby." He was completely in love with it. So, does that make this ironic? No, it's just predictable.

If they want a writer who can write a twist, they should have gotten that guy who did Frailty and Masters of Horror: Family. He can't write a satisfying script. But if your characters are boring, he can at least make things unpredictable. The guy who ended up writing Spooked was Matt Venne, the one responsible for Masters of Horror's cruddy, Pelts, film / episode. Maybe not such a good choice to write this.

So, in conclusion, I'd only recommend this if you want to see a really short horror movie that is completely predictable. At least it's got a little style and Eric Roberts is amazing, as always. He also has aged very well over these years. The guy is still breathtaking.

Masters of Horror was a truly ground-breaking concept / format when it first debuted on Showtime. To give the most important, world-renowned, successful horror filmmakers the chance to make their own films their way with no studio interference. And have their films debut on Showtime with no cutting for violence, nudity, language, or story content, so long as it didn't break one of Showtime's few restrictions (no male genitalia, no scenes of children killing or hurting children their own age - those are ones I know about).

With a deal like that, it's no wonder they were able to stir the interest of every living major name in the genre (Wes Craven didn't participate but he was interested, and George A. Romero and Roger Corman signed up but had to back out for personal reasons). John Carpenter (Halloween, The Fog, The Thing), Dario Argento (Suspiria, Deep Red, Opera, Tenebre, Phenomena), Joe Dante (Piranha, The Howling, Gremlins), Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Salem's Lot, Poltergeist), John Landis (An American Werewolf in London, Innocent Blood, Michael Jackson's Thriller), Larry Cohen (It's Alive, Q the Winged Serpent, The Stuff), Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator, Dagon, From Beyond, Dolls), Takashi Miike (Audition, Ichi the Killer, Visitor Q), Tom Holland (Fright Night, Child's Play), John McNaughton (Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, The Borrower), Don Coscarelli (Phantasm, Bubba Ho-Tep).

Masters of Horror was a historic event. The quality of the films they'd make was unfortunately affected by a 10-day shooting schedule so that the films would be TV-ready. Many of the films needed more work and didn't get it. But surprisingly, some of the films turned out to be pure excellence. John Carpenter and Dario Argento made the best films they'd made in years for Masters. And the newcomers (Lucky McKee, William Malone, Rob Schmidt) managed to make the best films of the whole series. So this was a worthwhile thing for horror fans.

But the deal was only for 2 seasons of films. Showtime decided to pass on a 3rd season. But NBC decided they wanted their own Masters of Horror series for 45-minute showings on TV, padded to an hour with commercial breaks- naturally. And they got their wish, thanks to Lionsgate, one of the leading names in horror this decade. A studio with output like May, Ginger Snaps, American Psycho, Open Water, Riding the Bullet, Hard Candy, and lots of direct-to-DVD films.

So, here's the first episode. Directed by... Breck Eisner. Let me be first to say in a review... "Who?" In NBC's promo for Fear Itself, they said the makers of some of the most terrifying films ever made were assembled for this series. So it surprises me that a guy with no horror experience is directing an episode. Though, he's "announced" as the director for a bunch of remakes. What? Remakes are one of the things that is killing horror this decade. And the makers of a horror anthology want a 'remake-guy' on their directors list? Thankfully however, he's remaking a not-great George Romero film, The Crazies, and the old '50s Universal monster movie, Creature from the Black Lagoon. I'm fine with that. Remake bad films all you want, just don't touch the good ones. And, enough time has passed to remake a film as old fashioned as a black and white Universal monster film.

But, how's the episode?

The good news, and there is some, is that the opening title theme for this series, Fear Itself, is kind of cool. System of a Down is a very creative and interesting band and they didn't do their usual over-the-top thing on this theme. It was just bizarre and nice, I liked it. The acting quality is acceptable. The look of the production design and all that is okay. It's only 45-minutes long so you won't really get too bored. And viewing it is free- you don't need to buy Showtime to watch this. Everyone can see it for free.

The bad news is that this episode just doesn't cut it. When it gets going, the camera speeds up like 28 Days Later. 28 Days Later is a great film, but I don't think other movies should try and copy it. Plus, it's more of an action-film technique to make the camera whir this fast around. It's not scary to have a speedy camera. The monster for the episode isn't scary either. They tried that old "what you don't see is scarier than what you do see" thing. That could work. But the sound effects that you hear before you see the monster aren't scary. Plus the camera is moving so fast, you don't get time to get scared of the sounds.

The story is not interesting, although the theme leaves you room to guess what it'll be. It sort of mixes a witch film with a torture film, you see a character fall down and wake up tied upside down and he can't get down. But later, there's a monster, so now you have 3 themes. That doesn't last long and soon it's a few people trapped in a cabin with a monster outside and it's not a scary monster so... Then, there's a vampire theme and the totally clichéd 'your brother or sister is bitten and you just can't kill them, so you have to watch them transform'. Plus, to make matters worse, the sister characters are supposed to be like the Amish, cut off from the rest of the world and their behavior is old fashioned. Yet, one of them is a sexpot whose dialogue slips in and out of her old-fashioned "Romanian" upbringing. I say, why bother making them that way if you can't keep them that way?

In the end, you're left with a lot of cliché and stuff you've already seen before. If you want to see it again, you might enjoy this. Me... I kind of want to see something a little different. Or more interesting.

This movie is based on such a great concept: a monster genie. The 1990's was the premiere decade for wish-granting killers, wasn't it? First there was Leprechaun. And that became a franchise. But it didn't really work because the acting was bad, the story writing was non-existent, and on top of that, the special effects were usually awful. Then comes Demon Knight. The writing wasn't much better, but the special effects were slightly improved, and the acting was a big step forward. But it was too funny. Both of the films lacked a real dark side. They were too silly. Neither was scary.

Right out of the box, Wishmaster intends to be more serious. Which is a good thing. But did it deliver what the 1990's really needed? Less of an emphasis on special effects, and more emphasis on writing, character, on some kind of point? Unfortunately, no. This film was directed by Bob (Robert) Kurtzman. Who is the 'K' in KNB Effects. So, instead of less sloppy gore, there's more of it. So much more, that the movie embarrasses itself more than the disastrous Jason Goes to Hell. Which, not surprisingly, Wishmaster's score composer Harry Manfredini also did the music for.

The plot involves a woman who has an unknown link to the monster genie who escapes his prison inside a ruby and starts attacking people, most of whom he forces to wish for something. So he starts to track the woman down to make her his next victim. Or something. That's it, pretty much. Except the genie in human form keeps running into big, tall, angry, physically imposing guys and trying to play mind games with them. Trying is the operative word here. They yell and swear at him, he keeps his cool, but he gets them all to wish for something. You might have instead expected them to have less patience than this.

The acting is good, I admit. But the music is awful, the special effects are terrible (which is strange, since KNB are world-renowned effects-men and the whole crew worked on this, including N & B - Nicotero and Berger), the victims make their wishes too quickly, there is no suspense in the film at all, and the story is not interesting. You won't care about any of the characters, you won't be impressed by any of the "horror" in the movie. All there is to marvel at here are some horror celebrity cameos. The best of which is Buck Flower (The Fog, Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama, 976-Evil II) who is funny for about 90 seconds or so.

French horror coming out this decade is just horrible. Films like Irreversible, Frontier(s), and Calvaire are bad enough. But High Tension seems to be both the most recognizable film for the sub-genre and the greatest indicator of why it's crud at the very same time.

I could waste a lot of time dressing up this comment and all that... Why bother? Let's just get to the problems with the film. Of which there are so many, it's hard to count.

1. All the characters are complete idiots. So there's no reason to care about them or be afraid for their situations.

2. Nothing that happens in the film is interesting whatsoever.

3. It's sleazy. There's a shower-voyeurism scene, a masturbation scene, and we see a woman who kills people hoping to impress another woman she has tied up and tortured in the hopes that she'll want to make love with her. So right away, half of what happens in the film will only appeal to sick and screwed up people. And I mean - more sick and screwed up than Me.

Those are enough reasons right there. But there are more: bad editing, bad writing, no suspense. Bad everything. This director went from this abomination to commit pure Horror heresy: remaking Wes Craven's 1977 classic, The Hills Have Eyes.

UPDATE (April 24, 2009): Thanks to the 2 people who voted that this was a good comment / review.

Let Sleeping Corpses Lie starts off with quite a bang. It starts itself as a surprising right-on-the-nose social commentary, with a lot of nods to what was going on in cities in England in the late '60s, early '70s. Buying the movie based on Anchor Bay's truly excellent cover art and expecting their usual quality transfer, you might also expect the film to feel like a bad low-budget zombie film. Since most of Anchor Bay's product is the forgotten cult gem or campy flick. But Sleeping is just a damn good movie.

The plot is interesting, the characters are well-written and the actors do a good job of playing them, and the quality of the film's photography and sound... is immaculate. This filmmaker really knows what he's doing. And it all comes together in a way that feels, again, like a damn good movie does. And the social commentary even manages to feel much more honest than it does in Dario Argento's films. This is really about people and what happens to them. In fact, it barely even feels like a typical zombie film. Because there is almost no sense of "invasion" at all. There aren't any scenes where a cemetery full of creatures stumble toward paranoid, freaking people.

Is this film the ultimate European version of Night of the Living Dead? Maybe. It's in color and uses composed music as opposed to Romero's stale library tracks. It is basically of the slower paced variety. But, what's wrong with that? Isn't a slower film that is great better than a fast-paced movie that sucks?

The big problem with this movie... There is no explanation for why the corpses / zombies are - A) super-tough, and B) super-smart. These are not at all like your typical Romero zombies. These zombies for whatever reason are incredibly intelligent (why?) and unbelievably strong (why?). Why are they this way? The movie doesn't explain. And nothing about the film's plot explains it either. So, when you're watching these zombies do their thing... the tension you'd normally feel suddenly becomes a matter of going, "what the f...?!" But seriously, apart from that, the film is without question a masterpiece. Much better than the typical European zombie films every zombie fanatic seems to rave about. 20 times better than, for instance, a Lucio Fulci zombie flick. Though- no one can ever make the accusation that these zombies are boring. In fact, like I'm trying to say... they're a little too involved. Making you wonder, more than any viewer should, what's going on inside their heads to make them so damn smart. You might be thinking when you're not actually watching the movie, that this would enhance the scariness of the movie. Unfortunately, that is not true. It actually makes it feel very cartoony and only wears on the viewer's nerves.

Sleeping avoids being boring by having a great Us versus Them plot - tension between the citizens of England and the police force, based on what was seen then as subversive culture ruining the dignity of England's charming Decent Society. Though it may be old, when you look at David Bowie and the controversy at one point going on in England with his "long haired guys" thing. There was a lot of hostility between young 20 something's and the staunch adults in England. The main detective is one of the cinema's biggest jerks, of any movie, of any genre, of any country's films. And you hate him beyond the words to describe it. And if you've ever had an antagonistic father or teacher, or even met a cop half this jerk-ish, it's impossible not to accept him as a believable character.

All older horror movies are talky. Even the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre features more talking than horror for much of its running time. In that talk however, the film does manage to come up with a truly classic and effective explanation for their zombies.

Another VERY intelligent reviewer said the following about the movie. Allow me to quote that user, acidxian:

"The zombies are typical flesh-eaters, although a lot more intelligent than usual. Not only do they know when they need to lay low, but the main corpse also somehow figures out how to reanimate others by placing his own "blood" on the lips of any convenient corpse. The idea is absurd and is worse than if they'd chosen to offer no explanation for it at all. If the cause of the zombies is the ultrasonic pesticide machine, then what does that have to do with the blood of the corpses spreading a contagion?"

Arguably, the most obscure of Disney's feature-length films to be released on VHS and DVD, Melody Time is pretty much a 3rd installment in the Fantasia series, but if not, than you can definitely count it as a twin of-or part II to Make Mine Music (1946). It's virtually the same. But with one exception. Now, almost all 7 segments are longer than those from Make Mine Music. And this time, the selection of shorts are much more eclectic in variety. We have 2 American folk tales, a visual poem with words, a visual story without words, and much more.

Technically, Melody Time is superior to Make Mine Music. But- not where you might expect it to be. For instance, the longer segments are, obviously, "Johnny Appleseed" and "Pecos Bill." Of these two, "Pecos" is definitely better. But, even for Disney, and in the 1940's - this is just too silly to be that entertaining most of the time. You would have to be the least intelligent, most childlike person out there to find this mostly "humorous" segment to be that amusing. But, it has the right look and feel for Western-themed Disney animation. Then, "Johnny" is more serious but... there's something odd about this one, to say the least. I guess it's Disney's complete rejection of actual historical events during a sequence where the pioneers and The Indians (yep, complete with Red-faces and all) dance and eat apple bakings together. It may be "pleasant" if you don't want to see violent history, but it's still stupid. Then, this may not bother anyone else either, but there are a few too many references to God's work, which is too much to think about in a family-oriented cartoon. "Prayin's for church," as they say.

Next, is "Little Toot," which for some reason doesn't strike me as that great a story. I believe it's become a favorite showing on the Disney channel between shows / movies (or, at least that's how it used to be before their new millennium Tw'een programming took over). I don't know why. It may be based entirely on the song. It's a pleasant song, but strictly for fans of old radio / big band / 1940's music.

All the other segments, though, are practically perfect for what they are. The first, "Once Upon a Wintertime," has some of the most magnificent colors I've ever seen in a Disney movie in a long time. For 1948, this is just pure visual delight - the blues and reds are just beyond vibrant. The tale is perhaps a little generic, but then so is most of what Disney puts to film. But that magic is there in full force on this segment. The second, is "Bumble Boogie." It's short and for what it is, it's good. Not very memorable, at all. But, if you don't mind alternate versions (what we today call the "Remix") of popular / famous pieces of music, you might enjoy it (I certainly did).

The fifth segment is "Trees," and this is one of the most beautiful scenes I've ever witnessed in any Disney movie. It is basically the fill-in for the Interpretive segments from Make Mine Music, only the colors are so beautiful - especially the greens, yellows, and oranges. Parts of the poem itself are a little hard to hear, but the singing mixed with these visuals is just a sight to behold. Then, the sixth, "Blame It on the Samba," mostly goes for the cuteness of that trouble making bird from The Three Caballeros, the Araquan. The pitch of his voice / giggle have changed and it's now much squeakier and mousier. The animation is good, but the song is great and it's great to see Donald and his green parrot buddy return. Also returning is a live-action person added to the mix who may be a sister to the Cookie Woman from Caballeros. There's some funny chaos later on in this one.

This is the first of these musical package features from Disney (post Fantasia) to have few weak parts, for which each of those have their positive attributes too. "Johnny Appleseed" may not be told very well, but the colors again are unbelievable in several scenes, that it makes moments of the segment uplifting. And then, "Pecos Bill" has so many songs for one of these segments, that one of them is likely to end up getting a little stuck in your head. My favorite is "Blue Shadows on the Trail."

When I was told that this was (and is, to this day) the only Disney animated film ever nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, I said to myself- "I have to see it again." By this point, I was obviously a Disney completest. So I bought it (on VHS), and watched it. What can I say? It's a joke! Let's try to take it, scene by scene. First, we are told of the story of the selfish Prince with no love in his heart. A beautiful, magical Enchantress turns him into a Beast (a furry animal, human-sized, with monster teeth and claws) when he dismisses her on the basis of what he perceives as her surface ugliness. Okay, good story. Makes sense. Decent set-up - "for who could ever love a monster?" the story asks at the end.

Well, we're going to meet her (the One who could love a monster). Her name is Belle, and she is a misfit in her small provincial French town. She reads books all the time while the townspeople feel beautiful girls should spend all their time waiting for a handsome man to make them wives and mothers. So, next we meet the handsome man who wants to be her husband, Gaston. He's conceited and arrogant - a real jerk, but a fairly accurate product of the time, with less than ideal views on independent, free-thinking women. Which Belle is. This is an okay establishing scene. We're told a lot. The characters are definitely a little flat, but the only real problem is, perhaps, that the woman singing (and speaking) Belle's part has a sort of grating voice. I'm not kidding.

So, her father is an inventor who gets lost in the woods on his way to a convention and after being chased by the unsavory creatures in the woods to the Beast's Castle, he is imprisoned by the Beast in his tower. Belle is lead to the castle by the father's runaway horse, and when she finds him, she meets the Beast, who is just the biggest creep in cinema history, once we know it's actually that selfish Prince. Nice to know being this Beast hasn't taught him a thing about humility. Belle begs for the Beast to release her father, but he refuses. So she offers to take her father's place and that... SUDDENLY melts the Beast's heart... A little. He agrees, the father is taken back to his home by a Spider Carriage, and Beast offers to give her a more comfortable room.

Now, by this time is where we start to get really worn out by the huge plausibility and character flaws. Belle is the woman, who is given the film's title of being "so Difficult" (important to remember), but it's Beast who is the moody one. Which is understandable, since he was turned into a Beast. But isn't the least bit understandable, given all we've learned about Karma. If you are a bad person, bad things happen to you. Beast got what he deserved, and it's incredibly selfish of him to expect that the work he has to do to become human again will happen on it's own. But the filmmakers have convinced all the people who like this film that it's not a problem. Because they've FLUFFED it up, by just tossing it to the side and saying, "oh, he's just got a bad temper." What does that mean? It means, Beast is still a bad person waiting for Love to make him human. So in effect, he'll still be a bad person when he's human, only he'll be human.

Perhaps I'm reading too much into it. Because Beast, over the course of the film, learns to love Belle and becomes a hero. But right from the get-go, we are not supposed to like Beast. Then, under some extremely disturbing circumstances, Belle is thrown into the Castle and through some lame musical numbers (again, I'm not kidding, these musical sequences are not up to the standards of The Little Mermaid and Aladdin), we are manipulated into believing "oh, look, they fell in love so quickly!" Another example of this type of insulting manipulation is the scene where Gaston is convincing the townspeople that the Beast is evil. He sings 1 stupid song and suddenly, everyone in the town is storming the castle, Frankenstein-style (big points for originality there).

This film is just one big sappy, unconvincing mess. If anything, it offers some extraordinary colors, 1 funny song ("Gaston" has it's riotously hilarious moments - "and every last inch of me's covered with hair!"), and Jerry Orbach (yep, that crusty detective from Law & Order) is fantastic in his role as a Parisian candelabra, with an impeccable accent. But other than that, this movie just caters to girls and women, assuming that if you dumb it down for them, they'll love it. I hate seeing that happen, but it looks like the ladies (and some gay people) fell for it. Two Thumbs Down.

Of all Walt Disney's animated films, there are 5 features that a huge amount of people have never heard of. Saludos Amigos (1943) is one, but it's not fully feature-length (it's only 45 minutes, so it shouldn't even count when you always hear those Disney video & DVD announcements that say "Our 20-whatever-TH full-length animated classic...," but they actually do count it). The excellent Fun and Fancy Free (1947) is another. The Adventures of Ichabod & Mr. Toad (1949). And then, there are the 2 sequels to Fantasia (1940): Melody Time (1948) and this film, Make Mine Music (1946). The reason you probably haven't heard much about them is that, first- they were "Package Films" which were never really that popular AS package films, and second- they didn't make a lot of money for the studio when they were released in theaters in the 1940's. In fact, Disney would have gone extinct forever in 1950 (many say) if Cinderella had not have been a huge hit (which it was).

I say, they are sequels to Fantasia because they are made almost the exact same way. They lack a Composer / Orchestrator character to link them together, but when one segment ends, another simply begins. So basically, if you liked Fantasia, all you need to like this movie is some appreciation for the music you hear here. And this really is in the same sort of style as the music we hear in several Disney films. There's jazz (which you hear in The Aristocats, 1970), classical (every Disney film, animated or non), and interpretive stuff. I may not be a huge fan of any of these styles of music, personally, but that's what's great about Disney. They can put animation to it and make you like it or appreciate it more.

The first thing that should probably be said is that the wonderful people at Walt Disney Home Video, have taken it upon themselves to edit one of the musical segments entirely out of all prints of the film available on VHS and DVD. Isn't that nice of them? Without any proper explanation why - if you haven't seen it already, you're not going to see it ever (and I checked, it's not on You Tube). I've never seen it, so I can't comment on it.

The segments in the film can be put into 3 categories. 1- Storyline, 2- Interpretive, and 3- Combination. "Peter and the Wolf" and "The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met" are Storyline. So they are longer than the others and take more time to tell. Both are good stories, if you like opera and folk / fairy tales. Though, "Peter" is probably the best (certainly it's been said it's Walt Disney's favorite), some of the animation / color choices here seem a little too wacky for Americans. "Whale" is underwhelming but has a memorable ending (it was a mistake, I think, to have the 1 opera singer doing all the speaking voices too).

"Blue Bayou," "Without You," "Two Silhouettes," and "After You've Gone," (big surprise) are Interpretive. No characters, no story. Just a song with some lyrics, and pure art. "Bayou" and "Without" are very beautiful and a little haunting. "Silhouettes" is truly classic and lovely, if also the most boring part of the movie. "After" has no lyrics but is very fun and upbeat.

Then finally, "All the Cats Join In," "Casey at the Bat," and "Johnnie Fedora and Alice Bluebonnet" are Combination. Which means, they have stories, but they are entirely told through one long, continuous song or don't take any breaks. "Casey" is funny, without a doubt (even though it's quite offensive, in one moment, to overweight people). "Johnnie" is definitely a fan favorite, and is kind of sad too. And "Cats" is fast-paced, so it's entertaining. But it doesn't speak too kindly of the youth of the 1940's. They are portrayed as quite elitist and discriminating.

So, unlike most Disney films (and even their package films), this film rests entirely on the strength of each individual segment / short. And some of these aren't memorable, while most are slightly below average quality. No Disney movie to buy on DVD is cheap, but with these Disney titles, you usually get a bonus cartoon. So I recommend purchase for true Disney fans. If you're looking for something to rent - I recommend only for you alone, if you're a Disney completest. But for your family, there are more appropriate and sensitive Disney films. Most films act as art, and as that, Make Mine Music does provide some average stuff worth seeing. I recommend it for that reason alone. If you're looking for something else, I say, find something else.

First thing's first, if you know the history of Disney's animated features, then you know a little about what Disney was going through when they made the original Rescuers. They were dealing with lackluster animated films, which they weren't able to produce more than 3 or so per decade since the 1950's. The '60s were very hard, especially with the failing health and eventual death of Walt Disney, but they managed to come out on top with The Jungle Book. But the '70s were a different story. Both 1970's The Aristocats and 1973's Robin Hood were not met with even close to the same success of '60s hits Jungle and 101 Dalmatians. So of course, if Disney's latest investment, 1977's The Rescuers, weren't able to work out- it was pretty clear they would have to make another Mary Poppins / Bedknobs and Broomsticks blockbuster (which would be the disastrous Pete's Dragon) and hope their feature-length Winnie the Pooh package film would pick up the slack.

However, The Rescuers was a hit with audiences and critics (becoming one of their most successful films, animated or non, of the decade). And there's a pretty obvious reason for that. The story was very touching, the characters were one of a kind, and the movie itself when it came together, had everything. Humor, tears, excitement. It was a perfect Disney film. So, really, a sequel to this film was never actually a very good idea. Because in this film, we see the filmmakers trying to replace everything in the original. And they're only able to be second rate in their attempts. Penny the orphan from the first movie is replaced by a little boy, Cody, who's not an orphan but a little explorer / animal activist. In the original film, when Penny needed the mice to save her, she says quite plainly - "how can two little mice save me (from these villains)?" And that was important. But in this film, there's none of that. Though there are some unbelievable scenes where one of the mice (or even 3) are able to hold little Cody's weight just by holding onto a rope. Sorry, but that's impossible. No wonder there was never a line in the movie about "2 little mice," because then everyone would have laughed because this is ridiculous.

The original villain, Medusa, is replaced by another greedy baddie, Percival C. McLeach. So, 2 little mice can save us from greed... Why is it always a greedy thief? Because Bernard and Bianca can't handle international terrorists? Or Michael Jackson? The other 3 original villains, Snoops and the 2 crocodiles, are replaced here by 1 villain, a salamander named Joanna, who's probably the cutest character here. I'm not kidding- just watch that scene where she swims out of the river and waves 'goodbye' to McLeach. The original Albatross, Orville, is replaced here by Wilbur- which was just an excuse to hire John Candy, who had huge success with his classic '80s John Hughes family comedy, Uncle Buck. And right here is a good example of where the movie goes horribly wrong. Wilbur arrives in Australia, injures his back, then the movie goes for a 4+ minute sequence (split into two) with a bunch of mice "operating" on him while he is flopping around and wailing. Does that sound appealing... to anyone?

So anyway, bottom line - I think this film was meant more for the audiences who prefer blander fare like those Don Bluth films. But for Disney, this has absolutely none of that great Disney magic that films like Aladdin and The Little Mermaid were able to recapture from Disney's stagnant, stumbling '80s. The one saving grace here is the incorporation of computer animated technology. Now, usually, I cry foul and whip CGI every chance I get. But about this time, Disney began their collaboration with Pixar to make animated films with some obvious computer-generated backgrounds so they could have sequences like several of the ones in this movie, where the movie functions as a roller-coaster ride (most notably the opening credits sequence where the camera SPEEDS through a field of some kind of flower, and a couple of Wilbur's great flying scenes). Now, that's magical, if not exciting and great fun.

But with this sequel, we lose all of what made the first great - the true danger, empathizing with the lonely orphan, and the whole idea of seeing a character's darkest hour and journey, so when we finally see their brighter day, it really feels as though they triumphed. All we get in return is some dull humor, the end of Bernard and Bianca's romantic saga, and a cool golden eagle with some very polarizing Eggs in Distress action. I say it polarized because the movie was so predictable, I was wishing the whole time we would either see the eggs hatch and go "aaaahhhh" (code for "isn't that cute?") or see Joanna the villain get to actually eat the eggs. Most of the time, I wanted to see Joanna get her UNjust desserts- which speaks to just how boring this is for a Disney movie. I say- skip it.

The Simpson Halloween specials / Treehouses of Horror usually function as spoofs on different types of horror movies / TV programs.

The first tale focuses on Homer's quest to get himself a Colossal Donut, but when he buys one at the local convenience store, he's bummed out by it's not so colossal size and vows revenge on this false advertising. As he drives over to the store's giant mascot, the radio warns that weird things are happening due to a disturbance of some sort of scientific / supernatural origin (Night of the Living Dead, 1968) but isn't specific on the details. Homer steals the mascot's giant donut. Suddenly, lightning strikes and the huge advertising mascot comes to life and storms the town (Ghostbusters, 1984) as do several others in the form of billboards and sculptural structures. Soon, the citizens of Springfield are being crushed and devoured all over the place. Marge suggests when the Donut mascot comes to Homer's house looking for his donut that returning the monster's cherished item will make it stop killing (Leprechaun, 1993). Homer gives back the donut but the mascots continue rampaging. Lisa decides that maybe the advertising executives will know what to do.

The second tale begins with Bart and his dog playing Frisbee in the backyard when he is approached by Groundskeeper Willie who attacks him with a rake. Bart immediately wakes up from his dream, screaming, to find that the wound Willie inflicted upon him in his dream is still there (A Nightmare on Elm Street, 1984) - so it wasn't completely a dream. At school, he and other children discover that Willie visited all their dreams and attacked them but Principal Skinner refuses to admit the school is involved. Later that day, Martin is having a dream in which he is a Wizard Master (A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, 1987) of Latin. Willie shows up, wraps his super-long tongue around him (Wes Craven's New Nightmare, 1994) and he suffocates to death in his school-class while everyone else takes a test (A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, 1988). Bart and Lisa tell Marge and Homer about this and they tell Bart and Lisa the whole truth about Willie. On Friday the 13th (Friday the 13th, 1980) some time ago, the parents set Willie on fire and he vowed revenge (The Burning, 1981). Lisa and Bart decide the only way to stop Willie is to go into their dream and force him into a final showdown.

The third tale has the Simpson household in utter terror because... Aunts Patty and Selma are stopping over to visit. Looking for a place to hide, Homer discovers a strange hole in the wall that leads to a gateway between universes (numerous Twilight Zone episodes / Phantasm, 1979). He goes inside it and gets lost, so he has to ask his family and friends for help. While there, he accidentally causes a rip in the dimension's fabric which causes it to begin to implode. Bart decides the only way to save him is to tie a rope around himself and go in (Poltergeist, 1982) the dimension to get Homer and have everyone pull him out in time to save him. Things don't go exactly as planned.

Altogether, this is one of the more entertaining Treehouses of Horror. Though the first 2 tales are not hysterically funny, they are still great horror spoofs. The third tale is actually very funny and one of the best individual portions of the Treehouse series. I highly recommend this Entry in the show's series.

The Simpson Halloween specials / Treehouses of Horror usually function as spoofs on different types of horror movies / TV programs. The opening features Marge Simpson on an Opera / theater stage platform "warning" the audience about the show's content, much in the fashion of the original 1931 Frankenstein.

The plot centers around Bart, Lisa, and Maggie in a treehouse where Lisa is telling a story about someone in a house where the police call and say "we've traced the call it's coming from the floor below you, get out of the house..." (Black Christmas, 1974 / When a Stranger Calls, 1979) But Bart doesn't think that's scary so Lisa dares him to tell her a story that is scary.

He tells a tale of the Simpsons moving into a great big old-looking house which is a steal at the price they paid (Burnt Offerings, 1976). But immediately, ghostly happenings take place when books start stacking themselves (Ghostbusters, 1984) and the house tells them to "get out!" (The Amityville Horror, 1979) but they just ignore it. In the kitchen, the walls are dripping with blood (Amityville Horror) and there's a portal (Poltergeist, 1982) to another dimension (Phantasm, 1979) in the wall. Marge wants to leave but Homer convinces them to just try staying the night. In the night, Homer, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie (whose head spins around while in her cradle - The Exorcist, 1973) get impulses to kill one other (The Shining, 1980) but Marge stops them just in time. The house is not happy about this and starts telling them how they will die if they don't leave but Marge gets angry and starts yelling back at the house (The Legend of Hell House, 1973). The house asks for a moment alone in private and destroys itself (Phantasm) so it won't have to live with this family.

Back in the treehouse, Lisa is not scared, so Bart surprises her with a severed finger in a box (Phantasm) and another story. This one features the Simpson family yet again as they are abducted by aliens during a barbecue. While in the spaceship, the aliens Kang and Kodos appear friendly and offer to take them on a journey to their planet of origin while feeding them elaborately cooked meals. However, Lisa grows suspicious as the aliens begin weighing them on scales and saying things like "grow large with food" and "when we arrive there will be plenty of time to... Chew The Fat," so she decides to investigate the kitchen and finds a book titled- How to Cook Humans. As she runs to tell her family of her discovery, the alien shows her what the book really says - How to Cook For Forty Humans. The aliens are insulted that Lisa and the Simpson family would be suspicious of them and they return them to their backyard and fly away.

For the third story, Lisa decides to try a school book and reads the immortal Edgar Allen Poe poem, The Raven, in which Homer is alone in his chamber reading when he suddenly becomes frightfully paranoid. He has flashback dreams, hears someone knocking at his door who isn't there when he opens it, and finally opens his window as a raven flies in his chamber and sits on a bust above his door. The Poe story doesn't make much sense to most modern viewers since it's recited in its poetically proper form and would require a lot of trips to the dictionary to figure out just what's going on. As for the images - Homer yells at the raven but it won't go away. He tries to get it but it instead pelts him with books until he falls on the floor, where his soul shall not be lifted.

This is pretty much the only Simpsons Treehouse of Horror episode where all three tales are outstandingly smart and funny at the same time. Not that other lesser tales weren't smart, but they don't all have the right combination of horror and humor and can just get boring. But not these 3. I guess it's first-timer's luck. I think further Treehouses of Horror may have just tried too hard. At any rate, the first tale is the coolest since there are a ton of horror movie references. The third tale is the most interesting and classic of the Treehouse series. The second tale is probably the funniest and most smile inducing / most entertaining. As for what that is based on, it IS science fiction oriented, which is my weakest subgenre of horror. But since it has a cannibal subplot, there have been several horror movies that overtly reference cannibalism - Motel Hell (1980), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), Make Them Die Slowly (1981 - which may have been an influence since there is a line in the first tale of this Treehouse episode where the house says "you will die slowly!"), and maybe some Hershell Gordon Lewis films (I think Two Thousand Maniacs had cannibals in it).

The Simpson Halloween specials / Treehouses of Horror usually function as spoofs on different types of horror movies / TV programs. The opening features Bart walking through a gallery of paintings, each one of which he says has a scary story to tell.

The first painting tells the story of a desperate Homer at work without a donut (he always keeps a spare for emergencies in a book with pages hollowed out at the center - Black Christmas, 1974). He says the immortal, "I would sell my soul for a donut," and suddenly... who should appear to grant his request but The Devil (The Devil and Daniel Webster, 1941 - also a classic book / story), Ned Flanders ("it's always the ones you least suspect"). Homer thinks he can outsmart Devil Flanders if he doesn't eat the entire donut. But during a midnight snack craving, he manages to eat it anyway. Satan Ned shows up to claim his property when Lisa suggests they have a trial to determine who owns the soul, but Ned may have the upper hand when he selects his special "Jury of the Damned," which is comprised of many murderers and tyrannical dictators from history's past. The outcome of the trial involves a double twist.

The second painting tells the story of Bart's nightmare that predicts his imminent death on a school bus. He wakes up to find it was just a nightmare. Until he boards the bus and the things he saw in his dream are starting to come true. Only now, he looks to find the source of the bus's malfunction and sees a little monster on the side of the bus, taking it apart, trying to make it crash (The Twilight Zone / Twilight Zone: The Movie, 1983). He runs to the bus driver and tells him there's a gremlin (Gremlins, 1984) on the side of the bus. But Principal Skinner and Groundskeeper Willie who are also riding the bus tie him to his seat to keep him quiet. The little creature slowly picks screw by screw out of the bus's wheels trying to get it to crash and a resourceful Bart is able to shake the thing for a moment at which point a passing Ned Flanders comes to the creature's aid. He wraps it up in a blanket and takes it away (It's Alive, 1974) with him. However, soon a story Twist changes the situation.

The third tale tells of the Simpson family's visit to Mr. Burns' creepy castle in Pennsylvania. Right away, things are seriously amiss as Mr. Burns dressed in a long, red robe and big white poofy sticky bun of snow-white hair (Bram Stoker's Dracula, 1992) and a deformed, shriveled, hunchbacked Mr. Smithers (too many movies to name) answer the door. At dinner the family are given what appear to be glasses of wine but which are actually full of blood (The Lost Boys, 1987). Lisa and Bart get up from the table to look around the house and find a basement full of coffins (Once Bitten, 1985), as well as a book with a spell that might tell them something of how to stop these creatures of the dead. Then when the undead begin rising from their coffins, Lisa runs away but Bart is bitten by Mr. Burns who changes into a human from a bat (Dracula, 1931). That night, in her room, Lisa is awakened by a floating Bart who wants to enter through her locked window (Salem's Lot, 1979) and when Lisa screams, the rest of the family discovers Bart is a vampire. So it's back to Burns' castle to kill who they assume the Head Vampire is, thinking this will return Bart to normal. But Lisa is mistaken in thinking the Head Vampire is Mr. Burns (The Lost Boys, again).

Overall, this is a half and half Treehouse of Horror. The third tale is the best of the show and one of the best and most memorable in the Treehouse series. The first tale has it's high points but isn't all that funny. The second tale, however, is one of the most disappointing and least entertaining portions of the entire Treehouse series. Too much of the story is taken directly from the Twilight Zone installment and the jokes are far too obscure. Wang computers? That's the most obvious one. I didn't "get it," and I almost always get obscure humor.

The Simpson Halloween specials / Treehouses of Horror usually function as spoofs on different types of horror movies / TV programs.

The first tale begins with Bart and Lisa awaking from their sleeps to hearing noises in the attic (The Exorcist, 1973). What is making those noises(?), they ask Homer and Marge but they remain very hush-hush about it though at that very inquisitive breakfast, Homer brings a bucket of fishheads to feed "something" up there. So, Bart and Lisa, with Maggie in tow, go up to the attic to see what there is to see. They find something that is most likely partially human chained to the wall (Phenomena, 1984 / The Goonies, 1985), but before they can see what it is, it runs away. Homer and Marge come home and tell them the truth about "Hugo," Bart's evil Siamese twin (Sisters, 1973) brother they had surgically removed from him but was such a violent misfit they decided to hide him from the world (Basket Case, 1982). However, Hugo isn't really gone and plans to surgically re-attach himself and Bart back together. A visit from Dr. Hibbert also reveals another shocking twist (or a not-so shocking twist, as it turns out).

The second tale begins with Lisa working on a science fair project, taking a recently lost tooth and soaking it in a tub of cola to see what develops. She is surprised to see that inside the tub grows an entire, sophisticated world that turns out to be much more advanced than her own. But when Bart decides to ruin the tub "city" thinking it's just a model, the tiny world of people decide to see how they can participate in Lisa's world - launching a full-scale tiny aircraft attack on Bart in his sleep. Bart warns that he will get revenge for this. Lisa is then shrunken (The Incredible Shrinking Man, 1957 / The Incredible Shrinking Woman, 1981 / Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, 1989) down to tiny size inside her own world where she is surrounded in an Emerald city (The Wizard of Oz, 1939) where she is the Queen / God of her tiny city. But they want her to save them from Bart, which she can't do if she's stuck in her Tub and her tiny people haven't invented a machine that can make her Big again.

The third tale begins with Homer just fishing quietly over a lake when he is quickly abducted by aliens (Kodos and Kang) who demand to be "taken to their leader." However, being the last week of October in 1996, Homer gets confused on who the current leader was because the election could make Bob Dole the new Leader. So instead of just kidnapping President Clinton, the aliens kidnap Republican hopeful Dole as well. Their plan is simple, to copy the Presidents, have the humans elect them Supreme Leader of all Earthlings, take over the planet, enslave humankind, and destroy other planets. Not so simple it turns out, is disposing of paranoid Homer who witnesses the whole thing and tries to convince his family and the rest of America that BOTH of their candidate hopefuls are evil space aliens from beyond the stars bent on world domination and conquest of all things human. Well inevitably, Homer is able to expose the aliens, but since they have now disposed of the President AND his opponent, America is clueless on just who will lead them to stop the aliens.

This is another Treehouse of Horror that mainly focuses on science fiction, which again just isn't my cup of tea. So this falls just in 2nd place for my least favorite Treehouse of Horror (from parts 1 through 7) episode. However, it has an edge over part 2 because it's a little more funny and satisfying. And the Siamese Twin tale at the beginning really focuses on a couple of much unseen horror films (and a subgenre of horror where there aren't too many movies) - Brian De Palma's 1973 surreal monster murder mystery Sisters, which is the most obvious influence, and Frank Henenlotter's 1982 cult film Basket Case. This ends up being one of my favorite individual Tales from the Treehouse of Horror series (it even ends up visually referencing an image in the opening of one of Dario Argento's most underrated films, 1984's Phenomena, which features an evil deformed youngster chained to the wall in the exact same way we see here, which we don't see the body of until the very end).

The second tale is very bland though it raises a very good question about God (maybe creation really is an accident or a coincidence), which is technically the only value this tale has. The third tale is very cutesy if you ask me because we don't see any of the political comedy getting as edgy as it has become in future seasons. But at least it's watchable cutesy. It just doesn't amount to much. If anything, it comments accurately on the sort of crowds who would gather to hear political speeches.

Daria is one of the most important television programs of all time. Quality-wise, the first season was absolutely impeccable. Unfortunately, several episodes in the 2nd season began getting too loose with the hard-edged verbal satire and the subsequent 3rd and 4th seasons were mostly populated with instantly forgettable episodes that were still smart but often lacked the inspired, sharp sense of 1st season bite (the 5th season started off with a real bang but immediately slipped into the same old 3rd and 4th season routine by about 4 episodes in). However, there was one significant area of improvement - the novelty episodes. Of which, there were several. A couple featured spoofs on The X-Files and Murder She Wrote, another was called Daria: The Musical where everyone sang, and another had mascots of overly commercialized holidays manipulating the fabric of the show's usually realistic storyline without slipping into a "that was all a dream" ending.

But the crown jewel of the Daria novelty episodes was this little darling, a basic spoof on The Twilight Zone / Tales From the Crypt where characters from the cast would tell spooky stories of fright, without getting graphic like The Simpsons usually did. The episode's basic plot features Quinn and The Fashion Club (Sandy, Tiffany, Stacy) getting stranded by their ride after a day's shopping and they resort to calling Jake, Quinn's father, to come and pick them up, but his car has broke down so Daria volunteers Jane's brother Trent to drive. On their way, we are told three tales of horror from decades long since passed.

Stacy tells the first tale, which she titles, "The Rattling Girl of Lawndale." Taking place in the late 1960's / early 1970's, we see some beatnik / hippie types in high school preparing for the big dance. The 1960's equivalent of Sandy is the most popular girl at the school, but the boys say she's "almost perfect." Almost? That's not good enough for Sandy, so figuring her eyelids are too fat, she starves herself until, when she shows up for the dance, she looks absolutely perfect. Just one problem - now, when she dances, her bones rattle because she's too thin. She is humiliated off the dance floor and is keen to take revenge on all the school's popular girls by stalking them whenever they close their eyes. As a result, all the popular girls of the school begin to get bloodshot eyes and no boy or unpopular girl will recognize them as popular anymore.

Trent tells the second tale, which he titles, "Metal Mouth." Taking place in the early to mid 1980's, we see the 80's equivalent of Mr. DiMartino, Lawndale High's psychotic History teacher, being forever annoyed by his idiotic metal shop students. So much so, that he begins to habitually grind his teeth. All the time. Grinding them down to nothing, which means now he is ridiculed by his students for having no teeth. Being the metal shop teacher, he just fashions himself a set of razor-sharp teeth out of steel, giving his students something to be intimidated by. But his teeth are made from metal that can pick up radio stations. Hearing the catchy pop tunes of the 1980's in his head, he can't help but sing along, and since his students only hear his awful singing- he runs away, never to be seen from again. But every now and then, an unsuspecting boy and girl park their car by the side of the road to make out and hear a song on the radio when it's not even on.

Jane tells the third tale, which she titles, "The House of Bad Grades." Taking place somewhere in the 1950's, fear of the Cold War is everywhere and the equivalent of the Morgendorfer family has built a bomb shelter in case of Commie attack. 1950's Daria can't stand her crazy family or the 50's version of Lawndale and strives to get out, one way or another. Time passes and The Cold War paranoia proves to have been hogwash all along, so Daria decides to write a cracking college essay as her way of getting out. On the night before it's due, she can't find a quiet place, so she decides to write in the family bomb shelter. The next day, 1950's Jake has a brainstorm to replace his bomb shelter with a barbecue pit and entombs the unseen, sleeping Daria in the hole in the ground. At least she's got the shelter's supply of canned food to feast on... But wait, no can opener. So not only does she starve to death, but she never gets out of Lawndale. However, future generations who find themselves living at the 50's Morgendorfer house are also mysteriously unable to make any good grades. Many believe it was the ghost of 50's Daria getting her blind revenge.

Finally we see a real creative streak in the writing. All of these stories are very amusing and entertaining. And the tying-together plot has a great final twist. Most significantly, Daria and Jane make interesting observations about the illogical nature of these sorts of tales. It's all mainly about coincidence, which is where they take hold of our imagination.

The Simpson Halloween specials / Treehouses of Horror usually function as spoofs on different types of horror movies / TV programs. The opening features Marge and Homer hosting a children's' Halloween party where the main attraction is... you guessed it, three scary stories (short of the Halloween party atmosphere, this is the standard set-up for anthologies). Homer actually begins the proceedings with a spoof on the introductions to Alfred Hitchcock Presents episodes.

Lisa spins the first yarn, where it's Bart's Birthday and Homer has forgotten to get him a present. So he drives off to the local Shop of Evil to pick out something Bart will love, when he encounters a decrepit old geezer with a raspy voice selling cursed items (Hellraiser, 1987), with long white hair and beard, dressed in traditional Chinatown-merchant garb and smoking a long wooden pipe (Gremlins, 1984). The geezer sells him a most likely used but very in-demand child's doll that Bart loves, but Homer discovers is actually alive and wants to kill (Child's Play, 1988) him a lot. The Krusty the Clown doll attacks him on the couch, in the bathtub (A Nightmare on Elm Street, 1984), and by hopping on his shoulders, wrapping his arms around him, and insulting him (Beetlejuice, 1988 - I'm telling you, compare frames and this looks like a direct influence). But Homer thinks he has the solution, which involves chaining him up in a crate (Creepshow, 1982) and burying him alive. This turns out to be easier said than done.

Abraham 'Grandpa' Simpson is next on the floor, and recalls some of the horrors of old black & white shock cinema. Some enterprising showbiz tycoons (Mr. Burns and Smithers) sail a ship to Ape Island in search of tourist attractions they can exploit and take along an attractive "bathing beauty" (Marge) (Creature from the Black Lagoon, 1954) as bait so they can capture the island's star monster, King Homer (King Kong, 1933). They are able to subdue the beast and bring him back to tinsel town to rake in cash as The Eighth Wonder of the World, chained onstage for the amusement of gawkers and press alike. However, Homer is less than cooperative, breaks free, and goes on an eating spree, culminating with climbing Marge's hotel wall and snatching her.

Well, Bart has tired of all the "not scary" stuff and it's his turn. His story involves... himself, and his sister Lisa. Bart is looking for a book for his school book report and decides on a cursed book of incantations to raise the dead (The Evil Dead, 1981) and tests it on resurrecting Lisa's dearly departed cat (Pet Sematary, 1989). However, things go wrong when they accidentally bring human corpses back to life (Night of the Living Dead, 1968) who scream for "brains!!" (Return of the Living Dead, 1985) They must now make their way to the library and find a book that will reverse their spell. Meanwhile, a zombie attacks Krusty on a TV station (Nightmare City, 1980), Martin is lured to an attack by a persuasive (Shivers/They Came From Within, 1975) zombie, and the local radio station we hear in the car has been taken over (Gremlins, 1984) by zombies.

This is truly one of the very best Simpsons Halloween Specials / Treehouses of Horror, with a decided edge over part II. Every tale is side-splittingly funny at one moment or another. In fact, this is most likely the funniest of the Treehouses of Horror. In the Clown tale (Ahead lies a SPOILER for Child's Play), the doll says "I'm Krusty the Clown and I don't like you, I'm Krusty the Clown and I'm going to kill you," to which Homer laughs and says, "I didn't even pull the string that time." The doll's head then spins around and looks him right in the eye and says, "I'm going to kill YOU, Homer Simpson," to which Homer laughs again and just says, "with what?" I don't know about you but that moment when it happened in Child's Play gave me quite the chill (though of course, Chucky just says, "Hi, I'm Chucky! Wanna play?").

In the second tale, we hear island natives speaking in their foreign language. Marge asks what they said. Mr. Burns replies, "they said- We wouldn't dream of sacrificing the Blue Haired Woman." (which we all know is the opposite of what he said) And Marge responds with a genuine, "isn't that nice?" But the third tale is the best overall and has the funniest lines. While Homer walks down the library halls, he guns down a variety of famous historical figures - "Eat lead, Einstein! Show's over, Shakespeare!" If you have the chance to see two or three Treehouses of Horror by choice, make this one of them. I highly recommend it.

The Simpson Halloween specials / Treehouses of Horror usually function as spoofs on different types of horror movies / TV programs. The opening features Marge Simpson on an Opera / theater stage platform "warning" the audience about the show's content, much in the fashion of the original 1931 Frankenstein. Which is the same way she opened the first Simpsons' Treehouse of horror.

The plot centers around Halloween night of that year, where Bart, Lisa, and potentially Maggie bring home a whopper of a Halloween candy haul. Bart, Lisa, and Homer start to pig out while Marge advises them to eat only one piece each. She warns them that eating too much candy will give them nightmares. Well, the power of suggestion proves to be a truly influential thing, because they each have a nightmare.

Starting with Lisa, who is still chowing down on candy in her bed with piles on either side of her when she falls asleep. Suddenly her family is on vacation in Morocco and seeing the sights. Homer checks out a little Moroccan gift stand and purchases a "cursed" item from a little old man with a raspy voice (Hellraiser, 1987) called a Monkey's Paw. Which grants wishes to it's owner(s) but which promise grave misfortunes as often the wishes bring horrible luck. Or is this just the power of suggestion working against them? Because some wishes indeed turn out to be really bad ideas, but others work without a hitch. Is it really Homer's usual luck at work? Or is this just Lisa's nightmare showing her everything that comes along with world peace?

Lisa is so scared that she can't sleep and asks Bart if she can crawl into his bed with him, in exchange for a candy necklace. Bart appears to have been wiser than Lisa for he is not sleeping with his load of candy but is sleeping very soundly all the same. His nightmare turns out to be his greatest dream come true - he now has the power to make anything he wants happen just by thinking of it (Twilight Zone / Twilight Zone: The Movie, 1983). But he finds that his unquestioned control over everyone's mind has it's drawbacks. He can't get Homer to stop disobeying him, so he turns him into a Jack in the Box. This prompts Marge to get them to seek family counseling. This ends in a prescription for Homer and Bart to spend more time together and it brings them closer together as a father and son. But... is this what Bart really wants? Or is it actually a nightmare in disguise?

Lisa and Bart are so scared that they can't sleep and ask Marge and Homer if they can sleep in their bed. Homer is startled awake and looks distressingly at the clock. Just a couple of hours before work... At work, the next day, he is fired by his boss and has to find other employment. He soon gets another job digging at the cemetery, working for Groundskeeper Willie. But he picks the wrong time to take a dirt nap because later that night, while Homer is still snoozing, his boss Mr. Burns and his assistant Mr. Smithers are trolling the cemetery, looking for a Brain for their monster (Frankenstein) robot and think Homer's will do quite nicely. After the brain is in and the robot activated, things don't go as planned. Suddenly, they have to return Homer's brain to his body. But Mr. Burns' body is damaged in a lab accident and the only way to save his brain is to attach it to Homer's body (The Thing with Two Heads, 1972 / The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant, 1971). Homer wakes up screaming - but with Mr. Burns' head still on his shoulders. It's just a nightmare. Isn't it?

Since all of these tales have a basically science fiction plot, this is easily my least favorite of the Simpsons Halloween episodes I've seen. As for humor, this is also "a little dry" as well for a Simpsons' Halloween episode. The 3rd tale is the funniest. The 2nd is the most interesting. The 1st is probably the smartest. "End of monster."

I hate cars. They cause pollution, they're smelly, they make people crazy, and all they do is take you places. It's the same way that I hate sports, because I have driven a car before and there's only one thing I like about that - speeding. But I understand what a car represents to people, freedom. And when you hear a person criticize female drivers, it's not hard to see that some of what they mean for you to understand is women aren't as deserving of freedom as men drivers. If they didn't mean this, they would criticize men drivers as well. And we live in a society that is obsessed with material possessions, especially cars. So it's not too far-fetched that this is the same society that accepts glorified car-speeding as a sport. I grew up with it as something that interested the family. It never interested me. All these things come together for Disney's wonderful comedy- cars, racing, women, and glory. None of those things, if think about them, really spell out comedy. But this movie is all about surprises.

The thing that elevates this movie above it's rather mundane subject is that feel-good nature Disney is signature for. And so there is a likability to everything that happens. It's sort of a safety system. You can tell it will be a movie where the balance will shift back and forth between the good and not-so-good (usually it's evil, but in a comedy the villains have to have comedic value as well, think of Thorndyke as you'd think of Captain Hook, basically), and even though this makes the movie a little predictable, it's okay because you know Disney always puts things right. The key is that they do it in a very inventive and fun way. By for instance, giving the car it's own distinct personality, and a real fiery disposition. So while all the villains have on their side is their wicked devices, the good guys have a supernaturally gifted car with a heart of gold. Thankfully, the film also gives them Tennessee, the hero's sidekick who isn't very skilled as a mechanic, but he does have a talent for welding, and a wisdom that comes from places we have to imagine he's actually been.

The characters in the film are a sheer delight. Although as a hero, Jim Douglas is all too common, it's very difficult not to feel sympathy for him. He has to be a little hard-headed for plot's sake but the film doesn't treat him like an imbecile or a jerk, he's just a simple guy who makes a few mistakes in judgment - as most guys do, in life as well as the movies. The movie doesn't assume he's automatically more interesting than his friends just because he's male, which makes it all the more refreshing that his love interest Carole is smart, skilled as a mechanic, beautiful, and at the same time a great assistant in helping Jim build up his confidence as well as help him win the race by tending just as much to the car's upkeep as both her fellow riders. The dialog of the film is impeccable, especially the Tennessee character's. Since the film wisely decides not to have the car talk, we need a character to be assigned to speak on behalf of the car and who better than the slightly-off welder who at times takes 'strong drink'?

The hero, Jim's strongest hook as a character is that he was a winner when he was a racer and after a few losses, he needed someone new to take a chance on him. Instead of one, he got two. And in a way, everyone deserves to feel like a winner, but Jim earns his inevitable victory in the end of the movie. Hey- it's Disney, you know how it ends. The entire movie is charming. And after myself seeing dozens of Disney live-action films, I can't say they've all been even half as entertaining as this one. At times it feels a little long, but you know, so does driving. And the point of going on a drive if you're not the driver is to have the trip itself worth riding on. This one surely is.

After thinking really hard for awhile, I've come to decide westerns are my least favorite kind of film. I just plain old can't get excited about seeing a western. It's a lot easier to do when it's a Disney film though, and I have seen the original Parent Trap with scenes that take place on a ranch. And like most Disney films, that film really worked it's magic on me and inevitably I thought the California frontier of Mitch's ranch was a lot nicer and more inviting than Boston. So I was able to watch Old Yeller, for the first time, and enjoy it just enough because Disney film-making crews really knew how to shoot the land this was filmed on. So Old Yeller is such a good-looking movie, that if it weren't for the times and harshness of survival in the wilderness, you might want to live there. Yes, this is really a movie about a family's survival in the wilderness. And along the way, a boy and his dog have some adventures, and the boy learns the value of being a man.

Which is something we've learned about children and most kids today have at least a chance at a real childhood. The main character of this film surely is the boy Travis and how he has to do all the man's work in his family when the father is gone and how he hasn't time to be a boy. He does each day's man-sized chores but his relationship with the dog Old Yeller allows him to indulge a little in a second childhood he might not have had to enjoy living on the land. So where perhaps Disney's Bambi robbed viewer's of some information regarding the loss of an animal as more than a pet or wild game, this film really shows how much this dog means to the family and Travis. So there is quite an emotional load of work to do as an actor for little Tommy Kirk who portrays the boy Travis. And if it weren't for both the tender moments between him and the dog, as well as him and the sweet little girl Lisbeth, and him putting his survival skills to the test, we would have Disney fluff. Which is not what Old Yeller is.

Old Yeller is a very powerful film, but more than at the outset, where everyone might think the film is about the dog, it's really about the boy and his amazing duties. It really makes a viewer have to respect the old frontier land, especially farmers and families that shows like Little House on the Prairie made an example out of. The film can be a little hard on the viewer though. What is one supposed to think of the child Arliss? He helps the mother and Lisbeth load up a big wagon of corn and loves and cares for the dog, as well as the dog's puppy, Young Yeller. But too often his role in the film is to be somewhat of a troublemaker. That he does a little too well, and that mixes my feelings about the supporting characters. Though it's really just limited to this boy and his rash attitude. He is told by his mother to mind his older brother's instructions, and he consistently defies Travis. I don't want to sound like a slighted older brother myself, though I am an older brother - it's not an easy job.

The character of the mother, or Katie, is the film's strongest supporting character. Fess Parker was really the King of all of Disney's western and frontier-themed entertainment, but his role in this film accounts for less than 10 minutes total screen time. He's most important in the film in two short capacities, he has to be a good role model for Travis, which he is because he is very aptly able to build up Travis's confidence again, but he also has to leave. Because how can a boy learn how to be a man with a male role model around? I'm not sure many movies have tried to answer that riddle, though movies and television have produced some great father figures, the boy who's job is to become a man, he never seems to be able to do it with a father around. Which is unfortunate, since in reality so many family units are forced to make due without fathers. Or worse yet- good fathers. The mother displays more than enough parental responsibility, which just goes to again make a statement about the central importance of mothers.

Not a lot of westerns give the growing boy this meaty a role, but Tommy Kirk is the star of this movie for certain. And his dramatic abilities are so advanced, I almost worry for what he must have been going through at the time, and at such a young age, that he's able to get to such sensitive and heartfelt territory so effectively.

A world without war? It's as unconceivable now as it was then, but thinking about it, it sure would be swell. I'd say this movie is a classic if ever anyone asked me. A classic science fiction film with just the bare minimum of sci-fi elements that focuses more on human stories. Not just by making the space man a lot like us, but with a story about a man from space with a message for this world, who needs to understand the Earth's people and their actions before he can know how to best reach them. Would it be patriotic for us to say we love our planet? We know from living here that too many nations can't live without war, how could a foreigner, from another planet as well, appreciate this fact? Maybe there are things this movie doesn't show us or try to tell us about if this were to realistically happen. But it sure is able to cook up an interesting story to go with an ambitious idea.

And right there you understand what the sci-fi genre is, a genre where the conflict inherent in making one is how does being human fit into a story about aliens? So if the alien is more like us, we're more likely to pay attention and buy into it. Science fiction, I'll admit, is not one of my favorite genres. It's nature is generally so advanced that it requires viewers to be on another wavelength to want to be taken to other worlds. But films like this really help us to see the benefits and virtues of this genre, to give a new sense to the quality of dramatization, and give us something completely unknown to try and relate to. Infiltrating our society draws out questions of character and makes us apply human characteristics to something that isn't human, not like we as humans are. And this creates the possibility for a greater understanding of things unknown.

The greatest conflict in this story comes from, if this is a film where the main character wants to save Earth by giving us information, if the least we can't do is treat him with respect and trust him just a little, do we feel we deserve to be saved? If you take him at the actions he demonstrates, there's no reason not to trust him. But in this film, characters let hysteria and confusion get the better of them. Which is a very realistic and unfortunate way of portraying it. Though it shows you more of the strengths of the sci-fi genre, in a classic film such as this, you don't find the same sentiment as with war dramas or westerns that have the very same amount of humanity. Well, maybe it has the same idea at heart but the storytelling is focused on technical credibility, that it teaches viewers to be less wrapped up in emotionalism, which gets too sappy at times.

So I really like the potential science fiction has to tell a different kind of story. But more often you see that what the genre is mostly comprised of are second-rate stories that are completely preoccupied with the fantasy of foreign things where you have to look for the qualities you have in common. You'll find sometimes these other programs beat you over the head with their message and leave nothing familiar to hold onto. This film tells it's story in a wonderful way that leaves for a lot of meaningful thought afterward. In the end, it all comes down to the question of war - is it necessary. We know why we use war to protect ourselves, but that doesn't mean we should ignore the idea that some societies can live without war and trust peace. That the idea of peace is never suppression of our instinct to protect ourselves. And that we can do just as much good by thinking than by showing aggression. We are humans after all, not animals.

As for film quality, this is a movie that I'd like to walk around in. Washington D.C. seems like it used to be a wonderful place of culture and heritage, where you could walk around at night and really see something non-threatening. But then, wasn't all America like that at one point? The film's music score is very simple, and mostly understated, until several key moments where I recognize how many films were influenced by this film just in the music department. I viewed this movie for the first time only recently and this isn't the typical 'something strange is about us' score cues, but instead they suggest something very sinister is underneath the image of a spaceship and an indestructible robot. I guess there's something sinister about everything if you think about it, but I think the film must have consciously had this intention in mind to keep us guessing. For it's time, this film is revolutionary and one of a kind.